A/N: Sorry for the long wait! Exam season was up, so I didn't have much time and motivation to write.
(Not to mention writing something decent for you all when English is not my Native language takes some effort, sadly.)
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2000.01.19.
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She traversed the small, abandoned park without a care, heavy book clenched between the naked skin of her upper arm and the polyester of her vest. Madara's footsteps echoed hers, fast and quick and barely audible. Both of their solid forms moved across the wooden area discreetly under the afternoon's sky, determined to not draw the attention of the resting living and deceased around them.
Sakura climbed the steep ledge of a hill, her heels digging up the blades of grass under her weight, and so did Madara's. Once at the top, the pair of shinobis reclined upon a stray bench which was situated under a strong, aged tree. She let out a sigh as the leaves offered her some form of protection against the rays of light, and a longing for home took her over—took even him over.
They sat in silence, Madara and her, just watching, thinking, dreaming.
Sakura broke the silence with the rustle of pages. A thick tome was placed upon her thighs as she re-read some of the passages of her recently borrowed book.
"So," she slowly started, turning another page over. "I've talked to Asakura Yoh today; he got a surprise visit from the tournament's officials."
Sakura tapped a stray picture to draw the Uchiha's gaze to it. There, three Native Americans stood, covered in robes and patterns and feathers and metals. "Yoh claims one of them looked like this, and Katsuyu's reports add up to the description. Keep your eyes peeled for any sign of anything similar."
Madara crossed his arms over his chest, gazing into the sky with tinted eyes before a smirk painted his lips. He turned towards his partner, grabbing her scalp and turning it towards the heavens from the book. Sakura wanted to cry out at his bizarre actions, but her green eyes zeroed in on the flying figure heading their way instead.
She pushed the book onto the bench and stood up, and Madara placed both of his elbows on the stone backrest, relishing in the cool the stone emitted, the solid sensation Sakura's clone provided him.
(Sakura thought that they took their sweet time with informing her of the first rounds, and this power display was nothing else but another waste of her precious training hours.)
Madara grunted in response, agreeing with her trail of musings she lets slip to him.
The pinkette placed a cupped hand to her forehead as she squinted at the figure that grew in proximity with each passing second. Once the sight of traditional robes, glinting metals, and scorpion symbolism were as clear as that day's sky, Sakura scowled, taking a step back into the shade.
The man—for it was a male's figure hiding beneath the prints and materials—landed in front of her, just on the edge of the park's hill. His hand glowed in what she and Madara recognized as an Oversoul, and Sakura could tell that this was not just some random shaman whose hope was to knock her out of the tournament days after the opening bell rang.
It was such a nice, well-kept park, albeit abandoned and haunted and forgotten; Sakura did not wish to fracture it into pieces.
But, alas.
"I am Nichrom of the Patch tribe," the male spoke from behind his scorpion-esque mask in a slow, accented drawl, and Sakura felt a sense of eerie deja vu. "An official of the shaman fights in Tokyo."
Before she could utter a single letter, Nichrom reached for his mask, and Sakura half-expected to find scarlet locks and hazel eyes underneath but was met with an equally boyish face instead.
They stared at each other for a while, both observing one another, though Nichrom's gaze was far more intense as he examined the girl before him.
His tilted lips morphed into a pinch of confusion as he tried to comprehend how this girl could possible match the gathered data they had on one Haruno Sakura. Her measured strength alone reached baffling heights, yet Nichrom would never have associated the numbers with pink hair, green eyes, and diamond tattoos.
The only thing that reassured the official that this was indeed the girl was her more than fitting name.
Madara stood up as well, exiting the shadows as he did so. The Uchiha wore a frown as their—his and Haruno's clone's—common carcass went through a series of hand signs to cast a genjutsu over the park in fear of being witnessed by civilians.
The Patch official gazed at the dark-haired man with parted lips, wondering and inquisitive, for he sensed an oddity he hasn't witnessed before; the staggering amount of Furyoku the mystery male possessed mirrored the girl's perfectly.
