Some Fall By Virtue

Chapter Sixteen: I'ma make you wonder

"Idiot," Sakura muttered to herself as she lay in bed, praying the sun wouldn't rise too soon. Not that anything would listen to her hopeless plea. "Why did you say that?" Rolling over, she buried her face in her pillow, lamenting the recklessness of last night or earlier that same day, depending on what the time was. It was harder to tell without a clock in sight. "What were you thinking?" The words were muffled by the sinfully soft pillow, and Sakura barely resisted the urge to scream. Feelings of relief, excitement, fear, and dread were pooling in her gut. Her limbs felt halfway on their way to being completely numb. It was like there were shadowy limbs curled around her own, trying them down, dragging her down so that she would sink into the shadows as she likely deserved to. She ought to vanish, silently and without fuss so as to bring no further harm to her soulmate of his kin. She ought to die, whether by her soulmate's hand or not, so as to not taint that place any longer.

Yet there she was. Turning her head, she sucked in a breath of cool fresh air, tears stinging at the corners of her eyes. Because what would she do if those elves figured it out? She had dropped too much of a hint as to who and what she was, should any be able to get their head around the fact that she, a dragon, had been reborn in those lands in a time long after her death. And wouldn't it just be irony at its finest if the son of the one who had killed her before came to be the cause of her demise in that time?

Sakura closed her eyes, ignoring the whispers which reminded her she ought to be caught out. She ought to earn her soulmate's eternal hatred. She ought to be killed once more and vanish from that place entirely and for good that time around. But would that happen? Or would she wind up dancing between two worlds forevermore? Her hands clenched in the bedsheets, and Sakura lamented silently, not daring to even make a sound. Tears, she had found, were often meant to be silent. Monsters probably weren't even meant to shed them. She was a failure in every way it seemed. Her shoulders sunk, and she let out a long sigh.

"What am even supposed to do now?" she muttered, flopping back onto her back, pulling the blankets and quilts that much closer. It was so very cold right then and there for reasons she couldn't quite fathom. Maybe because the fact she had practically agreed to stay there in an elven realm for a matter of years? She would be around him far too often, unable to escape that gaze which bore into her so. Shivering at the thought, Sakura rolled onto her side, misery paralysing her as she lay there dumbly. She didn't want to get out of that bed. Rather, she wished she could shut her eyes and sleep forever.

You could if you slit your throat, the voice whispered to her, and Sakura shook her head sluggishly at that. She was far too afraid of returning to the Elemental Nations, not to mention she would get blood all over the sheets, and that would be a large inconvenience for the elves to clean up. She didn't want to be more of the inconvenience than she already was by simply existing then and there. So there would be no throat slitting or deaths by her own hand then and there. Corpses tended to require a lot of effort to clean up. She wouldn't burden them with that. Excuses, excuses, the voice whispered in her ear. Coward.

Sakura wondered if it was wrong of her to be one. But she was a being meant to fight, more so against opponents stronger than herself. She had long ago driven back the Host of the West with her own kin. How else would she explain her felling otherwise? Besides, in Konoha, cowardice was not tolerated. Yet another reason not to return to the Elemental Nations. Unless it was through her soulmate's decision, that was – to send her on her way to her next hellish life in those lands. Then, and only then, would she abide by that decision. And she would try not to be a monster that time around. Her hands were already far too bloodied.

She closed her eyes then, wishing for oblivion and the sweet release from her reality there for a few hours. She probably didn't deserve peaceful dreams. Especially in a realm belonging to those whose kin she had burned long ago. Chest still like ice, she screwed her eyes shut that much tighter, waiting for something – anything to happen. For Lord Elrond to barge in declare her a dragon and have Glorfindel kill her where she lay. For her soulmate to charge in, demanding to know why there was a magnetic pull between them – one which was only meant to belong to soulmates. But nothing happened, and the cold clutches of unconsciousness soon grasped a hold of her, and they didn't let go until the sun came up.