"Sakura? Sakura, wake up," Rin repeated as she gently attempted to awaken the particularly lethargic Haruno.
Rin's brow knitted in concern as Sakura seemed remarkably difficult to rouse that morning. Sakura slowly lifted her eyelids open and muttered something unintelligible before shutting her eyes yet again. The sunlight had barely begun to peak through the windowpanes, aggravating her reluctance to arise at such an ungodly hour in the morning. As it had been a long, eventful night for her, she hoped she could manage to rest peaceably after all she had endured. However, she only obtained a single hour of sleep, having tossed and turned for the majority of the time she lay in bed.
"You must wake up. We're being evacuated from the slave quarters," Rin stated as she shook Sakura's shoulder again.
"Evacuated…?" Sakura murmured with her eyelids still shut.
Rin replied in a modestly optimistic tone of voice, "Yes, they said they'll be inspecting and cleansing the quarters. Hopefully they'll finally get rid of that old, musty odor."
Sakura sat up shakily rubbing her sleep-ridden eyes that watered as she yawned. Rin leaned in closer to better catch Sakura's low, raspy words. "That would be nice…"
After quickly slipping on the abject tan robe she wore on an everyday basis, she folded up her floor mattress and blanket and stored them tidily in the closet. Sakura had planned to make a brief visit to the water spigot in order to wash away the residual lethargy welling in her eyes. However, she resigned her hopes of visiting the spigot as an Uchiha guard unceremoniously barged into the slave quarters and ushered the slaves out in a hurried manner. As the Uchiha guards shepherded the slaves like a flock of sheep, Sakura clung closely to Rin's side as they detracted from their usual destination at the infirmary. Confusion filled her before it was supplanted by raw anxiety as they undertook a pathway she recognized was in the direction of Madara's house.
Why were they heading towards the wreckage of the Uchiha Lord's house? Had they discovered that the fire was the result of arson instead of an accident as they had previously presumed? Would they interrogate her as to who was the perpetrator behind the arson or probe her for any clues surrounding the circumstances behind the scene of the crime?
"Where are we going?" Sakura asked, unable to stifle the apprehension brimming in her voice.
"I think I heard them mention something about clearing debris and rebuilding a house?" Rin raised a thoughtful finger to her lip.
"Why aren't we working in the infirmary like we always do?"
Rin shrugged her shoulders, conveying her honest uncertainty. "They'll probably be cleansing the infirmary just like our quarters."
"I would rather be working at the infirmary than here. Why are they even using us to do this? We're healers not carpenters. I don't know how to build a house," Sakura protested as Rin simply listened to her grievances without offering a response of her own.
After the Uchiha guards delivered their succinct yet strict instructions, the slaves dispersed around the site of the wreckage, pitching in their combined efforts to clear away the debris in order to pave a new foundation for the Uchiha Lord's abode. Sakura and Rin worked in tandem, sweeping up the ash and debris littering the site. Lifting her focus from the heap of debris, she spotted Madara kneeling on the ground only a couple of meters away from where she was standing.
He seemed deeply fixated on something lying on the ground before him. Sakura squinted her eyes to sharpen her bleary vision as she watched him raise a large, charred rectangular shell of what appeared to have once been picture frame. Setting the frame down, he gathered the charred remnants of canvas that had amassed into a pile on the ground and delicately cupped it within his hands. A profound sorrow filled his dark, crystalline eyes as a mild zephyr carried the ashes of the canvas away from his hands. Dolefully, he watched the pitch black ashes escape from him and dance in the wind like a flurry of rotted petals.
Then the realization hit her with sudden force. The debris he cupped so dejectedly in the palms of his hands had once been the oil portrait adorning his dining room. A portrait of himself in his childhood with who she now realized was his brother.
His deep somber voice resonated within her mind, "These eyes…these are the eyes of my brother. One of the few reminders that remain of him…"
She clenched her bottom lip firmly as she continued observing him wistfully gaze upon one of the last physical reminders of his brother, deserting him in the gentle current of the wind.
He fully deserved it, Sakura staunchly asserted to herself. It's karmic retribution for all he has done to me.
