Summer Monsoon

Summary: When summer comes and the monsoon season begins, someone she loves is brought back to Konoha. Tsunade, Sakura, and too many similarities. OneShot.

Warning: Turned out to be intensely angsty and dark. Death fic, T-rated. You have been warned.

Set: Story-unrelated, future-fic.

Disclaimer: Standards apply.

When monsoon season approaches Tsunade lays down her pen, leaves behind her laden desk and the bottle of sake in it, and disappears.

She senses the change in the air: the warm summer air becomes moist and heavy and the streets of Konoha seem quieter than usual. People avoid the blazing sun and hide in the shadows of their hot houses, complaining about the heat and wishing for the start of the rain. The Inuzuka dogs don't move more than five meters a day, just scoot over to their huge water bowls and lap up the water noisily. At school, teachers have a hard time teaching the newest generation of shinobi children. The brats are noisy, distracted and annoying and nothing is able to keep their attention for more than two minutes. Overall, a moaning and sighing can be heard as Konoha and her inhabitants wait for the releasing rain.

Once, Tsunade had loved the summer and the monsoon rains. She loved the heat and the leaden heaviness of air, the soft, moist smell shortly before and shortly after the rain's heavy curtains. She loved the polished look of her village right after the rain and the heavy drops falling onto her roof during nights. She often fell asleep listening to it, to the soothing, rhythmic sound which was absolutely, uniquely Konoha-like. Orochimaru, like the snakes he was so fond of, liked the sun and heat and disliked endless rain. Jiraiya preferred sunny weather to rainy one, as well, and even if she suspected that he did so only because he enjoyed peeping into the women's baths far too much that was only later. Later, when everything had gone down the drain anyway. Tsunade had loved summer, as did her best friends, but unlike them she loved the rain, as well.

Even more beautiful than the rain after the few weeks of unrelenting heat were the warm, sunny days which followed the monsoon. The world shone in clear and bright colors, smelled like heaven, even the sounds seemed new and clearer than anything before. People carefully tested the weather, stopping on the streets instead of running with their heads bowed under umbrellas, and took up their daily routine again. A few last puddles lined the street and some children always jumped through them, giggling madly, and Tsunade felt the insane urge to do as they did: forget dignity, forget age and responsibility, forget the great Sannin and Princess of Slugs and everything and just be a child again. She seldom gave in but sometimes, when nobody was watching, she would walk through the puddles instead of avoiding them, soaking her sandals – and not caring at all.

She had loved all of it: the transition between summer and monsoon season and back from monsoon to summer.

Her love for the summer monsoon was lost when a war began.

First Nawaki.

Then Dan.

She runs from Konoha before there are more to follow but she returns years later and the curse is still in place. She should have known there was no way to hide from fate.

...

When the monsoon season approaches, Sakura covers up the small flower patches in her parent's garden, knowing the last flowers to survive the summer drought won't survive the flood. She checks the insulation of windows and doors and never leaves the house without an umbrella anymore. And she buries herself in her work while her mood gets worse every passing day.

Sakura hates rain. She hates rain because Naruto came back all wet and soaking from one of his tries to bring Sasuke back and almost caught pneumonia. She hates rain because it rains, again and again and again and unfailingly, whenever she confronts Sasuke and again and again is ignored by him.

She doesn't really like summer, either. It's too hot and uncomfortable. People suffer heat strokes and the hospital is filled with moaning and complaining patients. The blankets are too warm, the water not cold enough, does the air-conditioning never work? Nobody cares if she feels irritated and hot and exhausted and Shizune asks her twice a day whether she has seen Tsunade-sensei. She is not her teacher's keeper.

No. The season Sakura likes is spring and early summer, when cherry trees stand in full bloom. When the wind stops being cold and relentless and carries the scent of re-awakening plants and trees with it. After the grey and white winter, the world gains color again and people open the window to exchange a few words when she passes. She greets back, smiles and continues on and there is a spring in her step and a smile on her face. She meets Ino and Hinata once a week and they chat and spar and laugh. She teaches them a few basic medical techniques, too, because Hinata soaks up everything there is to learn and Ino, even though she thought of going into the medical branch, never did so and yet wants to know a bit in order to watch out for Shikamaru and Chouji. She doesn't say so but Sakura knows her. The days of spring pass quickly and eventful and aren't half as exhausting as their summer counterparts. Sakura works and learns and meets Kakashi-sensei, Sai, Naruto and Yamato-sensei every now and then. Her life could be perfect: she is a good medical nin, her abilities expand continuously and she has a great team and good friends.

Sasuke.

