Its a Twisted Sort of Love, isn't it?
"It's a twisted sort of love, isn't it?"
Its a question that pops out of nowhere; in Sasuke's opinion. Nowhere that she should be, anyway—nowhere that Sakura, the one who had chased after him for so, so long, should be. So Sasuke does the only thing he can—does the only thing he thinks he can, does the only thing that might prevent Sakura from becoming not Sakura—he doesn't answer.
And so, silently, carefully, like handling a glass princess, a crystal candle—he takes her hand, and places a ring upon it. It is a simple thing—dainty silver, with bits of sparkly stones in it—small, delicate, fragile. He ignores his lover's question, waiting instead for her answer to his proposal.
"It's pretty." She says.
His heart stops.
Pink strands are fluttering—just like they always did when she was excited, back when they were Genin, back when he was still in the village. Perhaps it was in reminiscence of the older times, but as Sakura leaps for him, and as he catches her, there is a sinking feeling in Sasuke's stomach—because they are not Genin, because it was not when he was still in the village, because he had already defected, only to come back a bound criminal—because he is not thirteen, and she isn't either, and they are twenty year olds who couldn't go back.
It frightens him a little, really—what if Sakura didn't want to go back?
Sakura smiles at him, green eyes that used to express so, so much hidden from view by carefully grown out lashes, lips tilted upwards at exactly 15° angles—not at all like the crooked, happy-filled grins from long ago. He finds himself wishing to reach forward and wipe it off her face, to redraw it into the laughter from distant memories.
"I accept—Sasuke-kun." Her voice chimes—it is a bit like honey, Sasuke notices—sweet and thick, translucent but not transparent, a pretty gold designed to distract.
And so Sasuke does the only thing he can, does the only thing he thinks he can, does the only thing that might make it all better, even if it's only by a little bit.
Sasuke hugs back—because he doesn't want it to be a twisted sort of love.
Sakura shrunk into herself a little, as her green eyes searched her best friend's face before her. She fingered her pink hair awkwardly, chubby little fingers lined with baby fat self-consciously running through the short strands as she spoke the forbidden words—
"I love Sasuke-kun."
—and she said it, the words dying as they left her tongue in a statement that did not seem to work very well. Too blunt, perhaps, or maybe too brash—and seven year old Sakura glanced around the playground to see if anyone other than Ino was listening in.
Sakura barely heard her friend as she declared her desire to be Uchiha Sasuke's future wife, because she herself was thinking—thinking back to the time she saw the black-haired mystery pummel his opponent into the ground, back to the time she witnessed the cold fire burning in the child's eyes.
Power.
She thought of Uzumaki Naruto—loud, brash and burning.
He was strong.
Power—what a wondrous word.
But Naruto was too bright—too loud, too amazing, too tall, too veiled. Naruto was an enigma that Sakura didn't want to figure out, because figuring him out would take time, time that she didn't have, because everyone else was already moving way too quickly for her to follow.
Power—a word that seemed to be so distant. But she wanted it—she wanted it so, so desperately.
And then there was Sasuke—dark, lonely, cold Sasuke, the embodiment of reachable, achievable power in little Sakura's eyes. Uchiha Sasuke, who was just like her—blackened and away and somewhat unsociable—his power was something that she strove towards.
Power—Naruto's was too bright, Ino's too nice, Shino's too reliant, Kiba's too warm. Chouji's too strange, Shikamaru's too taxing—so that left Sasuke.
She could almost feel it—the thrum of energy inside the boy's hand, the burning inferno that he—Sakura too—could grow into, the icy coldness that would make sure everyone else would stay far, far away. She could picture it—the sparks that would happen as their fingertips brushed, as she managed to grip onto his shirt when she caught up, the aloof and arrogant eyes widening in surprise and bare recognition as she moved ahead.
Her stomach fluttered, and her cheeks reddened in hope, in happiness that she had found something that belonged to her.
This feeling—just like in the books, right?
Yes—Haruno Sakura decided.
I love Sasuke-kun.
"Your love…is it really love, Sakura-chan?" A masked face tilts forward, usually crinkled eyes oddly serious. Hatake Kakashi looked down upon his only female student—battered, bruised, and definitely exhausted.
Sakura glanced up from her spot on the grassy ground, up at the obscured visage of her teacher. Green eyes scrutinised a lone black one with a calculating gaze that Kakashi felt rather naked under, before turning back to the distant battle waging between her two male teammates, turning back to Uchiha Sasuke—the object of her affections.
