Disclaimer: Sasuke wouldn't be such an ass if this was mine. ;) Spoilers. Compliant up to Chapter 486.
Note: I am not happy with the manga. Evidently. Kishi, take this. :)
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At Least It's Something
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"I will kill you, Sakura. You are crossing the line."
"But the lines have been blurred ever since you tried to kill me, Sasuke."
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"You've changed, Sasuke."
Sasuke barely moves. It is just a slight tilt to his head, a whisper of wind through his long, black hair and a glimpse of the pale, pale skin showing his profile. Sakura watches his every move as he leans his back against the tree spattered with blood—that, thank God, isn't hers or anybody she knows—with kunai—which is probably his—and with hate—because he's always had so much of it.
He is still all sharp cheeks, dark shadows and strong bones.
So why is he so different?
"Sakura," his tone is hollow, resigned. "What do you want?"
Sakura thinks about it, taking in the scene of fallen chuunin and jounin from Stone. Bodies are stuck to trees by shruiken. Others lie on the ground with mangled limbs. Others still are hanging lifelessly on tree branches.
Counting without really counting, Sakura turns up with a number.
Thirteen.
Sasuke has killed thirteen ninja from what she can see, and this is only with her peripherals. What did they do, she wonders. What did they have that Sasuke so dearly wanted?
His arm moves a bit and Sakura recoils slightly by reflex.
His dark, dead chuckle makes a shiver cross the length of her spine. "Are you scared of me, Sakura?"
"Scared?" Sakura repeats, slightly surprised. She takes one step closer and stops, shaking her head. "I'm aware, Sasuke. I'm tired. I'm weary. I'm stronger. I'm angry. I'm sad. I'm… I'm bitter but no, I'm not scared, Sasuke. I've never been scared of you." When she sees Sasuke's eyes begin to narrow and the muscles in his arm jumps, Sakura laughs hollowly. "I've been scared of what monster Orochimaru's put inside of you. I've been scared of the demons that haunt every line of your body. I'm scared of what you think you have to sacrifice and I'm scared of the things you've done that have made you regret, or will make you regret. You ask me if I'm scared of you, Sasuke, but I've never been afraid of you. Truth is, it's always been…"
Sakura stutters twice before her eyes dart downwards. It doesn't matter that he isn't looking at her. It's just a reflex this fluttery feeling of silk wings beating in her chest and the nosedive her heart does because she knows no matter what she says, no matter what she does and how she changes, he will never, ever want her the way she wants him. The old Sasuke, the boy at twelve, that is the boy she wants back, and the foolish, insistent corner of her heart believes he couldn't have changed so drastically. The old Sasuke had to be in there.
Ino called her foolish.
Tsunade told her to let go.
Kakashi said, Sasuke's changed, Sakura, and everyone else agreed.
Neji told her she could do so much better.
Hinata never said a word, but her eyes—her eyes—always said it all.
Naruto. Naruto was always the only one who believed, just as Sakura did, that Sasuke couldn't have changed completely.
So for the thirty seconds it takes for all of these things to run through her mind, Sakura straightens her back, takes another step forward and calls out his name, several times, before he finally, finally turns to look at her.
—look at me, look at me—
"Sasuke, I've only ever been afraid for you."
She waits for a violent reaction, for the weapon he has barely hiding at the holster of his shorts or the short sleeves of his shirt or the quick jerk of movement for him to grab a kunai between his fingers, but Sasuke merely sits there on the ground, with a body no more than a couple of feet from his person, as if they were at the training grounds, talking about the weather.
The leaves are rustling with the wind's cool breath and Sakura thinks that this place, this whole scene just doesn't make sense. She remembers the last few times she's seen Sasuke though, all of them ending in battle. At twelve and then sixteen—there were so many battles over the tailed beasts, over family and over friends; over nations and over pride; battles over innocence lost and redemption hoped—and all of those battles, all of them ended in bloodshed and rain, so much rain.
And now they are here, at nineteen and Sakura has steeled herself for battle, has been waiting for it the day she realized she was tired, just so, so tired of being unhappy, of being bitter. She thought she could kill him when she was sixteen, still fresh from med training and still hurt from words said, actions seen and everything in the middle implied.
Perhaps she is still foolish and hurt. Perhaps she is not ready to kill Sasuke with her own bare hands, cannot bear to see somebody else harm him. Perhaps she cannot stand to see him bleed, to see him fall so much deeper into the darkness that has always eluded her. Perhaps… maybe…
But all she knows is, in the present moment, despite her heart pounding in her chest and the flutter of dark wings in her stomach and the nagging cloud in her mind, Sakura is ready.
