Summary: Sakura watches Sasuke's pyre burn and thinks upon the man who had once been her reason for everything. Angsty Sasuke X Sakura, Sakura/Naruto Friendship. Read and Review.
Rating: T
A/N: I know, I know. I have no business posting this when I have long overdue updates on other stories due. But I'm stuck! I have severe writer's block so I thought I'd write something completely different to help me dust away the cobwebs in my brain.
Dost thou laugh? How insensitive.
Well, I hope this is decent. If it isn't…well…let me know anyway!
A/N 2: yeah so, I really dislike Sasuke (waste of space). Sorry Sasuke fans.
Bitter End
Sakura's face was grim. Flecks of ash sprinkled her forehead and as the wind picked up once again, she looked up as the particles of ash were swept into its fold. It looks like rice, she thought. Or confetti. Either way, it's seems wrong. The movement of the soft white specks in the air was too joyous for the occasion and yet, their essence only made the heaviness in the air more concrete. Ash. That was all that was left of the noble house of Uchiha, all that was left of a serious boy with dark eyes and a smirk on his face. A boy she had once loved in the carefree innocence and ignorance of her childhood. Yes, when she had offered to run with him, she had still been a child. A grown-up would think twice. A child would smile through her tears, remember the whispered promise and a furious tangling of pinky fingers and jump, without a thought, without a backward glance…because that's what children did.
They loved with every fibre in their bodies and they hated with every heartbeat too. His hate had defeated her love then, and had defeated her again now, as even his dust didn't stop to bid her farewell. It swirled over her head and turned away. She shut her eyes. She could see his smirk; hear the imperious huff of his disdain even now.
She turned to walk away. She could feel Naruto's eyes digging into her back. No, Naruto, she had said. I won't beg and plead with Tsunade to grant him a gravestone, a patch of land, or even a mention on the Konoha Memorial. This time, I want him gone for good. This time, I'm making sure he's never coming back.
You're wrong to be so bitter, he replied. We lived. He didn't. We can forgive him now Sakura-chan.
No, we can't. I can't. For me, the pain is still raw; the insides of my chest are still cut from the force of his last betrayal. I cannot spare him now. I used to be unable to hate him, now….I can't not-hate him.
We will have nothing of his left in this village then, he tried one last time.
No, Naruto. This I promise you. Years from today, when we are old, when we marry, when we look upon the faces of our children, a strange, sweet wave will rise through your chest and just as you think it will burst and explode inside you; a bitter pill of memory will bring him back to your side. The sweetness of that moment will become tainted with the bitterness on your tongue, and in that moment, we will have let him back into our lives, back to tear apart what was once pure and without pain.