It was an ambush.

The rogue ninja knew they were coming, and they had them outnumbered. Right now, the battle was sixty on three.

However, Sasuke thought, this could never really be called a disadvantage.

Because when the rogue ninja had their powers in numbers, Team Seven simply had power.

catachresis: love.

Sakura was injured. Sasuke repeated the fact in his head like a mantra.

Sakura was injured. She's hurt, she's hurt, she's hurt, she's hurt -

"Sakura-chan, are you okay?!" Naruto asked with alert eyes as he hovered around the pink-haired medic.

"I'm fine, Naruto," she answered, already beginning to heal the wide gash on her left leg. Sasuke felt a strong wave of relief wash over him as he saw the green chakra closing up her wound.

"Are you sure? I'm sorry I didn't get to you right away -"

"I'm fine, really," Sakura said, raising her head to look at him. She was smiling, but to Sasuke's eyes her smile looked rather strained. Perhaps she had been exhausted from their fight...

- she's okay. She's going to be fine -

Sasuke clenched his fists. He couldn't believe this. How could he not have noticed one of their enemies come up behind her with a poisoned kunai? Sakura got out of the way in time to avoid getting hit at her back, but not fast enough to avoid getting hit period.

"You shouldn't have been so careless. What if you hadn't gotten away in time?" Sasuke hissed, glaring at his teammate.

Sakura abruptly turned to glare back at him. "But I did, didn't I, Sasuke?"

"You should have let us done all the fighting," the Uchiha snapped.

"What, because I'm more of a liability than an asset?" She was on her feet now. Sasuke told himself that he shouldn't push her any further back and let her rest; that he shouldn't glare back and provoke her, but he just couldn't help himself.

He was just so angry. Angry at himself for not having to the strength to come to her in time, angry at the rouge ninja who was cowardly enough to attempt to stab a girl at the back, angry that he couldn't do anything to help her, just... angry.

"Hey, Sakura-chan, just ignore Sasuke-teme," Naruto said in a slightly-panicked voice as he put a hand on her shoulder. "He's just being his usual pissy self!"

Sakura shrugged Naruto's hand off of her shoulder, eyes still on Sasuke's. "I'm not weak, Sasuke. How long will it take you to realize that I'm perfectly capable of being a ninja?" she sneered; Sasuke said nothing.

He did. He knew. He knew what she could do, but he just couldn't help but worry about her, about his teammate, about the only girl in his life that mattered -

"Forget it," Sakura dismissed, turning around and walking away. Sasuke couldn't help but notice the slight limp in the way she was walking.

From how it looked, Naruto noticed it, too. "Hey, Sakura-chan, maybe you should rest for a bit first..."

But Sakura just ignored him and continued to walk away. "The sooner we leave, the sooner we get back," she dismissed.

Konoha was approximately one and a half mile away and Sasuke could notice the sweat on Sakura's face and the paleness of her lips. She seemed to be walking with more difficulty now. Naruto was looking at her warily.

"Sakura-chan, I think we should stop for a bi-"

"Konoha's just up ahead, Naruto. It would be useless to stop now," Sakura answered so easily, that if you didn't see how she was currently struggling, you wouldn't notice how much the damage on her body was.

The gash had stopped bleeding, but even to Sasuke's eyes it still looked half-healed. It was angry-red and he could see the dried blood that clung to her skin.

Sasuke's obsidian eyes narrowed. This girl was just too proud and too stubborn for her own good.

In one swift motion, Sasuke scooped Sakura unto his arms. Sakura stared up at him with wide eyes and Naruto looked at him, equally surprised.

"I'm carrying you home," he said, his tone final. But, of course, Sakura attempted to struggle out of his grasp.

"Put me down, Sasuke! I'm fine! It's just a short walk away -"

"Naruto, we're going ahead," Sasuke said, completely ignoring the complaining girl in his arms.

Naruto looked at his best friend warily, but he must have seen something in his friend's eyes that made him agree.

The blond nodded once. "Okay then. You better not drop her, Teme!" he grinned.

"Hn." Sasuke nodded back.

"Stop talking about "her" like she's not here! Put me down, Sasuke! I can walk on my own!" But again, her retorts were ignored while Sasuke performed a teleportation jutsu.

Sakura scoffed and folded her arms gruffly as Sasuke gently sat her down on her couch.

