Notes: Much like the previous drabble (and like the next) I wrote this back in 2010 and it was inspired by chapters 480, 481 and 482. The difference however is that I wrote this one in the spur of the moment for the SasuKarin FC at NarutoForums, and as such I never posted it elsewhere. I came across it recently however and I did not find it too embarrassing (perhaps a bit dramatic, but the circumstances warrant it, I guess) so I decided to bring it here. I did not alter it at all though, so it may be familiar for some.

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fragments of then, now & tomorrow

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stand-alone 2; prompt taken from 30romances (livejournal)

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34. Pins and Needles (post chapter 480)

As Danzou throws her aside, Karin does not feel any pain. There's no pain not even when her body hits the ground with a loud, dry thud that echoes of dying bodies and fading life.

But there was pain when she looked into his eyes, the eyes that she used to—when they were something that was not this—love so much, the eyes that she could lose herself into without even trying and that were now looking like something completely unknown. There's pain when she sees his face contort in an expression unlike any she has ever seen him make before.

She was so caught up in disbelief over the change that she barely registered his words, but even though she could barely discern what he was saying, they still took her breath away as if they were a physical hit to the pit of her stomach. They left her breathless, painting, and now more than ever the dryness in her eyes cut like steel. There was a sensation, an itch spreading from her eyes down her face and to the tips of her fingers, making a painful shiver run through them, its remains leaving her body numb, unfeeling.

But her mind though hazy was still functioning properly, and she wishes that it had become as numb as her body had. Because as she sees his feet moving away from her—as she sees him walking away from the corner of her eyes, without a single second of hesitation or any regard for her at all; without any regard for the woman who had just saved his life and risked hers in order to achieve it. The woman who trained herself and her emotions and her mind in order to become someone who would be useful to him, someone he could proudly call an ally, someone he would not think of discarding.

So much for that... so much for this….

In that moment when Sasuke's overwhelming presence—overwhelming now, just as much as ever, but for completely different reasons—leaves her, the pain reaches such a point that she thinks that she's going to die from it.

Not from the gaping hole in her torso, no; but from heartbreak. From shock. From disappointment.

But not in the one who had stabbed her through the chest, no; she cannot be disappointed in someone whom she does not know. Rather, she was disappointed with herself.

All this time... and the only thing I ever wanted... I was incapable of achieving.

She makes an effort to keep her eyes open, staring straight down at the blood-stained earth beneath her. If she closes her eyes, she can see him there. Burned behind her eyelids as if he had been carved with a match that set her insides on fire.

Except that what she could see now—the look she cannot get off her mind does the opposite and extinguishes the flame burning inside of her instead, helps the life she cannot hold onto to slip more effortlessly through her blood and the tears she's crying in the inside, the tears that corrode her entrails like acid—but she just cannot let them out.

She no longer has the strength.

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Karin (and her emotional strength) will forever have my admiration.

Thanks for reading!