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I shall not keep you all at the edge of your seats, so here is the next chapter! Enjoy.
A Game for Fools
Chapter 9: Aisuru Hito wa Sukuwareta
Exactly how long he laid there was unclear, but he knew it was long enough for his body to have succumbed to numbness. He could not feel his legs, even when his brain sent signals demanding movement, they remained stationary. The blood from the wound had thoroughly soaked into his white shirt, painting it an angry crimson and spilled down the sides onto the flattened grass beneath.
"Sasuke!" A voice. It sounded far away, like an angel beckoning him. The pleasant dreams were already beginning. He smirked feebly.
Once more, the voice tainted with desperation and worry. It was approaching. "Where are you?"
Sakura? His eyelids flew open and his ears concentrated to listen for the voice. Death's hallucination, maybe. There it was again. It sounded like her, but how can it be? She was dead. He had held her pallid body in his own arms.
"Sasuke!" It was moving away now.
He parted his lips to call out her name, but cough out the blood that percolated into his windpipe instead. Sakura, wait! Kuso! He wanted to move his hands, but they laid limply beside his body. This reminded him so much of the time his limbs were stiff and refused to move on command, when he stood outside the room of his parents on that fateful night, right of where he was laying now. Move, move! The audible voice in his head was shouting, pushing him to endeavour.
His fingers twitched, finally responding to his authority. Lifting trembling hands, coated red and slick from his own blood before him, he made languid seals. Horse, tiger, ram... If he were on a battlefield, he would have been long dead by the time he finished the incantation. Monkey, boar, horse… The energy of his chakra churned inside his chest. Tiger! With a deep inhale of air, forcing through the blockage of his windpipe and ignoring the sting of the embedded weapon, he kneaded the chakra within and expelled it in a powerful exhale of fire. Katon: Gokakyu no jutsu!
The giant orb of roaring flames, as bright as the sun, catapulted at an amazing speed into the cool midnight sky, illuminating and banishing the darkness within its reach.
He broke into a fit of agonizing coughs as the blood flooded back into his trachea, chocking him and trailed out from the side of his lips. The jutsu had taken up more energy than he had estimated and it was rare for him, Uchiha Sasuke, to err, but using the technique was necessary. Coldness crept into his body and he lowered his eyelids, praying that she will come. Sakura… She has to.
She spun around immediately when she heard a low rumble and was shocked to see a great sphere of orange and red shooting into the heavens. A scalding gust of wind blew past her as she brought her arms to shield her face. Hurriedly, she jumped up onto the rooftop of the house closest to her for a better view. She recognized it instantly to be Sasuke's signature Katon jutsu, which he readily used in times of trouble. It hovered for a moment before disintegrating above the property ten rooftops away, roughly, a mile from where she stood. She had just covered that area and must have missed him when he was calling out to her.
Racing hastily, she leapt from rooftop to rooftop to that residence, shouting his name as she went along. She was not familiar with the house that the technique was shot out from and neither had she seen him enter the premises during the times that she had tailed after him.
Berthing on the rooftop of the property, she surveyed the area for anything that was amiss and found none. The garden was an ocean of verdant weeds and overgrown shrubs. However, it was nothing unanticipated since all the other houses she scoured had lawns in similar conditions.
"Sasuke!" She shouted. "Are you here?"
No response.
She leapt down onto the ground below, landing on the wooden floored patio. Where did the Gokakyu come from? He had to be here. She paced around the property, checking every room for his presence, but he wasn't there. Returning out to the patio, she slumped tiredly to the ground, bringing up bent knees to her chest and burying her head in her arms. Where could he be? She could not help but think that this was her fault, that she should have informed him of her plan in person, instead of leaving a message at his doorstep. Tears stung behind her eyelids, threatening to overflow.
Then she heard it, a soft moan. She lifted her head to full alert, eyes scanning the unkempt grassland. A cough. She immediately jumped off the platform and into the ocean of tall weeds, calling out to him as she swam her way through. "Speak to me!"
Pushing the stalks out of her way, she searched for him. Something was wrong, she just knew it. The sight that greeted her eyes shocked her and her heart stopped beating for a moment. There, lying in a pool of his own blood, like a layer of scarlet silk sheets, Sasuke was unconscious. She rushed to his side, taking a hand into hers and begged him to respond. He didn't.
Brushing the mussed raven forelocks that stuck to his face, she then cupped his cheek with her palm, unintentionally smearing the dried rust coloured blood with her thumb. She leaned her forehead against his, tears fell from her eyes and onto his pallid skin. He was cold to touch. His chest only raised slightly as he inhaled strangled breaths and the sound of the blood in his trachea vibrated sickly with each one he took. She knew was going to lose him if she did not attend to his wound immediately.