With a seemingly outlandish gesture of her own, Sakura released the shadow clone in front of Nichrom and, in its wake, only Madara's spirit remained rooted in the same spot, glaring. Sakura shook her head wildly, clutching at her temples as her power seemed to double in its capacity, her figure buzzing with Furyoku.
Nichrom took a cautious step back, flabbergasted.
"Nichrom-san, was it?" Sakura called out, efficiently cutting off the bewildered retorts forming and clogging the Patch official's throat. "Are you here to gawk, or have you come to test me already?"
The kunoichi recalled the words Yoh had been told, figuring the male's speech to be identical to his companion's. Nichrom regained his composure, still wary and guarded, before stepping towards Sakura.
"It all depends," he tested the foreign words on his tongue, trying to mask the quiver in his voice. "Do you want these people to see the full glory of our true nature?" Nichrom questioned, motioning towards the small group of people not too far away.
The sunbeams ricocheted off the metal of his bracelet, making the kunoichi's feral smile more prominent in the light. "I wouldn't be too worried about them, Nichrom-san. They see and feel and hear nothing."
The Patch member stared at her with a blank face, wondering if the stoic ghost standing behind her provided her with abilities unbeknownst and unheard of to the Patch, or even to his own master.
Against his better judgement, Nichrom chose to take her word for it. So, with a sudden slash of his arm, he began his attack.
Madara sensed Nichrom's Furyoku flare before Sakura did, and the forceful Spirit Unity buckled her knees as the Uchiha seeped into her flesh like a chemical. The synchronized pair jumped high—higher than any human possibly could—out of the way of Nichrom's surprising onslaught. Sakura skittered away from the patch official, feeling slightly mournful for the park and bewildered by his speed. She was a tad bit surprised that she, unlike Yoh, was not equipped with the time to get ready as he had been, for the kunoichi felt her movements being restricted by her stiff pants.
(Sakura really needed a more practical battle outfit.)
(Madara sneered at her thought process in the middle of a fight.)
"So, what's the catch?" Sakura loathed and despised how low and masculine and Madara-ish her voice sounded. "I'm having a hard time believing that we're just going to battle it out till the last one is left standing."
A slight laugh erupted from the Patch official as he reeled back his Oversoul whip. "No, far from it, actually." He graced the pinkette with a slow, calculated smirk. "You only need to land a single hit on me in the next three minutes."
Sakura blinked, and Madara paused at the revelation.
(That's it?)
"Well, in that case." Sakura fished for her gloves, forming strategies in her merged mind as Madara dissected her thoughts and plans. "Prepare to get hit."
Nichrom slashed and hacked at her in response, and the molded form of Sakura and Madara jumped away each time with increasing speed. The Patch official stroke the stone bench Sakura had landed on, breaking it in two as the kunoichi evaded his attack by jumping on the tree branch above her. It creaked and tore ever so slightly under her weight, but the shaman and spirit did not lose balance.
Suddenly, the glowing scorpion Oversoul wrapped around her ankle amidst the leaves, tugging, pulling, slamming her into the ground. Nichrom's face stretched into a pleasant smile as her form impacted the hill, and the collision caused a jolt to reverberated through his very bones. The sound, however, was loud and cracking, and Nichrom made the mistake of peeking behind his shoulder to see if Sakura hadn't lied about the people's inability to witness the exchange.
"Huh," Nichrom muttered under his breath, canceling his Oversoul as he walked towards the makeshift crater. "I guess she was telling the truth." The shaman official reached the center, which emitted more smoke than natural or normal. "Too bad, though—she still had a few seconds to spare—"
Nichrom's words died in his mouth, eyes wide, hands trembling.
The pink-haired shaman wasn't the one laying about, unmoving and wounded and shattered, but in her stead, a thick log rested by his feet. Nichrom knelt down hastily, touching the wood with a tentative hand.
How can this be?
(I wouldn't be too worried about them, Nichrom-san. They see and feel and hear nothing.)
The shaman's eyes widened in realization.
