Gravity Chapter 25 Isolation, a naruto fanfic

DNON

A/N-Thanks, Sakura's Unicorn for the editing—Du bist der, SU!

0o0o0

Gravity Chapter 25—Isolation

0o0o0

"That must have been some party," Naruto murmured sarcastically under his breath as he watched the strange actions of his best friend. There was a hole in the side of the Uchiha house big enough to walk through, and Naruto could feel the fury coming off him in ominous waves.

Sasuke dragged his smashed bed through the hole and into the empty street in the heart of the Uchiha district.

"Geez, Teme," Naruto watched him curiously while he crossed his arms over his chest. "Who would've thought you'd get so pissy just 'cause Sakura-chan isn't around—especially when you ignored her for so damn long."

"Fuck off, Dobe." He blew a Katon jutsu and burned his stinking bed and the bad memories to a crisp. The only thing he wanted to remember from this bed was when Sakura lay in it with him—but Karin had ruined that with her conniving bullshit.

Sasuke felt the mattress shift next to him and had to swallow the swell of sickness that came over him at the slight movement. He had definitely drunk way too much.

His stomach churned from the smell—that cloyingly sweet scent that put him in mind of his time spent on the road with Taka. His skull thumped in pain when he turned his head away from the nauseating stench and the light from the window seared his eyelids. He forced his eyes open to see stringy-black lace hanging from his bedpost—that sick feeling crawled over him again.

Then came the bleating that frayed his already frazzled nerves.

Sasuke-kun!

Sasuke groaned inwardly. Just the thought of waking up next to that made his fingers itch to crack open a new bottle of sake and drown himself in it.

First, he had to get rid of the other pain in his ass.

"You know, Teme, Sakura-chan probably misses us, too. Why don't we see if Baa-chan will give us a mission delivering supplies to her or something?"

The orange-clad nuisance had just returned from a mission this morning, so Naruto couldn't have talked to Sakura before she left either. He knew nothing of why Sasuke wanted to see her though—he was just being his usual, annoying self.

"Hn." Sasuke slouched against the wall, head throbbing as he ignored Naruto and watched his bed burn. He wanted another strong drink to blaze away the memory of finding that gold-digger in his bed. What would he tell Sakura? He didn't remember anything about last night after learning Sakura wasn't back home except Karin's incessant whining and Juugo's concerned stare. He shuddered inwardly. There was no way he would have touched Karin—he was positive.

'Are you?' his conscience asked doubtfully.

Naruto's overly optimistic voice broke into his morbid thoughts.

"Yeah, why don't we see if she'll give us the mission? Then Sakura-chan can give you a kiss and make it all bett—Hey!" Naruto ducked the half dozen shuriken that struck the doorway where his head had just been.

"I was just trying to—" Naruto's mouth snapped shut when he saw the Sharingan burning bright in Sasuke's blood-shot eyes.

"Gee, Teme. Uh, I'm suddenly starving. I'll go get some lunch and catch up with you later, ne?" Naruto fled his friend's wrath.

Sasuke went back to his room and searched the closet for clothes—he needed another hot shower. There was a filthy feeling crawling across his skin that he couldn't seem to shake.

Hanging there was the red, silk robe that Sakura left behind. He touched the sleeve with one finger, sliding it along the silky, smooth surface before bringing the fabric to his nose and breathing in her scent. His mind flashed to the image of her wearing it—the silk softly caressing her curves perfectly and her rose-colored hair falling over her shoulder to hang just above the embroidered uchiwa on her back.

His guilt was insufferable. Sasuke's hand clutched her robe and he felt something in the pocket. He pulled the robe from the hanger and took a folded paper from the pocket. His house key slipped out of it. He clutched the paper, not sure if he even wanted to read what she wrote. What if it said something awful? He took a breath and opened it.

Sasuke,

Thank you—for everything,

Love always,

Sakura

What the hell was that supposed to mean? It sounded like goodbye, not 'see you soon.' Why would she give him so much if she didn't want to return? And why did she leave her key behind? Did she not want to come home to him? He turned and saw the empty space where their bed had been and a sharp pang of shame sliced through his heart.

'Do you even deserve to ask those questions?' his conscious reprimanded.

Scowling, Sasuke stuffed the note in his pocket and went straight to the cellar to pull out more sake.

0o0o0

Sakura exhaled noisily.

She hadn't felt such solitude since she was a little girl—when the kids at school used to bully her because of her weird hair color and her oddly sized forehead. They were part of the reason she became so good at academics—in her loneliness she learned to lose herself in books. There was no such refuge here. The only company here, aside from the lonely sighs of the eternal winds of this country, was the ramblings of her inner mind.