Ok, focus. Letting the medic side of her kick into action, she charged her palms with chakra. Luminescent green emanated from her hands as she lowered them to access the damage sustained by his body. The kunai had punctured a lung and the blood had completely filled up that lung and had proceeded to flood its counterpart. He was literally drowning in this own blood. Time is of essence. She cursed, feeling responsible for the state he was in. Oh how she had wanted to close her eyes and make everything better with a snap of her fingers, but she knew it wasn't possible
Once again, reprimanding herself to concentrate on the matter at hand, she wrapped her fingers around the hilt of the blade. She hitched her breath, plucking up courage to continue with the procedure. She had done this more than a thousand times over when she had her shifts at Konoha Hospital and during those times, she was never nervous, but now, right now, she was. She cannot bear to lose him again, especially not when she was the cause. He did not even stir when she yanked the weapon free from his wound and pressed her healing hands against the gaping hole in his chest, wetting her hands crimson and slick. She watched from the side in all anxiousness as the arteries and tendons reconnected and the flesh sealed leaving no scar behind.
Yet wake he did not and erratic was the rhythm of his breathing.
She did not stop the flow of her chakra into his body, knowing that the internal bleeding had not subsided. Tears fogged up her vision again and she brought a hand to wipe it away before resting her head against the back of her palm for a brief moment of quiescence to gather her thoughts together when she realized that his chest had still beneath her palm. His breathing had stopped.
She looked up from behind her hand, paralysed by shock for a moment. She felt her heart sink to the pit of her stomach and her guts twisted, sending a wave of nausea to envelope her entire being.
"Sasuke?"
This can't be happening! She threw her hand back down in denial, joining the other in the healing, pouring all of her chakra into him, crying and begging for him to return to her. The tears were flowing incessantly as she was unable to contain the outburst of emotions. She was so angry with herself for the mess that they were in. No man in this world will be able to comprehend the agony she was experiencing - losing the very person she loved, all because her mind was fickle. She should have agreed to run when he asked her twice last night. Why didn't I just fucking agree?
"Sasuke!" She let out an anguished cry when he remained motionless, cutting of her chakra supply and crouched on his abdomen, burying her head in her folded arms. Her body trembled uncontrollably as she wept hysterically against him. Her cries were loud and she did nothing to suppress them.
"Uruse… (noisy)" The voice came low and tired.
She sat up with a start and bent over his face, reaching her hands to frame his cheeks. "Sasuke?" His eyes stayed closed. "Sasuke. Oh my god, Sasuke!" Trickling tears fell, washing away the blood as if she was purifying him. "You're alright."
"Hn." He muttered.
Pushing the noir strands of hair that were misplaced, she lowered herself and pressed her lips to his forehead, lingering for a moment. She spoke softly between sobs, "Guess you never got the memo..."
He cracked opened half lidded obsidian eyes to regard her as she aided him when he struggled to prop himself up. "Memo?"
"Aa." She nodded, shifting herself to his back and pulling him gently against her. "Here, lean against me. Let me heal you first."
He obeyed like a little child, nestling his head on the hollow of her neck and pressing his forehead against her jaw. His lashes fell back down. The feeling was strangely pleasant. It was similar to the time when she had assisted him with his yukata while they frolicked in the small town on their last mission. Her actions were semblances of love and affection. Oh, how he missed it. He was so comfortable in her arms that he drowsiness set in again.
"You look pretty in that dress..." He uttered a deviant thought that crossed his mind. He would usually filter these thoughts out of his head before voicing them, but he didn't now. He didn't want to.
She chuckled against his skin, showering his temple with little chaste kisses. The warmth was returning to his body. "You must be delirious, but nevertheless, thank you. Are you better now?"
"Hn..." He muttered, nodding his head slightly, all this while keeping his eyes closed.
She allowed him to lie against her while she worked. A significant amount of the blood in his lungs had subsided progressively and his breathing more or less stabilized. The wheezing sounds that he made had disappeared altogether. He was recovering. Thank god.
Sasuke felt he was in the right place at the right time. At least something in his life was finally right. He blinked when a tear bounced off his cheek and lifted his head off her collarbone, positioning himself so he could face her. His palms cupped her face and with his thumbs he wiped her tears away, though he knew that these were now happy tears, he still preferred her smiling. Pulling her into him, he held her tight, never wanting to let her go. Never again.
"Aishiteru… Sasuke-kun." She drawled softly as she shifted within his clutch to sit perpendicular to him between his legs; her own folded at the knees and she embraced him back.
