To answer some reviewers:
Lazy to Login:
I wish I could answer all of your questions, but without revealing anything major - let me say most of your chapter synopsis make me question my 'show don't tell' method of writing. And thank you for the well wishes, I really appreciate it. ^^
JigokuShoujosRevenge: That is an old trope in writing, but no - Madara has ulterior reasons for starting the war. I'm afraid it will only get more confusing as the story progresses - though I feel she's in a very complicated situation.
Guest: More Tobisaku is coming!
BecauseBatman1: We shall see if they do. ^^

Disclaimer: I do not Naruto or any of it's affiliates.

M

NSFW

This fiction holds dark, adult themes — do not continue reading if that makes you uncomfortable.
If you get triggered easily by abuse, don't read.

You Are My Fate

Present, pt 4

Don't Question the Devil


...For a moment, Madara watched Sasuke speak with Shisui, eyeing the unsuspecting male while the other men started the process of cleaning - a small, proud smirk graced his lips.


Mirago Lounge
Kyoto, Japan

"Are you going to tell Sasuke-kun that she's here?" Shisui questioned his superior, the doctor remained asleep on the couch, pink hair splayed across her body — with the chaos from Sasuke's initiation from earlier, he didn't think that Madara would be bold enough to invite his cousin's fiancé to watch the scene unravel.

Call it good intuition, but a small sense of foreboding tensed up his shoulders — although it didn't take a genius to understand that most of Madara's motivation towards women were purely sexual.

Madara lit his cigar, "why are you concerning yourself with it?" he mumbled aggressively, the cigar perched itself between his lips while he expertly inhaled to catch the flame, the trail of smoke twirled between the two Uchiha's — Shisui shook his head and glanced away.

"You really think Sasuke-kun is going to be alright with you making his fiancé watch him blow some fucking guy's head off? They've known each other since childhood and got engaged in college — are you trying to make her hate him?"

The thought of Itachi's grim set smile didn't set well with him.

Madara chuckled, "always the voice of reason, aren't you?" he inhaled deeply, keeping an eye on the woman on his couch, he swept his eyes over her exposed stomach and felt something stir within him, halfway imagining the soft skin that lay beneath her clothing and his hands coursing over her skin "—I know our lovely cousin Itachi wouldn't approve of my decisions, but don't sit there and think that you can question me, Shisui," he finished darkly, annoyed that his fucking cousin still held a presence in the room when Itachi had abandoned them years ago.

Shisui sat down on the couch and rubbed his jaw, "just tell me what you want with her — you want me to call Mei? I know she caught your attention for a whi—"

"I have different aspirations now."

Shisui couldn't believe him, "what? Sleeping with her?"

For being his most loyal underling, Shisui never questioned his decisions — he even held face with Izuna when he got out of line, and he was the only member of his clan to perch himself on his shoulder and keep his anger in check, but there were limitations to his patience.

He chose not to respond.

Instead, he took another appreciative drag of his cigar and flicked the ashes at Shisui's feet.

"Anymore questions?"

The younger Uchiha pursed his lips and grabbed the bottle of sake from the table and tipped it back, it wasn't any of his business — he could squawk into Madara's ear all day, but ultimately he had to have faith in the decisions that his clan leader made — he had brought him to where he were now, the vague memory of a darker time before Madara brought him to the upper echelons seemed like a hazy picture he had seen once.

The guard at the door had little time to react before the doors were kicked open by Sasuke.

"Where is she?!" he growled once he spotted Madara in the corner.

Shisui choked on his sake.

Madara smirked.

"Where's who?" Madara asked his subordinate.

"Why did you bring her here?!" he seethed — true anger rarely consumed Sasuke, and it had always been a question of what it would actually take to rise the raw emotion out of the usually cool tempered male.

Sakura stirred on the couch behind him.

Madara sat on his seat with the cigar hanging between his index and middle finger, watching with a keen interest as Sasuke rushed forward, "are you really questioning my decisions so soon, Sasuke?" his voice dropped cooly, chilling the room with an effective stare.

The guard by the door restrained the younger, angry Uchiha.

Sasuke fought against the guard wildly, "—what the hell do you think you're doing?!"

