🌸 The Flower He Saw 🌸 A Kakashi and Sakura Story

Idate was One of the Many

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The dreading attack ended. 

But their minds never left that battlefield of what used to be a village. And deep down, everyone gathered here knew they could never leave even if they wanted to. The phantoms of the dead were already haunting them, the heaviness in their chests could not be explained by anything other than the grips of the dead wanting to pull them along with them. 

Sasori blankly stared out a window with his blood dyed clothes that continuously reminded him of the slaughtering that'd been committed today. Across from him, Deidara stood at the other end of the window with a gaze too hazy to decipher─ but those damn tears that never stopped falling said it all. 

Wooden eyes hardened, if it were even possible. "So she's from Amegakure, funny, it's raining right now."

The only sounds that continued to haunt Deidara were the slight knocks that came from the rain hitting the window, his lips pressed into a trembling line at the realization that as he was alive and well, while someone else wasn't. "What if we never told her it was okay? What if we.... Sasori, what if we saved her? What─ dammit." Dragging his painful eyes to his closest friend, he miserably searched for an answer through Sasori's eyes. Strangely enough, he wanted to find nothing in those wooden eyes. He wanted to see something blank so that he would be reminded that he played no part in her suicide, but when he did find something in Sasori's gaze that screamed regret, he kicked the wall and covered his face with his hand. "Shit, shit shit shit! Why the hell did it have to be her?!"

His sobs were silent for the past two hours, but it was right at this moment where they began to become audible for not only Sasori, but for the people who surrounded him as well. 

Sasori drew near to Deidara, wrapping a single arm around his shoulders and pulling the young 9 year old boy into his chest. 

He wanted to console Deidara so bad, he wanted to be able to tell him that in some twisted way, Sakura couldn't be saved from her fate. That she was a child who needed a way to escape. However, something deep in him that constantly made his stomach fold into knots told him that there actually was something to save. 

The only problem was that he was too selfish to do anything. 

They all were. 

And with that realization, he knew her death would haunt him as soon as he closed his eyes for rest. 

"That's, just, so messed up." Deidara rejoined, sobbing. 

Turning his head to the window, tears welled in those wooden eyes. "I know, Deidara. I know."

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Another huddle of people remained only a few meters away from the embracing duo, and the silence was nonexistent for them. Naruto's continuous mewls only grew louder and louder as he murmured the names of the people he lost today. Sakura's name in particular rolled off his tongue more often than the late Hokage's, but no one stopped him. It had gotten to a point where he even started crying about Sasuke, too. 

Sasuke was resting atop a hospital bed in a different room after throwing up bile and blood upon Sakura's suicide. He had passed out soon after, and ever since they reached the hospital, no one had seen him since the doctors rushed him into the compacted room with multiple dead and hurt children from today's events.  

Itachi felt so damn guilty that he too may have thrown up, had he not resolved in holding up his facade of strength. In the stead, he placed a gentle hand over Naruto's shoulder and listened to the boy cry until there was no water left for him to let out. He should have searched for Sasuke, seen what room he was in and checked in to see if he had woken up, but he never did.