A tiny smile graced his features as he gradually realized that he liked the sound of the suffix on his name. Before he left Konoha he couldn't care any less about it and when he returned, he thought it sounded better without, but now… it acquired a deeper value, the essence of her abundant love for him. He would never take it for granted again.
Releasing his grip slightly, he let her pull away. The green of her eyes that glistened under the moonlight had taken on a dusky hue, much like the sea of grass that surrounded them and her hair was a shade of cerise, darker pink, mysterious yet beautiful. She was covered with dust from the earth, the result of escaping from the grave. Her moistened cheeks gave off a faint shine amid the bronzing effect of the dust that complimented her white, but not-so-white pixie dress.
"Sakura…" Her name had rolled out even when he had no intention of calling her. Angling his head, he leaned in closer, pressing his lips to hers and feeling her soft flesh parting to deepen the sensuality of their union. He raised her chin with his curled fingers of one hand and treaded his thumb gingerly on her jaw line.
With the other that was at her back, he explored her body. Grasping the netted skirt of her shortened gown, he pulled it towards him, exposing more of her creamy thighs. Then when it was high enough for him to reach under, he did, his calloused palm on her skin, feeling the round of her hip and the soft brush of the lace panties as he traveled. She moaned against his lips in approval of his ministrations, encouraging him.
She missed him so badly till every part of her yearned to be caressed. She wanted more; more of his touch; more of his kisses; more of Uchiha Sasuke. The palms of her hand trailed from his shoulders to his back as she repositioned herself, kneeling before him, though cautious not to cause him hurt in the process. Now with leverage, she hardened the kisses and he responded hungrily with low primal moans, sending a heat down her center. Her fingers entwined themselves in his short noir hair at the back of his neck. She was loving it - being able to finally be with him without guilt, without fear. All that mattered now was them, only the two of them.
He felt a flush rush through his body and was amazed that despite having lost a considerable amount of blood, a certain organ responded so quickly to their passionate contact. His hands cupped over the flesh of her ass, molding the halves with his palms. He broke away from the kiss, resting nose against nose. "I fucking miss this."
She smiled. When he leaned up to kiss her again, she pulled away from his grasp with a mirthful giggle. "Let me finish healing you. It's barely three hours to daybreak and we have to make it out of Konoha, pronto. I don't want my 'death' to be in vain."
"Hn." He smirked and laid back down on the grass, cradling his head with his palms and allowed her to continue treating his wound. Her astuteness astounded him. "I never thought of you as cunning."
Charging her hands, she placed them gently over his chest and inserted her chakra into his flesh. "I don't know whether to take that as an insult or a compliment." She gave a muted chuckle as she worked to drain the residual fluids in his lungs.
He lowered his eyelids to recuperate from the tension between his legs. She was evil for leaving things as they are. Had he had his way, she would be screaming under him by now. Screw the healing session! When she lowered herself to press a chaste peck on his lips, he caught a quick yet unintended glance of her bosoms.
He growled with furrowed brows. "That's not helping."
"What's not?" Curiousity emanated from her voice. "Is the pressure too strong?"
"Not where you think."
Visible symbols of the question mark appeared above her head as she tried to decipher what he meant. If the pressure's too strong, just say it's 'too strong'. Where else could be under pressure? A tiny movement drew her attention from the side of her eyes so she looked in its direction. It was his organ, twitching in the cage of his black formal pants. "Oh..." She murmured in quiet revelation.
He chuckled mutely at her reaction. "Is that all you can say?"
"What should I say?"
"Say, 'Sasuke-kun…'" He teased with a smirk.
She almost rolled over having not expected that from the all-serious Uchiha, but instead shook her head in refusal.
"Hn. That's your loss."
Her laughter ceased immediately as she rolled to loom over him, arms on either side of his head. The noir eyes that looked into hers had a glint of mischievousness and the smirk from earlier remain affixed on his features. That offensive statement had made it more of a challenge than anything else and she was going to teach him.
He caught on quick enough to see that she wasn't smiling anymore and her emerald eyes were hazed with sensuality. His smirk faded and his eyes now bore the same expression she has.
She hovered her lips over his, letting the tip of their noses touch. He lifted to meet her lips but she moved back before contact, earning her a feral growl, like a predator warning a prey of its almighty presence. She trailed her lips from his chin, down his jaw, to his ear, not kissing him, just brushing lightly. Exhaling a breath of hot air against his skin, she took a earlobe between her teeth, drawing a small gasp from him. She nuzzled her nose against the shell of his ear and rasp slow and seductively into it, "Sasuke... Kun..."
