:: Howling Love ::

Chapter Eight xx Closer

"Hey. Uchiha."

His gaze flicked up to meet the kunoichi in the doorway from his position on the bed, examining her quickly before averting again towards the open window to his left. His thin lips turned slightly down into a discontent little scowl while his onyx hues burned fiercly, expressing his obvious disapproval towards being called so bluntly by his last name. The lithe pinkette was immediately intrigued, for bothering the raven was about as entertaining as it could get.

Her mind caught suddenly onto a small loophole, and her expression suddenly shifted into an inquisitory frown. She'd called him by his last name all the time when they'd been kids, and it had never bothered him at the slightest then. Now it seemed to have prodded a rather sensitive nerve, and Sakura's brimming curiosity threatened to bubble over as she rolled over what could possibly be the cause

She, however, said nothing about that. There were many more important and pressing matters that needed to be answered sooner rather than later.

"Why is it that..." she hesitated and rolled over a few words over her tongue before continuing: "Why are you still here?" She said the last word almost silently; a tiny little whisper that just barely escaped the confines of her lips. She had been so happy, so completely at peace with herself when Sasuke had chosen to stick with her after her brilliant rescue, and just the thought of him leaving her again was wrenching. Heart breaking.

What she felt then; it had been the warmest and most blissful feeling she'd every experienced, and she had no intention of destroying such a memory.

He was competely human now, completely free to do as he pleased, as far as she could tell. Well, he was more of a super-human, really, what with his lightning-fast speed, his amazing strength, his fantastic array of jutsu and techniques, and his fierce ambition that forced him to always be moving forward... If there was a god out there, Sakura imagined that it it would look a great deal like the a-famed Uchiha.

Focus, Sakura.

The raven-haired boy's expression remained pallid, but his eyes fluttered between annoyance and a distant confusion during the silence that ensued after her small inquiry. And then, hidden behind that, was a bitter and raw frustration: because he didn't know the answer, he didn't know why he was still hanging around that strange, pink-haired kunoichi, and he didn't know why the hell he hadn't gone up and left yet.

Sakura could see all of those turmoiling thoughts written so clearly and distinctly behind his eyes that it almost scared her. He hadn't said a thing, yet she was aware of a full-fledged response emanating from those two gleaming obsidian hues. It was as if they were speaking her, telling all that she needed to know without ever uttering a sound. Had they always been so talkative? Had they always been like such open portals right into the depths of his very being..? She found herself falling deeper into their midsts, and she quickly pulled herself to the surface, brow furrowing.

"Sasuke-kun?"

Again, he didn't answer, his eyes now clouding up as they continued to stare listlessly out the closed window into the bustling streets below. She moved her lips to give him another prodding, but stopped when she saw his own suddenly part.

"What?!" Though his tone was a bit harsh, it lacked any sort of real venom, which to Sakura was at least a step. He whipped his head around to cast her a low scowl before turning back towards the window.

And then his gazed flickered over to regard her sharply once more with those dark, serene eyes. They were so ominous, so eerie... His expression seemed almost amused, like he was enjoying the pleasure of an inside joke or some old memory. Sakura folded her arms nonchalantly, raising an eyebrow at his oddly out-of-place expression.

"What's so funny?" she demanded lowly, her emerald eyes glinting. He answered with no furthur prompting.

"Curiosity."

"That's one hell of an answer, Uchiha." She retorted sarcastically, leaning on the doorway as she matched his heavyset gaze. "Care to embellish?"

He glared at her fertively before flicking his gaze off towards his favoritie window, expression icy.

"Curiosity as to whatever has happened to these strange things we call bonds."

His delicate and refined answer was quite a surprise to Sakura, who has merely been expecting another one of his half-hearted, one-worded scoffs. His actually meaningful and complete sentence begged a long string of inquiries that the kunoichi now instantly longed to ask of him...

Yet she found herself unable to fight back the surge of roiling emotions that had meanwhile brimmed up and drowned any and all beginnings of a reply. Bonds. It pained her to think back to when he'd last uttered that word, and the shocking terms in which he'd spoken it. Back then he'd said it with serene malice and hatred, and now it was more profound, like his words actually meant something real.

