- Scroll II -
- Affinity -
Sasuke sat up and blinked into the darkness. Something had awakened him. Was it remnants of another one of his occasional bad dreams? Sitting upright, he waited for his eyes to adjust, steadily focusing his gaze on pale, gray shadows stretched out over the corners of his wall. His half-eaten ramen sat forgotten on the bedside table to his right.
He was about to pull the blankets away and dispose of the plastic cup when he heard it.
Thump.
Before he'd even drawn a breath, his fingers were already pressed together, holding the two newly-sharpened shurikens he'd snatched up from his holster.
Thump. Thump.
His mouth pressed into a thin line as he realized it was only the door. Someone was apparently knocking. Abruptly, his eyes jerked to the digital clock on his bedside table. The luminous numbers read 11:45. Knocking at midnight, how odd.
His eyes narrowed and he turned his head towards the direction of the door.
Soundlessly, his feet hit the floor and he padded over to the entrance hall, wishing for the umpteenth time that he had a peep-hole.
A high clinking sound made him stop dead in his tracks.
His blood ran cold and the hair at the back of his neck bristled.
His brother. Itachi.
The acceleration of his heart was incredible, with all his senses heightened, he was wide awake. His chest was seconds from bursting. He could feel the steady thrum of hatred, and the rush of utilized chakra pulsing and aching, gathering throughout his body. He wanted to run away, to hide, but so vividly he imagined plunging a kunai deep into his brother's gut, till it pierced all the way through to his back.
He savored the thought of seeing the kunai disappearing into flesh so soft and yet so solid at the same time.
The thought was exhilarating and the feeling was a pendulum swing that made him want to throw up all over his floor and smash the door down at the same time.
Straining to hear through the cracks in the wooden planks, Sasuke held his breath and listened. No sounds greeted him.
And Sasuke's jaw unclenched as the muscles of his body relaxed considerably.
He heard the sound of something collapsing on the wood rather loudly. The sound that would most likely resemble a body dropping to the ground.
The hell? He thrust his hand forward and twisted the doorknob, shoving the door open rather violently.
One foot came before the other, Sasuke side-stepped the door and turned with a fixed stare to whatever fell down.
Red.
That was the first thing he saw.
And silver hair with highlights of ebony.
"Koyuki." Sasuke's voice came out hoarse, partially from confusion and from just having spoken his first word out of bed. He rubbed at his aching temples as he continued to stare down at the unconscious heap curled up on the ground.
Cuts and bruises constellated all over her visible skin.
His eyes narrowed and his mind worked rapidly to make sense of the situation. Had she mistaken his home for hers out of fatigue and disorientation? It seemed to be the most reasonable explanation. Koyuki did had a tendacy of pushing herself too hard with training, and he knew that she trained nearly everyday to become stronger, just like him.
"Koyuki?" Crouching, he recalled his lesson in the academy. With his hand, he placed two fingers against the side of her neck. Feeling nothing, he moved his fingers. His brows furrowed slightly, realising she didn't have a pulse. He gripped her shoulder and turned her onto her back.
"Kuso." He hissed, swallowing his apprehension he placed a hand over the left side of her ribs, searching for a heartbeat. Starting to feel slightly nauseous and fearful he placed his hand back over her heart. His own heart started to race.
He blinked slowly when he realised the soft patter of a heartbeat against his hand, the racing of his heart immediately fading. But he could have sworn there was nothing but a second before...
His arms reached out, and he slid underneath her, pushed himself and her off the floor.
Surprisingly, she was lighter than she looked.
Seconds passed, when Sasuke continued to stand outside his door. The wind rustled the trees and he felt a chill brush up his spine. Her hair tickled his chin, and as he glanced down, he saw that Koyuki's eyebrows were drawn together in a reminiscing image of unsettled pain.
He settled her down on the couch. With steady arms he shrugged her weight off and let her head rest against the armrest.
He unfastened her arsenal of weapons, unraveled the bandages and placed them on the cocktail table.
