A Threaded Web

A/N: Follows Sakura, from when she is taken home, to after seeing Naruto and then to the end. This is intended as the last chapter to this story.

The Third Thread

Anyone can tell you that to work together is an essential part of life. Konoha calls it teamwork, where a group is bonded together through trials and laughter and everything in between. But not all of them last. Every now and then, one of the group is lost. And it changes the rest. It makes the laughter fade and the sorrow grow until the time where they can handle not hearing as much laughter as they used to.

And when half the threads supporting the group are cut, the rest will follow.

Somehow this was not how he had expected to go down. He had thought he would go down fighting, protecting his precious people. He had thought he would be a Hokage and that he would be protecting his village, his people. He had always thought he would die ensuring the survival of his loved ones.

He wasn't entirely wrong, he muses to himself, as the darkness takes him and every feeling but the easiest one of floating, fades from him. He is dying to protect the lives of his comrades and family. He is ensuring that he will not be the one to bring them down. He will not be the one to take them from this life. He will not fail them, too, like he had already failed so many.

What's the loss of his own life compared to the survival of the many? Sure, it may have technically been an accident caused by idiocy, but it counted anyway.

Naruto has never wanted to be the one to take the lives of those precious few who cared despite who he is.

If she had been asked what she'd thought about her Team earlier that week, Sakura would've babbled about the amazing Sasuke-kun (he's her teammate above all and she's glad to have that, if nothing else), the annoying Naruto (he's funny, though, and his pranks, when they don't bother the Team, aren't that bad), and the always late Kakashi-sensei (she finds she doesn't mind completely, because there are moments when they're just being a Team in the mornings, not working on something or completing a mission).

She'd have talked about a mission they'd have recently done, she'd have spoken of an amusing moment or of the failure to see sensei's face, or even about the laughter they'd shared throughout their time together. The laughter that now meant so much to her, because it made them complete in those moments.

Sakura doubts she will ever laugh again, because with pieces missing, they won't ever again be complete.

The Team has been broken up, and the pieces left keep melting into blobs of nothing. It's terrifying and she can't stop it. She can't manage to get up from where her parents has sat her down on the couch, she can't force her mouth open to speak the words needed to calm her parents. She can't find a reason to bother.

What were they going to do now? Would he be replaced just like that? Because they couldn't retake the Chunin Exam without a full Team. But they couldn't be a full Team without him? So what would they do now?

She didn't want him replaced. She wanted him to be there with them. She wanted to see his triumphant smirk as he accepted a Chunin vest, and his nod when they accepted theirs. She wanted them to stand in front of a proud Kakashi-sensei, who'd arrive late, congratulate them and tell them they hadn't needed to show up, so that they'd get angry at him for having to be there for no reason. And then they'd not mind anyway, because he'd congratulated them. They'd just pretend they were annoyed, but they'd know him too well to really be angry.

And they'd come home with her so she could show her parents what a good Team she has- no, it's had, now. Because her Team was no longer whole. No longer perfect.

Sakura knows she's not going to get any sleep tonight. She's too scared she'll see him like that, again. So still, too silent, horrifyingly cold.

She's not going to sleep until her body refuses to hold her up anymore.

Her thoughts should have been her only company, but they only become so in moments, and no longer, during the whole evening, night, and coming morning.

Her parents are cautious and worried, they refuse to leave her alone in the house, and when her father has to go to work, her mother takes those hours off. And when her mother absolutely has to go, it is her father's turn to stay and watch her.

She feels a bit like a prisoner, but for the most part, the only thing she can care about, is that they are wasting important time on watching her, when they could be doing what they need to do. She wants to assure them that she'll be fine, to just go ahead and get to work, and that she'll see them tonight, but she can't get the words out. She can't even open her mouth to try.

She's of no use, at the moment, if she'd ever truly been of any at all.

It's midday when the knock on the door startles her father from watching her, but Sakura does not move, like she usually would have, to let in their visitor. She does not smile and say she'll get it. She doesn't try to be his helpful little girl. She's never again going to be a little girl.

