But even at our swiftest speed

We couldn't break from the concrete

Reversal

You look up at this person, this person who is nothing short of a stranger, this person that you have loved for so long and this person that will be the reason for your death.

You recognize that he is nothing of what he used to be. He reigns down on you with the same condescension, but it is so much colder, so much more unforgiving. He's become frostier than the wintry snow that surrounds you – the snow that has its pure pallor contaminated by the unceasing spilling of your blood.

You are bludgeoned, bloodied, beaten and bruised beyond belief. You have his killing essence of electricity injected into you, still blazing, still painful. You would hope that he's disgusted at what he's done to you, but you know he's not.

Nonetheless, amongst all the anguish, you smile. You smile with a striking confliction, however even you miss how it cracks his resolve, just slightly.

After all, how can you be smiling at such a moment like this? A moment when you're staring at death and your heartbeat is inevitably slowing down.

He leans down towards you. You can smell his musky scent and feel his hot breath cascade onto your skin, but before his poisonous presence intoxicates you like it always has; you remind yourself that he's not your Sasuke-kun anymore. He really is an S-ranked assassin, traitor of Konoha, the avenger of the Uchiha clan, the merciless murderer of many and of course… the shattering of Team 7.

His coal eyes dig into your own, penetrating, but empty. The scorn swirls in his open orbs and though he has recovered from the bloodlust of the Sharingan, you are certain that he is long gone. For once you strangely wish that he had the heart to take that sword of his, and plunge it into you as a finishing blow. The perfect coup de grâce.

But Sasuke has never been the one to finish things completely. He has half-assed attempts at everything – at breaking bonds, at forgetting things, and of course, at letting go of you. He's the type to dwell in the moment, to drag things out as much as he can, just because it's easier for him to endure.

Though he has sliced through your skin, smashed your bones and dismantled your heart for possibly the last time, you know he will never be able to kill you. He will, instead, wait for you to die. And somewhere in that sick and twisted mind of his, that justifies his belief that he wasn't the one responsible for your death, even when he is.

A smirk grasps his lips. The same acidic and dishonest smirk he uses to thank you, and leave you. You wonder what he'll do this time – which one he'll choose.

He does neither. Or so you think.

He leans down even closer. Back when you were younger, a blush probably would've been spreading on your cheeks now, and you'd be grinning with that little girl innocence because you were so close to your Sasuke-kun. But now, you don't even know what to feel anymore. It's a mix of anger, sadness, forgiving, hatred, and just so much of you disintegrating into the air.

The words that escape from his mouth burn onto you like ash, and leave remnants like smoke – they choke, strangle and lastly, laugh at you. "Do you still love me?" His tone doesn't sound as soft as you so often pictured. Instead, his voice is filled with ridicule, harshness, and disappointment. There are a thousand underlines of you're still so weak, Sakura that puncture into your skull.

You don't know how to answer his question. It was one that you struggled to answer now. You were so diverged to whether you did. How could you love someone who was now one of the most – if not the most – top ranked enemies of your village? But then again, how could you stop loving him? You long ago stopped knowing how to not love him.

So, you answer as honestly as you can, barely audible through your heavy and fading breaths. "Some days I do… some days I don't." What you really mean: most days I don't. However, even now, you cannot bear to tell your blessed Sasuke-kun that you have stopped, so you soften the words with transparent sugar-coating. You were never meant to stop. You were meant to love him forever, weren't you?

He sees through your words, like he always does. He laughs with the disease he holds with him, but also the tragedy that you always wanted to save him from. Sasuke stands up but doesn't remove his distance from you. He towers over you endlessly and the stillness is one that only reminds you of your clock ticking down. That is, until he unsheathes his finely bladed sword and wields it against your neck.

The tears well in your eyes. Will he finally be able to do it?

When he speaks again, the resentment seethes through. "You know as well as I do that along the lines, you stopped loving me, whether you knew it or not. You couldn't bear being hurt by me, could you, Sakura?" Couldn't stop yourself from being like everyone else. He pushes the blade further into your skin, his smirk growing, but at the same time, diminishing of passion.

This time, you do say the truth. "I could never… stop being hurt by you… Sasuke-kun…" You have to force the words out.

He shakes his head and chuckles. "You can't even hide your emotions from your adversary." The insults that he rains down on you are not as severe as they could be, you notice.

You feel your life finally draining away from you, however you can't help but to want to prove him wrong, because you don't want to leave here being like everyone else. You have always wanted to be an individual, to die out by accomplishing your goal – reviving Sasuke back to how he was. No matter how you did it.

"I-I was n-n-never a-against you, S-Sasuke-kun." Never, not in a thousand years, could I want to hate you, to kill you, to bury you. I only wanted to save you. The words are shuddering out now, like earthquakes, like the whispers of an impending demise.

Silence envelopes between you and him again. He doesn't say anything apart from his typical and noncommittal "hn," which makes you believe that he won't be saying much more. You want to think you've struck a chord with him, but now that you are finally seeing your own light of some sorts, you know it is your time to go.

You turn away from him and gaze to the meek sky that is covered with the melancholy, yet the banality of grey. The aching of not having saved Sasuke causes the tears to topple over and the last ounces of your power relinquishes away from you.

The void continues, sweeping you away from yourself, this Earth, the universe… and from Sasuke. Your eyes close, the blackness follows and you accept that it is the end, until: "thank you."

You feel his hand on your cheek and the warmth of his chakra propels into your veins. You don't know if he's trying to save you by transference or it's just because of his touch, but it doesn't matter. Those two words are the last relics, though minute, are significant as they indicate that there's still a trace of Sasuke-kun within him, from many years ago. From when you were together, and perhaps, just maybe, still are.

And at this moment, you can remember all the reasons why you did love him, but funnily enough, none of the reasons why you stopped. You just did.

But you realise, as you flutter your eyes open to the beautiful and incandescent image that is Uchiha Sasuke, you don't need to revive him back to how he was, because he still remains.

As you can tell, I like writing in second perspective. I don't know why; it's just something endearing about it. I believe that it's because it involves the audience (which are you lovely readers) so much more. And one of my goals are of course to convey the pure emotions, especially with this piece.

Reviews are very much appreciated.