She wanted to curse her weakness, and to curse Sasuke most of all for all the tears she shed and the nights she lay awake. Yet still she cannot. Love would not let her, and that was the cruelest thing of all. She would love him to her grave, and whether that is testament that her love is true or that she is just plain old stubborn, she’s not sure. What she’s sure of is that she’s tired of watching Naruto run off ahead of her in Sasuke’s pursuit.

Sakura has been watching this whole time. She watched the curse mark embed itself into Sasuke’s flesh, take root like an invasive plant. Orochimaru sank his fangs into him, and though she’s sure Sasuke’s not foolish enough to hand over his body so willingly, even she could tell that the venom was corroding him from the inside out. His bloodline—Sakura does not pretend to know its blood-steeped history, and she’s long since stopped pretending to understand the pain and hatred that comes with it. But she does know the pain that it has brought her, and the pain it has brought Naruto. 

She can see the way Naruto’s eyebrows furrow the tiniest bit at Sasuke’s mention, the way his gaze softens at the murmur of his name to the way it hardens when people speak ill of him. She notices the skyward glances, the clenching fists. His steadfast promise, his unwavering shinobi way, she can see its resolve strengthen for the sake of Sasuke. Like her, Naruto loves Sasuke, and Sakura can see this too. It is ironic, then, that it is Sasuke who possesses superior sight in the Sharingan who cannot see the same.

Nonetheless, Naruto has been chasing Sasuke all this time. And what has Sakura been doing? Weeping like a damned, helpless damsel, waiting for someone else to do all the work to bring back her Prince Charming? She has watched the Uchiha crest grow smaller and smaller upon the horizon of her heart, so faint and out of reach that despite thinking of him every day, she feels he is going to dissipate. Naruto, too—his back has grown broader in the years he has been away from the village, but smaller as well the further she lags behind. 

The same scrawny brat has grown into someone reliable, and Sasuke surely has advanced as well. Sakura cannot sit idly by any longer. Not that she has, by any means—under the tutelage of Lady Tsunade she has grown into a medical ninja of unmatched potential and honed her physical prowess to the highest degree she can. But it is still not enough. So long as she cannot reach Sasuke’s heart, she is afraid it will never be enough.

“Sakura.”

Naruto’s voice shakes her out of a trance. They are sitting side by side on the bench by the village gate, the same scene that marks the biggest failure of Sakura’s life. The sakura trees are blooming, but Sakura cannot say the same for herself. Each passing day she is continuously wilting. There is no cycle for her, only an everlasting process of fading until one day she will have fallen completely from the branch. 

“Sorry,” she says. “I was lost in thought.”

“About Sasuke,” he asks, though he says it like he already knows.

Sakura nods, twiddling her thumbs. “I wonder what he’s up to.”

Naruto typically takes it upon himself to brighten a dismal atmosphere, but today Sakura is sullen enough that she does not want to be cheered up. No, she wants to linger in this sadness a little longer, let the melancholy soak the way one does in a freshly drawn bath. It is better to face the pain than to continue shutting it down. To bleed is to be alive, so to hurt is to love. 

“You know him,” Naruto says, sinking against the backing of the bench. “Probably moping about revenge and all that. He won’t come to his senses unless we sock it to him, Sakura.”

“I know that, idiot.”

Naruto gives her a sideways glance and smiles. Pats her on the back a couple times, then stands in preparation to leave. Naruto is more sensitive than most, in that regard.

“I miss him,” Sakura says, before Naruto has a chance to turn his back to her again. “I wish he would come back. If we could just talk to him…”

“Guys like him,” Naruto says, “only talk through their fists.”

“I can’t beat him,” Sakura admits sorrowfully. She buries her face in her hands. “I’m not strong enough to get through to him.”

“Right now, neither am I.”

Naruto’s confession brings Sakura’s face out of her hands. She turns to Naruto, who is smiling against the blue sky and blossoming petals. 

“I lost to him at the Final Valley,” he continues. “I’m sure Sasuke’s gotten super strong since then, too. So I’d probably lose to him now anyway.”

