*~Sakura Sakura~*
-Chapter 1-
And the real fun began.
A woman was dancing.
Her pink kimono draped over her figure, as smooth as silk and as just as mesmerizing as herself. The blood red blossoms that dot her clothing shine in their glory, shifting into shapes and sizes as her body moves. Her hands loosely fingered a traditional Japanese fan. Her soft pale face radiated gentleness and delicateness. The lanterns hanging on the wall behind her glowed a dim red light that was flickering with the candles inside. Her shadow bathed in the hue, red and black twisting together, combining into one, the present universe.
There was one more thing.
The moonlight.
The round high orb graced her with its soft light, the shines quietly entering from the nearby window and spilling over her form. Like milk.
The soft plucks of string vibrate with each delicate note, with the small steps she take.
She alone stood in the space. It was her stage.
The woman smiles wryly at the shinobi sitting before her, who were sitting cross-legged on the bamboo floor, eating and drinking. They were talking loudly among themselves, boasting and telling stories of adventures and missions and whatnots. Sometimes a loud laugh would intercept the the quiet talk and music now and then.
But the harp sang on.
桜 桜
野山も里も
見渡す限り
霞か雲か
朝日に匂う
桜 桜
花ざかり
桜 桜
弥生の空は
見渡す限り
霞か雲か
匂ひぞ 出づる
いざや いざや
見に行かん
"Sakura Sakura," slurred a drunk man. His hand fumbled for the elegant copper cup, which was sloshing liquid out as he unsteadily raised it. It is a beautiful song indeed, whispering about how, oh how the people eagerly look forward to the blooming sakura flowers during the blossoming spring, after the harsh winter. How the beautiful flowers could melt away the frigidness. But irony is a fickle thing that could not be caught by most of the attendants of this gathering. And that is what truly makes the woman enjoy herself.
Let them enjoy the music ...for now, she thought.
But there, as it would seem, was one who had a glimpse of irony's tail.
He was the one who looked disinterestedly on, his face retaining a unattached mask. He did not join in the loud chatter of the men all around him. His eyes roamed over every inch of this room and observed it carefully.
She knew he was keeping an eye on her. It would be so uncharacteristic of him if he didn't.
***THE APPEARANCE OF THE CATCHER OF IRONY***
He wore a billowy sleeved white shirt that was open at the torso and dark blue pants. A blue cloth hung halfway up his stomach to his knees. Around his waist was a thick blue knotted rope. His dark, long hair roughly framed his face and receded into spikes in the back.
And another fact: you know who he is.
Still, the ignorant men talked on.
She hid her face behind her ornate fan and the soft cherry lips widened into a smile.
"OHO!" came a shout. A drunken finger pointed straight at her. "Look at that smile! It seems like she's so shy in front of us."
She faked a blush and slowly lowered her eyes. The men egged her on. "Hey little beauty, don't be so timid!" a man called out. Some men laughed cruelly. Her line of sight traveled between the many pairs of demented eyes, and at last she reached his.
His cold, cold onyx eyes.
She gave him a slight wink to throw him off guard.
He didn't even blink.
She should've knew that it wouldn't work.
Chikusho! she cursed in her mind, then mentally reprimanding herself for doing so. How could I possibly disarm him if he is starting to suspect me already?
Either way, the plan has to be carried out, or else the time she has spent for this day, for this night, for this moment would be wasted.
Her patience was thinning with these pig-like men in front of her.
Swiftly, she arranged her arms into a pretty pose, and when she withdrew it, she reached into her robes. The pretty black-dotted fingernails flicked the strings attached on her bare arms.
As if in slow motion, the tables in front of her lurched upward in a fluid motion. The cups flew off into the air, twirling like the ballerinas she used to watch when she was young. The wheat-yellow sake flowed smoothly out, forming asymmetric shapes as it moved in the air like waves. Rows of sushi were flung ungracefully onto the floor.
The men were staring stupidly at their discarded food and the overturned tables in front of them.
In a fraction of a second, she jerked her arms, spreading them wide. Just a simple movement.
The tables swerved and slammed the men on their faces. Several were knocked out in an instant with the force and slumped onto the bamboo floor. But as their cries of pain resounded, her sharp ears picked up the sound of the wood of a table hitting the floor on a dull thud.
