There Goes My Heart

Her onyx-eyed demon flashes by her as if she is nothing but empty dust and air. She may be standing here, on the same battlefield as he and Naruto, but she will never be like them. Naruto is always the one who matters – it is always Naruto, never her. Naruto is the one he wants to kill. "Notice," breathes Sakura, as Sasuke switches position to gain more ground, "notice me. I'm here. I'm here." But her words are lost on him. She never mattered.

In the book of life, she is always a character who will make people think, Get out of the spotlight already. We don't care about you; let us get back to the story. The story, of course, is the blonde fox and the onyx-eyed mystery. They are the story; she is the scene the audience will prefer to skip.

The readers will notice her page-filling, amounting-to-nothing, never-really-mattered-but-it's-there-anyway shell of an existence, and they will pity her. They will think how sad it is that a character is wasted like that, how sad it is that the pages are filled with her worthlessness.

She knows this in her heart of hearts; she is a thing of earth and breath, a thing of paper and pen, a contrived creation, interpreted and misinterpreted as others see fit. Anyone else can misinterpret her all he wants, and she won't feel anything. Anything.

But not him, not the onyx-eyed angel she sees in him, not the cold demon he has become. Never him. When he looks at her, sees her as empty air, as a nothing in a bubble gum shell -- that is when she believes it's true. That is when she makes it a reality.

So she does nothing as the battle ensues about her, stands there and gulps and feels her palms grow clammy with cold sweat. Stands there like a mannequin, and looks ugly. (She knows she is ugly because if she was pretty she would have been good enough to save the angel, save him from the demon inside him. She wasn't good enough. She will never be good enough.)

Sometimes she wishes he would pop the bubble gum bubble, pop her and end her for good. Like how he popped his brother.

(Pop goes the weasel, pop goes the weasel, yet no one cares to pop the gum bubble…)

Then her resolve comes back, rushing all at once so that it almost blinds her. If no one will pop her, she will blow up in their faces. Hot air rushes within her, expanding her being, expanding her need to be noticed.

How can no one notice, how can no one notice someone with that hair? How can no one notice someone with that forehead? How, how?

Hot air, hot air, rushing in and up and outwards. Her heart swells, and she feels the chakra flowing, surging, bursting. To me! To me! cries her right hand, wild with excitement. The chakra rallies to it, pulsing and roaring.

And she throws herself towards her onyx-eyed light, her onyx-eyed darkness, silent, her heart thump-thump-thumping with the thrill of the chase. He sees her coming, and the slight raise of an eyebrow is evident on his face, for half a second. Then it is gone, and there is only a detached analysis in his eyes, an analysis of the coming attack, and how he is to dispose of it.

Don't analyze that. Analyze me, Sakura's eyes beg, the hot furor drifting sluggishly from her veins. Her legs slow, but she keeps the chakra ablaze in her hand. She doesn't want to reach him. She doesn't want to fight him.

She wants him to see her.

"Sakura," he says, slurring the word purposefully, just as she is about to reach him, "you don't want to do this."

I don't, she thinks. She keeps going anyways. Her fist sweeps for his neck, his perfect neck, and he lets her graze the skin before he throws the attack back in her face, sending her sailing.

Naruto catches her and she murmurs her thanks.

Her eyes fix on the drop of blood trickling down Sasuke's neck, contrasting vividly with the milk white of his skin. She wonders if he gets some kind of twisted pleasure from letting her taste victory and then ripping it from her fingers. If he does, he doesn't show it; his eyes are unchanged.

"Sakura-chan, be careful," says Naruto, hoping he isn't offending her.

"Hai," she says dully, sad for this blue-eyed boy, this hope-clutching still-persevering never-breaking fool. Sad because of the burden she placed on him, the burden he never attempted to shake off, the burden he determinedly bore. The promise of a lifetime. "Naruto… that goes for you too."

A smile. Then he is gone, his fists raised again, raised against the one who was once considered their friend, the one who still is considered their friend, the one who is the cause for their tears in the middle of the night when they are the only ones left awake.

She watches, and wonders whether all their efforts are in vain. If everything has been predetermined, as a certain Hyuuga once stated, then will anything they are doing make any difference at all? It will, she decides, it will.

She chooses to hope, because without hope, they are fools. They are fools, ignoramuses, idiots, doddering un-yielding unbelievably stupid fools.

With hope, they are still that, but they are fools with power. They are fools, but they can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and oh, it is so briiiight. They have a purpose and they know what it is, they have a goal and a means to achieve it. They are fools and they are blessed, they are fools and they know their foolishness is something they would stake everything on.

She watches her onyx-eyed riddle and her golden-haired hope, and she watches the sun shining on them and she watches her dreams riding on the choices of two very important people, and she watches herself standing there, as if she is seeing things from outside of her body.

"I am a fool," she says to herself, and she smiles with the hope of her foolishness.

But then she falters between her foolishness and some other state of mind, because Naruto trips over a flap of sandal that has torn off, and Sasuke's blade veers a little closer to Naruto's heart than he intended it to be and for the first time in a long, long time, she sees surprise in her demon's eyes.

Naruto's eyes do not change: they are still foolish, still bright, still shining of promises and hope that cannot be broken even when its vessel is.

But Sakura thinks, in that fraction of a fraction of a second, that his hope is not enough. His hope will never be Hokage, his hope will never wed the Hyuuga heiress, his hope will never fulfill any of his dreams if he is gone. There may be a chance that he will survive, that it will miss a fatal spot, but she cannot risk it, and so she launches herself in front of the blade and takes it into her own heart instead.

She was never the story; she was always the scene the audience would prefer to skip. She thinks it will be nice if they miss her, just a little bit, and she wants them to know she is happy they will still have their Naruto, still have their story.

"Sakura-chan… I told you to be careful," Naruto chokes behind her, and she knows he is crying but that there is nothing she can do for him.

"You're a fool, Sakura," Sasuke whispers, his voice grating and somehow off-balance, "a fool," and she knows he notices her. "You're so annoying…" And his voice somehow crumples up on itself, shaky and non-detached, shaky and non-Sasuke-like.

My onyx-eyed Angel, my Demon, my Light, my Darkness, my Mystery, my Riddle, are you crying?

"Say hnn for me, Sasuke," she whispers as the world fades.

"Hnn…" And for a moment, he is her angel, an angel and nothing but an angel, and her heart feels light.

Sometimes there isn't a happy ending. Sometimes the ending rips her heart out. And there is wailing worse than the ripping of a thousand pages. But she isn't writing the book; there's nothing she can do.

"I am a fool," she says, with no sadness in her voice, and she dies.

Author Notes: This is a fanfic. Standard disclaimer applies: Naruto does not belong to me, all characters belong to Masashi Kishimoto, I am but a lowly fan, etc, etc, etc... Oh, and this is rated T because of Sakura dying. Usually my stories are K+, so having a T-rated fic is a first for me.