Perfectly Imperfect Love

Heaven and Earth Part 1

"You...what...?"

His voice was strained and thick with heavy, struggled emotion; his eyes had widened tremendously, only reflecting a fragment of the shock he truly felt inside.

Seeing his expression and hearing his voice made Sakura realize that she could have just made the biggest mistake of her life. Bigger than somehow believing her feelings for Naruto were for Sasuke. Even more than marrying Sasuke, pretty much without thinking of how Naruto would feel. Even...worse than when she called out Sasuke's name.

The situation was eerily similar to the time she confessed her love to him, years ago. It was a strange sort of parallel; her giving him a piece of shocking information that literally shook him to his core, his initial confusion. Just like then, a part of her wished to take her words back and walk away.

But she was too deep in now. She couldn't just laugh it off and say she wasn't serious, or was joking. She just had to pull through, and hope that Naruto, in some way, would accept the truth. Would accept her, and himself, and happiness.

"I said that I'm Hana. Your ANBU teammate, Naruto." She admitted once more.

He didn't know what to think. It was one thing to be suspicious and cautious of something that is so terrifying, so consequential that it could literally break you...but it's a whole other thing for those very things to be true.

His voice automatically spat out in an effort to try to make sense of the information that was just revealed to him.

"Bullshit." He said in the most agonized, dark and venomous tone he could muster. Her eyes visibly widened, as she processed quickly what he was going through.

He was in denial. An automatic response to try and defend what remained of his sanity against the bitter truth.

"No, Naruto. I...I'm her. Look." She said, before pulling up the sleeve on her t-shirt that she wore under her red vest. He reluctantly peered over, and his chest tightened again when he saw a standard, genuine ANBU tattoo inked onto her bicep.

He felt like his mind was finally breaking. Everything he knew, lived, breathed, experienced...was it always a lie? Was it all some sick cosmic joke played on him by the gods? Was he never allowed to know true peace, or love, or life, or anything?

"No. Nope. Nope, no no no, nope. You're not Hana. You can't be. Nope." He repeated, his face contorting into loss and fear.

Feeling bold, she gripped his shoulders, and pulled his face down to meet hers. "It's me, Naruto. I'm Hana. We fought together, bled together...even laughed together, at some points. I was there for those eight months we spent in Oto." She said, her voice having a strange pang of nostalgia.

In that time she was with 'Tenchi', when they had grown close to one-another, she remembered always feeling some sort of deja-vu when they would talk, or 'hang out'. Like it felt right talking with him, or being close to him. She now realized what that feeling was.

It reminded her of when she was with Naruto, prior to the Fourth Shinobi World War. Before the Land of Iron, before Pein invaded, before everything.

When she, though she wouldn't admit at the time, was happy. With Naruto. Only Naruto.

They were constantly at each other's side. Though the dark, gloomy cloud of Sasuke still hung over them, they would always push away those thoughts in an effort to make each other happy. It was strange how deeply they cared about each other then, but neither realized the other's affection...until it was too late.

He stared into her emerald eyes, and his throat hitched. Her minty green gaze was identical to Hana's. How could he have overlooked something as important as this?