Golden Hour

Sasuke's Worst Day Ever

SLAP!

"Ke, what the hell's wrong with you?" Naruto exasperated as he sat upright. Sasuke grabbed Sakura by the collar so she was the at the same level as his eyes.

"Now you listen to me." Sasuke's words with seething with anger. HIs bloodshot eyes spoke millions for Sakura. She gulped.

"No one insults my family and gets away with it. Not you, not our sensei, not our friends, and certainly not mere fangirls like you."

"I understand, but Naruto's a demo-"

"I DON'T CARE! It's nice for you to have someone that can do the dishes and make you food every night. But Naruto and I, we never had the luxury of having a family; someone that would care for us. We were alone on the streets. We had to grind by ourselves. Just the two of us. So do you really understand what's happening right now? DO YOU?" Sasuke was literally on his edge right now.

"Sorry, I had too much of a rant. I'll come back later at about midnight. Sakura, when that happens, you're going to be on guard, all right?" Sasuke questioned as he walked out of the tent.

Sakura just stared into space with her mouth agape. She felt terrible. She felt her chest getting heavier and heavier. Her breathing became irregular. And then... all went black and blank in her mind.

Her world came spiralling down to a simple word in her mind. 

Uselessness.

She was useless and she knew it as well. She hadn't contributed anything to her team in the mission, she was constantly following Sasuke like a lapdog and being completely oblivious to Naruto, while she constantly hurt the latter physically mentally and emotionally.

"Sakura-chan?" Naruto said with uncertainty.

"I'm sorry, Naruto. I shouldn't have said the things that I should've said."

"It's fine Sakura-Chan. I don't care. I'm used to it. Sasuke might've been to hard on you, right?"

The bubblegum responded. 

"No. He was right. He had every right to say that stuff about me. I'm just useless."

Naruto looked at her with a sense of guilt and sadness. 

"Let's get some sleep." The blonde said as he turned over and began snoring.

"Sasuke's words must've hit Sakura hard."  Kakashi thought, as he stood silently behind a tree, blocking the view to see his newest students. Time and time again, his students never learnt to respect their peers. They were only worse than their weakest link. 

"At least my students had the audacity to call when something isn't right." He mumbled to himself. 

"Those who break the rules are scum, but the ones who abandon their friends are worse than scum. They're filth. And those who don't care about their friends feelings are even worse than filth. Those are the types of shinobi that are disposed of quickly in this world. I'm glad to see my students are doing the opposite of that...Obito." Kakashi quietly swiped a tear from his right eye.

Sasuke knew he was there though. He put a tracker on him ever since he had mentioned Itachi in front of the team. He was actually in plain sight if people knew how to notice changes in the natural environment.

"Kashi." Sasuke called out to the nearby trees on his right, closer to the entrance to the forest.

"You can come out now." 

"Hey Sasuke. How's it going? I saw your little outburst earlier. Is she okay?" Kakashi asked with a smile hidden under his mask.

"If you say that I was being harsh on her, I wasn't. She deserved every word that I told her."