Warnings: Swearing, Alcohol Use, Sensitive Themes
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Chapter 5: Liar, Liar
Sasuke gritted his teeth and hissed, "Like I said, Sakura—I thought you were dead. And I sure as hell wasn't walking into Konoha to check to see if I was wrong."
"Of course you wouldn't, Sasuke," she sneered with disgust, "Going into Konoha to see if I was alive would have put your pretty self at risk. Your sense of camaraderie was never particularly impressive. But please, continue." Her words were so poisonous that they tasted of potassium cyanide even in her own mouth.
"When Naruto and I met again in the Valley of the End, we were both supposed to die. Even if neither of us admitted it, it was what we both intended. You know that. But, in good Naruto fashion, he gave me a parting gift instead of taking my life," Sasuke explained and then chuckled like a person who had all of the answers, "He would rather have died than break his promise to you."
She hated that his lips had the capacity to say her best friend's name with such disrespect. Sakura cocked her free arm and backhanded him just hard enough to convey her feelings on the subject—which meant that his cheekbone was probably fractured.
Sasuke snarled, "Annoying as ever, Sakura. I didn't expect less of you, but the next time you hit me, I'll hit back."
"I'm scared," she responded emptily. He narrowed his eyes at the insult.
"You're not the only one who's been training for the past several years, Sakura. I wasn't sitting pretty—not that I could do anything without being pretty," he added sarcastically, taking a jab at her preteen crush. If Sakura had been in a better mood, she might have laughed. Instead, her face remained as unmoving as stone. It was a strange role reversal from their times in Team 7.
"I'm not feeling prone to laughter, Sasuke. You killed Naruto and are scaring old ladies in pursuit of me. Finish your story and then explain to me why you've made it a habit to terrorize the elderly," Sakura stated dryly. Naruto was not dead, but she was disinclined to correct Sasuke's misunderstanding on that subject.
Sasuke laughed without humor. "I didn't kill Naruto, Sakura—he killed himself to save me. When we were exchanging what was meant to be final blows, he gave me a portion his chakra and that's what truly ended him. He wanted to help me carry out my goals no matter what."
Her grip on his neck loosened as she took it all in and her shoulders dropped as the tension fell out of them. It would be like Naruto to sacrifice himself for the wellbeing of Team 7—he wanted to guarantee that Sasuke would be alive to reunite with Sakura again someday. As much as it churned her stomach, their meeting like this was part of Naruto's plan.
Her arm dropped away from his throat as her eyes closed in grief. All these years later and she found that the loss of Naruto still stung like Itachi's poison-tipped kunai. She wished that he could be there to see how much she had improved—but part of her knew that she might not have improved this much without his lapse into coma to push her over the cliff of insanity.
She gulped. "You hardly deserved his kindness."
Despite all of her pain, she found that her eyes remained dry. She must have forgotten how to cry after all of these years.
Ignoring her, he continued, "When I awoke, I found that I'd been cared for by strangers in the countryside. I don't know how I got there, but I never asked. I stayed there training for four years since there was no Sound Village to return to after killing Orochimaru.
"After those years, I decided that I was satisfied with my training and that it was time to restart my search for my brother. I'd been lying low and hopping from town to town when I heard about you…and Itachi. Now we're here."
Sakura's resting eyes flashed open angrily at his last words, realizing his true intentions. He had not been looking for her at all—she should have known that he was being too friendly. What Sasuke really sought was information on his brother, which he presumed that she possessed.
He would certainly be in for a surprise when he discovered that she had no idea where Itachi might be. After all, her only lead had taken her to Sasuke instead.
"Yes, you heard about me. So I'd been told. Somehow, I doubt that you were so bent on a reunion for the sake of the old days, though. So, why have you been hunting me down?" Sakura asked despite knowing the answer. She wanted to hear him say it with those soft, lying lips of his.
Sasuke offered a small smile. "It was a relief to know that I wasn't alone anymore."
She narrowed her eyes at the blatant lie.
