she is tired of the feel of this girl's pain
fandom: Naruto
characters: Karin, Sakura
prompt: 31days: This is just a secret that happens to involve you
Karin knows why these former allies of Sasuke’s are standing before her. Interrogation, torture- she is a ninja, she knows and accepts the drill. It isn’t like this world of theirs is advertised as puppies, true love, and easy living. Karin knew the risks when she decided to follow Sasuke out of Sound. But what she can’t figure out is why these ninjas are just standing there, watching her bleed out.
Chakra is keeping her alive, but she dug into her bag of sensor tricks just fast enough to sense the pink haired kunoichi a healer, the blond boy a ferocious chakra reservist, and the white haired man easily capable of making her talk before that scarred eye ever opened. All three were powerful- she couldn’t expect any less, after all, as Sasuke never suffered fools for allies, and these had been his first. So why let her lay here, bleeding literally of a broken heart?
Are they simply being sentimental or do they think me useless? Karin wonders, letting the pain sharpen her mind. She’ll need her wits together to survive this.
“You won’t have to wait long,” Karin manages to croak, focusing her ire on the pink kunoichi. Any other day she might consider her a rival- the first to fight for Sasuke’s affections, the first to watch his back on missions, the first to watch him devolve into vengeance. Sasuke rarely spoke of his team, but he had spoken of this girl with enough scorn for Karin to know the girl thought herself in love with him. She had thought it romantic, but staring at how broken the girl was, fists charged with chakra yet shaking uselessly at her sides, Karin wondered if it wasn’t something else.
Love, regardless of its nature, could drive a kunoichi to great lengths.
Karin knows that only all too well. Perhaps if this girl is going to do nothing to save me, I can linger in self-pity. Karin thinks, closing her eyes against the other’s girl’s loss. It reads too close to her own, and if Karin is going to die today, well, she’s not going to try and fix someone else’s Sasuke problem.
It still hurts, knowing the fluttering around her iron heart, the slip of emotions she'd tried to oppress since their first meeting as kids back in the Forest, only sealed her fate. That to the boy who had smiled so warmly in that Forest of Death is lost, forever- now a man who thinks nothing of sacrificing allies, valuing her life as nothing to the vengeance for a family of traitors long gone to dust.
Once, Sasuke and Karin found themselves orphans, bound together, surviving the hells of Ochimaru and Sound. She was never fool enough to believe he truly loved her, but Karin had thought a friendship existed between them, a faith in each other that could never be broken.
But Itachi festered always on the edge, a withering disease he was defenseless against, consuming him without a struggle. At his death, Sasuke should have felt satisfied, the blood of the kin slayer finally on his hands. Karin had envied him that revenge- she still longed to make the men who had destroyed her villain pay, to bleed among the trampled grass as her family had that awful day. But his vengeance was unquenched, his journey taking strange, bewildering turns she struggled to follow until she realized, finally, that Sasuke’s quest for revenge will never end. His family are starving ghosts inside him, their unholy hunger is satisfied only at the cost of Sasuke’s very soul.
Karin has met no greater sensor than her own eyes, eyes that for too long have been blind to the dark and twisted being that now walks in Sasuke’s skin. There is no excuse, no justification for what he has done to her; still she counts herself a fool for not seeing it coming.
The pink haired kunoichi lets out a sharp, pained burst of air that strikes Karin’s skin like fresh cuts, blistering fire around the edges. Karin is tired of the feel of this girl’s pain, interrupting what might be her final thoughts.
Then again, why waste those thoughts on a bastard like Sasuke?
“I saw the strength that lies in your fist,” Karin manages around the blood staining her teeth; if this girl refuses to help her, she knows this is the end of it. The wound of Sasuke’s indifference is pumping out her life blood faster now, pooling around her weak palm, and Karin cannot mold the flair of anger into anything useful that might save herself. Chakra too low, blood escaping too fast. But her bloody tongue is sharp enough to wound, and if this is the end, it might as well be entertaining to see how far she can push this former rival.
Maybe if Karin wounds deep enough, next time this rival won’t hesitate.
“I bet you carried that kunai with you, all this time, held it close each night, whispering that you’ll be the one to do it. Kunai through the back, from the one who loved him best. Tch,” Karin lets out a great, shuddering breath wrapped in condemnation. “Symbolism just gets you killed.”
This breaks through to the pink haired girl. She straightens, the chakra around her hands sparking red hot. It is getting difficult for Karin to see beyond the edges of chakra to the world beyond- never a good sign. She has minutes at best.
“You should know,” The girl kneels beside Karin, her voice high and, ruins of Whirlpool save her, oozing with Konoha spunk. “He stabbed through the same heart that loved him, didn’t he? Shouldn’t toss stones when your weakness is so undefended, kunoichi.”
Karin’s eyes cannot stay open, but she does not give into panic. A foreign warmth is settling about her chakra system, wrapping around her chest like the memory of the babe she once was, swaddled in a blanket close to her mother’s bosom. Safe, finally safe, so unlike the torrent of emotions a healing bite assaults her with.
Her senses are fading, the world darkening, yet Karin feels no anxiety- she surfaces from what she assumes to be a medical coma just long enough to think, man, maybe Konoha isn’t all that bad if this is what their healing is like, before the chakra lulls her into a darkness of a less permanent kind.
