"I'm sorry, Sakura."
The pinkette gasped.
Sasuke's arms shook as he held her, his entire body shivering with regret he'd always had but had been too proud to face.
"I'm…really sorry, Sakura…" he whispered softly, voice tremulous with the remorse of his body.
Locked inside his embrace, Sakura raised her head to lock eyes with Sasuke for one second, her expression completely frozen by her astonishment.
The silence was slowly killing Sasuke as he waited for her response.
"You bastard," she finally whispered; Sasuke blinked a few times, not understanding her immediately –Sakura used that moment to lower her head and bite down hard into his shoulder.
He reacted the way she expected: his arms let go of her and she was able to break free, backing up a few feet to stand tall and unafraid before him.
She got her desired effect: he unwittingly let go of her and Sakura broke free, standing straight in front of him.
Sasuke cradled his bleeding shoulder with one palm as he turned back facing Sakura, his expression weak and vulnerable for the first time in his life but the pinkette refused to acknowledge this.
"You think I'm going to fall for this? For any of this?" she threw at him adamantly, her words spitting deep enmity. "This is just another trick of yours to get me to go back to you! You're incorrigible!"
Sasuke stiffened, standing at his full height yet somehow looking bent and wounded at the same time. He parted his lips to speak frantically: "Sakura, I'm serious. I-"
His words were cut off by a fierce slap that stole his breath from him and made his face jerk to one side for a second.
Sakura hadn't slapped him just because he'd infuriated her; she'd done it so she could provoke him into revealing who he really was: that disgusting, obstinate, self-serving, megalomaniac that didn't care who he had to hurt so long as he got what he wanted!
She expected him to whirl on her in anger, in seething fury with a passion ready to oppress her –only he didn't. All she saw, when he met her eyes again, was still that forlorn misery that tugged at something very very far in the back of her heart.
And that only made her angrier.
She refused to let him manipulate her. How dare he look wounded after the shit he's put her through? How DARE he think himself the victim?
Sasuke made to take a step forward but Sakura quickly held up her palm in defiance. "Don't you dare come near me again Sasuke Uchiha."
Her anger gave her momentous adrenaline. "I know what you did the last time you threatened my parents, Sasuke. I know they were fakes, which goes to say that you only had to resort to fakes since you can't revive my parents, am I right?" Her voice was vindictive, cloyingly satisfied as Sasuke's quavering eyes confirmed this for her.
A contemptuous smile fell across her lips as she continued: "I bet you didn't expect stupid little Sakura to work all this out, did you?"
Sasuke made another attempt to draw closer to her and fast as lighting Sakura drew a kunai from inside her tunic to press it against her jugular, exposing her neck high and poignantly so Sasuke would know she was completely serious.
The man froze in his tracks, immobilized by complete fear.
Sakura's hand shot out to point a resolute index finger at him.
"You come near me again and I swear I'll cut my throat, Sasuke."
The Uchiha stared at her with wide horror filled eyes, his mouth hanging agape; the only movement between them for a few life deafening seconds just the wisps of breath both of them exhaled into the chill night's air.
Then Sasuke closed his mouth, seemingly coming to a decision.
Sakura guessed what he was going to do a second before it happened but was still powerless to stop it: the world around inverted into just shades of black and red, the signs of an obvious genjutsu. The kunai inside her hand was no longer there and in the second she'd used to look for it, Sasuke used to draw her back into his arms.
His grip was fierce; tight and endearing but overtly trembling from the raw force of his emotions.
"Sakura, I know- I know, I've made a lot of mistakes in the past. I know I never appreciated you until it was too late, I know- I know, you always have to forgive me, always have to give up everything to give me another chance, and I know, I've never said even a thank you towards you, and- and I'm just really very…very sorry, Sakura." His voice quaked from how fast he was trying to get his words out. How desperate he was to try and make her understand him.
To make her want to stay.
"I know…I know this is me just being selfish again, but please…just one more time, forgive me."
Sakura squeezed her eyes shut, desperate to block him and his words out. She'd tried hard to place his apology as just another trick of his to win her back but the wrenching at her heart made her face that he was indeed being sincere.
Already, she found it hard to stop the indispensable feelings of treachery rising up from within the pits of her heart in regards towards her opinion of this man.
He was always doing this to her. Always doing this to her.
No matter how hard she tried to prove her independence, to prove to herself that she despised him, to prove to him that she reviled him…he would always make a part of her go back to him.
Maybe she did still love Sasuke.
