The Bride
He doesn't realize the baby she's carrying is his, when he shoots her in the head at her wedding. He'd been too distracted by the fact that she was marrying a man that wasn't him.
When Sakura wakes up from the coma he puts her in, childless and alone, there's only one thing on her mind. Revenge. Revenge against her ex-boss. Her ex-teacher. Her ex-lover. Revenge against Sasuke. Kill Bill-esque Assassin AU
Disclaimer: M for very descriptive intercourse, graphic depictions of violence, portrayals of major characters as moralless, drug abuse, alcohol, language, adult themes, babies, unwanted groping/harassment (trigger warning), mention of dog fighting w/no descriptive details, and brief mention of human trafficking.
This is more of a dark/violent/heavy romance than it is an outright revenge saga. It's centered around the sasusaku au relationship with some plot lines and scenes loosely taken from Tarantino, rather than being fully framed around the vengeance bloodbath that is Kill Bill. If you are uncomfortable with this premise, or are under 18, please do not proceed.
Cover Image by: Jyacira1 on Twitter. Used with permission. Do not repost.
The work alternates between the present and the past. It is complete and in three parts. It will be published in full, throughout this weekend.
The Bride | VOLUME I
Sakura wakes up from being comatose, first confused. Then disoriented. Then shocked.
Her once full womb is empty.
Then... she's in agony.
She's sitting up in her hospital bed, clutching at herself and crying.
The room is sterile. Barren. The smell of sick is heavy and her tears are wet and feel unnatural against her face.
The last thing she remembers traumatizes her too much to focus on, so she grounds herself in the present moment, per the training that he taught her.
She looks down at the palms of her hands, analyzing the lines that have formed there in the time she's been asleep.
Five years.
She's been asleep for five years.
She shakes and a silent, dry, sob exudes from her chest at the newfound pain this discovery gives her.
She remembers the night their baby was conceived.
He was making love to her. Or loving her as sweetly as someone like him was capable of.
His capacity for tenderness wasn't high. He was ruthless and uncaring at his core.
In that moment though, she'd felt something else exuding from him. They'd started out with him on top of her, pushing into her roughly, but passionately.
That was him. Hard around the edges, but passionate to a fault.
They'd been outdoors, deep in the wilderness for her training. The sky had been clear and there had been hundreds of stars in the sky. She remembers her eyes focusing on the blanket of sparkles overhead, as they moved their bodies against each other.
She remembers Sasuke getting annoyed that her attention was on something that wasn't him. He'd gotten off of her, yanking her around until she was on top. Until her line of sight was only directed his way.
She was adjusting herself so that he fit more comfortably inside of her as she straddled him. His eyes were hooded, his angled features muted. He'd run his hand up the front of her body and pushed his finger into her mouth.
"Suck," he had said.
Sakura had gripped his forearm and his wrist with both of her hands and did as he requested.
She usually did what he asked of her without much question. That's why she was his favorite subordinate.
It's why she'd become his lover and not just another one of his trained and deadly assassins.
Her eyes shut as she wrapped her tongue around his finger. Her hips ground into his and she moved herself against his length.
His other hand latched on to her cunt. Playing with her in just the right way, so that she was moaning wantonly, beneath the canopy of trees. He removed his digit from her mouth and smacked her ass. Hard.
She jumped at the sting, her eyes opening wide to give him a dirty look.
He was smirking at her from below, the fingers at her pussy still working against her. She was wet and the sound of her clit being played with was audible.
Her mouth drops open as she comes a first time and his face looks satisfied. He took pleasure out of making her orgasm more than once, in a session.
He sits up when she's done, still inside of her. She eyes him lazily as his arms wrap around her back to hold her.
One of his hands drops to her calf. He wants her to adjust her legs from being tucked behind her, now that he's changed positions.
She grips at his shoulders for balance and moves herself. She extends her legs so that the heels of her feet are now digging into the forest floor, behind his back. Then she drops her palms to the ground behind her and pushes against his dick, as she faces him.
He groans at the change in friction. He's going to come soon, but he wants her to come with him again.
His hands move to her waist, holding her hips tightly, and she gasps. His thumbs are pressing into her too hard. She knows he's getting ready to move her against himself forcefully, so that he can hit just the right spot to get her over the edge again.
They're looking into each other's eyes. Time seems suspended as the moonlight reflects subtly against his bottomless orbs. One of his eyes didn't match the other, but the difference in hue was not discernible right now, in the night.
She chews on her lip as he lifts her up and down. Her eyes shut tightly for a moment. One of her hands feels around behind her, until she's gripping at the shin of one of his extended legs.
She opens her eyes again. He's still looking at her. His eyebrows are drawn together and a sheen of sweat is developing at his neck.
He's straining. Trying not to come yet.
"Wa—wait for me," she moans.
She pushes against him as he moves her. She's close.
"I'm trying," he mutters.
He slides a hand up to her chest, palming one of her tits and her head tosses back.
He can feel her pussy fluttering against his dick and he starts coming in her with a loud groan.
Sakura pushes herself upright more, so that she can hug him and press her chest against his. Their hands sift into each other's hair. Their noses touch as they pant against one another's lips, continuing to come, in sync.
They stay that way for a while, after it's over. Eyes half open, faces close. She presses her mouth to his lightly.
As her eyes process the plus sign on the pregnancy test a few weeks later, she knows with certainty it was this night that did it.
She'd been on a solo mission a month later, and she was late.
It's making her paranoid and her focus is shot.
It's not possible for her to be late. She takes her birth control every day at the same time.
But last month she'd skipped the placebo pills in her birth control batch. She had gone straight to the next pack.
She must've fucked something up there.
This month, she's nearing the end of the week of placebos and nothing has happened.
No period.
Her body feels strange too. She just knows something is off.
She purchases a pregnancy test from the convenience store around the corner from her hotel.
Unfortunately for her, she's spotted by a member of a rival squad, while she runs this errand.
Sakura's eyes are wide as she stares down at the test. She's back at her room. Sitting on the toilet still, underwear at her ankles.
