Sakura looked about confused, the room was ornately decorated with relics that she had seen in her text books and museums from the ancient times. There was a famous painting on a paper screen of the legendary Ryūchi Cave. The water color painting was beautiful, even in the dark Sakura could see the painting masterful strokes of vibrant and dark colors blending in a melodic stain on the paper. Moving her eyes beyond the painting there were other painting, most hung on the wall, one that caught her eye was of a beautiful woman in white and red robs, strangely enough there was a white cloth covering the woman's eyes. Sakura moves up and walked over to the painting, the more she observed the painting the more her heart began to hurt with incredible sadness, jealously, and yearning. Sakura eyes widened when she realized she was looking at a painting of her past self. Long locks of pink flowed about the woman styled in a simple manner. The curve of the lips identical to when Sakura smiled, the pain in her head returned and Sakura caught herself against the wall.
"Sakura," came an all too familiar jovial voice, but it was laced with concern. To her shock, when Sakura looked over her shoulder there was Naruto. He was dressed in dark gray sulked kimono, it had a love swirled orange pattern stitched in the sleeves and was tied with black obi. Notably Naruto had his right hand bandage, from what she saw the bandages went up past his forearm. He looked amazing. His vibrant blue eyes held great concern in them and Sakura heart squeezed.
"Don't," she screamed at him. Betrayal breaking her heart. She had let Naruto in, trusted him with her secrets and yet he was in on this. What ever this was. When Naruto still walked closer Sakura grabbed a sword from its stand and swung at Naruto forcing the man to stand back. "You…you…" Sakura tried to form words but the feeling of being overwhelmed was too much. From the ornate room, to the striking painting of herself, and Naruto…"take me home," Sakura demanded in a scary voice. She took a step closer to Naruto, sword still drawn at him.
"Ok, I will take you home," Naruto slowly nodded and as Sakura stepped up his eye glanced over her shoulder alerting Sakura to someone else in the room. However before Sakura could get a chance to look back she felt a hard hit to the base of her neck near her shoulder. Vaguely she felt herself fall back against a body and an arm wrap around her.
"What have you done Sasuke," was the last thing she heard before her world went dark and the haunting memories of the past filled her dreams again.
120,000 years ago
Sakura pushes the wooden ladder about the rice she was cooking, the snake she had been looking after had left last night as when she awoke it was gone. She let out a great sigh of loneliness. "It could have left a note," she pouted at the unrealistic prospect of a snake leaving a note.
A sound of someone coughing alerted her to the presence of someone and Sakura went to investigate. Upon exiting her little hut she was startled to find someone leaning against the wall of her little wooden shanty. It was a man, he was bleeding from a wound in his shoulder. Horrified Sakura rushed to his side bending low to see if the man was awake.
"Sir…sir," she lightly shook him, and then shook him harder when he didn't responded. She panicked when the man sputtered out blood.
"Help," he said weakly. Sakura hooked the mans good arm around her shoulders and with his help, assisted him inside where she laid him by the fire to keep warm. He was handsome, angled jaw, lovely raven black hair. He was taller than her, well built as if he had spent years in an army or something.
The man made motion to sit up, he movements were labored and when he reached up to undress himself to reveal his wound Sakura stood abruptly.
"I…I will get water," she sputtered a blush on her cheeks from getting a peek of the man muscles chest. Sasuke watched her speedy get away, thankfully the water barrel was in sight of the front area of the small wooden hut. And eyebrow lifted with amusement and he chuckled. She was treating him like one of her wounded animals.
By the time Sakura came back the mad was sitting with his bare back facing the fire. A broken arrow protruding from a wound in his left shoulder. Sakura gasped as the wound looked to have been festering for a few days. It looked ghastly. Sakura took in an unsure breath and made way towards him. She knelt down beside him and inspected the wound.
"I have never dealt with such a serious wound. I just take in small animals that are sick," she confessed lightly and Sasuke was profoundly moved by the deep concern etched across this beauty of a mortal. For the second time, he felt the sensation of his heart melting. Sakura flicked her eyes from the wound to Sasuke unreadable face. Her brows twitched together, her attempt to get a read on him clear.
"Hm, just…do your best," Sasuke affirmed. Try as he might, Sasuke was unable to tear his gaze from this woman as she went to work. It was painful when she pulled the arrow from his back, granted he had not expected it to hurt as much as it had, especially since he casused the injury to himself. However wot the arrow removed, the worst of it was over and he let his little mortal apply what she believed to be medicine but was truly just a bunch of green foliage.
Afterwords she had insisted he sleep on her mat, she would be fine in the hard floor. After the fire burned to down smoldering embers Sasuke sat up from the mat, grabbed Sakura from the floor and placed her in her bed. He went over to a corner in the room and rested against it. Watching her sleep.