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"Well, I'll be honest with you. Under normal circumstances, you'd be imprisoned for life."
He sighed heavily, making a dramatic pause, before he continued.
"But the only reason you've been pardoned is because of your assistance in undoing the Mugen-Tsukuyomi jutsu." I think I saw a chaste smile beneath his mask.
"Try not to forget, however… that all this is thanks to Naruto. I mean, he is the hero of this war and well…" He uncomfortably shifted.
"I did put in a few comments as the Sixth Hokage. So take it easy and don't go crazy on me again… It'll be my head they'll take this time." He let out a confusing sound between laughter and a sigh.
"Yeah, sorry." I answered distracted.
My kekkei-genkai eyes were solely focused on a slender framed woman next to him.
Soft breeze played with traces of her uniquely colored hair. It hid and showed her face intermittently over and over again. Her sight drifted from her feet to my face and back to her feet again. While I kept looking straight sternly in her green radiating eyes, she seemed at moments too weak to keep up locked gaze between us. I saw sadness behind those long lashes and I kept my stare concentrated on her as if asking her to look back at me.
I hadn't had the chance to speak with her since the war ended, and I wasn't sure what we were going to talk about, but we both felt unsaid words lingering and lightly troubling us, silently from the inside. This time wasn't hurting though.
"…You're leaving already? Tsunade-sama's just about to complete your prosthetic hand from Hashirama-sama's cells…"
I couldn't help but think how much she has changed, yet kind of stayed the same. These desperate remarks and tries to find an alternative motive to keep me close to her sounded way too familiar. She was much too proud now to say it directly, I noticed.
But what she didn't notice is that she needed no more to try keeping me close. I've already been there. And I have been for a very long time. I've been deceiving and fighting myself, but some bonds can't be broken with miles and empty words.
"I need to see it for myself. How the world looks."
It might be selfish on my behalf to leave them again, after all they've done to get me back, but I really feel this is the right thing to do. And I know they understand.
Konoha hasn't felt like home long before I left. I was drowning in the consuming hate before, and now that my eyes are open and familiar with the truth, I can't say that it will feel like home ever again. But it doesn't mean I'm not coming back, because I am. As soon as I finish what needs to be done, I will be back. I'm not leaving really.
"All those things I've overlooked, I have a feeling I'd be able to see them better now…"
I choose my words wisely and carefully. I hope she will feel the metaphor directed to her. Because it is about her, as much as it is about all those years foolishly wasted in hatred and vengeance.
I hated myself for so long, for all of the mistakes I made, one after another, and the pain I've put them through. I don't deserve neither of them, and although I am aware that they have already forgiven me and taken me back, I feel the need to earn the second chance they've gifted me with, and this time make it worth it. I need to do this for them, as much as I need it for myself.
They know, they understand, I can feel it. It's different this time.
"And if I miss this chance…"
I swallow a bit harder, because I don't want to think about it
"…I don't think another will come." And I mean it.
The fear of losing them and the care for their well being force me to be straight honest.
Her look fell to the ground again, and I suddenly and unexpectedly feel the urge to come nearer, and close the tight space between us. I can almost see myself making light contact with her chin and seeking for her to look me in the eyes one last time before I leave, but shivers in my forearm stop me.
She seems too fragile and I am afraid to break her. Goodbyes aren't really our thing, but they seem kind of unavoidable for us.
Missing the soft and warm touch of her skin makes me reminisce about all that we've been through in such short period of time we were actually together, and all those years spent apart missing her, without realizing it and accepting it. I wonder how it is possible to feel such a strong connection with someone who you've been more apart from than you've been together with.
And then it gets to me in flashbacks. And it all makes it all understandable and so logic that I almost curse myself for not seeing it earlier.
"I don't ever want to watch those precious to me die before my eyes again…" my own words come back to me.
And somewhere in my chests it begins to sting when I remember releasing her numb body for my grip and placing her next to Pakkun. I remember the long moment I took observing her pained porcelain face. And replaying the moment she jumped in front of me to save me from Gaara and being crushed right afterwards I remember how devastated and weak I felt.
