The Age Beyond Ecstasy's Pages

Sakura was hit with a wave of nostalgia as the scents rushed out of the old cardboard box. She paused, fingers limp over the edge before she remembered what she was supposed to be doing. There wasn't enough time to be idle. She wasn't a young girl anymore. She wasn't a kid in high-school dealing with her first onslaught of hormones. That had been ages ago.

"I'll be taking this box as well, Pops."

Sakura closed the box back up and heaved it out of the pile of things she was supposed to sort through. Her great uncle had too many things from too many distant relatives that took advantage of his kindness through the years. She wanted to believe that she wasn't one of them, but after her parents died leaving her in the last year of high school without a mom or dad, she had been too selfish to be kind.

"You found some of your things?"

The old man with sagging eyes and brilliant smile came over to where she was coming down out of the attack, reaching as if to help her. If Sakura let him she was sure he would fall apart.

"I've got it, Pop pop. I saw some of my things on the top, so I figured I could look through them when I was at home."

His smile seemed to sag. "You're not staying for dinner."

Once upon a time she had been a kid that didn't know how to be anything but hurt and selfish, but that had been ages ago.

Sakura set the box down by the door. "Who said anything about that? I was planning on cooking for you."

It wasn't until hours later, when the sun was down and the air was thin, that Sakura eventually set out. She had a few hours before she needed to be asleep in order to make it to the clinic on time. Her body was too finely tuned by this point to be disturbed.

Her apartment was far from the one she had first lived in alongside her deceased parents. Now, a mature woman with a well paying job and no great distractions, her apartment was one on the upper floors with wide windows reaching from floor to ceiling and sleek furniture that was never used.

On the phone was a blinking red light she pushed before moving into another room. It started to play a message from her fellow at the clinic, talking about something they would be doing later in the day and how Sakura wasn't necessary first thing in the morning. Sakura snorted at the message before deleting it.

'As if.'

Sakura was well established and had plenty of money, but there was always room for advancement and the other fellows were thirsty for any fault the 'robotic Sakura' might show to better their own image. Sakura didn't need to be in so early, but she had a reputation to keep up.

Sakura undid her shirt front and started toeing off her socks. Making a mess as she traveled Sakura completed most of her nightly rituals before sitting down in her sleepwear to go through her old things. There was one object in particular she remembered storing away alongside all her old manga that she was nervous about seeing again.

She grabbed Ecstasy, a cursed tome from her younger years, and slid it free, blowing dust off the cover. It had been sealed for years and the people summoned by it returned with a snap on the night Sakura learned of her parent's death. The emotional shock broke her connection to the boys and they became a memory she sometimes confused with a dream. The book sealed up and wouldn't open even when she tinkered with it, crying about how she still had things to say, things to confess.

Tsunade said she had never seen anything like it.

"You're still locked, you tricky bastard," Sakura mused, grinning sleepily at the gold clasp on the side. It looked older and thicker than she she held it there was no enough to it, and it felt cool to the touch.

Had all of that really happened? Had ninja come through her book and lived with her, ate with her, traveled with her, and flirted with her? Had she truly felt the first tickle of what she foolishly thought was love, but now knew to be her budding sexual attraction as a teenager?

Sakura half hoped it was all a dream because she had been a jerk and a…a…kid about the whole thing. She wished she could take it back, but she understood that she was just at a different point in her life and she wasn't as mature as she now was and it wasn't fair to hold that against her past self.

"But I was still such a dork."

Sakura tossed the book onto her table and went into the kitchen to make a light snack. As she moved from one room to the other the motions sensors started to tick, and a minute later, the empty living room's lights all went out to save on power.

She was bent over in the fridge when she heard it.

Her table split down the center with a shattering crack and new light burst forth along with a volcano's worth of smoke. It came as quick as a thought, and then the noise was over and all Sakura was left with was the smoke. The smoke alarms started to chirp and Sakura was quick to tear it off the wall before it auto called the fire department.

Sakura staggered in her kitchen, feeling light headed from all the smoke and needing air. It was hard to breath. She reached out, grabbing for something, anything, and found fabric to pull on. In reaction two warm hands cupped her face and Sakura saw the eyes of Itachi Uchiha as the smoke suddenly dissipated.

"Oh? You thought you could be rid of me that easily my dear?" he purred in a dangerous tone.

Ecstasy was not as dead as she had first assumed.

'Oh no.'

AN:/ And you thought this idea was dead. :D Blame the kids on tumblr for this.

The story is finished for now. Looking back there is way too much work to do to make this readable again (and I'm too tired to undertake the work at this time.) But I love this idea, I've loved this idea for years. I remember reading and seeing the pictures that inspired this piece out of Chris Van Allssburg's work: The Mysteries of Harris Burdick.
I would love to come back and try this again as an adult, as a grown up person. I would love to take the skills I've cultivated while working on pieces like White Rabbit, Peridot, RED KING, and the Obelisk series. Sakura would be older, and new problems would be from the college level and not the high school level. I don't know how to write teenagers anymore, haha. But that doesn't mean Ecstasy is no longer viable. The love I have for this story is still there. One day it might resurface in a new form, but for now this chapter is closed.

Thank you lovelies for all the support.