A/N: Hey guess, what? I'm still alive! No, I didn't abandon this story. Now that I have a bit of free time, I can get back to writing.
As far as ages go…
Since the events of the story occur a couple of months following the war, Sakura is 17 years old.
Madara's age? Well, that's a bit more complicated.
Genetically? He is however old he was when he died after disconnecting from the Gedo Mazo. So pretty much very old. Physically? Since he contains the original's DNA infused with child cells, he was stated to have the appearance of a pre-teen so he looks about 11 years old. Chronologically? He was created in Orochimaru's lab after the war and hasn't really lived very long beyond that and traveling with Sakura. Not very old!
I hope that clears up a few things.
Following the departure from the Konoha village gates, their journey north had largely been silent. Sasuke had previously affirmed his familiarity of Orochimaru's abandoned laboratories nestled between the borders of the Land of Sound and Land of Fire.
Despite the discomfiting silence, time seemed to pass ominously slow as they branch hopped through the forest beyond Konoha's borders. Sakura shuddered uncomfortably sensing the palpable static between the two inimical Uchiha.
As they reached the shore of the Naka River, Sakura suggested they make a brief pit stop before fording the river. Sasuke watched her slink away into the privacy of the woods before approaching the young boy standing absently before the rushing waters.
Madara stiffened immediately and hastily pulled his robe over himself. "How many times do I have to tell you not to stand behind me!"
Instead of hearing an apologetic yet chipper voice he was met by silence. He craned his neck over his shoulder catching Sasuke in the corner of his eye.
The boy's voice descended icily. "Oh, it's you."
Sasuke's countenance hardened although he did not respond.
"Where's Sakura?" He asked, scrunching his brow in a surly manner.
His inquiry must have struck a nerve as Sasuke's stolid expression seemed to result in anger. "Even though you are merely a clone, you still do not deserve her kindness."
The boy simply uttered a throaty growl while Sasuke continued on.
"You still harbor the hatred, the evil of the original Madara. You even repeated the exact same words to her that you uttered when she died."
"I didn't mean it!" Madara protested fervently. "It's just that I kept hearing all these voices and seeing all these things that didn't make any sense to me…"
"Regardless, you have proven that you cannot be trusted."
Madara's deep charcoal orbs locked on Sasuke, barely curbing the urge to activate his Sharingan. "I don't care whether you trust me or not."
"There is no place for you here. The village despises you, the world despises you! You will always be seen as Uchiha Madara. Even Sakura is aware of that."
Madara turned away facing opposite of Sasuke. He clenched his fingers into a fist holding his arms rigidly at his sides.
"If I can't find a place in this world that will accept me…" His voice resonated darkly yet with sheer conviction. "…then I will create a place where I can live…where I can live together with Sakura."
For a fleeting moment, he figured his proclamation had finally silenced the opposing Uchiha. It wasn't until he heard a haughty chuckle mock him from behind his back. He spun around swiftly confronting the conceited grin worn on Sasuke's face.
"That will never happen." Sasuke uttered a scornful laugh. His vicious smirk suddenly faded to a more restrained glower. "Sakura has family, friends, duties, a village she calls home…she has a life beyond you! Do you honestly believe she would abandon all of those things just to be with a fake like you?!"
"Shut up!" The boy quickly resigned his attempt at suppressing his Sharingan from activating.
Sasuke merely tucked his hands beneath his folded arms unperturbed by the boy's display of hostility. "Go ahead and bare your Sharingan at me. You're simply proving my point that you cannot be trusted."
"I won't be belittled by the likes of you!" Madara hissed combatively.
Sasuke could feel the heat of the boy's flaring chakra prickling the surface of his skin. He reached behind himself gripping the handle of his sword in preparation of an impending attack.
"Sasuke-kun! Mada-kun!" Sakura's voice called out from the distance.
Sasuke released the handle of his blade as the boy's wrathful chakra receded. Their heads snapped in concert towards the direction of Sakura's calling voice. She jogged towards the two Uchiha and halted before them observing their unusually close proximity.
"What's going on here?" She inquired noting the crimson gleam of the boy's eyes. "Have you two been fighting again?"
"It's nothing." Madara said curtly, proceeding towards the edge of the waters. He stepped across the surface of the river advancing towards the other side at a hurried pace.
Sakura flashed a skeptical glance to Sasuke who merely returned her skepticism with indifference as he continued forward across the river.
The voyage beyond the river had been once again, to Sakura's dismay, awkwardly silent. Sasuke led the formation while she remained steadily in between the two Uchiha to prevent further confrontation. The boy had begun to trail behind her, the distance between them gradually growing greater with each passing hour.
