"Come on, Sunflower, just tell me a little bit," Madara implored, chasing after her as she sulked. The cat was still on her ankles, and it hissed warningly whenever Madara stepped too close. "Are there other women Sasuke is considering? Is that why he hasn't kissed you? Do any of them possess a kekkei genkai?"
"Why are you so interested?" she demanded. "Aren't you just going to change all this when you get back to your time? This couldn't have been what you wanted. Sasuke might not even exist in the future, so why do you care if he marries me or not?"
Madara narrowed his eyes on the back of her head, but continued to walk in step behind her. "The state of my clan should be my biggest concern, don't you think?" he asked tersely. "If I can't go back to my time, then this is it. Just your Sasuke and his traitorous older brother."
"If you can't go back to your time, then you could just stay here and revive your clan yourself," she snapped. "You don't need Sasuke for that."
Startled by the thought, Madara glanced up at the sky. That was true. He could go somewhere far away from Konoha and the Senju and restore his clan to be even more powerful than they had been before.
His eyes lingered on Sakura where she walked ahead of him, and he let them wander over her backside with leisure.
As if sensing his eyes on her, she turned to glare at him over her shoulder. "You don't need me either," she said.
Madara scoffed, "As much as I'd like to fill you with my seed, I couldn't handle it if any of my children came out with pink hair. Besides, it would be in my best interest to take a wife with wider hips."
Something in Sakura's demeanor shifted, and as if an icy breeze had whipped through the air, it was suddenly cold.
"Aww, don't be upset now," he said, feeling just the tiniest stab of guilt. "I'm sure you'll make a fine wife for Sasuke. Loyalty is one of the—"
"Sasuke is not interested, okay?" she snapped, whirling to look him in the eye. "He's not going to marry me. He hates me. He wants nothing to do with me. Can you just drop it?"
Stunned, Madara blinked. "Then why the hell are you so excited to see him?"
"He's in a bad place," she said tersely, looking back toward the road. "I don't expect him to love me back for it, but he's my teammate and my friend and I want to help him. If I have the power to help him, I should, shouldn't I?"
"Oh," Madara said a little lamely. "So this is a case of unrequited love. You'll make him love you by being there for him and fixing all his problems."
"I'm not trying to make him love me," she said softly. "I just want him to know that I'll always be there for him."
Madara peered at her, first with a little irritation and then with concern. "Sasuke
must not realize how lucky he is," he murmured, his gentle tone catching Sakura's attention. He leaned in a little closer to her, breathing in her earthy scent. He wanted to tell her all sorts of other things, like why Sasuke was so lucky to have this beautiful, talented kunoichi so devoted to providing him with all kinds of different services.
But then several chakra signatures began to converge on them, quickly and with clear purpose. Madara could sense their power – it felt artificial, though he couldn't explain exactly why.
Sakura felt it, too, and she slid her feet into a fighting stance. "Sound shinobi," she whispered to him. "We should leave at least one of them alive."
"Are they going to attack?" he asked, curious as to why a bordering nation's shinobi would attack the Hokage's apprentice.
His question was answered when a kunai landed point first in the ground an inch away from her foot.
"Well, well, well," said a male voice. "The medic found a new Uchiha to play with."
Madara glanced up at the trees, noting the positions of the three shinobi he could detect.
"He doesn't look like Itachi," another one said, leaping down to stand in the middle of the road before Sakura and Madara.
"Well, we know he ain't Sasuke," said the last one, leaping down to join his friend.
The first one climbed carefully down his tree and stood at the side of the road, appraising Madara and Sakura with a critical eye. His eyes lingered on Madara, assessing the dangers of engaging an unknown Sharingan user.
"What is the Hokage's apprentice doing so far out from Konoha?" he asked. "Do you know how close you are to the Sound border? Not attempting another Sasuke retrieval, are you?"
"We're here to see Orochimaru," Sakura said, and her voice was calm and steady in spite of her being surrounded by enemies, and easily the smallest of the group.
"You're out of luck, princess."
Sakura bristled. Madara wished she didn't seem so tensely coiled. It was just a handful of errant shinobi. He had seen her strength – she could handle them if she tried.
