Affinity

Prompt: Cage

Rating: T

Title: to sprout wings and fly

Summary: A grand display of something more, a whisper of a past life

Entering the bustling lobby, Sasuke makes his way past the lines, counters, and display cases, to the elevator in the center of the room. He hears the familiar ring of the bell as the lift arrives and the gates unlock. When he begins pulling the outer gate to the side, he feels a hand come to rest on his shoulder.

Whirling around his eyes come to rest on those of a woman.

"You are the angel's speaker?" she asks timidly her wrinkled hand trembling with age.

Usually he would just tell whomever to leave him be, but a look in the lady's eyes inclines him to respond.

"I am one of her onlookers," he tells her, albeit rather tensely.

Her cloudy, blue eyes brighten and she reaches into her worn coin purse. Boney fingers still shaking, she pulls out a long piece of ribbon and places it in Sasuke's palms.

"Please give this to her, she will know what it is for," the woman turns away, her cane making an audible thump on the ground as she leaves.

Sasuke backs into the elevator, pulls the brass gate closed, and presses the button to take him up. He intends to simply wait, however, curiosity gets the better of him and he begins examining the ribbon in the dim light of the lift.

It's simple, solid green that resembles emeralds and will match with her coloring nicely. Nothing else indicates any sort of uniqueness with the ribbon except for a stitched outline of a flying bird on one end.

Usually, he would have to report any items intended for her to the council to inspect in order to deem appropriate or not. However, Sasuke can see no possible threat that the ribbon can pose and pockets it before the bell in the elevator rings to signal the reach of the top floor.

With a screech he pulls the gates back and steps out onto the platform. The floor is empty except for the blonde snoring behind the counter. Sasuke walks up and knocks on the glass separating them, causing blue eyes to fly open.

"Naruto, how is she?" he asks the man who is currently wiping drool off of his chin with his sleeve.

"She's been acting strange since you left, muttering, lying on the ground, just… different. She's been closed off to even the speakers and higher ups for over a week now," Naruto's eyes downcast at this. "I think we should call a doctor or something. She won't even pick up the new books the council sent her."

Books don't make up for the bars surrounding her, Sasuke thinks as he walks past the counter, not bothering to sign his name on the awaiting clipboard.

He turns the hatch to open the large metal door that leads to a metal staircase with creaky steps.

Looking up, he sees the large golden cage. From his place below it, he notices an arm reaching between the bars and towards the sky. Troubled, Sasuke takes the stairs two at a time.

Once at the top, the wind whips at his hair, sending his raven locks in a frenzy. He pulls open a second hatch, leaving him on a rectangular platform attached to one side of the cage.

That is when he sees her for the first time in weeks.

She sits at the very edge of the cage, staring up at the sky above her, an arm squeezed through the bars as if trying to touch the sun. Her outfit is the same as usual, a simple white corset with sheer wispy material making up her dress. Her petal hair, which is usually pinned up in a delicate topknot flows down to her lower back.

"Sakura."

Her eyes advert themselves from the sky and come to rest on his form. Vacant, not sad or bored, but empty and passive, as if all of her hope is lost.

"You were gone so long," she hums as her arm drops to dangle pathetically outside the cage. "I lost hope."

"Sakura, you shouldn't dangle your arm out like that, what if the council sees," he tells her, his tone reprimanding.

She seems to ignore him, as she dips two fingers into the melted wax of one of the lit candles placed outside of her bars.

"Why do they pray?" she whispers as her fingers emerge covered in the pale white goop, the flesh underneath pink with fresh burns. "Why do they light candles and ask me to help them? What can I do? I'm just locked behind these bars, at least they can walk around."

"You know the answer to that," he tells her in the same tone of voice. "You are the angel."

"Then where are my wings?" she asks causing Sasuke's head to whip up.

"What?" he snaps at her and almost steps over the white painted line on the ground. Almost.

"I was told that angel have wings, they fly down to help people and then go back up into the sky where they belong," her wax dipped fingers move through the air as if they are the angels she speaks of flying up and down, up and down. "Nobody locks them up in cages."

"Who told you this?" he interrogates her, his tone dangerous. When he left almost a month ago none of these thoughts filled her head. She accepted her role in life and didn't complain about being suspended in a birdcage above the city. She listened to the higher ups and priests who were permitted to come up and pray to her, she asked Sasuke questions about the troubles "below" as she likes to call it, and read until she fell asleep. There were no questions of wings and angels, of freedom or responsibility, and Sasuke hated it.

He hated coming to visit her and the ways her eyes lit up and she questioned where he travelled to this time. He hated the way she was content with living behind bars as a figurehead.

He hates the way she had been locked up for all this time. And worst of all, he hates that all of it is his fault.

"A dove," she says quietly.

"What?" he asks again.

"A pure white dove with bright blue eyes came flying to the bars one day, she needed a place to land so I stuck my hand out and she perched there. She told me of the world and of the angels and of the glories of being able to fly away from here. She came back everyday you were gone with new stories, but she has yet to visit me today so I stuck my hand out for her, but then my arm got stuck."

At her words, Sasuke steps over the line for the first time since he locked her within the glorified prison.

He yanks the key from the chain around his neck and walks into the cage. Immediately red lights begin flashing and the recorded voice of a woman begins playing on a loop.

"Please step behind the line. Move away from the angel. Please step behind the line."

Paying little attention to the voice and the lights, he enters Sakura's prison and eases her arm from between the bars.

At their touch, the sent of honeysuckle drifts to his nose and memories of a green meadow with a little cottage in the center fill his mind.

He watches as a smile drifts to her face.

"Forget what you just saw," he commands before placing a hand on the angry red marks around her elbow. The skin glows for a moment before he pulls away revealing smooth, unblemished skin.

