Adult-FanFiction.org : Naruto

Between Life and Living	By : SmilesforSai Category: Naruto AU/AR > Het - Male/Female Views: 1487 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. I am not profiting anything from the making of this story.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
Between Life and Living
Chapter One: Didn’t You Know…?
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
A/N: This isn’t a revamp of any of my older stories, but this is one of the latest. Gonna put up all eleven chapters here. I figure it probably has about ten more, but I’ll get to it when I get to it.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Sakura Haruno bent forward to gaze at the porch ground with unseeing, dull green eyes, a glass of sake grasped firmly between her hands. The comforting warm buzz from tonight's round of alcohol had already begun to simmer, leaving her dispassionately in the wake of its lasting effects.
She was sobering, and she hated it.
Everything she meant to forget, if for no more than an hour or so, was flooding back to her like water through a broken dam. Sakura's nails tapped against the glass absently, and she tilted it sideways to allow the clear liquid to spill out onto the porch.
Looked like water; about as potent as it, too…
An inebriated smile pulled up on the corners of her lips, as a warm sensation flushed her cheeks a drunken rouge. Her body felt comfortably exhausted, though she'd barely lifted a finger today. Sakura barely did anything anymore, since she had announced her retirement as a shinobi to her surrogate mother and former shishou. The woman had practically raised her as her own, after the loss of her parents, and went on to teach her everything she knew.
And still…
On that day, Sakura had handed in her hitai-ate and medical paraphernalia, promptly receiving an earful from the blonde woman, but the pinkette had blatantly ignored her. It'd hadn't been a kind thing to do, but it was all she could manage in order to avoid a confrontation that would ultimately leave her in tears, inside the Godaime Hokage's arms for the fifth time that week. Sakura was no stranger to such a weakness, but crying was something she had sworn she'd abandoned in the former; yes, tears were definitely unwelcome in the life she'd rebuilt in those previous three years.
It had been a long while since another three years had gone by, but Sakura was still only going through the motions of everyday life, only leaving the factual comfort of her home to thrust herself into the outside world when it was mandatory.
Because life had continued to move on, to where she could not; defiantly, would not.
Those who would pass her in the streets of Konoha, shinobi or civilian, were very familiar with her, and upon encounter, would often pause for a wave. Sakura would return the favor, but the gesture was awkward and mechanical; she had no idea how to make it seem genuine, let alone feel real. Everything was a difficult task, down to the mere process of simply walking down the street with one foot in front of the other, or even managing a two second smile. These disabilities were all so disconcerting and frustrating, Sakura began to wonder if she was even human anymore. Being around others was much like operating under water, and only in the comfort of her lonesome, was she able to pull the plug on the drain and sigh in quiet relief behind closed doors.
This was an everyday routine; and it was only growing worse.
The sharp shatter of a hundred tiny crystals snapped Sakura out of the remains of her drunken state. Moments before, but paying no mind, she had felt the glass object slip from her loosening grip. Warily, she dropped her gaze from the starless, obsidian night sky, to stare down at the glittering shards bathed by moonlight near her feet. The pink haired woman's head began to swim and her frame of vision tilted as she struggled to focus on the individual pieces, through her mind was hardly up for what it discursively thought was intricate concentration. The rest of her body groaned in protest, as Sakura slid out of the white wicker chair and onto her knees. Sharp glass bit into her skin, but she hardly noticed.
The drunken flush had faded from her cheeks, returning her complexion to its natural, porcelain hue. She was fully aware of what her own intentions were now, albeit the fleeting cold pang of fear that sent a tremor through her thin, fragile frame. Too-slender fingers twitched toward the largest shard among the broken glass, and lifted the piece by its sharpest edge.
Sakura held the sliver between her fingers, and a small, surprised moan fell from her lips while she watched in morbid fascination as the knifelike edge cut into the soft pad of her index finger. A shaky breath was released in the anticipation of her own actions, turning the glass between her fingers for a better hold as she lowered it down to its destination. Emerald eyes consumed the offered moonlight, taking on a smoldering, excited glimmer once they set on the arm now extended before her. Fingers flexed, wrist bending tentatively.
Could she do it?
No, she must.
All of those times, where her thoughts had only gone through the motions, and she'd only gotten by with a few superficial wounds, she had never even fathomed past this point of the lethal process. Anything beyond this point would deem terminal, and that should have been fine, but for some reason…it wasn't.
Why? What reason was there left for her to be alive? For them…for their last smiles, and their last breaths. For every unspoken wish she'd promised she would fulfill, as she watched the light of life leaving their eyes.
A sacrifice had been made in exchange for the continuation of her very existence, but didn't they know it would be a lonesome one? Didn't they know that she would need them?
Didn't they know that…
Well, they would know. She would be sure to tell them.
