MORPHINE

by Porcelain.Memories

Sakura and Hinata, two Insane Asylum escapees set on a journey to revenge against the Mafia tangled in their own beefs. A benumbed to any bodily sensations and psychotic Sakura and Hinata affiliate with Hidan and Konan and together, they plot to destroy everyone accountable for their fall, gaining a notorious reputation as 'Morphine', Sakura s signature drug to kill.

14. En Garde

CHAPTER XIV —EN GARDE

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::I keep on asking myself how would it feel to never fall in love with you,

To have never tasted your sweet deceiving words,

To never let myself go in the bliss of your last departing kisses,

Your charm suddenly feels overwhelming, like the sweetest dreary sins,

The numerous beats that my poor heart misses,

They all succumb into the temptation of your touches,

The caresses that you deliver so serenely erotic,

Now feel like the castigation to all my sins.

And all the figments now churning though my mind so despotic,

I unveil them before your hawk, incessant sardonic eyes.

I wish I was stronger so as to embrace that feeling, to wade into him head first

The traffic light suddenly turned red and oh— I didn't know when to stop… this hysteric thirst,

So that when it turned green, allowing me to move onwards...

I found myself propelled back into the darkness, struggling with the rest of the pitiful cowards.

Falling helplessly for the threads that you, the puppet master set for me

So inconspicuously enticing.

Uchiha Sasuke-sama... I'm just a helpless placebo for the pain that burns your mind...

And suddenly... the dosage of MORPHINE does not suffice anymore.

Is only the taste of your voice...

that still lingers

and we keep on moving... like in a game of chess.

We are both losers wading into the same art of deception.

Pulling the trigger... until the end::

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Hn. Fool…

There was a heavy reek of cremated bricks and peeling flesh in a way that made Sasuke`s innards convulse; he barely kept himself from gagging at the feeling.

'What`s wrong?' He couldn't help but wonder. Was he sick, was his body fighting off a running high fever making him delirious?

That bloodcurdling sensation amplified as he gazed into Sakura's eyes— those eyes, those eyes were doing something devastatingly irresistible, stirring a tempest in his chest that no one else did.

The unmistakable sensation of feeling completely void, benumbed, dead inside, hollow, empty and broken and unexplainable sensations were materializing around him without any logical explanation.

It was creepy and painful. The tiny hair behind his nape stood erect as well as his pulse nearly sending his mind into a reeling oblivion.

'These are her memories... she is allowing me to feel, to taste, to see her heart' his eyes caught it all; his cursed eyes pierced through her consciousness –it finally did– in her moment of weakness and deliberation and thus he found out what the real Morphine was like –the core of her formidable but fearsome nickname; Sakura.

"You do not have the willpower to kill me, Sakura."

"I do... but I don`t want to. Because I will be the only one to decide if a when will I dispose of you. I... and no one else." Because he was trying to manipulate her and this was something that she didn't; she has misunderstood his own demons.

Because if she would have had discharged the gun into his head and literarily kill him, then she would have forever lived with the knowledge that she didn`t kill him voluntarily, but because he has coaxed her into doing so; Sasuke was one step away to take away the privilege of her revenge and thus leaving her with the biggest regret for her entire life; that even his own death and her revenge was controlled by this Mafia Leader.

She saw through his game and he counted on her to do so and thus elegantly saving his new life.

He didn`t value it as much as he did or maybe he did like to cling to his life like Itachi once mocked him if he traded with Morphine like this.

At the same time, he forced more answers for her and thus he lied to himself that it was a strategy.

None of them will die today.

'One day... I will tell you words that I cannot mutter right now, Sakura. Have faith in me... and my feelings.'

'You will never be higher than revenge for me Sasuke. No matter what my heart yearns for –no matter what little pathetic broken Sakura wishes for– Morphine will never succumb to your temptation.'

She still deny it albeit Sasuke was not hiding it from her in this moment; he had feelings for her and this was her bittersweet half of a revenge.

She made him fall in love with her, finally.

Sadly or not, she will only break him beyond repair from here on out. Just like she shattered his mirror, pulverizing it in billion distorted reflections of the same soul; the same hurt wraith that now leered into her eyes like she mattered.

That was a symbolic gesture for how she was slowly breaking his life into pieces reflecting everything from the once complete piece that made up his seemingly perfect life in comparison to how he broke hers beyond repair.

Because as much as Akatsuki were a family now and she was living a lavish life, Sakura knew that she was beyond salvation, she will never lead a normal life again because nothing in the world could repair the damage caused by being trapped in an Insane Asylum and being subjected to those abhorrent tortures, forgotten and abandoned.

Physical injuries always had a remedy just like Morphine`s after effects were slowly dissipating from her body, but the emotional scars could only find the much-needed alleviation only in Death. Revenge was the only gulp of oxygen, the only concept that made sense to Sakura.

No, they were not trying to stage that absolutely cliché romance in which they end up falling for each other`s flaws madly in love realizing that there was so much chemistry coming along with the realization that people were being with the sense of protection ingrained into their hearts since the beginning of time.

Although, the flow of the unspoken words resonated sound and clear with every blow of the wind dancing around them enhancing the flaring effect of their fluttering clothes and hair, making it seems like time suddenly stopped for them as they were trapped inside the glass of a miniature of an hourglass.

Seconds suddenly slid into eternity; the mesmerizing scenery was bleeding astounding brilliant shades of emerald, royal gold, and majestic crimson dissipating into innocent shades of pink trapping them in a world so ridiculously perfect, soothing and calm like in anticipation for the calmness before the storm.

Words... words that meant so much were suddenly more precious than gold and diamonds. How tortured he was on the inside, Sasuke inwardly smirked bitterly.

Oh— how much this woman was torturing him, it was almost derisive how he found himself as a silent helpless prey for this grotesque jive. 'I love you.'

Obsidian orbs challenged as Sasuke was psychologically impaling Sakura with the same unforeseen earnestly that she was displaying but instead of responding with more hatred, the silences and broke her in return with such explosive feelings.

'I love you because I can.' How beautiful shone his obsidian orbs like shimmering diamonds melting under the rays of the sun, Sakura noticed in a daze as she took one step closer to him letting her right-hand drop to her side helplessly.

The pistol fell into the sand with a silent sound muffled by the soft cushion and pressing on it as it made a small hole, time stopping ticking for them in that moment.

The bullet hit a nearby old abandoned house but neither heard it or cared where it pierced as long as it was not Sasuke`s skull.

'Stop uttering that broken weird to me, asshole' A delicious side smirk tucked on his lips when her glowing eyes spilled those words to him.

'You love me.'

They didn't need their lips to vociferous words, for they were already feeling each other beyond words. She didn't want to deal with his fake feelings, that pompous jerk.

'I don't… I don't… I— can`t…'

He could keep his endearing declarations for she wanted nothing more than to see him strangled and being tortured by them both mentally and physically until he went insane then died.

But his eyes... there was something painfully familiar churning into those eyes and Sakura swore that for just one damned moment... they leered at her lovingly.

And even though she should be rejoicing that her purpose was met with such a victorious result, it still broke something inside her like she couldn't have anticipated it that he would actually do be so stupid and let himself seduced by her. 'You fool... you are the biggest idiot on the planet Sasuke Uchiha.'

He already knew that he didn't need to be reminded of it by her. His ration was already scolding him for how his right hand has coiled around waist as her now unoccupied right hand rode up from his left wrist up to his sculpted arm.

Her plush fingertips stroked and squeezed those taut biceps, so solid and sturdy and hot to the touch as she skimmed along his shoulder, gingerly as if she was discovering him for the first time, sneaking around his neck and taking a painful fist of his raven hair as he rumbled darkly in his chest. 'I know, but being an idiot has never felt so right... Morphine.'

'I won't bend to your command so easily. I am not your subordinate.' She knew the Mafia's manipulative and unforgiving mind games all too well.

She knew his games to the point where she found herself applauding his genius, but nonetheless, she was the one to inch closer first as she wrapped her left hand around his chest sneaking behind his back and palm his shoulder blades, pressing her nails into the fabric of his clothes. She knew but just like him, she didn't care.

Because she had the power not to care.

'Then act upon your own instincts, Sakura.' She gulped once as his moist lips were radiating such a deviously delicious warmth upon her own, breaths mingling together, intimately, deeply and full of meaning. 'You are brave enough to hate me, but you are not strong enough to love me.'

A hand found its way threaded through her disheveled pink locks, brushing them fondly. She leaned into his touch like in a silent reverie, as her gluconate orbs went blind and glazed with lust, desire overflowing through her in unhinged passion.

'I am going to break you until you die Sasuke.'

'I am taking you with me downhill, Sakura.' There were so much unshed fire and passion seated deep into his half-lidded black sapphire eyes that Sakura felt it soundly pervading the walls of her chest, undeniable; as his lips flickered upon her own, her heart completely stopped.

'Then why do I want to wrap my arms around you so tight and feel you close to me?'

His kiss... oh damn his kiss! Sakura had a name fitting for how Sasuke`s kiss felt like –urban decadence.

Because as depressing and sad it should have been, there was so much beauty in its loneliness, in its desperation, one that was still regal and untouchable as much as it was fleeing and intangible.

She was the one to slide her tongue to glissade over the swell of his glace lower lip parting his mouth for her to dive inside in unhinged urgency and he happily complied.

Taking one clumsy step back because of the way Sakura has basically forced herself into his chest, gluing her body flush to his own, Sasuke wreathed his hands around her small back and waist, holding her against him while she wreathed around him like an ivy.

Moaning hotly upon his lips in pure adoration, Sakura pressed herself into his muscled chest when he allowed her to dominate the kiss completely rolling her tongue deliberately, deep and wet into his mouth sliding down his throat as she wanted to reach his soul and enkindle or quench the fire within. "Hmm—"

She invaded him, mind and body just like the most prolific poison and Sasuke found himself shuddering in pure delight as the beast within him –the one that not even she knew the existence of– howled in appreciation.

While Sakura`s aggressive lip lock made blood rush to the sateen of his leading lips as she engaged him in a deep wet erotic French kiss, pain diffused into the rush of adrenaline that fueled his desire and lust for her.

Sakura literarily jumped into Sasuke`s arms as he stumbled backwards landing on his back with her straddling him possessively and her hands fisted firmly into his hair as she secretly loved it so much; the sateen rich texture and the strong masculine scent latched to his raven locks resembling an arctic storm was sending Sakura into vivid contemplation.

Shimmering gold and marble particles of sand were sewed into their disheveled hair and clothes as the couple rolled on their backs and shoulders being captives of their own passionate embrace, brushing over the empty beach and trapped into their maddening kiss and trying to convey what words refused to express.

Their kiss broke a steady rhythm and sync turning aggressive and zealous, saliva mingling hotly while their lips stroked each other until the soft tissue turned into a lilac shade and breaths fused into one single heartbeat, as they both poured everything into that kiss, from frustration to bottle up hatred and every other emotion that they should name. "Sakura—"

They both had something that wished so ardently to convey to the other one but words fell prey to the illusions that their minds had to play in order to keep the masquerade keep on going smoothly as the audience didn't even break into the first round of applause.

Sakura felt the skin of her fingertips tingle as fire has ignited along her spine, making the heels shiver and feel on fire when she realized that she knew the name of the emotion that dropped around her shoulders as it made her heart challenge the light in was having fun!

She was having fun with her worst enemy and shockingly enough, despite the fact that they nearly killed each other –albeit it was just a playful banter without any of them actually giving in to the temptation as desire has been stronger than the fire of hatred and revenge– the whole hotel escape charade, the secret tunnel, the astounding deserted beach, the emerald waters stretching over the horizon creating an in infinite of blue and green reflections, Sasuke`s touch, the cashmere feel of his lips, the strong wine and bourbon taste of his lips, she was created by an emotion that she hasn't felt from the moment when she has been locked in the Asylum; having fun.

When the need for oxygen became suffocating, Sakura tore her lips from Sasuke`s hovering above him while peeking into his obsidian orbs.

Freezing as she found herself staring into his half-lidded beautiful sapphire orbs that were clouded by lust staring right back at her, while his hands were sliding up and down her back under her clothes, Sakura shivered in delight as he kept her glued to his chilled body.

Nature playing softly around them was the only sound that perked their ears; a warm breeze picked up its pace while creasing the crests of the waves that rolled behind Sakura`s back brushing over the coastline, netting with the sound of their irregular sharp inhales, while Sakura`s breaths fanned over Sasuke`s face.

A perfectly erotic picturesque view of his painfully beautiful face his lips burned, bruised by her frenetic kisses, while she sucked fervently on them and nipped the cashmere tissue with her canines savoring his deliciously velvet cognac and chocolate mouth.

Albeit, something else that Sakura picked while peeking at Uchiha`s gorgeous tenue made her jar as being protruded by million invisible electric needles, her mind reeling with unshed hypothesis.

'This eyes... his eyes are...' Something deep and powerful surged from the abysses of her chest –somewhere projected into a dusty shelf that lied forgotten in a place that no single light flickered anymore.

Fleetingly, by only a blink of a moment from the infinite ones suspended in the heartbreaking time between them, her chest constricted with a painful ache that she didn't recognize by its resonance, but it made her entire spine shudder. 'What`s with this strange sensation?'

While Sakura understood from the first time that Sasuke`s orbs were expressive a capable of a mellifluence that his words might not have, she noted in pure consternation that they were, in reality not zealous and exuberant, but completely dead, empty and hollow, lifeless, dull and lusterless.

There was simply nothing inside his soul to be mirrored into his eyes, only an immeasurable tar coming from the pits of Tartarus as they boiled whenever he was aggravated.

Elegance was enough to mask the absence of emotion and Sakura vaguely wondered whether his faced of his was a simple smart trick to fool her into thinking that he might have actually fallen in love with her.

