Some Fall By Virtue

Chapter One: ready, set, I'm about to blow

The grass rolled out around her like a blanket of green, at least until it reached the treeline marking the edge of the clearing she lay inside. She sucked in a breath then, noting how the taste of ash and blood hadn't lingered. Hadn't followed her back to that world. Laughter escaped her then, bitter and cold. She recognised the stars above her, even if the land was unfamiliar. A forest in Beleriand? Eriador? Sakura didn't know.

She had never bothered to pay attention to the scenery or the location. Back then she had only thought of burning anything and everything in sight. An outlet for the rage swirling inside of her, she had realised in hindsight. It was funny how dying three times had shaped her life.

She had been so angry for two of them. So unlike how her Naruto would have wanted. She could see it now. How senseless she had been, how she hadn't been able to overcome hurdles so similar to that which Naruto had faced in her first world. Before Sasuke killed her. Sakura rubbed her chest, the cold spot over her heart, where Sasuke's chidori had ripped through twice now.

"That was him," she mumbled, quelling the vicious bitterness which threatened to well up inside her. "That was all on him..." Sakura had no right blaming his actions on others. No right to take her anger at him out on others. Her hands curled into fists, nails threatening to cut into her skin, and Sakura hated. She hated what she had become.

Well... she mused, thinking on the creature woven from darkness, fire, and the twisted machinations of a madman who made Orochimaru look tame in comparison. She didn't exactly hate what she could turn into. Sakura only hated what her emotional state had wrought. What the body she had been forced into was capable of.

Her fingers, fine and pale, ran down the skin of her arm. "Glorfindel," she murmured again, cursing bitterly as she felt the tears well up in her eyes. He deserved someone so much better than herself. She was just as much of a criminal as she had been in her last incarnation, and worse, she had only acted the way she had been angry – the betrayal of Sasuke still raw.

To make matters worse he was undoubtedly an elf, if the clear, crisp, elven script on her arm was an indicator. Which meant he knew of her, whether by living through the chaos she had brought unto the eldar, or hearing tales of it from his ancestors. She bit her lip, shame and self-loathing roiling underneath her skin as she silently recounted all that she had done.

He would never accept her.

She was fine with that, Sakura told herself, hating the bite of the tears which welled up in her eyes at that thought. She would have to be fine with that. It was her punishment, she decided right there and then. For not being more like her own Naruto. For not being good enough. For not being able to forge a deep enough connection with Sasuke originally.

A snort escaped her then. What a vapid little fangirl she had been at the beginning... She rubbed at her chest, as if that would ease the numbness she felt there. Really, though, she had thought she had changed. She thought she had known Sasuke at least somewhat. She thought she had been one of the people closest to him before his defection. Even after, she had thought she was one of the few who still cared for him deeply. Not that he had cared when he stabbed her through the heart in a blaze of blood and white, chirping lightning.

Sakura shook her head. "No point in dwelling on it," she murmured, fingers digging into the pale, creamy skin marred by the beautiful black script. There was someone out there, somewhere, who was meant to care for her. Laughter rang out again, cold and unamused. As if he could possibly do that, given what kind of reputation she had amassed for herself there.

Silently, Sakura wondered whether he would kill her too. Whether he would destroy her in every way possible before moving on with his life. She wondered whether he had already found someone else to love and care for – someone who didn't care about the disgusting name inked onto his own flesh. Someone he actually deserved instead of the train wreck she was. She would be happy for him if she had.