Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ The Butterfly ❯ Poison ( Chapter 6 )

Disclaimer: Still don't own Naruto. Please don't sue.

A/N: A warning right now, things get darker and harder for Sakura as of now so if you're here hoping to see her make a miraculous recovery back to happy twelve year old Sakura again…well, that's not going to happen. Also, for those reading the story, I highly suggest that you get your hands on a copy of some fan translated manga chapters (you can find some at NarutoFan.com. I would recommend reading as much as you can seeing that the manga is much further advanced then the animated series but chapter 181 is really crucial to this fic. Thank you those who have reviewed Chapter 5, and here's Chapter 6 a day earlier than projected ^_^

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The Butterfly: Chapter 6

By: Tea Leaf / Banana Soap

~~~

The memory was hazy, but as her feet walked softly through the halls, her surroundings seemed to clear from the mists. The room to his door was open; he always left it open so he could hear what was happening around his apartment better. She was pretty sure he was asleep; his book was covering his face.

She paused in the doorway, afraid to go in. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror on the wall opposing the door. A sixteen year old girl with skin as white as a sheet stared back; there were dark blue rings under her eyes. She was still pretty battered; with bandages wrapped abound her limbs and torso. The worst wounds were the ones on her back though, the three shiruken wounds between her shoulder blades. She'd deserved them.

She still hadn't moved. He still hadn't moved. He was probably asleep.

She opened her mouth but no sound came out. She closed it again and took a fortifying breath through her nose. She opened her mouth again.

"Ka…Kakashi-sensei…" she said, her voice coming out barely above a whisper.

He reacted then, lifting the book high enough so that he could see her. He frowned.

"Sakura? What's wrong?" he asked, concern threading his voice.

She opened her mouth but again her voice failed her. She tried again.

"I…I had a…a nightmare…" she whispered brokenly, terror filling her large green eyes.

He sat up, setting his book aside.

"Come here." He said softly.

She ran to him, he hugged her tightly as she shivered convulsively from fear.

She didn't want to go back to sleep so they'd sat like that for hours. He hadn't asked her to explain or speak of it and he hadn't tried to comfort her with cheap words and frivolous actions.

He'd simply held her tight and it had been exactly what she'd needed him to do.

Her eyes started to droop closed as exhaustion finally began to overcome her, the room grew fuzzy again until finally all she could remember was the warmth of his body and his clean and cool scent.

~~~

Her eyes fluttered slightly, or at least attempted to. Her right eye was swollen shut, her left eyelid was sticking due to the blood that must have seeped down from the cut on her brow into her eye and had since dried.

She could taste blood in her mouth as well. Her lip was swollen and sliced, she'd bitten her tongue badly enough for it to still be bleeding. A few teeth were loose but not so much that they would need to be ripped out.

She raised a hand painfully to wipe the blood from her good eye.

She felt groggy and very, very sore. She wasn't sure what had happened though; she couldn't really remember anything beyond supper around the fire. The man with the broken wrist had given her some tea…

{Fuck…the bastard drugged me…}

She opened her eyes as best she could. She was lying on her side, her head was facing the camp but she couldn't see anything through the early morning mists.

She pushed herself onto her back, groaning with the effort and wincing at the sharp pain in her ribs.

Her hand rose to prod at it gingerly. {Yup…that's broken…}

She forced herself into a sitting position, taking a mental inventory of her aches and pains.

The back of her head hurt and her hair was matted with dried blood, she seemed to have fallen and hit her head on a rock.

She was bruised essentially everywhere, but every now and again the hits that had caused the bruises had been so hard they'd broken the skin as well. The worse ones had broken bones.

Her shirt was gone; the gauze around her chest was ripped and half unraveled. Her pants were reduced to ribbons and were barely high enough on her hips to be considered decent.

She sighed and then winced as her broken rib reminded her of its presence.

{Fucking trusting nature…never did anything but get me beat up…} her inner self sneered.

