A Cornucopia of Conundrums
Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7. Part 8. Part 9. Part 10.
Summary: "So what you're saying is; you had a one-night stand with some yakuza lordling and now you're preggo with his baby?" SasuSaku. AU.
Contemplating life, I see. You will, rest assured, die someday.
"Stop," he snapped, "behaving like fucking Joan of Arc."
Haruno Sakura; wild and furious, looking feral with her hair chopped of, shot him a scathing look. He wangled the car in reverse and pulled out of the curb. There was a long, nasty looking gash on the side of her face, a small bump on her temple and little pinpricks of glass embedded in the palms of her hands. He wondered if she were exceptionally brave or completely numb to the pain.
"You get off your fucking high horse, Uchiha Sasuke," she seethed, angry and ethreal. "My life is unraveling in front of my eyes. I will behave like fucking Joan of Arc if I have to!"
He didn't reply. If this small rebellion was going to help her accept this fate, then he wasn't going to stand in her way.
For the rest of the drive, she remained silent; fumed quietly. Vengeance was a cruel, driving master, she understood now – especially the retribution of someone as powerful as Uchiha. She pressed herself against the leather of the door and worried – about Ino, about Sai, about Mebuki and Kizashi. And after she'd run out of that niggling perturbation, settled on a quibbling sort of disquietude for herself – what kind of a sentence would she have to suffer for keeping her daughter safe, for even now, in the throes of such heated criticism, those eight years were a small vindication; any doubt that she'd been harboring over the past few months, had abruptly disappeared.
You will pay. She remembered his words, angry and ominous; the night of Sarada's surgery. Now, as the car passed by green hills and a rocky road, she regretted brushing off those words away. We should have run away when we had the chance, she thought, numb and unfeeling, staring right past the high, green grass, glowing against the paintbrush back-drop of the trees lining the edge of Konohagakure woods.
So deep seated was her resentment, that she completely missed the wrought-iron gate, designed appropriately into an intricate Gothic monstrosity, and the looming wall accompanying it on either side. Only when the car slowly skidded to a stop, did she jolt out of her umbrage. Willfully, she looked beyond Uchiha Sasuke, to the paddocks, the forest, the faint silhouette of the outbuildings and farther, to where the land went its long, endless roll to the bottom of the sky.
"Just—do whatever you want—say or scream whatever you want, at me."
Carefully, she angled her head at him, looked at the his face from the bottom of her lashes, from just beneath her nose—but no matter how she observed, couldn't find a single misgiving on his face. He was being entirely sincere. A little stunned, and a whole lot angry, she realized that she was being very adroitly maneuvered. He wanted her to slave for his goal, holding out his debasement as a carrot before her. But that wasn't what she wanted. She wanted only to—
"There's not a bag in the world that could contain the amount of douche you are!" she snapped, against her better judgment. Stay quiet, her mind advised. Scream, her heart raged. And Haruno Sakura, if anything, was a creature of intense emotion. "You are a …you are a douche canoe!"
He nodded, accepting her ridiculous vitriol, looking satisfied. "Aa," he said and the rage simmering at her temples suddenly clouded her mind. "How could you hurt innocent people!" she screamed. "How could you hurt INO! Sarada will never forgive you! I will never forgive you!"
He looked calm—like her words were sliding off of an invisible shield, and it only made her rage more tangible. Without her own knowledge or acquiescence, her hand reached out, ready and willing to rip out a fistful of his hair, to rake her nails down his finely sculpted face, to shred his expensive looking shirt with her bare hands; but he caught her wrists, and had she been in the right state of mind, she might have noticed the slight empathy in his gaze. Instead, she saw black irises, even blacker pupils and an arrogant arch of an eyebrow—she struggled to rip free, to hurt, to mutilate—and when she realized that she couldn't, she screamed. Screamed and screamed until her voice became hoarse, her throat became dry. Limp and defeated, she finally wrenched her wrists out of his hands and stared at him furiously for ten humming seconds, then sidled away, silently vowing to shred his arm if he tried to touch her again.
Her pledge was tested only a second later, as Uchiha Sasuke reached out and roughly cupped her face in his hands. In a raging, incandescent frenzy, she twisted and turned in his grasp, clawed at his hands, and when nothing worked, glared at him, hissed through clenched teeth, "Let go!"
"You will be presented to the Oyabun, soon," he told her solemnly, completely disregarding her furious command. "Do not talk back."
She opened her mouth to retort, but he cut her off—
"Do not talk back."
She clenched her mouth shut, tried to be reasonable, tried not to panic.
"Do not talk back," he commanded once more, then let go of her face and revved up the car again.
