Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
Summary: She kills him twenty-three times that night. The next night, she forgets the silencing genjutsu. SasuSaku.
Kai
Emptiness. Black, dark, and empty. Left. Nothing. Right. Nothing. Behind. Nothing. Up. Nothing. Down. …Nothing.
Not even the ground.
And then everything.
Grass, trees, chirping birds, clouds, sky, sun.
Blood.
Blood on her hands. On her face. On her clothes.
Blood on the body in front of her, a katana through his chest out his back. .
Who is it? she wonders.
A nudge of her foot, and the body flips over.
Sasuke-kun?
Not possible, she tells herself, and finally remembers to put her hands together in that seal. "Kai!"
The world melts, whirls, and then its back.
Rain.
Rain, and dark, and thunder pounds and lightning flashes.
And there is a body in front of her, and no!
She doesn't want to touch it, but she does, and she gasps and "Kai!"
Another world. Another body. Another death. Him. "Kai!"
"Kai!" "Kai!" "Kai!"
Another world, another life, another death, and he's there, eyes – when he has them – open, unseeing, glazed.
And then, "Kai!"
She feels the tear tracks on her face now, and she lifts her hands up and they're clean. No, not clean, but the blood isn't blood, its mud and dirt and leaves, and oh, what happened?
"Kai," she whispers, "Kai."
She looks up and whimpers because killing Sasuke-kun was bad enough, are they dragging Naruto and Kakashi-sensei into this, now?
But Naruto's not dead, yet, and she seems to be able to control what she's doing. And feel, and breathe, and touch, and she couldn't do that before, and she almost dares to hope that that was the end, that that death was the last, and she doesn't have to kill him anymore.
The ground is hard against her legs, the rocks sharp against her skin, and she drops her hands to the ground and tries to push herself up. She's shaky and her knees are trembling, and Naruto looks concerned and Kakashi-sensei looks vaguely curious and Sasuke-kun – oh kami, Sasuke-kun.
She doesn't look at him, she's sure she'll cry if she does.
So she just stands and looks around. Their dead – the Mist-nin – and the one who put the genjutsu on her was probably the last to go. She glances around, trying to force her mind back into gear, trying to kick-start the intelligence she is famous for. It can't have been that long, a time-space distortion genjutsu, perhaps, in addition to, and perhaps a part of… that.
She doesn't even want to think it.
So when Naruto comes running toward her, and Kakashi-sensei starts ambling in her general direction, she pastes a too-bright, too-big smile on her face and lets them pretend that she fools them and doesn't look at Sasuke-kun any more than she has to.
And she heals them, helps them search the bodies, and gives a particularly vicious kick to the one who set her under that genjutsu before turning and following them toward the village.
She thinks that maybe she needs to get her own hotel room tonight. Something far away from the others, so they won't hear her scream. They need the sleep more than she does, and it isn't as if they could help anyways.
She pushes away the thought that they could help, that they could, that he could, if he wanted to, and pretends she's fine and pulls out a mirror, looking herself over. Horrible. Her hair's a mess, her eyes red, and she seems to have managed to scratch her face. She runs a hand through her hair and ties it in a messy ponytail, then heals the scratches. Better.
Still ignoring her boys, she reaches into her pack and pulls out mascara, eye shadow, foundation, powder, and lip gloss, proceeding to erase all traces of her tears, panic, and shock.
Much better.
She ignores Naruto's backward glance, Kakashi's raised eyebrow, Sasuke's condescending features; she knows she shouldn't be bothered this much, she knows she doesn't usually do this, she knows they don't understand when she acts girly, but she puts it on anyways.
Even if she can't fool them, she can still fool the villagers.
And she does.
She's gaiety itself that night, when they rent their hotel rooms – separate rooms, she requests, and subtly suggests to the manager that a girl needs space to herself – when they go out for a quick dinner, and then when they go to the bathhouses before retiring.
So they know that something is obviously, glaringly wrong.
But they ignore it, because they're men, and they're better at ignoring the issue than acknowledging it and the teary-eyed female it comes with.
So she casts a silencing genjutsu on her room, locks it in place, and tries to go to sleep.
She kills Sasuke-kun twenty-three more times that night, and is awakened by the sound of her own screams more often than she cares to count.
The next morning, she takes a long, hot soak in the hottest tub they offered at the bathhouses and layers on the foundation and the powder to hide the color of her skin and the bags under her eyes.
They don't say anything.
She does, though. She says everything and nothing, and talks about everything but what's important, and she feels a bit guilty, because Naruto is nearly hysterical with worry and trying to hide it, Sasuke-kun is glancing over at her in that protective way he does when he thinks she can't make it, and Kakashi-sensei is watching her a lot more often than usual.