When she awakens days later in a Konoha prison, Uchiha Sasuke is the last thing on her mind.
characters: Karin, Sakura
prompt: 31days: This is just a secret that happens to involve you
Karin knows why these former allies of Sasuke’s are standing before her. Interrogation, torture- she is a ninja, she knows and accepts the drill. It isn’t like this world of theirs is advertised as puppies, true love, and easy living. Karin knew the risks when she decided to follow Sasuke out of Sound. But what she can’t figure out is why these ninjas are just standing there, watching her bleed out.
Chakra is keeping her alive, but she dug into her bag of sensor tricks just fast enough to sense the pink haired kunoichi a healer, the blond boy a ferocious chakra reservist, and the white haired man easily capable of making her talk before that scarred eye ever opened. All three were powerful- she couldn’t expect any less, after all, as Sasuke never suffered fools for allies, and these had been his first. So why let her lay here, bleeding literally of a broken heart?
Are they simply being sentimental or do they think me useless? Karin wonders, letting the pain sharpen her mind. She’ll need her wits together to survive this.
“You won’t have to wait long,” Karin manages to croak, focusing her ire on the pink kunoichi. Any other day she might consider her a rival- the first to fight for Sasuke’s affections, the first to watch his back on missions, the first to watch him devolve into vengeance. Sasuke rarely spoke of his team, but he had spoken of this girl with enough scorn for Karin to know the girl thought herself in love with him. She had thought it romantic, but staring at how broken the girl was, fists charged with chakra yet shaking uselessly at her sides, Karin wondered if it wasn’t something else.
Love, regardless of its nature, could drive a kunoichi to great lengths.
Karin knows that only all too well. Perhaps if this girl is going to do nothing to save me, I can linger in self-pity. Karin thinks, closing her eyes against the other’s girl’s loss. It reads too close to her own, and if Karin is going to die today, well, she’s not going to try and fix someone else’s Sasuke problem.
It still hurts, knowing the fluttering around her iron heart, the slip of emotions she'd tried to oppress since their first meeting as kids back in the Forest, only sealed her fate. That to the boy who had smiled so warmly in that Forest of Death is lost, forever- now a man who thinks nothing of sacrificing allies, valuing her life as nothing to the vengeance for a family of traitors long gone to dust.
Once, Sasuke and Karin found themselves orphans, bound together, surviving the hells of Ochimaru and Sound. She was never fool enough to believe he truly loved her, but Karin had thought a friendship existed between them, a faith in each other that could never be broken.
But Itachi festered always on the edge, a withering disease he was defenseless against, consuming him without a struggle. At his death, Sasuke should have felt satisfied, the blood of the kin slayer finally on his hands. Karin had envied him that revenge- she still longed to make the men who had destroyed her villain pay, to bleed among the trampled grass as her family had that awful day. But his vengeance was unquenched, his journey taking strange, bewildering turns she struggled to follow until she realized, finally, that Sasuke’s quest for revenge will never end. His family are starving ghosts inside him, their unholy hunger is satisfied only at the cost of Sasuke’s very soul.
Karin has met no greater sensor than her own eyes, eyes that for too long have been blind to the dark and twisted being that now walks in Sasuke’s skin. There is no excuse, no justification for what he has done to her; still she counts herself a fool for not seeing it coming.
The pink haired kunoichi lets out a sharp, pained burst of air that strikes Karin’s skin like fresh cuts, blistering fire around the edges. Karin is tired of the feel of this girl’s pain, interrupting what might be her final thoughts.
Then again, why waste those thoughts on a bastard like Sasuke?
“I saw the strength that lies in your fist,” Karin manages around the blood staining her teeth; if this girl refuses to help her, she knows this is the end of it. The wound of Sasuke’s indifference is pumping out her life blood faster now, pooling around her weak palm, and Karin cannot mold the flair of anger into anything useful that might save herself. Chakra too low, blood escaping too fast. But her bloody tongue is sharp enough to wound, and if this is the end, it might as well be entertaining to see how far she can push this former rival.
Maybe if Karin wounds deep enough, next time this rival won’t hesitate.
“I bet you carried that kunai with you, all this time, held it close each night, whispering that you’ll be the one to do it. Kunai through the back, from the one who loved him best. Tch,” Karin lets out a great, shuddering breath wrapped in condemnation. “Symbolism just gets you killed.”
This breaks through to the pink haired girl. She straightens, the chakra around her hands sparking red hot. It is getting difficult for Karin to see beyond the edges of chakra to the world beyond- never a good sign. She has minutes at best.
“You should know,” The girl kneels beside Karin, her voice high and, ruins of Whirlpool save her, oozing with Konoha spunk. “He stabbed through the same heart that loved him, didn’t he? Shouldn’t toss stones when your weakness is so undefended, kunoichi.”
Karin’s eyes cannot stay open, but she does not give into panic. A foreign warmth is settling about her chakra system, wrapping around her chest like the memory of the babe she once was, swaddled in a blanket close to her mother’s bosom. Safe, finally safe, so unlike the torrent of emotions a healing bite assaults her with.
Her senses are fading, the world darkening, yet Karin feels no anxiety- she surfaces from what she assumes to be a medical coma just long enough to think, man, maybe Konoha isn’t all that bad if this is what their healing is like, before the chakra lulls her into a darkness of a less permanent kind.
When she awakens days later in a Konoha prison, Uchiha Sasuke is the last thing on her mind.