giada-luna:

Welcome to the final installment of my ‘Flirting With Death’ series, in which we let Sasuke get his say. This story covers multiple prompts.

Word Count: 7K – long one!
Read it on FFN or AO3

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Flirting with Death
7. It was Always You

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*First Love/Maybe Next Time*

He had been waiting for Itachi the day it happened.

“You need practice tracking spirits,” Itachi had explained, checking his bow before handing it to Sasuke. “I’m going to release a wild boar. Your job is to track it, and take it down.”

Sasuke reflexively accepted the bow, even as he asked. “Why a boar? We help people cross, don’t we? And don’t we go to where they are? Why would I need to track them?”

“A boar because it will act solely on instinct, and much as it did in life. Since it is a spirit, you can touch it. But that means it can touch you. I’d avoid that in this case – he’s large and mean-spirited. And you will find not every soul goes peacefully; the tortured, the unbalanced – they can fight back. As for tracking,” he plunked a few more bows into his younger brother’s quiver, with a sly smile. “You need the practice.”

Keep reading

s-asuke:

Dear old angst people – no warnings except for Sarada’s cuteness and heartbreak

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SasuSaku Month 2017 – Day 7 – Love You Goodbye

Sometime around noon, she knew that it was time. Time for him to leave for his mission. Sakura feels a heaviness in her stomach – one she didn’t feel ever since she was pregnant with Sarada. But this heaviness is different, unlike the pleasant, happy one she had when she was carrying her daughter this is like a mortal wound. The pit, voidal and heavy opens up and closes on its own accord.

It’s as if the grimness of Sasuke’s departure can be sensed in the house itself. Sarada cries more, begging for Papa, and Sakura eats less, Sasuke cowering on the old grounds of the Uchiha compound more. The old graveyard he shall see in a long time now. His daughter is almost always with him – asking no questions, she is nearly three, but nevermind that. Even when he was three, he would have loads of questions for Fugaku and Mikoto. Their graves have gotten old, Sasuke left a lot of money for Sakura to build a mausoleum, one his clan always deserved, nevermind what kind of people they were.

Sakura Uchiha would, after such a visit to the graveyard, bring lunch for Sasuke and Sarada, both entwining their hands happily to the giggle of their only child. Sakura feels her womb could carry more – Sasuke doesn’t even want to hear about it. He doesn’t want to even think about the possibility of Sakura and Sarada having to take care of another, alone.

At night they curl up to each other, last throes of passion they will allow to themselves before he departs.

Sasuke readies himself in the morning, and Sarada wakes up crying, from a nightmare, he supposes. He relates, night terrors of a different kind holding him wide awake.

()

Front gates. Dawn. A cloak and his dark, thick hair of equal color. Rinnegan bland and purple as always, but his Mangekyo Sharingan is activated, shining bright, reflecting the Sun and putting it to shame. Sakura’s throat is heavy and constricted as they come. Sarada is tired a bit, but it is as if she can feel the pain of her Papa leaving, even through too young to understand. Her bright red and orange clothing that Naruto gifted to her (saying it was too big for Hima) clings to her as she to her mother.

“Anata… I…” she cannot even finish the sentence, because if she does she will disturb Sarada, her small, yet incapable daughter needs her – strong, unbowed, unbent and unbroken.

Before all of her family, duty, honor came she.

Now it will have to be even before Sasuke.

“I have-” he struggles too. The look on his face is concentrated pain, like pure acid, eating all the present hearts alive and unsettling them with a scar. She starts crying because again. He is leaving again. He finally loves her back, comes back home, settles, has a child, and oh my god why is it that the most beautiful things in life were always defied to him, not to Sakura, she no longer cares for herself.

She put no makeup on her face this morning – so there is none to smudge; he told her not to, not in the haste of his departure but because he wanted to see her and memorize her fresh from bed, smelling as a morning rose, dragged her and the sleepy child out of their house in the break of dawn, Sarada sipping orange juice from her bottle, Sakura hadn’t even brushed her teeth.

But it was all his will and how he liked things – raw and real. He has dwindled all too long between illusion and reality in his life to be able to choose only one and pain seemed as a reasonable choice at the time, making him blind to the choice of the subtle life in Konoha with Naruto and Sakura.

He doesn’t regret it, even now, as his pink haired wife wails, chest heaving and hands shaking as he takes Sarada from her arms only to bring all three of them into a strong, strong hug. He wished he would never have to let go. He wished to tell the world to piss off so he could have his peace with his wife and daughter, but no. He was the Shadow Hokage, the protector from the dark, where Naruto couldn’t reach he had. So he lets go of Sakura, tears deep within him, waiting to fall when provoked and away from all humanity and Konoha, away from Sarada who, through the leaky pipes of memory must remember her father as someone who protects. He kisses both of their foreheads, doesn’t poke – not anymore, because he is certain. In everything.

That he will find out the truth about Kaguya. That he will come back to his family. That he will make it all okay. Voice heavy he wants to scream out how much he loves them both, how unfair this is, even if for a shinobi of his caliber it would be unheard of. He is drained, yet still breathing and alive. He will succeed. He has to, he reminds himself, as he wavers so, so much in this moment, as Sarada’s big, black eyes threaten to swallow him alive, then spit him out asking what kind of a father leaves their child so young?

Murmurs in Sakura’s tears and hair, wiping them, of his love, I love you and I am truly grateful. For everything. As her mother’s tears weaken and then gush over the eyelids in the aftermath of her emotion, Sarada waves her head, slightly unproportional to her body, and Sasuke wants to weep at the perfection of the imperfection. He doesn’t want to miss a second, and how much will he miss when Sarada changes day to day? He can’t bring himself close to the thought.

He picks up Sarada, who is tracing and even slightly pulling his hair and collar. She wants him to stay, or is it just Sasuke’s sick imagination?

“I love you both. And don’t you cry.” Sullenlly tells his hotheaded wife, as she clings to him, heartbroken. “God, Sasuke. I love you too. Do not forget it!” she reaches on her tippy toes to kiss his forehead, but he throws her off with a powerful kiss. He holds Sarada in that arm of his, his left non-existent as she caresses his face gently.

Please, Sakura, take care of yourself, too, not just our daughter.

He turns around to leave, kissing Sarada’s forehead with intolerable sadness. It will be a lot of time, this mission. He hopes to come home even before he has left, and as the doting eyes on his back mirror his family crest, forming a memory he emblazoned into the walls of his brain – soft footsteps his only company on the lonely path to justice.