#asha3

[lilmikomiko]

What's your patronus?

According to Pottermore, A Black Mare.

[lilmikomiko]

The first time Sarada call Sasuke "Papa"!!!!!!!!!!

sakura told him that it was normal - that it’s different for babies.

his ten-month-old daughter still didn’t speak, aside from the occasional squeaky sounds that she seldom makes. naruto’s son was already speaking names, and their favorite food in lisps, but sarada seems adamant to be quiet, not even opening her mouth except when eating, or crying when she stumbles on the floor at her attempts to walk quickly.

they always take their time, papa. his wife would assure him, while she leaves him with their little girl for him to accustom herself to his presence, and she would be busy playing with the fringed edges of his hair or silently looking up at him with that calm, quiet stare. when left alone with her, he cannot filter the nagging worry, and brushes her little cheeks with his thumb, or let her cling to him silently, while she looked up at him, wide-eyed, waiting to be lifted.and because the silence gets to him, he talks to her.

papa carries her, and settles her against his chest. sa-chan would weave herself on his cloak, playing tent and peek-a-boo, while he tells her the simplest things: the yellow-white butterflies that gather around mama’s flowers, the weather that seemed nice for her to get a little sunshine, the hours left before mama would return and wondering what she’s doing right now. his tiny companion would merely flail, puff her cheeks in some points.  then she would tilt her head, look down and absently chew at the ends of his poncho, which he will try to salvage from her little teeth. he would then tell her about the sunsets at the valleys near haru ni kuni, the labyrinthine canyons that spread out through the continents of suna, the great rivers that would swell at the edges of ame. the wonderful meadows in the densest forests that’s scattered through hi no kuni. sarada, he laughs at his inattentive audience - that finally took away her fascination from the scars on his hand that she spent herself playing close-open, papa will take you to these places someday.

in response, her cherubic face broke into a wide smile, and prompted to hug him by the neck.

=

it’s time.

mama carries their little baby, still looking at him with those big eyes, watches papa take the poncho, wears his boots, and shoulders his bag. he breathes deeply, and turns to them, his family that he’s leaving behind, over and over again - because he had to.

he first brushes his lips on the corner of his wife’s mouth, with the familiar mata kondo na, a promise to return home, safe and sound. he then presses a kiss on the forehead of his child, and turns.

his footsteps stutters like his heart, when sarada suddenly tugs his cloak with a cry.

“papa!” the little voice was shrill, like a spring suddenly unwound from its state, sobbing, “papa!”

[lilmikomiko]

Are you still doing the 3 sentence meme? I.d like to request Sasu/Saku as Hades/Persephone. ;D

there was a timethat her wax-spun fingers were only wreathed in vines,where the spines of men did not snap with a mere slight.there was a time that the world was an eternal spring, where the existence of frozen lands were a mere thought. there was a time when only lilies bloomed to life with her touch, where plagues did not break with the mere flick of her hand.there was a time when she withered under his presence.but now, it is different. the mortals did not fear him. rather, they feared his queen enough that they do not dare speak her name.(sakura, death spoke her truest name, his mouth stained with her essence. green eyes sparked dangerously, brighter than his brother’s lightning and their worshipers ended songs with και ζήσανε αυτοί )she became cruelty incarnate,and he never felt so accomplished. for the first time, death had brought someone to life.

[sasusaku-headcanons]

26. when the dawn is still dark [T, mild cursing]

Sakura, and the conflict of being a medic-nin, a soldier of Konoha and being a kunoichi who wanted to break the mold, to follow her own path in saving Sasuke

“Sakura-chan, do you know why I choose Konoha?”

  One day, in post-war Konoha, while the two of them were sitting on a bench near a newly rebuilt bridge that used to be Team 7’s meeting point, Naruto asked Sakura. The sun was setting, and the breeze of late Summer days was pleasant.

  “That’s an odd question” she said. “Of course you choose Konoha because this is our country.”

  Naruto chuckled, “Sorry, that didn’t come out right. I mean, do you know the reason why I choose to stay here and rebuilt Konoha?”

  “That’s easy,” Sakura answered with confidence. “You’re a good person Naruto. You stay because we need you here. Everyone looked up to you for support and motivations.”

  “Sure, I’d like to help Baa-chan, Kakashi-sensei, and everyone else building Konoha back right now. That’s what I stay here for, not why I choose Konoha.”

  Sakura smiled. She likes a good game of guess. “Because Konoha need you? You’re almost Hokage now. You’re indispensable.”

  Naruto shook his head, grinning. “Guess again.”

  Musing for a while, Sakura nodded finally. “You want to stay because this is your dream. You’ve fought for it.HHhOHi”

  Naruto’s brilliant blue eyes twinkled with excitement. “There’s that. Being Hokage is my ultimate goal. But that’s not all.”

