A pink haired, eighteen year old ran through the mucky dirt streets.
Her hair clung to her smooth exposed back and delicate hands covered her tear-covered, angel like facial features. Black heels swung limply from one of her hands whilst her bare feet danced along the rain-wet street.
Her beautiful black dress was soaked. It had a lacy, corset like top half with a princess like net skirt, but it sagged like a weeping willow tree. The silky net skimmed across the swampy streets, sweeping up the dirt while the rain continually washed it out. You could tell the mucky, dream-like dress was a wedding dress, even though it was pitch black in colour.
She had been at a wedding, her wedding, but no man, nor women or child, saw the desolate bride flee through the dark streets.
She wouldn't believe it.
She wouldn't accept it. He had left her. After all these years…
He had left her.
He had left.
Her.
He left her.
Left her.
He had gone back to his home.
She wanted to go home. Over everything else, she wanted to go home.
But she couldn't.
Because home is where the heart is. Her heart belonged to him. Therefore, her home was wherever he was.
But she wasn't invited there. She wasn't wanted there. And he had left her all alone in these dark times…
Homeless.
Her prince charming thought he was a demon. Her prince charming thought he was evil.
But he pulled her –small, insignificant her- out from a place where even Naruto had failed at pulling her from.
He was her prince charming.
Her prince charming had gone, gone… Gone!
But she wouldn't accept it. Because in the last ten minutes her prince charming, who had saved her from the clutches of depression and insanity, had just dumped into the core of that very same depression.
Same section and all.
But this time, nobody will be able to save her.
Even if she did live -some miracle would have to occur- she would no longer be there, alive. She would no longer be Sakura.
She'd be a mannequin, empty and meaningless. And nobody could save her from that.
Not even him.
And they wouldn't, couldn't, because nobody knew where she would be heading.
Because by the time they found the note from her to them with the note from him to her, she would be as cold and hard as a concrete angel, in a clearing known only to them. And maybe to the bouncy Naruto, but he was on a mission. He couldn't even get back to see her on the happiest day of her life. Or what should have been.
Along the street and around the corner she turned, weaving her way through the intricate pattern of Konoha streets. She turned onto a cobbled road- she was almost there.
Suddenly, her filthy toe caught on a cobble and the pink haired girl somehow managed to swing herself round as she tumbled to the ground landing on the pale flesh of her back, splattering the wet -yet almost flawless- skin of her back in a layer of mud, which seeped into the cuts forming on her once spotless skin.
She felt the sharp sting of pointy pebbles piercing through the weak barrier of skin as she slammed to the ground.
Despite the stabbing pain in her back, and despite the fact her fairy-tale dress was covered in mud, the girl stayed still, curled into a tight ball and shaking from the ever present, heart throbbing sobs.
After a while, how long she was unaware of, an ever-so-slight shadow fell over her. A few seconds passed before she resigned to the fact this shadow was not leaving, and heart-broken, forsaken green eyes looked dejectedly through the brides slender fingers to see a tall, lanky blonde with sea blue eyes looking grimly down at her.
Another second passed before the male kneeled hesitantly down. He paused, waiting cautiously for resistance, and upon meeting none, scooping up the depressed female and walking away from the road.
"…Naruto?" The towering blonde tightened his grip on the girl wrapped in his arms in response. His face became stern as he looked over her condition again. Mud covered her toned arms and legs and the majority of her back and left side. Her dress was torn and also splattered mercilessly with dirty brown splatters. Scrapes scarred her porcelain back and her feet looked like she had treaded through broken glass.
"…He's gone, Naruto…" Her body quivered with silent sadness again as she covered the empty orbs, the first tear crawling down her translucent cheek.
"Sakura… I know… I saw him as he left." Dull green eyes flew open with curiosity and shock.
Finally, Naruto stopped as he reached his red front door, the broken female hadn't even noticed him entering the vast garden they travelled through.
With am irritated sigh, the blond ninja realised he had left his keys locked inside the small house, not that it was much of a problem.