Fuck!
Her palm goes to her face and she continues to eye the test in shock.
Her head snaps up, at a knock on the hotel room door.
She narrows her eyes at the intrusion. Silently, she stands up, pulling her panties on.
The stick telling her she's got Sasuke's baby inside of her, is still clutched in her hand. She walks towards where her gun is stashed, near her bed.
She picks it up and approaches the door, staying off to the side so that she's not directly in front of it.
"Yes?" she questions, cautiously.
"Room service!"
Sakura looks skeptical. She had not ordered room service.
"Wrong ro—"
Suddenly .50 caliber bullets are blasting through the door.
Sakura drops to the ground, in a crouch. She raises her rifle and shoots back through the blown out portion of the door's plaster.
"Stop! Stop!" Sakura yells.
She recognizes this person on the other side. It's Temari from the Sabaku gang.
"I'm gonna blow you to fucking hell, bitch!" Temari yells back.
This really pisses Sakura off.
"Fuck you, whore! You know I could take you out in one fucking go if I wanted to!"
Temari shoots at the ceiling from her spot in the hallway, amping herself up.
"Let's go. What's stopping you, bitch?"
Sakura swallows. Her gun still held up, but her finger is not on the trigger.
"I just—I just found out I'm pregnant."
Temari falters, poking her head through the hole she's blasted in the door.
"Huh?" she questions, agitated.
Sakura slides the stick she's still clutching in her hand, across the floor. It ends up within Temari's eyesight.
Temari squints at it.
"Bullshit," she mutters.
Sakura groans as Temari pushes her rifle through the hole now too.
"Please. Please just look at it!" Sakura pleads.
Temari clicks her tongue. Then complains, "I don't know what this fucking shit means!"
Sakura shoots at the ceiling above herself now too, from her spot where she's still kneeling near the ground.
"The plus sign means positive you stupid slut! Positive, like there is a fucking baby inside of me!" she yells.
Temari pulls her rifle back, her arm dropping.
"This is pissing me off. So what?" she questions. "Gaara's got a bounty on your head and I want to collect it."
Sakura looks at her, expression heated.
"Normally, I'd have fucking killed you by now," she says. "But I'm asking you, woman to woman, to leave. Go home," Sakura requests.
Temari gives her a disgruntled look.
"Why?"
Sakura shakes her head at her. She puts her gun down, in front of her, so that Temari can see.
"I'm scared shitless for my baby. Just—just please. Go," Sakura is nearing begging now.
Temari stares at her for a full minute.
"Is it Uchiha's?" she asks.
Sakura's eyes widen.
Oh, what the fuck?
She's going to punch Sasuke in the fucking face.
If even people in rivaling squads suspected them of being involved, then his desire to keep their relationship under wraps to preserve 'professionalism' was failing, miserably.
Sakura doesn't respond. She just glares. There is a fire in her stare and a new feeling is creeping up into her. One she's never felt before, but thinks she'll feel for the rest of her life.
Protectiveness. A mother's love for her offspring.
"Good luck with that," Temari says, finally. "Bringing a baby into this life… that's some real crazy shit," she finishes.
She backs away. Then, she vanishes.
Sakura remains where she is. Temari's parting words echoing in her skull.
Sakura disappears after that. She doesn't see Sasuke again for most of that year.
When Sakura spots him at her wedding, seated passively on a pew in the back corner of the church, her heart stops.
It's not good for her, in her condition, to panic. She could miscarry.
Reflexively, her hand flies down to the very visible bump at her front and rests there. She's almost nine months along.
His eyes are on her, his expression dark as he looks at her face. His gaze drops to her full belly and a fleeting look of distaste crosses his features as well.
Sakura looks around, nervously. Her friends and her husband-to-be are distracted with the organ player at the front of the high-ceilinged room.
Slowly, she walks towards him.
She had never wanted to see him again. She's not entirely surprised he's found her. He was the best at what he did and his team was the best too. Though, he seems like he's shown up here alone.
She should have been more suspicious. He was generally never alone. Especially if the setting was unpredictable.
She's not sure what's more unpredictable than a church wedding in the middle of the Suna desert. Between a slim, pink haired young woman donning a fake name, and a dopey, unsuspecting man who'd been so smitten by her, that he'd agreed to raise another man's baby without much question.
Her husband-to-be should have asked more questions.
She was carrying Sasuke's baby, and Sasuke was not just any man.
Sakura stands next to Sasuke for a moment. He remains seated. Neither of them speak.
He does not think the white dress suits her. There was nothing innocent about her or the things in her past she had done, at his direction.
Sakura looks to the open doorway that leads out into the dry, desert heat. There is a wrap around deck attached to the building. She looks back at him, then walks out.
He gets up and follows her.
They are facing each other, outside. She'd led him to an inconspicuous corner of the deck. They are not visible from any of the windows of the church.
Out of habit, she'd mapped out the blind spots on the property the second she and her husband-to-be had visited it, before reserving their date.
Sasuke's hand lifts up.
Her eyes are fixed on the action. She feels like he's moving in slow motion. Like time is standing still. He rests his large palm against her pregnant stomach.
She feels a thickness in her throat as she swallows, looking down. Her baby is kicking. Almost like it senses that its father is on the other side of the protective and nourishing womb it's living in.
Sakura's eyebrows furrow. She does not miss Sasuke's sharp inhalation of breath, as he feels their baby kick at him.
She almost tells him in that moment. Tells him that this child inside of her is his. Is a product of their passion and their connection.
She restrains herself though. There would be no escaping him, if he were to find out.
Instead, she steps backwards. Separating herself from the heat of his hand. She is irritated that he'd be so forward as to touch her like this, without asking. LIke he still had a right to do so. Like she belongs to him.
It's one of the things she hates about him. His ability to take and take and take and provide next to nothing in return.
He was selfish.
"How did you find me?" she questions.
His hand has returned to his side by now. He looks as handsome as ever. Though, she knows beneath that facade of an attractive, dark haired man, lives a cold, ruthless killer.