She ignored her inner self and set about treating her wounds. Her pack was within arms reach and so she reached, biting her lip against the pain from her side, and pulled the pack closer.

The first thing she grabbed was a kunai from her pack followed by a jutsu scroll. She put the scroll between her teeth and bit down a bit as she made an incision about two centimeters below her broken rib.

Her teeth dug deeper into the scroll as she pushed her fingers into the cut and reached up to catch the two edges of her rib and pushed them back together and then back into their natural position.

Her eyes watered involuntarily as pain seared along her nerves.

She took her fingers out of the wound and wiped the blood against her tattered pants. She then found a needle and tread in her pack and sewed the cut closed.

Next was her right shin, also broken. She looked around her and found two decent sized sticks in close enough proximity to be able to get them without too badly disturbing her freshly set rib.

The scroll still held tightly by her clenched teeth, she braced herself against some ambiguous but solid mass beside her and pushed the snapped leg bone back into place. She then set the two splints on either side on her leg and wrapped in tightly in gauze. She then proceeded to do the same for her ribs and then moved on to the treatment of her smaller cuts and bruised. Thankfully she'd brought some of Hinata's disinfecting ointment and placed it on all her cuts. It wasn't perfect, but it would do until she reached the next town and could get some proper medical treatment and supplies.

Pain fogged her mental capacities and nausea disoriented her. She was pretty sure she'd lost a significant amount of blood too and felt light headed.

But still she pushed herself to her feet swaying dangerously for a moment then wincing slightly as she pulled her pack over her shoulder.

She removed the scroll from her mouth, ignoring the tears her teeth had made and the blood that marred the once white paper, and slipped it back into her pack.

{Ok…body treated…what next…other people, right…}

Her one good eye and badly swollen one looked around critically at her surroundings. Other people were supposed to be here.

Her gaze landed on the lump she'd braced herself against and she took a limping step forward to investigate.

Her eyes widened in shock and terror and she recognized the man with the broken wrist.

But the broken wrist was his only defining feature. His skin appeared to have melted off.

She stepped back quickly and cried out as her leg gave out beneath her and she fell, jarring her bruises, broken rib and sending her head swimming again.

She paused briefly to recover before scrambling backwards only to stumble upon another such mutilated monstrosity.

Her nausea overtook her and she threw up, he stomach heaving for a full five minutes.

Meanwhile, the sun had been rising and the predawn mists were dispersing. Slowly the entire camp came into focus.

{Everywhere…they're everywhere…}

Her eyes widened even more as panic began to take control of her mind.

There were corpses everywhere. Men, women children…everyone was dead.

She stood up, headless of her body's pain and the dizziness and nausea that continued to swamp her senses.

She simply ran.

As fast and as far as she could. She fell often but she didn't stop, she had to keep going.

She knew what had caused those melting burns that covered all of the gypsies. She knew what poison caused that agonizing death. The butterflies' poison caused that.

Her poison caused that.

She caused that.

~~~

Gaara watched the crows flying low near the gate of the Konoha village.

{A bad omen}

He walked forward regardless and was admitted without question.

He was a regular visitor here and very well known.

His feet sped up slightly, he was worried. They took him straight to Sakura's apartment. From the end of the hall, he saw that the door had been forced open. He broke into a run, bursting into the apartment.

But it was empty. And had been empty for a long time.

He looked around slowly, taking in the details. There on the windowsill, beside blood so old it had turned black, was a dead butterfly.

His eyes widened in sudden fear and took off back out the door, down the hall, out of the building, to the other side of town.

~~~

He heard the door to his house being slammed open again, followed by the pounding of feet on the stairs. The door to his room practically exploded open.

Sasuke's eyes widened slightly in surprise. He'd expected Naruto.

Gaara stood there, eyes wild and frantic as he gulped in air.

"Where…is she?!" he exclaimed between breaths.

Sasuke almost felt bad for him. Obviously, she hadn't told him she was leaving either.