He is the ghost that haunts her, that visits her at night and doesn't let her sleep. Once, she loved him, she knows that much. She doesn't know what to think of him anymore. He has hurt Naruto so often. He has attacked Danzou and killed Itachi and so many more. What does she think of him? Love and hate are close companions, people say, but Sakura never hated Sasuke. She is pretty sure of that. What she feels when she thinks of him nowadays is simple: it's pure, unaltered regret.

Sasuke is lost.

And she feels determination. Because Sasuke has to be stopped, somehow and soon. His mere existence is eating at Naruto, is causing him sadness and loneliness and pain. Whenever it was, whenever her love for him started to change into indifference: it doesn't matter. What does matter is Naruto and her village and her friends and Sasuke isn't found anywhere near those today.

...

Sometimes, people compare her to Tsunade-sensei.

Because she is strong, they say, and pretty. And determined, and loud, and because she doesn't hold back. Because she is an amazing medic nin, her self-confidence bordering on arrogance. Because she can split boulders with one hand. Because she can heal broken bones with the same hand, and it is both soothing and tender. Because she can spar with Naruto and actually is able to hold her ground – their fights end in draws nowadays. Because the Council values her opinion even though she is young. Probably because she is somewhat insensitive, and arrogant, and always expects too much of others. Because, because. There are so many parallels people see between her and her teacher and some even might be true. But there are those things she hasn't chosen to be, the things she would rather never hear again. She is like Tsunade-hime, the people say. The only woman in a shattered team: one healer, one traitor, one sage. Slug, snake and frog. A new generation of Sannin, maybe, only did Sasuke defect before anyone ever thought of naming them thus. And the parallels are there, undoubtedly. Sakura can see them. If she tries she can see Orochimaru in Sasuke, can see Jiraiya in Naruto and Tsunade in herself.

But none of those parallels matter. None. Every parallel is one too much, every similarity mocking her for the variation of a theme history seems to dump on her. She doesn't want it to end like that: Sasuke taken over by Kabuto, Naruto killed in a fight because of an order he thought he had to carry out, and she – the last one – left to mourn the things she never had because they shattered their future far too early.

And future is like porcelain: once shattered, it is shattered irreparably, however beautiful it might have been.

...

Every summer, when the monsoon season begins, Tsunade-sama disappears from the village and doesn't return for weeks. She even leaves her sake bottles, which scares not only Shizune but Sakura, too. But what is she supposed to do? The Fifth Hokage always takes precautions, finishing her work before leaving, leaving written orders, nominating a successor in case of her not-return. And she always returns, gaunt and pale and exhausted, and until today Sakura has no idea where she goes. Sakura only knows that she herself hates those weeks, the hot and sticky heat, the endless curtains of rain, the growing heat after the too-cold rain. She would leave, too, if she only could.

...

This summer, when the monsoon season ends, the person she loves is brought back to Konoha. The last rain clouds still hang low and the street is lined with puddles. Children are playing outside, clad in lime-green and baby-pink rain coats they will soon discard because the sun is gaining strength quickly and the streets are already heating up. The smell of rain on wet pavement makes her sick as it mingles with stale blood and sweat. She really, really hates summer monsoons she thinks numbly as she takes in the picture and throws up her professional mask trice as strong as normally in order to keep her thoughts away from the person before her. Cold, lifeless eyes stare up at her.

They just look alike. That's not him.

"Five broken ribs, a punctured lung, several stab wounds, some of them already healed. A trauma to the head, probably followed by a concussion. Burns on hands and arms. Cause of death: inner bleedings caused by the stab wounds." That's not him. "Time of death approximately thirty-six to fourty hours ago." Shhhsh. It's not him. Stay calm. Do your work. "How about the other members of his team?" "He was alone, Mam." He died alone. All alone. Oh God. "What do you mean? ANBU work in groups of twos." Her voice is remarkably calm. She wonders, distantly. "He was alone, Mam. We were searching for him after he was officially reported missing one weeks ago." He was missing for more than one week and nobody noticed it. God. I didn't notice it. "What about his adversary?" Please. Please. Don't say the name. "There was no sign of an enemy, Mam. Just him next to the river, in that valley up to the North. The one with the strange name – you know which one I mean?" No. Please. Not there. "Yes, thank you. Go and get some rest, will you? You look tired. And change out of those soaked clothes if you don't want to catch a cold." "We came back as fast as we could, Mam. We figured the Hokage would want to see him. And…" Someone had to bring him home. "I understand. Thank you for your hard work."