But it wasn't like the way her twin had implied: some part of her would always love Sasuke, always feel tied to him no matter what he did to her. Because they had just been through too much together.
Too much hate.
Too much love.
Too much pain.
Everything about their relationship from the very beginning had been tumultuous and in some ways, the conflicts, the passion, the unexpected paths of self-discovery Sakura had been forced to undergo because of him had cemented his place in her heart.
The boy that had treated her with indifference and ingratitude. Then hatred and passion. And now finally with love and remorse.
She pitied him. She really did.
All that pride and power ending up as nothing but a barrier that kept him hindered from really experiencing human emotions. From experiencing life. Instead he'd spent all his years hiding behind his credence of superiority, his unwillingness to mingle or show any connection to those he deemed insignificant.
What a sad miserable life.
It was because of this pity that she found herself letting go of all her anger and fury for Sasuke.
Knowing she was still inside the genjutsu but no longer caring, Sakura lifted her head from the confines of Sasuke's shirt –where he'd forced her into, to come staring straight into the Uchiha's pleading eyes.
She parted her lips to speak but struggled to find the right words for a long time. Finally, she uttered without a shred of hesitation: "You and I-"
Her voice cracked, for half a second, before starting again: "You and I...both know -it doesn't matter how badly you treat me...I'll always end up forgiving you."
The man's eyes inflated fractionally at her statement; hints elation danced at the corner of his eyes as he opened his mouth to speak but Sakura cut him short: "But I don't want to stay with you anymore."
His breath stopped at his throat -choking, suffocating him.
A quavering hand rose up to gently cup Sakura's decided expression. Her rejection didn't hurt nearly as much as resolution did. The fact that she had no more uncertainty about the two of them.
A knife in his heart would have been more subtle than the pain that currently threatened to undo him.
Two single tear streams fell from his sharingan eyes as his desperation showed through his usually cold countenance. Sadness. Weakness. Hurt. Everything he'd always been so desperate to be immune to, or at least hide that they affected him –he now let Sakura see plainly.
But the kunoichi didn't care.
Her posture stayed implacably straight and determined even when Sasuke extended a hand out and up to cradle the side of her face. The man had to bite his lower lip to stop it's violent trembling as tears continued to trail down his face.
"Undo this genjutsu, Sasuke."
As if her straightforwardness pulled him back from some reverie in and of itself, Sasuke retracted his hand from her steadfastly. He couldn't oblige but neither could he look away from her. Trapped, as he'd come to accept, by everything that was Sakura Haruno.
After a couple more seconds of inaction, Sakura sighed and moved to take a couple steps forward so that when she looked up their faces were only a breath's length apart from each other. She could literally feel Sasuke's trembling form against her. Hesitating only for one second, Sakura slowly extended two palms up to gently cradle the man's sculpted face.
"Listen to me, Sasuke, please…for once, listen to what I want," she whispered through soft eyes.
And with that the world around her shifted. Like molecules unravelling but instead leaving the reality she knew well underneath their wake.
Sakura blinked and found herself back in the middle of the green meadow, Sasuke still in front of her.
It took her a second to collect her surprise in that he'd actually listened to her. Then she nodded, and issued an inane nod of her head: "Thank you."
She turned to leave, and made about three steps away from the man before Sasuke's voice once more penetrated the air: "Where-will you go?"
Sasuke had hesitated because he'd almost said 'where can you go?' but had stopped himself because of the implicit manipulation the original question had. That she had didn't have a home anymore; that the closest thing to a home, to a family was with him.
He couldn't say this, even if it was the truth, because he didn't want to manipulate her anymore.
He could see that Sakura's body had visibly stiffened at this question of his. She didn't answer him, or even turn back around, for five agonizing minutes, then he saw her shoulders start to shake, hunching into themselves.
As soon as he realized she was crying again, Sasuke ran up to her form once more to take hold of her shoulders from behind, he moved to turn her around-
-but before he could, he felt the cold steel of that familiar kunai now pressed intently into his jugular.
Sakura had turned around of her own accord, at rapid speed, taking him by surprise. Her wide beautiful green eyes were swollen from all her crying and reddened at the corners where fresh tears kept streaming out, but her distress didn't take away from her strength. Sasuke had only ever seen that determination once before from the kunoichi.
When she'd healed him.
Only instead of unwavering compassion fueling a selfless act, her resolution this time was fueling…hatred.
"I changed my mind," Sakura intoned heavily through a choked throat, her eyes tight and pressed in absolute enmity. "I can't forgive you for what you've done to me."
