Work Text:
She can’t stand like she used to. Her knees feel weak and watery and she can’t keep her thoughts in check. She thought she could handle this, that she could be strong for her squad, that she could be the knight in shining armour for the boys.
It was a bold lie she told herself.
Three people are dead because of her. Kakashi-sensei doesn’t know yet, but she’s sure he knows something. Blood is harder to get off without the right ingredients.
She stands in front of the Hokage, surrounded by all the other genin. His view is blocked by some other kid, but she doesn’t care, she’s already seen the old man it’s not like he’s some sort of exotic pet to be cooed after.
He talks but she doesn’t listen, his smooth voice filtered through her clouded mind. She keeps to herself, and she can feel Ino’s eyes on her. Her hair is shorter, she knows. The bad cut due to the… incident back there.
Sasuke-kun and Naruto-kun hadn’t woken up until later, when she pressed herself against a tree and promptly fell asleep. They had thought she died. She’s never heard Naruto scream as loud as he did, nor seen Sasuke-kun look so… angry.
It hurt for her to speak, too look at them. She was a mess. She had puke all over her, blood and bruises. They had helped her, and she still hurt, but she was content. She was happy.
They don’t know what she did.
She feels their eyes at her back, and her neck bleeds into a rough red. Shame washes over her body and she barely holds back the tears.
They’re called up to the stands above, and watch as names are selected. The screen whirls to life mechanically, and two names a chosen.
Names a slotted, and people go down and fight. It’s a wonder that she can still stand, after all she’s gone through.
People fight, and people loose. It’s the way things work around here. There is only one way out, but there are two paths. Maybe more, maybe less. But she isn’t going to stay around for the cryptic shit her mind throws at her, for what her mind has internalized this past week.
She can still feel that blade in her skull, throbbing, weeping to be let out.
Naruto shakes her, shouting in her ear about something about it being her turn. Her blood turns cold as she looks at his face, and even colder when she reads the names above.
Yamanaka Ino versus Haruno Sakura
Her gut churns at the names. Ino is a clan kid, she’s got family techniques and a safe network of people to teach her things. She’s stronger than Sakura now. Sakura hears Ino croon in excitement and mentions Sasuke-kun’s name. She doesn’t listen to Ino’s rant, but that doesn’t stop the cold sweats.
The dreaded walk down was slow and painful. Sakura had to lean on the rail for help, and she could feel the smugness radiating off of Ino.
“Look at this,” the blond croons, “She can’t even keep herself up! What? Was that hike too much for you? You should end it now, forehead, it’ll probably be the best thing you’ll ever do in your life.”
Sakura does her best to ignore the words, but she knows deep down inside that they are true. She’s only been lucky these past few days. She could be dead now. She stands weakly in front of Ino’s ruthless gaze now, and Sakura can’t feel the tips of her fingers.
But there’s this fire within her this time. She has history with Ino, and this time she won't fail like she did with that woman in the forest or those sound nin. “Bring it on, Ino!” Her voice wavers, but it’s better than saying nothing, she thinks.
Ino snickers, “Give it up, billboard brow, you know you’re gonna lose this fight.”
“But at least I get to fight you,” Is Sakura’s comeback, “At least i get to know that I was able to stand up to you, piggy.”
“Get ready, girls, the fight’s about to start.” The proctor says, and a fit of coughs rattles through his body. “Ready... set, go.”
Ino is quick to mold her hands into one of the clans jutsu’s, and shouts something. Her blonde hair flies behind her, and Sakura can’t help her own shout of surprise as she’s taken into darkness.
“Ohh, look it here!” comes Ino’s sharp voice, cutting through the black, “Your memories are so clean, so open for me! I wonder I wonder what will happen if i poke at this one…”
“Ino!” Sakura cries out, “What are you doing to me?!”
Ino laughs, it’s loud and flamboyant and very Ino. “I want to see what you’ve been doing lately, it must’ve been so hard for you, a mere civilian, to do something that we all have been training to do. I want to see you bleed and cry over a little scrape to the knees, forehead, that’s all I’ve wanted to see you do.”
She can feel Ino in her mind, moving through the rubble and the destroyed landscape. The longer Ino rummages through her mind, Sakura can see clearer and more vividly of what her landscape looks like.
There has to be a way out of this, her mind supplies her, get this bitch out of here, get it out now.
Sakura doesn’t have to push those memories to the front, they are as fresh as fresh can get, and she is quick to throw her metaphorical hand over Ino’s skull. There’s a horrible scream, long and loud and deafening.
It becomes quiet, and then the screaming starts again. “Stop! Stop it, no, no!”
Her head pulses, and she can see the memories again, she can feel them. She hopes that Ino does too, to make her realize that she hurts too, that she hurts still.
“I take it back! Take it back, please, please! I won't do this again, I’ll leave you alone i promise!”
There’s some sick, twisted part that pushes harder on Ino, making everything intense and real, it pushes and pulls and Sakura can feel Ino’s cries of pain. She feels the blade in her skull. She can feel Ino pull back, further and further away from Sakura but that can't do, that can’t do at all.
She keeps pulling Ino closer, and those memories further into Ino. It’s like a rubberband. She keeps on twisting and stretching it, bring it to it’s breaking point but relaxing at the end. Ino is the rubberband.
“Sakura!” It’s not Ino’s voice. It’s her own. “I am Haruno Sakura! Squadmate to Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke, student of Hatake Kakashi--I will not be taken down by my own mind again!”
Her skull throbs, pulsing, and Ino starts to scream again, trashing against the mental restrains. Sakura drops her jaw and joins in with the screaming. The adrenaline rushes in and the hairs on her arms rise and her fingertips tingle in anticipation.
And she’s thrown out of her mindscape. Her skull twaps against the ground, and she can feel something crack and splinter. Ino stands above her, eyes wet with fat tears and a kunai in her hand.
Snarling, Sakura curls and pushes herself up, aiming a leg at Ino.
“Who did those things to you,” Ino calls out, and a greasy sob tears through her throat, “Why didn’t you fight back?”
“You saw who it was!” She backs up away from Ino, “Don’t play stupid- you saw what they did; you saw what I did!”
“It was horrible,” the fat tears finally fall down Ino’s face, “it was horrible, horrible.”
Sakura doesn’t wait for Ino to continue, she draws a kunai -and her last kunai- and leaps forward. This takes Ino by surprise, her eyes widening blindly as she falls back, her tears getting in the way of her vision.
The kunai is pressed against the smooth skin of Ino’s pale neck, and she can feel Ino whimper, “Give up, Ino, it’s what’s you should have done in the beginning.” She presses harder, and Sakura feels the sick sensation of victory through corruption.
Ino pats at Sakura’s arms, and whines.
“I- I give up! I give up, get off me!”
There are only winners and there are losers. Sakura is the paradox, as she wins, she also loses. She loses what she is, what she was, and changes into something horrible. Something the reeks of blood and salt and sweat, her colors are the colors that of fear and fear alone.
She becomes something that begs for the sweet release of salvation, that salvages what she is a turns it all into a gift of pleading, take it, it says, take it and let me live, take it and let me loose into the world that I belong, please, please, I beg of you, please, oh god, please.