"Sasuke-kun?" Sakura shifted on the couch and peered over Madara's shoulder.

The calm voice of the singular woman in the room forced the men to stall.

"Sakura," Sasuke watched is fiancé from afar, holding her gaze captive with his own, a silent plea for her to listen to him.

Out of reflex she wanted to run to him and gather herself in his familiar arms, but an assault of memories forced her insides to twist.

The guns…Sasuke…The man…

The color visibly washed from her face and she covered her mouth, suddenly remembering the man and Sasuke's finger on the trigger — the effortless way he killed that man. The blood, — oh god — the blood. As a surgeon she was intimately aware of the human anatomy, she was immune to most gore, but seeing someone's head being shot off in close range — the way his head splattered across the cement - she felt like vomiting.

The mere act of it scared her.

"Sakura," he repeated, voice thick with worry. Madara motioned for the guard to let him go and Sasuke walked forward steadily, watching in trepidation as his fiancé recalled the events that had transpired before she fainted.

Before he could reach her she recoiled and stared at the different face of the man she had fallen in love with.

The look of apathy on his face.

Who was he?

He reached forward to calm her —

"Don't touch me!"

The men in the room watched the quarrel.

"I have to tell you—"

Sakura kept her station in the corner of the couch, refusing to look at him — anger began to bite at her, wanting answers, unbelieving that someone she had grown up with could be capable of killing, capable of blatantly ignoring her and snorting cocaine in their home, capable of trafficking guns.

"—What is this?" she snapped at him, demanding to know — her eyes held the ferocity of a jaded forest when the snow melted off the trees, revealing the brilliant emerald in her stricken eyes.

On rare occasions — a look would flare itself in Sakura's eyes that careened her patients when she felt them slowly slipping away from her, or when Sasuke's parents died and she met Itachi for the first time, hardening her anger towards his brother for his absence when Sasuke needed him most.

Sasuke sunk into himself, suddenly aware he was the center of attention among his clan members.

"You know what this is," he said dismissively, internally pleading for her to understand that they needed to speak about this later.

"Tell me!"

They squared off, Sakura stood up and faced her fiancé, angry and terrified of the person that stood in front of her.

"…My clan traffics guns and cocaine — tonight was my initiation, " he stated with finality — his shoulders straightened, daring his fiancé to rebuke what took place.

The words pounded in her ears.

"And you killed that man…?" her voice shook, scared to hear the truth that had already played in front of her.

"Because he was part of a rival clan."

Her anger sizzled into fear.

Like a fire that extinguished late in the night, Sakura could no longer understand where her loyalty would lie — she would do anything for her fiancé, anything to make him happy and live their lives safely together.

But this?

"So all the nights that you said you were working late - you were here…With them?" she murmured sadly, "you've been ignoring me because of…this?"

"I wanted to keep you safe," he ushered, he reached forward to touch her hand, "you shouldn't have been here tonight."

The words were tossed back to the older Uchiha.

Sakura blinked back the tears, she hated crying — loathed it, but her emotions were never something she could actively contain when it involved the people she loved, "…I shouldn't have," she agreed.

So she didn't witness the shadows of his clan.

Slowly, she took off her engagement ring.

"Sakura, don't."

"I'm sorry, Sasuke-kun."

Before she could change her mind — Sakura set down her engagement ring on the table and left.

xox

In the midst of their discussion, Madara had at first found the situation amusing.

Now…Sakura had disappeared beyond the large doors to their meeting room and with the shut of the wood — somewhere within him he felt a screeching familiarity that unsettled him. A mute silence stayed with the men in the room, and somehow he remembered hearing this before — not from a random woman, but from her.

The ashen way her face changed — titilated by her emotions until her eyes glimmered beyond the emerald into a haunting evergreen, she had pushed past his men with her head down.

More silence.

With a small flick of his hand, one of the guards discreetly followed after her.

"Madara-sama! You don't think she—?" Shisui cut in, but the lethal glare from Sasuke zeroed the attention of his men.

Sasuke ran forward in his anger, arm cocked back to punch his clan leader in the face for interfering with one of the few people he allowed into his life.