She glanced behind herself monitoring the boy's condition periodically. He kept his Sharingan active despite the absence of any imminent threats. The sun had begun to set painting the sky with a mosaic of deep orange and blue hues.
"You seem quite tired." She said to the boy hoping to placate him with a forced smile. However, she knew very well that his lagging pace was not the product of fatigue. "We should rest now."
Sasuke set a campfire ablaze with a katon jutsu as Sakura unraveled the sleeping bags and laid them beside the warm perimeter of the campfire. She noticed the black tomoe of Madara's Sharingan flickering in the firelight.
"Are you alright, Mada-kun?" Sakura asked gently smoothing out the ruffles of his sleeping bag.
His eyes quickly flittered towards Sasuke before he turned away from her and answered tersely. "I'm fine."
Sakura did not miss his scathing glance to the source of his discontent. Tsunade had relied on her to play the role of peacemaker on this mission and it was a role she was quickly failing to preserve. She knew that whatever had happened at the Naka River would rapidly escalate to violence should she fail her role. If she did not intervene now, the chances of executing a successful mission were close to nil. Nevertheless, she was completely helpless against the powers of two feuding Uchiha.
"Sasuke-kun." She spoke sternly rousing the Uchiha from his brooding state. "We need to talk."
He furrowed his brow in a manner that conveyed his disapproval.
"Now." She seized his wrist pulling him to his feet.
Sakura led him away from the campfire deeper into the woods until they were outside of Madara's earshot.
The fragmented the rays of moonlight shining through the forest canopy barely illuminated the features of their faces.
"What is so urgent?" Sasuke wrenched his wrist free from her grip.
"I know you were the one who told Mada-kun about his past." She spoke in a hushed voice.
Sasuke's stolidity did not falter in the face of her accusation. "It does not matter."
"It does matter!" She cried out. "We wanted to give him a fair chance!"
Madara stealthily snuck away from the campfire and observed the conversation in the distance. Even in the poorly lit forest, he could trace the movements of their lips enabling him to eavesdrop on their every word.
"A fair chance?! Sakura, have you gone mad?! He never had a fair chance to begin with!"
He continued speaking quashing any opportunity for Sakura to offer a rebuttal. "Even you are fully aware that the village rejects him. The entire shinobi world rejects him. Even if he is just a clone the world will always see him as Uchiha Madara. He is not innocent! He attacked the village and tried to kill me. You would've lost your life a second time if you hadn't activated your regenerative jutsu! Or have you forgotten? Have you forgotten everything that happened in the Shinobi World War?!"
Sasuke's voice continued to reverberate through the forest although a harsh silence had been cast between them.
"No, Sasuke. I did not forget the events of the Shinobi World War…" She inhaled deeply and spoke pneumatically. "…nor did I forget the events in the Land of Iron."
Sasuke's skin blanched although he was certain Sakura could not witness it in the dim moonlight.
Madara observed Sasuke's sudden alarm from the distance. Whatever happened in the Land of Iron had dealt a strong blow to the Uchiha who had been persistently verbally assaulting him and now he was curious to learn the further details of their conversation.
She lifted her head fixing her gaze on the shadowy profile of his face. "For a long time, I was tormented…tormented by my own weakness in abandoning my faith that you could ever be redeemed from the darkness. I was imprisoned by the pain of my own mistakes and filled with regret that I could never cast away. The only way I could free myself from my self-imprisonment—the only way I could forgive you for your transgressions—was to forgive myself for my own transgressions…"
She clasped a hand over her chest and paused briefly. "In doing so, I felt a huge burden lift from my heart and felt empowered with a newfound strength. When you and Naruto were on the verge of death, I took a gamble with my own life. I clung to the hope that Naruto's life would be restored and that he would defeat Madara—together with you. That you would both discover your true strength and you would revitalize the spirit of unity that was Team 7…even if it was without me."
Although she could not see his face clearly, Sasuke's silence had made it evident that her words had stricken him.
"Even though you have yet to utter a word of apology—and I know that you have been diligently keeping yourself distant from me even despite the fact that you have returned to living in Konoha—I cannot bear the burden of holding a grudge against you. If I did, I would be incapable of moving on from the past and looking forward to the future. I know you are understandably hostile towards Mada-kun but even knowing that he is not the same as the original you still antagonize him. You say there is no chance that he can ever be redeemed…"
Sakura's voice suddenly descended gravely in a manner that made Sasuke's blood run cold. "I question whether you are projecting your own feelings of self-loathing onto Mada-kun…"
Sasuke gnashed his teeth together piqued by the girl's harsh words. "That is far from the truth! What Uchiha Madara has done is unforgivable! Don't try to draw comparisons between two completely unrelated things!"