Beneath the rolling green expanse of the Uchiha Estate, was a graveyard of blood and bones, murder and black money. Uchiha may have managed to cover up their philandering ways beneath a layer of autochthonous perfection, but she saw—saw the rivers of blood and tears, the weeds of tyranny and oppression, and when Uchiha Sasuke parked the car at a cul-de-sac, she defiantly kept sitting in the car until he yanked the door open and jerked her out the door. She stumbled, and he caught her, righted her properly, and said once more, "Remember; do—"
"—not talk back!" she cut him off darkly.
He nodded once and his hands slid down her forearms to her wrist. He squeezed once, gently, before dragging her inside. She stumbled thrice before matching his pace, didn't notice anything past the ringing in her ears, the palpitations of her heart, the blur of a wooden floor passing by; because in her heart of hearts, she knew what Uchiha Madara, ruthless and vicious, must have had in store for her—death.
I'm going to die, she thought, and even the voice inside her head was muted. I'm going to die and they're going to make my daughter a killer.
She didn't resist, when Uchiha Sasuke gently pushed her down on her knees, just kept her head down and tried to calm her racing heart. I did my best, she assured herself. Sarada is alive. Ino is alive. Oka-chan and Otou-chan are alive. Only they matter.
"Enter."
It was old and gruff, that voice—so generic and commonplace that all the anger that had been simmering inside her chest, her mind, the very tips of her fingers and toes suddenly morphed into an unforeseen, undulated terror. It was her body, preparing for a fight or flight situation; except this time, there was nowhere to take flight; just a paper door being slid aside, and her, being hauled up by Uchiha Sasuke.
The muscles in her legs had tightened, were fully prepared to run, her blood vessels must have been diluted to increase blood flow, because she was sweating slightly now, and terror had made it so that she couldn't even look her murderer in the eye. Churlishly, she was pulled down to her knees once more.
There was a throaty chuckle and she found her chest constricting. She tried to swallow, but her moth was dry. Very slowly, she raised her head; Uchiha Madara stared back at her. Instinctively, her hands pulled together in her lap. Uchiha Madara's gaze followed the small movement. He nodded, almost in approval.
"She's a fighter," he said, after appraising her in silence for a few minutes. His eyes were pinned on her, but his tone was directed at Uchiha Sasuke.
"Aa."
She figured she must have looked appropriately beat up and disheveled. As if triggered by the thought, her hands started prickling and she looked down. It took her five seconds to register the tiny rivulets of blood encrusted on her hands, her wrists; the small shards of glass that must have been embedded in her palms for over two hours now. It still didn't hurt and she wondered if it was her body numbing down the physical pain to prepare her for the ultimate one. No matter, she thought, preparing to use them to claw at Uchiha Madara, Uchiha Sasuke, whoever would have nerve enough to kill her. Any and all advantage, even a painful one, she would take.
"Good," said Uchiha Madara. "We value fighters in this family."
His words were a mockery of her brave face, and she clenched her fists, trying to embed the glass deeper into her flesh, trying to feel the physical pain to distract herself from this crazy amalgamation of terror and rage.
But then his words finally registered. We value fighters in this family.
We value fighters in this family.
…value fighters…
…in this family.
What?
"She would make for an interesting sesai, Sasuke," said Madara, almost pleasantly. "You will have to keep her in line. But you like a challenge, don't you?"
More than a little stunned, she turned her head sideways, looked at Uchiha Sasuke as he respectfully bowed his head. "Aa."
A thousand, million questions whirled inside her head.
Do not talk back. Uchiha Sasuke's words echoed in her mind. Do not talk back. Do not talk back. Do not talk back—
But she would because—her thoughts refused to wrap around the situation. Sesai. Sesai? She was—Uchiha Sasuke, she realized, breath suddenly becoming short, is going to marry me.
"No," she blurted out, vehement; like the blood in her veins had suddenly caught fire. "No!"
Uchiha Sasuke's head snapped towards her, eyes wide, but not wide enough, and Uchiha Madara laughed.
"Would you rather die, On'nanoko?"
Her gaze never wavered from Uchiha Sasuke. "Yes," she whispered, almost hissed. Because if she died, at least she would be free.
Uchiha Madara sounded absolutely delighted. "I would have granted your wish, had I not met my great granddaughter."
What, she thought, whipping her head towards Madara, glowering her hate, her resentment; sitting passively and hating herself for it. "You—you—met Sarada?"
"Aa," Madara hummed. "A genuinely delightful child."
Sakura's heart was gripped suddenly with a terror so fierce and potent, she couldn't speak. Sarada. This mad man had met Sarada. When?
