The night was silver. More so than I could ever have imagined. The moon touched everything, including the vast lake that we were camping by for the night. We were at the edge of the Leaf. Not close enough that we could see the gate, but far enough away so that if we were to yell as loud as we could, no one would have heard. An explosion would have notified them of our location though. Tsunade-Sama would have been after us in a matter of seconds which, of course, was the plan if things got too ugly. It was my turn to keep watch, and around me, Naruto, Kakashi, Sai, and Hinata were all sleeping peacefully. A fire crackled brightly, making shadows move and dance like demons about me. But there was something about the fire which wasn't quite right. It, like the moon, seemed almost blue. It was tainted with silver, just as the starry night sky was. Just as the vast shadows of the night were. A kunai was clasped tightly in my hand, not because I was planning on using it for anything, but because I was nervous. Nervous to be going against what Tsunade had told us, me, and nervous to be seeing a face I thought had died with the passing of time. Then again I might not even be seeing him at all... this was just a hunch. He might not even show up! I tried to remind myself that but I knew. I just knew he would be here. So questions floated through my head. Questions that would have hurt me to think about during any other time but now. Would he still look the same? I'm sure he would, perhaps paler than he had been before, maybe dressed differently seeing as Orochimaru was dead now and he was no longer part of the Sound... but he would be the same. He would look at me with lifeless eyes and pull his lips back from his teeth in an attempt to smile cruelly down at me. He would utter words that would make me cringe and his voice would never escalate beyond that of a whispering wind.
"Sasuke." I let the word tumble from my mouth and instantly I felt it. A feeling I had been avoiding by putting my mind on other things, on other people. It was slow at first, sort of like a very slow moving stream. Memories flowed gently through my mind. When we'd first become Team Seven, my silly crush on him which would later grow into something much stronger, our first mission. Those didn't hurt too badly though they made me shift uncomfortably in preparation for what might come, for what I knew would come. The Chunin Exams in the Forest of Death... The air in my lungs begun to strain as my breath became more rapid. Orochimaru's attack. The curse mark.
Sakura! Shut up and let me deal with it. It's my problem so stay out of it!
His voice gently rang through my head, like a bell and still my mind fluttered back to those memories, those times we had gone through. The fight against Gaara. I felt my throat tighten and I dropped my Kunai with a gentle thud. Naruto and Sasuke; always fighting, that one time in the hospital where they had almost...
Stop it! Please! NO!
My own scream, younger and so naive, echoed in my mind. The light and sparks which the Rasengan and Chidori had given off... All leading up, all building to that one emotional point where I knew I could take no more.
Sasuke please! Don't leave without me. Let me go with you! Please don't go... I love you!
"I'm sorry."
"No you aren't."
The reply I gave was automatic to the voice I thought I'd conjured in my mind, that smooth, perfect voice that had changed and aged so much in so little time. A gust of warm, summer, wind rustled the leafs and grass around me. My clothes moved with it and I swayed slightly as a scent I had imprinted in my mind danced dangerously close to the memories I had failed to suppress, moving and weaving in time with the wind. The fire went out with a sudden hiss and I closed my eyes, tears that I had fought against so hard, and for so long, not to shed springing forward and making small glittering trails down my cheeks. The pain in my chest was crippling and I wanted to do nothing more than curl into a tight ball and simply crawl into a little dark hole. I didn't want to face another day, convincing myself that I was stronger than what I was the day before. I didn't want to hide the mask of pain and sadness with the fake one of happiness I had crafted on my own with years of practice. No longer did I want to hear my Mother, or Tsunade, or anyone ask if something was wrong and have to laugh and wave them off. I hadn't a self-pitying bone in my body anymore, what I was left with was cold, hard, depression and that was it.
"Sakura." That voice again, that voice that made me feel as if the world were crumbling down around me.
"What do you want?" Still, I kept my back turned, facing an uninteresting tree that was much like all the others. There was nothing to see. I was hearing things, brought on by my sickening nostalgia. If I turned to face the imaginary figure, owning that sweet voice I'd yearned to hear for all these years, then I was giving in to my own madness and I would have to be sent to an asylum or something along those lines.
"Karin was supposed to come... but I thought I would instead. I was hoping to catch Naruto or Kakashi on guard... but you'll do." Karin? My heart stopped in my chest and my teary, green eyes must have widened into dinner plates. We were here to meet a Karin in an attempts to bargain with her. In an attempts to try to reason with her; we did not want Konoha to be destroyed because of some little misunderstanding, after all... Tsunade had agreed, with the Elders of course, that it was probably just a trap. But the chances that Sasuke were with her had been high... so we had gone any way, despite our orders to stay within the gates of the Leaf.
"Sasuke..." I whispered his named again and this time I heard light foot falls. These he wanted me to hear. He wanted me to know he was approaching. "W-what..."
"We haven't much time," he said in a voice that was edged with steel and that was completely business. "You wished to bargain for Konoha. So here we are."
