A/N: Over the past year, I've been experiencing issues with my eyes again and my doctor suspected the presence of a tumor. Thankfully, it wasn't a tumor and turned to be the result of complications from the surgery done on my eyes last year which necessitates—you guessed it—another surgery to alleviate these complications. Just for once, I would like to stay out of the hospital but nope. I wanted to have this chapter out before my upcoming surgery so here it is.
Also, a fair warning that this fic is rated S&M so please read at your own discretion.
"Sasuke! Sasuke!" Naruto bellowed repeatedly as he raced towards the unfamiliar armor-clad man standing over Sasuke's downed body.
"Don't come any closer!" the white haired stranger snarled belligerently, brandishing the intricately marked kunai in his hand.
Naruto's aggrieved hollering immediately drew the attention of the others gathered within the lush green rice paddy.
Rin peeled away from the group of cattle drivers and scurried towards the Uchiha, tripping over her own feet in her panicked haste. "Sasuke-sama!"
"Rin, come back!" Kakashi called out to her, raising his hand in a belated effort to stop the brunette woman.
The white haired man inserted himself between the Nohara and the fallen Uchiha obstructing her pathway.
"Please! He's not going to make it!" Rin's large doe-like eyes glimpsed up at the man imploringly, but the coldness entrenched in his countenance indicated that he was unmoved by her plea. With escalating desperation, she repeated her request, "Please!"
He gazed down his nose, casting her an unyielding, pitiless look. "Absolutely not. That boy is responsible for the countless deaths of my fellow clansmen on the battlefield. Permitting him to live would be an outright betrayal to not only my clan, but to the peasants held captive by the Uchiha who I pledged to help."
"Please, sir! He's not like the other Uchiha!"
"Are you telling me this young man, the same one who has cut down my comrades with a triumphant smirk on his face, the one who blitzed our camps targeting wounded warriors before they could receive medical aid, the one who devastated these two parents and the Haruno village…" he thundered lividly, shooting his finger in the direction of the Haruno husband and wife approaching the scene. "Are you telling me he is not the same as his brethren and his accursed clan leader?!"
"You don't understand! Sasuke-sama has been trying to help us!" Rin cried out insistently, abruptly hushing the fuming man's tirade.
Tobirama grimaced in flagrant disbelief but enabled her to continue speaking. The peasants and the Senju allies convened around them, listening intently to Rin's words.
"Sasuke-sama gave us a place to stay when Sakura was ill. He was the one who tried to help us escape the compound that time…" Rin's voice faltered as her tone sobered in contemplation of the events surrounding their escape attempt. "I know it was him. It had to be him. She was talking and acting just like him. He was controlling her through that seal."
"Elaborate," Tobirama pressed her for clarification of her bizarre statement.
Kakashi raised a sole dubious brow. "Rin, what are you talking about?"
Rin's chocolate brown eyes flittered towards Sasuke as she let out an even sigh. "The Uchiha clan has been using a seal on the back of Sakura's neck to make her feel pain. I tried to flee the compound with Sakura so they couldn't interrogate us. I believe Sasuke was the one who took possession of Sakura's body in order to fight off his own clansmen and bring down the wall surrounding the compound."
Tobirama finally stepped aside, granting her access to the young Uchiha. "Heal him to the point he can speak. I want to hear it from him."
Grateful beyond belief, Rin wasted no time dutifully rushing to Sasuke's aid. She dropped to her knees and conjured chakra to the palms of her hands. Her glowing hands hovered over the deep laceration on his throat, staunching the copious flow of blood seeping onto the bright green rice stalks beneath him. Rin's rosy lips firmed in deep concentration as she watched the pale green chakra slowly merge the edges of the laceration together until it was no more than a faint pink scar.
A look of ecstatic relief lit up Rin's face when the Uchiha's eyelids slowly lifted, exposing his dark irises to the open. He glimpsed at the amiable smile of the Nohara who was kneeling on the ground beside him then to the stern visage of the man he recognized as the Senju Lord's younger brother standing a few feet behind her. He sat up and studied his environment warily. The Uzumaki, Haruno and Mugihara peasants, and Tsunade along with her companions stood in a semicircle behind Tobirama.
What had happened? Last he knew, he was on the verge of meeting his maker. Had his life been spared?