That wasn't entirely true. The Daimyo came by some mornings for a few minutes, but she tried very hard to ignore him—he was her enemy, not company. He talked to her regardless of her silence. His innate cheerfulness and the fact that he believed she should take this imprisonment in stride sickened her. But even more so, she was disgusted with herself.

'How could I have been so foolish—so trusting? I was so quick to want to make acquaintances with Karin when her attitude became friendly. The boys warned me to stay away from Karin because of her jealous tendencies. And how many times has Kakashi-sensei insisted I look beneath the underneath?'

'You were deceived by a fellow ninja of your village,' her Inner argued. 'She was someone you believed could become a real friend. Those who abandon their friends are worse than scum. Karin was someone who pledged her life to protect Konoha—you didn't just blindly trust a complete stranger.'

'Yeah, protect Konoha—the village, not me. I was stupid…so stupid…so damn—'

"STUPID!" Her shout echoed back at her in the lonely room. She slumped down to the floor, leaned back against the bed frame and stared at the ornate ceiling.

0o0o0

Over the long, quiet days that dragged into weeks, the only other people Sakura saw were the guards—and they not only refused to speak to her, they would reel in the leash before crossing her room to drop off her meals, giving her no chance at all to communicate with them.

They were suspicious of her and rightly so. If she could've made friends with any of them, she would have tried to negotiate her freedom by offering a bribe or possibly holding them hostage or killing them to escape. They knew of her reputation for immense strength and were understandably wary.

There was another button just inside the door for shortening the leash. In the early days following her capture, it became a game for them to catch her off guard and trip her up—as she was dragged across the room, she would curse and yell at them. They would laugh and make new bets to see who could catch her unaware the next time.

After a few days of this rather painful degradation, she stayed alert to the sounds of their comings and began to wait quietly on the bed for the cable to retract. When the entertainment value was diminished, the guards stopped bothering to pull in her leash and simply watched her carefully while delivering food or taking away the tray.

In other words, when it was no longer amusing to make fun of a quiet, helpless girl, they lost interest in torturing their prisoner.

She even went so far as to ask her captor for a doctor to check her injury, hoping maybe she could convince a fellow medic to help her escape or send a message to her village.

Hanshu laughed at her plea.

"A hobbling injury will keep you in line," he told her. "You can't run on a broken ankle."

"But—"

"It'll heal eventually, Sakura. Besides, being lame won't kill you. As for the pain," he shrugged, "you're a medic. Tend to the injury yourself. If you behaved properly to begin with, it wouldn't be an issue now. Would it?"

Mad as hell but unable to argue, Sakura began to put the food trays by the door to save the guards the trouble of walking across the room thinking she might attack them. What else could she do? Her ankle had already taken some serious damage. She suspected there were multiple bone fractures in it from the pain and swelling she could see but there was no way for her to heal it herself. The best thing to do was soak it in cool water, and not give them a reason to bother her further. At least they had stopped continuously humiliating her like a whipped dog on a tether.

0o0o0

At night, Sakura lay on the balcony and gazed at the immense night sky, trying to name the constellations to help pass time. It was so dark at night in the desert compared to her village it seemed like she was alone in the world. She listened to the soft hiss of constantly-shifting sand, counted hundreds and thousands of stars in the black mat above her, and wondered if any one of her friends were doing the same.

'Surely even Shikamaru with his predilection for all things lethargic would go insane in this place,' she thought unhappily.

To diminish the mind-numbing isolation Sakura tried taking naps, spent hours on end going over complicated surgical procedures in her head, planned impossible escapes and most of all, tried not to think too much of Sasuke and the child growing inside of her. But the trouble with endless hours of silence was that the thoughts in her head became all the louder.

She didn't really feel pregnant except for the ever more frequent attacks of nausea. Morning, noon or night—the time of day didn't matter—a bout of queasiness would send her racing for the commode. It would be weeks yet before she showed any more outward signs of pregnancy.

She didn't want to believe it could be possible, but there was a growing certainty and mature rationalization that pushed her self-indulgent desires aside. Even if it wasn't true, she had to think and plan as if it were. There were things she couldn't risk, even for her own freedom—and the child of the man she loved was one of them. If there was a baby in her womb, she would protect it just as fiercely as anyone she cared for—even more so.