However, no matter how many times she adamantly repeated it to herself, she couldn't still the bothersome quivering of her bottom lip. Witnessing his comeuppance should be granting her immense satisfaction! His loss was nowhere near comparable to everything she had lost or the inconceivable grief he had caused her.
Deep down, she knew this did not prove true as he had divulged his own hardships to her, debunking the notion that nobles lived comfortable lives devoid of the grief and destitution that was exclusively known to peasants. Her belief that only members of her own caste experienced the worst of suffering had been embedded within her since her early youth. Her parents and fellow clansmen often told her stories of nobles wasting precious resources, of nobles explicitly mocking the plight of the downtrodden, of noblewomen publicly flaunting their affluence merely to taunt those of the lesser caste. It was purely reinforcement of the social stratification in place that had taught her to distance the higher strata from herself by viewing them in a subhuman light.
As a healer, she knew that it was unjust to discredit someone's pain. Every individual perceives their pain and suffering as inherently unique and believes that their pain is unmatched to what anyone else has ever endured. Her time spent within the confines of the Uchiha compound made that evident. No matter how differently someone perceives their suffering, suffering is still the same intrinsic affliction all humans share regardless of their social ranking.
Yet, it was something she also did not want to acknowledge.
She deeply wished that he hadn't disclosed anything to her at all since it would've been far easier to disregard the aggrieved expression on his face. As a warrior, she was obligated to seek revenge for all of the injustices he had inflicted upon her. She should relish his grief as retribution for hurting her, violating her, humiliating her! The despicable bastard deserved that and more! Yet, the mere thought of savoring someone else's pain absolutely repulsed her no matter how greatly she despised them.
"Sakura, is everything alright?" Rin's voice snapped her out of her reflective reverie.
Sakura glanced over her shoulder towards the brunette. "I'm fine…"
Just look down at the ground and keep sweeping. She directed her attention back to sweeping up the pile of debris as a means of derailing her train of thought. Don't look up! Focus on the ground!
Madara rose to his feet and sniffled his miserably runny nose. His eyes panned the scene of slaves toiling around the ruins of his house while a group of Uchiha guards supervised them from the periphery of the site. With the readily available slave labor in conjunction with the clan's skilled carpenters, his house would be restored in a quicker span of time. He had ordered a small group of clanswomen to scrub the mold from the guest lodge in order to make his temporary residence more habitable during the rebuilding process.
Locating the handle of his gunbai, he wrenched the large weapon out from underneath the rubble. Unsurprisingly, his signature weapon had remained intact without so much as a scratch on its surface. His gunbai had been coated with a flame retardant finish and masterfully crafted to withstand the harshest of conditions. As his eyes continued to pan the busy scenery, he landed upon a sight that instantly ignited his rage.
He sighted the Haruno woman—inexplicably freed from her detainment within the dungeons—working not too far from where he was standing. He growled sourly beneath his breath, "More treacheries…"
Hunting down the nearest guard, he demanded, "Why has the Haruno been freed from the dungeons?"
A spiky haired man he recognized as Setsuna responded earnestly, "As I recall, you released her last night."
"I gave no such order," Madara denied, casting a minute flash of uneasiness upon Setsuna's face. "Who was in charge of the dungeons last night?"
Disinclined to endure the brunt of his superior's volatile temper, he released the name responsible without the slightest degree of hesitancy. "It was Inabi. He should be leaving his shift rather soon."
Without wasting a moment more, the Uchiha Lord set off towards the dungeons. As Madara exploded through the front door, the half-asleep prison guards startled at the unexpected noise and frantically feigned attentiveness to their work.
"Where is Inabi?" Madara's furious voice reverberated off the walls of the reception area.
"Present, Madara-sama." Inabi stepped forward.
"Who authorized you to release the Haruno?" Madara inquired frigidly, instilling trepidation within the pit of Inabi's gut.
He answered as placidly and confidently as possible, "You did, Madara-sama."
"I never ordered you to release her."
The color promptly drained from Inabi's face. He inhaled sharply in an attempt to gather his composure before offering a retort. "You returned last night requesting us to release the Haruno for her medical assistance."
"I never returned or requested her medical assistance." The tone of Madara's voice continued to descend as he was quickly growing impatient with Inabi's fallacious claims.
The prison guards exchanged bewildered glances amongst one another as Inabi stammered in search of a response that would pacify his superior's anger. "I…I was just following your orders."
