Castles In The Air.

We all hope for tomorrow.

. . . . .

01: A Paragon of Virtue
Summary: Sasuke can bear Sakura's crying, those soft cries, not that grinding, broken sobbing, that terrible sobbing. At least it's quiet. He can live through this.
Theme: Chance meetings; canon AU (if Sasuke had come back)
Prompt: Home

Sakura is crying quietly, now. At least the crying is quiet. The loud, broken sobbing, that's the absolute worst type of crying. Sasuke can hardly bear that - but this is somehow more bearable. He can live through this.

The snow mutes everything. All bloodshed, all debris, all scattered bodies and broken dreams.

They'd fallen together, when the explosion had momentarily stunned the earth with its total brutality, when a wave of shock and heinous heat had blurred everything. Fallen like useless pieces into the ground. Unexpected, unaware. This is War.

He'd found Sakura, stumbled across her on the battlefield in the midst of the terror, the barrage of slaughter; watched her punch the head clear off of that nameless ninja's shoulders. Unyielding, she was struggling to survive. Weren't they all, anyway? This would all be forgiven, for both sides.

Even now Sasuke is almost fortunate that he happened to find her.

The snow, it's falling softly. Everything hard and ugly is softened by the sky.

Aren't childhood virtues simple?

The snow always made you the happiest. It was this wonderfully clear, cool happiness, it struck you like nothing else quite could - when you awoke to see the land of frost and hidden fairy creatures outside your bedroom windows, before death could exist in somewhere like your head, or worse, your life.

Everything is suddenly thrust into an excruciatingly painful motion. Everything is pushed forward. Everything is being forced into motion. It's Sasuke. Sasuke knows he has to do it. She's not weak, no, such a word can never be applied to her. Sakura will never be the WEAK one anymore, but she's hurt. Her hurt is omnipresent, her hurt is the eye of a brutal and callous storm that looms above them with careful indifference, her hurt is what is twisting fate and making it awful.

They can be content to lie there for ever, and be buried by the snow. It's even simpler to fall asleep when you feel so tired and alone.

(What will their fossils look like? Should they be holding hands, when they're immortalized?)

But they aren't alone. They exist together, here.

Cautiously, cautiously. Sasuke is standing up, his leg aches and pangs, he almost falters; then he stands and bends, he's picking her up -

Brutal, brutal screaming. Electroshock screams, torture screams. What has he done to her?

Sasuke's heart thrums. Back to life, back to the present. Sakura is gripping for him, scrambling for him. Cat claws through cindered gloves. Poppy blooms across a powdered forest. A lovely, innocent ground of kiddie faith.

They exist together. But no one else is here.

Come on, he almost thinks to himself. Just to keep himself going. Sasuke is very close to not going any longer. He's already damaged her, somehow - intuition is the sharpest thorn. It strikes him clearly. When death stares and picks at its fingernails and taps the ground with its feet and looks on without its face showing, why are you tempted to kiss her cheek and keep her there?

It's too hard to hurt someone else.

But he must hurt her. Each step - and Sasuke won't admit his legs are weak enough that he could plummet into the ground, stay there in the ground, the ground is the softest thing, the Calm and warmth, it doesn't make sense but it is somehow - fall into the ground, begging for life. Begging for life, for her.

Sakura moans. Shattered.

Her voice will ground him, more than falling can ground him. The ground is the enemy, disguised as something beautiful and easy. Sasuke thinks faintly, that he can no longer feel his feet.

A bomb, a ka-puum! in the distance. Sucking them in.

Please, take us home, all right? Sakura had smiled. Smiled before the fighting had started, before they'd been separated. An expression that was more fleeting than any half-hearted promise.

Sasuke walks ahead. Her body is a heavy, treasured weight. Dead-weight, a precious weight. Despite his best efforts, there's the pang again - non-distinct but absolutely present, in his left leg a twisting and relentless knife, on and off, on and on and off again, and they'll soon be sinking...

Just two more steps. Then five.

Ten turns to twelve. Then fifteen. Eighteen. Twenty-four.

Sakura cries softly. Bitter and innocent childish crying, when you want the pain to fade away more than anything else. Sasuke holds her crying close, she's giving these broken little cries into his clothing. His clothing is wracked with frost, numbed with dampness from the cold.

Yet she no longer gives off those terrible chilling moans, moans of those already plucked away to a realm of death, or before-death: the Waiting Room. Blood's still falling. He decides not to acknowledge it. Ignorance is survival, isn't it?

Sakura buries her face into his shoulder. She's still conscious, somehow - even through the bleeding, the torn flesh, the wrapping of the wound. She was always awake, alert. Eyes glazed over in horror, in faint understanding, I'm going to die. Her entire abdomen, all cut up, nearly shredded. A gory horror film brought straight to life, an impossible nightmarish reality.

These kinds of things you must accept, or you accept death instead. Sasuke had accepted it. He's never been the type to accept the too late's, anyway.

Thirty steps more...(?)

Ahead, a brutal and hideous camelot. Their camp, and all the medics. A hideous haven. Where have they been? People must be wondering.

Sasuke walks on. For the both of them.

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