Something about the way he'd said bonds seemed odd to her. Sasuke had monologued about how he'd shredded the bonds he'd had with his old team at their last reunion, yet here he was saying he was interested in them once more. Had he or had he not broken those bonds...? Or at least his half of the bond. The half that she held onto, her own connection with him from the days of the old Team 7, was long gone. It would take a lot more than a chance encounter to knit them back together.

She had since vowed never again to give such bonds to anyone so frivolously ever again. She had to be careful with whom she left her heart with.

"What happened to breaking all of your old bonds?" She spoke with a sarcastic edge that seemed a bit harsh, but due to their apparent history she believed it to be well deserved. She resented the idea of being treated like some lowlife trash that people only stick around with so they can see what happens next. No, she didn't work like that, not at all.

When he gave no hint of responding, Sakura set herself on the path to change the subject, diving into a topic that might succeed in sparking another one of his sparse replies.

"Whether you're curious or not doesn't change the fact that neither of us are going to be very safe here for much longer. Katsuo will no doubt be on both of our tails for the next few days, and his men, as dependent on basic taijutsu as they are, shouldn't be taken lightly--" she paused, catching his dry stare before continuing with an in-your-face tone: "Even for you."

After a few seconds the Uchiha bowed his head in bland defeat before rising easily to his feet. He rolled a stiff shoulder out slowly before speaking.

"Katsuo's men are all idiots. If the do catch up to us, which they won't, they aren't going to stand a chance." His voice held a fierce venom that struck out over every world, and his eyes slightly narrowed before he picked snatched up his white yukata from the floor and pulled it on over his bare chest. The Haruno saw her opportunity.

"If they're all idiots, then how'd you get caught?"

Her words provoked daggar-like glares to shoot at her from those liquid obsidians, and he scowled lowly at her as he crossed his arms bitterly across his now covered chest. She stifled the urge to giggle at what she perceived as a cute, little frown.

"That's none of your busniess."

"That's productive. What if we get attacked; would you be alright with letting me fall into the same trick that I may have avoided if you'd told me?"

"Hn."

"So what was it? Surprise attack? Some crazy new jutsu? Poison?

"Poison."

"Poison?"

"Odorless, tasteless, colorless. One second I'm standing, the next I wake up a week later in a prison." His tone was icy, filled with a vengeful malice, though he was careful not to direct it at Sakura.

The kunoichi nodded slowly, slipping her hands into her pair of black gloves as she pondered something quietly. The Sasuke she knew would never have been caught by something as easily detectable as that. There was something that he was neglecting to tell her, something more that she needed to know. The Uchiha had never been one to be caught in a bar after a long day, something must have happened... She would pry into that one later, when he wasn't quite as foul-tempered.

Sakura shouldered her bag and gestured towards the door as the Uchiha slipped his sheathed katana into his rope belt. He kicked on his sandals quickly before following swiftly behind her.

It felt good to be enveloped in trees once more. It made the Haruno feel more secure to be heading in the direction or her home, like each step was bringing her closer and closer to safety. Yet it also brought about a sort of looming dread, for she had a feeing that her old teammate wasn't about to waltz along next to her right through the gates of Konoha. Unless he favored being thrown into the Konoha Prison and being interrogated and possibly tortured by Morino Ibiki.

No, that was probably the last thing that Sasuke wanted to do. He'd been caged up for a while, by Sakura's understandings, and she would hate herself if anything similar were to happen to him again any time in the near future. Seeing her friends, as distant as they could be, in pain was the worst torture of all. Especially when she was unable to save them.

So she turned to Sasuke as they moved swiftly through the trees, unable to contain her concern over what had gone on before and during his containment.

"Sasuke-kun?"

It took him a few seconds to respond, but when he did it was nothing out of the ordinary: "Hn?"

She hesitated as well, but pressed on regardless.

"What happened to you?" Her voice was quiet, innocent... She watched as his eyes as his onyx eyes were wrought with a distant sense of flickering fear, and then quickly molded into a fiery anger before subsiding into a saddened defeat.

