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FFM Day 26 - Cicatrix

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Sakura was tired. She’d been tired for a long time, long before she’d left Konoha, long before she’d gotten together with Sasuke and long before the start of the Fourth War. She’d been tired of all the searching, of all the fear and of all of the confusion as to what exactly they were supposed to do once everything was over. Sasuke had indeed returned to Konoha, Naruto had ascended to ever greater heights as the new Sage, beloved by everyone. Kakashi had returned to his old self, though hovered by the old Team Seven as they readjusted back to village life.

Those few months had felt like a daydream, Sakura remembered every face of those she couldn’t save, the instinctive terror she’d tried to suppress during the battle with The Mother and the dimension hopping; she drank a lot of alcohol (as everyone did) and she tried to cover up the sense of loss that bit as her heels with every step. What was lost, she didn’t know and it took weeks to admit she was not happy to herself; still, the fragmentation of her life did not slow down.

Nothing seemed to fix it: she ploughed into work, into bar hopping and, eventually, ploughed into Sasuke. He was cold, methodical and a disappointing lover. He was mechanical and seemed to move as a means to an end, his eyes bland and lifeless as he loomed over her, as if he could be doing just about anything else in that moment. He came before she did and only after some prompting did he move to… attempt to finish her. His hands were too rough and uncharacteristically sloppy (it had vaguely occurred to Sakura then that perhaps he had never touched a woman before) the painful movements of his hands killed her arousal and she pushed him away and rolled over. Another crack formed and yet more loss seeped in, stroking at her bones and dancing around her organs before floating between her synapses with all the grace that Sasuke had not used.

She’d left Sasuke’s quickly and before she was home, had made up her mind to leave; she needed new terrain and unfamiliar faces who would not ask painful questions. By half six the next morning she was stood in front of Tsunade, earlier in the morning she’d found Kakashi at the new KIA stone, informing him of her decision and asking him to help mitigate Naruto’s presumed reaction. Her former sensei was not pleased. His eye has been on her a lot recently, she saw him out of the corner of her eye whenever she was out in the village, his glances communicated some perception of his about her atypical behaviour that anyone else had yet to notice; she hadn’t so much as dared speak to him until now, afraid of just how much he’d seen through.

Feelings had never been something Sakura had been shy of, yet here she was running from the cliff edge. From herself, from the village, from her patients, from her friends - and right now, from Kakashi.

“Why now?” Tsunade perceptively asked, her fingers bridging in front of her face,

“I can’t seem to settle, Tsunade-sama, I really just need some space to myself, I need to be away from everything here… there are more than enough staff to take over from me at the hospital and the recent medical chuunins are very skilled,”

“I’m going to need better than that, Sakura,”

“I’m too on edge still, from the end of the war, I feel so jumpy… I just need a bit of space from everyone, I need a bit of a break from this… monotony,”

“I can give you two weeks leave,”

“No! I need some decent time… I need to see what the war has done to the other nations, how it’s affected civilians… I need to see that Konoha isn’t the only village which looks as if nothing happened to it,”

“Sakura…”

“Please Tsunade-sama, I just need some time to re-orientate myself, I haven’t any experiences war before this one, I don't know how I’m supposed to feel… I’m not depressed, Tsunade-sama, I just need to find out what the right response is to all that madness,” Sakura explained, finding herself being more honest than she’d intended, the silence hung between them, their eyes separated by a thousand feelings.

“What do Naruto, Sasuke and Kakashi have to say?”

“Naruto doesn't like it, but I think he gets it, same for Kakashi… As for Sasuke? After his disappearing act at thirteen, he can kiss my ass if he thinks he’s got any right to comment,”

“Fair enough…” Tsuande agreed, “I’m not happy Sakura, but maybe you do need this; go, take your time, see what this war has done and come back ready to stop it ever happening again,”

“Understood, Tsunade-sama… thank you,” She bowed low and left.

She was back to her apartment, grabbing her meagre possessions and beyond the main gates within half an hour; she’d spied a shock of silver hair on her journey out, but ignored it. Whatever Kakashi was planning on next, she wouldn’t find it easy to escape him, so the next best option was to put as much distance between her and the Leaf as possible first.

She took just a moment to look back, at the welcoming wooden doors and the ethereal haze of Konoha; she hoped that on her return, she would see a cicatrix: a healed home, a healed tree and a healed self.