"We should kill her and collect the bounty," one of them suggested. "She's got a high price in the bingo book."
"Oh, sure, and anger her Uchiha guardian?"
Madara eyed all three of them with skepticism. He wasn't sure they could kill her, but he didn't plan on giving them the chance.
"I have a proposition for Orochimaru that I think he'll want to hear," Sakura continued, her voice unwavering. "It will be in your best interest to take us to him."
"Orochimaru is dead, girl," one of the Sound shinobi said. "You have your teammate Sasuke to thank for that."
Madara flicked his gaze to Sakura, appraising how she handled this new information. Her skin was ghostly white, but when she opened her mouth to speak again, she sounded as confident as ever.
"Sasuke killed him?" she asked. "Where did he go?"
The Sound shinobi all laughed, and the one standing closest to Sakura took another step toward her. "You think because you've got a convincing looking henge or something that we'll be afraid of you?" he demanded. "We don't owe you any information."
Sakura's gaze flicked over to Madara, who gave a minute shrug. He would let her take the lead on this unless he had reason not to. She had better working knowledge of current events, so he trusted her judgment.
"Where do your loyalties lie now that Orochimaru is dead?" she asked the Sound shinobi. "Kabuto?"
"As if we'd do anything for that jackass."
Sakura frowned at this. "Do you know where Kabuto is?"
"What do I get if I tell you?" the one closest to her asked. Madara was not a fan of his devious smirk.
"You'll get to leave here with all your limbs in tact."
The three of them laughed again, but Madara tasted the new shift in the air, noticed the way each of them were now poised for attack.
"Who is your protector here?" one of the others asked Sakura. "This cannot be Itachi, but there are no other Uchiha."
It was with great amusement that Madara watched Sakura lob a loaded fist toward the Sound shinobi in front of her. The fool made the exact same mistake that Madara had, catching her tiny, frail looking fist in one palm.
The resulting series of cracks and snaps that echoed through the air sent a tingle down Madara's spine. He didn't have time to revel in her strength as the remaining two shinobi converged on her.
The first shinobi's cry pierced the air as Madara grabbed another one by the neck just as he reached for a handful of Sakura's hair and slammed him into the ground. Madara gave him no time to beg for his life, or even know that the end was coming. He placed his foot carefully over the shinobi's throat and stomped downward, crushing his windpipe with a satisfying crunch.
The other, who ran toward his downed friends with a pained, angry cry made the mistake of looking up into Madara's Sharingan. Madara couldn't blame him. They were curious about this new Uchiha that had seemingly sprung up out of nowhere. Still, if they were familiar with his clan at all, they should have known better. Madara immediately swept him into rather painful genjutsu and then watched his body slump into the grass.
"Is Kabuto still alive?" Sakura asked the remained shinobi, who was now knelt on the ground, clutching his broken arm. Madara could see the damage extended all the way up to the man's chest, and he looked at Sakura with a little awe and a little appreciation that for whatever reason she had decided to not completely destroy his whole arm during their previous spar.
"I don't know!" the shinobi said, cowering as Madara came to join Sakura in her interrogation.
Sakura turned her head to look at him, wincing against the brightness of the sun in her eyes. "Can you tell if he's telling the truth?" she asked him.
Madara couldn't – not with these eyes. He needed the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan for that, and he suspected that Sakura was aware of that. But he knelt down in front of the shinobi anyway. He had other ways of discerning the truth.
"You think you know pain," Madara said. "I will show you true pain. Then you will tell my companion everything she wants to know."
The shinobi had wisely screwed his eyes shut, but it made no difference. Madara reached for his head and used his thumbs to pry both eyelids open. The man screamed and struggled against him, but then his body went slack and his eyes vacant as he was sucked into Madara's genjutsu.
"See?" he said to Sakura, gesturing to the shinobi slumped on the ground. "He's submitting to me because I'm dominant like a panther."
"He's submitting to you because you have a freak of nature doujutsu, you knob," she said. "I just need to know where Kabuto is. Don't keep him in there too long."
Madara begrudgingly returned his attention to the incapacitated shinobi, who was probably feeling all sorts of illusion-spawned horror about now. Madara slowly ebbed away at the illusions until the shinobi's eyes came into focus again. Reality wasn't any kinder to him as Madara twisted his arm high behind his back and pointed him in Sakura's direction.
