Archive of Our Own

She would beat him until he's almost on the brink of death, and then heal him. Then she would repeat it all over again.

He chuckled a little, thoroughly amused at her. She wasn't always cruel, but she can be when she gets angry. And this guy who Sasuke couldn't remember the name of anymore, had unfortunately cut his cheek with his sword causing some blood to drip.

And that can easily make his Sakura crazily angry. She doesn't like seeing him hurt, no matter how insignificant the injury is.

And Sasuke absolutely loves it whenever she goes crazy for him.

After a few more moments, Sasuke could tell that Sakura was already getting bored. The guy has also already given up and was barely reacting even though Sakura had healed him completely. As Sasuke stood from where he was sitting, Sakura just quickly killed her last toy.

As he walks towards her, she also turns to his direction and met him halfway, already with a small cute smile on her face.

"You got bored already." Sasuke greets.

"Yeah." Sakura says dismissively. "Are you okay?" She asks him instead, reaching out a gentle hand to his cheek, genuinely worried.

That really turns Sasuke on, how her hands can be gentle when touching him, but harsh and cruel when it's someone else.

He likes being special to her.

"Of course, Tsuma." Sasuke tells her with a pat on her head. "You've already healed me. You didn't strain yourself, right?" He asked back, this time, also genuinely concerned to her well-being.

He didn't want her strained or stressed.

Sakura grins at him with a blush on her face. "Nope. I'm okay."

Sasuke nodded and kissed her on her forehead.

In return, Sakura places her arms around him to loosely hug him.

"I really hate it when you get hurt." She complains.

"I didn't even feel it." Sasuke assures her, sweetly, as he hugs her back.

He really likes how they are now. Though he really can't remember much about how they got here, exactly.

All he knew was that they were teammates from before, and she was the only one who was on his side. She's the only one who loves him unconditionally. The only thing that's precious to him.

He vaguely remembers a moment—it was the oldest memory he could remember, but he wasn't even sure if it was real.

There was a red haired girl, bloody and dying on the floor, and there was him and Sakura.

For some reason, his younger self had demanded for Sakura to kill the girl. And he couldn't remember Sakura's face at that moment, but he knew that in the end, the girl did die.

He remembers the feeling of dread as he wait for Sakura to do something as the girl dies on the floor. And when she didn't, she had taken her away because there were enemies that arrived.

He couldn't remember much of what happened after that, but he didn't think he needed to remember anyway. What's matters most now is that they're together and happy.

He didn't need anything else. He wanted Sakura in that first memory, and he got her. He's never letting her go.

"Anata, can we get some anko dumplings?" She asks him cutely.

"Anything you want." He tells her. And he seriously meant it.

Even if what she wanted was the ruin of the world.

--

Zetsu frowns as he watched the couple before him.

They were admittedly, a result of his miscalculations. And unfortunately, he wasn't quite sure how to deal with them.

Akatsuki now have less than half the original members, so the two Konoha ninjas were handy for when he needed some work to do, but...

he really couldn't completely control them. And therein lies the problem.

He shouldn't have let it happen. Shouldn't have let them became so mad that they're now literally out of reasons, out of morals or mercy.

They only cared about each other, rather obsessively.

He could remember where it had all gotten wrong.

He had heard it when Sasuke demanded that Sakura kill Karin to prove that he can trust her. Zetsu had known the girl was planning to kill him, but he had kept hidden and simply watched.

It was obvious that Sakura was torn. She didn't move to kill her, but she also didn't make any steps to save her or to harm Sasuke. And in the end, Karin ended up dying.

This seems to distress the medic nin greatly. It certainly was the complete opposite of her function as a medic nin, or her core value of someone compassionately helping anyone and everyone. It was this morals that kept her chasing after Sasuke, that made her determine to save him.

In the end, she lost part of herself when she couldn't do the thing that defined her.

But all these didn't seem to matter to Sasuke, then. Karin died, so it seems to have been enough for him. He had attribute her death to his former teammate not doing anything.

