#also. embarrassingly... when i did my recreation of this piece in middle school...

[flame-shadow]

the funny thing about doing these recent pen drawings is that i'm accidentally reminding myself of skills i have that just haven't been commonly used in a while. like, oh yeah! i can make a cool twisted hallway if i want to.

fun fact: i used to be super into optical illusions, and back in middle school, i did a bunch of studies of M.C. Escher's art. i loved how he played with perspective. i ambitiously recreated House of Stairs on a big piece of paper, and i was so proud of myself for figuring out the underlying methods of the perspectives he used for that piece.

i lost my drawing after that school year (or maybe they just didn't give it back to me after i turned it in for the assignment...?), but here's Escher's version. and it even has weird bug lizard things!

[anerdinallherglory]

Approaching Sun (23)

Author's Note: Hey guys! Summer is flying by and I am already having to start planning for the next school year and attend summer trainings. Keep me in your thoughts because I am hoping my second year of teaching will be much better than the first! Good news is that despite all of this, I am hoping to have another chapter coming your way before the end of summer. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter as it focuses more on the heroine of the story!

P.S. This chapter is tightly adapted to the Naruto light novels. Read up on them here and here.

Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22

Chapter 23: Separate Missions

When Sakura Haruno had been dismissed from the Kazekage's council room, she had immediately followed Kankuro to the Sunagakure hospital on the east side of the village. They had not been busy, but when Sakura had been kindly announced, the staff smiled in recognition and escorted her straight to the Children's hospital at her request.

Sakura saw several patients, but none of them had bodily injuries or illnesses to attend to; in their cases, it was their minds and mental well-being that Sakura was assessing. When meeting their first patient, a child named Isao, the head medics insisted on observing her interactions with the child despite the fact that she had modeled this process for them before. It was the first time the kunoichi had sat down with a child since the incident with her patient, Emiko, back in Konoha. It was still a fresh wound for Sakura, but because of that, she took her time examining the child in front of her.

"What's your name?" she asked him, pulling up and reviewing his chart which listed the child's background, symptoms of behavior, as well as his trauma record. There was only one pattern of concerning behavior: frequent night terror episodes. The trauma? The only thing listed was the death of the child's mother.

The child mumbled his name shyly in response, ducking his head, to which Sakura tried to give him a reassuring smile.

Sakura quickly identified all that had been done to rule out any physical ailments or causes that might be the source of the night terrors. A sleep study had been conducted in which heartrate, blood pressure, and breathing had been monitored. After a few more dead ends, the referral information said that the determining factor might be stress.

His mother's death was two years ago, during the Shinobi World War, in fact. Was the child still experiencing stress from her death or was it something more than that? Sakura would have to conduct a formal interview with him in order to figure out what exactly might be the stressor in this child's life.

Sakura began to ask him questions about his life, how old he was, how he was doing at school, who did he live with, where did he live. What she learned from these types of questions was that Isao was an 11 year old boy who lived with his father and seemed to be a fairly happy child despite his mother's passing. He was one of the top students in his class, had a close group of friends, and lived in a household with considerable means.

Sakura switched to the more specific questions in regard to his condition.

"Isao," Sakura smiled again at the young boy, "do you have any dreams during your night terrors?"

Isao looked up towards his hairline in thought for a quick second, but then returned her questions with a confident and mature, "Not that I recall."

Sakura recorded what she could and sent the child home with a promise to see him the following day.

After he departed, Sakura turned to the head medic—a man named Mako that Sakura had worked closely with before—who had remained standing close by and said, "I need to speak to the physician who referred him; there has to be more to this that I can use."

"Right away miss," Mako responded, leaving to retrieve the physician.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

After repeating the process with a few other children, Mako informed her that the most recent adolescent would be the last of their patients for a while. Sakura was then escorted to the greenhouse that she had once visited before so that she could find some helpful herbs for Isao to help him sleep. She also wanted to do a quick session for Mako and his team about what she was discovering with chakra-applied medicine.

When arriving, she quickly came up with a draught for Isao and recreated the burn solvent that she had invented in the leaf to treat the burn victims of Chino's human bombs. Sakura had always been fascinated with how well the Sunagakure hospital was able to recreate an environment such as the greenhouse for most medicinal plants that weren't native to the land.

