A Decade-Late Love: Itachi and Sakura, A Cozy Tale

(This is a warm and tender Itachi and Sakura story. I've already posted it on Baidu Tieba, but it isn't finished yet. This is my first time posting on Jinjiang. I hope you like it. I'll work hard on this story. Please be kind to a beginner.) The year they first met, he fell for her. He stole her first kiss. He was six, and she was not yet one. The year he secretly went to see her after completing a mission, she told her parents she loved peace. He remembered it deeply. He was ten, and she was three. The year he was wounded in the cherry grove, she treated his injuries and said she would protect him. He was twelve, and she was five. The year he shouldered a heavy burden and became a rogue ninja, he saw her for the last time. She was asleep in a dream. They set out on two roads leading in opposite directions. He was at the end of the darkness; she stood at a bright crossroads. He was thirteen, and she was six. When they met again that year, she had grown much taller. The girl had become a graceful young woman, like a cherry blossom in full bloom, so pure that he couldn't look away. He was in the shadows, and she was in the light. He recognized her, but she didn't recognize him. As she fought Sasori, he didn't know what he was feeling as he watched from the shadows. It was like being tormented by fire and ice at once. Thank goodness she's all right. He stayed in the darkness, relieved, then sighed. She turned and walked toward the crossroads without looking back. The cherry blossoms and sunlight vanished into the darkness, and everything fell silent again. It was as if he had never existed in her life. He was twenty-one, and she was fifteen. That year, everything went according to plan. He fought Sasuke, his final battle, and met his end. He felt that his life had been nothing but endless darkness. He had spent it all amid duty, schemes, darkness, and plans, enduring it all for the sake of his brother and the memory of those years, when the cherry blossoms seemed to bloom forever, and of the person he held close to his heart. Perhaps this is how your story ends, Itachi told himself. As the battle drew to a close, memories surged like a tide. The scenes played over and over in his mind: her as a tiny child, taking her first wobbly steps, running at full speed, sitting quietly in a daze, studying medicine with earnest concentration, promising to protect him in that sea of cherry blossoms, sleeping as he turned his back on the darkness for the last time, and the woman she had become ten years later. They say that before you die, you see things that aren't there. Before him lay a barren wasteland, a vast emptiness of white stretching to the horizon. On the desolate earth, a patch of pink appeared in the distance, drawing closer and closer. The blur gradually came into focus: her hair streaming in the wind, her eyes as clear as ever, her brows furrowed, her lips murmuring something. It was wonderful to see her at the very end of his life, even if she was only an illusion. Darkness swept over everything. He died at the age of twenty-two, while she was still a girl of sixteen. Weibo: Xiaoxiao Wanzi Daren Theme: