Good god it's been awhile, eh? I sincerely apologize for the exceedingly long break between this post and the last but last semester had left me drained and I had a horrible case of writer's block. However, I found inspiration as I catch up on the latest Naruto Shippuden episodes (since I've fallen terribly behind in the anime and manga...) and through the psychological theories of Carl Jung and Drunvalo Melchizadek. Jung's theories of the unconscious have always fascinated me and I've realized that my version of Inner Sakura has become more and more like what he would call a Shadow. And since you all have urged me to develop her more as a character I'm hoping to do that in the next couple of chapters as well as have some steamy/emotionally exhausting encounters between Sasuke and Sakura. So my goal is not only to develop Inner Sakura's character more, but to also allow Sasuke and Sakura to work out their issues in a violently sexy manner of course (spoiler alert?) Anyways, now that Summer is here, my Muse is on speaking terms with me again, and I only have to take one class in the Fall semester to graduate, I am hoping to update a little more frequently. Thank you so much for you patience, and as always, I love and appreciate everyone who has favorited/alerted and especially those who have continuously left me reviews. I hope you like it.
As always, I don't own Naruto, but I really wish I did. Would you marry me Kishimoto? I'm willing to share...
Mind Fuck
There was blood on her thighs. He shouldn't care, shouldn't be concerned. She was the enemy, a captive, and torture was to be expected. She was a defender of the village that had murdered his clan, forced his brother to sully his hands, and in turn, forced him to sully his hands with his brother's blood. She had tried to slay him, proclaimed her love for him (an even bigger offense), and now had the audacity to look up at him as if he had come to save her. How…pathetic. He had every reason to strangle the last bit of breath from her mangled and broken body…but he couldn't stop staring at the blood on her thighs.
Sasori's shouted obscenities followed by her screams had first alerted him of her presence. Temporarily blinded while he recovered with Itachi's eyes, his sense of hearing had heightened. Although, the blindfold had been removed and he had regained his vision, his hypersensitive hearing remained. He had rationalized this visit with the insistence that he wanted to shut her up, even though Sasori was long gone and she had been quiet for awhile.
When asked why Sakura was even here, Madara had simply shrugged and stated, "Kabuto's business," but Sasuke had noticed how Madara's shoulders would tense every time she shrieked.
As he stared down at the girl now turned young woman, he noticed how she had changed. As a male, he obviously noticed the physical changes (the curves, the fuller breasts, the slimmer waist, and he refused to acknowledge the anger at finding her naked and with blood on her thighs), but he also noticed how defiant she looked despite her humiliating circumstances. He was surprised to find her face free of tears, and even the lack of glassy eyes. Instead, she seemed torn between outright anger and indifference. It was strange, but he thought that the woman curled down on the floor with the peculiar expression on her face was not the same as the one that had spoken his name when she first laid eyes on him.
"Took you long enough, Uchiha," the woman spat hatefully, lacing his name with as much venom as possible. He wondered how he had missed it, the transformation from the borderline hysterical woman that had greeted him, to the borderline wrathful woman now addressing him. "She loved you! She waited for you, and look what it brought her! Branded a traitor, captured, object-raped. She tried to kill herself, did you know that? She was so broken, so lonely, and you don't even care do you? Haven't you hurt her enough? Haven't you been the cause of her suffering for long enough? You're lucky I'm still bound Uchiha. Nothing would please me more than to give you a taste of what Sakura has endured over these long years."
"I never asked her to love me," Sasuke said dismissively, not bothering to question why she referred to herself in the third person.
"That doesn't excuse you for your responsibility to her," Sakura countered, eerily quietly. "You were the first person she ever truly loved, and more importantly, you were a member of her team. You may be able to defect from your village with ease, but I won't allow you to defect from her. You've crossed the line Uchiha, and I will make you pay for it. I'll make sure you hurt the way she has since you entered her life."
Sasuke stared at his possessed ex team mate for a long time, weighing the severity of her words. "You'll hurt her more if you kill me."
"She'll get over it. I'll make sure Naruto will see to that," Sakura said, her mouth twisting in a knowing grin as she watched anger distort the Uchiha's face.
"She belongs to me!" he grabbed her arms with enough force to bruise, shaking her violently as his eyes flashed red as he involuntarily activated the Sharigan. "I'll kill her before I let Naruto or anyone else touch her!"
"The way you stopped Sasori from touching her," she deadpanned.
Sasuke didn't remember hitting the crazed pink-haired girl, but the pain in his fist told him otherwise. He expected his possessed ex team mate to be pissed, to swear to him a slow and agonizing death for his offensive action, instead he was greeted with an eerie smile. Sakura sat there with a mouthful of blood, smiling a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. Her smile was more a bearing of teeth than an actual expression, and her eyes were filled with mirth from a confirmed suspicion. As he gazed into those knowing mirth-filled eyes, he wondered if he could find the girl he remembered, the one he had left behind.
With his Sharigan turned on, he could tell that something was amiss about her chakra. Although he knew the Sakura grinning before him was not the same Sakura he had removed the blindfold from, he wondered if his Sakura was still reachable.
"You want to see her that badly, Uchiha?" the Sakura on the floor asked in a sing-song voice, surveying him, head tilted. "Let me help you with that."
Before Sasuke could ask what she meant, he felt his pupils contract and dilate as they reformed into the shape of the Mangekyo Sharigan.
"What are you doing?" he asked, knowing she was manipulating his chakra.
