Between Life and Living
Chapter Seven: Pulling the Trigger
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"Is it a place where you could go?"
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Sakura was patiently awaiting her former sensei's promised return, when she saw the door to her room opening. Instead of silvery spikes, she saw dark, inky hair. Instead of a friendly, happy eye crease she saw a blank, unaffectionate face. Murky bottomless orbs stared back at her, as she stared at him. The person called Sai simply leaned against the wall and studied her for what seemed the longest minute in the world, until Sakura grew uncomfortable and she shifted her gaze away from him.
"Where is Kakashi?"
"He left," replied the artist, finally pulling himself away from the wall. Sakura kept her eyes trained on him with wavering uncertainty until he crossed the room and stood before her at a considerable distance. She was glad he hadn't come any closer.
"Where did he go?"
Sai seemed to ignore her first, as if his own unknown thoughts had been more prominent than the question that had been directed to him. Finally, his eyes strayed back to her and a half-frown of sorts pulled at one corner of his lips. "Sakura, is it?"
"Yeah…" she mumbled. The man hadn't been in the room for more than five minutes and she was already growing impatient with him. Was he going to answer her question or not?
Sai grabbed the chair that Kakashi had once been sitting in, and seated himself down in the same way with the chair turned astern and his body facing forward. Again, he began to study her in a way that made Sakura feel more like something that was trapped behind a glass wall for experimental purposes, rather than a patient that was nearing the end of her stay in the hospital; hopefully. Beyond any doubt, it was starting to make her somewhat upset. When the ANBU saw the growing tension in her jade green orbs, the other corner of his mouth pulled up and a full blown smile emerged on his face. He tilted his head and asked in a manner clearly feigning innocence, "What's wrong, Miss Sakura?"
The pinkette's coral brows knit slightly, and her face flickered with a fleet display of obscure emotions. Clearly, he was trying to get some sort of rise out of her, but Sakura wasn't sure how to react. The girl only sighed and drummed her fingers on her knees, any notion of the man's ulterior motives completely lost on her.
" Nothing's wrong…Are you going to answer my question?"
"I'm sorry, what question was that?"
Sakura lifted her head to look into his blank face. Perhaps he hadn't heard her. He did seem to be lost earlier in his thoughts. "I said…where is Kakashi?"
"Oh. A place," the nin replied simply, adding a nod as an afterthought. The ex-kunoichi gave him a blank stare of her own. What wasn't he telling her? Kakashi had said he would return…so he had to come back. Right?
"What place would that be?" the roseate-haired girl quirked a brow, now a little more troubled by the man's stark evasiveness. He tilted his head to the other side with that chaste grin beaming at her especially now. Seriously, what the hell was this guy's problem? Was this some sort of game to him? Despite her abounding irritation, Sakura still could not bring herself to a point of aggression. Something within her sedated the slightest bit of antipathy, willing it to stay beneath the surface though she knew she was unsatisfied with the current degree of their conversation. Apparently she couldn't care enough to be mad at him; that, in itself should have been enough to set her off. But it wasn't.
"A place. Where people go," Sai chirped.
Is it a place where you
could go? The twitch and curling fist of the hand in Sakura's lap did not go unnoticed by the ANBU. In fact, it had been the catalyst for what he was about to do next. "You know, Miss Sakura?"
"What? What do I know?"
What she
knew was that she wanted to leave this place as soon as possible and return to the comfort of her home where she could think.
Think about…everything she wasn't being given the chance to think about in the presence of people who were way too cautious to leave her alone for more than a minute. They were smart, and understood the lethal intentions behind the deed that had ultimately landed her in the hospital. The result of her defeat left Sakura to silently drown in her own remorse, with the hourly routine of nurses coming in to check on her vitals.
Vitals; life. A reminder that she had failed her last-minute mission. Tears sprang to Sakura's eyes, threatening to spill down over her cheeks as she quietly pleaded forgiveness to her team mates for the lack of her success.
They had been so close and waiting for her that night, and she had allowed herself to become plundered away from them on the verge of death. Her hopes of trying again had been halved, if not more. Now with the watchful eye of many, including Kakashi , on her there was no way she was going to be alone for a very long time. Sakura hoped
they would wait for her. She promised to return to them…some way or another—
"Your forehead is really big," the voice of someone she'd completely forgotten about interrupted her brooding thoughts, followed shortly by the jab of a finger to her forehead. The pinkette's mouth fell open in astonishment as Sai leered back at her with a grin that had grown noticeably larger within the time she had spent wandering around in her pitiful thoughts. "With something this big, it's no wonder they call you billboard brow, huh?" he continued. The fisted hand in Sakura's lap began to tremble, and when Sai saw it begin to rise he went in for the kill.
"Ne?
Fivehead,"
Boom! The ANBU, no matter how well he had braced himself, had not been prepared for the breath-plundering blow that was firmly delivered to his abdominal reigon. The quaking impact sent painful shudders to wrack through his body, and before he even had a moment's chance to rebound before the collision, his back met the cold painted cement of the hospital wall; he went right through. Sai lost count of how many walls his body had broken through, but by the last he was desperately struggling for a breath that would not return to him until he last felt his back hit a final wall with lesser force. With a pitiful wheeze, he slid from the imprint his battered figure had made and slumped to the floor without movement.
