Uchiha Madara and the Sleeping Beauty

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A long time ago—more specifically in the Warring Clans Era, in a land far, far away—that is in the Elemental Nations, there was a castle surrounded by dangerous wilderness. The rumour said that in the castle there were innumerable riches which belonged to the most beautiful princess in the land. Unfortunately, the princess was put under a sleeping spell placed by an evil fairy a hundred years ago. Only a handsome prince could wake the princess with a kiss and gain the fortune.

Many brave souls risked their lives on the journey through the enchanted forest, but none reached the gates and some never came back, eaten by animals or lost in the woods. Finally, an ambitious son of a feudal lord decided to break the curse and hired a shinobi to bring him the sleeping beauty.

It was one of the most powerful shinobi in the world – Uchiha Madara.

At that time, the Uchiha clan was enjoying a temporary truce with their sworn enemy clan, the Senju. The rival clans were licking their wounds and gaining strength before the battles would inevitably resume. However, the Uchiha desperately needed money to fund their war. The job from the feudal lord's son was going to pay well so Madara took it without hesitation.

Madara didn't expect this seemingly easy mission to give him a challenge, but soon he found that without advanced techniques travelling through the forests would be impossible. For seven days he burned his way through the aggressive wild with extensive fire jutsus. His gunbai and kama drank much blood as he sliced and diced the giant and rabid predators that were constantly attacking him.

At last, Madara reached the secret castle. After one hundred years of neglect it didn't look well, with the vines growing all over the walls and grass peeking from between the stones in the courtyard. Madara navigated the dusty hallways until he found the princess's bedchamber. In his usual presumptuous fashion, he went in without knocking.

As expected the princess was in the bed, unnaturally still and deathly pale. Madara walked up to her to check if she was breathing. It would have been a big waste of his time and effort if she was dead. Thankfully, he felt steady puffs of breath and saw that her chest moved slightly up and down.

The shinobi regarded the sleeping princess in silence. He had to admit that at least the rumour told the truth about her beauty, even if she sported bizarrely pink hair. Another point of interest was the purple diamond mark in the middle of her forehead. He had seen a similar mark on the Uzumaki seal masters.

Madara's paranoia kicked in and he activated his Sharingan to study the princess. She appeared to have larger than normal chakra reserves, but there was no indication if she was trained in the shinobi arts and if she was in fact linked with the Uzumaki.

Then Madara considered waking her up. It would be beneficial if he could fight on the way back without having to lug her around like a ragdoll. He swept his gaze around but detected no evidence that the princess's sleep was connected with the castle's unusual defenses.

"Hey, princess, wake up. You overslept," he said with a bit of humour. She didn't even twitch.

Madara shook her shoulder firmly. "Wake up." Still no reaction.

Getting fed up, he took out his canteen and splashed the water on her face. That didn't work too.

He didn't want to damage her, as that would dock him a good portion from his pay. There was only one other thing he could try. Technically, the contract didn't say anything about bringing her asleep...

"This is ridiculous," Madara muttered and sat on the bedside. He wasn't a prince, so it probably wouldn't work anyway.

He leaned down, gaze locked on her pink lips. They appeared lush and succulent, not at all dry as they should be after a century of sleep. Madara closed his eyes with resignation and touched his lips to hers.

For a moment nothing happened, but he was already committed to this course of action, so he pressed down and moved his lips slightly against hers, then tentatively licked at her opening. She tasted like cherries, which he quite liked, so he deepened the kiss.

He was so engrossed in the kiss that he barely managed to block a fist flying at his head. The blow was so strong that it still sent him crashing into the wall. Pieces of plaster flaked off the wall and fell onto him. Madara calmly dusted himself off and looked at the red-faced princess with a renewed interest.

"Is this how you thank your saviour?" he asked.

She opened her mouth in disbelief. "Saviour? What saviour? You are a pervert!" she accused. "You go around kissing unconscious women and call it saving them?!"

"No. This was the only way to wake you up," he explained, miffed.

The princess scoffed. "The only way? You mean the most perverted. All you needed to do was to give me your chakra, which disrupted the suspended animation technique I was trapped in."

There weren't many times in his life that Madara felt like a patented idiot (usually they somehow involved Hashirama) but this was one of them. He had the Sharingan, how couldn't he have figured out something so simple?

She must have noticed his consternation as she shot him a smug look. Her damn lips that started all his trouble quirked up, mocking him and he just moved.

In the blink of an eye, Madara was looming over the princess. Her expressive green eyes widened in surprise and a flash of uncertainty. Madara leaned over to her, backing her into the wall on the other side of the bed.

