Title: The Gracious Poison

Author: AishiteSubete

Rating: T

Summary: My days are numbered, and I'm not sure how much longer I have left. I got what I wanted, but I don't believe it's worth it. Sequel to "Forbidden Fruit." SasuSaku.

A/N: Yes, this is the sequel to "Forbidden Fruit." However, I'm not posting it as an entirely different story, because it can't really stand on its own; too many elements from the original work play a part in this expansion, such as the idea of the deal and phrases used in the summary.

I finally conquered the knee-high boots Tsunade had given me as a present. The dreaded things with eight buckles each really defined my calves in such a sexy way that I didn't think I should call them "dreaded." But in reality, the buckles were just a pain to fasten. As cute as they were, maybe I'd wear them to parties or meetings or something-places that I didn't go often. Yes...that sounded like a plan. Today, though, was the day I broke them in.

Stepping out of the door of my first-floor apartment, I noticed that today was bright and sunny; now that my days literally have an unknown time limit, the sunshine and chirping birds meant a whole hell of a lot more to me. I took in a deep breath of Konohagakure air before making my way to the Hokage's office. It had been an entire week since Sasuke had kissed me outside of the city gates and promised to come back for my life as a repayment. It was a crazy deal-one that I had never agreed to, mind you-and it's kind of kept me on edge. Naruto, Hinata, and even Sai, who is terrible at emotion, noticed that I was kind of jittery and asked if I was alright. It left me thinking, "was it that noticeable?" Since then, I tried to keep my apparent worry under wraps.

The door for the Hokage's office was open when I arrived, letting me know that Tsunade would be alright with my walking in unannounced. She took a good look at me and said, "I'm glad you like the boots!" before motioning for Shizune to shut the door behind me. I took a seat in a comfy, pleather chair (some new additions Tsunade had put into her office recently), taking note of the two ANBU shinobi that sat beside me, unmasked; I knew them from the Academy when I was just a youngster. The girl beside me was Yumiko, and the boy beside her was Akane. Both were particularly intelligent, and it didn't come as a shock that they had blown through the ranks like they did.

Tsunade was seated behind the desk in front of us, her arms folded over her chest. "Yumiko, Akane, Sakura. The mission you are about to be sent on is urgent. It has been reported that Uchiha Sasuke was spotted last night, sometime between the hours of midnight and dawn. I've chosen Yumiko and Akane as the ANBU powerful enough to retrieve him, and Sakura as the medical ninja for this squad. I chose not to send Uzumaki Naruto or any of the other members of that Academy graduating class to retrieve him, for it is a very emotional mission that would compromise them." I felt like she was overlooking me; Tsunade had assigned me on this mission, yet I was in Sasuke's graduating class-damn it, I was on his genin squad-and she doesn't think this mission would emotionally compromise me? I'm already emotionally compromised from my prior meeting with him; I must be a better actress than I gave myself credit for. "The three of you are to depart immediately. Dismissed."

I chewed on my lip as I stood with Yumiko and Akane, moving out of our Hokage's office. My intuition was screaming at me, telling me that I should have told Tsunade about my meeting with Sasuke and our little deal (that I had never agreed to!) But as I followed the two ANBU to the artillery room, I realized that the time for me to warn her and possibly get additional people on this mission was through and over. Whatever the three of us encountered as we searched for Sasuke was something only the three of us could deal with.

Nobody else would be there to help us if the worst happened; the number limit on my days just got shorter.

The forest was dark; after that meeting with Sasuke, I didn't like darkness. I also didn't like being alone, and that's exactly how I was. While I was sitting around our campfire, counting the medical supplies that I had stored in a small backpack, Yumiko and Akane were out farther in the woods, searching for Sasuke. They had went farther than I had anticipated, or even wanted them to; their chakra signatures were awfully distant. I pushed the thought to the back of my mind, though, counting the number of syringes in the front zipper pocket of my backpack.

That was when the bushes in front of me rustled, and out walked Uchiha Sasuke, like a dark prince.