It undid him. He pushed her over and straddled her down to the ground, then shifted himself between her legs. His hands pinned hers beside her head while he crashed his lips onto hers in a heated kiss. How many months was it since he had not had her? Or any woman for that matter. The moment he had tasted sweetness, there was no going back. She was his drug, the aphrodisiac that continued to reel him in, like a fish on a line. No one else would ever satisfy the way she satisfied.
He broke the kiss with a moan when she bucked her hips to grind against his hardness. He tried to kiss her again, but she turned her face away, denying him over and over, till the seething rage and pant up need awaken his Sharingan on its own. Glaring angrily with his scarlet eyes, the six tomoe danced in an organised fashion round his irises. He forcefully grasped her jaw in his palm, finger-pads digging into the flesh of her cheeks until the whites were seen. He was hurting her, but she deserved it. She whimpered under him, as if to apologize. It was too late for apologies. He wanted her and he would have it no other way.
Violently he rammed his lips against hers, drawing blood from a cut she sustained from his teeth. With his free hand he attempted to rip the dress off her body, but she fought him, resisting him with her strength. He knew that she was toying with him, egging him on to 'rape' her. He would do it.
Still holding on to her face, he tore away from her lips, roughly tilted her head upwards and attacked her neck, intending to leave his mark on her pale skin. He heard her breathe to say something and slid two fingers into her mouth to stifle her voice as he continued from her throat down to the unconcealed top of her bosom like a man starved.
Sakura bit down on his intrusive appendages, too drawing blood. He hissed and withdrew them, once more meeting their lips. His rock hard arousal added pressure onto hers, rubbing ever so perfectly in sync with his rough kisses. She was so absorbed in her pleasure that she didn't hear or feel him lower his pants and any other material on him that stood in the way of his having her right now.
With a grunt, his hand ran up her thighs and brushing at her heated center through the material of her panties. He smirked against her lips on hearing her sharp intake of breath. Sliding the slick fabric to the side, he worked two fingers against the folds of her flesh. The sound of her keen moaning and her writhing body beneath him, drove his lust five notches higher. He grunted, dissatisfied with her receiving all the attention, he pushed, burying himself inside her.
A soft cry escaped her lips and her fingernails cut bloody crescents on his back as her walls strove to accommodate his size. He was finally in her. More than two months he waited; waited so that she could be with him; waited so she may see that she was the only one he wanted. He broke from her lips with a throaty groan; she had to be the tightest place on earth.
He rocked back and forth and she responded with the buck of her hips to meet his every thrust. The walls of her sex clamped down granting perfect fiction against his. It was so good. It has been too long. Never again will he let her slip through his fingers.
Her legs astride his hips, wrapped around, forcing him deeper into her. His fingers tangled themselves in her dusky coral hair as he strained to keep from losing himself just yet.
The sounds of her breathing quicken and his name was mixed with her cries. Her body arched back still entrap under him as she strangled a final cry of his name and biting down on the flesh of her lower lip. The pulsating of her inner walls on his shaft took him like crashing waves washing over and drowning him. His fists clutched her hair painfully as he struggled a broken moan against her neck, shuddering his own release, spilling all he had into the woman he loved.
He rested himself over her, body swooning as he came down. Both chests heaved in unison, seeking to still their racing hearts as he remained one with her.
Sakura looked up into his crimson eyes, observing as it transitioned back to midnight black, just like the sky. She brought a hand to brush the forelocks away from his face and leaned up to kiss him. A tender kiss, overflowing with love.
He lowered her down onto the ground, breaking from her lips and embraced her, not speaking, only basking in the presence and embrace of each other. Then he whispered in a soft slightly breathless voice that touched her. "Sakura… I love you. Sincerely and honestly."
Kasaneta kono te wo, kondo wa hanasanai
Shinjiru chikara ga, ai wo jiyuu ni suru.
(Our hands are clasped, I won't let go this time.
The power of trust will set love free.)
~ This Love by Angela Aki~
A/N: Yeah! Reconciliation! They had sex, while they were dirty… such animals… tsk tsk…
The title of this chapter 'Aisuru Hito wa Sukuwareta' basically means, 'Saving the One I Love' for those of you who can't understand a bit of Japanese – I didn't put the meaning up front, because it would give the chapter away.
And for those of you who watched the English dub version of Naruto - Sasuke would call Sakura 'annoying', but in fact what he says in Japanese is 'uruse' which means 'noisy'. So yeah, I just thought that you needed to know that for knowledge sake.
Alright... reviews are much appreciated. :D
Ahh! I miscounted. There will be 11 chapters not 12. 1 more chapter and an epilogue. Sorry for the error! *slaps self*
