Chapter 483 from Sasuke's point of view. I initially freaked out after reading it, but in retrospect it isn't so bad. Sasuke wanting to kill Sakura isn't a personal thing; she was out to get him first and he picked up on this. She was failing pretty epically in acting convincing *facepalms*. I also find it interesting that he lured her closer to him before attacking her, when he easily could have called her bluff at any point and flash-stepped to her and finished her off. Maybe a part of him wanted to believe what she was saying, even if he knew it wasn't true? xD Or that's just my wishful thinking! But he wanted to kill Kakashi too. Proof he's really lost it!

It sticks to the dialogue in the chapter for the most part. Hope you like!

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Seriously people!

Part II - Uchiha Sasuke

- Betrayed -

Stab me in the back,

I will return the guiltless gesture,

Speedily and without delay,

It's far too late to hesitate,

For remorse is nothing but a corpse,

That I have slain and cast away.

Plunge your dagger through my heart,

That's where the grief and pain started,

And though my mind has long departed,

I never thought I'd see the day,

When you'd stand before me,

To deceive, to betray.

"Sasuke-kun!"

The feminine voice carries across the expanse, shrill and alarmed. It reverberates through the air, permeating into him, snapping him violently out of his unseeing, unfeeling trance with all the courtesy of a rude awakening.

Muscles tense. Fingers clench instinctively. The stream of chakra energy in his hand spikes unsteadily for a moment before stabilising once again. He blinks, and slowly, stiffly, turns his head to the right.

A small cloaked figure stands in the distance on the other side of the crumbled bridge. He has to blink back the haze in his vision before he is able to distinguish the outline clearly. Really there is no need. That voice was unmistakable. He'd recognise it anywhere, anytime, any place. It was one of three voices he wished he could bury in eternal silence into the ground.

Perhaps, now, he would. Perhaps he would take the chance fate seemed to have bestowed so kindly upon him.

Onyx eyes perform a quick, perfunctory scan of the rocky terrain behind her, locking onto the forest from which she had materialised. She seemed to be alone. Yet he is cautious all the same, for her appearance is sudden and unexpected, and he wonders why she has come to him.

The scarlet-haired young woman at his feet is all but forgotten as Sasuke's attention shifts entirely to the new arrival.

"…Sakura?"

His voice rings out clear and steady despite his physical exhaustion. She is too far away for him to make out the expression on her face. Seconds drag by, in which she remains uncharacteristically silent. He has neither the time nor the patience to wait her out. When he speaks, his voice is laden with a disinterest that borders on derision.

"What purpose brings you here before me?"

It is not a question, but an instruction for her to reveal her intentions. This time her response is swift - almost too swift to his ears.

"Sasuke-kun…! I-I want to follow you! I'm leaving Konoha!"

The stream of chidori crackling in his hand ebbs softly out of existence. For a long moment, he is silent. While his mind slowly processes her words, she leaps the chasm between them with a confident ease and fluidity she had most certainly lacked in childhood. She lands on his side of the bridge and he can now see her in sharp resolution. Soft, pastel pink hair. Vivid green eyes. Haruno Sakura's distinctive colourings, much like her voice, are unmistakable to him.

He regards her intently as she stands to face him. He watches as her eyes slip briefly to the girl lying on the ground before rising to meet his probing gaze once again. He detects the underlying strain on her brow. She is nervous and he is immediately suspicious.

"Why would you want to join me?" he questions mistrustfully as she takes a hesitant step forward. "What are you trying to pull?"

She shakes her head. "I have no ulterior motive! It's just- ever since you left Konoha, I've regretted not going with you!"

Sasuke is silent once more. His face remains unreadable, a perfectly calm mask of indifference that betrays no signs of his underlying thoughts. He analyses her words and weighs them against her body language. They do not seem to add up, but perhaps, he reasons, she is afraid. He is stained with blood that is not only his own and a barely conscious kunoichi lies at his feet. They have not seen each other for a long time. Sasuke cannot remember exactly how long it had been. He does not want to remember their previous encounter. It had been a charade, in more ways than one.