"If you seek to live, you will truthfully answer my questions," Tobirama's distinct deep voice uttered in a threatening manner. "Can you confirm that the Nohara's words are true? Did you assist the slaves in their attempt to escape the Uchiha compound?"
"I did no such thing," Sasuke denied defensively, erasing the optimistic smile that adorned Rin's face.
Tobirama flashed Rin a disgruntled scowl as the thought of her deceiving him on behalf of the Uchiha crossed his mind. Perhaps the Uchiha clan had brainwashed her into protecting their highest ranking members. Her acquiescent demeanor and the fact that she continued to address Sasuke with a respectful honorific outside the compound strongly corroborated his suspicions.
"So you never took control of the Haruno's body through the use of the Moon's Eye Seal in order to help her and the Nohara escape the compound?"
Reading the mounting fury and readiness to kill in Tobirama's overt body language, Sasuke carefully mulled over his options. He wasn't entirely certain what the Nohara had disclosed to everyone, but they seemed to be aware of events leading up to the demolition of the wall encompassing the compound. If he answered honestly, he would admit to committing treason against the Uchiha clan. If denied any involvement in trying to extricate the slaves from the compound, Tobirama would have no incentive to spare his life. Regardless of how he answered, his life was forfeit.
However, Tobirama's dwindling patience would not award him the opportunity to continue deliberating on his response or deflect his line of questioning. He aimed the sharp tip of his kunai for the young Uchiha's throat once more. "Well?"
"I have a request for the two Haruno standing over there," Sasuke stated evenly, clearly unfazed by the Senju commander's ultimatum.
The cattle drivers stepped aside, allowing the Haruno clan leader and his wife to approach the Uchiha seated on the ground and hear out his request. They cautiously lingered close to Tobirama for protection as they watched Sasuke reach for something stowed beneath his robe.
Mebuki's forest green eyes broadened in alarm when the Uchiha presented the gold chain with the uchiwa pendant to them.
"Huh, what's that?" Mebuki folded her arms snugly against her chest and turned her nose up, feigning an air of disinterest. "I've never seen that in my life before."
Kizashi snapped his head left towards his wife and twisted his features in blatant confusion.
"Accept it as her dowry," the young Uchiha said in a rather quiet voice, evading their gaze as he continued to dangle the pendant.
"W-wha-what?!" Kizashi exclaimed boisterously, nearly doubling over from blow of the boy's inconceivable request.
It was as though his words had sent a ripple of shock coursing through the bodies of everyone whose ears it had reached. An awkward silence ensued, crippling the tongues of everyone within the secret rice paddy. Though he didn't require their words to detect the thoughts brewing in their minds, Sasuke could determine that the Haruno were struggling to process the veracity of his request.
"Are you serious?!" Mebuki hissed, her voice seething with venom.
If he managed to discover the Uchiha Lord's chain she had stolen years ago and secreted inside the wall of her daughter's bedroom, he very likely read the note that was exclusively intended for Sakura as well. Mebuki shuddered as though her privacy had been invaded. A deep sorrow surfaced within her heart when she realized that he probably discarded the valuable seeds she had worked so hard to obtain. Not only had the Uchiha robbed them of their only child, but they also robbed their daughter of her potential and the hopes and dreams Mebuki had invested in her.
"Honey, he's just joking and nobody knows jokes better than I do." Laughing mechanically, Kizashi rested a reassuring hand on his wife's shoulder. He turned to Sasuke and asked in a lighthearted tone which swiftly deteriorated, "You're just joking, right? Right? Right?!"
When Sasuke did not respond, Kizashi anxiously looked to the Nohara and the Uzumaki father and son for answers. His heart sank into the pits of despair when the solemn expressions written on their faces did not change, ultimately confirming his fears.
Cursing his pitiful luck, he clenched a handful of his dull pink hair and stamped his feet. "Are the gods pulling some kind of prank on me?"
Gai and Naruto seized Lee by the arms, holding him back before he could lunge for the Uchiha. "Sakura-san is not yours to keep!"
"Bushy Brows, calm down! You're going to dislocate my arm!" Naruto shouted as the young cattle driver struggled to wrest himself from their grip.
"What the hell are you playing at, Uchiha?" Tsunade growled from the depths of her throat, flexing her fingers and balling them into fists. "You're the one who invaded the Haruno village and captured Sakura. You and your clan have been doing horrible, unspeakable things to her!"
