Starfall
It was growing dark. Seishiryu hadn’t yet returned home, and he’d checked with her friends, but she wasn’t with them. Which was odd, because if he remembered correctly, she’d told him the reason she would be late today was she was going to see her friends. When he found Kiba and Hinata, they’d told him that she hadn’t been with them today at all.
So where else could she be?
He had been looking in the forest for hours, trying to find her, and he was starting to lose hope. But then, he remembered that her family had built a compound on the east edge of the village, in the forest, and he went there. He searched the half-finished compound, but she wasn’t there. The horses, his and hers, were in the pasture there, but Se wasn’t. He went into the forest, searching, silent, feeling strangely desperate to find her.
And came upon a small pond, with a large rock at the shore, and a tree just feet from the rock. And Se, she was sitting at the roots of the tree. At first, he didn’t see her, but he thought she might’ve been hiding behind the rock or sitting on it, and he went closer, and when he turned around to leave, he saw her sitting on the roots of the tree he’d passed.
Her eyes were closed. He thought she was sleeping, until he noticed her right wrist. There was a deep gasp across her wrist, and he froze. His breath caught, and all he could hear for several seconds was the sound of his blood rushing through his veins. He lunged toward her, dropping to his knees to grab her bleeding wrist in his. “Why?” he breathed. His voice was soft, barely audible. “Why, Se?” He wrapped her wrist in the bottom part of his shirt, holding it tight in one hand, and using his free hand to check her pulse at the side of her neck. It was strong, he thought, but he wasn’t entirely sure. It felt strong. It was steady. A little slow, maybe?
“Se?” He grasped one of her shoulders, and shook her lightly. “Se!” Her clothes, wrist, and forearm were soaked in blood, and the cut looked deep. Real deep. She wasn’t responding to his shaking. Her skin was lukewarm to the touch, a little cold. But she was alive. “What do I do?” He stared at her wrist, then her face. “What do I do?” He tightened his hand around her wrist. He shook her again, but she still remained unresponsive.
She needed a medic. She needed–!
She needs healed.
It was like a lightbulb went off in his brain. She needed to be healed. He let her wrist go only so he could move her so she had her head on his lap, propped up just enough, wrapped her wrist again, and searched quickly for whatever she’d used to cut her wrist. A kunai, with dried blood on the hilt, and her blood still wet on the blade. Using the kunai, he cut a thin, quick cut across his wrist, opened her mouth, and placed his wrist against her mouth, hoping for the best. Nothing, for several seconds, so he lifted his wrist, brows furrowing together, and realized the blood wasn’t flowing fast enough. He cut a bit deeper, until the blood flowed easily, freely, but still not too deep, and placed his wrist against her mouth again.
He used his other hand to rub her throat, a technique he’d always heard helped unconscious people swallow.
She did swallow, once, then one more time, but nothing after that.
He pulled his wrist back, and quickly unwrapped her wrist. After wiping the blood away, he could see her clean, untouched wrist. A harsh, quick breath escaped him, and he gave a half-laugh, half-cry of relief. He pulled her up, clasped her against his chest, hugging tight. She smelled of blood, of white magnolias. When he pulled back, he shook her again, calling her name, but still, she remained unresponsive.
Her pulse, when he checked, was stronger than before. Faster. Her breathing seemed better. But still, she wasn’t responding. “We’re not too far from home,” he said aloud, looking around. “Maybe I can carry you?”
I was being moved. Slowly. It was the first thing I noticed. The second was the smell of something warm, borderline hot, spicy, with a heavy, almost-leather scent. My head was against something hard, warm. I tensed, we stopped moving, and I yanked away from whoever was carrying me. I landed roughly on my hands and knees, then jolted to my feet, ready to run.
Only to be grabbed from behind and tackled down to the ground. “Don’t you run away!” I knew that voice. Sasuke tackled us to the ground, rolling in mid-air so he could break the fall with his shoulder. My shoulder barely touched the ground. Before I could react, he’d wrestled me to the ground, pinned my left hand and held my right wrist tightly, inches from my face. When I looked up into his face, his eyes were burning. “Why?!” he demanded, turning the inside of my wrist toward my face. “Why did you do it?! Why!”
