Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Haruno Sakura was only 5 when the nightmares began.

She had been in bed under thick blankets, listening to the pitter patter of the rain against her window. It was soothing to her mind. Especially with the long day she’s had.

She had just joined the academy that day, and it hadn’t gone as well as she had hoped. These children were being trained to be skilled assassins, she expected them to be a little...nicer. Which, now that she thought about it, was a silly assumption on her part. They were still young, and they weren’t that much different from the civilian children she knew.

Which meant that they still teased her about her forehead and hair. Probably even more because of the fact that most shinobi were dark and hard to spot. She was noticeable and bright, and it made her the perfect target.

She had ran home in tears after school was over. She went straight into her room and cried into her pillow until she fell asleep.

With her parents out in a long term mission, there was no one home to wake her up from the nightmare that came after.

“Sakura.”  His voice was low and deep, void of emotion, but Familiar. His name was on the tip of her tongue, ready to escape her parted lips, but she could not speak. She could only stare into his dark obsidian eyes as he stared back at her, blank and cold.

It made her heart ache to see him this way. So distant and as a stranger. He wasn’t the same man she knew. He...he stood surrounded by her precious people. They were all on the ground dead unconscious and bleeding. She had to save them more than she had to save him.

So she raised her arms and moved into a defensive stance. She didn’t even twitch as his face twisted into a sneer and a laugh fell passed his lips. “Do you think you can actually fight me? You love me too much.” It was said as a fact because it was true. She did love him. The him that protected her and Naruto even as he muttered about them being weak. But not this man. This man was a monster.

Sakura narrowed her eyes and flung herself forward. She didn’t hold her punches as they collided with trees as he twisted away. His expression was surprised at her aggressiveness before changing back to his detached look. He didn’t bother to activate his sharingan. He never really did take her seriously.

At least he didn’t hold back  from drawing his sword and slashing as her midsection. She let him cut her in order to get close enough to land a hit to his shoulder. Even as she cried out at the deep wound on her stomach, his was worse. She had pulsed chakra into her fist in order to send it into his arm. The impact left the bones shattered and useless, but he showed no sign of registering the pain as he stared at her blankly. “Where is Naruto?”

It made her burn inside, not only from the deep wound still bleeding, but because he cared more about Naruto than her. He wanted to fight Naruto more than her. It made her angry. So so angry. The slashes she received after didn’t even register as she attacked with even more force than before.

Her body hurt so much, but she didn’t-couldn’t stop. She wanted to yell “Look at me! Look at how strong I’ve become!” but she couldn’t talk. Not when he was dropping his sword and looking at her with eyes widen in shock, sending  a wave of satisfaction down her spine-only for it to immediately morph into horror.

Her hand was in his chest. She could feel how his heart beat in her hand. All she had to do was squeeze and it would all be over. She could avenge her friends and everyone who had lost their lives because of him. She could finally send her pain through him and make him understand how much she’s changed, how tired she was of all this madness and war, and the love that was long gone after he left her on the bench so many years ago.

But she couldn’t kill him because he was still Sasuke. She inhaled shakily, letting his name finally fall out of her mouth. “S-Sasuke…?”

Sakura jolted up from her position with a gasp, his name tumbling out of her lips before she could stop herself. She was trembling and drenched in a cold sweat, but she didn’t move. His pained face was still stuck in her mind, his wet breathes still echoing in her ears, and his blood still sticking to her hand like it was part of her. She felt sick to her stomach.

She tumbled out of her room and dropped to her knees in front of her toilet, throwing up the lunch she had that evening in the academy. She was still trembling and heaving even though she had nothing left in her empty stomach.

She moved away from her toilet when she believed she wouldn’t end up throwing up again; she stood on shaky legs and moved to her sink to wash her mouth and hands. It didn’t take her long to begin sobbing. Sakura could feel his blood on her hand, and she couldn’t stop-wouldn’t stop trying to scrub the feeling of warm blood off of her hands, even as they began to redden and become raw from her insistent scrubbing.

A voice in the back of her mind whispered that it was only a dream. It wasn’t real, this was just the after effects of a nightmare. But she ignored it in favor of curling up on the ground to cry, whispering for her mother or father to come back and take the pain away.

She was only 5 after all, how could she deal with these nightmares on her own? She didn’t understand what was happening, she didn’t know that the blood wasn’t actually on her hands, and the pain still on her midsection wasn’t real.

***

Sakura’s parents never really did come back that night or any other night after. They weren’t due for another month, so Sakura didn’t worry about them. It still didn’t stop her from crying for them every night because the nightmares had only gotten worse from there.

The dreams never came in order.

Sometimes it was about the same dark boy, but he would look different. He would look younger at times with a smirk on his face, and she would be overwhelmed with the feelings of love and affection for him that it left her confused. How could she love a boy that would later on kill her precious people? How could she love a boy that she would kill herself?