"You should heal your injury again," Sasuke said, walking towards the direction of her kitchen. He took a clean piece of cloth from one of her drawers and dampened it with water from the faucet.

When Sasuke returned to her living room, he was happy to see that Sakura's injury had been fully healed.

Sasuke knelt down on the floor in front of her and started wiping off the dried blood stuck on her knee.

"What are you doing?" Sakura asked hesitantly. He had seen her visibly stiffen at the action, but he paid no heed and continued.

"You shouldn't have forced yourself to walk in such a state," he said, his hand moving downwards, wiping more of the dried blood on her leg.

Sakura huffed. "I could still walk, you know," she said softly, a hint of melancholy present in her voice.

"Stop saying you can, when you can't," Sasuke snapped, his eyes immediately meeting hers.

Sakura's jade-green eyes narrowed. "Stop saying I can't, when I can," she said back.

Sasuke's jaw hardened. "I never said you couldn't."

"You just did." Sakura rolled her eyes.

"No, I mean I've never said it before," Sasuke snapped irritably, gripping the cloth in his hands tightly.

They were back to staring at each other again, Sasuke noticed. And he had been the first to break the stare, again. Sasuke stood up, the bloody cloth still in his hands.

Sasuke took a few steps towards the kitchen before stopping and turning his head back to the pink-haired medic who was still staring at the space on the floor that he had occupied.

"I don't think you're weak, Sakura," he said in a low voice. "But sometimes you push yourself too far." I worry, were the words left unsaid. But from the look in Sakura's face, he realized he must've understood what he meant. He began heading to her kitchen again.

He was washing blood out the cloth when he felt her prescience behind him.

"Sasuke-kun..."

Sasuke turned the faucet off, dropped the cloth down the sink and turned around to face her with his arms crossed.

"I..." Sakura began, looking around warily, as if lost with words. "I'm sorry for always getting angry. I know you're just concerned but..." She looked up at him, meeting his eyes. Sasuke realized how relatively small she was, compared to him. "I just don't like feeling weak around you. It makes me feel undeserving."

Of what?

Sasuke frowned. If it was among the two of them, Sasuke knew he deserved to feel more undeserving than she did.

Sakura pursed her lips and shifted. "Hey," she said, "say something, will you?"

Sasuke looked down on her again. And then he saw it. He saw the too-familiar tenderness in her eyes, the look he had memorized at the back of his mind... the way she was looking at him now... was so much like how she looked at him then.

Do you still...?

"Do I still what?"

Sasuke blinked. He hadn't even realized that he said it out loud.

He swallowed. "What you said before I left," he answered reluctantly, feeling his palms begin to sweat. "Do you still mean it?"

An expression of shock crossed Sakura's face. She hadn't expected that question. After a long, agonizing moment, her expression softened.

"Sasuke..." she said slowly, tentatively, as if she was talking to a child.

Sasuke closed his eyes. He should have expected this answer. He shouldn't have asked. He shouldn't have -

"...I never, ever, ever stopped."

Uchiha Sasuke's eyes snapped open. He looked at her again - her tender eyes, her sunny smile, her. And then he realized...

"I love you with all my heart, Sasuke-kun!"

...he never, ever, ever stopped loving her either.

fin.

Author's Notes:

My friend and I were talking through dinner and I mentioned about my stories. He said, he could give my some SasuSaku prompts, and I said "Go help yourself."

And so he did, and here's the summary of the ideas he gave me.

1. Being childhood friends who don't recognize each other through their adolescence and falling in love...

2. Romance under the sea... (Like mermaids? I guffawed at this.)

3. The theory of the fork and the spoon... (I still don't know what the hell he means by this, though.)

So I raised my eyebrow at him and told him he was a frustrated "imaginator" (if there was such a word). Hehehe...

Sooo... Chapter titles. They mean, redemption, hope and love respectively. I liked the idea of using a different language to write them down.

I originally planned this to be a oneshot, but God knows how long I'd take to finish it, so I went around and made it a three-shot instead. Or maybe I should call it a multi-chapter fic, instead of a three-shot. Or maybe not.

I'm so confuzzled right now.

Thanks for the reads and reviews and alerts and favs and all. Love much. Mwah.

"Catachresis"

Completed on: October 10, 2012

Copyright: Aminatsu032 2012