As he shifted Sakura into one arm, he swiftly tugged a single hair grip from her ruined halo of hair, carefully shoving it into the tiny keyhole. For a few, silent seconds he twisted the tiny metal grip this way than that, then stopped as he heard a noise that wasn't his emotional sisters breathing; the faintest click of an old lock jittering open.
He pulled the grip slowly out of the opened lock, the deformed metal looking nothing like the straight grip from before. The sea blue eyes took one glance at the deformed 'key' before he dropped it in the empty plant pot nest to the flaky door.
The sleek fingers of his free hand shoved the door open. It took a moment; the blood red door wasn't used to swinging on it rusty hinges. Ninjas tended to use windows when entering their properties.
"What did Ga- …he say?" Sakura cut off mid sentence when she felt the stabbing blade of heart-brake pierce her dying heart as she almost said his name.
It hurt to think of him, what would be the devastating effects if she were to see him; his unkept hair, his fierce eyes… it would brake the shattered glass of her cracked heart all aver again.
But she didn't have to see him, hear him, smell him again. She'd never see her Romeo again, never meet another Romeo, never love another Romeo again.
She'd never be truly alive again, because she broke beyond love, life and death at the words uttered by one broken soul that jabbed at her –his only sisters(if only through mental bonds) and first loves- depression and loss of life, of love, of reason.
This was only the second time he had not been able to say the right thing and said the worst. Both were circled around her- her shattered heart, her emptiness.
One fluid motion freed her from the strong, lanky arms of her best friend and she sprang from the room, a lost girl.
She couldn't feel anything but the loneliness, the depression, the self hate. Those words had broken her. Those words haunt her.
"Sakura," Naruto's voice echoed through her head as the tears freed themselves from her shattered glass gems.
"Sakura," Naruto's voice sounded again as she shook her head violently. She left the village, speed coming from pure depression, pure sadness, pure, raw heart-brake.
"Sakura…" Naruto's voice bounced again and again on the edge of her mind, bruising her thoughts of him; of her Romeo.
"Sakura, Gaara's…" The blonde's voice got forcefully drowned off.
"NO! No, no, no!" Full lips separated to make room for the screams of denial to shout themselves out. She was far enough away from the village that no one would hear her.
"...Gaara's getting…" The screams continued as she tried so hard to block the voice, the same words ringing through her head anyway
"Don't say his name! Don't speak of him! Don't say it!"
One small, broken voice of a sorry man ended its attack on Sakura's sanity quietly.
"…married."
And the pink haired kunoichi faints from loss of want of life.
Naruto's blonde hair was roughly tugged at with the spiky, blue brush.
He wishes he wasn't here in this neatly cared for room.
He wishes he wasn't here in this building; the place of life, death, love and God.
He wishes he wasn't in this twisted village which rips lovers from their beloved and covers the truth with hateful lies which turn brothers on each other.
He wishes he hadn't accepted Gaara back after he ripped apart the pink haired beauty.
The pink haired beauty which he hasn't said the name of since three months ago, when she ripped away from him, stealing his life with her.
The Anbu threw the brush onto the thick, clean, pink carpet. Carpet the colour of her hair.
He sees her everywhere now, and he knows that one sand master does too.
But proud Gaara would never admit it. He ditched her, not the other way around.
Which is why the red head has been punishing himself harshly since the apple of his eye disappeared, and, they assume, committed suicide on the tallest cliff.
They never found a body.
The blonde takes one look in the humongous mirror to his left and feels trapped and fake.
He looks away before he can feel the twisted pain in his stomach, or taste the food from his last meal in his mouth. He can't stand seeing himself all dressed up for Gaara's wedding when Sakura is not included.
It just isn't the right way of this unfair world.
Naruto enters the large church, putting ever ounce of his effort into not spouting the apple he ate five minutes previously over the wooden flooring as he sees the attention seeking flowers that took up half the hall.
They were all pink.
It was as if the Kazekage were taunting him. Prodding at his insides with sharp, metal sticks.
He might as well have been.
He turned his attention to the brown, wooden flooring as he marched his way to his position moodily, then turning his unhappy attention to the world outside.