I start feeling real pain in my chest, and I almost move my hurt hand to press it to the painful spot, but I realize what I haven't gotten used to yet, it's that the hand is no longer there.
And then the picture of Sound ninja with broken arms comes to my mind and along with it the picture of torture she had been through and the sacrifice she had made to protect Naruto and me. At that moment, I realize, I still haven't forgotten and forgiven myself for letting her get hurt.
But what pains me the most are the times I have hurt her. And unfortunately, I cannot say it was unintentionally. It was the way I was programmed and used to. After everything that has happened I had to learn to detach myself not only from people, but from feelings also. I only allowed myself to hate. And she was just another fallen victim in the battle against my dark past.
She has never experienced the pain I have felt, or Naruto, yet she was always there trying to understand and make it somehow better. And all I did was rejecting her and dismissing her honest feelings, while she was always there for me.
Each time I woke up in the hospital bed, each time someone had to stop another fight with Naruto, that time against Gaara, that time when I fell off a cliff during Idate Morino's race, each time she was there trying to help.
She was nowhere near the strong shinobis I knew, but it was clear to me that for my well being she's always gone beyond her limits, and that has been her true strength all along, when she allowed herself to cry after she thought I was killed on the 'Naruto' bridge in the Land of Waves, even if it was against shinobi rules, or when she believed in the good person that hid beneath the looks of a cursed boy who broke another ninja's arms in a blink of an eye, or when she believed in me, enough to know that I was not the coward I acted like when Orochimaru attacked us during chunin exams.
She was there to hold my hand trying to take away the pain of a cursed seal. She was there on the third stage of chunin exams ready to give up, and be hated for it by me and Naruto, just to save me from further suffering because of the same damn cursed seal. She was there to catch when I fell after that clash with Rock Lee before the exams.
And all I did was push her away, and although she kept coming back and trying over and over again, she made it so easy to hurt her. I was her weak spot and I used it very well against her. Until it started to get back at me.
"Plus there are a few things that have been bothering me." I broke the silence we were growing to hate more and more the longer it was overtaking us.
It has bothered me sometimes how blind she was when it came to me. She misinterpreted my actions and words, and that often made her sad. She didn't misinterpret them, actually, she just wasn't listening beyond words, and watching beneath the beneath as Kakashi taught us.
And it started to annoy and disrupt me, and without realizing I found myself in a situation when I couldn't stop myself from paying a compliment to her genjutsu noticing skills, and when I started letting her hug me or snuggle closer to me.
Somewhere along the way, the radiating temperature of her closeness became comfortable, her presence became routine. And the more she grew fond of Naruto, the more hatred I brought into our rivalry. The more power he would obtain, the more the feeling of her approval and admiration I found addicting.
She started squirming uncomfortably, with a tint of red blooming on her cheeks.
"Wh..at.. if I told you…that..I'd like…to come… too?..." with uncertainty she took a brief glance at me.
The wind blew through our hair and hems of our clothes, and it was enough to get me back to that faithful night when our lives changed forever.
The image of a twelve years old Sakura mixed and for a second replaced the young woman before my eyes. I could clearly hear her professing her undying love to me all over again. I could hear the sound of shattering hearts, and I remember almost hating her in that moment for making this harder than I thought it would be. So I did the best way I could think of to mend my aching heart, and I called her annoying once again.
Because it was annoying how she always was at the right place at the right time, surviving some of the hardest and most crucial moments of my life with me. And although it was Naruto who understood me the best of them all, I admired the bond that's been insensibly created between us, two persons who never quiet knew each other, but nonetheless cared for each other deeply.
"It's my road to redemption. You have nothing to do with my sins."
I close my eyes because it's too hard to watch the disappointment overwhelm her, but I do not regret my words.