She allowed herself to sag after the shinobi had left, tired and exhausted, sweaty and dirty because he had made the way back from the damn valley as soon as possible to bring him home. Home to the place he'll never see again. His hair was clean and shone like gold. Rain had pounded down on him hard enough to clean away all the tell-tale signs of a fight. It had mingled with the blood on his clothes but that didn't matter since his black and grey ANBU uniform seemed just wet, nothing else. They had placed him on a stretcher but hadn't been able to un-cramp his hands since rigor mortis had already set in. Soon they would loosen again but in his death grip he was holding a kunai and something she couldn't see because it was so small it fit into his fist perfectly. Maybe he wasn't even holding anything. They had closed his sea-blue eyes but she had had to open them again, to look at the dilapidation of his pupils. Now he was staring at the ceiling, unseeing, and those beautiful eyes would never smile at her again. Shaking, she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to calm down again.

One deep breath and she broke down, screaming at him, shouting, ordering him to get up, to look at her, to stop sleeping like some Nara lazy-ass while she needed him here. Needed him to get up, to smile at her and to tell her everything was alright and she just was having a bad dream. They stormed into the room, nurses and doctors and passing shinobi alike, and tried to take her away but she threw herself over his cold, dead body (ohgodohgodnohecan'tbedeadpleasedon'tletthisbereal) and clung to him, refused to move, refused to let go. They ran for Hinata first because nobody wanted to fetch the strange ANBU lady and when Hinata wasn't found they did get Ino. Ino shushed them from the room with one word and one glance, shut the door and took her place at his other side, her face so pale Sakura almost forgot her own grief. Almost. And I didn't even tell him I loved him before he left. I didn't notice he was away without leave. I never said good bye. Undeterred by Ino's silent presence she cried for hours and she didn't stop when Hinata came and made her leave. She didn't stop when her mother tucked her into her bed like she hadn't done for years, in a room she hadn't slept in for years, or when she heard her father's worried voice from the kitchen, talking to Shizune-san quietly, and not as she fell asleep. She woke with her pillow wet and salty tears still in her eyes and she felt even more exhausted than she had the day before. He had taken all her strength with him, down to her last reserves. She had never admitted how much she felt for him and only realized now how much more than just love it had been. But of course, even now was too late.

The summer sun was bright and high when she woke the next time. She never had hated summer more than the moment she realized he would never see it again. Neither the sunshine nor the warmth of summer nor the change of monsoon seasons.

...

She returned to work because it was the only thing she knew. And four days later, some five weeks after her disappearance, Tsunade-sensei walked into the hospital pale, bent and gaunt, grief painted onto her beautifully young features so deeply she looked like ninety. She walked into the room and Sakura, who by chance had seen her walk through the wide entrance, slipped in behind her, her eyes immediately fixing themselves onto his ridiculously peaceful features. He looked like he had found what he had been looking for all his life, calm and beautiful with his long, shining eye-lashes, his golden hair and his fair complexion. They had taken away the kunai and folded his hands on his chest. They had washed him and exchanged his torn and bloody ANBU uniform for the dark shirt and pants that were Konoha's mourning clothes. Dimly she remembered they had asked her what they were supposed to do with the things he had carried around in his pockets but she had been too far away to answer. Now, as the memory returned, she dashed out of the room and ran all the way towards the nurse's station. A young woman looked at her and her face changed into an ugly grimace of pity as she recognized her. "Where's his stuff?" Sakura asked, in no mood to waste time. The nurse didn't seem to understand. "The things that were in his mission gear bag and pockets!" She clarified impatiently and a look of enlightenment sparked in the woman's eyes. Sakura fought the urge to snort loudly and to cry again. "Suzumiya-san put them here somewhere…" The young nurse mumbled and opened one door of the huge cabinet after another. On her third try, she found a plastic bag. "Here it is." Without thanks, Sakura grabbed it and dashed back.

Tsunade-sama hadn't moved. She was staring down at the dead, her shoulders hunched. Then she turned and left without addressing one single word at Sakura. Beyond caring, the woman kneeled down on the floor and emptied the bag. The contents tumbled to the floor, as lost and useless now that he was gone as she was. His weapon's pouch, old and worn and yet immaculately clean. The small first aid-kit Hinata had given him when he joined ANBU. A crumpled photograph, years old, showing all of the Konoha Twelve. Now down to ten, she thought grimly and felt tears leaking through her façade again. She continued on quickly. A pen but no paper. A white pebble, round and smooth. Jiraiya-san's first novel, the one about the ninja who saved the world, the one he had loved so much. And a necklace she never had seen, a simple leather band carrying gemstones formed like claws and cut from blue-and-green, shining and polished stone.

