Naruto 1. Nº 1 — Nº 3

**Decennial  
_adj.  
_**Relating to or lasting for ten years.

**_–_**

_Ten times._

_Ten years._

_Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura's back.  
_

_****__–_

Clothed in a red blouse with a white circle emblazoned on the center, Sakura's back was an ordinary sight– porcelain white flesh, taut muscles and bones just like the rest of her body. There was nothing alarmingly unique– her back was a ninja's back, always tense, always ready for action and always suspicious. So, why was it so..._enigmatic_ to him? Uchiha Sasuke could not pinpoint what it was about this banal vision– a small square of red and an all-too-ordinary component of Haruno Sakura– that captured his eyes.

The ten years and ten separate times that he catches himself staring at her ordinary back chronicled his descent into a maddening, consuming and achingly prosaic lunacy he fearfully acknowledges as love.

A love shared between Sasuke– a forlorn avenger, redeemed traitor, death's favorite victim, the unsuspecting lover, the last Uchiha and Sakura– the lovelorn, fearsome fighter and skilled healer, death's most vicious combatant, a stubborn lover and the relentless lady of spring, unraveling over ten moments (from children to killers to lovers) painted over a stretch of ten years (of protecting, unsolicited hugs and hand holding, blood and death, crying and coming together).

_–_

_"This time…it's time for you to watch my back!"_

_–_

**01.**  
_(12 years old. Sasuke wakes up after being unconscious from the cursed seal.)_

The corner of Sasuke's neck still felt sore from where he was bitten. He felt a slight sting throbbing from the mark imprinted on his fevered skin. The memories of what happened before came to him in fleeting instances– Orochimaru biting him, the overwhelming pain that engulfed his body, the Chunin exams and the Heaven and Earth scrolls. The sound of fighting caught his attention followed by a shrill scream that stopped him in his tracks. Sasuke felt his cursed seal acting up and he made no attempt to stop it. _It was Sakura's voice._

Pink hair and a red back came into view when he rushed out from the clearing. He spotted messy pink strands of hair strewn across the muddy terrain and his eye instinctually darted to a broken figure lying in the mud, an image of desperation, fighting back with gritted teeth, bloodied hands and swollen eyes. His own memories clashed with the image before him– Sakura who prided herself on useless theoretical knowledge, whose hands trembled as she clutched nervously onto a kunai she knew cannot defend her, who watched with fearful eyes as her teammates engaged dangerously in battle and Sakura, whose unblemished porcelain skin was now caked with scars, dried blood and mud.

This was the first time Sasuke saw Sakura fight and it was pitiful. Her back, typically obscured by her pink tresses was finally visible. Even in her weakened state, hunched and desperate, Sakura fought. He unexpectedly recalled a time in the past when tears dropped on his face and a frail girl embraced with a fierce strength he never imagined existing within her tiny frame.

_Strength._ Haruno Sakura wielded her own brand of strength. A strength that went unnoticed because she was always too quick to dismiss it. Sakura thought she was more suited to play the role of the damsel in distress, she had looked the part with pretty hair and eyes but now, she was fighting, there was no one left to rescue her, she was now the one protecting and she had become a survivor, a fighter, a heroine, birthed from harsh circumstances.

When her bright green eyes caught his, he noticed Sakura struggled harder against her assailants. Sasuke heard her muffled cries, beckoning him to make his _escape _but her battered form triggered a flurry of emotions he recognized by heart– anger laced with hatred and a longing to kill.

Sasuke was an avenger, revenge flowed in his blood and killing was a nature he accepted as his own. A blinding power was now threatening to overtake him, flowing rapidly from the cursed seal and he knew that he was losing himself to it. The image of dirty pink hair and a muddy back covered in grime and blood stirred the anger inside him and unleashed a greater flood of power. Purple swirls enveloped his body and a sinister power coursed through him, making him confident that he could shatter bones, tear down walls and crush the earth.

It made Sasuke absolutely certain that he would kill whoever did this to Sakura.

–

**02.**  
_(13 years old. Sasuke is facing a difficult enemy, Gaara, who was half-possessed by Shukaku.)_

Sasuke was usually confident. If he was not, he would falter, he would let himself be prey to biting insecurities and probing questions. As he stood proud, lips twisted into a smug smirk, he tried to quiet the thrashing of his heart.

The monster growling before him was no longer the same person he fought earlier in the arena. Gaara's features had contorted into a vile form. His face was swollen and outlined with numerous veins and pale green eyes glowered with brutality and a readiness to slaughter. The sight before him took Sasuke aback but the Uchiha forced himself to maintain steady eye contact with the beast. Fear was useless in this situation. Itachi had spared his life on a whim– Sasuke had not even been worth killing, he had been a coward whose fear compelled him to run, run past the looming houses, past the long corridors littered with corpses, past the puddles of murky blood and out of his home and hell.

He had been a coward before but things were different now. _Were they?_ Sasuke gulped. He needed to prove that he was no longer the same boy with fearful eyes and a swollen heart. _If he could not take down Gaara, a traitor to Konoha and someone whose life barely mattered to him, how could he resolve to annihilate his elder brother, his own blood and kin?_

Plunging his fist into Gaara, Sasuke felt the surge of lightning connected with something physical– _was it Gaara's sand shield or his real body?_ The Uchiha was uncertain but he knew that he had made his first attack hurt. Still, Gaara seemed undeterred by the pain, Sasuke recognized the bloodlust evident in Gaara's eyes, even though he was hunched, clutching onto his bloodied side, he was still itching to fight.

Sasuke knew that the pain was only fuelling the monster's urge to kill and spill his blood. He watched as Gaara snarled at him ferociously and he jumped to the tree branches behind him. Sensing two familiar chakra signatures approaching him, he cursed. This was _his _fight and he had to end it on his own terms. Sasuke was not going to let Naruto steal his thunder _again_.

Ever since he had been announced as Gaara's opponent, this had been his battle to fight, to conquer and to _win_. But more than that, this was also the one chance he had to answer the burning questions that plagued him at night. He wanted concrete proof to something that he had always been frightened of.

_Was he ready to face his brother?_

_Was he powerful enough?_

_What was he willing to sacrifice?_

Sasuke readied himself for chidori again. The sound of screeching birds rung in his ears and even despite its sheer noisiness, Kakashi's words still echoed in his ears. _Sasuke, your daily limit for chidori is three. Anymore and your death would be certain._ The Uchiha knew that Kakashi meant well but he could not heed his advice. To face his brother, there was nothing he would not sacrifice. If he could not defeat Gaara now, it meant that nothing had changed, even after years of grueling training and stubborn determination.

The curse seal revealed itself, dark marks tattooed across the side of Sasuke's face, neck and shoulders. His anger had stimulated the curse mark and Sasuke relished the waves of power spilling from it. This was Orochimaru's brand and promise of power. It was the price the avenger paid for giving himself so fully over to the devil. With its power, Sasuke attacked Gaara again with chidori. Gaara howled in pain and Sasuke stumbled back, the pain from releasing the cursed seal assaulting him in sharp pangs. His vision blurred before him and he slammed hard onto the ground. The scorching pain that seared through his body left him grimacing in agony. His mind spun and the greenery before him turned into flashes of darkness.

Sasuke was losing consciousness quickly and he scrambled frantically to find something to grip onto, something to keep his mind from reeling and surrendering itself to the abyss. His fingers scratched roughly against a tree bark in a futile attempt but there was nothing, nothing _except_– a hand that instinctively clasped onto his own and steadied him. Sasuke recognized its contours and softness, he knew that the same hand had found his numerous times before. The feeling of Sakura's hand pressed against his own helped kept the pain at bay. As he strained his eyes to see her face, he noticed the vivid fear in her eyes that betrayed the strong unyielding grip of her hand.

Sakura does not hide her fear well but he knew that she was _strong_. Strong in a way that Naruto and him could not possibly be. Strong in a way that a person with little combat experience and endurance was. Sakura was strong because she could not rely on her weapons, ninja techniques, her speed or her agility. She could only rely on her heart and Sakura had a heart that loved endlessly.

Sasuke's vision was disappearing before him again and he braced himself for the oncoming darkness but Naruto's voice jolted him awake. The idiot's words rang loudly in his ears._ "We have to escape, Sakura-chan, hurry!_ It pushed him to keep fighting– to fight the exhaustion and the pain, fight Sakura's steel grip that begged him to rest, stay put and leave the fight to the shining blonde hero.

_Three genins do not stand a chance against a monster like Gaara._ Sasuke knew that. His chidori had been useless against Gaara and the three of them were severely outmatched and outclassed but this was still _his_ fight.

_I need to win this fight. Don't you understand? _Sasuke tried to yell but no words escaped his lips. The pain and exhaustion that wrecked his body stole the venomous words from him and left him hunched over, pathetic and reliant on a pink-haired girl.

Instead of words, Sasuke found something else. Sakura tried not to flinch as Sasuke vomited, his face twisting in agony. The pink-haired kunoichi bit her lips, willing herself not to inhale the nauseous stench. She needed to be strong now. Her hands were still in his and her resolve was strengthening, hardened like her tight grip on Sasuke's hands.

Sakura knew that Sasuke was battling, even while his body remained still and his eyes were closed, he was fighting– fighting the urge to sink into the darkness of his mind and he was _failing_– his body was rebelling against him and Sakura's hand. She squeezed his hand. Sasuke needed to fight, it was the only thing he could do, if he lost, it was all over for him. His ultimate _failure_.

When Sakura's hand disappeared, Sasuke made a feeble attempt to stand but his knees buckled. His sharingan eyes widened when he saw Gaara, monstrous arm outstretched and fingernails long, sharp and lethal. The gruesome sight before him stole what mobility he had left and Sasuke found himself frozen, the loud hammering of his heart silencing Naruto's anguished screams and Sakura's determined ones.

A dark red robbed him of his vision of Gaara and he saw Haruno Sakura's small back before him, rife with contradictions. Her back was firm in a show of confidence but he could make out the slight tremors that rocked her body. Sakura's hands gripped tightly onto her kunai but like her confidence, the kunai was for show, she would never hit her target.

_Thud. Thud. Thud._ The sound of his heart seemed to echo endlessly in his head but the image of Sakura's red back filled his mind. _Thud. Scream. _Silence. Uchiha Sasuke realized with a chilling clarity despite his clouded mind and vision, despite the pain and despite everything, that Haruno Sakura was defending him with _nothing_. She was using herself as a shield. He panicked and a hoarse sound escaped his dry throat– a strangled scream, a desperate call for Sakura to get out, to get away from him, to _be safe_. But, his body was numb and he was unable to move.

