Naruto :: Nothing Given Part 2 :: PG :: no pairings
Title: Nothing Given Part 2
Fandom: Naruto
Pairings: None (how sad.)
Rating: PG (language)
Genre: Drama
Word count: 4,031
Spoilers: Yes, up to chapter 400 or so.
Series summary: Three-shot. When his initial plan for vengeance against Konoha goes awry, Sasuke faces the consequences, burns more of his bridges, and, as always, eventually finds a way to make ends meet.
Chapter summary: Sasuke receives a new visitor, but however more preferable her presence may be, he doesn't treat her much better than previous company.
In his mind's eye, he could see her.
He knew she was standing in front of him, her expression a blend of disbelief at his presence and shock at his state. He still remembered how her eyes would widen and her lips would part slightly whenever she started in surprise, and he imagined the same look on her face now.
He heard her shift and knew she was searching in vain for a place to sit in the tiny cell besides the dirty cot he occupied. When another pause followed, he knew she was watching him with that sad, concerned look that she'd given him too many times before.
He figured he knew why she had come, and guessed how she had managed it.
He could see her kneel in front of him, undaunted by his silence, and reach forward, and a second later he felt only the lightest touch of her fingers in his hair as she loosened his blindfold, and then again on his temple as she tugged the cloth gently from his eyes.
Sasuke blinked in the low light, adjusting to his vision before blankly turning it to her face. She was a vibrant color against the dark background of stonewall, the type of warm color that brought heat with it; he'd already gotten a brush of it off her skin, but his own felt a little less stiff and cold just at the sight of her. Nonetheless, she looked tired, sad, and there were dark stains on her clothes. He watched her eyes look him over, her frown deepening.
If he was vaguely irritated that Sakura, of all people, had to be the one to see him like this, he didn't acknowledge it.
When she reached for his face, Sasuke jerked his head back slightly, mistaking it for a gesture of affection and earning a narrow look. Unexpectedly, she persisted, and he was surprised to feel the familiar relief of medical ninjutsu on his cheek a moment later. He stared at her, but she was focused on sealing his slit skin and didn't look up.
After that cut, she moved on to the one on his eyebrow and the number of bruises on his jaw and neck, all the while in a silence that he hadn't anticipated. She healed his cracked lips last, and he noticed that she avoided letting her fingertips even faintly touch his mouth; her gaze was also more downcast. He, however, openly watched her progress.
Sakura still didn't meet his eyes once she finished, but next turned her attention to further down - and as undeniably sore as he was in places, specifically his battered ribs, Sasuke retreated sharply by straightening up and twisting to the side as she extended a hand towards his vulnerable chest.
"Don't." His voice seemed to die as soon as it hit the surrounding stone, strangely bereft of an echo.
"Sasuke-kun-"
"No." It was too critical an area for her foreign chakra, and out of embedded instinct he had withdrawn without even thinking. He stared her down, again inwardly caught off guard by the sudden firmness of her return glare. He could really only hope that she would respect his wish, because as bound and physically weak as he currently was, it wouldn't take much to overpower him, and after her previous displays he knew she could manage it all too easily. There was an unsure moment in which Sasuke thought she might just try, but in the end she only sighed exasperatedly.
"Fine. I won't." Sakura looked angry for the most part, but his distrust obviously hurt. Instead, she tended to the tops of his arms, her movements brisker than before. He stared past her as he waited for her to finish, as was his routine.
Whatever had been jerked out of place in his elbow slid almost painlessly back into alignment as Sakura spoke again. "...Aren't you going to say anything?"
The only movement was Sasuke's eyes glancing a fraction to his right, away from her. "Would it make a difference?"
Her hands twitched. "After attacking your village along with half of Akatsuki?" she snapped. "It's a start." When he said nothing, she pushed, "You knew they were after Naruto."
"He's not my concern."
"And just what is?" she demanded, suddenly loud, as she pulled back and glared up at him. "You-" She huffed. "You get stronger, but that's not enough, you kill Itachi, but that's not enough-" Sasuke's eyes and the thin line that was his mouth softened somewhat at that; Sakura, now digging roughly through the small backpack she'd brought, didn't notice. "And now you come back acting like we're enemies without even saying why, and I don't even know what to expect from you anymore because you're so-" She exhaled sharply, nearly jabbing him in the face as she presented a bottled water to his lips. "Drink it," she ordered.
Sasuke hesitated.
"I can tell you're dehydrated, and worse," she said impatiently, frowning again. "So drink it. Please," she added as a forceful afterthought.
If he hadn't been as parched as he was, he might have declined for the purpose of pride; but he knew he was dehydrated to the point where it was probably dangerous, and as far as dignity went, he'd depended on others in weaker moments. A sip of water wasn't clinging to her and screaming in agony, and it wasn't sucking her chakra for survival like a helpless infant.
