Since I gave you all a cliffhanger last chapter, you get this chapter right away! :D
Yay!
"Sakura, break the ground right," he walks away and points to the center of the underground chakra, "there."
With a single punch, the ground collapses in the center of the clearing, and Sakura leaps to his side with wide eyes.
"Sasuke-kun… How the hell?"
"We need to send a hawk to Kakashi, immediately."
Neither of them can look away from the crater, but he knows she's nodding, and he knows she's as terrified as he is.
There, in the center of the crater is long decaying root, with row after row of dead white Zetsu attached to it. These Zetsu feel and look somewhat different from the ones he remembers in the past though, he can't see any of Hashirama's green chakra or Madara's blue chakra in them, or the root.
It's all purple.
Sickingly, terrifyingly purple.
Just like the Ten Tails looked to his Sharingan.
Just like Kaguya looked to him.
"I think Kaguya made these." Sakura mirrors his thoughts.
"Hn?" But she's already jumped down into the crater, like the annoying head strong woman that she is.
When he leaps down too, he sees her green chakra glowing over one of the Zetsu, prodding at it.
"This level of petrification would take a long time to happen."
"How long, exactly?"
"Hundreds if not thousands of years."
He watches in silence as Sakura ties back her now shoulder length hair, and removes her traveling cloak and backpack, and hands them to him. In the next moment, she's used a kunai to cut down the Zetsu she'd been examining.
"What are you doing, Sakura?" There's still chakra pooled in the root, and in the Zetsu, though it seems to be dormant. Still, he doesn't want to take any chances with her.
But Sakura's not to be messed with when her hair is up. He finally gets what the Dobe meant by that. She lays the body down on the floor of the crater she created and motions for her back pack. Sasuke decides he'll at least sit guard next to her, if she feels like playing scientist in a crater in the middle of nowhere.
Sakura removes a scroll marked with the kanji for "Tests" and unseals what he recognizes as a dissection kit. He stifles the shiver from the memory of Kabuto dissecting living "test subjects" when he was bored; and instead, decides to chuckle slightly at the fact that Sakura really had thought of everything.
She starts by removing several samples of flesh, half of which she puts in glass jars from the scroll, and half she fuses to some formula written on said parchment. When it only fizzles for a moment, her brow furrows and she frowns.
Next, she prepares the body to be autopsied, and makes the first incision, opening the chest cavity up in a "Y" shape with clamps. She seems to pause at what she sees.
"What is it?"
"When I did the autopsies on the white Zetsu before and during the war, they didn't look like this."
Sasuke dips down to look closer, but the face, the body, everything appears to be the same. The chakra is definitely different, but this one looks like every Zetsu clone he's ever seen, apart from the black one's other half.
She seems to understand his confusion so she elaborates. "They're all plant based bodies, even this one. But…" She reaches in and pulls out what could only be described as once being a heart. The black, rocky thing has the same chakra remnant that the rest of the body has. He takes note that the chakra remnants remind him of the left over chakra pooling in a dead body, but for it to still be here after all this time, the chakra must have been immense, no doubt from the root of the divine tree. He nods for her to continue. "They never had organs before, not even a trace that they ever did."
He watches her excise and chisel off small samples of every organ she finds, and mulls over what she's telling him. A long forgotten vision given to him from Hagaromo surfaces and something seems to snap in his head.
"Kaguya made these, probably before the Sage of Six Paths was even born."
Sakura drops what's in her hands and stares at him like he has three heads again.
"These used to be people, they were put under the first Infinite Tsyuko no Me by Kaguya herself. The tree turned them into this, her army."
And yup, he smirks in his head, now she's looking at him like he had four heads. He thought his and Naruto's previous reincarnations had taken care of all of the remnants of the tree and its roots, but it seems they've missed a few meters. He sighs and moves to get up, decided on burning it all away.
"Hurry and finish up here, I'm going to destroy it."
Sakura seems to be frozen in place, like she's being weighed down by something or some revelation she has yet to share.
"Sakura?"
She's staring at what he'd decided at one time, long in the past, was a heart, once again in her hand. "Sasuke-kun… Why would someone as powerful as Kaguya need an army?"
Sasuke stops in his tracks and looks at her with wide eyes.
"Sasuke-kun, people didn't even have chakra back then. What would be the point of making such a powerful army?"
They stare at each other for what seems like hours, her obviously trying to answer her own question, and him trying to figure out how nobody, not even him, had thought to ask that question.
When she doesn't show any signs of moving, he walks back to her and starts packing away her things. "Come on, Sakura, we have to get out of here."
