Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Status: Incomplete

Before:

Her grandmother stared at her when she came back. Her green eyes were wide, and her mouth was open, gaping, and for a second, Sakura wanted to switch places with Ino, so she could understand that inexplicable glimmer in her eyes, that shifting edge in her mouth.

When she can speak again, Maeko-baa-san only whispers. "Who did this to you?"

For a minute, Sakura thinks she's angry. That she'll rage and scream and yell and burn everything to the ground. That she'll take Sakura by the hand and march up to Danzo and demand that he make her brown again, that he make her dark and different and wrong.

(They all tell her she's wrong, wrong, wrong, but she's fixed it now, fixed it, fixed it and no one can make it go back to the way it was—)

But then her grandmother smiles, and her eyes are soft when Sakura looks into them.

"We should thank them." Her grandmother says, and suddenly, something dawns on her and it feels wrong, dirty, dirty, dirty and it swallows her whole, but she can't take it back now, oh she's done it now, "You look…"

Sakura waits, dizzy with half-joy and half-grief.

Her fingers twitch on her pale skin. It looks naked, like someone took away her armor. She looks…Konohian. Like her mother, her pale-skinned mother with her clear blue eyes, and the slanted jaw, and the dazed, confused look.

Sakura hopes she looks like her now.

She has her father's jaw, the slant of his feline eyes, the plumpness of his mouth in her soft face. She has things that her mother could never, would never, have and she hopes they've faded away with the porcelain bottles and the light-skin she's given herself.

(Sakura hopes she never looks like her father again. Not like the memories that linger in her dirty, outsider mind. Not like the glimmers and glances she thinks she sees in the mirror; smudged, darkened, wrong.)

Maeko-baa-san smiles wider, and Sakura cannot help but shake. Her hands are clammy, her mind is whirling, and she's half angled herself towards the door just in case the hands come down when—

"You look…like you're your mother's daughter now. Like you're…right."

Sakura smiles, shy and fluttering, but she cannot help but remember the way her skin had burned, and the tears tracked down her face as she effaced all that was supposed to be wrong. That as the white began to show through the cracks, her heart beat faster and faster and faster, until all she could think about were her father's dark face and hands and warm, soft smile—

"Don't worry," her grandmother comes closer to her, and Sakura has to swallow the instinctive fear that burns through her. She nearly flinches when Maeko-baa caresses her cheek. Her grandmother's eyes are so clear, so green, so much like hers.

"You'll never have to be that man again."

Sakura closes her eyes and tries not to feel like she's lost her whole mind.

After:

Sakura creeps past the academy, holding her breath. Her hair is in her face, and her steps are soft, just like her father taught her, and Danzo told her to. Her hands are clenched in her skirt, and she only lifts her eyes when she has to.

She hasn't been to see them for a whole week. Some part of her knew, deep, down inside her, that she'd betrayed them. That in picking up those white bottles, cool to the touch, the cream burning as it smeared across her skin, time and time again, she'd given away everything she was supposed to represent.

Something that had been as much a part of her as her pale-skinned mother and green, green eyes.

But she swallowed her pride and lifted her head when she reached the row of dirty, collapsing houses, in shambles. They're not collapsing exactly. From far away, they look as pretty as the rest of Konoha's city; bright, shimmering colors on the outside, pretty gardens on terraces, lace curtains in the windows.

Except, when she gets closer, she can see the peeling paint. The dirty, groaning doors swinging with care, because no one could dare to afford another. The little garden plots grew with the stench of opium poppies, cannabis, salvia, the creeping ayahuasca vines, and the betel nuts. The men and women that sat on the balconies had blank eyes and gaping mouths. They didn't look at her, not even when she shuffled and made far too much noise. They were lost, deep, deep, never to come out of the shells of their minds. Where the lace swung in the breeze, Sakura could see the smudge of gray, the stiff dust that lay intertwined with the fabric.

"Sakura!"

She freezes in her steps, hands curling tighter into her dress, and heart jackhammering in her chest, as she raises her eyes to face them.

Her friends, if she can call them that, stand before her; a melee of dark skins, black-brown-blue eyes, skinny shoulders and tight clothes. Some are older, like Sesasi, who's eyes are wide and scared, but trying to look tough. Others, like her and Mikyou whose mother gave him a Konohian name before she left him, are younger, trembling out in the open, only ever comfortable in the eve of night.

Mikyou is the first to look scared.

His brown eyes were looking, looking, looking, over her new skin and hands and Sakura felt herself wanting to curl into her chest, to disappear, and suddenly, the white skin, the feeling of wrong skin is back again, and she wants to die, to never have been born, because at least then she'd be right, she'd be good because—

("People like you aren't supposed to exist.")

"What…I don't…" her friend's mouth wobbles, and she thinks his eyes flicker in fear, in horror, and then in sudden, fierce anger. "You…you were supposed to be like us."