But she keeps jabbering, doesn't close her mouth, doesn't let herself focus on anything, because then that comes, and she thinks she won't cry, but she doesn't want to think about it.
She decides that after she gets home – her home, her own apartment, with her own bed and study and kitchen and tiny bathroom – she's going to use up all the hot water and then crawl up in bed with the music turned up as high as she dares and a cheesy romance novel, because every girl secretly longs for her own cheesy romance.
So they get back to Konohagakure, and Kakashi-sensei disappears with a poof, Naruto runs off to Ichiraku, and it's just her and Sasuke-kun. She quickly makes her excuse – something along the line of Tsunade-shishou, my parents, and textbooks – and begins to walk away.
Behind her, Sasuke-kun sticks his hands in his pockets and leans back, just the slightest bit. He's imitating Kakashi-sensei without realizing it, almost, or maybe he's always walked like that.
Maybe it's bred into Uchihas, like the Sharingan is, or maybe it comes with the Sharingan, or maybe it's a clan thing – Hyuuga Neji walks kind of like that too. All right, not really, because Neji-san makes it seem formal and crisp, while Sasuke's just doing the arrogant, uncaring, stoical walk, and she walks faster, because now that that's in her head, she won't even be able to meet Neji-san without wanting to cry.
She hopes she doesn't meet anyone, and makes as much as a dash toward her apartment as she can without seeming like she's running (away).
"Kai," she whispers, under her breath, and when the world doesn't fade away this time, she's just the slightest bit happier (because in this world, they're alive.)
But then she remembers, sees his blood dripping down that porcelain pale skin, staining that ebony dark hair, and she barely manages to rush up her stairs and into her house before breaking down.
It is a long while later that she finally stands, washes her face in her kitchen sink with cold water, and sits down on her couch.
Her lights flicker, and she thinks, no, not now.
They flicker once more before going out, leaving her alone in the dark.
It all seems that much easier in the dark.
And then she crawls into the tub and turns on the water: cold, at first, then slowly warming up until it burns, burns and her skin is numbing and it stings so good, but she knows that in a few moments her hot water will run out. Lethargically, she reaches for the plug, stuffs it into the drain.
The heat rushes against her back, against her shoulders, and she starts scrubbing.
His blood isn't on her hands, she knows that.
It isn't splattered across her face, isn't soaking into her hair.
But she scrubs anyways, until the blood she sees isn't his but her own, and then she leans against the wall with a sigh and turns the water on again, pulling out the plug and using the last vestiges of the water to wash it all away.
Then she walks out of her shower, dripping wet, and slips straight into bed.
Its cold, and that, too, feels good. Like the heat did.
But eventually, it warms, and then she stops shivering and tries not to think before she falls asleep.
She has only forgotten the silencing genjutsu.
It is raining blood in Konohagakure. She stands in a plain, surrounded by dead and dying people, chakra flickering at her fingertips. Too little chakra, too much blood – on her, too. Blood dripping slowly from her hair, down her cheeks, pooling in the hollow of her neck before trailing downwards. Her clothing is stained red, the kodachi in her hand polluted by the liquid.
Something clicks, deep inside. Oh, Kami, she thinks, and it is not blasphemy. She drops to her knees, crawls forward. Tsunade-shishou, empty hazel eyes staring up at her. Shizune, eyes closed, blood bubbling out of the corner of her mouth. Kakashi-sensei, white hair stained red, Sharingan eye still open, the other closed. Naruto, face frozen in a snarl, eyes haunting. Hinata-chan, the Byakugan relaxed in death, her delicate bones broken. Ino… Tenten… Neji-san… Lee-san… She remembers killing them.
She remembers how it felt, the kodachi twisting inside his chest, the axe splitting Tenten's skull…
Sasuke-kun. She stands on shaking legs, scans the endless field. A head of black hair, Sharingan eyes open, shallow breaths. She tries to run to him, trips over the bodies, finally reaches him. His eyes are incriminating, and even as she reaches out to him, her chakra falters and flickers out, and she is left with nothing but her tears. Sasuke-kun, she whispers. Whines. Sasuke-kun.
"You…" he whispers, voice rough and glaring, "You did this."
And she screams.
A hand touches her shoulder, and she shies away, the screech echoing in her head. "Sakura," the fierce voice says, and she opens her eyes to obsidian. "Sakura," he orders, "stop screaming." I'm not screaming, she thinks. Only there's still someone screaming, and it might just be her.
She closes her mouth.
A second later, she opens it again, voice rasping, "Sasuke-kun?" He looks at her, and she finally realizes that he's in her room. She sits up, disregarding the blankets sliding down her chest, revealing her bound chest. "What are you doing here, Sasuke-kun?"
He looks away, shrugs. "Just in the neighborhood," he replies.
