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Covenant
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Synopsis: Everyone is dead or hunted. The Allies lost. The war is over.
Treacherous seal marring her neck as a collar, Madara parades her like a victory trophy.
And though he gave her to his patriarch—betrayed her in the worst of ways—
Here, in The End, Sasuke Uchiha is all Sakura has left.
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2:11. Comfort
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THREE MONTHS after the Fourth Shinobi War's end, Orochimaru died for the second time.
Sakura stared at his crumpled body: lifeless in the center of a blooming springtime forest. No one around mourned his death. None who learned later would shed tears. The greatest mind of his generation—one of the legendary Sannin—a man who'd unlocked a form of immortality—
Died completely alone.
Suigetsu was smirking. Robed and masked, Sasuke hid any reaction. Madara carefully observed the responses in the crowd. Akatsuchi's gaze was on her and the two men in front of her, sights narrowed in thought.
The rest of the clearing watched with veiled looks and stiff shoulders. Their leader's threat hadn't gone unheard.
On the edge of her vision, Madara ended a series of signs on Horse. "Katon."
And three months after the Fourth Shinobi War's end, Orochimaru became a pile of ash.
Sakura didn't want to admit it—hated that it was something to admit at all. But as the fire dwindled over gray soot, faster than any natural flame could've done it, she felt that familiar hollowing. A sharpness of losing a part of one's self. The small erosion of humanity that came to her with every new kill.
It hadn't been by her hand, nor by her choice, but by her order: The last Sannin of Konoha fell.
Another part of home gone forever. Another Fire legacy ended on foreign lands. Another name for history books to gloss over.
Another broken shinobi who'd never find redemption, or absolution, or forgiveness—because Sasuke already won. There was no way to fulfill the request in these conditions; his shishou's revival was impossible. Orochimaru was gone for good.
"And that concludes this meeting. Quick, as promised. Do remember that I always keep my word. Sasuke, Kajura, Renga, Kahyo, Kirisame, Gengo. The six of you will accompany me for some inspections. Everyone else is dismissed," said Madara.
Not needing to be told twice, the gathered shinobi all but fled away into the forest. Those named made their way to Madara's side with lowered heads. The Uchiha patriarch immediately began barking plans and orders at them.
Sasuke turned in Suigetsu's direction. "Take the prisoner back to my base and see she doesn't leave her room. Stay there until I'm done."
"Ugh, guard duty again? I thought I was reassigned to the field..."
"And you're reassigned once more."
"For how long?"
"A few days." The cat mask looked her way. The feeling of his discreet study on her face made her chin lower. "Just preparing the first few bases we'll be traveling to. Can't have another one escape. If she starts acting out before I'm back, up her dosage."
"She's already way above protocol."
"And what do you care?"
"Touchy. Got it." Suigetsu nodded to the group bowed around Madara. "Why's he taking all those new lieutenants?"
"Didn't ask. Something you should emulate once in a while."
"Well, let me come with you. Someone else can—"
"Do as I've said." Sasuke tapped his wrist and out came a teleport tag with written coordinates. "Destroy the port when you get back," he commanded, offering it up for Suigetsu.
"Fine. Guess it'll be payment enough that I'll get to share a bed with—"
"You'll sleep on the opposite side of the room."
Suigetsu snickered. "Uh huh, sure I will."
Lightning crackled over the parchment Sasuke held between them. "If you do something that interferes with the seal, you'll find yourself in the same position as our late mentor."
"Is that a threat from Madara, or a threat from you?" he queried in a quiet voice.
"Suigetsu."
"Yeah, yeah. Calm down. You make it too easy, bossman." The Kiri nukenin snatched the tag and grabbed her wrist. "See ya!" Swarming his eerily cold chakra over her, he activated the jutsu and ported them back into Sasuke's colorless, frigid, underground room.
Releasing her instantly, Suigetsu searched the floor, bent down, and peeled off a concealed port tag. He burned it between his fingers as Sakura watched in surprise.