I went silent and he must have taken this silence as the unease it was for he spoke again, this time in a voice that was less hard; less... lifeless, "It's me. Uchiha Sasuke. Turn around and see me if you will."
"I will not." The reply was, again, automatic and it laced over his last words effortlessly. "I can't look at you."
He laughed dryly, "I thought for sure that juvenile little whim you were on had ended when I left, Sakura. How many times must I explain that I am-"
"An avenger? And what now that you've killed your brother? Now more must die on your quest for revenge? How many more will die until your thirst is quenched?
How many more innocent lives will you claim, Sasuke?" I demanded, fists clenching at my side and my eyes still brimming with unshed tears.
A gust of wind made his response impossible to hear, but I didn't need to hear what he said for I already knew what his answer was.
However many it takes.
"Stop this. You lived here once, you know what it's like. I don't understand why you are doing this now... but please remember that not all people here are bad! For the most part... people are good here! We grew up under the Leaf's protection, Sasuke. You know what it is like living here... or at least you did. Long ago..."
"Very long ago indeed. I will not back down until I see the Leaf fall. I will give you no reasonings for I owe you none, but those who have done me wrong will know when they see every man, woman, and child slain in the streets." His voice was heavy now and made me tremble.
"Please... don't do this... Sasuke..." This time, I drew in what courage I had, and spun around to face him. He was closer than I thought he would be, eyes as red as blood and his skin contrasting greatly against the darkness he was draped in. The silver of the moon reached his figure, bringing the white of his flesh forward and tainting the darkness of his shaggy hair with slivers of sparkling silver. We remained silent, taking in the splendor of the other until finally he exhaled. But I knew what this breath meant. I'd heard him do it once or twice before and it was plenty full of relief.
"You kept your hair short." The statement made my wide eyes widen even further and I watched, dumbstruck as he drew closer, towering over me, as he always had.
"I did," I replied softly. Tears were flowing even more quickly down my face as all my dreams and all my worst nightmares came true in this one moment.
He looked down at me and extended a hand which, instinctively I should have batted away, but didn't. "I never liked girls with long hair," he whispered, taking a strand of my hair between his fingers and holding it so that it caught the light. I didn't know what to say to him, so I remained silent, watching him as he genuinely looked intrigued by the simple lock of my pink hair. Something so simple caught his attention? That seemed strange to me. He never once before noticed anything about me, no matter what I did.
"We attack in two days at dawn. I hope you will have the sense to have left the village. Take Naruto and anyone else you wish to survive with you and get as far away as you can. Everyone left inside the walls will die, that is my final word on the subject." And I believed him. He really did intend on doing this, he would not be swayed as far as this was concerned. So I nodded.
"I will fight until my last breath," I said defiantly.
"Then you will die... so I suppose I better do this now or I never will." I felt a hand gently press into the small of my back and my eyes widened as he caught my lips with his. My eyes were so wide that it hurt and as he deepened our kiss my tears only increased. This moment held on for what felt like an eternity and then suddenly it ended as he pulled away and gazed down at me without any expression on his face.
"Why did you do that?" I asked as he continued to hold my head in his hands.
"Hm. I suppose... because you were the only thing that ever felt right. I could hurt you and hate myself for it, and leave you and feel good about leaving so that I didn't hurt you anymore," he murmured with a slight frown. "I don't love you. I don't care about you. I think that if we had been born as we are, only in different lives, we would have found each other, no matter how far we had to go to do it." I didn't fully understand what he was saying... but I knew what he was saying. It made some sort of sense in a way that I hadn't figured out how to think.
"I love you," I whispered as he gingerly let go of me and stepped backwards.
He paused and looked at me, the grasses around us swaying in the wind with the silver moon illuminating all, "I cannot love."
"You have never tried," I countered instantly.
I had clearly made him think and eventually, he just nodded and turned to walk off before muttering, "Then if ever I had tried... I'd love you as well." And just like that he was gone.
I made no move to wake the others, I just took a seat near the smoking remains of the small fire and brought my knees to my chest and hugged them tightly. I didn't know what to feel, torn into so many different directions... Should I have hated him? Feared him even? Probably. But all common sense told me that by loving Sasuke, I wasn't in my right mind. It was a stupid and ignorant and selfish thing for me to do... yet still I couldn't just stop. Especially not after that.
"Sakura?" I heard his voice before I saw him and jumped a bit, but his arms were around my shoulders before I could turn around. I felt his cool breath close to my ear and he was hesitant, I could hear it and feel it in the way he moved and said my name.
"Yes, Sasuke?" I whispered, looking to the ground and putting a hand on the arm which held me.
"I do not recognize this feeling inside of me... Nor do I want to. But I just wanted you to know... that it is there. That there is something in my heart for you, if you ever wanted to take it but..."
"This changes nothing." I finished his sentence for him plainly and felt him nod. "I understand."
"Good," he whispered, letting me free. I heard him leave again and this time I knew that he would not come back.
But I added a new memory to my painful collection, and this one... seemed to put a cap on all of them. This one... made everything better.
"Then if ever I had tried... I'd love you as well."