The pink-haired woman, now on her feet slowly lowered her chakra-laced fist to her side with wide green eyes at the realization of what she had just done. The rush of adrenaline still pumping through her body left her quivering with a near-excitement. She thought perhaps, that because of the time that had elapsed since she'd last used her inhuman strength, the incredible blast had been the overwhelming release of long-suppressed chakra. The ex-kunoichi had checked out of her shinobi career shortly after team seven had been disbanded, and since that time it hadn't been used. This was the conclusion Sakura integrated with her new and alarmingly advanced display of brawn; little did she know, that this far from the case.
Sai had not returned to her for a little over an hour, but she had hardly been given the time to think about it because the second the nurses detected blood in the water, they were in her room and assessing the situation. The bewildered pinkette stood without motion as they flailed about in berserk abandon, their gaping soon directed at Sakura, accompanied by oddly familiar and fearful looks.
It took her all but a moment to realize where she had seen them; only in the presence of her former shishou's rage.
Flashback "
L-Lady Tsunade…! Did you really have to punch Jiraiya that hard? You knocked him clear across the male and
the female hot springs! Do you know how long it's going to take to repair the walls?" Shizune tried to reason with her mistress but to no avail. Once the blonde was on an official rampage, there was no sane way of stopping her. "
It's no use, Shizune," Sakura said, stretching her leather fingerless gloves over her hands and plucking the dirty old man up by the ear from the ground. He was currently panting for breath from the unrelenting assault of her shishou's hand having been clamped around his throat and cutting off his air supply for so long. The three woman had caught the Toad Sage peeping on them during their supposed relaxing evening at the village's hot springs, however that had come to an abrupt end when the medic Sannin had caught her former team mate and went chasing after him stark naked. "
It wasn't exactly how I planned it, but I got enough for my research," the ancient buffoon said admittedly, as Sakura dropped him on his ass. Now fully dressed, Tsunade crossed her arms over her chest with a towel slung over one shoulder, amber eyes pointed daggers down on his pitiful display. "Keep it up," she said, raising a blustering fist in his direction. "If I ever
catch you doing that again, it'll be worse
than thirty years ago!" The toad sage's eyes nearly popped out of his head at the mention of his near-death experience. "N-no! I-I'll take my research somewhere else, I promise!" he exclaimed. Before Tsunade or the others could make to pursue him, Jiraiya scrambled off with his telescope in hand. Shizune let out a wary sigh and turned back to her mistress and her pink-haired student with a light frown. "
Lady Tsunade…Did you really mean that? There's no mistaking the guy is the ultimate pervert, but that incident thirty years ago nearly killed
him," "
I realize that. Or course I didn't meant it, but hopefully the threat did its job this time," the blonde replied, uncrossing her arms. She pulled the towel off her shoulder and gripped it in her hands. Sakura flinched at the sight of tearing fabric. "
Shishou—" "
Not now, Sakura…" Shizune interrupted. The Hokage was already stomping off with her heels clicking on the stone pavement with every step. After the sound faded off in the distance, the dark-haired woman glanced back at the pinkette. "Lady Tsunade has quite the temper, especially around…" Sakura lifted an eyebrow. "What, are you saying…?" Shizune regarded the girl for a split second before realizing her misinterpretation. "
N-no…It's got to do with the Yin Seal Release technique she's used as of late. Every time she uses it her emotional balance is thrown off a bit. All the chakra from every gate in her body has to gradually restore itself, so as she recovers, so does her…" the poisons mistress paused for a thought for gain of a better word, "stability," Sakura scratched the back of her rosy head. A despairing frown marred her confuzzled expression. The last time Tsunade had used the Yin Seal technique had been about a month ago when Orochimaru had come to snatch Sasuke from the village; unfortunately, Sasuke seemed to have been all but willing, and the fight to take him back had been in vain. Shortly after and only managing to protect the village from collateral damage, the Hokage had fallen under a spell of comatose for several weeks and by the time she had finally awoken, someone new
had taken her place... "
So you're saying…Lady Tsunade isn't stable because of the jutsu she used when fighting Orochimaru? But her recovery went well and everything seemed normal. Then again, I guess what's on the outside doesn't always tell you what's going on with the inside…" Sakura trailed off when she saw Tsunade rounding the corner and calling for them to hurry up
. "
That's right. But the side-effects are only temporary. After her body readjusts and recovers its proper amount of chakra, she'll be stable again in no time," Shizune explained, and waved after the blonde. "We're coming!" The two women began making their way out of the hot springs and to front entrance where they would take their leave. Shizune had explained just about everything to her, but there was something Sakura still didn't understand. Gently, she took Shizune by the wrist and pulled her out of earshot so the blonde would not notice their whispering. "
But I don't exactly understand. Lady Tsunade's temper is always frightening. She couldn't possibly get anymore scary than she already is, could she?" The startled masculine cry and the massive crater suddenly pounded into the earth answered both of their questions as the Hokage dusted her hands off and turned around with an immaculate grin. The two women cringed and turned back to look at each other. Oh, yeah. She could. End of Flashback ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"Sakura?"