Or was it just an illusion projection of his mind; on the inside, he was dead and this wild assumption broke inside her like a shattered vase that Uchiha Sasuke might just be even more pained and broken than she is!

'Something... there is something about his eyes...'

Another emotion stunned Sakura as she froze momentarily realizing that she was having fun! She was having fun with her worst enemy!

Was it simply masochistic to torture herself while envisioning something that will never materialize with someone who was only offering her the sweetest illusion or she was literary–

—no, no! I am not falling in love with him as well and I definitely do not desire that insane alter ego that he keeps hidden from the rest, no way! Sakura knew that she was mental, but for the love of all that`s holy, why couldn`t she think straight?

Why couldn`t her mind reason, as insane as it was, she has never lost her intellect or sparkling intuition?

When his hands, fine but strong and dominating exuding strength and comfort –the type that any mentally arranged would seek for at some point in their lives when they felt vulnerable both physically and mentally in this small moment's of lucidity– caressed the curve of her cheeks, the ivory shade bloomed like million roses tingling her sateen skin and she kept on staring back into those indescribable onyx eyes; empty.

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What am I feeling? Indeed, what was that intense emotion that suddenly brimmed through her chest making her nearly suffocate?

It was beyond the physical, she felt her entire soul begin being rived from her chest and her heart was aching like never before; a place that should never feel anything else but acrimony.

Sakura felt it as if she shared the look in his eyes, rejoicing. She was accustomed to that look and the concept that the emotion behind entombed for her, Hinata, Hidan and even Konan have experienced it for so many times before; it was a pain.

Emptiness and being dead on the inside was a frightening concept, as well as it was exhilarating for it truly relieved one human being from the submissive masochistic relationship that he had with that traitorous self that sought for love, always failing miserably in front of something so expressive, so absolute and omnipotent and damn right it hurt!

She wanted to literally slap herself back into the insane Asylum for even entertaining the idea of trying to understand why was Sasuke looking so dull, so lackluster and so out of vitality, albeit his striking beauty was out of the charts.

It did not help her in the context, for, as much as one person was blessed with such natural sublime features, effervescence, energy, the zeal to live, to feel, to taste, to have a genuine heartbeat could never be faked. Never.

Bitterly, Sakura mentally curled her lips up into a side smirk which lacked back emotion understanding that what was sailing so captivating into his obsidian orbs was never emotion, but lust and desire.

Two concepts that were always mistaken and she fall prey to it. Yes, she managed to sneak under Sasuke`s skin but now dubiety latched to her conscious that Uchiha might not be emotionally capable to love anyone.

It doesn`t matter as long as it will still hurt him in the end, she inwardly decided. Each individual had their own way of forming bonds with the others and thus this was no different.

She didn`t care about Sasuke`s level of emotional attachment as long as her purpose will be met one day.

Still those eyes... his beautiful but lifeless black eyes... such a pity Uchiha, such a pity... that she couldn`t see him completely broken for she was positive that his mental breakdown.

The pain, and the virtual internal bleeding would be poetic and beautiful to see in its grotesque decadence, similar to Sasori being shot by the effect of a lethal morphine dosage as his listless body sunk crippled in a pile of wood and ashes.

Sasuke`s beauty will reach its apogee, Sakura was positive of it. Dying as her nickname was already associated with Death.

"You try to fathom something about me Sakura." His creamy voice resonated so so sleek and fluid as it hauled her absorbed mind back into the real world as a gentle pair of digits tucked a pink lock around her ear wining as he cocked his head to her in amusement, while his raven locks brushed into the sand; his hair seemed like sewed with gold colliding with the rich texture of polished black, shimmering.

"Your eyes struggle to absorb something about me, but you seem to have met an unconquerable wall of bricks." Of fulminant deception.

It`s so frightening but so lenitive when someone can virtually read your mind so flawlessly like Sasuke did and thus Sakura found herself leaning into his lulling touch and laughed hard, with her mouth splintered in half, chortling wholeheartedly while her orbs prickled with insane amusement. "Hahaha– fuck yeah Uchiha! I can`t hide anything from your keen eyes now, can I now?"

Before Sasuke could shot something smartass in return as he tried desperately to get his philanderer emotions back on their leash, she silenced him with a searing open kiss dropped on his lips unforeseen, sloppy, clumsy and without respect, tongue sliding around the corners of his mouth, tasting, savoring him while still giggling; the motion rippled along his throat sending pleasurable tingles around his spine. "Hmmm—"

Her touch was a soft mirage about something that neither of them would ever have simply because they were trapped into the worst type of impossible romance ever.

And forthwith, Sasuke found himself wishing that they would be only fictional characters of a juicy romance novel and the pen scribbling down the blank pages as they filled with overflowing lines of passion.

Incandescent emotions of love would found their way to their happy end in the last pages; but not them and not in the reality that they were living in.

She tore her glossy lips from his kiss before his lips clasped around her so to deepen the lock, panting even more laboriously while her orbs shone with a lucent of pure dementia as life force seemed to have been returned to her, and the moments of lucidity paling like the sun basking in the afterglow of that royal sunset, capturing his mind once more with her mood swings.

"Ah— there is no other kisser that's fucking better than you in this entire godforsaken cursed world Uchiha Sasuke-kun! And fuck— do you know how terribly annoying this is?! Really now… mwhahaha!" She exclaimed jolly as her head lolled over her shoulders like a broken gothic doll in a horror movie, all the while having her small palms snuck under his T-Shirt that rode deliciously high halfway his sculpted chest, unraveling those finely carved abs to her sight, tracing their deep contours like memorizing the statue of a fine sculptor, with equal fascination.

Lustrous cherry smeared lips collapsed into an dreary knowing smile as she rounded his left shoulder with her palm squeezing it lightly as she used it for leverage, rolling atop of him lodging into his lap like straddling a horse. "Now let`s see… just how much fun can we really have together..."

Dreary emerald orbs churned with a crooked ambition, smirking slyly as she let her cotton fingertips skim along his sinewy chest and slowly but firmly pressed him down to the cool sand and he complied to her leaning down and resting his bod on his knees, making room for her to dip forward until her hair spilled around them in a fleeting moment of intimacy.

Sasuke found himself propelled in a parallel limbo zone consisting in an idyllic fantastic scenario as this woman become the object of his most feverous dark fantasies. "Hn. You play a dangerous game… Sakura."

God, she was so erotic with her avant-garde looks slipping so naturally into that exotic fascination of an Amazon descending from the Gods and revolting against their principles and dogmas, reveling into her newfound femininity, independence, and strength.

"You have no idea…" Power was emerging from their fingertips as they moved along his sides tickling his ribs as he drew in a sharp inhale, lips parted and slightly bruised as they gave in under her ferocious kisses, smirking ravenously at her in such a demonic way that hade Sakura`s insides squirm in pure delight responding to her insanity with something given darker; domination.

For a mind unhinged from reason, morals, and boundaries, it took something even stronger than ration to tame her and it was a burning fire in his coal orbs flaming so ardently the thing that made her moan in delight as she leaned forward and sensually licked his upper lip not even tapping his lips with hers.

"But you know what? I will share a secret with you Uchiha. I adore this insanity that you desperately try to hide, Sasuke–Kun," Sakura even dared to mock him and minimize his real status as the Boss and not a `kun` who was a close encounter with her, playing the dominatrix with him and binding him with invisible ropes and easiest in a heavy symbol of a soul which will never be sent to submission again. "albeit you don`t want anyone to see it, but I can smell it and it`s drowning, intoxicating."

A sleek tongue was laving his lower lip then whirling along the corners of his mouth, tracing his shiny teeth in a fleeting flickering then skimming down his angular chin and along his sharp jaw, while keeping his head in place with her left hand. "Yummy, you are so delicious Sasuke… like chocolate!"

Cupping his cheek, she literarily savored his skin, enticed by his taste, by the finesse of his smooth shaved skin as Sasuke happily let his head fall backwards to give her more room to brush her tongue along the cord of his neck, smirking when she dug her nails into his scalp.

Purring and mewling like a cat, she perched on his lap and grounded her hips against his, rolling up and down his tauten abdomen, both groaning and moaning at the electric sparkles set between their rocking bodies, letting himself be beguiled by her dark sinful words.

"You secretly crave to be set free, to find liberation of the soul and do whatever the heck you want without anyone to question you, to judge you and ridicule you for this, without anyone to brand it as vulnerability but we both know it that this is a real strength, isn`t it?" He sensually let the words roll on his sinful tongue while he kneaded the curve of her pert breast under the flimsy fabric of her cloth, murmuring hotly into her ear.

"To have your own destiny in your freaking palms and not having to justify your actions in front of anyone, not even your own person. You are jealous of what I have because you are too bound to your world in order to achieve it." She spoke no louder than a wicked whisper but her worlds were sound and clear, meant to leave an imprint on his mind and it did.

Sakura didn't know that it did affect him what she has said, as she depicted that hidden side in him and yes, he tried so much to be free, to have his own dreams, to be free from the clutches of his Clan, of the Family, of the `Cosa Nostra`.

But Kami might know that he couldn't betray the Uchiha —the inexorable curse of hatred propagated throughout the generations from their first ancestor.

He could not do what Itachi did simply because it was not in his nature. Sasuke`s sense of protecting his territory and his family was burning stronger than in everyone else before him.

"If I secretly coveted for true deliverance, according to the rumors cemented onto the growing phenomenon that BDSM represents, then I would have gladly joined their community and get the taste of being a dominant."

Glimmering twice at him not actually comprehending what Sasuke has just whispered upon her lips as he tucked her chin and made her look into his orbs shining with sparkled amusement, Sakura started to laugh hysterically at him. "Pfff— bwhahahaha! HAHAHA!"

She tittered unhinged of any boundaries of morals and delicacy, not because she couldn't picture Sasuke as sexually enslaving his partners while delivering pleasure drown from the mental excitement of some women being aroused and exploring their intimacy and sexuality by playing the role of a submissive, but because images with Hidan and Konan being engaged into something like that not even bothering to shut the door close to their room had tears sprinkle from her emerald orbs, finding the scene amusing.

Usually, it was Konan the one to dominate while Hidan was being tied in acrobatic positions and compromising sexual stances enjoying the masochistic sweet torture to the paramount, rewarding Konan with choice colorful insults and vulgar sounds of excitement, while Hinata and her where either annoyed by the sounds or completely cracking in laughter at how ridiculous it looked like.

"HAHAHA– yeah, I can totally picture you like that Uchiha, you have it in your bones and blood to inflict pain on the others and dominate them, don`t you cowboy?"

See, this is where Sakura started to deviate from her correct assumptions about him and this is why her cackles faltered and faded win a heartbeat while Sasuke`s smirk intensified and got darker, he had the upper hand here. "No."

He simply noted casually thumbing her lower lip while she trembled at the way something seemed to flicker into his orbs, something that transcended lust.

"No. Such grotesque fetishes, albeit applauded and overly desired by many practitioners coveting for fleeting sexual gratification and mental release of their own inner blocks, does not apply to me, who finds this activity to be trivial and nonsensical."

No, by any means, having subordinates of all genders and wicked personal beliefs under his command, Sasuke was not discriminating any of them, but it did not mean that he would partake of them in his own private life. "I enjoy things that are far deeper, more psychological than physical."

She knew that all too well without Sasuke to kindly remind her that using cryptic epistles that she had to crack her skull to comprehend, since, even now, he was whirling her thoughts trying to twist them and get her to unroll secrets about her, cornering her into giving away her identity; that wicked motherfucker evil genius Capo.

"So, you won`t find it arousing to bind me to your bed with fluffy handcuffs, wrap a bandage around my eyes and have your animalistic way with me, using my body as you please?"

"As perplexed as you might be upon hearing my deposition Sakura, I find such feeble attempt to be more potent and empowered completely unnecessary. I do not have such fetishes."

She knew that Sasuke was pretty `conservative` in bed, albeit it did nothing to stop him from being so incredibly erotic, sexual and beautiful as being himself, on the contrary, he was enough to bring unimaginable pleasure and that was amusing to think about.

Uchiha Sasuke was such a modern man who abided to no rules as much as he could tolerate it, but he was still being so traditional and bent to the old steady Uchiha rules diligently and obediently.

Nonetheless, it made his contradicting nature even more fascinating in her eyes.

She knew what he meant by that; sometimes, simplicity was the best aphrodisiac as it bore that pure untainted grace, elegance inherited from our ancestors, binding the couple so pleasurably deep both physically and spiritually; she felt it every time she slept with Sasuke, that, while sleeping with him, he was enough and even more.

Just his persona was sufficient and nothing else to come between them to lessen the contact, the carnal pleasure, the feelings.

But it was still funny to witness the refinement he possessed while elegantly dealing with such sensitive topics, not being in the least ashamed. "Heh— who would have guessed… for a man like you. Bo-ring!" She teased, but his smirking gleaming orbs suggestively conveyed what her mind`s real thoughts were —she liked it.

Uchiha was such an easy man to talk to, Sakura noticed while a huge grin sprinkled over her face.

"Wow, you are truly poetic. Why don`t you retire from your profession and pursue the life of a hermit while working on your romance erotic novel?" She suggested while Sasuke snorted and chuckled lightly at the prospect, while she playfully hit his chest making him rumble low and dark and sensual.

Retire from his `job`? Yeah, right, like he would ever. Being a Boss was a one lifetime full-time job, but Sakura already knew that and thus she was teasing him.

Funniest thing about her subtle meaning was that she didn't know that he figured her out and thus let her think that he was actually talking about his `clean` job as a businessman for the Uchiha chains of Incorporations, hotels, real estate and all the other treasures that were part of his fortune. "My business partners will not survive without me."

You won`t survive without me Sakura, were his unspoken words that remained latched to his lips as he nipped on his lower one, while Sakura couldn`t help herself but fist the half zipped folds of his hoodie and haul him up for another short mind-numbing kiss, gawking at his lips as she giggled upon his mouth with much zeal.

