Same Soul • Sasunaru

35. Seeing Red.

Minato's POV
Osaka, Japan
Outside the Warner Music Company
Sunday
9:00 a.m.

Pull my strings

and I will obey

Let your preaching

take my life away.

🗡 ◾️🗡◾️🗡

"My, my, my...it's Saku-chan!"

Ms.Haruno turns to face Sasori with her wide green eyes; nearly dropping the paper cup of kotobuki to the sight of him. Is it out of fear, is it out of fluster? Her face is hard to read. "S-Sasori-kun...what are you doing here?"

The red head continues to pace towards her; beaming with a confidence that could kill. But instead of smiling from being flattered, Sakura freezes dead in her tracks like a deer in the headlights. The wedge of kotobuki she held between her thumb and forefinger now lies on the concrete sidewalk. She is, in-fact, scared out of her mind to the sight of him. It's an unusual reaction whenever young women are in his presence. This indicates that these two have history of some sorts.

Sasori walks right over the wedge of yam and lifts Sakura's chin towards his dave with the pad of his thumb. "It's been quite a while, huh Saku-Chan? How is your senior year of high school been treatin' ya? I'm sure it isn't nothing compared to your freshman year with me around, hmm?"

Sakura straightens her stance with her fist clutched tightly to the sides of her waist like children holding onto their mother's legs in the supermarket. "I wish my first year wasn't wasted with the likes of someone like you. You were such a conjurer; spinning your webs of lies to get what you want from good hearted people. I hope the years have taken it's tole on your evil demons."

He leans his back downwards and reaches for the littered paper cup of kotobuki and the spilled wedges of yam that's scattered besides it. Once he lifts himself back up, his pretty-boy grin returns with the cup held between his thumb an forefinger like it's trash.

"I've only ever done things in your favor, Saku-chan. Maybe you shouldn't be so considerate of those around you; it will make your life so much easier. Although, you've always been too sympathetic in nature for things to ever turn out that way for you." Sasori begins to put in the direction towards the trash bin behind me. I keep my eyes glued to Sakura to analyze her expressions. I feel like I'm stuck in a situation that involves none of my input.

The red head chuckles deviously before the cup clunks against the bottom of the metal trash can. "Maybe it's time to turn your eyes away from me."

Never did I expect this phrase to be directed towards me in a literal manner.

In the midst of blinking my eyes out of confusion, a sharp gasp on air puffs into Sakura's lungs so profoundly that it echoes through the brick alley between the studio and the office building next door. The world spins slowly, yet, so rapidly as gravity forces me to fall onto my hands and knees; blood splurging out of my lungs and dripping down my chin.

Scarlet liquid stains the concrete sidewalk, and pebbles dig into the skin of my palms when I lay the majority of my weight onto my arms. Even with this being so, nothing can distract from the pain I feel underneath my rib cage; a place where the weapon used to sit inside of. Now the knife is being twisted in the hands of Sasori like the weapon's some sort of sport equipment.

"M-Minato-kun! I-I'm so sorry, I just-!" Sakura's eyes pool with an endless fountain of saline tears, allowing for thick moisture to enter her lungs when she covers her moth and nose with her fingers. No matter how much she gasp for air, she still can't breathe because her bones are frozen in shock.

I inch my face up to glance at my murderer one last time; wondering why. I always hoped I wasn't right about Sasori being in the Akatsuki, but my subconscious always knew the real truth, and that one day or another, he would take part in killing me. I ran for mayor because I felt like it was my soul's purpose to deliver to this beautiful city as mayor as many times as they would allow me to. It's shameful that some people, like the Akatsuki, don't feel the same way.

Sasori doesn't have a malevolent grin on his face like you would expect him to have. In fact, his lips purse into a straight line, and his eyelids rest low as he mercilessly glares back into my eyes. The weapon, drenched in my own blood, involuntarily slips out of Sasori's hands and onto the ground in front of me. I struggle to grab it in order to defend myself, but my body won't let me stretch any further.

"Take the weapon if you so please; give it to the police if you're so desperate to give this man justice, Sakura-chan." with lifeless eyes, he reaches his hands up his oxford and pulls out a shotgun. Sakura stands frozen like a dear in the headlight; unable to comprehend what's happening in front of her. The both of us have never felt so weak in the eyes of a young, handsome man with a fragile smile and glowing skin. The last person you would expect to murder a young high-school girl and her friend's father.

The boy lips the gun up to his left temple. "I've never been nobody but a damn puppet, anyways."