The house is quiet. Not completely, as the ocean wind still cycles through every open window and door, but even the creaking of their hinges feels empty. They feel... lost. Sakura can barely stand it. She can taste the salt on her tongue just by breathing in. Though she's not sure if the taste is just from her vain tears instead. Her chest pulses in pain from beneath her ribs. They haven't even been at the old man's house a day since the fight with Zabuza---in fact, it had only been a few hours. It kept her bout of uselessness glued into her mind, reminding her at every turn of the thought that she hadn't helped in the slightest. In fact, she might as well have been a hindrance. Sakura takes another deep, shuddering breath in, almost choking on the salt in the air. She had to get up. She had to move.
Sakura doesn't waste time getting up from the tatami mat; her feet land squarely on the grass a foot beneath the wooden porch. She couldn't sit there any longer with her sensei's chakra signature wheezing and flickering at the very center of her sensory range. It hurt to know he was in pain. It hurt even more that she was basically the cause of that pain. She wished she was stronger, more useful. Sakura closed her eyes, taking a slow but shallow breath. Her feet began moving. Down unfamiliar paths and old treads that had long been walked by the inhabitants of Wave. Roadside brush and sharp plants cut at her ankles as she walks, but Sakura can barely feel the sting of it. Her eyes are hollow, the cavity in her ribs filled with a heavy weight she has felt before. Just never with this sort of consequence.
Before she knows it, Sakura has reached the town they passed on the way to the old man's house. She notes the shabby market, the hollowness of the people's skin, and the bodies that line the roads. Half of them look as if they are not breathing. The echo within her mind ascertains that they aren't. Sakura walks forwards, half abortive as she goes. Upon closer inspection, most of the bodies are of children. Sakura's heart stutters while her echo supplies countless stories and reasons why. It is unnecessary. Sakura already knows all the reasons why dead children are lining the streets with no-one saying anything about it. Wave is a poor country. Suffering loss and crippled greatly by the noose tightened around them by Gato and his company. Parents are the first to go. They flee in the panic, forgetting their children and their belongings. Children are next. With no provider, they are left to wither and pass. Sakura pauses a moment. No. The ones that are truly first to go are the street rats. The orphans and runaways that tried to make something of themselves.
When Sakura picks up the first body, no-one stops her. A few raise or turn their heads, but ultimately they ignore the strange, pink-haired shinobi messing with corpses. Maybe they think it's normal. Maybe they are afraid. Sakura laughs at herself slightly at the thought. No-one has ever been afraid of her. She cradles the cold child to her chest. They are five, seven at best. She can feel the warmth leeching from her bones. However, Sakura refuses to stop. A half-formed purpose has formed into her mind. She may be useless as a shinobi, a kunoichi. She may be unable to protect the old man or teammates. She may be unable to free these people from that tyrant's grasp. But Sakura knows how to respect the dead. She knows how to name the unnamed, how to carve into stone. How to burn what is left so that the kami may receive the lost fully. Sakura is a Haruno, and she knows loss.
Team Seven may have no purpose for Sakura, but that's okay. She has long since learned how to give herself meaning. A tear slips from her cheek and splashes onto the body within her arms. And she will burn and bury every lost person in this town before she leaves. Her mind made up, Sakura channels a small amount of chakra to her nose, scenting inconspicuously for the stench of a cemetery. Instead, she catches a whiff of decay and bones and sets her feet moving again. It takes her maybe twenty minutes to get there. Her eyes take in the area, unbelieving. It was barely on the outskirts of town. She sets the child down very carefully. Then she bolts for the bushes, losing whatever it was that she had eaten beforehand. Sakura heaves harshly, acid burning her lips and throat. She doesn't know when she finally stops, but she falls firmly on her ass. Her legs are bent and spread slightly, and her hands had instinctively reached out behind her to support her body as she leaned back. Sakura breathed heavily, ignoring the salt in the air and waiting for her stomach to settle back down.