He saw Naruto in slow motion, blonde hair a mess, blue eyes wild and frantic, moving towards his direction but Sasuke knew. There was an eerie sense of dejavu – in his inability to move, in his numbness and in seeing a person he cherished slaughtered before him. His palms begun to sweat, his breathing hitched and he felt his heart going overdrive. Sasuke saw splashes of blood in his vision. The dark blood of his family, the sticky red liquid on his brother's hands and Sakura's blood dripping down her corpse in rivulets. When these images faded, he was confronted once again with the red of Sakura's back, resilient and stubborn, like a fearless weed refusing to be stamped down. _Too late._

Her back was an unfamiliar sight to Sasuke because…he had _never _been behind her. He never faltered. He had always been the protector. Naruto and him were always a little too eager, a little too anxious and a little too determined to come to the rescue of their female teammate, as though it was part of their ongoing competition. Sasuke recalled countless times where he instinctually flung himself before Naruto and Sakura, as though not one life was gifted to him, but three– one for Sakura, one for Naruto and one for himself.

_Was sacrifice so inherent in his blood, in his being? _Then_, why?_ A nagging question popped in his head. _Why had he not done anything on the day of the massacre?_

And now Sakura's back was shielding him.

His goal had always been to defeat his brother and to avenge his clan. To realize that dream, he had to survive. For that, he endured regardless of the circumstances thrown to him and regardless of how many times he had to fling himself before Naruto and Sakura. He did not have three lives but maybe if he acted the part, believed in it, he would find his one life would count for three.

_And Sakura?_

Sakura with her small back, her vulnerability, her hair pink like her namesake, Sakura with zero combat skills and Sakura who was willing to throw her life away to save his. _One life for another_.

Gaara's mutant arm swatted Sakura away, like the weed that she was.

Sasuke's vision was finally stabilizing. He always found his feet when it was a little too late, when the deed had been done and he hated himself for that. Sasuke saw Sakura, pale and unconscious, caught in Gaara's death grip and an image of her back flashed before his mind.

"_I never want to see another important person die in front of me again."_

It was a trembling lover's back determined to protect his life even at the sacrifice of her own.

–

**03.**  
_(13 years old. Sasuke leaves Konoha and Team 7 behind.)_

The crescent moon hung low in the sky as Uchiha Sasuke listened to the heartfelt confessions of Haruno Sakura, her voice husky from crying, sobs robbing her of her breath and salty tears dripping softly to the ground. Sasuke focused on the cobblestone pavement beneath his feet and forced himself not to spare a glance back at Sakura. He cannot look back now. Not now, not when he was _this_ close to leaving.

_If he looked back, he was lost. _

Sakura's tears flowed without end and her hands shook violently. Her worst fears had materialized themselves before her. Sasuke's back before her, on a cobblestone street, late at night, making his quiet departure out of Konoha. She imagined if she had not followed her intuition, if she had smiled and allowed Naruto to walk her back. Sasuke would have left without saying goodbye. He would have willingly walked out of her life without so much of a warning, a word or…the thought of that only makes her cry harder.

Sakura does not know how to stop him. She has nothing valuable to offer an avenger who sought vengeance for the ghosts of his family. She was not strong enough to save people, she was incapable of saving anyone, let alone herself. Haruno Sakura could not save Uchiha Sasuke but she could love him. She loved Sasuke, in spite of his growing darkness, bloodshot eyes, the bloodlust that lingered longer, his scathing words and his scarce grins. Her intuition already foretold her that nothing she said could ever hope to make Sasuke stay. But, a desperate part of her wanted to believe she had some effect over the boy she loved. Sasuke's footsteps had halted. Sakura spilled words, spilled desperate promises she had no confidence of keeping, she spilled tears, and even more of her love but Sasuke is silent. A silly girl like her had little to give but she does anyway.

Sasuke tries to keep his distance and silence. If he remained quiet, he hoped that Sakura would return to her comfortable life and let him be. The minutes that passed between them with only the crescent moon interrupting their solitude felt more like hours. And Sasuke waits but Sakura does not stop. She speaks, in between tears and in between the formidable distance that separated their worlds. She is running out of words but she rambles anyway, Sakura does not stop talking because if she does, he will continue walking, words were the only thing she had to force Sasuke to a halt…even just for a little bit. Sakura offered him things he coveted once before– a new family in the form of Team 7, happiness, a peaceful life and _love_. And Sasuke does not deny that in another life, in another time, he would have gladly accepted all of that.

The Uchiha tried explaining to her, words falling from his lips, words that Sakura has pried them from his barren lips. His promise to maintain his distance and silence had been willingly broken. He spoke because he could not stand to hear her cracking voice and miserable sobs. He spoke because he did not want to hurt her. Sasuke hoped that somewhere inside of her, Sakura could find it in herself to understand why he was doing this. _Let me be_, Sasuke thought, he wanted to walk away from her crying face and shaky words and he wanted her to find comfort in her warm bed instead of his traitorous back. B_ut, we never get what we want, even in the cases of a sinner and saint._

_If you love me, let me go._ A traitorous thought. It was the same traitorous thought that Sasuke harbored because he refused to let his family go. Even in death, he recklessly pursued them. And even this close to the mouth of hell, Sakura will recklessly pursue him.

When the pink-haired kunoichi and the dark-haired avenger finally fell silent, Sasuke turned to face her, in spite of everything he had thought before. He looked back and felt regret welling up in him almost instantly. Maybe he would be lost, maybe he would be doomed to witness the vision of Sakura crying and she would haunt him like a ghost, like the rest of his family.

Sakura's heart lurched when she saw Sasuke's face. He had on a grin, his trademark grin, a slight tilt of his lips that probably constituted as Sasuke's own definition of a smile.

"_You really are annoying."_

Sakura is in shock, her lips pressed close and her eyes watering. Sakura remembered those words she always linked to Sasuke's memory by heart, it was a memory she recalled time and time again, but to Sasuke, it was likely a faint shadow of the past. _Sasuke remembered_, Sakura thought, her tears flowing even more rapidly now. Sasuke remembered the times they shared and the caustic words he gifted her many months before. But it was now…a thing of the _past_. Her red back and pink hair along with the memories of Team 7 would remain in the past where they belonged.

Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura had been bound together by some uncanny force to be on the same team with Uzumaki Naruto, fate had kept the trio together for one year, fate had given her one year to stay close to the side of the boy she loved and now, their time was up. The last particles of sand fell helplessly down the bottom of the hourglass where it truly belonged and the paths of an avenger and a lovelorn kunoichi will diverge. They were never meant to walk this far together. Sakura will go back to her warm bed and loving family and Sasuke will walk the path of an avenger alone.

When Sasuke's feet moved again, Sakura's frenzied screams assaulted him. They stabbed at him like metaphorical kunais. She threatened to scream louder even with her breaking voice but she stops when Sasuke's back disappears before her eyes. His movement was too quick for her eyes to follow and when she realized he was behind her, she is silenced.

Sasuke stared at her back. Red as it always had been, small and breakable. Such an ordinary sight should be insignificant to him but instead it was a trigger that released figments of a past he was determined to leave behind. _If he looked back, he was lost._ He silently fought against the onslaught of memories threatening to plaster his feet to the ground and he silently implored Sakura to stop shedding tears for an undeserving avenger.

The Uchiha found himself unable to peel his eyes away from the small form of her back, her short hair brushed against the nape of her neck and the white circle surrounded by red. It was a reminder of what happened in the Chunin Exams, of Sakura's own bravery and strength and of the power that Sasuke felt when the cursed seal was unleashed. Sakura's back shook violently with sobs and he allowed himself one last stare at the quivering back of a girl who loved him up until the very end.

"Sakura, _thank you_."

There were some things he knew with absolute certainty. He was an Uchiha. An avenger birthed from tragedy. His path cannot be forsaken. Team 7 was his heart and in another life, he would have stayed with them but in this one, he had to give it up. He gave his heart up. Naruto would always be his best friend and a bond he could not exterminate…and _Sakura will always love him, stubbornly, desperately and unfailingly._

Sasuke thanked her because words were all he had to give her. He was an avenger, his goal was Itachi's death and to realize that, he would sacrifice everything. _Even the trembling back of a girl who loves him._ He would give her up and leave her and the rest of the world behind as he dived headfirst into darkness.

Sasuke left a sharp precise jab at her neck and he felt something in him deflate when his name escaped her lips before her eyes closed. Her back crumpled before him like a paper crushed under the weight of something heavy and she fell. Like a disillusioned heroine finally realizing that life was not a fairy tale and that the one you love will always hurt you.

Sasuke does not let her body hit the cobblestone pavement. He catches her in a swift motion, a familiar action, one he has done many times in the past. He places her gently on the bench and stares at her broken figure. He offers her a last look, a last empty look, it was the feeling of his heart hollowing out.

A silent Sasuke parted from an unconscious Sakura.

The last of the fine sand trickled down to meet the bottom of the hourglass. It was now finally where it belonged.

–

– to be continued –

–

**Notes:** Thank you so much for reading! This fic initially started out as a one-shot but eventually got too lengthy and evolved into multiple chapters. There will be roughly_ 4 chapters_ in total. I already have them all penned out, I just need to do some minor editing and formatting. I will be posting the next chapter in_ a couple of days_. Please support me on this scary multi-chaptered ficventure! Your reviews and favorites are greatly appreciated and will continue to spur me into writing. Until the next update then!

(Cookies for those of you who guessed out where I adapted one of the lines from, it's a pretty iconic line in that fandom and I couldn't resist. Hit me up at thegoldengirl at tumblr if you feel like it!)


	2. Nº 4 — Nº 5

**Decennial  
**_**adj.  
**_Relating to or lasting for ten years.

_****__–_

"I have long since closed my eyes... My only goal is in the darkness."

___–_

**Chapter Two**

_–_

**04.  
**_(17 years old. Sasuke attempts to end Sakura.)_

When Sasuke saw pink again, something in him burned. He had no need for soft colors in his life. There was either red and black, blood and darkness, death and his clan. There was no white for salvation, no pink redemption, no green eyes that would hope to convince him only to be imbued with lies. Seeing Sakura aggravated him, it made him burn with a hatred so dark and sinister he thought only killing her would absolve.

Sakura, with her bright hair and bright eyes, with her happy family and her happy village, was a picture perfect symbolism of the wretched peace his clan had died for. Sakura who lived a life far from loneliness could never imagine what loss felt like. An overwhelming bitterness engulfed him when he recalled Itachi's last words and his double life. He bit down on his tongue to control his seething emotions but instead found the acrid taste of blood.