  “I don’t understand,” Sakura tilted her head, puzzled. If not duty, honor, and dream, then what else could make Naruto stay?

  “Sakura-chan,” he looked at her in the eyes. “You know I care about Team 7, right? You are all my only family.”

  Greatly delighted, she smiled at him warmly, “You stayed because of us? Oh, Naruto.”

  But he shook his head. “What I want to explain is why I choose to stay here in Konoha while I could be out there looking for Sasuke.”

  Just like that, the light-heartedness of the situation went away. However, it was just like Naruto to ignore the gloominess and continued talking with a positive note.

  “I’ve given it some thoughts. See what we’ve done wrong. We shouldn’t have forced him to come back if he didn’t want to. Not after…” his speech trailed off, avoiding the mention of the tragedy behind the Uchiha massacre.

  Naruto blew a long breath, “For now, I’m content to stay here. I want to stay here.”

  “Oh,” said Sakura. She felt an ache in her heart. Because if Naruto has given up any attempts to bring Sasuke back, there is no one chance that the last Uchiha will ever return home. Sakura tried not to let the disappointment grew too big. Sasuke was lost to them now. She thought she had accept the fact long ago, but realized that she never had. She just learned not to think about it.

  Naruto studied his pink-haired companion for a moment, then asked, “Do you see now how we are different, Sakura-chan?”

  She stared at him, “What do you mean? How are we different?”

  “I’m happy here. I don’t feel the need to go look for Sasuke. When he saved my life in the Juubi Battle, I know Sasuke will come-back eventually. The ‘when’ is not important. Hell, I sure am not looking forward for his cocky smirks and snide remarks.”

  He made a face, and then continues, “But I’m sure he’ll come back. I know it in my guts. I know it here,” he directed his index finger to his chest. “I trust him.”

  A familiar guilt twisted painfully in her stomach. “I don’t… I don’t trust Sasuke,” she whispered shakily, admitting the biggest source of regret that has mortified her ever since her attempted coup de graceto their long lost teammate few years ago.

  “Yeah, you two definitely will have to work on that,” Naruto shrugged as if such thing is not a big deal, but then he bumped his shoulder to hers to show that he understood her guilt. “But, that’s not important. What’s important is that you miss him, Sakura-chan.”

  Sakura froze. “I miss him…?”

  “Of course you do. You’ve missed him since he left ten years ago. That’s what you do when you love someone, don’t you?”

  The simplicity and the clarity of Naruto’s insight broke something inside Sakura. It was that steel barricade that she had around her shattered heart. She cried soundlessly right there in front of Naruto on Team 7 bridge in the orange glow of sunset.

  She missed Sasuke. Not the man possessed by madness and driven by revenge as she had seen him the last few times since he left Konoha. She missed the hardworking, determined, boy who was just beginning to learn how to care again. She missedSasuke-kun --- so much that she couldn’t say his name without breaking her own heart.

  “He’s snapped out of that blind rage now. You can go see him, Sakura-chan.”

  Her head snapped up, eyes widened. “See him? Naruto, that… that’s impossible!”

  Naruto chuckled, “Why?”

  Sakura glared at him, hating him for making it sound so easy. Naruto was doing it on purpose. “For one, I can’t leave the hospital.”

  “Tsunade-baa-chan and shizune-nee-san can handle it. If something came up, we can always request aid from the Alliance.”

  “Konoha needs to be rebuilt.”

  “The emergency housing is completed. Everyone has food and shelter. We all agree not to rush the construction. We want to build a new Konoha that is more beautiful than it was. Clean from any painful memories.”

  “T… Tsunade-sama will kill me!”

  “She won’t. She wants you to go, actually.”

  Sakura blinked. “What?”

  “Baa-chan said, ‘Go talk some sense into that stupid girl, she’s miserable.’ Basically, she’s agreeing to what Kakashi-sensei and I suggested for you.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “And that is?”

  “For you to see Sasuke.”

  Hope stirred in her heart from a deep slumber and Sakura quickly crushed it to dust. She is annoyed at Naruto for presenting the idea.

  “Why?!”

  “We think it’s a good idea,” Naruto replied quickly, fearing a pounding in the head from his female teammate.

  “Why, Naruto? I was fine, damnnit. Why do you have to bring this up? Why me? Why can’t you go?” Sakura was aware that she was throwing a tantrum, but that was all she could do not to crumble at the face of a hope so enormous it threatened to consume her whole being.

  “Go see him, Sakura-chan,” began Naruto gently. “You both have some misunderstandings between the two of you that need to get cleared.”

  “Even if I see him,” Sakura gritted her teeth, “He won’t listen. He hates Konoha now.”

  Naruto looked at her with concern, “Sakura-chan…. He doesn’t hate us and the Konoha he hates doesn’t exist anymore.”

