Work Text:
Once
-by Alena S. Anigor
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The forest is deep and frightening when they meet again.
The sky is dark; heavy, ominous clouds rolling over them, the scent of rain and autumn in the chilly air but she's not sure she's shivering from the cold alone. She trembles as much as she allows her body to show, soft tremors running through her body, crawling through her blood and prickling over her skin. On the outside, though, she looks calm, collected. She looks ready. She knows she should be.
A boy she used to know stands before her, now a young man she doesn't quite recognize anymore. His posture is rigid and unyielding, his demeanor cold and calculating. He looks almost regal, superior to her and she tries to smother to urge to straighten her back and square her shoulders so obviously. She knows pride comes before the fall and in front of this person, she would fall so gracelessly.
She squints in the darkness and amidst the wet leaves. She can't see his face, but she can see his eyes. She can see red wheels in the shadows of his face turning.
A kunai is already in her hand, fingers brushing and slipping down the cold metal, slowly, carefully. She doesn't want to alarm him and regret it although her inner persona reminds her somewhere from the depths of her cunning mind that she couldn't do that, anyway.
She knows he can see and feel everything. He's a Sharingan bearer. She knows him.
No...She knew him once...but that was a long time ago, a time that stretches back to her childish dreams and foolish expectations, images of someone she used to be and images of fleeting memories that used to paint her mind with bright colors and smiles. She can't see them in color anymore; they're like a pale, faded photograph with barely recognizable faces and tattered feelings attached to it.
It's only been a few years but it almost feels like a lifetime.
She breathes in the crisp air, keeps her eyes trained on him. "What are you doing here?" She asks, her voice tired and weary like the old forest around them. He is silent for a few moments, the bangs flying into his shadowed face, but not hiding the fearsome red of his eyes.
"Where is he?" He asks in a low, deep voice and she knows whom he is talking about. It's always been about him, hasn't it?
She tries hard not to think about his voice and how much it has changed...how much he has changed.
She frowns in the darkness, the sound of the wind in the branches, the smell of grass and dirt below her, the scent of him in front of her and for a moment, it makes her feel dizzy.
She composes herself quickly and shakes her head inwardly. She knows his strength, his advantage over her and has no delusions about how it would all end. She knows it well, she recognizes the dark thirst for power swirling so deeply inside him and washing over him in crashing waves of dark blues and blacks. The only thing she can't recognize are his eyes.
"I don't know," she replies, her voice now steady and firm. She is telling him the truth.
She can feel him watching her, observing her, evaluating, calculating. And she wonders briefly if this is the night of her death – in a forest, in the dark, alone, and by his hand. The irony doesn't escape her.
But, Sakura doesn't want to die. Not yet. Not as one of those pretty damsels in distress in tragic romance novels Ino sometimes indulges in. But most importantly, she doesn't want to die by his hand. He has taken so much from her and she refuses to let him take the only thing she has left. She has given him her tears, her sweat and blood. She has given him her thoughts, her time, her words and her heart.
She absolutely refuses to give him her life.
She braces herself when red disappears and she can't see anything anymore as he closes his eyes briefly.
She is waiting, the kunai cold in her already frozen fingers, the air becoming thick. It's slightly harder to breathe now and she can hear her blood pulsating quickly in her ears, running through her hammering heart and she opens her mouth to inhale deeply when she sees blood in his eyes again.
"Sakura," He whispers and she blinks, his lips speaking her name for the first time again. It sounds so odd, so strange, so tainted and she wants to shake her head to shake away the alien feelings it evokes in her but she restrains herself from doing that.
She doesn't flinch when he takes a step forward; instead, she leans backwards a bit, taking her stance, clutching the kunai once again with renewed strength.
He stops and she stares at him in anticipation, waiting, expecting something to happen, to begin and to end everything. The leaves churn around them, swirling and playing on the frozen ground, and her nose wrinkles when the wind carries a well known scent her way.
The scent she's learned to fear and hate and put all her hopes into. The scent of blood.
She inhales sharply when he moves forward, his eyes and hair and face a mere blur, and she gasps when she finds herself pinned against the tree, her back pressed tightly against the rough and cold texture of the tree, her front pressed against the equally cold solidity of his body.
Her breath hitches as she stares at him wide-eyed and limbs frozen; stares at his dark, handsome face, into the red abyss of his eyes.
She can see him better now...And, oh...he has changed.
His grip on her is iron-like, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of her upper arms firmly. She feels the pain but she doesn't express it. The kunai slips out of her hand and falls onto the ground, lying still and useless like she is right now.
"Sakura," His voice reaches her ears again, the soft puff of his breath tickling her cheeks. He is close and she tries to back away from him because she knows she must and bad things are going to happen to her mind and her heart all over and over again. But he has her pinned mercilessly and she already feels like a half-broken butterfly and she can't do anything but stare at him and remember how to breathe.
He leans in and presses his cheek to hers, his lips brushing her ear and making her jerk violently in his grip, the joints and muscles and bones in her arms protesting sharply. He seems almost amused and she curses him out loud, her body thrashing against his, to no avail. He has gotten stronger and she is no longer the one to top him with her chakra alone.
He moves back slightly and she's staring into the black coals of his eyes. The eyes she used to know. Sasuke-kun's eyes.
She doesn't know what kind of game he's playing with her when he lets go of her suddenly, a soft breeze flying by and she is left to stare ahead, wide-eyed, breathless and shaking involuntarily.
He is standing in front of her just like a few minutes before, just a shadow hidden in the game of light and dark and rustling leaves. The Sharingan is activated again and that's the only giveaway that he is still there.
She grabs the kunai quickly and throws it at him, her aim perfect, fueled by her anger and emotions, raging and rising still inside her and threatening to burn up her throat, roll down her tongue and rush through her gritted teeth.
He avoids it effortlessly, making her growl in frustration.
"I hate you!" She finally screams, the dam broken, her voice echoing through the forest, over the branches and into the dark sky.
He is quiet again, and she has to squint to see if he's still there, his body only a silhouette in the darkness now, surrounded by the sounds of the forest and the night.
"And I thought you said you loved me."
She blinks when she can't see the outline of his body anymore or feel his presence. His scent lingers for a while, remaining on her clothes and her skin, reminding her of something sweet and dirty and innocent and tainted all in one. The scent of Sasuke-kun, the Sharingan bearer and the Traitor.
It reminds her so much of a sin.
She sinks down to plop on the ground limply, sick to her stomach and her throat raw, staring into the dull darkness of the forest. She can't help the oncoming urge to wrap her arms around her shaking self, cursing him to the depths of hell and back. And then cursing herself for letting him drag her with him just a bit further down that path again.
Her treacherous mind whispers his words back in her ear and she lets out a shuddering breath, curling her hands into fists and soaking up the coldness of the grass and mud beneath her. And then she laughs once, mirthlessly, bitterly.
"And I thought you said you loved me."
"I did," She whispers to the forest quietly and looks up to gaze at the clouds above, no stars there to lighten her path. "Once."