"I'll do whatever you want," Sakura offers in a more level tone of voice. "I don't want to have anymore regrets."

Her words are more characteristic of the tearful girl he had left behind as a twelve year old, than the determined kunoichi who had charged at him with her fist drawn back at Orochimaru's lair. What was her intention? There were two possibilities; he could not believe and completely shunned the first. In order to verify the second, he needed to weigh her reactions further. A plan springs to life in his mind, one he is certain will provide him with the confirmation he seeks.

"Do you realise what you are offering…?" he questions, voice mocking, utterly condescending.

Sakura nods. The motion is stiff, tense, and so is her response. "Yes."

"Do you even know," he begins again in a lower voice, "what I want to do?"

Sakura raises gloved hands imploringly, causing the opening in her cloak to part, revealing a glimpse of her clothing underneath.

"I don't care!" she exclaims, with the same reckless abandon she had possessed as a child. "Just tell me what you want, I'll follow any order you give me-"

He disregards her words, stifles them with his own. "To crush Konoha! That is my goal…"

Although she does her utmost to smother the evident shock from registering on her face, Sasuke has seen and noted it before she can do so. Her eyes had always been irritatingly expressive. Now that fact was working to his advantage. She had reacted in the precise manner he'd anticipated. He waits a moment, to see if she will ask for explanations. But she does not. She remains silent.

"Are you really willing to betray The Leaf for me?" he prods.

Her eyes suddenly seem determined to avoid his and he has to resist the urge to sneer outwardly at her. He has to make her think that he believes her, until he is able to decipher what she is truly after.

After a pause, she slowly replies, "Yes. If that's what you want me to do…"

But still her eyes refuse to meet his.

He allows a deliberate slip of emotion to register on his own face, a look of dubious scepticism.

"Hmph," he utters begrudgingly, thoroughly unconvinced. "Then prove it." He places a hand haughtily to his hip and points with the other at the floored Karin.

"Kill her and I'll accept your offer."

Sakura's eyes fly back to his. This time she doesn't even attempt to mask her surprise. Sasuke watches her closely, intently. A small bead of sweat trickles down the side of her face. He can see that she is openly anxious and uncomfortable with the test she must pass in order to convince him.

Sasuke's inkling is getting stronger with every second that passes.

She swallows, gaze locking onto the dying young woman. After a long moment, she slips a kunai out from under her cloak. He easily detects the fine trembling of her hand as it tries so desperately to hold the staple ninja weapon steady.

Sakura nervously wets her lips. "Who is she?" she questions.

"A member of my 'Hawk' team," Sasuke replies nonchalantly. "As you can see, she's useless to me now." He looks Sakura over again, from head to feet, and back up again, and adds casually, "Actually, you're medically trained, aren't you, Sakura?" He fights off the urge to smirk smugly at the look of astonishment that crosses her face. Had she believed that their years apart had meant that he wouldn't be aware of her progression, of Naruto's, or anybody else's in the village? Orochimaru and Kabuto had filled him in quite extensively, despite his feigned disinterest. "You'll be the perfect replacement for her," he adds pointedly.

A shadow seems to fall over her visage at that. Her mouth tilts down, as if his words have wounded her somehow. He cares very little. He does not care at all. The girl who stands before him- no, he acknowledges, she is a young woman now- is a stranger to him. He can recall nothing of what vague, semblance of meaning she had once held in relation to his existence. That part of his mind had been locked away when he had left Konoha, had been erased entirely the moment he had learned the truth about Itachi. Sakura, he knows, is just as much the enemy as the elders in the village who had orchestrated the exile and downfall of his beloved brother. She was poison beneath a sugar-coated exterior. She could not be trusted.

Still, he is rather enjoying her evident discomfort. He feels like a predator enticing hapless prey into his clutches. She would come to him. She always did. Now she only needed to move a little closer. He wants to see where this will lead, and so he plays her game. Except it is no longer hers; it has become entirely his, and he is the one being entertained.