"It doesn't concern you." His words were slightly accusatory, but the Haruno ignored it as she hesitated. She pursed her lips slightly, her thin brow knitting together as she snook a glance at him. He appeared uninterested, his expression rather bland as he stared numbly off into the sprawling forest ahead of them.

"Hmph. You really haven't changed, Uchiha."

She said it more to spite him than anything else, and it definitely caught his attention. His harsh gaze flicked to examine her face icily, narrowing and fluxing in roiling waves of anger and contempt.

She shrugged lightly as she let a small girlish smirk flower across her lips, dismissing it. Sasuke glowered at her for a moment longer before softening his scowl slightly so that it was more of a frown.

The Uchiha continued to survey her dubiously with his eyes however, still quite a ways of looking amused. Then he silently averted his gaze and quickened his pace simultaneously.

Minutes passed, and the complete and utter silence of the surrounding forest seemed rather ominous and intiminating to Sakura's awaiting ears, but she made no move to bring it to its end. Prodding the Uchiha more than one shouldThat he wasn't just lashing out at her was a mountainous step, and she didn't want to push him to the point of breaking.

And then the sound of his voice, echoing faintly across the walls of her conscious, brought her to the present.

"Itachi... He's dead."

His words were hollow, dead. No happiness or rejoice seeped into his words, like fullfilling an ambition should do to ones spirits. His eyes were dulled, and his expression was blank. He had slowed considerably as well until at last he stopped in the middle of a small clearing. His fingers were closed in tight fists as he stared at his shoes, deep in thought.

"Sasuke-kun, I'm--"

"Don't apologize."

He spat the words out venomously, his angered expression steely and harsh. The Haruno recoiled slightly, her expression a strange hybrid between confusion and sympathy. Though his expression remained angry and stone-like, Sakura saw the flicker of inner turmoil swirling deep inside his seething pools of black. Fear.

Fear, and an immense sadness.

He looked like a small puppy who'd lost his mother, his eyes filled with such blatant emotion, his hair still slightly wet from the shower he'd taken back at the hotel, his skin an almost unnatural pale, his expression so distraught...

And though every inch of her inner self screamed at her to stop, she stepped towards him and took his rough hand in hers, lacing her fingers in between his and tracing the lines of his palm as she brought it up between them.

He made no move to withdraw his hand; he only continued to stare at her numbly, eyes glazed over.

"I'm sorry, Sasuke-kun."

"I told you not to be sorry." His temper started to bubble into action, but she beat him to the catch.

"NO. I am sorry! I should have been there! Every time one of my friends is in danger, I can never do anything!" She glared at him profusely, tightening her grip around his hand before roughly letting it fall from her grasp.

"What the hell are you talking about?!"

"Nothing! I can never do anything! I can't watch everyone close to me fall apart like this, I can't and I won't!"

She suddenly drew up her own hand and jabbed him roughly in the chest with her index finger.

"Mark my words, Uchiha, I will find a way to help you, whether you want it or not."

His shell-shocked look shifted isuddenly nto a wide smirk as he watched her glare profusely up at him.

"Whatever."

She smiled to herself as he turned and continued away, and she quickly followed after him. Sakura upposed that was all she would ever get out of him, and she was perfectly willing to accept that.

An elusive xxINDIGO UPDATE has been spotted!
---------------- Run :: Attack :: Item

Ahhaha....well..... I'm sorry for the long wait, but numero 8 is finally up!^^ I tried to make up for the lateness of it with its length and some nice little SasuSaku fluff at the end. :] There is much more fluff to come, so keep your eyes peeled! This chapter was inspired by TRADING YESTERDAY which is now my favorite band. (Though I think they disbanded a while ago....) Anyway, they're my lovers, so this is for the! :]

And Heroes fans, again? OH MY GOD PETER PETRELLI I LOVE YOUUUUU! Even without your lovely powers, you'll always be my hero! ;D

Oh yeah guys, I recently updated my profile, so if you want to read a few things about myself and A Howling Love then go catch up there. Whenever I need to tell you guys something important, I'll post it there so make sure to check it periodically if you want to stay updated. :]

And HAPPY HALLOWEEN GUYS! Please REVIEW! Thanks for reading!

--xxIndigo