Covet
When all trace of you is gone, what exactly will I be left with?
[AN: this is taking place a while into the future, much past the current manga. As a result, it only makes sense that some of them have continued on the become Jounin, Chuunin, and ANBU. Keep that in mind, please.]
A Sakura and Sasuke fiction. I'm not overly fond of the pairing, but I figured I might try my hand at cannon a little bit. There's a bit of Sasuke/Ino and Sasuke/Hinata as well, but purely for plot devices. Tell me if I suck or not. Reviews are greatly appreciated!
Sakura was a girl not widely talked about, at least in the kindest sense of the word. She was a ghost, a reminder of a past that Konohagure would much rather forget. She lived in the old Uchiha estate, even though it was no longer mentioned as thus, and all reminders of the Uchiha clan had been taken down, destroyed, or painted over. The central task force building stood not with the Uchiha symbol on it, but the leaf mark of Konoha. The section of town for the Uchiha's was called the Haruno estates, since Sakura had rightly been willed the entire estate. In her own private quarters, Sakura still called the place the home of the Uchihas, and she kept every bit of Uchiha memorabilia she could salvage in the back room with the red lacqured doors.
Naruto lived with her quietly, since the powerfully creepy scene of the empty streets was enough to muffle even Konoha's Number One Loudmouth Ninja. At first he had lived close, but the quietness and deep sadness from her forced him to move across the district, closer to the actual mainstream of Konoha. He simply couldn't live with that much overpowering silence in his life.
When Sakura had first inherited the estates, she had come to find it in violent disrepair. Sasuke's will had been lost for an incredibly long time, buried beneath, whether purposefully or not, mountains of paperwork on the Godaime's desk. When it had surfaced, it turned out that the Uchiha heir, even though officially a missing-nin, had willed everything in his power to Sakura. The will had proved one thing to Sakura.
Sasuke had never planned on continuing his line.
She didn't really know how to feel. Whether it was out of the unhealthy obsession with his brother, an obsession that had gotten four jounin and six gennin killed, or out of his disgust with the female persuasion she never knew. She just knew that it made her very bitter and very hollow. It also drove her to covet everything that reminded her of him.
In the place of the estates meant for gardening, she had planted nothing but tomatoes, even though she hated them. She wore his old shirts with the fan on the back around the house, and wore his shorts for when she was feeling lazy. His shoes were still neatly arranged by the front door, next to hers. She slept in his bed, and she also ate a lot of rice balls, even though she didn't like them.
It made people talk.
When Ino had marched in one day, all smiles and determination, she had proclaimed that since Sakura owned the Uchiha estates, she had to alter it somehow to make it more like her. So they had all pulled together and planted cherry trees along every street in the Sakura's district. Somehow, the pink petals floating in front of the barely there Uchiha fans made Sakura smile softly and her heart sink deeper into depression.
When it was announced that Sasuke was officially dead, his body buried and gone, along with what remained of Itachi's, the village had nodded in approval, until they learned the cost. So many shinobi dead, many had been classmates of Sasuke and Sakura. The resulting rage against the Uchiha had forced Tsunade to place ANBU around the Haruno district, as well as compelling Kakashi to acquire residence within the immediate area.
Sakura refused to leave the house that had been Sasuke's.
Let them burn everything, the Uchiha were as good as erased anyway. There was no blood heir, the only even slight relation was the Hyuuga, and even they couldn't recreate the Sharigan. The Uchiha were extinct.
Sasuke wasn't coming back.
When the shadow of Tsunade fell over her, Sakura looked up hatefully. Her eyes narrowed, her hair askew and rumpled, and her hands gripping the pillow she was laying on, Sakura made an imposing sight.
Tsunade was very matter-of-fact when she delivered the final blow to Sakura's pride. "Ino and Hinata are pregnant. We have confirmed that Sasuke was the father of both." Then, in a softer voice, "He didn't want you to bear that burden...without him."
Ino remembered little about the encounter with Sasuke, just a deep smell of alcohol and his furious, angry lovemaking against the wall of her house. She was terribly sorry that she had gotten with child, and had never intended to be Sasuke's first at all. She felt awful, but couldn't abort the baby. It went against Sasuke's wishes.
