Reborn as Sakura and Hinata: Lost in the Wind (Part 2)

Within the Dream's Reality

I slowly pushed the door to the room open, trying to create as little noise as possible to not wake up its sleeping occupants. The shower had been refreshing... in a way. It was lonely though, and did nothing to banish the exhaustion that permeated into my bones, did nothing to restore my barely recovered chakra reserves, did nothing to make her wake up.

Entering the room, I was unsurprised to confirm that Takumi had long since fallen asleep, slumped over in his chair in a way that'd probably end up hurting his neck. I walked over, gently lifting his head up and instead resting it against the wall although it'd inevitably fall back down again. He had cried enough to fill an ocean in just the few days that Sakura had been unconscious, his wife kind and generous enough to offer help where she could and allow him to stay here.

He was a comforting presence now that he'd calmed some, although the bright blue waters of his eyes had been replaced by stormy seas, dark with turmoil. It was a look I had seen too much now in too many eyes, too many eyes that should have been filled with happiness and optimism for their futures.

Satisfied for the moment with the position of Takumi's head, I turned back to the hospital bed, breath catching for a moment. Kiba's arms were folded on the bed by Sakura's legs, head buried in them and one hand holding hers, Akamaru curled at his feet. His clan's cloak was draped over her, leaving him looking almost small now. He still refused to leave her side... he'd hardly left the room except for once to shower, but, besides that, he'd remained in place, sitting right there next to her, waiting.

He'd also stopped crying long ago, but unlike Takumi, when he was crying it wasn't like the heartbroken wails of Ino and Lee, or the soft sobs of Yui and Izumi, the choking cries of Naruto, or the violent, passionate denial of Sasuke. It was silent. The sobs had only stayed for when we'd found her, and even those were quiet, but I'd never seen someone sit so stoically yet have tears running down their cheeks. You'd have never been able to tell walking into the room that he was crying until you saw his face, eyes staring off and watering. Now he was just reduced to staring, but maybe he'd finally decided to get some sleep, or perhaps his body decided for him.

I gave the nurse, who had taken the role of caring for her while I was gone, a nod, which she returned before exiting the room, and I made my way back to Sakura's side. My eyes wanted to water, but there was nothing left, everyone had run out of tears, and now all I had to give her was all the chakra I could spare and the trust that she'd wake up for me.

She was cute when she slept, but the way that her brow was ever so slightly furrowed, the subtle downturn of her lips, conveyed something ominous, like she knew something was wrong. Those lips couldn't tell me what was happening, her voice had been stolen from her again, her choice had been stolen from her again and now she was relegated to the World's damned will.

When would we stop being puppeted? We were cruelly taunted with a reality that was kind for once, a future in which we'd live as a happy family with a man in power that would make sure she wouldn't be abused again, and people that would ensure I wasn't abused again. We had everything, everything was set up, everything was right, but it was all a lie, a farce that I had convinced myself was real, because, somewhere under it all there was something my Byakugan and Sharingan missed.

Of course, I couldn't have been naive enough to find everything 'perfect', no, there was no such thing as 'perfect'. Sakura still wasn't okay, not completely, still in the fledgling stages of tackling the very trauma that made her disappear in the first place. Trauma was still ever present in our lives, us finally now being able to turn to each other to move past it, but I could consider that a good thing.

Even my own husband was still teetering on that very carefully balanced edge, trying to tackle every new thing life kept throwing at us while dragging along too much he still had to let go of. This... this scared me for so many reasons because if the worst did truly happen, it was so many others at stake as well. It would take too long to find 'normal' again, it would be too great, it would fracture the village, fracture the world... fracture me, and I couldn't afford to fracture.