Chapter Text
Don't relax. Don't stop. Keep running.
Every part of her was just burning with pain. Her lungs throbbed from the incessant running, her ribs squeezed them unpleasantly, and Sakura barely had enough air because of such a fast pace. Her heart was beating in her chest like a hunted bird, wanting to finally free itself from the painful clutches, and she would be happy to do it, stop and give herself a break, but danger was breathing down her neck, mocking her stubbornness to hide from the inevitable and only growled after her, as if playing with a victim already trapped in a trap.
Please, a little more, pleaded Sakura.
Dry branches dug into her legs and tore her gray pants, leaving deep scratches and smearing blood on her skin as she made her way through the thicket. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she didn't allow herself to stop for a second. Even when the forest space began to blur before her eyes, and a strange enlightenment appeared in her head, she did not stop. She didn't even notice that at some point her frantic sprint turned into pathetic stumbles, continuing only on her pure endless willpower.
The left knee buckled first, catching on a snag sticking out of the ground, the right one slid forward by inertia-and she suddenly felt dizzy. The green world spun before my eyes, causing nausea and color spots in my head. Sakura leaned on the nearest tree and, closing her eyes, tried to regain her breath. Her legs felt like cotton wool and trembled all the time while she tried to stay upright. It seemed to her that she was suffocating from the inability to breathe deeply. Her whole body was in a martyr's agony, and, unable to stand it, she quietly sobbed, letting out a painful moan.
Why was this world being so cruel to her again? Why did the suffering not stop haunting her even to this day, when, she was just sure of it, she hid so safely and far away from them in a remote forest?
There was an unbearable dryness in her mouth, and she wanted water terribly, but Sakura ignored this desire, as well as her mental questions, and decided to focus on the current task — to break away from her pursuers or, at least, hide somewhere and wait out the "storm" pursuing her.
Pressing her hand against where her left side throbbed, hoping to lessen the pain under the pressure of her hand, she broke away from the tree and took a few steps toward the next one, almost collapsing. The next movements gave her even more difficulty, but Sakura wasn't about to give up on her progress or allow herself to take a little rest. Every second had too high a price, and if she didn't hurry, her whole life would be completely ruined and nothing would save her anymore.
The next moment, as her left foot slid forward so that she could climb over to the trunk of another tree, a tremor shook her body, her calves cramped, and then unsolicited tears clouded her eyes. Broken and shattered, she collapsed to her knees, and then collapsed on her back as her trembling arms failed to support her weight.
The trees leaning over her were moving. Their twisted branches reached out to her, and their trunks grimaced in frightening faces. As if with curiosity, they bent their lush green crowns towards her and, as soon as she noticed it, disappeared in a deceptively calm breeze. She squeezed her eyes shut from the fear that bound her whole body, feeling how ghostly fingers slipped under her skin, spread along the veins and along the nerve channels, reaching up to her spine, starting to pull it like shamisen strings. Sakura knew that she was imagining all this, but it did not lessen her fear at all because of an unexpectedly overplayed imagination.
If she couldn't walk, then she could crawl.
However, as soon as she crawled about a couple of meters, the last strength immediately left her. She hid under a lush tall bush, curled up in a ball in the hope of shutting herself off from the harsh world and shrinking in size, becoming tiny and invisible to human eyes.
She needed to calm down. To restore breathing. To cool chaotic thoughts in your head.
Sakura closed her eyes, took a few deep breaths and exhaled and, starting from a hundred to count the numbers in reverse order, tried to reconstruct the events of today in order to understand when everything went wrong.
In the morning, she spent about two hours training with the tsuruga sword, which remained to her as a memento after her father's death (at this thought, she shuddered, but did not focus on painful memories of the past); then she went to the forest to collect the roots of the hoof and busied herself with this matter until late in the evening; on the way back to her house, she accompanied by the loud cawing of a black raven, which did not stop chasing her even when she tried to drive the annoying bird away.
At first Sakura did not attach any importance to this: animals often kept her company, not feeling any danger in her, but this raven seemed too annoying and restless. Such behavior seemed rather atypical for such cold-blooded birds, and that's when she really started to get nervous. Something ominous hung over her, forcing her to sink deeper into gloomy thoughts.
When she was about ten meters away from the dwelling, the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. At that moment, it was as if she was doused with ice water.
She stopped dead in her tracks, her fingers gripping the strap of her bag.
The door was ajar and creaked in the wind, as if inviting to enter.
She understood everything instantly: in her own house—the safest place she could find after so many years of wandering—someone had set a trap and was waiting for it to close on her.
There was no time to think.
Taking a few steps back and pausing for a moment in place to make sure that the uninvited guests did not notice her appearance, she quickly turned around and ran with all her might into the depths of the forest without looking back.
Animal fear ate her up from the inside all the way.
She wasn't going to become someone's slave, let alone a servant's job. Sakura loved her freedom and independence too much, and now even this was going to be taken away from her in an instant and forever.
Tears stung her eyes.
Was there any chance of salvation?
Sakura exhaled convulsively and buried her fingers in the damp earth. The feeling of solid ground beneath her was hardly a distraction from her panic.
When was the last time she really felt safe and didn't fear for her life?
Even this forest shack created only a semblance of that feeling, which she had been clutching tightly to out of desperation for the past three years.
Sakura tried to move, but her body refused her this desire. Instead, hot tears stung her eyes again, accumulating in large drops on her eyelashes and lingering there even when she tried to blink them away. Anger, sadness, grief suppressed all other feelings, stuck in a big lump somewhere in her throat and made her almost suffocate. Fatigue weighed heavily on the whole body and pressed it to the ground. She felt even sicker, weaker than before, to such an extent that this time she didn't even bother to resist weakness again and try to continue the fight. She just didn't have the strength to do it. Therefore, Sakura did the only thing she could in this whole situation: she began to cry.
She cried in tearing streams until she didn't even have the strength to do that anymore.