The pink-haired medic was calling out to him.

"Sasuke-kun! I_–_"

Sasuke sees better than he hears so, his focus remained more on her face, her eyes, her posture and her feet firmly planted on the floor. The fear and surprise in her eyes was a dangerous mix threatening to unleash itself in violent punches and poison-dipped kunais. He knew how hard she had tried to suppress her feelings but her emerald eyes, too vivid, too clear and too transparent revealed everything. He did not need his sharingan to see through Sakura, layers of her papery armor always withered away before him. She finally saw him for who he was– a destroyer, an avenger and a murderer. Revenge was in his blood and killing was his inherent nature. It shook her, slight tremors ghosting her skin, scrunching her gossamer veil of confidence that struggled to remain its stubborn stance.

Sakura stepped forward and continued speaking, surprising herself with how confident she sounded even as her palms begun to sweat inside her gloves and her own heart pounded hard against her chest. She spoke of regret, of joining him in his quest for vengeance, of betraying Konoha_ and Sasuke tried to listen but he couldn't. _Her truths and lies were melding together, a lover's voice sprouting lies and he saw in her eyes, falsehoods birthed from her supposed love. Her voice does not get through Sasuke anymore, not like it did years before, on a cold night with an incandescent crescent moon. Something in his stomach twisted when he heard her treacherous voice. He resisted the urge to break into laughter at the words of the foolish girl before him.

_What of her love? Does she know him now? Does she know his true motives? What little regret had she known in her sheltered life? Had she seen her family sentenced to death by the village she loved? Had she harbored memories as a young girl of the massacre of her loved ones? Had she regretted Itachi's life? _

_Had she ever been truly lonely?_

An irascible fury raced through his body that ignited the flame in his heart, already hot with revenge, hatred and a thirst for bloodshed. The death of Danzo had not quelled that dark desire inside him– a hunger to destroy the perfect bliss Konoha possessed that was built upon the tragedy of his clan. If he had to choose between his family and Konoha, he would always choose his family. And now he was just letting his choice be known.

Sakura had a family. She could never fanthom the true meaning of loss, at least not_ his_ loss, one that had emptied him of everything but revenge and his name. The pink-haired girl before him had warm meals waiting for her at home. _Sakura had a family._ Sasuke gritted his teeth. A mother and father who would give her the things she wanted, who would scold her and congratulate her. Those were the things he had grown up missing, precious facets of his childhood pried from the fingers of his dead family. Sakura had her family, gleaming green eyes unmarred by death and loss, her life and her happiness...because of the Uchiha's unwilling sacrifice.

That knowledge only served to aggravate Sasuke even more as he balled his fist in an attempt to subdue his emotions. Every moment that passed between the two, where he registered_ innocent_ pink hair, _lying_ green eyes her _dishonest_ voice was filling him with a frenzied rage. Her whole life and the lives of the villagers in Konoha had been declared in history as more valuable than that of his family and his clan. And the more he looked at her, the more he saw everything he hated_– _Sakura whose proud headband peeked out from tufts of pink hair, Sakura who swore to uphold a silent vow to protect the peace of her village, a flithy and frail illusion of peace that had been traded for his family. And here she was determined to throw it all away, as though it amounted to nothing.

Sasuke would show Sakura what _nothing_ truly meant.

A long time back, he had chanced upon the knowledge of Sakura's growth as a talented medical ninja– a disciple of the famed Godaime who hailed from the accursed Senju line that had driven his own clan into bottomless despair. The news of Sasori's death had reached Orochimaru who was surprised to learn of the puppet master's alleged killer. The sannin even commented on Sakura's expertise in poison. That new knowledge had never proven much useful until now when he had the chance to use it against her.

Sasuke instructed Sakura to kill Karin because he knew she would fail.

The Uchiha took in the face of the pink-haired girl before him, who was trying with much difficulty to mask her feelings of unease. It only made him more determined to break her, to see her attempt to take on the bloodied role of a ruthless killer and have her porcelain hands stained with the crimson blood of the people she had made an oath to save.

Killing was not her nature. He knew her– _a nurturer, a healer and a lover_. He saw how tempting Sakura, an impeccable embodiment of life, looked in Death's eyes. In the back of his mind, a thought springed up, he had once recalled of her as a fighter, a heroine, a survivor, but it was only for a split fleeting second. The same amount of time it would have taken for him to render her into a bloodied corpse. Maybe he would do Death a favor. Sasuke wanted nothing more than to see the light fade from her lying emerald eyes.

Part of him wanted to turn Sakura into a traitor, to see her spiral into the same madness he had and to see what the darkness would do to cherry blossom hair and spring eyes. He wanted her to be the first of many who would taste his bitter medicine.

_(He wanted her to yell at him accusingly, not continue to love him despite everything. Her unwavering love was a sick reminder of the Senjus and her own cluelessness. Although none of it was any fault of hers, Sasuke resented her for it anyway.)_

As Sakura made her way hesitantly towards Karin, Sasuke saw her hands curled tightly around a kunai, dipped in lethal poison. He felt his heart darkened. He saw through Sakura's pretenses and preaching of love. What she had desired was for the kunai to be plunged into his heart, for the poison to drain the color from his face– she had wanted to end him. When she finally reached Karin, Sasuke readied the technique that had long become a part of him. He was exhausted from his fight with Danzo but the chidori came naturally. He does not have a limit now, not like in the past. Kakashi's past words resonated poignantly in his mind. _The chidori is used to protect your loved ones._

He aimed the chidori at Sakura's back. This was him protecting the stained memory of his clan and this was him putting a last and definite full stop to his memories of Sakura. The image of her back facing him provoked something– remnants of the past, a nostalgic pastiche of sentiments, memories and soft giggles but he does not look to that past anymore. The only past he acknowledged was that of his family and the only future he headed towards was enshrouded in a cloak of darkness.

Sasuke was plummeting and his tumbling freefall was giving rise to the sensation of vertigo.

He crashed and burned, his body scorching as it descended even deeper into the heart of darkness, and this time, he would not make the same mistake he did before. He would take everyone down with him, including Sakura, with her trembling lover's back. Her back now stared at him with a strange defiance, with an uncommon firmness, and with red, a crimson red that reminded him of her deceitful love and…blood. _Do you kill the person you love?_ Haruno Sakura who had professed her love for him had now resolved to use the same love as a pretext to murder him. He pushed any recollections of her away and concentrated on fire and blood. His hand dived towards the direction of Sakura's back and his lips curled into a twisted smile. Sasuke caught sight of her gleaming emerald eyes widening in horror but he does not look at them.

He does not want to remember happier times and a silly pink-haired girl confessing her love to him while she shivered from the chilly winds of the night. Sasuke wanted to see Sakura as a liar, as a traitor and as a corpse, not the fallible girl who only ever loved him like he was her whole world.

"Sasuke, stop."

Karin's lips muttered something that escaped his ears. The sound of shrieking lightning drowned everything else.

He held the image of Sakura's bloodied back and his tainted clan close to him.

–

**05.  
**_(17 years old. Sasuke sees the full extent of Sakura's ability.)_

Sasuke allowed himself a small smirk, allowed himself a short moment to really take in the fact that he was finally fighting beside Naruto and not fighting the blonde. He had spent too long burying himself in hatred, scrambling in the darkness trying to seek out his true purpose beyond revenge and now he was here and he was unaccustomed to how _different_ being by Naruto's side is.

Underneath that sentimental feeling (that he does not admit), is a somber resignation at something he realized upon his decision to ally with the blonde.

He knew how drastically things had changed since their paths last diverged but he never expected _this_. Naruto and his paths had converged and he recognized– in Naruto's elation, in the presence of the Fourth Hokage who stood proudly by his son's side, in the ninjas that cheered Naruto on and banded behind him, in the blonde's immense power and his newfound strength accompanied by another unreal growth spurt– that it was almost as though Naruto and him had traded lives and positions. They had both walked down paths so dissimilar yet so uncannily parallel.

Before, Sasuke's heart used to be abundant. The Uchiha manor would light up at night, alive with the sounds of chatter and faint laughter. He would smell the scent of cooking wafting through the air and feel comforted by his father's heavy breathing. He used to have loved ones. And his reputable clan had given him status, prestige and pride. Sasuke had been a prodigy admired by many before and now, every one of those intangible things had crumbled to dust, burned to unrecognizable ashes by dark flames so strong and intense that even Sasuke could not control it. He had lost everything.

Now, Naruto, who had nothing before, possessed the important bits that had constituted to Sasuke's childhood before the massacre. Naruto whose foolish dream of becoming a Hokage was now inching itself closer and closer to materialization distinguished itself so clearly from Sasuke's goals. His own desire to take that same seat was only treated with suspicion, confusion and disdain. The smirk playing on the Uchiha's lips deepened and he thought derisively, _life was making a mockery of him_.

Sasuke had almost forgotten the almost carefree way he used to live as a child– a life embroiled in lies, an avenger with simple ambitions and the easy comfort of being by Team 7's side. He does not regret anything he had done, he would kill the same manner, commit the same crimes, betray the same village and if he had to choose again, he would leave Konoha every single time, irregardless of Sakura's tears and anguished words or Naruto's punches and sorrowful screams.

Had Sasuke stayed on, he would have softened and melted into the embraces of Naruto and Sakura. He would have forgotten about being an avenger, choosing instead the simple life of a shinobi, choosing nights at Ichiraku Ramen squabbling with a hot-headed blonde instead of fighting Orochimaru, opting to find a surrogate father in Kakashi when he could have been fighting his real kin and blood, Itachi. He would have given up the battle with his demons, forsaking his name and destiny in exchange for intimate conversations with a pink-haired kunoichi that he always found himself more willing to open up to.

If he had not left Konoha, he would have never found out the truth.

Sasuke knew there was only one whom he regretted killing. One person whose life he would never tire of mourning over but he does not have in it his heart to say his name. He allowed himself to conjure up one last image of his older brother, eyes crinkled and lips stretched into a smile. It was the way he remembered Itachi best. When Sasuke opened his eyes, he was back to reality, back to a war waged by Uchiha Obito and Uchiha Madara, his own blood from a clan he thought had been long extinguished. When he opened his eyes, he saw Sakura.

"…Sasuke-kun?"