Sakura tried to meditate, but her mind gave her little peace. She practiced Kata twice a day to keep her body fluid—she found out the painfully hard way that it was the only form of exercise she could practice without setting off the sensitive machine that chained her to the wall.

She fantasized about Team Seven coming to take her home and she dreamed about Sasuke every time she slept. More often than not, she woke to find tears on her cheeks and a wet pillow.

The problem was, the more she thought about it, the more impossible it seemed that she would ever see her home again. It was difficult not to become completely depressed.

Three weeks and four days after Karin captured Sakura, she returned in all her contemptible glory.

0o0o0

Sakura was sitting on the balcony, watching palms sway gently in the uncommonly mild breeze of the Suna desert. It was one of those rare days when it wasn't too hot or too windy and the small oasis planted on the daimyo's palace grounds gave her some pleasure and peace that, frankly, she hadn't had much of since arriving.

As she spent the morning watching, all manner of animals, both small and large came out from the desert to drink from the manmade pond and enjoy the shade the palms and plants provided. Sakura wished she could be out there among the greenery with them. It was wearing her out being so unhappy all the time, but it couldn't be helped. She didn't yet know how to reverse the situation without first having her freedom and Hanshu could not be reasoned with.

Her moment of peace was shattered beyond repair when the maddening whine of Karin's voice came to her ears. The raucous redhead was arguing loudly with one of the guards, but Sakura couldn't make out exactly what they were saying. They finally let her in and she swaggered out to join Sakura.

Sakura didn't bother to turn around.

"Well, my plan's all set into motion."

Silence rejoined her. Karin watched the unresponsive kunoichi and wondered how best to get to her—to rub salt into her wounds. She smiled widely.

"I know what you're thinking," Karin snickered wickedly. "You're already more than two months pregnant, right? How can she fool him? Well, the hard part is over. Getting him to let his guard down wasn't easy, but once he was convinced that you'd left Konoha for good, it was all downhill from there. And after I got him home from the bar, it all went smoothly."

Sakura winced at the heartbreaking thought that Sasuke would have sex with Karin so easily. How could he hurt me like that? She thought dejectedly. She blinked back unexpected tears, determined not to let Karin know what a blow she had just dealt her.

Her Inner self urged her not to listen. 'Karin would say anything—do anything to hurt you. Why would she tell the truth now?'

"Sasuke thinks you're happy to get away from Konoha—that you are thriving out on your own. He thinks you've decided not to go back to the village, but that you're going to do some mission work and travel like your mentor, Tsunade."

Karin lied with ease. "I told him how sweet you were, taking care of others. How much you loved your work. How much you enjoyed being away from the confining village and annoying teammates." She reveled in the pained grimace that Sakura tried to hide.

Karin leaned against the railing and preened herself as she gloated. She only wished she could flaunt the engagement ring that she'd "borrowed" from Sasuke, but it was too early. Even Sakura wouldn't believe that Sasuke had already proposed to her—she'd save that dagger for the next visit. She laughed at Sakura's naiveté.

"Once he started drinking straight from the bottle, it was so easy to fool him. By the time he left the bar and went home, he was so out of it that he didn't even hear me slip into his room and get into his bed.

When he woke up to find us tangled up together he was quite surprised and confused." She laughed. "He's so cute in the morning. He looks like a little boy with his hair all mussed. You should have seen his face when I told him what a wonderful lover he was. He was so drunk, he would have believed anything I told him."

"So, he didn't touch you." Sakura glowered at the manipulative witch next to her.

"Not yet, but it doesn't matter. He thinks he did and I can be patient and wait for our wedding night—after the baby is born."

Sakura tuned to glare at Karin. Even if Sasuke did not have sex with Karin, he probably did have his doubts as to what really happened because of his irresponsible drunkenness.

'Damn it, Sasuke!' Sakura agonized. 'How could you let that happen?'

Now Karin was winning. Her sordid plan was going off without a hitch.

Sakura's stomach lurched.

"I'm going to write him a letter in a few weeks telling him that I'm pregnant. Then, I'll keep writing him to let him know about my progress. Those expectancy books are so detailed that anyone could fake a pregnancy."

Maybe Sasuke was proving to be a poor role model for their child, but Sakura knew he wasn't an idiot!

"As soon as he sees you, he'll know you're not pregnant."

"Bakana!" Karin chided, giving Sakura's shoulder a not so gentle shove. "I'm not going back to Konoha till I have the child in my hands. Then, I'll just change the baby's birth date and he'll never know the difference. Men are idiots. They never notice those things and all he will want is a blood sample from the kid to prove it's his."