"Illusions? No, that's impossible," he mumbled to himself, brushing the wooden surface in thought. He knows of a single case of illusion casting from a shaman, and that would be Opacho.
Even then, Nichrom realizes with a frown. It is not nearly as potent as this.
His eyes flickered to his metal bracelet for a brief second, and he squinted, wondering if his eyes were deceiving him. He leaned down, seeing the reflection of the sky, but the pinkish dot growing in size was most certainly not supposed to be there.
Nichrom's head shot up, and he was almost certain he heard the crack of bone, but that did not matter at the moment. He saw her; leg raised high, face taut, eyes burning, and Nichrom didn't have enough time to evade.
Her heel went down, intentionally missing the official's form as it dug into the ground a meter away from him. As her limb collided with the hill, it cracked and fractured and broke into huge chunks of grass and soil and stone, efficiently burying Nichrom with the pieces.
He yelled out in pain and anguish as he fell into the cracks of the quaking ground, his form crushing and squashing between the hard fractures of earth. His eyes popped in panic as he felt his right arm go suspiciously numb before hysteric screams tore from his throat involuntarily.
He barely registered the gentle hands seizing him by his protruding shoulders, but once Sakura started to pull him out of her created mess, his screeches raised in volume and pain. The kunoichi winced, already separated from the brooding Uchiha and won. Sakura made eye contact with the spirit as she plucked the rest of Nichrom's body from the shattered earth, careful not to rattle and rip him further, and saw the disapproval there.
"Of!" The Patch official grunted out in a pained gasp, clutching his unfeeling limbs in hysteria and adrenaline. Even his guardian ghost, a great, giant scorpion, flew from Nichrom's dented bracelet, defensive and worried and panicked.
"Easy now," Sakura soothed the older male, placing her gloved fingers on his damaged arm but receiving only a painted hiss in retribution. "I'm a medic; I can help. Just trust me."
His eyes cracked open, locking on her determined and calming face for barely a second before managing a weak nod, and Sakura got to work. She placed him in a sitting position, careful not to push him over the edge once more.
"Can you feel your spine?" A grunt of affirmation. "What about your left side's limbs?" Another confirmation, overlapped by Madara's frustrated sigh. The Uchiha knew the reason behind Sakura's ill-willed decision; nothing good will come from killing a tournament official.
Madara scowled.
Still, he thought, clenching an unfeeling fist, to reveal her abilities this early on..
Madara disappeared with a flourish, choosing not to linger any further.
"Okay then," Sakura bobbed her head in contemplation, pink strands flying across her shoulders. "This may take a while."
The noon's sky had long since taken up a reddish hue when an oracle bell had landed in her outstretched, no longer glowing hand, matching the crimson, dark clouds floating in the air as Nichrom made his retreat, healed and humiliated and determined.
He examined his right hand; he made a fist, dug his nails into the tenderness of his palm, and frowned as he felt the blood pumping beneath his skin, the pain running through his nerves.
(Hao-sama will be most interested in this shaman, no doubt.)
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2000.01.20.
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Sakura remembered reading about the major wars of this world, how they had been fought with the use of advanced technology and poisonous weapons. She recalled feeling temperamental as she read of the bombs dropping down from the very heavens, of the feeling of unease and terror of countless families quivering in corners, hearing only the distant explosions littered across their hometowns. Sakura related to the feeling on a miniature level as she sensed it—the numerous spikes of Furyoku all across Tokyo; some small, some extraordinarily huge that even Madara spared a glance out the window. Sakura saw the Uchiha quickly retreating his gaze back to the oracle bell, as if unfazed, but Sakura knew, knew, that he felt as worried as she.
Her grip on her current book tightened as another spike of power entered her senses, and, judging by the scattered nature the lurches obtained, Sakura figured that the examination was coming to a close.
It took another hour or two for the Furyoku signals to completely vanish into nothingness once more as orange started to bleed into the midnight blue sky.
"Did you know that half of your techniques derive from the mythology of this world?" Sakura's muffled voice resounded throughout her burnt-up house, and the unmistakable creaks of Madara's footsteps accommodated the unusual liveliness of their shared space. Her red oracle bell hung loosely in the Uchiha's grasp, instructions and guidelines glaring on the screen in inky black against illuminated white.