He watched her stern face a little longer, and then at last leaned far enough forward to drink. The hair on the back of his neck stood up at the additional cold filling his chest, but he took it greedily, and when Sakura tentatively began to pull away after a pause, he bit down on the bottleneck and tilted his head back to keep it in place. He downed half of it before finally releasing, and she watched him as she set the drink aside.
"How often do they come in here?" she inquired. She sounded gentler than before.
"...Once a day," he guessed.
"How much do they feed you?" Sasuke said nothing; she winced and dropped her gaze. "I'll tell Tsunade-shishou, but I don't know what good it will do. She's preoccupied enough with the village, and her counselors are apparently pretty adamant about keeping you in their charge."
Staring into his lap, he didn't respond. Sakura's hand hesitantly touched his knee.
"Sasuke-kun," she tried. "Please. You wouldn't attack your home like that for no reason. I know that much. If you don't at least try to defend yourself, you'll put even more of the village against you. You're already-"
"I'm not looking for anyone's approval," he interrupted firmly, and raised his head. "Least of all Konoha's."
"Then you need to start!" She stood up, hands clenched, and for the first time he took note of how much taller she'd gotten. Not much, but it was perceptible. "If not because it's the right thing to do, then at least to keep yourself alive!" He could see her jaw working as her eyes narrowed. "Did you know that Danzou... he began pushing for your - did you know that he's trying to get you executed? Not even a day after you were arrested! That's why Tsunade-shishou put that ban on your head! Even now, he's still trying to say it's a precaution of war, and he's - he's not the only one."
"..."
"Don't look away!" Sasuke looked up, not obediently, but curiously. "If you won't talk to me," Sakura offered, "then talk to someone - Naruto, Kakashi-sensei, anyone you're more comfortable with. Just..."
Sasuke watched her, considering the emotion she was struggling to hide under her anger. She'd told him she'd changed, some week before when they'd faced off; but she was still the same in more ways than one. She cared too much.
"...I know what I'm doing," he told her. She nearly scowled.
"Sitting on your hands in prison, starving and with a busted face? It sure looks like it." That spike of attitude finally got to him, slightly.
"I'm not interested in justifying my choices, either." A frigid edge came into his voice. "You and the rest of that old team have been out of the picture for years. Stop butting in."
Defiant, Sakura held his glare, but only briefly before she suddenly sat on the floor in front of him. "You don't want to talk? Fine. Then I'll wait until you do." Sasuke kept his skepticism to himself; there were too many wounded to tend to for her to remain long. Waiting her out wouldn't take much time.
Minutes passed without either speaking, and he took the opportunity to relax to the point where he nearly bordered on sleep, or the closest he would come to it. He'd been all but deprived of it in his insistence on keeping awake and avoiding being caught off guard here, and even when he did dare a quick nap on occasion, it was always a light, tensed sleep that only seemed to leave him more tired than before.
"You could sleep a little while I'm here, you know," she pointed out. He ignored her. "...So what did Orochimaru tell you?" she tried again after another pause. "To give you a grudge against Konoha?"
That was too obviously a baited question to get Sasuke talking, but for the sake of making one thing clear, he willingly bit. "He had nothing to do with it."
"Then who did?" He still gave no answer. "Akatsuki? Itachi?" The latter earned her a glance, but nothing more. Sakura exhaled sharply. "What do you expect to do from here? Even if you broke out somehow, Akatsuki is gone. Whatever or whoever you're after, everyone's on their guard now." Her voice grew sterner, but he detected anxiety in it, too. "If you did something else stupid, that would only be helping Danzou's case. I know Tsunade-shishou would never let an order pass, but he already tried to kill you once before, and-"
Sasuke's eyes flew to her face. "What?"
She didn't reply immediately, but watched him, as if trying to determine whether he was truly interested all of a sudden. "In Sound - remember Sai, who was filling in for you? He was originally sent to assassinate you under Danzou's orders. He decided not to at the last minute - thanks to Naruto," she added, slightly emphatic on the point.
All at once, the hatred and mounting rage that Sasuke had forced himself to suppress for the last several days suddenly boiled, flared, and tightened his expression into a near scowl.
The fucking, lying bastard. He'd actually gone through the trouble of smuggling someone into Team Kakashi - Itachi had been alive at the time, too, and Danzou would have known - he'd been deliberately trying to sneak his way around Itachi's threat -
While fury, disgust, and contempt put tension in Sasuke's shoulders and filled his head until he was barely aware of Sakura's voice, there was also that familiar twinge of regret and remorse somewhere beneath it all; how long ago would he have been killed off if Itachi hadn't arranged for him to be protected? It still hurt to think that he had so much to be grateful for, and had done nothing in return except hate and curse his brother for years.
Compared to that torment, getting beaten day by day for information was nothing.
