Blood In Water
Annmarie Aspasia
They are ninja, and he is not unused to seeing red blood on her pale skin. Seen from an artistic perspective, it's actually quite beautiful, that splash of color on that smooth, perfect sea of white. He rarely paints with color, but the night after the first fight in which he sees her bleeding, he returns to his quiet home and paints a series of abstracts, brilliant scarlet on pure white.
He comes to believe that she, too, must see the attraction of this striking, powerful combination of colors. Why else would she wear the color of blood, day-in and day-out? Someday he intends to paint her, all in red, because it is the only way he can imagine doing justice to her.
This comes from the same reasoning that keeps him from ever painting himself using anything but black and white, and the shades in between.
When he finally does paint her in red, he cannot seem to figure out why it doesn't quite seem like her, as he was certain it would. Usually his artistic sense is more keen even than his finely-honed battle skills, and he has never before been wrong.
He doesn't understand until he sees her, nearly a year after he becomes a part of their team, out to lunch with her mother. She is wearing a subdued pink that is almost a perfect match for her hair, and his eyes widen. The realization strikes him like a blow: the Red Sakura he knows is mostly someone he has made up, a Pink Sakura tainted by his dark views of the world. She is a much more innocent, beautiful figure than he has allowed himself to see.
Sai feels himself fall in love with this innocence, just a little bit. Or something akin to love.
~Annmarie