Caged
His steps echoed far down the marble hallway as he made his way to one particular door, third from the end.
The guard immediately snapped to attention as he approached, bowing so low that his back was parallel to the ground.
"Iruka, make sure no one disturbs us."
Iruka looked up into the cool red eyes that gazed at him so piercingly and managed a short nod, his saliva sticking in his throat.
The man reached out and gripped the handle of the door, sending a pulse of his chakra into it's security mechanism. It had been created to only open when greeted with an approved chakra signature. The decorative wood door swung open and was revealed to have a pure steel core, almost impossible to pierce.
The room inside was pure decadence. It oozed money and elegance with it's blue and gold walls and swirled creme ceiling. In the right corner of the spacious room was a canopy bed that could have been conjured out of a fairytale, a pure confection of walnut wood and shimmering silk.
But what caught and held the man's attention was the woman on the bed, looking like a smudge of despair in a world of indulgence.
She was no longer the great beauty she had once been, he mused. Her vibrant cerise locks had lightened to the shade of a vanishing blush and streaks of silver were woven through with all the regalia of a Persian carpet.
Only twenty-three and already going grey, what a pity.
She lay there like a broken doll, tossed aside by a little girl who found a much more interesting toy. She was splayed on sheets that had been imported from Mist Country where the silk-worms released the finest, gossamer threads.
He strode over to her, his boot-clad feet sinking into the deliciously plush carpet underneath. His fingers trailed over her pale face, his touch as soft as the dappled light played over her closed eye-lids. Briefly, his eyes flicked to the source of light, a frosted, arched bay window. The aesthetic appeal of the glass seemed somewhat diminished by the thick iron bars that crossed over the opening.
He returned his attention to his sleep-shrouded princess, absorbing every last detail of her appearance. The blue veins that stood out vividly against her powder-white eyelids. The dark bags under her eyes. The hollow cheeks and thin cheekbones that made her seem malnourished and unhealthy. The way her lips turned down ever so slightly in a perpetual frown.
Captivity did not suit her, she who had always been happiest under the canopy of trees and bathing in the sunlight.
Green eyes blinked open, staring straight up at him with uncharacteristic blankness. The bright verdant shade had long waned to the color of dying grass and it was evident they had the same brittle quality.
"Why are you here?" her voice was a bare whisper, but his trained ears easily caught the words.
"Are you not happy to see me?" he answered her question with one of his own, his voice mocking.
A brief moment of fury flashed through her eyes. He was fascinated by how much like her old self she seemed when anger consumed her. The stubborn spit-fire that could render you to a pile of ashes with just one glance of her smoldering jade eyes. Memories flashed through his mind like a slide show. He saw a dark-haired avenger, an ever-smiling blond and a pink-haired annoyance. He saw the days long ago when he had been unbearably weak and had not harnessed the limitless power he now held so easily in his hands.
"I hate you," her words held no venom, as if she was commenting on the weather outside.
"Always so hostile," He said, the beginnings of a smirk lifting the corners of his lips. He took a seat on her bed, resting his hand against the intricately carved and no-doubt very expensive headboard.
She shifted feebly away from him, every little movement a marathon for her body. Her lips pinched tightly together to stave off the pained moan that threatened to escape. Every three days she was injected with a dark blue chakra suppressant and a weakening agent, it had deteriorated her body substantially over time and she could feel her once clear chakra highways hardening.
He 'tsked' quietly, "You know they wouldn't have to keep upping the dosage of your medication if you didn't keep trying to escape, my pretty little cherry blossom," He leaned in to brush his lips against hers.
She flinched and fury once again shimmered bright in her eyes, bringing them back to life. "Don't touch me."
He leaned closer and allowed his teeth to nip at her cheek, "Come on Sakura, it's me."
"No," she blinked away the tears that were slowly filling her eyes. "I don't know you anymore. I don't think I ever really knew you."
A slow smirk curled on his mouth, "Don't you remember the missions we went on, the fun we had, the three of us and Kakashi-sen-"
"Don't fucking say his name!" She screamed in her too hoarse voice, pounding a kitten-weak fist against his chest. Once upon a time it would have been a fatal blow. Once upon a time that fist would have crashed through his chest and crushed his heart like warm butter. But now he just caught her frail wrist in his grip and squeezed just hard enough to cause her discomfort.
"You killed him! YOU KILLED KAKASHI-SENSEI!" she had forced her body to a seated position and now her weakened muscles strained to hold her upright.
"I had no choice," he sounded mildly amused. "You know the saying, if they don't join you then kill them in the most painful way you can think of." He shrugged easily,arching one eyebrow at her.
"Then what about him. He was our team mate, your best-friend. How could you kill him?" her voice had been reduced to a pain-filled whisper.
The man shrugged again and rolled his eyes, "He was becoming an annoyance... and besides, I had to practice my new jutsu on somebody. He fulfilled his purpose."
The pink-haired woman had now wrapped her arms tightly around herself and drawn her knees to her to chest, rocking slowly back and forth. The light in her eyes could be defined as borderline hysteria.
"When will you join me, Sakura-chan?" He drew out the suffix with mocking exaggeration. "We both know it's inevitable and soon you will lose the ability to draw chakra, your highways are already rigid with misuse."
"Never," she growled softly, turning away from his penetrating red gaze, "Fucking traitor."
He grasped her chin and forced her to meet his eyes. "Konoha is mine," he said softly, "You would be my queen, my equal and side-by-side we would rule the Country of Fire." He smiled when she stiffened, "Everything you could ever want would be yours, money, power... anything your little heart desires. We would be unstoppable, we could capture Sunagakure and expand our Kingdom. We would be the rulers of the world." His eyes were aglow with something akin to insanity.
Then she did something surprising, she smiled back at him, a sad caricature of a smile but a smile none the less. Her hand slowly lifted to caress his cheek, "I'll never be able to save you, will I?"
He scowled at her and backhanded her fingers away from his face, "So you refuse again."
She nodded and closed her eyes, leaning back against the feather-soft pillows behind her. She knew what was coming.
Then he crushed his lips to hers, anger and desire fueling the intimate gesture. It was not a kiss to show love or affection, it was a way to assert his dominance, his power over the weak female that dared to defy him. She did not fight him, even when his tongue forced it's way into her mouth and roughly staked his claim on every crevice of her warm orifice.
When he finally pulled away, he found that her dulled emerald eyes were cracked half open and a spark of regret danced in the core of each precious jewel.
He stood and his face twisted back into the mask of arrogant supremacy. He did not spare the woman on the bed even one last glance before stalking out of her room with all the grace of an angered jaguar.
But her words followed him, like the haunting final cords of a tragic song.
"Goodbye Naruto..."
For less then a second, his malevolent crimson gaze flickered back to the beautiful, deep azure.
But then the red bled back into his eyes, and the cloudless skies were shrouded by storm clouds once again.
XXXXXXXXXX
They found her the next day, in a cooling puddle of her own blood.
She had slit her wrists with a jagged edge of a broken plastic cup.
Somehow, lying there drenched in dark crimson, she seemed more alive then she had been for the two years she had been caged away. Her smile was angelic, her skin glowing in the soft rays allowed through the frosted glass.
'You have the world, Naruto, but I can't let you have me...'
XXXXXXXXXX
It's raining- psycho pink- and the sunset is bleeding all over his 'angel-wing-white' hands.