“Then—”

“That’s why we both gotta get stronger.” Naruto turns, looking over his shoulder. “That way, no matter how strong Sasuke is when we see him again, it won’t matter. Because it’ll be two against one!”

Yes, Sakura thinks, her eyes closing as her lips pull upward into a smile. Tears are pooling in her waterline. They will get Sasuke back. And when they do, they’ll be three again. Naruto’s back is growing ever smaller as he walks toward the village center, but for once, she doesn’t mind it. 

     AMONGST the broken rubble of Orochimaru’s hideout, Sakura is perusing the halls like a child lost in a maze. She’s not looking for anything in particular. No, that’s not true. She’s looking for a reason. Something, anything that might explain how Sasuke had become the stranger that stood before Naruto and Sakura, how the clan crest etched on his back had fanned the flames from a kindling warmth to raging wildfire. There must be something. 

Naruto is outside, still standing in the crater left behind by Sasuke. Locked in place, his head is tilted upward, and the sky is clear despite the way their hearts are overcast. Yamato and Sai are by him, having left Sakura to wander on her own, but she can sense the little inkborn mouse that Sai sends to tail her, to make sure she doesn’t go off too far or get herself into danger. Sakura has always been the most observant of the three—so it’s an easy task to hear the tiny footsteps that tap against the stone floors a few paces behind. 

Sakura pushes it out of her mind. Let them follow her all they like, it doesn’t matter. What matters right now is finding something that will help. She checks every path and every turn until she turns the last one and finds a dead end. She places a hesitant hand against the stone bricks. She’s ready to accept defeat and reconvene with the makeshift Team Seven. She’s ready to go home, she thinks. She wonders if Sasuke ever misses Konoha. If he ever misses home. (Was Konoha ever home to him?) Then she feels her hand sink into the wall. Her head whips around as she sees one of the bricks push inward. She pushes harder, until the grinding of stone relinquishes into a click. The wall crumbles. It seems that the explosion from earlier broke the mechanism.

Regardless, Sakura ducks her head to squeeze through the hole that has appeared, and on the other side she is rendered speechless. The room sprawls out before her, empty and bare but familiar. To her right, aligned against the corner, there is a desk and a chair pulled out in front of it. Someone was here, not too long ago. She walks over. Somehow, she can tell—if there is anything of value in this room, it will be in this desk. She reaches a tentative hand toward the drawer, careful not to break it. It’s unlocked, and it slides out smoothly. There’s a blank white sheet of paper. It’s been ripped apart and put back together. The paper is fraying at the edges, and when she flips it over she begins to cry. 

The smiling faces of their younger selves—Kakashi, Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura—they are gazing back at her, though Sasuke and Naruto are, of course, glaring at each other more than they are posing for a picture. There’s no doubt about it. This belongs to Sasuke, and it proves nothing if not that Sasuke thinks of Konoha, of them. Enough that the attempt to sever these ties is remedied by tape and glue, shoddy though the job is. Sasuke is not yet out of reach, and for now, that is enough.

     WHEN Sakura tells Naruto she loves him, she already knows that Naruto won't be fooled. He’s not that same naive kid anymore. But she says it anyway, because it’s worth a try if it means obtaining closure. She disregards the shocked faces of all those around her, ignoring the way their eyes are baring into her back. She meets Naruto’s gaze, and she meets it with headstrong determination, a conduct becoming of the kunoichi she knows she can be. She will kill Sasuke, and she will kill her love when she does. Then it will all be over. 

She tells Naruto she loves him. That she’s done chasing after the once noble Sasuke who has fallen to criminal and fugitive status. She says to him that Sasuke keeps getting farther and farther away, that in her mind’s eye she can hardly see the Uchiha crest on his back anymore. That it is Naruto, who remains steadfast by her side and staying true to his word, whom she loves now. A woman’s heart is as changeable as the autumn sky, she laughs, and she hugs him.

Naruto does not move, and instead he shoves her back by the shoulders. He tells her, “I hate people who lie to themselves.”

