empathy (rewritten 2019)

chapter twenty-two

Sakura awoke on March Fourteenth, seven days before her mission to Suna, and eleven days before she died, which was three minutes before sunrise and an hour before they returned to Konoha. Tomorrow, she would visit her parents for the first time in months. And the day after that, just as she would be leaving her parents' house after dropping off some snacks, she would bump into the Hokage in the streets.

So for the fourteenth, Sakura climbed out of bed and dressed for work. And the underlying ache and weight of pushing on was nearly enough to declare this day as her last, but Sakura planned these coming seven days as seven chances to give and seven changes to receive something worth keeping her alive. And, maybe, seven more days to reconsider.

But at this point, there was nothing left to reconsider. The night before was the grand festival celebrating the Hokage, when Sakura bumped into Naruto by the food stands and the wind was blowing and he was screaming and she was screaming back. It was a wonder no one heard the two of them, arguing and crying and leaving with huffs of anger and pain. Now, with night only buried underneath the sun, Sakura walked the streets to the hospital with those words etched in her head. Those same words were only wisps of doubt and childhood pain in the last hour of her death.

Walking through the bustling streets she pushed and squeezed through the morning crowd, saying oh, sorry miss and excuse me sir and oh, go ahead and reminiscing a childhood dream of walking through the streets, brandishing a hitai-ate of pride and honor and watching the civilians part way for her. Now, with the Fourth War only a memory of past recovery, she was still Sakura the civilian kunoichi, the medic, the one who just gives out bandaids. Or, maybe, that was just inner talking.

And maybe that was reason one--the clinging of a childhood dream, so wasted and lost in translation that all Sakura could remember was the worried tone of her mother's voice as she said, we can make that work, sakura and held her tighter. But the failure to fulfill dreams and promises were constants in Sakura's life, so what difference was this dream being put to rest? Sakura remembered this reason the night before she left TenTen and Temari and Gaara by the fire, disappearing into the shrouded night. The very last promise she broke, in that very moment, was the one bound between her and Keiko. And in five simple steps, reason one was just a pitiful reminder.

Sakura spent seven more days like that. Reason after reason, coming up with reasons to stay before ultimately dismissing them in the end. Reason two was her parents. Reason three was Keiko. Reason four was team seven. Reason five was the hospital. Reason six was saying goodbye. And reason seven was never found until March Twenty-Fifth, on the brink of the twenty-sixth, when all she could do was stay limp in the arms of a comrade and listen to the night flutter into dawn with the bird's sad little call: her.