"Oh?" Madara let out an inquisitive sound, and Sakura's chest swelled in pride as she got up from the damaged floor.
(Finally, Sakura thought, I know more than the great Uchiha Madara.)
"Don't flatter yourself," Madara snarked as he neared the staggered pinkette. "One rare occurrence does not equal months of lollygagging."
Sakura raised her hands in defense, presenting the thick tome in one, awaiting her oracle bell in the other. Madara sighed as they performed a quick trade. He reoccupied his side of the room, Sharingan glinting in interest as he took in the title 'Shinto Religion' before flipping through the aged pages.
Sakura, meanwhile, crumbled to the ground once more, fingertips pushing and pressing at the buttons of her newly-acquired contraption. The oracle bell mesmerized not only the kunoichi, but her guardian ghost as well, for neither has seen something so technologically advanced up-close before.
She picked off from where Madara was reading, further broadening her understanding of the tournament and its rules. She was four sections in before a text popped across the rectangular screen, reading 'NEW MESSAGE' in broad, digital letters. Sakura's brows shot up in surprise, her head whipping to her companion's direction.
"Madara, come here for a sec," Sakura called out, eyes fixated on the glowing screen. He was next to her in mere seconds, hovering above her form. Sakura pressed her lips together as the letters rearranged, and the name of 'UMEMIYA RYUNOSUKE' appeared in bold.
Madara stared at the screen, mouth curling knowingly, eyes flashing in content, and Sakura felt a surge of apprehension. She tugged the bell closer to herself, examining the name once more, awaiting for further instructions. It sounded oddly familiar to her, but she could not, for the life of her, pinpoint where she had heard it before.
As Madara placed the tome upon their makeshift table, and the kunoichi continued to study the tournament's guidelines, both shinobi failed to notice the flicker of their candle fire, until it was too late.
A shrill, blood-curling scream resounded through the patched-up house, and the pair turned their eyes towards the staircase, startled, but mostly confused. As Sakura realized that it was the boy in the tub, Madara was already heading up to check up on the other occupant of their space. Sakura waited a minute or two until the burnt house became quiet once more. She heard the distinctive sound of footsteps creaking as the legendary ninja emerged from the second floor, his bright, red eyes dimming to their usual onyx.
"Interesting," Madara mumbled to himself, placing a gloved hand beneath his pointed chin. "It would seem we have something in common with the previous residents of this household."
Sakura only blinked, leaned closer to her partner's form, awaiting further information.
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2000.01.20.
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Sakura's teeth grazed her lower lip, reddened with worry and nerves. She pulled the hood further over her head, masking the pastel strands of hair from view. Her fingers timidly run over the ruined tome resting in her grasp.
There goes my chance of borrowing something from him again, Sakura thought, dejected and defeated. She had fished out the poor book from the rubble and soil of the battlefield and was perplexed to find that the only thing that kept the pages together was a single piece of string.
She signed as she crossed another alleyway, taking the shortest route to the Asakura household as she did. Her fellow shaman had kindly invited her to bask in their small victory over the tournament officials, and Sakura took up the offer without missing a single beat. When the only person one had for company was the Uchiha ghost, they were bound to lose their morals or minds. Sakura fully intended to keep both.
Her boot made contact with a stray puddle as she quickened her pace before a sudden chill stopped her completely.
Sakura turned, slowly, hastily to glance behind her shoulder. She felt it; the freezing cold of the invisible matter she had grown so accustomed to, only more prominent—thicker. As Sakura closed her emerald eyes, she sensed another presence lurking about, too alive and too strong and too human to be a mere ghost. Her fingers, nimble and subtle, moved to caress the small monument tucked inside the pocket of her vest, nails grazing the curvature of the Uchiha symbol. It felt cold and vacant to the touch, and Sakura knew that the Uchiha was nowhere near her location.
