Author's Note: Hello! Sorry it's been so long! I'm loving the interest in this story! I'm sorry that it took so long I've been busy with other stories, work and life! I still don't have a plan for the pairing so I'm all ears on who the main pairing should be! Let me know what you think! Also, one of my stories was started turning into a graphic novel - it's my Final Fantasy one - and I am floating on cloud nine! :D Alright, I'm heading off to bed now! Goodnight! And check out the poll on my page! It's got nothing to do with this story but I would appreciate it! Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I own nothing except the plot.
Warnings: Language and OOCness.
Word Count: 4,460
"Idiots," Sakura says, staring at the four men in front of her. "I swear you're all a bunch of idiots."
"Sakura," Hashirama starts to say but the pink haired girl holds up her hand to stop him. Tobirama flings his hands around, trying to get the black goop the witch shot at him, in their frantic and kind of embarrassing retreat, off of his shirt, pants and hands. She got him good.
"I swear..." Sakura mutters, shaking her head. Hashirama opens his mouth to talk again, but Sakura waves her hand around to stop him. "No, don't speak yet. Have you guys ever really faced a witch before, or were all of those stories I've heard about you really just rumors?" She looks between them. Her eyes land on silently awaiting Hashirama. "Now you may talk."
"We have," Hashirama says slowly, worried that Sakura was going to stop him again, when she didn't, he continues, "but those were different than these. They traveled together in... in like packs of five to ten. They weren't like that..."
Sakura stares at him, at first in confusion, and then in horror. Then, her face falls solemn and she bows her head slightly. "You didn't fight witches. At least not fully realized witches."
"What does that mean?" Tobirama asks. "Are they like the ghouls?"
Sakura shakes her head, frowning deeply. "No, ghouls are people tainted by the essence of one of these witches. What you all faced were the apprentices."
Hashirama's eyes widen in absolute horror. "You... you don't mean..."
"Yes," Sakura says, voice flat. "What you fought and killed where the young apprentices brought to the witches for training. Children brought to the coven for training. They had no or little control over their magic. They wouldn't have posed as much of a threat as a fully realized witch would have. Now this makes sense. I guess I can't fault you for not knowing how to fight a true witch."
Sakura just stands there for a moment, letting them settle into silence before she says, "You've just been killing babies." She didn't mean it in the way it sounded. It was just something that Sakura had realized. She didn't mean it to hurt their feelings or make them feel bad. The apprentices had to be stopped and while she knew that, she had been dreading it. In the back of her head, she did notice that she had yet to run into more than a group or two. Now she knew why, they were being killed off by the Uchiha and Senju clans.
"Oh... oh no..." Hashirama says, bringing his hand to his lips. His face is actually taken on a green tint.
Sakura realizes her mistake. "No, before you get all depressed and upset, it had to be done," Sakura says, sounding a mixture of remorseful and bitter, even to her own ears. But there was also a bit of relief there too. The more they killed, the less she did. Maybe that was selfish of her to think.
"I can't believe we were killing babies..." Hashirama says brokenly, looking like his heart was ripped from his chest. Tobirama bows his head remorsefully while Izuna turns his head away sharply a prominent frown on his lips.
"Fuck," Madara growls, hands curling into fists.
Sakura's shoulders slump. She knew what she was getting into when she began to hunt the Grand Fire Coven witches. But they didn't. Maybe in some way they suspected it, but to actually kill something that housed the soul of what was once a child was something that Sakura spent many nights sitting up thinking about before having actually hunted any of them down. She can't imagine what it must be like to find out so suddenly and out of the blue.
Plus, something tells her that on principal alone, these men don't do a lot to hurt children. So this must be a low moral blow and Sakura was running her mouth again, insensitively.
Her mother would be furious with her. Her mother was always telling her to be more thoughtful with her words. She was always so blunt she would hurt people without meaning to, like now for example.
"They are just suffering as they are," Sakura says softly, feeding them the rationality she used that helped her sleep at night, hoping it would offer them a smidge of relief despite the situation as it did for her. "You released them from their agony. You needn't feel shame for that."
None of them look like that made them really feel any better, but it was a better way to look at it, even if none of them - now even Sakura - would be getting any sleep tonight because of it.
