Daylight

Moonlight Pt.2

Hours slipped away until Sasuke had regained composure and power in his left eye again. He sat perched within a bundle of leaves atop the highest tree he could find, and slept. Nightmares chased after him - he was following a trail of pink petals into a field of grass to find a woman standing under the sun. But as he reached her, the glow of the sun turned into a red moon and her hazel eyes bore into him, casting him away into a tsukoyumi where he left the love of his life abandoned a thousand times over a thousand different lifetimes. He woke up panting, his body cold but clammy. 

In the still darkness he heard nothing but the wind howling. He couldn't surrender to sleep again; he would force his body to restrain itself and stay awake. His ears perched up at the rustling in the leaves below him. He felt chakra emitting from the bushes, and a flurry of pink hair. Sasuke had the advantage being on higher ground and aimed his ocular abilities of amaterasu at the bushes below him and teleported away, convinced he had finished the deed. 

He had teleported himself to a field that sat beside a waterfall, the water gushing down as if it could cleanse away all his sorrows if he bathed in it. Taking in the scenery, Sasuke felt a serenity he hadn't felt since he had made love. Sasuke was lost in thought, staring at his own reflection as his head nodded into sleep. His eyes snapped open as the earth quaked beneath him forming deep cracks on the ground, as deep as the crevices in his heart. 

"Shannaro!"

The cracks met in the middle, resting crookedly under the fist of a woman. Her windswept pink locks flying around her, as her green eyes glared at the man that brought her heartache. 

"Sakura!" Sasuke stood frozen in shock. Sakura stood up for a second, before losing the strength in her legs and began to fall, head almost hitting the ground. Sasuke caught her in his arms. He rested the unconscious woman on his lap. They always found their way into each other's arms, Sasuke mused. As he was staring at her fatigued face, and slender arms beneath a yellow cloak, he noticed burn marks on her neck and wrists. He unclasped the cloak, and found burn marks encasing both her arms. Tears filled his eyes and fell on her resting face as realisation dawned. She awoke at sunrise. 

***

Her eyelids fluttered open, and a rush of regret and relief washed over him all at once. 

"Sasuke-kun...", Sakura mumbled, her vision coming to focus. "Sasuke!" Her head jerked up so that she was sitting beside him on the cracked ground, grass and soil surrounding them.

His heart quickened at the sound of her voice calling his name. "Sakura... your arms... I-"

She slapped him. He blinked at her, her face furious. A face she only ever reserved for Naruto, he knew from his observations. "I'm sorry", his voice deathly quiet. "I thought you were someone else." She slapped him again. "Are you hurt? Why didn't you say anything back there, I could have extinguished the amaterasu immediately". Before she could slap him again, he caught her by the wrist. 

Her emerald eyes threatened to break into tears. "Never mind that. I was able to recover instantly using my mitonic regeneration." Her voice bitter. "But WHY Sasuke?" Her voice cracked. "Why would you leave like that? If you didn't want me to come, you could have just said." She furiously rubbed away her tears that had escaped with the back of her left hand. "Won't you apologise for THAT?" 

Sasuke flickered his eyes to the side. "Go home."

"ANSWER ME!"

He looked at her with his mismatched eyes; one a purple vortex of pain, the other black as coal. And sighed. "I'm not good for you."

"That's not an answer."

He got up and turned away. She mirrored him and grasped his arm. "Tell me you don't love me, and I won't bother you again." She had cornered him, or so she thought. He transfixed his sharingan onto her and cast her into a genjutsu dream full of 'I don't love yous' and 'you're annoying'. She fell away into his arm again, and he left her leaning on the bark of a tree. If all he ever brought her was tragedy, why was he compelled towards her like she was his clarity? In solitude, why did he feel he was slipping into insanity, with her presence being the only remedy? These questions tugged at his mind, tormenting him. He took one last look at her sleeping profile, and vanished without a trace.