He does not mention it, and leaves her be for those preciously few moments where it's just her and her thoughts.

And when he returns, after a time she can not tell how long, he is followed by a slightly familiar man wearing the Konoha headband. She knows that she knows this man if only very vaguely, but right now she could not care any less about that, or the reason why he is here. Clearly, it is to speak to her, or he would not be looking at her with such a grim face.

She didn't think she would care about that last fact, but there's a sudden chill in the air and the hair in the back of her neck are rising, her senses screaming nonono at her, because she knows something is wrong, but she can't take anything else being wrong.

The words he speaks are muddled through Sakura's hearing and she asks him, in a small and broken voice, to please repeat what he'd said, because she hadn't understood him, and where was Kakashi-sensei and Naruto? Was this about the Team?

And then he repeats what she does not want to hear. Hatake Kakashi is gone. A mission. He had succeeded at the cost of his life. He was gonegonegone.

Where was Naruto? Why wasn't he telling Naruto? Why hadn't he brought Naruto with him to tell them both at the same time? Wherewherewhere was he?

She moves for the first time in hours, rising up from her seat, as she softly excuses herself. She does not listen to her father trying to stop her - she is a ninja, he won't be able to stop her. She doesn't want to be stopped. And the other ninja doesn't try to.

She has to find Naruto, she has to. She needs to see that there's still someone else left. She has to know if he knows yet. Has he known for long? Did he choose not to tell her then? Did someone even tell Naruto? Did they think about her Team when they decided to let Kakashi-sensei go on a mission without them? Did sensei think about them, as he left them behind?

When she gets there, she knocks once before entering. She can hear voices, but she doesn't care if she's interrupting. She knows Naruto has to be here. Iruka-sensei is a good man and he wouldn't let Naruto be on his own at a time like this. Would he?

Sakura meets his eyes first, as she enters, and back in her mind a voice notes that he looks older, tired. Has he heard, then?

"Where's Naruto?"

She doesn't care enough to look at anyone else when she can see so clearly that he isn't one of them. They might think it rude, but they should understand. She had just lost half of her Team. They had to understand. And if they couldn't, she didn't want to know them, anyway.

And then Naruto appears. He squints at them, and she can't stop herself from giving a sob and running over to cling at him so relieved that he is still here. He is still okay, she is not alone. Naruto will always be there. Naruto won't leave her, too. Half the Team is better than just one out of four.

The idea of being alone on Team Seven terrifies her like nothing else.

He hugs her back, because it's Naruto, and he's not going to leave her alone. But then he asks where sensei is, and she whimpers, because no one had told him and she did not want to have to do that.

It's both a relief and angering when one of the others speak up, because she doesn't have to, because he makes it sound horrid. The reminder is painful, but this man hadn't even tried to make it less painful. He'd spat the news out like it didn't even matter that they were only half of the Team left, and that they'd lost two people so important to them just like that.

She hates him immediately. More than she hates being pulled away from Naruto. Don't they understand that the Team can't heal if they keep being split apart?

She regrets not refusing to leave his side and fighting anyone that tries to make her, later, when she is at home and everything burns.

Sakura jumps from her bed and sprints downstairs and out, not letting her parents stop her, and she is halfway to Iruka's when the words within the screams around her fall through the filter over her ears.

Naruto.

Uzumaki Naruto has allowed the Kyuubi to escape.

And then there is an explosion and she is looking up at the dark red fur of a demon, with teeth showing in what can only be a grin.

Laughter rings through the air, and the demon speaks of Naruto and death and how they had all failed him. But all she cares about from that is only that she's the last one. She's all alone, now. Her Team is gonegonegone.

Sakura feels numb. She doesn't know what to do or say, everything within her is empty. And her feet walk on their own towards the demon. Like they have a purpose she knows nothing of. Her eyes look through the running people, she no longer hears the screaming even when it is right next to her. All she can hear is the words declaring her the last of her Team.

She meets the fire with arms wide open.

And she is burning.