"You have Fire Release?"
"Yep. Barely. Learned a bit from Sasuke. It's not something I can fight with, but it gets fires started." As he spoke, he walked to the two mats pushed together in the corner by the flowers and began dragging one to the other wall.
When he finished, he lay down with a sigh. "Well, your friend's out. Now what?"
Now what?
She had no answer for him.
With Ino's escape, there was nothing left for her here. And with Suigetsu as a guard, maybe she could die. Suigetsu couldn't force her not to. He probably wouldn't care enough to try to stop her. Hell—he might not even stick around as he'd been ordered.
If she was going to do it, there was no better time than now, while Sasuke was away.
As soon as she thought his name, her neck warmed and her chest tightened.
Maybe she could die, but… What would that mean for Sasuke?
Would Madara blame him? Would he be punished? Would he be punished in the same way as Orochimaru?
She'd seen Madara nearly kill him before. Heard Madara threaten his life more than once. Knew that Madara was a man of action—if he said he'd do it, it was as good as done. Yet, she'd never seriously believed that Madara would actually end Sasuke. They were family, after all, and Sasuke got away with far more than anyone else might.
So, Sakura always took Madara's words and actions toward the only other Uchiha alive with a grain of salt.
But with Orochimaru out of the picture, one prisoner freed, and Madara's increasingly unhinged behavior, maybe even his blood wouldn't protect Sasuke from the next misstep. And a vital captive dying while in his base's care would most certainly be a misstep in Madara's mind.
All caught up in Ino's safety, she'd forgotten that the seal wasn't a one-way street.
She'd wielded a double-edged sword when vying for Sasuke's cooperation. One that stabbed into the both of them when he'd pushed her against the wall and hiked her legs around his hips. A sword that hadn't yet sliced deep enough last night to stop her from trying to end it in the heat of the moment, but one that cut its way through her in the hours he'd held her afterward, letting her weep in his warm embrace.
She'd wished him dead mere weeks ago. Prayed him carved from her life, severed from her memories. Sentenced to a never-ending purgatory.
Now what?
Now as she thought about dying, she thought about where that might leave Sasuke.
…And she wavered.
"I don't know," she told him truthfully.
"Huh? You killed the snake without a plan?"
"Getting Ino out was the plan."
"No long-term strategy, though?" Suigetsu whistled lowly. "I'm not a doctor like you or anything, but that seems kinda... Dumb."
No argument to make, she deflected. "What's there to plan for beyond that, anyway? Madara controls everyone and everything now. Short of killing him, there's nothing more that I can do, and I can't kill him. No one can."
"Sasuke could."
Sakura froze in her movement towards the bathroom, peering at him lazing on his back. "I doubt it." Eyes closed, Suigetsu shrugged at her words. "...Even if he could, he wouldn't."
"Not without a plan, he wouldn't."
She turned to face him fully, brows creased. "Suigetsu—be straight with me. Are you trying to tell me something?"
"Not really." Nothing in his relaxed posture or the slow shake of his foot said otherwise. By all appearances, he was telling the truth. "I'm just saying. From what I've seen, you make a lot of decisions on impulse. Totally opposite from Sasuke. I can see why you annoy him so much, is all."
Scoffing, she resumed her march to the shower. "And you make a lot of comments about things no one asked, which is why you annoy me so much."
"Mhm. Let me help you with that, prisoner," he replied with a grin and a flick of his fingers.
The stone door separating the two rooms rose between them.
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Sasuke was quiet when he finally came back three days later, stepping into the bathroom without a word and returning—clean—just as silently.
Sakura watched him from her periphery as he circled the room. Moving things an inch to the left or right, apparently put out of their place in his absence. Swatting dust off random surfaces. Sharpening his favorite weapons on the grinder. Resharpening them. Eventually, he plucked a scroll from above his desk and settled onto his sleeping mat—
Across the room.