Sakura willed her vision to refocus on the uninjured arm that still held in wait before her. The creamy, pale flesh glowed alabaster under the moonlight, and she watched it ripple slightly with another flex of her wrist. Carefully, she lowered her un-endangered hand down slowly. The arm holding still suddenly began to tremble, despite the amount of control she successfully held the rest of her body under. The preying appendage grasping the broken glass suddenly did not feel like her own, and Sakura silently struggled to stifle an alarmed scream slowly crawling its way up the back of her throat. Emerald, luminous eyes widened in sheer trepidation as the crystal's jagged edge descended to the thin flesh of her wrist to gently probe at a visible vein, like a predator innocently provoking its prey.
It will be okay, she told herself without a clue as to why the small assurance was even necessary. Sakura could name a thousand things, minus the threat of death, that were worse than the little pain that she was about to endure. Though she was a medic and knew of lesser fashions, she subconsciously resolved that this had to be the way it was done. For reasons, was the only explanation she would give herself.
It just cannot be any other way…
Sakura continued to probe at the tiny vein, barely shown blue under the translucence the spherical glowing orb in the sky had given her flesh. Her lips mashed together as she hardened the pressure, and the glass bit down.
Harder.
And harder, until the skin was finally broken.
Sakura was prepared for anything except for the small cry of almost-pleasure that she felt from already parting lips. This was nothing like the sweet, fleeting superficial scrapes that lesser objects would faintly leave to scar and remind her of the next day. The sound was followed by a breathy sigh as her eyes stared on while her hand continued its task of administering the morbidly pleasurable pain. With the jagged edge well-embedded into her skin, she guided the glass piece across her wrist, her gaze unbreakable even at the side of tearing flesh. The panging metallic scent hit her nose, causing it to wrinkle slightly. Crimson life flowed freely from the mangled appendage, and Sakura jerked her unwounded hand away from the bloodying scene, fingertips soiled and twitching as they dropped the offending stained glass among its more pure fragments.
Sakura stared at the self-infliction, momentarily finding her inner shinobi to go on autopilot and wander to the abnormal expanse of her mind, to confirm with herself that she'd done everything properly. The sight of the still flowing crimson brought her back, and the fingers of her predator hand gently caressed and pulled streaks of it down to her inner form arm. The mere alacrity of the action had Inner Sakura finally screaming at her to stop it now, but the current Sakura dominating was too far gone, and her other half silently withdrew with unspoken knowledge that it was now much too late.
With the war within her mind finally quieted, Sakura allowed her lacerated wrist to fall limply in her lap. Smears of the terminal deed painted onto the porcelain skin of her thigh, but her mind was too far beyond any state of shock to really notice. "I'll be home soon," was the only intelligent thought that had managed to pass through her lips, before a familiar voice ghosted close to her ear.
"Sakura…"
Tears stung the former kunoichi's eyes as she heard her name being spoken faintly on the wind. "Soon," she repeated, lifting her head to whisper into the darkness.
"Sakura…" the voice on the wind called again, an edge this time to its hushed timber. The voice was familiar, and her bewildered mind gave her every reason to believe that it should be. Sakura raised her unruined hand to rake fingers in her pink hair, pulling through short, silken locks and leaving coppery streaks in their wake.
"Sakura,"
"I'm coming, damnit!" there was a humorous edge to her voice. They were impatient, she entertained, but in all actuality, it was the fact that Sakura was slowly becoming delirious.
The tainted hand fell limply into her lap beside the one that weakly refused to move. No pain; no hurt. Just simple, unresponsiveness. Her eyes trained on the gory scene without a blink, as a certain figure shrouded in darkness eased up the steps of the porch. Her gaze rose an inch and came to focus on the two feet of her last visitor, eyes staring on with heavying lids.
"Sakura…what have you done?" the voice was male, and indeed familiar. The pinkette swayed and began to nod off, but her body jerked up as if in struggle grasp onto consciousness. The figure knelt down carefully before the injured girl and the pile of broken glass between them.
A pair of gloved hands suddenly cradled her face as Sakura began to close her eyes. Tired lids closed over dulling green orbs, giving her just one bleary glimpse of dark hair; a pale face.
"S-Sasuke…" the demising pinkette whispered, before falling unconscious into waiting open arms.
The silver-haired man pulled the girl close into his chest, and then looked with one visible, obsidian eye to the younger male standing on the steps beside him. A silent, two second conversation went on between the pair, before the eldest finally nodded.
"Of course," replied the calm, detached voice of the dark-haired shinobi. He took his leave into the darkness.
Kakashi Hatake stared down begrudgingly at the stained glass on the ground, before lifting his grown, pink-haired student over one shoulder and hastily following suit.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
- 1
- 2
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Between Life and Living