"Answer all her questions honestly," Madara breathed, "and I'll let you walk away alive."
He gave a curt nod to Sakura, who suddenly looked a little nervous. But she crouched down in front of the shinobi anyway, her eyes blazing with fierceness.
"Do you know where Kabuto is?" she asked.
"I don't, I swear," said the man. Madara's grip on his arm tightened. "Sasuke attacked Orochimaru-sama in the middle of the night and killed him. The next morning Kabuto informed us of what happened. Chaos erupted over Sound, and no one has seen Kabuto since."
Sakura frowned at this news, her delicate, pink brow furrowed in concentration. "Why did Sasuke kill Orochimaru?" she asked.
"Why do you think?" snapped the shinobi, and Madara twisted his arm up further. He winced, but didn't glance back at Madara, whose pinwheel eyes were still spinning.
"He thinks he's strong enough to kill his brother?"
At this question, the man did turn to look over his shoulder at Madara, who undoubtedly was an Uchiha with those eyes and that face. Perhaps the shinobi of the Sound village weren't as well-versed in Konoha's history, but they weren't too far away from the Valley where there was a massive monument erected in his likeness. It was for his and Sakura's safety that he reached for the man's neck and quickly snapped it. That was one mercy he could extend, at least.
"I had more questions!" Sakura shouted, watching the man slump into the dirt.
"We'll get our answers," he assured her. "First I need you to tell me who this Orochimaru guy is and what Sasuke was doing with him all the way out here."
Sakura stared disapprovingly at the body in the dirt. With an irritated scowl, Madara scooped him up and tossed him in the air so he could incinerate him with a quick fireball jutsu.
"Come," he said, extending his hand to her. "We need to get to the bottom of this. Who is Orochimaru?"
Her eyes locked onto his and he had the feeling he may have frightened her. She dropped her gaze down to his extended hand, and her head tilted with curiosity. Madara looked down at his hand, too, wondering what was so curious about it.
Though he supposed that he was sometimes fascinated by her hands and their tininess and paradoxical strength. He wondered if his hands seemed big to her.
But then to his surprise, she placed her hand in his, and as if her thoughts had been the same, she flipped his hand over and lifted it to her face. Madara was patient with her as she angled it toward the light, inspecting it from every angle. Her touch was incredibly gentle as she began to trace the little scars that constellated his hand and wrist.
"I can get rid of these scars, you know," she said. "Are they from your fire jutsus? Sasuke has these special bracers made. I could—"
He silenced her by jerking roughly on her hand so that she came tumbling toward him. She braced her free hand against his chest for balance, but quickly removed it as her cheeks began to redden. She tried to slip her other hand out of his grip, but Madara held onto it tightly.
"I love that you're distracted by my body," he murmured lowly, enjoying the way her body lit up with goosebumps, "but we've got a mission here and the trail is getting cold."
Sakura yanked her hand out of his, scowling with displeasure. "I'm a healer," she said defensively. "I see an injury, I want to heal it."
"Burn scars aren't injuries," he said pragmatically, and grabbed her shoulder to steer her back down the path. A snapping twig nearby caught Madara's attention, and he angled his body between the sound and Sakura, watching closely as two feline eyes peered out at him from behind the cover of pines.
Cautiously, it stepped away from the trees and made its way back down to the dirt path. Even Madara felt a twinge of sympathy for the wretched thing as it shivered with fear. Now that the commotion was over, he ambled back to Sakura, resuming its pace behind her as if nothing had happened.
He had meant for them to run now – at a pace too quick for a housecat to keep up with. He caught Sakura's pained look as she gazed down at the cat between her feet. Madara's hand was still on her shoulder, and he felt her step away from him so he dropped his hand.
"Orochimaru?" he asked again, suddenly a little put off by his travel companion and her weirdness and prettiness and annoyingness and his own desire to touch her all the time, even at his own detriment.
"He's a missing-nin," she finally explained as they picked up their pace a little bit. "Before he defected from Konoha, he was on a team with my master, Tsunade-sama, and this guy Jiraiya who's even more perverted than you."