I hide my powerful eyes gifted with Uchiha's blood kekkei-genkai, because although they possess the power to rule the whole world, they do not possess enough strength not to betray me by showing her my thoughts and true hidden emotions. And somehow I am still not ready to face her, afraid that it might break us both.
She exudes the pureness of a child, and the warmth of a friend graced with nobleness, and I don't want to be the one to taint that. And I am the only one who could do it.
So I save her from myself, until I learn how to look at the world with these new eyes of mines filled with hope and affection.
Because that's what I owe her too.
To the one who filled my lonely existence with emotion called love.
"Nothing to do… you say…"
I sense the rejection she's feeling, but this time is different. This time I did not struggle with the decision, it was the purest thing to do. This time there is no obstacles to keep me away from the friendship and love, and a future filled with warmth that I once had to throw away.
My entire road of life flashes before my eyes and I feel light and reassured. All the pain from previous memories is gone, and I feel peaceful. My thoughts embrace the picture of my brother, the person responsible for the man I am today. And I can't help but feel gratitude for his noble and unselfish actions that lead me on the path of life.
Remembering my brother, feeling the warmth, the proud, and some inexplicable tingling inside, I become conscious of my actions before it actually happens.
I see my fingers slightly bent, slowly reaching for the small amount of skin portrayed behind few of her soft locks. The moment I reach the softness of her temple seems like eternity. All my senses go numb, and I can't hear or smell anything. I can just drown in the warm feeling coming over me, from the tip of my finger to my whole body, consuming my mind. All I can see is her cream colored skin, pink and red shades framing her facial features, and all kinds of wonderful colors of green dancing in her round, addicting, and loving eyes.
This time we lock our gazes and let our eyes travel behind what they can perceive.
This time, I let her look into my eyes and see for herself, because I don't know any other way of telling her what she needs to know.
"I'll see you soon." I'm surprised how low and calm my voice sounds.
She becomes even more captivated and hypnotized by my eyes. She is calm, hope radiating from her sides, that I can almost see it as a glow surrounding her.
I mean what I say. And she truly feels the power hidden behind my words. It's a promise I tend to keep.
It is also a declaration of my feelings, which I wouldn't quite label as love.
This emotion I was cherishing was too strange for me and too strong to be compared with love. In this moment love seemed so ordinary, and there were still no words invented to describe what has been blooming between us since such a long time ago. Our lives were different, our story was unique, and this bond we shared was too special and indescribable.
Nothing was, nor will ever be easy when we came in question. It was just the way we worked. The distance was a great part of our closeness. And only we could feel the true meaning behind it all.
"….Thank you." I whisper lastly, but I can hear it replaying in my mind like an echo, loud and clear.
She is startled.
I can feel that I truly touched her soul with my last words. Because there is a complete history behind those words with thousands and thousands of different meanings.
My eyes have softened, I feel it.
Unsaid words and muffled feelings travel through our locked gaze. She seems to absorb everything I mean and feel through my eyes. All the gratitude I feel, because she waited, because she believed, because she kept trying, because she forgave, because she didn't give up…and because she loved all this time.
And it is my way of responding her to all that she's done for me.
It is my final response to her declaration of love.
It is my hidden 'I love you too'.
I feel fulfilled and peaceful. I am relaxed and eager to start the journey that awaits me. I feel pleasant satisfaction for recognizing my feelings and connections after such long time, and it never felt better. So I stay quiet, and so does she.
We both feel the grandiosity of the moment, and that's the memory we'd like to cherish for the time apart, until we meet again.
Now I understand why she promised me she would make me happy if I stay at Konoha, all those years ago. It is because it was the only way to make me feel whole again, and she knew it all along, she just refused to believe it that she had that kind of power over me. Despite everything, some things are simply meant to be. And there is no power in this world to change that.
With peaceful expression on my face and pleasant emotion of pride that she is my 'meant to be', I turn and leave.
And I will be back.
All sorts of comments are welcome. I hope you liked reading the story as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Thank you for reading.
Love,
fashh