Her eyes drifted to the ceiling, unsure whether to concede to the ache in her chest or smother it underneath the medication where all her other feelings lay dormant. It wasn't like she'd expected the days leading up to Ino's escape to change anything…but she hadn't expected those interactions to settle between them like a thaw.
Perhaps she should've, though. He'd always been like this. Taking one step forward with him meant Sasuke taking two steps back. An inexplicable force between their bodies, leaving him only ever just out of reach.
It was better this way, anyway.
Probably.
After all, she'd achieved her goal: Ino was out. There wasn't any more reason for her to exploit the seal. No point left in her bothering Sasuke. Those lingering emotions from their past that he pulled from her were merely distractions in her final plan to leave this world forever.
Three days she'd spent clear of him. Three days to process what Ino's absence meant and the exchanges she and Sasuke had before Ino was gone.
And in those three days, her only consistent feeling about everything was fatigue.
She was tired of being off-kilter and confused about this thing brewing between them. One minute she was sure she couldn't stand him; the next, she was shaken by overwhelming love. In one memory, he betrayed her; in another, he was her only shield. Some nightmares, he choked her on a frozen battlefield; some dreams, he kissed her on an island in an orange sunset.
Without anything left to focus on, all she had was Sasuke—and it was exhausting dealing with the mental acrobats that surrounded him.
It was better to let him brood in peace. Let him lay there in silence, as far away as he could be, ignoring her.
Better to let the space between them grow again.
Instead, she heard herself asking—"Where have you been?"—mouth crossing her mind so casually that Sakura barely registered the words as they slipped out.
To her damped surprise, his response came swiftly. "Base inspections. Meetings. Tracking intel."
She could leave it at that. From his tone, it was clear that's what he'd prefer.
But she'd already gone and talked—and wasted it on something she didn't even care about. If the quiet was broken, she might as well say what she wanted. And the easiest way for her to build the confidence to do that was through what she was best at.
"...Do you want healing?"
She'd noticed his injured state as soon as he entered the room. He had a sprained ankle at minimum, and a summoning cut across his palm.
"I'll live."
His quick refusal was like a slap in the face.
Her mouth closed, then opened, then closed again. She wasn't sure what she'd expected, but Sasuke hadn't denied her offer to heal him in so long that she definitely wasn't expecting that.
"...Okay." Rolling onto her side to face the wallflowers, Sakura berated herself for acting against her better judgment in the first place.
She'd wanted to unload some of her guilt, but it felt impossible when her hands were idle and he was so far away. Resigned, she started gently scraping out a new flower in the growing garden, filling the room with rhythmic scratches.
A minute later, she heard a sigh from the opposite wall.
Then she heard shuffling, fabric dragging on stone, and the plop of a mat beside hers. A silhouette shadow fell upon her art and descended. The air shifted, warming behind her as a body settled in only a foot away.
She stayed frozen, back to him, unwilling to break the ice a second time by peeking.
"Heal me if you want, then," said Sasuke.
Sakura pinned her sights to the wall. "You're the one who's hurt. I thought you'd want it."
The blankets cocooning her feet were promptly pulled off her legs. She shot up, latching a hand around his wrist to stop him, a shout on her lips. The feeling of her sheets being torn away—of cool air kissing her bare skin unexpectedly—caused the reflex.
His brow was raised with the slightest of annoyance when her gaze slid his way. Stuttering past the brief shock, Sakura's mind crawled into the present.
It was Sasuke.
Sasuke wouldn't uncover her just to spy.
She closed her eyes with an unsteady breath and a quick gulp. "...Just leave it. You said you didn't want healing."
"I said I'd live." He swatted her grip away and zapped off one anklet. "Which is true." Reaching across her leg, he removed the other one next. "I didn't say I didn't want it."
Chakra surged through her as the metal fell, warming her pathways and giving her strength.
"So you do want it," pressed Sakura.
"If you want to."
She frowned.