"I wasn't talking about forgiving Madara." She spoke confidently despite the seething anger in Sasuke's voice. "You cannot move on until you forgive the one person that matters…only a coward can never learn to forgive, right?"
Sakura turned away and headed back towards the campfire without a further word. Sasuke watched her leave unaware of the boy's surveillance of the entire conversation.
How dare she speak ill of him and suggest such a skewered analysis of his feelings.
She was unmistakably insane for considering the boy could ever receive an opportunity of redemption.
Uchiha Madara tried to wipe out Konoha for god's sake! She was stupid to believe the kid could ever call the place home.
Yes, he himself had once desired the destruction of the village as well…and he was initially met with flagrant rejection upon reintroduction into the village…
But it was not the same!
Uchiha Madara was responsible for her death and for that the kid did not deserve one iota of her kindness regardless if he was a clone. It was absolutely revolting!
He did not deserve to be near her!
He did not deserve her compassion!
He did not deserve her comforting embrace!
Sasuke leaned against the trunk of the tree pressing his back against the rough bark. His body descended down the trunk until he was seated on the ground.
He glanced at his hands and curled his fingers still engrossed in deep thought. His fingers suddenly numbed as he was plagued by phantom memories of the pink haired girl gasping desperately for air as his fingers wrapped around her throat. Her piercing screams and cries resonated in his ears uncannily.
He would've taken her life…Her delicate windpipe at the mercy of his own hands…
He suddenly recalled the Kyuubi's words to him during his encounter with the tailed beast. "Those eyes and chakra of yours are even more sinister than my own...you're the spitting image of Uchiha Madara."
"I'm not like him!" He shouted angrily into the vacant forest as if expecting someone to answer him. "I'm not like him at all!"
Sasuke curled into himself burying his face into his hands.
How could she forgive so easily? Following the war, she had apologized profusely to him for her own attempt on his life but he had never even spoken a word of apology to her.
He squeezed his eyelids shut continuing to cover his face in the security of his hands. Heaving a forced and drawn out sigh, he whispered inaudibly into his hands. "…I'm sorry …"
No longer interested in observing Sasuke, the young boy retreated to the campfire in order to retire for the night.
They had continued north finally reaching the closest known abandoned laboratory before the edge of the Land of Fire.
Sakura shuddered internally as she passed a jar containing a mass of skin and hair that looked suspiciously like a teratoma.
Sasuke immediately headed towards a library of stowed scrolls probing for any evidence of Orochimaru's research on cloning.
She was uncertain as to how Sasuke could develop the tolerance to stomach the disturbing sight of Orochimaru's failed experiments. Madara trailed behind her viewing a snake-like fetus suspended in a liquid jar. It seemed the boy had already become acclimated to the unsettling sight of the Sannin's unethical experiments.
"Can we hurry with this? Even as a medic, I don't think I can stomach the sight of these experiments." Sakura hugged her body tightly suppressing the urge to shudder yet again.
Sakura spotted something white and scaly dangling from behind the shelf above Madara's head. Her eyes suddenly widened in disbelief as the white object began to descend towards the boy's neck.
In a single swift motion, she tackled the boy out of the trajectory of an albino snake's vicious fangs. The snake's fangs latched onto the side of her cheek causing her to collapse to the ground in agony.
"Sakura!" Madara called out alerting Sasuke to her distress.
He drew his blade as the snake released its fangs from her flesh and attempted to flee. He rammed the blade into the ground impaling the albino snake until it fell limp and ceased all movement.
The distinct black tomoe mark quickly faded into Sakura's flesh suddenly causing her to scream and convulse. Her hands suddenly snapped upward towards her forehead. She pressed her hands against her brow in a futile attempt to stifle her pain.
"What's happening?!" Madara shouted above her screaming.
Sasuke grasped her rigid arms and peeled her hands away from her forehead. Her screams and convulsions seemed to intensify as a black hue seeped through the royal purple rhombus of her Byakugou Seal.
"Shit!" Sasuke cursed as the pitch-black hue completely superseded the purple diamond mark. "He marked her with the Cursed Seal!"
A/N: Ya, I know. Obligatory Sasuke scolding chapter. This fanfic is coming into the homestretch so please stay tuned! Thanks for reading and please review!
