Chapter 16
Time was strange. It flew by on days off, where you had nothing to do but relax and maybe to some cleaning here or there. Busy, bothersome tasks never seemed to last too long.
Moments like this, however, never felt like they would end.
Cylan, can you open a direct route again? Sakura asks with hesitation. She bites her lip so hard, she sure it must be bleeding. She doesn't trust her consciousness to keep quiet. It was rebellious and not very-well governed. Sakura's inner thoughts were filled with words she had to swallow, and things proper women would never say.
Contestant 08 would like to communicate with you. Permission to open a direct route; denied or granted? The melody chimed in his head.
Sasuke ignored the spike in his breathing as he prepared for battle, and drowned the memory of what had just happened. Granted.
Without warning, a flooding of thoughts invaded Sakura's brain.
She can hear everything Sasuke thinks, the way his head makes sense of what his eyes see. They glow so brightly against this backdrop of wet and blackness. She steadies herself, listening to the hundreds of words that fly to and fro.
Just ahead, damaged slightly, spherical object, weak at point A—maybe B? Rightarmleftarm, working towards us, speed increasing, fasterbutnotasfast? Damagedarm, deleayedbyafewseconds…
How can he be so calm? I can't process any of this! His face doesn't even show what he's thinking at all.
Sasuke doesn't look at her. "Is this too fast? I'm slowing it down as much as I can."
She is in pure awe of him—the rush of a fight takes precedence over embarrassment. "If you can, please."
Taking to the trees, the ninja follow broken branches over slippery bark, enclosing on their prey rapidly. The wind howls franticly, like a lost wolf, and it bends the wood above their heads and they struggle to continue.
The only light available to them now was the white glow of the moon. It did its job well enough, but the sparse forest took on a monochromatic theme. Everything turned grey and black in the rays of moonlight.
I can't see anything. How much longer until impact?
Sasuke watches as the machine darts out, slamming it's appendages into every solid object within its proximity. It gains speed at an unnerving rate. You should be able to hear it over the storm, now.
She does. Sakura bounds ahead of Sasuke and he dutifully stays behind, waiting on the tops of the trees as he watches his teammate ahead. She's on the robot in seconds, slamming her fist into a tree and causing it to fall atop the round, metal body. It swipes its limb in Sakura's direction.
Flank it, left Sakura hears Sasuke command. There's no use in questioning his response. The woman ducks away from a spinning claw and does as told, crouching low to the machines left side.
The air seemed to still, like the calm before a storm. The artificial grass below didn't catch against a breeze. The trees didn't rustle or shake. Even the robot halted its rampage in careful calculation.
Adrenalin flowed through Sakura's veins like a drug, causing every hair on her body to stand in excitement. It had been a long time since she'd felt the rush of a new, entertaining battle. With Sasuke's direction, it really would be like being an Uchiha. No way this machine would leave in one piece.
Sakura would make sure of that.
Sakura neared its thick shell just after a limb swings on the right. Brilliant, Sasuke! As she approached, the closed indentation on the top of its body opened, revealing a curved glass.
What is that?
It's some sort of camera. That's how it's reacting to your movements.
She cursed as a tubular arm neared her, and listened to the quick play-by-play her teammate provided.
Spinning claw, it sweeps its left leg—no right leg. Watch out for the hook, it's on the move again and about to jump—no it's changing trajectory. Dodge the left claw. It's aiming for the shoulder. Duck your head, duck, jump, duck again.
Sasuke's thoughts were invasive and difficult for her to follow. Though he had correctly seen the imminent movements, probably much longer before hey happened, they reached Sakura just on time and her body reacted too slowly. She ended up reading them in real time, which didn't help at all.
Sasuke's point of view mixed into the pot as well. He had tried interpreting and explaining the information simultaneously. She was a brilliant woman, arguably the best medical ninja of her generation. Yet, even she couldn't really understand.
It's behind—in front, to your left—your left—back away from the sensor and try to get on top of it. There's an opening—you're too slow—what about…
All it did was confuse her.
In a daze of sensory overload, the kunoichi hesitates. It is a dangerous mistake. Seeing it's opening, the androids grappler lurches forwards, successfully capturing her upper thigh tightly. It digs into the meaty flesh. Sakura screams out in pain.
Sakura could feel the give of her meat and bones, which distorted and threatened to overflow under the pressure. It was as if she were captured in a hamburger press. Driving chakra to her hand, the woman manages to grasp the iron and halt its wrath, but she cannot free herself. Its metal was wet from rain, her skin was too slippery against it.
If she were to slide…her entire leg would be crushed and even, possibly, detach.
Fuck! She thinks. It's completely wrapped around my sciatic never and femoris tendon! My femur is breaking!
I'm coming. Sasuke said within her head.