Her echo mentally prods her to stand back up, and Sakura grits her teeth, getting to work. It is simple to gather both dry brush and ocean driftwood from the surrounding area. She lies them out in an orderly fashion, a good distance away from the corpses. If she is to burn Wave's lost children, their flames will be the colors of the sea and gentle sunrise. Sakura then begins laying out each dead body in the traditional pose of the islands. Each corpse is carefully laid straight, their arms crossed and hands interlocked over their chests, and unblemished seashells resting gently on their closed eyelids. Sakura thanks the sea for her gift, because Sakura has counted every corpse as she readies them and by the time she finished preparing every body, the total amount of dead caps at a hundred and two. Her echo gently reminds her of the others lining the streets back in town. Sakura has only been at the burial grounds for three hours, and she still has to finish the ones she found here. Not to mention the pyres she will need to crown each corpse with. Sakura lowers her head. She will have to return again tomorrow.
It is already quite late into the afternoon. Sakura needs to go back to the old man's house before dinner. She doesn't wonder if Sasuke or Naruto will question where she was. She knows they won't. No-one does. She just needs to assess her sensei's state again, since it might have changed in the hours passed. Sakura casts a subtle genjutsu over the area, an unobtrusive warning to keep anything able to feel fear away from the burial grounds. She could not burn them until all the dead were ready. As soon as she finishes she follows Naruto's chakra signature back to the old man's house. His signature has always been distinctive and it was easy to follow it if the genin didn't bother hiding it. He only did that for pranks.
Sakura enters the house silently, slipping up the stairs to take a quick shower before dinner. Kakashi's chakra hasn't changed much. It is still in a state of twisting and healing, but it is a bit closer to its usual swirl of turmoil. The observation comforts her, but it does not dissuade her from continuing her self inflicted task. She has promised herself and so she must. There is no time to fake her attraction to a boy who did not bury his dead nor continue the pretense of feeling annoyance towards a boy who lost his chance to bury them. Instead, she folds her legs underneath her in a seiza at the dinner table, quiet. Tsunami fills her plate fully, handing it to Sakura. Sakura does not protest. There is no time for useless diets, either. Once everyone is served and sitting at the table, Tsunami sits next to her father. She looks at Sakura, a curious look in her eye.
"Where did you go today, Sakura?" Tsunami asks, innocence woven throughout her question. Sakura will not bother to lie. This mission has forced her to face herself, and honesty is one thing she would like to improve upon.
"Town. Then the beach." Sakura replies, grabbing a piece of tofu in between her chopsticks and eating it carefully. She does not miss the look of horror that has taken over Tsunami's and the old man's faces. Nor does she miss the confused looks decorating Sasuke's and Naruto's faces. She speeds up her eating process.
"You okay kid?" The old man checks with her. She knows that he can tell she doesn't much like his initial attitude and countenance, but that doesn't stop the old man from worrying over a kid. Sakura, however, hasn't been a kid in quite awhile. Sakura finishes her food before responding.
"I'm fine," she swallows, "I'm going to bed." Sakura stands up elegantly from her place at the table. No-one stops her. Not as she leaves to put her dishes by the sink. Not as she passes by again to head upstairs. Not as she stops halfway up, hidden and out of sight, tears slipping down her cheeks. She was not fine. Sakura latches on to the fact that her sensei is still resting upstairs and that not once throughout her time knowing him, has his chakra rejected her. People are quiet about what they think. Their chakra, however, is not. Sakura continues climbing upwards. She slips into her sensei's room, pulling 'her' futon as close to the sleeping jōnin as she dares.
"Goodnight, Kakashi-sensei," Sakura whispers into the quiet room. She lets the soft sounds of his breath and the pulse of his chakra lull her to sleep. Tomorrow she will keep completing her task. Tomorrow, she will become stronger.
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Fanfiction"A hundred stones sink beneath the waves, imperfect and uneven kanji chipped into them by an unpracticed hand. The owners only recently buried as ash and dust beneath coarse dirt and sand. And Sakura, the one behind it all." A Different Wave: Book O...