Beside her Sasuke only stared at her, his thick eyelashes framing the solid shine of his onyx eyes. After a moment he let out a frustrated sigh and straightened, his face tempered with a slight air of annoyance.
He stood up, went down the hallway, and snatched a clean rag from the bathroom. Soaking the rag with warm water, he ventured back to the living room, and gently dabbed and rubbed the blood off the deep cuts on her skin. After the cleaning the wounds, he bandaged her, wrapping neither too tightly or too loose.
The glow of the moon flooded down like a curtain of grace towards her sleeping form, settling over her closed eyelids. Strands of hair clung to her moist forehead. Her eyelashes settled like feathers over her cheeks, her pink lips were softly stretched out in the hidden traces of a peaceful smile.
He steadied onto his knees... without the realization that he was holding his breath.
His eyes wandered over to her delicate features, and he ached to put his hand over the planes of her skin, to feel the smoothness and warmth radiating from it.
His skin now tingled with a foreign sensation he could not place, could not recognize, and a rolling warmth crept up to his neck, spreading out over his cheeks.
If Sasuke knew what a blush felt like, he supposed this would be it.
What if...
Her hair smelled faintly of blooming flora, and a distant memory came to him. A time when he had crossed the field of flowers sometime during spring on the way to the academy and he had seen her, Koyuki, laughing, her eyes sparkling in the sun as Ino tucked a flower into her hair.
He'd only given them an indifferent glance, and moved on. But now, his mind's eye saw the vast shower of purple and silver that swayed with the wind. Petals floated past his face, and the smell, much like her hair now, was everywhere in the air around him.
What if he...
Indignant reasoning started to erupt inside him, but something else brushed it aside. Instead, he brushed his hand against the hair blanketing her face, and tucked it behind her ear. Her head jerked against his hand, and he held her face, gently. His obsidian eyes softened, and his tense body relaxed.
The other person inside him, the one that struggled to push away this girl as far away from him as possible, now seemed miles away.
The darkness helped, fed him illusions that convinced him this was okay. His head sunk lower, his face mere inches away from hers. He felt his own hot breath in between the small gap separating them.
What was this dull ache in his chest? He found it suddenly difficult to draw his breath.
He felt her move against him and suddenly he could not breathe at all.
He couldn't.
His defensive self, wanted to tear himself away from her.
Because he knew that the moment his hand pulled away from her, he would be left with pain.
And he was so very tired of pain. He was tired of feeling lonely, of people loving him and then leaving him.
But even as his whole body stiffened, waiting for the inevitable, felt that he could not.
No. This wasn't right. This wasn't him.
It took every ounce of his remaining will power to pull himself away from her.
Too quickly, he felt the separation cut into him as sharp as any pain.
The warmth of her skin, her touch, was gone.
Raven-hair fell across his face as Sasuke looked somewhere to her left, the frantic beat of his heart slowing to a notch above steady thumping. His old person was slowly crawling back into his mind, how he despised that fact.
He looked down at her then for what seemed like an eternity before silently turning his back.
Slowly, he made his way, barefoot, towards the window.
He stood near the window for what seemed like hours, trying to deal with this new kind of hurt that was eating him from inside.
His mind was too exhausted and muddled to even deal with the complicated emotion.
And after a few moments, he expelled a sound that was something between a sigh and a groan.
He was so tired.
Making a mental note, he pushed his thumb into the doorknob lock, heard the click and made his way back to his bed.
A few hours later, even as he caught the first rays of the sun from the balcony, he realized the futility of trying to sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he would see the darkness and feel the warmth. Reach out mentally and catch at escaping strands of soft, silver and ebony hair.
His forehead furrowed, and he buried his nose into the black silken pillow nearest to him.
One eye peered out from behind his jet-black hair.
What was happening to him?
There was a red sky above her.
Its presence was a dead weight that seemed to ride the tops of her shoulders, press along her spine with pressure, cut off her breath.