He had shown right then, the first signs of his obsession. He had laughed when Karin died and had claimed Sakura as his, not even noticing that his former teammate had started trembling and reaching for a weapon.

It was then that their other teammates have arrived, and like a cornered animal, Sasuke suddenly lashed out. It was quick and unexpected that their old teammates could only try to evade the Amaterasu Sasuke has released, while Sasuke escaped, carrying Sakura with him.

He had thought everything was still fine then. He had been focused on how Karin's death affected Sakura that he didn't even noticed how Sakura letting Karin die also had an effect on Sasuke. It was as if the last peace of sanity Sasuke was hanging on was Sakura's unfailing sense of morality--her compassion, her being who she is. And when that was gone, Sasuke was, too,

He truly had become insane. Because the next thing he did was to bring Sakura to where he and Itachi had last battled. He brought her to where his brother's body were—what remains of it at least, and then demanded for Sakura to heal him since she was a medic nin.

Sakura, who had seemed to be still shocked at everything that happened so far, seems to be even more disturbed now, as she saw what remains of her teammate's older brother. Even so, she was still trying to appease Sasuke, all the while trying to tell him gently that his brother is already dead and she can't do anything about it. She can't heal what wasn't alive anymore.

And then Sasuke got angry and without any warning, he suddenly placed Sakura in a genjutsu with his Sharingan. It was quick, and Zetsu didn't know how Sakura would have perceived the illusion—how long she experienced it in her mind, but he found out eventually that Sasuke had shown the medic nin all the tragedies he had gone through. No, not show, made her experience them. It was his way of trying to appeal to her, to tell her— show her why she needed to do what he was asking of her.

And that had seemed to be the last straw for the rather unstained kunoichi and something in her broke.

After she was freed from the genjutsu—something she should have been able to do herself had she not been emotionally distressed, she had fainted.

And she was unconscious for a few days.

This in turn had brought misery and panic in Sasuke. He seems to have forgotten all about his brother at that point, with all of his attention focusing on the medic nin.

He had brought her back to their hideout, but won't let anyone come near her. He never left her. That was the start of his true obsession with her.

When she finally woke up, the first thing she did was cry and hug Sasuke. She kept apologizing to him, and also became paranoid whenever she couldn't see him. She seems to still be herself on the outside, with her showering Sasuke with affection and trying to please him.

But that had been an illusion on itself.

And that illusion started breaking when the two of them experienced yet another hit. While being confined by themselves in the base and not getting any news, they had missed the battles still going on outside.

They learned that their last teammate, Naruto, had died.

Zetsu felt they also died at that moment.

That was when they both truly changed. They became obsessed with each other; Sasuke obsessed with possessing Sakura, and Sakura obsessed with Sasuke's well-being, mostly physical, since she seemed to have lost any sense of morality or integrity.

Their only motivation now is each other, and at times Zetsu can use that. When he wants them to take care of a target—they usually would do so even without any urging when they're bored, but in the times they do refuse, he would simply tell Sakura how this target would one day hurt Sasuke, and then tell Sasuke that this target wanted to take Sakura.

They would deal with it in no time then, although they would be cruel, rather than their usual apathy.

But it was a very unpredictable situation. He could barely control them, these monsters he had unintentionally made.

Because even without their sanity, they were still on the level of his previous Akatsuki members, maybe even stronger now.

And all they ever care about is each other. He was quite sure that if one of them die, the other might just kill themselves. Which probably wouldn't be such a loss, with how much of double edged swords they were. But the worst case to happen in that scenario, however, is that the one left would end the world first before they ruin themselves.

And it would even be more unpredictable soon.

Sakura is pregnant, and though that had tipped Sasuke even more over to madness, Zetsu can't tell how much worst he can get once their child is here.

The world might just be constantly on the brink of destruction as much as Sakura's mood swings were. He can't imagine how both would be once a demanding toddler comes along.

This has really turned into a big problem.

END