November 3rd

A sharp cry tore through the night, followed immediately by another strangled scream. Mortally injured fighters fell into the abyss of death, most in a pool of their own blood. Hanare grabbed the kunai stuck in her victim's chest and tore it away, careful to avoid a shortage of weapons for the ongoing battle. The ANBU squads assigned to the attack of the Syndicate's stronghold had by chance managed to surprise the sentinels and had advanced more quickly than predicted toward the core of their camp. The Syndicates rogues were unequally strong, some as powerful as the best ninjas of Konoha, others mere thieves whose life was dealt with in a matter of seconds. But the sheer numbers of people operating for the illegal organization made the whole operation difficult.

One of her team member came to stand beside her, a nasty open flesh wound on his left thigh, one that made the female kunoichi wince.

"You okay?" she asked quickly, her gaze already scanning around them to avoid being caught unguarded. Two men were approaching, zigzagging through the trees in the hope of avoiding flying shurikens or kunais. How stupid of them, thought Hanare. Her last opponent had been strong, but she could tell these two were not high caliber ninjas just by the way they were planning on attacking two ANBUs.

"I will be," breathed her teammate beside her.

She spared him a quick glance and saw that he was already forming quick hand signs. She knew which jutsu he was about to do, and maybe that wasn't such a good idea to spend so much chakra on just one attack given their already low chakra reserves, but she no longer had the time to contradict his decisions. The rogues were upon them. They let out mad cry of battles, swords cutting through the air in a sinister music. But as she had thought, they were weak. Her teammate's ice jutsu stopped them on the spot, and their battle cries turned into the whimpers of dying men. Hundreds of ice needles had cut though them and before they had the time to blink, the tight grip of death was upon them.

Her teammate was panting, exhausted by the ninjutsu attack he had just pulled out. Hanare turned back to him, a trembling hand holding the kunai that was to slip the throats of the now already dead men. She was relieved her teammate had been there for she felt she had killed enough for today. The blood running between her fingers made her hands itch unpleasantly.

"You should head back," she told him, her voice hoarse and weary to her own ears.

"I'm fine. I did worse." With an almost inaudible groan of pain, he stood a little straighter and put his weight on his injured leg, and walked past the two corpses, who only a minute ago had been breathing men. But being an ANBU brought you past any feeling of remorse… or at least that's why they kept telling themselves. Hanare fell in step behind him, careful to watch their backs as they were marching through the woods.

"We should find the Captain," said her teammate.

"I'm sure he's fine," she supplied.

"Of course he is," he agreed.


The wind kept blowing and the tent of the medics kept trembling under its beating against the thin material. Sakura was unpacking some supplies from the wood boxes that had just been brought from the chuunin teams responsible for the supplying of weapons and goods. The night was advanced and the battle kept raging out there, although according to their latest intelligence, the rebels had fallen back behind the border and were on the retreat. But Konoha had not won anything yet. The Syndicate would probably come up with a counter-attack and this time they would be the ones on the defense… needless to say, she wasn't looking forward to it.

As top medic of this area, she had supervised and organized the treating and evacuation of numerous wounded. On top of that, she had done more than a few operations herself, and she was in dire need of a good rest. But she wouldn't let herself rest, she was too proud to admit she needed rest at all.

"Sakura."

A small woman peaked through the curtains that made Sakura's "consultation room" in this big tent. The pink-haired stood up from the chair she had been sitting on, and smiled at the other medic.

"Yes?"

"Other teams are coming. No major injuries as far as we know. Mostly regular patching up. One of them is a Captain. Will you take care of him?"

"Sure," she said, nodding her head to signify the other woman she could go back to her other tasks. Since she was the ex-apprentice of Tsunade, arrogant ANBU Captains often required to be healed exclusively by her whenever she was available. In her eyes, their decision was unjustified as there was more than one competent medic either on the field or back home at the hospital. But things had developed that way and it was hard to send them back now that they had taken their habits and felt entitled to be directly treated by her.

Some rushed voices came to her ears and she forced herself not to sit back on the uncomfortable chair that looked so tempting right now. People counted on her. She heard one of the medic murmur a quick "This way" and a second later someone was pulling the heavy curtain to the side. She turned around to greet her patient, but the polite smile playing on her lips died at the sight of the tall dark-haired man.

"Sasuke."

He was there, and for the life of her she couldn't stop her heart from beating wildly at the sight of him. She was sick of her infatuation with him. She was exhausted of never feeling in control. Of being so dependent on his presence to be happy. Or maybe happy wasn't the right word. He didn't make her happy. He made her high, deliciously dizzy and terrifyingly scared, and as much as these emotions were confusing her and making her angry, she was addicted to it… to this feeling… because it made her feel alive. The medic part of her brain scanned his body quickly and saw that there was blood splattered on his ANBU uniform, but by the way he seemed to stand and breathe she concluded he had no severe injury and that for the most part that blood couldn't be his.

"Come," she said in her best medic voice. "Sit on the table so that I can see what's wrong."

He didn't say anything nor moved.

The seconds ticked by and she was once more feeling her anxiety rise under the deathly silence of Sasuke Uchiha. That guy knew how to play her, and she hated it. She tried not to think about the fact that she now knew how his warm naked body felt against hers and willed the thoughts of their entangled naked forms to stop tormenting her. But of course that didn't work… she thought about his rough calloused hands pinching her nipples until she was forced to whimper. She thought about the roughness with which he had handled her and how she had strangely been both excited and scared by it. She thought about the way his length had painfully stretched her insides, about his groans of pleasure, about his bruising hold on her hips, about his angry kisses on her neck, about the way she had bitten the pillow to muffle the sounds coming from her mouth.

