Roses are Red

Never Severed

Sasuke‛s eyes widened in surprise, slightly. L . . . love? But, nevertheless, if he wished to complete his ambition, love was something he could not let himself feel. Hatred is what he lacked . . . . He felt his heart flutter, a spasm he ignored.

"Killing Itachi is the reason for my existence." For the first time since turning around, he turned again to look at her. "Can‛t you understand that?" This wasn‛t good . . . . Somewhere deep inside of him, beneath the hate and the contempt, he had always had a strange attraction to the girl whom now stood before him. He would ignore it, always, trying to keep to his ambition. But never had he wanted to ignore the ambition this much.

Krystal stared at him in disbelief. "No, I suppose not . . . . But," her eyes looked to the ground and she took one of his hands in both of hers. "What about your other ambition? The one where you want to settle down with someone and revive your clan? Orochimaru‛s not going to give you this power for free and I doubt that Itachi will be having kids anytime soon. And if you keep chasing this, this foolish ambition, then what are the chances of you having any, either? Sasuke-kun, please . . . "

Again Sasuke‛s eyes darkened and he looked to the ground himself. With one swift movement, he was five feet away, about-face. "I can‛t stay . . ." Leaves began to fill the space between, carried by a gust of wind and Krystal couldn‛t believe the scenario she was living. She bit her lip as tears welled up into her eyes.

"Fine," she said, hand reaching into her kunai pouch and pulling out her Konoha headband. Tentatively, she brought it up to tie to her forehead and Sasuke soon after heard the sound of her hands creating seals. When he looked to her face again, he was staring into her byakugan eye. "I‛ll use force to make you stay."

"Don‛t do this, Krystal," he warned. "We‛ve been training together for almost a year, now. I know all of the moves you have to offer and can deflect them all."

She got into a fighting stance. "Who‛s to say I haven‛t learned some things? And I still have to try . . .," and with that said, she began attacking his chakra network; he dodged them with ease and attempted to put distance between them once again.

A close range taijutsu battle isn‛t going to possible with her Gentle Fist technique . . . . Somehow, I need to keep this at long range ninjutsu and keep it quick and quiet. I‛ve wasted too much time . . ., he thought. There has to be a way to do this . . .

"You‛re in the range of my Eight Trigrams, are you getting sloppy?" she said while suddenly appearing behind him, nearly quoting her cousin, Neji. "Eight Trigrams: Two palms! Four palms! Eight palms! Sixteen palms! Thirty-two palms! Eight Trigrams: Sixty-Four palms!" A minimal amount of the palm strikes landed at all and even fewer landed on actual chakra points, but it seemed as though Sasuke slowed down a little, which was a bonus even if it was only the slightest bit. He tried some taijutsu of his own, mostly aiming his attacks for places that could end the battle quickly, but she merely blocked them and aimed for places where his guard was weak.

He‛s so busy trying to end this quickly, he‛s leaving a lot of holes in his guard . . . .

A single kick from Sasuke‛s barrage was to the jaw and sent Krystal up a few feet in the air. From there, she was completely vulnerable to when Sasuke jumped him self and acted as her shadow.

Dancing Leaf Shadow? He‛s not going to-! She quickly blocked a kick to her right side, but was unsuccessful in protecting her left, and was sent part of the way down; a last kick went to her stomach the moment she hit the ground.

Lion‛s Barrage!

Of course, that Lion‛s Barrage, she thought dizzily while rising too quickly. I‛ll have to watch out for that, now where did he go? She turned slightly, to try and see through her blind spot, but the kunai that Sasuke had thrown had already nearly reached its quarry; it made a deep wound in her shoulder.