#7: There Will Come a Time When I Will Regret This

Fandom: Naruto

Pairing: Sasuke/Sakura

Rating: PG-13.

Word Count: 2,156

Summary/Description: Sasuke despised irony.

Warning/Spoilers: Diverts so much from canon it's practically AU. No spoilers for the current manga chaps; all of that is completely disregarded. Cursing. Some gore. ANGST.

A/N: I had the idea for this a long time ago, and it was supposed to be a long dreary thing with lots and lots and lots of ANGST and OMG! fight scenes and Team Seven-ness and everything. I, however, got lazy, decided I didn't like it, and decided to convert it into a chapter of MGLS instead. I've always wanted to write a SasuSaku battle, so I hope I did well. Enjoy. (Please keep in mind that I wrote this a long time ago, before I started reading Part 2 of the Naruto manga.)

Sasuke really didn't care much for irony.

Here he was, face to face with his old team-mate, trying to enter the gates of Konoha, and she wouldn't let him. Just three short years ago, very near this same spot, he had been leaving, and she'd been trying with everything in her power to make him stay.

Huh.

"I will not allow you entrance into Konoha." She had assumed a battle stance. She had yet to meet his eyes.

Sasuke sighed discreetly. He did not have time for this. Orochimaru's siege against Konoha had just taken off, and he already knew that he would not be present for most of the fray. He didn't care if the Sannin would be angry that he was not playing his part; he had business elsewhere.

Itachi…

Even from this far away, he could sense the bastard. He was somewhere, somewhere in the heart of the Leaf, and Sasuke was not going to let any power-hungry perverts or overemotional erstwhile team-mates botch his chance of getting rid of his brother once and for all.

"Sakura," he sighed. A Katon no Jutsu flamed over their heads; two shinobi were having a battle in mid-air. Neither of them flinched, or so much as glanced up. "I don't have time for this. Go away before I find myself compelled to do something I'm far too busy to actually do. I'm sure Naruto and the others could use your help in getting rid of the snakes that Orochimaru summoned."

His curt address over, he stepped to the side, meaning to walk past her, and hoped she wouldn't make this any more complicated than it had to be.

She stepped in front of him, and blocked his way.

Sasuke blew out an exasperated grunt. He didn't want to do this, but she obviously wasn't giving him a choice, and Itachi wasn't going to stay in Konoha all day long.

He took a few steps back, almost resignedly, and lifted an arm. The Hidden Snakes shot out rapidly, green and long and treacherous. They wrangled towards the pink-haired girl like twisting arms, straight on a course for her neck.

Until she grabbed the reptiles all with one hand, yanked with an impressive show of strength, and pulled Sasuke off of his feet and sent him careening into the face of the left gate. The red painted wood splintered behind his back with a crack, and before he could even think to wonder what the hell had just happened, she was barrelling into his chest, pushing him straight through the wooden surface. A fist collided with his cheek; there was a crack that could only mean broken bones. She left off with a direct kick that had his stomach concaving. She landed about ten metres away, slightly winded, body tensed to act soon again.

Sasuke dragged himself to his feet, a hand clasping his stomach. He assessed the damage quickly; nothing brutal. He sent chakra to stop off the bleeding at the points where it was needed. Then, Sasuke looked at Sakura. And for the first time that afternoon, he really saw her.

She had grown. Of course she had; it had been three years, and everyone he had once known was now changed in some ways. But it seemed like very little had stayed the same about Sakura. She was taller, and lines of definition ran around the muscles in her arms and legs. Her face was a bit weathered, but more sophisticated. Her ninja skills had obviously improved. There was resolution in her eyes, and strangely, remoteness. It was rather ironic. This girl who had done everything to open herself up to him was now unreadable. It almost made him laugh.

Of course, there were things about her that had stayed the same. Her hair was still short, cut in a jagged line across her neck. It was a good choice; running around with long flowing hair was an impracticality for a kunoichi. She still had her fighting spirit, if that small bout was anything to judge by.

This might not be as easy as he'd thought.

"I will not allow you entrance into Konoha, Sasuke." He was faintly annoyed with himself for noticing the absence of the suffix that was almost a given with his name. "You will go no further than this point."

The pariah gritted his teeth.

"Don't be an idiot, Sakura. You cannot defeat me, and if you persist in getting in my way, I will kill you." He said it frankly, and it was the truth.

"Then kill me," she said in a monotone. She finally let her eyes meet his, and the emerald pools blazed with intensity. "But while I draw breath, you will not put one foot into my village." She forced the words out through clenched teeth. "Not a toe."

Sasuke exhaled on a frustrated breath, held it, and resigned himself to the fact that someone was going to die here today.

Damn Sakura for being so stubborn.

He moved suddenly, using his speed to get the better of her; he wanted this to be over as soon as possible. He moved like a whip-cord slicing through the air, earth and air parting at his behest. His mind and his muscles worked in swift, smooth coordination, pulling him through the movements with mechanical, learned grace. He didn't realise that he was performing the Shishi Rendan until he and Sakura were fifty feet above the ground, and he was pounding a leg into her stomach, forcing her earthwards. Her yell of pain was cut off abruptly when his elbow collided with her chest, knocking the wind clear out of her.

He was about to land the final crushing blow that would send her crashing to the ground, when she blocked his kick with her arm, secured a hold on his leg and sent him flying into a tree with a gut-wrenching yell of exertion. She landed a little unsteadily on her feet a few metres off, breathing in huge gulps, sweat pouring off of her in streams.