As she wrote down the ingredients for both medicines, Kankuro walked in with a casual wave. "Came by to check on you. I just finished preparing your rooms. I'll show you where they are as soon as you are finished up here."

"Thank you Kankuro," she smiled politely, "I think I'll be here for quite some time still and I don't want you to have to wait up."

Offering him the same pen she used to write down the burn solvent's ingredients, Kankuro drew her a quick little map on the back of her paper. "It's just to the right of the hospital. Take a right here at the corner and it's the little inn next to it. The manager's name is Chie; she'll take care of you."

She bowed to him, holding the piece of paper gratefully. "Thanks again."

"I'll be off now, but I'll come again before the night is over. Let us know if you need anything else."

She assured him she'd see him later and suddenly felt bad that he felt like he needed to babysit her. She knew that he was just being a good host, much like Shikamaru did for Temari when she had stayed in the Leaf Village at one point, but Sakura still felt it was unnecessary.

After Kankuro's departure, Mako had quickly returned everyone to the subject at hand by exchanging a brief joke in regard to chakra-applied medicine. Catching the very end of it, Sakura explained, "With this medicine, maybe sunburns won't be so much of an issue here." She laughed along with the others and her insecurities left as Kankuro walked out the door.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Kankuro was true to his word and checked on her once more before the sun began to fall beneath the walls of Sunagakure. She waited until dark to make the small trek to her quarters and once again made sure that no one was following her before she entered the inn. Sakura could hear Sasuke's disapproving cluck already if someone else happened to make an appearance in the middle of the night because of her carelessness.

"Welcome," the elderly inn-keeper announced, quickly meeting her at the door, "I am so sorry dear, but all of our rooms are full."

"Oh," the pink-haired ninja exclaimed embarrassingly. There must have been some sort of mistake then. "You're not Chie? I must have the wrong inn," she told the woman, rubbing the back of her head as she looked down at the little hand-drawn map in her hands. "Can you help me find the correct one? Lord Gaara…"

"The Kazekage?!" the woman exclaimed, rushing forward and pulling the map from her hands. After a minute of observing it more closely, the inn-keeper cocked a head at her in second thought. "What is your name, miss?"

Feeling slightly awkward, Sakura smiled as politely as she could. Why was it that she was experiencing moments like this frequently at hotels?

"Haruno, Sakura," she answered plainly, almost telling the woman to forget it all together, instead. But the name sparked recognition in the woman's face, and her eyes grew wide as she began to apologize for her confusion.

"Yes, this way, ma'am," she gestured for Sakura to follow. The situation was explained to her as they walked, all while the woman wrung her hands nervously. "I only have one room for you and your teammate. He insisted that it was fine, but I would be more than happy to arrange for you to have another room miss."

Hadn't the lady just said that all the rooms were full? Sakura paused as she processed slowly what this woman was saying. Chie was explaining that there was only one room for the both of them. Her and Sasuke were going to be sharing a room? And he had said that it was FINE? Sakura's inner-self was both screaming and panicking.

Sure enough, the lady spoke true and Sakura arrived at the end of the very long hallway on the top floor, and surveyed the single, unoccupied, spacious room with two beds. "Again, I am so sorry for my mistake," the woman bowed, and Sakura waved her hands in polite dismissal.

After Chie left, Sakura shut the door and placed her back against it with an exhale. She wasn't so sure if she shouldn't follow the woman and ask for a separate room after all. What was Kankuro thinking giving them the same room? And then Sasuke agreeing to it? Sure, they had stayed together back in Tanigakure, but that was because there were strange ninja after them. Maybe that's why Sasuke agreed to this; maybe he thought this was still considered enemy territory.

Sakura laughed a little when she saw how far away Sasuke had separated the two beds from one another. She could still see the outline of where it had been hours before, just a few feet away from the companion bed. She only recognized it as Sasuke's because his clothing was neatly folded and put to the side of it; the lack of his shirtless-self wandering the room's corridors let Sakura know that he was currently out.

Walking to the opposite side of the dim room, Sakura glanced down at her own bed which was currently occupied by a tray of food and fresh clothes. In response, her stomach growled, and she quickly removed the tray, snagging a few Sunagakure's famous biscuits from it. Sakura was even more excited about the new set of clean clothes. When she and Sasuke had fallen through the time-space dimension after they were attacked, Sakura had left behind her small bag of belongings. This meant the only thing she currently possessed were the dirty clothes on her back.

