Go Home, Sasuke

I DO NOT OWN NARUTO

Chapter Eight; A Crack

Ame Apartment Complex, 7:48 PM

She closed her eyes. Somehow, she knew he was going to say something like that. Deep down in her heart. She knew she harbored love for Sasuke, she knew it to be true but she also knew that there was something he needed and deserved to know.

Reaching her hand up, unable to make eye contact with the smouldering charcoal orbs looking so intensely down on her, she cupped his cheek gently. "Sasuke," She breathed slowly, "Use your sharingan on me and… find Itachi's death." She whispered, the last part breaking off in jaw-clenching pain.

"I do not need to know, Sakura. That… was the past." He said slowly and truth be told the slight shame in not caring brought a sense of peace in him, oddly enough. He didn't need to know what happened to his brother, all he needed to know was tomorrow.

"Sasuke, please." She pleaded, looking up into his eyes. He saw the misty tears in hers, showing more emotion than he'd ever seen, even as he left her on a bench that fateful day, he had never seen such a pain in the eyes of anyone.

With a single nod, he activated his sharingan, casting her under a heavy genjutsu, scouting through her mind. Surprisingly, the memory was the most potent, as if she had highlighted it just for him. He entered the memory, watching it play out through the eyes of his former teammate.

Ash filled the sky as the ground shook violently under explosions. Sakura's body was in intense pain and low on chakra. She watched as the blonde haired Akatsuki member, Deidara, fought off the waves of invading sound nin.

Sakura ran to the side of Itachi Uchiha, blood seemed to be seeping from within his lips as he hacked violently, causing a secondary spray of blood to spill to the ground.

"Itachi, we must get you to-." Sakura's voice was cut off when electric shocks of pain shot through her body, her fingers trembling desperately as the sound waves of an attacking ninja damaged her nerves, but she fought against it, wrapping an arm around the raven-haired man, helping him to regain composure.

"You do not have the strength." Itachi coughed, gently pulling from her grip and steadying the girl, her eyes burning with the presence of tears. Itachi smiled gently, wiping them from her blood spattered cheeks. His eyes spinning with the mangekyou sharingan, "I must do this." He said, the girl screamed and pleaded with him, to allow her to bring him to safety. Her body too weak to chase after him, she crawled.

"Amaterasu!" He called, a single hand motion and the army of men were burning with the intense black flames, screaming in pain. Blood dripped from Itachi's eyes as he fell to a knee, his body rejecting the jutsu. He felt the blood begin to break through the walls of his lungs.

"No!" A panicked voice screamed, small hands clutched desperately into the back of his robes, a face buried into the back of his red and black cloak, dampening it with tears. "Itachi, please, please stop." She whispered desperately, unable to scream any longer.

A surprisingly strong hand patted the top of her head and she looked up to see Itachi smiling down at her, the fragile smile he had saved just for her, "I said I would protect you." Was the only thing he said, turning back to the scene with a new resolve, his flames burning brighter.

"Itachi! Please… not like this…" She sobbed, yanking him back, trying desperately to get him to disperse the jutsu before he destroyed his body. "I'll do anything… if you just stop!" She cried harder. Pressing flickering, green chakra laden hands to his back, trying to heal the damage of his body, pushing ever drop of chakra she could muster into his system, until she realized she was pushing her own life force, yet, healing his body.

Itachi's crimson eyes widened, "Sakura! Stop!" He said, pushing her away, aware of what she was trying to do, after she had hit the ground, she smiled, weakly pulling herself closer, she was going to save him. She could finally save him.

"No, Sakura!" Itachi gasped, ending with blood spilling from his lungs, he was forced to disperse the jutsu, collapsing onto his back in heavy, breathless pants.

She sobbed, pressing her hands to his chest, continuing to push her life force into him. She pushed harder, but it wasn't entering anymore, Itachi had used to last bits of his chakra to put up a wall around his internal organs, keeping Sakura's very life force out. His shaking hand reached up to touch her cheek, "Sakura, live on… for me and for…. Sa...suke." He said, his eyes slowly closing. Sakura continued to push her life force into his corpse until her world spiraled black.

Sasuke's eyes returned to normal, his hands shook violently as he looked down to Sakura, asleep in his arms. His brother had died from an illness, present in the Uchiha family. An illness impossible to cure unless treated at the time it first starts to form.

A crystalline tear dripped from his eye and onto the cheek of the sleeping girl, he clutched her tighter, feeling as though she were some kind of lifeline, keeping him from drowning. She was dying now, because of the amount of life force she had pushed into itachi, her life was significantly shortened.

Pressing his hand to Sakura, he pushed his chakra into her. pushing and pushing until it was simply as hers was, raw life force. He would give her as much as she needed, if her life was cut into a quarter of what it was supposed to be, they would both live with halved lives.

As long as he didn't have to go a day without her, he didn't care. He wasn't sure how he had come to care for her so incredibly much in the short amount of time he had been here, but he knew that he didn't want her to leave. She was the only bond he had yet to fully sever. She was… she was suffering the same pain as him. She grew up in the same village, she lost her parents, she lost someone… someone she had loved… she treated Naruto like a friend although he was carrying the demon that slaughtered her father and drove her mother to an alcohol related death.

If she could keep that smile, that smile she gave him as a child, he could learn to love her, like she deserved.

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Hey guys, I realized I hadn't updated in a long time. But I've been planning this out for a while, sorry it's so short and I understand you can't get why Sasuke is acting the way he is, but try and imagine his situation as well as Sakura's. They're both in a lot of pain and have found someone who is willing to look past that. Love always happens in the strangest ways.

Please, follow and leave a review as to what you think.

-Sakura-Centric.