She steps forward, movements rigid, hesitant. Sasuke's eyes remain locked onto her face, and he stares openly, intently, as if he cannot look away from her porcelain, doll-like features, as if he is entranced. Perhaps he is, perhaps he is captivated by the deception she so foolishly thinks she can weave upon him. A surge of anger swells within him. Had they sent her? Was this the best Konoha could do? Sending him an unwanted face from his past, thinking he would fall for it?

He would show them. He would show them all. And she will be the first.

A gentle breeze blows at her back, and he inhales the sweet, subtle fragrance of strawberries. He vaguely registers that he is hungry, famished in fact, after exerting so much chakra and energy in disposing of Danzou.

Come closer, Sakura, he mentally wills her, and it is as though his silent command winds strings around her limbs, renders her a little puppet, drawing her forward at his wish. Drawing her forward to her fate.

She is outwardly trembling now as she passes him.

"Well?" he questions "Can't you handle this, Sakura?" Her fear is so palpable he can almost taste it. His head turns to follow her, as she inadvertently confirms all his suspicions without speaking a word. He already knows the answer. She was not planning on doing his bidding. She had never had any intention of assisting him in the first place.

One corner of his lips curves down, without him being aware of it, without him stopping to consider exactly why. His eyes lower for a fraction of a second as she turns her back so foolishly, so trustingly, to him. There is no mistake. He knows precisely why she is here. He had known it all along, had merely chosen to play along. She had always been hopeless at hiding her emotions, from him most of all. He slips silently behind her, as noiselessly as a shadow, watches the way the air stirs strands of her silky hair atop her head.

All at once he is engulfed in a sense of familiarity, of smothering déjà vu, of standing so close to her once before, long ago, and though it is fleeting, it is almost, almost, enough to unsettle him. But he clenches his jaw, grits it firmly, knowing there is no room for forgiveness, no time for recollection, no place for remorse within him; she had chosen this fate, had chosen to find him, had chosen to mislead with the dishonest intention of stabbing him in the back. He is merely returning the gesture in kind, and he knows; he knows that this is for the best, stopping her before she can even attempt the deed, stopping her from ever attempting such an act of treachery again. Sasuke does not quite comprehend why a small, negligent part of him feels as though he has been wronged in some way, for they are ninja, they are enemies fighting on polar ends of a bloody spectrum. He does not listen to the plaintive whisper breezing briefly through his mind a split second before it is replaced by a deafening, insistent echo.

Finish her, finish her, finish her, …

And he complies, is already in motion, eyes glazed, breath hitched; he has already drawn his arm back, and the screeching of electricity is all he can hear and the pounding of his heart is all he can feel and her wide, startled, distraught eyes- so green, so bright- are all he can see as she whips around to face him, too late, far too late to gasp or scream, far too late to fend off his lunging strike. Time seems to stand still, then, as his hand closes in on her, set to impale, to tear her pretty little head cleanly off. He hadn't wanted to see her face again, but it couldn't be helped now; she was finished, no more than a memory to him.

A sudden blur of movement and the feel of a vice-like grip clamping over his chidori charged wrist sets him grossly off course, very nearly sends him toppling over to his right. He regains his footing at the last second and his eyes widen further as he looks up into the face of his assailant, barely conscious of the pressure his teeth had been exerting into his lower lip when he'd first driven forward with killing intent. His gaze meets with a lone eye that, beneath its lazy exterior, houses tiredness, regret and disappointment. Sasuke can see it so clearly, so tangibly, yet he feels nothing. He is numb.

"You've fallen so low, Sasuke."

Author's Note

I know it's an abrupt finish, but my focus was on the Sasuke and Sakura interaction. Anyway, this is just a filler-piece to give you all something to read, since I haven't updated anything in a long while. Please leave a review if you read this! Quite a lot of people have read chapter 1 and not commented on it, which makes me sad! Remember, your feedback is gold, everyone! : D