This is how it was meant to be.
She has to repeat the words to herself, over and over, with the last word tripping frantically over the first in its bid to restart the cycle, and all the words jumble together into one rushing stream that somehow still fails to drown out the louder river-screaming of her heart.
Please, please, PLEASE!
Her whole body is trembling, and her grip on the kunai is lousier than a genin's on her first day at the academy. The thought makes her want to break down and—and laugh (no, not cry, she will not cry, she is not allowed to cry) herself into a gasping mess, like a fish out of water. She feels herself teetering on the edge of fuchsia hysteria with every passing moment, each breath shallower than the last.
He will not turn around. He will not see—
She thinks, feverishly, to the wild scrambling of her broken-egg heart, a thought-turned-prayer as she tightens her grip around the kunai and clenches her eyes shut (how stupid, she knows, but how else can she do it?) and lunges toward oblivion, throws herself blindly into the black arms of Fate.
He catches her.
(Of course he does; this is how it always happens in the stories, right? The hero and the heroine, the knight and the princess, the traitor and the-)
Her eyes snap open and she gasps, finds herself drowning in blood. His gaze swallows her whole and there is no thought, no breath, no movement allowed in the cold red sea of his eyes.
For a moment he holds her to him, pinning the hand with the kunai neatly behind her back, and she fools herself into dreaming that this is reality, this strange, unnatural touch that sends shivers up her soul. Maybe she was right all those years ago when her forehead was too large and her heart was too stupid and he was too beautiful a boy to be properly human. And she thinks, as she flounders breathlessly in the red sea, maybe that boy still exists and maybe that boy is now reaching out to her, to hold her like this, pressing her seams together to keep her from unraveling.
But it is not that boy reaching out to her (he no longer exists) and she was always wrong (so wrong), and now he is crushing her throat with those beautiful white hands that had just a moment ago been so tenderly cradling her.
She tries to gasp but the air is cut off and all she can do is stare at him, glassy-eyed, gaping, pleading. He stares back, the red sea like smooth glass without a ripple.
By some twisted miracle, his name leaks out from the strained passageway of her windpipe, squeezes past his crushing fingers to scrape the air.
"Sa—suke-"
It is so pitiful, the way her voice croaks out. What a wretched, pathetic creature she must appear before his eyes.
Why must it always be like this? Why can I never be beautiful before him?
She wants to die in this moment, she is so miserable.
But the beautiful boy with the awkward kindness from back then had always known how to torture her; and how much more the wicked creature he is now. The marble fingers around her throat loosen just the slightest, and the air that rushes in to fill the cracks is sour. She can feel bruises like heavy grapes blooming around her neck, anchoring his touch in place.
And why, why is she saying his name of all things, she doesn't know. She curses herself. It is stupid; those two terrible syllables are a curse, and all her ugly croaking will do nothing to resurrect the beautiful boy. (he is gone, forever gone—her heart mourns the lonely moon)
But somehow it is the only thing she can say, the only thing she has ever been able to say—and so she says it.
She isn't expecting him to say anything in return. She is merely waiting for the cold bite of metal tearing through her throat and then blissful black to embrace her and she will never have to suffer this exquisite torture ever again; she can rest and find peace and finally be free from him, her beautiful demon.
The thought makes her happy, almost giddy, as she waits exultantly like the veiled bride of Death.
She waits but Death does not come.
(Of course it doesn't; what kind of hero kills his heroine, what kind of knight would slaughter his own princess, what kind of traitor would-)
"Sakura."
Her mind shatters at the sound of his voice. It is like a sword plunging into the very stuff of her soul, wrenching and twisting around and breaking all those iridescent filaments.
She is shaking, violently as a leaf. The hand wrapped around her neck holds her spasming throat indifferently.
She knows this is more painful than death.
Had she always loved someone so cruel?
And the sickest, wrongest part of this whole affair is that as she gazes into his red, red eyes, the only thing she can think is that she wants to kiss him.
Not because he is beautiful (though he is, there is no denying), but because she still believes.
She still believes, the withering little girl inside of her, in magic and in true love's kiss that will break the evilest of spells, in true love's kiss that will awaken the slumbering beautiful boy from his dark watery grave and bring him back to her.
That is all she asks. She wants to see the boy again.
But she cannot kiss him. She cannot break the witch's spell that has transformed him into this monster; she cannot break the curse that binds them to this destiny. She cannot move. She is at his mercy and she can only shudder against him in hopeless appeal and fight a losing battle against the tears that burn, molten, behind her glowing green eyes.
She hears Naruto calling faintly in the distance. The world is dimming, swimming, growing soft with shadows as her hooded eyes flutter close.
He will not kill her, she knows.
(He was never meant to kill her, only to make her suffer.)
The knowledge makes her heart heavy, but she accepts it with grace. This is his fate. This is hers.
So as the warm black comes rising up to meet her, and with his white fingers still lingering around her tender throat, she smiles as she sinks ever deeper:
This is how it was meant to be.
omygoodness, I have not written sasusaku in forever. I was going back and reading my old works, and I guess I just felt inspired to revisit old times. Even though I have pretty much abandoned the Naruto fandom, it still manages to stir up some small pangs of nostalgia - and thus, this was born. Plus I was listening to semi-angsty music (maroon 5 yee) and then this happened. Vaguely based on the instance when sakura tries to kill sasuke but fails miserably ahah...