Then, it would jump to them all on a bridge with mist surrounding them and frost coming out of their mouth with slow puffs. She would see him lying on the floor with needles all over his body. She would feel pain, then, and she would hate herself for not being able to do anything but stand in the background as he dropped to the ground. She had held him in her arms and cried on his corpse feeling helplessly alone.

Sometimes, Sakura would dream about a boy with bright hair and even brighter eyes. She would dream of his smiles and his goofy jokes and his bright orange clothing that she hated.

She would see his sad expression as he sat on the swings alone and everyone giving him hateful looks, whispering cruel words to a boy that held so much love. A monster , they would whisper and she would look at him with fear because grown ups were always right. Right?

Sakura would dream of the blonde boy the most. She would see him older, more mature. He would be surrounded by people of all types in the future, fighting for peace and love from a war where death was beginning to grow more consistent. Everyone was dropping like flies, but he held onto the hope that they would make it. And she believed him.

She fought by his side even as her comrades died. Even as the blood on her hands began to grow and the exhaustion would drag her farther away from his bright figure in a sea of black.

Sometimes, she would dream of a man with gravity defying silver hair and eyes curled into a smile. Sakura would dream of his warm voice as he addressed Sasuke and the bright eyed blond, and she would dream of him ruffling her pink hair while saying, “Good job, Sakura-chan. We’ll take it from here.” She would feel safe because he had always protected her.

Then, Sakura would see him bent over a Sake bottle with tears in his eyes. She would never forget the way he mourned for all those he had lost throughout his life. Sakura had only wished she learned his story before the war had began, so she could help him heal. She wished they had a bond strong enough to heal each other from the pain they both felt, and she promised herself that they would be able to do just that after the war was over.

She never really did keep that promise.

Sakura would dream of a new team with the same bright boy and a new dark haired boy that couldn’t understand any emotional or social concepts, and a sensei with a sober face and lonely eyes.

Sakura always woke up in tears and an aching pain that left her gasping for breath. Those dreams always left her empty and tired after a few hours of being awake, but she learned to hide it after noticing the added attention it brought to her in the academy.

She learned to cover her thinning figure with baggy clothes, hiding the fact that she could barely stomach any food after remembering the blood that wasn’t really on her hands. Sakura began to focus more on reading everyday so she wouldn’t be left to her thoughts or the memories of bloody smiles and sad goodbyes.

She never told her parents of her dreams even after they came back from their mission, especially after seeing their exhausted and bruised faces. They were already busy trying to support the family, so she smile innocently at their questions of how her day had been and lied right through her teeth. She hated to lie, but she had to if she wanted to keep them from figuring out her nightmares.

She would protect them from her pain because she was a good daughter, and they didn’t deserve the stress or the extra concern.

***

Sakura was 6 when she met the dark haired boy from her dreams. She had been sitting under a tree in the academy’s training yard, reading a scroll about the history of Konohagakure and the other villages when she had spotted him.

He ran past her towards an older boy that looked like him. Distantly, she thought that they were probably brothers (further confirmed when the younger brother had yelled out, “Aniki!”), but she didn’t pay too much mind to that thought. Not when she was too busy trying to remember how to breathe.

She was left feeling cold as the blood drained from her face. That couldn’t possibly be the boy from her dreams, right? He did look the same, but he wasn’t. The boy from her dreams had a mean face and acted like a monster as he slaughtered innocent lives. This boy had a bright smile on his face and he clung to his brother’s arm. It was disorienting to look at.

Sakura clenched the scroll in her hand with shaking fists, watching as the elder brother smiled at Sasuke. They looked so close and happy. It made her wonder if she was wrong about this boy being the man from her dreams. Sakura really hoped so.

She felt her heart pick up it’s frantic rate when the elder brother’s dark eyes locked with her bright green ones. She felt as if she was rooted to the spot as they continued to stare at each other, and she desperately wished that she could force herself to move so she could get out of there.

Sakura nearly choked when she felt the world spinning around her. All she could see were the bright red eyes of two monsters, spinning faster and faster until she fainted. Those red eyes slid into her dreams after her until she was stuck with a new nightmare about black cloaks with clouds on them and the tinkling sound of a mad goddess and the blood red moon.

Chapter Text

Sakura wakes to the sound of something beeping to her right and a cold stiffness that covers her like a blanket. She doesn't open her eyes to look at her surrounding; she doesn't think she could even if she wanted to. Her eyelids were heavy and wouldn't lift up for her to look. So she uses the meager chakra supply coursing through her and expands it to feel and see for her. 

The room she is in, she realizes, is a hospital room. It's a reassuring feeling with the smell of antiseptic filling her nostrils and filling her with a sense of calm. It had been a long time since she had woken up calm in the face of her nightmares. The voice in her head whispers dreams of what once was. She saw herself (a first considering the bright blue eyes and dark hateful ones had filled her dreams in the previous months). She saw herself older, matured but tired. The lines on her face drawn deep from the constant fatigued of no sleep and the fear of losing another precious person. Her body had been littered with dirt and drying blood (from the enemy no doubt) and their was steel in her eyes that made her look much older than she really was. It scraped away at her innocence until there was nothing left (little Sakura could understand that feeling. Her dreams have scraped away her innocence before she could even grasp a hold of it).