"If I was a pervert," he said in a low tone and lightly cupped her cheek, "I would have done much worse things to you than a kiss."

The princess didn't take her eyes off of him, hypnotized. His touch seemed innocent but it was anything but. It carried a suggestion of unspeakable acts, cruel acts. He'd seen them done in this accursed era, though he'd never perpetrated them, and she appeared to understand the message. At least she wasn't completely naïve like some other princesses.

Her lips parted, snagging his attention before she spoke.

"Forgive me if I don't feel so lucky that a strange man kissed me without my permission," she replied testily. She pulled his hand away from her cheek.

"Don't flatter yourself, it was like kissing a dead fish," he sneered.

"Then you must really love fish, because that was definitely your tongue I felt in my mouth," she shot back.

Madara glowered at her and she smirked again, triumphant at winning this round.

He stepped back and turned around. "Get ready, we need to get going."

"Going where? This is my castle," she pointed out.

"A prince hired me to bring you to him," he said shortly, angling himself to look at her.

"What for?"

"He wants to marry you."

The princess looked ready to kill something or someone with her bare hands. Having experienced her punch first-hand, Madara was willing to believe she'd succeed.

"Well, I don't want to marry him! What's with men in this era?! I don't know this prince and if he wants to marry me so badly, he should have come here himself! Sending someone else to do it for him is just cowardly!" she fumed.

Madara was inclined to agree with her assessment. Alas, the feudal lord's son paid well, so he wasn't at the liberty to judge him... much.

"When we get to his palace, you can tell him all of that," he offered instead.

"What? Didn't you hear me? I'm not going!" she snapped.

"Yes, you are. I didn't fight my way through that crazy forest for seven days to come back with empty hands. Now get up." Madara crossed his arms, looking at her impatiently.

The princess's eyebrows shot up. "Only seven days? Not bad." It was the closest thing to a compliment she'd said to him so far. However, he didn't have the time to really process how he felt about that before the follow-up hit him. "That explains your unwashed savage look. And the smell."

"... For a woman, you lack any sense of self-preservation."

"Oh, did I hurt your feelings? I'm so sorry that the truth hurts," she said with a sugary sweetness that grated on his nerves. Oh, if only his contract didn't specify a living princess...

"You haven't bathed in a hundred years," he pointed out helpfully instead.

The princess made a face. "Right, but I was in a suspended animation. My body was literally frozen in time." She hopped out of the bed, landing unsteadily. She stumbled but kept her balance. Good for her, because Madara would have probably enjoyed watching her face plant on the ground.

The woman headed for the door, then turned to him when he didn't follow. "Come on! I thought you wanted a bath? We need to see if we can get any hot water. It's been one hundred years after all."

Madara nodded and joined her as she walked briskly through the hallways.

"By the way, if you're the first person I met in this era, I'd like to know your name. I'm Haruno Sakura."

"Uchiha Madara."

"Oh, Uchiha? So they didn't go extinct."

"We didn't."

"That's nice."

"Very."

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The bathing system of the castle was miraculously still functional and with the help of Madara's fireball technique they quickly got a supply of hot water. Sakura took the first turn in the bath, keeping an eye peeled and a fist loaded with chakra in case Madara decided to return to his perverted ways. He didn't and she bathed in peace. It didn't take too long as the suspended animation had kept her clean, but it felt very refreshing.

Madara's turn was predictably longer as he had to wash off all the grime and gore from his battle with the forest. She was lounging in the dressing room when he emerged from the bathroom with a puff of steam. Sakura gave him a once over. His long wild hair regained their volume and luster and it seemed he managed to do a bit of laundry too, because his dark high-collared robe was stainless. He must have used some nifty technique to dry it off. All in all, she realized with surprise that under all that dirt there was actually a handsome man. Too bad he couldn't clean up his rotten attitude too.

"Are you packed?" Madara asked civilly.

"I told you I'm not going."

"I'm taking you with me. You can go willingly or we can do this the hard way."

"Which is?"

"I'll tie you up and carry you out of here," he elaborated.

"I won't let you," she said with a clear challenge.

"You don't want to cross me," he warned, his black eyes glittering dangerously.

She looked into them without an ounce of fear.

"Oh, but I do." She tugged on her black gloves. "Let's take this outside."

She led him to the large courtyard. She was dressed in her usual battle clothes – a red shirt, black tight shorts and a pink skirt over them. At first she'd only intended to test his strength, but she changed her mind when she caught his gaze glued to her backside. Gritting her teeth at his brazenness, she swore she'd pummel him into the ground in retaliation.

They faced each other from a distance of several paces. Sakura put her hand on her hip confidently.

"We fight until one of us gets knocked down for ten seconds. Ready? Go!"

