Theme: 03:00 Determination, especially in matters that seem to hold you back.
Title: The Last Stand
Fandom: Naruto
Character/Pairing: Haruno Sakura x Uchiha Sasuke
Category: Romantic
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: AU, violence, language
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. The original series and all related things are the property of Kishimoto-san. I don't even really own the title.
Summary: She doesn't think she can do it again, but she wants to try and believe that fairytales are real and that she isn't living like a broken doll in a shattered world.


Things weren't the same anymore, and Sakura remembered that when she looked at her rough hands. She remembered when they used to be soft and pale. She remembered when she used to grasp somebody else's hand

(Who was that again? Mommy? Daddy?...)

tightly and wrap her fingers around their pinkies.

(I can't remember anymore)

The streets were clean then. Cleaner than what she was living in right now. She could smell the metallic stench of blood and the burning acid in the sewer systems. There was gurgling and people begging to more beggars. Nobody was The Rich, nobody was The Poor. The buildings were falling apart, their bricks covered with graffiti drawn from the blood of the innocent.

She didn't want to live here, all alone and cold with nothing to her name except her army uniform, her gun, and her broken, dirty boots.

(These can't take me away, no, they can't. I wishwishwish they could.)

Her boots made loud thumping noises against the pavement. She tried to concentrate on that, but there were always desperate, high-pitched cries in the alleyways or some psycho yelling for his crack.

(These are my glass slippers, these are the remnants of Prince Charming and those fairytales that used to be dreams are now only miracles that will never happen)

There was no thing as being safe. If you walked up to a person just to ask for directions, chances are that they would pull out a gun and blow your brain out before you even got to actually speak. This wasn't safe. This wasn't the place she grew up in.

She was born here, geographically. She was raised here and fed here and educated here. She made friends here—

(And tried to love here. Here—do you think that is possible?)

—she played here.

She remembered when the fields of grass were green and wet with dewdrops in the morning. She looked at them and wondered how the grass became so brown and black and dead.

(It's the influence of us humans.

I question if our savage ways of war and bitterness are even human anymore.)

The streets are lined with prostitutes, waiting patiently for the next night of torment. All for the useless currency, the coins, the paper, the pieces of nothing to fall into their hands so they can walk in their torn up dresses and their torn up shoes and their torn up lives to just go and buy groceries—

(Did you know that eighty-seven percent of the citizens in Konoha die from being shot while walking down the street?

Over forty-five percent of those citizens are children under the age of 15.)

—that weren't actually there. The only positive thoughts were dreams that could never be imagined, because all the people were war-stained and their bitter-hard minds have abolished any sort of dreams.

(This is our paradise, sanctuary, and haven.)

Every morning, the blood red sun would rise, and the people would weep for the loss of innocence that would follow the next few seconds. The kiloliters of blood that would be spilled each and every day, because their country was in a war, and their people's spirits were being crushed to bits of pieces smaller than dust. The people were only shells of their former selves. The once prosperous city of Konoha was reduced to nothing more than a dump where over a million carcasses were buried. Women, men, children, elderly, unborn babies.

(Don't you ever wonder what it would be like to sleep with a shotgun in your hands and grenades in your pockets every night? Don't you ever wonder what it would be like to take hours to fall asleep, because as you breathe your shaky breaths into the frosty air and wish that this is all a nightmare, you can here screams and bombs and killing going on? Don't you ever wonder how terrifying it is to hear your heartbeat pounding rapidly in your ears when people rush past, not knowing if their your enemy or your friend?

Don't you ever wonder what it would be like to kill somebody that could be your best friend because they attempted to approach you?)

The citizens were helpless—nothing could be done about the war. The only words of advice were, Keep a gun and shoot.

If somebody managed to get out of this hellhole, nobody would ask them to come back to pick them up, because over years of war, people learned not to trust. The thought of hope and escape were out of reach, and any attempt made to run away was nearly one hundred percent stopped. The person would be killed if they were lucky—if not, they'd stay in prison and have somebody torture them in the cruelest ways until they died of disease or old age—

—Oh, they were careful, very careful not to kill you then. Death was never a worry—it was more of a blessing.

(People nowadays don't think about dying the way they used to. It releases you from the torture, and too many have been driven to the edge. They've killed themselves in some of the most unimaginable ways.

But people still want to live, and sometimes I ask myself why I want to live. I blame it on our instinct, our greed for survival from our animal ancestors.

Maybe it's not truthful, but it's better to know that lie than a truth that might crush you and hinder you.)

Sakura kicked through the rubble, a little bit, to find a mascara-smudged face looking up, staring blankly. She had about thirteen bullets shot through her from the back, Sakura counted, and her face was pained and sad and angry.

