City of Night

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Sakura ran across the pale white sand, soft and cold under her bare feet, the ocean wind whipping through her hair and white lace dress, causing the sand to sting her bare legs painfully as she ran to the fallen angel in the distance.

Sasuke stood on the edge of the high cliff face Sakura was running to, his shimmering, raven-black wings brushing the sandy stone underneath his feet as he watched the waves crash violently against the black stone with cold and empty eyes. The sky above him was grey and overcast, and the wind threatened to push him over the edge and into the dark broiling water below.

Sakura stopped running, standing a metre away from him and watching his back, dazed, feeling almost as though she wasn't in control of her own body somehow.
"Sasuke!" she called loudly to be heard over the wind and he turned slowly, the tips of his feathery wings scraping against the ground, and Sakura felt her body go cold when his obsidian eyes fell on her, icy wastelands, cold and unforgiving.

Sakura felt like she couldn't breathe. It was like he wasn't even alive and he looked at her like she was a stranger to him.

"Who are you?" Ino's malicious voice rang through Sakura's mind as the blonde suddenly appeared at Sasuke's right and folded her black wings around him. Her smile was cruel and possessive. "You're just a human."

"Cherry blossom," Karin sniggered, appearing at his left and doing the same, so that Sasuke was caught between the two in a feathery cloak, and Sakura growled from low in her throat, vicious and feral and she was unsure of how she had even managed to make such a menacing sound.

Kiba and Neji appeared from behind the three malevolent figures and took fighting stances in front of them, their wings extending to the sky, baring their fangs and looking at her with the same cold eyes as Sasuke and Sakura took a frightened step back. Strangers. These are strangers. The same thought rang through her mind and Sakura inhaled sharply as her back came up against something solid. She turned and looked up into a pair of very pale-blue and darkly rimmed eyes.

"Sakura," Gaara said in a low voice, his tone grave and his expression weary. "Don't turn your back on the enemy."

"But, Sasuke's not the enemy," she said dumbly and Gaara growled.
"Look at the colour of his wings Sakura." Tenten looked at her from over Gaara's right shoulder. "They're the enemy," the brunette said gravely and Hinata nodded from over his left shoulder. "Their wings are black." Her silver eyes were so sad, Sakura realised and she took a step back and gasped. While Sasuke's wings were darkly beautiful and black, Gaara, Tenten and Hinata's were magnificent and shimmering silver-white. The colour of purity.
Sakura's eyes were drawn to a dark, wet blood stain that had soaked through the fabric of Gaara's shirt on the left of his chest. Over his heart.

"Look again," Gaara said, and she did. Kiba and Neji snarled viciously while Karin cackled and Sasuke stared ahead coldly, making no effort to break free of Ino and Karin, and Sakura felt her heart ache painfully.

"He doesn't care about you anymore," Karin's voice hissed in her head and Sakura felt a stab through her chest and heard Tenten growl. The three angels behind her spread out as Kiba and Neji did the same and Sakura felt soft rain start to fall over them as the waves crashed below. She saw more fallen angels standing behind Sasuke now, Itachi being one of them, black wings that were vaguely specked with silver feathers extended, but the rest were people Sakura had never seen before and didn't know. She felt all their cold, hard, eyes on her and she felt her blood run cold.

She turned behind her and noticed that there were more angels behind Gaara as well, also people she had never seen before, but unlike the Fallen, they watched her with warm eyes that were encouraging and comforting, and Sakura stepped closer to Gaara. Sasuke growled from behind her.