WARNINGS. Eventual M for sexuality, violence, guilt-tripping, disturbing descriptions, gore, and mental illness such as PTSD, depression, and psychosis. Stalking will also be included.
A/N. I'm really, really excited to prove myself in this genre, and I love, love the tension, therefore, I wish you may feel as engaged as I strive to write. This could—with all its right—be considered an AU/canon-divergence, as you soon might notice. This has been inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's A Descent into the Maelström and Helene Cixous's Stigmata; of course, it has also been inspired by Muse, Tally Hall and They Might be Giants, the latter with all its absurd and entertaining Stuff is Way and Tally Hall with their weird-yet-funny songs that remind me, for some odd reason, a lot of cosmic horrors—of course, if anyone wonders if there's a song behind all this mess. Not particularly the same vibe, tho, and I don't think cynical humor will be used here. Also, now I've realized the two great pieces that have helped me to put a tone to this story, so huge thanks to K-Chu's Twited and arch1ves' Asfixia—I swear up to God, even if you have to use translator, read that wonderful story, it's something so unnerving, so cruel... so maddening, specially because, essentially, nothing never happens because... there is nothing wrong.
NONE of Naruto's characters or plotlines belong to me. This is a non-profit piece of fiction made to entertain you.
#1: Afraid.
"Sasuke's nurse has died."
How many, again? Sorry. It must have been three, or maybe four—it has been five. Five nurses.
And Sakura takes the hint.
"When am I set to leave?"
These tough days have turned sour and Sakura will still not call it quits—for so, first she shall be brutally punished, and second, she shall be compensated: poor little child, finally breaking apart. Sell your soul, not your whole self—only otosan had been too loose, too ambiguous in his message. It had pained, with time, the most righteous; but the message was cryptic and still, too bone-touching for her to reach it and drag it back out of her system. Her days have become too unbearable, and war has longed, fiercely, to land a fist upon her gut and break torn-open her blunt, childish-like foolishness.
But there must be something wrong inside, right? Her otosan, for all his years of wit and intelligence, must have had some truth poured into his words, for all she can think is how is he so word-perfect, so alright. Sakura's heart still breaks, if the slightest, and after some time, the wounds never heal—they embed you unto themselves.
"But, aren't you a doctor, dear?" her okasan gently asks, only her question is not an innocent one but rather a trick question.
"But many of his caregivers, the nurses," she quickly corrects, "have died, and"—are you sure you want to preoccupy your parents like this?—"... and he requested me personally from the very beginning."
Sakura picks at her food, her gaze low and her parents too silent. It becomes aggravating, truly, for her to practically hear their untrusting thoughts and questions. She doesn't blame them, still, how could she? How could she? Duty is never good news.
"I thought the boy despised you, dear," her otosan simply responds, low, almost biting it off, transparent as calm the water. They both just silently nod, all too unsure—no! All too conscious.
"He doesn't despise me, otosan," Sakura quietly, tiredly, amends, and the fatigued tone she uses makes the rest of the oration. "He just"—find the words, Sakura, find the right words—"... he just has had a tough life and has troubles."
"Well, but five nurses dying?!" he attacks, not with a vile blast but with concerned, aggravated motions. He is a good tosan, always was, always will. Love each other they do; family holds together through times of wrawness and disquietude.
Theirs is a tired fight, push and pull—I am right when you are wrong, and therefore, righteous I am when this topic comes down. Lies she had told them and she had hoped their was a reciprocal relationship. It had not. They were sick and worn out of their daughter's fatigues, of her wires being so pulled and so wrongly placed. They weren't willing to see past her erratic behavior. The war had got the best of them.
"So when are you leaving, dear?" questions her okasan, her gracious sandy-blonde Suna hair less dark these days. She is growing old, isn't she? She starts having gray hair.
Sakura picks at her food, suddenly losing the appetite. She looks gloomier these days, her mother commented to her father. She heard them talking about her when she went to pick them up.
"I am set to leave in a week, okasan," she vaguely responds. It makes her gloomy.
"And how long are you staying there, Sakura-chan?" her okasan rapidly adds, without haste but with a sharp need to know.
Her okasan never quite liked her decision. It wasn't like most mothers of civilian girlswho often thought such occupation was too unladylike and even worthless. Her mother found it risky and with all her right to do so. She encouraged her daughter to do better, but still, her okasan shuddered and cried when her daughter had to leave. She never complained, never. But she always told her to be careful.
She had preferred her duty as a doctor. It wasn't, precisely, a thing of petulance or greed, blind power. It was much more a thing of happiness and victory. Her Sakura-chan was saving lives whilekeeping herself out of danger. Except, her Sakura-chan is a medic-nin and those go to the fronts, if not to boost the morale, then to boost their bodies. One needle farther from defeat, one body closer to victory.