Her head snapped over to his seat. That was the source of the sound. The seat was deserted. At the same moment, she felt his warm breath on the nape of her neck accompanied by the cool sharp point of a kunai pressing into a vital point. Her arms were being roughly bound behind her in his iron grip. Knowing him, the kunai must not be of an ordinary type.
He was fast, as usual. This whole fiasco happened in less than 5 seconds.
Before he can act furthermore, she threw her body forward, jumped up, and kicked her legs behind her. He twisted her arms at the last moment and threw her into the air. She rotated her body, blinding him with her fluttering colorful robes for the moment and brought her chakra-laden fist down, aiming for his head. His arm blocked her arm at the last second and flung her to the side.
She felt as if she can't control herself from being tossed like a rag doll, fluttery and helpless. And...she felt a strange feeling on her arm. Her green eyes frantically darted to it and watched alarmedly as the sleek, shining strings wrapped on it were loosening. Then she saw in her peripheral vision him spinning his hands quickly, unraveling the strings and taking it over from her. No! These were the strings that tied her to all of the workings in this room, that allowed her to use them as a weapon! She cannot let him use this weapon to his advantage. Her mind raced quickly and she twisted her body in response, spinning rapidly in the opposite direction of his hands. But this could not go on forever. Her fingers slid over the sharp tip of the senbon inside her robes and flung it out towards the strings, severing them cleanly, rendering them useless.
The kunoichi did a mid-air flip and landed on all fours. Before she could even catch her breath and truly observe what was happening, she felt a scorching heat wave rolling and rumbling towards her from his direction. Startled, she sprang back just in time to avoid having her dainty feet caught by the wriggling tentacles of the seething fireball. Another quick bounce on her toes on a conveniently upturned table she cleverly spied beside her allowed her to stay in safe vicinity in the air for now. Suddenly, she spied a barely noticeable shadow looming above her. Her head snapped up to look at the creaking ceiling above her and a blurred figure materialized as soon as she set her eyes on that spot. As fast as lightning, she pulled out her katana from the holster beneath her whipping robes just in the nick of time, a sharp ping resounding in her eardrums as his kusanagi scraped her sword. Her arms strained against his insistent pressing as he butted his sword further against hers. Her feet delicately landed on the ceiling, gathering chakra as it planted onto the upside down surface, steadying the position she was in.
She bit her bottom lip hard, savoring the sweet and familiar iron taste. Sweat beads trickled down her forehead as the intense heat and pressure bore her down. Her blood rushed to her head in this position, and though the adrenaline was pumping through her whole body, she tried to keep a calm mind. He cannot win this. She will not let him.
Then she saw his smirk. His oh-so-taunting smirk.
The sinister shadow that fell across his face, his pearly teeth flashing their gleam.
His eyes. The most demented-looking eyes she has ever seen.
It made her heart burn with the cold fire of anger with a tinge of sadness.
How far you have fallen.
She pushed against him in the spur of the moment and directed his power elsewhere, catching him off balance. Using this reaction time wisely, she released her foothold, falling in midair, down towards the still seething pit of flames that was steadily growing, feeding on the wooden and bamboo composition of the machiya house. A shuriken whizzed through the air and embedded itself into the bending wood of the ceiling, the string attached to it growing taunt as its master swung onto it from the other end. While clenching tight to the thin but very durable string and dangling in space, the Leaf kunoichi racked her mind for what to do next. It was obvious that she cannot trap him in this place anymore now that she disabled her weapon of strings. She was shocked that she'd have to do this though. His Sharingan must have been very advanced to predict her movements in time, since these techniques that she chose were sufficiently hard to catch.
A sudden sound of energy crackling and hissing made her orbs widen in shock. Before the zap of energy he carried could slice her from behind, she released her grip on the string, feeling the wild sensation of falling into the deep unknowns. Her eyes squeezed shut as she felt the heat waves from below scorching her body, mockingly embracing her into its depths.
Time for Plan B. He had forced her into doing what she dreaded to do.
The dancer tightened her body into one downward-spiraling twister, hearing the wind whistling around her through her ears, knowing that he was in her pursuit right above her. Her hands plucked off the pearl clip that was holding back strands of her wavy hair, letting the locks fly wild. Both hands grappled the sharp object pointing downwards, concentrating the warm chakra onto her fingertips and channeling it into the pearls, through the metal of the body of the jewelry, and onto its end summit. Her lips moved soundlessly. She could feel it humming with her energy, the substance balling into a gleaming pinprick of glowing blue fire. As the ground spun closer and closer to her and the red hot plasma struggled to reach for her, she braced herself for the impact that was to come.
