FLY AWAY –Part 7 : Daymare

Chapter 34

Sasuke had never used any medical-ninjutsu before in his life. His chakra control, although sufficient for a front-line fighter, had never been good enough to equal that of the lowest-ranked medical-nin. All he knew was how to wound, to torture, to kill.

With Sakura on the thin fence between life and death, panting heavily in his lap and struggling not to yell out in pain with the last of her voice, he found himself wishing he were someone else, someone with the power to save her.

She had seized his remaining hand into both of hers and placed it on her leg. To control her chakra to the point of completing the Strength of a Hundred seal that only a tiny handful of shinobis had ever mastered on this Earth was nothing short of a prowess; to control someone else's chakra to heal herself was a whole new challenge.

And she felt it. The slightest mistake caused the worst of pains to burn her body. Sasuke dared not even try to help his teammate to manipulate his chakra; he simply let her drain all the power she needed, desperate for it to be enough. But having to listen to her cries, to watch her tears flow out without an end, to know she was in pain and be unable to do a thing… It would have driven him mad had the situation been any other, for what little he could still do was to keep himself in check while she proceeded.

Sakura screamed and writhed –that was why she had asked Sasuke to restrain her during the operation. The operation was rudimentary; she hardly had any appropriate medical components, or any time for that matter. She wasn't even sure she would last long enough to execute such a risky maneuver. But it was their only hope.

"Ngh! Aah-arg!" Sakura squeezed her eyes shut tighter to the point where her eyelid's muscles called her back to order with a harsh sting for being strained too much. This medical technique was a rougher version of the one she had used on Kankurou back all those years ago. Possessing no better medical fluid, she had opted for water to extract the poison, although now it was turning a darker and thicker red because of all the blood she had drained at the same time as the black venom of the snake. The skin on her thigh around the bite mark had become incredibly red with the concentration of blood, whereas the rest of her body was now a deathly pale; if she didn't die of poisoning, the hemorrhage would finish her off.

The black liquid came drop by drop, painfully slow. How long had she been at it? An hour? More? How could she have lasted more?

With his hand busy, Sasuke could only hold her hips tight between his knees. It wasn't the most romantic of embraces, but just having him there, breathing heavily, but warmly on her neck, it felt reassuring to Sakura, even when her head was trashing around on his collarbone, when she had to bite down hard on her bottom lip and let more droplets of her own blood fall down onto his already scarlet-stained shirt. "Sa-…Sasuke-kun…"

"S-Sakura! Come on!" She had never heard his voice cracking like this before.

The pink haired girl let out another whimper behind clenched teeth. The sensation of some more blood trickling down her chin came to her –true enough she couldn't feel her bottom lip anymore, even as she spoke his name again to give herself the courage to carry on. Why was it so cold all of a sudden?

An eternity passed by. It was night. Sasuke had lit a fire with his eye power to warm them up a little, without much success. Sakura felt so cold in his lap. Her skin was of ice and it had turned from peachy pink to snow white, so that it clashed strikingly with the bright pink and red of her hair. The young Uchiha was breathing as though suffocated underwater. He had started repeating Sakura's name aloud like a mantra to keep her awake. Only late in the night did he realize that she was passed out cold in his arms.

He couldn't sleep a wink.

~O~

The day couldn't have been brighter. There was the breeze, light and warm, the air just cool enough and the sky oh so blue. Little clouds drifted by in the atmosphere, round and fluffy-looking. The grass and the leaves on the trees were dancing too, accompanied by the serenade of light-hearted birds nearby.

Green, green eyes slowly stirred open to see sunlight filtering through those green, green, golden-lined leaves. Sakura's vision was a little blurry. And she felt so numb; her body was so heavy on the ground that she thought she might have left a person-shaped hole there. The medic blinked because of excess of light, let her eyes adjust gradually as the breeze brushed away a stray lock of pink hair from her nose. She beheld the yellow sun rays lighting the leaves which formed the unreachable ceiling of a cathedral above her and took a deep breath to savor the taste of pure oxygen in her mouth and in her throat before it reached her lungs. It seemed it would take more than a snake's dirty tricks to bring her down.

She took that thought back when she tried to sit up and found her muscles struggling with the simplest of actions. Pushing her arms up to lift her upper body felt like such a herculean task that she contemplated remaining flat on her back for a moment more –that is before a familiar white and red fan hit her peripheral vision. Sakura instantly tried to kneel, then to stand, but found no success in either attempt. In her struggle she ended up leaning on her elbow towards the familiar back of the man she loved who was still much too far away. Knowing him, he probably already knew she was awake, so why wasn't he moving to greet her? How rude!

Coming from a near death experience, Sakura couldn't hold it against him for too long "S-Sasuke-kun!" She called out, finding her voice to be almost back to its normal tone. What wonders could a good sleep accomplish.