"Why am I the one behind the bars?" she asks reaching up to touch his face, but before he can respond, the hatch bursts open as Naruto barges in.

The blonde's eyes widen as he takes in the sight of the two practically in an embrace.

"Sasuke…" Naruto begins as if warning.

"I was just helping her," he responds quickly before standing and moving away from her. "Somebody needs to watch her more closely, she almost hurt herself."

Sakura reaches her waxy fingers out to Sasuke as he exits the cage and shuts the door behind him. He glances at Naruto who still looks uneasy about the whole situation, but leaves once he steps back over to the permitted side of the line.

"Why were you gone so long?" she asks, still lying on the floor with her arm reaching towards the door.

Sasuke ignores the question and retrieves the piece of ribbon from his pocket. He drops it into the drawer and pushes it in so that the opening is within the cage.

"A woman asked me to give that to you, she said you would know what it's for."

Hesitantly, she reaches into the drawer and grabs the ribbon. She threads it through her fingers and stops when she notices the bird on it, "I'm going to fly away." She sings the words as if they are her own personal song. "I'm gonna leave this all behind and be free."

It's a week later when Sasuke receives a telegraph from Naruto.

Urgent [stop] Angel threatens to fly [stop] Council summons you immediately [stop]

He throws the half-empty bottle of whiskey across the room. It shatters and the pieces of glass tinkle to the ground with a sound reminiscent to rain.

Shouldering a jacket, he leaves the small one-room house and makes his way to the center of town.

Upon arriving at the large garden that lies beneath Sakura's cage, Sasuke notices the lack of sirens, or crowds. Though it makes sense, the council would not want the public to know of the true mental instability of their precious "angel".

Going through the same motions as before, Sasuke finds himself standing in front of the reception desk. But, instead of Naruto being the only person in the expansive foyer, an array of people stand in front of the open metal hatch.

"Sasuke!" Naruto calls to him. "She's threatening to jump, they have Suigetsu and Juugo ready to go after her should she go through with it. I think she-"

Naruto is cut off as the rigid figure of Kabuto pushes to the front of the crowd.

"This is unacceptable," he says "I will not tolerate this type of behavior. What did you tell her?"

Sasuke doesn't respond, but settles for giving the man a withering glare.

"I will not hesitate to enlist her, the Institution always does a good job at reeducating you people."

"No!" Sasuke shouts, as a hand comes up to subconsciously scratch the brand on his neck. "Let me speak with her."

Kabuto shoots him a look.

"You know as well as I what will happen if the city losses her. There will be uproar, chaos," Sasuke defends and notices some of the other council members nod their heads in agreement.

"You have ten minutes," Kabuto bites out before stepping to the side.

Sasuke darts past the crowd and keeps running until he reaches the bottom of the steps.

"If you come any closer, I'll fly!" Sakura's voice shouts in warning.

"Sakura, you don't want to do that," Sasuke shouts back.

"Sasuke?" she says curiously.

Taking this as permission to continue up the steps, he does so cautiously.

Once reaching the top, and entering through the large metal door, he notices three of the metal bars of the large cage seem to have melted, leaving just enough opening for Sakura to slip her small frame between.

"How did you manage that?" he asks, nodding his head towards the destruction.

She avoids his question with one of her own. "Why me, Sasuke?"

"Move away from the bars," he tells her, "there are more like us that will not think twice about hurting you, Sakura."

She steps even closer to the gap, her toes curling over the edge, the wispy material of her dress blowing around her.

"Don't do it," Sasuke warns, his tone low and threatening.

"Come in here," she whispers quietly, "or I will."

Seeing no other option, Sasuke passes over the painted line, unlocks the cage door and walks through the brass bars. Soon enough, the sirens begin blaring and the warning lights begin twirling.

Sakura smiles softly before leaning forwards as if to fall over the edge. Quick as lightening, Sasuke grabs her arm and pulls her back to the ground of the cage.

He pins her shoulders to the metal floor and finds himself straddling her waist.

"How come I was the one to be locked up, Sasuke?" she asks quietly. "How come it wasn't you?" She reaches up to touch his face, but he jerks away and quickly rises to his feet.

He watches her passive green eyes as she remains on the ground. "So you remember everything?"

"I remember honeysuckles," she murmurs as the hatch Sasuke had just entered through bursts open.

Men with electric batons rush in, but with a wave of her hand, Sakura causes them to freeze. She rolls her eyes at the sirens and they stop too.

Rising to walk towards the bed situated in the center of the room, she plucks a lily from one of the plants next to it. "Did you know that smell is the most powerful sense when it comes to triggering memories?"

Sasuke nods, and Sakura takes this as a signal to continue, "Is that why you only let them use lilies and lilacs in here?" she whispers as she rips the petals off of the helpless flower.

"You knew that honeysuckles would trigger my memories, you knew and you kept me in the dark."

"I kept you safe," he shouted, anger emerging at her accusations. After everything he had done to keep her safe, she had the nerve to accuse him of wanting her to be a shell of what she once was.

"Look at where I am, Sasuke," she lets out a humorless laugh.

He winces, not used to hearing his name on her lips.

Tears begin streaming down her cheeks, "I-I also remember a child." Her voice breaks on the last word and Sasuke pinches the bridge of his nose.

"Yes," he responds, voice barely a whisper.

"Is she-?" Sakura cuts off, unable to utter that word.

He refuses to meet her prying eyes and hears a choked sob in response. Her concentration breaks and the men are in motion again, the sirens resume blaring.

They waste no time entering the cage, and in a spur of the moment decision, Sasuke grabs Sakura's arm and leaps over the side of the cage.