She glares at him, wants to point out that he's never "just in the neighborhood," but a sob bubbling up in her throat distracts her. She turns away, reaches for the tissues on her nightstand. A tissue box falls into her lap, and she looks back at him. "You knocked it off the table," he mutters.
She thanks him, and plucks a tissue from the box, blowing her nose roughly. I probably look terrible, she thinks, bed hair and red nose and puffy eyes and all. She clears her throat and adds to the list, raspy voice.
She looks up at him, and wonders, again, what he's doing here. "Sasuke-kun," she says, and he shifts nervously.
"What were you dreaming about?" he blurts out, desperate not to have to answer her question. He doesn't know the answer; this isn't much better.
She sighs, and he feels an unmistakable bit of relief; she's letting it go. "Nothing," she says.
"Bull," he replies. He doesn't finish the word. He doesn't need to. It makes her angry without the added four letters.
Her eyes flash, "You want to know, Sasuke-kun?" He suddenly doesn't, but he nods anyways. "I dream about you. I've dreamed about you every single fucking night since that damn genjutsu on that damn mission, and I doubt its going to stop anytime soon."
He pauses, freezes. "So its dreaming about me that makes you scream?" he asks, casually.
She laughs, bitterly, "No. I dream about you already all the time. Do you really want to know?" she asks, again. He nods, again; he really doesn't.
"I see myself killing you… do you know, Sasuke-kun, that there are exactly one-hundred-fifty-three ways of killing that they didn't teach us at the Academy? I think that Mist-nin should be very proud of himself – he knew more ways of killing than I did."
Her voice dropped to a whisper, "Have you ever felt that, Sasuke-kun?" she asks. She doesn't know why she's telling him, why she dares to say this to him, when – ever since that day when he left her on a bench – she has never dared to tell him that she loves him. "Have you ever felt how much it hurts to kill someone you love?"
He stiffens, and she laughs again, "Oh, I forgot. You're Uchiha Sasuke, and you don't love."
He spins to face her, and she nearly laughs again before she sees the expression on his face. He opens his mouth to speak, but closes it; looks away.
They sit there in silence, for a moment. She feels him watching her, carefully; handling her with kid gloves, and she hates it. She hates that she has to be this weak in front of him, hates that he will never look at her the same again – hates that, whatever happens, he will never see her as she tries to be, only as the weak genin who proclaimed undying affection for a boy she hardly knew.
He finally speaks, "I… I do know."
She looks up at him, silently urging him to continue.
"That mission… you weren't the only one under a genjutsu. There was another… there were two genjutsu experts in the team, and he… you do remember, the genjutsu that shows your greatest fear?"
Sakura, looking away, glances back at him sharply. A heartbeat later, she asks, "What did you see?"
He blinks, looks away, and, as though afraid of what he is saying, he says, "I didn't see you." He pauses, glances back at her and away, as if afraid, now, not of what he is saying, but of her reaction to it. She waits for him to finish, afraid that that is all he is going to say.
"I didn't see you," he repeats.
"What do you mean," she asks, puzzled and maybe a little hurt.
He glances back at her, features hard and cold, eyes swirling with emotion, "I saw a future without you. And it hurt. I saw a future where I did something, something horrible – and you left me."
He walks toward her open window, leans toward it as if it holds the answers to life.
Left in his wake, she stares at her hands, loose in her lap. "Sasuke-kun," she whispers.
He takes a deep breath, trembles. "I'm sorry, Sakura," he says, "You didn't need to hear that."
He looks at her, and his eyes widen almost imperceptibly.
She is still sitting on her bed, but her eyelids are closed, covering her vibrant emerald orbs and tears drip from the corners of her eyes. "No," she says, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." She lifts a pale, trembling hand to dash tears from her eyes.
"I've… I've been so pathetic, thinking that I was the only one who had to go through a genjutsu like that, and all this time you've been… and you haven't…" she looks up at him, eyelashes glittering with suppressed tears, and he moves toward her before he knows what he's doing. "Sakura," he murmurs.
"I'm sorry," she says.
"Don't be," he mutters, and it occurs to her that she has never heard him speak as much as he had in the last thirty minutes.
She glances at the clock. Zero-thirty-three, the flashing red numbers read, and she glances up at the Uchiha, nibbling on her lower lip.
"I'm sorry," she says. "I'm would never leave you."
He nods, as if he has expected that answer all along, but she sees, with the ease of long practice, the droop of his shoulders, the lowering of his guard.
He turns back to her, now, and she swallows, hard, the full impact of what he has said rebounding in her heart. "Sasuke-kun?" she asks. "Does… do you…" She trails off, unable to say the words she once was so comfortable with declaring.
"I have a mission in a week," he says. "I'll need a medic-nin."
She nods, mute and almost understanding, and he smiles at her and is gone. The curtains flutter in his wake, and that night, she sleeps without dreams.