The Uchiha didn't move an inch as he seemed busy with some other task at the moment. Still, it wasn't too much to ask for a little attention after all they had been through, so Sakura called his name again, and again…He wasn't turning around.

That's when she began suspecting something was up. With an expression of wonder painted on her face, Sakura tried to move once more, but upon having a sharp pain striking her leg, she stopped all shifting and quietly whimpered . When she looked up she found Sasuke making his way to her slowly.

Yes, he was slow for one thing, but he also looked grave, definitely more somber than usual. Maybe it was only normal, after all, Sakura couldn't expect him to go back to normal so easily with everything that had happened in Orochimaru's hideout. He stood erect a little way beside her without initiating eye-contact or else; and with her head tilted up to see him from her spot on the ground, Sakura noticed something peculiar on his right arm. The sleeve was no longer held up by navy blue bands and covered his whole arm now, but thanks to the looseness of it, she could see the bandages around the length of Sasuke's forearm from his wrist.

The medic blinked at this discovery, instantly worried "What happened to your-?"

"You've been out for three days."

This time, simple surprise gave way to deep shock in the kunoichi's widening eyes. "R-Really? Then my seal is back? It should have eliminated the venom left in my system already."

No answer. Sakura blinked again, eyed his arm insistently and, seeing as he wasn't following her gaze or anything to acknowledge her earlier inquiry, smiled a little uneasily. She tried to straighten again, thinking maybe Sasuke would help her. His posture stayed as rigid as ever, so she sighed when her muscles wouldn't comply once again. The conclusion that her body was terribly sore to top off her tiredness came reluctantly to her mind –sleeping on the bare ground for three days would do that, naturally. None of it mattered though; now that she was awake and (rather) well with Sasuke at her side, nothing could make her happier. Her smile brightened at this thought, hopefully able to convey her feelings.

A gust of warm wind blew her bangs forward past her cheeks. Sakura mustered the strength to bring up an arm that weighted a ton in order to brush them aside, squeezing her eyes shut with the effort. When she opened them again, Sasuke was crouching in front of her so she could see his face better than before. He looked pale as always, stern –again, nothing out of character- and his charcoal eyes were dark and blank, not meeting hers. Sakura observed in slight awe as he reached for her left hand with his sole remaining one. He gave a hard tug and she gasped, almost falling down. The medic-nin would have complained but he was already working her fingers into the most basic ninja seal with his rough palm. He completed it with his own hand, forming a cross, and a shadow clone appeared in a puff of smoke. With one meaningful, serious look, the clone nodded and dashed towards the trees, vanishing under their foliage as the original stood back up, preparing to turn away from his pink haired companion.

"Hey, wait!" Sakura called in sheer surprise "What was…"

"Can you walk?"

His reply made her freeze by its utter coldness. Like his gaze that was still cast away from her own, Sasuke's tone held no such thing as the slight tinge of worry Sakura would normally have expected or even the littlest trace of an emotion. She might as well have been speaking to a soulless ice-cube. Hence, the frown pulling the corners of her mouth down resulted more from this discovery than from his thoughtless question. "No…" she answered, trying to make her voice equally as void but failing to equal his experience.

Sasuke let out a grunt under his breath, not so annoyed but probably expecting it from his earlier observation –he never missed one detail with those perfect eyes of his. He turned around completely and said before walking to disappear in turn behind the trees "Tell me when you can."

And that was that. For the whole day. The next, she chanced speaking to him upon waking up with aching muscles to ask for some water; the look in his eyes when he carelessly tossed the flask behind his back at her was nothing short of a glare. What was the jerk attitude for? It was as though they were twelve year olds all over again, and even then, Sasuke wouldn't have set eyes on her with such…despising.

Despising? But why? Sakura gave it some thought: Had she done anything wrong? Could she have made things different or prevented what had happened with Orochimaru? No…She had been asleep all the time and before that she had pushed herself to her limits to stay alive, both for Sasuke's sake and hers. And she had succeeded. What else was there to be done?

This question followed her all throughout the subsequent day when Sasuke's clone came back to their improvised camp in the middle of the woods. The Uchiha's questionable actions the other morning were explained at last by the bags and cloaks the clone had managed to retrieve at their former inn. Much like with the water, Sasuke threw Sakura's bag to her, rummaged through his a little, and disappeared in the trees like what seemed to have become customary for him.

Now, the lone man was asleep, sat behind the tree trunk further away from where she lay. Yet another different thing that Sakura had noticed was that Sasuke hardly slept anymore. Topping off the marks darkening day by day under his eyes, he never stayed at their camp to rest and missed meals more often than not. Being stone-faced and outwardly composed all the time probably made him weary, but Sakura ventured a guess that his exhaustion actually came from full nights of keeping watch. She hadn't seen him around the camp at night before then. For all she could guess, he had probably collapsed against that tree.