At the same time she shouted, she went on the offensive. Her kick opened a fissure in the ground, surprising Madara, his red eyes flashing. He instinctively jumped away but she was already onto him, her fist primed for a knockout punch.

In the last millisecond, Madara fluidly turned his face out of the way and her fist flew by his head harmlessly. He caught her wrist, spun her around and slammed her into the ground on her back. She laid there, looking up at him, stunned.

She began to realize that he wasn't just an average shinobi like many she'd fought in the past.

"Ten, nine, eight," he counted.

Sakura wondered what she should do—break out of his hold and continue the spar or let him win?

"Seven, six, five."

She freed herself from the genjutsu and hopped onto her feet, then backtracked to create the distance between them. The fissure in the ground was real, but she was certain anything that had happened after was a work of his genjutsu.

"Not bad, but this trick won't work on me the second time," she said and cracked her knuckles. She still wanted to clobber him, but she was going to do it with more caution.

She leaped at him with a devastating drop-kick which he evaded. Then they engaged in a fast-paced hand-to-hand combat, gauging each others' speed, technique, as well as reflexes. With a building excitement Sakura realized that he matched her blow for blow! Her deadly punch grazed his cheek and she grinned savagely. He responded with an identically vicious grin which caused her a strange, fluttering sensation in her stomach. Was she getting sick?

The distraction cost Sakura dearly as in no time she found herself pinned to the ground under the smug man. Madara counted down the seconds again.

"Zero," he finished. "You danced well, Sakura, but the victory is mine."

"Only for now. I want a rematch," she replied.

"Maybe after I bring you to the prince."

Madara reached for her hand and pulled her up from the ground. Sakura dusted herself off.

"Before we go, can you at least tell me why does this prince want to marry me?" she asked, cocking her head in curiosity.

Madara snorted. "For your money. And he heard you're good-looking."

Sakura slowly nodded. This made sense. And it also gave her an idea.

"You're doing this for money too, right? So what if I paid you to leave me alone? I can pay more than the prince."

He shook his head. "I accepted this contract and I must carry it out to completion. It's not just the matter of payment. If I abandoned the job for a bribe, the reputation of the Uchiha clan would be tattered and we wouldn't get any more jobs. We'd lose the trust of our clients."

Sakura surmised that in his own way, Madara was an honorable man.

"I understand," she said. "Well then, let's go. We've still got some hours of daylight before the sunset."

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The trek through the forest was surprisingly peaceful. No beasts attacked them and the trees didn't try to strangle them with lianas hanging from the lower branches. Madara wondered if the forest was no longer enchanted as an effect of waking up the princess or if it still was but didn't attack them because it recognized her with him.

They walked side by side, making good time, but after a few hours of marching Sakura started lagging behind.

"Can't keep up?" he taunted.

"I just need a little break. Not everyone has a freakish stamina like you," she replied tartly, leaning against the tree.

She was breathing heavily, flushed from the exertion, which looked nicely combined with her pink locks. Looking pretty was about the only princess-like thing about her.

Madara walked up to her and she gave him a suspicious stare. "Why are you getting so close?"

"I don't have time for breaks," he said succinctly as he grabbed her and threw her over his shoulder.

"Hey! Let me go! What do you think you're doing?!" she shrieked and wriggled in his grasp. His hands clamped on her thighs, keeping her in a secure hold.

"I'm carrying you. Don't move or I'll drop you," he explained and started tree-hopping. It was faster and more time-efficient than running on the ground.

Sakura listened to him for once and ceased her struggles, knowing that the fall from these heights would be very painful for her. Instead, she used the last weapon in her arsenal – talking.

"This is outrageous! Is this how you treat women in this era? Manhandle them?"

"I'm doing all the work for you and you still complain?" Madara muttered in annoyance.

"Or you could have just stayed put for five minutes so I'd catch my breath! Then I would happily run on my own, not hang over your shoulder like a piece of laundry!" she groused.

"This is quicker."

"But I'm uncomfortable! If you want to carry me, at least you could do it properly!"

"I need one free hand to fight."

"Fight who? There's no one in this forest except us."

That was reasonable, but he didn't relax his guard in case the large predators changed their mind and decided they wanted to take a bite of him after all, regardless of the princess's presence.

No matter how much she complained, wheedled and cajoled, even offering to pay him, he didn't change his hold or stop until the nightfall. Only then he picked a clearing and let her down. She regarded him with a frosty silence for the rest of the evening.

In the morning, Madara experienced an intense moment of a déjà vu as he stared down at her sleeping form. Her pink lips beckoned him to wake her up the same way as the last time. With some mental effort he pushed away the foolish idea and instead shook her shoulder roughly. To his relief, her eyes cracked open, giving him a reproachful look.