Sakura's voice called out to him and he turned. There was no malice in her. Her eyes were still emerald green, bright, clear and transparent and he noticed a flicker of surprise and a certain joy at seeing him. He recalled how intensely her eyes shone in the blue light of his chidori, the sound of screeching birds and her silent screams. When Sasuke greeted her, her name felt strained on his tongue. It is then that he tasted the metallic tang of blood. He had been biting down on his tongue the whole time.

"Sasuke! Come on!" The effervescent blonde yelled, clearly excited to be fighting by Sasuke's side again.

As Naruto and him dashed forward to attack, Sakura joined them from the side much to the blonde's dismay. Naruto tried to reason with her. He beckoned her to focus on healing the injured, desperately wanting Sakura to retreat to safety at the sidelines and to leave the fighting to her teammates_ (as she always had in the past)_. Sasuke could tell from the look on Sakura's face that she was visibly upset. Team 7 had been finally reunited, parallel lines going their ways for so long only to intersect again but the same scene was replaying itself. Sasuke picked up the slight irritation that glowed in Sakura's eyes for a few long moments before an eerie calm washed over it. She disappeared from his vision and he concentrated on fighting.

The next time he caught sight of Sakura, she had just finished telling Naruto off. A light purple diamond adorned her white forehead and she brimmed with confidence, one that matched her squared shoulders, proud smirk and clenched fists. This was the power she had been harnessing patiently for years and she was eager to finally be able to use it. Sakura leapt at the monsters before them, determined to prove that she was capable, that she could fight and that she would not be relegated to the sidelines again and Sasuke...does not ruin her moment. He watched silently while Naruto gaped and yelled in retaliation. Sakura was no longer the same girl Naruto and him had left trailing behind them, she had honed her own strength, burnished a power that was uniquely hers, she was a heroine and she was not going to go down without fighting.

Sasuke's eyes followed Sakura's back as it dived into the dusty battlefield, her red back was swollen with pride and confidence. It was no longer the small vulnerable back that shook alongside loud sobs. That image of the past had evolved into the sight before him. And it was not something he was truly accustomed to because he remembered– protecting her, speeding past her and always being ahead of her. Naruto and him had bypassed the pink-haired girl many times. Sometimes, too absorbed in their rivalry and other times, out of their natural instinct to protect her, leaving Sakura breathless, trying to catch up.

Now, Sasuke noticed that he was no longer in front or before Sakura. She was not even beside him and her footsteps clearly do not fall with his. She was before him, in front of him, standing tall and proud, no longer breathless. She was soaring straight ahead and Sasuke, who shared his brother's fondness for birds, saw a scarlet avian in her. Her shoulders that seemed narrow in his memory had now grown broad, better suiting her developed frame.

Sasuke finally_ sees _Sakura after so long and he relishes the fearsome sight of her back, full of purpose and strength like the shining brilliance of a coal that had been through enormous heat _(fire)_ and pressure _(blood)_ and turned out a sparkling diamond. He does not think of how her eyes widened when she saw his chidori or how the red of her back had once triggered his bloodlust. Instead, he focused only on her and her bravado.

_(Somewhere in the back of his mind, he saw blue light, green eyes and a bloodied back, he had tried to end her before and there will be no one, including himself, that will ever let him forget that.)_

There was a deafening thud, a sound that reverberated in his mind, rivaling even the screeching birds of his chidori. It was the sound of Sakura's victorious fists glowing brilliantly with green chakra. When the dust finally settled, he noticed Naruto's horrified expression and his own proud smirk, a genuine one that displayed his pride at witnessing Sakura in all her glory. _A nurturer, a healer, a lover, a fighter, a heroine, a survivor...Sakura. _

Sasuke saw the red back turn to reveal a dust-covered face with small smile.

Sakura's smile was tender and vivid, befitting a girl named after cherry blossoms and spring fields.

–

– to be continued –

–

**Notes: **Thank you_ so much_ for the reviews, follows and favorites! It really means the world to me. Sometimes (or most of the times) publishing a piece of writing, especially one that involves characters you hold close to your heart, really feels a lot like sharing a piece of your soul. It's both frightening and exhilirating. Once again, do share your thoughts and feelings with me! I truly do appreciate all the support I've garnered.

Special cheers and mention also to _LazyBass_ for identifying Dany's quote from ADWD that I adapted for Sasuke in the previous chapter. I have added another reference in this chapter too, haha!

I debated for a really long time whether to include Sasuke and Sakura's first Shippuden meeting, when they just turned 16 (and had been with Sai) but decided to omit it because canonically, I didn't think he truly had the time to look/observe Sakura's back. So, I jumped straight to the bridge scene and then later on to Team 7's official reunion. Two important scenes to me that could possibly encapsulate Sasuke and Sakura's Shippuden interactions/relationship. Additionally, Naruto and Sasuke's reversal of positions in relation to Konoha and their past is not something I take full credit for. It was raised in koknowha's post on Tumblr which highlighted the parallels between the two. I really enjoyed that and could not reisist writing a little about it.

The next update would be posted roughly by the end of the week, and with the end of this chapter, we are heading towards post-canon territory now. *gulps* Also, just a FYI– some of the chapters will have two instances while others have three (since I can't divide ten equally).

_Thank you!_


	3. Nº 6 — Nº 8

**Decennial  
**_adj.__**  
**_Relating to or lasting for ten years.

_–_

"Seeking revenge...that won't be bring anyone happiness. Nobody at all. Not you and not me."

_–_

**Chapter Three**

_–_

**06.  
**_(17 years old. An exhausted Sasuke is returning back with Sakura and Naruto after the war.)_

It had been at least two weeks since Sasuke had last seen Sakura's display of inhumane strength. They had separated afterwards, fighting in disparate instances and places, divided because Sakura was a healer before she was a fighter and Sasuke was a fighter, through and through. While he focused on the demise of his relatives, shedding blood, killing and war waging, Sakura focused on cleansing blood off battered bodies and stealing back lives that had wandered unknowingly into Death's hand.

A long drawn war of many tears, blood and losses had finally come to an end and Sasuke who had been feeling haughty and smug before was now weary. The past three years spent chasing goal after goal had finally taken a toll on him and he felt a long delayed exhaustion spreading itself over his being and weighing down on his heart. If he stopped now, he was certain he would fall but instead he moved through the forest with the same instinct that had made him a survivor.

Sasuke's eyes throbbed, strained from overusing the sharingan and he wanted nothing more than to finally give in to sleep, but instead his eyes remained open, transfixed on the pink-haired girl before him, charcoal black eyes absorbed on the red square of her back. His mind must have been seeking for something amidst this overwhelming greenery to pull him away from the clammy hands of sleep. Everything was green around him– thick foliage of leaves blocked out the sun and soft green grass below him tempting him with the prospect of rest. Sakura's back, a brilliant burst of red in its resplendent glory was like a crimson red flag blazing proudly in the wind.

He saw _red_– not blood, flames, his family, loss and…death. He saw red and it was Sakura, with petal pink hair, green eyes, a stubborn green glow in her hands and…the blue glare of his chidori illuminating her already radiant features. When Sasuke squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, in an attempt to rinse the image of his chidori from his mind, Sakura's crimson back had turned into a bloodied mess. The sticky blood was almost unrecognizable against the red of her blouse. The same blood now leaked from his eyes like bloodied tears. Sasuke took a deep breath and felt the rush of oxygen fill his lungs and then he breathed in…the coppery scent of blood.

Sasuke had never hallucinated this vividly before, at least not in the past three years. He remembered distantly when illusions of his parents appeared before him in the darkness of his mind. Up until now, those ghosts had never before materialized in reality, they had remained trapped in the prison of his mind but Sasuke could never get rid of them – he was unable to banish the ghosts of his family completely. But at the very least, he thought that he had possessed some semblance of control over them, preventing them from crossing the invisible edge between delusions and reality with what little mental strength he had possessed.

Like many instances in his past, he was wrong _again_. Sakura's ravaged back, soaked in blood was the first ghost that transcended the boundaries of his mind into reality. It chipped away at Sasuke's tenuous self-control, one that he had held onto desperately as a child. A long sigh escaped his lips, one that he felt like he had been withholding for years. The Uchiha thought he could finally relax his iron grip and abandon the rusty gates that barricaded his mind. He wanted to give in to a dreamless sleep. But, his ghosts would not leave him.

For so long, his mind had scrambled in a frantic attempt to continuously move forward. Plan after plan, day after day and now it was all _over_. Sasuke felt his mind going dull, empty and silent. He had assumed right from the start he was always empty, that he had long been hollowed out when he made the decision to leave Konoha but the truth was the exact opposite. Sasuke's mind had always been in constant motion, occupied with plans, with training, with _revenge_ and now that all of it was gone, the emptiness and silence of his own mind felt deadening.

So, he welcomed the piercing screech of his chidori and distorted images of Sakura's back into the desolate graveyard that had once been his stronghold. He let Sakura haunt him. Sasuke knows that it will not take long for his other ghosts and demons to infest this space. It will not take long for madness to consume him again. Madness was in his blood and madness crept in the darkened corners of his mind.

While his mind struggled with the loss of its bustling activity, his heart was the opposite– exhaustion seeping in along with a flurry of emotions elicited just by mere thought. Now, he had the time to think of things apart from revenge and when he did dwelled on his feelings, he felt more than he truly wanted.

There was_ loss_– a new and far more profound sense of loneliness he never imagined possible, a past he was afraid to abandon and a future he was frightened to come to terms with. With the ninja war long concluded, Sasuke felt the onset of another battle, his mind and heart were in conflict, they were clashing and fighting, one empty and one brimming.

Uchiha Sasuke had done everything he had set out to do fearlessly and now– _what?_

_Where was his happiness? _

The proud fighter by Naruto's side in the battlefield was a façade that was withering, chipping away and revealing…_Sasuke_. Anxious and exhausted. Separated from his clan and removed from his hard exterior, Sasuke felt lonely and terrifying empty. The thought of Konoha had once infuriated him. In that past, it had fuelled his desire for revenge but now it struck a sinking feeling of fear. He remembered wanting to destroy Konoha, envisioning its demise in the same flames that birthed his clan and seeking a perverted gratification in the faces of those who finally had a taste of the bitter medicine he had grown up swallowing.

But now– he was coming _back_.

After Itachi, after fighting in the war on the hero's side and after playing the parts of the antagonist, the anti-hero, the prodigy fallen from grace, the seemingly redeemed villain, he was returning back and reprising the role of the lost boy returning to a vacant cursed compound.

