Chapter Text
The world shattered like cheap glass as the Infinite Tsukuyomi dissolved.
Sakura’s mind, waking from the dream, immediately spun into a frantic, spiraling panic. Sasuke... Naruto... did they survive?
Are they even alive?
Before her eyes could fully adjust to the dimming light of the battlefield, a familiar, heavy presence materialized beside her.
“Kakashi-sensei…” she breathed.A wave of profound relief washed over her at the sight of her teacher, but it evaporated the instant she locked eyes with him.
Kakashi’s face was obscured by his fabric mask as always, but his visible eye held a devastating, leaden weight.
It was an expression she had never seen on the Copy Ninja: absolute, agonizing pity.
Before she could form a question, Kakashi was moving.
It was a desperate scramble.
He dropped heavily to his knees in the dirt right in front of her.
His hands hovered over her shoulders, trembling slightly as he checked her for hidden injuries with a frantic energy.
“Sakura, are you okay? Are you feeling any pain? Speak to me, please,” he demanded. His voice was raw, stripped entirely of its usual casual indifference.
“Kakashi-sensei,” she interrupted, her voice shaking but resolute as she pushed his hands away.
“Where are they? Where are Naruto and Sasuke?”
Kakashi hesitated.
A flicker of sorrowful surprise passed through his eye.
He knew her, he knew she always put the boys first, but after everything that had transpired, this selflessness felt tragic.
“Sakura, for once in your life… just worry about yourself,” Kakashi pleaded softly, his hand dropping to his side.
“Kakashi-sensei, I thank you for your concern… but I am a medical ninja. I am entirely useless if I cannot help them,” she said, her voice hardening as she forced herself to stand.
She looked him dead in the eye, her green irises blazing with a fierce, desperate clarity.
“I need to see them. I need to heal them. I am a part of Team Seven, too.”
Kakashi held her gaze for a long, agonizing moment.
Realizing her stubbornness would not break, he nodded curtly.
Without another word, he scooped her up into his arms and leapt toward the horizon, tracking the two massive, fading chakra signatures vibrating in the distance.
When they landed, the scene stole the air from Sakura's lungs.
They stood on the fractured, hollowed-out stone of the Final Valley.
The towering statues of Madara and Hashirama had been reduced to rubble.
And there, lying in the center of the destruction, were Naruto and Sasuke.
Both lay battered and bloody, both missing an arm, their blood pooling together on the rain-slicked rock.
Naruto, catching sight of them through a swollen eye, forced a wide, painful grin. “Hey… Sakura-chan…” he rasped, using his remaining hand to weakly rub the back of his head, ever the stubborn, exhausting optimist.
Beside him, Sasuke said absolutely nothing. His dark gaze was fixed on the stormy sky, his breathing shallow and ragged, his jaw locked tight.
Sakura slid out of Kakashi's hold.
Her boots clicked against the wet stone as she stood on her own shaky legs.
Her pink hair fell forward in damp strands, shielding her eyes and obscuring her expression from the world.
A heavy, suffocating silence stretched over the valley, punctuated only by the sound of dripping rain.
“Have you gone mad?!”The scream tore from her throat, raw, feral, and completely uncontrolled.
It echoed off the canyon walls.
Everyone froze.
Even the wind seemed to die.
She marched forward, her boots slapping against the bloody puddles.
Her voice rose, shaking with a violent mixture of heartbreak and pure, unadulterated rage.
“And you!”
She stopped inches from Sasuke, looking down at his broken form.
Tears finally cut clean tracks through the grime and ash on her face.
“Who do you think you are?! Constantly hurting the people I love! Ruining everything we try to build!”
She leaned down, her shadow completely eclipsing him.
“You are the most selfish, cold-hearted person I have ever known.”
Sasuke didn't move a muscle, but a flicker of genuine shock crossed his features.
He had expected her tearful begging.
He had expected her desperate pleas for him to come home.
He had never, in his entire life, received this absolute, devastating contempt from Sakura Haruno.
“How could you…” Sakura choked on the words, the sheer futility of her entire teenage existence crashing down on her.
She realized, with a sudden, chilling clarity, that words were useless.
She turned her back on them. Her shoulders trembled violently, but she forced her hands to form a single, steady hand sign.
Biting her thumb, she slammed her palm against the stone, summoning a small, glowing piece of Katsuyu.
Her next words were barely a whisper, yet in the dead silence of the ruined valley, they carried like a thunderclap.
“Goodbye.”
Before anyone could process the weight of that word, Naruto roared.
Fueled by sudden, furious adrenaline, he used his remaining arm to grab Sasuke by the collar, shoving him back down against the cold, unforgiving stone.
“Oi, teme! Why did you have to go and do that?! Why did you have to hurt Sakura-chan, you total idiot!” Naruto yelled, his voice cracking with emotion.
Sasuke didn't fight back against Naruto's grip.
He just stared blankly ahead, his voice flat and empty.
“I told you before… I don’t need her love. I don’t want it.”
“Sasuke.”
Kakashi’s voice cut through the air.
It was icy, thick with a profound, terrifying disappointment that made Naruto instantly let go of Sasuke's collar.
The remaining Team Seven mentor stepped closer, looking down at his last Uchiha student.
“Sakura loved you more than she loved herself,” Kakashi said, his voice dropping into a low, final decree.
“She gave you every single piece of her heart, even when you tried to rip it out.
And now, Sasuke… she has finally realized you aren’t worth it. She has lost all love for you. You are completely alone.”
The words echoed through the canyon, hitting harder than any Chidori or Rasengan ever could.
For a split second, a cold, and empty pit opened up in Sasuke’s chest.
A terrifying thought pierced his armor: Who will love me now?
But just as quickly as the panic flared, Sasuke violently pushed it down.
He forced the agonizing realization into the darkest, most unreachable depths of his mind, locking it away behind walls of cold indifference.
If he was to be a revolutionary, he would be a ghost.