"Wow, aren`t you an arrogant prick? No one is irreplaceable Uchiha, not even you darling." She mocked playfully while breaking the kiss rolling over to pray herself off his loose hold around her shoulders and spine and got up, dusting her clothes off as sand was sprinkling from her hair and clothes, laughing hysterically at something that Sasuke could even begin to imagine.

Mirroring her movement he swiftly stood up, fine-combing his digits through his hair as the wind swept past their hair, clouding his obsidian orbs; eyes which were pinning her into her place in a deliciously eerie way.

Only Sasuke possessed such a power in his eyes. He didn't need anything else but his orbs to dominating anyone and anything and his power was terrible, frightening and arousing. She loved it!

---

"I have an idea! Come, let`s be a pair of lunatics and act like we have just escaped from the Insane Asyluuuuuuuum!"

Sakura hollered in pure glee flailing as she joggled to a mild interested Uchiha who quirked his fine eyebrows up when she leaped from one foot to another making dissaray prints into the sand keeping her balance and, linking her digits with his own, she enclosed her digits around his left palm and beamed to him in a way so childish, innocent, free and happy that he felt something tversel along his spine. Her eyes were shining... insane... pure insane.

She wanted them to... what? "I cannot begin to fathom the purpose of this charade," Sasuke spoke blandly while she dragged him to the coast where the yachts were shining in the faraway distance like million satellites in the sky and the beach was almost barren of inhabitants, save for random couple keeping the distance to have privacy and intimacy.

She rolled her orbs at him sighing in contempt. "C`mon don't be such a crybaby you have been whining about it all the damn time. Have you ever played Batman and Robin? The trick is to sense the beauty that lays in the passing unrecognized because you choose a different mask to conceal your real identity," oh— she totally meant that he was a Mafia Leader and so was she, Morphine.

And Sasuke knew it as well. "Or are you too mighty and arrogant for being out of your shabby world of gruesome aristocrats and blend with the mortals for once?"

"Is this your idea of entertainment? You are not very original." He deadpanned at her while he allowed herself to drag him Kami only knew where –probably some Insane Asylum judging from the jubilance in her glee orbs– while he casually kept up with her unsteady pace, only speeding up his long strides as she leaped from one foot to another.

"Hey Uchiha?" She started twisting his wrist so that he stopped while the wind blew through their clothes and her locks that were spilling on her shoulders under the hoodie went in her or but Sasuke could see the pellucid shimmering of her nephrite green orbs shining and her demented honest smile.

He stopped leisurely quirking an eyebrow up implying that she had his attention. "Tell me something about you that no one knows!" She succumbed into insanity entirely not caring anymore acting and speaking everything that went through her mind unlike any normal woman on a date which would be shy or trying to be perfect and make a good impression.

He eyed her for some seconds frowning and speaking seemingly bored. "What exactly?" He didn't know when her insanity was a shield or a trap or pure and genuine insane.

She rolled her orbs at him talking like addressing a mentally retarded man. "I wouldn't have asked if I knew beforehand, stupid." His beloved Morphine mocked then sighed in a prolonged exasperated manner, brushing off the hair that kept on flittering as it cascaded from underneath her hoodie and keeping a hand on her temple to prevent it from obstructing her view on his handsome, unreadable visage.

"I don't know... something... anything would suffice." She was blabbering like a love-struck idiot, with demure mannerism being too shy to address someone and that newfound thought made her throw her head backward and laugh hysterically for one good minute then returning her orbs on him.

"I want to know something about you that will make you more vulnerable looking that this boring untouchable God that everyone disgustingly worships." he couldn't believe how her eyes were sparkling and how much honesty was in her words.

Her insanity... she beat all the concepts and the nuances of pathological mental illnesses; was she truly insane or simply a genius peculiar villain?

Who was this woman, it perturbed him terrible but at the same time the chasing psychological game between them was enkindling those sparkles and conjured unforeseen energies engulfing them and those tortuous thoughts about her were brimming through his brain and he only blinked?

"A wise man shall never divulge his shortcomings." he countered while following her reaction knowing that Morphine would take advantage of every slip of his flaws into turning them into the finest weapons.

"It does not have to be a weakness per se..." Sakura on the other hand was not even engaged seriously into that mental battle with Sasuke simply letting her demented thoughts unroll and flitter into the wind, following the torpid fluid motion of the rolling waves in harmony with the seagulls painting the azurite sky at sunset as it blushed light purple and tangerine.

"Tell me something… anything." Majestically, the sun was sinking into the ocean, the salty marine fragrance of the breeze, the warm golden sand sparkling gold under her toes tickled her and Sasuke's warm hand as he flippantly vowed his digits around her own felt like a blessing; like one of Hinata`s prayers.

She puckered her juicy lips into a comical pout which stole at least four years from her age, veiling her into an innocent embrace as she resembled a sea mermaid traipsing along the sand for the first time, tapping the world around with her curious fingertips and getting to know her surroundings through all her senses, unbiased and untouched.

"I don't know you..." she nearly whispered at him and the more seconds the clock counted, the more she metamorphosed into something that Sasuke couldn't recognize anymore like she was slowly sliding into another body becoming someone else.

"...the real Sasuke-Kun." It was just obvious that her tone as she added the endearing suffix was trenchant to reduce him from a Mafia Boss to someone trivial that would allow her to use a colloquial manner of talking but at the same time, her voice and her tenure was created by a fleeting wave of disenchantment as she was truly sad that he was not revealing his heart to her, but he could not damn it! she was the enemy.

"I want to know you..." She continued to pout and joggle as Sasuke vaguely registered that they were sailing along the shoreline without any destination in mind. "as the man you really are."

Occasional couples and people strolling and passing them by paying them no mind and it was indeed a magnificent thing not to be recognized by the others, Sasuke surmised but kept it to himself.

"I am I no need for such infirm sentiments." He stated vapid like on autopilot. "The seductive mirage of those feeble emotions of commitment are sickening and revolting."

She deadpanned at him not believing his words, his distant bland words. Was he really empty inside? no, he can`t be!

And he was not but of course Uchiha couldn't let her see this vulnerability in him. Inside him there was a ferment because he lost the game by falling for her... no, by admitting his fall.

"Don't even tries to play the almighty emotionless bastard while you sneak cheesy subtle love declarations from me while we fuck cos its hypocrite and lame." she was bothered by them because they affected her entirely.

"I am just a voyeur and never a prey." meaning that his reflective intelligent brain picked them up but he was not indulging in them. Was he really honest?

"I am already familiar with your way to dominaeering." She smirked at him then she almostfaltered when she realized her mislead but she played it off flawlessly like always, keeping that protective gleam of insanity into her pupils and never backing down.

Sasuke, however, was playing a different game from hers albeit the result might produce the same consequences so he touched on her wrist bending it as he hauled the girl to him until their chests collided, and Sakura found herself wiggle one step forward nearly landing clumsily into his arms, having a facial expression that was intelligible, staring into his suddenly kindled obsidian orbs.

"How can you possibly be familiarized with anything about me since we have just met and never had any brief encounter before?" He openly confronted her about being a fleeting rendezvous and it somehow flew from his mouth before he could ponder upon his choice of approach.

Not shockingly Sakura was being so obvious in being deceiving that she almost turned it into an art of manipulation blow into his beautiful but stoic face.

"I have kept a close eye on you, naturally. It is not that a woman like me would ever seduce a stranger who might prove to be someone else that he claims and thus get myself into something dangerous."

Oh— how she masked hypocrisy with that confusing insanity and smooth smart talk, Sasuke inwardly acclaimed her for the skill.

She would have tricked him if he didn't know that she was Morphine and that gave him the biggest advantage; he started to comprehend how was it possible for her to switch between those two as keeping her apparently insanity in between as a shield and to help the sleek transition between her personalities.

But the question still lingered; was she truly insane or simply deranged or pretending? Was someone capable of epitomizing insanity with so much artistry, elegance, innocence, and passion like Sakura?

"Even if your premises proved to be correct about me, then you would have to be completely insane and not to mention stupid to admit it so frankly to me."

He challenged further pressing her buttons to test the limits of her resistance and he was rewarded with the most beautiful genuine smile grazed by pure insanity from the girl as she coked her head to him and climbed.

"Being insane is the best feeling in the world and you know why? Because when the others` implied ration hits me then I can pass them by like a leaf into the limbs of the gentle wind as they cannot ever touch me."

Sakura started to explain like vividly evoking those sensations with the power of her glowing eyes; ok Kami the way they were shining so intensely...

"The sweetest oblivion in the word..." Wickedly, Sakura tilted her head to the side as her forest-green orbs gleaming of kosher insanity flickered to a nearby seagull that spread its wings wide and tried to fly against the wind blow —failing.

"…is insanity. To never feel... never have a taste... never commit to anything ... to feel the spirit materialized entirely, to be truly enfranchised from the prison that our body is. That is what I call as pure art."

A fleeting memory of Sasori`s philosophy about eternal art that is meant to last for eternity in beauty and perfection as its value keeps on raising emphasize the conception of her own mind`s ability to depict art like something epitome, absolute, free of any hinges; insanity, as being the portrait of supreme liberation from ration and thus exploring what was beyond ration and lucidity, was part of that amazing catharsis.

Because Sakura was positive that beyond the veil of ration, there was an unexplored universe of possibilities being unfolded once insanity freed the mind in the most artistic way, with no pain, only relief, and lightness.

That was real insanity. Not a pathology, but a blessing and that was the reason why she expunged all those fears that always snuck into a person`s mind trying to create a dark alter ego whose only purpose was to swallow the light of the soul, consummate it entirely and then take control until the person identified with an inner self which was not his real self.

And that was the reason why she was not scared by the concept of Sasuke`s avatar as a Mafia Boss, being so extremely comfortable to banter him, address him with vulgar words and even be sincere with him in confessing her hatred to him; because she was way over the prospect of physical death, inflicted pain or tangible consequences.

As much as she was physically vulnerable save for her incapacity to feel sensations, Sakura knew that no one alive was capable to demolish her mentally.

Because insanity, unlike ration, was as infinite as the countless stars and galaxies in the universe, always unfolding as mini parallel worlds as much as the sight comprised and, even when claiming that there is no other trace of life into the vacuum, there was always another infinity spreading wide and waiting to be explored.

And thus as much as Sasuke would have attempted to vanquish her mind, he will never succeed in exploring every single universe that resided compelled into the compendium of insanity and that was the beauty of their game that Sakura absolutely reveled in it; this game was already lost for Sasuke Uchiha.

What she also miscalculated without her being aware of it as part of the beauty of unpredictability that took even insanity by surprise, was that Sasuke himself was not an ordinary man; he was not just an influential wealthy Boss.

"Mental disorder, irresponsibility," He started while fine-combing a hand through his disheveled hair glancing into the horizon seemingly entrapped into an internal monologue as he was trying to confess something to her.

Albeit, he didn't know how to portray it so as she won't get the wrong impression, or maybe he was trying to find a way to make it sound impartial and not like a vulnerability. "insanity is fundamental and elemental for a core understanding of how human perception functions Sakura."

She only stared at Sasuke who dropped his body casually onto the sand completely merging with some recollections from his past and this peculiar newfound inkling trimmed through Sakura`s conscience as she tilted her heard so as her longer bangs fell gracefully into the embrace of the blowing wind removing them from her right emerald eye as she tried to depict Sasuke`s facial mimics; there were none.

Whatever his sophistic words meant by that statement, albeit profound and correct, was met by his calmness and an abnormal serenity like he long made peace with whatever winter and torture he might have had. Just like her.

"We are all dispiritedly insane Sakura. This elegance lies in one`s free choice to openly display one or the other. Insanity and balance are only two opposing faces of the same and yet unable to exist without the other..."

When he only turned his head to face her and catching Sakura comically staring at him like trying to devour his soul, she was able to clearly feel it and that scared Sakura to the point of paralyzing."...completing each other."

Her heart missed one agonizing beat. She heard it as her eardrums pounded making her hear a loud painful sound of a bell in her ears, as energy discharged all over her fingertips.

Helplessly delicious, her innards trembled like a tsunami washing over the sea and sending ripples down her heels, as she gasped for a breath but no oxygen filled her lungs, like she was suffocating unable to inhale.

The look in his eyes, the meaning behind his world. Everything he did, every single studied oh—so meticulously practiced, the ornamentation in his voice when he called her name, everything complemented his general atmosphere; an amalgamation of tranquility, of such beautiful distant loneliness, that intangible lush perfection, the sublime incessant fire in his onyx orbs kindled with a strange bonfire enhancing that distant and seemingly dead figure in his mind, like bones of a flaming purple skeleton –terrible and lethal, taking the spirit`s form.

---

A weapon.

He was gorgeous. She found herself propelled in a limbo zone being hauled from the middle of sweet insanity and it has never felt so deliciously epic as before. Why oh— why doesn`t she have an answer for it?

'Things so complicated suddenly seem so simple... so natural and so easy to reach. I just have to close my eyes... and imagine how would it be— to never feel anything but you.'

When Sasuke throws a fugitive glance at her tilting his head so that she got a splendid vista of his chiseled profile, sculpted in all the strong sharp angles of the cliffs that were grazed by the rolling waves as they stood unswervingly, bathed in the afterglow of the fading sun, Sakura swore that having her heart stop ticking life for a nanosecond taking a moment to experience complete quietude of chest unmoving was the most upbeat sensation.

Uchiha was so spine-tingling fine and aristocratic that it was painful to watch him; tingles shivered along her column at how breathtakingly stunning he was that she couldn't help but titter loud as she faltered in her steps tucking on his hand that was linked with hers like a child laughing heartedly and harmoniously, serene, a soul finding enfranchisement.

