A/N: A bit of gore, violence, some supernatural elements. Mainly I just wanted to torture Sasuke. :D

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Orpheus

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Sasuke watches as his hand slides easily through her ribcage. The chidori rings high and clear through the air, matching the pitch of her scream even as the latter is drowned out by the gurgle of blood from her throat. Stop, stop, stop. Sasuke tries to stop moving, stop hurting her (but isn't that what he always does?). He can't. His fingers are stiff as lightening carves it's way through her heart and jumps up her neck. He can see every movement, watches how her blood boils then congeals in her veins but not before splashing against his arm and soaking her once vermilion dress darker. Something wet is sliding down his face, and it's her and he can't breath. Shouldn't breath. Not when she's not.

They collapse, her into unconciousness and him into a sob, into hysteria. Kakashi is there and he's talking but Sasuke can't hear him. What has he done? Sakura is lying there and not breathing and his arm is still through her chest. He hears Naruto's growl but does not listen. Feels the medics pulling him away but cannot move his eyes from where she is curled up, listless and lifeless.

He screams and cries and tries to pull away, but there is a hand to the back of his neck and he is gone, fading away even as Sakura has already faded.

"Go away," He says into still air, stubbornly refusing to look up at the person in front of him. He will not look. She is not there. She is gone, and buried, and he carved her name into stone himself. She hums but never answers him, though sometimes he thinks he hears her laughing, hears them all laughing. Poor Uchiha boy, they think, he's lost everything.

They are right, in a way.

Sasuke clenches his fists and bites his tongue to stop from screaming again. She won't go away no matter what he does. She is just there, just as she always has been, but now he is the only one who sees him. She looks on disapprovingly as he packs his bags, ready to steal away into the night. She has been trying to stop him ever since he met the Sound Four, but to little affect. He is going crazy in this village.

(A tired part of him hopes that he'll leave her behind if he goes)

(The rest hopes that never happens)

"Sakura?" He whispers, straining his tired eyes for a glimpse, even briefly of his last withered string to that wretched village. It takes a moment, but she appears, hair still shorn, lightening scars fresh along the side of her neck. Her red dress now mended as if his hand had not torn through it to give her those scars.

She does not respond, but comes closer. Lays an incorporeal hand to his eyelids that somehow manages to be soothing despite the lack of any feeling. This, he thinks, must be insanity. He can see it clearly in Orochimaru, in his medic Kabuto. He can see it in the empty husks of the people who live here in this god-forsaken place. He really, truly fits right in.

Sometimes even Orochimaru is wary of Sasuke. He can see that dim lost-hope look in his eyes, even with the power of the Mangekyou behind them. Sasuke is unhinged, and well past any kind of Konoha intervention. This is perhaps why he keeps him around in any case. Sasuke, if not loyal to Orochimaru, at least detests Konoha enough to never want to go back.

(Sometimes though, Sakura looks at him, looks towards her final resting place and Sasuke's resolve frays nearly to breaking point)

(One day, he'll take her home.)

Naruto is just as Sasuke remembers him. Brash and loud and arrogant and angry. Angry at Sasuke for what he's done, angry at Konoha for not saving her. Naruto had loved Sakura far more than Sasuke ever had. (But now though, he knows he loves her best). Naruto is himself, and he charges Sasuke with every intention of killing him before someone stops him.

Sasuke thinks that if Naruto killed him, life would be fair. It only makes sense really. Team 7 was a tragedy right from the start.

Sakura knows him enough to know exactly what he thinks, and places herself in front of Naruto. She has no presence on the physical plain, but manages to make Naruto pause for long enough that his teammates can keep him under control.

"What was that?!" Naruto growls at him, and for a moment he sees this recognition, a sorrow pass over the jinchuuriki's face that is so profound that Naruto actually falls to his knees.

Sakura reaches out to Naruto, but the moment she gets close enough to touch him, her image wavers, and she pulls back sharply.

(Sasuke's fear swells. She can't go now. Not yet, not before he-)

But then she is back, and Naruto lowers his head and cries.

The battle sight is pockmarked with katon marks, craters from chidori, scarred likes Sakura's face. Itachi whispers his final words to Sasuke and falls down into the dirt just as Sasuke had always dreamed of. It's wrong. So very very wrong and Sasuke can't fathom it. Why? Why would his brother do this to him? Why would he-

For a moment Itachi's form shimmers into existence next to Sakura. Dark brown eyes blink softly at Sasuke. Sasuke forgets how to breath. No, is his first thought, not another one, I won't have another one. But Sakura turns to his brother and presses a kiss to Itachi's temple. An understanding passes between the two. Itachi can hear Sakura in a way that Sasuke cannot. In a way Sasuke sometimes wished he could.

Itachi waves once more to Sasuke, before fading away once again. He is gone this time, for good. And Sasuke doesn't know what to do, what to think. He's done it, he's finally done it. Fulfilled his purpose. Is-

Is this it?

Sakura wraps her tiny, tiny arms around him, and Sasuke forgets the world.

Naruto and Sasuke lie side by side, bleeding out quietly, staring up at the sky. It's pink and blue and yellow from the sunset, and Sasuke half wants to laugh at the irony.

Naruto coughs, and laughs because that's just what he does. "I want to go home, Sasuke." He says, and doesn't mean Konoha.

Sasuke nods. "I do to, Naruto." And he means it, with every fibre of his being.

Sakura takes their hands, the ones they have left, and presses a kiss to each of their foreheads.

"Let's go home." She says.

And she smiles.