Naruto: Blind

A quiet, and rhythmic thudding filled Sasuke's ears as he slowly came to wakefulness, the lulling sound slowly easing into his consciousness. He became aware of a warmth that was present, and as his mind gradually became alert, he discovered his arms were wrapped around something, or more rather, someone. His head was resting on someone's shoulder, arms encircling a slender waist, and as he lay there quietly, he felt the rise and fall that came with breathing. Arms enfolded him as well, holding him gently, a cheek resting softly on his head.

'Sakura…' his mind registered hazily, a memory of the night flickering slightly in his head.

From the position they were in, he knew that she was leaning against the wall, having slid downwards over the night. Fabric that was both thick and warm was against his skin, and then his lower body felt the sheets. It seemed that she was sitting on top of his bed, not having any blankets or pillows for herself, nothing to keep her warm except for the thick fabric—a robe, he determined. Shifting his position slightly, he heard her stir from her slumber.

"Sasuke?" came her faint utterance.

He dropped his grasp from her, and pulling away he sat up slightly his face turned towards her, listening carefully. Beside him, Sakura shuffled so that her weight indicated she was sitting up straighter. There was a silence, and Sasuke had didn't know what to say. There was nothing to say; he did not need to ask her why she was there, he knew why he had found her sitting on his bed that morning, though he would not say a word about it.

As he expected from her, she said nothing either, seeming both at a loss for words and not needing to say anything to him. He could feel her gaze on him, seeming neither hostile nor embarrassed, feeling steady and deep, yet calm and peaceful. She was expecting him to say something, but he did not.

"You were having nightmares," she said tenderly and softly after the silence had drawn out considerably.

He gave a noncommittal grunt; he remembered them clearly, he did not need to be told that. Images still swirled mercilessly around in his mind, caught up in his conscious like leaves skittering in a wispy breeze, trapped and unable to settle away quietly again. It was an old recurring nightmare, one that had haunted him over and over since the slaughter of his clan. It had continuously come to him while he stayed in this house, and it was only after he moved out into his own apartment that they had stopped. He hadn't been in this house since then, and that was why he had not been so eager to return.

As a child, he had found out that if he trained to the point of exhaustion, he would not dream, too tired to even bring up that which plagued him. That was what he had done over the past few weeks since he and Sakura began living in the old house, and it had worked, his nightmares had not returned; however she had let him sleep late the previous night, and the activities they had done were far from strenuous. And that night the nightmare had returned.

Again he had found himself in that room, the room in which his parents were found dead, Itachi's daunting form looming over the slashed corpses with that indifferent expression on his face. Again and again the murder of his parents then played in his head, a permanent consequence of suffering under the Mangekyou Sharingan. And as he continuously begged his brother to stop, out of nowhere he remembered hearing music: humming.

"Where did you learn that song?" he asked her after a moment, turning away from her, sitting a sizable distance from her.

"I found it," Sakura replied quietly, "in an old box in the closet. It was labeled 'music'; there was sheet music inside, written by your mother. There was an assortment of different melodies—that was song included, among others. I told you yesterday that I had an intermediate grasp on music."

Sasuke was quiet for a moment. Songs his mother had written? She had always liked to sing, and was always humming a tune whenever she was working. He recalled no such box, but then again, he had simply shelved his parents' things after their deaths; having to deal with their belongings was too painful for him at the time.

"She used to hum that song to me," he stated after a moment, saying it more to himself than Sakura.

"I hoped that song would soothe you out of your nightmare—it seemed pretty bad," she said kindheartedly.

He closed his eyes for a second; soothe him? He remembered waking to Sakura's humming, thinking for a moment that it had been his mother there with him—maybe somehow it had all been a terrible dream and they were alive, and he had imagined the whole Uchiha clan downfall.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Sakura asked him compassionately, her voice filled with concern.

He scowled and scooted slightly away from her, lengthening the distance between them. "Don't worry about me," he told her gruffly; he would be fine without her.

Now that the first of the nightmares appeared, his childhood method had begun to fail, and it came to a point where no matter how hard he worked at the activities he was given, the nightmares didn't abate, but instead seemed worse than before. Not only did his clan's massacre flit across his mind, but also scenes of the horrors he had watched while under Orochimaru slipped in among them. Things that he tried to ignore, things that he had done for power, trying to convince himself that there was some justice to his deeds as long as he benefited from it.

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