Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. If I did, Sakura wouldn't be so desperate and a heck of a lot cooler.
The concept - an alternate reason behind Sakura's pursuit of Sasuke. Staged between chapters 482 through 484 and after chapter 487.
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Morpheus
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"he who shapes dreams," god of the unwaking world with the ability to take the form of any human, to become a dreamer's worst nightmare
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She danced with Death in her dreams.
In the form of a shallow-skinned boy, Death wove illusions in her head, black-white lines of love and hate. Her chest would heave and slow; her movements tangled in the confusion. At the climax, His coal eyes would glow red, the spinning pinpoints of vortex-black pulling her into the darkness. Desperately, her glinting hand would dive between ribs and emerge dark and sticky. Then she would laugh, moan, and sob, depending on the night. It was far from over, she giggled in tears. The dream was not complete until He committed his Dying act.
Sometimes, He would smile and then destroy her. Sometimes, He would kiss her with His decaying breath. And sometimes, He would do nothing at all, just watch her cry and beg and scream.
She knew she had gotten over Him when Death kissed her, embraced her, promised – and she felt nothing, waking in the white morning only to vomit into her pillowcase.
To scare the eyes away, she begged Another to pull his sleeping bag up to hers, his yellow warmth enough to soothe the piercing ache behind her eyes. She tried fragrances, meditation, counseling…but Death still ruled her night.
Jokingly, she blamed it on the drugs her teacher tested on her, the poisonous Slug. But even when she wasn't fighting some foreign toxin injected into her veins by senbon, her nightmares continued. They worsened after the Lady Slug fell into indefinite slumber, comatose respite from the war-torn world. And her pupil envied her for it.
When it seemed that He would chase her to her Death, she thought of a solution. She stopped sleeping at all. But she knew at some point, she would have to succumb to the weakness of her listless body and give it the final rest it desired.
Feeding lies to Another as his blue eyes screamed 'betrayal,' she set out with three others, gassing them into the blissful black sleep she could not have.
Like a bird, she flew beyond the tree cover into an open battlefield. Her chest heaved, and the shallow-faced boy with coal for eyes was before her.
One step stood between them, but His aura had changed. No longer the long-sought elusive love, but living, breathing Death.
She wanted to go with Him, she said.
The girl must be killed, He replied.
Too easy, to feign obedience, only to turn from the gurgling girl to knife Him instead, weak after His last confrontation.
Too simple. All the dreams would be gone.
Too easy. The teacher interrupted.
He would take care of this, he told her. Take the dying girl.
Her eyes prickled. Fate had snatched away her last opportunity. She could not do it over again.
Flexing her fingers around her baggage, she cursed life, cursed Death with a bloodstained body under her arm. Cursed the weakness, the dependency of the role of the healer archetype. The supporting female. The one who they left behind at the gate, far from the echoes of pounding rocks and falling water.
Tonight, Death would dance with her again.
But this time, she would not throw the first blow. The steps would change.
She could not turn back.
Blood runs black.
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Her sleeping bag convulsed, arched like a salted slug, and then dropped flat. Still groggy from her poison, a yellow head sat up beside her.
"Sakura, wake up. It's only a dream."
Mouth parted, snow white lay still.
"Sakura?
No kiss would cure the poison, and her Prince Charming was not of this world.
"Sakura!"
Death be her keeper.