The tip of the clip touched the ground.
Time seemed to be forever stranded in this moment, when the weapon's pinnacle reached its touchdown, when the upside down kunoichi held the weapon firmly in her hand, eyes determined and body taunt with anticipation. The seething bursts of electricity malicious with killing intent held by the man was just a hair away from her feet.
Her feline eyes observed as the lead-dense blue ball diffuse into the charred, microscopic fibers of the bamboo floor in a zip.
The senses that were so acute grudgingly perceived the light that was gaining greater and greater intensity.
She saw it before she heard it.
Blindingly bright and then the boom.
It felt like as if a drunk man punched her in the chest hard. It knocked her out of breath.
Strangely, the first thought she had was whether or not he was like her, too, laying immobilized on a cool, broken surface, gasping for air. Her eyes slowly blinked open and saw a velvety night and a luminous bulb that was laden with wisps of clouds staring back at her.
She sucked in the cold night air greedily, piercing her oral cavity and lungs with its sharpness. Her almost numb limbs feebly addressed her mind that she was lying in a precarious awkward angle. The kunoichi weakly shifted, only affording to move bit by bit, the energy sapping out of her. Soot-covered fingers fumblingly carcassed the rough, broken tiles of the roofing she was laying on. The pieces crumbled and she observed dazedly as some tumbled off the ridges and fell over the edge of the high roof arc down to the unseen mortal ground. A shift of her eyes, glowing in the semi-dark, quickly assessing the situation told her that the explosion nearly made this large estate collapse and the machiya they were fighting in was almost exterminated save for this part of slanted, collapsing roof that she was lying upon now. Heaving a heavy cough from the soot and ash of the air, she concentrated on her mind to determine how much chakra she has left. The result was not favorable to her current situation.
Slowly, deliberately, she lifted her right arm and extended it towards her katana which had fallen out of its holster beside her. The long, slender fingers closed in around the cool, metal hilt of the sword and she somehow felt a false sense of security. Pain overtook her at that moment then, spreading from her abdomen all the way to her left leg. Her chest heaved up and down, the constricting clothing hindering her breathing. She winced as she focused her blurring eyes on the wood splinter that embedded itself into her left leg flesh, a gory red glamor to be beheld. The gaze shifted to her left hand that was subconsciously clenching her abdomen, watching as the ruby liquid gushed out plentifully from the open gash, staining the tattered, already pink fabric of the kimono to a dark purplish ink. It was deep, she knew from her experiences. It would not hurt this bad if it was not. The young woman groggily swore in her mind upon realizing the severeness of her injuries compared to the extent to which her energy reserves dwindled to.
***A SECOND SCENE OF IRONY FOR YOUR ENJOYMENT***
She was the well-known medic. But she doesn't have enough chakra to heal herself.
The end result: she cannot save herself from her wounds.
Now understanding her own conditions, her mind snapped to the most important matter on hand - him. Where is he now? her mind whirled, clicking the pieces into place. We were close to each other when the blast occurred - which means that he must be near. I'll have to take my desperate measures if he's about to attack me again soon...
Her eyes frantically swiped the obscuring area around her. The moon was playing hide-and-seek with their world, wrapping itself in tight stretches of grey, unreflecting clouds. It took all her perceptive skills to spot him, a dark soundless shadow standing opposite of her in the dim light, perched near the edge of the high roof. She could make out the faint outline of his billowing white robe in the gentle night wind like a messenger of death, his dark spikes softly swaying with the air. The Leaf-nin noticed his careful stance and the way he was rigidly positioned, ready for another round of unexpectedness. His features could not be seen properly, but as she turned her face away from him, she already knew that he trained his eyes on her even before she noticed him. His Sharingan. She could feel it cutting through her.
So he is still alive...alive and well.
"Sakura." His voice cut through the darkness with a quiet authority. It was a statement, not a question.
That uttering...was not what she remembered it to be. It is much darker, much quieter, much forceful now.
She tried to smile and give a dark chuckle, but all that did was to initiate a terrible cough. Her lungs wheezed and the threads of scarlet mized with the clear spit she coughed out. Her overtaxing mind went over all the standard procedures...relax and breath steadily, relax...that was all she could do now...