His hair was still damp from the shower, bangs hanging past his brows. He looked younger in this dim light—in that gray zip-shirt he was so fond of in his nukenin days. The veins running up his wrist and arms dipped under the sleeves; faded into the muscles of his chest mocking her in their exposure. It was disgusting how perfect he was. No one had any right to look like that. She fought the urge to brush away his hair and run her fingertips over his clean-shaven jaw.
Instead, she placed green hands on his bare chest. Scanned him. Healed him. Things she'd done thousands of times.
Behind the familiar, she shut away the dangerous thoughts about his shoulders and the smell of soap wafting off him. How big his hands were in his lap. How long his lashes were when he closed his eyes and how he closed his eyes in the first place—when she, a prisoner, had her hands on him with access to chakra, in a room where he'd no backup.
But she ignored all that—by contemplating what words would best convey the sentiment she'd wanted to give this unpredictable man ever since she'd left that forest.
Steeling her nerves, she breathed it out. "I'm sorry that I made you kill your shishou."
"So long as someone with a curse seal lives, Orochimaru can't be killed."
Sakura blinked at how brisk the reply was. "That may be, but I—"
"I already ended his life once. It didn't matter then, and it doesn't matter now."
"Sasuke… Let me apologize…"
"Fine." Opening his eyes, he regarded her like one might when soothing a child. "I'm listening."
"...You're an ass." She scowled as she withdrew from him. "Nevermind. Forget it."
His chuckle when he unrolled the scroll once more immediately erased it. "If you promise not to run, I'll let you sleep without your suppressors."
Run?
The idea to do so hadn't crossed her mind. Not once.
She didn't want to consider the implications of that admission.
"I won't. Where would I go?" she asked softly.
"After Ino."
"I wouldn't. She's safer as far away from me as she can get." And she didn't want to talk about Ino. Not now. Eventually, there were things they'd need to talk about—but right now, Ino was free, and it felt like a jinx to even mention her name. So, Sakura changed the subject. "Why'd you kill Orochimaru the first time?"
Although she didn't expect him to answer. He never answered anything she wanted to know. Never told her anything that might let her in. He'd probably let them lapse back into silence. Or swipe at her with something needlessly cruel to shut her up. Or—
Sasuke glanced at her, finger tapping on the scroll. "The Allies didn't know?"
Or that. "Well, we knew you killed him about sixteen months into the war, but there was no intelligence on the reason."
"Interesting."
Sakura shrugged. "Not really. It was hard to get information on any of Madara's top generals. You and Obito in particular."
"I see."
"Honestly, if it wasn't Orochimaru, we probably wouldn't have gotten anything. We weren't even certain it was you that killed him." She'd started rambling, though she wasn't sure why. Maybe it was the way they were leaning on the same wall, or almost sharing the same covers, or how he was staring at her as she went on. "The reports were vague. Since it was the only intelligence we got, we assumed it held some truth. And it didn't really matter to the Kage why he was dead, just the fact that he was."
"He suggested to Madara that we unearth my brother's body and reanimate him."
It took her a beat to process that he'd answered—another to process the answer itself.
Itachi was still mostly a mystery to her. She'd pieced some of the story together from what Kakashi and Naruto told her, and gathered that Itachi wasn't the evil man Sasuke ran at when they were children. That, perhaps, Konoha had some atoning to do.
Even so… He'd still scarred Sasuke forever. Still left his younger brother, a child then, all alone—still abandoned him to a path of revenge. And none of that should bother her, because none of that was her business.
Sakura no longer had room to judge anyone, so she wouldn't judge Itachi for the cards he was dealt and the hand he chose to play. He, too, was just a child, after all. But…even so.
This was a startling topic for him to breach, so she didn't know how much further he'd allow her to delve. Where the line between appropriate and prying was drawn on his family matters. If he was willing to disclose more or if she'd get bitten for reaching out; there was no way to know but to test it.
"...You—didn't want that?"
"At the time, I didn't want it for different reasons."
"And now? You still wouldn't want to revive him?"