With a swift expertise, Madara dodged the incoming fist. He grabbed the back of Sasuke's arm and flung the younger Uchiha on the pool table, twisting his arm until it locked behind his back, with his other hand pressed firmly into the small of his back effectively restraining the younger Uchiha— Sasuke struggled to fight against his larger clan member.

"You did this!" Sasuke growled beneath him.

"I invited her here so that she could see who she was going to marry and what family she would be surrounding herself with, this lifestyle is something you chose for you and Sakura, you understand?" Madara hissed into his ear, "—after tonight, do you really think this small scuffle between you two is going to keep her safe? She's a witness to a murder involving our clan, it's required that on the night of initiation, the wives of prospects are here so they become implicated, understood?"

Sasuke stilled.

Madara drew a knife from his pocket and pressed the tip to Sasuke's stomach, "—because I'm an understanding man I'll forgive your childish actions on your night," he said darkly, "—but don't ever think you can question my decisions and retaliate."

Begrudgingly, the raven haired male nodded his consent.

Madara stood, and to even Shisui's astonishment — he understood why it made sense now.

"Now is there anyone else that has a problem with what I'm doing?" he questioned angrily, twirling the knife between nimble fingers.

xox

Uchiha Home
Kyoto, Japan

Sakura knew she was being followed.

She drew back the curtains and watched the familiar black sedan sit across the street from her house. The events of the night left her exhausted, and after her bath she wrapped her silk robe around her small form, wondering why they would have followed her.

Was the other clan going to retaliate? Did someone see her leave the hotel?

Trepidation quaked around her.

Until she noticed the license plate.

She wouldn't let them intimidate her.

A bubbling anger constricted her throat and heated her face.

With an internal fury that overcame her fear, she rushed downstairs and grabbed a knife.

Hiding it in the sleeve of her robe, the petite woman confronted the car.

In the veil of the night, the car sat still as a shadow.

The driver's side window rolled down to reveal an unsuspecting face.

"—If you plan on using that pathetic excuse of a knife to hurt someone, then at least learn how to hide it properly," Madara teased dolefully.

xox

Her tea sat primly in front of her, after a curious exchange that left her neighbors peering out of their windows to see the commotion of their furious pink haired neighbor yelling at a tall, mysteriously handsome man — Sakura settled herself and invited him inside.

She wanted answers.

Eyes red-rimmed from her crying, she glared at the domineering male to her left.

"I don't understand why you're here," she reminded him.

Madara shrugged, his hair hung effortlessly in a low ponytail, "—we need to discuss a few things."

"What? That your family are a bunch of drug smuggling murderers that got my fiancé involved?" she snapped at him, it was unfair to blame his clan when Sasuke chose to do this — but she wanted to take her anger out on someone.

He chuckled, soft and low, almost sultry — it felt warm comparable to how she felt.

"Sasuke made his decision when Shisui approached him last year — I apologize if this has come in the way of your relation—"

Sakura huffed, "as if you really care, you were sitting in that exact same spot earlier this week asking if you could kiss me."

The memory of it felt buried beneath the rubble of everything that happened since then.

"I still hold that request," he smirked, the slightest tilt of his lips and it left little to the imagination as to why women fell at his feet.

Her eyes narrowed.

"I'm not going to involve myself in whatever it is that you and Sasuke are doing — I gave back my engagement ring for a reason, he…chose this for himself, whatever you say to try and convince me otherwise won't work," dismally, her eyes muted themselves on the table looking absently at her finger — a tan line accented the naked digit.

Madara leaned back in his seat — he found it odd that he felt such an inclination towards the girl, any other woman that married into his clan were beautiful in their own right — but every small movement she made elicited something within him.

"I don't think you understand the severity of the situation you've gotten yourself in."

A new sense of dread clung to her.

"What are you talking about?" she murmured.

He wondered how a surgeon could be this naive.

"You witnessed a murder involving my men, it wouldn't be beneficial for anyone if you decided to open your mouth, would it?" he grinned, and like a cat that cornered its prey — Sakura wondered how she hadn't seen herself being backed into the corner before.

Her finger tips turned white clinging to her glass to calm the budding terror in her chest, "…are you threatening me?"

Like a fire cracker with a lighted fuse, he could see her itch to explode.