"You seem to have a propensity for taking matters into your own hands and doing unnecessary things beyond orders. You have demonstrated your incompetence on more than one occasion as evidenced by your actions at the Haruno village," Madara said pointedly. "From here on out, you are relieved of your position here and will be reassigned to a task better suited to your lacking competency."
Inabi said nothing as Madara furrowed his brow, noting the collective bewilderment written in the guards' faces. He indiscriminately gestured for one of the guards to rise to his feet. "Is there something you wish to say? Speak up."
"Well, Madara-sama…" The guard bowed his head, offering his honest words. "We all witnessed you return to the dungeons last night and authorize the Haruno's release."
"Is this true?" he pressed the prison guards.
They nodded their heads meekly. Madara stroked his chin broodingly as he attempted to recall everything that had transpired last night. He certainly did not remember returning to the prison or requesting the Haruno's medical assistance. He was definitely not intoxicated or impaired in any manner that would have altered his memories. Following his departure from the prison, he had gone directly to his burning house and then retired for the night at the guest lodge.
"Before you end your shift, you will retrieve the Haruno immediately and detain her again," Madara said in a tone teeming with contempt. "Do not deviate from my orders in the slightest. Understood?"
Inabi sneered subtly at his superior although it seemed to have gone beneath Madara's notice as he delved into deep thought.
If he had not returned to the prison, then why were Inabi and the guards convinced he had? Judging by the ubiquitous perplexity he read in their faces, their testimony seemed candid. It was evident someone had impersonated him in order to fool the guards into releasing the girl. However, they were perceptive enough to easily identify a transformation jutsu. Even if someone had assumed his appearance, they were capable of detecting that an imposter would have nowhere near the monstrous levels of chakra Madara possessed.
Beyond that, the only other possible scenario was the use of a convincing genjutsu that had been cast upon the guards. None of the slaves boasted any proficiency in genjutsu that he was aware of and the guards were undoubtedly capable of dispelling a genjutsu cast by an outsider of the clan. If the genjutsu had been employed by an Uchiha, the guards were also capable of combatting it with their own Sharingan. Due to the fact that all of the guards had fallen victim to this genjutsu, the caster must have harnessed extraordinarily powerful eyes. The only type of eye that wielded the power to outmatch all of the guards was the Mangekyou Sharingan. Seeing as how the Haruno was capable of repelling the Mangekyou Sharingan, it only followed that the one who had trained her to become resistant to it was also the one who had used it against the guards.
But who?
As far as he knew, he was the only one to possess a higher level Sharingan within the clan. The only other Mangekyou Sharingan user was his brother, Izuna, who had given him with his eyes shortly before his death. The prospect of discovering this mysterious Mangekyou Sharingan wielder made him increasingly eager for the girl's impending retrieval. This time he would probe her extensively to learn of everything he craved to know without interruption.
As Inabi walked past him, he grumbled beneath his breath, assured his superior would not catch his barely audible words, "Don't know…care...peasant bitch anyway…"
To Inabi's dismay, Madara did, in fact, hear his underhanded remarks. The Uchiha Lord flashed before him, causing Inabi to yelp in alarm and inadvertently slam into the side of the wall. He foolishly gazed into the Uchiha Lord's bloodshot eyes that had been pronounced by his swollen, sleep-deprived eyelids.
"What was that?" Madara hissed venomously, trapping the fretful Uchiha guard against the face of the wall.
"I…" Inabi stuttered clumsily, knowing clearly that he was in no position to defend himself from Madara's fury.
"Are you insinuating that I so much as care for a mere ant at my feet…a dispensable piece of trash picked up from the filthiest of dumps?" Madara snarled, imposing his height upon Inabi like a feral beast.
"Not at all, Madara-sama!" Inabi blurted as he pressed his hands against wall behind him in order to sustain his dwindling balance.
"Then elaborate! Elaborate on what you meant! I'm ordering you to speak up!"
Inabi barely held himself upright as his knees buckled beneath him. Although his mouth gaped widely, he failed to provide an apt response to counter his superior's accusations. Madara loomed over the man awaiting his reply. No longer bearing the patience to tolerate his lack of responsiveness, he pivoted on his heels and headed for the exit.
