breakable.

'I am a medic.'

"I never truly loved you," Sakura rasped, grinning widely at her own blatant lie. "Not even when we were genin." She hacked up blood, some of it splattering on her love's porcelain face. Breathing heavily, Sakura struggled to say her last few words. "But...you will regret this."

'I'm sorry I couldn't save you, Sai, Ino...and the others—I'm sorry for being too weak. I wish I could be as strong as you and Naruto, but unlike you two, I am breakable.'

Sasuke's eyes widened as her beautiful, green eyes closed a little, still without purpose or a will to live. She fell forward, his arm still impaling her chest, face planting into his shoulder, coughing. "You know, it's a miracle I'm still alive in my condition, my whole body is just numb now..." Her breath spread across his pale neck, staining it red. "I guess I hate you so much that my last few seconds will be me telling you that I will be cursing you from my eternal damnation—"

'Go on, rebuild the Uchiha clan; forget about me and move on—'

Then, there came her maniacal laugh, echoing weakly through the battlefield, disrupting the silence.

It stopped abruptly, and it was silent once again, aside from the squelching sound of the last Uchiha pulling his arm out of the pinkette. He turned when he heard the crumbling of rocks as someone slid down the side of the cliff to where he was.

"Sakura-chan, Sasuke!"

Sasuke cursed quietly at the sudden arrival of the blonde and looked down. The Kyūbi holder stopped, his whole entire body frozen with shock. Anger, disbelief, and pain made its way onto Naruto's face when he saw the mangled body of his childhood crush. His knees buckled, and gave way, a cloud of dirt riding with his fall. "Sakura..." He whispered, his eyes reflecting emptiness.

Suddenly, he grabbed the cold, lifeless body and shook it. "Sakura-chan? Wake up!" He ignored his Sharingan-wielding friend. "Sakura, wake up!" Naruto shook harder, Sakura's limp head moving this way and that, her arms moving with the motion. "You're a medic-nin! You can heal yourself—" His voice cracked with emotion as he began babbling hysterically. "You trained under Baa-chan, and surpassed her, one of the Sannin! You're strong, hell, stronger than I could ever be! Wake up! Please!"

A hand stopped him, resting in his shoulder. "Naruto," Kakashi said, "Stop. She's gone."

His eyes became red, and he backhanded his old sensei across the field, not even giving a damn because—"Sakura Haruno, I've loved you for nine years, and I won't ever stop loving you! I love so much, so much that it hurts!" Sasuke flinched visibly, the same words that were once said to him piercing him directly in his heart, the place where he had impaled Sakura.

"None of this would've happened if Kakashi hadn't ignored her for all of her years being 'taught' by him! She had to seek out a new sensei because she was neglected and alone, and none of this would've happened had you not left he village, Sasuke! And Sakura...Sakura wouldn't be laying dead in my arms if we had just seen earlier that she was silently struggling, not bothering to tell anyone else so we wouldn't be bothered!" The jinchūriki yelled the last sentence, and then all was quiet, except for the labored breathing of a hyperventilating Naruto Uzumaki.

"Please, Kami, don't I deserve just a little happiness for once?" He buried his face into her chest, ignoring the strong scent of iron that flooded his nostrils, and the gaping hole with blood leaking out. He cried and sobbed shamelessly, the material of her clothing unable to soak anymore moisture from the blood as his tears went through the huge puncture wound, staining the ground a diluted colour of blood. When Naruto finally pulled away, he couldn't stop breathing quickly. In, out, in, out, eventually getting so fast that Sasuke had to knock his best friend out the same way he had done four year ago.

It was eerily silent once again, and Sakura Haruno was no more.

:::

End here for the original cutoff. If you wish to continue reading, scroll.

:::

"Sakura...Sakura!" Feeling surprisingly full of energy and, ironically, life, she opened her eyes.

"Okaa-san! Otou-san!" Suddenly, Sakura felt very small. Her throat tightened involuntarily when she watched her mother laugh.

"Now, now, Saku-chan, it hasn't been too long, ne?" Dark green eyes stared into light ones, sadness seeping into her mother's gaze. Most likely because of her young age. Only seventeen when she died. But so had Ino and—

"INO! SAI! NEJI! W-WHAT ABOUT THE OTHERS?!"

Mebuki laughed melancholily, and pointed further away from them. Is the long distance, Sakura could spot a small black dot. Just when she took a step forward, she looked back to her mother and father. "Saki," Kizashi said, "Go on. We'll see you later."

The young rose-haired woman nodded quickly before setting off to meet her friends.

"—kura? Sakura!" Before she knew it, Sakura was tackled by an energetic blonde. "Forehead, I missed you!"

"I—I did too. I'm..." The woman stepped out of the embrace. "I'm sorry."

"For what, Homely?"

Instead of beating the artist up, she smiled and choked out, "Sai."

"Hello." The dark-haired youth nodded and gave her a closed-eye smile.

"You know..." Ino started off rather nervously, looking to Sai for encouragement, "After we...died...we saw everything that happened. And—and we saw your whole story, too." The blonde gulped apprehensively, and glanced to her best friend.

"Oh, Ino," Sakura said. "I'm sorry you had to see that."

"Very gruesome," Sai commented, then winced when he was elbowed. Not because it hurt, but out of mere habit. "But I read in a book that things like what happened to you can be fixed by friendship and love, despite me only knowing the basics."

There was an awkward period of silence until the two girls began laughing. "You're still socially unacceptable, I see." The two laughed harder at the questioning stare.

"I haven't heard you laugh in forever," Ino said quietly and almost disbelievingly when they were finally done.

"I haven't had a reason to until now." 

'I am a medic.'

'Despite being broken many times, whether it was from Sasuke leaving the village or not being able to help my friends, I learned there were ways to fix the wounds inflicted. I, Sakura Haruno, a sworn medic that took the Hippocratic Oath and a proud jōnin of Konohagakure, can vouch that some cuts can't be healed entirely, and may leave a scar.

'I will continue to live up to the sets of promises I made when I became a medic, including watching over Naruto and his family, his dreams, accepting the fact that Sasuke never married and usually drinks himself to sleep every night (even though I only said those harsh words to make him think that I didn't love him so he would move on with a strong woman and rebuild his clan).

'But sometimes—in rare cases when a patient can not be saved—good doctors tell their patients not to worry with a soft smile so they can pass peacefully.'

the end.