Chapter Text
There she sat, under the tree, again. Not training or sparring like the other two, because she, Haruno Sakura, the strongest medical ninja and kunoichi of her generation and inheritor of inhuman strength, was too weak. The Uchiha had come back only a few months ago, mind you after killing thousands, attempting to kill even his own team, betraying an entire village, and learning god knows what kind of forbidden techniques, and he was welcomed back with open arms. He'd brought friends too.
Oh yeah. Three of them. The look on Naruto's face when he found out Sasuke had a new team was priceless. Two of them were over training next to her supposed friends. The other was sitting next to her sneering on about how she would never had a chance with Sasuke. What Sakura wouldn't give to punch the girl in the face. She clenched and unclenched her fists, trying to restrain herself.
"And Sasuke-kun likes girls with curves", the girl nearly snarled, looking up and down the length of Sakura's slim physique, "you obviously don't have a chance."
Sakura leisurely stretched the tight fabric of her gloves around her knuckles and rolled the sore muscles in her neck in a failing attempt to calm herself. The leather of her boots was trapping all of the heat of the day and it made her shins slide and sweat uncomfortably within them. It was humid out, almost unbearably so, and she wondered absently about the unusual amount of people who had been visiting the hospital due to a sudden lapse in sanity. A curious assortment of people had decided that this summer was the summer to flip their shit and menace innocent bystanders. Perhaps it was the heat. She could certainly begin to feel the blistering sun take its toll on her patience. Sakura herself had never really been known for superb mental stability, at any rate. She took after her mentor too much in that aspect.
There was a dull throbbing behind her eyes that was slowly ebbing into a sharp stabbing pain.
"Besides, he needs someone who will make his clan strong," she eyed the fairy-princess pink hair Sakura was so famous for with apparent distaste, "do you really think that he would want an Uchiha heir with pink hair?"
The female member of team Taka spit out the color as if it had done something to personally offend her and with a flick of her deep red hair over her shoulder, reached out in an attempt to pull on one of Sakura's strands.
The stabbing thundered into a white hot sear within her retinas.
Sakura usually tried to reign in her temper; bear it all with a smile and try to do what she could for her friends. So how, in fact, did she find herself not only on top of Karin, the skin on her knuckles split from repeatedly striking the other girl's face, but continuing to beat her within an inch of her life?
Her head throbbed and it felt like her eyes were being incinerated from the inside out. All the training had stopped. The witty banter that had been passing back and forth between Juugo and Suigetsu had silenced and everyone was standing still. But Sakura couldn't quite bring herself to care.
It hit her then, straddling the poor excuse for a teammate that Sasuke had chosen over her. She really didn't care. Her first love had abandoned her for power and broken all ties with because he despised anything to do with bonds and love, only to return with a new team. Her first ever sensei neglected teaching her to the point that she was forced to seek out a new one on her own. And to top it all off, she was always pushed to the background in favor of Naruto and Sasuke, the saviors, the heroes, the survivors, the poor lonely little things.
As far as she was concerned, Sasuke could stay here and train all he liked, he could screw as many girls as he wanted and have as many children as his shriveled little heart desired, but he would always be a traitorous, cold-hearted bastard. Naruto could stay here and try and try to make something of this pathetic excuse for a team, but their decaying bonds would never allow for more than the strained hostility they suffered under now. This whole fucking village could just rot, as far as she was concerned.
Sakura's feet stomped away from the training grounds of their own accord and soon enough she was in her own small apartment. She slammed a black bag onto the couch and began packing necessities. Her heart was pounding and her head was doing its best impression of splitting in half. She shoved down the throbbing pain and stalked into the bathroom to grab what was needed: toothbrush, toothpaste, hairbrush, only the bare minimum. She grabbed a small container of shampoo off the rim of the bathtub and froze. A disheveled version of herself stared back through the rectangular cut mirror hanging off the blue tiled wall, the flamboyant pink hair, the upturned button nose, the small splash of freckles that dotted her cheeks. But there staring back was a pair of sterling silver rings surrounding the jeweled jade that she was accustomed to.
It was then she became even further aware of how agonizing her headache had cheek hit the cool tile floor and the fuzzy black dots that had been lingering in the corners of her eyes for longer than she could think of took over. A deep, velvety chuckle resonated throughout her unconsciousness.