"Until we meet again, my other half."
Her supposed soul mate's words echoed in her mind, his voice placid even as he prepared to cold-bloodedly murder her. Sakura arched her back once again, in a final, futile attempt to get Sasuke off her, even as she saw the knife come down. When the gleaming metal was mere inches from her chest, and the shining steel seemed to fill up her whole field of vision, she closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable sound of metal cutting flesh.
However, the sensation of the weapon sliding in between her ribs never came. Instead, she heard a rough clatter on the rough pavement by her head, and then her airways were suddenly, wonderfully unobscured as the man on top of her rolled off. Gasping for breath, Sakura opened her eyes slowly, and, propping her aching body into a semi-upright position in the cruel glare of the street light, stared incredulously at Sasuke, sprawled not a meter next to her, gripping his forehead and in obvious pain. She observed him clinically: His face had taken on an unhealthy greenish hue, and he seemed to be sweating profusely. To her med-student eyes, he seemed to be experiencing exaggerated symptoms of a panic attack. Sakura squinted at him warily, the light irritating her eyes, trying to see if this was some sort of ploy, if he was waiting to attack her again. One of Sasuke's hands lifted from his face for a brief moment, exposing his mouth, which seemed to be forming unintelligible words, and Sakura's hand flew automatically to the knife still lying on the pavement beside her. But as Sasuke made no further move to harm her, and as her eyes found his, which seemed to be flickering feverishly, her medical instincts took over.
'For crying out loud.' She muttered angrily, getting on her hands and knees, ignoring the stinging pain from the scrapes caused by her earlier fall, cautiously bringing the knife along with her as she scooted over until she was sitting right by Sasuke. She gripped his arms and firmly placed them on the ground by his head, and he let her do so, seeming to delirious to struggle.
'If you do anything funny, I can and will run you through with this knife, you asshole.' When the man on the ground responded in no other way than to groan half-heartedly, Sakura began taking his pulse in an experienced fashion, critically judging his sporadic breathing. Normal Sakura was still shouting at her to get a grip, what the hell did she think she was doing helping the guy who'd literally just tried to kill her, supposed soul mate or not, but all medic Sakura could think about was that this man was obviously in a sorry state, and she couldn't just leave him and walk away.
Another, more secluded part of her, was still reveling in the new-found state of clarity the world seemed to have adopted, and was perhaps a little scared that it would go away if the man before her did. A darker part of her wondered what would happen if she just left her soul mate unprotected in the dark of night, lying utterly helpless on the street. The pink-haired girl suppressed a shudder at the thought of spending fifty, a hundred years, utterly alone, watching everyone around her age away from her, waiting for a soul mate who would be reincarnated God knows where in the world. Sakura's fingers roamed over Sasuke's forehead, and she frowned at the fever she felt there.
Ever so unsteadily getting on her feet, Sakura surveyed the situation. The streets were deserted at this hour, and Sasuke's shirt had ridden up a bit, exposing his (quite well built) abdomen to the chilly wind. Sighing, she made up her mind. Kneeling to pick up the knife in one hand, she grabbed Sasuke's arm and hauled him unceremoniously into a sitting position, before kneeling down and gently coaxing him into a position where his head lolled against her shoulder and she was supporting his weight. It was awkward as she rose, the knife clutched in one hand, the other struggling to keep Sasuke upright, and she nearly keeled over from his, despite his lean build, quite significant weight. Nearly running both of them through in an attempt to shift him into a more comfortable position, and briefly considering if he could take the brain damage that dragging him like a sack of potatoes all the way back to her apartment would cause, she began taking one laborious step at a time back the way she had come mere minutes before, muttering profanity under her breath the entire way back. The universe must have sensed she was not in the mood, and not a soul crossed her path.
After twenty minutes of colorful demonstrations of the many swear words of the English language, Sakura dumped Sasuke's limp body onto her faded sofa, in the middle of her tiny living room. Stepping back with a sigh, she surveyed her tiny living space, the faded walls and the collection of papers and coffee mugs, scattered haphazardly on every horizontal surface. A soft sweeping motion by her ankles startled her, and she looked down to see Naruto, his piercing blue eyes meeting hers as he wound his orange body lazily around her ankle. Relinquishing his grip on her cool skin, the stalked forward to glance at the robed figure slumped on the couch. After a few seconds of silence, he hissed loudly. Sasuke didn't bat an eyelid: he seemed to be out cold.
'What on earth have I gotten myself into?' Sakura heaved a deep sigh, pacing across the small space, stepping over Naruto and fetching his water bowl, before filling it up with cold water from the sink and setting it down on the floorboards with a resigned sigh. The cat quickly abandoned his hateful glaring at Sasuke, and instead chose to lap at the liquid eagerly. Sakura watched him for a moment, then found a towel in one of her kitchen drawers and wet it in the sink, before moving back to Sasuke and placing the moist rag on his forehead. To her discontent, she noticed that his fever had, if anything, gone up. 'By all rights, I should be turning you in to the authorities. You should feel really freaking lucky that I have a soft spot for helpless bastards.' Sakura returned to the kitchen, collecting a cup of water before setting it on the small table beside the couch. She then pulled up a chair and took a seat at the head of the sofa. Her gaze drifted over the man's pale face, framed by pitch-black locks, and came to rest on his mouth, lips parted in incoherent feverish mumbles.
She couldn't help but wonder why this man was experiencing these symptoms of anxiety from attempting to kill her, when, if she would deign to believe the rumors, he had so relentlessly killed countless of her previous incarnations. Sakura wondered quietly if that made him her murderer. She shuddered against her will: She had never been a huge fan of this whole concept of a soul mate to begin with, and now it was messing with her head the more she was thinking about it. The pink-haired woman looked around suddenly, realizing she had dropped the knife on the floor while she was wrestling Sasuke into her apartment. Sighing (for probably the thousandth time that night, by her reckoning), she snatched it up before an oblivious Naruto could hurt himself on it, and gripped it in her hand, watching the figure, previously so imposing and yet now so seemingly defenseless, figuratively burning up on her couch.
'I can't exactly do much for you when you're unconscious, so you better wake up soon. And when you do, you'd better behave.' Sasuke continued mumbling deliriously, eyes darting rapidly back and forth behind his eyelids. 'You know, I really must have done something utterly horrible in my previous life to deserve someone like you as my soul mate.'
Muttering darkly, Sakura fetched a quilt, unceremoniously dumping it on Sasuke, yanking off his boots and arranging his longlegs so that he looked moderately comfortable, both legs still dangling off the end of her couch. Filling a bucket with cold water, she sat herself on the stool by his head again, dunking the towel (which had already gone warm) in the water and wringing it out before placing it on his forehead once more. In the soft light of her overhead lighting, the minutes dragged on, and she soon found her eyelids getting heavy. Drowsily rinsing the towel once more, she soon fell asleep with her elbows supporting her head atop the arm rest of the couch, one hand placed by Sasuke's forehead to monitor his temperature, and one hand tightly grasping the knife.