~Quietus~

The Appendices

By AngeLhearteD

"Death. It scares me. How can people live with so much heart and then just… fizzle out? – Sakura Haruno

Sakura clutched eagerly onto her ticket as she wove through the streaming crowds of people navigating between attractions and refreshment stalls. The fortune-teller's tent was just up ahead, immediately identifiable from in its pointy peak, as well as its distinctive, bright red and purple patterned fabric. She smiled, enjoying the sights of families, couples and friends having a wonderful time, and the smells of delicious food wafting through the air.

"C'mon, Sakura!" Ino tossed a glance back at her over a slender shoulder, her long hair rippling like a river of golden silk behind her. "We're going to be late!"

Tenten clapped happily as they approached the garish, flashing sign that proudly displayed the name Madame Mystic, placed directly beside the tent.

"I've heard she's really good," the brunette exclaimed enthusiastically. "Yumi, this girl in my Maths class, she had her fortune told last year; Madame told her that seven was her lucky number, and you know what?"

Sakura rolled sceptical eyes. She could guess where Tenten's recount was going. Ino seemed to be thinking along the same lines, for she concluded with false delight, "Let me guess… she won the lottery based on that number!"

"No," Tenten nudged her friend, "She got with the guy she's had a major crush on… at seven o'clock on the seventh day of the following month. How crazy is that!?"

"Oh, geez," Sakura slapped a hand to her forehead. "It could've just been a coincidence, you know."

"Forehead!" Ino admonished teasingly. "You really need to start believing a little more in fate. Tenten obviously thinks this senile old hag is going to tell her where and when she'll finally get it on with Neji Hyuuga."

Sakura smothered an amused giggle as poor Tenten flushed a charming shade of deep crimson.

"I-it's nothing like that!"

"Right," Ino grinned, before nudging Sakura toward the tent. "You go first! I need to keep a lookout for Shikamaru. Maybe we can go inside and have our future read together," she gushed.

Shaking her head hopelessly at her best friend's antics, Sakura slotted her allocated time ticket into the wooden coupon box by the attraction's signpost and slipped into the tent.

Immediately, she was hit with the smell of musk and incense. It was an intoxicating mix, and Sakura wondered why she suddenly felt oddly excited. It was her first time visiting a fortune teller, but it wasn't like she actually believed in tarot cards and crystal balls. She was seventeen, a year away from being a grown adult. As far as she was concerned, the future could not be foretold, and was moulded according to the actions humans took. Nothing was set in stone – people were masters of their own fates. So she pinned the inexplicable rush of childish anticipation that flooded through her down to mere curiosity alone.

The inside of the tent was bigger than it appeared on the outside. Sakura's fascinated eyes took in the varying shades of red, offset by softly glowing, unusual glass lanterns that provided the area with cosy, warm lighting.

"Be seated, child."

She jumped, having completely overlooked the figure on the other side of the circular space. A thin woman who appeared to be in her mid-forties to early fifties was seated upon an old futon mattress on the carpet laid floor, before a low, red-cloth covered table. A long, dark purple scarf was tied around her forehead, from which hung golden, coin-shaped circlets. Her gently curling brown hair, streaked with the telling greys of age, fell beyond her shoulders, and her almond shaped eyes were so dark they appeared almost black.

As Sakura approached the cushions that had been arranged for visitors on the other side of the table, she noticed that the woman's wrinkled hands were adorned with large, crystal rings. Her face complimented the mysterious atmosphere that hung like an otherworldly veil around the tent; high cheekbones, a thin nose and a large beauty spot just above the left side of her upper lip informed Sakura that the woman must have been quite beautiful in her youth.

A crystal ball was placed in the middle of the table. The woman carefully laid out a set of large cards around it, and, when she was done, lifted her eyes to regard her guest, who was now seated opposite her.

"Speak your name to the cards," the Madame solemnly commanded. The heavy, foreign accent that marked her words further emphasised her exotic features.

Sakura politely folded her hands on her lap, feeling a little uncertain of what she was getting herself into. The place was undeniably strange – yet her sense of inquisitiveness was stronger than ever. What exactly did this fortune teller suppose she could figure out about her? She certainly wasn't holding out for much.

"Sakura Haruno."

The mystic nodded. "A fitting name for a girl of your colourings. Now, let us begin. Select a card."