My eyes flashed from his face to my wrist and back. “I. . . .” Right. I tried to die today. So why am I still alive? I shook my head, tearing my eyes from his and focusing on a point over his shoulder. “You wouldn’t understand,” I said softly.
“Then make me understand it!”
I shoved him off me, jerking to my feet. “You wouldn’t understand. You don’t know what it’s like!”
He grabbed my wrist, holding it up where I could see. There was dried blood clinging to my arm, but no wound, nothing. No mark of any kind. “I don’t understand why you would do this, you’re right! And maybe I don’t understand what you’re going through. But that doesn’t mean I can’t listen! That doesn’t mean I can’t help you. Talk to me! Don’t do,” he shook my wrist slightly, “this , ever!”
I tried to yank my arm away, but he tightened his grip. “Let go, Sasuke! It’s none of your business! So back off!”
“None of my business?! You–ugh! You are my business! I’ve spent every night sitting beside your bed, sleeping next to you so you don’t run off through the window. I’ve sat next to you when I knew you couldn’t handle being alone, but didn’t want to ask for company. I’ve dried your tears when you couldn’t. I’ve held you when you cried. I think at this point, you can’t tell me this isn’t my business!”
My stomach did backflips when I met his eyes. Angry, black, burning. There was a muscle in his jaw that twitched, and his nostrils were flared. “Why do you care anyway? It’s not like I’m related to you or something.”
He stepped closer to me. “You are family to me. Contract or not, after everything that’s happened, you’re family. And I don’t care what you have to say to me about it!”
That word, “family.” It broke something inside me. My chest tightened, heart skipped a beat. My stomach felt like it would drop through to my feet. The rest of me followed, and my knees hit the ground. He still had my right wrist, but I used my other hand to cover my face.
There was a thump, and he tugged my hand away, then pulled me into him, arms tight around me. He rubbed my back, from upper shoulders, to middle, up, down, up, down.
I buried my face against his shoulder, grabbing his shirtfront, hard enough, my nails bit into my hands through the shirt. He’s warm, I realized, as a shiver ran down my spin. Up until that moment, I hadn’t realized how cold I’d been. Not just tonight, but since I’d been here. I leant into the warmth, took a deep, shaking breath, sniffling as I did. “Are-are you always this warm?”
“Huh? Oh. Uh, I guess.” He pulled away slightly, looking down at me. “Are you cold?”
“A little.”
He closed the distance again, this time running his hands up and down my arms. “It’s okay, I’ll help you get warm.”
I sat there, silent, for I’m not even sure how long. Just listened to his heartbeat, and focused on his warmth. It was strange to me, now that I’d noticed, how cold I really was. I felt warmer, with his arms around me, with his hands rubbing my arms. I could feel his warmth wrapping around me, but yet, I could still feel that coldness, and I realized, the cold was inside me. The warmth that radiated from him in waves was just barely touching the coldness I had inside me.
“Se?” His voice was soft, a little breathy.
“Hm?”
He swallowed, hard. “Don’t you like being with my family? Being part of my family?”
I thought about it. “Yea,” I said slowly. “But it’s not the same.” I paused, trying to think of how to say what I was thinking. “I like it here. It feels almost like home to me. But . . . it’s not the same. Papa, Mama. . . . My brother, my sisters. They’re gone. My home is gone. There’s a part of me . . . that died with them. A part, no matter how much I like it here, or how much I might start loving it, that will never come back. It’s gone, and there’s no getting it back.”
“What happened?” His voice was so soft, I barely heard him. “That night, I mean.”
I tightened my grip on his shirt. My throat was suddenly dry, and I felt like I might vomit. Just thinking about that night made my muscles clench so hard, so fast, it was actually almost painful. I clenched my eyes shut to try to stop the tears. That coldness was back with a vengeance, and I was suddenly shivering violently.
“Se?”
If I could make myself any smaller, I probably would’ve right then. “I watched Mama die,” came out in a broken, small voice. “I . . . fell on Papa’s body, slipped in his blood.” My head was starting to hurt. “I saw my brother die.” I shook my head. There was a painful feeling in my core. It grew more painful by the second. It felt like it was curling inside me. Rolling around. And I knew what it felt like. It felt like a ball of needles spinning around in my core. Faster, faster, and faster.