Her head whisked back to Uchiha Sasuke and she wished she could bury him with all the accusations shooting in her mind. He didn't meet her eyes.
"Oyabun," he said decorously. "We will take our leave." His voice was taut, but not crisp.
"By all means," said Madara, and once again, Uchiha Sasuke hauled her up—but this time, she roughly shrugged out of his grip, but followed him out.
Once, when she was in grad school, she'd taken a communication skills course as an elective. For the very first presentation, she'd been assigned to critique an artwork; The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. A person who was alive, even barely, could never grasp the concept of death, the artist had tried to emulate. But she had; she had been fully prepared to die, to scream and claw and pitch a fight—take at the very least one person down with her. She had been prepared to die. Her mind might not have grasped the concept of death, but she had prepared to die.
And now that she was alive, she didn't know how to grasp the concept of living.
"Sit," Uchiha Sasuke commanded.
She looked around the room, small and bare, but for the basic necessities; a small bed, two round side tables and a small cupboard in the corner. She kept standing just to spite him.
He sighed, in exasperation, she could tell, and she bristled, looked the other way.
He walked two steps and was suddenly standing before her. Before she could even open her mouth to say anything, he raised his hand and fear struck her heart tight once more because this man was going to strike her. Intuitively, her eyes closed tight and she recoiled, heart pounding, waiting for the hit, body inclined away to protect herself.
She heard him sigh, tiredly this time, before feeling his hands gently pushing her back. She opened her eyes, just as her bottom hit the mattress. She looked up and found him rummaging around the room, looking for something and realized that this must have been his room. Her heart still pounded in her chest, and she waited—for him to pull out some weapon, to do some deed of unforgiveable evil, but when he turned around, the only thing in his hands was a first aid kit.
Startled, she flinched away once more when he dropped down in a crouch in front of her. he opened the kit, put it aside and reached out for her hands. She resisted, but only a little and refused to let herself cry when he dabbed a cotton swab drenched with antiseptic on her open palms. She grit her teeth and finally felt the pain, sharp and searing, rising from the tips of her fingers and burning all the way to the small ridge of her palm.
After, he took out a pair of tweezers and went to work on the small shards of glass. Every time he took one out, she felt an unbearable sting. She powered through, just for a few moments forgetting to hate him.
Only when he'd wrapped both of hands in a compression bandage did she look at him. There were bags under his eyes, and by the way he was squinting, she could tell immediately that he was short sighted and in desperate need of glasses. Then she remembered that he was going to be her otto, and his humanity disappeared once more.
"You let Sarada meet him," she accused, voice loose, like an elastic stretched too thin.
"Aa," he agreed, not looking at her and reached a hand into the kit again, pulled out a cotton bud and dipped it into a bottle of antiseptic. She reeled back, tamping down fear and revulsion when he reached for her face. He paused and finally looked at her, right in the eyes.
Then, "I will not hurt you."
"I know," she said, with much more conviction then she actually felt. "Why would you let Sarada meet him?"
He rolled his eyes, swatted her hand away and dabbed the bud on her cheekbone. She flinched in pain, glared at him. "Why would you—why will I be your sesai?"
He dipped the other end of the bud in a bottle of generic medicine and dabbed it on her cheek again. "Why would you let Sarada meet him?!" she asked again, suddenly feeling the lump lodged into her throat expand. Her voice was thick as she knocked his hand away and tried to tamp down the tears. "Why would you agree to marry me? You hate me, remember? We hate each other!"
Her nose stung with the effort of keeping the tears at bay, but her lip wobbled. He completely ignored her imprecation, and pulled out a super-sized band aid, stuck it on her face, then started gathering his kit. "Rest," he commanded when he'd finally gathered his things.
"Why?" she asked again, stubborn and discontent, hanging on to her sanity by a thin thread. "Why would you—"
"Because," he snapped, angry, "my daughter loves you. And I would do anything for her. Even take you as my sesai."
Something inside her broke. The tears started falling. She didn't blink them away. "Don't I get a say—"
"No."
She only watched as he threw the kit on the side table and strode away.
"Do not be unreasonable with her."
Uchiha Mikoto looked suitably offended. "I would never!"
Itachi smiled blandly, wound an arm around her shoulder and pulled her in an affectionate hug. "Have we all not been, Haha-sama?"
Rather than being indignant, Mikoto looked slightly aggrieved. Itachi disentangled himself and sat her down. "Look at it from her perspective—"
"Chīsana otokonoko," Uchiha Mikoto cut him off, put a hand on his cheek and smiled at him wistfully. "When did you grow up so much?"
Itachi cocked his head, looked amused. "A while ago."