She forced gulps of air into her lungs, but the weight around her only squeezed back, pumped the ample breaths from her chest, out of her open mouth.
She gagged. And felt her knees collapse into a ground that felt strangely, like it wasn't there.
Koyuki was scared.
Terrified of whatever it was happening to her body.
She forced her eyes to look forward, and her vision took in the cracked earth, the small pebbles that lay ahead. She could see the moist strands of her bangs trembling, close to her nose.
And then, her nerves prickled in warning.
Before she knew it, she felt tight limbs winding around her torso, pressing into her stomach, pulling at her. Dragging her backwards.
No! She tried to shout out. Her hands balled into fists as she willed the energy to mount inside her, and she kicked out with her legs, fighting against the force. But her sandals anchored into the soil only for a moment before she was tugged backwards again.
Now she wanted to close her eyes badly.
They grew heavier and heavier with each moment and she was tired - so very tired of fighting, of struggling, of living.
Let's end it.
Just end it all. Take it all away.
There was a soft chuckling, raspy, cold, emotionless.
It came from all around her. And Koyuki knew immediately who it was.
The sound was only so very familiar. The iciness of it trickled up the back of her head, and dug in.
The pain came. Blinding, sharp, too much all at once and Koyuki lost all sense of thought as it paralyzed her.
Was it her crying out now? Was that her voice? She didn't know anymore.
The darkness was closing in. Clouds of swirling black, spiked in a temperature that froze her bones.
Maybe stopped her heart.
And she cried out, the force of it scratching into her throat.
Felt the sting of warm tears brimming in her eyes.
This pain was too much.
End it! She shouted in her mind.
Just let me die. I...just can't stand-
The chuckling cut her thoughts off, grew louder, taunting her, mocking her.
And through the hazy cloud of her vision she saw them.
The eyes; eerily crimson, with swirling black tomoes that were sharp, piercing into her soul.
Then the voice came - that unique, calm, grinding whisper that made her shake.
"This is power. This is what you seek."
"Itachi..." she heard herself rasp, surprised she could even remember the name amidst the mind-blowing pain hacking at her every limb.
"Koyuki...chan. Come to me."
The charm of that entrancing, yet heartless voice scraped like the tips of cold, sharp nails along her arms.
The blackness wove in and out of her, and she drifted, slipping towards and away from consciousness.
"Wh...at..." she whispered weakly, and the last of the word erupted in a throaty retort as the pain exemplified even more.
Impossible.
Her head hit the ground, and this time she could feel it. Solid.
But the thud of her head was numb compared to the knives that ground into her nerves and muscles.
"Koyuki-chan. Come." The same voice murmured, almost delightfully. Taking pleasure in the way the girl lay sprawled on the ground, writhing only slightly, half-past-dead.
"Just kill me." She muttered bitterly, not bothering to move - swallowing the scratchy burn in her throat.
"Koyuki-chan... Koyuki-chan..." the voice repeatedly slurred, echoed.
And then force shook at her shoulders. Shook her till his head lifted from the ground.
"Koyuki..." that voice was fading.
She didn't bother answering.
This quiet calm surrounding her, she could feel nothing, see nothing, but it felt wonderful.
A part of her knew it was death. Just subconsciously already knew.
But the force continued to grip at her shoulders.
"Koyuki!"
Still there. The voice.
"Oi! Koyuki!"
Her thought processes were muddled, but she knew that voice.
Then she felt tingling all over her body, and the sense of being able to feel returned, bleeding into her like a dead-weight coat.
But her mind was blank. And she was slipping away again.
The numbness was starting to come.
Again.
"Breathe!"
Something hard smashed into her chest, and the impact caused her to recoil with a slight choke. Her head arched back and her mouth parted in a sharp intake of needed breath.
So suddenly the rush of life came back and filled her, she gasped again, panted, heavy and audible. Her heart thumping loud, alive in her ribs and in her ears.
The blood coursed through her veins, and she felt the consciousness descending around her, muddled, together with the thumps of a headache.