Sasuke blinked with shock as he saw Sakura pull out from within her tunic a second kunai. Before he knew what was going on, he got knocked onto his back by an unexpected surge of chakra. It wasn't an exceptionally strong blast; it never would have knocked him down in any other circumstance. But right now his emotions raced through him disadvantageously just likd the way Sakura's was doing.
Propping himself up on his elbows, Sasuke looked up from the grass back to face Sakura's determined expression. She had crossed the kunais in front of her now in a traditional fighting stance. Her intention was clear.
"I'm not going to fight you, Sakura," Sasuke stated simply while he drew himself back up standing.
His strength could easily kill her. Both of them knew this but one of them didn't care.
Instead his words seemed to fuel her even more. Sakura scowled furiously while charging forward. Her green fire infused kunai jutting out right for his stomach –only to have Sasuke shift expertly to the left right before impact.
In the split second her momentum propelled her to the side, the Uchiha extended a palm to wrap around her wrist as his mouth lined itself against her ear: "I'm not going to fight you, Sakura."
Then he let go. Propelling himself above the ground, moving through the air horizontally just a couple inches above the ground to evade Sakura's next slash.
Sakura screamed in fury. In exasperation.
"WHY THE FUCK NOT?!" she yelled while sending a kick towards the man's abdomen that once again got avoided. "Am I still not good enough to fight you?"
Sasuke's eyes widened at her words, at what she was saying and almost ducked too late for her next attack: a chakra infused fist that carried one of the kunais aimed straight for his jugular. Sasuke shifted his head to the side so he could catch her right fist into his left palm. Her other fist ended up in the same fate when she sent it soaring for the other side of his head. Sasuke kept both of them restrained just enough so that it wouldn't cause pain yet still prevent her from moving away so he could ask his question up close to her.
"What are you talking about?" Genuine confusion flitted across his sculpted features. "When did I-"
"When have you not?!" Sakura interrupted in seething rage; their faces were close to each other right now; Sasuke could see the veins jutting forth from the skin at her neck, pounding furiously blood and strong combat hormones. He was about to voice his concern, wanting her to calm down before she crashed from exhaustion –but the pinkette continued her tirade, years of repressed rage and abuse finally surfacing within her: "When have you not thought that you were better than me! That you're stronger or smarter or faster or whatever else I can do that you can do also!
That no matter what I do or try in life I can never measure up to you!"
Sasuke grimaced at her words, knowing what she was bringing up.
"Did you think I forgot already what you said to me, Sasuke?" Her lips curved in a bitter contemptuous smile. "That I was only ever deadweight for you and everyone on Team Seven!"
Tears burned her eyes from how hard she was trying to suppress them. His words back then had pierced deep and infinitely into her chest, like a stake that to this day was still embedded deeply inside her, keeping alive her insecurities and self-loathing for as long as she lived.
Because he'd personified all of her deepest fears about herself.
That she really was pointless to everyone.
For this and this alone, Sakura realized she could never forgive Sasuke.
"Sakura, I-" Sasuke licked his lips as he hesitated. "-I shouldn't have said that. I didn't mean it. I mean- I did, at the time, but-"
His words were thrown for a bit as Sakura tried to throw his weight off her, but he clung on still. "But I was angry -frustrated that I still couldn't use my chakra. That you...we kept failing. I took my anger out on the only person around me, I'm sorry, okay?"
Sakura completely disregarded his apology, acting as if he hadn't spoken at all. "And now, I can't even pick my life back up! Back from before I ruined it by saving a monster that wasn't worth saving!"
Her words intended to hurt him and it looked like they'd done their job, but Sasuke's grip still remained firm over her.
"My parents are gone...Konoha is besieged...I don't have a home anymore; all because of you!"
Her choking sobs had finally overwhelmed her being, causing her knees to collapse under her, forcing her entire body rocking forth. Sasuke caught her before she touched the ground, her head falling right into his chest as her kunais fell and became forgotten somewhere across the shadowed grass beneath them.
He really had ruined her life, in every sense of the word.
His arms wrapped endearingly around her shoulders and the back of her head gently. He held her with more remorse and humility in this one moment than he'd ever had before in his entire life.
"It'll be okay, Sakura," he whispered while petting her pate in soft soothing strokes. "Everything will be okay, I promise."
She didn't believe his words. And to some extent, Sasuke didn't quite either.
But he was certain of one last thing: "I promise I won't ever try to hurt you again, Sakura."