When Sakura attempted to open her eyes a third time, they open slowly, crust peeling away at the corners for her to see blinding light and white walls.  There were black spots in her vision and the world around her was spinning, making her feel nauseas. She took a steadying breath, willing the nausea away until she could focus better. She looked more closely at her surroundings, and forced herself up into a sitting position. There was still that familiar feeling of comfort in her gut even though she couldn't understand it. Even with the  sense of comfort-(She had been here a thousand times before. Had healed a thousand people and sent them home with a look of hope. Had heard the whispers that called her a miracle worker, a blessing from the gods themselves. And she felt home here in the hospital)-Sakura couldn't stay. What would her parents think if word came to them that their daughter was in the hospital. (The voice in her head whispered that they weren't here anyway. Off on some mission for a village that only wanted to use their ninja for power. Another part of her remembered the dream of their battered bodies crushed under rubble. The only thing that could identify them as her parents were the rings on their hand-the only thing that hadn't been crushed into something unrecognizable).

There was a tightness in Sakura's chest at the memory and a cold feeling washes over her until she felt like she was drifting from her body. She was not 5 anymore, she was 15 and in a war where everyone was dropping at her feet and she couldn't do anything to help. They were dying and-and she was 5 again in a cold hospital bedroom. Sakura closed her eyes and took another steadying breath, ignoring the tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. Even after everything, she was a crybaby at heart and no matter what she saw in those dreams it would never change that. She wiped her tears away and looked up with determination. It was time to get back to work, she couldn't sit here reminiscing about her dreams- except...that was why she was here in the first place, wasn't it?

She remembered seeing them. The boy with the hateful, manic eyes who had his hand around her throat, her kunai in his hand aimed to kill and!- The older boy who had ruined his little brother in the first place. He had solemn eyes and a blank face, eyes spinning into red and there was so much blood, bodies surrounding him. His kin, how could he do it? How could he kill so willingly- but it hadn't been his fault it was orders from-from- She couldn't remember. Their names were always blurred out in her dreams. It was like a barrier, something was blocking her from remembering it right. Sakura frowned. She had to find a way to control whatever this was before people caught on to her secret.

Sakura nearly shrieks when she heard her door open with a loud clack. It made her stiffen and turn slowly to see a surprised nurse. The nurse utters something she couldn't understand before she dashed off in the direction she just came, and Sakura took that as her cue to get out. She hops off her bed on clumsy feet and made her way out the door mutely. Even with hair as bright as hers, no one notice her slip pass them as she padded her way towards the exit.

She wasn't as lucky when she finally got outside. She was halfway passed the park near the hospital when she found herself face to face-well, face to chest with a boy. She glanced up and blinked at the shinobi headband on the boys head. "Shouldn't you be in the hospital, pinkie-chan?" The boy questioned with a smile on his face. She stared at him for a few moments and when no dream appeared, she wondered if he died before she ever met him. He had a pale complexion and a curly set of hair on his head. If he weren't so cheerful, she would have thought he were an Uchiha. Sakura frowned, "No, Shinobi-san. I was just heading home" She bowed her head to stare at the floor, still too shy and cautious to be around other people. She wasn't used to it. She had kept her distance from others after the dreams starting happening while she was awake. Whenever a new face appeared, she would see a dream of another life and it would leave her confused and afraid to interact with them again.

The boy hummed, unconvinced as he glanced down at her attire. She was dressed in a hospital gown and had no shoes. If he was guessing correctly, she left without permission. But he couldn't begrudge her for the action since he did it all the time himself. "Well, I guess I'll just have to walk you! I can't just let a little girl walk home all by herself, it's dangerous after all" Sakura wanted to point out that he was a stranger, so that made him dangerous too but she kept quiet and let him follow her home.  

She wondered if there were others like him. People who didn't cause dreams to appear and mistake them for others. It gave her a sense of foreboding. Her dreams, after a while of going over them, were almost like visions of the future. If she doesn't see this vision when interacting with certain people...does that mean that they're  dead in the future? She glanced over at the shinobi chatting happily about his quiet cousin and his fondness of dango and wonders when his time will come. A sharp feeling swells up within her at seeing his bright expression, and she decided that she would not let him die. Not when she can see these visions. Maybe she could help him... "-aybe if we run into each other, I can even show you how fast I can be, pinkie-chan!" Sakura zones back into the conversation and looks up at him again. "Sakura." She mumbles, and he blinks. "Sakura?" he parrots and she nods, "My name is Sakura...not pinkie-chan" She makes a face at the nickname. He laughs and ruffles her hair, "Well, Sakura-chan. I guess I'll start calling you cherry-chan instead!" He covers another laugh at her annoyed expression. "And my name is Shisui Uchiha, not shinobi-san."