Her answer was a playful smile and the word, "Tsukuyomi."
He had expected to be taken to a world filled with his worst fears and various tortures, that's what Itachi's Tsukuyomi was like so he expected his to be the same. However, darkness surrounded Sasuke, and he briefly wondered if he had suddenly gone blind. He quickly dismissed the thought though when he realized that this darkness was different. This wasn't merely a darkness that resulted from lack of light. This was the kind of darkness that had texture, a darkness you could feel, like a veil separating you, shielding you from a darker horror.
Cautiously, Sasuke's left hand reached out to part the ethereal curtain. He felt the tips of his fingers brush against cool silk, but the material evaded his grasp. The curtain of darkness had parted on its own to reveal what at first appeared to be Sakura. However, on closer inspection, he knew it wasn't her. Her skin was too pale, her eyes were black bottomless pits one could fall into and be trapped forever if not careful, and her blood-red lips were twisted in a smile that was anything but inviting.
"Who are you?" Sasuke asked, Sharigan eyes glowing threateningly.
"I'm Sakura's Shadow, the person she fears and secretly wishes she could be," the Sakura-like apparition answered, deepening her smile. "I am her repressed anger, her unfulfilled desires. I am her unspoken thoughts, her untapped potential. I am more Sakura than Sakura is herself."
"What do you want from her?" Sasuke asked, eyes narrowing suspiciously.
"Time," she answered, reaching a delicate hand through the darkness and offered it to the missing-nin in front of her.
"Time?" he inquired, brows furrowed in confusion.
"Time out there," the apparition huffed in impatience. She grabbed Sasuke by the collar of his shirt. "I want to be allowed to come out and play every once in awhile. But first," she pulled Sasuke through the darkness until they both emerged outside of a large gilded cage with a broken lock, "You have to tend to her."
"What is this place?" Sasuke asked, watching the apparition pull open the door and beckon him inside the golden prison.
"This is where the Old Bitch locked me away a long time ago," Inner Sakura replied, unable to keep the bitterness from her voice. "Those years I spent here were long, and quite boring. I'm owed that time lost."
Sasuke surveyed the surroundings only half-listening to his ex team mate's subconscious. The cell was large and circular, reminding him of a giant birdcage. There was a large four poster canopy bed on his right side. The dark coloring of the wood stood out in dark contrast to the pristinely white sheets and pillows that adorned the bed, making it look inviting with the promise of comfortability. How long had it been since he had slept in an actual bed and not some make-shift futon?..
"Focus Uchiha," the un-Sakura demanded, snapping her fingers and drawing his attention away from the bed. The apparition was seated at a small dark-wooded circular tea table with matching high backed chairs. She was elaborately dressed in a long black silk dress that ended just above her ankles, revealing bare feet with expertly painted black toenails. The top of the dress was a lacy white corset that rivaled the paleness of her own skin and clinched her waist nicely, contrasting her curvy bust and tiny waist to accent her hourglass figure. Within her perfectly manicured hands was a wineglass, halfway filled with a liquid the color of blood. A second glass filled with the same liquid was placed in front of the empty chair across from her. Sasuke made a move to join her at the table.
"I didn't offer you my hospitality," the un-Sakura said coldly, stopping Sasuke dead in his tracks. "This seat is reserved for a very special guest. I've brought you here to fix the damage you've caused, not to idle the day away with wine and conversation. Besides, I doubt there's anything inspiring you have to say to me anyways." She flashed him a playful smile as she watched his eyes narrow angrily from her jab.
"You've brought me here to see Sakura," he said through clenched teeth. "Well where is she?"
"Look under there," the un-Sakura said, pointing to a small white rug in the shape of a lotus flower on the floor.
Sasuke quickly lifted the rug to reveal a trapdoor with a staircase that descended into that same ethereal darkness. As he began to descend down the stairs he heard the un-Sakura call to him.
"You're going to see a lot of things that are going to anger, excite, scare, and arouse you, Uchiha. Don't worry though, everything you'll see is both real and fake, and if you're able to hold onto the little sanity you have left, you'll find her."
Sasuke merely shook his head, writing off the apparition's rambles as nonsense and resumed his descent, the trapdoor closing behind him and the carpet moving back to its proper place on its own.
"Now that the children are gone," Sakura's unconscious began, turning towards a tall man standing in the doorway of the cage, "I do believe it's time for the adults to have a little chat, eh Itachi?" She beckoned him to the empty seat across from her, and smiled as the former Konoha ANBU captain accepted her invitation. He was dressed in a perfectly tailored black tuxedo complete with white coattails and matching gloves. His black hair was pulled back neatly into a long ponytail revealing the horror that marred his once beautiful face. His eyes were now empty sockets that bleed continuously. Although his eyes were gone, he moved effortlessly towards the tea table and sat down across from her. She watched the blood run down his smooth alabaster cheeks hungrily as he situated himself and took a graceful sip from the wineglass in front of him.
"So Itachi," she began once the elder Uchiha sibling had made himself comfortable, "Convince me why I shouldn't rip your precious ototo limb from limb and suck the marrow from his bones?"
So what do ya think? I promise part 2 of this chapter is going to explain the title of the chapter a lot better. Itachi's appearance, the whole Shadow statement, and Inner Sakura's parting words to Sasuke will all make sense soon. Just believe in me...please? :) As always reviews are greatly appreciated and wholeheartedly encouraged.