Sasuke habitually went to draw his sword, but the chakra bangles shook violently and sent raw heat into his skin. It was painful, but not enough to stop him from moving. His initial plan was to wedge the weapon between the prongs that wrapped around Sakura, but he couldn't bypass the rules. Taijutsu robot only accepted taijutsu moves.
Watching through damp eyelashes, Sakura sees Sasuke run up the length of the androids leg in a blaze of speed, and slide down the arm that had trapped her. There is no vigilant scheming in his next action. He does not think of the pros and cons of sliding between the tines and wedging her out. Sasuke moves on impulse, reaching for his teammate.
"Sasuke, don't!" She calls aloud.
Sakura sees the hooks start to spin wildly as it built up an air-splitting saw just behind her teammate. They had no options left. Sakura could lose her leg, save Sasuke's life, and be of no use. Sasuke could take the brunt of the force and wait for Sakura to heal him.
Or…Sakura could save Sasuke, free herself, and deal with consequences later.
Sasuke watches as Sakura rips her leg from the android hold and fillets her flesh. The wound, which is too deep to bleed just yet, shows off the pinkish gore of fat and muscle…and bone, maybe.
She does not have time to worry about pain. Grabbing Sasuke by the shirt, they both plummet towards the ground to avoid decapitation. Like cats, the shinobi lands on their feet, giving Sakura a few seconds to slap her hand over her gash and stop infection from setting in. Adrenalin helped with the searing agony that sent waves through her body.
"Stay close to me." Sasuke demands gently, knowing that Sakura doesn't have the chakra to heal herself as she should. Her injury would certainly slow her down, and she was too slow before.
Then, it hits her. Sasuke was fast—and he was strong. He could pick her up with one hand if he needed to. And Sakura could piggy-back off of him, using his speed as their advantage.
Hold me, Sasuke. You can keep up! I'll take care of the hits! Just get me there!
His arm wraps around her stomach like a belt. With an unpracticed mimicry, Sakura keeps herself flush against Sasuke as he moves and leaps towards their foe. He reads her movements, too, lifting her when they needed to dodge, and twirling her body like a weapon to get her disastrous fists into position.
The weightlessness of Sakura's physique in his hands was mesmerizing. Sasuke felt like a puppet master, working both his body and his teammates in positions that gained them the upper hand.
She was so good at it, too. Sakura submerged into to him, relaxing her body completely as he rolled her this way and that, raised her up to his shoulder, dug is fingertips into her hips and tossed her high into the misty air.
Sakura's uninjured leg ripped through the machines thick metal like a finger through tinfoil.
Dropping back down heavily, Sasuke just manages to catch her with one forearm under her neck and the other under he knees. She keeps her eyes trained ahead, but gathers his shirt into her fists.
"Good job," Sasuke praises. He stands her up carefully, knowing very well that her thigh was still fragile. "A couple more of those and we'll have this thing beat."
Can you help me see it's other arm? It won't be able to attack us if we get to it. I need to know how to attack.
Sasuke rotated Sakura around without a word. He pulled her upwards, steading her bottom onto one shoulder. The height advantage helped her see beyond trees and the moonlight illuminated the robot perfectly. She doesn't know where to put her hands, so she just grabs fistfuls hair, craning forward.
When she moved, Sasuke could feel the exaggerated breathing. The kunoichi did not have the chakra to spend much more time fighting—and he doubted her leg would be taken care of tonight, either. If she was hurting, though, she sure put on a brave frong.
Both watch as the globoid frantically waves around, leaking out fluid.
"If you need to catch your breath, I can distract it."
"I'm fine up here," Sakura replies quickly, Then, she seems to realize what she said. I mean, I'm probably too heavy. I don't have any pressure on my thigh right now though, and I can actually see the robot this way. It's not like—I mean, I'm not enjoying myself or anything.
Placing his hand on her thigh, right beside her gash, Sasuke offers a gentle squeeze. He doesn't know what to say to calm her mind, but he tried to reassure her.
This is fine. It does not bother me. "The arm looks like it's connected by joints. Can you remove it?"
She didn't know. As hard as she had kicked the covering earlier, it still had a lot of layers between. The appendages wouldn't be quite so durable, would they? She'd damaged one without much hassle, earlier.
Sakura, now feeling determined, slid down the front of Sasuke and pressed her back to him. "I think I know what to do."
Sasuke reacts immediately, putting his arm around her waist once more. "Let's go and find out."
When he neared, the robot seemed to know exactly what to do. Both arms spun again, like a saw, slamming at the ground to disrupt Sasuke's maneuvers. But Sasuke was too smart for that. He boosted her up and she flew mid-air, snaking her body to avoid a thrashing arm. She managed to grasp the left limb as it slammed back into the ground, and she tried her best to wrap around it completely. Her arms weren't quite long enough to link with each other.