Sakura rubs her forehead and leans against a nearby tree, wanting to move on and try to get all of their minds off of that terrible conversation. "Okay, let's go through the events of the night."
Having something else to focus on brings all four of the brothers back to the present. All looking in varying degrees of embarrassment. Surprisingly, Madara's the red faced on, Hashirama is laughing with an idiot grin on his face, Izuna's chin is tucked into his chest and Tobirama is looking away, his eyebrow twitching like mad. If Sakura didn't know any better, she would guess that they don't mess up much and being caught in the middle of a big fuck up is probably like cracking their egos with a moutain's girth.
"Do we have to?" Izuna asks, his voice quiet in the early evening. With a witch being so close the local wildlife is silent.
A cruel smile tugs at the corner of Sakura's lips. "How will you idiots ever learn if you don't understand what you did wrong?"
"Believe me," Izuna grumbles, "I think we all realized what we did wrong."
"That was so embarrassing," Madara mumbles, shaking his head.
Hashirama lets out a healthy laugh, making the three other men glare at him. "I've never heard you squawk before, Madara, I have to say, it was something!"
Madara glares at him murderously. "Shut up, Hashirama. I didn't squawk. I... grunted."
Izuna grins over at his brother. "Sure, the birds were jealous of your perfect rendition of a grunt, Madara."
Madara's glare turns to his little brother equally as murderous. "Izuna..."
Sakura shakes her head, amused by this entire thing. Not nearly as amused as Hashirama, who was still cackling a few feet away, arms wrapped around the trunk of the tree he's next to using it to keep standing while he laughs. He was an odd one. Glancing over in his direction, Sakura suspects she sees tears running down his face with his laughter. Tobirama gives his brother a droll look while Madara actually whacks him over the back of the head, hissing at him to shut up once more.
"Okay," Sakura says, shaking her head. "Let's just go over the finer points: the situation is never as it seems; this witch in particular is a master of illusion, the ghouls you faced and the apprentices don't hold a candle to the flame of a fully realized and well trained witch, no matter how silly they look witches are still fucking dangerous, dumbasses, so don't laugh, and lastly," Sakura turns to Tobirama, who was still flicking the goop off of his pants and shirt. "That shit is not only going to stain, Tobirama," he looks up at her, surprised, "but it's also going to stink. Like, for a while."
Tobirama blanches at that and Hashirama is laughing again.
"If I had known it wasn't acid rather a stinky ass goop, I would have let it hit you," Tobirama seethes, glaring at his brother.
Hashirama laughs even more. "Thank you for throwing yourself in the way of it for me, Tobi! I will forever be in your debt. I'd hug you, but you stink!" Tobirama snarls at his brother.
Madara turns a bland expression toward Izuna. "That's some loyalty, Izuna. Care for some input? I was pretty close to Hashirama when she spit that shit."
Izuna laughs, putting his hands on his hips. "What are you asking me, Madara? Are you asking me if I would jump in the way and save your life, if it came to it? Sure. But I knew you would be fast enough to avoid it and like hell was I going to gracefully accept humiliation like Tobirama currently is." He turns a wolfish smile to the heir to the Senju bloodline.
Tobirama's lip curls slightly but manages to keep his tongue. Even Madara looks slightly amused.
"Okay, okay," Sakura says, waving her arms around to get their attention, "shut up, idiots." Both sets of brothers turn to her. "We'll head out a little ways and rest for the night. Thankfully this witch won't pursue us and is only active during the day."
"Is that usual for a witch?" Madara asks, flip switched back completely to business. "To be active during the day. The... apprentices were only active at night."
Sakura shakes her head, quickly moving on so that no one can linger on that subject again. "It takes great power for these witches to be active during the day so the apprentices are a hundred years too young to be able to do it. But this witch is a bit different. Her power is specific to the nighttime, so she's active during the day to counter it. If we sneak up on her at night, we're screwed."
"What does she control?" Tobirama asks, "We didn't get that far."
Sakura crosses her arms over her chest and frowns. "She controls shadows. Shadows are higher cast during the day but a hell of a lot harder to avoid at night. And it's not naturally made shadows alone that she can control, she can also make them. It's best to be able to at least see them."