His compassion was minimal. She'd seen a sliver of his humanity from time to time. It slipped out in moments behind closed doors, during the many instances they'd spent alone together.
"Are you surprised?" he asks back.
No. She's not. His resources were vast. It had probably been simple for him to track her down.
She feels tired now.
"Why are you here?" she asks.
He cocks his head to the side and looks her up and down.
"I'm here to see you," he says.
Sakura cracks her neck, then straightens it.
"You weren't invited," she responds.
Sasuke raises an eyebrow at her.
"So? Invite me now," he says.
She gives him a half-hearted glare.
His eyes are on her hair now. It looks different. Though, she hadn't changed the color. She has bangs covering her forehead. Before, she parted her hair in the middle.
She had always unnecessarily bitched that her forehead was too big. He supposes in her new life, she preferred to hide it.
He's not imagining the faint blush on her cheeks as he checks her out unabashedly.
They are interrupted by the harried voice of an unfamiliar man.
"Babe! Baby! Where are you? They want to start the rehearsal."
Sakura's eyes get rounder as her husband-to-be's footsteps draw near.
She steps forward, towards Sasuke again. His expression is carefully crafted in the direction of neutral, but she knows he's irritated at being interrupted.
His eyes drop down to her lips as she speaks.
"Call me Ino," she whispers.
She steps back and rests folded hands across her swollen belly.
"There you are!" her husband-to-be says. He tosses an arm across her shoulders with familiarity, coming to stand next to Sakura.
His loving eyes are on her and Sasuke raises an eyebrow again. This time, at the weak loser she's decided to marry and let knock her up.
The guy looks at him questioningly, then looks back to Sakura.
"Who's this?" he asks her.
Sakura smiles softly at him, then looks to Sasuke.
"This is—this is my older brother," she says.
Her asshole fiancé is grinning.
"No, shit!" he says.
Sasuke sticks his hand out. Her husband-to-be grasps at it excitedly, but Sasuke crushes the other man's fingers as they shake.
"Mean grip you've got there!" he laughs, nervously.
Sasuke smirks.
He notes that the man's tux looks cheap. Like it's a bad rental or a thrifted garment.
Her husband-to-be looks between the two of them. "You guys don't really look alike," he says, thoughtfully.
Sasuke is eyeing Sakura's loser down, from the barrel of his patrician nose.
The guy is shorter than him too.
"Different fathers," Sasuke supplies, easily.
The other man raises his hand in the air, before saying, "Ah, that would do it!"
Sakura tucks some hair behind her ear and then plays with her earlobe, before dropping her hand down to her belly again.
Sasuke was watching her.
Playing with her earlobe was one of her tells, when she was nervous. He'd drilled it into her head to stop that when he'd trained her, because an obvious tell like that would fuck her up in the field.
This is not the direction she'd wanted today to go in.
"Why don't you walk her down the aisle? Since she's got no other family here and all?" her husband-to-be suggests.
Sakura's head snaps up. She'd briefly dropped her gaze to the ground. Her eyes fall first on Sasuke, then to her soon-to-be betrothed.
Sasuke does not look pleased.
"Oh, no. Honey, that's not his style," she says, quickly, shaking her head.
She has one hand looped through his arm. She pats at his chest with the other, in an attempt to appear good natured.
She's still on edge though.
Her husband-to-be looks at her and Sasuke, amused. He's blissfully unaware of their real tie to each other and as such, he is treading on dangerous ground.
Sasuke has one hand dangling at his side. The other is behind his back. Sakura doesn't doubt that it is likely resting on the grip of a gun, tucked into the back of his pants.
"That's asking a lot," Sasuke responds.
He's coming off casual, but Sakura senses that he is getting more and more ill tempered as the interaction continues.
Sakura shoos her groom away.
"I'm right behind you," she calls out.
Sasuke waits until he's gone before continuing their conversation.
"Well. Congratulations," he says.
He doesn't sound very congratulatory to her and she looks at him suspiciously.
That's it? That's all he came here for?
Both of his hands are back in her sight, clasped together loosely and hanging down the front of his body.
"Thank you," she says.
Sakura sees him off shortly after that, her eyebrows drawn together as he turns his back on her, to depart.
She knew that wasn't all he had wanted.
Sakura is on the ground, on her back. She'd been knocked over in what had very soon turned into a scene of carnage.
She had been at the front of the church with her almost husband and a couple friends. Their backs were turned as Sasuke's small team stormed the open door, weapons drawn.
The reverend had shouted, "What the hell?" in dumbfounded disbelief.
Sakura had turned around and screamed.
Her fingers were digging into the fabric of her dress as she yelled out, "Sasuke! No!"
She's relatively unharmed, as it were. Suigetsu, Karin and Jugo had targeted the rest of the wedding party, at Sasuke's direction.
Everyone is dead. She is the only one that remains.
Her head turns as unhurried footsteps approach her.
It's Sasuke.
Her eyes are on his shoes, and slowly her gaze travels up. Up his long legs and his body, to his cold face.
He looks down at her, his expression somber. His hand lifts, his gun pointed at her skull.
"What do you think of me? In this moment?" he questions.
She's going to die. Of course he'd want it to be by his hand. He brought her into this and he'd take her out of it too.
She'd known the risk in leaving the way she did, but she'd taken her chances. Risked her life, in order to protect this unborn child.
She had failed.
He had told her, when he recruited her. Once you were in, you couldn't get out.
She hadn't listened to him.
His dark eyes are on her. Her hair is splayed around her head, like a halo. The strands contrast starkly against the dark wood of the rustic building. Her veil is no longer attached, the white mesh underneath her, in a crumpled heap. He notes that her hand is resting protectively against her baby bump.
Her white dress has ridden up, the fabric at her knees.
He always liked her knees. It was a weird part of her body to like, but he didn't give a fuck.
Sakura opens her mouth to speak.
"Sasuke, it's your bab—"
The sound of the gunshot echoes around the barren church. This holy place has been desecrated.
Sasuke freezes, his hand stuck in mid-air. He's already pulled the trigger and blood is pooling around Sakura's head.