Her okasan wasn't as happy then, she was preoccupied. War always makes a penance out of your living, Kizashi, she confessed telling to her otosan. They both have a bakery, and as such, never exactly got to face war. Not precisely wealthy, but accommodated, and their bakery was a joy. Still, war hovers on you as much as you don't go to the frontlines. There's this little kid and his okasan that brought birthday cakes every year for otosan, but this year there's no more; there's an okasan that bonded with her kunoichi daughter through simple dango, but to eat two is too much for her.
Sakura is her only daughter, her pride and her devotion. This is not what one wants for one's daughter.
"I'm unsure, okasan."
"Is it prolonged?" Kizashi demands with apprehension.
"I don't know, otosan."
Sakura remembers fresh blood and tired flesh—all too angry, all too manic. Charred meat and some sort of intense, dead smell and the burning sensation of knowing something you just don't want to know. Sakura is tired, worn-out.
"Due to his unsure state, Lady Tsunade doesn't prefer to specify with us how long our duty would take, it may depend."
She thinks about her, about many of them. She has everything to say but be sorry. Thinks of her friends, those who failed her and those who she failed, and those who were failed by them. She thinks, harshly, about the people at the other side of the desk, on the other side of the world, giving orders. Those who did well did as told—andthencamebackdead—those who did not were scum. Which kind of good ninja found utter disgust in following orders? So it was all okay while they had their long second chance of younger, brighter, dumber kids ready and eager to follow behind them. She thinks of the coincidences, the casualties, their names all written on a pile of ancient rocks made to celebrate them as if they hadn't been very much murdered.
"Sakura, I'm sorry if I'm offending you while I say this, but I don't think you—"
"Don't think," sharply, she corrects him. "I'm well fit for this job, otosan, don't fancy me as unfit, if that's what you were trying to say."
It gets in your nerves and it crawls over your limbs and it climbs on your bones and it settles down on your head. Sakura, not overly abusing her intelligence, guesses things are just like that. You get tired. Time takes you down. Fate is written like that. Bounded to woe. Oh, they told you Sakura, don't play on the fool. They told you. It gets really hard. It gets fuckinghard. And there you go, Sakura. You did as you pleased and here we are.
They both remain silent and uncomfortable.
Of course, they would. Owes her a few scars, doesn't he? But their problems must be carried far away from the formality of Sakura's new job.
"If others could handle the work, I certainly shall, don't forget that."
"They are dead!"
"And for such I'm no less than discontented, but now that we are here and it might be our last encounter in several months, I encourage you to share your true feelings," Sakura, exasperated mandates, all her unease pouring over.
Both her parents are also exasperated, angry, if you will, at her daughter, and Sakura feels it all trapping, a cage too tight to make her enjoy her last lunch with her parents before she leaves. However, they are also much more intelligent, and for so, they try to calm themselves.
"Sakura, we know that you're capable, we know," her okasan gently reassures her, "but we do not think it's the safest choice you can make, especially considering the fates of those poor girls that have already tried to aid him."
A response, a whisper, a Sasuke-kun would never hurt me; a snort, a bitter smile. "I know where you're coming from, but it has become a problem. Lady Tsunade needs someone she can trust to finally put an end to this ongoing inconvenience."
Both Kizashi and Mebuki stare at each other. "We love you, Sakura-chan, and we hope to see you whenever you come back."
If she comes back, but Sakura has no strength.
"We are almost at the Lighthouse!" a dark-haired nin, leader of the team in charge of escorting her to the Lighthouse announces.
Where Sasuke lives is not exactly a lighthouse, but rather a house right in the conjunction of Kaze and Hi, a small land called Kawa, mostly formed by water and rivers. A smaller, less threatening version of Kiri, if you will. As small, very likely, but deadliest the least between the both. It's in a house built by the founders in the middle of what could be considered an island but it's too small for it, and it would never be cataloged as an island, for it to be more properly labeled as a cliff, a towering cliff in which the house rest midway the hill and the water-leveled ground. Who would turn their eyes to this small land with no relevance? It's said many reunions were held in there, like a meeting point, and sometimes, the lights inside would be so vibrant, so vivacious in this place out of nowhere that whoever came to see it would have foolishly believed it to be alight, and for such, the Lighthouse was the house called. It has no light, but it certainly is in the middle of nowhere. No one to reach you, no one you reach to, circled by water and the deadly sense of dread of being brutally encompassed with—
But tough are these times to come and tougher will they be if she indulges in her anxiety.