Madara cast her a scathing look.
"The three of them are called the legendary sannin," she continued, smirking a little when she caught his glance. "They were heroes during the Second Shinobi War, hailed as the greatest shinobi of their time."
Madara grunted skeptically.
"Don't scoff like that," she snapped. "Orochimaru left Konoha because he wanted to be Hokage but someone else was chosen. Before he left, he had been doing these awful human experiments that were discovered by the previous Hokage. When he left, he continued to research that horrible garbage in Sound."
Sakura glanced behind her back, so Madara flicked his gaze back there, too. The cat had fallen behind, and Sakura let out a tiny, almost imperceptible sigh. Feeling an inexplicable affection for Sakura in that moment, Madara slowed his gait, allowing the cat a chance to catch up.
She glanced furtively up at his face, seeking answers for that simple but unmistakable gesture. He wasn't sure he could help her find them.
"Anyway," she said as they moved at their slower pace, "Sasuke left the village when he felt he had learned everything he could here. He wanted to gain more power so he could kill Itachi, so he sought out Orochimaru."
"And that's where he's been all this time?"
Sakura nodded. Madara pondered this a moment, trying to get into Sasuke's frame of mind. Of course he wanted to avenge his clan – Madara would have wanted to same. But how could this Orochimaru possibly help him? If he wanted power, he need not look further than the eyes in his own head. Perhaps a lot of knowledge regarding the Sharingan had been lost over the years, but Madara didn't think that likely. After all, Sakura had sought out that information on her own.
"So now that he's killed Orochimaru, he must be ready to find and kill his brother," Madara speculated, and Sakura gave a noncommittal shrug. "Do you think he's left Sound already?"
"I don't know," she said, "but it doesn't matter. We aren't here to see Sasuke."
They continued to amble on in silence. Madara didn't know how fragile Sakura's feelings were, but he didn't want to mention the fact that she had been quite obviously eager to see him before, and now that seemed unlikely.
The day moved slowly, and Madara grew frustrated with their continued slow pace, though he was a little mollified by the obvious comfort Sakura got from that stupid cat. That night, after they had crossed the Sound border and were officially in 'enemy' territory, Sakura found another spot to make camp.
This time they were settled deep in the woods. Sakura set up camp in silence, and when she finished, Madara didn't wait for her to ask before he performed another fireball jutsu and lit the fire pit she had set up.
Wordlessly, they settled down beside the fire, Sakura absently petting the cat's head. She seemed absorbed in thought, so Madara took the opportunity to study her a little bit. Her eyes were bright but she worried her lower lip between her teeth, and he wondered what she was thinking about.
"Umm, thank you for, uhh, the cat thing," she said, looking up into his eyes. She appeared startled to find him already staring at her, and he cocked his head to the side at her curious gratefulness. "I mean for letting him catch up," she said, and Madara noticed that she had quite a few freckles across the bridge of her nose.
"You should name it," he suggested, even though it went against every firmly held belief he had against getting attached to the poor little thing. The firelight danced shadows over the cat's whiskered face. It purred contentedly while Sakura scratched behind its ears.
"I can't do that," she said with a shake of her head. "I'm already attached enough as it is."
Madara chuckled as he leaned back against his palms. "Of course you are, you delicate little thing," he said.
"I'm not delicate," she snapped.
"Are you sure?" he asked teasingly. "You seem pretty fragile to me."
"You couldn't break me if you tried," she said heatedly, and the challenge stoked something warm in his gut.
Madara peered at her, mirth dancing in his eyes. She was a real treat, he thought – all that fire and compassion and beauty. Breaking her would be a challenge.
"You think so?" he asked her, his tomoe spinning. Sakura trusted him enough not to look away from him, and he was thrilled by the way she held eye contact in spite of her obvious fear of him. But it wasn't the reaction he wanted from her, so he deactivated his Sharingan.
Her expression softened, and Madara couldn't help but grin. "You think I'm handsome like this, don't you?" he teased.
She huffed and turned her cheek away from him.
"I know I'm not Sasuke," he said, shifting a little closer to her, "but you can admit that I'm at least as handsome as he is."