He remembers seeing Gaara and her walking happily down that road. That road which looks so dull and uninviting now the cheerful girl would never step in it again.
As Naruto's attention is distracted, Gaara also marches in, looking directly at the blond Anbu and coming straight towards him.
"If you don't want to be here, why did you come?" Gaara's angry voice pierced through the empty silence which Naruto had welcomed.
More lies, it seems.
"They tell too many lies. That is why I hate this village." Gaara's jaw tightens at the pointed insult towards his village. "What did they say this time, hm? That I hate your wife? -oh no, wait that's true." The sarcastic deadpan stunned the angry man for a second before he growled at Naruto and stormed off.
This village ruined trust.
And that is why he hates it.
The spiteful ceremony has started, and the blond pays no attention as he tries to figure out what the glitch in his sense is.
The ninja, he assumes the person is a ninja anyway, is shielding his chakra signature… and yet, Naruto can still tell he is there, like he is receiving a secret beam of information made for him alone. And then the glitch is gone again.
He sighs as he tries to pay attention to what the nitwit of a priest is saying… oh, the lies- I mean vows are about to start. They definition of them is lies in the real world.
And then the sound of one heavy, squeaky door opens and the whole church, which includes half the population of Sunagakura, turn to see one petite woman, Naruto's glitch he realises.
The hooded woman wore all black and the only porcelain skin shown was hands and her mouth.
A gasp is coughed out into the silence as she lifts her head and her hood fell back.
Naruto felt his chest tighten and he can't breathe as he takes in the appearance of his pink haired beauty.
The girl he lost.
Sakura.
Her eyes roam around the vast church before her empty green eyes see Naruto.
The blonde was wearing a suit. His hair was short, but somehow it did not stand upright like his bright nature, like it used to. It seemed defeated, and hopeless.
She knew it was her fault and she risks one glance at her lost love.
It seemed forever happened for her as she saw the same unkept, blood red hair, yet shockingly different heartless eyes. Heartless eyes which shone with emotion, with surprise, with hope.
She took in his position. He wanted to come after her. He wanted to hurt her more.
… Or that would be the conclusion.
So she ran back out into the deserted street where the darkness took over and her haunting fears compressed her heart until there was naught left but a hole.
The same as the last three months.
She hears feet following her. Two pairs of feet; meaning two people. Two very stupid people who don't know when they should leave her alone. Two brothers looking for the same sister and beloved.
Sakura hides herself in the darkest corner as the men past.
They won't see her; she has trained for this moment. For three lonely months of suffering in the darkness where fears and hatred rule.
When the grown searchers exceeded the twenty metres mark, the pink haired woman gracefully slips away in the opposite direction.
To be stopped by one pair of lanky, tanned arms.
"Sakura!" The loud deadpan stopped her for a moment. She had done this.
She had ruined Naruto's future.
She has to leave before she sabotages the rest of his life, like she soiled Gaara's past even more than it was.
With one sharp, bony elbow in the stomach, the blonde captor keels over and she is free. Free to run.
Free to die.
And she runs fast, away from the two pieces of her past which she refuses to revisit again. Which she refuses to hurt again.
Teal eyes search desperately around his land. He saw what he had done. He saw the darkness, the loneliness.
He'd caused his past on someone else. He'd caused his past on the one he tried to save.
Finally he spots pink; when had she- oh yes. She had become a master at hiding in the three months he had selfishly screwed up.
He sprinted toward the fleeing girl as he saw she tripped.
A strange sense of de ja vou spread over Sakura's body as her, once again, bare big toe and she spun to land on her back.
This time she did not move to curl into a feral ball.
It was all over; Gaara had seen her, had come to her. Her red headed angel who had to leave like all good things had pinned her roughly to the floor, and she does not try to escape futilely like most would.
There is no point, not with the Kazekage.
She feels her warm black cloak weave open and the old kunai in her hand is revealed.
The only kunai she kept after seeking shelter away from the cruel life she abandoned.
It was too late again. Sharp eyes curiously caught the sight of lighter skin on her skinny arm.
