[OPEN] CLINIC THREAD - DEATH CITY
Characters: OPEN
Location: Horrorspital, Death City
Rating: PG
Time: December 20 onwards
Description: For all your injury needs from all that cavorting around saving Christmas!
( Yo ho ho )
Location: Horrorspital, Death City
Rating: PG
Time: December 20 onwards
Description: For all your injury needs from all that cavorting around saving Christmas!
( Yo ho ho )
[he doesn't like to be called Sara, the thought strikes him at a distance, the same way he realizes he'd called him that more than once in the passed six hours. but Sasuke closes his eyes, tries to collect himself, and instead is assaulted once more with the image of the young king bleeding out at his feet. by the flash of a katana in the uchiha district. by nin bodies and his parents staring eyes. of Rei, pale on the hospital bed and breath so shallow that seemed like it could stop any moment.
it charges up his throat, the sick feeling, erupts as a snarl off the end of his tongue, and Sasuke jerks, powerful, his fist planting itself into the nearest wall intstead of the nearest body- though it's a close one. the indent is inches from Sakura's shoulder.
he wishes he had his chidori, because nothing worked like giving off that power, but he didn't have that here. how had he let it get this bad? he'd sworn, never to let another important person to him end up in that situation, die in front him. hell, he'd sworn not to have any more important people.
and now, he could lose them both.]
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She watches him, silent. There's no more words of attempted comfort, no voice offering to quell the thoughts that are raging through his mind and making him feel like this.
But she knows what will help. This doesn't, but something will. She had been so bent set a month ago to find him and kill him, she's sparred with him in training enough to know that she can do this. And by the physical outburst, she can only assume that it's what he needs right now.
Sakura reaches up, pushes his hand from the wall, narrows her eyes. ]
If you need to tear something down, at least let it be something that can fight back.
[ Like me. ]
Outside.
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she's challenging him. she's challenging me.
the need rushes through him fast and hard, the want for an outlet. one he'd learned to exact on his own in their world, one he might have taken out on Naruto here. the emotion is so strong that, for a moment, it washes out the sick panic that rises in the wake of Sara and Rei, and he thinks he has no idea who this girl is, this powerful young nin who came from a war he had all but instigated.
black eyes narrow. i'll destroy you.]
You think you can take me? [he doesn't think before the words are out: mechanical, practiced response. but Sasuke pushes passed her and knows she'll follow.]
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It sets her on edge, makes her fingers twitch at her sides, an impending confrontation that maybe both of them need to invest themselves in. For vastly different reasons, of course, but a focus they both need and crave and want so desperately.
She knows that she can't beat him; that's an acceptable fact. But she also knows, at the same time, that she can take him and keep up. The way her hands ache for a contact that isn't a soft embrace or a reassuring touch. Because hasn't she spent so much time doing that already? The outlet of something physical burns across her skin, and it feels like this can't happen soon enough. ]
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they've barely cleared the hospital door when Sasuke whirls on her, charges with bloodied, clenched fists. he isn't like the boy she fight in morning training, there's something wild about him; like a wounded animal.]
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She doesn't quite avoid it. Instead she moves with him, meets the force with her own to absorb whatever blow he might throw. It's then that she ducks, dips down and around him. She needs to get him away from where people might get in the way, where they might try to separate this. Because the last thing they need is collateral. ]
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sasuke wonders if he let her do it.
but he spins, his focus purposefully narrowed to this one goal. to catch her, heedless of the people around, or the glances they drew from the handful of passerbys. it was probably quite the sight, the bloodied nin charging violently after a medic, half leaping to bring his next attack down around her shoulders as they hit the street.]
