Characters: Sakura, Sasuke
Summary: That spark was nothing but an illusion. But she still believes in it.
Pairings: SasuSaku
Author's Note: This takes place just after the Sasuke Retrieval arc.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
It was a shadow she always saw, a shadow she always reached out to touch. A shadow she loved. And a shadow whom she wanted to love her.
It was always so obvious. It's not like Sasuke tried to hide how truly, completely broken he was. If anything, he reveled in it, put it on display for all to see. He wanted people to see that he was broken and mad, so that they would stay away. So why couldn't she see it?
Why couldn't Sakura see it until he left, and left her behind?
Sakura blinks her eyes in pain, as though a great ache has split her skull in two. There is an ache, but it is not in her head, nor even in her heart, but in the fibers of her bones and in her very soul, trying its best to rend her in two.
Maybe that's just the guilt and the feelings of foolishness setting in.
She was taken in by a fantasy. Taken in by an image Sakura thought was true, by a flat, two-dimensional façade that had no basis in truth. She had seen something in Sasuke, some spark that she had loved, but had that spark been true at all? Had it not simply been a false light, some trick of light and mirrors? Nothing else Sakura has known about him has been true; it should not surprise her that this is no different.
Sakura knows now. She has no claim on Sasuke. She never did. Because the boy she thought she knew was another person entirely from the reality of Uchiha Sasuke, aspiring avenger of the Uchiha clan. She was in love with a shadow and a fantasy, something that held no weight or substance under scrutiny.
Sasuke is gone now. He has been so kind as to dispel all her illusions before he left.
Sakura knows she is a fool.
And she knows that she is an even greater fool than the one who believed all the lies she told herself (Because Sasuke never tried to deceive anyone about his true nature; anyone with eyes could have seen it, but she was blind, so so blind).
Because she's still in love with him.
Because Sakura thinks she can still see the spark, still see the suggestion of something more, even knowing that he is hollow.