When he sees_ red_ again, it was no longer the blood on Sakura's back he had hallucinated before, it was blood on the floorboards of his living room, blood dripping from his brother's lips and blood on his hands. The more vivid those imageries grew, the more concrete the plethora of names carved on an endless cemetery seemed. He had not visited the cemetery for years but its image was still fresh in his darkened mind. Sasuke was now shaking, his eyes were watering but he only felt blood sliding down his cheeks. Fear was taking yet another thing away from him– his control and composure.

He felt something smacked him hard on the back and turned to see Naruto by his side, a look of concern thwarting his usually sunny features. The blonde had been behind him the whole time as part of their formation.

"Are you okay?" Naruto questioned, gripping his friend's shoulder roughly.

"…_Red."_ Sasuke mumbled unconsciously.

"Red?" The blonde repeated in confusion. He was about to bombard Sasuke with more questions when the Uchiha brushed his hand aside roughly, his reverie had been broken and the aloofness was back.

"I'm fine." Sasuke scoffed but his eyes betrayed him.

Sasuke did not need Naruto looming over him, staring at him with pitiful eyes and a nauseatingly sad expression, as though he was someone incapable of taking care of himself, as though he needed coddling and as though he was staring to look as broken as he was feeling inside. _He was Naruto's equal._ The last thing he needed was pity. He was an Uchiha and he had some pride, even if he did not have much of anything else left.

Naruto knew he was oblivious to most things but he could not shrug off the feeling that something was amiss with the retired avenger. Sasuke always had a slightly volatile temperament but the blonde sensed that this time, things were different. The image of Sasuke before him shaking, even while his posture remained rigid and tense, had etched itself deep into the blonde's mind. He had seen Sasuke angry, bitter, hateful and smug but he had never seen Sasuke this shaken, this ready to break, this ready to let go.

"What are you talking about, 'suke?" Naruto sped forward and pressed stubbornly. "Red? What's red here, huh?"

Sasuke kept silent, choosing to ignore the babbling words of the blonde.

In Naruto's mind, the color red was his mother's hair, sticky foul blood and the old stools at Ichiraku Ramen, but Sakura had patched them up before they started, there should be no traces of blood left. As Naruto did a cursory sweep of their surroundings, his eyes stopped at the only red within their line of sight. _Red_. His mother's hair. The blood of the dying, the living and the dead. Ramen red. Red of Sasuke's sharingan. And _the red of Sakura's back._

Deciding not to pester Sasuke for any more information, Naruto remained quietly by his side, cerulean eyes darting frequently to Sasuke as they made their way back.

Sasuke's shaking had stopped after a few moments and he stared ahead with vacant black eyes. He was trained on a singular sight before him. The sight he hoped would anchor him, keep him awake and keep the nightmares from seeping into his visions. A crimson red back and a white circle in a sea of red like a signal flare in a pitch-black night.

He desperately wanted to trust in the blonde beside him and the owner of this red back to guide him home.

–

**07.  
**_(18 years old. 0.5 years after his return, Sasuke tries to end himself.)_

Sasuke's eyes were closed. The darkness behind his closed lids were comforting to his swollen sleep-deprived eyes but he does not let sleep claim him. Sleep was his worst enemy, the intangible enemy he had no chance of defeating but he fought anyway.

Uchiha Sasuke was fighting every day. He fought against his heart's unease, his mind's loneliness and…he fought to keep sleep from overpowering him. Sleep was like being imprisoned in Itachi's mangekyou sharingan again when he was 13. It transported him into the body of a young boy who only saw black and red. An 18-year old trapped in the useless shell of a frail coward as he watched his elder brother carried out the deed that scarred his clan.

The bright fluorescent light of the room surprised him. He tried to move but pins and needles crawling on his body prevented him from doing so. He relaxed after a while and realized an odd and comforting sensation that warmed his body. He had been heavily sedated and his breathing was finally steady. His eyes adjusted slowly to the light and his hearing was muffled but he discerned three distinct voices– Kakashi, Tsunade and Sakura.

He saw Sakura's back to him and it was no longer red. It was an empty _white_, drained off any color and feeling. Sasuke who used to find an uneasy solace in her red back could no longer stand the sight of it anymore. The smothering whiteness brimmed with jarring reminders of his own emptiness and exhaustion.

Sakura saw Sasuke's bloodshot eyes, dull pupils and darkening eye bags that marked him like an insomniac and a look of understanding passed her face. Sasuke knew that she knew. She had been by him those days he remained in bed, eyes closed but sleep far from his mind._ She knew._ She always did. Fatigued, drained and enervated, Sasuke's body was demanding sleep but the Uchiha fought against it, choosing instead to avoid sleep because of the nightmares waiting for him. He found temporal relief in the darkness that came when he squeezed his eyes shut but he lived in constant fear of sleep incapacitating him.

He was always tired and empty, _had he succumbed to madness so fast and so soon?_

Sakura reached forward tentatively to touch him, her hand felt nice and cool against his skin but Sasuke's instinct to swat it away was greater. The instinct to push her and that overwhelming whiteness away felt strong but his arm, numb from the narcotics, was unsteady. His arm swerved, slightly wobbly but extended all the same. Sakura's eyes widened as she saw his arm in her peripheral vision. She jerked backwards in a fast and awkward motion. The small basin of water she had on her lap before fell noisily to the floor.

"Sakura!" Kakashi rushed to Sakura's side. Sasuke recognized the defensiveness in the copy ninja's posture. He had positioned himself before Sakura, shielding her with his body.

"Sasuke," Kakashi's eyes– one sharingan red, the other onyx– were trained on Sasuke. "What did you do?"

Tsunade walked towards the three calmly and muttered something Sasuke could not be bothered listening. He picked up Sakura's name in hushed tones and he saw the change in Kakashi's expression. As his former instructor stepped aside, Sasuke saw Sakura but not with her emerald eyes. Her hands screened them from his view and her knees were slightly bent as though they had buckled under the weight of something heavy. A wave of recognition flashed over Sasuke and he felt an odd sense of dejavu. Sasuke recognized her like this. He had seen the exact same image before in the past. Sakura's frame had been small and fragile and her hair was long, reaching down to her waist. Sakura looked like she was bracing herself for an attack she was unprepared to defend herself from.

"Sakura, are you okay?" The blonde Godaime reached out to her apprentice.

As though realizing that three pairs of eyes were now trained on her, Sakura broke out of her rigid stance. She nodded nervously and smiled, in an attempt to wave off what had just happened.

"Shishou, it's nothing." She started sheepishly, her cheeks turning slightly red with embarrassment. "Sasuke-kun just…surprised me. That's all." She was beginning to regain her composure. The pink-haired medic picked up the fallen basin at her feet and placed it gently on Sasuke's table stand.

Tsunade's eyebrows were furrowed and her hazel eyes stared knowingly at Sakura, assessing the situation and the condition of her disciple. It took a few prolonged moments before things reverted back to before. The room was silent except for the quiet voices of Kakashi and Tsunade, who were deep in conversation and the sound of water dripping as Sakura squeezed a cloth dry. Sakura had on a slight smile as she tugged at the cloth again to determine if it was still wet.

But, Sasuke could pick up Sakura's trepidation. He could recognize fear even when it was hidden behind a camouflage of cool composure and fake smiles. Fear had long wormed its way through his ribcage and into his heart and Sasuke was certain he could sense its familiar presence even with his dulled senses and eyes closed.

Sakura was scared.

_(A startling blue light filled the room and Sasuke heard the shrill clamor of chidori, sparks of lighting had manifested themselves before Sakura and bright flecks of light danced across her pastel features, illuminating them with a deathly glow.)_

And he knew _why_.

_(Emerald eyes dilating in both surprise and fear, the strained scream that never got the chance to wrangle its way out of her pink lips and a blood red back which stared at him with an irritating defiance.)_

"I tried to kill you." Sasuke wanted to say but his words are slow compared to Sakura's actions. Sakura is faster. He could tell how she avoided his gaze and maintained her distance. He was silenced. Her fingers dabbed at his eyes gently with a cloth. A crimson red stained the cloth and the sight of it broke whatever resolve Sakura had mustered, a tiny tremble escaping her steel composure. The fear that radiated off her was something that resonated in his being. He was silenced because he could smell blood. A metallic pungency that made his stomach churned nauseously.

Sakura instinctively handed over a brown bag over. Sasuke forced himself to puke, to throw up whatever it was that gnawing at him but the brown bag remained disgustingly empty. He coughed hard, retching but there was only saliva and a sick taste in his mouth.

_Drip. _He noticed the lone drop of blood on the brown bag and realized his cheeks were dampening with bloodied streaks. That realization elicits an emotion that he often ricochets between emptiness.

_Fear. _

It was as though he had been crying hard, staining his cheeks with them, bloody ribbons marking a bloodied pathway across his face. Like his body had long been depleted of tears and chose to replace it with another liquid that he possessed an abundance of– _blood_.

Sakura was talking to him in anxious tones but he does not register it. He only picked out one word. _Unstable_. Tsunade and Kakashi had repeated the same word again in their conversation.

Uchiha Sasuke was unstable.

Everybody knew that.

_I know that_. Sasuke thought with a wry smile.

"I don't know whether he was trying to kill himself." Kakashi's voice seemed louder and clearer to Sasuke now. The narcotics were wearing away and his senses were sharpening again. When the copy ninja noticed Sasuke listening in, he paused midway, agitating Sasuke even more.

"Don't hide it from me." Sasuke spoke before a series of coughs assaulted him. His voice was hoarse, dry and unrecognizable. He had not spoken properly in the past few months.

Sakura offered him a glass of water. From the side of his eye, he could see how hard she was holding onto the cup. It looked fragile curled in her fingers, as though it was on the verge of breaking under her ferocious grip. An image flashed before Sasuke's mind. The sensation of apples crushed underneath the sole of his feet and Sakura's worried expression. But he ignored her like he ignored the plate of freshly sliced apples that appeared daily on his tableside. Sasuke swallowed hard, forcing his saliva to mingle with his dry throat.

"Sasuke," Tsunade called out to him fiercely. She was walking towards him and her hazel glare was fierce and unflinching. "Were you trying to kill yourself?"

Sasuke shrugged.

Kakashi and Sakura exchanged silent glances across the room and Sasuke stared straight ahead, the narcotics were close to fading away but he could still feel a slight numbness that was freezing the wildfire of emotions that burned in him constantly. He wanted to stay in this calmness and tranquility for a while longer before his demons and ghosts clawed at him again.

"Sasuke, you're suffering from a severe case of PTSD." Tsunade took a seat on the chair positioned by Sasuke's bed. "The curse of hatred that runs along the Uchiha line is only intensifying it. Your delusions, your anxiety attacks, your urge to kill yourself and your violent mood swings…do you notice it?"