Beneath the dead body was an almost-crushed baby, only a few months old, sleeping quietly all red-faced, taking soft, calm breaths. And Sakura almost shed tears, almost, for the dead mother and the sleeping baby because they were both so young.

She brushed her hair from her face, and stroked the baby's cheek lightly, leaving it sleeping wrapped in a pink blanket. Sakura knew that leaving the baby there to die was better than to take it and raise it—there was not enough food or money or anything. The child would fight war, watch people die, learn to shoot properly once it could walk.

A screen flashed a vivid white in the dead girl's body—a cellphone.

The girl was recently killed, Sakura told herself, since the phone was still working. Her eyes flashed back and forth, before she picked up the phone and saw a typed text message—the last farewell of the girl.

My lovely Aiko, if you manage to survive, please remember that I'll always love you.

Her eyes watered, and she wished that she could be stronger and let this child go. She didn't want to give in and take the child to be raised in a hell to become a weak prostitute selling her body off on the street.

So she turned away, harshly, her face breaking into tears, her inner demons ripping her heart apart. Despite the many people killed, she couldn't even save this one innocent life.

Sakura ran. She didn't care about the acid rain pouring onto her skin, burning and hissing upon contact. She didn't care that it was completely dark and past curfew. She didn't care if she was going to catch a fever or get shot by a guard.

She just needed to get away.

Her hair flopped messily in sticky strands, falling into her eyes as she clawed her way up the fire escape to her home. She stood at her window and looked at the bright crimson of the building's bricks before rushing in, gasping, pleading that nobody was in there, waiting to kill or pull her into their stupid, senseless war.

(I used to live here with somebody, and I used to be a person. I used to know these people called friends. I used to live a normal life.

It's not possible anymore—I need to escape.)

Her mind was decided, but she dug her nails into her damp palms, drawing blood. Escape was too hard—she wouldn't make it. There was no hope.

At least make an attempt, something snarled in her head. She could imagine something inside her lashing out, screaming, loathing her own fear. At least, do that for everyone.

(I'm afraid because my friends weren't. I'm afraid because they're gone. I'm afraid because I was never as incredible, and if they didn't make it, I don't think I will.)

So she thought again, and changed her mind, and thought some more. She glanced at the clock quickly. It was only three, and there was still two more hours before sunrise. Perhaps she could leave right before dawn.

The stench of rotted wood was in the air as she looked through her dusty cabinets to gather what she could carry. She dried herself as best she could, and as the minutes ticked away, she felt as if she was getting closer to death.

She tried desperately to grab onto abandoned memories, to find that her mind had finally failed her. Nothing was familiar anymore. Sakura stroked the glass lightly, and tried to imagine that everyone was here and alive again.

(My fears eat me up. I can't do this. But I want to, so I'll try.

It's just so hard to accept that almost all that attempted never made it through, because some of those people were the strongest people I ever knew. I wonder how I can do it if them couldn't.)

They weren't here, but even when she caught a vision of them for a slight second, she smiled brokenly. Her lips were crooked and half-scowling, but she could at least see a little bit of brightness through the glass in her eyes.

When the first rays of sunlight began to show through the clouds, Sakura tied her hair up and picked up her bag hesitantly, slinging it over her slumped shoulders.

Leaving was going to be hard, and it wasn't just the obstacles and guards she had to go through. She didn't really care if she was going to be blasted into pieces by shotguns anymore.

(Because when I look at the way this place used to be and what it is now, it's just too different. Sometimes my dreams tell me that I'm safe again, in peace. But then I wake up to the sound of dropping bombs and screaming, and I know that it's not true anymore. I want this to go back to before, because then I can stay here. I don't have to be attached, but still want to leave. I'll just be here.)

It was just that this was the place that she grew up. The place where she wrote nonsense words and drew frivolous dreams on paper. The place where she laughed with no worries and cried from a paper-cut. The place that this place once was.

She sighed, her breath misty and humid against her too-pale cheeks, before taking her first steps forward. First are the baby-steps, the ones that are all too slow to evade the bullets and sidestep to avoid that dagger. Sakura speeds up, hair in frenzy in front of her eyes, shut tight, trying not to get the strands into her eyes and the acid rain falling from the sky.

A guard called, shouting, screaming. She was trying to escape, she needed to be shot before she left.

Right when she heard all the guns clicking and being loaded, she pulled out her handgun, and prayed that perhaps Sasuke would help her a little bit here.

(I was never that good at shooting, so he used to do it for me.)

She focused as much energy as she could into her eyes, brilliant red eyes that held the life of a man that had died for freedom.

(It's all I have.)

She didn't mind, too much, if she went down in this last fight.