Chapter Five: The Depth of the Forest

Sakura found herself aimlessly walking through a thicket of forest, she had first began her wanderings when the moon was still casting black shadows, but the sun had soon since came through illuminating the darkness around her. When she first sensed it was so close to morning she had hurried her pace as though she was running out of time, which was true, but soon she realized she had nothing to rush to do. There was no mission deadline to meet, no companion to run to his aid, no boss's errand to hurriedly finish. No one was expecting anything of her, she had been rendered useless once more.

She found the one fallen tree-hollow to rest against and wondered about the heights its green leaves had once known. She twisted her body to face the sky and cursed at how quickly the darkness faded. Couldn't the sun stop its relentless track for just one day?

Sakura clearly heard the blasts that shook the many birds out of their trees, emitting from her beloved village. She knew what she would be doing right now if she were among her friends, she could imagine the fear that would startle them all awake. She knew that they'd be nervously getting ready, darting out of their homes, looking for explanations- awaiting orders. She knew that she couldn't join them, that she had to face what was to come all on her own if there was to be even the slightest chance she could end it all.

It was once she reached that exact spot that she knew to wait, somehow she knew the place quite well, a kind of a vague dream that had finally come to actualization. The depth of this paradise forest was pounding with life, the birds fluttered and swooped, the trees rustled and creaked, the insects hummed to a silent beat and at some distance a river or a creek spluttered white foams of fresh water.

She knew that every path she had ever chosen could only have ended here, at this exact spot, where at the far edge of her vision she saw the striking orange of a flower bush determined to spot the thick green with its vibrancy. She also found that one gap that the trees hadn't quite managed to block, that one tear in the collection of events that was her young life, the one she could not mend. The one failure that had ensured she would be brought to this exact spot in the depth of the forest where, in her peripheral vision, the red flowers spoiled the green of the trees.

'Somehow I knew you would come, must be something I always knew.'

'Gets you into a lot of trouble doesn't it? That big forehead of yours.'

'None of this is necessary.'

She felt as though the ground had simply given up on supporting her, as though she was falling at full speed and suspended in air all at once. Her mind spun with images; foreign and innate ones were intricately sewn together so that she could no longer decipher the two. In her core she felt a fear that gripped her so tightly she was certain she'd collapse into herself or else burst into a fiery rebellion.

It was then that she felt him and was free, but when she saw him she finally realized that she'd never really seen him before. Sasuke's eyes burned red into hers.

"I'll be the judge of that."

He spoke in a bitterness she wasn't familiar with, or maybe it was always hiding just beneath the velvety surface of his voice.

She suddenly saw herself being thrown into that flower bush, and bracing to soften her fall she realized that he hadn't yet even pulled the arm he was grasping and knew to pull away before he did.

Suddenly a splendid plan formulated in her mind and allowing herself to be lifted into a sensation of hope; she darted through the forest with him fast on her heels. She knew to divert to her right before he even began his attack on her left, and she knew just when to duck and just when to jump, and so in an erratic dance along the green tree tops the both of them made their way to Konoha.

"Face me! Face what you've done!" His screaming was the most unusual thing she'd heard; a bursting of anger that in its attempts to conceal his raw pain only succeeded in amplifying it.

She made the mistake of sparing a glance (would he allow her to see his pain?), it had always been her sick desire and now she was warped into it and stunned in place.

She finally felt what it was like to be Uchiha Sasuke; to feel utterly abandoned.

An anger that was lying dormant in her veins exploded: 'You selfish boy! You blind idiot! Is this it? Is this all?' He had tied her body into place but could not contain her mind.

'Does it mean nothing at all to you that we offered?'

"Me and Naruto, we offered to fill your void-" Her body could move once more but she didn't allow herself to pull away from his glare.

"You destroyed my clan! Your useless friendship won't fix that!"

Laughter forced its way through her, she was just as shocked as he looked about it, and while still under his piercing gaze, she finally managed to contain herself.

"So you think, no wait, because of some dream I had when I was four it was all my fault?"

His glare did not waver, but then that was just the way he was.

"You have to realize that you've lost your mind! Your logic is twisted- you're insane!"

"There is no sense or 'logic' in this world," was his simple reply.

"Oh? So you're what? What you're doing now is just what? You riding the course of your emotions blindly without reason?"

He said nothing and this enraged her.

"You're addicted to it- your need for revenge!"

"You can't make sense of any of it!" He repeated.

"No! I can! I can see and I understand things you could never grasp! I always could Sasuke; it's only you who can make no sense of it."

"Fine then, you can take your lovely knowledge with you-"

She didn't move; his form was now only inches away from hers, his katana held rigidly between the both of their bodies. She refused to pull away her gaze from his crimson glare. The cool metal bore sharp into her neck's soft skin, but she would not flinch.

Sakura attempted to ignore the thumping pulse in her ear that bade her to fight on (or else run). There was just one last thing, the words slipped out of her when they came and she did not try to contain them.

"You see, Sasuke-kun, I remembered just this night my one fatal prophecy as a child."

It was unusual that raw, eager life would glimmer in his dead eyes. Her body tensed as the heat in her chest uncoiled and spread to her face in response to him.

"It was, as Koharu explained to you-" she struggled to continue, "of the inhalation of Konoha by an Uchiha." She had his full attention now, he spilled it over her and she thought she'd drown in it. She had to scold herself for enjoying it.

"But when I was four I hardly recognized the exact member- even though they did try to probe it out of me."

She searched the eyes she thought she knew so well for any inclination-

"Anyways, there's no mistaking what I now know- Sasuke, you see-" The words themselves had ripped through her like foreign shrapnel coursing through her veins, but she delivered them to him like she would a punch- revelling in the notion of finally causing him some pain, and hurting alongside him as well.

"It was you. It was of you."