Chapter Text
In three days, Haruno Sakura is going to kill Uchiha Sasuke. This is both a surprise and not.
Lee told her to get some sleep, but the combination of the permeating cold of the snow and Kiba and Akamaru’s snoring and Sai’s cold hand in hers and the You are going to kill Uchiha Sasuke makes it impossible for her to shut her eyes.
She leans her head on Sai’s bony shoulder. He doesn’t react. He’s the only one who can know. He’s the only one that understands, and she is still going to betray him in three days, much the same as she is going to betray Naruto, much the same as she is going to betray Sasuke.
There’s something of a difference between Sasuke, her friend, and Sasuke, Uchiha. She can’t quite say if it’s just a way to differentiate herself, if she’s trying to divide between Sakura, Team Seven, and Sakura, Shinobi of Konoha. She wonders if it was hard for Sai to accept his name, because a name means titles, means assumptions, means connections.
And then she feels desperately selfish, because of course it was hard for him, but she knows very well it would have been harder for him to remain nameless at all.
This is all selfish. Her eyes burn.
This is not at all about Sakura, Shinobi of Konoha, and entirely about Sakura, Former Team Seven. This is about Sakura, consistently selfish. This is about Sakura, forgotten. This is about Sakura, underestimated.
This is about Sakura, knowing that for all of Naruto’s tears and all of Kakashi’s regrets, they will do everything to stop her, and she cannot let them.
She tightens her hand in Sai’s. After a long, long moment and what she knows must be a lot of thought on his part, he squeezes her hand back. Despite the cold, despite all the cold, she smiles.
They stay there until morning. She doesn’t hardly shut her eyes to blink, let alone rest, but all the same she feigns it when Kiba peers blearily at her and asks if she got enough rest.
And, oh, she feels awful lying straight to Naruto’s face, telling him it no longer matters to her, that he should give up. She wishes she could pull him aside, away from the eyes of everyone else, tell him the truth or the closest approximation she can even verbalize, but she can’t. She knows damn well he’d never listen, not truly.
She loves Naruto, so much, but he will never, ever, be someone she can tell the truth. The truth is reserved for no one but herself and Sai when it spills over.
It was a long shot. She knows, for all her words, that his chase has never had anything to do with her, nor anything to do with any of them. It’s just that Naruto has his people, and Sasuke will be one of them. No matter where he goes or what he does or whether he fucking destroys Konoha or kills Naruto, he will always be one of Naruto’s people.
The most she can do is be glad she’s one too. Maybe it will spare her life when Sasuke’s dead.
She can’t let him destroy himself for one of his people, but she can damn well destroy herself. What else are medical nin for?
She lets him leave, and she says nothing more. Not when Shikamaru asks, all strategy and plans and the poorly hidden impatience of wanting to get things done. Not when Sai asks, all tactless questions and the wrinkle in his brow that he’s never able to iron out even despite his perfect impassivity. Not when they leave her alone in the cold.
She pulls Sai aside later.
“Don’t be surprised when I start crying,” is the first thing she says. He tilts his head at her.
She takes his hand and he lets her. “I can’t have the others thinking I’m any threat to him.”
“They already know you’re on board with the plan,” he points out in the tone of someone wondering whether he’s contributing or back-talking.
She shakes her head. “If they know I’m going to go off on my own they’ll keep an eye on me. If they think I’m wrecked they won’t have reason to.”
He nods, slowly. She can practically see the pieces click together. He’s a strategist, himself. Just not an emotional one. Nor has he ever been a woman. “So if you cry they’ll discount you as a threat.”
“Exactly.”
“I’ll need more information on that later.” They both know there’s little chance of later. She still shoots him a smile and an affirmative. She can at least give him that.
He does still blink at her when she starts blubbering.
It doesn’t take much forcing, for what it’s worth. She really does want to cry. She really does want to throw herself at Shikamaru and bury her face in his vest and wonder if death smells like the cigarettes he smokes when he thinks no one notices.
And so she does. She knows it must look ridiculous to everyone else, the sobbing interspersed with the absolute insistence that she take part in the plan. But that’s the point.
(And, a particularly vicious part of her mutters, let them deal with a teammate like this, and see how they fare. Let them judge her. They will look at her back.)
Shikamaru, for his part, has gotten much better at comforting since they were little. He hugs her back and tells the others to leave— Sai refuses, and Shika almost snaps at him before she blubbers that it’s fine— and tells her that he gets it, even though she knows he doesn’t.
And she almost tells him this before she thinks that yes, in fact, this will be a death, and he knows death.
Instead she tells him nothing at all, just lets him comfort her and pretends that there’s nothing else. Just this.
He tells her that she doesn’t need to be a part of this, not if she doesn’t want to, that no one would blame her, and she almost laughs.
If only. But teams take responsibility for one another, and much the same as Naruto has his people, she has hers.