Sakura's eyes fell to the neatly spaced out deck. The card backings were etched with golden, mosaic-like patterns, depicting suns in the centre. She lifted a hand, roamed it over the collection, before pointing at her choice.

"Lift the card. Do not show it to me."

Sakura obeyed, drawing the card and holding it up for her eyes alone to view. The picture depicted a golden-haired cherub holding a slender trumpet. The word 'Judgement' was printed on its base. Her gaze rose expectantly to the fortune teller, who selected three cards in turn. After a long moment of silence spent examining the first of the cards, Madame Mystic began, "You seek accomplishment… and fulfilment."

Doesn't everybody? Sakura immediately thought back. But she said nothing, choosing instead to listen to what else the fortune teller had to say.

"There is a barrier that is preventing you from acquiring your true potential. You perhaps fear the judgement of others…"

Sakura's eyes widened as they lowered back to her card, and the word it displayed. Then she internally scoffed that it had to just be a coincidence.

"You are eager to please, but this causes turmoil within you as you cannot attain your true calling."

Sakura frowned lightly. What was the woman waffling about? What true calling? Yes, she was eager to please – but didn't that apply to any respectable human being?

"The cards whisper to me that you yearn for something. That your heart is not content…"

Sakura opened her mouth to protest against this, but the mystic was swiftly continuing, as she turned her attention to the second card. "You have overcome a great period of ruin and disturbance, but in doing so, you have lost yourself."

Now, this was becoming ridiculous. Sakura, on the verge of laughing at the absurdity of the words, was just thinking that she had been right about mystics all along – they really did just prattle on about random nonsense – when the woman's next statement caused her to still.

"Darkness, the notion of an end; it frightens you."

Sakura's heart gave an unexpectedly leap. She stared at the Madame. Incredulously. It was just another coincidence, she insisted to herself. So she had gotten lucky, and hit close to home. It wasn't a big deal-

"That fear spurns you to preserve life, in any form you can. You are fond of nature. You feel a connection, a oneness to it."

This time, Sakura was unable to keep her jaw from hanging open. Had someone set this up? How in the world could the mystic possibly know that about her, otherwise?

This is so weird, she thought to herself, alarmed yet intrigued at the same time.

Madame flipped up her final card.

"You are in stagnation. You cannot move forward to your awakening. You fear loss and separation. You have yet to discover your true calling."

There it was again – talk of a true calling. Confused, Sakura said, "Umm, I'm sorry - what true calling?"

The mystic lowered the cards back onto the table, and gestured for Sakura to do the same. Then she wordlessly held out her hands to Sakura. Baffled, Sakura placed her palms into Madame's and curiously watched the woman's face as she gazed into the crystal ball for another long moment. What was she seeing? It was just an empty glass orb!

"I call to the spirits," Madame murmured. "I call to the spirits to lift the veil before me." She closed her eyes and began to hum beneath her breath. Sakura strained to hear her, found that she could not make sense of anything, and uncomfortably shifted in her place. Time seemed to drag by, and nothing happened. The fortune teller had fallen silent, but was still grasping Sakura's hands. Sakura resisted the urge to huff impatiently, her gaze travelling idly over the lanterns that decorated the tent's interior.

The second I get out, I'm going to tell Ino and Tenten that this is a total waste of time, she told herself. We'd be better off going back to the-

Her thought abruptly derailed when the mystic suddenly released a sharp gasp, her fingers tightening painfully over Sakura's own, causing the rose-haired girl to wince.

"Wha-?" she began, but was cut off when Madam's eyebrows drew together to form a frown that seemed genuinely agitated.

"No. No! The shades conceal my vision. Get back! Back! Still they remain!" Her head turned left, as if she was listening intently to something, but all Sakura could hear was silence. She began to moan, chanting words in another tongue. Unnerved, Sakura tried to yank her hands back, but the woman's grip held firm like steel.

Her heart began to pound sickeningly. She did not like the expression on the mystic's face – or the awful sounds that were coming out of her mouth. Then the woman's eyes opened, and the air in Sakura's lungs arrested. The fortune teller's eyes were glazed over with fear and hysteria.

"The darkness!" she hissed. "The darkness follows your steps! It is in your shadow, concealed from you! But it lingers ever closer. It means to take you!" The fingers around Sakura's were now bruising in their hold, and the woman shrieked, "Death! Your path will bring death to this world, destruction to us all!"

