Chapter Text
He watched his family, his history, burst into flames. His past was nothing but ashes of memories.
Far away from that graveyard, from the place he once called his home, when he least expected it—that was when he saw her again.
It irked him to learn that she still managed to steal his attention. Perhaps the only thing that hadn’t changed since they were children.
The civilian village was unremarkable in all ways but one: the street market that offered a variety of medical herbs that were close to impossible to find anywhere else.
Regardless, it was still quite an ordinary village, with ordinary people, on an ordinary day.
The tension in her muscles, however, was anything but ordinary. She couldn’t ignore it nor get rid of it.
No one was following her. No one was watching her every step. It wasn’t the incessant, claustrophobic feeling that came from being preyed on.
Nothing was wrong.
Sakura was as clever as she was careful, so she still kept her head down and her rosy hair —a beacon that tended to turn eyes towards her, from strangers and otherwise— hidden under her cloak.
The breeze was pleasant, though at times strong enough to almost push her hood off her head.
She was confident enough in her skills as a kunoichi not to succumb to fear, but she was not arrogant enough to believe that said skills would spare her from unexpected dangers.
Peaceful times invited shinobi to lower their guard, but exercising caution was always necessary. Especially when traveling alone.
Nevertheless, she appreciated the time away from home, the calmness that came from being off duty.
Her mission had ended in Suna, where she had been discussing plans for a mental health clinic for children. The last of the hidden villages in her trip, planned as such so she could stay for a few days for academic reasons —she thoroughly enjoyed visiting from time to time to expand her skills. Medic ninja in the Land of Wind were of another calibre.
It was there that she learned of the small, remote village, known for its rare medicinal herbs thanks to its geographical location and optimal weather.
She couldn’t pass on the opportunity to restock on some of her rarest items. It wasn’t often that she could leave Konoha, let alone have enough time on her hands to freely stroll around foreign towns for supplies.
The anxious feeling in her body started soon after arriving, and it had nothing to do with external dangers.
Rather, something was triggering a slippery slope of thoughts and feelings and regrets that should stay quiet where they belonged —in the back of her mind.
Because every so often, she felt as though she caught a glimpse of a colour, a sound, a smell that reminded her of memories best left to rest.
Once she started thinking about it —thinking about someone who wasn’t there— the heaviness would only grow more debilitating.
After all this time, remembering Sasuke still felt like rubbing salt to an open wound.
She didn’t think of him often, anymore, but she did think of him.
She hadn’t seen him in years, not since they found him in one of Orochimaru’s hideouts before he disappeared from their lives again.
They had been so close to him again before his final battle with Itachi. So, so close.
“Sasuke won. Uchiha Itachi has died,” Zetsu had informed Obito after appearing in the forest out of nowhere. The Konoha team had heard the news by luck, otherwise they might have never found out.
Her own voice came out shaky, a reaction to her shock. “S-Sasuke… killed Itachi…?”
“Sasuke’s down too… so what next?” Zetsu had asked the other Akatsuki. “I think he’s in pretty bad shape.”
By the time they had reached the battle ground, Amaterasu flames wreaking havoc, there had been nothing to recover. No Akatsuki, no Uchiha.
As always, reaching Sasuke was like holding onto water.
She shook her head. Nothing useful nor good could come out of dwelling on what couldn’t be changed.
Sakura wanted to buy her herbs and go to sleep. The exhaustion from her travels must’ve been taking a toll on her.
Her hair stood on end before she even heard it.
She had spent the greater part of the hour distracting herself with mindless chatter and polite conversation with local farmers.
There was a prickling sensation in her skin that she couldn’t shake off as she walked down the main road, looking around for anything of interest.
“Rosemary, betel leaves, white willow, hemlock…” She heard a merchant name a list of plants she recognised, but she disregarded it. He packed the goods for the cloaked traveler as she walked by. “Will that be all?”
“Yes.”