The hair on the back of my neck bristled and I stood, holding the syringes in my hand. He was looking at me with his coal eyes, sizing me up; I'm sure that he didn't see me as a threat in this position. "Have you come to take your part of the deal?" I snarled, narrowing my eyes dangerously at him. I was planning out my moves, my tricks and trump cards, in my head as I spoke the words. The syringes in my hand were empty, filled with air, and could be used as nothing more than simple stabbing weapons-however, the thick syringe that rested in my back shuriken pocket was filled with a unique medicine of my own blend-a sedative mixed with a low dose of pancuronium bromide. It was something he shouldn't know about-and I prayed to the gods that he did, for it might be the last chance I had.

"I have," the Uchiha spoke. His words filled the air around me like a dangerous poison, and I sank back into a fighting stance. "I gave you my heart, Haruno Sakura-a kiss, my affection, and the entirey of my thoughts for the last week. Now I want to see you die in return." He smirked like a demon, the very epitome of evil. My heart clenched when I remembered that I had actually loved that-him.

Sasuke charged.

I dodged the blade of his sword by a hair, instantaneously sending chakra to my feet and my knee joints so I could leap in the air, far above the head of the rogue shinobi. I threw a syringe down at him, watching as it was easily deflected by his sword. I sent the rest down-they weren't really useful to me, anyway, and were just taking up too much space sitting in my palms. When the itsy-bitsy head of one of the needles nicked the Uchiha's arm, leaving a neat tear in his glove, I realized that Sasuke was off his game tonight; my suspicion was confirmed when I reached out to his chakra and felt an anomaly there. It was shaky and weak, nervous even. I moved to dodge again when Sasuke jumped up at me, his hand a beautifully deadly lightning blade. I could feel the crackle and sizzle of chakra beside my ear, and I reached out to kick his well-toned stomach. With both of his hands occupied, he found it difficult to block my taijutsu. I watched gleefully as he was shot away from me like a cannon, landing painfully on the ground. Was that a crack I heard, of perhaps a rib or an arm, maybe even a vertebrae if I was so lucky? I smiled, landing on the ground effortlessly, supporting my weight on the balls of my feet and the joints of my toes. Before I could respond, Sasuke had jumped at me again, preparing to ram his chilled steel sword into my gut. I sidestepped it, allowing it to only slice into the delicate skin of my shoulder. I winced, waiting. If I let my guard down if only a little, it would allow me to get closer to him. I could already smell his scent-like apples and sin-in the air around me, and I knew I was close to him. But it wouldn't be enough until the smell consumed me, until my body was millimeters from his.

The next attack gave me the advantage. When my mouth watered with the scent of forbidden fruit, I reached my arm into my back shuriken pocket, taking out the syringe and ramming in harshly into the Uchiha's neck. Before he could respond to the assault, I had started to inject my special medicine into his bloodstream. When the two-hundred milliliters was ejected from the plastic syringe, I watched Sasuke's shocked face as he began to sink to the ground. Not only was he beginning to lose consciousness, thanks to the sedative, but he was also losing motor controls and sensation as the pancuronium bromide began to take its effect. "Sakura...why?"

I stepped over his body, looking down at the once-great shinobi with narrowed, cold eyes. I never knew that I could turn jade, the color of spring fields, into something so cold and hateful. "When I told you that I wanted your heart, your love wasn't what I entirely had in mind." His eyelids were starting to flutter; the sedatives were taking more control over him. "You lived a nice life, Sasuke. But I bet you're sorry that you be killed by me and not a more 'worthy' opponent." I used air quotes on the word "worthy," referring to how I knew that he would rather have died by the hands of Uzumaki Naruto-his childhood rival and now the one shinobi he considered a real threat to his freedom and his life. I threw those thoughts from my mind as I straddled his waist, pulling a kunai from my shuriken holster. The weight was beautiful in my hand and it was as though I was watching a work of art be created as I dug the weapon into Uchiha Sasuke's warm flesh, cutting out a beating and pumping organ, severing entirely from its veins and arteries, effectively killing him and ending the Uchiha clan forever.

Sasuke's heart was red and alive, not black and withered like I had once assumed.

