He saw her lying motionless on the hospital bed. The moonlight shining through the window seemed to give the room a more uncanny feeling.
He limped towards her.
Pink hair fanned across the pillow, lifeless, bloodied. There were tubes, so many of them inserted into her. Her face was ghostly pale. It was not how he had remembered her, so many years ago.
--
It took her a year more to be promoted to Chunnin level. Five more to Junnin. Another two to ANBU. By the time she was made Hunter-nin, Sakura was already 21 years old. But even after nine years, she still couldn't forget that fateful night, the night she last saw him. The night he left.
She hasn't seen him since. But she'd heard news. Orochimaru was successfully assassinated five years ago. Sound was fully destroyed three years back. Last year, the body of Uchiha Itachi was found near the riverbed 5 miles north from Konoha's forest. Still, Uchiha Sasuke had yet to come home.
--
He leaned forward and sat beside her, the small movement enough to make her eyes flutter open. Emerald eyes shine so brightly that it hurt him to see more.
He wanted to tell her so much, ask her so much, but all he could manage was a strangled whisper.
"Why?"
--
"A renegade ninja like Uchiha Sasuke is a threat to our own village, as protectors of Konoha, it's our job to eliminate him on sight. No excuses. You're dismissed," Tsunade gravely gave orders that one day.
Hunter-nins are elite ANBU members who are skilled in the talents and abilities of tracking, stealth, and killing. Their job, to kill renegade ninja's from their own village, people that they have called comrades or even friends, all this to prevent the secrets of the hidden village from leaking out.
Sakura stood among those few hand-chosen elites. Hidden behind her hawk-like mask, with just a blue teardrop at the corner of its right eye, she disappeared along with the others once they were dismissed.
Her team was assigned another mission instead. Tsunade knew the complications that were involved.
Don't think too much, she chided herself. You have other missions to accomplish. And it's not like you're going to bump into him after all these years of fruitless searching.
--
He was exhausted, chakra almost depleted to a point of permanent exhaustion. Yet, he still found the strength left to activate his Sharingan, just enough to see her life, slowly tearing itself away from her broken body.
"Because I still can't kill you," she breathed out, a ghost of a smile playing at her lips.
--
She had just finished eliminating all traces of her target when she spotted him. Dark raven hair billowing in the wind, Sharingan activated.
Her team immediately leapt to work.
Behind her mask and hood. He couldn't have seen how her eyes had opened in shock, nor couldn't he know how her heart had missed a beat.
--
He closed his eyes. Pain filtered across his once handsome features, frown marring his forehead, tears she never knew he had sliding down his cheek.
His heart felt like it was being constricted by a steel band, tightening with each passing second, it was getting harder to breath.
Maybe it was because of the blood he had lost, he told himself.
Or maybe it's because your heart had finally acknowledged your feelings for her, a smaller voice whispered.
"Sasuke?" Her bright emerald eyes looked blankly beyond the ceiling, searching.
"I'm here," he said.
"Could you hold me? Just once?" she breathed out.
He lied on her bed, lifted her carefully and cradled her in his arms.
She felt cold, so very cold. He held her hands in his, trying in vain to bring some warmth back into her.
"Thank you…"
Ironic that those were the last words he had told her before he'd left.
--
"Uchiha Sasuke, you are charged with abandoning your village and conspiring with Hidden Sound, thus is therefore sentence to death. Will you resist?" one of her teammate asked.
He answered by throwing kunais, aimed precisely, at all of them, which were easily deflected. And thus the game begins.
--
She was smiling now. Her eyes were fluttering close again.
For a moment, he allowed himself to panic, shaking her lightly.
"Don't close your eyes. Don't leave me," he blurted out.
"I could never leave you… even if I wanted to," she muttered ever so softly that it strained his ears just to hear her.
He finally broke down.
"I'm so sorry… I wouldn't have done it if I knew it was you… I wouldn't… I didn't know…" he said between sobs, he was hugging her so closely, crying into her hair. She still didn't open her eyes.
--
He was also badly injured, onyx eyes surveying the surroundings.
Two of her teammates had already fallen, another was too damaged to even stand.
She had always dreamt of being alone with him, but she guessed that this was just one more cruel joke played on her by the heavens.
Her breathing was ragged, he could hear, tired out from all the attacks and defenses she had used. She stood there facing him, her katana poised, waiting for an opening to attack.
"Guess we can end it now," he smiled as he held his right hand palm down. Chakra being concentrated at that area, the sounds of a thousand birds can be heard, the cracking of the electricity was enough to make her hair stand on her skin. As red swirls reappeared in his eyes, he rushed forwards.
For some reason she just stood there, "Guess we can end it now," she echoed him softly.
Just as he was about to plunge his fist into her heart, she let go of her katana and it fell to the ground.
Before she closed her eyes she saw his puzzled frown, and she smiled.
--
"I forgive… you…" the words were starting to babble up, a small stream of blood can be seen escaping from her lips.
And as her hand clutched his for the final time, she said everything she needed to say, heard everything she ever wanted to hear, felt everything that she'd so longed to feel.
"I still love you…"
"I love you too, Sakura."
Her smile was so beautiful.
As Haruno Sakura drew in her last breath, the young man cradling her whispered softly into her ear.
"Wait for me…"
--
The 5th allowed him to visit her because she knew how much he had meant to her once upon a time, and how much he still means to her now, and also because she knew that he was physically unable to cause anymore harm with his current chakra state.
Still, she was shocked speechless, only for awhile, when Shizune came and reported that both Sakura and Sasuke had passed on. Sakura, because of a ruptured heart, and Sasuke, because of chakra overused.
"He was transfusing his chakra into her, just to prolong her life a little longer. We found them together on the bed."
The 5th Hokage leaned forwards, elbow on the table, fingers laced together.
"Carved her name into the memorial, but bury them together at the Uchiha burial grounds. I know they both would have wanted that."
"Hai, Hokage-sama, it will be done straight away."
--
So ends the story of a lost love that was found, that even at death's door, nothing is ever too late.