I Don't Know Anymore
or
How to Break a Heart
By BlackFireXD13
© 2010
Pairings: None
Rating: T+ ages 13+ Contains content not suitable for young children. Suitable for teens, 13 years and older, with some violence, minor coarse language, and minor suggestive adult themes.
Word Count: ≈ 3,000
Main Character/s: Uchiha Sasuke
Genre: Action, Angst
Universe: Alternate Reality
Disclaimers/copyright: Naruto © Masashi Kishimoto and VIZ. I don't make money from or own the fandom. Any pubically recognizable characters are not my own unless otherwise noted. The plot and idea of I Don't Know Anymore is © BlackFireXD13 All rights reserved. No portion of this fiction may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without written permission from the author. This is a work of fiction and any characters, events or locales that resemble any non-fictional personas, living or dead, is completely coincidental, unless otherwise noted. BlackFireXD13 makes no profit from this fiction.
Relevant Information: The first break is where I intended to end it. The next two scenes are alternate endings. It must be noted that, with each ending, it just gets more depressing. I find it interesting that you can read the entire thing, or just the ending you like. So, You can read it like: 1)Ending 1, 2) Ending 1, 3) Ending 1, 2, 3. Go ahead, flip a coin or roll some dice.
Playlist: Death Cab for Cutie's "Your New Twin Sized Bed," "Remainder," and "Cath" Which should be a total of nine + minutes.
Inspiration: .net/s/5908050/1/Apologies by Scarletlink314 I didn't dislike it but I'm not enamored. The writing is pleasing and it's not bad, but I'm a Sasuke/Naruto biased person. Besides, I can't imagine Sasuke thinking those things.
Story Warnings:Abuse, Angst, AU/AR, COMPLETE, Death, Language, MCD (Major Character Death), NoSex, OneShot, Violence
I Don't Know Anymore
or
How to Break A Heart
"Sasuke!"
I stare at her. My chakra sweeps to the left, the right, behind and above me. My eyes can see before me. I turn and start walking away; Danzo is dead but there are still two elders alive who ordered Itachi's mission. My right hand itches to plunge Kusunangi through their chests, my left burns to use chidori.
"Sasuke!"
Instinctually I dart to my left and watch as the snowy ground I was just on splinter and breaks into a crater. Sakura's leather clad fist is in the epicenter. For a second, my mind tricks and I think that maybe it is coincidence that her hand is there after and extrememly powerful but short-centered earthquake. Then I remember hearing that the Godaime Hokage took on an apprentice.
As I land, I draw my chokuto out of its sheath and steady it towards Sakura. Her Jade eyes lock determinedly onto my own and I'm reminded of a familiar set of lapis lazuli inset orbs.
From the moment our eyes meet I know she is a true shinobi. Not just a kunoichi trained in the arts of seduction, but a ninja trained to be a weapon for the village.
We stand and stare and—just like all those years before, at the Valley of End—I can see the thoughts run through her head. I'm not sure if back then Naruto could see what was running through mine, I'm not sure if Sakura can see it now. I can see their thoughts because they're true shinobi. Maybe I'm not. I don't care any more.
She charges and I step to the side, her fist coming so close I can feel the wind whistle past my hair. I know I can't let that chakra enforced blow ever hit me. I also know that my speed is more than a match for hers.
She shifts the center of her gravity and follows through with the force of her motion, swinging around and aiming that same fist at me. Her chakra, plus the added momentum doubles her power, maybe triples it but I don't do the exact calculations as I take a flying leap backwards.
I land neatly, two yards to her left. I can see a good sized shockwave pulse around her clenched hand as the chakra and momentum disperse into the surrounding air. It reminds me of my Chidori, in the way that the chakra and force can't be reasorbed, though I'm sure hers doesn't sting like raidon chakra does.
Her shoulders heave and I can see a faint cloud of condensed breath leave the pale pink of her opened lips. Her candy floss hair sways gently around her sharp features. I think I hear a growl and her head turns towards me. I don't think I have ever seen such a malevelant expression on her face, let alone directed at me. Forest jade eyes smoulder with hate and desperation and... something else I don't care to analyze carefully. Her slim eyebrows furrow her smooth forehead amd her lips are set in a fierce line of concentration.