Mikoto's smile was brimming with affection, tempered with sadness. "I know," she told him, "I understand. I have not been very fair—none of us have been."
"She's a good mother—a good girl."
"I know, Itachi."
"It's going to be a rough transition. Sasuke is trying his best, at the moment, but his best might not be enough. We all have to do our part."
Mikoto sighed. "She must be overwhelmed."
"She must be," Itachi agreed.
"I cannot do much—I might not be much; but I promise to try my best. I will try to be her mother while she cannot reach her own."
"And that is all anyone can ask of you."
"Be kind to her."
Sarada was being discharged. Itachi had left to accompany his niece to run one last gamut of tests, to get prescriptions, to sign paperwork, to pay the bills, and Uchiha Mikoto had sat him down.
Be kind to her, she had just said. "To whom?" he asked now, even though he knew who she referred to.
"To Sarada-chan's mother," she told him gently, and before he could even open his mouth to argue, she said, "Think of it this way—can you imagine how I would feel if ever, you or your brother were arrested and sentenced?"
She would play her fear to the best of her abilities—for Uchiha Mikoto was not a woman who would sit back and watch her children be damned. And, he thought, rather unwillingly, bristling at the keen logic of the situation, neither was Haruno Sakura. She had done absolutely everything that she could to keep Sarada safe and alive.
He shouldn't begrudge her that.
He couldn't stop begrudging her that.
"I will try," he assured Mikoto, and even she could detect the half-hearted lilt of his tone. She sighed, put her palm on his cheek and rubbed affectionately. "That is all I will ask of you. Try to remember; she is a good mother. If Sarada-chan loves her, then it is our duty to give her a chance."
Something in that statement made him silently fume. "It is because of Sarada that she is alive right now."
"And it makes you angry?"
"It makes me helpless." Which she knew was the same thing to him. "So I will marry her, and regret the time and distance that she put between my daughter and I—the time and distance I put between my daughter and I."
Mikoto didn't say anything to that.
The ride back to the Estate was a silent and tense one. Itachi drove, Mikoto sat shotgun and in the back seat, Sarada snuggled into the crook of his arm, looking slightly wilted. Sasuke held her close, occasionally ran his hand through her hair, tried to be a Papa.
When they reached their wing of the Estate, Sarada immediately asked for her mother. He complied, took her inside, down the engawa, to his room. With his fingertips on the edge of the shouji, he hesitated.
"Is she in there?" Sarada asked.
She was. She was also beat up, bloody and bruised. He was pretty sure Sarada was not used to her Mama being beat up, bloody and bruised. Without meeting her eyes, he put her down. She came up to just below his hip; tiny and perfect. He turned and crouched down before her, faltered a little at her expectant expression. "Your Mama—" he started, stopped. What could be a sensible way to make her understand this situation, he wondered. "She's—hurt."
Instantly, Sarada's lips curled down, eyes went wide. "But you promised! You said you won't let her get hurt."
The lights behind the door didn't switch on, so he could only assume Haruno Sakura was passed out. There were guards stationed around every wing—she wouldn't have been able to escape even if she'd had tried. He took a deep breath, lowered his eyes in shame. "I'm sorry. I wasn't there."
Her brow was furrowed. There were accusations in her eyes. "But—she—"
"She is alright," he quickly reassured her. "She just needs her daughter."
A beat passed as Sarada stared at him, gauged him; then with a wobbly voice, she asked, "Will you still marry her?"
He exhaled, felt the weight of her words. Will you still keep her safe? "Aa."
She nodded, and he stood up and opened the door for her. He held her hand as they stepped in, and as he switched on the light, they both saw Haruno Sakura, prone and breathing gently at the very edge of the bed. Sarada didn't jump up to be by her side; instead, she slowly walked in, leading him by his hand, and lightly climbed over the bed. Haruno Sakura did not stir, but he saw when Sarada's eyes watered—when she saw the angry looking bump on her mother's head, when she touched the band aid on her mother's cheek, the blunt edges of her chopped up hair, when she gingerly touched her mother's hands wrapped up in a bundle of white, compressive gauze.
"Pa—pa," she looked at him, a thousand laments in her eyes. And he could do nothing, could say nothing, except sit beside them, in a sad mockery of a family, as Sarada settled herself in her mother's embrace.
Be kind to her, Uchiha Mikoto had commanded him.
But sitting there beside his terrified daughter, watching her battered body, how could he have been anything else?
An icebound wall, on the very edge of his heart, thawed slightly just as the knot of tension inside his chest tightened imperceptibly. He stood up, took out the comforter from under her feet and splayed it over them, tucked them both in.
Then he switched off the lights and walked away.
tbc
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