Chapter Text
Sakura was sure of many things.
She was sure that Naruto was stupid, even with the sunshine that brightened his face that she pretended not to see (because that would mean acknowledging the twist of guilt in her stomach every time she saw his smile drop, and then what kind of person would that make her?).
Sakura knows the answer, now more than ever, and uncomfortable truth that makes her grit her teeth until they ache. A coward.
His name was always, without fail, the one that graced the bottom of the score sheet every term at the academy, where hers would be at the top, with Sasuke and Ino following closely after her.
She knew that Sasuke-kun was cool, and mysterious, and definitely wanted her around even if he didn't say it out loud. That his shifting away from her, non-committal responses meant he returned her feelings, definitely.
He was only playing hard to get, right?
Sakura just wanted to see him smile.
She knew that Kakashi-sensei was lazy, and never on time, but was strong- he was a jounin after all. Even though he fell for Naruto’s stupid chalk prank the day after graduation, he was leagues above them in fighting level. Sakura had stolen a bingo book when she was six, eager to start at the academy, and a quick flick through the aged pages after their disastrous bell test had revealed that Kakashi really was a force to be reckoned with.
An S rank threat, with a bounty of 3 million ryou wasn’t anything to scoff at. 3 million was enough for Sakura to buy half of the entire Konoha Central Library. Probably.
She was sure that she was the only voice of reason, knew that she was the necessary mediator, placating Sasuke and scolding Naruto every single training day. She knew that she was needed on the team, and valuable because she was the best at chakra control, and the smartest. Definitely smart, her teachers had told her that enough.
She still remembers the curl of satisfaction that had manifested in her chest, when she had been swinging her legs on the branch she had gotten to in seconds, and Naruto and Sasuke’s entertainingly shocked, and dare she say it, admiring faces looking up at her.
Of course, that had only lasted for a short while before Kakashi had started comparing them all to each other and Sasuke’s face had darkened into a glare that Sakura hated was directed at her.
"Mah." He'd said with his eye smile, patting Sasuke and Naruto's heads. "The only girl on the team seems closest to becoming Hokage, no?"
Sakura had hated him a little in that moment. But that hardly seems important now, to be questioning her place on this team. On team seven.
She knows these facts about her teacher, her crush, the annoying blond. Sure of those facts like the blood in her veins, so why is something not adding up?
Looking at the scene in front of her, frozen, unable to move, she can't help but wonder if her sureness wasn't just ignorance after all.
A dome of mirrors has formed in front of Sasuke-kun, and Naruto jumped in without a second thought as usual, and her boys were in danger. Her boys were in danger, and she is stood in front of Tazuna, kunai drawn, for all intents and purposes a decoration. (And she wonders when even Naruto had become hers as well, but she pushes that to the back of her mind).
Tazuna is equally frozen, but it’s understandable because he’s a civilian, an old man, and Sakura doesn’t have that excuse. She should be able to at least move her limbs as a genin of Konoha. Sakura nearly scoffs, because at the Academy the teachers had made them all feel so important, handing over their hitai-ate with such pompous arrogance and condescension, but it means exactly nothing here. Out the walls of Konoha, genin like Sakura are nothing but burdens, and she despises herself for it.
And oh god what happens when they lose because they will lose, she still feels the imprint of Zabuza’s killing intent even when it is not directed towards her, instead towards Kakashi, and it seems inconceivable that they would live.
Fucking Gato. More than that, she hates herself.
Her thighs are trembling, even though her stance isn’t even that low. It’s pathetic, the way it’s still physically taxing enough to make the next few minutes torturous.
She doesn’t know what to do. Panic clouds her thoughts, and she can’t think beyond the killing intent that seems to press down around them. It’s in the mist, everywhere.
So she just watches, as if she is looking through someone else's eyes instead of her own.
She watches as eventually the icy glass dissolves, and all that is left is the limp body of Sasuke-kun, paler than she had ever seen him, and what is horrifyingly wrong about it is the senbon that litters his skin. There isn’t any blood, she muses with an odd kind of detachment that makes her limbs like lead. She can’t move.
She watches as orange-red, angry furious chakra rolls over Naruto, his face twisted in grief, curled protectively over Sasuke, and she can’t help the spike of it should have been her saving Sasuke damnit.
Naruto has always been the most obnoxiously happy of the three of them, but right now, his expression shows a frightful rage that looks wrong, so wrong, on him.
Sakura wonders what it would be like if the fury he displayed now was directed towards her, knows with certainty she would not survive more than a few seconds.
Naruto seems to gain some kind of power up from whatever jutsu he’s using, because orange claws slice through the remaining ice like butter, and the hunter nin is cornered in seconds, their porcelain mask shattered beyond recognition. They look young. A child.
Like them.
Sakura thinks she should feel something at this revelation.
Naruto, predictably, does, his mouth dropping open in a crestfallen 'oh' when he recognises the person behind the mask, guilt and sadness immediately apparent in his stunned gaze as he mouths their name.
But she doesn't have space to feel pity, not when grief is still weighing her down.
Not when her black haired, stubborn boy is on the ground and not moving.
Then wind slices past her face, a knock off effect of Zabuza’s massive, pretty sword, and her attention turns to the fight that is still not over yet.
She sees Kakashi-senseis hand crackle with blue lightning at his fingers, lunge forwards, and Zabuza loses his rhythm in their dance of blades and dragons.
It doesn't matter in the end, the child ends up bloody and broken, their last action to save their master, and privately Sakura thinks that Zabuza looks broken as well, even if he tries to hide it with mocking words, and harsh laughter. It doesn’t meet his eyes.
They look empty, like he has nothing left to live for. Sakura shivers, vows herself to never end up like that, with no precious people left.
Then Gato and his men arrive, and she looks, and watches, and laughs hollowly because they are nothing, and torn to shreds even with Zabuzas' arms hanging useless at his sides. Torn to shreds by a dead man, because that is what Zabuza is.
She watches, and she realises with a numb kind of hysteria, that that is all she can do.