This was previously posted under my old username – TheAntiAngel. I have since updated it a tad. I hope you enjoy.

Break me

Sasuke stared at the dirty pink hair that hung over that forehead, determined. He would not look into her eyes. He would not look.

He wouldn't stare into those bright green orbs staring at him. Pleading.

He would not look.

He lifted her chin with a gentle hand, stroking the edges of the open wound splitting her cheek open– softly, almost lovingly. He felt the dried blood from the gash beneath his fingertips, almost angry peeling it off her pale, lovely face.

Girls like Sakura don't belong in dungeons. They are not meant to be chained in the dark, they are meant to live and to laugh and to be out in the world. They are meant love and be loved and are not meant to be bleeding and hurting and unrelenting.

"Tell me where he is, Sakura." A whispered command, his voice smooth but his fingers rough. He refused to look into her eyes, instead keeping his sharingan trained to her admittedly large forehead.

He would not look

She didn't answer. Just stared.

"Sasuke-kun…" she whispered, her voice cracking before beginning again." What have you done to yourself?"

She pitied him.

He suddenly felt something inside him crack that he had not known existed. He pinned the kunoichi against the wall by her throat, nearly crushing her windpipe as he spoke.

"What the hell is wrong with you? Do you want the torture to continue? Just tell us where the dobe is and this will all stop." She gasped for air, struggling but with not a single inch of give. She would not give.

Sasuke looked away. This was not a mere kunoichi, he realized uncomfortably.

This was a shinobi.

He heard the rusty doors of the musty old dungeon open, then heavy footsteps. Sasuke stood up from his crouching position, his Akatsuki cloak swishing around him.

"What?" He growled at the intruder. Suigetsu stared unflinchingly at the scene.

"Leader-sama demands that if she"-he motioned towards Sakura-"doesn't speak, she will no longer be deemed useful."

She would be killed.

Sasuke merely nodded briskly.

"Out," he commanded, walking back to Sakura's fallen form.

"'You hear?" Sasuke said once the doors closed behind them. "You're going to die if you don't. Tell us where the dobe is!" He continued to her eyes.

"Sasuke-kun…" she whispered again. "Look at me." He refused. She sighed.

"Where the fuck is Naruto! I'm going to kill you myself if you don't fucking say anything!" he was screaming now. She didn't have any time left. She was going to die. She was going to die. She was going to die. She was going to die.

Sasuke could still not look her in the eye.

She had to crack. She had to if she wanted to live.

She had to crack.

Instead, she snapped.

After her weeks of silence, punctuated with interrogations after interrogation, by torture session after torture session, she had finally snapped.

"Uchiha Sasuke"-the chakra-infused ropes holding her down began glowing, indicating she was trying to break them-"I fucking dare you. Kill me right now, you coward. How dare you think I'll give up my brother, my village, for the likes of you, traitor." Sakura spat at his feet. "You have no goddamn right to even speak to me as your captive. Look me in the eye and fucking kill me. My corpse is more likely to give you information than me."

For the first time ever since they began, he looked directly into her familiar green eyes. And instantly wished he hadn't.

He saw fire burning brighter than he'd seen since leaving Konoha. He saw defiance, hope, anger, determination, love, hate, triumph, life, home in those eyes.

And then he raised the Kusanagi above her head.

:)