- Your Life Into Me -
"Breathe your life into me, I can feel you, I'm falling. Falling faster."
- Red
"Stop!" Her voice echoed audibly down the alleyway while she stood there, tears streaking her cheeks. "Please, stop."
Begging was beneath her, and yet she was standing there begging like a child. The man she loved was at the other end of the alley, his back to her like it usually was and always had been. If he was defending her in battle, his back had been to her. If he had been walking, he'd been in front of her. If she was begging him to stop, to stay, anything, his back had been to her.
"Please, Sasuke," she pleaded helplessly. By now Haruno Sakura should have been over it; after every fight, physically and verbal, her feelings should have been compromised. Yet after a few years of not seeing Uchiha Sasuke's face, all of a sudden she was acting like a child again. A pathetic young girl, naively "in love" with a boy who would never think twice about giving her the time of day.
Sasuke said nothing, peering condescendingly over his shoulder, eyes glinting a malevolent red. The sight startled her, perhaps even frightened her, but Sakura stood her ground.
"Why, Sasuke?" Now she was begging him for answers. "Why does it have to be like this?"
The man before her laughed, head tilting back and crimson eyes peering at the ominous night sky.
"Why? Why do you care, Sakura?" He retorted in a venomous tone. "You're still so immature. All these years, all the fights, and you're begging me like we're twelve. Begging me to stay, to stop what I'm doing and come home. This place isn't home to me anymore, you foolish girl."
Girl. He called her girl like she was a child, as if she had never grown up. Perhaps he was right, although Sakura did not want to acknowledge that she was being childish.
"Say what you want," she debated, eyes narrowing in a hurt expression. "Giving up isn't as easy as you think."
"You're a fool," Sasuke spat again, turning to her fully this time. "Grow up. No one is on the same page as you anymore, Sakura. You need to get out of your own head and face reality. Life isn't what it was and hasn't been for almost a decade. You're living in some twisted fairy tail that will never come true."
The words stung as she had been slashed with numerous kunai. It was laughable, and yet all she could feel were tears swelling in her eyes.
"You're horrible." The words really did sound immature and naive, but Sakura had no regrets saying them. "You are a horrible, despicable man."
"So be it," Sasuke replied, beginning to stalk off in the other direction. "It's better than repeatedly playing a fool."
Uchiha Sasuke had left Konohagakure nine years ago, when the rookie nine had been of the ages twelve and thirteen. The Uchiha heir had been stubborn and arrogant back then, and those traits had only escalated and sunk in further in the time he had been away.
Almost all of Konohagakure had turned away from their operations and missions involving Sasuke; it was not worth their time, and so long as he was not doing damage to the village or their allies, they had no reason to upturn his life. Even Uzumaki Naruto - Sasuke's longtime best friend and former teammate - had no inclination of trying to "rescue" his best friend from himself. Sasuke was no longer the person he had once known, and Naruto openly acknowledged that, even if it did disappoint him.
Haruno Sakura, just as she had been told by Sasuke, really was the only one in Konohagakure still playing the fool. For him, nonetheless. Yet no matter how foolish it was to even try for Sasuke, for a man who wanted nothing to do with her or his home village, she kept making valiant efforts.
"It isn't worth it anymore, Sakura," Naruto told her, eyes fixated on the wall of the office they stood in. Tsunade had stepped out, allowing the two friends to privately discuss the missing third member of their team. "It's time to give up."
"How can you say that?" Sakura breathed in a whisper, expression strong with sadness and despair. "Sasuke was our teammate and friend, and there's still hope. There's always hope, Naruto."
"No, there isn't," the blonde fought back, tone becoming more edgy than before. "You're not thinking about this clearly. It's been nine, almost ten years that Sasuke has been gone. We've gone on numerous missions to attempt to bring him home, to reason with him, and none of them have worked. How can you stand here and argue with me that there is hope for him? Sasuke is who he wants to be and will do what he wants to; neither of those involve us or Konohagakure. I'm sorry, Sakura."
Emerald eyes filling with tears, Sakura's gaze fell to the floor.
"Naruto..."
"I'm sorry," the blonde repeated once more, his gaze on the floor as well. Hovering there for a moment, Naruto appeared frozen, and then he pivoted on one foot and walked right out of the Hokage's office.
The room was silent; a cold, deathly sound that made her insides churn. A soft sob racked her body, fist pressing to her mouth in an effort to stifle any noises that might have slipped in that moment. No matter what she was feeling, Sakura did not want anyone to know she was crying. It was not much of a secret, her emotional state over this issue, but the fewer people who witnessed her weakness as of late, the better.
"Sakura," a clipped female voice addressed her, and a moment later she could feel a hand on her shoulder. "It will be alright, you know that."
"I know," she echoed, peering down at the heeled sandals that her boss wore. "It's just..."
"It won't ever be easy," Tsunade agreed, predicting her thoughts, "but you need to let go. All you're doing by holding on to this is causing yourself more pain."
"I know," Sakura repeated, no more sure of her words than she had been before. Both Tsunade and Naruto were right, but Sakura had trouble bringing herself to listen to them. It would be in her best interest to do so, but she continuously failed to.