Terrified, Sakura tried once again to wrestle her hands back. To her utter horror, the woman continued to babble on as though she were possessed; her eyes unseeing, her mouth agape.

Oh, God, Sakura thought, her face mirroring her internal repulsion. The woman was clearly insane. Why hadn't the Festival organisers run a proper check prior to hiring her? How could they allow such a psychologically unstable individual to provide such a creepy, awful service to families and people who were only after a bit of light-hearted fun?

"Decay! Decay and dust and the end of all things! The shades blind me, they are-" she abruptly broke off, her dark eyes practically bulging out of her sockets as they seemed to focus on something – or someone - directly over Sakura's left shoulder. She stiffened, frozen, her expression petrified, and Sakura used the opportunity to wrench her hands free at last – before throwing a hasty, half-hysterical glance behind her.

Shakily, she exhaled. Nobody was there. The woman was deliriously hallucinating over the non-existent. Sakura was further disconcerted when Madame moaned, "Oh! Oh, I have seen the unseen, my eyes, my eyes…" she broke off, her lips moving soundlessly, as if they had suddenly been silenced, as if the oxygen had been vacuumed out of her lungs. She clutched a hand over her chest, and her head bowed low.

Sakura scrambled back, and leapt up to her feet. "You're crazy," she told the rocking woman, her voice quivering. Not wanting to spend another second in the suddenly stifling tent, she turned her back on the mystic and hurried out.

Only to collide straight into Ino.

"Ow! Forehead, what took you so-" she stopped mid-greeting upon witnessing her friend's pale, distressed face. "God - Sakura?" Ino grasped onto her shoulders. "What's the matter?"

"Th-that woman," Sakura stuttered, deeply disturbed. "She's on something. She- she's mad!"

"Huh…?" Tenten stared at her in concern. "What do you mean?"

"What happened?" Ino demanded.

Sakura was close to tears. What exactly had happened? Suddenly she couldn't remember. The fortune teller had said something, something about darkness, and shadows, and shades… Why couldn't she remember? She strained for recollection, at a loss to explain the sudden emptiness in her mind. She had just had it a second ago!

"I…" she began slowly, her cognitive processes suddenly feeling strangely heavy.

She told you that the world is going to end tomorrow, and there is nothing anybody can do to prevent it, a voice, that seemed foreign to her at first, but then blended to become her own, familiar inner one, informed her with conviction.

What…? She thought back, muddled. No, that's not…

But her lips were already articulating the exact words. Ino looked perplexed for a moment - then visibly relaxed, before shaking her head in disgust.

"I told you she was senile. I'm not going in there. Forget her, Sakura. She's just a raving old woman who's lost her mind." Placing a comforting arm around Sakura's shoulders, she began to guide her best friend away.

"But…" Tenten began to protest, looking helplessly back at the fortune-telling attraction. Ino shot back a warning, silencing look.

"Let's rejoin the others."

Tenten sighed heavily, but followed dutifully. By the time they located Naruto and his friends, Sakura had completely forgotten about what had happened in the tent.

A tall, shadowy figure stood over the crumpled form of the mystic, regarding the motionless body with disdainful, pitiless eyes. The foolish old woman had spoken too much. She had gone beyond what was acceptable. And so she had paid the ultimate price. It had not been difficult for him to still her beating heart. He had merely to will it and it had come to be, shortly after the very last client she would ever see had exited the tent.

It was a just reward for years of meddling and tampering with that which was forbidden.

He had repaired the damage done by her words. Sakura's memory of the encounter had immediately been erased. He had seen how unsettled and frightened the girl had become, and had sought to soothe her distress. It would, after all, be dangerous for her to remember what she had heard. A potential jeopardy to his hidden intentions. And he could not allow that.

With one final disapproving look down at the fortune teller's crumpled form, he vanished silently out of existence.

Did you know…? Poseidon once saved the life of a river nymph who repaid him by spitting graciously in his face. Thus began an inexplicable love-hate relationship.

Closing comment

Some shadowy foreboding for Sakura, here! This takes place in the Spring Festival when Sakura was 17, so a year before the main events in the story. And yes, you guessed it – stalker Sasuke alters her memory so she won't remember what the mystic told her. A little dark and disturbing scene which, in hindsight, I could have included in the Festival chapter… but I quite like the idea of having foreshadowing long before the actual kidnapping took place. Hope you enjoyed. Please review if you'd like, and let me know your thoughts! : )