'Just for this once...' She glanced at his profile, then at their entwined hands and slowly relaxed her tensed shoulders allowing that soothing feeling too warm her and squeezed his hand once holding him tighter.

'I want to remember... a side of me that is so weak for you.' Inwardly Sakura chided herself for those feelings that she had for Sasuke but she couldn't find it in her to feel guilty about it. 'Stupid stupid girl... I am so stupid for him... damn.'

A fine hand was elevated in slow motion so as not to shatter that peaceful quietly between them rose to Sasuke`s face and a pair of warm fingertips grazed his jawline rubbing up to his high-cut cheek; he did nothing to hinder her, only stared and followed the gleam in her eyes which are focused solely on her hand absorbed by her own motion, but the feel of his pristine skin.

Sakura drown in that terrible passion simmering in his stygian eyes. Gazing at her behind half-lidded glazed orbs, Sasuke followed how delicate Sakura was while tracing the contours of his sculpted face gently, fondly like trying to brush her digits over seafoam and feel his soothing warmth while tracing secret words into the wet sand and inwardly smiled a humorless smile as he realized just how much of a skilled actress he was and how easy it was for her to pretend that she did have such feeling for him.

And this was exactly where the special telepathic communication between them, the way they read each other`s minds has stopped; both mistrusted each other`s feelings ass both refused to believe that it was love what was blooming like a rose between them, albeit they felt its perfume like the lulling melody of the calm sea.

They did not trust that each other could feel the same and while those feelings kept on resurfacing, each of them dealt with them differently.

While Sasuke accepted this human weakness for Sakura as part of retribution for all the pain and misery he has caused the others finding his own purgatory in her eyes, Sakura accepted Sasuke`s presence and gestures unconditionally.

And for a moment, she has allowed herself to be so sweetly tricked into thinking that someone there could actually feel love for her and give her love and make her feel so special, so fostered, so protected and she waded into it as that pristine insanity has made her feel completely free and liberated, even from revenge.

Seeing that a ghost of a scow creased her exquisite exotic face as she continued to trace the swell to his aristocratic cheeks and his sculpted nose lingering along his jawline as she seemed to enjoy how sharp and precise it was perfectly mirroring his dominating attitude, Sasuke cocked his head to the side letting some of his flaring raven locks spill along her knuckles as he mocked her. "You seem genuinely entranced by something. May I know what?"

Albeit they both knew that she was openly admiring him and inwardly praising his striking features, somehow she was far more poetic, profound and amusing while doing so and not in the bit excessively lecherous while breathing him in in a way that actually allowed him to submerge into that honey mirage of her having feelings for him, but her sincerity caught him out of guard again as she spoke smoothly without any trace of hesitance in her epistles.

"You are so ridiculously beautiful that is fucking unfair honestly! Haha!" Then she jumped on her feet standing up and, during the sand off her Jeans she whirled on her heel as she stunned him to chime into him like a bell.

"I`m jealous, you know?" The fact that she confessed –he knew that whatever she said was not a lie– to him that she found him good-looking did something funny with his chest; for a moment, his stomach felt like being lifted and flying like not tapping the sand of the beach a fluttering making him queasy feeling whenever something incredibly uplifting and overflowing joy trimmed through his system enliven him and making him athirst for more of her antics of her flamboyant presence.

Sakura was quick and savvy to realize the reason why she felt the unexplainable attraction for Sasuke and why it was so easy and instinctive to fall in love with someone like Uchiha Sasuke.

It was only because his perfectly emotionally balanced personality was the perfect liaison for someone so mentally and emotionally unstable like her; he was ironically enough the light to balance her own darkness just like she, in return, was the flickering of the candle that helped him see through his own darkened labyrinths of his mind.

Glancing at the infinite emerald waters glowing into the dusk felt so lulling, so gentle and perfect almost like someone purposely painted the colors of love and universe into that one vista and she allowed herself to inhale sharply feeling that salty wind penetrate her nostrils and breeze over her sizzling mind; her brain was torn between reeling into that familiar insanity as a protective shield or completely open up before Sasuke and enjoy the moment while it lasted, fructifying this unique chance that she had as she succeeded in luring him out of his protective shell and one step more into her territory.

She was of course oblivious that she was dancing the waltz of the Devil himself on his own playground and she was only allowed to live because of Sasuke`s whim and infatuation with her and it was ironic that deep into her bones, a silent whisper was beckoning for her to listen what it had to say alerting her that Sasuke was holding something huge back from her and only allowed her to see a good practice face of him one that he has honed over the years and thus deceived anyone, his enemies included.

He was also a fine skilled actor and the most refined one Sasuke was scalable to even kill someone with elegance and still make it look like a genius play.

It was in his second nature, it was the way his mind operated and instincts were alerting him about any upcoming danger and play, his Uchiha blood both blessed him and cursed him with an ability that he kept as an enigma from everyone, including his best friends and associates and used it as the ultimate weapon against the most versatile enemies, like Morphine.

The Sharingan… Uchiha`s most terrible secret.

It was the way he captured that side of her perfectly without her to realize the danger that she was lurking form the shadows.

Right now, Sasuke had all the cards up his sleeve –a loaded gun ready to be discharged into her temple or heart and the notion of who she was without her to now that he has figured her out– but then he became alert of Life`s finest repartee as it kept them trapped into that sophistic cycle of paradoxes.

Even with all the triumph being served to him on a gold plate, there was something that was overpowering everything and destroyed all the fragments of his advantage; he fell in love with the only woman that he shouldn't have had, the only woman that was forever denied to him and thus she annihilated every resolve in him to kill her.

Sasuke knew that he had to and it was honestly way more of a fortunate choice if he was to kill her, because considering how badly she has messed up with the Mafia and all the Capo who wished for her head, he would at least be kind enough to simply kill her with any bloody ornamentations and ceremonies and she wouldn't feel any pain.

Because if any other Mafia Leader got his hands on her —including his associates, then she would be tortured until she would pray for Death to come and take her faster.

By killing her now would be so simple and considered the ultimate gesture of his love for her; Sakura woudlnt be able to play her little masquerade for too long, even if we choose not to disclose anything.

If it would come to a facedown, she will not be able to take him down nor outsmart him no matter how much of a genius she was sand no matter how many associates she had to help her.

Sakura will still lose and lose terribly paying the dearest price, so in return for his love for her –one that she will never know of unrolling form his lips bluntly albeit he expressed it from his gestures– he will kill her without making her suffer.

Uchiha will let her die with the sweetest illusion lingering on her heavy eyelids as their orbs would lock for the last time in hallucinating despair to hold onto each other for the last time, a second more.

That someone there truly cared enough to make her feel complete deliverance. He could see it buried into the abyss of her eyes that Sakura has suffered a great deal and oh– how much he yearned to listen to her story, find out who put her through so much mystery and then help her get her revenge and then soothe her, heal her heart, protect her and ultimately love her tenderly, passionately and show her that her insanity might just be another bittersweet illusion as her mind found the safest desperate way to block out the pain, allowing her to abandon ration for those fleeting moments so as to make her feel carefree and truly happy all by herself and thus alleviate that pain.

---

And maybe just maybe she could heal that immeasurable solitude and emptiness in his own soul; bottomless void in his expressive onyx eyes mirrored his loneliness.

Albeit beautiful and emphatic, Sasuke`s eyes were in reality just beautiful illusions of something that can never be there.

They were blank, empty beyond repair and so distant, so lost in a maze with no door, no light, no smiles, no one to wait for him, no one to care.

He waded into the hollow of the worst type of loneliness and that interlude stirred between them where only the wind ruffling their hair and clothes was heard, they both understood it so clearly.

She was right and he knew it; this mirage, whatever they had now they should make the best of it and Sasuke decided to cling on this phantasm, this heart-jerking phantom of what could have been and span it into his mind to infinity, standing up and training to her until his shadow span all around her towering her like a demonic force chasing her somehow symbolic for the danger that was surrounding her and she saw it rippling along the short waves that rolled around her ankles, not blinking.

Her hands were resting on her sides as her posture was calm, composed, serene and not a single muscle felt threatened or alert –even though she knew she should have.

But being with Sasuke like this felt like someone has draped her shoulders into a comforting veil and words that hung to alien notions of protection, care, shielded and caressed started to get the sketch of a deeper meaning.

Sakura didn't stop herself from smiling albeit he couldn't see it; one of the rarest genuine smiles of pure lucidity and too bad the Uchiha missed it.

And definitely did nothing to push him back when his chest glued to her small black as their shadows molded as one and melted with the last rays of the bleeding tangerine sun.

'Morphine..." he thought while embracing her waist from behind as Sakura closed her eyes feeling his warmth encompass her so right, so good, so strong. 'passion starts and ends with you. This is my retribution... to be smitten with you all over.'

Sasuke felt so blind for her and yet in her arms there was so much that he could see, so many stars that he could reach and wonders and small miracles that once were impossible for him to acquire and foster.

And yet, everything with Sakura felt so natural, so elegant, so simple and it was exactly this candor that made those squelched feelings ricochet back from his chemo to his chest, like being returned something valuable that has been lost to him.

That feeling alone was sublime to him and unbeknownst to Sasuke, it was the same for Sakura.

She flexed her arm to reach behind her and without turning her head back, shivering at the feeling of his lips brushing over the cord of her pulse, she grazed her fingertips along his jawline, savoring the feeling of his sateen shaved skin and the supply of his alabastrine skin under her digits and he completely leaned into her touch, not stopping her daring and rather intimate caress. "Hmm? You are pretty on the romantic side today, aren't you? Are you trying to seduce me? Don`t bother darling, I`m not the one to fall for a pretty face or a good fuck."

"Hn. I am aware of it." He knew that she was probably attempting to seduce him too, but he simply didn't find the harm into enjoying the feeling as he tried to sketch and other representation of her gesture.

Her grace seemed honest and indwelling and not in the bit forced and, even if she herself was not aware of it, it was a genuine gesture and not a fake one to seduce him

She embraced him because she felt like doing so and not because of an ulterior perverted motive.

How absurd and foolish their romance was, it did not even have a name or a parallel into literature, they were nameless figures lost in the maze of their tumultuous dangerous life.

Two stars without a destination sewed into the veil of the night sky trying to steal each other's liege, seeing each other, shining for each other but being so distant and so far out of reach never touching each other and yet craving to do so terribly. So much that neither would ever try to cease another sun. "Romance is overrated and sickening overused."

There was nothing wrong in spooning your mortal enemy, was it? Sasuke would never know that Sakura was thinking about the same thing and suddenly fugitive figments of her escaping from the Mental Asylum dissipated into a faraway memory like a comet finally finding its momentum to soar to another universe, far far far away from her. "Maybe… but that's because you have not experienced with the right man."

Maybe she was genuinely insane but when she was with Sasuke like that, Sakura truly felt so much at ease, so soothed, so tranquil and that quietude reverberated through her mind giving her a glimpse of lucidity this time, there was no haunting memory no demon from the past and no pain, only an immeasurable in uplifting feline go being at the right place, at the right time... with the right man –sadly and ironically enough.

In fact, Sakura hasn't even realized that she barely stifled her giggles when Sasuke grazed his lustrous lips along the cord of her swan neck bushing the tip of her nose on her earlobe inhaling the strong feminine fragrance of her new Juliette has a Gun Moon Dance French perfume as she let her emerald orbs roll in the back of her head.

"Are you possibly that man Uchiha?" She challenged with a forthright valiance that still made his Uchiha blood simmer and huddle into his groins, helplessly coveting for her skin, for her touch, for her taste.

How was it possible to summon all that passion inside of her with a simple brush of his lips against her skin to make her feel so alive and part of the cosmic energy with one simple brush, leaving a trail of flames in its way melting her like a candle into his arms? "No…" He nodded as he breathed on the fine skin of her neck until she saw fireworks dancing under the veil of her half lidded orbs. "No. I will never be what you need."

It must be an insurmountable power that only Sasuke possessed, she bitterly concluded. Her own poison... her own dosage of morphine was him.

Amused by her unpredictable mannerism Sasuke inquired suppressing a smirk. "What is there that you find amusing?"

He wanted so badly to know what was on her mind untsadly enough, not even Sakura knew because he reminds was not exactly sane, to begin with, or maybe it was, but her insanity was her own version of balance and wellness.

'So simple Uchiha... It`s so simple to be with you like this..." That it was almost ridiculous how they could get goofy and stupid together...

Morphine –one of the most notorious inconspicuous Mafia hunter from al the Five Nations– and Uchiha Sasuke –the Capo of the Uchiha family and the Fire nation's infamous Leader– being together under the same lustrous sky holding hands, sharing smiles, fugitive glances, things so simple and void of sexual meaning... it was crazy. Truly crazy!

"Do you like simple things you— the 'man who is not good for me'?" She found herself unable to hold back that profound question but the things she fostered in her heart in this moment were coltish like her smiles and brimming through her mind.

Simplicity was never part of his lavish upbringing at least the concept itself was taboo in the noble Uchiha family and that was the reason why Sasuke tried his best to overrule those things imposed on him forcibly, just because he wanted to choose a path himself and not follow the principles of someone else.

Turning into something that was not himself and that was the reason why a bitter almost sad ghost of a smile grazed his pert lips as he gazed into the distance, where the line of the horizon melted the sky with the sea, glimmering once like faraway into his own universe.

And that poetic meditative state of mind made Sakura`s demented smile falter as she grew serious in rather absorbed into this side of him.

She was drowned into the mystery that Sasuke entombed without even being aware of it but Sakura couldn't help it.

Sasuke was enigmatic and this sophistic impenetrable side of him was both alluring and intriguing. "Having personal preferences is a luxury in my profession."

For once Sakura could have sworn that a smidgen of regret encompassed his words. Was he trying to tell her that being a mafia leader was something that he did not choose but was polarized to what he had in mind?

Was Sasuke living a life of contrition because he was not free to be whoever he wanted to be?