"Sasuke-kun," Sakura repeated, louder, and Sasuke finally blinked. Disregarding her inquiries of what was wrong, he asked in a low voice,
"What do you know about Danzou?"
"...Not much. Just that he's the head of an underground division called Roots, and he's apparently mad about not being chosen for hokage-"
"No," he interrupted, trying to curb his giveaway interest as best he could. "Do you know where he is?"
She thought. "This jail is part of his base, and I was told he all but lives down here now - which I believe, because I've never seen him anywhere besides Tsunade-shishou's office." Sasuke looked aside, considering this; she kept watching him. "...Sasuke-kun," she said after a moment, sounding suspicious.
"..."
"Sasuke-kun - what are you thinking?" She leaned forward. "If you're thinking of-" She paused. "Is - is it him? Is he the one you're...? Sasuke-"
"Go home, Sakura." Turning to her, Sasuke narrowed his eyes just so to form the lightest of glares - a glare that said he was tired of this, that he wasn't, under any circumstances, going to tell her anything. She came back with a look as equally stubborn - but, silent, she only stood up.
Thinking that was the end of it, he was surprised when Sakura abruptly leaned forward, gripping the tops of his legs as she got in his face with an uncharacteristically challenging look. "No."
"Go," he repeated, now threatening.
"Or what?" she demanded. "If you want me to leave that badly, then tell me exactly what you're doing here."
"It has nothing to do with y-"
"Say one more time," she all but yelled, "that we don't matter to you or you don't matter to us or it's none of our business or any other bullshit and I'll break your jaw!" That startled him into silence. "Whether you like it or not, we do care, so get that into your head already!" The cell was echoing every word, and her fingers steadily tightening. "Why else would I come here and put up with this? Why else would Naruto try so hard for you? Why did he fight like he did to try and come with me today if he doesn't care? And as long as we care, yes, it does have something to do with us!"
She looked back and forth between his eyes for a few quiet seconds. When she spoke again, her voice was lower, no longer angry, but still firm. "I know how you've been treated here, but I'm not them, Sasuke-kun. I'm not your enemy, whatever you may think. I also know you don't like accepting help, but-" Her grip slackened. "Your life is on the line."
"...I'm aware" was all he said.
"Then if you could get along with a criminal organization full of strangers, can't you cooperate with your friends at least long enough to get out of this mess?"
Everything she said was understandable, even sensible. He most likely would fare better in finding a way out of where he was by going along with her rather than playing it by ear as he had been doing. Sakura's way would be longer, it would require a lot of confrontation and patience, but it would also be less painful and risky. It was, without a doubt when Sasuke thought about it, the safest and most practical route at this point.
But Sasuke wasn't always practical or reasonable, and Sakura's way wasn't his way.
Holding her eyes with his own, he replied at last, final and cold, "You're as useless to me as you ever were. You can't help me. None of you can." His blank stare hardened. "I don't need you."
It was the cruelest thing he could think of. Too cruel, maybe, even for him, but he wouldn't tolerate interference this far along. Nor was he taking any chances with Danzou: the body count under that killer's name had stopped with Itachi. Sasuke had sworn to it.
He expected her to walk away. He expected her to cry, hurt by his words, to finally become fed up with him, to call him hopeless and give up like she should have done years ago.
He didn't expect her to remark quietly, "If you honestly believe that, then you're even worse off than I thought." Sakura's eyes said more than her hardened voice did. His words really had hurt, probably more than he realized; he saw that twitch of her mouth.
Sasuke looked aside dismissively. "Go," he ordered again. "I'm starting to regret sparing you before."
Her fist was a blur. It smashed into the cell wall barely an inch before Sasuke's nose, making the room tremble, and a web of thin cracks split the stone in a radius of nearly a foot around her knuckles. Dust fell from the ceiling. He didn't move.
A loud, echoing creak announced the door at the end of the hall opening. Hurried footsteps flew down the corridor, and Sakura looked over as a man wearing a shinobi's vest came into view.
"Sakura-san! Godaime-sama has sent for you - two of the militant groups are nearing the north gate, both reported to have heavy casualties."
She nodded. "I'll be right there." He bowed slightly before returning the way he'd come; she turned back to Sasuke, and regarded him with a searching look that he didn't meet. After a moment, she stood up straight, and he only stared blankly at the indent that her bare knuckles had left. Still silent, she offered him water again. "I don't know when you'll be allowed visitors, or when we'll have the chance to stop by."
He didn't take it.
"Sasuke."
"I don't want it."
Sakura sighed impatiently, but then reached forward, prompting him to finally turn. He shot her a puzzled glance when she slipped her hand over his shoulder to touch lightly at the nape of his neck - but then he felt a strange buzz under her fingertips, almost like static, and his vision suddenly seemed to darken. With a start, Sasuke realized what she was doing and was instantly on his feet, shouldering roughly past her and trying to gain some decent footing, but her grip tightened and her other arm moved across his chest to hold him in place.
