Approaching Sun

Chapter 18: A Bond Not Completely Severed

Sasuke was dodging puppets, weaving in and out between their closely assembled bodies. They were spinning swords and launching poisoned shuriken in his direction and he was fighting them off desperately, trying to get to her.

"Sakura!" he screamed, running towards the red-headed puppet master who was holding her up on the end of his blade. Spewing blood, she stared at Sasori's face with wide-eyes, and asked, "Why?"

"Stop!" he tried to scream but it wasn't his voice that echoed across the cavern. Kakashi? Kakashi was the one who was running now, but towards Sasuke, screaming at him in order to prevent the Uchiha from what he was about to do. "Sasuke, stop!"

Sasuke turned back to locate Sakura again, but instead, he found her throat between his fingers. "Why?" she choked again, the crimson blood from her lips spilling out onto his wrist. He realized that it wasn't Sasori who was killing her, but himself. A poisoned dagger–the one he had snatched from her– was thrust through her stomach. At the sight, a terrible laugh bellowed up from his very own chest.

Kill her, a voice said inside his head. Sever the bond.

.......................

Sasuke was pulled from the nightmare like a dead man resuscitated back to life. Sakura was leaning over him on the floor, shaking him.

"What is it?" he sighed irritably. And then hushed immediately when he realized that she had a panicked look on her face. Her gaze focused on the wall across from them, and it took Sasuke a hazy second to register the muffled voices that were coming through the wall of Sasuke's old hotel room.

The voices were faint, a whisper that only a ninja would have been able to detect. It was a harsh, frustrated hiss of an individual and the barely-audible squeaking hinge of the door next to theirs, that made Sasuke understand their current situation.

"Someone is–" she began. Alarm bolted through every nerve in Sasuke's body, and he shot up and covered Sakura's mouth with his right hand before she could say more. She gaped at him with fearful eyes as the door knob to their room began to twist slowly. Someone had just been in Sasuke's rented room and now stood just outside.

Was it that bastard with the black glove that he had met earlier in the hall? So, if they had gone to his room first, then Sasuke had been the target. Not Sakura herself.

Within seconds, the door was compromised with a splintering CRACK and two masked men charged into the room. It was hard to see them in the pitch dark, but with his active Sharingan, Sasuke could faintly make out ninja headbands with an unrecognizable symbol. And then, Sasuke cursed himself for not having acted sooner, because the enemy acted first, and ninja weapons were sent swiftly towards their kneeling forms.

Shit!

Sakura immediately angled her body to dodge, but Sasuke released her mouth and held her close to prevent her from moving. The Uchiha closed his right eye and focused his chakra to his Rinnegan. Immediately, a spiraling, purple portal opened up behind Sakura and the Uchiha ducked his shoulder and dove forward, clutching the startled pink-haired ninja as the two of them tipped over into the vortex. As they plummeted, Sasuke twisted their bodies around so that he was able to watch the black tear in the space seal back shut just before the ninja could follow them through.

A couple of shuriken, however, did make it through, and Sasuke clasped his female companion close to him, barely able to angle them so that the weapons flew past them on either side. He had to act quickly! They were falling!

"Sasuke!" Sakura screamed into his shoulder, terrified as the red ground was rising up to meet them. The portal had appeared at the same height in this dimension that their room had been at the top level of the hotel building. Which meant that the two of them had several stories of air between them and the ground. A space that would be crossed within a matter of a few seconds.