Archive of Our Own ^beta

He comes by while she's washing her hands. Another mission - she'd been trying to go on fewer, but it was either her or a shaky-kneed, freshly promoted chūnin girl who'd been given a bad deck when she asked for her first solo mission, please!

The girl's got the kenjutsu skills of a low-level jōnin and she'll talk about her mother, who owns a weapons shop and all sorts of swords and who's so proud of her little girl. She's thirteen and threw up on her first out-of-village mission - delivering medicine to a client who had a sick wife - and she scrapes lines along her thighs hard enough to tear up the skin when she thinks about killing or hurting someone.

The mission - elimination based on suspicion of sedition - is an awful fit for the girl but, due to the faction being civilian, was given to her nonetheless. Sakura doesn't have to look for more than a moment before she's shouldering through to take the scroll from the desk with a flashy smile and a wink.

One of the separatists had children; old enough to be opinionated and young enough that Sakura threw up bile on the way home. She tugs her shirt to cover scratch marks on her arms and smiles vaguely when someone at the mission desk tells her how similar she looks to that chūnin girl. They tease, that pink hair sure was familiar. have you been busy over the years, Haruno? should I bring a gift? and she laughs and leaves before they tell her the girl's name. If Sakura learns her name, she'll spend every Sunday poring over the casualty list that gets pinned up in the jōnin lounge.

The mission is over now, however, and she's back in her apartment at the kitchen counter, washing her hands. She hadn't thought to stop by the hospital, hadn't been that injured, so she decided to patch up her scrapes at home. It would've been better if they'd injured her, maybe. More like a battle and less like slaughter. She's proud to serve her village and if she isn't its sedition and she thinks, slightly hysterical, that she knows what happens to seditionists, huh?

Sakura looks up and he is perched there, a pinched expression as he watches her wash her hands. It's a nasty sight, she knows - darkening red splashed against the wall where she'd scrubbed too vigorously, the sink swirling pink. She thought, too, that her actions were fairly clear, so she's confused when he asks her what she's doing. She tells him, of course - time has made her fonder, more familiar, with her sensei - that she's

"Just washing the blood off my hands, sensei. Ah - don't look worried, it isn't mine. It's okay, see, sensei?"

She worries that she's rambling, but Kakashi just looks vaguely ill, and then he leaves, and now Sakura feels ill too because he thinks I'm a monster. He thinks I'm crazy he thinks I'm useless and suddenly she's choking on air and her knee jars sharply as she collapses, and she focuses on the sensation instead of her thoughts. It pulses in pain rhythmically, a thump thump thump that pulls her away from herself and grounds her painfully at the same time. Her ears howl and rush and this new awareness of the world around her is painful and awful and too much.

She's not breathing right. Sakura thinks she must have forgotten how, in between all the killing and death and stupid uselessness, because she's trying to now and useless lungs are scraping painfully, trying to catch oxygen as her breaths puff in and out of her mouth.

In that moment she feels outside of her body all at once. She's having a panic attack. She learned about them on the first day of her med course - instructions on how to stop people having them and a saccharine comment about how they couldn't help it, be kind. some shinobi break a little. Something in her throat curls, cloying and bruising and something she could suffocate on, and her head rushes with blood. Her hands slip on the counter as she tries to stand up - she thinks it's blood and chokes again and glances up and it’s water. The sink is overflowing, bubbles treading along the rivulets of water sliding down the cabinet. They're moving so slowly.

That sedate movement jerks her brain to a slow pace and she feels sick again. Her mind is lurching with stop start, stop start, and she can't see very well anymore. Her head finds the side of the counter - and it hurts, but she doesn't register it - and she shuffles around to lean with her back against it, eyes unfocused and taking in the light of the lamp hanging in her kitchen.

It's still. She feels as though it should be swinging, somehow - lurch-lurch-lurching in beat with her heart. Her heart, god, she can feel it in her bones and she presses a hand to her ribs. It thumps, in her chest and in her wrist, and that in itself brings another wave of panic. Each beat screams at her you're human. you're human. this stupid little muscle is the only thing keeping you going. the depth of your soul and existence doesn't mean a thing. you'll be snuffed out soon and god you'll deserve it, for all that you've done.

Her teeth feel like she's bitten ice - her nerves feel like a live wire, or maybe they feel shot, or maybe she doesn't feel them at all.

Water drips down her chin and she thinks she's crying and almost feels useless - useless little kunoichi, barely a ninja, how could she expect to survive on her own? can't do a single thing herself until she realises it's water spilling over the sink. She stands on shaky legs and plants her feet for support.

Sakura turns off the tap automatically, pulling the plug on the sink - when had she plugged it? - and prepares herself to wipe the kitchen clean of blood. Her heart still beats a fluttering tune, but she steels herself instead and ducks down to get the heavy-duty cleaning spray (the kind made for shinobi, the kind sold at weapons shops and the corner stores near jōnin housing, the kind for blood and bile and semen and rot) and stands up, her gaze roving to find the biggest area of blood and start there.

Except - and she blinks her eyes closed a couple times to make sure - there isn't much blood at all. Or any, she finds. Slowly, she puts the spray away and pulls out a towel, to mop up the pooling water on the floor. She's moving on autopilot now - the absence of blood has spun her off her carefully-regained, shaky rhythm and tiredness has sunk into her bones. She drops the towel in the sink when she's done and lurches to her bedroom.

Sakura hasn't slept in her bed for a long while - long enough that it's cold and stiff like it's brand new - and she curls up on top of the covers. Water drips off her hair and runs down the back of her neck, making her shiver. She doesn't cry - not for that chūnin girl, or the children she'd killed, or their parents, or herself - and she realises still she's not crying and she. She cannot find it within herself to care very much. She's so tired. She doesn't think she knows how to cry, anymore.