The curtains fluttered slightly, as if two pieces of the white sky had been stripped into a layer of cloth. The smell of antiseptics and medicine settled heavily, covering the room in an indescribable weight of tension.
Staring at the white ceiling, no thoughts lingered in her mind. In her daze, she merely listened to the IV dripping on her left, with whatever content it carried, not wanting to dwell on what had happened.
Even then, there was a lingering sourness in her mouth and a pain that would not go away in her chest.
"Oh, you're awake!"
A voice sounded from the entrance.
A female doctor in white walked in, carrying a clipboard with her.
"Look at me now, dear, let me see how you are."
Before Sakura could react, the doctor pulled out a small lantern and shone it in her eyes, causing her to squint involuntarily.
After checking for a minute, the doctor smiled. "It's okay, you're recovering well. Soon you will be able to walk away and continue your studies at the ninja academy."
Those words didn't spark much of a reaction in Sakura, but they made her think of what had happened. She hesitated for a second, then asked what was on her mind.
"How bad were the injuries?"
The doctor didn't seem surprised by the question, as if she had heard it many times before.
"Not too serious. They were all deep flesh wounds. Whoever attacked you managed to avoid all fatal spots. You collapsed because of the concussion and shock. It's not easy suffering such heavy injuries for the first time. Your body just isn't used to it."
"Is that so..." she replied, bitterness hidden behind her eyes.
Being defeated in barely a second, then being told the enemy had been holding back from the start, Sakura didn't know how to describe how frustrated she felt.
As if her own life was just a plaything in someone else's hands. She couldn't fully grasp that thought, and the realization was so terrifying it seemed to shake her.
Such a cruel world, where a single mistake could mean the end of everything, where power was the only guarantee of safety. It was truly disconcerting.
If Sasuke had been just a little less precise with his shuriken, would she have died right then and there? If it had been a real enemy, would she be dead already?
It's only after you understand your own fragility that you comprehend the necessity of strength. Strength isn't for victory in children's games, it isn't for having the best grades in the academy, nor is it for better serving the village. It's the foundation for staying alive.
After the doctor left, her parents walked in, worried expressions plastered on their faces.
"Oh, Sakura! Thank god you're okay! I was so worried!" Her father was the first to rush to her. He hugged his daughter with tears in his eyes, looking almost comical with his big hairstyle.
"You really made us worry, Sakura! What if something had happened? You have to be more careful in those exercises." Her mother nagged endlessly, listing dozens of precautions and things to pay attention to, to the point of making Sakura's ears hurt.
"Okay, okay, I understand. I know you're worried, but can you please stop acting like it was my fault? Sasuke is not someone I can match in strength. I didn't even notice the shuriken until it was too late!"
Her mother clicked her tongue and folded her arms. "That is exactly why you have to be more careful. If you cannot match him, then you have to anticipate him. Look first, move second. Do not just run around in the trees like a squirrel."
Her father let out a long, wobbly sigh and patted Sakura's shoulder as if she were made of glass. "Your mother means she loves you very much and would like you to not be perforated again."
Sakura closed her eyes and exhaled. "I know."
Her mother's voice softened a little. "They told us it was not fatal. They told us the boy did not aim for anything vital. I am grateful for that. But hearing it still made my heart stop. Do you understand, Sakura? It was not a game."
Sakura nodded. "I understand."
Her father cleared his throat and tried to smile. "We brought you something." He rummaged in a grocery bag and produced a small stack of comics and a bag of dried plums. "Your favorites. And your homework."
She blinked. "You brought me homework?"
"We are responsible parents," he said, puffing up. "Also your teacher told me to carry it or he would give it to me."
Despite herself, the corner of her mouth twitched. "Thanks."
Her mother leaned down and brushed a hand through her hair. "Rest today. Do not think too much. The body heals more slowly when the mind spins."
Sakura looked at the white ceiling again. "I will try."
They stayed a while longer. Her father told three bad jokes in a row. Her mother straightened the sheets even though a nurse had done it five minutes earlier. When the nurse came to shoo them out for vitals, they both protested, then gave up and kissed Sakura on the forehead, one after the other, clumsy and warm.
"We will be back in the morning," her mother said at the door.