Because if Sasuke is so bent on killing himself like this, and killing the people who aren't responsible, then she will do it for the both of them.
Naruto said, three long years ago, that when they had exchanged blows, he could see it, see that they would be the death of each other. But Sakura does not believe one stupid Rasengan and Chidori can determine futures. She's seen too many battles, watched too many people die and have saved with the rough calluses and scars of her fingers and believes sometimes Naruto's inspirational shit was just that.
"I have nothing to be afraid of," Sasuke's cold voice says finally. "I am afraid of nothing."
"Not even loneliness, Sasuke?" Sakura asks, not desperate but still hopeful. "After all you've done, the people you've killed and the despair that follows in your wake, can you say you're happy when you've got nobody?"
He is on his feet before she can blink and standing in front of her before she can even get her hand on her pouch. Two seconds later, she feels the rush of wind brushing her short hair away from her face and feels his dark energy pulsing like unbearable heartbeats in the air.
"Sakura."
She feels something cold against her stomach and even though she expects this beforehand, she feels her eyes widen anyway. The cold kunai against her stomach clears her mind, makes apparent the questions she's always wanted to ask and she can see that he's expecting her to cry.
His eyes are bottomless black and his features are cool and neutral, just like when he'd been leaning against the tree. It is all the same for Sasuke. He just doesn't understand, can't seem to differentiate why she is any different from the thirteen plus bodies scattered around them. Perhaps she isn't any different. Perhaps she's always tried to delude herself into thinking that those Team Seven years and missions and bonding and shit actually made a difference, made her important.
Her lips curve up into a bitter smile. "Sasuke."
"Are you scared now, Sakura?"
His tone is amused and Sakura merely shakes her head and smiles at him. "Sasuke, haven't I already told you? I'm not scared of you. I'm not scared of death." As if to prove her point, she pushes her body into him, ignoring the sharp pain in her stomach and the fact that her clothes are already sticking to her belly with blood.
Experimentally, as an afterthought, she presses her lips against his.
It is brief and chaste, because he backs away quickly, pulling out the kunai that's shoved into her stomach, but Sakura basks in the feeling of warm lips brushed against hers. He is warm. That definitely surprises her. His eyes express just a touch of confusion and Sakura thinks, at least it's something.
"I told you," she says, continuing on from where she left off, "—I've only ever been afraid for you."
His eyes drop down to her stomach, where she doesn't doubt there's a dark patch on her stomach. She tries to look for something on his face, but sees nothing. She berates herself for hoping he'd actually be worried about her.
After a moment, Sasuke chuckles hollowly. "What do you want from me, Sakura?"
"Do you even have to ask, Sasuke?"
He looks at her, the corners of his mouth have visibly deepened and he frowns. "You're a medical ninja."
She thinks this is about the time her old self would have rolled her eyes and made a catty remark, but now, Sakura thinks back on it and looks Sasuke square in the eyes. She realizes, she is done trying to figure out his roundabout remarks. "I'm aware, Sasuke."
There is another pause before Sasuke merely turns away from her and looks ready to disappear. In a moment of panic and longing, Sakura speeds after him with a strength and passion she forgot she once had and closes one hand around his arm. "Why are you always running, Sasuke? I thought you were done with running after you killed him."
"Sakura." He foot flashes and catches her wrist, pulling it back at an angle that is painful, but the pain is nothing compared to what she's already suffered. She kind of wants to smile because, not only has he not broken her wrist yet, but he hasn't killed her and he's angry. At least it's something. "I will spare you, but this is the last time."
"What if I told you I don't want to be spared, Sasuke?"
He twists her wrist and she can feel her bones want to pop. "You're annoying." He drops her wrist with a neutral set to his lips and his expression is nothing short of hollow. "Leave."
Sakura merely rubs her wrists nimbly. "I'm not you, Sasuke." She laughs when she sees something flash across his eyes. "And you still haven't answered my question. What if I don't want to be spared?"
He doesn't warrant the question with an answer. Instead he makes to poof but she's faster with determination, she realizes, and she all but twists his wrist. "Stop running and listen for once."
"I will kill you, Sakura. You are crossing the line."
