Sakura Triumphant

Sakura Triumphant

The girl was slippery with blood. Fortunately, only some of it was hers; if it was all her blood, she would have been dead. As it was, she was barely clinging to life. Besides her knelt a silvery-haired man who was desperately trying to stop the bleeding. Unfortunately, it was the girl, Haruno Sakura, who was the medic ninja, rather than the man, one Hatake Kakashi. While trying to stabilize her enough for transport, he recalled how they had gotten into this mess in the first place.

It started out as a fairly simple intelligence mission. Kakashi and Sakura, along with Nara Shikamaru and Hyunga Neji, were assigned to discover as much as possible about the Hidden Mist village. It was rumored that Orochimaru was planning on attacking, and the Hokage wanted it to be confirmed, along with numbers of enemy ninja and other such things.

However, when they neared the village, they were attacked and separated. After defeating his enemies, Kakashi was able to continue with the mission. When he felt he had gathered as much information as possible, he left to meet the rest of the team at the rendezvous spot that they were to meet at if separated. Shikamaru was already there, and Neji arrived a short time later, but there was no trace of Sakura. Worried, the ninja split up to search for their teammate. Kakashi found her.

She was curled up under a tree, a trail of blood leading to her. There were signs that a great battle had taken place there; trees were snapped and uprooted, the ground was torn up, and three corpses littered the area.

"Sakura-chan?" he whispered, trying not to startle her, "Sakura-chan, what happened to you?"

Her eyes dully looked towards him.

"Sasuke." She said it with no emotion, save a touch of pain.

Sasuke. The boy she had idolized for so long, even though he never returned her affections. Even after he left for Orochimaru, he never heard her speak of him in a negative light. It was he who had done this to her.

"I'm sorry," Kakashi said, head bowed, "I'll make him pay for what he did."

"You can't." Sakura laughed, a strange, pained laugh that didn't sound like her at all. "He's dead."

His visible eye widened in shock. "You killed him?"

"Yes. His body's over there."

She pointed to a corpse that was partially covered by a tree. The Copy Ninja went over to look. It was indeed Sasuke and he was very dead.

Returning to Sakura, he started to look at her wounds. There was one large injury to her abdomen and several other, smaller wounds scattered around her body. Quickly, he started making makeshift bandages to try and save her life, which brings us back to the beginning. As he tightened one of the bandages, she coughed violently, spitting out blood.

"Sensei?" she rasped, "Do you - am I weak?"

"Yes," he answered honestly, "But I'll be able to move you soon and we'll get you back to Konoha to heal you."

"No," she responded, louder this time, "Do you think I'm weak?"

"No," he said, realizing what she meant, but she acted like she didn't hear him, instead murmuring, "He said I was still weak."

"Who, Sasuke?"

"Yes. He told me I was still the weakling that I was on Team 7. Right before he was going to kill me, he said that."

Kakashi's eye twitched. "You proved him wrong."

"It made me furious. I broke the hold he had on me and his neck. Then dropped a tree on him." Her voice faltered. "But he was right. I - I'm going to die. I am weak."

"Sakura, look at me," Kakashi commanded, "Sasuke is dead. You need to stop believing in what he said. I am not going to let you die."

Quickly, he summoned Pakkun and sent him for the rest of the team, then to tell Tsunade to prepare for an emergency patient, all the while trying to help Sakura. The team arrived shortly and the three of them transported her to the hospital. Before going into surgery, however, Sakura had one question.

"Sensei? Why are sure that I won't die?"

He looked her straight in the eye.

"Because you're strong, Sakura. I believe in you."

With that, he watched her be wheeled into the operation room.

It took Sakura two long weeks to recover. Two weeks to see that she wasn't weak, to see that every hurtful thing Sasuke ever told her wasn't true, to realize how much energy she had wasted even thinking about him, and to discover the one that became her true strength and comfort in times of need.

When she was allowed to leave, Kakashi met her at the door.

"Kakashi-sensei?" she asked timidly.

"Yes Sakura-chan?"

"I just wanted to say, thanks. I don't think I could have made it without you."

He smiled. "Anything for my favorite girl."

Happily, the pair left the hospital with a newfound understanding and each other.