  “I… I don’t know…,” she whispered, shaking her head.

  “If there was any reason for Sasuke to come back, Sakura-chan, It’s us.” Naruto held both of her shoulders gently.

  “It’s you,” said Naruto seriously.

  Sakura shuddered, gripping the edge of her seating tightly. “I… I don’t know where he is,” she said finally. 

  “We received intel this morning. He’s heading north to Lightning Country. If you depart tonight, you can catch him at border of Yugakure and Shimogakure.”

  She went silent, thinking, turning the idea over and over in her head. Pitting the reasons why she should and shouldn’t go against one another. Her duty … or her heart?

  After a while, Naruto grew impatient and asked, “What are you waiting for, Sakura-chan?”

  I’m scared, her heart answered, but the word was not voiced. “I…. I don’t know him anymore. I don’t know what he thinks of us now.”

  “The thing is --- none of us do. But you’re probably the only one who can figure it out. You’re careful with him, and you have some sort of a six sense for him, don’t think we didn’t notice.”

  “What… what should I say to him?” Sakura asked, her last line of defense against heartbreak.

  Naruto grinned. “How should I know? If it was me, I will punch him to oblivion. Kami, knows he deserves it. He’s spent too much time nursing that grudge of his. You’re the better choice. Believe in yourself, Sakura-chan.”

  Believe. Faith. Hope. They were such an abstract concept. Drowned by regret and guilt, Sakura could not remember the last time she had felt any of those things for Sasuke, nor herself.

  When she was a child, she believed love could conquer all. Growing up, she had become disillusioned and replaced her dreams with duties. She had become sheltered by the idea of Naruto bringing Sasuke back, burying herself with work instead.

  But now ten years had passed, and Naruto was handing the torch over to her. Because Naruto had chosen to believe in all of them.

  Sakura doesn’t know whether Naruto is right. She doesn’t know where she could find enough strength to face what had become a very messy situation between Sasuke and herself. She doesn’t know what to say to Sasuke to bring him back home. Not yet.

  But Sakura like Naruto’s idea of faith in all of them, of faith for the future.

  That was reason enough.

  Sakura looked at the red burning of the sun and smiled.

  “Tell me more about his location.”

  They will be together again.

    What destroys a man more quickly,

than to work, think, and feel without inner necessity,

without any deep personal desire, without pleasure—

as a mere automaton of “duty”?

—    Friedrich Nietzsche

- asha3

[sasusaku-headcanons]

08. food for thought [K]

What made Sasuke like tomatoes? What made Sakura like umeboshi / anmitsu?

Sasuke felt Sakura suddenly tense form beside him, and his instincts immediately responded, hackles rising in alert. His eyes swept their surroundings, although he had already done the standard area inspection just a few minutes before. Whatever threat that made his teammate freeze in the middle of a grocery store must have entered the building only recently.

When he couldn’t detect any threats, he turned to find her staring dumbfounded at the tomato in his hand.

“What?” he asked, a little harsher than he intended.

“I can’t believe I didn’t realize it before!” she whispered in amazement.

“What?”

“Your skin! Your eyes! Heck, even your arsenal of fire techniques!”

Sakura’s intelligence was one of the things Sasuke admired secretly, but her thought process sometimes befuddled him completely. Hers was a mind that merged both logic and intuition perfectly, and was too quick to connect the dots. It often lead to misunderstandings, when she would jump from one thought to the next, making their debates or deep discussions a bit hard to follow when she would clam up in the middle of a rant, staring at a distance, before speaking a seemingly completely different topic, until she gets to the end and drives the conversation to a definitive conclusion.

This woman loves to talk in circles.

(He wonders if that's the reason she chose that as her insignia.)

Realizing that there was apparently no serious danger, but Sakura who was having one of her epiphanies instead, Sasuke placed the tomato in his hand into their shared shopping basket

“I always wondered what made your skin so fair and smooth. It must be all that vitamin C in the tomatoes you ate,” her eyes sparkled as she gave him a big teasing grin.

“Sakura,” he growled at her, all the while thanking the Gods that Naruto was not around to hear that statement.

She was still smiling while helping him pick the ripest, plumpest red tomatoes off the grocery rack. “I thought you like tomatoes because they're very practical. But I was wrong, wasn’t I?”

She was thinking too much again. Sasuke sighed but knew that there was no stopping her rambles once she was in that ‘thinking’ mood.

“They have high content of vitamin A, too, so they’re good for your eyes. You always ice them before eating – that’s a common home remedy for mild burns. A cold tomato paste is rather rustic, but it's an effective treatment after practicing Katon techniques…”

Sasuke was only half-listening as they moved to the next aisle of umeboshi – he's still amazed that she likes the salty plum pickles because they traded onigiri once upon a time in kindergarten (she had okaka, he had umeboshi. They traded. End of story). But the fact that she still liked it after twenty years? It strongly reminded him how much he could affect this girl, and that never ceases to amaze him.