Not that she cared about whatever was churning inside his heart, to begin with, but she would have never imagined that someone so apparently flawless having everything he wished for and even more at his disposal would canoodle such feelings in his chest.

And this unexpected connection between them as she too has been deprived of personal dreams and aspirations made her heartache painfully as another emotion rattled in the hollow of her chest where her heart was, but Sakura pushed it back from the depths of where all the demons that she shall not indulge to were coming from.

Demons with the sweetest names –hope, light, and love. "You are a coward Uchiha." His fugitive frown reminding Sakura for a young adolescent whose wings have been crushed by the harsh reality which would not pander to dreaminess and majestic wings to conquer the horizons as Sasuke stopped his steady –he never stumbled, tripped or faltered– steps looking into her orbs and trying to confirm that she was not just insulting him defiantly –Morphine was never shallow, to begin with, and thus Sakura will always be the opium of his inception.

"The most notorious coward!" She bellowed at the top of her lungs but she did it in a way so breezy and light as her soprano voice sounded so young and angelic.

"You!" She pointed an accusing finger at hip poking his sculpted chest with her finger taping it like lecturing him while locking his gaze to hers. "You are scared to dream, aren`t you?"

"Why? WHY?!" She tittered manically. "Why being scared of fabricating your own dreams?"

"Why?!" her orbs were crying now reeling in a demented lucidity that even took him aback and being desperate while her lips were laughing and smirking. "Because the others might steal them from you?" her words cut deep into his chest, cracking the cocoon open in he barely chocked on air. But you know what? Real freedom doesn't come from the outside and only lies in the permission of the others who might limit our moves no," she shook her head vehemently as having a monologue.

"Do you know where the real liberation resides Uchiha?" Dabbing a small lean finger into his temple like picking a gun, she smirked to him in a way so lackluster that turned her holistic image into the one of a demonized porcelain doll. "It likes here, into your mind!"

This was her heart speaking the voice of her honesty even though this was disclosing it to her worst enemy but this enemy was thinking and painting just like her.

It was Fate`s ultimate punishment for her to loathe a man who can be another broken glass from her mirror.

---

"As long as you are being the captive of your own mind, then you will never find freedom... Sasuke." she spelled his name in relation to how freedom shall sound like Sasuke`s orbs might have moistened at the lenitive resonance in how his heart soothed when she stated his name like that.

"Sasuke..." She suddenly turned serious whispering his name carefully, gingerly like probing its resonance for the first time, then broke into the most luscious maniacal beautiful, so sinfully beautiful grin as she hollered to him. "SASUKE!" His name unrolled from her lips shot a discharge of electricity along his spine.

"Freedom is in the palm of your hand... it plays in your imagination, it churns inside your mind and captivates your senses. The rest can be tricked. The body can be deceived to feel, to taste... feel the warmth." her digits now sunk into the lush silkiness of his hair cupping his face almost tenderly so as to emphasize the depths of her wise words.

This was experience talking and the way she managed to survive the Asylum days and escape there alive. "What are you talking about Sakura?"

So what she was trying to inconspicuously convey to him was that she was pandering to his irresistible charms while she was simply indulging into how amazing was to have sex with him, but nothing more?

Was Sakura confessing to him that she was the most brilliant emotional genius while she could tear her soul in half so as not to be affected by him emotionally?

His empiric way of thinking was in contrast to her wild irresponsibility but at the same time, she was puzzling him with her intuition and savvy responses. "What are you trying to depict? Tell me love, his mind added tell me, help me understand."

What was wrong with this woman, what was the kernel of her insanity, where was the source of this fire he felt for her passion in moreover, why was the border between hatred and passion so thin and the veil so deceiving?

Have they stepped on the other –forbidden– side of it without realizing it? As she remained silent as a grave and horrified at her own outburst, he shook her head completely warding everything she sent to him off. "I am in no need for something so counterproductive."

"Then why aren't you facing me while you keep on babbling about how tough you are?" She challenged cleverly knowing that if there was a part of Sasuke that was expressive and seductive it was definitely his eyes.

Eyes with that unique charcoal saturation that only Uchiha possessed were never lying. They are capable to captivate to fool, to beguile to smitten her to him but they will never lie.

"If you have simply led me here to engage me into such futile debates, then I would suggest we call it quits."

She froze for a moment as she sensed a cold sultry tone like he tried to squelch his exasperation but then she realized it with a start that he was tired... extremely worn out and this made her feel... something.

Grimacing at his prolonged sigh while he fine-combed his digits through his messy raven locks, Sakura couldn't help but wonder about the repetitive pang in her chest that kept on ricocheting back to her whenever this man swayed out of his comfort zone, unrolling along her limbs that suddenly felt paralyzed like she has been injected drugs again –a state that both frightened and delighted her.

At some point in time, while the doctors the sadistic bastards would inject her large dosages of drugs, she found it completely funny and insanely amazing, only finding the strength to twitter like a lunatic while that liquid filled her pristine system in pure desperation as the ultimate weapon she had to protect herself from them.

They will never be able to cage her spirit albeit she was physically restrained and tortured brutally. "Why are you running from it? What are you really running away from?" She asked him evenly and her voice was suddenly so tranquil, so simple, so velvety.

He wanted to pull back from her but she kept prey stronghold around his head keeping his lips pressed into her cotton-candy hair feeling his own lustrous raven hair tingle her cheek and shoulder. Because my love for you cannot be reciprocated or confessed and it tears me apart, can't you see?!

You're so blind Morphine… so blind and naïve, but this only makes me want to love you more, protect you from everything and everyone… even from yourself.

I love you!

I love you!

I love you, why can't you feel it? He hated and loved her for this at the same time to the point of mentally torturing himself with only her chimera playing vividly in his mind; she snuck and transgressed a place she should have never —his mind!

She observed that Sasuke always had a mild tension in his muscles like always being on guard as a natural response to the dangerous environment that a Mafia Capo constantly lived in.

The reason why he acted like this in her presence only fueled her suspicion that he knew something roe about her but since he hasn't truly soother with that gun made her curious about his ulterior motives.

It took him at least five minutes to summon a reply for her and when he did so, she swore that something prevented air to overflow her lungs and her heart actually leaped from her chest and she couldn't stop a harsh inhale, one that Sasuke noticed it but said nothing. "This world that demands met to be someone that I am definitely not."

'I loved you... but I never had the courage to tell you. You will never know, just how much I want you.'
Sasuke felt like the biggest coward just like Sakura proclaimed.

He was an idiot, a fool of his own ambitions, he was just another marionette, a puppet with strings attached to all the ones who demanded a piece of him and he had to give exactly what they asked for –his cruelty, his bloodthirsty, his capacity to kill, torture and get information using any means necessary without batting an eyelash, his arrogance, his sadistic elegance, his opulent beauty and charms, his fallacious tranquility– and never revealing how rebellious he felt and how badly his spirit wished to walk out of that veneering.

So what if he loved Sakura? If he would have been just one normal man coming from the slums of the society or from the middle class, then maybe she would have not loathed him and wished for his death.

I hate you, I hate you I HATE you Uchiha Sasuke! Her mind hollered in pure hysteric realization, dementia immediately healing that bleeding 'wound', even before her heart had the chance to 'argue back'. I hate you so damn much that it hurts… Something else than hatred hurt in her chest now that another warm emotion slid inconspicuously and that was the kernel of this fearthat tore Sakura apart, consuming her from inside-out.

Morphine wouldn't have had to retort to the cruelest of approaches naley seduce him, making him enamored by her just to break him in the end and take his life, but then again, if he could have her as the ultimate salvation, his own bellflower, his own drug against that emptiness, then Sasuke would gladly die then let ration and duty take over and kill her first.

Her blood was the only one that he wasn't capable to stain his hands with, no matter how wrong and sick that was.

How weak does it make me this ineptitude to soak my already stained hands into the blood of my love?

Maybe he was just as insane as she was, or he also had a dosage of insanity in his mind –don`t all the people have it deep inside the confines other minds, hindering them to see the real perspective about life?

Maybe somewhere trapped between their own insanity there was a parallel world they both could create, somewhere where they could truly be free to enjoy each other`s company without someone to judge him or without it to be socially wrong, just like now.

"Wow, you sound like you are on the verge of committing damn suicide." She snorted humorlessly at him, not because she was ridiculing him but because she saw that glint of self-destruction into his eyes something that the as desperately sought for when she thought that there was no point in continuing as nothing would ever wait for heat the end of that tunnel. "I would totally not wear guns on me in your state, really."

She censored herself on the last moment as Sakura smartly refrained from stating 'all the times' because that would automatically imply that she knew about him in his 'job' as he was part of the Mafia and thus being armed all the times and Sasuke mentally smirked at her intuitive conniption.

This woman was not lowering her guards, not even when she was beguiled, charmed, drugged or even insane. She was still attentive and lucid as always, Sasuke mentally smirked praising her and welcoming this challenge.

She was a phantasm, a fascination to him a mystery the eternal enigma of a woman`s finest and sublime duality, one that captivated him but he will never be able to fully comprehend.

"Hn. You do not actually genuinely hold me so dearly to care about my well-being Sakura."

His smirk was humorless, bitter and acid and she could even taste something that nearly made her heart miss a beat; disappointment. What, now he wanted to cling to her like a helpless puppy in his newfound love to her?

And why should she care about this? Sasuke was correct, she didn't give a flying fuck about his love disease or the fact that he was suffering because he couldn't have her.

The worst he pained, the better and sweeter her revenge was. Then why? Why was she feeling something sinking into her stomach and why was it making her entire body feel so weak so grim, so still land depressed?

---

Abruptly, Sakura whirled around his arms coming face to face to him and, trying her best not to gulp aloud when she saw that empty look in his eyes, she cupped his face with her palms, dragging the hoodie off his head letting it slide while his raven locks unrolled from it rebelliously into the wind spilling along his temples and neck, blinking while his physiognomy was serene albeit she could not read past that quiescence of his looking into his eyes.

With the wings of the wind flittering between their hair and casual clothes making the sand around while in mini replica of shimmering glittery hurricanes and the discarded leaves of the vegetation around and the grass surrounding larger boulders it enhanced the majestic atmosphere with the sky bleeding claret and tangerine behind Sakura, rapping her into a mantle of fading light, while mirroring into her aureate eyes.

Moments remained suspended into the swings of eternity as the clock of time refused to tick away those small gestures all the while Sakura leaned forward to an unmoving Sasuke who simply stared deeply and intensely into her eyes like curious of what she is going to do but saying nothing as to disrupt those fallacious mimics of hers, not knowing whether she was genuine or simply revealing her subtle finesse in seducing him. "Don't tempt me Uchiha… don't. provoke. me…"

Nonetheless, he allowed himself a moment of weakness to be captivated by this woman who, even dotted as a trashy druggie teenager with anger management problems, still managed to look resplendent and stunning even more now that she was apparently 'undercover' but in return, she never looked more genuine than this; after he realized who she was and whose money she was spending –his– Sasuke couldn`t stop thinking of the irony of it.

"Don`t be so depressed, `cos heck if it doesn`t make me feel exactly the same."

Out of her own accord and albeit her brain was whirling like a hurricane million miles per hour, Sakura arched her neck so s to come at eye level with Sasuke and gently tapped her forehead on his own, brushing the tip of their noses together warmly and incredibly intimate while she had his face cupped between her palms holding him dearly –too fondly for an enemy– she started to titter in a light soprano voice which was void of humor but he couldn`t help himself.

"HAHA— hahahaha!" Sakura portrayed so many emotions in that humorless laugh, as it was expressive and still tickling his skin and his chest clenched as his stomach fluttered when she boldly stated. "Haha, fuck we look like we are dating or something..."

And she went silent after her babble realizing that they were indeed looking like having something deeper than a simple forbidden affair.

"I cannot date you." His lips barely murmured as his fleeting words were carried out by the wind and his haphazard declaration, albeit not expected and already known by the two of them, slayed Sasuke and Sakura`s cocoon of intimacy like an electric sword and the breath hitched in Sakura`s throat –damn it she was losing it!– and Sasuke`s cold shivers discharging along his spine was a vestige of how much they would have loved for the outcome to be different. "I cannot compromise... and go out with you."

Not because he had a brainless oblivious unimportant fiancé at home expecting him to arrive after two days of unjustified absence —Sasuke would ever had to justify himself in front of anyone and wait to be pardoned, not because his father or anyone would have anything to object if his desires were such since no one would ever dare to question his choices anymore, but because she was an enemy.

He could not date Morphine no matter how badly Sasuke wanted this woman. She will never be his romantically, intimately but ironically enough, she was already like his consort since she was living on his expenses –with his own silent consensus.

What is he talking about? Did he take this seriously? Sakura`s had orbs, for the first time since they have come to the beach to enjoy some moments of silence together and work her bulletproof plan to seduce him into enamoring and then breaking his heart, they stopped shimmering insanity and instead, a frown smeared her features as if she had troubles mentally digesting the concept behind his declaration.

Wait a minute... why do I want to hear about it? And the unvoiced thought which Sakura was too afraid to even mentally imagine it and let it unroll from the depths of her conscious and into her head... was why did it hurt so much when Sasuke showed her the outline of reality like this?

"Hahaha," She laughed then orbs widened and full of dementia; she willingly forgo sanity in order not to suffer and now that Sasuke knew about her game, the ache in his chest was terrible but he hid it expertly. she didn't notice. "then let`s date! Let's. date!"

Stygian orbs went slightly wide and he barely pulled himself together and is aloof again. "What?"

"Here and now, let`s be crazy together and prove it to anyone that we can be whatever the heck we want without any other motherfucker to be on our heads about it! NO ONE COMMANDS US!"

Sasuke, for the love of all that was holly, couldn't comprehend how in the world was it possible for Sakura to both laugh and cry at the same time so heartedly.