Sasuke is at his brother's house, sitting on his couch, unblinking. He is as close to shock as someone like him can get.
He and the rest of the team had evacuated the church swiftly, after the assault on the bride and the rest of the wedding party.
Itachi is standing across from him, his arms crossed. His lips are pursed and his eyes are hard. The lines on his face are more prominent as he continues to stand there, disgusted.
Itachi eyes him for a while longer, before he begins to speak.
"You shot your lover in the head," he starts. "Who by the way, should not have been your lover to begin with."
Sasuke glares at him now.
"You know better than to mix work and pleasure," Itachi continues.
Sasuke doesn't like when his brother makes him feel like an idiot.
"You did this because you were secretly livid that she was carrying, what you thought, was another man's baby," his brother states, slowly.
Of course the timing of Sakura being knocked up by some random asshole had seemed a little suspect to Sasuke.
But to his knowledge, she'd been on birth control for years.
She took her pills religiously and had often taken them in front of him, since she took them late at night.
He scowls and tunes back into Itachi. His brother is still ripping him a new one.
"Instead, you end up being a misinformed imbecile. Leaving your child motherless and in a coma. For what? To extract some form of petty vengeance?" Itachi scolds.
Sakura had miraculously survived the gunshot, albeit barely. After the police had rained down on the crime scene, it had been discovered that she wasn't dead. She'd been checked into the nearest hospital in Suna.
As a Jane Doe.
Sasuke had spent the first month of her disappearance almost nine months ago, thinking she was dead.
K.I.A.
Killed in action.
He had grieved in his own way. It had involved a lot of gory hits and executions with high risk stakes. He'd drowned himself in work. He wasn't used to processing emotions of this magnitude and he wanted to be numb.
She had been at his side for four years. The sudden loss of her, had been jarring to him.
But shortly afterwards, four months in, he'd gotten wind of some information through his networks that he couldn't ignore.
He'd had her located. She wasn't an expert at disappearing and when he'd found out her whereabouts, he'd been shocked to discover that she was visibly fucking pregnant.
To Sasuke, it looked like she'd left him. Left everything he'd invested in her behind. Without a thought or a care or a goodbye and had seemingly shacked up with some other guy. Escalating quickly from budding romance, to pregnant, to fucking wedding planning.
Like her relationship with him had never even happened.
He'd been beside himself with rage at the indecency of it.
Her cold disregard for his feelings on the matter had siderailed him.
Sasuke shouldn't have been surprised by it though.
He was her teacher and he himself was the coldest, meanest, bastard of them all. She'd learned cruelty from him.
His brother at least, had more empathy.
"This is not the way we operate. We do not dismember women and children."
Their baby had been delivered at the hospital. A girl. Itachi had dispatched a crew to survey the scene.
His brother was going in personally to retrieve the child, once the staff halved for the graveyard shift.
"She breached protocol," Sasuke says, stiffly.
His brother purses his lips some more and gives him an unimpressed look.
"Well, what the fuck am I supposed to do about this now?" Sasuke questions, frustrated.
He runs his hands through his hair, then down the sides of his face. Dropping them into his lap afterwards.
Itachi uncrosses his arms and pulls at the bottom of his long ponytail. His hair is falling over the front of his shoulder.
"Is it not obvious that she was likely trying to escape from you? From this life? That she didn't want it for her child?"
Sasuke looks away from Itachi. His eyes land on a stray hair tie on the dark wood of the floor.
"She wasn't allowed to make that decision on her own," Sasuke says.
Itachi begins to walk away from him. He needs to start prepping to infiltrate the ER and take Sasuke's daughter.
"Be that as it may. You made a mistake," Itachi tosses.
He's disappeared down the hall, but he adds on a final thought.
"It is a mistake that is not reversible. She will come for you."
Sasuke is troubled and remorseful. He knows he fucked up here.
"If she ever wakes up," he says to himself, sadly.
A month into the incident, Sasuke sends Karin to the hospital in Suna, to give Sakura a mercy killing.
He pulls back the order at the last minute.
Karin had hooked up a toxin to the sleeping monster's IV and had been dangerously close to completing something that had been greenlit, not one hour ago.
She is not happy at the wasted effort and she is not happy at the fact that she had literally been about to push the plunger on the needle.
Sasuke would have executed her, if she'd completed the task.
Karin grumbles into the cell phone that's cradled between her shoulder and her ear.
"You're a real ass. You know that right?" she says, scathingly.
Sasuke is silent on the other line.
"How does she look?" he asks.
Karin's crimson-eyed gaze lands on Sakura's face.
Her head is still bandaged up. Karin had skimmed the clipboard at the end of 'Jane Doe's' hospital bed.
She had a metal plate screwed in, nice and tight on the back of her skull. They'd been able to relieve pressure from the wound, but were hesitant to make any calls on cognitive function.
Karin scoffs.
"She's looked better," she says.
Sasuke visits Sakura, late in the night for some time, after that. He watches her, expressionless. He is regretful, yet enraged at her for leaving him and starting this fucked up mess to begin with.
After a year, he stops coming.
His kid needed him more than the unresponsive shell of her mother did.
"No. That's not the way it's done."
Sakura makes a sound of frustration.
"Do it again," he orders.
She wants to scream at him.
Sasuke is walking her through sword training. They are at his training grounds, in the remote wilderness.
She's not very good with a blade.
He had been training her for almost a year now, after recruiting her to work for him. She'd mastered other concepts already, but this one was not sticking.
Sakura is finding it difficult to imagine a scenario where fighting with a katana makes sense for an execution, but Sasuke assures her that no weapon goes untouched in this line of work.
"What about a mace?" she jokes.
There's no way a medieval bludgeon is used in modern day assassinations.
"Used it before," he responds.
He's behind her now. She can feel his bare chest at her back. His hand snakes down her arm, from her shoulder to her wrist and he corrects her form in this manner.
He was chronically overly physical with her and she'd had enough of it.
Subtly, she rotates her hips so that her pert ass rubs against his crotch.