"That's a good idea," Hashirama says, settling down once more, now that they are back to business. "What should we do now?"
Sakura sighs. "Let's find some place to camp for the night and talk it over in a few hours."
Sakura turns around and starts walking away from the sickly feeling clawing at the back of her head, alerting her to the witch's proximity. The feeling easing as she puts distance between them.
"Sakura," Izuna calls out to her.
"Yes?" Sakura sighs, glancing over at the youngest of her four companions past her shoulder.
"I just have to know since I know it's going to gross the hell out of Tobirama," Izuna says, grinning now.
Sakura's eyebrow quirks up curiously. "Yeah?"
"What the hell is that black shit all over him?" Izuna asks, letting out a little laugh. Tobirama glares at him.
Sakura lets out a laugh, shaking her head before mumbling something.
"What was that?" Izuna asks, tiliting his head. "What did you say?"
Hashirama steps up beside her and makes a show of leaning in close when Sakura mumbles. As soon as she finishes, Hashirama completely falls to his knees and lets out a loud cackle, rolling onto his side, then back, kicking his legs around in his hysterics. Madara and Tobirama both stop and stare at him with wide, confused eyes while Izuna's grin practically splits his face in two.
"Oh, this has got to be good," Izuna says, letting out a chuckle at Hashirama's exasperated laugh.
"And it is!" Hashirama says through his laughter.
"Shit," Tobirama says, running a hand through his hair. As soon as he finished, he looked down at his previously goop-ified hand in horror, probably wondering what he had just done.
"She..." Hashirama says, stopping because he can't breath. "She...! She..!"
"Spit it out, Hashirama!" Madara snaps, annoyed.
"She... she spit a loogie at him!" Hashirama starts laughing again with renewed vigor. Sakura busts out laughing, surprising herself. There was just something about he way Hashirama said it that was hilarious, and his laugh was contagious. She hasn't laughed in a long time. It sounded strange in her ear.
And even though it felt like it lifted a huge weight from her shoulder, the moment she remembered, the moment that day crawled back out into the light from the darkness in the back of her mind once more, the weight dropped back onto her shoulder with renewed force and another hundred pounds to accompany it. Sakura feels her shoulder bow like it was a physical weight.
Sakura turns away from the two sets of brothers, hands curled into fists.
Sakura steps back, avoiding the whip-like tendril of darkness flying past her face. She takes another step back for good measure. Madara goes charging by moving faster than a regular human would. Being part of a shinobi clan - especially one as prominent as the Uchiha - is a lineage filled with magic. In one way or another, they have been touched by the witches.
There is magic in their blood, without having any connection to the witches. It leads Sakura to wonder if that has something to do with their reasoning for hunting the witches. She had to wonder if somewhere along the family line, of both clans, there was witch that brought magic into them. Obviously they had boys that didn't become warlocks, so the magic just laced itself into the bloodline without manifesting as witches. At least, not as far as Sakura knew.
Most girls forsake their name, or are stripped of them, when they become witches. Most witches don't have full names. Just first names and something to distinguish them by. Like the one they were fighting right now; Yoshino of the Shadow.
She was probably pretty at one point in her life, but now she was a mess. Her head had engorged, almost comically to where it was almost the entirety of her being, and became the new center of her mass. Her body was small, like a doll's that just sort of hovered beneath her enlarged head. Her eyes were wide and bugged out and her nose was gone while her mouth was tiny. It was comical to Sakura, if she took away the idea that strange creature before her used to be human.
What was once Yoshino, mumbles something incoherent in a voice that sounds like she sucked in gallons of helium. Sakura lets out a little breath, feeling bad for thinking that the hideous creature before her - that was once human - was humorous now that it was no longer human. Sakura should pity and mourn for this creature - this woman - before her, not laugh at her.
Someone tackles her from the side, throwing her out of the way of another tendril shooting toward her chest. Namely her heart. Sakura glances over at Izuna, jumping to his feet and pulling out his sword to block three more that shot toward them.
"Are you alright?" Izuna asks, planting his feet to keep firm to hold the tendrils back.
"Yes," Sakura says, climbing to her feet. "Sorry about that. Thanks for the help."