"Whether I want to or not is irrelevant. He's finally at peace." He peered through her, seeing something she couldn't. "It'd only be selfishness that called him back to this hell again."
And for the briefest of seconds, the look on his face was devastation.
A feeling crept into her that bottomed her stomach and broke her heart. A voice that wasn't familiar was whispering in her head, No matter what you decide to do from now on… Tears she didn't understand were blurring her vision as cold air shook in her lungs. The same caliber of feeling she'd barely endured locked in that Lightning prison cell engulfed her.
It was Sasuke's.
Crying, she gaped at him, wondering how he wasn't crying too. Wondering if he always felt such staggering sadness. And her next thought was—
He needs my comfort.
She was leaning in before that thought was given any additional critique. To hug him or to kiss him—she'd no idea. But he was hurting, and she was hurting for him, and something urged her to do anything to erase that gut-wrenching expression from his handsome face.
"Sakura."
She stopped short, her lips half a foot from his. "Ah…"
Sights refocusing, she noticed his countenance was controlled now. The despair cleared from within her, drying her eyes instantly. Her cheeks pinked at her position—leaned forward on her palms, angling towards him.
"...With chakra, it should be easier to contain the seal's effects."
"The seal? What?"
"You've got chakra right now. The effects should—"
"That's not—" She didn't know why but what he implied irritated her. "Just because it's all the seal for you doesn't mean—"
At the last moment, Sakura realized what she was about to reveal.
Swallowing the words hastily, she turned away with a glower. "Right. I forgot. I should curb its influence since it's always the seal. The other night was entirely the seal's doing too, right? And the night before that? The seal controls everything you do around me, doesn't it? So obviously, it's the same for me."
Sasuke didn't answer anything she asked. Even though it'd all been rhetorical, her irritation still surged, tightening her vision into a glare at the bedsheets.
All she'd wanted to do was help him. She'd just wanted to take on some of his pain—to understand him a bit more. Why did it always have to be the seal? Why couldn't it just be her? Why couldn't they just be normal?
Why did she even want to do any of that?
Why was everything so fucked up…?!
"You never answer my questions when it comes to the seal," she plowed on, abruptly wanting a fight. Needing an outlet for the emotions he'd stirred then abandoned. "I know even less about it than you do, yet you're unwilling to talk about it. This is why—"
"I wouldn't do something just because of a seal."
She slid her glare to him. "You've done plenty because of a seal. That's all you've been saying for months. Unless you're trying to insinuate that I forced you to do all those things using the seal?"
"Did it seem like you forced me to do it?" Like always, there was nothing in his manner to flag what he believed she should answer.
"You once told me it hurt you when you didn't give me what I wanted, so yes!"
"So you wanted it for more than Ino, then?" Sakura stared at him, mouth slightly agape. He flashed her a smirk, his attention returning to the parchment in his hands, and her anger flowed out as if he'd flushed it away. "It's not physical pain. It's just…loud. And constant, when I don't block it or you do it on purpose. Your innumerable thoughts give me a headache."
"...A headache."
All this time, he'd been complaining about…a headache.
One of the most powerful shinobi alive—one she'd seen with numerous life-threatening injuries, one who begrudgingly accepted her healing of broken limbs and bleeding organs—was admitting that a headache was enough to make him fuss at her.
"An annoying one," he confirmed with a blank look and a slight nod.
And—
The absurdity of it made Sakura laugh from the belly. Sasuke glanced at her with a raised brow. For months—since last summer, she'd thought she was actually causing him pain. Thought she was tormenting him with her demands and desires. A headache!
Then she was pushing forward once more to kiss him without mind, because she was genuinely laughing for the first time in as long as she could remember. Because, overcome with amusement, she didn't feel the impossible weight of death. Because for this small moment, he was indeed just a man, and she was just a woman, and he'd said something that sounded an awful lot like he might've wanted what happened the other night.