But Sasuke was not listening, he was about to close his eyes again but Sakura's shrill voice forced him to keep them open.

"Sasuke-kun, listen to what it is we have to say." The gentleness from her voice was gone. The glass cup she held onto was gone too. She was gripping onto his hand tightly and he thought, a little tighter and she might just crush his bones.

_(He had reflected upon this exact moment a few months later and the realization of how much strength it must have taken Sakura to grab hold of him like this without recoiling had dawned on him like harsh sunlight entering a dank and dark room. He had tried to kill her with a chidori poised to her back and she had attempted to drive a poisoned kunai into his chest. Every moment where they are physically close is an echo of those treacherous actions.)_

Sasuke turned to look at her apathetically but the clear liquid falling from her eyes evoked a reaction and his expression changed. He recalled tears shed as an orphaned child. He burned with jealousy at the tears falling freely from Sakura's eyes. _Envy_. Another emotion. He wished he could cry. He wished the tears that had dried up in him would water again.

His body had forgotten how to cry but it had not given up on its desire for sleep, every night, it clawed at him for sleep to take over. Sasuke did not want sleep. He wanted his body to cry, to feel and to try to overcome its grief. He wanted salty tears not blood stains. Tears were better than the suffocating emptiness he felt. Maybe if he cried enough, he would fall into a dreamless sleep that would grant him the rest he so desired. Tears were preferable to the heaviness of his heart, an invisible weight he could not lift but wished he could slowly shave off with tears. It would be better if he cried after his nightmares and found his long awaited catharsis. Sasuke wanted to be released. But, when he tried to cry, only blood spilled.

"At present, we do not know why it is that blood is coming from your eyes but we believe it has something to do with your sharingan and trauma. Still, the confusing fact of the matter is that those chakra bands you are wearing should restrict any use of chakra and in your case, restrict the sharingan too. But, we will monitor your case closely."

These were already things that Sasuke knew. He closed his pained eyes again and the sight of Sakura's tearstained cheeks disappeared into blackness. A while back, he had fought in battle with proud red eyes and now he had rusted away, fighting an enemy inside of him and his eyes were black and bloodied.

"I think you should stay in the hospital for the time being. You were better here in your first few months back from the war when you stayed to recover from your injuries." Tsunade continued. _"I should've known better than to send you back to your house." _A sigh escaped her lips and the Godaime massaged her temples as though trying to soothe a headache.

"Send me back with some painkillers. It won't make a difference." Sasuke said in an afflicted tone.

He remembered lasting three days without sleep. If he could last a little longer, maybe the natural sleep that would overcome him would be a dreamless one, just a dark comfortable abyss that allowed him some pleasant rest. He was not going to stay in this hospital. He did not want Sakura with her sad crying eyes and trembling hands, Tsunade's prodding or Kakashi's tired voice…he just wanted to be alone.

"You slashed your wrists into bloody ribbons and your whole bed is a mess of red." Kakashi argued.

Sasuke opened his eyes and glanced at his wrists. Only a faint trace of scars remained. He imagined feathery touches on his bloodied wrists, green chakra closing the ruined skin and stopping the gushing blood. He wished the same healing touch could stop the blood spilling from his eyes.

_(Sakura had tried once, her eyes closed in concentration and her fingers placed gently on his eyes and he felt the comforting sensation of chakra dancing against his eyelids. She had channeled her chakra, in every possible way and technique she had learnt and memorized but when her fingers came into contact with a sticky liquid, too thick to be tears, she knew she had failed Sasuke again.)_

"I'd be fine." Sasuke insisted and Tsunade sighed once more.

"Sauske, I don't think I need to tell you that if anything else happens, you will be made to stay in the hospital permanently." She warned.

_There won't be a next time_, Sasuke thought.

A week crawled by slowly with Sasuke battling sleep day after day. He lasted four days without it before collapsing on his bedroom floor and then an hour later, jolting awake in his own bed with Sakura's fingers clamped across his eyes, her voice urging him to remain still but her healing chakra did nothing to chase those nightmares away.

Naruto and Sakura visited him almost every day. The sight of Sakura's red back against the window, Kakashi slouched against the chair staring at him with tired eyes and Naruto's incandescent blue eyes and unnerving optimism were the few things he really remembered apart from the nightmares. If Sakura was not by his side, attempting to channel more of her chakra on his eyes, she usually stood by the window like a widow who had lost her lover. Sasuke was uncertain if she had been mourning or crying but when he finally had the chance to see her eyes, he realized that they were bloodshot and dull, almost like his own.

Sakura and him occasionally had moments alone when Naruto was away. She always had books with her. Thick dusty books with scientific and medicial-related titles like psychotherapy psychology and trauma– he picked out a few words out of boredom. Sasuke and Sakura usually shared silence. She usually busied herself with books, trying to heal his bloodied tears or silently peeling apples and Sasuke wished she would turn over instead so he can see her red back instead of her watering eyes and shaking hands.

The nightmares continued to haunt him but Sasuke quietly took it in, swallowed it like the pills he took religiously every night. He knew the painkillers were nothing but it had become a habit now and he grew anxious without it.

On a Monday night, exactly two weeks after his earlier hospitalization, Sasuke's ears picked up chatter and giggles, soft hushed voices and louder ones. It was almost like there were people near him but he knew, even in his beleaguered state, that there was _no one_ except Kakashi and the ANBU squad permanently stationed outside his room. He picked himself off the bed, hoping cold water would help exorcise those ghosts but the sight of his mother's dead body at his feet stopped him in his tracks, like a lingering phantom.

Sasuke smelt blood, the same blood that gathered in pools beneath his mother's cold corpse. The thud of his heart resonated loudly in his ears and his vision grew distorted. He remembered Sakura talking to him about anxiety and panic attacks, reciting from the thick book she placed on her lap.

"Tunnel vision, where everything you see becomes–"

He was experiencing tunnel vision now. Everything was dissolving into darkness except for a faint circle that holed in on his mother's corpse.

Sasuke felt Kakashi's gloved hand gripping him but he was hyperventilating, gasping for oxygen. His hands tried to reach out for Kakashi but his palms were a sweaty mess. He felt himself melting like wax under a hot flame. His mind blazed like hell and his body felt ready to give up.

Sasuke screamed at Kakashi to stop him, to get rid of his mother, the corpse that was staring at him and– he begged for death. He asked Kakashi to end him.

Haunted by the ghosts of his family, racked by nightmares that contaminated his vision even while he was awake, Sasuke yearned for the peace and unnerving blackness that came with death. He had fulfilled everything he initially set out to do and there was no place for anymore regrets. No more dead corpses piled at his feet again. The Uchiha had an inkling that he was slipping into a forgotten Tartarus.

_Madness_, he recalled Obito's words. He pleaded with Kakashi to strike him with the chidori.

"Do it!" He screamed, in ragged breaths and pants. _Please kill those ghosts._

Sasuke was frantic and desperate. The voice that left his mouth was one that even he did not recognize. _The voice of a mad man_. Kakashi restrained him and Sasuke struggled and kicked, he fought even harder when he saw Sakura's back for a moment. She was wearing that white coat, her back was white, empty and barren, and it felt like everything inside of him was trickling out. He was slowly hollowing out. Deep within him, something kicked in. He knew it was his own survival instinct but he battled it, he was not going to let his body win against death this time round.

Emerald eyes stared at his madness with an intensity that shook him. Sasuke felt something puncture his skin and then the white of Sakura's back consumed his entire vision.

A pink-haired girl clutched desperately to the husk of a broken boy. She wished they were still twelve and at the Forest of Death again. She wished she had saved him from his demons then. There were tears in her eyes and a series of words she repeated to herself.

Kakashi silently stared at the scene before him, there was something disturbingly familiar and achingly painful about Sakura and Sasuke before him, like his, a crying girl and a dying boy, tears, blood and screams between them, and he felt a dull ache piercing his heart. _Please don't let the past repeat itself again._ He closed his eyes and looked away, he did not want Sakura to notice the tears that welled up in his own eyes.

Sakura held onto Sasuke's cold hands. _Don't die. Don't die. Don't die. Don't die on me._

–

**08.** **  
**_(19 years old, 1.5 years after his return, Sasuke embraces Sakura very, very tightly.)_

Sai and Naruto strolled alongside Sasuke, they were accompanying the Uchiha to his usual checkup with Tsunade at the hospital. It had been almost a year since…he had tried to kill himself and Sasuke was…_better_. Naruto had just used the word to describe him. Sasuke's eye bags were slowly disappearing and sleep was beginning to once again feel like a natural process. His nightmares plagued him every now and then, although not with the same frequency it did when he first returned to Konoha and Sakura had tried to help him cope with it, drawing on techniques she had learnt from her books and other medical ninjas.

The sun was high in the sky and Sasuke, dressed in a dark long-sleeved sweater, felt himself sweating under its intense heat. His two companions had opted for more weather-appropriate attire.

"Where's Sakura?" Sasuke asked, pausing to stop at the road by Sakura's house. The pink-haired medic usually joined them as they waited by the road.

"Oh, Sakura..." Naruto finally realized the absence of the pink-haired medic. He scratched his spiky hair absent-mindedly and turned to face Sai, hoping the artist had the answer to Sasuke's question.

"Ugly probably had hospital duty." Sai replied curtly and Sasuke's eyebrows narrowed. The Uchiha could not get used to Sai's derogatory nicknames for his friends, especially for a certain pink-haired medic.

"_Sakura_…" Sasuke started, emphasizing on her name. "…usually meets us here. We can wait." He continued. He preferred her around, more so when he was in the company of Sai and Naruto, two idiots who had a penchant for talking animatedly and loudly. Sakura's presence was a comfort to him. Kakashi, Naruto and Sakura had been there when he awoke ravaged from nightmares but Sakura had seen him through it all, almost every minute of it. She had seen him angry and ready to die, with balled fists aimed towards her months ago and with bloody tears staining his cheeks, he had shared silences with her, she had furiously tried to heal him with her chakra until she collapsed exhausted and...Tsunade had deemed her to personally involved and took over as his doctor.

But, Sakura remained, she was there when he needed someone to be quiet with and she was there when he needed someone to hold his hand without him ever asking.

