Work Text:
The air was stiff with tension, divided angrily between lightning and wind. Unrestrained energy crackled all around her, whipping shallow cuts into her arms, face, and chest.
How had they found themselves here again? Sakura wondered, staring up at the solemn faces of Uchiha Madara and the First Hokage. How could it be that nothing in the last few years mattered – at least not enough to change the outcome?
Naruto.
Sasuke.
She couldn’t stop them. She never could.
They flew towards each other, fury twisting their faces. Sasuke’s robe was cut to shreds, his chest bare with scars and cuts. Naruto was breathing heavily in his garish orange jumpsuit, blood splattered over the white hems. She didn’t know whose it was. She didn’t know which she would prefer.
Sasuke’s voice roared just as Naruto let out a guttural scream, Chidori and Rasengan ripped brutally into each other’s chests, both aiming precisely to kill -- but in that instant, Sakura had no doubt. They had always loved each other. So much so that there was never any space for anyone else, no openings left.
Their hearts were full.
They understood each other, could communicate with each other on the most basic level, even without speaking. They shared the same pain, the same bitterness, sorrow and even hatred. She had seen glimpses of raw anger cross Naruto’s face before he managed to conceal it behind his wide grin and she had seen hesitance, even nostalgia in Sasuke’s eyes before he set out to kill.
Baka.
You can’t go through a childhood of wilting glares and hushed whispers without growing up. Just like you don’t stand over your parent’s cooling corpses, or lay down next to your brother’s, without a clump of your heart rotting.
There was no saving that. Sakura knew that. Some part of them, both of them and her by proxy, would always be missing. They would never be complete as a team, nor manage to be completely happy. That was a luxury left to the ones outside of the shinobi world, the ones who weren’t born into a lifetime of servitude, self-sacrifice, and mourning. Shinobi were broken by birthright, born into the mistakes of their parent’s generation just in time for the scaffolding to crumble apart.
But Sakura had recently discovered that - they didn’t have to suffer like this either. They had suffered enough for any lifetime and finally – finally she had figured out a way to change that.
Sakura stood up stiffly in front of the waterfall, careful to keep the concealment jutsu in place. She watched them for a moment more, trying to etch their faces into memory. It’ll be a while before she could see them again.
A smile danced on her lips as she unfurled the scroll at her feet. It was fraying at the edges, the paper worn from how many times she had examined it on sleepless nights. Naruto hadn’t known about this one, she had painstakingly researched every kanji, every seal technique formula herself, rearranging them and painting them on as accurately as possible years ago. It was one of her proudest moments when she finally perfected the dissipation, merging, and then the regeneration. Followed by her saddest when she realized the necessity of it.
With a nick of her thumb, blood splashed onto 再生.
Everything froze.
Immediately, she could feel her body flicker. It was like tiny pinpricks at each of her cells, as they popped and sprung free, no longer confined to the shape of her skin. Every epithelial, vascular, nerve, muscular cell dissipated into the air, shuddering in their newfound freedom, merging with the grass, the rays of sun, the waterfall roaring behind them. She felt oddly at ease, as if her soul had finally found its home.
Briefly, she recognized that she was dying for them. Naruto and Sasuke. The two people she could ever bring herself to care about. Her heart danced a little. Of course, it wasn’t the heroic shinobi death that she had ever let herself think about. No one would even understand what she did, not for a while. She faltered a little when it hit her that maybe no one would remember.
But as each of her cells floated further apart from each other, small fireflies of light fading away, she knew she would never regret this. She could feel the world pulsating now – every shiver of every blade of grass, how the wind touched the trees, the rip as predators tore their teeth into prey in the forest. It was a part of her now and from this point on, she would be indistinguishable from it.
She saw the remaining flickering buds of light float hurriedly to the two collapses bodies on the bank of the river, glowing bright green before dragging out the burned, sliced dead cells from the holes in their chests and refilling their flesh with new, regenerated cells. There was a terrible, long moment of stillness – and then she could feel two hearts continue to beat anew.
She couldn’t help it one last time, laying next to their still bodies and brushing the wisps of hair out of their eyes.
Dobe. Usuratonkachi.
And then, all at once, what was left of Sakura Haruno blended away with nature.