He had decided to sit out of her little visit with the alibi of finding out more about her upcoming opponent. But Sakura deemed that to be untrue, for Yoh knew all about this Umemiya Ryunosuke, and Madara was aware—too aware of everything to not have known that.
("Take pity on him, okay, Sakura-san?" Yoh's voice had sounded nervous and awkward through the handset of the payphone.)
Sakura frowned. If Madara was not the one with her, then he must be testing her, one way or another. He had a tendency to do that, she knew. So, with a deep breath, Sakura reopened her eyes, pink eyelashes shielding from the afternoon sun entering the narrow passageway.
She thought about her next step carefully, barely stopping her hand from reaching for her Kunai knife tucked behind her belt.
No, Sakura paused while pursing her lips. Physical attacks cannot touch a ghost—I need Madara.
Who was not here, and Sakura started to wonder if this was the reason for his absence.
Did he know something she did not?
Sakura could barely suppress a snort because of course he did.
But, she gazed at the other entity, at the barely visible outline of what she could only deem to be a child. What am I to do, then?
Her teeth nibbled on the sensitive flesh of her cheek as she realized this was exactly what he wanted her to figure out—how to handle spirits without his aid.
But did she really need to handle a spirit of a child?
She took off her hood in thought, deciding on a different approach, letting a curtain of pink hair cascade down her face. "Hey!"
Her voice seemingly startled the matter from its reverie, and the slight shift of it made the outlines sharper, more vibrant and alive in their appearance. Soon, the image of a small, African girl, her timid frame concealed by an orange cloak, appeared before the kunoichi.
She widened her eyes. It really was just a child staring down at her with vacant, dark eyes.
"Can you hear me?" Sakura tried, stepping towards the floating ghost, careful not to move too suddenly. "Why are you following me?"
The kunoichi long-since realized that it wasn't the first time today she felt the ominous cold grazing her skin, and had put two and two together. Ghosts didn't usually leave their haunting grounds for anything. Unless...
"Who sent you?" Sakura questioned, mouth coloring with ire and frustration at the lack of answers she was receiving. She figured that the small, dark-skinned girl was either, improbably, a simple spirit who has grown attached to her energy, or a guardian ghost, sent to stalk the pinkette's moves.
Judging from the freshness of her presence, Sakura knew that the latter was far more probable.
"Hao-sama."
Her whisper was quiet and distorted, yet Sakura had caught it loud and clear. The answer, however, did little to diminish the concerned wrinkle in Sakura's brow. Far from it, actually—it made her frightened, for it was a name even Madara felt weary of.
Asakura Hao, from what she and Madara had gathered, was a champion among shamans. A practically immortal being—one who aspired to Godhood. They had read of his conquests; tournament after tournament, semi-millennia after semi-millennia, he had fought and almost, almost, won the crown through his sheer power alone—twice. Her guardian ghost had casually assumed, based on past entries, that they'll be seeing him up and kicking once more, but Sakura had interpreted the statement as a joke due to his light-hearted tone.
Now, though, standing before his ethereal messenger, the kunoichi was sure of two things.
(One: Madara does not possess an ounce of humor within his soul.)
(Two: The legendary Asakura Hao—if it really was the same Hao—has returned once more for the title of King.)
Somehow, that did absolutely nothing to soothe the raging nerves brewing inside her belly. The very notion that she will have to fight against someone similar in caliber to Madara or Kaguya just to return home—it made her ache and fret and want to concede, to surrender.
Sakura frowned further at her weakened resolve before steeling herself once more.
"And what does he want from me?"
There was a slight pause from the transparent specter.
("Tell her he wants to meet you," a voice whispered into Opacho's ear, gloved palm smoothening out the coils of her hair.)
"Whatever for?" Sakura questioned, bewildered, not knowing what to make of the little girl's declaration.
(Hao smiled, gently pressing his cheek to the little girl's soft mane as he whispered.)
"To determine if you are truly worthy of ruling by his side."
And if Sakura's jaw dropped, just a little, Hao was kind enough not to project his chuckle through Opacho at her reaction.
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