She quickly washed and changed into them. The beige trousers were exactly her size and fit her like a glove down to her ankles. She was amazed at how great of a guess the staff must have made in order to find them. The simple white tunic fit her a little looser, draped low with sleeves that fell just above her elbows. Sakura tucked the front of the shirt into her pants to give herself more shape and smiled at this version of herself dressed in Sunagakure fashion. Although she preferred her own style of red and white, Sakura thought this was a decent change. To finish the look, Sakura tested out braiding back her damp hair to keep the Sand Village winds from tearing at it. She quickly untangled it once she was sure she had the process of the plait in memory.

Sakura sat cross-legged on her bed, half-tempted but far too shy to pull Sasuke's bed back over to its original spot and blame it on Chie. She'd give him the distance he so obviously wanted even if it went against her own heart's desires. Even when Sasuke was with her, sometimes it seemed he was still very far away.

After several late-night hours of watching the starry sky out the window beside her bed, Sakura realized suddenly that she was waiting on Sasuke to return. And at this very same moment, Sakura made a heartbreaking connection. His clothes had been left behind because Sasuke had left to continue his mission in the desert; Sasuke hadn't cared if they shared a room because he hadn't planned on staying in it.

Sakura recalled her words to Sasuke when she had confronted him back in Konoha about accompanying him on his journey: "I'm a Jonin, now. I have my own mission to fulfill along the way."

And then she also remembered what she had said to Gaara earlier that morning when he asked about her "separate" mission: "I am hoping to check in on Sunagakure's own mental health clinic, as well as share some of my own medical findings with your hospital's doctors, if I may. I would also like to assist in any way medically during our time here."

Yes, she had made it clear to both Sasuke and Gaara about having separate missions but having separate missions didn't mean that Sakura wanted to be… well, separated. Sakura reasoned with herself that this was impractical of her. How else was it supposed to work? But she still felt frustrated. Shouldn't he have at least came and told her he was leaving? Couldn't Sasuke have mentioned when he'd be back, so she wasn't waiting on him? Maybe that had always been her problem.

She fell asleep to the memory of her apartment, the smell of tea, and his monotoned voice telling her, "I want you to stop waiting for me, Sakura."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sasuke stood ankle-deep in sand and focused on his breathing. It was evening now, and the setting, burning sun was a halo of orange fire against his shadowy figure. He breathed in the heat. Inhaled. Exhaled. Once. Twice, and then again. In his mind's eye, Sasuke pictured Kaguya's desert dimension and pretended he was inhaling the heat of that domain instead. This would be Sasuke's first attempt to teleport to any dimension directly without going through the core dimension where he had taken Sakura. It was connected to all of the other dimensions and was the bridge to all of them. But this had been Sasuke's goal for some time: to bypass the core dimension all together and cut his chakra use in half and decrease the time he spent there recovering afterwards.

Summoning the chakra to his Rinnegan, Sasuke exhaled the heat in his lungs as he opened the black rift before him. Pain instantly began in his temples as he reached forward with his chakra to push beyond the core dimension. He searched for the familiar desert, feeding the dojutsu more chakra in hopes of reaching it. More. It needed more, and he grudgingly gave it. Come on, he growled internally, reaching deep into his reserves.

Just then, an image of white sand appeared on the other side of the spinning portal and Sasuke immediately lunged for it. The Uchiha dove and the hot air around him abruptly vanished as pain pulsed like lightning in the back of his skull and behind his Rinnegan. Sasuke dropped to his knees at the sudden loss of chakra that evaporated from him. He knelt in the red dirt of the core dimension and felt the sensation of a vacuum as he lost hold of the sand dimension.

"Damn it!" he cursed and slammed his fist into the ground as a memorable weakness came over him. He knelt his forehead into the soil and let go of the jutsu altogether. He focused on his breathing once more, this time just trying to get as much oxygen as this cursed, airless dimension would allow him to have.

