Chapter Text
Sakura Haruno
The air at Samurai Bridge was heavy with the damp mist. Every breath I took burned in my chest a cold ache that had nothing to do with the freezing atmosphere and everything to do with the man standing in front of me.
Sasuke.
He was right there. But his eyes — those dark eyes — were completely devoid of the light I had searched for across years of desperate tracking. Surrounded by the lingering haze of lightning chakra and hatred, he stood over a woman's body. It was his own teammate —Karin— , lay bleeding on the floor, discarded like trash the second she proved useless.
"If you truly wish to join me," Sasuke said, his voice dropping into a flat, icy monotone that chilled me to the bone, "then prove it. Kill her. She's a medical ninja, just like you, but she's useless to me now. Eliminate her, and take her place."
My hand trembled beneath my sleeve. The handle of the poisoned kunai pressed against my palm, it was cold and slick with my sweat.
I came here to do this, I told myself, screaming the words inside my own mind until my head throbbed. I came here so Naruto wouldn't have to bear the burden of bringing him back. I came here to end this tragedy with my own hands.
I took a step forward. My boots dragged against the wet stone. Karin looked up at me, her red hair matted with blood, her eyes wide with terror and helpless betrayal. She was looking at me the way everyone looked at Sasuke now, like a monster they couldn't comprehend.
I raised the blade. My shadow stretched across Karin's chest.
Do it, Sakura. Cut the thread. Save Naruto. Save Konoha. End this endless cycle.
I raised my arm higher... and froze.
My muscles locked. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. Every memory I had ever cherished rushed into my mind: Sasuke sharing his lunch with Naruto during the bell test, Sasuke waking up in the Forest of Death, covered in black curse marks, asking who had hurt me, Sasuke's whispered 'Thank you' on that moonlit night before he walked into the darkness.
I couldn't do it.
My knuckles turned white around the grip of the kunai. I couldn't even kill Karin, a stranger who stood between Sasuke and his destruction. How had I ever convinced myself that I possessed the coldness required to drive a blade into Sasuke's heart?
"What's the matter?" Sasuke's voice echoed behind me, devoid of patience. "Hesitating?"
Before the thought could even form in my head to turn around, a sudden, blinding burst of blue light illuminated the place.
Chidori.
The sound wasn't aimed at an enemy. It was aimed at me.
In an instant of pure, instinctual horror, my training as a Tsunade-trained medic kicked in—my body reacted before my mind could process the reality that the boy I loved was about to murder me from behind. I threw my weight sideways, ducking my head sharp to the right.
CRACK.
The lightning blade sheared through the air where my neck had been a fraction of a second prior. The force of the jutsu whipped past my face. The chakra didn't miss completely, it ripped straight across my left cheek, tearing through skin and muscle. I screamed as the lightning seared the flesh, throwing me off balance. I crashed hard onto the stone bridge, skidding several feet, my left hand flying up to touch my face.
Blood — scalding, thick, and bright red — poured through my fingers, pooling instantly on the floor.
The pain was blinding, but the physical tear across my cheek was nothing compared to the sickening void opening in my chest.
I looked up through a blur of tears and bloody mist. Sasuke stood there, his left hand still crackling with fading blue sparks, his right eye covered by his bangs, his Sharingan glowing.
He hadn't hesitated. He hadn't flinched. If I hadn't ducked by a millimeter, my head would be rolling across the stone floor right now.
He had actually tried to kill me.
"Sasuke..." My voice was barely a gasp, ruined by horror and the copper taste of my own blood leaking into my mouth. "You... you really..."
He looked down at me, his face utterly blank, as if he had just stepped on a dry leaf.
Sasuke Uchiha
The sound of her scream echoed off the bridge, ringing in my ears long after the strength of my Chidori died out.
I stared down at Sakura. She was sprawled on her side, clutching the left side of her face where my lightning had torn through her skin. Blood was dripping steadily down her wrist, staining the pale fabric of her top, pooling on the wet stone between us. Her green eyes were wide, filled with an unbearable, suffocating mixture of agony and utter disbelief.
