naruto:tempering;kakasaku;pg-13
title::tempering
author::thrones
series::naruto
pairing::kakasaku
rating::pg-13 for a terrible ending
summary::whether you tell her or not, the story will end eventually.
She is not the daughter he’s never had.
Naruto’s clumsy advances do not bother him; her tactless pursuit of Sasuke does not bother him-these are merely the dynamics of the group; these are nuances, these are underdeveloped elements that will thicken into something more substantial, and one day they will be a real team
His heart is light because he is disconnected, and this weak little girl is simply a bit of raw metal that has yet to be refined; and as he lets her make her own mistakes, he is letting her grow-and during the last half of the Chuunin exams, he is only slightly annoyed at Lee’s puppy-like adoration, because Sakura is not giving him the time of day.
He believes this is due to the fact that Lee is his rival’s creature, nothing more. It would skew the balance of Team Seven if an outsider became involved.
And so he remains content.
-
After Sasuke leaves, he finds her curled in on herself on a bench near the great gates that lead into the rest of the world. Her cheeks are still wet, and the night is cool but her face is hot.
She wakes up in the infirmary, and goes home the same day.
It does not bother him that she loves Sasuke with such abandon-that he is her sole focus. This is because Sasuke has a goal; his hatred predates her affection, and so he shrugs her off. He is grateful, but has no use for her; this will be a learning experience, and she will be better for it-it will help her to grow.
And Naruto has his own dreams as well: he is dedicated, he is sincere, and while she would be a nice embellishment-she is not his prime target.
So Sasuke leaves, and Naruto chases Sasuke, and Sakura waits at home and realizes she is weak; she has known all along, but now it is a compacted truth, like a splinter that gets infected until it has to be cut out.
So this is when she starts to cut it out, purges the weakness from her body; and this is when the impurities burn away, and she starts to become steel.
-
He avoids her for nearly two and a half years because, he reasons, flowers take time to grow; too much human intervention makes them artificial, and he is fine, to watch, to occasionally prune.
Nobody finds her lack of suitors curious; she has developed focus, after all, and though she has grown beautiful, she desires strength.
He nips these things in the bud, before they can grow and strangle her roots-before she can be misguided.
And he insists, if only to himself, that it is what any instructor would do for his pupil.
-
When he is finally face-to-face with her after so long, she seems happy enough to see him-pleasantly surprised.
He thinks back to when she was the only person to catch the genjutsu, during the tournament; thinks, such a clever girl, and how it felt to smile at her through his mask and say, ‘oi, Sakura-chan.’
She is smiling guilelessly; he hopes she isn’t too clever.
But of course, his mask hides everything anyway.
-
Tsunade kicked him out onto the roof because she refuses to tolerate his taste in literature-not her office, at least, and so when he steps back inside to see his students, he gets the full effect and is struck by how much they have grown.
It does not bother him, how affectionate she is; how somewhere along the line she has fallen in love with Naruto.
It does not console him, the fact that Naruto only sees Sasuke now.
This is what he tells himself.
-
They make a good team, and he’s hard-pressed; the bit at the end was a surprise, and maybe a bit of a cheap shot; he doesn’t sweat it much, though, because no one wants to know the ending in the middle of the story.
-
During his extended hospital stay, he refuses to think about anything-not Orochimaru, that he can overpower Jiraiya and Tsunade both; that Naruto is too young; that Sasuke may be lost forever. But he doesn’t think about Sakura most of all. How she has grown, and how beautiful she has become-how she is now folded steel, forged with utmost care and cooled in the heart of the metal smith’s most beloved possession.
But these are things he does not think about while he is awake-he has little control over the rest of the time.
-
The warmth of reminiscence is lost, of course, on the present circumstances. No matter how he recalls her now, he can’t get the picture out of his head-her face streaked with blood and dirt and grit, because she has been crying, even if she is such a powerful ninja now.
He knew, from the moment he refused to acknowledge it, that they would end badly.
But he is dying with a pretty girl to shed tears over him, and that is a justice of a sort.
-
“Kakashi-sensei,” Sakura’s voice is hoarse and she is so afraid she wants to vomit, but her hands don’t shake and they are methodical and precise. She is off to the side, behind a rock and a scraggly tree, but it’s enough cover because Naruto is out there getting the shit beat out of him, as a distraction; Sai has his back, but he is wounded-he can handle himself for now, and even as she tells herself not to waste chakra, even as the medic nin in her heart says it’s useless, conserve, leave the corpse for those who can be saved-she swears, blocks out the brunt of her tactics training, and funnels everything she has into his chest, wills the ribs to unstick themselves from his lungs, his heart-wills them to knit themselves back together, begs the tissue to right and restore itself.
There is an inhalation; she rejoices.
His pulse dies, and she screams with frustration, wracks her body, beats his heart for him.
“Sakura-chan,” he says in a dry, cracked way, and his mask muffles his words. His eye-the sharingan is a memory, now, broken apart somewhere on the ground, and the gaping hole covered by his hitai-ate-searching both of hers with resignation, a little bit of disappointment.
She is crying now, brokenly, and each sob tears at his heart.
He reaches with the arm that isn't shattered, jerkily, to her hands on his chest; takes them, squeezes them, and a high-pitched choke, a gasp born of mourning, catches at the back of her throat and she closes her eyes.
He pulls at her a little; she leans down, to listen, but she does not look at him-does not look at anything, just squeezes her eyes tighter and so doesn’t see it coming.
He is kissing her; it is sudden and chaste, just lip to lip; and she is stunned, but he has pull his mask back up with shaking fingers by the time she actually looks, and she stares at him, wide-eyed; his eye lifts; he is smiling the same way he has smiled at her for the last seven years.
And then he dies.
