[Fic] Seasons of Wither 1/?
Title: Seasons of Wither
Author: lirpa-chan
Genre: Drama
Rating: T
Pairings: SasuSaku, mention of NaruSaku and NaruHina
Warnings: None.
Word Count: 1,331
Summary: Seasons come and go, but the essence of who we are remain the same.
Author's Note: Looking for feedback. Thoughts welcome.
Summer I, Sakura
It was an unbearably hot day, sticky with humidity. Puddles and debris littered the small village, remnants from the horrific storm. The place had a sort of restless quiet to it except for the ever present hum and knocking of machinery, sounds of the reconstruction. It had been some time since Sakura had seen such devastation. She found it hard to believe that this was supposedly one of the better off villages. Vaguely she wondered just how much help she could be to these people; she was just one person after all, no matter what her training. Then again, Konoha was still in pretty bad shape itself. Financially speaking, they couldn’t afford to send more than a few medics to Water Country. Sakura was the best they had. She would have to do.
Kicking up dirt and mud Sakura surveyed the premises as she made her way to the village doctor’s. Many of the buildings were still standing, but she suspected severe water damage, maybe permanent. She watched children run back and forth from the house entrances emptying buckets of dirty water, sometimes accompanied by dead fish and seaweed while their parents tried to salvage once treasured family heirlooms. Men busied themselves with fixing the roofs, the porches, the unhinged doors. Some people sat hunched in the alleys crying softly, others still coughing with waterlogged lungs. A few of the villagers cast Sakura wary looks as she passed by, but no one ventured a greeting; they just wiped the sweat from their foreheads and went back to work, their momentary distraction now gone.
After another half hour’s walk, Sakura arrived at the outskirts of the village where Masao, the village doctor, lived. The house was larger than she had anticipated and looked surprisingly untarnished.
“Lucky they live on a hill,” she thought as she trekked up the unsteady hill side, calves aching slightly. Up close she could see the house had not gone unscathed: parts of the porch that wrapped around the house looked somewhat warped and it was littered with clumps of drying, smelly seaweed and rocks of various sizes. She noticed patches of freshly applied plaster to the outer walls and a poorly taped window lined with dozens of fissures.
Stepping lightly, Sakura walked across the porch to the door, the wood creaking unforgiving underneath her. She knocked. When she got no answer she knocked again.
“Hisoka!”
Surprised at the gruff yell, Sakura backed up from the door and cast a look over the right side of the porch. Below she could just make out a burly looking man carrying a couple of boxes behind the house, a young man with long, black hair in tow. Sakura frowned, trying to get a better look at the two before they disappeared into the house’s shadows just as the front door swung open with an anguished creak.
“May we help you?”
Sakura righted herself and smiled brightly at the thin, tired looking woman. “Is this Masao-san’s house? I was told he’s the village doctor.”
The woman nodded. “Yes, you must be one of the medics Konoha sent,” she said. “Very kind of you to come, all things considered. I’m Murakami Hisoka. Please come in.”
Sakura gave the woman a slight bow in thanks and the two entered the dark house.
“Please excuse the lack of light. Electricity has been slow to return to the village and it’s far too hot right now to light a fire,” Hisoka said over her shoulder. “Masao’s right this way. We’ve been busy helping with bridge repairs. He’s just returned.”
Sakura followed the woman through the surprisingly spacious house and into a very tiny foyer at the back end, down a set of stairs. The room was back lit by three windows, but was otherwise dark and smelled strongly of must and the ocean. Sakura wrinkled her nose. The smell was disgustingly magnified thanks to the heat. Doing her best to ignore the stench she surveyed the rest of the room. Tangles of rope and a variety of wooden and wire crates hung from the ceiling; a heavily marked map hung haphazardly on the left wall. Boxes of tools and fishing gear were flung all over the place, mainly stuffed under the work benches that lined the room, but a good chunk had also made its way onto the central wooden table. The room looked overtly dangerous and, once the two men from outside filed in, overly crowded.
Sakura gave the new entrants a customary once over as they made their way over to the central table. The older man dropped his box with an exaltation of relief, the box’s contents bouncing slightly as he did. The younger man placed his more gracefully and quietly. Sakura smiled at him, but he kept his head bowed and occupied himself with emptying the contents of his box. The fringe of his hair and the dim-lighting obscured most of his features, but he looked to be around her age. One of the local fisher boys, maybe? He had the build of someone who looked like they were used to hard labor, but nothing like the gruff man next to him.
Hisoka cleared her throat and clasped her hands in front of her.
“We have a visitor,” the woman said. The older man grunted, rubbing his hands briskly together, casting dirt and dust particles into the air. Hisoka sighed and excused herself from the room.
“You’re the medic from Konoha?” Masao said, eying her.
Sakura smiled despite his imposing tone. “Yes. Haruno Sakura, at your service.” She gave a polite bow of the head. Masao grunted again.
“Name’s Masao. I’m something of the acting village doctor. For the time being, anyway,” he added coming around the table. He was wiping his hands on a rag he’d picked up from one of the boxes he had brought in. “No offense, but you don’t look like much of a doctor. Bit young.”
Sakura smiled not unkindly and shifted her weight. “Well, we all grow up early in a ninja village. Believe it or not I’ve been healing since I was twelve.”
Masao nodded, accepting of this information. “That I do. Well, welcome to our little village. What’s left of it, anyway.”
He smiled wryly, wrinkles forming in the leathery folds of his skin, accentuating his crystal blue eyes. Where his wife was all free flowing water, he was all wood, carved and sturdy and so weathered it seemed just as likely that he’d breathe out saw dust rather than oxygen. Sakura suspected he had a stern type of kindness, suitable for his unyielding personality.
Sakura smiled, shifting her weight again in a proactive way. “Where should I start?”
“Well,” Masao sighed, “I’m only acting in place of the village doctor, so there’s not much I’ve really been able to do. I’ve got some of the wounded in the spare rooms of the house, but aside from changing the dressings and feeding them pain meds there’s not much we’ve really been able to do for them.”
Sakura furrowed her brow. “Where’s the actual doctor?”
“Dead, rest his soul,” Masao said quietly. It looked like it pained him to say it.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Sakura said. Unfortunate, is what she thought.
“Yeah,” Masao sighed again. “Well, best thing I can think of is to get the bridge reconstruction done. The sooner we get the bridge repaired the sooner our village will stabilize itself, the sooner we’ll get more medical attention, supplies. That sort of stuff.”
Sakura nodded.
“Some of the men are dropping from heatstroke though and it’s slowing the reconstruction process down. We need to make sure they can continue considering they’re all we got for the job, ‘side from us,” he gestured to himself and the young man behind him. This time she caught the other man’s eye.
Her breath caught in her throat and her thoughts became a jumbled mess of disbelief. Uchiha Sasuke was staring back at her.