His hand that's wrapped around her wrist tightens and she drops her sword from the pressure he's putting on her delicate bones.
The blade clatters as it hits the ground.
They are both still for a minute. Sakura's eyes are on the sharp metal of her sword, the sun reflecting light onto the sheen of the blade.
Then, he's pulling her hand behind her back and securing it there. His other hand slides across her stomach and dives into the front of her shorts.
She moans, pushing back against him and turns her head to the side, as his lips come crashing down to capture hers.
It's sloppy and heated and aggressive and she wants to feel all of him, everywhere. She wants him, NOW.
She pulls her lips off of his and he's flipping her around, his hands tearing at her clothes. He rips her top clean in half off of her and she's shoving at his waistband, dropping his pants and undergarments to his ankles.
Her lips find his again and her hands thread into his hair.
She's naked now and he's lifting her off of her feet. Reflexively, her legs wrap around his waist, one of her arms winding behind his neck to balance herself against his standing body.
He pulls his face away from hers and they gaze into each other's eyes as he pushes his hardness into her.
Her lips part.
His dick in her feels right. It feels perfect.
She can just tell that no one else will ever make her feel this way again. No one else, except for him.
He is thinking the same thing about being inside of her. About her. He could drown to death in her pussy and he wouldn't be mad about it.
His hands grip her ass and he moves her against himself roughly, his pace fast.
Their profession is violent and their fucking is too.
He walks her forward and pushes her harshly against a tree. Her head snaps back and she's dazed at the motion for a moment, but then she's overcome with an animalistic aggression.
She wants him to hurt too.
Her teeth latch onto his jugular, her canines pulling at the skin of his neck as he plows her deeply against the bark.
He lets out a pained sound, then pulls at the back of her hair to get her jaw off of him.
"Stop that," he says, out of breath.
She's going to leave a mark and he does not want anyone asking him questions about where it came from, after this.
It would cause problems for him if the rest of the team finds out that they've become involved.
It's the first time they fuck and it does not end up being the last.
Sakura is yanking the IVs and assorted wires off of her body. It would not do for her to be discovered awake in this setting.
She'll be questioned and she doesn't want anything of this nature to be documented in an official record.
She scans the whiteboard nailed to the wall, at the foot of her bed.
Doe, Jane.
That's what they call her here.
She's nameless.
The whiteboard lists out when she was last visited and which nurse will be visiting her next.
The board looks like it's been erased and written on too many times to count, the ink from the dry erase marker leaving a permanent stain on the glossy plastic.
Sakura's eyes lift higher up. If the clock on the wall is an indicator, then her upcoming nurse is due within the hour.
She wants to leave before that.
When she tries to get out of her hospital bed though, she discovers that her legs don't work.
She falls into a heap, moaning in pain and discomfort from her entire body crashing into the floor.
Fuck.
She's on her face, her palms flat on the ground as she attempts to lift her top half up.
Her eyes dart around the dark room, thinking quickly.
She needs to take the nurse out, before she can escape.
She assesses the area of space behind the door and calculates that she can fit her body there. Her intent is to lunge at the nurse's legs once they've stepped inside.
With great difficulty, she pulls herself across the linoleum, stopping to scream in frustration at the exertion this is putting on her disused body.
This is hell.
A hell that Sasuke has put her in.
Circumstances aside, the nurse had been easy to bring to the ground. She'd left the door open a crack, eyeing Sakura's empty bed in confusion as she walked forwards.
Sakura had yanked roughly at the woman's ankles to knock her over.
The woman had hit her head in the fall. She was out cold. Or she was dead. Sakura doesn't bother to check.
She slides herself across the ground, deftly feeling across the woman's body for her keycard.
She then yanks herself towards the hallway, peeking out from the crack of the door. She is still on her stomach.
The hall was empty for the graveyard shift.
Yet, Sakura was immobile. It didn't matter that the corridors were sparse, if she was incapable of moving.
Her eyes land on an unoccupied wheelchair, sitting invitingly, in the open doorway of the room directly across from hers.
Sakura is sweating. Her arms burning from the sudden usage, after years of being dormant.
She'd pulled herself up into the chair, almost quitting halfway through.
Her desire to find Sasuke and end him had crept up her insides then, propelling her to try harder.
Sakura uses the nurse's keycard to scan herself into a deserted mother's room.
She'd found signs directing to the room near the elevator bank and had wheeled herself into the shaft to get there.
The lounge is in the basement of the hospital and is intended for women on staff to pump breast milk, after returning from maternity leave.
The irony of being in this room specifically, so that she can focus on regaining her mobility, is not lost on her.
She should have been a mother once.
She would have been. If not for him.
She swallows down the sob that's threatening to spill out of her and draws her focus back to the task at hand.
She won't get anywhere right now, if her thoughts stray.
She'd pulled herself onto the sofa in the lounge. Her atrophied legs are stretched out in front of her. She eyes her feet with disdain.
Wiggle your big toe.
She recites the mental mantra repeatedly. Over and over and over again.
Her gaze is burning a hole into her skin, her jaw tight as she wills this with all of her being.
Wiggle your big toe.
She perks up.
Progress.
It's barely there, but she saw it with certainty. Her toe had spasmed.
One down. Nine more to go.
Shooting Sakura in the head while she was carrying his baby, had done a somewhat interesting number on his reputation.
He had already been known as ruthless.
Now he was known as a merciless, heartless, crazy-ass piece of shit on top of it. People were lining up for his squad's services in droves and they were offering an insane amount of coin for him specifically, to carry out the more gruesome executions.
He didn't have time for any of it.
He had a kid to raise now. He passed most of the missives off to Itachi and his team at first, focusing on how the fuck he was supposed to take care of a baby without its mother.
If he was capable of crying, he would have done it. He was overwhelmed and sad and fucking angry, and Sarada didn't sleep well at night.
He'd call his own mother, if she was still alive. But she wasn't. So he called the next best thing.
Naruto's mom.
"Help me," he'd pleaded.