The mystery called Uchiha Sasuke had become the epicenter of all her thoughts over the past two days. His behavior had proven more than the word 'enigmatic' could describe, and yet, as she lay wide awake with those memories in mind, Sakura still had no clue whatsoever of what might have been the source of this disorder. That is until she heard a sound, that of rapid breathing. Sakura slowly lifted up her heavy body, satisfied at this small victory when she realized she could actually achieve such deed. Once sat, she looked up to the spot from which the sound originated : the tree six meters away on her left. This was when things got complicated. The kunoichi clenched her teeth as she began to crawl towards her companion –the act in itself might as well have involved crossing a desert without water in her poor state, but in time and with much perseverance, Sakura managed to reach the young man's side without being too breathless. Her muscles ached though, as always, but who was she to pay heed when she met the sight of a trembling, panting, sweating Sasuke?

Still clutching onto her flash-light which provided a weak white lighting in the darkness of the night, Sakura took in his form with great shock. He was slumped against the trunk of the tree, had his hand unconsciously clenching the grass and plucking it off the ground, his mouth open with his chin trembling seemingly in an effort to bite on his lip and control his stress; how could she miss his frown and painful expression? Sasuke's breaths became shorter and raspier. Her astonishment was blinked away as medic-nin instincts took their toll on Sakura's petrified nerves.

More rapidly than her body would have liked, she kneeled in front of him and brought her hand to his shoulder, shaking it "Sasuke-kun!" she called. Her movements became more frantic as he wouldn't wake up. She dropped the flashlight to shake both his shoulders, called his name again and again, growing immensely worried under the sound of strangled pants. "Wake up! Please wake up!"

At last he did with a jolt, eyes opening wide and wild. Sakura didn't allow herself to sigh in relief at such feat just yet "Are you okay?" she asked immediately, concerned by his perplexed state.

There was one long minute where he simply stared at her, round-eyed, stunned, probably still under the shock of what his nightmares had showed him. Sakura recalled how he had been in Kiri months ago, so on edge and scared. Although similar on first impression, his current state was not quite that following one of his traumatic visions; or at least it wasn't anymore. Presently, he was studying her in utmost surprise, but apart from that, Sakura could decipher no more. There was something else in those glassy black orbs, she was certain for some reason. All she could see was his eyes; all they could see was her.

The movement came before there was even a change on his features. Sasuke slapped away the hands that were on his shoulders. When Sakura looked back at him aghast, she found his head turned aside and lowered.

"Sasuke-kun, you had a night-"

"Back off."

His words were uttered low, much too low for Sakura to believe them –whether out of incredulity or hurt, she couldn't say for sure. The medic leaned towards him regardless in another attempt "Just let me help…"

A short, bitter huff came in response "You can't. You never could."

The small hand that had been lifting up towards his face froze stiff on its way. Sakura's eyes widened this time, open windows for her affliction and pain to show through; only he wasn't even looking at her, watching the grass instead as though the sight of her were a nuisance. Old feelings of helplessness resurfaced in Sakura's mind. For a moment she felt her heart sink in her tightly knotted chest, and then it burned anew as she shook her head to wave off the thought and spoke decidedly "I can help."

"Tch…" Sasuke stayed silent a moment longer, and Sakura knew she had nothing more to say. Everything was calm around them, from the wind blowing gently in the leaves, the owl singing from afar, the dimness of the night around them safe for the little light of Sakura's flashlight; but then Sasuke glanced back at the pink haired girl with eyes as sharp and deadly as lightning. He stood up. Seeing him begin to stride away, Sakura tried to follow on her wobbly legs with another call of his name.

"It's useless. You're unneeded" he didn't turn to her, didn't shout, but his voice might as well have been a razor blade. However, as Sakura still followed, limping, weak and injured as she was, asking for him to wait, Sasuke whirled around to appear seething, glaring at her "I told you to back off!"

Sakura couldn't move anymore; this was his chance to leap into the trees and vanish, leaving her petrified, alone.

'…Why?' Why was he doing this, saying those things to her, knowing perfectly where to strike to deal the worst damage? She could have been angry, pissed even. She could have argued. Or she could have been shattered, perhaps crying her heart out right now for all those hurtful words he had said –what help had she been when he had been consumed by the darkness of the Curse of Hatred? He had never really needed her by his side to hold his ground in a battle against the world, had he? Thoughts like these could have plagued her and brought her down to her knees by now, especially coming from his mouth -that atrocious mouth she feared would have been the end of her had it spoken anything more.

