Entry tags:
... I don't know. Sakura - AU ficlet
I dunno. I was trying to write one of my multiparts. Teamwork!Sasuke, maybe, or Sephiroth? Instead, this happened. 550 words of post-apocalyptic!AU Sakura. And no, I'm not writing a sequel! D:
edit: managed to con
phoenix_melody into writing a sequel instead ohohoho.
The axe, she had found on a wood pile beside Mr. Sarutobi's house.
She was at his house because he was a good teacher, and because sometimes Ino babysat for him and she hadn't found her yet. She'd found the wood pile because when she walked inside the house to check for survivors the smell of rotten meat caught her by the throat and after that she had to run out through the kitchen door. And she needed something to climb, and there were only trees with high branches and smooth trunks, and the chopped wood pile, which wasn't high enough.
It wasn't high enough. It wasn't even quite steep enough, apparently.
But up there was the axe, still stuck in a half-splintered log, where Mr. Sarutobi had left it. When Mrs. Sarutobi started crawling up the edge after her it was like the axe's handle just appeared in her hand. She swung without thought, log and all. Sort of like tennis. The strain didn't even hurt right away.
On the upside when Mrs. Sarutobi crashed to the ground, jaw smashed, head askew, the log flew off as well. The shock almost jarred the handle out of her hand, unbalancing her. She jumped off the pile rather than drop it, landed a little wrong and ended up on her knee.
Mrs. Sarutobi's fingers skittered on the ground, reached for her ankle.
She still had the axe in hand.
It was a good axe -- the most basic log-splitter, and adapted to Mr. Sarutobi's imposing size -- heavy. But recently sharpened. She swung it down.
A second time. A third. Until the pieces stopped crawling.
Then she went back inside the house, because Ino had loved babysitting that kid, and someone needed to chop him up before he managed to crawl his way out of the baby pen.
When the car screeched to a stop in front of the house a half-hour later she was sitting on the porch, a backpack of stolen food and random odds and ends at her feet. She watched her classmates burst out -- Naruto first, with a baseball bat. Sasuke snapped at him and hung back, tracking her with his competition rifle.
She nodded a greeting. "Hey."
If Ino had been here they would have both grinned and jumped up, bypassed Naruto entirely, raced to him. Told him how they'd been so scared, thank god he was there, they felt so much safer now. Asked since when did Sasuke drive and oh, such a cool car, can we...? She couldn't bring herself to go through the motions right now.
Ino wasn't here.
Sasuke's rifle went down. Naruto was in her face, staring at the dry blood splashed all up her arm and cheek, paler than she had ever seen him.
"Are you okay? Were you bitten?"
"Damn it, we were supposed to stay all together for a reason!"
She watched them. She'd worried them both, silly little girl running from the group alone, with no protection. She could have died. Or worse. Did she understand that?
She'd understood from the start. Now she understood it even better.
She'd do it again. Ino wasn't here.
She kept tracing her hand back and forth on the axe's long handle, where it rested across her lap. The wood was warm under her hand.
edit: managed to con
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The axe, she had found on a wood pile beside Mr. Sarutobi's house.
She was at his house because he was a good teacher, and because sometimes Ino babysat for him and she hadn't found her yet. She'd found the wood pile because when she walked inside the house to check for survivors the smell of rotten meat caught her by the throat and after that she had to run out through the kitchen door. And she needed something to climb, and there were only trees with high branches and smooth trunks, and the chopped wood pile, which wasn't high enough.
It wasn't high enough. It wasn't even quite steep enough, apparently.
But up there was the axe, still stuck in a half-splintered log, where Mr. Sarutobi had left it. When Mrs. Sarutobi started crawling up the edge after her it was like the axe's handle just appeared in her hand. She swung without thought, log and all. Sort of like tennis. The strain didn't even hurt right away.
On the upside when Mrs. Sarutobi crashed to the ground, jaw smashed, head askew, the log flew off as well. The shock almost jarred the handle out of her hand, unbalancing her. She jumped off the pile rather than drop it, landed a little wrong and ended up on her knee.
Mrs. Sarutobi's fingers skittered on the ground, reached for her ankle.
She still had the axe in hand.
It was a good axe -- the most basic log-splitter, and adapted to Mr. Sarutobi's imposing size -- heavy. But recently sharpened. She swung it down.
A second time. A third. Until the pieces stopped crawling.
Then she went back inside the house, because Ino had loved babysitting that kid, and someone needed to chop him up before he managed to crawl his way out of the baby pen.
When the car screeched to a stop in front of the house a half-hour later she was sitting on the porch, a backpack of stolen food and random odds and ends at her feet. She watched her classmates burst out -- Naruto first, with a baseball bat. Sasuke snapped at him and hung back, tracking her with his competition rifle.
She nodded a greeting. "Hey."
If Ino had been here they would have both grinned and jumped up, bypassed Naruto entirely, raced to him. Told him how they'd been so scared, thank god he was there, they felt so much safer now. Asked since when did Sasuke drive and oh, such a cool car, can we...? She couldn't bring herself to go through the motions right now.
Ino wasn't here.
Sasuke's rifle went down. Naruto was in her face, staring at the dry blood splashed all up her arm and cheek, paler than she had ever seen him.
"Are you okay? Were you bitten?"
"Damn it, we were supposed to stay all together for a reason!"
She watched them. She'd worried them both, silly little girl running from the group alone, with no protection. She could have died. Or worse. Did she understand that?
She'd understood from the start. Now she understood it even better.
She'd do it again. Ino wasn't here.
She kept tracing her hand back and forth on the axe's long handle, where it rested across her lap. The wood was warm under her hand.
no subject
She's gone straight through panic into that weird, shocky state on the other side where everything is very clear and rational, hasn't she. Oh, she is going to just fall apart when she gets somewhere safer and has time to sleep and eat. And then she'll pull herself back together again, because that's what Sakura does.
I love how she sees that the boys are trying to protect her (condescending? perhaps. or maybe just not understanding that the silliness she and Ino indulge in isn't anything like all there is to her), and doesn't care, because she was doing what she had to do. I love how Ino's absence is somehow almost more horrifying than the presence of Mrs. Sarutobi and the zombie baby. I love the mundane details of the axe being stuck into a log, so when Sakura first swings it, she hits the zombie more with a log than with the blade.
You're right that this feels complete in and of itself, but if you ever do get a continuation plot bunny, count me into the horde who would love to read it. :-)
no subject
Well, before the zombie plague she WAS kind of shallow and happy as it was, and if the boys think she still isn't realizing very well the depth of the risks out there they have a lot of examples to draw from. And before she walked into that house and Kurenai tried to eat her, her idea of the risks was still very academic and distant, so they're not entirely wrong either. Just, they never got to see that there's steel in there. Roaarr.
I still have no surprise!plot, so that's all good. *crosses fingers* >__>;; it would likely turn into a road trip/survival/team bonding epic and I have enough of those already.