He tightly grasps her arm and tugs it out of her cloak, pulling it into the light.
And his stomach twists in horror at the sight of scars. Long, white, haunting scars cover the woman's wrists. His woman's wrists. His cherry blossoms wrists.
The scars of a depressed ninja. The scars of a scared, alone, desperate, empty girl.
And his heart brakes a millions times as he rolls off her, the dark skin of his hand still gripping onto her clashing translucent hand. Tears escape his self-hating eyes as he sobs loudly.
All his fault.
He destroyed her. Not saved, destroyed.
Sabotaged, spoiled, ruined, crushed, broke, smashed, hurt her.
"I'm so sorry, Sakura…" A surprised gasps escapes the perfection of her lips at my whisper, at my tears.
"… It was an arranged marriage. I… I love you. I'm sorry." The terrible silence was deafening as Sakura stared disbelieving at the confessed face of her beloved.
Her beloved who loves another.
Who loves a normal, not a ninja.
Not her.
Not her.
Her hand is torn from his as she jumps up.
"You can't Gaara. Not after this. We wre… we were meant to be. We would have, could have, should have been. But I was stupid in thinking you would ever love me. I'm ruined. I ruined myself, thinking I could save you. But I can't. I couldn't save you because I was a stupid, ignorant, naïve little girl." Tears of silver try to spill from her emerald orbs, but she pulls them back.
"And I'm not going to make the same mistake by thinking I can save you again."
Gaara screams as the dull kunai speedily lifts and a swift movement cuts at her pearly throat.
And is stopped before it cuts into her delicate windpipe by one brother of hers.
---
"You're lucky you made it here so fast, Suna's medic would have been unable to help her."
One innocent sentence is all the seemingly unconscious rose-haired girl needs to hear before she knows her exact location; Konoha hospital.
Her work place. Her home.
Two sighs of relief cut through her slow observing.
Using her other precise senses, Sakura realises there are three others in the room.
Tsunade, Naruto and him.
He who lied to try and save her.
Well, he failed.
She might as well be dead.
She would rather be dead.
The three members of her family leave the room and she hastily rises, padding gently over to the window.
She was on the tenth floor, facing the vast, green forest. Her defeated orbs looked dejectedly over the land she could see. None of the village could be seen from this side of the white hospital; she was placed covertly at the back to keep it quiet.
"Sakura!" She had heard her name so much more than usual in the last conscious moments, it was a painful stab to hear it spoken by her angel again.
"Gaara…" The pain filled gaze of her lifeless emerald eyes pierce his soul and he feels like a devil once again. He has ruined this beauty, he has smashed it into crumb sized pieces.
"…I had a dream where you never forgot me." One last sentence was said before his life, his love, Gaara's reason to go on threw herself backwards, using chakra to shatter the glass window behind her as she goes.
And he knows she will not live because she will fly before she dies, and f not from the floor she will die of blood loss.
The tenth floor was never supposed to be used for the depressed.
The angel with pink hair should not have had to die when her love was not lying.
He should have never left her in the first place.
And he feels his life leave him as he falls to the floor.
His reason was gone, and he shall never rise again, even as Naruto shakes him desperately. He will never move again. Even when he sees Naruto dying the same way he is.
He will never live again.
I spent SO LONG on this. You better appreciate it. Or I'll chop off your head with my invisible axe :P
Yes, I am TRYING to work on my other fics. Its just so... awkward :/ Either way, something will be up soon, so look out for it.
I got a Rubiks cube for my birthday(last saturday(22nd March)) and it's so much fun!
It's very dramatic, huh? It's my english course work. Of course, this is the longer version. By about double the words xD
Anyway, I'm about to sleep sitting up, so I better be off to bed. Bed, sweet bed :D
I go a little crazy when tired ^.^''
Disclaimer- I am awesome, but not quite brilliant enough to own Naruto or it's characters. So don't sue me D
Reviews are LOVELY because then I can edit my actual version. But you have to be quick.
There will be errors, because as I said before, I am half asleep.
Goodnight, minna.
LixxyChan xx