in for the kill
note1: I'm a terrible person, I know. Feel free to rant at my dive into the hell that is school and not writing of things.
note2: No Light, No Light - Florence + The Machine
arc one: dawning
chapter: disenchanted
She was alone again. Everyone was out doing classified things and she had been left alone in this dark cathedral of steel and twisting dreams. Sakura didn't like being alone. It gave her too much time to think, to doubt, to lose her mindand nobody cares anyway, we're all going to burn. She shakes her head, as if to shake the dark thoughts from her mind. (They were dark, so very, very dark. They created a void that sucked and pulled at her soul, trying to unmake her and send her spiraling into the nothingness.) She wonders if this happens to all shinobi, this melancholia that creeps over her when she's alone, dragging her thoughts to places better left alone.
She should study it, she muses. Get Tsunade and Shizune in on it, maybe even Ino. She'd be good with psychological analysis. There's a pang in her chest when she thinks of her family in Konoha. She hasn't talked to them in months. She wonders if Pein would allow a social visit, and smiles wryly at the thought. She misses them. She misses them a whole fucking lot. She's gone longer without seeing them, she knows this. But it feels different this time. Maybe it's just the loneliness talking, but she feels like it will be an eternity before she if she ever sees them again.
Sakura sighs and rolls over to her stomach, burying her face in her pillow. This alone thing sucked. It let her dark thoughts wrap around her, like a suffocating blanket. So satiny and seductive, and far too easy to give in to. Usually she had Ino to force her into a shopping spree full of glitter and Ino-ness, or Hinata to trick her out to a coffeeshop or to a good bookstore, or even Tenten to take her out and get absolutely smashed and then proceed to watch bad action movies until ungodly hours in the morning. Here she was just so alone.
She rolled over again, staring at the dull grey of her ceiling, blinking at the sudden dryness of her eyes. She really hated being alone.
...
Tobi slid through the hallways, one destination in mind. He wondered if she had missed him while he was gone. Tobi knew he missed her. She was such a pretty, pretty fairy girl. Tobi like fairies, even if Zetsu-sempai said they weren't real. He obviously hadn't seen Sakura-chan enough if he thought they weren't real. He slid around the final corner, the door to her room in sight. She wasn't anywhere else, so she had to be here. He wrenched the knob and flung it open, fully intent on glomping Sakura upon sight. When he spotted her prone form on the bed though, he stopped.
"Sakura-chan?" he questioned, concerned. She shouldn't be like that. Be so, so, still. She was a fairy. Fairies were supposed to dance and smile and be like sunshine. Not just lay there like one of the corpses his sempais often left on the battlefield.
He crept up to her, cocking his head to the side at her vacant expression. She tilted her head toward him, more instinctively than anything else. Something inside Tobi hurt at her face, pale and blank, like a china doll. This was not how Sakura-chan was supposed to be at all.
"Sakura?" he murmured, fingers stretching out to brush her cool cheek.
"Have you ever wanted everything to just stop?" She whispered, voice hollow and flat, "Wanted to turn it all off, all of the memories, the regrets, the fears? Turn it off like a light?"
The painful thing in his chest broke, razor sharp shards tearing at his insides.
"Oh Sakura," he sighed.
He slid onto the bed next to her, wrapping his arms around her delicate shoulders. Sakura rolled into his chest, curling up like a small child might next to their mother to keep away the cold and the nightmares. She shivered and he pulled her closer, trying to protect her from her own inner demons. Quickly sliding his mask to the side he placed a tender kiss on top of her head and began to card his fingers through her silky hair.
"It'll be alright," he whispered to her, "It'll be alright."
He stayed with her for hours, long after she fell asleep and the sun set and the stars came out into the cloudy sky. Just holding her close and whispering sweet nothings in her ear and keeping the demons at bay.
note3: What the fuck. I made it bittersweet and I put Tobi in. What the fuck.