"I was impressed, too. Impressed that the flimsy girl you used to be had turned into someone seeking out battles with a feared criminal. It made me wonder about a lot of things: why did she fight him? How did she become so strong? Why is she still alive? Itachi only lets people live if he has a purpose for them, after all. But all those questions were trivial to the one that I found myself asking again and again, Sakura."
He stepped away from the wall and leaned in until his face was close enough for them to feel the heat of each other's breath. His eyes peered into hers and his sharingan swirled in a way that left her unable to look elsewhere.
"I wondered if she would still hold to her promise from when we were twelve—her promise that she would do anything for me," Sasuke finished breathily. His gaze still held hers like a child hanging onto his favorite toy.
Sakura thought that he might have been asking her a question, but all she could think about was the swirling red in front of her. The swirl was slow and comfortable—it drew her in like a vortex.
"Would you join me in pursuit of Itachi, Sakura? Would you tell me everything you know?" Sasuke urged in a gentle voice that she had never heard him use before. It was gentle like the slow dance of his eyes. The music to which they danced called to her.
Say yes, Sakura.
"Of course, Sasuke. Anything for you."
Her voice sounded harshly mechanical compared to the song in her head—she did not want to speak aloud again lest she interrupt it.
He smiled. "Good girl."
At that, her head snapped to alert—there was no more music and she looked away from his eyes. She hated being called that.
"What did you just do?" she demanded.
Sasuke stepped back and raised his hands to show that he meant no harm before answering, "I just asked if you would help me in my quest for revenge. Isn't that what you wanted?" His eyes were no longer red with the sharingan, but instead black and wide with what Sakura suspected was faux innocence.
Before responding, she considered the potential benefits of forming an alliance with him. He was probably better at tracking Itachi than she was. He had plenty of experience as a missing nin and could give her some pointers on how to stay unnoticed. Those were two decent reasons, but something bigger nudged at her: this was an opportunity to get back part of her past that she thought she had lost for good.
Was this moment not the one for which Naruto had sacrificed himself?
That last question alone made her want to commit herself without further thought, but something stopped her before she could open her mouth to say the words.
"He'll get in my way," she thought.
He would get in the way of what Sakura wanted—she sought to experience the tsukuyomi before killing Itachi. Then, she wanted to slaughter him as revenge for the fatal fracture he sent through Team 7 and ultimately her innocence. She had warped into something so cold after simultaneously losing Naruto and Sasuke; Itachi was the root of that loss.
It then occurred to Sakura that she had taken the same path of revenge as Sasuke had. However, instead of seeking to kill Itachi for the honor of the Uchiha clan, she had her own reasons. Now that he was standing here and asking her to take revenge with him, the idea ceased to have the same appeal as it had for the past five years. Something about his offer was different from the path that she had carved out for herself. After a moment, Sakura realized what it was: if she were to join Sasuke, she would have to share the revenge she sought with him.
She would have killed for this opportunity when she was twelve. How foolish Sakura was as a child.
"You're taking an awfully long time to decide, Sakura," Sasuke stated with a hint of accusation in his voice.
Quickly snapping out of thought, Sakura offered a columbine smile and ruffled her hair. "I'm sorry—it's just hard to take in that not only are you alive, but also that you're asking me a question I've only ever dreamed you would ask. Of course I'll join you, Sasuke. We're what's left of Team 7—we're family." Her lie came so easily that it sounded like the truth even to her own ears.
Sasuke quickly masked his brief look of relief with one of his old smirks.
"Well, let's get down to business, then. Since I answered your questions, could you answer a few of mine? I'm still curious about your encounter with Itachi," he explained.
Sakura sat on the bed and responded, "Sure, Sasuke. What would you like to know?"
He sat down next to her and began, "Why were you looking to kill him?"
"You're so sure that he wasn't the one there to kill me," she jested to buy an extra second of thought before she continued, "I wanted to carry out the revenge that you hadn't been able to. I thought you were dead, after all." The right lies came so effortlessly that she wondered if she was really the one in control of her speech.
"Of course." Sasuke smiled a little. "Thank you for that—it's a relief to know that if I'd gone that someone would have carried on my final wish for me. I always knew you were the loyal type, Sakura. Still, I can't help but wonder…why are you still alive?"
