Chapter 22: Undone
Naruto groaned. He felt like the living dead. Each bone in his body rebelled against his pace.
I can't believe I left my sword at home. Naruto cursed as he made his way back. That bastard, Ronoa-jisan! He didn't have to make me drink a gallon of that nasty tea crap.
"At least the day can't get any worse." He muttered as he clambered up the stairs.
He approached the landing to the apartment and reached for the doorknob. His hand grasped nothing and he looked up to see the door flung to the side and crumpled upon the ground, as though it had made some monster angry.
Naruto peered inside.
"I'm home… Sorry I'm late…."
The room seemed dirtier than usual, dark and dank, like a crime scene. Sakura sat, her back to him, her graceful hair cascading over pale shoulders, in front of his yellow backpack. His sword, unsheathed, lay in her hands like a dead bird. She sat deathly still, as though someone had stabbed her, and didn't turn to look as Naruto stepped over the threshold.
He slowly crossed the room in concern.
"Sakura-chan…?"
"Don't come any closer." Her voice echoed from the veil of her pink hair.
Naruto froze. He'd heard that tone of voice before, from the mouths of protective mothers yelling at him when he was younger, from grandmothers he'd tried to help on the street, from nearly ever civilian in Konoha when he'd accidentally wandered into their yard to catch a stray butterfly.
"Wh-what?" Naruto gulped. A condensed mixture of fear and pain crept into his chest. Why? Why was she acting so cold?
"Stay where you are." She whispered.
Naruto bit his bottom lip.
"Sakura-chan."
"Naruto… I know…" She stammered roughly as though trying to figure out the right words to say. "I know… about… Kyuubi."
Naruto breath got stuck in his throat.
"Wh-what..?" He didn't dare breathe. He didn't dare blink. His ears had deceived him. She couldn't know! How could she know!? She must have said something else. His pulsating heart must have deafened his hearing.
"Kyuubi. I know he's inside of you." She whispered.
The fear and pain welling up in his chest rose like a bubble up his throat and Naruto choked on it. He put a hand over his chest where the swirling abyss of confusion, hurt and panic crushed his heart.
"H-how…" He stuttered aimlessly. His control over his mouth seemed distant. A million seamless questions scurried across him mind. Who? What? When? How? But mostly…
"Why?" His voice came like the exhaling of breath.
Naruto's eyes burned. Tears threatened to spill forth like an endless river. Sakura's cold shoulder glared at him like a judge, an executioner, as it peered at him from beneath her pink hair.
No… NO!
Naruto pivoted around and dashed out the door, his footsteps echoing down the stairs.
-
Sasuke swung his bartender's shirt nonchalantly as he meandered home. Casually, he looked around. The thugs usually attacked him right before the next turn, but they were nowhere to be found. Sasuke couldn't even sense a fighting intent in the air.
A metallic clatter echoed through the still ghetto as Sasuke's foot hit a NinCola can. He casually hopped around it and heard a louder clatter from further down the road. Curiously, Sasuke continued down the path until he noticed four of the thugs shifting through a heap of trash.
"Hold on, Ku! We'll getcha out!" the small one was saying.
Filth littered the streets. The large gangster pulled a horrible disfigured dumpster to the side; it looked like it had been sumo-plowed by a wrestler made of lead.
Gingerly, two of the thugs lifted their leader out of the heap. As he approached casually, Sasuke noticed a large, red foot print plastered over his face and a horribly, bloody, disfigured nose.
"Ugh… I'm covered in mustard." He muttered as they dragged him out. He noticed Sasuke staring at them. "Hey you! Don't think this is over! This is only a minor set back! We'll kick your ass tomorrow."
"What happened here?" Sasuke inquired.
"Some bitch…"
It was all Sasuke needed.
This is Sakura's work, but why…
Sasuke sense something wrong in the air.
"Hey! I'm not done with you!" The leader screeched as Sasuke turned the corner.
A thousand possibilities ran through Sasuke's mind.
It's probably nothing, He thought. They were probably just harassing her. But he couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right.
The quick thud of hasty footsteps cracked Sasuke's train of thought. He looked up. A bowed yellow head came charging down the street.
Naruto?!
Sasuke puzzled at this as Naruto came bolting at him, his pace unchanging. Their shoulders collided as Naruto pushed past. Sasuke saw a brief glimpse of Naruto's bowed face; teeth gritted, eyes squinted, a tortured look.
Sasuke and Naruto rebounded off each other. The blonde didn't even look up as he recovered from the blow and continued to run.
"Naruto!" Sasuke cried at his back, but Naruto just disappeared into the dark.
Sasuke gritted his teeth and ran back to the apartment, the clear epicenter for all this trauma.
He dashed through the main door and up the stairs, where he found their door unhinged and discarded. Sasuke bolted through the door and found Sakura on her knees before Naruto's things.
"Sakura!"
She didn't answer. Sasuke grabbed her pale shoulder and roughly pulled her around.
"Saku-"
Sakura looked up at him. Large tears were pouring out of her wide green eyes and rolling down the curves of her red cheeks. She hiccupped and sniffled.
"I'm such a horrible person." Sakura sniffled, looking at the floor. "I've been so mean. And look, now I've got blood all over his sword." Sakura held up the blade in her hands. She must've squeezed it too tightly, because her palms were bleeding. Bright red blood smeared itself over the katana's glimmering edges.
"What happened?" Sasuke knelt down beside her, still panting from his frantic journey.
Sakura hiccupped again and couldn't speak through her tears. She held up the hilt of the sword for Sasuke to see.
"You found out about Kyuubi."
"Eh? You know about it too!" Sakura looked down again. "He told you but he didn't tell me… He really does hate me…"
Sasuke sighed.
"Of course, he didn't tell me. Orochimaru gave me a full explanation while I was away."
"Oh, I see."
"You really think he hates you?"
Sakura snapped up.
"Well, of course, I was so mean to him when we were younger! Everyone was and I just followed their lead like a blind idiot! I didn't even occur to me why no one liked him. It must have been so hard for him… I could never understand… what it's like." Sakura hiccupped again. "When I told him, he must've been so mad; he just ran out. I'm such an idiot. He probably hates me."
Sasuke blinked at her a few times.
"So, let me get this straight. You don't hate him?"
Sakura looked up in surprise.
"No, why would I do that?"
"Nearly everyone else who knows does. That's why he didn't want to tell you. He didn't want you to hate him."
"How could I hate him?! After all that he's been through… All this time, since the day he was born,… he's been a hero," Sakura looked distant, "and I didn't even know."
"Well, don't tell me! Tell him!" Sasuke cried pointing at the door.
Sakura stopped crying and blinked a couple times.
"Go!"
"H-hai!" Sakura jumped up, not bothering to mend her bleeding hands. She wiped her eyes on the back of her wrist and dashed out the door.
Sasuke listened to her footsteps disappear down the stairs and fell back against the floor.
"I am surrounded by idiots."
-
Naruto ran. He didn't even care where he was going, he just went. He had to get away. He didn't want to hear Sakura say she hated him. It would tear him apart. It had taken them so long to become friends, so long for him to be acknowledged by her, and it would all be gone in one fell swoop. He didn't want to hear it, but he knew, deep inside, that it had to be the truth. No one could love a monster.
Naruto dashed through cobblestone streets, passing little shops as they closed for the night. Proprietors stared curiously at him as he ran by, but Naruto didn't care. He didn't care that his muscles ached from a days worth of training, he didn't care that his stomach grumbled from emptiness; he just ran.
Idiot, why are you running away? The Great Naruto, the soon-to-be greatest Hokage ever, doesn't run away from anything!
I don't want to hear her say she hates me…
Running away never solved anything! You can't always run away from your problems.
I don't! but I don't know how to deal with this one. You can't fight your way through things like this…
Naruto cringed
… I'm… I'm not strong enough to deal with this!
Naruto found himself in the park, a tree and pond covered area in the center on Sorano. The cherry trees whistled it the humidity and fireflies buzzed around like comets. Naruto heaved and leaned against a bench. His mind still wanted to run, but his body refused. The muscles of his legs burned and beads of sweat covered his skin, too much heat for the summertime warmth.
Naruto continued to walk forward. When the path curved, he didn't follow; he stepped right into the pond. The cold water came like a blessing to his sore legs and he pushed further into the pool, until he was waist deep in water.
Naruto looked up into the sky. The stars winked back at him and the moon seemed ten times larger than normal. Its brilliant, crème-colored light danced off the top of the water as it rippled around Naruto's hips.