I felt... nothing.
Or at least, I was supposed to feel nothing.
She came here to lie to me, I reminded myself, my jaw clenching as I looked at her trembling frame. She thought she could manipulate me with hollow words about defecting. She was holding a poisoned kunai. She came to kill me.
Yet, as her blood pooled on the floor, an unexpected spike of heat flared behind my eyes.
A memory — sharp and utterly unwelcome — flashed through my mind with force.
A bench in Konoha. A quiet, moonlit night. The air smelling of night-blooming flowers.
"I love you with all my heart!" her voice echoed from six years ago, raw and desperate, breaking against the silence of the village streets. "If you stay here with me, there won't be a day you'll regret! We can be happy together! And if you can't stay... then take me with you!"
I squeezed my eyes shut, my Sharingan spinning wildly as if trying to burn the memory out of my brain.
Shut up.
Another flash. The Forest of Death. The terrifying heat of the Curse Mark surging through my veins, consuming my sanity, pushing me to tear the Sound ninja's arms out of their sockets. And then... soft, warm arms wrapping around my back from behind, sobbing uncontrollably into my spine, begging me to stop. Her warmth had pulled me back from the edge when nothing else could.
Stop it.
I reopened my eyes, glaring down at her. Sakura was sobbing quietly now, her hand still pressed against her cheek, medical chakra flickering over her fingers as her instincts tried to knit the flesh back together. But her hands were shaking too violently to hold the jutsu.
Why won't these memories die? I raged internally, my teeth grinding together so hard my jaw hurt. She's just another obstacle from the past. A ghost of Konoha. A reminder of the weakness I burned away. I don't care that she's bleeding. I don't care that I hurt her.
Yet my fingers twitched. The residual lightning chakra on my left hand stung, leaving a bitter taste in my throat. I had aimed for her throat. I had meant to sever her head. But at the very last microsecond, as she ducked, my wrist had lagged, a fraction of a second of hesitation that my mind refused to admit had happened.
"Sakura!"
A frantic, desperate roar shattered the heavy mist over the bridge.
Before I could react, two figures burst through the fog.
Naruto. And Kakashi.
Naruto didn't even look at me first. His eyes landed directly on Sakura, on the pool of blood spreading around her, on her blood soaked hands clutching her ruined face.
"SAKURA!" Naruto screamed, a sound of agony that ripped from the deepest part of his lungs.
He dropped to his knees beside her so fast he skidded across the stone, his hands hovering over her trembling shoulders, completely terrified to touch her for fear of hurting her more.
"Sakura! Oh god, Sakura! What happened?! Who did this to you?!"
"N-Naruto..." she choked out, her voice raw.
I watched them.
Naruto leaned in close, wrapping a protective arm around her shoulders, pulling her against his chest to support her weight. His face was twisted in a look of absolute desperation and panic, a devotion so intense, that it flared like a physical flame between them. Sakura leaned into him, her blood smearing across his orange jacket as she wept softly into his shoulder.
A dark, bitter knot tightened violently in my gut.
My blood ran cold, then boiled with an irrational, suffocating rage.
Look at them.
Naruto holding her. Sakura clinging to him. The way he looked at her as if her pain was tearing his own soul apart. The way she allowed him to cradle her, seeking comfort in his hands, hands that used to be weak, hands that used to reach out to me.
She was mine, a voice hissed in the back of my mind. She belonged to my past. Why is he holding her like that? Why does he look at her like she belongs to him now?
I hated it. I hated the sight of them together. I hated how natural it looked, how Naruto stepped into the space I had left empty, how Sakura turned to him the moment I cut her down.
"Sasuke..." Kakashi's voice was low, heavy with an overwhelming sadness as he stepped between Naruto, Sakura and myself. He dropped his headband, revealing his Sharingan, but his expression was lined with a profound, crushing disappointment. "You... you actually tried to kill her."
"She came here with a weapon," I said, my voice dropping into a cold rasp as I stared past Kakashi, my eyes fixed entirely on Naruto's arm wrapped around Sakura's waist. "She made her choice."