Forcing herself back to reality with a shake of her head, she pointed a hand toward the chair and said softly: "Or you can sit on the chair. If you prefer. Whichever…"

"I'm not injured."

His voice. His low baritone tone. The soft promises of pain that it carried made her masochistic heart beat even faster, recognizing the holder of the strings that either maintained it together or teared it apart. And the man owning that voice wasn't even aware of the power he held over her. Sure he was somewhat aware of her feelings, thanks to her pitiful confessions in the past. But this was on a whole other level. And he didn't even know it…

"Good," she breathed. "I mean… are you sure? You might have some internal-"

"I'm fine."

"Why did you come here then?"

"One of my subordinate needs healing."

"Oh… ok."

She didn't bother to ask who this subordinate was or how severe his injury was. She supposed that he would have told her if he had wanted her help. Or more likely dragged her where his teammate was, that was more like him. The sound of his voice interrupted her thoughts:

"You?"

Had that been a question? she wondered.

"What?" she asked back, not sure of what he was meaning.

"Are you alright?"

Oh.

"I guess." She felt the urge to hug herself but resisted it.

"Sakura."

Tired green eyes came to rest on his face.

"We need to stop it," he said in a low voice.

And here they were again. She didn't bother asking him what he was referring to. She knew what he was talking about. That night… the weird tension between them… her behavior…But this time, she was too weary to try to avoid this discussion. The one discussion he had tried to initiate more than once. Tonight, she had seen too much blood, pain and sorrow and she no longer had the strength to push him away. She wanted him to be here, with her. She wanted him to stay here. She wanted him to come closer. But she would never let him know that. Because it was a dangerous game whenever Sasuke was involved… not that she considered this thing between them to be a game, but she just couldn't bring herself to drop her guard around him. Experience had taught her that she could not rely on him when it came to responding to her emotions. And now those emotions were safely guarded under layers of denial and bitterness, locked away from the eyes of the world, hidden in the corners of her exhausted mind.

"What should we stop?" she asked, one hand moving up to pull a strand of hair behind her ear, so as to look composed when all she wanted was to crumble down.

His pretty face frowned, an expression she had noticed he often wore lately. At least during the few times they were talking to each other.

"Pretending we don't care," he answered simply.

"About?"

"Playing dumb doesn't suit you." There was anger in his voice and a trace of something else, something she couldn't identify.

"Am I the one playing dumb?" she answered back, taking one step closer to him. "You're the one who said you didn't need me. I left it at that. Words have consequences, Sasuke. Actions too. And yours were all too clear."

"When did I say that?"

The masculine timber of his voice, now soft compared to his earlier answer, pulled painfully around the strings maintaining the pieces of her heart together. "You don't remember?" she asked. She had meant to spit back, but the question came out as a pathetic strangled whimper, as if a hand was pressing tightly around her neck, depraving her of the air she needed to breathe.

Dark eyebrows rose and his previously frowning features evened out in an expression of surprise and incomprehension. So, he doesn't remember, spoke her inner self. It was almost funny, almost, that he had said those words in a similar situation, when she had been in a consulting room, as she was now.

"A couple years ago," answered the pink-haired kunoichi, letting her gaze wander on the instruments resting on the side of the table he had been lying on. "When you had first joined ANBU. I was healing you too on that day. It's kind of funny actually, now that I think about it." A painful smile tore the corners of her lips downwards.

He said nothing. Dark eyes watched intently the expressions appearing and disappearing on her face, his hands itching to touch the porcelain skin covered with the dirt of dust, blood and the cloak of death.

"You really don't remember?"

Was that hope that briefly shone through her jade eyes? He wondered.

His face remained blank as he slowly shook his head, completely ignorant as to the event she was referring to. "That one day," she went on, her eyes coming back to stare at his face, "you said you didn't need me. And you left, or rather stormed out of the room. Just like that. Just before that, I had tried to tell you that maybe… we could… mend things between us… if there was something to mend. I wasn't asking for anything more. I knew you could never give me anything more. But as you said that you didn't need me, on top of all the mess standing between us, I decided it was best to just let things where they stood-"

"Is that why you avoided me?" he interrupted her, soft voice gone.

"I never wanted to avoid you, Sasuke. It was just better that way."

"Better for who? For you?" A flash of red crossed his dark irises briefly, and if she hadn't been around a Sharingan user for all these years, she would have thought it was a fruit of her imagination.

"Yes."

"So you really never thought twice about how I felt? I'm just a fantasy for you, Sakura. You're too scared to come closer to confront your hopeless dreams to reality."

"You already told me that," she whispered.

"Because it's the truth. We don't even truly know each other."

She hadn't expected such an insightful comment coming from him.

"I know you," she murmured, "and you can't love me." This time she hugged herself.

"Maybe," he said.

Green eyes widened in surprise and he didn't miss the flash of pain that shone through the mirrors of her soul.

Two could play this game of hurting the other, thought Sasuke darkly.

I don't want to hurt you, Sakura.

I just want to shake you awake.

I just want to pull you out of the misery you hide yourself in.

I want you to see me.

I want you to trust me.

Bright green eyes searched his, and her lips parted slowly, forming his name: "Sasuke… I…"

He wanted to tell her to shut up, to relieve them of the pain she brought upon them both with her playing hot and cold, with her being so confused about her own emotions. He wanted to kill the fear that was eating her away. He wanted to yell at her. To tell her that they didn't have a choice in this. They belonged together. They were only right for each other. He knew this. He too had fought it in the past, buried this feeling deep down, and had willed his heart not to beat faster in her presence. But it had all be in vain.

In two long strides he was next to her.

And then he kissed her.