Sasuke was back on his feet instantly, filing the pain away. He turned in time to see Sakura twisting hand seals and murmuring soft words. Her hands began to glow a medical green, and without preamble, she rushed forward, fists clenched and recoiled. Sasuke slipped beneath her arm as she approached, avoided a swinging blow, and cuffed the back of her neck, hard. It made her stumble awkwardly on her feet. The jutsu on her hands fizzled out, and before she could collect her wits, the Uchiha survivor blew out the Housenka no Jutsu, and the small mythical fire flowers began spinning towards her.

The Suiton no Jutsu that she hurriedly cried out was only able to douse a few of the revolving projectiles, and the remainder flew into her. Amidst the scathing burns that tore into her flesh, she discovered a dirty old trick of Sasuke's; he had hidden shuriken in the fire. She screamed in pain as they sliced into her face, torso and legs. She collapsed backward into the ground, a thick cloud of dust billowing up around her prone body.

Sasuke's eyes flicked over her briefly. She obviously wasn't able to fight anymore; they would stop here. He could kill her later, if circumstances mandated it once again.

He turned to go, but a soft whimper stopped him. He turned, and the sight he was greeted with made his eyes widen imperceptibly. Sakura was struggling weakly to her feet, gritting her teeth with the effort. Blood and scorched skin likened her unto a patchwork of red. She was in obvious agony, but the green eyes were adamantine in resolution, unflinching and flint-hard.

It struck him quite suddenly, and very unexpectedly, like lightning in the same spot for the second time.

Sakura had grown, had changed, so much. She wasn't an addlebrained little girl anymore; in truth, she had never really been. She was a warrior, a kunoichi, and way back, past broken pictures frames and torn alliances… she had been his friend.

…Sasuke hated irony. That he should come to this revelation of her strength, that it should be reaffirmed that he did care for her, on the day that he was destined to kill her…

It had taken him a while to figure it out, but Sasuke had always known that Sakura wasn't like all of the other girls. …Well, at least not completely. She didn't moon over him from afar because of his lineage, tragic past and good looks. Rather, she had mooned over him from quite close quarters… and she had respected him. Knowing everything that there had been to know about him, Sakura had respected, trusted and loved him implicitly. Back then it hadn't really meant much of anything to him. She wasn't just another girl, but she wasn't particularly special, either.

But now, he was seeing all that he hadn't cared to notice before. He'd always known that she had the potential to become a great kunoichi, once she stopped concentrating so much on him, but this… this development was beyond anything he'd ever expected. Her strength… it was monstrous, and came close to even Tsunade's. And that jutsu she had attempted before… if he had read the seals and understood the incantation correctly, it was a medical jutsu, one which would have induced a rapid acting case of muscular dystrophy. If he'd been hit by that, he'd have been fucked.

This was a far stretch from the girl he used to know.

It occurred to Sasuke that he might actually regret this.

Sasuke hated having regrets.

But this… this was unavoidable. No matter the realisation that had chosen at this late hour to dawn on him, there was still Itachi. There would always be Itachi. And there was nothing, and no one that could ever come close to making him forget about his brother, and his commitment to rid the world forever of the bastard's red-eyed gaze.

…She would have been one of the few people to come close, though, his psyche whispered.

Sasuke told his psyche to fuck off, and ruptured into the first level of the curse seal.

He had been, truly, hoping to save this display for his brother, though there was always level two. Truthfully, he hadn't anticipated that he would come face to face with anyone, save Itachi and Naruto, who would warrant him using the curse seal at all. But then again, he hadn't anticipated Sakura.

Seeing the obsidian waves echo across his body until they covered him from head to toe seemed to unnerve her a little. Seeing that made him the tiniest bit relieved. Maybe she would reconsider, maybe she would retreat. Maybe he wouldn't have to do this after all…

He took one look at the expression on her face, and knew that that was a false hope.

Later, he would remember it as one of the hardest things he'd ever had to do. It was more or less physically easy, of course, (Sakura fought extremely well, and kept him on his toes, but she was already weakened, and was no match for the power of the seal) but it took all the willpower in the world, and then some, for Sasuke to mould the hand seals that made the Chidori crackle to life, and charge.

He got her directly in her stomach, with a hit that took his hand clear through the breadth of her body, forcing blood and organs out through the cavern that his jutsu created in her back.

She died instantly, with one of his arms piercing her, and the other cradling her. She made the tiniest sound in death, a little gasp of pain.

He did not look into her eyes as he slid them close.

He lowered her to the ground gently, straightened, and snapped the blood off of his arm with a sharp whiplash motion. The dark red gore made a haphazard polka dot pattern on the ground, and Sasuke concentrated on suffocating any feelings of remorse that threatened to rise. She'd had her choices, and he'd had his choices. If this was the way things had played out, then this was the way it was meant to be. There wasn't anything to be done about it.

Sasuke knew that he should be getting a move on, quickly, but something buried within him, some vestige of the boy that had been this girl's team-mate and friend, made him stay, watching her, for a few more minutes. She deserved that, at least.

The wind blew, almost harsh against his bruises and abrasions, and out of the forest, came a little pink petal. It fluttered along on the miniature currents until it descended, and came to rest in the pool of blood beside her cheek. It was a cherry blossom, he realised, somewhat in dismay.

Sasuke despised irony.

A/N: Why, yes, I rather do enjoy being this evil. XD How good of you to ask.

I don't really get around much in fandom these days, and I don't read much more than what my F-list on LJ supplies me. If the whole premise for this fic was a total cliché, sorry, I wasn't aware of it.

Is in need of a good editing. I'll get to it later, I suppose.