They traveled through the forest for the next three days. Sakura ran on her own as much as she could and they reached a compromise that made them both comfortable—he carried her on his back, while she had his gunbai strapped to her own back. He had the kama attached to his belt for an easy access though.

With her body pressed against him as he ran, Madara was made aware of her... contours. To distract himself from the way she clung onto him with her arms and legs, he initiated a conversation.

"How did you get trapped in that sleeping jutsu?" he asked.

"Why should I tell you?"

"The legend says something about an angry fairy with a grudge against your parents."

Sakura snorted in a dignified way.

"Nonsense! It was an angry Uzumaki seal master with a grudge against me! My parents had nothing to do with this, they didn't even live in the castle. And this technique was supposed to kill me. I barely had enough time to tweak it and make it so I'd only go to sleep for around a hundred years."

"You knew how long this was going to take... so you would have woken up by yourself?" Madara inquired.

"Yes, eventually, when the chakra ran out. By my estimate it could have been another twenty years, so you got me out early. Though you could have done it with more respect," she said pointedly.

She would never let that kiss go, would she? He didn't argue back only because he saw no point. And he refused to apologize for something he actually didn't regret doing.

On their way to the feudal lord's palace they talked some more. Sakura was interested in how the world had changed since her times so Madara filled her in on the history. She was saddened to learn that the wars became so much more frequent and bloodier. Madara was confused why a strong warrior like her would be so upset by this.

"It's true that I know powerful and devastating techniques, but I always preferred medical ninjutsu. It is my specialty," she revealed a personal detail.

"Professional healers are in high demand because of the wars. My clan could use a medic," Madara mentioned off-handedly.

"Is that a job offer? Did you forget that you're working for the prince who is adamant about marrying me?" she teased.

"Circumstances can always change," Madara said with a contemplative look.

"I suppose you're not wrong," surprisingly, she agreed with him about something for once.

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At last the shinobi and the sleeping beauty arrived before the prince. Sakura combed her hair with her fingers and straightened her clothes as best as she could but there was no hiding her travel-worn state.

The prince looked the part—tall, brunet and moderately handsome (not as handsome as Madara, she noted), but she didn't like the look in his eyes as he gazed at her like she was some trophy he was going to add to his collection. She didn't trust him.

"Your Highness, this is princess Sakura," Madara introduced without pomp.

"Wasn't she supposed to be asleep?" the prince asked. "How do I know it's really her?"

Sakura stepped forward. She wouldn't allow them to talk about her like she wasn't there. "I woke up when my chamber was entered by an intruder," she explained. It wasn't exactly a lie, more like a huge ommission of some facts, but the prince had no business knowing what had really happened between her and Madara. "My name is Haruno Sakura. Pleased to meet you, Your Highness." As a proof of her identity she showed him her royal signet ring. The prince inspected it, then nodded.

"Likewise, Princess Sakura," he said, raking his eyes over her again. She held still, clamping down on the urge to shudder in disgust. "The rumours weren't entirely truthful about your beauty. You're a thousand times more beautiful than anything I could have imagined."

"I fulfilled the terms of my contract. The Uchiha clan awaits my fast return with the reward," Madara reminded the prince impatiently. Sakura was thankful for his interruption.

"The reward? Oh yes, you can have it." The royal gestured at his servants and they brought a sack of gold to Madara. He checked inside and saw that everything was in order, then hefted the sack over his shoulder, heading for the door.

"Now, let's discuss the wedding date. I will of course take care of all your material assets-" the prince addressed Sakura again but she cut him off.

"Your Highness," she said, "I agreed to come here with Madara only to tell you I'm not interested in marrying you."

"... What?" His disbelief and the slack-jawed reaction was pretty comical.

"Frankly, I don't know you and I don't want to marry a man who is in it only for a financial gain. You didn't prove yourself to me as you didn't even bother to come get me. I find it insulting that you would presume I'd fall at your feet just because you're of a royal blood." Sakura smirked, taking in the increasingly redder countenance of the prince. She turned towards the exit. "So long and better luck with the next princess," she said jauntily over her shoulder.

"Stop! You can't go! You are my future bride!" the prince found his voice again and of course he used it to demand things of her.

"I said—not interested," Sakura repeated forcefully, heading for the door.

"Guards! Stop her!"

They surrounded her in a tight circle. Sakura sized them up.

"Madara! Come back here!" she called out to the Uchiha who was still lurking by the door despite his clan's urgent need for his return. He seemed to have enjoyed the spectacle.

"Why?"

