Hello readers, and welcome new people who joined with the last update. I'm long overdue in owing you guys a chapter, aren't I? I apologize for how long this took. I've run into complications with my plot (not to mention school), and hope I don't screw myself up with future chapters by not catching or remembering something I wanted in this one. If I do however I guess I can always "edit" this one and give you guys a note in a future chapter, no?

Also, for those who don't know, since it's used later in this chapter, Aniki is a Japanese honorific for older brother.

Anyway, enjoy!

… enjoy sounds so wrong for this chapter.

"I see I seem to be confusing you, and to spare you I'll get to the point. I know you let the Hachibi get away, and I know you didn't even attempt to stop him."

Sakura could literally feel her heart stop and her blood run cold. How? She was fairly certain her eyes had gone wide and her skin white as a sheet, confirming his claim.

"I must say, beating yourself up to the extent that you did showed some amazing self control. I like that, Sakura, which is why I'm going to let you make it up to me..." He stood.

"You have a choice in your punishment, kunoichi. You get to pick who I kill; your teacher, or your mother…" Sakura clenched her hands to her sides to keep herself from reacting. She could feel her nails rip into her skin as she didn't replace her gloves before entering "Or…."

Sakura didn't even see him move, but in the next second there was a metallic clang as a kunai fell at her feet.

"You can go with the third option." She swore she could hear a smile in his voice. "You can give me one of your fingers."

The Killing Moon

Chapter 11: Precious Things

.花の陰此世をさみす人も有

hana no kage kono yo wo samisu hito mo ari

"A… finger?" Sakura repeated back, hoping she had heard wrong. As she asked she subconsciously clutched at her hand.

"Yes, you heard me correctly." Madara answered. "The life of either your mother, or your master, or one of your delicate little medic fingers. I would think the choice would be an easy one, but then again you wouldn't be the first member of Akatsuki to choose themselves over their mother…"

"You… want me to cut off one of my fingers?" A heavy feeling was building at the pit of her stomach, and she found herself nervously swallowing; a wave of cottonmouth had hit.

He chuckled back through the darkness. "How else am I supposed to have it?"

Sakura set her jaw firm as she looked down at the kunai resting harmlessly on the stone floor. Like Madara said- the choice was simple – cut off a digit, or it'd be the end of life for one of her loved ones. Really, she didn't even have to think about her options; Haruno Sakura was going to lose a finger.

She knew what she had to do, but her mind was reeling with questions; What finger would she cut off? A pinky or ring-finger off her left hand would perhaps be the least missed.

Could she do the cut in one clean swipe? Kunai weren't usually sharp enough for cutting smoothly through something like bone. Did that mean she would jaggedly, painfully hack at it? Was the kunai even sharp? She wouldn't put it past Madara for playing some sort of demented joke on her by giving her such a order with a dull blade.

In her medic mindset it made more sense to her to go for a joint on her knuckle instead of straight through the bone of her finger. A joint meant easier, sinewy tissue – easier to cut, possibly less pain if she could be swift and clean about the cut.

Sakura wondered vaguely how much blood there would be. It wouldn't be touching anywhere near an artery, but still - she was about to remove a small appendage. She had preformed amputations to patients previously but never had she thought that one day she would be forced to do one to herself.

As the rush of thoughts slowed to acceptance Sakura reached down for the kunai, willing her arm to stay steady as she lifted the weapon. Usually a kunai was comfortable in her hand, as it should be with any ninja – she had been training with one since her first day at the academy.

A good ninja should treat a kunai like an extension of their body. A good ninja…

A brief memory of Naruto suddenly crossed her mind of when they were Genin on their first mission. He thought himself poisoned, and ever the one to jump to action before thinking- stabbed himself in the hand to bleed the poison out. If she recalled correctly she had called him a masochist for the act.

A brief smirk pulled at her lips- The very memory of Naruto helped bring calm to her panicked thoughts. If Naruto at age twelve could pull off something similar to this, why the hell couldn't she now? The smile grew at realizing that though Naruto was far from her here he was still giving her strength.

You can do this!

Sakura took a deep steady breath before slowly lifting the knife. Holding her breath in she set her tongue back in her mouth to make sure she didn't bite down on it when the pain hit her, and with that she thrusted her arm down.

With a quick downward motion fueled with a force of chakra she managed to slice off the digit with clean stab downward through the knuckle. A sickening pop could be heard through the room, but it went unnoticed by Sakura as the sudden wave of pain made her light-headed. Still, she forced herself to ignore the pain, pushing it back away in her mind along with the woozy lightheaded feeling the blood loss was causing. She could worry about them later; she refused to faint in front of Madara whom all her instincts were screaming was watching her ever move. Ever so carefully she bent forward and picked up her finger that was resting on an ever-growing puddle of blood.

It was odd holding it. She began to wonder if it was the loss of blood that made her feel so disconnected or if it was shock, because it hadn't seem to register yet that she was missing a finger. What now sat in her palm had been with her, a part of her since before she was born, and now it was separate. That was when she noticed the steady stream of blood being emitted from the wound, and her eyes started, mesmerized at the drops that looked black in the dim lighting of the cave. They dripped down, onto the stones like dark, thick rain drops, before splattering out in an oddly beautiful pattern.

"Bravo, Haruno-san. Your Shishou would be proud."

The interruption helped Sakura gain control of her thoughts again with a slight shake of her head. Clenching onto the warm, slick finger she lifted her eyes to him and presented with a now bloody hand the offering. She had to bite the inside of her cheek as she became aware of the pain again.

Madara was still where she had left him, reclining in his chair, calmly watching her as he rested on a hand. "I must admit I'm impressed. I was at the very least expecting you to cry."

"Are you going to take it or not?" Sakura practically growled. The pain was beginning to get to her, and added with the blood loss she was starting to wonder if she was only standing at that moment due to sheer willpower.

"Now what would I do with a finger?" He replied back with an air of sick innocence.

Sakura's eyebrows bolted up before immediately crashing down into a glare. She had just opened her mouth, now no longer caring what he thought of her and about to let him know in colorful words when he cut her off-

"Go ahead and re-attach it." He lazily flicked a hand through the air at her. "Just remember Haruno-san, next time I may not let you have your finger back, or I may not give you the option at all."

Sakura clutched her now cooling finger to her chest as his words sunk it. She didn't know whether to be elated or furious, but either way she didn't trust herself to speak.

"You're dismissed. And tell one of the lowers to get in here and clean up this mess. You've bleed all over my floor."

Sasuke's face didn't twitch from its stone setting as he slowly pulled the sword out of the target's body. The movement sent a sickening wet splurch through the room, but no one else was there to hear it.

Sasuke took a silent, calm breath before cleaning his blade by a single flick of the wrist that sent streak of blood splatter against the shouji walls.

As he watched the blood slowly began to drip down the rice paper he thought back to the body now cooling before him. He understood the consequences of his actions, and had come to believe he accepted them. He had willingly taken the life of someone who for all he knew was an innocent.

It was a step that until now he had yet to take. That was the only reason he accepted the assassination mission.

Karin's death had disturbed his inner thoughts for some days now, but such annoying tangents were easily quelled when he brought to mind who she was; A shinobi who willingly joined his team, accepted the risks, and knew from the beginning that death was a possibility. She was also a loyal subject to Orochimaru, and someone he knew to have not previously hesitated to taking the lives of innocents, or for that matter torturing them. Karin cared for no one other than herself. Her obsession with him was based on nothing more than her attraction to power. She had been far from innocent.

When it came down to it the want of power was about the only thing they had in common. For Karin, he was that path. For him however, the taking of this life was the next step in that pursuit.

Sasuke coldly stared down at the body that lay on the white futon that was quickly growing red from the blood seeping into it. The bloody trinkle was It was now moving on, dripping down onto the shiny hard-wood floors forming the beginnings of puddle at his feet. Sasuke took a small step back to avoid contact with it.

His eyes narrowed as he watched it, his mind a busy mess as his body stood still.

Sasuke had thought that the act of taking this man's life would change something in him, would make things easier. He had actually looked forward to killing off what little voice may have remained inside, the conscience that up to that point had held his blade back from taking a life. He had hoped that the action would finally rid him of all emotion and in turn, finally turn him into the avenger the holocaust of his clan demanded.

Instead of a weight lifted off his shoulders, he felt confusion as he continued to study the blood on the floor. It was spreading.

He felt no different, but he also had yet to feel regret for taking the man's life. Was he now apathetic to the death of an innocent by his own hand? Did this feeling mean he had succeeded? That he would no longer be held back by such feeling as empathy, or guilt?

His furrowed brow shot up as his concentration was broken as a sound from the corner of the room attracted his attention. He spun around to watch as a small figure walked in through the doorway; the figure froze rigid at the sight of the body on the floor, and of course Sasuke.

"Fa… Father?" The small voice called out, stepping into the light. The moonlight through the doors illuminated their white sleeping robe, and Sasuke's hand clenched his sword at seeing he was once again encountering a child.

"Father!" The child cried out again, falling to the floor at the body, seemingly oblivious to the blood they were now sitting in as they shook at their father's shoulder.

Blood now soaked into the child's robe and stained their hands. "Father… please!" He cried, as Sasuke now was sure it was a little boy. He couldn't pull away for some reason as he watched the child begin crying, dark hair covering his eyes.

"What have you done, Aniki?" The child suddenly yelled at him, staring at him with wide, frightened tear-filled eyes, and Sasuke went rigid to see he was starting back at the blood smeared face of his younger self.

Sasuke staggered back as the child continued to cry out. "Father!" The boy leaned into his dead father now, his whole body shaking in sobs. Sasuke had stepped forward, his hand instantly reaching out, but he stopped suddenly as he noticed his whole forearm was drenched in blood, dripping long heavy drops to the floor.

"They're dead! They're all dead!" The boy continued to cry.

Sasuke was frozen as the blood at his feet seemed to increase with the flood of memories that were now hitting him.

"Aniki!"

Sasuke spun around to the doorway, just in time to watch as his brother's ANBU tanto was tugged away from the body of his father who was draped over his mother protectively. In a flash of shadows, his brother was gone. Blood was steadily streaming from the bodies, quickly filling up the floor and spreading rapidly across the walls and up to the ceiling. Everything was turning dark red.

"Hate…" Sasuke spun around to come face to face with his brother who stared down at him, bloody and ragged, and looking on the verge of collapse like he last saw him during their final fight. His brother now smiled down at him with a thin trail of blood trickling from the edge of his mouth signaling internal bleeding.

"Hate…" His brother repeated in the low mono-tone that still to that day haunted his dreams. "You're still too weak." Itachi smiled a crimson smile as he slowly lifted a single bloody index finger towards Sasuke. "You don't have enough hate."

As Itachi's finger made contact with his forehead, Sasuke's whole body burned before the world turned opaque crimson. In the distance, somewhere in the back of his mind he thought he heard screaming. If Sasuke was a bit more lucid it may have occurred to him he was the one screaming.

Sakura tenderly rubbed the ring-like scar that circled the joint of her left pinky. She was sitting outside, above the cave entrance overlooking the valley, attempting to relax under the light of a full moon and rid herself of the day's memories. However the silence only caused her mind to return to the newly pink skin of the scar that seemed to glow in the moonlight.

If Sakura truly wished, she could have reattached the finger, scar-free, but deep down she felt that it was a fitting punishment, a sign that she was no longer untarnished.

Yes, she had scars, such as the large one left on her abdomen from the fight with Sasori, but that was a battle wound she could be proud of. This? This was what happened when she let herself be manipulated by others, when she let her values as a shinobi be trampled on. This would be a permanent reminder of the sins she committed while in Akatsuki.

You can't help your friends dead, now can you?

Sakura really wished she could just run away, and never look back. Run away from those caves, Madara, the orders, threats, and…

"Sasuke…"

With a heavy sigh she lifted her head and stared at the moon, resting heavy and full above her, and tinted red. Some would say it was a bad omen.

Had it really only been a month since her life started to unravel. Since she faced him, thinking she could kill him in that clearing? Since Naruto had gone missing, and her being exiled…

She couldn't remember if the moon looked red then.

Two months ago she would have practically given anything to be near Sasuke. Now, she wanted to be as far away as possible. It hurt so much to be near him. He was so void of emotions, he felt almost inhuman to her. The only thing outside of his cold, stern appearance on his face was that anger, seemingly caused by her. Where had the boy she had fawned over gone? The one who Naruto could have go through at least three different reactions in under a minute? The confidence that hid playfulness? The pride, determination, the smirks, the annoying ego?

He was missing it all. Sure, the change could be attributed to him just growing up, but the way he was now, it all just felt empty to her. Empty and absolutely wrong.

It very likely was this place, Akatsuki, and Madara that changed him, and she feared it would soon be changing her. She tried her hardest to remain true to herself, but it seemed like Madara was doing everything in his power to have her go against her morals.

But what bothered her most of all at the moment was how did Madara know? How could he know she let Killer Bee go? As far as she knew, it was just her and Killer Bee at the time. Kisame was too far away to witness it, and as good of a killer Kisame was, she didn't think him capable of figuring out exactly how she got hurt. She wanted to know where Madara had gotten his intel so she could keep future occurrences from him.

The sound of crickets were beginning to lull her mind as she stared back at the moon.

She was beginning to find that if she just forced herself to stop thinking there under the twinkling of th stars she could almost forget. She could almost forget that she was now a slave to Akatsuki, that she no longer had a home, and that everyone she cared for was lost to her.

A rustling sound nearby brought Sakura out to look down the ledge into the valley below, in time to spot a figure stepping out from the shadows of the trees. Telltale spikes let her know who it was, and her heart grew heavy as she watched him walk out. Why did it hurt so much to see him now? She never wished so much in her life to going back to her childhood again, because if she he too would be one, and then she'd see warmth within him; life.

Her breath caught in her throat as he moved further into the light, revealing that he was covered in blood. She didn't even think before her body was jumping down the ledge, approaching him. She was worried that he was hurt.

She stood still as he continued his odd slow pace to the cave entrance. He looked to be dragging his feet, but she couldn't tell if it was due to exhaustion or injury. His eyes looked dead, and when she stepped in front of him he didn't even show signs of seeing her, he seemed to look right through her as if in a daze.