And it hurt. Gosh it hurt. She couldn't deny such feelings of being burnt and frozen at the same time, but also cut by thousands of shards of ice and blades of lightning –the ones he wielded so expertly. This was familiar, so familiar that it made her feel helpless too, like her little, pitiful, crying child-self.

But despite all this, all the injustice of such treatment, how come was she so very worried about Sasuke right now?

~O~

Two days later, Sakura had finally deemed herself fit to walk so they hit the road again. The only word Sasuke bore to answer –the first since the other night- at Sakura's inquiry of their destination was a curt "Konoha."

The medic was too puzzled at this point to even wonder; she didn't ask anything. But she clearly saw, when her legs gave way under her weight after four hours of painful walking –much less than a normal shinobi would have normally been able to endure- how Sasuke glared and sighed in annoyance. She was annoying, probably.

As he went away once more behind some trees to who knows where and Sakura collapsed onto a nearby fallen down tree trunk, she decided to ponder on this unsettling situation a little more. Sasuke, her teammate, her companion, her love, her 'boyfriend' (could she call him that anymore?) was treating her like the most worthless piece of junk. He was being mean to her for presumably no reason, hurting her on purpose and not even taking care of her in her poor condition. And to think that before he had been there for Sakura at all times, more than ready to protect her to the point of overdoing it sometimes. This Sasuke was a completely different person.

It was true that he did use to act like this in the past. Yes, when they were genin, he would always treat her like a weakling and pay no attention to her whatsoever, only with hindsight, Sakura knew that he had reasons to back then. Now she was not nearly like she had been before, so full of herself and obnoxious, squealing, chasing him around like a fangirl all the time as if she had none of the pride and manners she so often scolded Naruto about... No, Sakura had grown up to be a respectable young woman, a great medic-nin and a good friend, hopefully a good lover. She had the audacity to take herself for what she was and nothing less.

These reflections only intensified her doubts. As she looked up into the bright blue sky of July, her eyes saw memories of her days spent at Sasuke's side like in a vibrant colored screen.

'I could only accept you.'

Then why was he rejecting her so now?

'It's because you're here that I can be…so calm'

Then why did he only ever snap or glare angrily at her anymore?

'Sakura…I'm sorry.'

How many times had he apologized to her when it was normally so rare? Had it all been meaningless for him to start treating her like scum?

And that night, just before she had been kidnapped… She remembered vividly how he had held her like the dearest thing he possessed in this world, the way he had confessed to her, so softly, that she was the only one to have ever earned such deep extents of affection from him, and then how he had kissed her, tenderly, passionately, to better make love to her.

Those words he had almost uttered the following morning… She couldn't have imagined it…

Sakura's heart constricted painfully, as though held by tight ropes of thorny rose stems. She could feel it being crushed like so many times before in an effort to reduce all her love to nothing. It was useless, she knew by now; the only thing it would achieve was making her bleed dry in the form of countless tears. Maybe she was still weak. For him, she always was. He held her heart and played it as he pleased. He always did.

Sakura shook her head. She didn't want this, not again, not anymore! She didn't want the struggle, the tears, the heartache, the endless reasoning with her love-crazed mind that always amounted to nothing. Now it felt slightly different to be broken. Perhaps since she had had a taste of what true, complete happiness felt like, she would have to mourn its loss ten times harder than she had longed for it. Could she really bear with this?

…Could he?

Sakura's head had been hung low, face in her hands as she drowned into those thoughts, but at this latter one, she perked up abruptly and found the sky again. The sting in her eyes disappeared, so did the frown over her eyes; now with new clarity, she asked herself this question again: Could Sasuke, the boy who had craved for love for so long, sought forgiveness from his peers and the world and obtained both at the price of long, painful work, the man who had fought so hard for what he believed was right, what he wanted to protect, could this person simply reject everything all at once? Could he abandon his dreams in a moment's notice? A future with love, a family, recognition and peace; Sakura was pretty sure he had just decided so.

She would have to gather her bearings. She would have to confront those dangerous eyes, those murderous words of his, to fight and win.

A.N./: Hello! I'm sorry it took a while for me to get this chapter out. I hope you can understand that I needed a yearly break on new year's eve. Thanks to this I was able to work on this story a lot more precisely and plan ahead a bit!^^

Ok, now for the info corner:

I did my research on the 'poison extracting technique' and represented it as faithfully as I could in this situation. It says on wikia that you need a particular 'medicinal fluid' for this operation, which is why the use of water was harder for Sakura to top off the rest. Also, to those of you who have seen the latest filler episodes of the anime, I have to say that Sakura's use of this technique on Sasuke was absolutely WRONG. Here I made it possible for her to heal completely thanks to her seal, otherwise she would have needed an antidote.

There, that was my ranting!

I hope you liked this chapter. If so, comments on its content are always welcome! :)