The thick outer covering was still damp, too. Her soaking fingers could not support her weight.
Sasuke saw her dip lower while she struggled atop the bucking tube. When she neared the ground, he glided beneath. I'll swing you back up.
She dropped face down, and Sasuke somehow had the muscle to grab her wrists, spin, and fling her even higher than before. With the pressure from her fingers lifted, and those extra few inches, she was able to straddle the object right at its joint.
She sent him a thankful glace, which he distractedly ignored.
Black boots slammed into the smooth iron and she pulled. The satisfying strain of wire against metal met her ears. Her muscles screamed with the pressure, threatening to rip from the force, but Sakura didn't stop. Thousands of pounds of force dislodged the attachment thanks to her expert chakra control. It severs the wires and electrical currents in one fell swoop.
Syrup-like liquid drains from its tubes, coating Sakura's feet. She has nothing to hold on to—she's just ripped it off—and the globoid thrashes around causing her to slide off suddenly.
Sasuke is there again, though, proving that she really didn't have to worry. He smooths her landing and once she has both feet on the ground. Without warning, the damp soil turned into a soggy marsh. His feet sunk deep into the pit, leaving sticky residue to swallow the thick material of his pants.
This is really starting to piss me off. Sasuke says, and his irritated tone filters through Sakura's head.
The Taijutsu android is delayed almost twice as much as they are; the heavy body was not suited for a mud bog. With that speed, she would undoubtedly be able to land another solid hit. Sasuke may be stuck, but it didn't mean she had to be.
"Throw me again, Sasuke." She says as she jumps into his arms, leaving her shoes behind in the marsh. Her sudden weight almost knocks him back, and if it had been a lesser ninja, it would have sent them deep into the grime. This is Sasuke Uchiha, however, and he's learned to handle her mass by now. "This time, instead of up, go out."
He helps her to his shoulders once more, ignoring the tiredness of his body.
"Throw you," he says wearily, not bothering to hide his trepidation. "You're sure? We can try to come up with a plan that doesn't put you directly in the line of fire."
She's feline, balancing atop his broad shoulders easily. Sakura places her hand in the crook of his neck, and extends her right arm. With their conjoined grip, right hand in right hand, her naked left foot presses into the center of his chest. She's preparing to use him as a springboard.
"I'm sure. Now, throw me," She repeats aloud, so sure of herself. "I've got just enough chakra for what I have in mind. Just trust me."
I do.
Sakura looks into his eyes for the first time since the fight started. His fingers curl around her palm, reiterating what his mind had told her. His hand is so much bigger that hers is. She thinks this, too.
You've grown so much, Sasuke. We used to be the same size.
Sakura can feel the strength that hides beneath Sasuke's muscles. She was all too aware that the shinobi she was perched upon had become a man—a fine man—a man his family would certainly be proud of.
Sasuke pauses, but doesn't dwell on Sakura's musings. He keeps his thoughts in check, perfectly adapting to their unusual situation. He doesn't admit or think about how much she had grown, too.
I doubted you before. I shouldn't have. I'm sorry.
With a powerful kick and an expertly choreographed lob, Sakura propels herself over the marsh and plows directly into the android. Her body hits the monster precisely.
The small gash she'd put it in earlier peels apart from her fist and she collapses into its core. Her emerald eyes blink rapidly, pushing the metal shavings from her vision as she takes in the interior of this robot.
It's a mess of coils and cables, all different colored. Components move against one another, grinding and pumping artificial life. The android thrashes, attacking itself from her intrusion. Sakura narrowly avoids a loose tine as it collides with a hydraulic compression chamber. Hot steam sprays her arm, burning the skin.
She claws at the contraption viciously, pulling wires and short-circuiting it from the inside. Its barbs stab—repeatedly—penetrating itself so fully Sakura has to bend in odd directions to keep her own organs safe.
She sees a thick tube and in her rampage, she clasps it between her teeth, detaching the nozzle and sending a spray of hot oil flooding between her lips and to her eyes.
Sasuke feels her frustration as she relays her thoughts unintentionally. Then, for some reason, old memories flash into his head…
Team 7's first mission to the Land of Waves. He sees his own childlike, lifeless body stabbed with senbon.
He's on the forest floor, sweating out a fever that might as well have killed him.
He's in a hospital bed after waking up from a coma-like state.
He's on the ground, with blood gushing from his arm and Naruto's beside him, too.
A rippling surge of grief almost brings him to his knees. The pain in his chest is one that he'd only felt a handful of times, and it hurts so much that it almost feels physical. What is going on? Why is she thinking these things?