Sakura's neck hair prickled as she sensed something dark stirring on the bed next to her—this question had more value than he was revealing.
Sakura stuttered, "W-what do you mean?" This was the first truth to escape her mouth since they began speaking business; she was sincerely bewildered by his question.
"What I mean is that Itachi only leaves people alive when he has a purpose for them. Why are you still breathing?" he forced through clenched teeth. This sounded more like the Sasuke that she remembered—angry and dangerous. She found that she preferred his venomous honesty over the rich lies that he had been feeding her up until now.
"I honestly don't know, Sasuke. I've been asking myself the same thing since the moment he disappeared from our battlefield. If it's any help, though, he had no idea who I was," Sakura offered. Another truth—the same question had been poking her brain like a hungry pet's pestering at dinnertime ever since the incident; she really had no idea why the fight had not ended in death or at least incapacitation.
At that, the tension eased its way out of Sasuke's shoulders and he responded, "Well, the fact that you're still alive can mean nothing good for you. But, it'll work to our benefit, as he's probably hoping to encounter you again in the future after you've served whatever purpose he has in mind for you. Will you be ready when that time comes?"
Sakura scoffed, "I survived battling with him once, didn't I? I'm not the girl you left behind when we were twelve."
"In fact, I'm not the girl who was drugged by Kakashi to sleep through your battle with Naruto when I was sixteen, either. I was always the one left behind—but now that we're in a different time and place, I think that you're the one who might have catching up to do," she finished defiantly in her head.
"I would hope not," Sasuke replied dryly.
Sakura's eye twitched in irritation. "Don't piss me off too much, Sasuke. I might accidentally kill you if you do."
He laughed, but she was not joking.
"So, where do we head from here?" she asked to change the subject.
"To a hotel. I'm assuming that you have a little recuperation to do from your battle and this alcoholic sewer isn't really the place for that."
As much as Sakura would not mind having a bar within a few stumbling steps of her bed, she wanted something a little softer than the rock of a mattress that she was sitting on at the moment. As a missing nin, she would not be able to enjoy small luxuries for long, so she was going to embrace any such opportunity that presented itself.
"That sounds like a splendid idea," Sakura agreed as she lifted herself from the bed. If she seemed like she was in a hurry to snuggle a soft down comforter, then she was not misrepresenting herself.
Sasuke smirked at her eagerness and followed in suit. He went to the corner of the room to pick up his katana, walked to the door, and opened it as if it had never been locked. Sakura did not even bother to question it.
Before exiting, he paused and looked away. "We're going to have to pretend that we're a honeymooning couple. That way we can hop from inn to inn without arousing suspicion. Since you're not in Konoha, I'm going to go ahead and guess that you're probably on the missing nin list, as well. Criminals aren't thought of as hanging around hotels, so we'll be hiding comfortably in the open."
That sounded like a heavenly plan that involved good meals, hot baths, and cushy beds—it did not get much better than that. Not when you were a criminal, anyway.
"That doesn't sound like an awful way to float above the radar," Sakura approved.
"Good." He grabbed her hand and strode through the door. What was originally him dragging her turned into an evenly matched stride by the time they reached the main part of the bar.
By the curious looks they were receiving, Sakura guessed that the hand-grab was meant to be a nonverbal gesture to their onlookers saying that he had been searching for her because they were lovers and that he had no need to be coming back here. It was a fair explanation and would hopefully stamp out any remaining interest in their existence.
They avoided eye contact with anyone around them and headed straight for the front door. As they passed through the exit and into the dark night, she noticed how they were holding hands: his fingers and thumb were wrapped around the outside of her palm. It was a minute detail to notice, but she felt relieved—if they had been holding hands with their fingers entwined, it would have felt wrong. After all, something like that would have been far too intimate.
Even liars had their limits in the precarious game of weaving deceit.
Authoress's Note:
Hi, everybody! The poll regarding preferred weekly posting time is still up on my page, so please participate if you have any preference. :) The current consensus is Wednesdays, so I intend to post weekly on Wednesday evenings for now.
Thank you very much for reading!
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