Downfall
An enormous thanks to my beta-reader Raina who turned my crappy English into something worth reading....you're awesome !
Chapter I
Here's the charming evening, friend of the criminal;
Like an accomplice, stealthily it comes; as the sky
Closes slowly just like an immense alcove; while
The impatient man turns into a wild beast.
(Charles Baudelaire - Le crépuscule du soir // Twilight)
Once again Uchiha Sasuke was contemplating another of his failures. His plan to attack Danzou during the Kage summit had been a total disaster. Madara had played him like a fool. The goal never was to take out Danzou. It was only to disturb any alliance between the ninja countries and, if possible, lead them to war. But Sasuke, blinded by his rage, for the old Hokage, didn't think about any that.
When Hawk tried to make its move, everybody was already waiting for an attack and all hell broke loose. The distrust that was already there came to a paroxysm. In the chaos of the battle, Sasuke at first tried to get to Danzou. But it was at this moment that he discovered Danzou's own Sharingan, yet another surprise that Madara conveniently had never taken the time to mention. This changed everything.
Soon enough, an army of samurai arrived at the fight scene, trying to restore order while the battle went on fiercely. At that very moment, Sasuke realized that he wasn't going to achieve anything here, save for being captured or killed. He gave the signal to Hawk to disperse and retreat.
And now four hours later, he found himself alone, lost in the land of the Iron Country. For once, he was grateful for the snow as it masked his presence. Since he took out a huge numbers of samurai on his way, he had taken a serious hit on his chakra reserves. He was walking in the snow, searching for shelter as a snowstorm was preparing to hit. He thought of Juugo, Karin and Suigetsu. He was sure they were resourceful but what if they weren't able to escape the storm as well? He was the one who dragged them out here after all. Even as a team leader he was a complete failure. This made him start to wonder when he didn't make a mistake in his life. All these years hating Itachi for nothing, what a fool he had been! And yet he was still as eager to make new ones even now. Would he never learn? But it didn't matter anymore. It was too late to have regrets. Some way or another he would kill those responsible for the Uchiha massacre and take Madara down, even at the cost of his own life. He would clean the name of his brother. Then it would all end with him. The evil blood of the Uchiha would disappear once and for all. No matter how, he would make this happen, even if he had to return from hell for it.
As his blood was burning in the cold snow, Sasuke's senses suddenly became alert as he felt another group of samurai nearby. But when he located them, they were already fighting relentlessly against another opponent.
That's when he saw her.
Her unique pink hair floated against the snow as she gracefully moved like a wild feline. She was outnumbered one to ten. He could sense that she was out of chakra - probably due to some of her fights with other samurai along the way. The samurai were chasing every ninja off the Iron land since the events at the Kage summit. She was in no shape to win this fight. Sasuke watched the scene, wondering what could Sakura still be doing here. This was bad. Many people, including the Raikage, were probably still looking for him so he probably shouldn't interfere. But as his teammate started to take several serious hits, too exhausted to fight any longer, Sasuke found he was no longer able to stop the reaction of his body.
Moments before Sakura could have been stabbed, he appeared in front of her. His chidori sword impaled the samurai poised to kill her while the Sharingan flamed in his eyes. In flash, the Kusanagi was out of her scabbard, and without a second thought, Sasuke killed the remaining samurai. The blood of the samurai tainted the snow a crimson color. Even while he did this, the image of Sakura about to be stabbed to death remained in his mind.
Sasuke returned his attention back to Sakura. His Sharingan met her deep green eyes for the first time since their meeting at Orochimaru's hideout more than a year ago.
- Sa...Sasu..ke...
And with just this one word, the young kunoichi passed out from chakra depletion. Sasuke looked at her lying in the snow like some sort of an angel. After all these years he still wasn't able to repress this urge to protect her. How annoying this was! He just had kill in blind rage for her while he should have let her die and be done with it once and for all. He knew all to well that Sakura Haruno could be his biggest downfall...and yet here he was yearning to run toward it once again.
He gently picked up Sakura in his arms. The sky was now almost totally dark. The storm was coming. The both of them were going to die if Sasuke wasn't able to find shelter soon.
To be continued....
Sorry for the lack of Sasuke/Sakura interaction in this first chapter...but hopefully this will change in the next one ^^
Do I need to say that reviews are more than welcome ?