"I want to hire you! Get me out of here! You know I can pay you!"

"You can't hire him when he is under my contract," the prince objected, realizing with horror that if she had Uchiha Madara on her side, she could cause an insurmountable damage.

"You already paid him for the finished job, he's not your lackey anymore," Sakura countered.

Madara bristled and glared at her, his arms crossed. "Just for that, I'm not helping you."

She rolled her eyes. "Fine! You're not his hired help anymore," she corrected herself. "Better? Now help me!"

"As you wish." Madara reached for the gunbai.

"Guards! Stop him! Capture the princess!" the prince shouted his orders.

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The fight wasn't drawn out and ended in a predictable fashion. The royal guards had numbers over them but the combined strength of Madara and Sakura was formidable. Fighting side by side, they defeated all of their opponents, taking care to only knock them out. The goal was to discourage the prince from pursuing the marriage, not to create a death grudge.

Sakura still couldn't help herself and punched the prince's lights out. Then she pumped her fist.

"This felt great!"

Madara smirked in total agreement. It did feel very satisfying to show that buffoon where his place was.

Before more guards would swarm them, Madara dragged her out of the audience room. They pulled off the escape from the palace quite smoothly, thanks to their ninja skills and the commotion caused by the fight.

They stopped in the alley at the safe distance from the palace. For a moment they just grinned at each other, breathless and still high on the adrenaline. Madara stole a glance at her lips, subconsciously licking his own.

"Madara?" she called him and he looked up. Damn, she caught him staring.

"So, how much do I owe you?" Sakura asked hoarsely, going back to business.

"I don't want your money."

"But you said your clan needs it... Ohhh," she said like she realized something important, "I see, so you want to stay as my lackey longer?"

"Just give me the money," he gritted out.

Sakura reached into her pouch and gave him a handful of gold coins. When he put it with his reward from the prince, she went to the mouth of the alley and looked for the signs of any pursuit. A strange wistful feeling shrouded him as he gazed at her back, wondering what was her plan now. Where would she go? She seemed interested in travelling around the world. Or she could return to her lonely castle... He'd have to get used to being away from her insufferable, spunky self.

Sakura waved him over. "Come on, the coast is clear!" When he didn't move in his confusion, she grew impatient. "Madara, we really need to get going and you are the one that knows the way! Come!"

"We? Where are 'we' going?" he asked with a flicker of a renewed hope.

"Well, you said your clan needs a medic and I'm one, so I thought I could come with you and meet your family," she explained. "I need to see if your rudeness is genetic or if it's just your own unique trait. I bet on the latter," she added snidely.

"Don't push it," he warned, but it came out much softer than intended. He was just that pleased with her decision.

And this is the story of how Uchiha Madara met his future wife, Sakura the Sleeping Beauty. And then they lived happily ever after.

The End

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A little bonus just for fun:

"Maa-daa-raa, I want to go to the hot springs," Sakura whined.

"Sakura, we are not visiting every hot springs resort on our way to the Uchiha village. We were in one only yesterday."

"But it's so hot and I need a bath! You should treat me more like a princess!"

"No."

"How old are you?" she suddenly asked.

He saw no harm in telling her. "Twenty."

"Oh." She seemed disappointed, but perked up right again. "Well, did no one teach you to listen to your elders?"

"What elders? I don't see any around here," he mocked.

"I am one hundred and nineteen years old! Therefore I am your elder and I'm telling you: we are going to the hot springs!" She crossed her arms stubbornly.

"... So you were nineteen when you fell asleep, huh?" Madara smirked. "I am your elder, then."

"Didn't you hear me-"

"I heard you. I do listen to what you have to say and I remember you saying that your body was in a suspended animation for one hundred years and the time stopped for you. You didn't age at all so you are still nineteen. I am older."

Sakura turned away from him in a huff, but he knew it was only because she couldn't argue with his logic.

"You know, we have hot springs in the Uchiha village. I even have my own private hot spring in my house," he told her. "The faster we get there, the faster you can go soak in it as much as you want," he tempted. With me, he added in his thoughts and smiled at the pleasant mental image provided.

"You just thought about something perverted," she observed. "Oh, look, the hot springs are just this way! I am going and you can come with me or sleep alone on the road! Your choice!"

She sprinted off and Madara really had no choice but to follow her.

The clan was in a dire need of a medic after all.

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AN: Happy MadaSaku Weekend!

This was so fun to write, I surprised even myself that I could write such a lighthearted story about this pairing. I really liked the other prompts for this event, but as I was writing this fic, it just got longer and longer and I was out of time to write anything else. But maybe I could still try later on!

If you have a minute, please let me know what you thought of the story :)