It was under a sky like this that Naruto had caught Sakura singing, practicing to beat Ino on Sea Breeze Island, under a moon like this when they first slept in the same room, in Tazuna's house when the three of them had first began their excursion. Naruto remembered the magical way the moonlight bounced off her face, how radiant she looked draped in it. Naruto pined at how he may never again see her in the same light, or in any other kind of light for that matter. She would never want to see him again.
Naruto wanted to cry. He wanted it to rain so no one would notice. Pain ate away at his heart, like a ripe fruit to a hungry animal.
"Naruto!" Sakura's voice echoed from behind him. The clear tone erupted through Naruto's thoughts. He froze in the cold water.
What is she doing here? Did she follow me? Doesn't she hate me?!
A large ripple swept passed him, indicating Sakura had entered the water. The ripples continued as she drew nearer and suddenly stopped.
"Naruto…" She whispered. The muscles in Naruto back tightened; she was so close he could almost feel her breath on the back of his neck. His heart beat so wildly against his chest he grew afraid that she might hear it. He began to move away. Whatever she had to say, he didn't want to hear it.
"Naruto, wait! Please let me explain." He voice echoed with urgency, but not anger, so he stopped
"I saw the seal on the boat..." Her voice quavered like the ripples on the pond,"...and I didn't know what it was. I thought it was something like ...Sasuke's curse, that it was hurting you....I just wanted to help…"
A firefly brushed across Naruto's face and he slowly turned around to face her. The moonlight lathered her hair in a soft glow and even in the monotone glow, he could she the stains on her face from tears.
"You… don't hate me?"
"Stupid, of course not. Why would I?" She whispered.
He looked at the water. His pallid moonlit reflection looked back at him like death.
"Everyone else does..."
"Well, everyone else is an idiot. I was too… but now you're one of my best friends, Naruto…"
She placed her hands on his chest. Naruto blushed.
"… I could… never hate…"
What's this?! A confession of love!? Naruto squealed to himself.
"Ugh…" Sakura groaned as placed her forehead against him.
Naruto turned even redder, his heart beating wildly beneath his flesh.
"Oh, Sakura-chan!" He cried as he embraced her tightly. She didn't respond or move.
"Eh? Sakura-chan?"
No response.
"Sakura-chan!!"
-
Sasuke stood back from the door and admired his handiwork. The crumpled, battered door swung loosely from its hinges, but it would keep the neighbors out, a full half hours worth of work.
Geez, Sasuke muttered to himself, they've been gone a long time. Did Naruto run all the way back to Konoha or something!?
The door flew open with a force that ripped it off its frail hinges.
A vein throbbed in Sasuke's forehead as he watched the last thirty minutes' work be thrown aside like three-day-old fish. He looked up to see Naruto standing in the doorway, soaking wet, Sakura on his back, bloody palm prints decorating his yellow shirt.
"Sasuke!" He cried breathlessly. "Sakura-chan is dead!"
Author's Note: The evilness continues! MWAHAHAHAHA! I bet no one saw that coming... :3 Anyway, this was probably the hardest chapter to construct. I kept screwing it up, so I'd like to extend a warm thank you to my friends at H&E NaruSaku board for all their support and TLC! Thanks guys! and of course, I'd like to thank the readers.. but you know I love ya! :)
About "Kikyou": I was going to save this speech until the end of the arc, but since someone brought it up, I might as well. "Satori Kikyou" is a direct referenece to Inu Yasha, plain and simple. She is, however, not the Kikyou, because this is not a crossover fic. I named her that because I wanted to portray a sense of both age, wisdom and beauty, and any fan of InuYasha (whether you like Kikyou or not) agrees that she has these attributes. Her surname "Satori" means "enlightenment" which was her initial purpose in the plot of my fic. I name mostly all my characters in this fashion; although their names are not always tied to their personality, but mostly to their significance in the story. So, in essense, if you know Japanese a little, you probably already know what Sasuke was suppose to find. :X
About "Big Words": My brother read my story recently and he kept asking me what words meant. I don't mean to put in words people don't understand, this is just how I talk. :( So if you have any questions relating to my vocabulary, here's a neat trick. :) Go to Google and run a search for "define:word" and Google will look up "word" and give you multiple definitions. Ex. If you were looking up "ardvark". Type in define:ardvark and Google will give you the answer. I just found this out recently; it's pretty nifty. :)
Next Chapter: Is Sakura really dead!? Naruto takes on Ronoa!