Kushina was not impressed with him at that moment. Her son had told her what he'd done. She wasn't a civilian. She'd run in these circles some decades before, but she had gotten out. She'd married Naruto's dad and had Naruto and then Naruto's dad had been killed.
"I'll help you for a while, until you learn the ropes. This kid doesn't deserve what's happening to her. But you're on your own after that. Got it?"
"Fine."
Kushina had shown him how to hold his daughter properly. How to burp her and how to change her with minimal mess and how to lay her down to sleep.
He'd learned which cries meant she was hungry and which meant she was fussy and which meant she was sleepy.
It had gotten better, once he'd figured it out.
He'd leaned on Naruto and Itachi as well. He hadn't really needed to ask them for help though. They gave it willingly and without question.
Sarada was cute like that.
Itachi had already committed himself to his kid, the night he'd gone to retrieve her. Sasuke supposed that since Itachi had seen her first, before any of her other family had, that it had meant something to him. Forged a unique bond for his brother between him and his niece.
Naruto had been overly pumped. Almost to a questionable level.
Sasuke knew he would not have been able to do this alone. He gets angry when he thinks about Sakura attempting to cut him out of this. Of her desiring to do this without him and by herself.
She wouldn't have been able to. She may have thought that she could have, but she was still a child herself. Six years his junior, there were many things Sakura had still been immature about.
Still. He knew these were weak excuses to list out, when he lies there alone at night. Feeling regretful about what he's done.
As Sarada grows, Sasuke delegates out more of his work. He's still active, but only for jobs that pay enough for his skill set.
He wants to be around to see her. Be present in her life.
Sakura's hands are gliding across Sasuke's face, attempting to smooth out the harshness of his features.
She is straddling him, his length deep inside of her as she sits on his lap.
He is looking at her, lip slightly curled as she traces his cheekbones and his nose and his forehead.
Sakura laughs at him, then says, "You look so mean!"
His hands tighten at her back, but he doesn't say anything.
"Relax!" she giggles.
His frown grows deeper, his eyebrows creasing.
"I am relaxed," he says, stiffly.
Sakura pulls back, her hands dropping to the sides of his neck, and then to his shoulders.
"You're not. You're really tense."
He growls at her, annoyed. His palms move to her hips and his fingers press into the flesh near her hipbones.
"Then start fucking moving, instead of fucking around and running your hands all over my fucking face."
She gasps as he grinds up into her. Sakura leans forwards, so that her chest presses against his.
Her arms wrap around his neck and she pants in his ear while he moves her body against himself.
His pace is fast for a while, Sakura holding onto him tightly as he has his way with her.
She pulls back from him again though, smacking at his chest lightly and shaking her head silently.
He looks subdued as Sakura moves herself against him slowly now instead, setting a more sensual pace.
His eyes shut and he leans his head back against his couch, groaning softly.
Sakura's jade eyes assess his expression, as she moves against him.
She wants him to loosen up, but once in a while he was so wound up that it was impossible.
He was in a bad mood today.
Suigetsu had botched a job for a regular client and said client had proclaimed that he was taking his business elsewhere. To a competitor.
Sakura had tiptoed around the house, eavesdropping, until Suigetsu had left.
She'd sat next to Sasuke cautiously afterwards, knowing better than to speak and chance him redirecting his anger onto her.
He had grabbed at her after a substantial amount of tense silence, pulling her across his body and undressing her.
His hands had slid across her skin and she'd moaned loudly, before he'd slid his dick into her wet pussy.
His head lifts up again now, once Sakura's hands move from his skin, to caress her own chest.
His eyes drop to her tits as she plays with them and then his eyes are on her face. Her lids are half-shut and she's bouncing on him. The wetness of her pussy is audible as she moves on top of him.
She leans in to press her lips against his. He kisses her back. One of his hands slides up from the bottom of her spine to her shoulder blades, and then to her neck.
He grabs a handful of hair at the back of her head and she inhales sharply, her hands still pinching at her tits, her tongue deep in his mouth.
Once she clenches against him, he tenses up and pulls her off of his dick, yanking her by the hip.
Sakura's hands fly off of her own chest and grab at his upper arms in surprise.
She looks down, between them. He is stroking himself, jaw clenched and then he's coming. Spurting out, getting on his hand and on her stomach and her thighs.
His hand that's still in her hair tightens painfully and Sakura hovers over him, annoyed.
"Why didn't you just come inside of me?" she murmurs.
He doesn't answer, his eyes on his dick as he strokes it a couple more times. Then he swallows and leans his head back again, shutting his eyes.
His hand drops out of her hair and falls to his side instead, on the couch cushion.
Sakura pouts, on her knees over him, covered in come and still chasing her orgasm.
He cracks an eye open.
"What are you waiting for? Play with yourself," he says.
She lifts an eyebrow at him.
"Are you going to help?" she questions.
He lifts his hand off the couch and presses two fingers at her center, then slides them across her slick skin and into her wetness.
She gasps as he finger fucks her.
Her hand drops to her clit and she rubs at herself. Her other hand grips his forearm for support, as his fingers work inside of her.
He looks more relaxed now and she's happy about that. She's taking too long to come though, and she's NOT happy about that.
Sasuke can sense that they're both getting tired.
His hand that had been at his dick, lifts up to pinch her nipples and she yelps.
He scissors his fingers in her, then pulls them out, batting her hand away and taking over the movement at her clit.
He rubs at it with his entire hand, and this gets her over the edge.
She fists her hands into his hair, pulling at his dark locks, coming hard with a resounding wail.
Afterwards, he holds her close. They're too lazy to get off the couch. She falls asleep, feeling safe, in his arms.
Naruto has come to see Sasuke at his house. He's not happy with him.
Sasuke can take a guess as to why.
After years of being comatose, Sakura had vanished from the hospital.
Sasuke has his eyes on Sarada, playing in the backyard.
She was five now.
Naruto's hands are flat on Sasuke's kitchen counter, his blue eyes locked on the child he essentially considered his niece.
His eyeballs rotate to Sasuke. From the rings around his eyes, Naruto deduces that Sasuke likely hasn't slept for a few days.
