Clockwork Sorrow
The Return of Spring and Memories
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto
Note: This fanfic takes place after the current storyline...eight years to be exact. So character ages for the Rookie Nine should be around age 19, and Team Gai should be around age 20.
-:-
Sasuke leaned back on the hard chair, his hands at the back of his head, his onyx eyes shut tight. His pale skin glowed as the moonlight hit its smooth surface, his pale lips formed in a smirk. Those perfect, onyx eyes slowly opened, and scanned his surroundings. A year had passed since his return to Konoha, his seven-year absence greatly surprising all of its villagers. However, he couldn't help but let his eyes wander towards the necklace hanging on his dresser; it was shaped like a cherry blossom, with emeralds carved into its silver surface. Like his skin, it also shined in the moonlight, and slowly getting up from his chair, he walked towards it in a trance. Taking its smooth surface into his calloused palms, he gently ran his long fingers across its surface, his eyes softening at its cherry blossom shape. As the emeralds glistened in the light, he couldn't help but bring himself to remember what he chose not to.
I'm not supposed to be showing my emotions.
When he had returned to Konoha eight years ago in the spring, it wasn't the welcoming he had hoped for. Instead, villagers crowded around him, disgusted that he had decided to show his face in the Land of Fire once more, mutterings of 'traitor' and glares of disgust present on their faces and heard in his ears. However, he didn't pay any mind to them; since when did he care about what they thought, anyway? Instead, his onyx eyes were hardened and stiff, more so than they were seven years ago. What his eyes had forced him to see before only brought more pain to his mind and his heart, causing his eyes to harden and force an invisible wall between them and the world. He could only remember when there were his teammates; Naruto, the electric blonde with his matching cerulean eyes; Sakura, the pink-haired kunoichi with the brains, talents, strength, and beauty, which came along with a suitable name; Kakashi, the famous Copy-nin and perverted yet amazingly strong talents. But as he scanned his surroundings, he only saw their obnoxious hair, Naruto's spiky blonde, and Kakashi's scarecrow-like silver. There was no sign of the pink hair, the emerald eyes, or the pale skin that glittered in the sunlight. No, not at all, and only he knew the real reason why.
Later on in the months, when he had gained the trust of the Godaime Tsunade, and passed his Chuunin and Jounin exams without breaking a sweat, he was promoted to ANBU, and soon became an ANBU captain, one of Tsunade's finest and most trusted, along with others he once new; Hyuuga Neji, Uzumaki Naruto, Nara Shikamaru, and Rock Lee. Others, he had noticed, remained as one of the top ANBU, without the trusted Captain position but part of the best squads in the department. As his trust was regained and he was once again respected as the sole Uchiha, many began to question why the pink haired woman had yet to be seen. Only he knew the answer, but he wouldn't let them know.
I promised her, anyway.
He could only bring himself to remember when he was so bloodthirsty and unfeeling, a wall of indestructible ice covering his heart. Even so, he always had plans for the future after his revenge was finished. After all, he had to be prepared if he wanted to continue living after his life's goal was accomplished. Before his mother had died, she had always told him.
"Sasuke-kun, there are always doors and paths to life. Once you finish walking through a door, a new door and a new path will open to you. And all you can do, as a person, is to walk through them like any other."
As his onyx eyes wandered slowly back to the necklace, he felt his mind clouding over with pain and cluttered over with too many memories. He had always believed his mother's words, from the time she had began teaching him philosophy, to the very moments of his present life, even when she was gone. He always remembered them, and always found the truth in them in some events or in another. Looking at himself through his dresser mirror, he couldn't help but wonder as onyx eyes stared into his own.
I do not see, nor do I feel, a new door...a new path in life. Had I destroyed myself already?
Jolted back to reality by the silent, early spring breeze, he once again stared down at the necklace before him. As he slowly and gently placed the necklace back to its place on his dresser, he wandered slowly to his bedside, and stared out the window of the Uchiha Manor. Staring at the budding cherry blossoms from afar, he felt the empty space in his heart tear him apart.
It is always reserved for her.
Emptiness had long since become a familiar feeling to him. From the time his clan was brutally massacred from their pride, his brother, to the very seconds of his current life, emptiness was always there to greet him. Though he made no move to get rid of it as it strangely gave him a different sort of company, it would always tear him apart when spring would pass by, along with the blooming cherry blossoms and their alluring scents blown by the wind.
I'll let it tear me apart, as long as she remembers it is hers. Besides...we promised each other things that day.
As he lay down on his bed, and pulled the dark blue covers over him, his onyx eyes couldn't help but steal a glance at the shimmering necklace on his dresser, light sparkles of emerald and silver covering everything that lay in its path. He slowly closed them, hoping to drift off into a dreamless slumber. However, before he lost all consciousness to deep slumber, he could only feel that he was living in a fabricated reality, an artificial world, where all the current time stopped around him; the clockwork sorrow, he called it. And before he lost true consciousness and feeling, an image appeared before the darkness of his closed eyes.
That beautiful, silky, short pink hair, those dazzling emerald eyes…
Your spitting image…Sakura.
-:-
Gasp! Another fanfic? This was originally going to be part of Reminiscence, but it would be a while, and the idea just popped into my head. And, if you couldn't tell already, it's more than likely to be a SasuxSaku. So, please read and review?
Thank you for reading!