"Sakura-" His reflexes were nearly unresponsive, or might as well have been, and it was all he could do to keep standing. His legs were deadweight, and then he couldn't feel them at all, or anything below his neck. Starts flashed in front of his eyes; his tongue wouldn't move right, wouldn't snap at her to stop it.
"Goodnight, Sasuke-kun," she said in his ear, distant, and the room spun once before he passed out.
Sakura caught him as he went completely limp, the chakra fading from her hand as soon as she determined that he was unconscious. Turning to the cot again, she gently lowered him onto it, holding his head up as she would an infant's and trying to ignore that second beforehand in which it rolled on his shoulders and his lips passed briefly over the top of her arm.
Once Sasuke was settled on his side, she made quick work of checking the damage she'd detected in his torso. His stomach in particular was heavily bruised, but internally there was nothing calling for immediate attention; still, she healed all that needed to be, and after scanning him for anything else he might have been hiding, she sat on the thin bedding beside him to reach over his side for his wrists. His shackles were unnecessarily tight, enough so that his hands were a couple shades too dark from lack of proper circulation and his skin was swollen near the metal's sharp edges.
For some reason, that did it. Her eyes began to sting and she blinked rapidly to keep them clear, the majority of her focus on sending her chakra into Sasuke - but it didn't stop an inevitable tear from running down her cheek and dropping off onto the skin of his arm. Hurt tears, angry tears - it was both, not only at Sasuke and his words, but at herself, the circumstances, all the death she'd seen in the last couple weeks and all the death she knew she still had yet to see, and the fact that having Sasuke scorn and insult and reject her was one of the happiest moments of late simply because he was here and she wasn't watching someone die under her hands or counting up the day's body total or discovering yet another familiar face among the dead -
A sob was building in her chest, but Sakura hiccupped once and suppressed it as well as she could, determined not to break down at this point. Not yet, and not in front of Sasuke, even if he couldn't see it. Mourning would come after all the work she still had to do.
Sniffling once, she wiped at her face and drew back. She'd reduced the swelling, which would alleviate most of the cuffs' discomfort. As an excuse to stay just a few seconds longer, she relieved the strain in his shoulders and double-checked his elbow. That done, she looked at his face and found that it was still solemn and serious even in sleep, but not as stern; hesitantly, she brushed his bangs - they were longer than before - out of his eyes, but then pulled her hand away when that only made her throat thicken a second time.
"...Idiot," she murmured, but the tiny cell found her voice and magnified it. Sasuke was cocky and full of himself, but he wasn't cruel. Sakura was sure of it. He had set out to kill his brother, but he didn't kill without a reason. He hadn't killed her when they fought even though he'd had the opportunity twice, and of the wounds she'd treated and the dead she'd examined, none of them had Chidori or fire burns. Not even a snakebite. The only sword injuries she'd found were far too large to have been inflicted by Sasuke's thin blade; he didn't appear to have even touched anyone since returning to Konoha.
No one besides her, anyway, and the guards he'd fought before his arrest.
Sakura wasn't Naruto - she didn't know Sasuke as well as he did and admittedly wasn't as close, but she would have bet her life that something must have been horribly amiss to make Sasuke act like he did now. The next step was figuring out what that cause was, which was far easier said than done. Even if she had hopes that he would finally talk to her, finding both time and the goodwill of Tsunade's counselors was a rare feat. There was no telling how much longer Kakashi would be in intensive cave, and as for Naruto, well, it had only been with constant persistence and a flare of temper from Tsunade that Sakura had managed to get here; the advisors, however, had been strict in not letting Naruto anywhere near the jail, and not even Tsunade's orders could budge them. They most likely feared a reckless move on Naruto's part, as if he were planning to break Sasuke out - which was stupid, Sakura figured, because she could do it much more easily.
She gathered her bag and stood up, hesitating with the bottled water in hand. Leaving it for him would probably do more harm than good, even if he were capable of getting to it without help. The food and water shortage was becoming a bigger issue every day, and Sakura had only received this bottle this morning along with the expectation of making it last for the next three days at best, if not for as long as a week or more. Looking now at the few inches left, she still didn't regret spending it.
Reluctantly, she stored it away, shouldered the bag, stopped just long enough to slip Sasuke's blindfold loosely back over his eyes, and then exited the cell, pausing outside it with a hand on the door. As expected, he hadn't moved, and wouldn't for at least an hour - probably three, given how exhausted he obviously was. The gate groaned and squeaked as she slowly closed it, and as much as it hurt to do so, she clicked the lock back into place and withdrew the ring of keys, her eyes flitting quickly over his face in those last few seconds as if to memorize what she had already. Sakura sighed, and gripped the iron bar in something of a farewell gesture before finally turning away.
As soon as Sasuke was out of sight, she broke into a run up the hall.
