City of Night

Chapter 24

Chapter 24

"Hey, Sasuke." Karin sat up straight in her chair, propped up next to Sasuke's bed and absentmindedly adjusted her glasses on the bridge of her delicate nose. "It's been a while hasn't it?"

Sasuke didn't answer and Karin would have been surprised if he had. She nervously twiddled her thumbs. "You're probably wondering why I'm talking to you," she said softly. Sasuke frowned in his sleep and Karin sighed wearily. "You're probably even wondering about what I'm even doing here." Images of what Ino had made her do flashed painfully across her eyes and she winced at the memories of the things she had done under the will of someone else. She was sure she was one of the last people Sasuke wanted talking to him, having helped Ino gain control of him.

She didn't say anything for a while and gazed distantly out of the window on the far left side of the room, watching both vampires and Druids train together in the training grounds down the hill from the infirmary. Not as enemies but as comrades now, she thought with satisfaction.

"I'm the same as you," she said at last, turning her gaze back to the raven-haired boy, who, she was sure, was furiously calculating everything she said behind closed eyelids.

"You probably don't believe me," she added with a bitter smile, "But Ino also made me into something I'm not, the same as what she did to you. But it was done slowly over years, making it look as though everything I did was out of my own free will instead of hers. She was a prodigy, already able to harness her powers even as a child." She fell silent again, giving Sasuke time to think about what she had said.

"There are so many things I still want to blame myself for, that I did blame myself for, for a while," she said, but her voice sounded far away, like she was lost in her memories of the past. "For being too helpless, too stupid, too ignorant and naïve for becoming her friend in the first place. Too weak to fight against it. The list goes on." She paused again before continuing.

"Suigetsu and the Mizukage helped me, but I came to the conclusion on my own." She looked down at Sasuke with piercing ruby-red eyes. "I came to the conclusion that none of it was my fault. That there was nothing I could have done to prevent what happened and there was no way I could have known just how much of a monster Ino was. Blaming myself and sulking about it wasn't going to help me to go out there and do something to try and fix the things I've done. I guess what I'm trying to tell you is this:"

"It's not your fault, Sasuke," she pressed, placing her hand over the hand resting on his chest. "No one blames you for any of this, so you can wake up now." Sasuke gave her no response and Karin sighed again with exasperation and pointed to the stone ceiling.

"Sakura's up there right now. Fighting and risking her life for us even though she's only known about us for such a short time. She's challenging and changing everything about our world as we know it," she said in a low voice, leaning closer to him. "And sure, she's fighting for everyone but I think she's fighting for you most of all, because she loves you," she said softly before releasing his hand and straitening up in her seat.

"You should be there when she gets back," she said seriously, "Sakura's strong so she hides her pain and strain well, but I think she'll need you when she returns. The battlefield changes a person and I don't know if she'll be able to cope with those changes on her own."

Karin stood and slowly made her way to the doorway, deciding that she had gotten her point across.

She stopped herself in the doorframe and turned to face him before saying quietly, "All I'm saying is: Sakura's created a whole new world out there now, for all of us, and I think you should be awake to see it. Just think about what I've said, okay? For her sake at least."