"She loved you, Sasuke!" Naruto yelled, his head snapping up. Tears were streaming down his cheeks, mixing with the grime and rain on his face, but his eyes were burning with a terrifying, wild fury. "She came here because she was carrying the pain of what you've become! And you—you did this to her?!"
"Shut up, Naruto," I spat, my Sharingan spinning furiously as the purple aura of my Susanoo flickered around myself. "Stop screaming like you know anything about me!"
Sakura Haruno
"Stay back, Naruto!" Kakashi-sensei ordered, his voice cutting through the fog with an authority I hadn't heard from him in years. "Do not engage!"
"But Kakashi-sensei! Look at her!" Naruto cried out, his voice breaking as he pressed a clean cloth from his pouch against my face. The white fabric turned deep red in seconds. "Look at what he did to Sakura! I'm gonna tear him apart!"
"I said stay back!" Kakashi snapped, stepping fully into a combat stance, his kunai drawn, his Sharingan glowing brightly in the gloom. "You cannot defeat him right now, Naruto! Look at his eyes. Look at his chakra. He isn't the Sasuke you remember. If you charge at him in this state, you will die!"
I clung to the front of Naruto's jacket, my vision swimming as lightheadedness began to set in from the blood loss. I could feel the cold, suffocating pressure of Sasuke's chakra rolling off him in suffocating waves. It wasn't just cold, it was heavy and drenched in a malice that felt like it was crushing my lungs.
"Sasuke..." Kakashi spoke softly, his eye fixed on his former student. "I used to wonder how the Third Hokage could still look at Orochimaru with warmth, despite all the atrocities Orochimaru committed. I wondered why he hesitated when the time came to cut him down. But standing here... looking at you now... I finally understand how Lord Third felt."
Sasuke didn't answer. He just stood there, his dark hair casting shadows over his eyes, his Susanoo's ribcage forming a jagged, skeletal shield around his body.
"Revenge has consumed you," Kakashi continued, taking a slow step forward. "I told you once, long ago, that revenge brings nothing but emptiness. Everyone who was ever close to me is already dead. I know the pain of loss, Sasuke. But destroying Konoha, hurting the people who care about you, it won't bring the Uchiha back."
"Stop talking," Sasuke growled. The air around him flared violently with purple lightning. "Stop talking as if you were ever my sensei! Stop talking as if you understand a single thing about my pain!"
"Sasuke—"
"If you want me to stop," Sasuke snarled, his voice rising into a terrifying, unhinged shout that echoed across the entire river valley, "then bring them back! Bring back my father! Bring back my mother! Bring back Itachi! Do that, and I'll stop right now!"
The agony in his voice made my chest bleed anew. He was drowning. He was drowning in a sea of blood and hatred and he was dragging everyone down with him.
"You can't, can you?!" Sasuke sneered, his chest heaving as the purple ribs of his Susanoo expanded, forming a massive, arm like limb that smashed into the stone bridge, sending jagged rocks raining down into the mist below. "Then keep your pathetic speeches to yourself!"
Kakashi launched himself forward, engaging Sasuke in a lightning-fast taijutsu exchange. Steel clashed against steel, sparks flying into the foggy air as Kakashi tried to disable Sasuke's movements. But every time Kakashi landed a strike, the skeletal ribs of Susanoo deflected the blow, pushing Kakashi back with crushing force.
CRASH!
Kakashi blocked a heavy blow from Sasuke's chakra arm, sliding back several feet across the cracked stone, his breathing coming in heavy, ragged gasps. He raised his hand, his Sharingan swirling into the three-bladed design of the Mangekyō.
A localized distortion in space rippled around Sasuke's shoulder, but Sasuke instantly dodged, leaping backward onto the upper arch of the bridge. Kakashi fell to one knee, clutching his covered eye and coughing violently.
He was exhausted. Between tracking us, using his Mangekyō, and the emotional toll of fighting his own student, Kakashi was reaching his absolute limit.
"Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto shouted, trying to stand, but Kakashi held up a hand to stop him.
