Prompt# 3: Brand New Day
Pairing: NaruSaku
The dawning sun slides slow over her skin, edging the room with a pale gold glow. Miles away, the world is ending, crumbling, with the Kyuubi free and wailing his anger in slow swishes of his chakra-manifested tail. Every swing brings down more homes, buildings, mountains.
Sakura doesn't care. The tiny hut is far away, secluded, quiet. And by the time the Kyuubi discovers them…
She curls closer to Naruto, wraps his bloody hands around hers. Behind her back, he makes a low noise. Sakura turns and hides her face in the empty space between the blond's neck and shoulder. There is a deep wound on the right side of his throat, constantly weeping metallic blood, but on the left, if she closes her eyes and pretends hard enough, he feels perfect and whole. His arms tighten around her, and she wonders again at how well he hides his failing strength. She can barely breathe now, held tight to his chest as she is, but Sakura doesn't mind.
They lay on the dirt floor of the hut—shack, really—and bathe in the sunlight. His breathing is wheezy, lungs rattling with every bloody breath, and it can't be very comfortable, can it, to have her weight sprawled on top of him like this? But Naruto doesn't let go, and Sakura can't say she wants him to. She smiles, eyes still closed, and presses a kiss to the salty skin of his throat. She feels his chin dipping and settling against her hair and his tired sigh ruffles her bangs.
He is dying underneath her and she can do nothing but watch and wait. The ravaged seal on his stomach is ripped and torn, and the blood seeps through his mesh shirt and stains her skirt crimson. In the distance, Sakura fancies that she can hear the Kyuubi's roar. Konoha is no more now, and soon, Fire will cease to exist. But here, in this tiny hut just miles away from the destruction, it is the beginning of a new day.
When the Kyuubi finally finds the place, there are no bodies left to burn.
a/n: Interpret the ending as you like. I wonder how many more of these I'll be able to get through before I call it quits? Three down, forty-seven more to go!