I can feel her fury, unconsciously, I adjust my grip on Kusanagi. She pulls herself out of the lunge her body naturally settled in and quickly grabs a kunai from the holster on her leg. The movement is fluid, like water running over stones, less like shadows chasing the light from the distant past and far away from the jerky rising of sunlight over jagged mountains. She faces me. We move at the same time.
My sword cuts through her kunai with little resistance, as I knew it would. The raidon chakra infused blade vibrates fast enought to allow it to alice through metal and bone alike. The distant voice that has festered in my head sneers at her memory. It wasn't too long ago that I used the same technique to disarm that replacement jounin when they ambushed the Sound Base.
"Keh, wrong move, Sasuke-kun,"
My eyes blink involuntarily. Her arm twitches and she poofs to smoke. Logs fall with dull, rythmic thunks! I don't whirl around but the Sharingan blazes and I search for her chakra. Left, right, behind, infront, above—
"Below!"
I'm in the air seconds before her arm punctures the ground I was standing on, her momentum rocketing her straight at me. I instinctively trigger the second curse form- only to realize that I no longer posses the ability courtesy one dead brother. Though having Orochimaru's oily presence evicted from my mind is a definate pro, the loss of the wings is a definate con.
In the air, neither of us can move without interference and she has the advantage: pointed straight at me and not having to look into my eyes. When her speed brings her in range I swing Kusunagi at her, that distant part of me please at the ease the blade slides through her. The satisfaction is cut short, however, when both my sharingan and my other senses report that the cut was too clean and isn't supposed to result in smoke. She used a kage bunshin.
She's above is my first thought and it proves correct. Her form is quickly descending upon me, destructive fist poised, and I feel my temper rise. This is going on for too long. At this rate, someone is going to interrupt us.
I twist my body—finally reaching the peak of the parobolic route my body had taken, and therefore suspended in air for a few second—and face her, abandoning the chokuto in favor of rapidly forming handsigns, ending in tora. My lungs fill with the burning energy I became familiar with at age eight and I unleashed a torrent of fire.
I touch down and grab the sword where it landed and sheath it. Ash falls around me, mixed with the white of snow, but no charred body. She used kage bunshin or subsitution, it doesn't matter which. She wastes no time as she immediatly rushes at me again, her fingers forming familiar signs and two bunshins not thousands and not made of spun shadow and feathers shimmer to life next to her. I form my own signs and let another round of Katon: Gyoukaku no Jutsu release.
Immediatly she shows up at my left, with a kunai, and it's pathetically easy to push my hand against her inner wrist and grab her elbow, pulling her closer to me. My fist finds home in her stomach and that part of me finds amusement in the spit and breath that fly past my ear. The fist in her stomach opens and I use leverage to flip her body over my shoulder and slam her into the ground.
She disappears.
The constant game of hide-and-seek is annoying, especially when he uses ninjutsu to cheat though the vaguely familiar strategy would work against more incompatent oponents. I decide to play my own game.
She appears before me again, and I draw the chokuto, sheath and all, instead of using a katon as I'm inclined to do. The flat of the sheath is used to bat her hand away, and I thwack the back of her head. It's a kage bunshin, so it dissapates harmlessly into smoke.
The rest of the bunshins she sends meet the same, easily dissarmed and released. Her plan is back firing: now that I'm not using chakra, her expense is more than her profit.
Sakura finally attacks me herself, no bunshins in sight. I aim my body and meet her charge, drawing the blade of kusunagi seconds before we collide. I see her eyes widen and the blade slides easily into her stomach long before her fist grazes my cheek. The shock of being wounded has dispelled the chakra that would have sent me flying. I allow myself a smirk.
"Wrong move, Sakura-kun,"
Because I can't help but gloat.
She looks surprised and pained as I tug the chokuto back. Except the sword doesn't slide easily from her body like I expect it to. It catches on something, and when I glance down, I see it's Sakura's hand. Her expression from before twists and I see a reflection in her eyes.
