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When everything goes white, Sakura expects to wake up in a hospital bed, surrounded by nurses and her worried friends and family. At the very least, if worst comes to worst, she expects to at least see somebody she likes greeting her in the afterlife. The very last person Sakura expects to see when she dies is Sasori of the Red Sand.
But when she opens her eyes, there he is, face smooth and lineless even though he's far older than she is. Was. His Akatsuki robes are fastened shut up to his chin.
"Ah," he says, blinking. "It's you."
Her reflexive response - after she gets her bearings - is to try and punch him. Her hand can't seem to bridge the gap between them, and she can't get a lot of traction sitting down in any case. Had she been sitting down when she died?
"Where are we?" Sakura asks.
She casts an eye over their surroundings when Sasori doesn't answer. A beige plane of nothingness, like the inside of a sealing jutsu. There are no visible walls, no visible entrance or exit. There is nothing except her and Sasori, seated far enough away from each other that they can see but not touch. "Hello?" Sakura yells. There is no echo; there isn't anything to reverberate off, after all.
"So," Sasori comments. "You're dead. You look younger than I expected."
"Have you been waiting for me?"
"No." He sounds insulted. "But I thought I'd see you here, eventually. You were the person who defeated me."
That was a long time ago. More than twenty years, and yet Sakura still recalls the battle in its entirety. "You let me," she challenges. "You could've dodged the swords Chiyo sent at you. You let yourself die and then gave me information about your spy. Why'd you do it?"
Sasori folds his hands in his lap. "You were selfless, in that battle. A fatal weakness, but you used it as a strength. I respected you. You were a worthy opponent." He pauses, gazing at her with heavy-lidded eyes. "Were."
"I've improved my skills in the years since we fought," Sakura points out. She can feel the faint tingle of the chakra diamond on her forehead. "I could still beat your ass and turn your puppet body into a million pieces. If I could reach you-"
"Your physical prowess has grown. Your inner strength has dwindled to nothing. You think of nobody but yourself anymore."
Sakura scoffs. "How the hell would you know about my inner strength? You're a missing-nin who killed hundreds of people and mummified them to make creepy puppets to kill more people with! And now that we're dead, you think you're my conscience? Who are you, Naruto Uzumaki?"
"You spent half your life demanding that someone return your feelings without considering theirs in return, putting aside friends and family for a selfish desire."
"You don't even have feelings anymore! What would you know? If I'd known death was being lectured on relationships by a baby-faced lump of wood-" She stops short. There isn't any way to finish that sentence that won't sound like a joke in the presence of someone who cut his own heart out to live forever.
Sasori inspects his nails in the short silence. "You're even more selfish than i am," he declares. "Hf you'd been born in the Hidden Sand, we might have made quite a team."
Maybe it's because she's dead, but Sakura can't find the heart to be offended at the suggestion that she, a healer, would've gladly helped Sasori strip corpses in another life. Her crossed legs are beginning to cramp. She manages a tight smile. "I don't think so."
"Granny Chiyo would say the same. Maybe that's why she took you on."
"Well, maybe we can ask her when we get to heaven."
Sasori almost looks amused. "Is that where we're going?"
She doesn't want to answer him. She doesn't want to ask how long he's been stuck here, in this beige-coloured place, waiting to pass on. Maybe he's been here since she killed him - maybe he's been here since he removed his heart and placed it inside a puppet. It's not as if she can tell by the lines on his face.
She wonders, briefly, if purgatory and the rising ache in her legs is all there is. If she'll have to spend the rest of eternity having a waiting-room conversation with Sasori. Surely she doesn't deserve this.
"Do you know how Kankuro of the Sand is getting on?" Sasori inquires lazily.
It takes her a moment to remember who Kankuro is. "He's training an apprentice in puppetry. His adopted son. I haven't spoken to him in years."
"You saved his life."
"From your poison. I remember."
Sasori sighs, as if the sudden switch from argument to inane small-talk has drained him of all his energy. "I do hope he's taking care of my puppets." His fingers twitch madly, pulling on imaginary chakra strings for a few moments before subsiding.
"You're worried about them?"
"They were better companions than most humans." Sasori imbues the final word with distinct distaste, as if humans were no better than vermin scurrying away from his raised shoe. One would think he wasn't human himself - well. Is he, really?
Sakura rubs her pained legs and wishes she could uncross them. Sasori's are bent under his robe, too. She doubts he can feel them enough to get cramps. She hopes he can. "Do you think we're going to be here forever?"
"I don't know."
"Isn't this your definition of art, or something?" Sakura says sourly. "Only it's eternal death instead of eternal life. Not very beautiful."
"What would you call art, then?"
She has to think about it. "Um... flowers. Cherry blossoms in spring. Calligraphy."
"The kinds of things that bloom and are gone in an instant," Sasori says with measured disgust. "Ethereal and pointless. Like you."
"Are you trying to insult me by comparing me to a cherry blossom?"
"I knew another fool who thought art was like that once. He blew himself up chasing after his moment of brilliance and didn't even get to see his final worthless creation."
"Maybe the fleeting moment of his death was part of the piece," Sakura suggests. She isn’t really sure what she’s talking about; she just hates hearing Sasori sound so knowing.
Sasori looks at her scornfully. "You really don't know anything about art, do you?"
"Says the person who thinks killing and preserving innocent people is art."
"Like I said. you know nothing. Especially," he adds, lacing his fingers together, "If you think any of the people I turned into puppets were innocent. The hands of every ninja are stained with blood; some just wash them more than others."
"And you considered yourself qualified to judge them? That's very arrogant and self-centred of you."
"I already said that I'm that kind of person."
"You said I was too - you know, you keep calling me selfish. I'm not selfish. I'm a healer, I help people. I've always tried to consider what other people feel. I've tried to be a good person."
“Lying to your daughter about her father for twelve years is being a good person?"
Sakura doesn't bother to ask how he knows. They both seem to know a lot more than they should, here in this blank, featureless place. "I was protecting her. Sometimes people don't know what's best for them, you know. I'm good at reading their true feelings."
"Are you sure you're not just projecting?"
"I know Sasuke loves me," she insists. She remembers saying this to Naruto once, somewhere private where they could both yell as loud as they liked. "I'm what's best for him, not a revolution. And I'm not selfish."
Sasori tilts his head. "I hope it sends you back to the land of the living. You still have a lot to learn."
I'm thirty-six years old, Sakura wants to inform him. She slumps back instead, wincing at the twinge it sends through her back and legs to hit nothing but air. Sakura looks down at her legs so she isn't meeting Sasori's eyes anymore, and a jolt of fear runs through her - she can't see them anymore. "What-"
"Just on time," Sasori says. "You're leaving."
"Where are am i going?" The slow fade creeps up her hips. Sakura cranes her head to see her stomach vanishing, inch by inch.
He shrugs. "Life. Or true death. Either way, I doubt we'll meet again."
"I sure hope not," Sakura replies, then hesitates, because Sasori isn't disappearing like she is. Does that mean he's going to be stuck here forever? She should at least say goodbye. "It's been nice... chatting with you, Sasori."
"You don't have to lie to me." Sasori informs her, and Sakura wonders why she bothered. She wonders if she's even going to remember this when she wakes up - if she wakes up. It'll be like a vision, or a dream, or a strange argumentative conversation with her own conscience.
She still has enough visible body left to roll her eyes at Sasori before everything goes white again.