She seems to snap out of it, but the look on her face doesn't change as she seal the samples and her equipment away.
They stand on the edge of the crater, and Sasuke uses his Ametarasu to ensure that no one else will stumble upon their discovery and try to use it how it was used last time.
Neither of them moves until the black flames disappear.
Neither of them makes any moves to write a message to Kakashi, either.
They arrive in the Village Hidden in the Grass around midnight, and are swiftly shown to the best inn in the whole village, as war heroes. Sakura blushes uncontrollably and laughs nervously while waving her hands every time someone thanks her for saving everyone from the "dream world." She keeps telling them that it was more Sasuke who saved them, but they don't pay him much attention, knowing clearly who he is.
When they walk into the inn, Sakura keeps remarking that it's too grand, and he smiles at how damn annoying she's being.
"Hello! How many rooms can I get you?"
'Of course, it has to be a woman.' Sasuke pretends not to notice how she ogles at him and blushes, but of course, he notices as always. He has no problem with women as people, but fan girls are so god damned annoying, he can hardly stand to be what would pass as neutral to them.
"One room, if you don't mind." He glances over at Sakura's strained speech and finds that she's closer to cracking than he is. He can't help but smile at that.
Big mistake.
The woman doesn't seem to notice Sakura at all, and seems to be mesmerized by his small smile.
With a sigh, "We'd like one room, with one bed."
Sakura chokes on her spit at his clarification of needing one bed, just as he'd hoped. The woman seems to notice the pinkette now, and gives her a look that Sasuke knows is bringing her closer and closer to broken bones, so he quickly snatches the key from her outstretched hand before she can say anything else, and physically hauls Sakura down the hall.
Sakura huffs when they enter their room. It's definitely the grandest he's ever been in, a huge room with a full kitchen, its own bathroom off in the far corner, and a beautiful silk clad bed in the center of the room, with the biggest TV he's ever seen opposite it. "God, she was annoying!" Sasuke can't help but laugh a little too loudly at this.
"What? She was!"
Between sharp inhales of breath, he manages, "You were so much worse when we were kids, Sa-ku-ra."
She mumbles something he can't hear as they both strip from their gear and weapons.
"So, we're getting Juugo in the morning?"
"Aa."
"Are you…" She pauses to find the right word, "excited?"
He ponders this as he walks over to her, standing by the bed. "I suppose," he concedes.
She beams at him, like he's just told her something amazing.
He hates to ruin that smile, he really does, but it's necessary when he says, "We can't tell him about what we found today. We can't tell anyone yet."
She doesn't miss a beat however, "Well duh, Sasuke-kun! What, do you think I'm stupid? I'm still not entirely sure what we did find this morning."
"Hn."
After a pause, he decides that's enough discussion for the night, as he leans down to kiss her with force. Her eyes go wide, and her cheeks tinge a pretty shade of pink that reminds him of her hair, but she accepts the kiss. Just as their eyes shut, and her arms are slung around his neck, he feels her tongue prodding for entrance at his lips, and he obliges without a thought.
While he has her distracted with his tongue, he moves his only hand to tug on the strings at the front of her obi, removes it and tosses it at their feet. He breaks the kiss to lift her dress over her head, and moves back to her mouth without missing a beat. Her hands begin the frantic actions of trying to get his shirt off as well, but when he thumbs over a rosy nipple, she growls and decides to rip his long sleeved black shirt to shreds instead.
He laughs as pushes her onto the bed and stands over her, taking in the sight before him, a half-naked Sakura is the most beautiful thing he thinks he's ever seen. She seems to mirror his sentiment, for when he looks at her face, he sees her eyes raking over his chest.
With a smirk, he bends down and hooks his fingers under the waist band of both her shorts and panties and yanks them down with force. He expects her to blush or look embarrassed, as she has been the other two times they've done this since that first night nearly a month ago, but she simply opens her legs slightly and smirks back at him.
He revokes his earlier thought, this is the most beautiful thing anyone has ever seen in the history of beauty, he decides as he crawls on top of her to nip and suck at her pulse line. He sees her bite her lip at this, and decides to push it further, biting a little harder and by the hand that knots itself in his hair and the little gasp that escapes her lips, he assumes she likes that.
He continues placing teasing bite marks down her pulse line, and then trails down between her breasts. When his trail of bites lands just below her navel, she giggles and opens her legs wider in anticipation.
Never in his life did he think he'd be here, in a huge room gifted to them for being the heroes of the world, about to have his fill of the annoying pinkette who would chase after him and annoy him to end. Sasuke has to admit, he's quite pleased with it all now.
