bluebird
Prompt: ocean, bonds, without you
Red. All Sakura could see was red. Crimson dripping from her fingertips and onto the chest of the person lying in front of her. She can feel herself trembling, her heartbeat thundering in her ears, as she tried -tries- to repair the damage, heal whatever she could.
He was losing too much blood. She needs to stop the bleeding. She needs to do something. Anything.
She wasn’t doing enough.
She wasn't doing enough.
Sakura knows how this story will end – She is already 20 years too late.
But she can’t help her desperate attempt to struggle against fate. If only to see those ocean eyes for a while longer.
"I'm not leaving without you,” Sakura shrieks in frustration as she tries to hold in her sobs. “Please. I can still…"
“Sakura, stop.” Minato murmurs, cutting her off mid-sentence – his bloodied hand caressing her face, gently brushing her tears away.
“It’s too late for me.”
Gasping for breath, Sakura's eyes snapped open - face wet with tears, the sensation of loss fresh in her chest.
It was that dream again. That moment where she couldn't do anything else but to watch him slowly slip through her fingers, to a place far out of her reach.
"Minato..." Sakura whispered longingly.
Some days, she wished she could just forget. Forget the bonds she made. Forget him. But every time she looks into Naruto's blue blue blue eyes, Sakura remembers.
His ocean eyes that night, still etched in her mind - pleading and resigned.
There are moments wherein Sakura feels like she imagined the whole thing. But then her hand brushes upon a distinct scar on the side of her neck and the reality of what happened comes crashing down on her like a bucket of ice.
She recalls a certain memory, that moment when she saw him for the first time. Sakura remembered feeling the weight of his kunai hovering over her neck, blood trickling down to her already ruined clothes.
“Sakura-chan ?” Naruto’s worried voice washes over her, jolting her out of her musings. “Are you okay? You’ve been spacing out since you’ve arrived.”
Sakura was reminded of last night’s dream (nightmare) as she stared at a point past his shoulders. She can’t bear to look into his eyes – that particular shade of blue so similar to his father’s. “ I’m fine Naruto. I'm just tired.”
Naruto stares at her apprehensive face for a beat, then two, and decides not to push it. "Whatever you say, Sakura-chan. You know that I'll always be willing to listen right? "
Sakura finally looks at him, slowly taking in his features – sunshine-filled hair and his ocean blue eyes staring straight through her, and for a moment, an instance – another face overlaps. Her voice cracking as she replies, “I know Naruto. Thank you .”
There was a time when she kept on looking for glimpses of Naruto in Minato to feel some level of comfort. Comfort that was gone when she realized that she was displaced in a different period. But now that Sakura’s back in the confines of her timeline - it's funny that the opposite happens. Sometimes, she finds herself seeing a flicker of his shadow in the tilt of his son’s smile.