The prison guards flinched their shoulders simultaneously as Madara vigorously slammed the door behind him. Their fearfully enlarged eyes watched the pitifully dazed Inabi who limply slid into a seated position on the floor. He stared vacantly into space with his mouth still gaping in sheer horror. Uncertain as to what Inabi had said to provoke Madara's spiteful tantrum, the guards remained utterly silent lest Madara made a swift return to the dungeons.
As Madara headed towards the guest lodge in order to check on the progress, he unclenched his tightly balled hands that had left crescent shaped indentations on his palms from his fingernails. His strained, blanched fingers gradually began to regain their normal color as the circulation returned to his hands. He stiffened abruptly, halting in place. Compulsively, he scrutinized his hands for any trace of dirt nestled into the intricate creases of his hands. He quickly brushed them off against the surface of his red armor in a rather agitated manner.
Had he sullied his own hands?
No, he insisted to himself, quashing the disconcerting thoughts plaguing his conscience. It was not a vice to harbor the feelings he had or to act upon them. Naturally, she was the one at fault for hailing from the lesser caste.
She sullied his hands.
Laying down his qualms, he resumed his journey en route to the guest lodge.
Sasuke watched the slaves working at the site of the wreckage with half-interest. It had been a particularly dull morning as he had been tasked with monitoring the progress of the cleanup effort. He snapped his head towards the sound of something crashing loudly in the distance proceeded by the high pitched cry of a woman.
"Sakura!" he heard a second woman's voice cry out.
He tracked the sounds of the woman's voice to its origins. Rin cried out for help as she struggled to heave a stack of collapsed debris off of the trapped Haruno.
"Sasuke-sama! Sakura was carrying the load and then she suddenly collapsed! She's buried underneath. I can't get her out!" Rin tugged with desperate vigor.
Sasuke traded places with the Nohara and heaved the heavy debris until he was finally able to unearth the buried Haruno. He continued to pull away the debris piece by piece until Sakura's head and torso were fully exposed. He gripped her beneath her arms and carefully tugged the pink haired girl free. Dragging her to a safer location, he laid the unconscious girl supine on the grass. Rin instinctively rushed to her side in order to assess the extent of her injuries. Besides a large laceration marring the side of Sakura's head, the rest of her body had been covered in minor cuts and bruises.
Rin rested the palm of her hand on Sakura's large brow, noticing the searing heat radiating from her skin. "She's spiked a fever! We have to get her to the infirmary."
"No," Sasuke stated aloofly.
The Nohara's vivid brown eyes widened incredulously, having unanticipated his sudden denial. "May I take her to the quarters?"
"Absolutely not," he declined in the same aloof tone.
"Please! There must be someplace we can take her to," Rin pleaded, amplifying the volume of her voice in her desperation.
"Shut up!"
"But…" she began to object but decided it unwise to engage in a dispute with an Uchiha. She dropped her gaze despondently and brushed the unconscious girl's pink tresses away from the gushing laceration. The least she could do for now was ebb the flow of bleeding until she could find a proper place to perform a full assessment on the girl and instate a plan of treatment.
Rin could not gander a guess as to why he snappily rejected her plea. The night prior, she had witnessed the young Uchiha alone together with Sakura leaving her and Obito's favored meeting place atop the summit. She was certain the young Uchiha was another anomaly amongst the clan—another Uchiha just like Obito. However, his unforeseen callousness cast that certainty into doubt.
He contemplated his options scrupulously whilst ensuring the Nohara remained quiet as to prevent attracting attention to the situation. The slaves had been deliberately gathered in a single location under the supervision of a small handful of his fellow clansmen. The majority of the clan was currently tasked with conducting an extensive search of the compound. To his knowledge, the search had been primarily concentrated to the areas frequented most by the slaves.
As it was now, there were hardly any available areas where the Haruno could recuperate without disturbance.
"Follow me." Sasuke motioned to Rin.
She carried the unconscious Haruno piggyback style and followed closely behind Sasuke as he discreetly avoided the highest areas of activity. They arrived at his home and quietly slipped through the front door. He knew the only current occupant of the house would be Itachi. His father had partaken in the search and his mother was working in the guest lodge. His parents would return home approaching dinner time, enabling Sakura a few hours of rest before then. The infirmary would likely reopen by that time.