Yumiko and Akane had found me holding Sasuke's heart, sitting on the groin of the rogue. They were astounded that they hadn't heard our fight, or hadn't sensed his chakra; I informed him that Sasuke was a master of disguising his chakra signature, and they hadn't heard anything because he and I weren't very verbal fighters. They listened to me, and they packed up camp for me, Akane packing up the tent while Yumiko extinguished the fire with a water jutsu she had thanks to her family's bloodline technique. As we made our way back to Konoha, Akane stood in the center, holding Uchiha Sasuke's body; Yumiko stood on the left, solemn and serious, holding the sword that Sasuke had once kept at his waist reverently, like it were to be presented as a trophy for Tsunade. I stood on Akane's right, holding the kunai I used to kill Sasuke in my left hand and the lump of dying tissue in my right. We walked directly through Konoha on its main street, with Sasuke's body and his carved-out heart. It reminded me of more primal, tribal times, when warriors would parade the corpses of their destroyed enemies' ruler through the city in a celebration. A grim smile came to my face at that thought, and no matter how hard I tried to will it away, it wouldn't dissipate; it was a smile that came from my soul. It remained on my face as we watched mothers turn the faces of their children away from the gruesome sight, and as Uzumaki Naruto had to be restrained by Inuzuka Kiba and Nara Shikamaru when he caught a glimpse of what we were carrying. "That's my friend!" he had shouted over the noise of the crowd. "You killed my best friend!" When he noticed me on Akane's right, his cerulean eyes went wide with shock and disgust at the kunai I was holding-more speficially at the heart that had stopped beating in my right hand. "You were his friend too..." I turned away from him. I couldn't face how right he was.

Tsunade honored both Yumiko and Akane well, but gave me the better recognition. I was promoted to the rank of ANBU, was given much money for my efforts, and she made my morphine/pancuronium bromide mix a necessity for each ANBU and Jonin who worked in the field; I was almost afraid that she was going to buy me another pair of boots that were hellishly difficult to put on, but she didn't (thank God.) Each time I stepped out of my house, I was bombarded with questions about how I killed Uchiha Sasuke, and praises such as "you're one of the most powerful shinobi ever!" and "you're going to be the next Hokage!" Yeah, right. I told them every time that the only reason I killed him was because I was fortunate enough to have had my special sedative/paralytic mix close to my hand. I was so grateful for that medicine, and nobody would understand how much. But even after I told them that, they insisted that it was because my jutsu skill was unlike anything in existence; I didn't bother trying to explain that I didn't use a single jutsu in the fight, because they wouldn't have listened. I wondered how I was going to go back to work as the head of the hospital now.

One evening, when coming home from a quick dinner at Ichiraku's, I was greeted by Naruto in front of the door to my apartment. His face was set in hard lines, as if he was about to chew me out. I sighed heavily, approaching him. "Evening."

"How could you do it?" he shouted, and I saw the tears that were prickling at the corners of his azure eyes. The future Hokage was more than a little hurt by the death of the Uchiha; he was devastated. "How could you kill him? He was your friend, too!"

I set on a hard, unyielding mask-the one that made my eyes reflect a spring storm instead of a spring field, the one I had used with Sasuke before I killed him. "He's tried to kill us all, Naruto. He hunted me down a week-and-a-half ago just to find me and kill me; he didn't like that you had protected me. Uchiha Sasuke was merciless and heartless, and cared only to see our destruction. What I did was justifiable and for the best. Now if you'll excuse me-" I pushed the blond shinobi roughly away from my door, not forgetting to glare at him as I did so, "-I have a date with my couch and a volume of Absolute Boyfriend to read." Ignoring the hurt Naruto beside me, I opened my apartment door and stepped in, slamming it roughly behind me. I sighed heavily; it had been a challenging week-and-a-half.

All I wanted to do was take of the boots Tsunade had gotten me, and eat another apple.

A/N: Hooray! The "Forbidden Fruit/The Gracious Poison" twoshot is completed! I thought this chapter was going to kill me to write, but it didn't! Since Sakura didn't die, I hoped it lived up to the expectations of my gorgeous readers-and especially my reviewers from the "Forbidden Fruit" oneshot! I don't know what I would have done without you guys' support! I have the best readers and reviewers ever!

Peace out!