empathy (rewritten 2019)

春野サクラ (bonus)

oh, pity the world

In this moment she'd spent nineteen back-breaking years of pitying her own worth and mistakes that all she could do in the final hours of any pity she had left, was save it for the world.

"Man, she was easy," the ambush nin had said to her counterparts. "Does she have anything on her? I don't recognize any of her traits, must be a normal nin. No possible kekkei genkai for hair like that."

"Ah, what a waste. We should've went for the Sand Siblings when they were passing through," another ravager said as he threw Sakura's kumasi pouch to the ground, a defeated sigh escaping him.

"I told you, we're no match for them," their leader said with a harsh growl. She kneeled before the pinkette and pulled out her kunai. "Oh, poor girl. You practically let yourself be killed. I wonder if you even wanted to fight back."

Sakura bit back the will to talk. A simple stab wound was all she needed and all she ever would take from such thieves. She watched from the floor of trampled branches and stained leaves as their unit, laughing like winners, stepped over her and passed through the forest in a laugh and a spared-glance of pity. But she had grown accustomed to living a life, only ever receiving cherry blossoms and pity.

The ever-present pain nearly kicked in her instincts of it weren't for the planning of it all. She could heal the wound, sure, or numb it, sure, but it was part of the plan; leave after her shift, wander into the forest of Ishigakure nin, and let them chase her for the spare minutes she had before crashing to the ground with one final, gut-wrenching blow. And, the final step: to bleed on out as an m.i.a nin and to be buried under the future seasons of ashes and snow and leaves and pitiful blossoms carried in by the breeze.

But, for now, she could only breathe in the humid air and wheeze past the remnants of the stabbing pain. The pain, though miniscule compared to the handful of other wounds and fractures she'd suffered, was still unbearable. Having never felt more than a papercut in the last few years since the war, she blinked hard until the tears rolled down her cheeks in a moment of pure pity, pity--and oh, pity the world, she dreamed and willed herself to fall asleep into the bed of leaves and branches as fragile as her.

pity the world she thought once over as many times as her beating head could think, etching it as her very last goodbye to the ground, and by the umpteenth thought of pity, what? she could no longer smell the metallic blood or the day's earned sweat.

And then after another bird's caw and another twenty pity for who?s the metal blood stuck in her throat lost its sour taste and she knew this was, as she insured, her end. It wouldn't be long before she lost everything else and would be a remnant found in the dry forest, Keiko's lost goodbye and someone's poor pity and another girl with another dream.

By the time the sky seeped black, she could barely decipher between the twigs in her view and the clouds another arm's reach away. She watched with foreign eyes as the sun hovered past her and dipped past the forest and the trees, leaving the sky to another bright eye for another sunrise.

And the sky was a scatter of wild eyes and fog and her mind was just a lost meaning of pity and pity for who and what's happening and where do i go? By the time morning (just an hour away) arrived with the bird's mockery and the tree's rusting, it was then that the footsteps she'd dreaded made their way, lost and afraid, to her grave.

"Oh, kami, Sakura? Sakura? Please, are you okay?"

"Sakura, please, wake up, please, oh kami, what happened?"

She kept her eyes shut with the drying blood and the dirt on her face in hopes that whoever it was would call her a lost cause and leave her to the birds.

But after a few more pleads and begs of you need to heal yourself here drink this sakura please and desperate shakes, Sakura peeled her eyes open and groaned, spotting TenTen's worried hazel eyes through the fuzzy colors in the wind.

"Sakura! You're awake, oh, just keep your eyes open for now, okay? I'll carry you, we'll run back to Konoha, okay?" TenTen sucked in a shaky breath. "We might back it back in--"

"No, no," she mumbled and coughed the water out, feeling the blood rumble with each shake in her throat. With the last strength she could offer she planted her hands into the ground, burying her further under the leaves and twigs, hoping to anchor her down before TenTen could take her away.

"Wh-what?" Or maybe you can run, inner said and she reached past the dirt and onto the open, hoping to grapple onto something. "You need to stay down, or that wound will--"

"Don't take me back, TenTen," Sakura whispered, nearly pleading. No, not like this. After one stab wound and a fall from twelve feet--a coward's death, they'd put on her grave (just as it was in reality, she knew, but if she lived and reached the gates in weak wonder, she'd live into her coward grave).

"But we have to. You're bleeding--I'm gonna pick you up, okay?" With a grunt and a worried, shaky breath, TenTen hoisted Sakura's body into her arm. Her eyes blurred, Sakura could feel the wind encasing her and TenTen as the kunoichi carried her through the forest. "Can you um--can you try to heal the wound? Have you done that yet?"

And instead of answering Sakura took the time to pity TenTen amongst the world, a young girl born to love the sharp things higher than her reach, a young girl left to carry the mess she'd made out of herself. And TenTen, having lost a lover during the war, was left to carry Sakura's bleeding body through the trees and blood and is this another war?

oh pity the world because it taught this kunoichi how to live with death and even then, TenTen carried the dying Sakura as though her life depended on it, breaths so shaky and worried and scared for their lives and oh pity the world because in the end, after all Sakura could ever do, after all the ones she could heal, it never changed a thing and oh pity who? pity why how when and Sakura was losing track of all the thoughts of pity and TenTen and Keiko did i say goodbye and the sun rising.

oh pity the world and "Oh, Sakura, I'm so sorry," and "stay awake please stay awake" and the bird's chirping; a myriad of panic and what to do and Sakura only said, "It's not your fault, TenTen," through another blood-filled breath.

"Stay awake, please, Sakura, okay?" TenTen, with another shaky breath and a hurried step, looked around for her options. "Oh, Sakura, um, look, look! Look at the sky, it's beautiful, keep your eyes open, please..."

And for TenTen's sake (despite her blurry eyes), she kept her fading eyes up on the sky, watching as the clouds ran as fast as TenTen's beating heart, beating faster than her own. And looking at the sky, through the bright blue and whips of pink blurs, she caught a tune of a bird's spring call.

"Sakura? Sakura, you're gonna live, okay?"

And she smiled for her sake. "Thank you, TenTen."