That's all even the Sharingan can register before my head snaps to the right and I'm sent flying as slighly purple-tinted smoke envelopes me. How she switched so quickly and eithout detection attests to her skill as a shinobi. I brace myself for landing.
Without a doubt I'm pissed. Now, not only is that dead-last usurotonkachi Naruto strong enough to match me, but this little girl, kunoichi is throwing me around like a ragdoll. And both from that Konohagakure no Satou.
Konoha. That place that destroyed my clan. That destroyed my brother. That ruined my life!
The games are done, I won't be holding back anymore. As I rise, though her image is slightly blury, I am positive Sakura could read that thought, real shinobi or not. To her credit, however, she didn't back down. And she put up a good fight.
It's too bad that strength never matched up yo soeed and genius or she might've won.
Her fist is still in the air as my chidori slams through her chest. She looks surprised, eyes wide open and jaw slack. My hand bursts through tightly knit muscles and my hand peirces through her skin and shirt easily. Even the heavy cloak draped around her shoulder gets singed. I release the raidon chakra and it sends sparks up my arm and Samura's deadened nerves. My body sways slightly as my left arm supports her dead weight.
The feeling is almost reminiscent of fouryears ago, when my hand was seated in another chest. A smooth, tanned chest, slightly thin in adolescence. Firm muscles encasing my arm, the struggling spasm of dying smoothmuscle twitching as his destroed lung tries to draw in air but is betrayed by its own life-blood. Charred orange and blue cloth floats like feathers around us and shattered rib bones sting in my arm but mostly his chest as blood runs down his clothes and sternum but nothing on me I'm clean because of the heat of electricity that only leaves the scent of boiled blood—
But this is different, too. My hand slides through differently shaped muscles, I can feel the soft swell of breasts brush against my arm with every breath Sakura struggles to take. The heave of pained lungs compress the sides of my arm and the dead weight on my arm is easy to support.
Her body shakes and she hacks up a clot of blood that narrowly misses my face. Her eyes are open but glossy-she's in shock. She can't feel the pain right now, the nerves around the wound have been destroyed and adreniline hides everthing else.
Her emerald cut irisis seem infinitely small as they slide down to where my arm juts out of her chest, almost pornographically. She's always wanted me to penetrate her. I shudder, my vision going hazy and a feeling of light headedness briefly dissorientating me.
This is all wrong.
The hair color is wrong—
yellow like the rising sun—
dark brown like the earth after rain—
—the eye color is wrong—
blue that I compared to the sky until I saw the sea—
black that I compared to the night until I saw blood—
—her body is too light, her shape too curved—
should be taller, no shorter, heavier, the same?—
—the only colors are pink and tan—
—where's the orange? the blue?—
—where's the black, the red?—
—Her skin is too pale but something is still the same.
It fucking hurts. This ache beneath my ribs where they all burned, with lightning and sickness it hurts. I hate it. I fucking hate it so much.
I let her body slump from my hold and suppress a wince at the sickening shclup! that my hand makes as it pops from the cavity in her chest. I hit close enough to her heart that there'd be no recovery, but far enough away that immediate death wasn't a problem. I don't know if that is a blessing or a curse.
She's about to hit the cold ground and a wave a dizziness hits me. As I fall to my knees I grab her and cushion her head before it can hit the ground. She coughs again, and in her eyes I see resolution. Just like in Itachi's I saw contentment. In Naruto's, determination.
Like this all was planned and I'm just a marrionette dancing to the puppet-master's strings. Like thsi was all orchestrated by some god who thought my life was the most entertaining thing in the universe. And maybe it is.
And once upon a time, in the elemental lands of the great shinobi warriors, there was a young boy. This boy was born into a brilliant clan, with a perfect brother. Oh, how the young boy idolized that brother. But then, one night when the moon was high, the perfect brother created imperfectness and the young boy was alone. Though, now he hated the perfect brother, the young boy still listened and ran away, to learn to fester his emotions. This young boy was placed into a team, whom he made friends with, but then, he decided to follow his perfect brother's path and almost destroyed his best friend. After three years of training, the young boy (who is now less than young but not old) confronts his perfect brother and kills him, only to find out that his brother was imperfect and loved him all along. So the young man then confronts the place that made his perfect brother imperfect, only to be stopped by a girl he used to be friends with.