Karin leaned in close to hiss in her ear. "Besides, he'll be so happy to have the baby, he probably won't even ask questions."

"You're sick," was all Sakura could think to say. She felt unwell and suddenly she couldn't find the energy to fight back after learning that Sasuke had foolishly let his guard down. She was so disappointed in him that she didn't think she could feel worse even if he had betrayed her.

"Like I care what goody two-shoes, Haruno thinks of me. I'm surprised you even cracked open your scrawny, virginal legs to anyone, much less let my Sasuke-kun pop your cherry." Karin walked past Sakura with her nose in the air, turning to strike with her last weapon.

"Just make sure you take good care of Sasuke-kun's little boy till I come back."

Sakura spun around, her hand on her stomach and her eyes practically popped out of her head. "A…boy?"

Karin pretended to ignore the shocked kunoichi, checking her nails casually while she reveled in the blow she's just laid the girl out with—Sakura had turned positively green! She went in for the kill.

"Sasuke-kun's gonna be so proud when I bring him our son."

Sakura's fist clenched in her gown and she suddenly felt a violent surge of sickness.

She puked on Karin.

0o0o0

Karin wanted nothing more than to beat the bane of her existence half to death for vomiting on her, but out of deference for Sasuke and his child she held off. She had to control her temper. Everything was finally coming together and she couldn't risk harming Sasuke's child now when she was about to become his wife.

She loved the look of agonizing pain she'd glimpsed on Sakura's face when she told her how she screwed Sasuke-kun. Sakura was even more gullible than the man himself. Even when Sakura found out the truth, the look of pain had not diminished. In fact, Sakura looked even more disillusioned and Karin was tickled pink.

Then the little bitch had barfed all over her.

"You fucking bitch! How dare you do this to me? You wouldn't even be alive right now if it wasn't for me!"

Sakura tried to get away but Karin's claws dug into her arm, dragging her back onto the terrace when she tried to escape inside. Karin had twisted the knife then, to punish Sakura even more.

"They aren't even looking for you, Sakura," she hissed gleefully. "They don't give a shit about you! Not Kakashi, not Naruto, and especially not Sasuke! Not one of them even cares that you're gone! You're going to die alone in this fucking desert and no one cares!"

Sakura tried to take a swing at her, but Karin avoided the sick girl easily. Then, she screamed at her that she burned down Sakura's tacky, little house, using Sasuke's favorite fireball jutsu.

After that, one of the guards came and helped Sakura back inside while the other guard blocked Karin from tormenting her further.

What Karin hadn't told Sakura when she was boasting was how, when Sasuke had woken to find her in his bed, he had still been very drunk. So much so, he didn't even stir as she artfully threw her clothes around the room to make it look like they passionately led to his bed. The horrible smell coming from him was awful, too. The lousy, acrid reek of stale sweat and booze coming straight out of his pores was nauseating. It had almost made her reluctant to climb into bed with him.

The next disaster was the way he began cursing when she woke him to tell him what a wonderful lover he was. Sasuke's face had taken on a peculiar color and he vomited all over himself, her, and the bed.

"Get the fuck out, Karin," Sasuke growled between staccato breaths and dry heaves. "I don't know what the fuck you think you're doing in my house, but get the fuck out!"

Ugh! It was completely gross and she had to get dressed and go across town to shower at her own apartment because stupid Suigetsu wouldn't let her in their place.

"Oh my fucking-god, Karin! You fucking reek! Oh, no." Suigetsu blocked the kunoichi when she tried to enter his and Juugo's house. "You ain't comin' in here, bitch. You got your own damn place. You go there! Geez, you fucking stink!"

All along the way, people gave her weird looks and put their hands over their mouths in disgust if she got too close.

After that, Karin wanted to leave Konoha immediately until the baby was born. But before she could leave town, Lee found her and she had to go on one last mission to Rock Country with the green beasts, to make it look like she was still working for Konoha. That had been a complete drag.

0o0o0

Since Karin arrived back at the palace, things hadn't improved as much as she'd hoped. First, the stupid guards didn't want to let her in because the Daimyo wasn't in the palace to give permission. Then, Sakura didn't look too healthy when she finally did get in. It really took some of the burn away from her news away since the kunoichi was already sick and depressed. She really had been looking forward to telling Sakura—to twist the knife further—that she would never be able to go back home. When Karin recognized the child's sex through his chakra signature, she was expecting a huge reaction out of the pink-haired man-stealer.

She did not expect her to do the same fucking thing that Sasuke had.

0o0o0