Rin interjected vehemently, "Sakura saved Sasuke-sama's brother's life. She helped save so many ailing Uchiha and maybe, deep down, they're also grateful to her. Not all of the Uchiha have been cruel to us. There were Uchiha who were helping us too."
"That would be the work of my informants," Tobirama remarked nonchalantly as it had been common knowledge to everyone but Sasuke, Rin, and the Uzumaki.
"What do you mean?" Sasuke narrowed his eyes, intuitively anticipating he would resent Tobirama's impending words.
"I have informants within the Uchiha clan who have been actively trying to rescue the slaves through peaceful means."
For quite a while, Sasuke harbored an inkling of what was occurring within the shadows, but he adamantly denied the minute possibility of it proving to be true. When the pieces in his mind finally clicked, the reality hit him like a sledgehammer to the head. He recollected the day following the Cherry Blossom Festival when he brought the two slaves to his house and the unusual insistence behind Itachi's voice when they debated over who was responsible for monitoring them. An excruciating pain wracked his chest as the images of his enfeebled brother desperately attempting to break Sakura's fever at the expense of his own health swamped his mind. It was a memory he hoped with a burning passion that he would never revisit.
"One of your informants wouldn't happen to be Itachi, would it?" Sasuke slowly rose to his feet while he struggled to curb his broiling fury. The Sharingan burned within his irises as he shouted aloud, "You've been exploiting my brother this entire time! How could you jeopardize my brother's life by using him as your informant!"
"Itachi became our ally of his own accord!" Tobirama retorted with matched hostility.
Sasuke and the others remained silent as Tobirama proceeded to clarify his words. "Even while Itachi served as Madara's apprentice, he secretly aided us behind Madara's back. Unlike you, he intentionally diverted his troops away from the roads leading to our medical camps so that our wounded could receive the medical attention they needed. He is the one who reached out to me because he was distraught over the fact his clan had branded a slave with the Moon's Eye Seal."
Sasuke's rage dampened as he broached the subject of the Moon's Eye Seal. He recalled overhearing Madara mention that someone with a Mangekyou Sharingan had manipulated the prison guards and deliberately trained Sakura to develop a tolerance to the seal. Despite Itachi's improving health, Sakura continued to visit him on a daily basis, rousing Sasuke's suspicions that their meetings expanded beyond what they claimed was a therapy session. In fact, neither Itachi nor Sakura ever clarified what her therapy sessions entailed and neither of them had updated the family on how soon it would be until he could return to the battlefield. When Sasuke took possession of her body through the seal, she seemed abnormally confident she could defy his Sharingan and alluded to having been exposed to a more powerful set of eyes.
This whole time, Itachi was the elusive Mangekyou Sharingan wielder who was executing treasonous undertakings right beneath the entire clan's notice.
Just when he thought he was finally emerging from Itachi's shadow and establishing his own identity, he was still eclipsed by his brother in all facets of his life. Sakura probably perceived Itachi as a source of consolation in times of desolation, inevitably sparking an intimate relationship between the two of them.
Did his previous blunder at the barn push Sakura further into his brother's arms?
Before he knew it, he was plagued by the uninvited imagery of his brother holding a tearful Sakura in his arms as their eyes passionately connected with one another.
Perhaps, what afflicted him the most about the situation was that he had always been close with his brother and unequivocally loved him more than anything in the world. Learning of his brother's secretive activities forced him to realize that he did not know his brother as well as he assumed. Hindering his clan leader's lustful pursuit of the girl was something he could carry out without qualm. However, he never foresaw the Haruno becoming a point of contention between him and his brother, potentially threatening their tightknit bond.
His dark bangs cast a shadow over his face as his gaze descended to the ground. He clenched the pendant in his hand and muttered dejectedly to himself beneath his breath, "Are Itachi and Sakura…?"
Barely catching his frail words, Rin muffled her gasp and clasped her hands over her mouth. The cattle drivers shifted their attention to her anticipating an explanation for her sudden alarm though she stayed silent.
Were both brothers in love with the same woman?
She remembered their brief stay at the brothers' residence prior to their attempt to flee the compound. The tension between the two brothers was almost palpable for nearly the entirety of their time there. Sasuke was quick to shoot down Sakura's compliment to Itachi for the feast he prepared which was something she initially presumed to be brotherly banter. Sakura did not seem the type to juggle multiple lovers at once and Rin was positive she would never intend to hurt any of the two Uchiha.