But how could she relax when he is here?
"So you did...see through the facade. Sharingans are not supposed to see through the jutsu - " she rasped out when the racks of pain subsided, her usually soft voice unidentifiable.
Minutely, she felt a slight tingling sensation crawling across her scalp. Her heart thumped fast and erratically as she vaguely registered and watched as her long strands of silky brown hair bleached reverted to a pretty light pink, condensing themselves into her short locks that normally framed her face. The watering of her eyes told her that her iris color must have changed back to crisp green instead of violet. She doesn't have enough chakra to keep her transformation jutsu up anymore. She had the appearance of Haruno Sakura once more, not the random dancer she assumed the position of.
The mask wore off at the right moment, at the right time. The woman softly smiled at the unplanned precision.
"I knew it from your eyes," he answered simply, but the words shook her to the core.
The Leaf-nin suddenly felt a small but gaining burst of anger flare up in her heart. Years and years she had been training, unrelenting in her persistence to catch up to him and Naruto in hopes that she could be as strong as them. And now...after this fight...she was sprawling across pitiful tiles and he is still standing there above her like nothing had ever put a scratch on him.
The emotion fueled her mind and heart and gave her the power to steel her arms and push herself up. No. She made the vow already. She will not lose to him.
She leaned onto her right, fairly uninjured leg, balancing carefully to bring herself into standing position, the wind brushing against her bare shin. Her left leg buckled beneath her but she caught herself just in time. With tremendous willpower, she roused herself up, shakily standing and bringing herself up to his level.
"Uchiha...Sasuke," she gritted out bitterly.
The figure did not as much budge from its position. He still watched her with a silent sense of wariness, maybe even with an element of surprise.
The moon slowly came out from its game at this time, gently revealing itself to the underlings below it, shining its glory upon them. The pale light slanted onto Sasuke's face. His pale skin seems to glow on its own. A sculped nose that stood tall and strong, artistically crafted. His Sharingan reflected the light with a glint, the three tomoes swirling endlessly, one after another, in an eternal cycle.
His lips were set in an amusing semi-smirk.
He crept in a crouching position, delicately balancing his foothold onto the crumbling, partially slanted roof top. In the seemingly ancient ruins all around him, he set himself up like an archangel holding up to the moonlight.
She cannot surpress the slight fluttering in her still-pained stomach. And oh, how she tried to. At that moment, Sakura realized that she still could not finish her resolve and end her love right there and then.
It was bittersweet acceptance for her.
Her dark, locked brows parted slowly, relieved of pressure. Her cheeks slightly dimpled as those small but firm cherry lips of hers breathed out a timid smile. But it was her green, alive eyes who gave the knowing smile.
Fine. He was as strong as ever against her. However...
She has her last plan ready.
There will be no regrets for her to lament on.
Sasuke...the warrior. Her warrior whom she would be proud of. Whom she would love. And her warrior whom she would destroy.
Fate only watched as a bystander as the pretty young kunoichi with her soft robes drifting in the wind staggered a step towards the impeccable, unmoving warrior, brushing her index finger against her sharp teeth and watching the familiar liquid spill out from the tip with a never seen before curious fascination as she watched it drip-drip-drip, splattering onto the hazy brown of the surface like a drying waterfall.
She couldn't believe that she was going to do this.
Her eyes strayed away from the oozing red and turned meekly to meet Sasuke's.
The instant her eyes locked onto his she knew that he just simply moved from his spot, right arm outstretched to grab her finger. But even with his heavenly speed -
it was too late.
The last thing she remembered faintly was his widening, blazing, vigil red orbs, with the slightest trace of confusion that penetrated deeply into her soul and wounded her heart.
Goodbye, Sasuke -
Sakura sat up with a jolt, her breath erratic as she tried to calm herself down from this horrible nightmare, her hands balled into fists, tightly squeezing the fabric of blanket she had in her sweaty palms.
A/N: Now, now, we definitely know that it was something more than a nightmare, don't we?
For plot purposes, I have modified the story structure from when I first posted this story.
Reviews and comments are much appreciated. Thank you for reading this chapter :)
Suggested songs:
1. Sakura Sakura (traditional Japanese song that Sakura danced to)
2. Archangel by Two Steps from Hell (for the fighting scenes)
You can find "Sakura Sakura" link in my profile :)
-Illusion