"Because we are free to do whatever if this is what we want, aren`t we? WE! Us! Who the fuck is there to tell us what we can and what we cannot do?"

She started to shout at the top of her insanity, tossing her head backward with her rebellious coral hair shimmering into the golden sunset reflecting those colors of innocence and love –so antagonistic to how she really was. "So, you— the infamous heartthrob and still bachelor billionaire, date me, get fuckin crazy with me and don't give a shit about a damn thing!"

"You know what, Uchiha?" She shouted to him as she discarded al her clothes as she stepped on them with her heels spilling sand particles on the material like she was making a ritual of purification of everything material, and her nudity was superb reflecting her inborn Goddess outline blending into the serenity of the marine landscape and Sasuke couldn't help but curse karma for this; no matter how much he yearned for Sakura, he will never have her. They do not have any single destiny together, it was impossible for eternity.

"My best friend always nags me with her beliefs that before God, no one can fake its sinful nature!"

Gazing at the infinite sky while propelling her long hands into the sky with her palms open and oriented to the crystalline arcade hosting a barely visible crescent moon, Sasuke followed her silent lead flickering his obsidian orbs to where the Deities were supposed to reside.

"In front of the Heavens, we are all going, to be honest, Uchiha! You and I will not be notorious liars when we face God! This is what she says! That in front of the Holy Gates of Retribution all the sins fall and the truth comes out of the sinners` mouths! Their deepest secrets, how cool is that?!"

Tears were spilling from the depths of her viridian orbs as a virtual scorching fire was wrapping around her nude frame, not harming her understanding that it was not the flames of retribution, but Sasuke`s own fire uniting with her own, shielding, caring, calming, fostering, marking, wanting.

No matter how much her words hypnotized him into slipping into her world where her mind was painting a parallel universe where everything materialized and became possible, Sasuke couldn't be so fooled and blindly step into her insanity.

Blindly with bittersweet abdication into his obsidian orbs Sasuke followed her profile as she turned around and gave him probably the most heart-jerking demented and yet lucid sad smile before paddling along the wet sand and wading into the waters, following how the rolling waves were swallong her middle.

And, before it brushed past her curved hipbone, Sakura stretched her hands above her had pressing her palms together like wanting to conquer the sea and head dived into its cool waters. "YUPYYYY! I'm dancing with the skies and the Water Gods and UCHIHA SASUKE is SCARED to DATE me!"

She shouted totally unhinged in the moments she shot out of the water like a siren, only to dive in back, undulating underwater and resurfacing with million droplets drumming along her pristine skin like shimmering diamonds spilled across her sateen skin, stealing and decompose the lights reflecting sensual bright red, marine emerald and gold, making it seem like the waters have metamorphosed into sewed Chinese silk embroidery and ornamented her skin garbing her into the gown of nature`s finest creation.

If he was to be honest, the scene was pathetic, deplorable, teary and heartbreaking because they were trying to dance the steps of lucidity listening to the music of insanity –because it was always so safe to nuzzle into the embrace of insanity and live into their own worlds oblivious and neglecting the cruel reality– molding the surroundings to fit their own scenario.

Even so, Sasuke found himself responding to her, standing up as he brushed a hand through his rebel locks to sprinkle the crystals of sand that were latched to his hair around him, then fingered the hem of his T-Shirt rolling it up to reveal his sculpted torso –strong and sharp like the cliffs standing the taste of waves scattered around the coastline to face the storms and protect the city.

Moments after, his steady footprints were leaving a straight line in their path joining her meandering ones, ration twining with insanity once again, joining her into the waves and she stood straight, brushing her fingertips through her wet hair pulling it backwards and smirking at him while he submerged.

When he was close enough that his peculiar fragrance pervaded through her nostrils, Sakura wrapped her hands around his shoulders as they were trying to fall in sync with the dancing waves and stand still into the water, gluing her petite form to his, her voice a lulling lenitive whisper into the salty breeze –intoxicating, sensual, beguiling, caressing like the most anticipated spell of deliverance.

"What if you were the only mine for one second... Sasuke? Truly mine?" There was not a single iota of sarcasm or mockery in her tone she was serious and her orbs were lucid and vivid.

"How can I be yours when I do not even belong to me Sakura? I cannot give more than I possess."

She didn't understand that sophistic line, but the sincerity behind his gesture to thumb under her lid and brush away the tears that mixed with the salty waters hit her like a whirlwind of feelings that she desperately tried to fight back. "Huh?! What the heck?! You talk like a fucking politician I swear… always lying to me on crosswords, haha!"

But Sakura has always been a prisoner of her own weakness for him; Uchiha Sasuke was someone whose suffering, pain and loneliness was something so revoltingly similar to her own. All that hollow desolation and pain was something that he knew the taste of. "Hn, everything is just a matter of perception Sakura."

"Bah— there you go again with your Shakespearean lines with a tinge of the symbolism movement and spoil the mood. C`mon Sasuke, don`t pout. Heck, you know that I don't like pansies. That`s why you keep on pulling me to you because you are stronger than the rest. Ok— and hotter, I admit, there is no fuckign point to deny it and look like an idiot. Hahaha!"

"You have suggested this place so as to bring more diversity into our little escapades?" It was not that Sasuke was bothered by the occasional couples that strolled on the distance completely no paying attention to them as no one recognized them nor did they have anything to attract attention, but because he found it funny that Sakura actually wished for them to be together in public, almost like wanting to genuinely live the mirage of being with him like a couple because she had feelings for him that she denied.

"No, I don`t want to fuck you here Uchiha. I want something more thrilling than this from you! Now let`s see,"

She puckered her lips in a cute pout glancing skyward in a ruminating gesture, absentmindedly playing with his soaked hair feeling its tender velvetiness –any woman`s fluffy weakness. "what do stupid happy couples usually do, minus plush pink toys and cheesy selfies?" She started a loud monologue while Sasuke wondered whether she has ever dated someone before but something in her a conniption told her that no other sane man would have been capable to handle such a formidable temper.

"Why asking me? Haven`t you ever been in a relationship before?" He crossed his hands over his chest and Sakura couldn't help but let her gaze linger in disbelief and fascination at how dominating and regal he looked even dressed so casual, understanding that it was his character the one that made him outstanding and not the materialistic things surrounding him, frowning when she caught his implication.

Like he didn't know that she has spent so many years caged in a fuckign Mental Asylum and thus had no time to lure guys and date?

Why was he being so hypocrite for fuck`s sake, she sneered on the inside, bristling as she wanted nothing more than d to smack his skull with something hard or shoot a bullet through his forehead for his mockery.

But she stopped her sizzling rage when she realized that he was genuinely surprised that she has never dated a man before.

What the heck? This Capo was truly an inimitable versatile actor if he had so much control over his emotions. The bastard.

"No, duh! Dating is so mainstream, stale, boring and pretty much what all the other idiots do pretending to nurture feelings for each other when in reality all that they are looking for is a legitimate reason to fuck without having their consciences trimmed by guilt… or they are desperate to find out the core of the love that they are not capable of feeling and thus they are using such a sweet delusion that being in a relationship automatically imply be having feelings for one another, when in reality is just a pretext to deny their inability to feel for somebody which is sad and plain stupid in my opinion, whatever..."

She finished blubbing cutely as she has seen Sasuke quirking an eyebrow up somewhat amused and somehow surprised at her poetic interpretation of stale modern romances but they both knew that she was right.

And admitting it to him that she truly never dated a man before knowing that she was perfection informs, in shadows, in lights and manners shocked Sasuke genuinely.

What could have happened to this woman to make her so terrified of not being in a relationship or rather, was she just a high-class prostitute which didn't want commitment only fun?

No, even such seemingly not deprived woman without morals from his social encourage and caliber were in relationships with the ones that funded their expensive clothes and kept them as mistresses, so that cannot be heck she didn't even try to coax him into a relationship and trap him like many others would do, no. She kept it civilian and rather mysterious.

"Oh— I know, I know!" She hollered while her gleaming orbs and her luscious lips tittered manically in newfound determination and excitement; her zeal was stupendous, effervescent and unhinged, demonic and completely insane –she looked ridiculously beautiful wading into insanity like this, Sasuke concluded.

"They are bickering and teasing each other and it is usually the girlfriend being silly and stupidly in love! Yeah... this would do!"

Out of the blue, Sakura whisked herself out of his hold surprising Sasuke at how swift and fast she was while moving into the water like a fish covered in jelly escaping him and, bustling around as her toes tapped the lush sand, Sakura started to giggle like a teenage entrapped into a secret midnight romance with her first lover, creating a furor around as she splashed mini waves of water into Sasuke`s eyes.

"Hahaha, catch me if you can Uchiha yayy! Yuhuu! I am a mermaid and you will never catch me in your net, Sasukeeee! Sasuke da` hot drunken sailor getting shitfaced on rum!"

They both knew the subtle reference to her real identity, pointing it to the fact that Sasuke will never be capable to catch Morphine and it only served as a token for the Uchiha to realize that it was just as Itachi has once declared.

That everyone was living under false preconceptions that they deemed as reality and thus their realities constantly clashed with the reality of the others around, designed to meet at some point in time and they were no exception.

Sakura's reality consisted in the fact that she deemed her concealing of identity 'Morphine' as being insurmountable, while Sasuke's reality was polarized and colliding with her because he knew who she was but refused to express it.

He was not in love with Sakura, no. Sasuke simply found freedom in her, in the smallest of miracles that the faces of her emerald diamond eyes were projecting.

Bits of the reflection of her inner self-were shimmering unbind as they whirled Sasuke into the sweetest illusion and albeit his eyes could not fall prey to it, he chose to indulge willingly taking the risk and allowing himself to be such an incredibly major idiot. For the first time in forever, Uchiha Sasuke voluntarily acted like a fool –a foolish little brother. "Hn. You are so foolish, my little eccentric mermaid."

His brother`s endearing teasing words were bouncing back to him and Sasuke vaguely wondered why was he reminiscing about something so useless now.

Sakura was forcing him to take another look at himself and reflect on his mistakes, over what could have been if so many incertitude would have metamorphosed into dreams and then become hopes.

"What? C`mon Uchiha, don`t be such a party popper!" She chimed like a bell hauling him out of his fleeting reflection as salty droplets stung his coal orbs making him glimmer and automatically trying to evade her ungraceful splashes by straightening his imposing height and putting his hands in front of his eyes, half glaring at the tittering woman. "Play along or at least be a better actor and pretend to have fun! I can't be that boring now, am I?"

---

No, you are my everything right now, Sasuke was indeed a major fool if he thought that Sakura`s intuition would be tricked so nonchalantly because the alarming sirens in her brain –that Sasuke was aware of much more than he was letting it show– were clanging into her eardrums and unlike him, she was not overlooking them or pandering to that guilty pleasure that he embodied, no.

She got signals that her safety, identity and dream of revenge might be endangered but unlike him, she had more control over her senses. I don't care… in this moment, I don't fucking care about anything!

Or so she thought, relying entirely on insanity and that was her mistake because as much as she was manipulating insanity, in return, dementia was manipulation her into tricking Sakura that she got control.

In reality, control was slipping through Sakura`s fingertips like the water she was sprinkling to Sasuke, swimming lazily on her back with her available hand paddling gracefully like she was a rippling shadow dissipating into the fading light at sunset, without a form, a face and a name; poetically and metaphorically, in this moment Sakura is a shadow but so is Sasuke Uchiha.

"This is nonsensical and infantile."

"I know, right! And this is exactly the beauty of it, can`t you see?" Her eyes... heavens how could they sparkle like this?

Like insanity completely engulfed her form shrouding it like a veil of darkness, shielding and fostering an end she was completely and happily letting herself be possessed.

"It`s absurd and juvenile because it is contrary to how society wants you to be –how it forces you to be– like the perfect avatar of what you do NOT want to be! How about you stop living the life of another and be your real free self! Be that child who had the world at his feet, conquer those sand castles and paint your own world exactly like you dream of,"

Then she sang his name like a sweet area of a spring symphony and shattered the last wall around his heart. "Sasuke!"

She belted his name like a singer and it was not possible how she went through his blood like honey melting it and making it sweet and rich. "Stop being just an Uchiha!"

She made it sound like his family name –the liaison, the pathway to his clan fortune, wealth, and power– was something so trivial, so illusory, so derisive so... unimportant.

And while her speech was fanciful and her words flowery and almost rhetorical, there was another meaning that Sasuke couldn't depict nor understand; Sakura, as absurd as it was metaphoric and rhythmically anapestic, she meant it heartedly.

Why did she pour so much acerbity in spelling his surname? Sasuke vaguely as his intelligent mind already ruminated over this newfound trivia about Sakura`s shenanigans.

That fanciful wish masked by insanity, by his beautiful sophistic eyes, by his dark demonic divine beauty, by their opposing lives, by her own dream of revenge, was brimming with her heart, earnestly, ardently, romantically.

In the moment when his lips up curled into a smirk that melted the bleeding astounding regal shades of beryl red diamond and honey of the sunset reflecting into the droplets sprinkling from his wet straight hair rolling along his temples into the water around his sculpted waist, Sakura truly desired that his surname would be ripped from his name and he was only Sasuke –a beautiful man whose elegance was only topped by sagacity and sensuality.

The only man that could make her feel and not only; so alive.

'If happiness does exist... then I would like for it to look like this' This is probably the most lucid figment produced by her feelings that were securely encased into the depths of her conscious and heart –places which remained unsullied by hatred, insanity and the anguish.

It should do her no damage if for only one moment –just one single second– she allowed herself to taste what Hinata was talking about and pretend that their nude forms dancing unreservedly into the sea and wading into the most spontaneous carefree oblivion, faced without a name.

Sasuke, just like her, has bitterly remarked in his meticulous internal monologue that he and Sakura were two roads with only one way and, at some point in life, they were destined to crisscross and merge the speed of light together in an explosive passion –one that they were discovering now, from the smallest morsel and spanning like the waters that they were swimming into.