Chapter 1 || Chapter 2
Fandom: Naruto
Pairings: None (how sad.)
Rating: PG (language)
Genre: Drama
Word count: 4,031
Spoilers: Yes, up to chapter 400 or so.
Series summary: Three-shot. When his initial plan for vengeance against Konoha goes awry, Sasuke faces the consequences, burns more of his bridges, and, as always, eventually finds a way to make ends meet.
Chapter summary: Sasuke receives a new visitor, but however more preferable her presence may be, he doesn't treat her much better than previous company.
In his mind's eye, he could see her.
He knew she was standing in front of him, her expression a blend of disbelief at his presence and shock at his state. He still remembered how her eyes would widen and her lips would part slightly whenever she started in surprise, and he imagined the same look on her face now.
He heard her shift and knew she was searching in vain for a place to sit in the tiny cell besides the dirty cot he occupied. When another pause followed, he knew she was watching him with that sad, concerned look that she'd given him too many times before.
He figured he knew why she had come, and guessed how she had managed it.
He could see her kneel in front of him, undaunted by his silence, and reach forward, and a second later he felt only the lightest touch of her fingers in his hair as she loosened his blindfold, and then again on his temple as she tugged the cloth gently from his eyes.
Sasuke blinked in the low light, adjusting to his vision before blankly turning it to her face. She was a vibrant color against the dark background of stonewall, the type of warm color that brought heat with it; he'd already gotten a brush of it off her skin, but his own felt a little less stiff and cold just at the sight of her. Nonetheless, she looked tired, sad, and there were dark stains on her clothes. He watched her eyes look him over, her frown deepening.
If he was vaguely irritated that Sakura, of all people, had to be the one to see him like this, he didn't acknowledge it.
When she reached for his face, Sasuke jerked his head back slightly, mistaking it for a gesture of affection and earning a narrow look. Unexpectedly, she persisted, and he was surprised to feel the familiar relief of medical ninjutsu on his cheek a moment later. He stared at her, but she was focused on sealing his slit skin and didn't look up.
After that cut, she moved on to the one on his eyebrow and the number of bruises on his jaw and neck, all the while in a silence that he hadn't anticipated. She healed his cracked lips last, and he noticed that she avoided letting her fingertips even faintly touch his mouth; her gaze was also more downcast. He, however, openly watched her progress.
Sakura still didn't meet his eyes once she finished, but next turned her attention to further down - and as undeniably sore as he was in places, specifically his battered ribs, Sasuke retreated sharply by straightening up and twisting to the side as she extended a hand towards his vulnerable chest.
"Don't." His voice seemed to die as soon as it hit the surrounding stone, strangely bereft of an echo.
"Sasuke-kun-"
"No." It was too critical an area for her foreign chakra, and out of embedded instinct he had withdrawn without even thinking. He stared her down, again inwardly caught off guard by the sudden firmness of her return glare. He could really only hope that she would respect his wish, because as bound and physically weak as he currently was, it wouldn't take much to overpower him, and after her previous displays he knew she could manage it all too easily. There was an unsure moment in which Sasuke thought she might just try, but in the end she only sighed exasperatedly.
"Fine. I won't." Sakura looked angry for the most part, but his distrust obviously hurt. Instead, she tended to the tops of his arms, her movements brisker than before. He stared past her as he waited for her to finish, as was his routine.
Whatever had been jerked out of place in his elbow slid almost painlessly back into alignment as Sakura spoke again. "...Aren't you going to say anything?"
The only movement was Sasuke's eyes glancing a fraction to his right, away from her. "Would it make a difference?"
Her hands twitched. "After attacking your village along with half of Akatsuki?" she snapped. "It's a start." When he said nothing, she pushed, "You knew they were after Naruto."
"He's not my concern."
"And just what is?" she demanded, suddenly loud, as she pulled back and glared up at him. "You-" She huffed. "You get stronger, but that's not enough, you kill Itachi, but that's not enough-" Sasuke's eyes and the thin line that was his mouth softened somewhat at that; Sakura, now digging roughly through the small backpack she'd brought, didn't notice. "And now you come back acting like we're enemies without even saying why, and I don't even know what to expect from you anymore because you're so-" She exhaled sharply, nearly jabbing him in the face as she presented a bottled water to his lips. "Drink it," she ordered.
Sasuke hesitated.
"I can tell you're dehydrated, and worse," she said impatiently, frowning again. "So drink it. Please," she added as a forceful afterthought.
If he hadn't been as parched as he was, he might have declined for the purpose of pride; but he knew he was dehydrated to the point where it was probably dangerous, and as far as dignity went, he'd depended on others in weaker moments. A sip of water wasn't clinging to her and screaming in agony, and it wasn't sucking her chakra for survival like a helpless infant.