"I would never threaten a woman, but I hope you understand that although you may not be on good terms with Sasuke right now — we will have to keep an eye on you," he finished.

"Why are you doing this?" she murmured sadly, her fuse snapped in half before the flame reached the ignition pit, the weight of the situation left her exhausted and angry — truthfully, she would never succumb to telling the authorities about what she saw — but why wasn't Sasuke here instead?

In a rare instance of morality for the haughty male — he leaned forward and brushed a few strands of pink hair out of her face to flick away her sadness.

Somewhere, the small brush of his fingers against her forehead made sense.

A familiarity.

The scent of cherry blossoms.

A salty ocean breeze.

The chaos simmered and a hum of the past ignited a new flame.

"Ah—"

The curves of his face — the slight way his mouth tilted into a frown.

Like the night she first met him — where his gaze swept her up and held her captive, she felt transfixed and defenseless against this man.

It terrified her.

"I think you need to go," she broke away from him, unsure of herself and what transpired between them.

He stood up to take his leave, he needed to head back and make sure everything had been taken care of, "—call me if you need anything."

xox

Sasuke could feel himself slipping.

He felt it the moment Itachi hung up the phone on him last year — clearly disappointed with his decisions and even further when he had taken the opportunity given to him by Shisui and decided he would follow the course of his clan. He felt himself slipping the night he got into a fight with Naruto that left them both bloody - because of everyone that began to question him, Naruto had been the most persistent.

He felt himself lose his footing when he started to lie. The words found them before he could catch up - when he would come home and see her lying on their bed - hair accented by the streams of moonlight, and he would lie to himself, and lie to her again in the morning about where he was.

The guilt subsided.
He found a refuge in the people that he belonged to.

Itachi's voice of reason became insignificant in the grand scheme of what he wanted to be.
He stopped calling his brother.

Along the way of battling the demons attached to him, he had forgotten the familiar face of his fiancé and best friend.

Truthfully, he didn't regret his decision.

Nor did he feel any palpable worry when his finger pulled the trigger.

What he didn't expect — was to see Madara leaving his home.

Flowers in hand, he walked up to see the dominating Uchiha.

They met on the sidewalk, and it became clear why Madara had taken such an interest in his fiancé — he had been blinded by the allure of his clan, the blood ties that warranted his position in this world, he didn't see the way men looked at her anymore.

Madara saw the flowers in hand, with a snide smirk he glanced back at the house, both men stared beyond the doors - envisioning two versions of the same woman.

"I already spoke with her, make sure she doesn't say anything."

Sasuke didn't respond — he lost his grip on the edge of the cliff.

What would Itachi say to this?

He loved her, and he would never do anything to hurt her unless it was for her own good.

That night, she threw the flowers in his face and asked him why, why was he doing this?

He couldn't gather a response.

She threatened to say something.

With his fingers gripping her hair to keep her still, he hissed into her ear, "if you say anything, I'll kill you."

He lost himself to a new, impenetrable darkness.

That night, Sakura lie in bed next to the man that she loved since childhood, shivering against his warm skin — bruises began to flower across her stomach, intricate and painful — it hurt to move.

She didn't cry — her tears had dried and in their place she began to think.


Author's Note:
Ok sooooo, I hope you enjoyed this chapter - I know, I know - there's probably some confusion, but before I get people telling me Sasuke is being ooc - let's remember that in darkness, Sasuke doesn't think correctly. He also did attempt to kill Sakura when he was consumed by that darkness, and before we get into why Sakura is a bit more angsty - remember that she's always had a soft/lenient side for Sasuke (almost too much in my humble opinion, but they're still one of my fav couples) and thus I felt it's justified.

In other news - I created a Tumblr! If any of you would like to follow me it's Shyyynobi just like my username, I'm really excited to begin interacting with you all so you can yell at me to update. Mostly, I just really want to connect more with the community of fanfic readers/writers and those that share my love for these characters.
*As well, there's currently a MadaSaku week(end) happening on Tumblr, so if you look up MadaSakuWeek you'll find lots of recent submissions and new fanart for this lovely couple.

Thank you to everyone that reviewed last chapter!
If you enjoy this story, don't forget to leave a follow/fav/review - it keeps us writers going.