Sakura, who has, of course, been traveling with her supplies sealed inside a scroll gets on the boat as well as the others do. The team in charge of escorting her is small, with barely four members, and lucky enough she was when Ino pulled out but Shikamaru entered. He is much less cheerful and outgoing than her friend, but she realizes, with all the growing dread brewing in her loins, that he is whatever she requires in these uncertain, bitter moments to come. Ino would have nerved her out, put her all anxious and that's something she doesn't need.
She feels her chest rise up and down, in a painfully slow motion. Relax, calm, breathe. She has to prevail calmly, otherwise, times will be proven the less and less good. God, she already misses her tosan, and her kaasan.
Because the house is built in the middle of what could be considered an island but it's not, they have to get there by a small boat. Sakura notices there must have been two—one for this side of the shore, and its homologous one from the house shore, but there is only one. Everybody is dead quiet, and the calm waters make shivers run down Sakura's spine. It's all too calm. It makes her anxious.
They travel for several minutes—not as long as expected, in that sense, the distance is short—and when they arrive, they start making their way towards the house—not so far from the water, not so far up the hill. It's not necessarily brusque, or rusty, but the house is small and has seen better days, roughly treated by the pouring sun and the voracious waters. According to Lady Tsunade, it was once nearly blatantly crushed by a storm it came ravishing. She would like some reassurance it won't happen again, that she'll make it safe and sound, but the others are dead.
No, wait—
The house, which as already stated is built midway through the hill, has its base made to balance the irregular, uneven ground, but after that, there's not so much about it. It's, of course, not like the houses she's used to seeing back in the village, or any other case at that, but the house is rather plain. They walk for some minutes and when they arrive at the door, Sakura notices a small ring on the ceiling outside the house—with luck, she'll be able to hang a light in there and enjoy some reading moments.
Because it is past four—or maybe five, damn she should have brought a clockwork—then Sakura resolves to prepare them a meal before they part once again. No matter how early they started their journey, this house is in the crouched lands by the borders of Hi and Kaze, so it was safe to assume they would finish their task late. This is luck if you think about it. They have finished as early as to have a meal and still leave with some light on.
A kunoichi, red hair blazing with a shade so vibrant and Uzumaki-like it scalds her retina, helps her unseal her scrolls while the others unseal the supplies they have brought to maintain both Sasuke and Sakura afloat until the next supplies are sent. Sakura grabs the rice, ready to start, but is gently interrupted by the kunoichi. Kasumi, it's her name, and she bears a gentle smile.
"Go and check Uchiha-sama first, I'll start to cook." Kasumi looks barely one day older than her, and while appearances may trick, she doesn't believe she is younger than her. The uptight and crucial formality weighs over Sakura.
The house, which is small but not small enough to trigger a claustrophobic sense and is definitely leaned on the traditional side especially considering the austere conditions it was built in, and considering the circumstances it has endured is somewhat simple. Sakura opens and walks out the door of the kitchen and by the dining-room door, she walks towards Sasuke's room. The hallways are not as short as expected, but the wood under her feet is cranky and squeaks under her. She shivers, feeling the chill down her back. It all makes her so nervous.
There are only two bedrooms in the house—not quite vast but neither scarce in its proportions. Both doors are closed, so she knocks on the first one. There is no answer. Sways to the other door and knocks too, but the response is utter silence. She slides the door open, entering.
"Sasuke-kun, we have arrived—"
Sasuke is not here.
Oh no.
Sakura nearly slips to the ground of how fast she swerves, pushing the door wider to get out of the bedroom. Shikamaru is there, in the hallways, watching her almost fall, and slightly concerned but as well disguised as he has it mixed with confusion.
"Are you okay?"
"Sasuke is not"—she opens the door, breathy; the short but frantic run makes her grow tired; it's the anxiety—"here…"
The other nin have also made their way in the hallways, the other three pair of eyes staring curiously at the weirdness of the situation.
Sakura sees him, laying in his bed—she guesses the risk of sleeping on the floor and end up soaked or worse, flooded might be high and made them take the choice to implement high beds other than futons—and staring at the closed, covered window of his with silence. His silence is so quiet, so peaceful, so silent, so dreadful, so terrifying.
Sakura clears her throat and cleans her hands on her skirt. "Sasuke, we have arrived." Sasuke doesn't look back, keeps staring at the window in deadly silence; unlike the other nins, who watch carefully. Great and almighty Uchiha in their eyes.
Sakura gets closer to him, slowly, sensing their eyes poking holes in her back. She is unsure, anxious, and overall, nervous. It's been a long time since they last saw each other. Now here, face to face, affronted with reality, she is no longer that sure she wants this job. She fancies herself unfit.
