empathy (rewritten 2019)

chapter twenty-six

"You heard me."

Sakura did. She heard his footsteps behind her as she stared down, nearly empathetically, at the injured woman before her. Bleeding, weak, and now useless, Sakura couldn't bring herself to kill someone so much like her. But she, unknowing of the ironic future that was to come, brandished a kunai and stepped closer.

She could hear him scoff at her--chasing him to the ends of the earth, begging for his love and his return with only her tears and childhood infatuation to offer. There had been a number of times she cried at his back as he earned to run away, pathetic and sad and needing.

But Sakura came to end this; end a life bleeding out by the wounds and begging for love and mercy. Sakura stared at this life, red and green and on the ground, and held the kunai tighter.

And then she heard the fire cracking and the birds chirping a death's song. Her wrist jerked and watched from the glint of her kunai as raven hair and blue sparks and a striking fire advanced his approach. Her eyes shut and her weaponed hand dropped to her side, waiting for the crackle and the chirping to die to a stop.

It would've been easy, so easy, to die at the hands of the one she once adored, chalking her death up to one last attempt to anchor him down. She'd die a girl tainted by foolish love, and at her funeral they'd water her grave down with sad roses and cherry blossoms to remind the ground of what the blood paid for and what the love died for. And at his wedding they'd only spare a glance down at her poor body, muttering pity and prayers alike.

But there came a pulse in chakra and a far cry, "Sakura!" And she peeled her eyes open and death was now in the depths of her mind and the chirping and crackles slowed to a stop.

And there came the first conclusion out of this Fourth Shinobi War, one that kept her going even when she looked at the ground so deep and tired and wasted; she would die once the war was over, no sooner. Dying by Sasuke's hand would be as cowardly as deaths could come and even in death, Sakura couldn't rest still knowing she gave the world the chance to look down upon her and her grave of roses and foolery. She would give the world everything and if, in the end, all she got back was nothing, at least she died knowing she saved more than she could kill.

The second conclusion came during the war. Naruto was on the verge of death after Kurama was extracted from him and Sakura, desperate and lost, watched as her teammate, so loud and bright and constant, slowed down to a cold, desolate body sitting before her. He closed her eyes sooner than she ever could and the thought of that tore her apart, just as she tore open the incision and dove her hand around his unbeating heart. And along the way, after each breath she breathed for him and each beat she beat for him, she thought of what kind of a cruel world could this boy live in, full of dreams and love and hope; and for him to live in such a world that took his life and his breath and his color in a way so selfish and cruel.

The third and fourth conclusions came along after the war, after Sasuke declared his title and Naruto nearly died and the two boys killed Kaguya together. She came across these conclusions upon waking from her coma and finding the two boys, crashed on a hill, bloodied to their fingertips and looking at the sky.

"Sakura, I--"

"Shut up. Let me concentrate, okay?"

And then he offered the only apology he'd ever give her, beaten on the ground, only needing a medic's hand, "I'm sorry. For everything up until now."

Konoha needed Team Seven. But they didn't need her; not anymore. She was only the emergency call after events transpired and injuries were acquired, a clean up crew, a second thought. After the Fourth War she was no longer needed.

And after all that hell, the bruises and cuts and scars, after all she'd learned and done and fought for, no one could spare a glance for her, not even for her grave. She'd die, overworked and done and used, and the world would put her to rest not knowing all she'd done.

But bitterness after death is the only weight that can hold one from peace. And Sakura decided to let go.