-
She was never a daughter to him.
author::thrones
series::naruto
pairing::kakasaku
rating::pg-13 for a terrible ending
summary::whether you tell her or not, the story will end eventually.
She is not the daughter he’s never had.
Naruto’s clumsy advances do not bother him; her tactless pursuit of Sasuke does not bother him-these are merely the dynamics of the group; these are nuances, these are underdeveloped elements that will thicken into something more substantial, and one day they will be a real team
His heart is light because he is disconnected, and this weak little girl is simply a bit of raw metal that has yet to be refined; and as he lets her make her own mistakes, he is letting her grow-and during the last half of the Chuunin exams, he is only slightly annoyed at Lee’s puppy-like adoration, because Sakura is not giving him the time of day.
He believes this is due to the fact that Lee is his rival’s creature, nothing more. It would skew the balance of Team Seven if an outsider became involved.
And so he remains content.
-
After Sasuke leaves, he finds her curled in on herself on a bench near the great gates that lead into the rest of the world. Her cheeks are still wet, and the night is cool but her face is hot.
She wakes up in the infirmary, and goes home the same day.
It does not bother him that she loves Sasuke with such abandon-that he is her sole focus. This is because Sasuke has a goal; his hatred predates her affection, and so he shrugs her off. He is grateful, but has no use for her; this will be a learning experience, and she will be better for it-it will help her to grow.
And Naruto has his own dreams as well: he is dedicated, he is sincere, and while she would be a nice embellishment-she is not his prime target.
So Sasuke leaves, and Naruto chases Sasuke, and Sakura waits at home and realizes she is weak; she has known all along, but now it is a compacted truth, like a splinter that gets infected until it has to be cut out.
So this is when she starts to cut it out, purges the weakness from her body; and this is when the impurities burn away, and she starts to become steel.
-
He avoids her for nearly two and a half years because, he reasons, flowers take time to grow; too much human intervention makes them artificial, and he is fine, to watch, to occasionally prune.
Nobody finds her lack of suitors curious; she has developed focus, after all, and though she has grown beautiful, she desires strength.
He nips these things in the bud, before they can grow and strangle her roots-before she can be misguided.
And he insists, if only to himself, that it is what any instructor would do for his pupil.
-
When he is finally face-to-face with her after so long, she seems happy enough to see him-pleasantly surprised.
He thinks back to when she was the only person to catch the genjutsu, during the tournament; thinks, such a clever girl, and how it felt to smile at her through his mask and say, ‘oi, Sakura-chan.’
She is smiling guilelessly; he hopes she isn’t too clever.
But of course, his mask hides everything anyway.
-
Tsunade kicked him out onto the roof because she refuses to tolerate his taste in literature-not her office, at least, and so when he steps back inside to see his students, he gets the full effect and is struck by how much they have grown.
It does not bother him, how affectionate she is; how somewhere along the line she has fallen in love with Naruto.
It does not console him, the fact that Naruto only sees Sasuke now.
This is what he tells himself.
-
They make a good team, and he’s hard-pressed; the bit at the end was a surprise, and maybe a bit of a cheap shot; he doesn’t sweat it much, though, because no one wants to know the ending in the middle of the story.
-
During his extended hospital stay, he refuses to think about anything-not Orochimaru, that he can overpower Jiraiya and Tsunade both; that Naruto is too young; that Sasuke may be lost forever. But he doesn’t think about Sakura most of all. How she has grown, and how beautiful she has become-how she is now folded steel, forged with utmost care and cooled in the heart of the metal smith’s most beloved possession.
But these are things he does not think about while he is awake-he has little control over the rest of the time.
-
The warmth of reminiscence is lost, of course, on the present circumstances. No matter how he recalls her now, he can’t get the picture out of his head-her face streaked with blood and dirt and grit, because she has been crying, even if she is such a powerful ninja now.
He knew, from the moment he refused to acknowledge it, that they would end badly.
But he is dying with a pretty girl to shed tears over him, and that is a justice of a sort.
-
“Kakashi-sensei,” Sakura’s voice is hoarse and she is so afraid she wants to vomit, but her hands don’t shake and they are methodical and precise. She is off to the side, behind a rock and a scraggly tree, but it’s enough cover because Naruto is out there getting the shit beat out of him, as a distraction; Sai has his back, but he is wounded-he can handle himself for now, and even as she tells herself not to waste chakra, even as the medic nin in her heart says it’s useless, conserve, leave the corpse for those who can be saved-she swears, blocks out the brunt of her tactics training, and funnels everything she has into his chest, wills the ribs to unstick themselves from his lungs, his heart-wills them to knit themselves back together, begs the tissue to right and restore itself.
There is an inhalation; she rejoices.
His pulse dies, and she screams with frustration, wracks her body, beats his heart for him.
“Sakura-chan,” he says in a dry, cracked way, and his mask muffles his words. His eye-the sharingan is a memory, now, broken apart somewhere on the ground, and the gaping hole covered by his hitai-ate-searching both of hers with resignation, a little bit of disappointment.
She is crying now, brokenly, and each sob tears at his heart.
He reaches with the arm that isn't shattered, jerkily, to her hands on his chest; takes them, squeezes them, and a high-pitched choke, a gasp born of mourning, catches at the back of her throat and she closes her eyes.
He pulls at her a little; she leans down, to listen, but she does not look at him-does not look at anything, just squeezes her eyes tighter and so doesn’t see it coming.
He is kissing her; it is sudden and chaste, just lip to lip; and she is stunned, but he has pull his mask back up with shaking fingers by the time she actually looks, and she stares at him, wide-eyed; his eye lifts; he is smiling the same way he has smiled at her for the last seven years.
And then he dies.
-
She was never a daughter to him.