Mama’s face, Papa’s body, Big Brother’s blood–all of that just kept flashing through my head. And every time it did, that ball of needles spun faster. There was a burning that started to accompany it, and I closed my eyes tightly, clinging to the boy whose warmth touched the coldness inside.
Papa’s glassy, lifeless eyes flashed through my head, and at that image, something broke. Something inside me shattered. A pulse shot out from me. A heavy, thick pulse that spread through the air in dense ripples. It was suddenly cold again. I could vaguely hear a thump. I brought my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around them and burying my face against my knees.
Papa. . . . Papa!
A strange pulse ran through the air. Sasuke tensed. He started to move, to do something, when another pulse shot out from Seishiryu. It ripped him away from her. A blinding light followed. He landed more than a dozen feet away, hard. It winded him, and he lay there, dazed, for several seconds.
When he sat up, she was sitting with her knees curled to her chest, arms clasped around them, and head on her knees. Curled into an almost perfect ball. That wasn’t the thing that stood out. What stood out was the glow that quickly spread through her body. Thousands of thin, tiny lights burst out from her, and he hid his eyes behind his forearm. “Se!”
Something hit the ground just a few dozen feet away. Hard. He could smell something burning, and when he looked, there was smoke rising up from about fifty feet away. Again, something hit the ground, to his other side. This time, he felt the dirt that kicked up hit him. He didn’t even bother to turn to look at the third, or the fourth. He jerked to his feet, looking up. The sky was filled with streaking lights. “Shooting stars . . . ? Stars!” The ground shook at the next impact, and he fixed his eyes on the glowing girl at the center of it all. “Se! Se!” He lunged forward, trying to reach her. “Se! Stop!” He was pushed backward by another pulse, and a shooting star flew just a dozen feet past him, landing close enough that the impact threw him forward, toward the girl whose glow was powerful enough to light up the area.
He landed hard, blocking his face with his forearms, then pushed himself up. I have to get to her! He ran toward her, fighting through the angry winds keeping him at bay. “Se! Stop!” Nearly being thrown off his feet more times than he cared to count, he fought through to her. Reaching her, he grasped her shoulders, shook her. No reaction. He dropped to his knees, cupped her face, and forced her to look at him. Her eyes were open, glowing and white, but sightless.
The winds knocked him back again, only a foot or two. He landed on his ass, but quickly got back up and grabbed her, pulling her into him. “Se,” he murmured, hugging her tightly to him, “Se, wake up. Se! Wake up, please.” He tensed, looked up at the sky. There would likely be panic in the village tonight. He had to stop her. But how?
“Se, it’s okay. It’s okay to be upset. You can’t hold it in. You’ve got to let it out. Cry, scream, shout, but stop holding it in. You’re only going to kill us! Please. If you don’t cry now, by the time you finally break, you’ll never be able to stop!”
The more he talked, the more the wind faded. The more the light faded. The stars slowly stopped falling, and her body slowly went cold. But he kept talking. He kept talking until he felt her wrap her own arms around him.
A white, blinding light was approaching, and he looked up. Hurtling straight toward them was a shooting star, a meteor, fast. But he kept talking, telling her to trust him, to stop, to wake up. Trusting her to stop this before it was too late. And then, just feet away, it burst over them, throwing a fine, soft, silky powder all around. It was soft, but it burnt where it touched, and he tried to shield her as best he could.
“Sasuke?” Her voice was weak. Her hold on him equally weak. She went limp against him, letting go.
He moved away from her just a bit, looking down. Her eyes were closed, face relaxed. “Se?” She looked to be asleep, and the shooting stars had stopped. He heaved a sigh of relief, not really sure when before he’d been so sure he would die.
A few minutes more, and both of them could’ve been killed in that meteor shower, and he could lie to himself and deny that, that hadn’t been her thought. He fully believed that there was a part of her ready to die, ready to kill herself, and if he hadn’t stopped her–
That next meteor, that one that turned to dust just feet above them. That would have killed them both.