Frightened Puppet

“Of what, yeah?”

“Dying. Aren’t you afraid?”

She applied more pressure to the knife, observing a stray drop of blood stain the rug. She didn’t want to think about the repercussions her actions would bring. She knew it didn’t matter, she knew, damn it. But it didn’t change a thing. Her consciousness was swimming through a maelstrom of decisions. To slice or not to slice, that is the question. And for an eerie moment, Sakura felt her grip slacken. She didn’t want to make a choice. She wanted to stall as long as she could. She wanted to suspend time and leave.

Yet, what undid her resolve wasn’t her mind, her untainted innocence or naivety. No. It had been his eyes. Those sky-clear eyes that suffocated her in indescribable ways. She could feel the evident frustration and acceptance, the raw desperation and calmness. She could breathe it with each lungful. Each heave.

He wasn’t afraid.

“You’re afraid.”

She knew she was. But there wasn’t anything she could do about it. She didn’t know what to do, what to think, what to say. Everything was painfully wrong. Absolutely wrong. She could back off and get killed, or kill him and get out alive. The answer was so blunt and obvious; it was like an arrow piercing her heart. And at that precise moment, she felt like she was gurgling on her own blood, slowly ebbing away and dying under the pressure of her own mind. She wasn’t the least surprise when the thick, hot, tears stained the rug along with the blood.

Neither was he, for that matter.

“Will you kill me?” She whispered hoarsely, unable to comprehend the drastic meaning her words implied. She didn’t want to choose. She never did choose. They always told her what to do, what to say, where to go. This was unfamiliar and new, the life of an actual human being right beneath her fingertips. She wondered if he’d stopped breathing, just like her.

His cold fingers wrapped around her wrist. His didn’t pose as a threat –the man under her fingertips- and she felt this tiny fraction of hope swell in her heart. This tiny glimmer of trust and faith. After a few mangled breaths, she let him guide her hand away. Control was slipping, she knew. And when she felt cold goose bumps rise along her spine, she felt her erratic heartbeat slam against her ribcage.

“Please don’t kill me.”

She was sobbing. She was repenting. She was regretting. And he didn’t say a word. What could he say? Hey, it’s okay, yeah. No harsh feelings, yeah. But it wasn’t like that. Not at all. She had attacked him from behind, for fuck’s sake. Pressed a knife against his neck, screamed at him every existent curse there was to know, straddled him like a wild stud and debated in whether killing him was a good idea or not. And if he were to be honest, he would’ve killed himself, if placed in her position. Because that was rational. That was survival.

What the fuck was she doing crying like that?

Yet, part of the blonde softened at the sight. He had to be reasonable, he supposed. She actually went against every nature of a shinobi and didn’t kill him. And that itself was a rare occurrence. She was most likely a puppet that hid behind the lousy justifications those in power fed her. As long as she was useful and there were lies, what could go wrong? Well, this could go wrong. Because here she was, incapable of choosing, because she had never done it before. Because no responsibility ever fell on her shoulders. Ever since the beginning, she had never posed a threat, because she hadn’t been ordered to be one.

“What the fuck are you doing, yeah?”

This time it was him straddling her, deciding whether killing her or not was a good idea. She was still crying, and he didn’t know why. He wanted to ask her so many things, listen to her reasons, to her justification. But he didn’t have time, or the patience. He just grabbed her neck and held on tight. He didn’t know what to say, what to do, what to think.

“I-I didn’t. I don- I’m sorry.”

He gently let go of her neck, sighing softly. She didn’t understand, did she? How could she understand? Ordered around like the puppet she was. The tool she had been raised to become. It wasn’t her fault, he noticed. She never intended for any of this to happen. She saw him and recognized him as the enemy and engaged in combat. That was it. But that curious part was her inability to end it. And that was wrong. It was the perfect demonstration on how young girls like her were encouraged to become killing machines. How they were trained to have a strong sense of duty, and no sense of independence.

“It’s okay, yeah. It’s not your fault.”

He was sitting now. And she was confused. She had tried to kill him. She actually held a knife against his neck and asked him if he was afraid of leaving this world. And now… now… he was sitting there, looking at her languidly and propping his left arm on his bent knee. She didn’t know how to react. She just clutched her neck and scrambled backwards, away from him. He could kill her, she knew. But at the same time, she knew he wouldn’t. And for an instant, she even felt more confused with his answer. How wasn’t any of this not her fault? It was very much her fault.

But he was gone before she could ask him what her fault was. And, yet, part of her smiled. Because he made her believe it wasn’t her fault, too.