He watched her stern face a little longer, and then at last leaned far enough forward to drink. The hair on the back of his neck stood up at the additional cold filling his chest, but he took it greedily, and when Sakura tentatively began to pull away after a pause, he bit down on the bottleneck and tilted his head back to keep it in place. He downed half of it before finally releasing, and she watched him as she set the drink aside.
"How often do they come in here?" she inquired. She sounded gentler than before.
"...Once a day," he guessed.
"How much do they feed you?" Sasuke said nothing; she winced and dropped her gaze. "I'll tell Tsunade-shishou, but I don't know what good it will do. She's preoccupied enough with the village, and her counselors are apparently pretty adamant about keeping you in their charge."
Staring into his lap, he didn't respond. Sakura's hand hesitantly touched his knee.
"Sasuke-kun," she tried. "Please. You wouldn't attack your home like that for no reason. I know that much. If you don't at least try to defend yourself, you'll put even more of the village against you. You're already-"
"I'm not looking for anyone's approval," he interrupted firmly, and raised his head. "Least of all Konoha's."
"Then you need to start!" She stood up, hands clenched, and for the first time he took note of how much taller she'd gotten. Not much, but it was perceptible. "If not because it's the right thing to do, then at least to keep yourself alive!" He could see her jaw working as her eyes narrowed. "Did you know that Danzou... he began pushing for your - did you know that he's trying to get you executed? Not even a day after you were arrested! That's why Tsunade-shishou put that ban on your head! Even now, he's still trying to say it's a precaution of war, and he's - he's not the only one."
"..."
"Don't look away!" Sasuke looked up, not obediently, but curiously. "If you won't talk to me," Sakura offered, "then talk to someone - Naruto, Kakashi-sensei, anyone you're more comfortable with. Just..."
Sasuke watched her, considering the emotion she was struggling to hide under her anger. She'd told him she'd changed, some week before when they'd faced off; but she was still the same in more ways than one. She cared too much.
"...I know what I'm doing," he told her. She nearly scowled.
"Sitting on your hands in prison, starving and with a busted face? It sure looks like it." That spike of attitude finally got to him, slightly.
"I'm not interested in justifying my choices, either." A frigid edge came into his voice. "You and the rest of that old team have been out of the picture for years. Stop butting in."
Defiant, Sakura held his glare, but only briefly before she suddenly sat on the floor in front of him. "You don't want to talk? Fine. Then I'll wait until you do." Sasuke kept his skepticism to himself; there were too many wounded to tend to for her to remain long. Waiting her out wouldn't take much time.
Minutes passed without either speaking, and he took the opportunity to relax to the point where he nearly bordered on sleep, or the closest he would come to it. He'd been all but deprived of it in his insistence on keeping awake and avoiding being caught off guard here, and even when he did dare a quick nap on occasion, it was always a light, tensed sleep that only seemed to leave him more tired than before.
"You could sleep a little while I'm here, you know," she pointed out. He ignored her. "...So what did Orochimaru tell you?" she tried again after another pause. "To give you a grudge against Konoha?"
That was too obviously a baited question to get Sasuke talking, but for the sake of making one thing clear, he willingly bit. "He had nothing to do with it."
"Then who did?" He still gave no answer. "Akatsuki? Itachi?" The latter earned her a glance, but nothing more. Sakura exhaled sharply. "What do you expect to do from here? Even if you broke out somehow, Akatsuki is gone. Whatever or whoever you're after, everyone's on their guard now." Her voice grew sterner, but he detected anxiety in it, too. "If you did something else stupid, that would only be helping Danzou's case. I know Tsunade-shishou would never let an order pass, but he already tried to kill you once before, and-"
Sasuke's eyes flew to her face. "What?"
She didn't reply immediately, but watched him, as if trying to determine whether he was truly interested all of a sudden. "In Sound - remember Sai, who was filling in for you? He was originally sent to assassinate you under Danzou's orders. He decided not to at the last minute - thanks to Naruto," she added, slightly emphatic on the point.
All at once, the hatred and mounting rage that Sasuke had forced himself to suppress for the last several days suddenly boiled, flared, and tightened his expression into a near scowl.
The fucking, lying bastard. He'd actually gone through the trouble of smuggling someone into Team Kakashi - Itachi had been alive at the time, too, and Danzou would have known - he'd been deliberately trying to sneak his way around Itachi's threat -
While fury, disgust, and contempt put tension in Sasuke's shoulders and filled his head until he was barely aware of Sakura's voice, there was also that familiar twinge of regret and remorse somewhere beneath it all; how long ago would he have been killed off if Itachi hadn't arranged for him to be protected? It still hurt to think that he had so much to be grateful for, and had done nothing in return except hate and curse his brother for years.
Compared to that torment, getting beaten day by day for information was nothing.
"Sasuke-kun," Sakura repeated, louder, and Sasuke finally blinked. Disregarding her inquiries of what was wrong, he asked in a low voice,
"What do you know about Danzou?"
