Manga Chapter: 415+

Character(s): Sakura, Sasuke

Pairing: (onesided) SasuSaku

Sakura is a kunoichi.

She knows that sometimes the nin around her seem to forget it, especially those who'd known her as a child. But there is the simple fact that she's passed her trials-just as they had-and now stands shoulder to shoulder with the rest. Her heart might have been lost ages ago to a loveless boy, but fact is fact and no one can rob her of the title.

They question her logic and her lingering care. But they cannot dissuade her when the time comes to face her greatest demon down. When the day arrives that she must see exactly what it is her love has become. She sees him across a gulf of stone and for a moment her heart ceases to beat. He is at once so much the same and so, so very different. It's as if the body of the boy she'd cared for had been supplanted with some primordial darkness.

She did not want to believe what burned behind his eyes.

But she would not stop now. She would not allow this to go further. Because she's staring down the worst thing she's ever had to learn as a kunoichi. The mud and the blood and the killing she could take. The entrails and the senseless violence and the never-ending parade of injured and dying...Some days she can even cope with the absence of her teammate, made real so long ago for the sake of power.

Because even as she'd arrived, she'd realized that she could accept his corruption as long as there was a hope that he could be saved.

And then she'd seen his eyes. It is then she knows. Sakura has found a sad reality: The loss of a teammate can be manifested in countless ways, cruel and kind. Sometimes they fall to a nin you can mark for revenge. Sometimes they settle into civilian life and slowly fade from your routine. But the most horrid of these possibilities is the one Sasuke has chosen. Because sometimes your comrades make the choice themselves.

They turn away and walk willingly from the light, into deep darkness. Sometimes they lose themselves to the very power they seek. They abandon all that you've been taught is good without a care. And it hurts to be the one to stand and watch.

It is a most morbid sort of sensation as she feels the love she had for him at once grow and shudder. She sees his ravaged expression and wants to weep for him. She wants to gather him to herself and cry until they're both purged of the pitch that's seeping into his soul. Some hysterical little part of her screams that she can save him if only-but-because and Sakura knows she cannot listen. She knows what she must do.

Because Sakura is a kunoichi.

I re-read a bit of the manga. I still love Sakura's character and Sasuke's still breaks my heart a little. Teh ANGST!

A lot of drabbles and the next chapter of CT are in the works, getting back into the swing of writing-for-pleasure is taking a while.

Thanks for reading :)