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“I'm sorry, but you're staying. You don't have the clearance to work B-ranks.”
“What am I supposed to do then?” Sakura asks, not because she expects instructions or advice. She's long since learned not to go to Kakashi for answers. He'd probably cut out his sharingan before he'd treat her the same way he does the boys.
She asks because it's a habit, because she's not stupid, because she knows that it's her only shot at making him look her in the eye.
Kakashi jerks his head away. “You could go ask Kurenai if she can teach you a Genjutsu.”
Sakura nods dutifully, puts up a smile, waves them goodbye, and holds off crying until she's home.
The only place that takes Genin interns for a shortage of staff is the hospital.
“You're not needed.” Like a wall between them, the Jounin is wearing a mask. “Return to the village.”
Sakura bites her lip harshly, tastes the red on her tongue and looks away. An awkward silence settles over them.
Eventually, she says, “But Kakashi-sensei, I –“
“Save yourself the energy,” Sasuke cuts in.
She trades off between staring at the dirt, grinding her teeth and giving a flat look. Her eyes flicker from Sasuke, to Naruto, to Kakashi.
“I made Chunin,” she finishes weakly.
Sasuke's eyes are angry and black, and they see right past her. “So what? You're just a medic, and a bad one at that.” He gives a smirk, and it's ever so arrogant. She wants to scrape it off his face, claw it away if she must.
“Sasuke,” Kakashi warns, but Sakura has already leapt forward and drawn a kunai.
Sasuke spins her around like a puppet, and they take off without her.
“See you soon, Sakura-chan,” Naruto had said quietly, and he had the decency to look guilty about it.
“I'd be lying if I said I didn't see it coming.” The head of the hospital pauses. “Are you sure about this?”
Sakura nods. Tsunade-sama sighs, rests her hands on her desk and signs the transfer with a swirl. “You weren't really happy here, were you?”
The Chunin doesn't give an answer, but she doesn't have to.
She stays with the corps for two years, escorting merchants to different corners of the world. The Land of Waves is much smaller than she once believed it to be, with all the other places she's been to in mind. She believed in all sorts of things back then. Now? Not much else has changed with Konoha's support: These people are still starving.
Sakura visits the graves she helped dig, twelve years old and crying over her enemies. She says hello to Zabuza-san and Haku-san, or their ghosts, anyway.
The girl digs up the sword that almost cut her in half what feels like a lifetime ago, and walks all the way across the sea to Mist, to present it as a gift.
“Zabuza? Not half bad for a tree hugger,” they tell her at the gates. “Too bad you're not allowed here, little Genin.”
She raises the kunai she's clutching and scrapes its tip across the tell-tale symbol on her headband, maintaining eye contact.