Was Sakura even aware of their feelings for her? Would she someday find herself thrust into the position of having to choose one of them?
Kakashi noted the sudden pallor of Rin's skin and the crystalline luster that had overtaken her widened orbs. "Rin, are you alright?"
Rin's glistening eyes met his sole black one, but she didn't respond to him. Her thoughts meandered to Obito's uncertain fate, filling her with trepidation. Was he still alive? Did he manage to successfully escape persecution and find asylum outside the Uchiha compound?
Prior to her abduction, Kakashi had been her first and only love. Ever since her childhood, she had been smitten with the silver haired boy she grew up with despite his indifference to romance. Her feelings for him were no secret to her family, mentor, and closest friends. When Kakashi vowed to protect her life at all costs, she interpreted his proclamation as proof he was finally reciprocating her feelings. She carved their names into the trunk of a willow tree adjacent to her house with the effervescent hope her dream of marriage to him would one day become a reality.
Unfortunately, her detainment at the Uchiha compound dashed that dream and tormented her with the dismal probability she would never live to see the man she loved again. As a result of her bleak situation, she sought solace in the familiar Uchiha who previously rescued her and her comrades when they found themselves haplessly entangled in the crossfire of war during a cattle drive. Overtime, his covert nightly visits to the slave quarters somehow blossomed into a newfound romance, restoring her spirits amidst a time of turmoil and great uncertainty.
She held both men dear to her heart and wondered if she would also wind up in the position of having to make a choice between the two.
Rin smeared the tears descending her cheeks with the back of her hand and with a meager smile, she answered Kakashi, "It's alright, Kakashi. I'm just so happy to see everyone again."
Kakashi nodded his head although a concerned part of him suspected she wasn't being entirely forthcoming. He approached the downcast Uchiha and placed a hand on his shoulder, inciting him to lift his head. "If you seek to heal the wounds of your past transgressions, then you must look ahead to the future and start over."
Tobirama scrutinized the subtle softening of Sasuke's grave countenance and questioned whether the young man's feelings for the Haruno clan leader's daughter were genuine or not. It was a downright anomaly for a captor known for his cold-heartedness to develop romantic feelings for his captive, though Tobirama did not wish to dawdle on the details of how they came to be. According to rumor, Sasuke was already betrothed to the Uzumaki Lord's granddaughter. If his feelings for a peasant were strong enough to defy his clan leader's arrangements for marriage, it naturally followed that he was cultivating a rebellious streak towards not only his clan but the caste system as well. If Tobirama's hypothesis did pertain to be true, then there was the marginal chance that, perhaps, the boy wasn't totally a lost cause.
The sadistic and bloodthirsty Madara the world knew today was created from the accumulation of tragedies that befell him throughout his lifetime. Due to the love he lost, Madara was capable of committing the worst of atrocities without exhibiting a modicum of remorse. Tobirama recalled the horrific memories of Madara's unstoppable rampage the day after he slayed his younger brother, Izuna, in battle. Absolutely powerless against Madara's godlike abilities, he watched the rampaging man ruthlessly crush his comrades as they frantically attempted to outrun the colossal foot of his Susanoo. Although he narrowly evaded the clutches of death when his older brother arrived on the battlefield in the nick of time, he could still hear the screams of his comrades who were not as fortunate.
With the most powerful members of the Uchiha clan turning against their leadership, Madara was essentially fighting a losing war. Once they rescued the Uchiha clan's only remaining healer, his defeat was inevitable. He had lost his ability to love a long time ago and his descent into tyranny guaranteed that there was no possibility he would ever regain it.
Madara was an irredeemable monster who had fallen too far into the darkness to salvage. But unlike his superior, it was not too late to save Sasuke from sharing the same fate.
Sakura's stomach twisted in revulsion as Madara's gagging became more intense and his flailing gradually abated. She clenched her fingers firmly around his struggling heart, wringing the blood out as if it were a mere dishrag. A potent wave of pain and nausea struck her with sudden force and nearly caused her to collapse onto the dying man pinned beneath her. Her head throbbed violently, feeling as though it would burst any second, yet her grip did not relent.
"…der," she vaguely heard him grit through his coarse spluttering.