"Bring something salty," Sakura said, surprising herself. "Not sweet."
Her father's grin returned at full power. "You got it."
The door closed. The room fell quiet again, with only the slow drip of the IV and the faint squeak of rubber soles somewhere down the corridor.
Sakura stared at the bandages on her arms. The memory of metal slicing air flashed behind her eyes. In that memory, her body had felt like a paper doll tossed into a storm. She swallowed, and the sourness at the back of her throat grew.
I am not dying in someone else's story.
The thought came with a steadiness that surprised her. Not dramatic. Not loud. Just a line she drew in herself.
She shifted her weight on the mattress. The motion tugged at the tape on her arm. She tried to sit and winced as pain stitched up her side. The IV line tugged too, reminding her she was still attached to someone else's rhythm, drip by drip.
Then, like a bubble rising from deep water, that familiar warmth moved through her veins. It was subtle at first, almost like a second heartbeat that did not belong to her heart. She closed her eyes and let it play out. The ache behind her eyes cooled. The heaviness in her limbs eased. The pin-sting pain along the punctures and cuts dimmed to a dull pressure, then to a memory.
It always happened like this. A daily tick forward that made no sense and had no explanation. The nurses would say she was a good healer. The doctors would say youth does that. The truth was stranger. Every day, a little better. Every week, the "little" became a little larger. It was like climbing stairs she could not see, her body rewriting numbers she had never learned to count.
She lifted the blanket and looked. The bandages were still there, but the throbbing had retreated by half. She pressed lightly against her ribs and hissed, but there was strength behind the pain. The cuts would scar. She could feel it. Lines that would draw themselves on her skin whether she wanted them or not.
Good. Keep them.
She settled back against the pillow. The ceiling felt less heavy. The IV felt less intrusive. The white curtains whispered at the window as if the sky were breathing.
Strength is not for winning school games. It is not for best scores. It is for living. If today taught me anything, it is that I will not be the girl who waits to be protected.
She slept without dreaming.
…
The next morning the nurse pronounced her fit to leave by noon. Paperwork came and went, signatures landed in the right boxes, bandages were changed one last time. Her parents returned with salty crackers and two different kinds of miso on the grounds that if she did not like one, she would like the other. Her mother fussed over whether the sling was too tight. Her father tried to convince the nurse that Sakura did not need the sling at all and then apologized when Sakura gave him a look.
When they stepped out to handle discharge forms, Sakura sat on the edge of the bed and flexed her fingers. The scars pulled faintly under the gauze. Half there. Half not. It would do.
The door slid open.
Naruto stood there with a bucket of flowers that looked like he had robbed a garden and a bag of fruit that was far too heavy for the plastic handles. Water slopped over the rim and dripped onto his sandals. His grin hung on his face like it had been pinned there by someone else, and his eyes were bright and uncertain.
"Yo, Sakura-chan."
His voice tried for casual and landed in clumsy.
He shuffled in and almost tripped on the threshold. "I, uh. I brought these." He set the bucket down on the chair. A pink carnation fell out and tried to escape across the floor. He chased it, slipped, and recovered with a flourish that made him look like a street performer who had forgotten his routine.
Sakura stared. Her heart did something complicated. Behind Naruto, two nurses passed by in the hall. One of them lowered her voice. Demon. The other made a quick warding sign with her fingers and pretended she was scratching her cheek.
Naruto's grin flickered and then held, stubborn. "And fruit. You like fruit, right? Apples. And, uh, oranges. And I think there's a… banana in there. Maybe."
"It is a fruit, yes," Sakura said. She hated how dry her voice sounded.
He scratched his cheek. "You look better."
"I am."
"That is good."
Silence tried to fill the room. They both let it for a breath. The silence had edges today.
Naruto put his hands on the back of the chair and leaned there as if he needed something solid. "Hey, uh. I know people have been… saying things." He kept his eyes on the flowers. "If you, you know, want to stop seeing me… I would get it. I mean. I am the demon fox, right? That is what they say."
The words dropped like rocks. Sakura's stomach clenched. The memory of red eyes and teeth jumped up from the floorboards and looked at her.
Her mouth moved before the fear could take it. "Baka."