Because she'd loved him for 16 years—
And alone in this room, she could almost forget that he'd given her to Madara.
Sasuke shifted away.
Almost.
"We shouldn't do that again."
"Why not?"
"You're still a prisoner. My prisoner."
"So that makes it wrong?"
"Aa."
Such a quick shutdown would've typically cowed her. Without anything left to focus on, however, all she had was Sasuke—and she was exhausted from this give and take. From the endless surrendering and conquering. Tired of being the moon and the tide and conscious of all his whims.
"And if I wasn't a prisoner?"
He sucked his teeth. "We'd never be in this situation if you weren't a prisoner, Sakura."
"We were close to this situation before," she countered. "When we were training in Uzushiogakure."
"You were still a prisoner in Uzushiogakure. You had no more freedom with the Allies than you do now. They merely kept you in a larger cell."
"So this is fucked up no matter what. Is that what you're saying?"
"More or less."
"Well, you're right. This is all fucked up."
She gave him a chance to respond—an opportunity to stop her from blundering them into what was inevitably waiting on the tail-end of this conversation.
But he stayed mute, and she pushed on.
"It's fucked up that despite everything, you're the only thing that makes me feel good and sane in this hellhole. You. Of all people. And what can I do about it? Feeling good is better than crying and wishing I was dead. It's better than thinking about how everyone I love is dead or gone from me forever."
"Sakura—"
"No. Wanna know the saddest thing? It didn't even matter who won. Not for me. If it were the Allies, I'd be chained up in a hospital bed somewhere instead of drowning in calmative in this cave." It was spilling out of her like vomit. "I would've wished I was dead no matter how the war ended. No one who made it out alive will ever leave that battlefield, Sasuke. No one. We'll all be fucked up until we die—even you. You just repress it all inside so well no one can see how bad it is."
"Oh?"
"Yeah," she asserted, not breaking their eye contact. "I know more than you think I do. I watched you when we were genin. I know you. I catch that look sometimes when you let your thoughts go. You refuse to show anyone, and fine, you don't have to. But don't use a projected opinion of my situation as an excuse to sit on some moral pedestal. If you truly cared about how fucked up this is, you'd let me die already like I've asked."
"Madara would kill me if I let you die."
"So you only care about your own life?"
When Sasuke shrugged, Sakura scoffed.
His words rang with indifference. His tone sounded apathetic.
But he'd let the scroll drop onto the floor beside him as he listened to her speech. His frame had loosened, his gaze had softened, and his furthest knee had pulled itself up as if caging the two of them into this corner.
And his kiss hadn't been indifferent at all. There'd been not an ounce of apathy in his embrace.
She'd had three days without him, unable to leave his bedroom, to analyze all the shifts in their relationship over the past year. Three days, mostly alone, to mull over his behavior since the war ended. And one thing was indisputable: Sasuke Uchiha did not have to be here if he didn't want to be.
He didn't need to lie next to her. Certainly didn't need to listen or respond. Despite proclaiming he wanted to kill her, he kept her washed, well-fed, and healed—when none of the other captives she'd seen at Orochimaru's execution appeared to enjoy the same treatment. Despite saying all Konoha shinobi deserved death, he'd still gotten Ino out alive to some unknown contact who almost assuredly was also from Konoha.
He could blame the seal, but the seal didn't make him act, or speak, or share, because it didn't make her do those things. The seal didn't force him to bend to her wishes; she'd seen now what it truly meant to will the other party into submission. She wouldn't deny she'd used their covenant to influence him; she was sure, however, that she'd never used it the way he did the other night.
He could say it was Madara. But his patriarch wasn't here—wouldn't know—and Sasuke hadn't ever, not once, shown any indication that he feared the other Uchiha beyond vague, unemotional statements that Madara might harm him.
And Sakura didn't think she believed in his act anymore.
"I think you're hiding something, Sasuke. You're lying about something, and you know what?" she whispered, analyzing his expression for any change. "...I think you didn't betray me. You didn't betray me and you don't want me dead, but I'm still here. Why is that?"