Despite the merciless pounding sensation in her head, she heard a strange noise that seemed reminiscent of a thick sheet of ice cracking across a frozen lake resonating all around her. When the mysterious noise ceased, the room suddenly felt miserably humid and heavy with the scent of blood and sweat overpowering her nares.
"…der," she heard him gurgle once more.
She refused to release her vice grip on his heart until the Uchiha Lord conclusively drew his last breath. As she felt the walls of his heart begin to swell back up with blood, she tightened her fingers in kind, denying the muscle the opportunity to sustain the life of the body at her mercy.
"…der."
Every moment she spent crushing his heart made her feel as though her energy was being sapped from her being. Her mind began to blur from sheer exhaustion and she wondered exactly how much time had passed. There was absolutely no possible way a human heart could survive such an assault in the first place nevertheless withstand the lethal pressure she imposed on it in what felt like an eternity. Although she was saddled with what seemed like the most insufferable headache of her life, she stomached the pain and composed her thoughts. Theoretically, crushing Madara's heart should've brought about an instantaneous death, but it was almost as if the task was depleting her stamina faster than it was killing him.
However, Sakura resolved to bring her goal to fruition no matter how insurmountable the obstacle. She clutched his heart as if she were clinging onto dear life. As she escalated the pressure twofold, Madara's hips raised her petite body slightly off the wooden floor of the infirmary.
"Harder."
Sakura's body went numb with shock when she felt a warm gush of sticky fluid suddenly coat her lower abdomen followed by the sound of a guttural grunt. Madara's body promptly relaxed and melted into the floor beneath her. The instant she slackened her grip, his heart swelled to its original state as the blood refilled its chambers and restored the natural cadence of his heartbeat. She withdrew her trembling hand from his chest and slowly raised it to her mortified face, realizing the cause of what should've been an impossible survival.
She sat atop him with her mouth agape and her body petrified in outright horror. The brief interlude of silence afforded her a moment of clarity. In all her years, she never fathomed it was possible to receive sexual gratification from an attempt on one's life. If this magnitude of unadulterated violence was akin to intercourse for him, would he simply derive pleasure from any further attempts at assassination? There were plenty of aberrant things she learned during her time spent in captivity, but it was a subject she acknowledged she was better off not knowing in greater detail.
Tears bristled within her eyes, blotting the cloth of the blindfold obscuring them. To her dismay, the formidable Uchiha Lord was always two steps ahead of whatever she schemed. Completely consumed in her determination to assassinate him, she failed to notice that he hijacked control of her Byakugou Seal and stealthily siphoned chakra from her while she crushed his heart, thus averting his death.
"Did you think I couldn't sense the murderous intent oozing from every pore in your body? I can read you like an open book," she heard Madara say with a hoarse, yet pompous chuckle. "Though, for a minute, I thought you were going to try to castrate me."
"Then why…?" Sakura managed to articulate through her incessant panting.
Madara clasped the palm of his hand against his chest, utilizing the remaining chakra he extracted from Sakura to close the borders of the gaping wound.
"I just wanted to see what you would do." Although his voice was rife with condescension, he laced his words with an amused undertone. "I suspect the next try will involve some type of poisonous substance."
"You've got to be fucking kidding me!" She backhanded him in the face without an ounce of restraint.
The brute force of her slap whipped his head sideways, causing him to spit the residual blood in his mouth onto the floor. He turned his head back towards her and reached for the blindfold veiling her eyes. Tugging the ends gently, he undid the knot of the blindfold, allowing it to plummet to the floor and expose her blazing burn-encrusted eyes to him. He gazed fixedly into those unfocused, piercing green irises that stood out against her bloodshot sclera, which evoked a sense of marvel within him.
No matter how many times his eyes beheld her lethal glare, he found himself completely entranced by the sight of what he deemed was the pinnacle of her beauty.
"Harder," he said placidly, pillowing the back of his head on his hands.
Sakura let out an exasperated groan and clambered to her feet. She stood halfway up and suddenly yelped when her head collided with something solid. She collapsed to the floor with a resounding thump and curled into a fetal position. The force of impact shook the tears loose from her eyes.
She rubbed her aching cranium gingerly. "What the hell was that?"
He propped himself up with his elbows to a seated position and answered casually, "That would be the ribcage of my Susanoo. It was eager to watch."
Who? What? What in the world was a Susanoo? Were they currently being watched?