Naruto flinched.
"What does that have to do with me?" She heard herself and committed to it. "I could not care less about some demon fox. If you have time to listen to rumors then you should be studying instead."
He blinked, stunned, and then his face cracked into a small, aching smile. "Right. Studying. Yeah."
"I am serious," Sakura said, and the seriousness was armor and also something else. "Your grades are a disaster. Your basics are embarrassing. If you have time to bring me a bucket you can barely carry then you have time to sit down and learn how to carry a pencil."
He laughed a little. It sounded softer than the noise he made with other kids. "Okay. Okay, Sakura-chan."
The whispers outside thickened for a moment, then faded like footsteps turning a corner. Sakura's fingers curled in the blanket. Gratitude and fear collided in her chest and spun there. He had bled for her. He had howled for her. He had terrified her. She could not sort any of it into neat boxes.
"Do not stand there and drip on the floor," she said. "You are making a mess."
He looked down at the puddle as if it had betrayed him. "Right." He grabbed the bucket again, as if he could somehow put the water back where it belonged, and failed entirely.
"I am going home," she said. "I have things to do."
"Can I… walk you?"
"No."
He nodded and tried to make it look like it did not matter. "Okay."
She stood, adjusted the sling, and moved past him. He smelled like rain and antiseptic and the faint smoke that sometimes clung to him after his worst mistakes. He stepped back to make room for her. He did not reach out. His fists tightened and then loosened.
"Thank you for the fruit," she said without turning.
"Anytime," he said, and the word had a little wobble in it.
She left him there with the flowers and the puddle and the bucket and the nurses who would not meet his eyes. In the corridor she let the air out of her lungs and did not let anything else out with it.
Study? He should. So should I.
She walked out of the hospital into sunlight that made the world look too clean. Her feet took her home. Her mind drew lines on a calendar she had not written on before. Morning, before sunrise. Afternoon, after class. Evening, before dinner. Strength does not appear because you ask. It appears because you go and fetch it.
Taijutsu first. If I cannot put someone like Sasuke on the ground, then all my cleverness will be a joke I tell myself.
She ate with her parents. She told them she would be fine. She cleaned the table before they could argue. Then she went out again with her purse and a list she did not say out loud.
The bell over the door of the weapons shop chimed like a small alarm.
The place smelled like oiled metal and new cloth. Racks of kunai and shuriken lined the left wall, neatly stacked scrolls on the right. The counter was manned by a girl about Sakura's age with twin buns so symmetrical they looked drawn on. Her eyes lit the instant she saw someone walking in.
"Welcome!" she said, too loudly, then clapped a hand over her mouth and laughed. "Sorry. You are my first customer today. I mean, I have been behind the counter for four days, so technically you are my first customer ever. That is… I will stop talking now."
Sakura blinked. "It is fine."
"I am Tenten," the girl said, already leaning forward, elbows on the counter, interest flaring. "What do you need? We have beginner sets. We have practice sets. We have real sets that you should not buy if your teacher is not looking. We have seals. We have—"
"I want to improve my taijutsu," Sakura said. "I need something to build strength, speed, and endurance."
Tenten's grin widened. "Then training weights are perfect. We carry two kinds. There is the traditional kind, ankle and wrist cuffs and a vest. Or we can seal weight into clothes. Gai-sensei's team does that a lot. Rock Lee uses the traditional weights for the dramatic effect, but the sealed garments are cleaner if you do not want people to notice."
"How heavy," Sakura said, "without ruining my joints."
"Smart question." Tenten turned, pulled a slim booklet from beneath the counter, and flipped it open with practiced fingers. "For academy age, I recommend starting at five kilograms distributed evenly, then building up. Our cheapest set goes up to twenty kilograms total. The cuffs adjust by half kilos. The vest, or shirt if you want it to look normal, adjusts in two-kilo increments. If you want concealed, we can sew a training shirt with seal arrays in the lining. Rechargeable with your own chakra or a seal slip. Cheaper if you do your own recharges."
"Shirt," Sakura said. "And four cuffs."
Tenten nodded briskly, then leaned closer. "You just had an accident, right? I heard about an exercise going wrong. You sure you want to jump straight into this?"
