City of Night

Chapter 28

Chapter 28

"I've never seen you get so angry," Naruto said in a slightly awed voice, gazing out at the city lights spread out before them and Sakura shrugged her shoulders lifelessly and swung her legs absentmindedly over the edge of the tall skyscraper's roof. "I swear you almost broke my arms."

Sakura couldn't stop herself from giggling at that, a little sheepishly. "Sorry," she muttered, her melancholy returning. The small smile dropped from her lips as quickly as it had appeared. Like Naruto, her gaze was trained in front of her, at the dark skyline and the bright lights below. The sound of midnight traffic was loud off in the distance, and Sakura found the familiar sound comforting.

"What happened, Sakura?" Naruto was looking at her now, his blue fox eyes glowing faintly and searching her face and Sakura sighed wearily. "Did you see Sasuke's face?" The Druid nodded with grave understanding. "There was so much pain," he murmured. "Seeing his brother after everything he's done must have been hard but," his eyes were piercing when Sakura turned her head to lock eyes with him. "I think it was hard for Itachi as well." Sakura snorted with disbelief and opened her mouth to retort but Naruto raised his hand to silence her. "Trust me. You were too blinded by your fury, but I saw it."

Sakura didn't doubt anything the blonde boy said; she trusted and understood him too well to believe that he would try to deceive her. She believed him.

"I won't get involved with whatever issues they have," she said finally, her body relaxing after contemplating what Naruto had said. "This is something that Sasuke and Itachi have to work out on their own." She released a shaky breath. "But I wish I could help ease Sasuke's pain. I want to help so badly but..." she trailed off and Naruto nodded with silent understanding. "I know."

Sakura smiled gratefully. Out of everyone and other than Sasuke, Naruto was the person who understood her the best, who knew her the most. She had known him the longest, she realized, having met with and sat with him at the abandoned railway for years. He had only been a small fox at the time before he had revealed his true identity to her, but the mutual understanding and deep friendship was still there. The only difference was that she could talk to him now, and he could talk back.

"What else is bothering you?" He asked and Sakura rolled her eyes. Maybe he understood her just a bit too well. She scooted closer to him, leaning into his side, and he placed his arm comfortingly around her shoulders. She sighed again.

"If Tsunade could hide something like that from all of us," she shook her head, "Imagine what else she could be hiding? It hurt, you know. To think that she couldn't trust me with something like that." Naruto was silent for a while as he thought about what Sakura had just said. They sat in comfortable silence, watching the traffic and the stars and all the happily ignorant humans going about their perfectly and enviably normal lives. The kind of life Sakura would never know.

"Well when you think about it logically, I think Tsunade made the right call," he said finally, breaking the silence and Sakura tensed with surprise, straightening up to look at him with wide eyes. "What?" Naruto shrugged. "I mean, if she had divulged that kind of information to anyone who later fell under Ino's control," he shrugged again. "We'd all kinda be screwed don't you think?"

Sakura was stunned to say the least, both at the blonde Druid's surprising logic and at the fact that his logic and reasoning actually made sense.

"Wow," she breathed, and Naruto looked at her curiously. "What?"

"That actually made sense." He frowned with mock hurt. "Why do you sound so surprised?" And Sakura laughed at him, glad to be able to smile again and feeling her anger and inner turmoil slowly ebb away. She suddenly threw her arms around his shoulders, causing him to yelp with surprise, and hugged him tightly. "Thank you," she murmured into his shoulder before pulling away and Naruto grinned embarrassedly, running his fingers through his wild blonde hair. "Any time, but hey,"