All he did was close his eyes with a chuckle. "I knew it."
"...Knew what?"
"I told you I couldn't convince you. You always have too much faith in me."
"I don't—"
Sasuke bent forward and kissed her.
Softly, like she might break. As if he was fine with letting this lie forgotten, if that's what she wanted. He'd allow this to be something they'd overlook and move past if she pushed him away.
The world stopped turning. The universe took a breath. The Gods bowed. His stare was fresh blood and the last of a sunset, full of question and patience.
But there was no question.
Sakura kissed him back, heart pounding in her chest, arms wrapping around his neck before he could recant.
The air grew hot as he slid onto her sleeping mat, pressing her into the sheets. Descending upon her until he surrounded her, one hand on her cheek, the other reaching down to her thigh. Driving under the hem of her sleeping gown. A feral sound lodged itself in her throat when his knee nudged hers apart, and he slipped between her thighs.
His tongue was in her mouth, his teeth were nipping at her lip, his thumb was brushing over her ear, and—
It was heaven.
She forgot about the war. Forgot about her friends and family. Nothing outside this bed existed. The earth was created for them to meet at this juncture. They were the only Gods in this room.
The hand gingerly gripping her thigh skated up to her lower back and flattened on it. Sasuke pulled her down the mat and up against him in the same tug. When he withdrew from the kiss, he was on his knees and bent over her, breathing heavily as his sharingan flitted across her body. He'd propped himself up with a palm near her waist.
Her legs were around his hips, lower body supported by his hand on her ass. She could feel the erection he pressed onto her core, warm and hard and twitching.
"Don't stop," she murmured, rolling her hips into his.
He leaned forward, reaching further under her, sliding his fingers to the edge of her underwear. His fingertips brushed her clothed opening, and Sakura had to bite her lip to stop whatever was bubbling up her chest from spilling out.
It was just a kiss. He'd barely touched her. Yet below her navel was trembling, her panties felt soaked, and she needed more.
He pulled his arm out from under her, moving it between them instead. His knuckles rubbed over her clit as he watched her writhe from it. With legs tightening around him, Sakura sunk her nails into his forearm, reaching her other hand to the wall behind her for leverage to squeeze against him more firmly.
It was a new form of torture, this gentle graze. His faint touch over the fabric. His free hand returned to her face, thumb tugging down on her lower lip—just watching.
"Sasuke..." she mewled.
"Hmm?"
"Do something or don't—this is..." Unbearable, she wanted to say, but he'd pushed her panties to the side and ran his middle finger down her slit, stealing all words and what little rational thought she'd left to her name.
"Should I stop?" he asked, sinking a finger into her.
Sakura gritted her teeth, head falling back onto her pillow. A second finger joined the first, their rhythm slow. Constant. Amazing.
And then—too slow. Too constant. Not nearly satisfying enough. She moaned, encouraging Sasuke to speed up with her hold on his arm.
"Sakura?"
"What?" she gasped, trying to shove herself onto his fingers at the speed she needed.
He abruptly pulled both fingers out, returning his thumb to her nub. "Should I stop?"
"No! Don't—don't stop," pleaded Sakura, gazing up at him.
He was smirking, but the shadow behind it told her they were on the verge of something they'd never recover from. Although he was asking to tease her, the question was serious.
"Don't?"
Sakura nodded. "Please."
That was all it took.
Sasuke fell back over her, mouth devouring hers, his hand fiddling with something between them. Her fingers sunk into the hair on the nape of his neck, pulling him closer to her. Ankles hooking around his back.
He nudged her underwear aside again, and something tapped her wet folds. Her lungs froze. Her eyes sprung open into his. The world felt like it fell away into their inky abyss.
For half a beat, she was scared of the unknown.
"Breathe," he ordered against her lips.