Sakura met her eyes. "Yes."
Tenten studied her for a breath, then smiled a different kind of smile, a smaller one with respect tucked inside it. "Okay. Then we will do it right. Color?"
"Red," Sakura said without thinking. "Dark."
"Of course it is," Tenten said, amused. She vanished into the shelves like a squirrel into a hedge and returned with a folded shirt and a set of four matte cuffs. "These are the cheapest tier, but solid. Up to twenty kilograms total. Start light or you will hate yourself. No one wins if you blow a knee."
"How much."
Tenten told her. Sakura counted out the money and handed it over. It hurt a little. She did not care.
"Do you want the seals keyed to your chakra signature?" Tenten asked. "It is safer. No one else can mess with your weight if they are keyed."
"Yes."
Tenten pricked Sakura's finger with a tiny needle, pressed it to a tag, murmured something soft and precise, then pressed the tag to the inner lining. The ink spread like water through paper, forming neat black characters that looked as if they had always been there. She did the same to each cuff.
"There," Tenten said. "They will recognize you now. Adjust here, here, and here. Left and right can be different if you need to correct imbalance. If you feel pain that is not normal training pain, stop. If you pass out, stop. If you vomit, consider stopping and then stop."
Sakura gave the faintest snort. "I will manage."
"I believe you," Tenten said. She looked like she meant it.
Sakura took the bundle, thanked her, and stepped back into the afternoon with the weight of a choice in her hands.
…
The next week took a shape. It was not graceful. It was not fun. It worked.
She started before the sun lifted. The village was a gray sketch at that hour. Streets empty, shutters still asleep. She laced the cuffs on wrists and ankles and set the shirt's seals to the lowest click. The first step out the door felt like someone had draped a wet blanket over her body. The fifth step felt like the blanket had teeth. By the first corner her calves burned and her breath sawed in her chest. She kept going. Left to the river. Down to the footbridge. Up the slope behind the academy. Three loops. Four. Five.
She ate like a responsible person instead of a bird. Rice and fish. Greens. Eggs. She packed bentos with more than jealousy in them. Protein stopped being a word on someone else's chart and turned into a number she put in her mouth with chopsticks. Her mother stared. Her father bragged to the neighbor that his daughter was eating like a champion. He did not know champions woke up at four.
After classes, she moved stones. Not big at first. Then bigger. She found a smooth boulder behind Training Ground Eight and made a deal with it. Every day she would push it one hand's width farther. The boulder did not talk back. It did not pity her. It did not care when she swore at it. It slid when she earned it.
She stretched until her joints sang like strings being tuned. Hips. Shoulders. Hamstrings. Ankles. Toes. She learned that her body had corners she had never visited. She moved into them and made them home.
Sideways jumps until her lungs were paper; ladder footwork until her calves hummed; shadowboxing until her shoulders burned and the shirt stuck to her back. She wrapped her hands with cloth and hit a tree until the bark flaked and the skin over her knuckles blushed and then toughened. The first day she could not make a dent. The seventh day there were shallow marks. The fourteenth day there were grooves she could feel with the ridges of her fingers. She did not smile at them. She marked them and moved her stance. Another tree. Another mark.
In class she kept her tongue sharp and her eyes sharper. When Iruka called for partners, she stepped forward before anyone could say her name. When someone made a joke about her sling, she cut it in half with a look and a sentence that left no room for breath.
Naruto bounced around her sometimes, like a dog that had not decided whether to fetch or chew the stick. She gave him the stick and walked away. He laughed it off and kept trying. He had stopped saying her name loudly. He said it softly now, like it was a word that could break. She pretended not to hear.
Ino watched her one afternoon during drills and whistled. "Someone is possessed."
"By responsibility," Sakura said, and the jab landed clean. Ino grinned anyway and made a mental note to run more.
Hinata bowed before their spar, fingers loose and ready. Sakura bowed back. The first exchange was even. The third was not. Sakura leaned on new legs and a new center of gravity, slipped past Hinata's guard, tagged the shoulder, and flowed out before gentle fist could punish her. Hinata's eyes widened. Then she smiled, small and sincere, and came at Sakura harder. They traded for a full minute that felt like one breath stretched thin. When Iruka called stop, sweat stuck Sakura's hair to her forehead and Hinata's chest heaved. Sakura had more points. Hinata bowed again, deeper this time. Respect, not surrender.