They argue. Naruto says it's not just about the promise anymore. He wants to help Sasuke, and Sakura can see through the windows to his soul that he knows more than he is letting on. Inside, Sakura wants to scream. Why is she always the last one to know things? Why is she always outside of the loop? What does Naruto know that he cannot tell her, that she does not deserve to know? How can she ever reach Sasuke when everything is always one step ahead of her, whether enemy or comrade or information or life? 

“Fine!” she tells him. “I’m going home.”

She beckons Kiba and Lee and Sai, and they follow. She bites her lip to stop it from trembling. She cannot show weakness here. Sakura must not falter.

Her plan is simple, and executed despite a few bumps on the way. Kiba, Sai, and Lee are put to sleep, Naruto caught in it too. 

At the bridge, she sees him, cloaked and standing over a woman’s body. Sakura doesn’t have time to worry about who she is. 

“Sasuke!” she yells. “I’ve come to join you! I’ve gone rogue from Konoha.”

Sasuke meets her eyes with skepticism, eyes blood red and whirling with the Sharingan. He tells her that if she’s serious, she’ll kill the woman he’s standing over. Sakura can tell she’s wounded, though not fatally. She could live, if Sakura treated her. But Sakura says that she’ll do whatever Sasuke wants, and even when she flinches at Sasuke’s desire to destroy Konoha, she forges onward. When she walks by Sasuke, a poisoned kunai is ready to strike. With it in her trembling grasp, she thinks to herself, “Right now, if I stab Sasuke, it’ll all be over.”

That moment of hesitation, the multitude of thoughts that flash through her head in that single millisecond are enough to spell her doom. A chidori is crackling with static behind her, and if it weren’t for Kakashi intercepting and redirecting the blow, Sakura was as good as dead. Of course she knows why she faltered, even if she resolved time and time again to bring this to a close. She doesn’t want it all to be over. She wants Sasuke to come home, to be himself again, to smile with her and Naruto and Kakashi and to be Team Seven. 

Kakashi orders Sakura to take the woman and leave. Tells her that this is not a burden she needs to bear alone. That it is his fault, his failure as their teacher and mentor, that led to this rift between them. Sakura is tired of being coddled. Tired of things being out of her hands and sick of being reminded time and time again that she can do nothing but rely on others. She takes the red-haired woman who Sasuke has now abandoned away from the battle, treating her as the tears flow uncontrollably. She’s careful to make sure none of them drip onto open wounds, because she can handle this, at the very least. 

“Sasuke…” coughs the woman, her eyes on the verge of unconsciousness, “you don’t know Sasuke anymore.”

Everything after that is a blur. She leaps into action, ricocheting herself off the arch of the bridge in a sudden movement, kunai ready to pierce the very back she has spent her adolescent years chasing after. But she freezes, and she falters once more. She cannot do it, and such is the curse of love. 

Sasuke whirls around and brings a hand to her throat. This time, Sakura is okay with it. Better that she die by his hand than somewhere on the battlefield, unfulfilled. She closes her eyes, waiting for the release of death. This love was going to die eventually.

That much is evident when it is Naruto, always only ever Naruto, who can reach Sasuke with his words. 

    IT is in the midst of battle when Sakura sees him again. Kneading chakra and channeling into her medical ninjutsu as she treats Naruto, Sasuke leaps down to land in front of them. He says her name, for the first time in what feels like forever, and the sound of his voice washes over her like a springtime breeze. This is the Sasuke she knows. Warm and strong and genuine. Sure, his announcement of his interest in the position of Hokage shocks her (as it does everyone else), but she can look past it. 

At his arrival, Naruto has seemingly recharged and been given a burst of new energy. Looking over his shoulder, he thanks her for the healing, tells her to take a break. 

“Let’s go, Sasuke,” Naruto says, and Sakura is sure that he means no harm and is simply oblivious to how the words spear her heart. She’s done being reduced to a spectator. She’s done sitting on the sidelines and merely being the third member of Team Seven who cannot compare to the great Uzumaki Naruto and infamous Uchiha Sasuke. Haruno Sakura is a Konoha shinobi, too. Haruno Sakura is an apprentice of one of the great prodigal three, too. 