Naruto thinks to himself that the bastard deserves it. He doesn't tell him this though.
"She's on a fucking murder rampage!" Naruto seethes, instead.
He's being relatively quiet for such a loud-ass idiot, but Sasuke gives him a dirty look anyways.
Sarada is not at all in earshot, but Sasuke does not condone any talk about business or other nefarious acts, anywhere near her presence.
"You need to get this under fucking control," Naruto bites out.
Sasuke's face does not reveal what he's feeling.
"I am aware," he states.
Naruto shakes his head at him, angrily. His best friend was a fucking moron.
The asshole had been so clueless with women, that he'd resorted to shooting the only one he'd ever actually gave a damn about, just because he'd been fucking mad.
Mad that she'd run off without telling him. Pregnant with his baby.
Said baby was not much of a baby anymore. She's running around before them, laughing and playing, in a spacious and leafy backyard.
There's not a discernible care in the world from her innocent eyes.
At least they had that.
"Well, what the fuck are you going to do about this?" Naruto asks, continuing.
Sasuke looks at Sarada, glumly. He's standing perpendicular to Naruto at his kitchen island, both of them able to keep an eye on his kid through the glass doors that look out into the yard.
"Does Sakura know that her daughter is still alive?" Sasuke questions, tonelessly.
Naruto turns his head to him, looking at him with disgust.
"What? You think we all have a death wish?" he starts, scathingly. "No one's trying to find her and tell her that information. That shit is on you!" he exclaims, waiving a hand in his face.
Sasuke frowns, his thoughts focused on Sarada. On the daughter he's raised the past several years on his own.
She was like a carbon copy of him. She had his hair and the color of his eyes and some of his facial expressions.
After the mess he'd made, thinking Sakura had ghosted him and become impregnated by some other man, it was ironically undeniable that Sarada was his. Her mannerisms were a little similar to his, but she took after Sakura more in that regard.
He's felt the once foreign feeling of remorse so often the past five years, that it's almost become a part of him now. Remorse for shooting his mother's child in the head. For putting her in a coma.
For turning her into this ugly, murdering, vengeful monster.
She'd already been a monster before this, but it had been refined. Her savagery confined within the neat lines of their profession.
Ever since Sakura had woken up, everything she'd done to get to him, to find him and take her revenge out on him, had been a barbaric mess.
He runs a hand down his face and breathes in and out deeply.
Sarada is running towards the door now, about to prance over the threshold and come back inside.
She makes a beeline towards him, breathless.
"Papa!"
Naruto schools his expression so that he appears aloof and carefree. He looks on at them.
"What is it?" Sasuke asks, looking down at her.
Sarada loiters near his side, fidgety.
"Why do you look sad?" she questions.
She steps closer to him, cautiously, and pulls at his pant leg.
He pokes at her forehead, then puts his hand on the top of her head affectionately.
"I'm not sad," he lies.
She narrows her eyes at him. Though the color is the same as his, the shape is Sakura's.
He looks away from his daughter for a moment. The resemblance to her mother makes him feel uncomfortable.
Naruto is still watching them. Sasuke's dark eyes connect with his knowing orbs.
He looks away from Naruto too.
Sasuke had recruited Sakura when she was still kind of young.
He'd been at the police station, bailing out Naruto for what was luckily some dumb misdeameanor unrelated to work.
He had been annoyed that the idiot had gotten himself caught up, but was thankful that the record would likely be expunged. It was not good for business, for any of them to have priors or a record.
He was filling out paperwork when Sakura had been brought in. Screaming. Flailing. Spitting. Bitching out everyone within a five inch radius.
Her hands were zip-tied behind her back and her clothing was grungy. She did not look much older than 20.
"FUCK ALL OF YOU!" she was screaming.
She was being escorted by two police officers.
"I told you Haruno. If we caught you snooping around the jewelry store again, we would take you in."
The cop's partner was keeping a wide berth from her as the first cop yanked her forward.
"Get her a fucking muzzle, she's fucking crazy," the partner says.
The cop with his hands on her laughs then says, "You're just mad she bit you, before we cuffed her."
Sakura is still being difficult. She is thrashing her shoulders about, in an attempt to escape.
"I DIDN'T COMMIT A CRIME," she yells out.
The partner cop, a woman, scoffs at her.
"You're a suspect," she says.
The cop who is pulling her along adds on, "The jeweler has lost over $10,000 in diamonds in the last two months."
Sakura spits on the ground now. The female officer sidesteps, avoiding it narrowly.
"You don't have shit on me!" Sakura huffs.
The woman that Sakura has allegedly bit and now almost spit on, is clearly nearing the end of her rope.
"Shut up. We're holding you overnight. He's pressing charges," she says.
This time, when Sakura spits, it lands on the woman's face.
"THERE'S NO PROOF. I KNOW MY RIGHTS."
The lady cop pauses, before she swings back and punches her in the face.
Sakura smiles in response and now when she spits, it's blood.
Sasuke's gaze is on the papers in front of him, his pen held up above one of the empty fields of the document. He appears to not be paying attention, but he's observing this situation unfold avidly.
"That bitch is mental," the desk clerk mutters.
Sasuke glances up at the clerk. It's a woman too.
She'd been eyeing him too much since he'd arrived, so he knows he's piqued the clerk's interest. He had no shame in using people's attraction to him to his advantage. Man. Woman. Or otherwise.
He didn't really have morals. If it got the job done, he leaned on it.
He raises an eyebrow, wordlessly goading her into continuing.
"She gets booked every couple months. Always comes in acting crazy. Always resists arrest. Never actually gets charged though. We all know she's guilty, but she's too sneaky to get caught."
Sasuke is intrigued by this.
His eyes rotate to the back of the pink haired, spitfire's head as they shove her down the hall.
He could work with this. With some refinement, someone like her could prove invaluable.
Sakura is suspicious of him when he finds her a week later to recruit her.
"What are you? Like, secretly a pimp?"
He lifts a brow at her.
"You try to trick me with some sort of 'lucrative' offer, but really you're trying to turn me into a prostitute or something? Or a drug mule?"
