Will-O-Wisp
Chapter 10: Only Words Bleed
"About…keeping things between us, I'll think about it." She said, her gaze far away, but he knew her, she was lying through her teeth. There was nothing to think about, he had made her decision for her the moment he told her the truth.
"Remember that with her decisions will often come from the heart. She will do anything for the people she loves and that includes you."
She never really learned rule twenty five, a shinobi must keep emotions on the inside you must possess a heart that never shows tears. But she wouldn't be Sakura if she didn't wear her heart on her sleeve.
They were hours from reaching the village when Sakura stopped dead in her tracks, after a moment he turned to look at her and she opened her mouth to speak. "I made my decision."
Sasuke didn't say a word and only watched her in silence as she thought it over a hundredth time. "I will not speak a word of it to anybody, not for you but because the Konoha you speak of sounds like it's straight out from a nightmare…but if you ever stray from the path, if I ever think you'll betray us I will kill you myself and this time I will not hesitate."
"I understand." He saw as her hands balled up into fists and could hear the promise in her voice, words that told him of how she would stop him or die trying.
"But I have to know…" She started and it was only then that her gaze turned to his. "Did we ever mean anything to you?" She let the silence set in as she measured his reaction, and although to his ears the question sounded silly he had to take a moment to consider her perspective. After everything he's done to her, after what she knows it was a very valid question.
"You never came back and when you do you use Naruto, you use Kakashi, you use me to take our home away from us." The hurt in her voice left him unable to utter a word and so he listened. "Didn't you ever consider us a family?"
"In spite of it all I am glad you were able to open your heart to someone, I'm glad you had a taste of happiness I could only ever dream you'd find. But I always had a silly hope that we would play a part in that happiness."
He started at her, lips parted wanting to scream at her and tell her how wrong she was, but the words wouldn't leave his lips. She took his silence as an answer and a heartbreaking smile spread on her lips.
"Sakura…" He started, after a moment, but it was too late, she held out her palm to him telling him to stop and without another word she continued to walk.
Four days had passed since they arrived at the village and Sasuke hadn't seen Sakura since, he did find she kept her promise and didn't tell Tsunade what really happened back there. All the Hokage seemed to know was that they encountered Madara, that things hadn't changed, and that he could be stopped. Although Tsunade seemed to think they were hiding something from her she didn't press the matter, placing her complete trust on her student.
A trust he was forcing her to betray.
He was told to head to the hospital if he needed to contact Sakura and although they had no time to lose he had decided to give her the space she needed. He knew the last thing she wanted was to see his face.
He walked the streets of Konoha, disguised as a civilian and masking his chakra, in efforts to distract his mind. He'd been looking at maps and reports for the last four days, seeing the flames every time he closed his eyes, if he didn't take a break he would wind up insane.
People were carefree, enjoying the newly found peace, and basking in ignorance. They were strangers to his nightmares, every single person around him dead in the future.
His thoughts were interrupted by a loud voice he immediately recognized. He turned to find Naruto walking in the distance and Sakura by his side, she was laughing so different from the Sakura he had travelled with just a few days back.
"Did we ever mean anything to you?"
Her question rang in his head again as he watched them while he regretted every bad decision he'd ever made. Things would have been so different if he'd came back home to them. He would have been walking with them. He turns away from them and heads the opposite direction with no clear destination in mind.
Time went on without him while he stood frozen in the past.
He doesn't realize where he is until he hears laughter and voices and he halts in mid step turning to the side and coming face to face with a familiar building. The Academy stands before him so different from how he remembers it.
He remembers the fire, the monsters, the screaming. The scent of burning flesh and the sight of Ino screaming and screaming as she cradled her dead son in her burnt arms. He remembers activating his Susano and stepping into the fire, finding the children not yet genin dead all over, burnt beyond recognition.
The anguish takes over as he recalls how he searched desperately for his daughter in the midst of the flames and the fear in not finding her, not knowing whether she had escaped or if she was one of those bodies.
His hands start to tremble at his sides until suddenly a voice snaps him away. "-ter, mister!" He turns to a small child who stares up at him curiously. "Are you alright?" The little boy asks but Sasuke does not answer and instead walks away trying to keep the horrible images from his mind.
It's yet another day when Sakura shows up at the flower shop finding Ino in her usual ritual, as she inspects the flowers and gets rid of damaged ones. "Hey forehead! I heard you were back from a mission, took you long enough to drop by."
