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Konoha, reduced to rubble.
Naruto, staked to the ground.
Pain, cloaked in menace.
Hyuuga Hinata leaps to defend.
"Let me protect you this time."
Sakura wasn't there for the fight, doesn't actually know what was said during the battle. But she has mostly been able to piece it together. Some variation of "I love you so much, I don't care if it kills me." Sakura can relate.
Sakura keeps finding her thoughts drawn back to Hinata, over and over again, as Konoha struggles to rebuild. She dismisses it at first as simply worrying over her patient’s recovery. But she clears Hinata to join the teams combing through the wreckage, and still her mind wanders to her. Does Hinata feel lighter, having declared her love? Is anybody asking her about it? Is everybody asking her about it, and she can’t get a moment’s peace? Has she approached Naruto for a private conversation? Has Naruto approached her?
Sakura highly doubts that last one. He and Sakura herself have poured all of their time and attention to regaining their lost teammate. They may have been apart for a few years, but she knows that she and Naruto are united in their goal. They won’t be distracted from it, even if that distraction is all he ever wanted. Love and acceptance.
“I can’t actually tell if she’s more subdued and withdrawn than usual, because she’s always been so quiet,” Ino remarks to her one day as they’re leaving the hospital area together after their triple shift.
Sakura nods silently, not bothering to question how Ino knew her thoughts had been lingering on Hinata.
Ino had taken his leaving really hard, almost as hard as Team 7 itself. Not that she ever said as much to Sakura. Sakura suspects that Ino felt that her grief shouldn’t overshadow that of his own teammates’. He had never been close to Ino, after all. Ino was probably more struggling with the idea of any child of Konoha, but especially an heir to an honored clan, being able to turn their back on the village.
Sakura can’t be certain, though, because Sakura hadn’t wanted to talk about it, choosing instead to throw herself into learning. Learning medical techniques, learning augmented taijutsu, learning Tsunade’s trademark seal. Trying to earn his return, she supposes now.
By the time Sakura had felt ready to talk about it, Ino had moved on. Oh, Ino comforted her and commiserated with her and deferred to Sakura’s insistences that they would get Sasuke back. But Ino no longer held out hope for Sasuke’s return. She had felt every inch of that loss and then accepted it.
What would Hinata do, if Naruto formally rejected her? How long would she hold out hope before grieving her feelings and putting them away? Would she stay as resolute and hopeful as her apparent inspiration?
Sakura and Naruto never went through that process, never stopped believing that he’ll come back. Whether on his own terms or on their terms. She knows they’re right, thinks they’re right, needs them to be right. Because they’re either right or they’re stupid. Delusional. Mired in the past.
Sasuke said he left because Konoha was weak.
Well, if he wasn’t right then, he’s certainly right now.
Konoha is barely holding it together.