"She left." He replied.

"What?" Gaara exclaimed, a look of anguish passing over his features.

"She left. Must be at least three weeks ago now." He responded.

Gaara looked shocked, Sasuke suspected he might be trying to hold back tears. Then he collapsed against the wall by the door, falling to the ground with his back leaning on the wall.

"Three weeks is more then enough time to get to the sand village…" he said brokenly.

Sasuke sat up, maybe he did feel bad for Gaara after all. It was understandable that she would abandon him, but she had no reason to abandon Gaara.

Sasuke went over and sat beside him and together they sat, silently staring at the wall.

~~~

"Hokage-sama?" came a voice from the doorway.

Tsunade looked up sharply, she'd been trying to work but her eyes had kept straying to the forehead protector resting on her shelf.

"What is it?" she asked, glad for the distraction.

The ninja looked down. "I have bad news." He said simply.

He walked into her office then, carrying a lumpy rag bundled in his arms. He turned a bit then and pulled down the blanket and there, staring out from the depths of the cloth, was a small, dirty, tear-stained face with wide, traumatized brown eyes.

"What happened?" she asked, compassion for the child filling her.

~~~

"You're a selfish bastard, you know that?" Gaara muttered bitterly as he stared at the wall.

"Aa, I'm told that a lot" he muttered back with equal bitterness.

"This all happened because of you." Gaara continued.

"I know. She made sure to remind me of that when she left." He responded.

"Good, you deserve every bit of suffering she can put you through." Gaara said, still bitter, still staring and the wall.

"Yeah, I do." Sasuke responded, still bitter, still staring at the wall.

They were silent again, both dealing with their own unique feelings of inadequateness.

"Uchiha-san?" came a voice from down the stairs.

"Go away" Sasuke called back.

There was the sound of feet running up the stairs.

"Ah, Gaara-san, you're here too. Excellent." The chuunin ninja said as he spotted the pair.

"The 5th Hokage-sama requires an audience with you both immediately." The chuunin continued.

Sasuke and Gaara continued to stare at the wall.

"No" they both said in unison.

The chuunin was stunned. But then smiled slightly.

"She said you might say that. Then she said it really is important, it involves Haruno Sakura." The chuunin continued.

Both looked up sharply and disappeared from the room so quickly the chuunin thought he'd been hit by a minor cyclone.

~~~

"The entire tribe was wiped out with the sole exception of one very very terrified little girl." Tsunade was saying.

"Though there is no physical evidence of she herself having been there, the little girl described her perfectly right down to the scars on her back. Also, this was found at the scene." Tsunade pulled out a plastic back, inside was a perfectly preserved, large black and crimson butterfly.

Gaara glared at it, he hated those butterflies.

Sasuke's eyes widened slightly and he shifted away from it, he hated those butterflies.

"Also, the cause of death for every single recovered corpse has symptoms similar to both burns and a flesh-eating disease, the very effects of the poison found to be coating these butterflies. We know that Sakura is immune to the poison and that she can control these butterflies" Tsunade continued.

"Sakura has been declared a mass-murderer by the government and seeing as the murder took place within the flame country's borders it falls to Konoha village to eliminate her. However, we do not have any ninjas that can counter the butterflies. That's why I've asked you here Gaara." She said as her eyes focused on him and held his gaze.

"Your armor of sand is the prefect defense against these butterflies which are widely recognized as Sakura's only truly threatening ability."

"You underestimate her." Gaara responded coldly.

Tsunade swallowed at the sudden dangerous gleam in his eyes.

"All the more reason for us to send you then, you seem to have a better idea of her abilities than we do." Tsunade covered.

Gaara looked at her for a long time. He did not respond.

"What about me?" Sasuke suddenly spoke up.

"You are the survivor of a massacre such as the one that child has just witnessed, you have been down every possible path of recovery and so know what will help her heal and what will not. You will help her overcome her ordeal and rehabilitate her." The 5th Hokage responded.

"What?" Sasuke exclaimed, he couldn't stay here and baby-sit!

"So Gaara, do you accept?" Tsunade asked, turning to the young sand-nin again and ignoring Sasuke's outrage.

Gaara closed his eyes as he collected his thoughts dragging out a moment of tense silence.

"No." he responded finally.

"What?!" Tsunade and Sasuke both exclaimed in unison.

"I cannot help her. She had the opportunity to come to me for aid before hand and she did not. I am not the one she needs." He responded with brutal honesty.

"Then what do you suggest?" Tsunade exclaimed, frustration making her words harsher than she'd intended.

"I suggest you send the one who could have an effect on her and you leave me to care for the child. Though I have not survived a massacre, I have been the cause of many. It is only right that I be the one to help her." Gaara responded softly as he held Tsunade's gaze.

"But who should I-" Tsunade's words froze in her throat as Gaara turned his gaze to Sasuke.

"But…"

"I would have gone with or without your command." Sasuke responded in his typical cold arrogance, Tsunade didn't know whether to be annoyed that he'd intended to disobey her orders or glad that he was starting to show colors of his former self.

She sighed.

"Fine."

