Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
Notes: Spoilers for the most recent chapters.

Easing my way back into writing again (and preparing to tackle Spectral Affair, eek)

She's standing before you now.

Her eyes are hard, her mouth set in a determined line. You can't see her fists but know that they are surely fisted, perhaps hard enough to draw blood.

You turn towards her, deliberately away from Danzo's crumpled form. For the briefest instant, you sees her eyes fix upon the bastard, a faint wrinkle between her brows, lips parting as though to ask…and just as quickly her forehead is smooth, expression neutral, her eyes shifting back to meet yours, her lips pressing back into that thin line.

Good. There's time to explain later.

Madara disappeared a long time ago. Karin is occupied fighting the others who came with Sakura.

(They have names, and you does recognize two of them as old classmates, but you can't find it in himself to care very much. Team 7 and those fuckers on the Council are the only people of note)

It's just the two of you here, for the first time since that night three years back. You look up into the blackening sky, where the crescent moon is starting to give off a faint glow.

Yes, almost exactly like that night. The only difference is that you can see her face, and your Sharingan is, as it now seems to be perpetually, activated. And, naturally, circumstances.

You aren't leaving. And you doubt she's asking you to return this time. That look in her eyes is too careful, too detached for such emotional work.

Still, you're Uchiha Sasuke, and she's Haruno Sakura, and you've always understood her, and you recognize that look in her eyes not only to be determination, but also a concealment of any, more personal feelings she still holds for you.

"Sasuke," she speaks your name, the intonation neutral, almost casual. The absence of the suffix is a gaping hole, an expectation cut short.

"Sakura," you acknowledges her, inclining your head. She takes a breath, and you wait.

She says, "I've come to kill you."

You don't respond. The look in her eyes is resolve, and you know that look well enough to recognize that it's no bluff—every line of her body is prepared for that very action.

"I see," you say, not raising your voice, but in the silence they resound loud and clear. "And so now Konoha finally decides it wants me dead?"

You sees her purse her lips, but her gaze remains steady.

"Not entirely accurate."

You raise a brow. "Then, pray tell, who are you killing me for?"

You can guess at the answer. It's really not so difficult, for she's starting to tremble, and is drawing in upon herself.

"For me."

You allow a bitter smile, for the both of you.

"So your feelings have changed, then?"

She doesn't answer, but the look in her eyes shifts, a softening of brows and a lowering of lashes and lidding of eyes that speak more to you than any of her previous statements and gestures.

She still loves you, and somehow, by loving you she has chosen to kill you. At this moment in time, under the night sky and its shadowy crescent moon, to Haruno Sakura the dilemma to kiss or kill is nonexistent—the two are too deeply entwined.

Oddly enough, it reassures you.

You shift your stance and grasp the hilt of your sword, an unspoken acceptance to fight. There is mild surprise on her face—

(Probably didn't expect you to know her well enough to take her seriously, you think, both amused and oddly annoyed)

--but it soon fades. She removes her cloak and drops it into a careless pile at her feet, and snaps on white gloves with a clinical disinterest, as though she was only preparing for a distasteful chore—or perhaps a day at the hospital.

(You heard about your training from Orochimaru: the creep was fond of parallels and sickening twists, and his comments always tested your resolve not to kill him until you had learned everything possible to defeat your brother)

You know she's stronger now. There won't be words or tears or pleas from her in this battle, only her goal, and whatever it takes to achieve it.

The irony isn't lost on you.

Fortunately, you have the chance to explain yourself that Itachi did not.

You draw Kusanagi, and look at it, trying to imagine Sakura's blood smeared on its edge. It isn't much of a surprise that the thought makes you sick.

A true fight with Sakura, even if she intends to take you to your death bed, is a welcome prospect, but you refuse to cause her death. You have too much still to tell her (and to the dobe too, for that matter) to be willing to be drawn into a lethal duel.

"Are you ready?" you enquire, sounding for all the world as pretentious as anyone of your skills and breeding could ever possibly sound. As though you don't take her seriously. As though you don't understand, at this very moment, she could as well kill you as kiss you.

(You'd much prefer the latter, for reasons as obvious as the will to live, to the more obscure—dark recesses of emotions that you have kept tightly locked back these past few years.

Maybe one of these days you should open up these emotions, understand what you feel and why you feel the way you do)

As she launches herself at you, fist drawn back, you recall the virtues of chakra strings and other such tricks you have forgotten as you filled your head with forbidden jutsus and dreams of power. Tricks not to harm, but to make someone listen. You feel your face stretch oddly, but realize you're smiling, for the first time in a very long time.

Your eyes bleed from red to black, and you move to meet her halfway.

…They had better meet back up again. Soon.

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