Then she gasped, hands fisting in his hair as he buried inside her in one swift motion. She heard herself moan like she wasn't in her own body, a strange fullness sending a shockwave through her system. The seal on her neck bloomed through her pathways, vibrating in satisfaction. Sasuke held himself there with a shudder.
In that moment, they were one. No one in the world was as close to one another as they were.
Mouth slanting hungrily over hers, he retreated, then slammed back into her.
He'd given her no time to adjust; no opportunity to understand the too-stretched feeling he was giving her. Bracing himself on his elbows, he planted one last kiss on her swollen lips before biting down on her neck as she moaned under him.
In no time at all, the strange, foreign sensation morphed into pleasure.
The muscles in his chest and arms tightened and loosened against her as he moved. His skin slapped on hers as they connected below, a sharp sting of lust growing each time. The gentleness his fingers teased her with was nowhere to be found in his deep and rough thrusts.
She might've shouted his name. Might've begged him to end her. Time slowed and sped up and she was certain she'd never feel anything as good as this for as long as she lived.
Less than five minutes later, just as she was beginning to coil up from the ruthlessly fast rhythm he set, Sasuke bit out a curse and pulled out of her completely. She whimpered in protest. Something hot and wet landed on the inside of her thigh and stomach as Sasuke panted near her neck, his forehead resting on the pillow beside her head.
She frowned when his fingers found her cheek again, skimming it softly.
Had he—finished?
"Sasuke?"
"Mm..." He turned his head and kissed her collarbone. "Give me a minute."
She'd never had sex, so she wouldn't know for sure. But she'd lived in a war base long enough to know that it usually lasted longer than a few minutes. Sometimes a lot longer. From the stories the older kunoichi shared of their escapades, the best men were the ones who at least got the woman off, too, regardless of how long it did or didn't last.
So she wouldn't know for sure, but this didn't seem like it was...right.
"Gods, Sakura."
"What?" She stared at the ceiling, hands flat on his shoulder blades, trying to suppress the aching desire her core was pulsing with.
"I can hear you."
With a slightly reddening face, Sakura encased their seal with her chakra, mumbling a hushed, "Sorry." Except, she wasn't that sorry.
It was hard to be apologetic for the thoughts when she was near-insufferably unsatiated.
His hand that wasn't on her cheek was suddenly pinching into her waist—into a particularly ticklish spot. Sakura jerked away, an involuntary laugh escaping her.
"Wha—HA!—stop that! Stop!"
"I'll get you off, don't worry. Just give me a minute."
Trapped under him as she was, it wasn't like she could do anything else. She could shove him off with her chakra strength, she supposed.
But the atmosphere was pleasant, and she'd just had sex with the man she'd loved almost her whole life, and there wasn't any reason not to enjoy his warmth and embrace when he appeared to have no intention of revoking it…even if the act hadn't really lived up to the 16-years worth of hype her mind had built around it.
It'd be more strange, she thought, to push him off quickly after the first time, despite it not going as she—
Wait.
"Are you a virgin, Sasuke?" she asked suddenly, breaching the topic again as the pieces settled into place.
"...No."
She hated the way her heart constricted. "Oh."
"Neither are you."
"Now," she griped.
"Aa."
Brow creasing, she shifted her head so she could turn to look at him. "So you were? Before—just now?"
His bloodlines gazed back passively. "There was Itachi and then there was a war. There wasn't any time between to do this sort of thing. I had objectives... It's a distraction."
"Then, how did you..." Never in a million years would Sakura have bet on this kind of conversation happening between her and Sasuke. On this type of interaction occurring at all. On the air around them ever feeling so... Natural. Easy. But he seemed willing and relaxed, and she'd always been a talker. "Know...you know—what to do?"
"I lived on a war base for the past five years, too, Sakura. With Suigetsu." The hand that had tickled her slid down her belly to her cunt. "And I'm a fast learner."
.
this story is getting translated into Portuguese starting in July!
please find this fic on AO3 for the translator :)
As always, thank you to my beta-reader Leech :)
have a good week!