It was a mere syllable, nothing more than a whisper in the wind given the crowd around her. Something so quiet that it shouldn’t have caught her attention in passing, but it did.
Her neck turned so quickly that she thought she would break it, eyebrows frowning as she tried to pick out the voice in the sea of people.
The cloaked man was nowhere to be found.
Pulse, breathing, the trembling in her hands — she couldn’t control the physical reaction to a voice that was so agonisingly familiar.
Not just any voice, but the voice.
His voice.
It had come and gone so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that she barely registered it, but the pressure in her head stressed that it couldn’t have been a figment of her imagination.
Sakura thought her legs would give out from underneath her if she didn’t refocus.
The aching in her chest, the despair she believed she had buried in the deepest corner of her mind, resurfaced with the intensity of a fresh hit to the stomach.
She walked on unsteady legs towards the nearest alleyway so she could lean against a wall, against something, to regain her composure.
On her way there, someone going in the opposite direction bumped into her.
“Watch it,” the person barked at her side in a low voice.
This time, she was quick enough, her body more attuned to his presence than her mind could be. She didn’t need to see him to know that it was him.
“Sasu—” his hand was on her mouth before she could finish his name.
Time stood still as she lifted her gaze to meet his. The overwhelming knot in her throat, the concerningly fast beating in her heart told her that her eyes weren’t deceiving her.
Finally, after years of wondering about his whereabouts and wellbeing, there he was.
Uchiha Sasuke, at last.
A man that looked so similar yet so different from what she remembered.
The wind continued to blow, but she barely felt it, too stunned to bother about her cloak falling off her head. It seemed that Sasuke was thinking along similar lines.
Her breathing stopped altogether when he retrieved his hand, only to move it upwards to slide the hood completely off her hair.
He looked at her like he couldn’t believe her presence nor his own actions —hand frozen by her temple, mouth in a tight line, eyes red only for a millisecond before he covered them with his palm.
He was too close.
It shouldn’t have felt like this.
Her reflexes should’ve kicked in her to create a safe distance between herself and the person who was, in legal terms, still considered a Nukenin and thus a threat to her village.
But there were very few parts of her that cared, and even less that remembered why she should.
Because the hand touching her, the fingers burning into her skin, the eyes staring down at hers— it all belonged to someone that had been gone from her life for so long that he had become a ghost.
The boy she’d given her heart to. The boy that had broken it and left it on a bench in the middle of the night because he himself had been so broken.
“Be quiet,” Sasuke told her, taking a step back to avoid drawing more attention to himself.
He was the one that reached out. The one that made his presence known even though he had been hiding.
And then, just as fast as he appeared, he left her standing in a village that felt much emptier now despite the crowd around her.
Sasuke retreated towards the forest, away from prying eyes. Unhurried, unbothered.
Sakura had a choice to make.
This encounter would not happen again. There was no doubt in her mind that he wouldn’t allow such a mistake a second time. He would disappear for good.
It was mere coincidence that brought them to the same remote village at the same time, but it was his misstep —the unfiltered shock at seeing her and his reaction to touch her— that forced her to follow him.
She had a choice to make, yet she had no choice.
He left her no choice.
No matter how many years passed nor how hard she trained, Sakura knew that she would never match Sasuke in terms of sheer speed.
Even though she knew nothing of his time away, she could only assume that he grew more perceptive, more skilled, more unmatched during his absence.
After all, someone that had been flying under the radar for years —successfully avoiding countless shinobi, including Kakashi and his tracking dogs— would likely be exceptional in matters of stealth.
Even as a child, he had been exceptionally fast.
His speed under Orochimaru’s tutelage had been something else entirely.
The last time they had ever seen him, Sasuke had taken team Kakashi by surprise when he appeared by Naruto’s side in the blink of an eye.
Back then, she had been powerless to stop him. The notion had weighed heavily on her until she realised that everyone else had been, too.