She will take her stand here. Not once has she been proud of her life, of her journey of being a shinobi. But today, that will change. She always considered herself beneath them, figured that their destinies were simply far greater than hers. But Haruno Sakura, you are not only the third member of Team Seven, an apprentice of the prodigal three, but also the Fifth Hokage’s disciple. She feels the heat bubbling in her forehead as the 100 Healings Mark settles. Her once greatest insecurity has now become the shore which harbors her greatest achievement, and this time, she stands beside and not behind Naruto and Sasuke. This time, their clan crests circle each other as equals. Yes, this is how it was always meant to be. Even in the crossfire of war, Sakura cannot help but wish for this moment to last forever.

But when the tides of the war ebb and flow, as they do, she wonders if that feeling of equality were nothing more than her own childish delusions. A belief in grandeur, a meaningless faith in a destiny greater than oneself—was that all her efforts amounted to?

Obito is kneeling before her. Sasuke has been whisked away to some other realm in a different time-space that only Obito can reach. Naruto is off occupying Kaguya, and Sakura has once again been relegated to a supporting role where she cannot do anything on her own. Assisting others, helping others—don’t get her wrong, she’s happy to do these things. But it is so damn frustrating to see her teammates do, on their own, the things that she cannot. 

Sakura swore off self-pity years ago. Still, it manages to stick, like gum on the sole of your shoes, the residue forever there, unable to be washed off. As she’s pouring all her chakra into Obito, she can only pray for a miracle. She had tossed off her tattered combat vest, it falling to the floor as she quickly pushed her sleeves up. She released her mark, letting all the chakra she’d been kneading and storing flood through her. She can feel a prickling electricity travel down her neck down to arms, the mass amount of chakra she’s circulating through her body making her heat up, and if Obito can’t find Sasuke soon, she’s going to burst.

Suddenly, a portal opens, and off in the distance stands Sasuke, facing the opposite direction. She can see him as clear as day, though—she’s been staring at his back all this time, after all. She’d recognize it no matter the distance, because no physical distance can match the mental rift she’s come to realize exists between them. She still loves him, of course. But she can’t deny it any longer.

She yells his name. It falls off her tongue flawlessly because it is second nature. His name was engraved into her from the moment she was born—this was the boy she was always meant to love and always will.

Sasuke turns and begins to run, and it takes every fiber of Sakura’s being to maintain the portal, and she can tell Obito is struggling just as hard. She’s not sure how much longer she can hold out, and she can tell she’s nearing her end when the portal begins spasming, flickering as it tries to close. The portal is growing smaller and smaller as the seconds tick by, and Sasuke is nowhere near. This is it, Sakura thinks. This will take the place of the greatest failure of her life.

Her eyelids flutter as sparks fly from her hands, the heat combusting in her veins as she falls back from Obito, weakly. Her body is collapsing, and she can see the ground growing ever closer, until—

She feels an arm around her and a warm presence she could never mistake. She has barely enough strength to merely shift her gaze to the man who caught her, and she is met in return with the same red wheels of the Sharingan. But this time, there is no spite, no hatred, no vengeance. There is fire, but it is gentle and caressing, and suddenly she realizes there was never a rift between them at all. 

To show one’s back is to show vulnerability. To leave it unguarded symbolizes trust. Sasuke and Naruto have shown her theirs all this time not because they were leaving her behind, but because they knew she would never betray them. It’s so stupid. If that was what they meant, they should’ve just said that. Sakura feels a tear well up in her eye. 

“You’ve got it from here,” she mumbles, giving Sasuke a grin. 

Sasuke allows himself the slightest of smiles. “I made it here thanks to you,” he says.

“Hmph!” she scoffs with pride. “You got that right.”

“Sakura.” Her name sounds so right in Sasuke’s voice. “You did well.”

She feels a blush rise to her cheeks as her consciousness begins to fade. 

“Come back alive,” she says as he sets her down against a rock. “And tell that to stupid Naruto, too.”