"Sasuke…?" She cautiously asked, unsure of the state he was in. He made no acknowledgement that he heard her, however he did stop suddenly, and began to look up at the moon.

She reached out for his hand, and gently held it only to find it clammy, and cold. She bit her lip in worry as she began to recognize other signs of shock.

"Come on Sasuke, let me look you over in the clinic to make sure you're ok." She gently tugged at his hand, cautious of his reaction. Thankfully he put up no struggle as she led him back into the caves and eventually to the clinic. Once there she quickly shut the door and left him standing in the middle of the room, looking just as lost as she had found him as she dug through the drawers for a penlight.

Finding the object of her search, she turned and studied him one more time. It was disturbing to see so much blood on him that contrasted sharply with his otherwise white shirt. From her angle the Uchiha crest on his back was smothered in blood. The blood however wasn't what worried her the most, she was fairly certain it wasn't hism; what worried her was his expression. The last time she had seen that look on his face was when he was in the hospital after the fight with Garaa. He looked tired, almost relaxed even, but his eyes were so distant. Sakura knew from experience those eyes could easily be hiding turbulent emotions.

She knew Sasuke had the unhealthy habit of holding in his emotions. When she picked up a book on psychology in her first year of training under Tsunade the experience had been like someone handed her a book labeled "Why Sasuke Acts Like He Does". The same could be said for just about anyone she encountered after, but for Sasuke, someone whose behavior had always confused her, it was enlightening. His sudden bursts of fury around her and Naruto before he left Konoha had been the result of repressing his emotions, letting them build up, never addressing his problems head on. At first she only wanted to blame the seal Orochimaru placed on him, but over the years she became less certain.

Sasuke in such a state could mean he had no control over those emotions he repressed.

As she approached him with the flashlight, her eyes drifted to the seal and noticed for the first time with wide eyes it was gone. Not a mark was left on the trapezius. How long has it been gone?

Her stomach fell suddenly with further proof that she couldn't blame Sasuke's behavior solely on the bite.

As she led him to the hospital bed to sit down he still hadn't reacted her to presence. He just sat when she pushed him gently to the cot. With a heavy breath she lifted the penlight and shone it directly into his eyes, half hoping for a reaction, but half fearing what that reaction may be.

His pupils were dilated, yet another sign of shock. And still with a light shining directly into his eyes there was no reaction.

Sakura worried at her lip as she pulled the flashlight away. Whatever Sasuke had gone through it very well appeared to be something traumatic in order to put him of all people into such a state of shock.

She set the pen aside on the stand, all while keeping her focus on Sasuke.

It wasn't fair.

It really wasn't fair. Of all the people, why did Sasuke have to continue to be thrown in such horrible situations? A person could only go through so much before they completely snapped. Sasuke had never done anything to deserve any of this. He had only been a small, innocent little boy when he witnessed the massacre of his whole clan, and then to go through hating his only living family and being so alone in the village... It pained her to imagine how lonely and hurt he must have been then, and with no one to watch over him or care for him.

It must have been subconscious what she did next; She had in the past wanted to touch him, but had never dared to be so bold, but there was her hand, lightly touching his cheek, slowly progressing to gently cupping it.

"Sasuke-kun…" She called gently.

Her heart skipped a beat at noticing a reaction in his pupils. "Sasuke…" She called again.

His eyes suddenly clamped shut, furrowing his brow as and she was roughly shoved away.

As she regained her balance she found Sasuke standing once more, glaring down at her.

"What are you doing?" The tone of his voice was tense.

"H.. Helping you." Sakura struggled to find her voice, but she refused to be cowed as his shargingan glared back at her. She glared back up at him, finding her ground. "You're covered in blood and I can't even tell if you're injured. I'm only doing my job."

"I don't need your help." He spat back, turning around and looking as if he made ready to leave the room.

"Sasuke- wait!" She reached out to him, grabbing an arm. That was the wrong move for her to make as she suddenly found her back hitting the wall, knocking the breath right out of her, causing her to wince in pain. She found herself pinned to the wall and was about to protest until her eyes met his. That was when all she could see and think was the color red.

.花の陰此世をさみす人も有

hana no kage kono yo wo samisu hito mo ari

in cherry blossom shade

there are even those

who hate this world

A/N:

I am so sorry about this cliff hanger. Really I am and won't say anything more on it. I hoped you all found the chapter entertaining enough, especially for you few non-Sasuke/Sakura fans I seem to have somehow attained. Hope I can keep it up.

I've decided I'm going to try and make the realistic goal of one chapter a month with this story. If I find myself ahead of schedule with what's written you may get a bonus chapter in a month, but other than that, don't count on more than one chapter for now. I am so looking forward to the free time I'll have with Winter Break.