Finally, she arrives at his bedside, and carefully, attempts to grab his hand. She feels her blood pump in her ears frantically and her chest painfully rises up and down. She is sure, sure he will retreat his hand abruptly, or slap her away, or, or—or he could do something much worse; instead, he remains quiet, allows her to grab his hand, and says nothing.
"Sasuke, it's me, Sakura," she gently, softly tells him. "I have come here to aid you, and I will be here until"—death does us apart? Say it!—"you're cured."
Sakura expects from him a slow hand clench, as in reassuring. Maybe he will nod and that's it and maybe he will just not and maybe he will crush her hand right thereandshewon'tbeableto—
Sasuke then—not sharply, not abruptly, not offended, not violently—retires his hand and puts it to rest over his other one. Did a wonderful job with that arm of his, didn't she? It would be cruel if it was to crush her afterward.
"I'll bring you food."
He doesn't respond.
She doesn't intend to melee their curious stares, so she carefully slides the door shut and, facing for some instant the door in front of her and the ground beneath her feet, she lets out a relaxing sigh. It's over, it's over; it wasn't as bad. Yes, it's all her and her manias. Everything will be alright.
When they finish cooking, she can hear something outside, like a tic, tic, tic. It's subtle, small, lacks hoarseness or voracious violence like Sakura guesses all in here must do. It's not particularly hot here, but the wind allows a freeze colder in the slightest.
"Captain," Kasumi calls, "it's starting to rain."
"Well," the dark-haired nin, Jūzo, simply responds, "first we'll have to finish our meals, then we'll see what we do."
It's raining torrents after that. Thunders speak for the sky and they do not bestow gentle answers. The water has finally accepted its voracious nature and has started to violently sway back and forth against the shore and secluded as they are, Sakura fears this might be a common occurrence. Shikamaru says it's no wonder the waters are so vicious, for them to be a long, long river connected to several others even as far as Hi and Kaze. It might be small, Kawa, but certainly as vicious as the waters it bears. Or maybe the water bears this land.
The water wields such strength and such vertiginous desire to carry on it might have as a mantra "here I come and it goes whatever it goes". It feels so stressful, so loud and so trapping you might as well believe you have been caged in the middle of nowhere, in the voracious sea, right inside a… a lighthouse. Oh, so that's why they call it the Lighthouse. Same dread, same madness, isn't it? From the water, that's it.
"Maybe you should stay this first night, captain Jūzo," Sakura suggests, only it's not Sakura but her fear and it's not a gentle suggestion but a calculated order and she doesn't want to stay here.
Not with him.
Lady Tsunade was gentle and asked her if she could handle the stressful job. Sakura, as scarred and scared she was—oh face him not, for her to have gone almost mad after his ravishing—believed it was time for it to come to an end. Uchiha Sasuke, as sick, degenerated he was, could stand against much worse. The ill-fated nurses with their dismal destinies weren't that relieving, but if something—someone—was happening here, it was time for someone to put it to an end, and discover it.
She hasn't come back out of pity or good heart, no she hasn't. Enough has she had with that tumultuous relationship she has been dragging on with Sasuke and far away she wants to remain from him.
"I agree on that, captain," both Kasumi and the fourth member, a shinobi with the name of Len, agree.
"Shikamaru?"
Shikamaru, who has been staring at the far deserted lands that surround the Lighthouse has stayed quiet ever since the afternoon, and now, dark night with the water flattening the ceiling and the wind the door, it seems very unlikely for them to leave. Also, Shikamaru is awfully lazy and doesn't like to have difficulties.
"I'll do as you say, captain." See?
The five decide to drag the boat farther away from the rising and chaotic water hoping it won't get carried away or submerged by the rising water.
They decide to send Kasumi alongside Sakura to Sakura's new bedroom, and in the living room, the other three men will be sleeping. The sky roars and the night consumes, unfearful, all it gets on its way. It rains hoarsely and thunders and lightning alike strike at the earth, the water defeating the poor ceiling over and over again. It makes little to ease Sakura's nervousness, but she steels her nerves and scolds herself. No more patience for those tears.
They had both—Sasuke and Sakura, Sakura and Sasuke—stand on the edge, all too unsure of one another. It's not alright, Sakura, had Tsunade told her but old wounds run deeper than expected and they hurt, hurt severely. Sakura, before going to bed alongside Kasumi, checks on Sasuke, closes the window and tries to stitch up her scarred perception of him.
"Are you alright, Sasuke-kun?" she gently questions him, checking if he is comfortable or cold.
He stays silent.