Sakura mentally shook herself out of her daydream as Sai walked into the room with an icepack resting against the side of his head. To her surprise, the moment he saw her he gave her that ridiculous grin.
Honestly, how does someone who's suffered through
that amount of pain still manage to smile right into the face of their assaulter that way?
Sai strolled over to the bed where the chair had been knocked over in the midst of her outburst and he dragged it away, this time a little further from its original position. Sakura, for some reason found this highly amusing, her Inner self equally agreeing and she sat down on the bed with a smirk.
Sai stared at her warily, his arm now in a temporary cast until the nurses could find a more experienced medic to heal the broken bones. When they'd interrogated him about the cause of his injuries, he simply told them it was an accident and it was nothing that needed to be fussed over. After the nurses had finally relented, the ANBU returned to the recovery room with a satisfied grin; his plan to get a rise out of Sakura had worked and though he had been battered to pieces in the process, it was worth it; all for the sake of his mission.
All for the sake of one girl.
Returning to the library to retrieve '
Coping with Depression' had earned Sai both a worried look from Rin throughout the entire process of his checkout, and a lot of useful insight on Sakura's current condition. From what he had learned, there were three types of depressive states. First, there was the kind that usually never lasted for more than a period of two weeks. It was temporary, and consisted of all the usual side-effects any normal depression came with; Inability to become motivated, the lack of will to seek help, and such. This type of depression was called
Major Depressive Disorder. Given that Sakura had been emotionally distressed for much longer than the course of two weeks, Sai immediately crossed this off and moved on to the next type of depression;
Adjustment Disorder with Depressed Mood.
This type of condition was diagnosed when a person was having trouble with adjusting to new facets in their life that caused them a great amount of stress. Naturally, the loss of loved ones was a drastic change in anyone's life. Apparently, this disorder could even be determined when a person was dealing with something
good that resulted in feelings of stress. Sai couldn't exactly understand how that worked, and he knew the latter wasn't plausible, so he also scratched out this type and moved on.
The third type of depression and the one that determined Sakura's condition perfectly, was a type called
Dysthymia. Similar to the first kind, however the symptoms occur for a longer period of time; as in, two years or more. In addition to its expansive effects, one who is diagnosed with Dysthymia is also likely to experience occasional bouts from its similar form. Sai calculated the amount of years that had gone by since Sakura's depression had begun. According to Kakashi, it'd been over three years. The ring fit the finger well; thus, he concluded—diagnosed Sakura with the depression called Dysthymia.
Before leaving the Hokage's office, Tsunade had informed Sai a little on what Sakura was like. The fact alone that she had gone under the tutelage of the woman herself, was enough for Sai to make the assessment that he would be dealing with someone with usual, temperamental tendencies. And even though Sakura was so deep-rooted in her own depression, with the ANBU willing to dig just a bit deeper into her mind for a former trigger that would bring about a secondary dominant emotion, and the ministration of the bits and pieces of given trivia he had assembled together, Sai was able to find a way to resurface a fragment of what Sakura's personality originally was. Not forever. Not for today.
Just for a moment.
In ROOT, all members were trained to suppress the most dominant of emotions. ROOT was truly a malicious organization, but its intentions were purely for the sake of having a fleet of ninja that could carry out their missions without flaw. To Danzo, a shinobi who could pause in the middle of his assignment with even the briefest apprehension and concern for his fellow team mate was a sign of weakness; sentiment was a weakness, and it had to be destroyed.
Up until the previous hour, Sakura had only displayed one emotion, despite however feeble it had been. The slight wrinkle of her nose as she surveyed his bantering smile, and the way her hands had slowly clenched into fists were clear signs that she was still somewhat capable of caring enough to feel irritated. Sai figured if one had something that could trigger themselves or another into such a descended state of depression or unfeeling, then there had to be another trigger that could, even for a moment, pull right them out of it.
He had sat there, provoking and prodding until he had finally hit the mark; a sensitive spot that had made her anger become domineer over despondence. In that moment, Sai had figured something out, even if he didn't completely understand it yet.
It would take time for him to determine if his theory could become fact, but he had all the time in the world.
From his place seated in the chair, Sai lowered the icepack into his lap and stared at the girl who was now facing away from him, her eyes fixed on the small window at the back of the room. Sakura had slipped back into her quiet, brooding state and now seemed to be completely ignoring him.
"Sakura?" the artist called. The girl turned around to regard him uneasily.
"What is it?"
"That was quite a punch you gave me. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were a man,"
The pinkette stared over her shoulder, until finally her eyes narrowed to slits. When she finally turned away, the ANBU straightened up and lifted the icepack up to his aching head once again.
Hearing the smallest whisper of the word "
bastard" was all the more encouragement to his cause.
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