How sweetly painful was to watch this mermaid who lost the voice of ration dancing caressed by the velvet sunset so free of hinges, beguiling him to join her and how easy it was to forget himself, his surname, his demons and dive into her eyes.

Eyes that trapped every infinitesimal of emerald`s most splendid radiance, netted with sheer raw and unadulterated insanity were now hypnotizing him –the hypnotizer, the master puppeteer was falling for his marionette`s charms. I hate him… I hate him so damn much that I absolutely LOVE how amazing it feels!

"Then who shall I be, Sakura?" He countered with another profound inquiry in a voice rippling like the waters brushing past his chiseled abdomen as they wrapped around an enchanted Sakura like a sateen mantle and she absolutely reveled in it.

Seeing him expand his sculpted arms in front of him sliding through the water like a God swimming to her with an absolutely bloodcurdling marauding gleam into the beryl of his sable eyes and the paralyzing sensation that her body felt due to a normal reaction to a potentially lethal approaching danger made her toes curl pleasurably into the sand as she too caressed the water`s glossy surface with her hands to maintain balance, smiling blazingly at him in a way that made his own smirk grew even wider and darker.

They were both... so mad, so psychotic that it was almost lyrical how easy it was for them to truly forgo their outside veneering and lose their minds.

The reason why Sakura discarded her clothes was to symbolically remove the masks she was wearing and be stripped and denude before him, revealing her real self.

The true kernel of her flamboyant craziness. And Sasuke of course understood and replied to this coltish display of merry dementia because he could not stop himself; she was poison she was Morphine –the sweetest drug.

"The man who will never be able to catch me!" She grounded with an ebullient cry and a smiling tenue as she dived backwards with a splash making frizzy bubbles of water dancer around her as a mild wave has passed them both ironically only bringing her closer to the Uchiha who smartly dived underwater and brushed her ankle and she trashed violently feeling the same electric thrill brim along her spine upon his touch. "Ah! Hey not fair! You fuckin–"

Before she had the chance to finish the insult that she reserved for him –laughing openly and vivaciously at the idea of freely cursing Uchiha Sasuke and not get a bullet in her skull for the audacity– Sasuke made her plunge underwater dragging her down enough to make her briefly submerge and take two large gulps of water babbling her curse as it went to deaf ears, while he arched his back and shattered the waves appearing in front of her. "—Oh?!"

Immediately –out of protection or possessiveness– Sasuke wrapped a muscular arm around her waist and hauled her up, while her palms went to her orbs that were stinging because of the unexpected contact with the waters as she nearly grazed Sasuke`s chest with her nails as she was aimlessly trashing her hands desperate to resurface.

---

"—Wha! Hey, not fair— ah!" She yelped while coughing twice cursing a pretty large wave that rolled nearby and nearly made them wade again but this time Sasuke has kept them expertly floating over the water while Sakura glimmered rapidly focusing her lustrous orbs to him frowning but just as her face broke into a villainous grimace, she had a fleeting swap of mimics like the most brilliant actress, her versatility, and insanity blending perfectly and seductively. "Hahaha, that was amazing!"

Ransacking her digits through Sasuke`s damn sable locks, she wrapped the spikes at his nape around her digits taking two full fists and pulling at them roughly as she tossed her head backward and laughed heartedly in a sinister but irresistible resonant.

"Hn." Keeping his composure, Sasuke calmly stared at the mystique creature in his arms as she still had traces of tears occasionally shimmer into the corners of her eyes, wondering what type of torture has she been subjected to in order for her to amass so much reprised emotions. "Just so you know… that I can catch you anytime I want." Morphine.

The mere thought that someone has tortured her was making him go sick and Sasuke was someone who did not have such concepts as pity into his vocabulary; not when he was someone who also tortured his enemies and victims for information –but never for the pleasure of it like his associates for instance.

"HAHAHAH— In your wildest dreams you pompous asshole! You did cos I let you, so that you won't be so mopey!" Was that the reason why she went insane? Or the legitimate question is; is she truly insane or simply eccentric or faking it?

No, looking closely into orbs which cried and laughed at the same time with the same zeal convinced Sasuke that no one in the world could fake something so vivid.

"What is it that is so stupendous for you?"

"The fact that I nearly died by drowning... bwahaha!" She puffed her rubicund cheeks in a vain attempt to stifle her laughter but she could not help herself.

The nearly stunned look on Sasuke`s ridiculously gorgeous face and those expressive eyes were worth all the truths that she was spilling to him half willingly and a half because she too allowed herself to lower her guard around him.

"And you know what?" She continued to expertly and seductively play with his mind, corner him and bombarding him with bits and bits of so much pure insanity that Sasuke found himself metaphorically drown in salty eaters –her tears.

"The near-death experience... the honor to gaze into the Death`s empty eyes and feel its claws press into your skin and smearing you is the most holistic feeling. It is on the verge of dying the most precious moment when you truly feel alive Sasuke,"

Her luminous eyes were dancing on the music of pain and insanity combined and Sasuke was slowly drifting from the surrounding world into that absurd masquerade; he was silently gazing into her eyes while she talked about everything and nothing at all. "can you imagine how that feels?"

She blinked once as her orbs were keeping him hypnotized to her while she was lulling playing into his hair occasionally trucking on the length of his tendrils but she was not brutal, on the contrary, it made his tensed muscles relax slowly –he was willingly becoming her puppet, he was being stupid for her, a mindless fool. "How it feels to... die?" He quirked a perfectly contoured raven eyebrow at her quizzically, intrigued.

Ant true to her words, it felt amazing to be caressed by the death like this; because this enemy woman wanted him dead.

"When you finally stop running from the Grim Reaper and realize that real demons are wandering fee and undercover taking human form, then you stop viewing it as your worst enemy and once Death becomes your most precious ally, Sasuke..."

Leaning forward, Sakura latched her lips to Sasuke`s jaw and let them trail along his face slowly, hotly, burning his skin.

"...then you will truly set yourself free and be only you... stripped of all the commitments and debts that you have with this world. To cut all the ties with it... is only when you become ashes and smoke."

She whispered into his warm ear temptingly, while sipping on his earlobe adoring and savoring the fragrance of his alabaster skin, so soft and airy like whiskered cream, delicious and sweet.

Sakura smirked triumphantly when she felt his Adam Apple bobble up and down as a sign of him reacting to her, despite his aloof stoic conniption; she was making it react just he like did to her and that brought Sakura a wave of pleasurable satisfaction. "Sasuke... the man with the fanciest name that I have ever known..."

Strangely and funny how she used to feel so terrified and haunted by the memories of her Asylum days when the 'caring' doctors were using freezing or burning hot showers on their patients when they wanted to punish them or crush the flickering rays of lucidity, she is no exception.

Being tossed into a deep artificial pool in one of the secret basement rooms and forced underwater to the limit of losing consciousness because she has tried –for the millionth time– to dig a secret hole in the backyard near the fence and escape, Sakura has experienced a bit of what is entitled to die of drowning and it was horrible, torturous and painful.

She couldn`t remember much of the gruesome experience but she did remember the sinister titters and cackles of the doctors in contempt when they pulled her out of the pool and also the moment when everything went completely blank and silent and her skinny petite body stopped trashing and went limp and there were so many things that she visualized into that pitch blackness and the sounds of quietude have never been more vivacious and loud, then she lost consciousness. "Sakura…"

Said roseate has been bedridden for weeks because of the oxygen deprivation and water in her lungs effects and she only got basic treatment so as not to die but conveniently suffer.

It was her guardian angel, Sasori, the one to tend her and help her recover secretly and Hinata who starved herself to the limit in order to give Sakura her share of food too; both of them saved her life and she has also saved their lives many times before.

---

"Sasuke… Uchiha Sasuke…" For so many years, Sakura lived with the horror of being drowned by after Morphine and insanity consumed and poisoned her entirely, she has escaped all of those phobias and human limitations; it was ironic how insanity which was considered a disease of removing one from the society by limiting the brain`s capacity to ration was exactly the key to unhinge the brain`s true potential and truly allow one to be free.

But in this moment, while Sasuke`s arm was securely locked around her midsection almost like sensing her inborn need to be fostered –despite her struggles to deny his gesture and the need behind it– while the other one was brushing over her thigh and hipbone refraining from touching her provokingly, Sakura found herself completely void of any nightmare and incredibly relaxed; like she trusted him and relying on the safety that his presence summoned and that was ironic, sarcastic, laughable and bitter, but also undeniable.

There was a strong reason for her to stay as far as possible from the sea, or ocean or any activity which involved submerging but in the presence of Sasuke everything dissipated into a faraway universe like it never even happened and all that she could focus on, all that she could perceive through all her spiked senses was his presence alone.

His thin smile and taste and touches, Uchiha Sasuke entombed the paradigm of absolution. "To be capable of outright deliverance," Sasuke`s voice trembled like sateen in a low bass guitar resonance as he half closed his onyx orbs and arched his neck to give Sakura more access to lave her tongue along his pulse and throat, sucking and grazing her teeth along his sensitive skin, pressing her teeth into it then sucking on the bruised area, running his digits along the column of her spine, bringing her even closer to her and she pressed herself to him aided by the waves rolling and hitting her back occasionally.

"is utopic Sakura." He knew better because no matter how much one tried to escape in such a convenient universe –or insanity– there came a day when he must wake up and realize that the world was flawed and there was no salvation to any of them.

Tomorrow, when they will wake up in different parts of the town and alone lingering on the other side of the bed, tapping their fingers in search for a warm body to safeguard through the night, they will return to being mortal enemies; and that was lucidity and reality.

"I know and this is precisely why it makes it so thrilling the fact that if I manage to attain it when everyone claims that it is impossible, then I will get the satisfaction of proving anyone wrong! Don`t you have dreams of your own Sasuke?"

She reiterated the same version of a question that she once addressed to him and Sasuke`s answer was still unswerving.

"I do not dream because I can have everything I want." I'm a liar who dreams about you. "Aspirations are for daydreamers who do not possess the necessary skills to turn them into realities and they disgust me a lot."

Of course that it applied to him as well since he simply followed the logical steps of his family`s business, when he too was a coward or rather a bum who didn`t have the necessary drive to simply walk away.

Or maybe he didn't have Itachi`s courage or sense of amazing alienation from his family?

Sasuke adored his clan more than Itachi`s inexistent commitment and this was probably one of the reasons why he was still attached to it.

The dynamics with his family especially his father were sinuous and tensed but nonetheless he was so good and proficient in being a Mafia Boss that, up to some point, Sasuke gave up on trying to surmount that pathos for what he could have been and followed the natural flow of events, taking his role seriously and trying to be the best and he succeeded.

Until Morphine stepped into the game and turned all his preconceptions and convictions upside down with a single mesmerizing smile.

And she blindly believed him for his commitment, albeit Sakura couldn`t brush off this flittering frizzy feeling brimming inside the richest everytime she gazed into his stygian orbs –that Sasuke was canoodling an immeasurable pain and sadness inside his heart, even though his aloof personality was so unreadable and projected an exterior aura of unconquerable and unswerving personality.

So reminiscent of her own.

---

"That`s plain bullshit." She puffed her lips cackling at his retort, nonetheless gliding her fingertips along his ribs sneaking to his sculpted back and coiling around the flexed muscles of his shoulders, pressing her cheek on his left shoulder with her nose nuzzling his pulse and still chortling at him lightly, insanely, bitterly and yet it whittled all Sasuke`s tension and stress and also ration.

"You don`t actually mean this. I know that you are much more complex than this." And she spoke the truth; the reason why she acted so affectionate and seemingly poetic with him was unknown to her too but she could not help herself. "More intricate, more enigmatic… is what drowns every girl into your charm Uchiha… sorry to break it to you but it`s not your hedgehog hairstyle and your endless amount of money."

Her revenge felt so damn amazing! Not only she was making inroads in seducing Sasuke Uchiha but she was also enjoying herself while playing with his mind and being crazy with him; the only thing that topped the pleasure he was capable to make her feel, was that she was unraveling his own internal demons –his own version of insanity and thus she never felt so carefree than with him. "Is it now?"

It was pure poetry how she felt in this moment; there were no words to transcribe what was churning inside her soul and how every smidgen of her nude body was being enkindled by the flames of Sasuke's torch.

Inhaling profoundly once, she absolutely basked into Sasuke`s amazing peculiar scent, one that no other man possessed.

That inevitable combination of all the nature`s five elements, so organic and primordial, pervading her senses and she kind of understood her effect on him because he was poisoning him and benumbed her win paralyzing bliss with his smell alone. "Yup, it is."

It lingered on her skin whenever they slept together wrapping her like a mantle and the only thing that she could –sadly– perceive even if he was not with her, was his irresistible fragrance overshadowing his strong perfume.

She has not even realized how softly she muttered the last words seem so as not to miss any subtle note of his scent like she could even hear it and not only sniff it.

"Have I ever told you how much I love how you smell, Uchiha?" Had it been another woman in her place, she would have probably never had the audacity to risk a complete embarrassment with such an awkward and strange statement, but Sakura was one in a million and thus Sasuke could only smirk at her, albeit she could not see him because she buried the tip of her nose into his shoulder, inhaling the scent of his skin, amusing him. "Hm… you smell divine; like sin and euphoria!"

But the way she unrolled the word 'love' out of her tongue pressing it on his alabastrine wet skin was enunciated in such a seductive hallucinating way on purpose, so as to twist and mess with his mind and Sasuke knew it as well and that was the reason why it was not having the scouted effect, but nonetheless it made a warm shiver prickle along his spine even if it was totally wrong.

"What else do you like about me?" Sasuke found himself asking while his high-cut nose was slowly brushing her hair, he too savoring the fragrance of her floral fruity shampoo.

