Depressive moods lead to depressive one-shots.

All of my SasuSaku one-shots are going under this one, so expect random updates.

Disclaimer: I disclaim what I cannot claim.


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Black eyes glared up at the behemoth Juugo, holding him bridal style in his large grasp. Black eyes threatened to turn red out of anger, hatred, fear, and forgotten hope.

"Put me down, Juugo."

The giant sighed lightly, eyes sadly staring down at the one man who could control him. Unpleasant memories flashed before Juugo's eyes before slowly shaking his head. The black eyes turned a vivid red, tomoe shaking instead of staying still

(eyes are windows of the soul).

"You, of all the damned creatures in this world, are denying my right to stand, Juugo?"

"There's no meaning to it."

Red eyes glared at the mammoth, venom seeping from the eyes to the very core.

"Karin, gone. Suigetsu, gone. Juugo, fine. Sasuke, paralysis, cannot stand."

His pride - his damn Uchiha pride - boiled over and fizzed out into nothing.

"Gone, as in dead?"

"Yes."

Uchiha Sasuke glared at the ground moving below Juugo's feet.

"I can't remember who we were fighting…"

"Leaf ANBU, five. Dog, alive. Panda, beetle, fox, flower, dead."

Red eyes widened in distraught. Juugo stopped walking in the pregnant silence that had enveloped his leader, sitting the Uchiha down against a large rock alongside the main road. Sasuke's eyes still remained on the ground.

"So, Kiba's alive. Tenten, Shino, Naruto… are gone. I can't think of anyone who would be a flower, more or less an ANBU flower. A flower isn't even a creature, more or less a moving one or a predator."

"A flower still breathes, master Uchiha. Therefore, a flower lives, and perhaps the most difficult life of all. What else looks beautiful, but can do nothing but flaunt that where it stands? What else watches everything move by, grow stronger, but ends up just to whither and die within days of life?"

Sasuke Uchiha gagged on his own breath, holding his throat as if forcing himself to breathe. Juugo immediately came to his side, holding him back from moving any further.

(Make sure he doesn't move his legs after that jutsu for a while. It's my… parting gift, I guess. It'll wear off in a few days, tops. Promise.)

"Who killed the flower, Juugo? Who was the last one to hear what she said? What was the last thing she said?"

Juugo looked off to the side. Red eyes glared with hatred at his companion.

"She caused the paralysis jutsu on your legs."

"You're avoiding the fucking question, Juugo! Who killed Sakura?"

Pulling on Juugo's collar to face him fully, Juugo looked at the Uchiha in a sudden bout of emotion: sadness unlike any Sasuke had seen before, except when his brother had died. Pity; Juugo pitied him, felt sorry for him, and everything suddenly clicked in the recesses of his mind.

"You. You. 'I still love you'."

"No."

Sasuke roughly let go of Juugo, forcing himself onto his legs with strength he hadn't felt before.

"No. No, no, no, no, no."

Juugo sat pathetically where he was, watching the one person who held him together fall apart. Sasuke sat pathetically on the rock behind him, clenching and unclenching his hands with fervor.

"I wouldn't. I didn't. I couldn't. Not Sakura. Not my damn, loving, beautiful, goddamn Haruno-fucking-Sakura who was going to be my girlfriend-fiancée-wife-lover-dream girl who I haven't been able to see in so long that I dream about every night and day and…"

Uchiha Sasuke cried silently that night, in pity and self-loathing. Juugo wasn't surprised to not find the man laying near him in the morning.