The sporadically placed lyrics are from Lover I Don't Have To Love by Bright Eyes (because I can't work out how to do those page break thingies).
Please forgive the complete lack of syntax… I didn't edit it, only ran a spell check, I don't own Naruto!
X You write such pretty words, But life's no story book. X
The first time they met they were just children, but were already training to be soldiers.
He didn't notice her - too immersed was he in proving himself to his wretched, despised (beloved, adored) aniki.
She held no importance back then.
X She said it feels good, I said I'll give it a try. X
The first time they met as true friends, it tore a hole in her heart.
Left naked and vulnerable, she bared her soul on the loneliest night of her life. But he had lived through such grief already and thought nothing of his abandonment. It would be years before he would appreciate the gesture, years before he could understand how truly similar they were.
But they were still just children then and what did they know about love and death and heartache?
He would rip her soul out just to replace his own.
X I need some meaning I can memorize, The kind I have always seems to slip my mind... X
The first time they met as equals, she did not cry and beg him to return home. There were no desperate pleas of, 'Sasuke-kun!' No meaningless promises of a happier life with her. Instead, she ignored him and kept on fighting the oppressive 8-man team of Stone-nin that interrupted their would-be reunion.
When he regained consciousness, his lung was no longer collapsed, the broken bone in his leg had been healed, and she was gone.
He never did find out why she was alone or why she carried the three Anbu masks of her fallen comrades on her blood-stained back. They had not spoken, only fought. Her own mask long abandoned. Though just 17, she was well past her youth, now. Misery and loss had destroyed what innocence she had had left.
It was several days later that he realised that maybe that had been something he had cherished in her.
And he didn't understand why it all left him feeling so hollow.
There was still so much he would never understand.
X I want a girl who's too sad to give a fuck. X
The last time they met it was raining.
He thought that maybe this was a good thing because it diluted the blood dripping out of her and made it look pink. Such a ridiculous, conspicuous colour for a shinobi- but at that moment he couldn't bring himself to care.
She smiled at him.
"It hurts," she says, pointing at a place in her chest far above the wound Kusanagi has made in her stomach.
He doesn't reply but he takes her hand and draws it away from the spot just above her left breast and he intertwines her fingers with his own. He isn't quite sure why the gesture feels so right and so final.
He ignores the fact that she is still lethally armed, a katana is clutched tightly in her right fist. But she lets that drop when he pulls the sword out of her abdomen.
She falls against him and he doesn't flinch. He doesn't move a single muscle even when he hears the piercing, pain filled roar drift across the battlefield, screaming it's escape from Naruto's lungs.
But he is too far away to save her and she is too far gone to do anything but clench her fist in the material of the traitor's blood splattered robe.
She seems to sense the words on his lips because she whispers, soft and smooth despite the burning pain in her body, "Don't say it," she begs. "Please."
But he says it anyway. Because when did he ever comply with her wishes?
"I love you." His voice sounds empty, even to himself.
"You're such a liar, Sasuke-kun."
It's nice to hear his name on her lips just this one final time. Even though, he supposes he doesn't really deserve to.
"But…" She's speaking again. 'Tch, when does she ever shut up?' Words from his childhood echo in his ears but he ignores them. For once, his entire being is focused solely on her. Just like she always wanted.
"But I'm glad it was you, Sasuke-kun- I'm glad it was you who did this… It would have been a waste for anyone else… …To kill me, I mean."
She pauses and coughs and he can feel her blood, thick and warm and wet against his chest.
"Naruto will be angry," she continues, "But he'll understand eventually."
'After he kills me,' his mind finishes her sentence.
Her words pierce his heart and he's rather surprised to find it's still there, beating slow and steady against his cracked ribcage.
Sakura has stopped talking now.
She has stopped breathing too.
Slowly and gently he laid her on the ground, with all the care he took in laying her on the bench all those years ago. Naruto is here now, cursing him and crying and hugging her cold, still body. The boy is as slow as ever, he seems to believe she is only sleeping. 'How foolish, little brother,' the voice of his long dead aniki echoes in his head.
Eventually, dead-last catches on and stands up, stepping slowly, reverently, away from the body.
Sasuke doesn't defend himself and he thinks it's oddly poetic that Naruto's blade has impaled his flesh in the same place his own sword struck Sakura.
As he lay, dying beside the girl, Naruto waits with them, holding one of each of their hands, waiting for Sasuke to become as cold as she is. The rain mixes with his tears.
He wonders if Naruto feels like he did when he killed Itachi.
He wonders if someone, somewhere is proud that these children are finally soldiers.
He wonders if Naruto really meant it when he called him his brother and if Sakura really meant it when she told him she loved him.
He wonders if he meant it when he told her loved her back because, even now, he's not sure if he's human enough to care.
'But then,' Sakura's voice whispers in his ear, 'That was always the problem with you. Ne, Sasuke-kun?'
X Love's an excuse to get hurt. And to hurt. Do you like to hurt? I do, I do. X
Ugh… I have to stop reading depressing Shakespearian tragedies.