"I've been in the hospital." Sakura told her as she made her way to her usual seat in the counter. She eyed the floral arrangement and tried to remember what she learnt once upon a time, there wasn't much left, all that knowledge replaced with fighting know how.
She turned to Ino who in her world of flowers looked content in spite all she lost in the war. Sakura would, could, retire, hole herself up in the children's section of the hospital, and she wouldn't look back at the ninja life ever again. But she loved the thrill of battle, the eventfulness of a mission, and most of all the power that surged through her fist.
"Did something happen on that mission of yours?" Ino asked as she made her way towards her, Sakura was not surprised of what Ino could tell with just a look.
"No…I've just been thinking."
"I did hear Naruto and Kakashi came back without him." She tells Sakura carefully as she measures her reaction. Sakura knows that there is no surprise on her face.
"Maybe Sasuke just doesn't want to come back, maybe we should stop chasing after him and move on with our lives, but how to tell Naruto…" She knew Naruto would never have it and he would chase him to the ends of the earth.
"What has gotten into you?! He's your teammate! Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of you moving on and living your life, but I also want you to be happy…" Ino knew her like the back of her hand, she cared for her like a sister, but if she knew the whole story would she still be saying those words?
"I don't think he ever cared for us…" She started and Ino turned to her a question in her eyes. "I tried to stop him back then, I poured everything I had into it, the scene went so similar to the first time that for a moment I thought he remembered and as the first time he stopped and turned to me…his eyes were the last thing I saw before I blacked out." Ino placed a hand on hers.
"You're so damned annoying."
A pest out of the way, how did she ever think she could be more than that? She wondered if the Sasuke ten years from then was any different, out of every other ninja in the village he choose her for the mission that had to count for something, but after what she knew then believing a single word from his lips proved to be difficult.
"Anyway! Let's talk about something more interesting, any guys in your life?" Sakura winks while Ino just rolls her eyes.
"Please! I've been going out with Kiba from time to time, but it's a casual thing we'd never hit it off, so I'm still looking for that fabled prince charming our moms used to tell us about in stories." Ino sighs dreamily and Sakura can just stare at her while a single question goes around her mind… Was he lying?
Sasuke finally makes up his mind and knocks the door to her office, she calls out in a sing song voice for him to step inside and so he does. The disguise is no longer necessary as he steps into the office since there is no one inside aside from her. She looks up from her paperwork and seems genuinely surprised to find him standing across from her desk.
"What are you doing here?" She snaps.
"Tsunade said I'd find you here." He looks around to find that her office is very much the way he remembers it, although less books and only a single picture on her desk one he knows to be of Team 7.
"Tell me something, what am I doing in that future of yours?" She asks him, her tone a little skeptic. He can't help as confusion overtakes his expression, it's the first time she asks about herself, but there is no desire to know in her eyes it's like she's looking for something to prove.
"You divide yourself, you take care of the hospital, primarily the children's section, you go on missions, and most of all you take time to spend with your loved ones. I've never met someone who could stretch out the days the way you do." He doesn't tell her who she is after the attack, but something tells him she doesn't care to know.
"You're lying." She says her expression shrouded in anger, directed both at herself and at him. Her words catch him off guard, yes he's kept things from her but he hasn't lied. He stares at her, waiting for an explanation, surely she wouldn't throw around the word liar without basis. "Ino is dating Kiba."
He makes a visible effort to keep from rolling his eyes at her. "You have got to be kidding me." Sakura narrows her eyes at him and a smirk spreads on his lips.
"You can't blame me for doubting you." She speaks and she couldn't be more right.
"I know." He takes out a scroll from inside his pocket and slowly he places it on her desk. "We have our next task." She eyes the scroll suspiciously and turns to him.
"And that is?"
"We retrace Naruto's steps." Sasuke offers, his sentence doing nothing to dissipate the questions from her mind, but she figures that the scroll in her hands contains the necessary information. "We leave tomorrow at six in the morning, if anyone asks you're going to retrieve medicinal herbs alone, and if Naruto asks make sure he suspects nothing." She nods, knowing that the orders come from Tsunade herself.
"I will be waiting just outside the gates." He says, and with that he turns to leave. She says nothing as he walks away and closes the door behind him, her interest already directed at the scroll in her hands.