He's still terrified he's doing something wrong, when he starts prodding at her with his tongue, drawing nonsense patterns over the most sensitive part of her body, but he feels nothing but overwhelming joy when she breathes out his name.
He's been afraid of being happy for so long, like it was somehow disrespecting his dead clan if he found any happiness, but she's making him think maybe they'd be happy for him finding her. He's been afraid of making himself comfortable, since he started this journey, afraid he'd lose himself again if he let himself go, but now she's starting to make him think he can be comfortable with her, and that she'll help he be the man he needs to be.
She reaches down and squeezes his only hand, lacing their fingers together, and he takes that as an "almost" though the only things coming out of her mouth are wanton moans and broken strings of his name. He picks up the pace of his tongue, and in one beautiful moment, he witnesses her back arch and her face contort in the most beautiful way. He's long since activated his Sharingan so that these images will forever be emblazed in his memory, though he knows just seeing it won't do being here between this woman's legs justice.
When her breathing starts to settle again, he crawls up her body, to plant sweet kisses all over her face. After such a powerful orgasm, he half expects her to want to stop for the night, but when he reaches her face she grabs his hair and kisses his lips with bruising force. Balanced on one hand, he can't do much but enjoy the kiss, and luckily for him, she realizes this and moves her hands to tear at his pants.
In one deft motion, his grey pants are in pieces on the floor, and she's aligned him where he wants to be. He tentatively pushes in and loses his breath, breaking the kiss, at how amazing it feels. How is it that he keeps forgetting how completely perfect being inside of her feels? He moves at a lazy pace, trying to keep her from any pain, but it seems Sakura has other plans.
With and "oof" she flips them over, and he can only chuckle at her enthusiasm. The rapid, frantic pace she sets isn't helping him keep much control over his body, and half of him wants to tell her to slow down so it'll last. But the other, winning half is causing him buck his hips up into her, reveling at the pleasure and how deep he can be in her like this.
In a moment like this, when all walls are down around himself, and Sakura is clawing at him, herself, the bed, anything she can reach for the pleasure he's giving her, he thinks maybe just maybe this is what being in love with someone is like.
The tightening in his belly is about to snap when he pulls her down by pink locks and meets her lips desperately. With a grunt, his whole body goes ridged he can't help but ride out the bliss as he she milks him for everything he's worth.
When it's all over, she collapses onto his chest and giggles to herself.
When he can speak, "What's so funny?"
"You need to get clothes that are easier to take off," she tells him in a whisper against his ear.
"You just need better self-control."
She laughs and breathes an "I love you," as she gets off of him and pads over to the bathroom. A part of him that seems to be growing every day he's with her misses her warmth on top of him. So he smiles fully when she stops at the door and turns, all ethereal goddess in the moonlight from the wall of windows, and calls to him, "You coming, or what?" and disappears into the bathroom.
Like she even had to ask.
In the morning, he's greeted with half-hearted bitching about the bruises she has to heal all over her neck, which he quickly retorts by throwing what's left of his clothes from yesterday at her.
The two go hand in hand (which Sasuke pretends not to notice, and Sakura is blushing like mad at), to the jail facility in the back of the small village. As they promised, it only took a few minutes, and a couple of signatures from both of them to release Juugo, who meets them in the back of the building.
"Sasuke-sama, I'm so sorry to be a bother." He bows deeply, and asks for Sakura's name.
"Sakura Haruno," she tells him with her radiant smile. Juugo gives him a knowing look at this. He never made any hint that he cared for outwardly, but he knows in the delirium of injury and the throes of a nightmare, he's said her name once or twice. The way Juugo smiles at her seemingly ecstatic she's with him, tells Sasuke maybe it was more than once or twice.
As per his release orders, the trio quickly vacates the Grass Village, on their way to take Juugo to one of Orochimaru's hideouts. Of course, he protested vehemently, but Sakura was the one to convince him, saying she wanted to try some drug combinations she'd need a lab for.
When Sakura couldn't hear, Sasuke made sure Orochimaru wouldn't be at that particular hideout.
It would be a pleasant two day travel he decided, as they walked along the path at a lazy pace. Sakura had that certain something that Naruto had. Everyone loved her immediately, and by the way Juugo smiled and answered her numerous and very personal questions, he knew she'd just made one more lifetime friend.
That was just the kind of person she was, having decided before ever meeting Juugo that she'd dedicate as long as it took to helping him. He definitely could learn about how to be the person he wants to be, the person his brother wanted him to be, from this woman.
He smiles, as he walks behind them.
Yes, maybe this is what being in love is like.
Hope you all enjoyed!
Let me know what you think, or if you have any questions!
And as always, have a great day :)