"There is never more than forty tendrils," Tobirama yells.
Sakura shakes her head and slides into a defensive crouch, spreading her legs wide. She traded in her usual, light traditional kimono for leggings and a short red kimono with a long black sleeve shirt underneath it.
Sakura lets out a deep breath, bringing her hand up to her forehead. She murmurs a few soft words before slipping her fingers away from the purple diamond branded on her forehead. It's always there, but with a few soft words, she can hide it against her skin but she needs it revealed to access her strength. One of the perks of magic.
Sakura races forward, dodging through the tendrils of darkness, and avoid the shadows of the trees around her toward the almost balbus-like form hanging from between four trees, dangling like a spider over it's web.
She dodges between the tendrils, feeling one scrape across her cheek while another slides across her thigh, slicing open the skin and fabric. Sakura doesn't bat an eyelash. In her peripheral, Sakura sees Madara sweeps his gunbai fan to the side before swiping it to the other side, sending a torrent of fire toward the side of Yoshino. Her little lips perk and over a dozen of the tendrils go to that side, pressing close together and forming a pitch black, wiggly barrier between her and the flame.
Hashirama's strong sword easily slices through the tendrils like hot blade through butter. He uses it to draw in close on the other side. Yoshino uses more tendrils toward that side to try and stop Hashirama. Tobirama circled around the back, his own sword, crackling with lightning, slicing and dicing through the tendrils while Izuna jumped high into the air, sword pointed down toward Yoshino's head. She creates another barrier to put between herself and Izuna, leaving her open to Sakura.
All she has to do is slide through a few of the remaining tendrils before she makes it to the little body and the huge head. There is a moment where the little hands slide forward and reach out for her. It was a horrible, traumatizing moment where everything slows down. In those wide eyes, blinking out of sync from one another, there is a bit of recognition. Not of Sakura, but of what was going to happen.
A part of Yoshino still existed. Just like with all of the other girls. A part of them continued to exist, swallowed by the madness and chaos in their bodies and souls that is only released after the witch realizes that she is going to die. It's a terrible thing that breaks Sakura's heart each time she sees it. Whatever this curse is, it allows the girls to awaken in the last moment of their life, force them to realize what they've done and who they have become.
Sakura pulls out a needle, it's all she needs, and slides it into the small body, where the heart should be. Her entire being spasms, twitching as the eyes lull back and forth in different directions before the tendrils explode into smoke and vanish. Yoshino's body is bathed in light and Sakura backs up slowly, bringing her hand up to her forehead and hiding the diamond again, hating this part the most.
Yoshino is beautiful. Sakura was right. Her hair was dark as night and slides all the way down to her waist. Her eyes are black as well and her skin is fair. Where at one point in her transformation her skin was gray and crinkly as if she had age ninety years since she was cursed, she has now reverted through time. She appears to be in her mid-twenties with smooth, pale skin that lacks the years that she appeared to have before. Her long hair floats around her like a pillow, disappearing into oblivion like the tendrils of darkness she controlled.
Sakura felt the guys shift to her side to get a better look at the beautiful woman before them.
"Who..?" Izuna asks, eyes blown wide. "What happened?"
"This is the witch," Sakura says. "When she dies, her magic allows her take her souls true form. Magic can never lie. It is a universal truth. The power of a witch has much to say about their souls. This is this witch's true form."
Yoshino, while naked, doesn't appear to notice. There is an ethereal glow about her, as her dark eyes scan the four men in front of her, before she smiles sadly. Her eyes are filled with a deep and profound sadness, just like all of the girls before her. There is a puncture hole in her chest from where Sakura's killed her, but the woman doesn't appear to feel it and she's not bleeding.
Her lips tremble for a moment. Her eyes lock onto Sakura's and she nods her head slowly, lips parting with a soft, guilt-ridden and broken, "I am sorry." Before she too exploded into oblivion, leaving her mark behind.
Each witch leaves behind a scar on the world, proof that she had lived with, loved, and terrorized, the world around her. Sakura hasn't seen one of the witches yet not do this. It wasn't something that happened before. Sakura doesn't really know why this happens, but it breaks her heart to see it every single time.
What Yoshino left behind is a shadow burned into the ground. The shadow of a beautiful woman, taken far too soon.