"...Not much. Just that he's the head of an underground division called Roots, and he's apparently mad about not being chosen for hokage-"
"No," he interrupted, trying to curb his giveaway interest as best he could. "Do you know where he is?"
She thought. "This jail is part of his base, and I was told he all but lives down here now - which I believe, because I've never seen him anywhere besides Tsunade-shishou's office." Sasuke looked aside, considering this; she kept watching him. "...Sasuke-kun," she said after a moment, sounding suspicious.
"..."
"Sasuke-kun - what are you thinking?" She leaned forward. "If you're thinking of-" She paused. "Is - is it him? Is he the one you're...? Sasuke-"
"Go home, Sakura." Turning to her, Sasuke narrowed his eyes just so to form the lightest of glares - a glare that said he was tired of this, that he wasn't, under any circumstances, going to tell her anything. She came back with a look as equally stubborn - but, silent, she only stood up.
Thinking that was the end of it, he was surprised when Sakura abruptly leaned forward, gripping the tops of his legs as she got in his face with an uncharacteristically challenging look. "No."
"Go," he repeated, now threatening.
"Or what?" she demanded. "If you want me to leave that badly, then tell me exactly what you're doing here."
"It has nothing to do with y-"
"Say one more time," she all but yelled, "that we don't matter to you or you don't matter to us or it's none of our business or any other bullshit and I'll break your jaw!" That startled him into silence. "Whether you like it or not, we do care, so get that into your head already!" The cell was echoing every word, and her fingers steadily tightening. "Why else would I come here and put up with this? Why else would Naruto try so hard for you? Why did he fight like he did to try and come with me today if he doesn't care? And as long as we care, yes, it does have something to do with us!"
She looked back and forth between his eyes for a few quiet seconds. When she spoke again, her voice was lower, no longer angry, but still firm. "I know how you've been treated here, but I'm not them, Sasuke-kun. I'm not your enemy, whatever you may think. I also know you don't like accepting help, but-" Her grip slackened. "Your life is on the line."
"...I'm aware" was all he said.
"Then if you could get along with a criminal organization full of strangers, can't you cooperate with your friends at least long enough to get out of this mess?"
Everything she said was understandable, even sensible. He most likely would fare better in finding a way out of where he was by going along with her rather than playing it by ear as he had been doing. Sakura's way would be longer, it would require a lot of confrontation and patience, but it would also be less painful and risky. It was, without a doubt when Sasuke thought about it, the safest and most practical route at this point.
But Sasuke wasn't always practical or reasonable, and Sakura's way wasn't his way.
Holding her eyes with his own, he replied at last, final and cold, "You're as useless to me as you ever were. You can't help me. None of you can." His blank stare hardened. "I don't need you."
It was the cruelest thing he could think of. Too cruel, maybe, even for him, but he wouldn't tolerate interference this far along. Nor was he taking any chances with Danzou: the body count under that killer's name had stopped with Itachi. Sasuke had sworn to it.
He expected her to walk away. He expected her to cry, hurt by his words, to finally become fed up with him, to call him hopeless and give up like she should have done years ago.
He didn't expect her to remark quietly, "If you honestly believe that, then you're even worse off than I thought." Sakura's eyes said more than her hardened voice did. His words really had hurt, probably more than he realized; he saw that twitch of her mouth.
Sasuke looked aside dismissively. "Go," he ordered again. "I'm starting to regret sparing you before."
Her fist was a blur. It smashed into the cell wall barely an inch before Sasuke's nose, making the room tremble, and a web of thin cracks split the stone in a radius of nearly a foot around her knuckles. Dust fell from the ceiling. He didn't move.
A loud, echoing creak announced the door at the end of the hall opening. Hurried footsteps flew down the corridor, and Sakura looked over as a man wearing a shinobi's vest came into view.
"Sakura-san! Godaime-sama has sent for you - two of the militant groups are nearing the north gate, both reported to have heavy casualties."
She nodded. "I'll be right there." He bowed slightly before returning the way he'd come; she turned back to Sasuke, and regarded him with a searching look that he didn't meet. After a moment, she stood up straight, and he only stared blankly at the indent that her bare knuckles had left. Still silent, she offered him water again. "I don't know when you'll be allowed visitors, or when we'll have the chance to stop by."
He didn't take it.
"Sasuke."
"I don't want it."
Sakura sighed impatiently, but then reached forward, prompting him to finally turn. He shot her a puzzled glance when she slipped her hand over his shoulder to touch lightly at the nape of his neck - but then he felt a strange buzz under her fingertips, almost like static, and his vision suddenly seemed to darken. With a start, Sasuke realized what she was doing and was instantly on his feet, shouldering roughly past her and trying to gain some decent footing, but her grip tightened and her other arm moved across his chest to hold him in place.