"Ah— Your ridiculously stylized velvety hair," She fine-combed her left hand through the longest locks of his inkjet hair at the back of his nape to emphasize her words as he tittered at her previous insult, not even realizing just how incredibly erotic and intimate their conversation started to feel.

But neither did Sasuke himself because everything with Sakura felt so natural –too ridiculously natural– to perceive.

"your hard rock toned body," she then let her palm glissade along his shoulder and sculpted arm rounding his pert bicep then skimming along his pectoral and tauten abdomen, erotically running her digits up and down like conveying her remarks into touches.

"your husky voice," especially when her name trembled like the lowest key of a grand piano in such a delightful way that made her aroused by only hearing it coming from his lips.

"these muscled arms around my body when you hold me possessively like I belong to you," like he was doing right now, having his right hand still firmly coiled around her waist refusing to put an iota of distance between them.

"the arrogance in your atmospheres like nothing and no one can ever touch you," her voice was a suave murmur barely audible from the stirred waves and the cool breeze passing them by. "your eyes... you have beautiful eyes,"

she was drifting to another universe now like not even addressing him anymore; her voice seemed so distant, so absorbed and enclosed into her own universe like he was shutting him and everything around down to protect herself.

"so expressive, so onyx and powerful when they look at me," it was now when she cupped his strong masculine jaw and looked into those eyes that were forever tattooed into her memory, murmuring to him in a way that almost made him believe in her confession. "and last but not least... the fact that you will never genuinely be mine."

For two seconds, time and every single motion has stopped and frozen in time; even the sea has spontaneously grown calmer and the waves stopped carrying them aimlessly through the waters and there was not a single glimmer or wink to shatter the quietude that fell between their orbs, only an immense pyre seemed to roar to life between them, so engulfing and incandescent and breaths have been held at Sakura`s uncompelled confession.

And what followed next was something that only someone who was dancing with insanity with genius steps and never falling out of rythm could produce as she sussured to him, following the mimics of her angelic visage closely and Sasuke definitely did not miss the shimmering tear sliding from under her eyelashes along the curve of her pristine cheek, while she remained serene but serious, not a single demented crack perturbing that moment of fleeting ration.

"Uchiha Sasuke, I want to kill you so much and splash your blood onto my naked body... find retribution... while wading into the life that leaks from you... so much that it hurts me."

Being a Mafia leader has made Sasuke immune to any form of masochism and torture, even going as far as to sometimes enjoying to chop off his victims until he made his point clear. "Nani? You heartedly wish to kill me…"

But in this moment, when his eardrums trembled with the resonance of Sakura's remark, and the way she could be so sincere and passionate about something so gruesome, so ludicrous, has made his shoulders tense involuntarily before he could remain haughty and standoffish.

Of course that he was updated with Morphine`s will to murder him, but to hear it from her, so genuine and unbiased and yet so passionate and poetic even being capable to envision a sea of blood into he way her emerald orbs stole the sun`s blood red last rays projecting them on the outside made his blood freeze down his veins... for one moment.

And it was definitely not because Sasuke was scared of Morphine or her threats, but because of the plethora of passion and emotions that she was pouring into every word, like his death was her ultimate liberation, her all-time dreams and she was giving such a trivial common act so much significance, making it almost symbolic.

And that was what nearly scared Sasuke. "…why?" He simply asked in such a low slivering whisper that made the waters around Sakura boil like lava, exciting her to the point where insanity has been subdued for something even stronger.

Was there something more powerful than insanity itself?

The fact that Sasuke was not in the bit surprised –or vexed– by her open declaration of war was resounding into Sakura`s mind and she did take notice of his unforeseen response, adding another morsel to the mysterious picture that she was sketching of the suspicion she had on Sasuke –that he knew more than he was letting her see.

Damn those eyes... eyes more arcane and mystifying than the moon above. If only she could read those eyes... "Why?"

Rose painted lustrous heart-shaped lips broke into one of the most enigmatic baneful ominous smile that Sasuke has even seen anyone else before as she tucked on his hair that was resting on her fist and led his face closer to her until their breaths fused in one single inhale whispering hotly upon his lips, never once detaching from the embrace of their sophistic gazes.

"Because only then I can have a claim on you... and you will truly be forever mine." The fact that she both coveted for him while her athirst to kill him were brimming with her heart at the same time was something that only someone just as insane as he could perceive, but she could not help herself. What did she just say?!

It was the ultimate revenge that she could take on Uchiha Sasuke to trap him in her hell for the rest of his eternity by making him unable to walk away and be free from her; not even in death. "Sakura… you…"

But what she truly did not expect him to do, was for the Uchiha`s entire demeanor to volte-face from the usual stoicism with a subtle tinge of tension that she felt in his fibers, to a complete relaxed stance and a look on his face that it was even more ominous than her own.

Gracing her with a breathtaking sight that no one has ever seen before, Sasuke`s firm lips summoned one of the gorgeous smiles, but instead of being warm, tender, candid, joyful and loving, it was sadistic, menacing, bloodcurdling and demonic and it was doubled by the look in his eyes.

Oh God— those obsidian orbs suddenly kindled with an abnormal fire in them making his stygian irises melt like the faces of a black sapphire crystal, so darkly luminous, widening and pouring got much energy into them, that Sakura swore that for a moment... she caught a dark hue of blood red inside them similar to the one she swore she has seen on the recording tape, and this was the moment when her heart literarily leaped into her throat.

That, and because of the fact that Sasuke has shot his muscular arm from where it was holding her waist to wrap around her throat, it being the only moment when he was brutal and savage with her and not in the bit elegant; no, there was not a single trace of finesse, class, and education in the way he looked now, except for his striking aristocratic features. "You want me to be only yours you say…"

Wrapping his supple long digits around the base of her neck frighteningly being capable to encompass it in one firm hold cutting her air supply with the pressure he applied and sadly catching her out of oxygen when she just wanted to inhale, he let his digits dig into her creamy skin, while he dipped his chin down to emphasize his downfall from high and royal, to down and draconic.

---

"Arghhh—" The most absurd thing was not how badly she wanted him now seeing this face on him or how ridiculously good it was to being strangled by him, but because she was able to feel this pain when she was not supposed to.

Something about Uchiha... his eyes, his gestures, the way he knew exactly how to touch her –to inflict pain or pleasure–was constantly drumming to the window of her mind like an inspiring rain.

"—I will... not die... before you. I... can assure you... of this." she murmured between pauses while her mind was drifting to the sweetest oblivion reacting to the lack of oxygen but what shocked Sasuke –albeit he was not openly exuding it– was that she was leaning into his touch and not showing from it or trash it to save herself.

"Hn." She was making him lose his mind or rather surrender to that side of him that howled to be liberated; to be insane and free from the confines of any barriers and thus Sasuke acted accordingly to his most primal instinct; kill Morphine who was his enemy like he should have done from the second moment when he became alert of her identity. "Such a contumelious foolhardy assumption Sakura…"

But the reason why his digits wreathed around her throat was not because he aimed to kill her, but to confirm something and the most frightening nightmare has materialized into his head —in body and mind, he had the resources to be the cold ice Mafia Leader who would assassinate everyone who stood his way no matter the identity of that person and thus cut all the ties he had with this world.

It was his traitorous heart the one who will block his hand in that position not allowing him to tighten his hold and keep it until life would leave her casket like a spiral of smoke and have Sakura die in his arms.

And Sasuke realized in horror that he hear was stronger than his body and ration combined. He was forever cursed by Uchiha's worst weakness, flaw and enemy which was ironically enough the quintessence and the spring of their most immeasurable power –their feelings.

"Then kill me now... Sakura." Did he say her name or something else? because the annoying tinnitus in her ears was obstructing her hearing, but for a moment, Sakura was positive that he spelled 'Morphine' instead of 'Sakura' but then again, she was not that crazy into giving in to the demons that oxygen deprivation or Sasuke's mind hypnotic games were conjuring.

And in the moment when he hauled her up to him albeit his jerk was astonishingly erotic as it reenacted a veritable BDSM scene albeit since it was Sasuke the one to be the leading male and giving his inborn affinity for both sensuality and terrifying skill and hidden demonic nature with just the great dosage of control over his temper so as it was in perfect position to Sakura`s more insane capricious outbursts, he made it so creamy and exotic and this thrilled Sakura more than it harmed her; in fact, he was looking like he was hurting her when in reality his fingertips left no marks on her ivory pristine skin. "Kill me my dear."

But she was denied the chance to inhale properly in the moment when Sasuke dipped his head down and in what looked like a brazen overflowing zeal and uncontrollable emotions, he captured her lips in a tight embrace and kissed her with fervency, wreating his hand around her nape while his other one was keeping a firm hold around her waist, forcing her to wreathe her gazelle legs around his waist, locking her ankles on his lower back, pressing herself to him so intimately in manic desire.

"S-Sasuke—" His luxurious sleek name trembled upon her lips as he massaged them wit his own, responding to his kiss with equal ardor and frenzy, letting her nails sink into the wet skin of his lustrous shoulder blades running in masochistic red blemishes but the adrenaline rush adding to the hormones sent Sasuke in a high of blinding desire; he felt nothing, only passion. "Sasuke!"

On the inside, he felt stupid, guilty because he was betraying his own principles in lieu to fulfilling a resurfacing fantasy buried into the sand of his conscience and also laughed humorlessly like a demented clown after his reflection spanned into a giant mirror scaring the visitors with its deformed demonic fallacious facade; he was a major imbecile because he could never kill Morphine.

I`m sorry Sakura… so goddamn sorry…

Sasuke was positive that, if the odds were such, then he could even kill his own mother even if he would be capable to preserve her angelically ineffable tattooed into his memory and then weep and grieve for her, but Sakura–Morphine... his morphine, his own drug was something that he could not touch and Sasuke didn't fully understand the reason why was that.

To pull the trigger of his gun as he had numerous chances to kill her before without her to even realize that he figured it out her game was supposed to be a breeze for someone like Sasuke.

She shall be subjected to his most inventive torture methods in the most sadistic ways but somehow... seeing her as a pathetic broken puppet with her pristine skin creased and peeled by his torture devices, soaked and rinsed into the dirt of her blood dripping from the infested injuries, with her head dropped down in an obsequious way as it would loll on her shoulders as she would fight consciousness, with her lips splintered by the hooks they used to pierce their victims with but the most atrocious one... to see the light dying from the iridescent eyes was like losing the only iota of sanity that Sasuke had in him.

He couldn't touch this iconic image of Sakura. She was hiw own flower with her insane and demented attitude, with her overflowing energy and luminous smiles, with the skin glowing under the water like a rare pearl emerging from a glossy shell.

She was his salvation, the most mesmerizing pahtasm and losing that was like losing an anchor to this world's already tragic story. I love you!

Kisses were fire and water burning between them while lips were nipping and suckling viciously until blood was giving their mouths a lavender hue, luxuriating in the delicious aroma of each other and it was not shockingly Sasuke the one to be the domineering albeit Sakura was rolling her tongue into that expert dance in perfect harmony. "Hmmm—"

Occasionally, cotton foamy waves rolled leisurely carrying them aimlessly farther and farther from the shoreline, making their silhouettes look like they waltzed together; two rippling shadows grazing the effervescent milky foam, oblivious to everything around them.

'Killing him' was the supreme liberation to Sakura but simply doing it while he was addressing this open invitation was no fun to her. Sasuke`s death shall be symbolic and beautiful like his eyes, like his hair, body, and lips. Kill him!

Hips were rolling and rotating upon each other conjuring the same mesmerizing friction between their bodies enkindling that latent fire that begged to be quelled and, much to Sasuke's masculine ego, it was Sakura the one to ground her hips and engage into hat range firstly and athirst demanding for pleasure to trim through her like before, breaking her own rules in desperate blindly for him; even if it was seemingly just his body the one that she was looking for, it was still enough to prove it to Sasuke that, once she has sought for him for more, then she felt more than she was exuding. I love you Morphine!

"Killing –gasp– you –pant– Uchiha... but first –breathe– let me just... one more time–" There was no storm to rival the blizzard swiveling into the depths of her orbs as golden has overshadowed the emerald into her eyes while she panted and gasped for oxygen whispering upon Sasuke`s lips, inhaling his own hot mint and it was beyond arousing to feel him so close, so carnal, so simple and so desperate.

"Hmmmnn—" Angling her head as much as she could do, Sakura tapped Sasuke`s lower lip again greedily sucking on it and tracing his teeth and gums with her tongue, saliva mixing together with his, massaging his shoulders and sculpted neck and bringing him even closer. "Ahh…"

Just for once more... every second spent with him became paramount of pleasure but this was her own trap; the addiction, his drug.

She kept seeking for the last drop of his nectar when in reality she kept on demanding for more and more falling prey to that infinite loophole. "Sakura…"

And Sasuke knew that this was the sole arm against her agility; his own self. She was powerless to resist him –simply Sasuke. Not Uchiha. I love you… why can`t you feel it?

"Ahh— y`yes… S-Sasuke—" Fisting his hands into her coral hair that was willing into the water around them like a mermaid embracing her Prince Charming, Sasuke bent towards her as his biceps flexed and bulked at the passion and pressure applied to cup her face and bring her impossibly closer to her, reveling in her lips with pleasure and letting his tongue glissade into her mouth filling and tasting her not even caring that they were barely touching the bottom of the fine sand with their toes...

Somewhere into the distance, a black leather combat boot imprinted the pattern of the hard heel onto the wet sand and an arm pointed a gun in the inconversant couple`s direction, a precise unswerving finger curled around the trigger... slowly pulling to the target.

SHOT! SHOT! SHOT!

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A/N: Sorry for this terribly late update! I am extremely busy —as I emphasized on my profile page. Warui ne. Thank you for all the kind messages and for the continuous support! Hope you enjoyed this chapter as well!

Till next time...