"I'm…sorry." Sakura chokes out, shoulders to her ears, shame welling in her voice. "I…I…"

The tears are horrendous; a lump in her throat, the shame, the fear, the utter disgust she feels for herself. She was weak. Weak and petty and scared.

(Nothing, you're nothing, no one should even be forced to look at you, you disgust me, pretentious, obnoxious child get out of the street before we make you—)

She can't tell them anything, can't tell them how she'd begged and pleaded and it was so easy, too easy, to erase them from her skin. How the temptation was sweet and slick in her chest, and she'd caved, caved, caved and now, now…she wasn't…she couldn't…

"…I…I…" The air gets stuck in her lungs, strangled, and she has to look away from her friends' accusing gazes.

Sakura turns, bolts and she hears them shout after her.

She runs and runs and runs and never comes back.

Now:

The rain has let up, and Sakura is travelling again.

They've sent her letters. So many, many letters. Looping, flowery handwriting, written by the most qualified calligraphers. Gifts and food and promises that sound like honey but taste as sickly sweet in her mouth.

The kage want her. She can see it in their greedy, quivering eyes, and sly, diplomatic smiles. They're getting ready; ready for the hunt, the pounce, the kill. Konoha, no matter how much they've fooled themselves she realizes, has no mercy from their neighboring nations, and what little those nations have, they covet; she's fair game now, Konoha's best medic, free for all who can grab her and make her theirs.

Her body is still sore from the war. Her eyes sting from all the smoke she'd walked through. There are times when she has to sit down; her chakra has not worked quite the same, not since she harnessed it all for the army of a whole world. She gets dizzy, and nauseous, and when the light flickers in a certain way under the trees, her throat gets tight and she has to think of calming things before her body can stop hyperventilating.

Some part of her, the part that wants her to sob and to cry and to give up the whole world because why did she have to fixeverydamnthing—

…There are times when she wants to give up. Where she wants to sit on a lichen-covered rock, knees to her chest, and cry for everything she has lost. For everything that she freely gave up.

The bitterness, the rage, the utter and complete loss…she doesn't know what to do with herself. Sai, she liked to think, had been her anchor to Konoha. The lost, sad boy who had been her friend. A gentle boy. A murderer, but her murderer; she'd loved him. Loved him like the siblings she'd never gotten to have, like the family who had left her for Danzo to warp and twist and maim.

The other part reminds her that she must get up. That if she has any lingering hope in her body, she must find her mother. Her grandmother. She must find the family that Konoha had taken from her if she was to do anything.

Her chest hurt, and her eyes stung, and her skin was too blaring and bright in the sun, and she wanted to burn everything that reminded her of Konoha—but she knew that if she did, she'd forget Sai, and Ino and Shizune. She'd forget Mikyou and Sesasi and the friends that had loved her before she'd broken their trust.

Sakura wants to…oh how she wants to…but she thinks of her mother before they'd killed her, of her father who loved her so dearly, of Danzo…who took her away before she was old enough to know it was wrong.

She gets up from the forest floor, tearing her hands from her hair, and walks. She's trembling and shaking and there's a faint smell of vomit around her; she hadn't been able to keep her breakfast down, and the medic in her wouldn't allow herself to forget to eat.

She trudges through the mud, the sunshine making her scared anyone can see her now; patch-skinned, curly bouncing hair and jarring eyes.

Sakura tries to breathe, tries to think, but all she can do is walk; half inside and half out of her mind.

(She tries to make it, but she doesn't know if she can.)

After:

"She was here." Karin's voice is shaking, and her eyes are too wide. Next to her, Suigetsu fidgets, but he can't bring himself to say anything in quip.

He's never seen Karin like this. Never seen her shaking and scared, and he suddenly sees how young she looks; with her hair tucked behind her ears, and her mouth trembling, and the fear leaking into her voice.

He wonders, slowly, how many times she'd let anyone see her like this.

Sasuke says nothing. He doesn't have to; his face is dark, strained, all too fierce.

Suigetsu swallows, trying to make it not sound too loud.

The country road looks deserted in front of them. Sasuke has not yet moved, and he stands still, so still, that Suigetsu wonders if he's re-thinking the whole thing.

Then, his gravelly, baritone voice rings out into the air, and Suigetsu feels terrified.

"We won't stop." Sasuke promises, horrifying gleam in his eye. "We won't stop until I've hunted her down."

here's an update. I hope you enjoy this? I'm beginning to make more plotlines and such and I have a genuine idea of where this is going now. Please be patient with me! I have literally so much university work to do it's insane tbh.

Enjoy, and thank you EVERYONE! for the amazing, inspiring comments.

Once again: work of fiction, if you don't like it, please don't read it. There's a difference between constructive criticism and just criticism, and while I do enjoy the former, the latter I usually do not.