"Sakura-" His reflexes were nearly unresponsive, or might as well have been, and it was all he could do to keep standing. His legs were deadweight, and then he couldn't feel them at all, or anything below his neck. Starts flashed in front of his eyes; his tongue wouldn't move right, wouldn't snap at her to stop it.
"Goodnight, Sasuke-kun," she said in his ear, distant, and the room spun once before he passed out.
Sakura caught him as he went completely limp, the chakra fading from her hand as soon as she determined that he was unconscious. Turning to the cot again, she gently lowered him onto it, holding his head up as she would an infant's and trying to ignore that second beforehand in which it rolled on his shoulders and his lips passed briefly over the top of her arm.
Once Sasuke was settled on his side, she made quick work of checking the damage she'd detected in his torso. His stomach in particular was heavily bruised, but internally there was nothing calling for immediate attention; still, she healed all that needed to be, and after scanning him for anything else he might have been hiding, she sat on the thin bedding beside him to reach over his side for his wrists. His shackles were unnecessarily tight, enough so that his hands were a couple shades too dark from lack of proper circulation and his skin was swollen near the metal's sharp edges.
For some reason, that did it. Her eyes began to sting and she blinked rapidly to keep them clear, the majority of her focus on sending her chakra into Sasuke - but it didn't stop an inevitable tear from running down her cheek and dropping off onto the skin of his arm. Hurt tears, angry tears - it was both, not only at Sasuke and his words, but at herself, the circumstances, all the death she'd seen in the last couple weeks and all the death she knew she still had yet to see, and the fact that having Sasuke scorn and insult and reject her was one of the happiest moments of late simply because he was here and she wasn't watching someone die under her hands or counting up the day's body total or discovering yet another familiar face among the dead -
A sob was building in her chest, but Sakura hiccupped once and suppressed it as well as she could, determined not to break down at this point. Not yet, and not in front of Sasuke, even if he couldn't see it. Mourning would come after all the work she still had to do.
Sniffling once, she wiped at her face and drew back. She'd reduced the swelling, which would alleviate most of the cuffs' discomfort. As an excuse to stay just a few seconds longer, she relieved the strain in his shoulders and double-checked his elbow. That done, she looked at his face and found that it was still solemn and serious even in sleep, but not as stern; hesitantly, she brushed his bangs - they were longer than before - out of his eyes, but then pulled her hand away when that only made her throat thicken a second time.
"...Idiot," she murmured, but the tiny cell found her voice and magnified it. Sasuke was cocky and full of himself, but he wasn't cruel. Sakura was sure of it. He had set out to kill his brother, but he didn't kill without a reason. He hadn't killed her when they fought even though he'd had the opportunity twice, and of the wounds she'd treated and the dead she'd examined, none of them had Chidori or fire burns. Not even a snakebite. The only sword injuries she'd found were far too large to have been inflicted by Sasuke's thin blade; he didn't appear to have even touched anyone since returning to Konoha.
No one besides her, anyway, and the guards he'd fought before his arrest.
Sakura wasn't Naruto - she didn't know Sasuke as well as he did and admittedly wasn't as close, but she would have bet her life that something must have been horribly amiss to make Sasuke act like he did now. The next step was figuring out what that cause was, which was far easier said than done. Even if she had hopes that he would finally talk to her, finding both time and the goodwill of Tsunade's counselors was a rare feat. There was no telling how much longer Kakashi would be in intensive cave, and as for Naruto, well, it had only been with constant persistence and a flare of temper from Tsunade that Sakura had managed to get here; the advisors, however, had been strict in not letting Naruto anywhere near the jail, and not even Tsunade's orders could budge them. They most likely feared a reckless move on Naruto's part, as if he were planning to break Sasuke out - which was stupid, Sakura figured, because she could do it much more easily.
She gathered her bag and stood up, hesitating with the bottled water in hand. Leaving it for him would probably do more harm than good, even if he were capable of getting to it without help. The food and water shortage was becoming a bigger issue every day, and Sakura had only received this bottle this morning along with the expectation of making it last for the next three days at best, if not for as long as a week or more. Looking now at the few inches left, she still didn't regret spending it.
Reluctantly, she stored it away, shouldered the bag, stopped just long enough to slip Sasuke's blindfold loosely back over his eyes, and then exited the cell, pausing outside it with a hand on the door. As expected, he hadn't moved, and wouldn't for at least an hour - probably three, given how exhausted he obviously was. The gate groaned and squeaked as she slowly closed it, and as much as it hurt to do so, she clicked the lock back into place and withdrew the ring of keys, her eyes flitting quickly over his face in those last few seconds as if to memorize what she had already. Sakura sighed, and gripped the iron bar in something of a farewell gesture before finally turning away.
As soon as Sasuke was out of sight, she broke into a run up the hall.
Chapter 1 || Chapter 2