It was warm.

She cupped it in her hand and closed her eyes, trying to force back the tears and failing, as so often during those last days. The stone felt alive in her hand, soothing and familiar, and for a second she could give herself away to the illusion that he had worn it only shortly before and would return to claim it back soon. With tears still blurring her vision, she slipped it over her head and felt the warm stone settle against her collarbone like it had been made for her.

That way, at least, a part of him always would be with her.

...

Every summer, when the sun returns after the monsoon rains, a person she loves is brought back to Konoha dead.

Tsunade rests her head against the cold glass of the big window in her office and feels too old and too cold to rage or to even cry. Nothing is left to protect, nothing is left to keep her standing. She lost her brother and her fiancée. She lost both her team mates, one of them being her best friend and the person she could have spent the rest of her life with. She lost her grandfather and her teacher and more friends than others would ever know. And now she has lost the one person that was like a son to her. Here she was, thinking she could hide away until the monsoon passed, and nothing would happen. Thinking it was alright, hoping, against all odds, that her curse had passed away after Jiraiya's death just because it hadn't shown itself for a few years. Stupid, idiotic woman she was, wishing for happiness though life had shown her times and times again that there wasn't something like it for her, not ever.

Shizune entered the office, carrying a tray with tea and her favorite cookies, and in her face Tsunade could read her most loyal follower's mixture of sadness, apprehension, worry and fear. Shizune loved him, Tsunade knew. Shizune loved him for the fire he was and she never would be, for the fact that he never made her feel inferior because she decided to serve a person rather than the village. She loved him because he had needed her, somehow, in the strange way two people without family can share when one of them is a orphaned teenager and the other a young woman who never will be able to have children. Shizune had loved him, even if nobody had noticed and nobody remembered except for the two of them now. "Sit and have some, too," Tsunade told her one-time student and turned back to the window again while Shizune hesitantly sat down on the corner of the next chair and started to nibble at a cookie. She set it down quickly again and went to watch her master.

Silence fell over the room.

Outside, a few children were playing hide-and-seek on the great plaza in front of the Hokage's tower. A week had passed since the monsoon rains had stopped and already heat and drought were taking overhand again. Extremes, Tsunade thought bitterly. Story of my life. A shadow passed over the plaza and as she turned again to look she caught the swish of pink outside. Narrowing her eyes, she watched Sakura walk down the street towards the Academy, her steps slow and heavy, her head bowed. She looked so fragile from up here but Tsunade had no pity to spare. She felt too empty, too old. Why was Sakura following that street? The hospital was in the other direction and her home as well… Of course. His apartment was there, somewhere behind the Academy. Tsunade remembered having been informed, once, that the rent hadn't been paid on time and that this, as she took from the landlady's hesitant words, had never happened before. Tsunade had quietly paid the rent and told the lady to send back the money as soon as he paid himself, and sure as hell as he returned from a mission two days later and received his pay the money was back on her bank account again. Sakura continued on, oblivious to everything around her, until a kid ran smack into her. Taken aback, she almost fell but caught herself and the child the last second. Tsunade watched as the child seemed to apologize hastily and Sakura nodded, and then the child dashed off again. The pink-haired woman turned around to watch it leave and the moment a reflection of brilliant blue caught Tsunade's eye. She drew in her breath sharply and Shizune was next to her immediately, loyal, tense, sad and worried. Old and broken and yet loyal to the end. "Tsunade-Sama…" Unable to take her eyes off the pendant around the girls' neck, Tsunade only nodded. Shizune saw it, too, for she fell silent.

And Tsunade started to chuckle.

They had often told her she and her student were similar. She had always refrained from thinking in such categories: Sakura was Sakura and not a clone of hers. But she, too, couldn't help but see the things in which they seemed to mirror each other.

There are too many similarities.

Sakura stood there for a few seconds, unmoving, and then continued on. Soon, she slipped from Tsunade's field of vision. A last flash of teal, polished stone; and a growling thunder.

Watch out, girl, you're gonna end up just like me.

She didn't specify the circumstances. Outside her window, the rain fell down so heavily and suddenly the village drowned in surprise. Within seconds, the streets were empty, and the low rushing sound of endless rain, a sound she had tried to avoid for years, filled her entire senses. The scent of wet trees and pavement wafted in through the open windows.

Tsunade turned on her heel, knowing Shizune would follow her to the end of the world, and left the building.

A/N: People who read and reviewed other stories of mine know that I use to answer to them as soon as possible. I apologize beforehand since I won't be able to do so this time. I'm off on a work vacation for seven weeks and won't have the best internet access.