(Naruto) Moonlight IV
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Love is not blind; it simply enables one to see things others fail to see.
--unknown
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Eve
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“Forehead!” Blonde hair falls over Sakura’s shoulders as Ino hugs her from behind.
“Pig, what are you doing here?” Standing outside of the hospital, after a check-up, she looks at her friend in surprise.
“W-we wanted to c-c-check up on y-you,” a quiet voice answers and Sakura turns around to see Hinata standing shyly in behind her.
“I just came back from a mission,” Ino adds, not wanting to be left out before blurting, “Is it true? That you’re…that you’re going blind?”
“…yeah, it is.” Ino freezes, her eyes wide. There is something panicky about her as when she starts to move, the prey caught in a trap.
Unlike Ino, Hinata’s eyes soften and she gently grabs one of Sakura’s hands. A calm lake of understanding, she offers her condolences. “I…I-I’m sorry. If there’s a-anything I c-can do…”
Ino cuts her off, enraged by the peace surrounding the two. “There has to be something that can be done! Some technique or medicine. You can’t go blind!” She grabs at anything she can almost desperately, not wanting it to be true. There were times when she hated Sakura but this…she never wanted this. It’s hard to imagine going blind, not being able to see anything at all. The world turning off forever until it is a black sea that can’t be swum out of. “Maybe we should look at the library or something. We’ll find a way.”
“Ino…we….Tsunade already looked. There isn’t.”
“No, there has to be one. If not, I’ll make one.” Sakura gives Ino a tired look and she almost wants to scream, You’re going blind, you’re not going to be able to see, why aren’t you angry? Why are you giving me that look, one of pity, as though you know that it’s futile? It doesn’t make sense, this reversal in their roles. Sakura’s supposed to be the one trying to find a way still.
“Ino, there isn’t. I did a technique that is slowly damaging my eyes now.” Sakura flashes a bright-it’s fake, Ino thinks, it has to be fake-smile. “It’s nice seeing you again…before I completely lose my sight, let’s have a girl’s night out?”
“S-sure. We just h-have to w-wait for Tenten. She’s o-on a m-mission.”
“Ok, then we’ll wait for then.”
“Sakura.” She finally uses her friend’s name and she knows what she’ll do. “I’m going to find a way.” I have to.
-x-
“Naruto…would you mind doing some gardening for me?” Sakura asks, smiling innocently, the first rays of sunlight.
“Gardening?” Naruto grimaces, her smile throwing him off because isn’t that how the predator hunts? Luring the prey away with false smiles and charming manners? “But…”
“Please?” She tries again, laying her trap again, and she knows that she has him caught.
“Why can’t you do it yourself?” He twitches slightly as she continues to look at him and sighs, defeated. He couldn’t refuse, not ever and definitely not now. “Fine but teme has to help too!”
“Thank you! Now, I need you to pull out the weeds. And I mean the weeds this time.” She stares pointedly at Naruto, remembering his gardening prowess.
“I know what weeds are,” he protests as he kneels down in her garden. Sasuke is already there, silently pulling out weeds and soon the only thing she can hear is Naruto’s grumbling.
She can’t very well say that she can’t tell the difference between the weeds and some of her plants. To be exact, she can notice the difference but only when she looks closely and that will take longer than getting them to do it for her.
Sasuke is a wraith, just flowing over the garden from one spot to another. He doesn’t complain at all, just moves as though he has always been a part of her garden. It scares her, a little, how good he is at blending into the background.
“Naruto, be more careful…actually, do me a favour?” She gives up on him after the tenth daffodil he pulled out.
“What?” While Naruto isn’t one to give up, he couldn’t be happier leaving the garden. He’s out of his element, a fox amid the chickens, and anything would be better than this. Dusting off his pants, the blond boy gets up and walks up to the porch.
“Go and buy some ice-cream, ok?” This plan has another objective besides getting Naruto away and having a treat. She’d also get to talk to Sasuke alone. Getting up, Sakura steps down the stairs and onto the grass. Pulling out her purse, she presses a few coins into his hand. “There’s a guy selling ice-cream bars down the street. Buy…” Sakura glances at Sasuke, unsure if he should have one.
Naruto solves the problem, giving her a grin. “Hey, bastard, I’m getting you some ice-cream.” With that, he breaks into a run and disappears around the corner of her house.
It’s quiet again, with Sasuke just pulling the weeds. An awkward silence because he doesn’t look at her at all. He hardly does when she’s near him, like she’s a live bomb, and she wonders why is it always so hard to start something with him.
“Um…hey,” she says, uncertain of how to begin. “I…welcome back. I didn’t say that before, did I?”
He glances up at her before returning to the weeds.
“You know.” There is an anger in her, a small beast she repressed, and now it breaks free. “I worked hard to bring you back to Konoha. I didn’t do it so that you’d act like you barely know us, that you are a stranger forced to stay here. You’re worse than Sai right now.”
There is still no response and she stamps her foot, causing a small tremor, one dwarfed by the earthquakes within her. “Answer me, already.”
He finally stops weeding. Putting down the weeds, he replies slowly. “I never asked for it.”
“What?” She nearly missed it, so surprised that his lips could still form words and his throat remembered how to make noise.
“I didn’t need to be ‘rescued’ or brought back.”
“…” This is all the thanks she got, after training and fighting for years? This is what he tells her? He didn’t want to be saved? “We brought you home, where you belong, and this is how you act? Do you know how much Naruto sacrificed for you? How much I did?” She’s appearing emotional again, reverting back to her childhood form, and while it bothers her, it feels good to vent.
