Sasusaku Month, Day 02: Rogue
He'd asked her if she would betray Konoha for him, and now Sasuke is unraveling.
In a dimly lit room in the current hideout where the remaining members of Team Taka reside, Sasuke's heart is an untamed beast clawing at the inside of his chest. Every ventricle and vein within him burns with acid. Bitter, enraged, and completely out of control. Sasuke's thoughts are wild thunderstorms, black and swirling to every edge of his internal skies, while rage burns through his veins like liquid fire. Behind a closed door, he is tempest and volcano in one, his movements erratic as a storm in the throes of its fury. His fingers claw at his hair, ripping through the dark strands, while his other hand scratches at the dried blood caked on his face. The world outside the door ceases to exist as furniture splinters and shatters under his wrath. The air is thick with the stench of betrayal and the debris of a heart so shattered its pieces turned to sand.
Sasuke's erratic mind screams out, sending questions and accusations and vile words to an invisible audience made up of only the memory of Sakura Haruno.
'You said I was your everything, and I actually believed you.'
Sasuke throws to the Sakura within his mind through clenched teeth, his voice taut like a wire about to snap.
Hours before, on the Samurai Bridge, Sakura stood behind him with her kunai poised on his back like a serpent waiting to strike. The scene plays on repeat, like a haunting melody in his head. For a moment, Sasuke truly believed he'd seen a divine sign, an ethereal grace when she spoke to him.
Sakura said she'd betray Konoha for him. Only for Sasuke. The most loyal kunoichi he'd ever met would join him. For a moment, it felt like the heavens opened up, and through Sakura, the only girl who haunted his dreams, he saw redemption.
For the first time in years, something other than hatred had clawed its way to the surface of Sasuke's mind. Her acceptance was a salve, a respite from the never-ending rage and ire and pain. Her voice soothed like water to his parched soul. In her eyes, Sasuke thought he was momentarily lifted from the hell he'd been living in since he'd learned the truth behind the loss of his entire clan – his family. Her cherry blossom touch, the only touch Sasuke had craved for all these years after going rogue, seemed to be within reach. He thought he knew Sakura, the real Sakura, who would love him regardless of anything.
The Sakura in his dreams was a figure bathed in golden light, an angel with tender hands.
For a moment – just a moment – Sasuke felt truly invincible.
He'd been quick to trust her, too quick to believe in the impossible.
Then everything crashed down when her hand pressed a kunai against his back. The pain was more than physical; it was as if every ounce of his being was being shredded.
'You tried to trick me,' his thoughts spit venomously at the pretend Sakura.
Sasuke's sharingan blazes in his dark room, his ire mirroring the inferno in his heart. His walls, once a fortress, are crumbling around him. The tears that fill his eyes are not just from the pain, they are a concoction of betrayal, loss, and a dream that will never be realized.
'I wish we never met,' his mind curses. 'I wish I'd left you to die when we were younger.'
Sasuke clutches at his chest as though trying to keep the pieces of his heart from spilling onto the floor, weighing heavy on his soul like sand.
'That would have been less painful than betraying me.'
The image of Sakura doesn't respond to Sasuke. She does not blink, breathe, or move. She is not real. Because anyone who could ever love Sasuke has died, including the memory of a young girl with who could turn jades into liquid love.
His eyes, usually so cold, now brim with hot tears.
Sakura's betrayal wraps around his heart, a noose wrapping tighter and tighter and he's tasting blood in his throat. The phantom scent of cherry blossoms tugs at him. He still wants her. God, does he still want her. But the scars, the marks she's left on his soul, they're etched too deep.
"I wish you and me never became us," Sasuke whispers, his first verbal acknowledgement cutting like the kunai she wielded. His shattered soul, strewn across the floor, mixes with the wreckage of the room. Sasuke places his forehead on the cool stone wall and crumples to the floor.
As the night outside reaches its deepest abyss, Sasuke Uchiha is a betrayed king within the ruins of his own shattered heart. His kingdom: only the fragments of a love that could have been.
THE END.