Naruto had helped him regain back his lost stamina during their thrice weekly training sessions and Kakashi watched over him, like his own shadow, reassuring him that he was never alone...but Sakura was one he remembered most throughout that ardous period of recovery. She had been there when he ached from trying to exorcize his own ghosts and demons. She tried to save him but later, decided that was not her responsibility but_ his_. So, she stayed as he attempted to save himself. They tried to make sense of Sasuke's future, making little plans that seemed temporal at first ("getting through the week", "eating Ichiraku Ramen with Naruto today", "taking a stroll around the shopping arcade") before they grew and evolved into bigger ones that were concrete and life-defining ("restore the Uchiha Police Force", "become a Chunin", "go on a mission again with Team 7", "restore his clan"). Her green chakra and soft healing touch were things he brought to mind when he needed something to anchor and comfort him.

Naturally, Sasuke was the only one who did not realized his own fondness for Sakura. Naruto and Sai were both increasingly aware of it, moments between the two grew longer with time and Sasuke's comfortable slight-smiles in the presence of of the pink-haired medic were startling obvious signs. They complied with the Uchiha's statement without arguing, even if they both knew that Sakura was probably occupied at the hospital.

"Speaking of Sakura." Sai started, carefully referring to the pink-haired medic by her name. "She has this fake smile, Sasuke-kun. It is horrifying. If you see it, run." The artist remarked, a genuine look of terror crossed his face momentarily. A long time ago, Sai had been on the receiving end of Sakura's artificial smiles. Caught off guard by its sweetness, he saw stars after receiving one of Sakura's signature punches to the face.

"I've seen Sakura punch this lecher in a bar after smiling at him like an angel." Naruto recalled, thinking back to an incident two years ago. "He was harassing some girls seated at another table and Sakura took action. That geezer deserved it but man…it was _scaryyyyyyy_."

When Sakura did not show up after a long while (forty minutes to be exact), the three decided to move on. Funnily, they bumped into Sakura and Hinata mid-conversation while recounting Sakura's bar brawls. Naruto attempted to switch topics awkwardly, receiving an odd look from the pink-haired medic.

He fled to Hinata's side as Sakura tried to question the disturbing look on the blonde's face. Sai shrugged and Sasuke ignored the babbling fool who was trying to justify himself, in fear of agitating Sakura. Naruto soon excused himself with the dark-haired girl, heading towards the direction of Ichiraku Ramen and Sasuke remembered the blonde idiot's complaints about trying to find some time to spend with Hinata before she was dispatched to her month-long mission. With the talkative blonde gone, Sai, Sasuke and Sakura lapsed into a predictable silence.

Sakura was scrambling for interesting topics to broach to Sasuke and Sai when a rowdy Chunin stumbled into her path, tripped on his own foot and slammed into her chest. Sasuke reacted quickly and violently but Sakura chided him, her hand extended to hold him back.

Sakura muttered a soft apology and excused the Chunin. She knew an apology from her was unwarranted but she apologized anyway, smelling the strong alcohol fumes emanating from the drunken man before her. His face was familiar to her and Sakura matched it to one of the younger ninjas who had participated in the same Chunin Exams she did many years ago, while she teamed up with Ino and Chouji. _Nezumi _was his name, if she was not wrong. He had failed back then but the gleaming green vest that hung proudly on his shoulder seemed to hint at his recent success.

The Chunin brushed Sakura's apology off and remained in her path. He was itching for a fight and Sakura, Sasuke and Sai were his new targets. In his inebriated state of mind, he did not realize that the Godaime's apprentice was not someone to be trifled with. _It was his loss_, Sai thought. They had a former S-Class missing ninja with them and…Haruno Sakura with her brutish strength.

"You're the Godaime's apprentice, aren't you? _Haruno Sakura_. I remember you from the Chunin exams. Your pink hair stands out too much. I never thought you'd go _this far_ for a girl." Nezumi started much to Sakura's annoyance. He was referring to Sakura's recent recommendation to be promoted to jounin. Tsunade had refuted it, suggesting that Sakura could use more experience but word had spread fast. Sakura had been the first in her batch of ninjas to receive that recommendation, although Neji, a year above her, had already been promoted long before.

"Excuse me, Nezumi, but, I don't think you should be questioning–" Sakura replied in a composed fashion, trying to keep her own agitation at bay. But, it grew even harder to maintain her cool when the drunken Chunin interrupted her midway.

Nezumi, who had tried to pick her up with a trite compliment about her pink hair during the Chunin exams no longer possessed the same fondness for pink-haired girls with prestigious titles…or Uchihas with violent histories and he had no qualms on hiding his ill-will.

"How can you associate yourself with this Uchiha trash? How can you support him? That trash killed people in the war. I was at war too. You healed me, didn't you? The war months ago…I know what his wretched clan did. Uchiha Itachi is a criminal and this traitor is the same. His family is nothing but a curse on Konoha." He rambled on drunkenly.

Sakura was familiar with being underestimated. She was even used to it. Her feminine appearance often gave the impression that she was fragile and…weak. But, she never had to deal with virulent backlash on Sasuke, at least not targeted to her. The truth about the Uchiha clan had been released after the war and Sasuke's return and she remembered the solemn looks and atmosphere that crossed over the villagers who had listened attentively to her master's words. The grave acknowledgement that majority of the Konoha villagers seemed to have adopted towards the Uchihas had made Sakura forget that there will always be dissenters.

Sakura felt herself fume at Nezumi's outrage words but she willed herself to remain silent. If she lost her cool now, in the middle of the shopping arcade, it would cause a huge scene, anger her master and tarnish Sasuke's reputation even more. She only hoped that none of Nezumi's scathing words had triggered any of Sasuke's anxieties or torrid emotions.

Assuming that he had silenced Sakura, Nezumi continued haughtily. "I can't respect someone who hangs around that Uchiha. Everyone pretends that they're okay with_ him _coming back, but the truth is that nobody wants to say how scared they are. He's a criminal and the Godaime should find a better apprentice." He finished with a proud spit on Sakura's boots.

Even Sai who usually had on a placid disposition, was starting to grow concerned. He eyed the pink-haired girl carefully and was surprised to see her remain calm and unflinching. Sasuke on the other hand was sizing the Chunin up, ready to engage. He had been provoked since the moment Itachi's name was mentioned. Sasuke pushed forward with the intention to punch the drunken scum but Sakura's voice stopped him.

"_Sasuke-kun."_ One word and he knew. She did not want him to engage with this man. But, _how could he not?_ This wayward bastard was berating his brother, trash talking his family and that was not something he could let go. He could not let Itachi's name be sullied like that. His brother had scarified everything for scum like him and in return, his name was being dragged across the mud.

Sasuke felt himself seethe with a rage that he had not experienced in the past few months. Memories of his brother and clan came back to him in flashes and it only made him more determined to kill the bastard before him. He wanted nothing more than for the drunkard to disappear in the black flames of his amaterasu. He wanted this bastard to pay. But Sasuke's sharingan does not appear and the Uchiha knew that his chakra bands held him hostage. Sai continued to restrain Sasuke but the Uchiha was growing increasingly agitated and the artist was struggling.

Sasuke's eyes focused on the white hospital coat that covered Sakura's back. She was blocking his view of that scum and she was holding him back with her chakra brands and her words. He despised how she viewed his anger as violence. All he wanted to do was protect the name of his family and brother.

"Sakura!" Sasuke yelled irritably but his words seemed to disappear in the whiteness of her back clothed in her coat.

Sasuke struggled against Sai, he was bent on aggression and retaliation. He could not watch Sakura let this scum go unscathed and unharmed. Sai's ink summons pressed down on the Uchiha even harder. The chakra bands on Sasuke's wrists were digging deeper onto his wrists as he tried to force his own chakra out. If Sasuke could not use chakra, he could still land one hard punch. Anything that will leave the man's face bloodied and etch the sensation of pain into his consciousness.

When Sakura turned to face Sasuke, a saccharine smile graced her lips and crinkled her eyes. It was a pleasant smile that lit up her pretty features but Sai's adverse reaction to it foretold something hidden. Sasuke watched as the Chunin calmed down upon witnessing the girl's sweet smile.

Sasuke saw Sakura's feet moved, her back poised like she was turning back, _was she going to walk away…so simply?_

"_Sakura!"_ Sasuke shouted. His rage had poisoned her name from lightness and spring into something venomous, dark and malicious.

Sasuke could feel his urge to kill coming to him in waves and then– he saw Sakura's white coat catching wind as she lunged forward to punch the man. The force from the punch sends the guy flying.

"You bitch!" Nezumi clutched onto his bloodied nose. He lifted himself up with much effort and even if he was nowhere near her level, he threw a punch in Sakura's direction and the pink-haired medic allowed him. His hands smacked her cheek and the side of her lips.

"Sakura!" Sasuke's voice, loud, clear and concerned stung Sai's ears and his grip on the Uchiha loosened in surprise at the events that unfolded before him. The Uchiha took the opportunity to attempt an escape but was ultimately pinned down by an ink lion.

"Sasuke-kun, Sakura can take care of herself. _Just watch._" Sai whispered to the Uchiha who was still struggling and looking far more appeased. Sasuke noted Sai's specific use of Sakura's name, instead of his usual derogative nickname for her and he knew that Sai was being deathly serious about Sakura. She was a force to be reckoned with and Sasuke _knew_.

The Uchiha trusted in Sakura's abilities and strength. He knew that she could crush the bastard in a mere few minutes, she was _strong_. But, Sasuke could not possibly let her do this. He felt himself grow uneasy at the sight of Sakura's bruised lip and swelling cheek. He could not possibly let her take a hit for an attack meant for him.

The sight of Sakura's blood and burst lip made Nezumi cocky and he grinned smugly. "Women need to know their place in–"

Sakura lifted him effortlessly, her fingers surrounded his neck tightly in a chokehold.

The civilians from the nearby stores gathered after hearing the loud commotion, their faces expressing both shock and fear. There was endless chatter amongst them– most commonly of how the same sweet girl who had treated their illnesses diligently and frequented their stalls with a kind smile was now engaging in a public fight.

Sasuke watched Sakura's white coat the whole time that Sai had him restrained. The artist and his inked summons do not let him go, not even when another punch is directed again at Sakura from the struggling man and Sasuke retaliated fiercely against Sai. His body was rebelling against Sai and his natural instinct to protect Sakura was beginning to kick in, fuelled even more by the rage of having his brother and clan insulted.

The blank white of her coat contrasted against the blood that Sasuke saw dripping down onto the ground beneath her boots. The white of her coat only made her back seem larger and more foreboding. Her pink hair, fair skin, green eyes and selfless demeanor had people fooled that she was delicate and dainty, that like her namesake, she was common and could be taken lightly.