"I don't doubt you." Sakura lets go of his wrist. Sasuke, it seems, is done trying to ignore her. He merely stands with his hands by his side, a little nonchalant if one were to look at him from a distance, but Sakura knows him far better than just the average ninja or passerby, or at least she likes to think. She knows he's just keeping his hands free, ready to reach for a weapon if need be and ready to defend if met by a stronger shinobi. "But the lines have been blurred ever since you tried to kill me, Sasuke. As far as dying goes, you spared me once, but I came back again. I tried to kill you a few years ago," she says nonchalantly, feeling hot.
"You could never kill me."
"—But you tried to kill me with my back turned," Sakura ignores him. "If Kakashi-sensei wasn't there, I'd be dead. You know that as well as I do. So technically, I shouldn't even be alive. Anything now is what I do on a whim." She looks up at him and takes in his stance, so defensive, and his face, still so young but hardened with hate. "So Sasuke, stop saying you'll kill me. Stop talking like you're trying to scare me. It's not going to work. Stop trying to run away because sooner or later, I will find you. Sasuke, just…" she pauses and places a hand on her stomach, almost tenderly, "—Sasuke, won't you just listen?"
He looks at her in a way that makes her wonder, like the several thousand other times, what is going on in his head. Does he feel anything when he looks at her? Does he feel anything when she speaks to him like this? What does he live for? Does he believe her? Does he think she's lying? Does he actually hate her enough to want to kill her?
There are so many things she's wanted to say to him, but there is hardly enough time and Sakura knows that if he's bent on continuing on this path that he's set out for himself, she will have to kill him. The idea isn't as daunting as she thinks it should be. She's always believed that Sasuke never wanted to be here.
He waits for her and Sakura smiles. "Sasuke, are you happy?"
The lines of his mouth tighten and he answers the only way Sakura thinks he knows how. "You're so annoying, Sakura."
"Why'd you kill them?" When he only looks at her in way that says who, Sakura, I've killed a lot of people, Sakura gestures vaguely to the bodies strewn around them and Sasuke merely shrugs.
"They wanted to kill me," he says after a minute. He looks like he's amused, entertained with her questions and believes he'll derive more amusement from humoring her.
"But isn't that what you want, Sasuke?"
He gives her a look and Sakura, for some reason, laughs. She thinks she might understand. He raises a brow when she says just that. "Do you?" His tone is skeptical and laced with a sharp edge she is used to. "You haven't changed at all, Sakura. You're still the innocent know-it-all."
Sakura smiles patiently. "You know you don't have to kill them to show that you're stronger, right? Sasuke, I can't say it in just a few words and you know that I understand."
His mouth twists into a cruel sneer. "Go ahead and try to make sense of me, since you think you know."
Sakura, with a patient finger, presses a finger to her stomach and begins to heal the gaping wound through her ripped shirt. "You don't want to die by a weak hand. You don't want to let somebody kill you and say, I killed Uchiha Sasuke. You don't want to be beaten like that. You don't want to tarnish the Uchiha name by getting killed so easily. If anything, you want a challenge and you're too proud to take yourself." She looks at him and shrugs, her stomach is completely healed. "Here's a word from reality. Sasuke, the only way to uphold the Uchiha name is to stop acting like such a child."
Her lips curve upwards, gently. "Naruto wants you home."
He's quiet and his eyes are on her, but as usual, Sakura knows he's not really looking at her. He's never looking at her.
Then, "Why?"
He's not asking her why their best friend wants him home, he's asking why she's trying so hard. Sakura knows this right away and pauses to think about it.
Her reasons are purely selfish, she knows, but there are so many, she doesn't know where to start. She doesn't tell him it's because she loves him, because she thinks that's a little too much and she hasn't seen him in so long. She isn't sure. She doesn't really know why. It's because she misses the person she used to love, she misses the times when things were easy and she misses her old family, Team Seven, Konoha and laughter. She misses a lot of things, mourns for them and longs for them, knowing that things will never be the same, not even close. So why did she want him back so badly?
He smirks bitterly, "Don't have an answer, Sakura?"
She looks up at him and smiles shyly. "Sasuke, it's because Konoha really isn't home without you."
He freezes.
Sakura sees the muscles in his arms become taut and the corners of his mouth tighten and hopes beyond hope that he finally gets it. But he merely looks at her, with still empty eyes, and murmurs, "You're dreaming."
She visibly saddens. Her voice is quiet. "You're the one who won't wake up, Sasuke." She shakes her head and clenches her fists and feels her resolve weakening.
Why can't he see?
She turns and is but seventeen steps away when his voice, quiet and solemn, whispers two words that sends her heart soaring, "Sakura, wait."
She half turns in time to see him take a hesitant step forward.
At least it's something.