Sacrifice and Surrender

9: Feel

From the scene with Tobirama and Hashirama, Sakura felt such a conflict of emotion that she couldn't stand it. She ran and kept running until she didn't know where she was.

Tobirama...the reanimation... She fell to her knees on the forest floor. Her head spun with everything that had happened. It all seemed to have blown up so fast. The dinner had been so nice. She was finally starting to feel a little calmer around Mito, and the conversation was making her laugh and feel at home. Then Tobirama said those things about Shouta. It was so hard for Sakura to remember the differences between the times. All the lines in her life were getting blurred. In this era, injuries like what Shouta had were written off, and he was cast aside, just like he had been before she came along. But in her time, that wasn't the case. Her generation had forced change through the indomitable will of people like Naruto, and Lee, and Tsunade. The views on the way things happened in their world were changing under their influence, and through people like Gaara, who embraced the new way of leading.

Sakura wasn't going to give up on cases like Shouta, just like Tsunade hadn't given up on Lee. Lee's determination was more obvious than Shouta's, but Sakura could see it in his eyes. She saw the helplessness he felt, she saw the hope, the life that their first session had brought him. He was in pain, but he still did it. She was going to get him in form, she was going to give him back the hope he'd lost.

A rustling to the side snapped Sakura to attention. She looked up and saw a very large deer coming out of the forest. Sakura froze, suddenly realising where she was. Four more deer appeared behind the lead, and Sakura sat very still as they surrounded her. She slowly stood, and the deers eyed her warily. She knew that by now the Nara had been alerted that there was an intruder in their forest. The deer wouldn't let her stand. Every time she moved, they came closer, their front hooves pawing at the ground. So she sat still and waited, wondering how she was going to explain what she was doing.

"It's Lady Sakura!"

She heard the surprised voice of a Nara somewhere close. From the trees came several members of the clan. Shikaru stepped forward, his hand rubbing along the side of the deer who was the leader. Sakura gave him a weak smile.

"So, how are you doing, Shikaru?"

He raised an eyebrow.

"I was just about to go to sleep," he said. "You look like you could use some tea."

"Tea would be nice," Sakura replied.

He held out a hand to her and lifted her to her feet. Sakura tried to ignore the strange looks she was getting from the other Nara. Shikaru let out a breath.

"All right. Go home and keep this quiet until Lady Sakura and I have a chat," he said to his clansmen.

They disappeared back into the shadows and the deer melted back into the forest, and it was just Shikaru, Shikata and Sakura left. Shikaru was giving her a hard look and Sakura felt her cheeks redden.

"I'm so sorry," she apologised.

"Father, let's go back to the house," Shikata said.

Shikaru nodded and Sakura followed them back to the house quietly. She had calmed down from her earlier outburst, but she still felt anger towards Tobirama for what he said about Itachi, and she couldn't quite feel sorry for saying that he was the reason for so many deaths and that she was disgusted by him. Her anger was too close to the surface to regret those words yet. Shikaru left Sakura and Shikata in the dining area of the house.

"Are you okay?" Shikata asked, concerned.

Sakura saw he was looking at her dress. It was dirtied with the forest floor. She stepped onto the balcony to brush it off before she came back inside.