The breath they shared was hot, clouding judgment and reality with desire and delirium. She clung to him, desperately, trying to eliminate the distance between them. Maybe by doing so she could erase the inevitable goodbye.

(never mind how heavily the lie hung on her lashes, darkening like charcoal)

He held her close; his touch was hot but tempered, like everything he was. Ashes were smudged across her cheeks and forehead like some mourning ritual and the tragedy throbbed in her eyes, deep inside his silent heart where it went unacknowledged.

She held on tight.

He murmured in her ear, gently, "They're coming."

She tightened her hold, screwing her eyes shut. Reality can't come in this way, she told herself, even as it paced loudly outside a thin layer of skin. There was no shutting it out.

He began to remove himself from her, his touch light and coaxing. She resisted, brow furrowed, as she bit at her bottom lip. For moment he stopped and drew his mouth close to her ear.

"Sakura…" he whispered. She shivered, swallowed, and then let her arms go limp about his neck in tired surrender. He led them down to her sides, gently. She stood there in the flickering darkness, shuddering, eyes still pressed close.

He watched the lump in her throat drown and then resurface, palely. It bobbed below, never quite vanished.

She made a small sound in the back of her throat, like a gurgling and a whimper and a sad attempt to be strong. Her eyes opened, slowly, and a slice of green showed through the lashes.

"Itachi…" the word was strangled like her look. "Can't we….can't this…?"

She stopped, and the question clouded the air, painfully. She looked away because she knew the answer, and so did he.

Shouts were heard in the distance, warped by time and space, flame and blood. She stood stiffly, knees and elbows and all the joints cracked with sorrow and hate for the impossible.

There was a muffled pounding at the door, and everything was a swirl of cinder and choking smoke. She heard her name being called but did not answer, the fear drumming inside her ribcage (thump thump, here they come). In her panic, she searched for his eyes through the swirling smoke. He stood regarding her silently. She could not decipher his expression (or lack of one), and for a moment she was shaken.

The pounding on the door became more violent and her heart quickened, the fear blossoming into her eyes to stain the green. In her alarm she reached for him.

"Itachi," she whispered fiercely, and he said nothing but enfolded her in his cloak.

The pounding was on the verge of breakthrough but for this moment there was no fear, there was nothing to touch her but him. She was alone with him in the dark and the bloody flame, and this was the way things were meant to be.

(Don't leave me, please, promise me.)

(…I do not make promises I cannot keep.)

And then the door burst through and she was alone, a flurry of darkness departed. Naruto came through the cloud of splinters and ashes, his expression heartbreakingly anxious.

"Sakura-chan!" he cried as he rushed towards her.

She could not meet his gaze.

"Sakura-chan, are you alright? Are you hurt?" he asked, flitting over her in concern.

She shook her head, still never looking him in the eye.

He came closer, out of breath, and she nearly flinched but stopped herself. "Did you—did you see him?"

The question was a barb, but she tried to ignore the pain. She stood in a daze.

"Sakura-chan?"

"No," she whispered hoarsely. How could she lie so easily?

The sight of him was burned in her mind.

-

I seriously have not written Itasaku in forever. I kind of miss it.