Flashes dot in and out—him falling from Rock Lee's spar into Sakura's arms, his agonizing scream as he pressed against her prepubescent body after Orochimaru's curse had been planted, her watchful gaze over Naruto and himself as she tried to reduce their fevers with shivering hands.
Sasuke understands now.
Only an hour ago, Sasuke relayed his unbridled doubt about Sakura's ability. He had…he had the audacity to downplay her. She was inside of that thing, thinking these thoughts, feeling the incredible urge to protect a man that did not even offer her the decency of respect.
The same man that, had once, second-guessed saving her life and…tried to take it, too.
The Uchiha were peculiar. They had the ability to love unconditionally, and hate wholly, so much so that it molded their visual prowess. Sakura could love exactly like he could—he could feel it. But she couldn't hate.
Sakura was a lover in the purest sense of the word, and every ounce of that passion was directed to Sasuke. It belonged only to Sasuke. Her love was his, whether he could return it or not.
He felt it all. Dizzyingly, heart-wrenchingly, Sakura's emotions bore into him.
Finally, after the mechanical entrails were thoroughly severed, the automaton malfunctions and jerks to a halt, rolling into the goopy quagmire. Sasuke's boots slosh onwards and he reaches Sakura quickly, pulling her scorched body from the wreckage and drawing his too-tight shirt away from his abdomen and towards her cheek.
He wipes the seared flesh on her face and she curls into his muddy heat, enjoying the pampering even though she's been burned to the first degree. The adrenalin starts to wear off and the split on her thigh, her dissolved skin, and her aching muscles—they all start to throb in pain.
The slop beneath them turns into grass once again. The sweet scent of rain fills her nostrils and mixes in with the bitter oil smell that blinded her vision and charred her mouth. She feels the raindrops as the pelt her, not as harshly as the storm had been before.
Sasuke uses his thumbs to dab her burnt eyelids. He notes that, even though the skin is pink and raw, her eyelashes are tangled into each other healthily. They survived the liquid scald, and it's good, because he'd always thought she'd had the thickest lashes he'd ever seen. He didn't find them so detestable and juvenile anymore.
Patches of splotchy, new skin shine under the patting fabric of his shirt as he scrubs. Her chakra had probably already started healing the worst of it, except the cosmetic aspects.
Sasuke is a bit surprised at this, remembering how he'd always thought of her as the superficial type. He smirks. Her emotions and willpower went far beyond the length of her hair and the raw flake of her incinerated skin. She is as brutal as she is protective, and perhaps she always has been.
"How do I look? I'm not so cute anymore, huh?" Sakura jokes. She's, too tired to keep herself upright or help him remove the caked on grease, let alone cringe at the question. I mean, they'd just experienced some…heated tension. It wasn't the time for that.
She lets him take over her body; her tired limbs are no longer up for the job.
"You're not," Sasuke finally replies.
With thick, cakey dye seeping into her pores and her eyes stuck together, opening asynchronously from the goop of whatever that thing ran on, he thinks she looks beat to hell. She has the face of a warrior.
He thinks, Cute doesn't do her justice.
His words bounce around her head and she sits up painfully in disbelief.
Deep down his soul, Sasuke finds her worn exhaustion, her bloodied lip, her gashed thigh, and her bruised arms much more attractive than her clean and prim counterpart. It shows off the determination of a shinobi.
He thinks back to her vision of him—he's chest, his stomach, where those droplets of water were leading and her hands wiping them away. Then—he thinks more. In Sasuke's eyes, she watches as he slides his view down her throat, to the humble dip of her cleavage and the sliver of skin that peaked out just below her bellybutton. How he wanted to touch her in that way, too.
Sakura felt it.
Now, as sweat coats her skin and her hair is a splayed out mess, Sasuke desired her. He desired her in a way that friends, comrades, teammates should not want. Maybe Sasuke had been tempted by the indecencies of Otogakure. Maybe, in his time away from Konoha, he had experienced sex in a way that stemmed beyond the biologic need for reproduction.
It's foreign to her. So foreign, in fact, it's like trying to read his sharingan all over again.
She's not sure how or why, but her body reacts accordingly, feeling the exhilaration of what could happen in the serenity of this landscape.
Her fingernails scrape his skin as she clenches his shirt tighter. Her eyes cloud, her lips part, and he is moments away from pressing his lips to hers when Sakura's thoughts flood into his head.
They float in like cotton candy. She thinks about first kisses, about the butterflies in her stomach and the pounding within her cage-like chest. She thinks relatively innocent things—vanilla things—sweet things…they want different things.
Sasuke wants now and she wants forever.
He pushes himself away and when she sees his expression, her heart drops.
CYLAN rings within her head. Contestant 8, Contestant 5 is no longer connected. I will direct you to your lodging now.