Title: Fair As Spring
Author: mitsuki0tennyo (Mitsukino Tennyo)
Fandom: Naruto
Pairing: SasuSaku (Uchiha Sasuke x Haruno Sakura)
Rating: T
Word Count: 1000
Disclaimer: I don’t own Naruto.
Chapter Summary: Sometimes in darkness of the night Sasuke wondered if he was any different from Itachi. The day he allowed Sakura to come with him to Otogakure, he had destroyed her innocence like Itachi had done to him… the only difference was that Sakura’s was like a dying slowly flame.
There were times when Uchiha Sasuke loathed himself, hated that he had allowed Sakura to come with him the night he left Konoha three years. He should have realized that his one moment of weakness would have consequences. It had been his utterly selfish desire not to be alone again that had effectively signed her death sentence. Yet when he saw her during her training sessions with Kabuto, he could help but wonder how their lives would have turned out if he left here Konoha.
Now in the darkness of their quarters at one Orochimaru’s bases, the remnants of their lovemaking still clinging to their skin and Sakura dozing off next to him, Sasuke couldn’t suppress those thoughts of self-loathing. During these moments he could allow himself to think about a life were he hadn’t chosen to pursue the path of vengeance. A life where he was just Sasuke and she was Sakura. And dark of the night Sasuke could acknowledge that it bothered him. When they were younger Sakura had needed him to protect her, it had given the avenger inside of him another purpose besides killing Itachi. It had given him something to return to, someone to come back to, a place to call home. So he protected her and Sakura would stare up to him, her bright green eyes filled with love and awe.
But now, she needed little protection and her idealized worship of him had long vanished. Although she still loved him, Sakura now recognized his flaws for what they were. Otogakure had changed her. It killed the very thing Sasuke had wanted to protect above all else and it was no others’ fault but his. He hated that she had lost the very innocence that he had wanted to protect so badly. But after the many brushes with death had come and gone, after all the times Sakura bled and hurt… her innocence had died. He thought about the opponents she had faced and defeated, of all the faceless threats she would face in the future.
Small, feminine fingers traced the muscles of his chest. It never ceased to amaze him how such petite hands could be so decisively deadly.
“Sasuke-kun,” He felt her gentle breath brush over the skin of chest as she whispered his name. “stop thinking so much. You’re going to hurt yourself tomorrow if you don’t rest.”
“Hn.” Sasuke stared at a stray lock of hair before his hand reached up and warped the pink tendril around his finger.
Sakura released a tired sigh before asking. “Why are you so restless tonight, Sasuke-kun? What troubles your mind so much that you can’t sleep? It can’t be nightmares, you only have those around the day the massacre and that’s still months away.”
“So annoying.”
Sakura let out another sign at Sasuke’s words, letting the matter drop as she switched to another topic. Pushing herself up a little, she lied her face in the hollow of his neck, kissing the skin there.
“Do you remember the mission near Land of Waves? When we saw the ocean again, heard the sound of the water?” Sakura paused waiting until she heard one of her lover’s monosyllabic answers before continuing. “There was a strange comfort in watching sea wasn’t thee? The emptiness of the vast ocean gave me a sense of peace. It was a place which time could not touch, where there is no past, no future… no pain.”
Sasuke’s face was a stone mask but inside he repressed the desire to flinch when Sakura spoke those last two words. He was an avenger he shouldn’t care about the feelings of others, they were insignificant to his vengeance, she was supposed to trivial. Sakura should have been nothing more then a tool to ensure Itachi’s death but instead she was a greater weakness then before despite her greater ability to defend herself. He would have continued with train of thought had Sakura’s soft words lulled him away from his cogitating revenge and weaknesses.
“Like so many things in my life, I too am carried there by the current, trapped in the flow of time. It’s not your fault, you know. The choice was mine and mine alone. I found my purpose in following you, just as you found it in your vengeance. If I’ve changed along the way I gladly did so.”
“I don’t regret you’ve changed, but sometimes I regret that you had to give up your innocence and I was the cause of it… like Itachi destroyed mine.
Sakura raised herself up, giving him teasing glimpse of her breasts. She was beautiful… like the first spring day still touched by the winter’s chill, always accompanied by the sweet scent of the flowers enhanced by the pale sunlight clinging to the cold breeze. Fair skin was unsoiled expect by a few scars she and Kabuto had been unable to heal. Some had been caused by opponents, others by Orochimaru and Kabuto’s experiments.
He had always thought of Sakura as pretty in a cute way, but you didn’t survive in Oto if you were cute. But now there was an unearthly quality to her beauty, similar to an ancient goddess of death from the tales his mother used the tell him and his brother when they little. But before he could further wallow in memories of the past, Sakura bought her head down and kissed him softly on the lips.
“I know you do.”
“Do you regret that you came with me? Regret loving me?”
“No, it was my decision… but I never regretted that I came with you. Nor have I ever regretted loving you.”
With those words the thoughts of loathing disappeared for the moment. It didn’t matter what he felt for her, for now all that mattered was growing stronger and become more powerful than Itachi. Sakura had seen the darkness within him and was still loyal, she would never ask him to give up his revenge because in the end Sasuke would always been an avenger. Nothing—not even his most precious person—could change that.
(01. Louder then Thunder ←| Love Like Winter |→ 03. Set Fire to the Rain)
mitsuki0tennyo 