Word spread. Shikamaru sighed and called it troublesome, but he watched her footwork like he was solving something. Choji offered her half a bag of chips and told her she was scary now, in a good way. Kiba cracked a joke and then stopped halfway when she looked at him. Shino adjusted his glasses and said nothing, which somehow sounded like approval. Sasuke glanced once during the cooldown and then did not look again. The not-looking felt like a challenge.
Iruka began to smile during sparring days the way teachers do when a student refuses to fit the box they penciled for her. He wrote notes after class. He called her form clean. He called her timing improved. He did not say genius. Other students did.
On a balcony above the training ground, Hiruzen watched for a while one late afternoon with two advisors murmuring at his shoulder. He said nothing either. When Sakura dropped Hinata with a clean sweep and checked her fall so she did not hit wrong, Hiruzen's brows rose. He nodded once and left.
Sakura felt the eyes and let them pass through her. She did not come here to be seen. She came here to be impossible to ignore.
She raised the weight by a click every week. The shirt got heavier. The cuffs got heavier. Her legs got thicker with strength and her punches landed like ideas that would not leave. The scars on her arms faded from red to pale and then became lines that told a story only she needed to read. Her voice found a new pitch when she barked corrections at Naruto during drills. It was not cruel. It was not kind. It was exact.
"Again. Feet under you. Not behind you. You are not a windmill. You are a person."
"Again. Elbow tight. Your shoulder is not a flag."
"Again. If you swing like that in front of me I will hit you until you remember how to swing."
He obeyed more than he argued. Sometimes a flash of something old broke out of him and he cracked a joke. Sometimes he went quiet and did the rep until it looked like something a teacher would show another class. He never mentioned the hospital again. She never mentioned the hospital again. Between them, the word lived under the floorboards.
Weeks folded into months. The cicadas returned, loud and stupid and relentless. The air went hot and stayed there. The river ran lower among the stones.
On the last taijutsu ranking day before graduation, Iruka ran the class through a tournament bracket. The room hummed like a hive. Names chalked on a board. Lines drawn. No one laughed when Sakura's name landed near the top. Kiba bragged. Shino stared. Hinata tied her jacket tighter. Naruto bounced on the balls of his feet like a coil waiting to spring. Sasuke leaned against the wall and looked like a problem someone would have to solve.
Sakura solved her side of the bracket without wasting words. A sweep, a capture, a throw that looked simple and was not. Hinata reached her in the semifinal. They bowed. It was their best match yet. Hinata slipped inside guard and touched two tenketsu. Sakura ate the sting, rerouted, pressed, and dropped Hinata with a pivot that stole balance at the heel. Hinata hit, rolled, came up, and bowed, smiling as if bruises were old friends.
The final placed Sakura across from Sasuke. The crowd hushed a little, as if the match had already been decided. Even so, Sakura's heart thudded faster than her steps as she walked onto the mat. To stand in front of him, to be acknowledged in any way, felt strangely heavier than the bruises still blooming across her arms.
Sasuke didn't waste time. He lowered his stance, dark eyes fixed sharply on her, and lunged forward with a speed that made the air ripple. Sakura dodged, her sandals skimming just out of reach, and tried to turn the clash into something measured. Not a sprint. A puzzle.
He struck again, each movement honed, precise. She blocked high, twisted low, her hair whipping as she slipped sideways, forcing him to follow her rhythm instead of the other way around. For a moment, she thought she saw surprise flicker across his face when she deflected his kick and answered with a sharp jab that grazed his sleeve.
Her chest tightened, not just from effort. This close, his presence was overwhelming. Strong. Certain. Untouchable.
Naruto's fists clenched at the edge of the ring. Every time Sakura's eyes lingered a fraction too long, every time her cheeks colored with the heat of Sasuke's focus, Naruto felt the jealousy coil in his stomach.
"Come on, Sakura-chan, you can take him!" he shouted, too loud, too desperate.