Tsunade squeezed her shoulder reassuringly.
"Go home, get some rest. I'll find someone to cover your shift at the hospital tonight."
"Thank you." The kunoichi offered up a weak smile at the Hokage before turning away from the older woman and heading out of her office.
If only putting all this behind her was as easy as they all made it sound.
If only.
The day was bleak, the sky gray, as if the world reflected their emotions.
The blonde boy wandered towards home through the crowded streets of Konohagakure, eyes down and fists clenched. Those conversations always got to him; the ones about Sasuke. Sakura was so determined after all these years not to give up, and it made him feel like a failure for telling her it was time to give up, that there was no longer hope for bringing Sasuke back.
Maybe there was, but the chances of such things being possible were slim to none, and he knew that. That was the reason he had quit running those missions, had quit trying to reason with the man who had once been his closest and only friend.
Sasuke was no longer part of Konohagakure, nor did he want to be. Perhaps that was who he was meant to be and who he would be from here on out. Then again, the traitor he had turned into formed long ago, not yesterday.
"Hey, Naruto," a voice drawled. Glancing over he saw a tall man leaning against a wall, cigarette dangling from his fingers and smoke drifting from his mouth.
"Yo, Shikamaru," he replied, trying to look nonchalant as if nothing were on his mind. Shikamaru was a smart man, however; one of the smartest in the village. There was no way it was getting past him that something was eating his fellow shinobi from the inside out.
"You look pretty down. Something up?" Shikamaru inquired casually, taking a drag of his cigarette and exhaling the smoke skyward. On occasion Naruto considered smoking, just to see if the nicotine did anything to ease the turmoil that was his day to day life. In the end he always opted against it, knowing that it was not a habit he needed to form amongst everything else he had to take care of.
"Nah," Naruto lied, forcing a small smile and a dismissive head shake. "Just got a lot going on with missions and all that. Haven't had much down time lately. You know how it is."
"Yeah I do," Shika mumbled in response, squeezing his eyes shut and letting ashes fall off his continuously burning cigarette. "What a drag."
"I'll see you." Naruto gave a curt wave and began heading off, watching for a moment as Shikamaru jerked his head at him in acknowledgement. The man didn't move beyond that, as if he too were in deep thought about something and had only been drawn out for a brief conversation. It was getting close to the anniversary of Asuma's death though, wasn't it? Naruto could bet that was what Shikamaru had on his mind if his dates were accurate.
All the time that had passed, and so much had changed. All the people who lost their lives in fighting; Asuma, Jiraiya... In that time Kurenai had hers and Asuma's child, who was now about the age of seven or eight. From what he could tell, the boy would grow up to be just like his father and grandfather, both of whom were unfortunately deceased before his birth.
Then again, Naruto had been in the same situation growing up. Both of his parents had passed away while he was an infant, and beyond that, he had never known them. Having been so young he couldn't remember either of them, and it was a dull pain that had never truly gone away.
That was one thing Sasuke and he always had a mutual understanding of; loss. In the end, both of their situations were different from what they had grown up believing they were. His father had in fact been the village's fourth hokage, and Sasuke's losses weren't without reason. The entire Uchiha family had been corrupt, and the only other respectable member of it was the one person Sasuke had grown up hating and vowing death wishes against. In the end, Sasuke had his way and killed his brother, but not before some of the truth came to light. Itachi had been a good man, Naruto knew that now. To this day he was not sure Sasuke knew or believed that. It was a shame, really.
You hurt the ones you love the most, right? In dying, betrayal, misunderstanding; at some point in your life - or death, in some cases - you would wound someone who loved or cared about you. Most of the village's inhabitants and shinobi had experienced such grief, and it was still visible in their eyes at some point or another no matter how much time had passed.
He lost his parents without knowing them, Sasuke had lost his entire family and the one person he'd always looked up to. Sakura had watched her team fall apart, and Kakashi had some dark history that Naruto had yet to quite piece together. Shikamaru and the rest of his team, along with Kurenai, had lost Asuma; their mentor, friend, and family.
This life did not come without a price and certainly wasn't painless. Sometimes the emotional toll was more painful an experience than the physical. No matter how many wounds he had sustained through the years, none of it compared to the feelings he had been trained to avoid.
No shinobi truly avoided their emotions. They were all in tune with them; the only way they fought them was to keep them from showing visibly on their faces, and even that failed at times.
Life was unfair, and standing there in what was now a light drizzle, Naruto found himself contemplating what Sakura must have been feeling. He made it sound so simplistic and easy when he spoke to he and told her to give up all hope of bringing Sasuke back, of changing who he had become. The pain Sakura felt was no less than any pain he had felt at some point or another, and perhaps he had been taking that for granted.
Tilting back his head, he allowed the misting rain to fall onto his cheeks, breathing in the scent that it had stirred up. For something that was no less than dreary, it was comforting. Comforting to know that the sky cried, too.
Not a one shot, the story will keep developing from here.
It's a bit general at the moment, I know, but it will start to be more specific and...interesting within the next chapter or two.
Hopefully it snags your interest, at any rate.
Review?