It had been in the will. The part that hadn't been read aloud. Sasuke wanted his children to live.
Hinata refused to speak about it, even after Sakura yelled and screamed and called her a slut and a whore and how would Naruto react? Hinata was selfish, so selfish...
So when the poor Hyuuga came to her house months later, facing a Sakura that was calmer, more used to just playing slight games with Naruto and gardening and selling tomatoes for a living, announcing quietly that she had been disowned. It wasn't because of the child, it was because of the blood.
Sasuke and Hinata were related. It was incest. Of course, it was so mild that it shouldn't have mattered, given the amount of time that the bloodlines had been given to develop, but Neji had been adamant. Who knew what kind of freak it could be? It could be a defect, a weakling. And then there was the other possibility, the more frightening one. It could be better. Both the Sharingan and the Byakugan? Neji feared the latter possibility more than the former.
So Sakura had set her up with a nice little part of the Haruno district, given her a small house, one that was close by, but not too close, and access to the tomatoes and a small section of the garden.
Sakura tried to ignore that the baby growing inside of Hinata was Sasuke's child. Tried to ignore that the man she had loved had chosen his COUSIN over her. Naruto was distanced from Hinata, only helping her to carry her groceries to her house or to help her clean and wash the little section of the district she owned.
Ino had come to Sakura as well, just as straightforward as ever. She all but demanded a place to live within the Uchiha district, determined to bring up her child surrounded by remembrances of his father. She ignored the fact that there wasn't a single reminder of the Uchiha clan left, save what was in Sakura's back room behind the red lacquered doors.
Sakura grew colder. Ino and Hinata lived nearby, both swelling with children that should've been hers. She couldn't help but resent them. The pressure grew as their bellies did, and they were sitting together in front of a nearly gone fan, comparing size and trying to guess when each had conceived, when Sakura broke.
"Why was it you two?" There was hate in her voice. "Why did I get the house, the estate, all the fucking glory, but you two got what I wanted the most!? I would have made the perfect mother for them, I knew Sasuke inside and out, and you two know nothing! You," She pointed at Hinata, "You're his fucking cousin! That's disgusting. The baby will probably turned out deformed and half dead because of your marred genes, mixing with Sasuke's. And YOU," she rounded on Ino, "How does it feel to have finally won, Ino? You got the man, you got his dick and his virginity and his child, and I got...I got..."
Ino stood up violently. "And you got his love, you bitch."
A door slammed violently around the corner. Ino was crying inside.
Hinata got up more slowly, taking her time to be careful of her swelling belly. "To be a mother, Sakura-san, in this time, to the child of a missing-nin, it's disgraceful. We were chosen for our bloodlines to carry on Sasuke's line. You were not chosen because he didn't want you to suffer ridicule, or to have a child that had no way to protect you. Kakashi cannot teach the Sharingan. Sasuke wasn't even very good at it compared with the other Uchiha. He knew that the art of the bloodline would be lost. He wanted children with two bloodlines, so that they would never be seen as weak or vulnerable."
Hinata's hand clenched in the fabric of her jacket. "He didn't want you to have any burdens."
As Hinata made her way home, Sakura was left standing there, feeling like a complete and utter fool. Sasuke had loved her...didn't want her to have to bear this burden without him. He...at one point, he'd planned on coming back for her.
She had asked Sasuke one night, when they were sleepy and she knew that he would eventually leave, "When all trace of you is gone, what exactly will I be left with?" Her lidded emerald eyes had stared at him softly, pondering her question.
His hand had ghosted against her face, "You'll covet what you can find, Sakura...chan."
And now Sakura would learn to harbor all reminders of Sasuke, even the ones he had not left with her.
[AN: My...that was...sucky. Half way down, it just kinda floated off into it's own world. But it seems almost like something that Sasuke would do. Saddle two women who he knew were strong and reliable with his heirs instead of someone he really cared about, like Sakura. So much for my attempt at cannon. I'll try to write another one later, maybe where Sasuke DOESN'T die... Four pages, typed in half-hour increments over the span of two nights.]