The raw display of her brute strength was alarming to most of the civilians who never saw how the earth shook under her fist or how the same hands capable of healing and mending were also trained in stabbing with lethal precision. They only saw her gentle chakra, the calm green glow that shined when she healed. Sakura was a healer but she was also a destroyer.

"Don't you ever talk about the Uchihas like that _again_." Venom dripped from Sakura's words as she glared at the Chunin menacingly. Her eyes were emerald daggers trained on Nezumi who was paralyzed in fear.

Sakura dropped him roughly to the ground and placed the boot dirtied with his spit on his chest, restraining him. "I let you land one hit on me because it's only fair since I punched you. But, I am the Godaime's apprentice. You can trust that I will not let you go easily the next time I hear you trash talking or underestimating me again."

Sai felt the Uchiha finally ceased struggling. When he looked at Sasuke again, he noticed that the Uchiha's black eyes possessed a peculiar softness to them. His focus never strayed from the pink-haired medic. Sasuke's gentle eyes reminded him of emerald ones he had seen crying silently at Sasuke's bedside.

Nezumi was scrambling under Sakura's feet and he was now pleading with her to let him go but Sakura still had a few more words to say. The crowd gathered near them held their breaths in anticipation of something violent and cruel. But, Sakura was none of that.

"Itachi…" Sakura started and Sasuke grew alert at the sound of his brother's name.

"Itachi-_san_." She corrected herself. "He is a hero of Konoha. You do not disrespect heroes like that. Sasuke-kun is a hero too. I know that it does not change the fact that had done many bad things in the past–" There was a lump in her throat that prevented her from carrying on and Sasuke recognized her quivering lips.

When she spoke again, her voice cracked a little. Sakura always cried a little too easily.

"Sasuke-kun is atoning for his mistakes. You have my word as the Godaime's apprentice that he is. He is not trash so please don't ever insult my…" There was a slight pause between her words and Sai paid especially close attention now, he was certain that Sasuke was listening avidly too, although he feigned nonchalance. Sakura felt her cheeks reddening at the words that she had almost let slip out of her lips in her emotional state. _My…w_hat? My…_Sasuke-kun?_ My…_love?_ My…_friend?_ My…?

"Don't insult _Sasuke-kun _like that." She finished and lifted her boots from him. There was a certain emphasis in the way Sakura had referred to Sasuke, as though purposely highlighting his importance to her.

Sai knew how Sakura felt about Sasuke and in a little bit, he would learn and confirm Sasuke's affections for Sakura.

Sakura offered Nezumi her hand as a sign of goodwill but he brushed it aside and scoffed. He disappeared in a hurry.

"Phew. That was a real bother." Sakura commented, awkwardly smiling to the crowd of passersby that surrounded her in an attempt to disperse them. She was turning to face Sai and Sasuke when something crashed into her and when she looked down, she recognized the fists that appeared before her vision, clutching tightly to the fabric of her blouse.

Sakura turned behind slowly in an attempt to ease the awkward position they were in. Sasuke had embraced her from the back, arms snaking around her and wrapping themselves across her chest. Her cheeks burned, his hands on her chest, his fingers so close to her nervous heart but she knows it is not intentional. Sasuke's action was hardly driven by lust, but it was driven by a sense of urgency almost akin to it. An uncontrollable urge to have Sakura in his arms and to hold her close had taken over Sasuke. His usual logical mind would have deduced embracing her from the back would have thrown them into an awkward almost-hug, it would have ended up looking suspiciously like he was attempting to grope her but…he had abandoned all those thoughts. He abandoned logic for the primal need to thank Sakura, in a way he was not familiar with, in a way that expressed more.

Sakura now faced him and her forehead was pressed against him and he felt the heat emitting from her skin, she was heating up, her cheeks were a bright shade of red. Sasuke could feel the curious stares of the passersby that had watched Sakura before. It does not bother him or stop him from pulling her in closer, _much closer_, he inhaled her scent, a mixture of sweat and the light floral scent of her namesake and he relished their proximity. His arms were crossed over her back, fingers rubbing against the fabric of her red blouse, the back he so loved and admired.

There was a time when the same proximity had frightened Sakura, triggering memories of a pained past, of a frightening memory, of a time where he had tried to end her and he knew that even now, Sakura was a little hesitant. Him charging at her back with a chidori had imprinted itself permanently in her mind, and when he inched close, it will always provoke a reaction and a string of a painful sentiments long past. Her body felt stiff for a moment but it eventually relaxed into his embrace and he felt himself melting into her body. He was only slightly taller than Sakura and felt fortunate that his added height allowed Sakura to rest her head comfortably on his shoulders. Her breath brushed against his neck and it filled him with a chill so foreign…and surreal.

Two beings wrapped in each other–one had been a traitor to the village, a killer, a murderer and the sole survivor of a long gone clan and another, the Godaime's apprentice, well-loved by the village, family and her friends, never alone and never a traitor, they had came together in a way that seemed almost natural like metal falling helplessly under the attraction of a magnet or maybe…just they did not need any more metaphors to describe their predictable union. Sasuke and Sakura, in each other's arms, in the middle of the shopping arcade, on a well-worn road, for the whole world to see, the gentle look on Sasuke's face, his comfort at having her so close and so _present_, and a flicker of fierce protectiveness in his dark eyes, and Sakura, with her eyes closed, cheeks flushed, eyebrows relaxed and her lips stretched in a natural smile. They both loved each other, without helping, without truly knowing and without warning.

Sai felt himself smiling fondly at the intimate exchange between the two. _This was a more illustrative example than the ones his books showed. _When Sakura finally separated from Sasuke, the Uchiha instinctively sought out her hands, the same hands that had gripped onto his back…but he does not find it because they were aimed to his head, one hard knock against the side of his head. There were only a few capable of engaging in a fight with Sasuke. But only _one person_ that Sasuke subconsciously and completely lets his guard down. He winced from the pain, not anticipating the hit from Sakura.

"Don't risk yourself like that. You are still under probation. It's 3 years and you still have some more to go. Aren't there things you want to do?" She started, hands poised on her hips angrily. He does not argue, only listened to the angry words of a girl who loved him.

"Don't you want to start up the Uchiha Police Force? What about rebuilding your clan? You can't do them if you get into a street fight. I won't let you waste more time making up for your probation over some irritating drunkard…" Sakura was rambling irritably, but beyond her annoyance, there was great care and love, she had shielded him with her own body again, punching the bastard on his behalf and...Sasuke felt warm, light, comfortable and happy– a strange mix of emotions that squeezed at his heart and chased away the usual scowl on his lips.

Sasuke is silenced by Sakura, his mind had gone completely blank in shock because here she was, standing before him, lovely, strong, and as pink as ever. What knocked the breath right out of him was the fact that she was talking to him about _his future_. Goals he had confided in her privately, goals that she had encouraged him to take action towards and goals that he never considered before. His future before had been an image of a startling whiteness, devoid of anything but it was now starting to materialize, in bright colors, in real smells, sounds and sights, it was materializing behind Sakura.

Sasuke takes Sakura in his arms again, he does not have words anymore, only_ this_, only his hands embracing her tightly and pulling her so _so so_ close against him, as though he was trying to close the invisible distance that had accumulated between them in those lost years of his past and he needed a way to show Sakura how much she meant to him. This feeling of wanting someone close and of wanting Sakura close is…entirely new to him but he trusted in his intuition and in Sakura's tears.

Sakura opened her mouth. There was something she had been waiting to say to Sasuke for years._ For so long._ And now, she can finally say them. They were words meant only for his ears but her voice was so loudly and confidently, even Sai could hear them.

"Welcome home, Sasuke-kun."

Sasuke does not relax his hold on Sakura even after the crowd dispersed and long minutes passed between the two. _"Sakura."_ He called out to her, burying his face into the hollow of her neck, her spiky pink hair tickling his skin. "_Tadaima._"

His words are whispered into her ears. These words are only for her.

Her heart lurches and Sasuke feels her fingernail sink into his back and tears wetting his shirt.

–

**08½.**  
_(19 years old Sasuke and Sakura, two moments after the eighth instance.)_

Later on, Sasuke takes a detour on his route to the hospital and stops by the river, forcing Sakura to kneel beside it. He retrieves a napkin from his pocket, wets it with the water from the river and washes Sakura's boot, scrubbing at it forcefully, hoping to remove whatever traces of the spit that bastard had gotten on Sakura's shoe. Sakura keeps the napkin, a small Uchiha fan sewn on the top and Sasuke never asks for it back. Sai follows them throughout, quietly observing the duo, until Sakura takes his hand and Sasuke's hand and they rush towards the hospital because Sasuke was an hour late to his appointment with her master and she know how strict Tsunade-sama was with punctuality.

Somewhat later on, _two nights later_ to be precise, Sai makes a joke when the Rookie Nine and Gai's team had gathered around for a barbeque. There was a makeshift pit in the training grounds and stacks of frozen food loomed over them, courtesy of Chouji, Shikamaru and Ino, who were the resident barbeque experts.

Under the stars and over the smell of cooked food and under the influence of sake, Sai jokes that, "Sasuke-kun's entire dictionary is composed of three words – _hn_ and _Sakura_."

Ino grins knowingly, nudging her pink-haired best friend who looks up from her overflowing plate of food, courtesy of Sasuke, her cheeks turning bright red. Kakashi smiles fondly at Sai's joke, because he knows what it was elucidating. Naruto is nodding his head furiously in agreement, referencing all their previous reunions, where Sakura's name and Sasuke's lips seemed to have form an uncanny connection with each other...and _Sasuke?_ His eyes sought for Sakura in the crowd of laughing ninjas and smiling faces and they both share a quiet moment of acknowledgement, of silent smiles and of tenderness. Later on, the Uchiha prepares a brimming plate of food for Sai, it was his way of acknowledging the artist.)

– to be continued –

–

**Notes: **Phew, that was_ long_. Thank you for reading this chapter in its entirety! You have my unabashed love. I just knew I couldn't end on two instances this chapter since it would be on a quite depressing note again. Special thanks to xHeartofBlazexX, KARASU25 and Chantrea Moonbeam for your constant reviews and also to my other reviewers, to those who favourited or followed this story, I thank you from the bottom of my heart! It's been a great challenge but a really enjoyable one at that. Fun fact, I think Nezumi should be a variant of rat in Japanese, haha, it's kind of symbolic of how he's such a rodent.

The next _(final)_ chapter should be up within a week or so, some major editing had to be done but do look out for it! I will likely be going a little into detail about Sasuke's recovery process after his bad breakdown in the next chapter for those of you who are a little more curious. _Arigato gozaimasu!_


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