When she suddenly stopped walking, he turned patiently to her.

The look in her face announced that she had arrived to a conclusion. The glassy sheen of tears in her eyes indicates that her conclusion was correct.

He glared at her, daring her to say it out loud.

She did not shrink away from his glare. Neither did she try to sympathize with him. It was a testament of how much her character had matured during the war, and how much she had come to understand him.

“So I’ve been thinking,” she smiled. A sad smile, but no less true than the other smiles she seem to give to him more and more recently (yes, he noticed which of those smiles were fake).

“I want to take up some gardening in our balcony. What do you think of growing our own tomatoes?”

Sasuke knew right then that Sakura understood. He likes tomatoes for the memories of happy days spent in his mother’s garden, and the nostalgia of a soothing cold sweetness in his mouth after training for fire techniques when his world was still intact.

That level of insight was the reason why, a long time ago, Sasuke decided he could not be close to her. But Sakura was not the only one who had changed. He too, had decided not to live in the shadows anymore.

Sasuke closed his eyes to savor the feeling of having someone care for him without judging. Like a real friend. Like a family.

“Sasuke-kun?”

“Aa,” he nodded, “Tomato is good.”

They both have come a long way.

- asha3 (f|t)

[sasusaku-headcanons]

Thanks for all these fantastic reading materials. You guys did excellent works. I know it can't be easy to spout one high-quality story after another, but I think it's evident for everyone who read this blog that the entries are well above the average fanfiction works (Personally, I think some of them are even over the top fantastic). Your hard work shows. And your brilliant talents. Have fun on the next projects! - asha3 

OH asha, we love you. Thank you for the kind, kind words. We will try our very best to come up with good ideas and stories (within a few hours, since we do only write every Saturday.) But this really made our heart melt. (BECAUSE DARLING, ASDLSDAK, WE LOVE YOUR FICS TOO!):D So we'll truly treasure your words. Thank you! 

[redasatomato]

I need to figure out how to leave notes on a post! XD. Twilight was okay for me untill all the rave. I don't think it's worth all the attention. And yeah, I hate gums too, especially when I step on them. or got them on my purse. It should be illegal to eat gums on the street. *fume* I also can't stand horror movies. I hide behind my hands most of the time. LOL. XD

ASDFGHJKL--I thought my answer for this got published already! ; A;

/kickscomplikeatomato

Oh oh! Umm, I think there's a reply button that comes up on a post, yes yes? Or does it not show up for you? Mmm yeah--each to their own really, so it's okay if you like/don't like it. Personally, I'm with you on that opinion though. Gum in shoes! Oh yikes, that's really not good. On your purse? D8 Ahh, maybe not go that far on that rule--if people just threw their gum away in the correct places, we wouldn't be having this problem... H-Hehe, let's both hide together then when they pop up? > o>

[redasatomato]

3, 8, 16, 25, 35, 39? :D

3. ...Twilight. It's not like MARGH I LOATHE THIS SERIES WITH THE FURY OF A THOUSAND SUNS ROARRRRR. But at the same time, it's not like THIS SERIES IS THE MOST SUPER DE AWESOME THING EVERRRRR. For me, it's like MEH. I CAN DEAL WITH IT. If you asked me to sit and watch with you, it'd be fine. It's really just just a "shrug whatever" moment for me. Lol, this question really stumped me for the longest time there.

8. As a kid, I used to collect shells. A family friend brought some back from a beach trip and I remember being so mesmerized by their delicateness and intricate designs. It was almost magical. But then, my bitty collection got lost somewhere between middle school and now. It should be around. Somewhere. Hopefully. I also like to collect state quarters after finding a case for them in a store. I think I'm about 2 quarters away from a complete set now...?

16. Fullmetal Alchemist. JUST FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST. I want to see what happens to so many of the characters, as in actually see them on screen interacting as some of the events happen. Although I'm grateful for the ending Arakawa gave us. Curiosity's just coming down on me like woah.

25. Pet peeves. Hmm. Umm. Err. How about an example of something that bothers me? YES. Let's do that. Mmm... Gum underneath desks. Can't people take it to a trash can? It's only how many feet away, my goodness. Save yourselves and the students who will come there next. Please. I implore you.

35. Pokémon! Let's do it. I wanna the very best like no one ever wa--and insert rest of theme song here. Nothing like the classics. Though I'm not as up to date with the new pokémon out there. So many of them nowadays. Wow.

39. ALL THE HORROR MOVIES. ALL OF THEM. I can't sit through one without yelping. Or spontaneously getting a pillow and hiding behind it. Silent screams of terror anyone?