Immolated

Chapter One

  "But the memories that hang heaviest are the easiest to recall. They hold in their creases the ability to change one's life, organically, forever. Even when you shake them out, they've left permanent wrinkles in the fabric of your soul."            - Julie Gregory                                        

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Recently, she's caught herself at her office's window ledge, spending her late night shift's last few hours here. God knows what time it is, but the sun will soon appear above the horizon. Sitting here, enjoying her beautiful hometown's scenery; she has no idea when this place have become so breathtakingly mesmerizing. When Sakura was little, she spent most of my time searching for secret bunkers all around the village, but somehow it still did not get her eyes like the way it does nowadays.

It was the middle of April; the early, cold nights had said goodbye long before, and as weeks go by, the air keeps getting heavier and heavier. The chilly after-midnight breeze is heavenly this time around, especially when you're literally locked inside a freaking hospital.

You'd think that the night shifts are the most hateful things in a life of a doctor. Commuting between the patient rooms, changing the filled bedpans, mistakenly moved IVs, and emptied infusion bags, and „magically" disappearing catheters... It's a nightmare, really.

It is tiring to be always standby whatever happens, but thankfully, these problems usually stop around 3AM. Suddenly, silence occupies every room on every floor, all you can hear is the lumbering footsteps of the exhausted nurses.

If she wanted to be honest, she wasn't just sitting here enjoying the weather. As she was resting her head on the window frame, she bored into thought, that maybe, not so far away; they might do the same.

It's been five years. Five painfully long years. After Sasuke's getaway, soonly after Naruto waved goodbye to Konoha, too. Standing alone at the North's gate, with her eyes following his receding figure... She did not want to admit, but she's never felt so left behind like that day. 

She was starring down her lap; examining her hands. They were not the hands of an average nineteen-year-old girl. Not even a full-time working doctor. Seeing her short nails, always-bruised knuckles and the callousity of her palm, she clenched her fists. No, it was the hands of a hard-working shinobi. She was not useless anymore.

For the past five years, she was the apprentice of the Fifth Hokage. She became one of the leading figure of the Medical Division. She was a freshy inducted Jounin of Konoha. And most of all, one of the advisors of her teacher, Tsunade Shishou. She got it all by herself. By her own strenght. By her own will. Still, she has never felt so weak. 

She was left behind by all his loved ones.

She has lost his parents, her only relatives,  in an outrage in the outskirts of the Fire Country almost a year ago. She felt like Life is playing some kind of sick joke with Team 7. They were no more than some bunch of orphaned brats who happened to be in a team, leaded by an orphaned man himself. 

However, she did not have the right to be sorrowful. Yes, she was the last Haruno in Konoha, but that did not mean she was alone. Shishou took good care of her since then, giving her extra attention. There was Team 10, who were always at her side: Ino made sure she was occupied in her darker moments, Chouji considered his own task to make sure Sakura was in good shape, did not neglect eating; and there was Shikamaru, the other advisor beside her, who seemed to be a good company on a daily basis. He helped her grow up to the task to be a leading strategist as he is for the Hokage, got to know her strengths and weaknesses, and what she thanked the most: made her days more bearable.