She spits on the ground, near his feet.
She's a spitter, he notes.
"Fuck off," she starts, turning her back on him. "I've dealt with men like you before. You're all full of shit."
She's walking away from him, when he says something that rouses her interest.
"I can show you, if you don't believe me," he says, simply.
Sakura is still on guard. She knows better than to follow a hot guy she doesn't know, 'somewhere' so he can, 'show her something.'
But... she's a pretty good judge of character. This guy doesn't seem like someone who wastes the energy on abducting women and forcing them into servitude.
He reeks of arrogance. Like he thinks he's better than other people because no one's ever lived to tell him otherwise.
"So, what's the money like?" Sakura questions.
They are walking side by side down an alley, after he'd taken her to witness a local mission in progress, from afar.
Sasuke tells her the average payout from a job and can tell from the gleam in her eyes, that he has likely secured her in his employ.
"It's a 50/50 split after that," he adds on.
She looks outraged now, stopping in her tracks. She inadvertently kicks a small rock, and it ricochets off a dumpster with a high pitched ping.
"A 50/50 split? 50/50 with who?" she remarks.
He stops too, facing her. He is in an unzipped black jacket, his shirt underneath is an off-white and his pants are dark too. His sneakers look expensive.
"With me."
Sakura thinks he's dressed like kind of an asshole. His attire is basic, but she can glean that he's the type to spend a hundred bucks on a plain white t-shirt.
"You? Why the fuck would you take half if you're not doing any of the work?"
He's not amused. She is dangerously close to offending him, clearly unaware that as boss, he is owed a certain degree of respect.
"All jobs go through me, before they're assigned."
She crosses her arms and stares him down with attitude. The same guff she'd exhibited at the police station, exuding from her form.
"So?" she asks.
She shifts from foot to foot and his eyes drop down her legs, to her feet, at the action. The soles of her shoes look thin, and the instep is worn down.
"It's my network. Without my name on it, there is no work," he tells her, looking back up.
He guesses that her feet probably get wet, when it rains.
"What's to stop people from going rogue and cutting you out of the deal?" she asks.
He narrows his eyes at her.
"You die. Painfully," he says.
She gives him a disbelieving look.
"Yeah, right," she scoffs.
He steps closer to her.
"This is not a joke. Once you're in, you can't get out. Think it over, before you decide you want to commit," he says.
Sakura glowers at him. He seemed to be a rather intense person and she's not exactly sure she'll get along with him well.
He thinks that she seems unsure now. Maybe he'd read her wrong and these stakes are too high for her. The best candidates for his team were generally those who had nothing to lose. That, and they were already slightly criminal in their own way.
"But I don't know how to… do any of what you're saying," she starts, slowly.
He gives her a calculating look, then says, "Explain to me how you were hitting the jewelry store and getting away with it."
Sakura lifts her nose at him.
"I don't give away my secrets," she sniffs.
He rolls his eyes at her.
Fucking child.
"Explain, or I retract my offer," he says.
He already knows how she was hitting it, but he wants to hear her explain it. He wants to see how she thinks things through.
She doesn't answer though.
"I'm not even sure what the hell you're offering me!" she yells, instead. She juts her boney arms out, exasperated.
He looks her up and down, examining her ratty clothing and her clearly malnourished body.
She looked like she was barely making it and by an educated guess, he surmises that she's probably living on the street too.
"A stable job. A way to take care of yourself. Something to do. Something to learn," he shrugs.
Sakura is pouting now.
"I don't think I'm qualified for this job…" she trails off.
Sasuke assesses her build further. She would be an asset on stealth missions, due to her petite size and experience with hitting the jeweler, but she still needed a fair amount of work.
"You'd receive training," he says.
His prime concern is how she'd be in regards to strength. If she broke her bones in hand to hand combat and was unable to knock people out with her punches, she would not fare well.
"From who?" she asks.
Now he's worried that she's obtuse too.
"From me," he says, annoyed.
She scrunches up her nose at him.
"I don't think I like you though," she states.
He clicks his tongue.
"Too bad."
He's done here. He turns on his heel, his back to her.
"Sleep on it. Then let me know tomorrow," he says, over his shoulder.
He's walking away from her now.
"But—wait! How do I contact you?"
"I'll find you," he tosses.
What the fuck? Find her how?
Sakura has trouble holding back a scream, when he shows up the next day. He's somehow behind her in line at the corner store, hiding his face behind an open magazine.
She was in the middle of buying a sorry looking sandwich. The price is marked down on it, because it expired the day before.
She is confident that he was not in the store when she entered and that the door had not opened again afterwards either.
Where did he come from?
She gives him a dirty look, over her shoulder, as she counts out some coins to pay the cashier.
Sasuke drops the magazine on a random shelf near the register, while she's paying. After her, he buys a sparkling water and an expensive and fresh looking salad that he's grabbed from the cooler, next to the cashier.
"Put it in a bag," he demands, to the clerk.
They leave the store together wordlessly. Once outside, he plucks her sandwich out of her hands and throws it into the trashcan on the sidewalk.
"Hey!" she yells.
She was starving. She hasn't eaten in almost two days. What the actual fuck!?
He thrusts the bag of his purchases at her instead. Sakura glares at it mistrustfully, then accepts it from him, cautiously.
"What's it gonna be?" he asks, after a pause.
Sakura looks into the plastic bag for a minute, looks into it with such intensity, that it seems like she's trying to find the answer to his question inside of it.
She lifts her gaze to look at him. She notices for the first time, that one of his eyes is a slightly different color than the other. The difference was subtle, but it was there.
He eyes her down. Expectant.
"I'll do it," she says, firmly.
TBC...
If you like The Bride, check out other fics by illCat (me)
Blow: Drug Dealer AU. Multi-chapter WIP. Pt. IV pending editing
Marionette: College AU with a twist. Multi-chapter WIP. Ch. 17 pending editing
Courtesan: Sex for Money AU. One-shot.
Tarnished: Good Girl/Bad Boy HS AU. Two-shot.