It sounds like a melodramatic tragedy when I put it like that. What kind of person would do that? It conflicts with the thoughts I have of myself. Who is this person, who cuts down comrades with out remorse? Who is this person, who clings to the blood-stained path of a loosely named 'avenger?' Who is this person, who can rip the heart out of the two people closest to him?
"Sakura, tell me who put you into this state?"
Because it couldn't have been that lonely little boy who sat on the dock and snuck glances at the village orphan. It couldn't have been the young boy who competed constantly with the usurotonkachi on his team because they weren't rivals, they were friends? It couldn't have been the young boy who whispered thank you to the only girl who tried to understand him. It couldn't have been Uchiha Sasuke it couldn't have been me!
"Sa-su-ke-ku..."
2.
I watch her life drain slowly from her body before setting her down on the cold earth. I remember, vaguely the faint image of two shinobi in the snow, on a bridge suspended over water... it happened so long ago though. The snow gently falls against her, flakes catching in her eyelashes and hair. Filling the hole in her chest. There are so many ways to break someone's heart.
I pull the edge of her cloak to cover the wound in her chest I can't stand to see it folding it under her body, like tucking in a child. She looks so delicate, like a porcelain doll. The blood dripping from her lips looks out of place but strangely at home, the snow washes it away.
"Sa-Sasuke?"
There's the glint of sunrise at the edge of the forest.
"Where's Saku...ra?"
"Naruto,"
3.
I feel something break in me, shatter. Become completely unusable.
I tear the cloak away from her body, ignoring the way her body jerks the same as I ignore the stinging in my eyes. Blood trickles like a dammned river from her chest and why can't it heal? Why doesn't it heal? it's too much, she'll die.
The harsh ripping sound of the cloak doesn't echo but it sends chills up my spine. I use strips of the thick cloth to wrap around her body. The chidori is a super-heated jutsu, it is lightning after all, and I hope the worst of the damage was cauterized. Her breathing becomes shallower, and her heart beat stutters before dying.
Even though I know it's useless, I place my hands on her chest and start pumping. Frantically, radically, in what I'm sure is far from the correct rhythm. I'm probably doing more harm than good, but just this once I want to try. I don't want to leave without doing something.
It hurts, too.
One of my pumps has her body hacking up more blood, staining her white face, and sticking to my hair. Bubbles of blood drip from her mouth, then slowly begin a steady slide down her chin. She's slowly turning cold, her limbs are stiffening. She's dead, well and truly.
"Sasuke-" the voice breaks on a sob.
I feel hands at my shoulders, pulling me away from Saku-the corpse. Large gloved hands grasp me around the chest, and pull me a good distance away from it. I can't see, I think my limbs have gone numb. The most I can make out are smeared colors of blue, red and green.
I can hear people walking, a voice says poison and some others agree. There is one quietly sobbing and I can feel chakra all over the place. I flinch from the hand that nears my face before I realize it's my own and I fall backwards, arms spread like I'm making a snow angel. I've never made one before but my arms are lead and I can't move them.
My limbs slowly lock up, I think from the cold but it's never bothered me before. Black edges my vision and my body feels so heavy. Snow falls on my face, melts rapidly and slide down my cheeks. Once the muted feeling of foereign chakra dissperses, leaving only one, brightly colored one, I feel more than see a shadow fall across my body.
It takes an effort I didn't know it'd need, but when I focus enough to see, there are smeared batches of orange and black and yellow where's the red?. The only part I can see clearly are broken, heart-shaped glass shards stained blue, looking accusingly at me.
"Why?"
I Don't Know Anymore, 2010 © BlackFireXD13
Uhm... So, if anonymous people review with questions, please... check back because I can't reply. Or... email me. Blackfirexd13 at Put (story title) Review in subject or I'll delete it.
Burnedblossom16
Thank you for the review! I got to ask, were you using a phone and reviewing? Anyways, Sasuke was fighting Sakura. Not Naruto. When I was writing, I intended your last guess to be the correct one. I'm glad you caught that! And yes, Naruto was standing there at the end. Watching them... Thank you, again!
