15Hiya! So, I've had no desire to write anything Naruto, it's been all Sailor Moon for me lately. But… I was reading a fic the other day, and it's rekindled my Naruto muse. Maybe. We'll see if it lasts. In any case, I had a whole bunch done for this idea, but then I got rid of it and redid it all just now. After this, I'm gonna go check out my other Naruto fics, see if I can't do something with them as well…
Anyway, in case there's someone out there who doesn't know, petrichor is what you smell when it rains. Or when someone uses a sprinkler. I love that smell, it's in the top two of my favourite smells, alongside baking bread. 3 I called it this because of the fact that Sakura's element types are earth and water.
This idea is based kinda on all those little one shots out there, where Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura end up right at the night Naruto was born. They all have all three of them dying, but this is based on one of them surviving, and what they do afterwards. It was originally gonna be ObiSaku, but then I changed it to MinaSaku.
In any case, please remember that I don't own the Naruto universe, and I hope you all enjoy this. ;)
Petrichor
Wake
She drifted into her awareness, her mind creeping into coherence slowly, slowly. Her thoughts were hazy and dim, clouded with the coma-like sleep that came with chakra exhaustion. Her head shifted slightly to the side, then back again, as she worked to wake physically as well as mentally. Fingers and toes twitched, the sound of a door opening and closing as a nurse checking on her left to inform someone that she seemed to be waking. Eyes flickered open briefly, before closing again.
Where was she? The last thing she remembered… What was the last thing she could recall? Head shaking slightly, she focused on trying to remember, and slowly, slowly, memories began to trickle in. There was a fight… No, more than one fight. The first one was… was… against a goddess? How would that even work? The last… It was against a demon.
No, not a demon. He would never forgive her if she continued to call it that. It? He? A bijuu, in any case.
Some more memories came to her, including her name, which she hadn't realised she'd forgotten. Sakura. Haruno Sakura. She and two others… They'd been fighting, then there'd been a hole… That hole had led to a different battleground, one that was different in so many ways, yet was connected to the other one in yet others. Her team mates… Uzumaki Naruto. Uchiha Sasuke. They were… they were…
She gasped, eyes wide, jolting up into a sitting position.
Naruto! Sasuke! Where were they? Sakura's eyes darted around the room, noting the bareness, the sterility of the space. A hospital room, her mind supplied her. She was in a hospital. Konoha's hospital, judging by the design of the room, the feel of the chakra running through the place. That feeling had always soothed her before. Now, it irritated the hell out of her. But why? …Ah. Because the wards used were done by different people than she was used to. Of course.
Sakura pushed the sheet off, swinging her legs over to the side of the bed. She wiggled her toes, staring down at her feet. There was still feeling in them. She raised a leg up, one at a time. No muscle atrophy, so it wasn't too long that she's been in here. Good. Tentatively she slid off the bed, landing softly and solidly on her feet. For all of two seconds before her legs buckled and she grasped desperately at the bed in order not to tumble to the ground.
Why did…? Ah, a weakness in the joints, easily fixed, so she did so. Once it was done Sakura stood easily, if a little shakily, on her own two legs at last. But then she sat back on the bed, and thought. She thought and thought, until she could remember what happened…
Otsutsuki Kaguya. She, Naruto, and Sasuke were fighting her. Kakashi and Obito were off to one side. She… Sakura remembered punching that bitch in the face, then a bright light, blackness, another bright light, and then… They were in front of… Kurama.
Naruto'd started freaking out at the sight, going on about how was this possible? And where were his parents? Sasuke had immediately honed in on one spot, locating someone… Obito. Then he'd told Naruto he was going to deal with him, before taking off. Naruto'd yelled and called him a bastard, before asking Sakura to help him find his parents. They'd found them fighting off Kurama. Naruto'd eagerly joined in the fray, briefly startling his parents. Naruto was, after all, still 'lit up' in his partnership with Kurama.
The fighting had been intense, but eventually Kushina had managed to tie Kurama down with her chains. The Yondaime had wanted to start the shiki fujin, but Naruto had stopped him. There'd been arguing, but eventually, the Hokage had started it. A heavily wounded Sasuke had shown up shortly after, an equally injured Obito slung over his shoulder. Sakura had been checking over Kushina when he arrived, and they were all distracted at his appearance. Minato and Kushina especially at the sight of Sasuke's burden.
Kurama had taken the opportunity to attack.
A giant claw had headed straight for where Sakura and Kushina were. Minato had rushed to his wife, Naruto had rushed to Sakura, but in the end, neither of them got there in time. Sasuke had, however. He pushed Sakura out of the way, ending up getting… getting…
Sakura released a sob, remembering the look in Sasuke's eyes. He'd looked so surprised by his actions. Did this mean that he'd… that he'd…? She clasped her hand to her mouth as she grieved.
Kushina had also… Naruto had screamed in denial, Minato had frozen for a moment, before continuing forward to his wife. Sakura had raised a hand to Sasuke's face, instinctively glowing green, but even as she'd stared at him, and he at her, the light had disappeared from his eyes. She closed her eyes as a fresh wave of grief overwhelmed her.
It was chaos after that. Naruto had insisted that he be the one to seal Kurama. Even though the Hokage had wanted to join his wife, Naruto had told him that he needed to be there for his son. So Minato had allowed it, walking him through it, even as Sakura had yelled at him to stop being such an idiot. Kurama's last attack had taken her then, and Sakura, already low on chakra from fighting a war, a goddess, and now a bijuu, had collapsed…
And that was the last thing she remembered.
Sakura was overwhelmed in her grief. Sasuke, and undoubtedly Naruto, were gone. Dead. Never coming back. She was here, in the past, all on her own. What was she supposed to do? She hugged her arms close to her, losing herself in her tears, wallowing in her pain. But she couldn't stay here and cry forever. If only for the fact that the door opened and four people walked in. One of them gasped and came over to her, sitting next to her and wrapping an arm around her. Cool, soothing chakra was sent to her, and slowly Sakura calmed.
She wiped away her tears and looked up. Before her were an ANBU, the Hokage, and a medic. Next to her, still rubbing her back soothingly, was a nurse. She breathed as deeply as she could, trying to catch her breath so that she could speak. She looked into the Hokage's eyes, and saw her own grief mirrored there. And fatigue. He was tired, she could tell.
"H-Hokage-sama," she managed to choke out.
"Sakura-san," he returned, and with that simple statement, Sakura understood why her memories had initially been jumbled.
Someone had used a mind-scan on her. A Yamanaka? Ibiki? Maybe… Inoichi? Either way, they would probably still have a lot of questions for her, and as she stared at Namikaze Minato, she knew that she was in for a long debriefing.
So what did you think? Review please! :)