She heard him, but Sasuke left no room for distraction. His pace quickened, footwork sharp as blades. She kept up, sweat dripping down her brow, breath ragged but steady. She landed another strike, light but real, and the crowd murmured in surprise.
But Sasuke shifted then, his body moving with a calm she couldn't break. His counter was brutal in its simplicity. One sweep, one strike, and her balance snapped. The ground met her back with a jolt that drove the air from her lungs.
"Point. Match," Iruka declared, his tone firm, though the faint lift of his eyebrows betrayed his surprise at how long Sakura had held out.
Second place.
Sakura lay there for a moment, staring at the ceiling beams before pulling herself up. Her chest ached with the weight of defeat, but her eyes still followed Sasuke as he turned and walked off the mat without a word.
Naruto stormed toward her, scowling, torn between pride that she had fought so well and bitterness that she had looked at Sasuke like that.
Sakura pressed a hand to her chest, steadying her breath. She had lost, but she knew something had shifted. Sasuke's eyes had lingered on her, even if only for an instant. That was enough. For now.
Iruka wrote more notes that day. He looked at her a long time and nodded to himself. Later, he spoke to another teacher, and the words genius and consistent and leadership drifted like dust motes in the light between them. Sakura ignored all of it and set her alarm for earlier.
The night before graduation, she adjusted the shirt up one more click, felt the weight settle on her shoulders like a promise, and fell asleep with her hands open.
Morning arrived dressed like a ceremony. The academy hall buzzed. Families filled the corridor outside with a smell like festival food and nervous sweat. Students stacked in clumps, laughing too loudly or not at all. Headbands glittered like small, serious stars.
Sakura walked in with her bag, her shoulders square, her hair tied back so tight it would not move without permission. Her face had the calm you wear when you decide to be a different person than you were last season. She scanned the room once. Her stomach dipped when she did not see him.
He failed yesterday. The test had gone badly. He had stood there with his shoulders up around his ears and his forehead naked and his smile pretending it was fine. She had gone home and run and stretched and punched and had not been able to stop thinking about the empty space where his headband should have been.
She took her seat. She told her face to stay the face she wore for everyone. She put her bag under the desk and folded her hands and stared at the front like a statue that could breathe.
The door scraped.
Naruto came in with his hands behind his head, grinning like sunrise after a storm, and the metal plate of a Konoha headband tied around his brow.
He looked ridiculous. He looked proud. He looked like someone who had dragged himself through a wall and then laughed about it.
He looked at her first.
Her heart punched her ribcage once. She put a lid on it.
"You actually did not mess it up a second time," she said, perfectly dry. "I suppose even you can pass if the examiners are in a very generous mood."
His grin softened the way butter does on hot rice. "Thanks, Sakura-chan."
"That was not a compliment."
"Sure," he said, and the word had a warmth that answered something she had not said. The eyes were different now. He could feel things more clearly and it showed. He understood the relief in her voice that she had not permitted. He pretended not to notice. He did not embarrass her.
He dropped into the seat behind her. He was still Naruto. He was not the same Naruto at all.
Iruka entered a moment later with a stack of papers and the face teachers wear when they are proud and trying not to cry. The room settled around him like a shirt that fit exactly right.
"Congratulations," he said. "You have earned this. Today you receive your team assignments."
He read names and numbers. Groups formed in little storms of noise. Chairs scraped. Someone whooped. Someone else made a sound like a frog. Sakura did not move. She listened like someone counting beads in the dark.
"Team Seven," Iruka said. "Uzumaki Naruto. Haruno Sakura. Uchiha Sasuke."
The room made the sound a room makes when it realizes the story will not be boring.
Sakura's lips pressed into a line that was not quite a smile and not quite a frown. Naruto made a noise that wanted to be a shout and came out like a swallowed firecracker. Sasuke did not react at all, which was its own kind of reaction.
Sakura looked down at her hands on the desk. The scars on her arms tugged as she moved. They did not hurt. They reminded.
I will not be the girl who waits.
She lifted her head, straightened in her seat, and allowed herself one breath that was almost a laugh.
"Try not to disgrace us," she said over her shoulder without turning.
"I will do my best," Naruto said, and somehow the words sounded like a promise.