Hatake Kakashi couldn't help but wonder—Haruno Sakura's 'love' had felt different from Rin's, had felt different from the others'. It didn't seem like Kurenai's romantic love for Asuma, nor did it seem like Ayame's endearing one for Naruto.
He shuddered. Unbidden, an image popped up into his head; an image that he didn't want to link back to his thirteen year old student. But as the girl replied to his earlier question, the image became even clearer, forcing Kakashi to acknowledge what he didn't want to.
Sakura's smile overlapped with another's, green eyes melting into brown and pink hair melding with purple.
"Of course it is, Kakashi-sensei. I love Sasuke-kun."
"Of course it is, Hatake. I love Orochimaru-sensei."
Kakashi smiled at his student.
It couldn't be.
That would be much too sad if it were so.
"I love you—"
"Sasuke-kun, I love—"
"Love…"
Four lettered words, repeated over and over and over like a mantra, like it was her lifeline. Naruto stared blankly at his teammate's sleeping face on the park bench, knocked out cold with tears stained cheeks, feeling a huge, gaping hole in his heart—he knew it would happen, but he didn't expect it to be so soon.
He didn't want Sasuke to leave them.
He didn't want their team to fall apart.
Hell, he didn't want his hard earned 'friends' to go, like sand through fingertips, like water through a cotton sheet.
He didn't want to be alone again.
Uzumaki Naruto fell to his knees beside the green seat, burying his head into his arms in silent despair—what could he do? Sasuke left them, ran off to join a better, more powerful person, and Naruto couldn't stop it—he wasn't strong enough, it seemed, to attract the being that hungered for power, and he couldn't stop his other teammate from chasing after him either.
It wasn't fair—what was his shouldn't run off to someone else. Sasuke shouldn't run off to another sensei. Sakura shouldn't run off to join him…
Blue eyes snapped open, cold cerulean shining with forgotten tears.
If he could abandon Sasuke, then maybe he could keep the other two, and make them his.
Lips twitched into a broken smirk—and Uzumaki Naruto was gone, the only sign of his presence being the silently fluttering leaves drifting onto the cold, tiled ground of the village gates.
Sakura-chan could wait for a few more hours to be found…right? Sasuke-teme would need the head start.
Sasuke didn't understand his former teammates. He really didn't—at the age of 15, by all means, they should have stopped pursuing him, trying to bring him back to a village he held no ties to.
No—that wasn't it. There was something else—a little deeper, a little darker, something that his eyes, even with the sharingan, couldn't quite see.
Twisted. Obscure.
Why?
The ground shattered—jagged rocks flew like bullets, hailing down with a wrath-like intent while somewhere to his left a glowing sphere of spiralling blue formed. The green sheen of weaponised healing chakra was something he barely had time to dodge, only to be intercepted by hundreds upon hundreds of orange-clad fists raining upon him.
There was a glow in Naruto's eyes—possessive, almost demonic, like the frantic clutches of a doping man to his drug, like a starved wolf guarding his hard-earned meat. Sasuke's red eyes spun, tomoe whirling in order to keep up with his two teammates—and he almost froze in his tracks as he saw the coldness hidden within the cyan of the jinchuuriki's gaze.
This wasn't right.
Sasuke would say it was something Naruto developed in the recent years—that aura, that rage, that hunger—but he knew very, very well that it couldn't have been. The sort of drive the blonde possessed was something that had to have been harboured for years upon years upon years—yet Sasuke couldn't recall ever seeing that light in Naruto's eyes, even at their battle in the Valley of the End.
He turned, eager to rip away from the raw hunger of Naruto, only to be backed into a corner by the vignette of another's glare.
Sakura.
Weak, little, Haruno Sakura—where? Sasuke couldn't see her, as he nimbly twisted around her flowing attacks. Pink hair—ridiculously bright, childish hair, like the cotton candy a child would buy, like dreams of princesses and faraway castles, shivered as the unfamiliar woman moved with an uncharacteristic obsession. It wasn't the hunger in Naruto's eyes—the feral twist of her lips as she sunk her fist into the earth over and over and over again—it was almost like glee, as if she were happy that she wasn't able to harm him.
Cold relief washed over him as his snake mentor appeared beside him, whisking him away from the catastrophic scene with all the speed they could muster.
But not fast enough.
Not fast enough for Sasuke to dodge the summoning seal Naruto slapped upon his back.