~~~

Gaara watched from the wall as Sasuke disappeared from sight. He hoped he'd been right about what he'd said.

There where times when he questioned whether Sasuke was really what Sakura needed.

He turned away from the woods to face the city again. The day was dragging on, and the sun was lowering, casting everything in an odd kind of gilded light.

He jumped down and headed to the hospital.

Tsunade was there waiting for him and led him into a guarded room.

Tsunade seemed to be worried Sakura's butterflies would come back for the child. Gaara knew they wouldn't. The child was no threat to them.

He walked into the room and there on the bleached white sheets lay a tiny body. She looked a little underfed and she was a little dirty but aside from that, physically speaking, she was no worse for wear.

He walked closer and she opened her eyes, large brown eyes haunted by some demon he couldn't see. He imagined his eyes must have looked like that back then.

He smiled gently at her. She simply looked at him but her eyelids were heavy and they soon drooped closed.

She hadn't been afraid of him.

He pulled a chair up to the bedside and sat down. He reached his calloused and tanned desert hand out and gently grasped her small, softer one. He held on gently.

Tsunade bit her lip as she left.

The girl would be ok with Gaara…the question was would Sasuke be ok with Sakura…

{All I know is that even I'm not dumb enough to play those odds…}

~~~

Sakura's lip twitched a little at the corner as visions of hanging out for movie night on the couch with Kakashi-sensei danced elusively in the corners of her mind. He'd always sat upside down on the couch, resting his torso on the seat with his legs thrown over the back and his head dangling near the floor.

He said it improved blood circulation and help train against head rushes.

A steady beep began to intrude upon the sound of the TV and the laughing as they'd thrown popcorn at each other.

Soon the beeping brought her completely back to consciousness.

She was in a hospital.

She looked around. Both eyes worked, it must have been over a day if the swelling from her right eye was cleared already. Her leg had been properly splinted and her ribs were properly bound. Her hair had been washed and braided, her head was bound with gauze wrapping. Her minor cuts had all been treated; a few had even been stitched. There was an IV stuck in her arm.

She sat up and disconnected herself from the machines. She then walked to the closet where she knew her bag would be. She hunted and found a pair of black cargo shorts that reached to just below her knees…They'd been Kakashi's but he never wore them so he'd given them to her. She pulled them on. Guy's shorts were always more practical than those little scraps of material that usually passed for girl's shorts. She then found a red tee shirt and gritted her teeth through the pain as she pulled it on. She then strapped on her shiruken and kunai pouches, followed by her sandals. She grabbed a wad of cash from her pack and tossed enough on the bed to cover the hospital expenses of two days and then grimaced as she pulled her pack onto her back.

She then jumped out the window, careful to land on her good foot.

She couldn't stay here. She couldn't stay around people.

She killed people.