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Sakura almost forgets about his speed and the reminder of it comes in a burst of hot pain to her shoulders. Regardless, she spins in his arms, almost defaults to a partial weapon form but stops short of it. Instead, one hand curls into a fist, aims for his jaw -- she knows there's little chance of it connecting, follows it up with crouching; a sweep of her leg under his to try and knock him off balance, if only for a moment to lead him further from the people gathering. ]
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he closes the distance in a flurry of both closed and open-handed strikes. easily blocked, easily meant for sparring, but each jar between them strikes a cord in his chest, and each blow becomes more and more pronounced. he feels it in his blood; the fear, the need for revenge, the unadulterated guilt at what he couldn't accomplish and his own shortcomings. something twists in his expression, and he creates enough space to make room for a kick to her stomach.]
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She's ready when he makes the distance, catches the shift in his weight and when he lifts his leg she starts the jump, abuses the presence of his leg to grip it with her hands and uses it as leverage to push herself in a round-off over his head to land behind him.
And she runs again, grips edges of buildings, lifts herself, and heads for the rooftops. ]
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the sound that leaves him is like a growl, and one sandal kicks up loose concrete as he leaps after her like a wildcat. he reaches for a higher point, to pick the flash of red and pink out against the gray of Death City, and when the odd infrastructure forces their course together Sasuke vaults the lip of his own roof and cuts her off before she can continue her trajectory.
he's barely hit the ground before he lowers his centre of gravity, a sweeping kick, and he's already reaching for her as she moves to dodge.]
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Even more so when she's managed to make it up to Sasuke, when she's moving around his leg and then-
He has her.
There's a moment where she curses, inward, because the objective had been to make sure he couldn't catch her. That she could move out of his trajectory before he could completely catch her or hold her down. To keep him running and chasing and following her through the city to make him a little more tired, to run him down a bit and exhaust the anger that was still so very present in him.
Sakura stills and her breath stops in her throat and she watches to catch his next movement so she can at least attempt to block it.
(Pointless endeavour.) ]
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the impact shudders up his arm, jars him back into the present and out of the destructive sequence that had driven him to this.
the fight was relatively short, all things considered, but Sasuke pants as though he'd gone five hours at it. his grip loosens, away from the pulse he could feel under his fingers in her throat, and he stares down as though seeing her for the first time. too much. this was too much. everything was too much. and he was suddenly, inexplicably, exhausted.]
Sakura.
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It doesn't stop the breath being knocked from her lungs or the searing pain that runs through her as she feels the concrete crack and fracture beneath her body when the collision happens. There's no sound from her when her back connects to the roof, but she closes her eyes for a moment to swallow and then inhale; recalls how to breathe despite the hand at her throat.
The exhaustion finds its way back inside of her, drifts through her body, all the way down to her fingertips. There's a moment where she wonders if Sasuke wants to continue, if he still needs to get out whatever other anger was thrumming in his veins.
Only when he says her name does she open her eyes, bright green, eternally calm. It's the sound of his voice, the way he looks so run down; hasn't he always?
She's used to seeing him like this. Seeing him when he pushes himself too far, too long. Tells himself, just a little more. Just a bit further. I can keep going a little longer. And it's almost sad, because she knows that it was that desire to push himself that made him into who he was at home. She knows, though, that it's the same desire that made him who he was here. The Sasuke that she would have wanted to return to Konoha after everything.
Without thinking, she reaches up, brushes his hair from his eyes without a word. ]
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dark eyes search her face for a long moment, braced over her, and he doesn't move when she reaches for his face. he doesn't slap her hand away, and he doesn't say anything. he can't give up, as scared as he is.
Sasuke's chin dips, breaking eye contact as he climbs off of her. then, in a gesture unlike who he'd once decided he would become, he offers her his hand.]
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When his hand is offered, Sakura reaches to take it without really thinking, using her free hand to push herself from the ground at the same time. Only once she's standing does she realize what just happened. That Sasuke actually helped her up, that he didn't just walk away or wait for her to stand on her own. And with him, it's the smallest gestures that mean the most.
Brushing off her clothes, she looks up at him. ]
Thank you.
[ Because this helped her, too. ]
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