"Sasuke? Is something wrong?" Itachi asked, alerted to the sudden visitors. His dark eyes landed on the flaccid Sakura slumped over Rin's shoulders.
"She's sick. She'll just have to rest here for now until the infirmary opens again," Sasuke answered, directing Rin to his bedroom.
She laid Sakura on a floor mattress and politely requested the two men to retrieve dampened rags and medicinal herbs from Itachi's stock. After retrieving the necessary items, Itachi questioned his younger brother outside the room away from the Nohara's earshot.
"Why bring them here? Is there a reason the infirmary is closed?" Itachi inquired, stealing a quick glimpse at the unconscious girl.
Sasuke lowered the volume of his voice. "They are currently scouring the infirmary as well as the rest of the compound."
"Scouring?" Itachi raised a single brow.
"Yes. Apparently, a Senju weapon was found on the premises. They are searching the village for any additional weapons."
Despite the rampant panic that coursed through him, Itachi cultivated an air of unflappability by following up with a seemingly benign question. "Are they plotting an attack against us?"
"I don't know the complete details behind it," Sasuke admitted. "But it seems so."
Itachi nodded decisively. "If our clan is in danger then I shall return to the line of duty."
"Nii-san, you should focus on fully recovering. They've already destroyed the weapon and are working as quickly as possible to prevent the Senju from stepping foot on our soil."
It seemed Itachi's fear of rescuing the girl too late had been confirmed. Madara and the guards must have discovered the kunai concealed beneath her clothing in order to trigger the frantic village-wide search effort. Fortunately, it seemed that they were unaware of his and Shisui's involvement in the scheme since they would have interrogated them immediately instead of launching the search.
Unbeknownst to the clan, two additional marked kunai remained in hiding. According to Kagami, he had stowed a kunai beneath the floorboards of the slave quarters and should have armed the Nohara with one as well. As long as those kunai remained undiscovered, the integrity of their ploy remained intact.
Glimpsing yet again to the Nohara tending to her ailing companion, he wondered if she had, in fact, received the kunai. Although tempted to question the brunette woman, he was beset with an obstacle preventing him from obtaining information from her in private. He had to conjure a quick and tactful solution to the dilemma without casting any trace of suspicion upon himself.
Turning to his younger sibling, he insisted coolly, "Sasuke, you should return to work now. I'll keep an eye on them in the meantime."
Sasuke shook his head, declining Itachi's suggestion. By bringing the slaves into his own residence, he had already run the risk of incurring punishment by his superiors. However, since he was responsible for supervising them, he could offer a more substantial justification to have taken them in. Should he be grilled for his actions, he figured he could explain that his residence was one of the few places that had an accessible stock of medicinal herbs that were capable of restoring the slave to health. On the other hand, if Itachi were to be discovered alone with the slaves, there was no sound justification he could pitch since he was not responsible for them.
"I'm in charge of them. I shall stay until they can be relocated to the infirmary."
The two brothers stared at each other in deadlock. Neither willing to back down nor reveal the intent concealed behind their matching dark eyes.
She sprinted through a vast plane of darkness uncertain as to where she was going. The only visible object within her sight was a glowing pair of red orbs illuminating the dark pathway. She slowly approached the glowing red orbs with caution.
Someone grasped her by the hand leading her into a dimly lit spotlight where she could identify him. Even in the dim light, she could clearly discern the distinct outline of his facial features. It was a visage that, overtime, had become vividly emblazoned in her mind. A cool breeze swept through the seemingly vast plane of darkness, slightly tousling his raven hair. She began to shiver as the cold penetrated her skin.
He took ahold of both of her hands intertwining their fingers together; the intimate skin contact warming her shivering hands. His flashing red orbs faded to a charcoal black as he locked eyes with her enlarged emerald green ones glimmering in the dimmed light.
Her lips parted open to softly speak his name.
Suddenly, she screamed and promptly separated from his hold as her hands ignited into flames. He instantly vanished from her sight in a puff of wispy smoke.
Her shrill voice echoed across the vast, desolate space, "My hands!"
