He now sat atop a hill, overlooking several fields and vast sections of trees and woods. Thinking back to the battle, he noted how much her skills had improved. He had always been one to mock Sakura's skill set, claiming she was as worthless as a civilian, but he had also been the one to mistake her for the Hokage.
Leaning back on the arm that was extended behind him, Sasuke continued to run the battle over in his mind.
Sakura had not only masked her identity, but her chakra. She did it so well, that even when she was charging up another powerful attack, he could not identify the power source as hers. Or, perhaps it had simply been to long since he detected it.
The sting of his wounds forced his attention away from the girl he had killed, just a few hours prior. He hadn't known it at the time, but she had laced her weapons with a fine poison. His gaze lowered to his right thigh, where the shuriken had severed muscle tissue, tendons, and had even scraped against the bone. Worse than that, he acknowledged the fact that it had gone completely numb, no doubt because of the poison. Likely, it wasn't deadly, but it would take him awhile to flush it from his system, if it didn't completely paralyze him.
Turning his thoughts back towards the battle, or rather the last few minutes before he fled, Sasuke compared who Sakura was, to who she became.
Sakura had clearly surpassed his expectations for her. She was likely a highly respected ANBU officer, considering she was sent to go after him. When her mask was lifted from her face, he could see there were several things that rendered the image of her in his mind wrong.
She had clearly aged. Her features were more prominent and feminine, and her face was not an eyesore, nor annoying to think about. Her face was paled, but that could be due to blood loss, or death. Though she was not smiling, Sasuke could imagine that it had not changed much since he last saw it, and it still would have lit up her face.
Her stature had changed, as well. The way she had held herself was much more confident than what she had when he saw her last. Her movements were defined by precision, and not guess-work. Her attacks held a higher efficiency, and his wounds could attest to that.
Reliving the battle in his mind, he cursed himself for his foolishness. She was nothing like the Fifth in body, but perhaps it was her skill that fooled him. He had been unsure of who the ANBU was, until he saw her hit the ground, and have the ground cave in and erupt beneath her touch.
Releasing himself from his thoughts, Sasuke brought his guard up from its already high standing, and stood as best as he could.
Pressing his chakra into his damaged leg, Sasuke set off in the direction of the clearing he had left recently.
There were no strings of hope, he was sure that her body was taken. He would not apologize for ridding the world of her presence, nor would he feel sorry for doing so. He planned to simply go there, and look at the aftermath of the chaotic attack that had taken place there, both before and after Sakura had arrived.