Sakura's shoulder droop. She didn't know that she had them tensed up. Sakura let out a sigh and turns away. She does a little body shake before she begins walking, reaching out with her senses, picking a direction and then going.
"Sakura!" Hashirama calls out, running after her. "Sakura, wait!"
Sakura looks up at the darkened sky, they had been fighting for hours and they were all exhausted. Sakura just didn't have the strength to do much else other than walk.
"Sakura," Hashirama says, grabbing Sakura's arm to hold her in place.
"What?" Sakura snaps, glaring up at him. "What now? We've got to move on."
"Don't you want to say something?" Hashirama asks, pausing to glance back over at his little brother, best friend and best friend's little brother. All of them stand a bit away from the spot where Yoshino died. All of them look like they wanted something that Sakura just couldn't understand. She looks between them with a frown on her lips and a crease between her eyebrows.
"What? What would I have to say?" Sakura asks blandly.
Hashirama releases Sakura's arm, frowning. "Shouldn't someone say something?"
"Why?" Sakura asks, turning to Hashirama, crossing her arms over her chest.
Hashirama hesitates. "I don't know. It... it just feels like it's not right otherwise. Someone should say something."
"Did you say something over every person you killed?" Sakura asks, voice flat. She's oddly defensive despite the situation. She's been doing just fine on her own for years. She doesn't need these people coming in and telling her how to mourn those that she killed. She made peace with the fact that she was going to be killing a lot of innocent people. This was all pointless.
Hashirama hesitates again, chewing on the inside of his cheek. "Well... it just... doesn't feel right to leave without saying anything to her."
Sakura shakes her head. "What are you doin-" Then she realizes, looking at all of them. Her eyes narrow dangerously. "No, don't do that. Don't pity her for being a woman. Don't pity killing her because she was a woman. Rejoice in knowing you killed a monster, save possibly hundreds of lives and released a tormented captive from her hell. Don't try and be all high and mighty," Sakura sneers.
"It's not like that at all," Izuna says, stepping closer and shaking his head. "She didn't deserve to die."
"Oh trust me," Sakura snarls, "that bitch had to go. She wasn't human anymore. She wasn't even a witch. She was a monster cursed into going against her nature to slaughter innocence and devour the pain of this world to grow stronger from it. Do not pity her for dying, that was release. Pity her for being changed into a monster in the first place. She will not get cured by your need to feel bad that she was born without the same genitalia as you," Sakura says cuttingly.
Izuna looks shocked by her words. "That's not it."
"She doesn't need kind words or flowery sentiments," Sakura says chillingly. "For two war-mongering clans, you are a bunch of idiots if you think that she needs or wants either of those. She apologized for the pain she caused others. She wanted them to be pitied, not her. She wants the son of a bitch who did this her and her coven to drown in the pain and anguish they've caused for everyone involved. If you couldn't see that in her eyes, then you must all be blind as hell. And not fucking cut out for this job."
With that, Sakura spins on her heels and walks away, hands curled up into fists so tight they begin to cramp.
As she walked away, a part of Sakura wondered if they weren't going to follow. Since they joined up with her - god, had it been over a month already? - she has been telling them all that they need to know about tracking witches - real ones - and how to read their abilities based on the havoc that they cause. Witches are instinctual creatures now without much thought process being the need to feed. Whatever it is that they devour, they will do nothing to stop themselves from getting it. Not even a higher form of rationality.
But they are by no means stupid. In fact, they are quite intelligent to a degree. Not as smart as humans, but they don't have to be. With the things that they can do, a normal human usually wouldn't stand a chance.
And while there is still much that they need to learn, Sakura is a bit more confident in knowing that they stand a better chance against the witches now than they did before and while the companionship the two sets of brothers offered Sakura was... interesting. She is fine with parting with them at any time. She worked better on her own anyway. It was their choice to follow. Not her own.
Before Sakura had the chance to analyze it further, footsteps appeared on either side of her and behind her. A spare glance to her right showed Madara following with this dark, determined look in his eye.
No words were needed. One look at the four men gave Sakura everything she needed to know about them - at least for now. They were all in.
Maybe Sakura could put up with them for a little while longer.