Because the bitter truth that took them years to swallow was that no one could stop Sasuke from doing what he wanted.
And, as she chased him through the forest, she wondered and wondered what he could want now.
Unlike the Sasuke she had come to know and expect, this one was too slow. His steps were too loud. She didn’t have to focus to hear branches snapping in the distance. She could see his footprints on the grass. As she ran through the thick forest, she couldn’t find it in her to be the very least perplexed by the inelegance of his movements —so uncharacteristic for someone of his skill— because it was so obviously intentional from his side.
Were he someone else, she would assume he was toying with her.
If she had any uncertainties about his intention for her to follow him, they were gone now.
The adrenaline rush made her lose track of time. It gave her the opportunity to collect her thoughts, and herself.
Her curiosity trumped every other possible emotion, but her frustrations, worries and resentments were not far behind. The surprise had worn off.
There were too many thoughts trying to take hold of her mind —questions only Sasuke could ever answer, and answers he wouldn’t offer willingly— but at present, she wanted to know what his game plan was.
She didn’t know exactly how long she’d been running after him. There were only two facts she knew: Sakura didn’t want him to get away, and Sasuke wasn’t even trying to.
At least until, without warning and without trace, she lost him.
After a pursuit that was blatantly meant to lure her towards him and away from the public eye, his tracks were gone.
Sakura growled quietly. Maybe he was toying with her a bit.
Her skin buzzed with anticipation and a sliver of something she knew was anxiety. She couldn’t sense him anymore, and she was out in the open.
It was unwise to leave blind spots, but this was Sasuke. He had never been her enemy, and there were no blind spots for him.
No, there was no chance she could lose him because the fact that she had followed him this far meant that he had allowed it to begin with.
Sasuke was lurking somewhere.
Her mind was sharp, but it was a waste of energy to think that she could predict what was happening inside of his.
All she could do was wait for the inevitable —for him to do what he wanted. For him to come to her.
Her senses were even sharper, especially when he was near.
The coldness of a blade pressing against her neck stopped her in her tracks. The looming presence of her former teammate behind her ended his game of cat and mouse, if that was what he had wanted.
“It’s been a while,” the warmth of his back engulfing her as he trapped her between his body and a sword. She breathed out his name, “Sasuke.”
“Sakura,” hers fell from his lips in a whisper, reverberating through her mind. There was something intimate about it, in the way he had always called her name, but it could be the daze of his proximity fooling her into thinking so.
He was not a boy anymore. His voice had deepened through the years to match the man he had become —taller, stronger, as imposing as ever.
It caused her chest to constrict in an all too familiar way that had nothing to do with fear.
Sakura knew it was futile, even dangerous, to interrogate or provoke him in any way, but she still said, “So this where you have been hidi—”
She hadn’t been surprised by the weapon at her throat, but his hand suddenly gripping her hair and pulling her head backwards towards his shoulder startled her.
She could stare at him without distance, without reservation, and without breath, so she did.
The darkness in them drew her in, eyes filled with a cold intensity that could never scare her. He studied her openly, but gave away nothing in his expression regarding what he saw in her. His thoughts and feelings were a mystery, concealed behind a controlled mask.
His shock from earlier was nowhere to be found.
It was impossible to fight her dormant feelings from resurfacing, to stop herself from being captivated by him the way she had always been.
“You’re not at an advantage here,” his voice was as collected as his face. “You’d do well to remember that.”
“You wouldn’t kill me,” Sakura said with as much confidence as she could muster.
She could tell that he didn’t like that she said that. Or perhaps, he didn’t like the implication of weakness.
There was a menacing calmness to him that gave no hints as to what he wanted.
Truthfully, she couldn’t be certain of his unwillingness to hurt her considering the droplet of blood that disappeared down the valley of her breasts. It wasn’t painful, yet, but she avoided any sudden movements to prevent the sword from cutting deeper into her throat.