Her shoulders were moving again.
Hands. Koyuki immediately knew.
A pair of hands were shaking her.
"Koyuki! Wake up!"
The sound jerked her eyes open, a blur of ebony hair, blue clothes... bright lights... and Koyuki found herself dizzily trying to focus into deep abyss that was Sasuke's eyes.
"Sas...uke." She whispered breathlessly.
Groaning, the Mikoto put a hand to her pulsing shoulder blade, waiting for the room to slowly come into focus as she tested her weight on one elbow. Koyuki's chest ached dully. It was incomparable to her pain only moments ago, and the girl soon brushed it aside as the thoughts tumbled into her mind.
"What...?" the girl said hoarsely. "What happened? What am I doing here?"
"You collapsed unconscious in front of my door last night."
"I did?" Her voice trailed off, a small blush staining her cheeks, "I-... I'm s-sorry, I didn't mean-"
"Don't apologize, it was an accident." If he wasn't in such a predicament, he would have laughed at the way her face seemed to inspect him. Koyuki's arms pushes out beneath her and she pulled her upper body against the backrest.
Her muscles felt like lead, and her breath came in tight puffs. She raised her eyes to his, "Why were you shaking me?"
"You stopped breathing, and you wouldn't wake up." He said quietly, his ramming heart against his chest calmed to a steady thump, and the familiarity of the pain he had felt last night was fading.
Her eyes slowly traveled towards the floor, "Oh..."
And then as if he had not said anything at all, he proceeded towards the direction of the kitchen.
"Drink?" He asked her, his tone sounded like he could care less, yet he spared her a glance. She nonetheless gave him a small smile, and nodded.
Sasuke brewed a citron green tea blend, and sipped half the first cup while standing at the counter, then refilled it and filled another cup as well. In front of her, the Uchiha was holding out a jade cup with fragrant citron-tea steaming from within it, towards her.
For a second, the Mikoto didn't move, and then her hands stretched out and she took the cup with a nod of thanks. Sasuke slumped into the couch next to her.
Koyuki and Sasuke sipped their teas in silence.
A long silence ensued wherein the girl retreated into her thoughts.
Really they were too much alike. Both naturally quiet, thinking much more than actually speaking, both just a little too proud and very stubborn. In a way, they didn't have to talk to learn about each other. They already shared a lot of common ground.
Too much common ground in fact. And her eyes cradled a blend of hesitance and the worst kind of sorrow. Now she was remembering, the warmth, the bonds of friendship they shared before Itachi took away everything, and destroyed their lives. He took away their happiness, their family, hopes and dreams. All for what?
"To test my capacity."
With newfound rage she found herself crushing the jade cup within her hand, cracks splintering across the rim. The Uchiha caught the set jaws and hardened look in the girl's eyes.
Setting her cup down, Koyuki stood up and looked with downcast eyes at the Uchiha.
After a short pause, the Mikoto's expression changed.
"Thanks... for everything Sasuke." She said, that same smile tugging at her lips.
Sasuke's eyebrows drew together, he sensed the sudden change in the girl, but nonetheless gave her a nod as Koyuki grabbed her arsenal of weapons, bandaged and fastened them around her hip, thigh and back.
"Leaving?" He asked, the twin orbs that shone like black marbles were luminous as he shook offending strands of raven hair away from his face and moved to stand up.
"Well of course, I'd like to get a shower and change of clothes before the exam."
He made his way towards the door. But before he could reach out to the doorknob, she had snatched it.
"Since when have you been so courteous?" She suddenly said and her violet eyes seemed to pierced straight through him.
"What? You don't think I'm capable of being nice?"
"It's not that..." Her voice trailed off, her eyes looked everywhere but directly at him, "It's just exceptional to see this side of you, a side that I haven't seen in a very long time."
He knew what she meant by that, before he could form the words, she was already gone.
One last whiff of her fragrant hair, as fleeting as the recognition that for a couple minutes of his life, he had experienced happiness.