Sasuke had been so close to reaching it, but just couldn't supply enough chakra. He wasn't sure if he would ever be able to amass the cost it would take in energy to do what Kaguya had been able to do so easily. Sasuke knew he shouldn't be disappointed since this was his first try at it. And besides, he had helped defeat the mother of chakra. If anyone could copy Kaguya's travel between dimensions, it would be him. Sasuke had to because the village depended on him to do so; he had to keep the future bright.

Sasuke frowned when he suddenly realized that he didn't have enough chakra left to return to his own dimension; he had used up too much trying to stretch the jutsu. He had thought this would happen, had even anticipated it and accepted it. But as Sasuke rolled onto his back and breathed heavily, looking towards where the portal had been milliseconds before, he felt disheartened. He wouldn't be going back to Suna to find Sakura tonight, then. Sasuke would have to recover here for a night or two before he could go back.

Despite having a talk with himself about Sakura's well-being on his journey here, Sasuke contemplated it again now. She would be fine. His pink-haired teammate was more than capable of taking care of herself; she didn't have to prove that to him anymore. Besides, Kankuro was looking out for her if not Gaara. She was busy with her own duties anyway. As long as she rested, she would be fine. Sasuke closed his eyes and let the sand-filled air brush against his face. She would be fine.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sakura was not fine for several reasons. The first was that she had been running off of only a few hours of sleep. How was she supposed to get any of the rest she needed if the kunoichi spent the night wondering about Sasuke? Sakura had tossed half the night in anger and the other half in worry. She knew that Sasuke lived in this exact same situation for two years without her worrying about him. Maybe it had been the encounter with the ninja back in Tanigakure, that still had Sakura's nerves on edge. The two of them hadn't met their pursuers since, but Sakura was still concerned about the confrontation and had never discovered the motive behind their attack. The identities of the ninja still remained a mystery as well. Her major concern was the fact that they had meant to do Sasuke harm first by breaching his room while the Uchiha had been asleep in hers. They came to hers next, Sakura rationalized, only because Sasuke had been absent. Were they really after Sasuke, or was the entire occurrence completely random because they were foreign leaf shinobi? If they were after Sasuke, how long would it take for them to track him down while he was alone in the desert, awayfrom the village and away from her? These were the thoughts that resurfaced in Sakura's mind all night, and she only managed a little sleep because she ended up reminding herself that Sasuke was one of the strongest ninja in the world, and that if anyone was after him, he would easily handle the situation and deal with the enemy on his own.

The second reason why Sakura was not fine, was because they were unable to locate her patient, Isao. After his first appointment with her, Sakura had developed a medicine that would help Isao sleep more soundly throughout the night to help with his night terrors. When his appointment time came first thing in the morning, he didn't show. One of the staff members had walked down to his father's house and had not found anyone home. It was evening now, and Isao had still not made an appearance. Sakura finally settled with writing Isao's father a note explaining her wish to see the boy and having the same staff member take it and leave it at their house.

Despite not seeing Isao, Sakura's schedule was full. Everyone in the village expressed a desire to be seen by the pink-haired medic, either because they believed in her advanced abilities or because they wanted to be included in the rare event. Sakura used their curiosity against them and was able to quickly give them a full exam as well as create detailed medical records for the majority of Sunagakure's citizens.

When Kankuro came to check on her, Sakura embarrassingly assured him that she was more than fine despite the workload. She was in the middle of organizing these records when Kankuro reminded her to make time to see the sunset while she was here. She had briefly mentioned it to him when they had first arrived, and it seemed he still remembered their conversation.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Yes, I was able to catch glimpses of it yesterday. I imagine I'll have some time left to do so once I've finished up here."

Kankuro nodded in response and said, "You are doing so much here. Take time for yourself, too."

"Oh, I will!" she promised again as he exited the building, wondering why he was emphasizing this point to her. Sakura had too much on her plate tonight such as finish the records, go over what new information she learned from Isao's referral, as well as check on the patients that stayed overnight at the children's medic clinic. She even considered staying with them overnight since she assumed Sasuke wouldn't be back any time soon; she honestly didn't know how long her teammate would be away. A couple of days? Weeks? She prayed it wasn't so. Sakura rose her chin and faced her work confidently. If she had any hope whatsoever of one day loving this man and having him love her in return, then she had better get used to this. Sasuke Uchiha would return eventually.