"Naruto..." Kakashi panted, his chest heaving as he looked back at us over his shoulder. His eye held a dark, bitter resignation. "I can't win this fight right now. Not in this state. And you... you aren't ready to face him today either."
"What?!" Naruto yelled, his fists clenching so hard his knuckles bled. "We can't just leave him! He's out of his mind!"
"Look at Sakura, Naruto!" Kakashi commanded, his tone sharp enough to cut glass.
Naruto froze. He looked down at me.
I was barely holding on. My left eye was swelling shut from the tissue damage, my healing jutsu completely failing because my chakra pathways were scrambled from shock and blood loss. I was trembling uncontrollably in his arms, soaking his uniform in my blood.
"She needs immediate, high-level medical treatment at Konoha," Kakashi said quietly, his voice heavy with defeat. "If we stay and fight, she will die here. We retreat. Now."
Naruto looked back at Sasuke, then down at me. The conflict in his blue eyes was agonizing to watch. He hated running. He had sworn never to go back on his word, never to turn his back on a comrade. But as he felt my shivering body in his arms, his jaw set in a hard, painful line.
"Okay," Naruto choked out, lifting me carefully into his arms, holding me tightly against his chest. "We go."
Sasuke Uchiha
They were leaving.
Naruto was lifting her. He was scooping Sakura up into his arms, cradling her head against his neck, turning his back on me to leap toward the treeline.
No.
A sudden explosion of dark chakra burst from my core, completely overwhelming my senses. My Sharingan spun, blinding pain shooting through my nerves as the purple flames of my Susanoo flared higher, manifesting a towering, arm like limb that smashed through the stone arch above us.
He's taking her away.
The thought wasn't rational. It was pure madness. I had just tried to put a Chidori through her throat. I had called her useless. I had discarded her like trash. But watching Naruto carry her body away from me —watching him act as her savior, her protector— triggered a possessive and unhinged rage that burned hotter than Amaterasu.
She came here for me.
She belongs to my past, my guilt, my hatred! She doesn't get to run back to Konoha with him!
"You aren't taking her anywhere!" I roared.
In a split second, I bypassed Kakashi entirely.
I vanished into a blur of black shadow, reappearing instantly directly above Naruto and Sakura as they leapt over the stone railing of the bridge.
"Sasuke?!" Naruto gasped, his eyes widening in pure horror as my shadow fell over them.
Before Naruto could react or draw a kunai while holding her, I thrust my right hand forward. My fingers didn't form a Chidori, they slammed directly into Naruto's chest, channeling a focused burst of raw physical force that threw him backward.
"GAH!" Naruto barked, forced to release his grip on Sakura as he was propelled flying through the air, crashing hard into the stone pillars twenty feet away.
"Naruto!" Kakashi yelled, turning back, but he was too far, his body locked up by the exhaustion of his Mangekyō.
As Sakura fell through the air, her eyes wide , I reached out.
My left hand grabbed her roughly by the front of her red top, pressing her body hard against mine. The impact knocked the last bit of air from her lungs. Before she could scream, my right hand came up, slamming my palm directly into the back of her neck, channeling a sharp, localized surge of lightning chakra directly into her nervous system.
Her body instantly went limp in my arms.
"SAKURA!" Naruto screamed from the rubble, pushing himself up, his eyes turning fiery red with fox chakra as whiskers flared on his cheeks. "LET HER GO, SASUKE!"
I didn't answer him.
I adjusted my grip, holding Sakura's unconscious body securely over my shoulder. Her head fell uselessly against my chest, her blood instantly soaking into the dark fabric of my shirt, warm and heavy against my skin.
I looked down at Naruto from the top of the bridge pillar, my Mangekyō Sharingan glowing like a dying star in the dark fog.
"She came to me, Naruto," I spat, my voice dropping into a dark, suffocating whisper that carried across the canyon. "She's mine now."
Before Kakashi or Naruto could close the distance, I stepped backward into the shadows of the canyon wall, letting the darkness consume us both as I vanished into the night