Sensing the naked panic coursing through her, he pulled her into his chest and caressed the side of her neck soothingly. He eyed the dark circular seal marking the back of her neck and stroked it with the calloused pad of his index finger. "Maybe one day I'll remove this ring and replace it with a real one for your finger. But, you're not allowed to peddle it for money like your mother."
"That's not funny." The corners of Sakura's mouth tugged into a firm downward arc. "Is that your way of saying you want to have me executed?"
"I wasn't making a joke. I would have never brought that those sleazy bastards to the compound if I intended to have you executed."
Sakura frowned at him incredulously. "What are you talking about?"
"Those slaves nearly took your life when they blew up my house. I enlisted the healing skills of Orochimaru and his apprentice in order to save you from the verge of death. They left the compound once your condition stabilized." This time his tone was completely devoid of derision she was accustomed to hearing from him.
Sakura writhed uncomfortably at the disturbing thought of Orochimaru or Kabuto laying their hands on her.
"You only saved me so I would be indebted to you and continue serving the clan," she stated acerbically.
"Believe what you may," he uttered coolly, sounding unimpressed with her speculation. He continued tracing the circular marking on her neck with his finger. "My offer still stands. Assist me in defeating the Senju. If you stay by my side, I will release the slaves and relinquish control of the peasantlands."
"Tell me why I should stay by your side when all you've ever done is hurt me!" Sakura demanded as her temper began to spiral out of control.
She was wholeheartedly committed to doing anything and everything she could to liberate the slaves and her motherland. Though it was nothing more than wishful thinking, she held onto the sliver of hope that he may possibly honor his end of the bargain and release the peasants if the Uchiha won the war. However, if there was any sincerity behind Madara's seemingly flippant words, she knew he was never going to sanction her freedom.
"Well…because…" an expression of somberness stole over his face as he said in a low, hushed voice "I haven't felt happiness like this since my friendship with—"
His words trailed off into silence as he envisioned the days he spent in his childhood at the riverside with that obnoxious boy sporting the bowl haircut. He reminisced of the times when they trained together and persistently challenged each other as if everything were a competition. They divulged their aspirations for the future and expressed their desire to grow stronger in order to protect their loved ones. He reminisced of the playful banter they shared and his tendency to criticize that boy's lame hairstyle and fashion choices along with his bizarre lability in mood. However, those innocent days came to a crushing conclusion when they learned of each other's true identities as mortal enemies.
He suddenly wrapped her into a tighter embrace, burying his face into her short hair. He felt her hot tears land on his shoulder as they sat together in silence. Closing his eyes, he exhaled steadily as if an enormous weight had been lifted from his chest.
While his fellow clansmen undeniably revered him, he felt disconnected from the rest of the clan. Perhaps his high status, fearsome power, and cavalier mercilessness contributed to his alienation. Quite frankly, for all the instances the Haruno disrespected and opposed him, she would've been executed more than a dozen times over if she were any other person. However, he imparted something within her he thought he had long lost. It was something that would ultimately die along with her if she ever met her untimely demise.
He cupped her face in his hands and pressed his lips against the purple rhombus on her broad forehead. Leaning back, he took in the marked bewilderment brimming in her tear-ridden eyes and slightly parted lips.
Slowly lowering her back down to the floor, he raked his long fingers through her silky pink tresses and snaked his hand behind the nape of her neck. This time she did not recoil when he planted his lips on hers in a gentler, yet passionate kiss.
"Stay…" he whispered sensually into her ear before showering her neck with frenzied kisses.
The door suddenly flew open, inviting a frigid draft inside the infirmary. Setsuna and Hikaku stood within the doorway with Inabi centered between them gaping in utter revulsion at the scandalous scene unfolding before their eyes.
Their inexplicably bloodied and buck naked clan leader lay atop the also unclothed Haruno woman. For whatever reason, they were enclosed by the glowing blue ribcage of his Susanoo. Madara peeled his lips away from Sakura's neck and lifted his gaze to the three men at the door.
Brazenly, Inabi blurted aloud, "What the fuck?!"
A/N: You know I absolutely love it when I just happen to upload a new chapter while the website is experiencing systemic glitches. Anyway, we are drawing nearer to the grand finale! Thank you for continuing to read and for reviewing. I'd like to wish everyone happy holidays and a wonderful new year! As my gift to you, here's a grenade for your pairing wars.