She reminded herself that during their last encounter, Sasuke had been close to killing Naruto with the very same sword. On a whim.
His eyes followed the trail of red for a few seconds before narrowing back at her. She noticed that he pulled back the blade slightly so it didn’t touch her.
“Haven’t you grown out of those childish afflictions?” His quiet chuckle was vicious.
It bothered her to no end.
The nature of her childhood feelings for him was irrelevant in the scenario. She tried to rely on pure logic to back up her decisions, pushing away the instinct to trust him intrinsically based on their former relationship.
“You have successfully evaded being seen, let alone caught, for years,” Sakura stated matter-of-factly, ignoring his mocking. “I only made it this far because you want something from me.”
“What could I possibly want from you?” His voice was void of emotion on the surface. But she knew better —knew him better, at his core, despite the passing of years. There was a semblance of intrigue hidden between the lines, the grip on her hair loosening just a bit.
“You tell me,” she threw back at him. “To what do I owe this honour?”
He ignored her sarcasm and the question entirely, but she could’ve sworn she said the corners of his lip twitching.
“Are you traveling alone?”
“Yes,” she didn’t feel like lying to him, though maybe she should have.
“How shortsighted of you.”
“I don’t need protection.”
Then his lips did curve into a subtle side-smile. “It looks differently from where I’m standing.”
She didn’t grace him with a reaction. She wouldn’t take the bait.
Instead, she decided her advantage. “Are you sick?”
Immediately, he squinted his eyes. He said nothing, but his jaw locked as he waited for her to elaborate.
“The plants you bought —rosemary, betel leaves, white willow, hemlock…” She listed the items she was sure he had gotten from the marketplace. “On their own, they’re more or less useless. But combined, they can make a pretty strong analgesic. You’re making pain relievers. Am I wrong?”
His silence was enough of an answer.
Sasuke seemed healthy enough. There were no physical signs of illness —his skin retained its familiar colour, his body showed no sign of exertion or weakness, his breathing was normal and his mind, from what she could gather, seemed sound enough.
There was nothing at first glance that pointed towards him being unwell.
The theory of Sasuke being a medic vanished quickly. Even if his clandestine lifestyle allowed for it, her educated guess was that his personality and skill set were not inclined towards healing.
For him to resort to making his own medicine, it would mean that he had no other way to procure it.
Medication like this could probably only be found in major hospitals, given the complexity of its concoction and the risks attached to its use.
The greater question she asked herself was for whom Sasuke would be willing to do this.
“If the dosage is off, they could end up in a coma,” she warned him. “Or worse.”
His irritation with her was palpable. “It’s not my first time making them.”
“How do you prepare them?” There was a nudge of condescension in her tone. She thought provoking him might push him to answer out of pride.
He watched her, eyes scanning her face with rapt attention, as if trying to see the cogs turning in her brain.
“I doubt you need my wisdom to figure that out,” he countered, less insulted and more amused than she had expected. “You’re still a medical ninja, aren’t you, Sakura?”
She was taken aback, mouth slightly agape. Her profession was most certainly not a secret, and her contributions in the Fourth Great Ninja War were closely tied to that.
But Sasuke had disappeared long before then, and had stayed away long after.
He could’ve deduced it based on her knowledge of medical plants, but he had used the word still. Whether he learned this information passively or actively, it didn’t change the fact that Sasuke kept tabs on her in some capacity.
Her hair was released from his grasp, but before he stepped back, he leaned down, mouth next to her ear. “Maybe I want to catch up with an old teammate.”
His distance was meant to offer her an out, but nothing about their meeting had been forced upon her.
She could leave now, and live with the knowledge that Sasuke would be gone before she could inform anyone of his location. Though she knew, deep down, that she would keep his secret.
She should leave now, but she had too many questions. She would blame present and future actions on the need to answer them, and nothing more.
Sakura could see it now —they were both at a disadvantage.