Not fast enough for him to ignore Sakura's parting words.
Not fast enough.
"Looks like I can still love you…Sasuke-kun."
Sakura almost broke down crying when Sasuke left.
Naruto took it as tears of frustration.
Kakashi didn't know what to think.
Sakura knew otherwise—the salt water running from her eyes were out of happiness, after all.
Sasuke was still strong.
He was still ahead of her.
She could still reach for him.
"Kakashi-sensei, I'm scared."
"Hmm? What is it?"
"You know how you asked me whether my love for him was real or not, right?"
A pause. The flutter of pages as they closed, the rustle of cloth as her white-haired teacher slid down from his place on the windowsill of the hospital, moonlight illumination his features.
"…Yes."
"I'm afraid…"
Silence. The gathering of courage, the averting of green eyes alit with fleeting madness.
"…These feelings of mine…they're disappearing as I grow. Sasuke-kun's back is growing closer and closer, you see…"
Fear. Worry. Both emotions polluted her teacher's lone, uncovered eye.
"That's not love, Sakura."
Green eyes hardened.
"No, Kakashi-sensei."
"It's love."
"Its just…"
They had brought Sasuke back—locked in chains, secured by layers upon layers of chakra seals that Naruto himself had place upon the man, while Kakashi watched on with a cold stare under the cover of shadows.
it was exactly one kilometre from the border of the Land of Fire that Naruto motioned for Neji, the team leader to stop. Neji obeyed.
Methodically, mechanically, Kakashi had watched as his student, the previous dead last of the academy, ink fuinjutsu circles used to subdue people and to restrain chakra onto Sasuke's back.
He watched as they freed the raven-head from his cuffs, watched as they cut sharp, calculated, precise wounds onto his body.
He watched as Sakura exhausted her own chakra and spread dirt over her arms, watched as Naruto and the rest of the team did the same. He watched as Sasuke's palm lit up with the screech of chirping birds, watched as they pressed it into the freshly decapitated head of the dead Snake Sannin, Orochimaru.
He watched as Tenten rained kunai at nonexistent enemies, as Neji used Kaitens to battle nothing but air. He watched as Ino stabbed her own lung, watched as Shino murdered off his own bugs. He watched as Shikamaru scraped skin off of his own face, watched as Sakura barely healed them all. He watched as beams of light after beams of light were shot into the sky in the signs of a makeshift battle, watched as they pulled out the body of a person and charred it so badly it was impossible to tell who it was.
Kakashi watched, as his students and their peers set up the stage to a brilliant, awe-inspiring play.
"Kakashi. I want you to follow them—report anything suspicious back to me."
"Tsunade-sama?"
"…I'm worried, Kakashi. I asked Neji to form a team in order to recapture Sasuke. And guess who he took with him?"
"I'm afraid I'm not quite—"
"Naruto, Sakura, Tenten, Ino, Shikamaru, Shino…and nobody else."
"That…is a strange choice for a team."
"It is, isn't it? All its members…they…"
"Tsunade-sama?"
"Just…follow them, Kakashi. Ease my fears…just…please…"
"…Understood, Hokage-sama."
"Thank you."
Naruto stood in the centre of a crater, smiling as he swerves around to inspect the damages.
"Okay!" He clapped his chapped hands together, collecting the team's attention.
"Let's go through this one more time…Shikamaru, would you do the honours?" Naruto announced, grinning at his lazy friend.
"Troublesome."
Naruto merely smirked at the reply.
"Sasuke must come back, not as a criminal, but as a hero."
"How are we supposed to do that?"
"Get a trustworthy team."
"The story?"
"…We battled Orochimaru. Sasuke saved us all—by cutting off the head of a traitor. Easy enough. We can burn the snake's body later on so they don't question how we did it."
"And we're just going to bring him back to Konoha?"
"Yep."
"No, Kakashi-sensei."
"Its love."
"It's just…"
"Its just a very, very twisted sort of love, is all."
Kakashi stepped into the Hokage tower, plastering a smile on his face. In his hand he held a scroll—the mission report.
"Nothing suspicious happened, Tsunade-sama."
"They did brilliantly."
Sakura stared at Sasuke, green peering into black. She smiled happily, emerald eyes sparking in the light of the evening sun, pink hair fluttering as she twirled on the spot.
"Its a twisted sort of love, isn't it, Sasuke-kun?"
End.
I have no idea why I wanted to write this...but...yay... :D
Please Review!