Sakura walks towards the door and, before sliding the door open, murmurs, "Good night, Sasuke."
Sakura sees him turn his broad back at her.
It feels—his undeserved rejection—as a sharp and concise stab of disdain submerged and completely soaked into an upcoming rage. His indifference feels colder, thunderous, electrifying; makes her unsure of her position in this new task. Maybe, just maybe, he had never truly asked for her from the beginning—nor never, to be more precise—for him to believe her unworthy, untalented, annoying, and a desperate burden he wished not to carry unto his death side.
The wind roars outside, frantic, merciless, cruel upon them. Sakura fears the house might crumble down in a fiery blaze of destruction and forgetfulness. How terrifying must it be, now she realizes, to die at the cold-blooded, fair, and uncalming hands of the water. Sakura has tasted poison, oh it's adrenaline-esque shenanigans saving her and bestowing her a foe under her kill kist; has tasted lightning, charred meat, wet flesh, unconsuming despair embedding itself into her; she has, certainly never, tasted water. If there's a way to succumb to death, to vanish from this earth, how cruel would it be to be underwater, drowned, consumed by the fiery coldness of it.
Fire—fire consumes you, eats your loins, allows your soul to escape unharmed, as a warning; water also consumes you, but that one devours you, it cages your soul with no opportunity to escape.
Water, as vicious, voracious, clings to you with no warning but in a reminder: already dead, already dead—trapped. This languid creature has so many vices, truthfully, and Sakura is anxious because this is not the place she wants to be.
The water trespasses her ears and she almost, almost hears it pour into the house and fill it with droplets. The tic, tic, tic isn't as gentle but fierce in its furious nature. It sounds like a continuous and devouring creature preying upon them.
Crack! And a loud thunder echoes. The water attacks with fierceness the hill and it roars so violently Sakura covers her ears. The night is set to be long, and dreadful.
The next morning, Sakura offers them lunch before they depart, but all of them insist they must leave as soon as possible and that Sakura must guard her supplies as tightly as possible if she doesn't want to run short. It's early, really early in the morning, the dawn burns away the night; twilight shimmering briefly upon them before being consumed.
Shikamaru tells her, "Sakura, come back." Sakura is bewildered at his words; does he find her that scared? She is nervous, but not afraid. "I mean, you must come back. Alive."
Oh.
"Your parents, they need you. The last nurse was my mother's niece, and her parents were devastated."
No one can hear them. The wind whistles with fiery character, even if the rain stopped some hours ago. Shikamaru has walked her further into the cliff for them not to know what he murmurs to her, but Sakura suspects it's a shared feeling that one of them not liking her here.
"You must have noticed there's only one boat"—may God know what happened to the other one—"that will very likely be left at the other side of the shore, but you can swim, can't you? Leave as soon as you feel there's something wrong." Then, in a reassuring tone, he adds, "Supplies will be sent every month, tell them anything you need."
Sakura looks confused and he sighs. "Naruto is peachy about you finally conceding to Sasuke his wish for you to come, but it's suspicious at best." Of course, it is, why would it not? All of his circumstances are quite odd. "Lady Tsunade seemed very worried about you, but Kakashi has made me swear you'll be okay."
Is Kakashi suspicious of Sasuke? What? That's why Shikamaru was sent on the mission with her? That's why Ino was pulled out?
Shikamaru sighs once again. "Sakura, I can't do… whatever Kakashi wants me to do with you, at least not as far as Konoha is, so I'm asking you to please, please be careful."
Sakura frowns, but nods. They wait for Shikamaru.
The humidity hovers over them and when they leave, Sakura slowly sits on the porch. With Sasuke—seemingly—sleeping and finally alone, the woods are squeakier, older. The wind whistles and the clammy morning bares her hands and mind. Now, quieter, the winds seem to mumble.
She feels him everywhere. It has been just a morning, but it feels eternal under that porch. She hears her chest pump irregularly and uncomfortable, uneasy at the whole situation. Her fists are shaky. In here, all it's too trapping: the house, the weather, the water, him. They haven't talked in years. No, they haven't. Wrong her was all he did and now, now she is here, caged alongside him, where no one might hear her.
Sakura is afraid.
She feels it in her blood pumping giddily and in her twitching leg seated under that porch. She doesn't want to enter the house. Not with him.
He has hurt enough—she is deadly sure he will do it once again. He may—in this secluded and hidden place—crush her mortally, wound her to insanity, ravish her once again, and who will be there? Who will be there to help her? So she has to protect herself, keep an eye on him carefully.
And for so, she waits.
And waits.
And waits.
And waits.
Nothing happens.
At least, nothing that she notices.