"You've got a big head, don't you, Madara?"
"Among other things."
He watched the tips of her ears burn, feeling amused and a little warm being so close to her. Shadows flickered across her eyes, sparking life into her oceanic eyes.
"I'm sorry I stole your first kiss," he said, and she reddened even further. For all her experience as a kunoichi and the greatest medic in the world, she was rather inexperienced in more personable matters, in spite of her ripe age of, what, seventeen? "If I had known that then I would have done it differently."
She blinked her beautiful doe eyes at him, her teeth sinking into her lower lip while her brow furrowed with confusion. "You mean you wouldn't have kissed me at all?" she asked, and he was mesmerized by the new husky lilt in her voice.
Madara shook his head. "I'd give you a proper kiss."
She scowled, and he didn't blame her for not liking the idea, though part of him was stung by her apparent rejection.
"Is this your way of trying to break me?" she demanded harshly. "Because if it is, it's not going to work."
Madara shook his head again, cracking a small smile for her. "I don't want to break you," he said. "You're going to be the next Uchiha matriarch, so I'd rather have you in pique condition."
A piece of her was shattered by this statement, and for a moment Madara wondered if he had inadvertently broken her. Her eyes glazed over for a second, and she dropped her gaze into the fire pit, the flame reflecting ominously in her green eyes. He guessed she was thinking of Sasuke and wondering if she would ever see him again. Perhaps Itachi would kill him, and she wouldn't get to marry her childhood crush and become the Uchiha matriarch.
That wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, Madara though as his gaze dipped a little lower on her, scouring her petite frame and the way she hugged herself close to the open flame. He didn't like the idea of this Sasuke character's hands all over her.
"What's a proper kiss?"
Surprised, his eyes languidly made their way back up to her face. Her face was much closer to his now, and there was something enthralling about her curious expression, heavy-lidded eyes, and glowing skin.
"How is it different than the one…"
She demurred away from her own question, and Madara had a sneaking suspicion that she might have enjoyed her first kiss, consent aside.
"Hmm," Madara hummed, pretending to think over the question in great detail. "Well, I kissed you because I wanted you to look at me and I thought it would shock you enough to look into my eyes."
Sakura glared at him, but with inexplicable warmth behind it.
"If I were to kiss you now," he continued, closing in a little more on her until he could feel her soft breaths over his face, "I'd make sure you felt it everywhere."
He reached for her arm, trailing his fingertips from her shoulder down to her wrist with an achingly gentle touch, admiring the goosebumps that formed along her skin. Her eyes widened on him, infuriating cosmic in their unspeakable depths.
"Like that," he said, tearing his eyes away from hers to watch the goosebumps spread. "I'd make sure your toes curl and your heart hammers. I'd make sure you remember it."
Sakura's eyes were wavering, plunging him down into some darkness he didn't even know he had inside him. She looked afraid, but also warm and tender like she felt pity for him, and he didn't like that but he did like the way her fingers reached forward, trembling as they hovered near his hand.
"That would have been a nice first kiss, I bet," she said, retracting her hand and tucking it neatly into her lap.
Madara murmured his agreement. "It's for the best, though," he said. "Hopefully Sasuke won't mind that I stole your first kiss if it was for practical purposes." He couldn't care less about what Sasuke thought, but he could feel Sakura leaning even closer to him, and if he just scooted an inch or so closer, he could have her tucked under his arm.
Suddenly she pulled away from him, retreating back into her shell. Her eyes hardened, but not so much that he believed her to be angry – at least not with him.
"Who could have guessed that Madara Uchiha would be such a flirt?" she asked sarcastically.
"I'm twenty," he reminded her. "I'm not the Madara you know."
"Not yet, anyway."
"No," he replied with a shake of his head. "I'm going to change the future. This isn't how things were supposed to happen. I won't be that Madara."
"You mean you won't lose to Hashirama-sama."
"Exactly," he said, though it was much more than that. He wouldn't be the Madara who attacked his own village. He wouldn't be the Madara who left his clan in shambles, allowing it to dwindle into obscurity.
If he ever made it back to his own time, he would do everything differently.
/
AN: I'm sick today so here's a bonus chapter.