The dim spotlight on them expanded to reveal a large crowd of onlooking people silently encircling her. She recognized the uniform circular symbol they sported on their clothing and immediately matched names to the numerous faces she spotted out of the crowd.
"Please! Help me!" she cried out to her fellow clansmen as the flames rapidly spread up her arms. "Someone!"
One by one, each individual turned away from her and snubbed her distress.
"Ume! Kiku!" she begged the mother and daughter hysterically.
The mother grasped her young daughter by the hand, leading her away from the burning woman pleading for their help. She overheard a single word uttered from the people deserting her.
"Traitor."
She screamed as loudly as her lungs permitted and reached out towards the last two people standing before her. Her parents walked away from her and joined the rest of her clan consequently, leaving her to become completely consumed by the unmerciful wreath of flames.
"Tou-san! Kaa-san!"
It wasn't right!
She should be envisioning herself spending her life with a man of pastel colored eyes and light hair. A faceless Haruno man who would demonstrate his appreciation for her by giving her a kiss and rubbing her sore shoulders after a long, grueling day caring for her patients. A man who would spend his days tilling the soil, harvesting crops, and tending to the livestock. A brawny yet humble man with perfectly sculpted biceps formed by the swing of a hoe, never once knowing the feeling of wielding a sword. She should be tenderly holding the hands of a man whose hands were caked with the dirt that cultivated the life of the earth; not a man whose hands were caked with the spilt blood that reaped the life of a human.
"Itachi-sama! Sasuke-sama! Please, come quickly!" Rin called out as the Haruno began screaming aloud.
The brothers entered the room simultaneously as the girl's anguished cries resonated outside the bedroom.
"She keeps grasping her seal! I don't know what's wrong with it," Rin informed the Uchiha brothers.
Itachi crouched down, prying Sakura's stiffened hand away from the seal marking the side of her neck. The circular seal was completely devoid of any Sharingan patterning that denoted its activation. "It's not activated."
Sakura's eyes shot wildly open as her agonized screams escalated. "It burns! It burns! Put it out!"
Despite her apparent return to consciousness, the girl's wide green eyes appeared glazed and unfocused. Rin's brow furrowed in concern as she felt the immense heat emanating from Sakura's skin. "Her fever is spiking dangerously out of control…"
"Help me! Please!" Sakura's cries interrupted her.
"She's hallucinating," Rin delivered her grave analysis. "If we don't bring her fever down quickly she'll begin to suffer br…"
Before Rin could finish her sentence, Itachi scooped the screaming girl into his arms and swiftly carried her down the hallway.
"Nii-san, stop! You shouldn't be—!" Sasuke frantically pursued his older brother while the Nohara lagged behind him.
Unfortunately, Sasuke's warning had not reached his brother's ears as he heard the door leading outside slide shut. Sasuke hastily wrenched the door open and gaped in shock at the scene that had befallen his eyes. Rin clasped her hand over her mouth, taken aback by the older Uchiha's astonishing actions.
Itachi knelt on the ledge of the outdoor bath, submerging the girl within the cool waters. He propped the wilted Haruno's head up on a flat rock to keep her from slipping completely beneath the shallow waters. His forehead shone with a thick layer of sweat as he clutched his chest with one hand and supported the Haruno with the other. Itachi released his chest and dedicated his efforts to pouring handfuls of water over the flaccid girl's head.
Hearing Itachi's pained coughs and labored wheezes wrenched Sasuke's heart in the worst of ways. Itachi had been fully aware of the fact that carrying the girl's weight would strain his unrecovered body. Every cough sent a stabbing pain rippling throughout his chest yet he disregarded his own ailment, instead prioritizing the girl's first and foremost.
"Nii-san…you…" Sasuke's voice trailed off into silence as he apprehended the reasoning behind Itachi's actions.
Rin stole a curious glance to the younger Uchiha standing wordlessly beside her. His mouth had been visibly set in a downturned arc while his dark bangs cast a shadow upon his face, obscuring his eyes from her view.
A/N: Well, I did plan to have this chapter out sooner. Unfortunately, the days-off I thought I would have essentially became more work…
YuukiChanLove, yes the name of this fic was partially inspired by the Kalafina song and mostly inspired, of course, by its dramatic theme.
Anyways, thanks again for reading and please remember to review!