“I didn’t ask you to do it.” Sasuke turns back to the gardening and she knows this discussion is over. That power is always his, the ability to stop something. He won’t answer another question, probably finding it a waste of time.
“Here’s your ice-cream, Sakura-chan,” Naruto yells as he returns. There’s a chocolate smear around his lips and a popsicle stick poking out of his mouth. “It’s strawberry-flavoured.” He drops a small object into her hands and then hurls another at Sasuke. “I got him vanilla.”
Sasuke grabs it before it can hit him and then lays it on the ground beside him. He doesn’t touch it after that and she remembers how he didn’t like sweets before. Probably he still doesn’t. He hadn’t changed much, after all. He still kept everything to himself, still thought that he could make it on his own.
It’s later, when Anko, who retrieves Sasuke every night, arrives that she thinks of an answer. When Sasuke is about to leave she softly tells him, “You never had to ask.”
-x-
Hinata spent days in her room, looking up different charts on the eye. After learning what happened to Sakura’s eyes, she immediately went to the Hyuuga’s storage house. There were many charts about eyes and she had hoped that maybe one of them could help her. Staying cooped up in the room, she poured over everything, a dog sniffing out the trail.
Sometimes Shino and Kiba would stop by. Shino would stay and help her for a few hours until Kiba would appear. He couldn’t stand the smell of the musty papers and would promptly drag the two of them out for some fun.
Any guilt she felt over having fun instead of searching was overthrown by the fact that her teammates helped her. They cared enough that they would pull her out of the mess she made, take her from the shadows and back into the sun.
Today, when she finally gives up because there is nothing left to do and the trail is cold, Hinata thinks that Sakura will be able to survive either way. She’s strong and her team…her team will be like Hinata’s and help her.
They just have to.
-x-
Sakura looks out her window, staring at the mountain. The faces of the past and current Hokage’s stare back, noticing more than she could ever notice. Sometimes she wishes she could ask what they see from there, what sort of wisdom they get from their vantage above the earth.
It’s silly, wanting to talk to stone, but she does anyways because the view up there must be inspiring. Too bad she hasn’t gone up there enough or tried to pay attention to the scene when she did.
Naruto’s face will go up there when he’s Hokage, she realizes. Sakura doesn’t doubt for an instant that he’ll achieve his dream. The only problem is when.
From her house, the faces look like one large, earthy blur melding together to make a giant cliff.
She almost regrets doing that jutsu because she won’t be able to see his face join the others.
-x-
While things aren’t better with Sasuke, the air is less tense. It’s not quite friendly but it is more like a group of strangers working together instead of two people and another person.
If she says it is because of her talk, it would be a lie. She could never convince him to do anything; he just never listened to her at all.
It probably is, if anything, because Naruto would keep forcing Sasuke to do menial tasks until he finally started to fight back. His methods aren’t as obvious as they used to be, with punches or taunting words. There are no bright fires and glares that reveal their connection. Instead there are small things called vegetables in Naruto’s ramen and Naruto is suddenly left alone in a room with a vacumn and duster. Sasuke uses subtle tactics but it is something at the very least.
Sometimes Sakura could see a glimpse of Sasuke, of a person she used to know and still might. He is slowly becoming the boy she remembered, except he can never be that boy again. They have all changed too much, she isn’t that girl anymore and Naruto isn’t that boy anymore either.
If anything, they are all just reaching a point where they can compromise and stand each other. Sasuke can tolerate them and Sakura can try to talk to him without wanting to run. Naruto no longer has to bridge the awkward moments because the silence isn’t so uncomfortable anymore.
She doubts they can be ‘Team Seven’ ever again. She doesn’t doubt that they might be a team, though.
-x-
The library is smaller than she remembered or maybe that’s because Ino had gone through most of the books in it already. Sitting by one of the study tables in the back, sunlight pouring out the window and over her shoulder, she leafs through a book. It isn’t a big book, more of a leather-bound journal, but it’s based on eye research and that makes it valuable.
“Come on, there has to be something,” she murmurs to herself as she scans page after page. When she reaches the last page, the book is thrown down with disgust and she reaches into the pile for another one.
There will be a solution. There just has to be. Even though Sakura and Tsunade gave up, Ino will not and she will fix everything.
It’s easy to think positively when she ignores the growing pile of useless books.
-x-
When Naruto sees Sakura squinting, trying to see something in the distance, or Sasuke just standing there, doing nothing, he is afraid. There aren’t many things that make him afraid but this is one of them. He fears that nothing will change, that everything will stay the way it is. Change is what separated the team, but change is what can bring them together again.
Some of it, he can’t do anything about, like Sakura going blind. What he can do, instead, is to bring back the old Sasuke. Or rather, because Sasuke can’t come back like that, is help bring a little of the old into the new.
It’s a confusing thought but it is his thought and he understands it. At the very least it is a plan that he can try to follow.
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A/N: Hmm…I hope this chapter doesn’t seem too rushed. If it does, please tell me. I’m even more worried about the next chapter, actually, because I’m halfway through it and it seems rapid.
Or that might just be me again. I tend to over think these things sometimes.
And, this chapter is dedicated to jadedsiren for taking the time to PM for another chapter. Like I said, kick me when I don’t update. Usually I have the chapter ready and I’m just forgetting to post it. I’m expecting that lengthy review.
I think there might only be two more chapters for this story, anyways, unless I end up lengthening it again. If I do, this chapter’s name will be changed. Anyways, don’t forget to review!
Chapter Four