A/N: Thanks for the reviews: mshccs, Funnie, anon guest one and two, la canelle, Amy, music3kp, Shadowlove'scookies, sasukekarin0801, GoldenPiggy, Corrina, , AMidnightSilhouette, ckncreme, Musical cake, and Lunardragon33. Nice to see new reviewers as well as the usual awesome names. Glad everyone liked the chapter. Sorry about missing last weekend's update but I got super busy with WoW. Things have sorta calmed down a bit now, enough for me to write. Anon guest, about the eventual MadaHashi, I don't want to spoil too much, but I intend for both of them to have had unspoken, unacted upon feelings for each other in the past, but neither of them knew about the other's feelings and for Madara's part, it got really twisted after Hashirama was named Hokage. I guess you could label Madara as bisexual for this story, however, he's a really complex character and in my view he needs to respect someone enough to actually be attracted to them. It's not just a blanket statement. His former attraction to and feelings for Hashirama was something he struggled a lot with, given their history.

Amy, yeah, Madara is getting more used to Sakura and is secretly a tiny bit fond of her, not that he'll admit it any time soon. They've both grown on each other, and Sakura isn't always holding his past jerk moves against him (seeing her naked, the boyfriend teasing, etc), although she hasn't forgotten about all that. She also hasn't forgotten that he's a large threat and a force to deal with. Ckncreme, yeah it's a bit hard to write Madara considering how old he is. He doesn't give a shit about a lot of stuff anymore, including a lot of things Sakura does care about. She'll eventually connect with him though! Musical Cake, if you recall in the Madara summary chapter, he decided to look into a side project. That's what the reference is. Just giving a hint if you want to figure it out or wait and see.

Anyways, please review if you like the chapter! It has a lot of info dumping (though it's Madara's version of the story and he doesn't know everything). If you see any grammar errors, do let me know so I can fix. Thanks! I wrote the dialogue for this chapter before filling in everything else, so I might have missed something. Also yay long chapter. Enjoy!

Sakura speaking to Madara in her mind.

Madara speaking to Sakura in her mind.

-Eye of the Moon-

"Do you know anything about the time before shinobi?" Madara asked after a moment of silence. Sakura had finally gotten him to sit down and explain to her what his plan for world peace was, as weird as that sounded. After the failure to find and bring back Sasuke, this small victory was something to be cherished.

She frowned, "No... what do you mean?" She had never really thought about that sort of thing before. Hadn't ninjas always just kind of been around? His question implied the opposite, though. Madara sighed and shifted into a more comfortable position on the couch.

"Chakra didn't always exist in humans," he explained. "Even before ninjas came to be, before anyone had learned about the concept of chakra, man waged endless wars against each other. Back in that era, there was a Divine Tree. It was worshiped by everyone, untouched by the constant fighting. Legend has it that once a millennium, it bears a fruit. For reasons I still haven't discovered, it was forbidden to touch that fruit. However, a princess, Kaguya Otsutsuki, decided to consume it and gained the power of a god. She was the first human to possess chakra. She single-handedly ended the fighting and created a time of peace."

"How do you know all of that...?" Sakura interjected, her curiosity piqued. This was all new to her. She had not once ever heard this story before. She'd always had a thirst for knowledge, and the origin of chakra greatly interested her. However, it was Madara, so she had to listen with a grain of salt... although she didn't think he was lying to her. Not about this.

Irritation flashed in his dark eyes, but he answered her. "It's written on an Uchiha monument and can only be read by members of my clan that have an exceptionally strong Sharingan." Madara paused and shot her a mild glare, "Try to not interrupt me again." Sakura bit back the urge to retort that asking questions was never wrong, and instead nodded silently. He was giving her valuable information, so she would play by his rules. He continued, "Kaguya eventually had a son that was born naturally with chakra. Do you know of the Sage of the Six Paths?"

Finally, a name she did recognize, but she had never been able to find many details regarding him. "Yeah, he was the first shinobi. I always thought it was a myth, but I'm guessing that's incorrect?"

"Hn, indeed," Madara confirmed. "Her son was the Sage. Some time after that, the Divine Tree came to life, intent on reclaiming the chakra that Kaguya had stolen from it."

Sakura blinked in disbelief. "A tree came to life...?" Seriously what the fuck? The tale had been pretty believable up until now, but a plant coming alive was hard to swallow and seemed kind of ridiculous. Catching Madara's annoyed look, she realized she'd interrupted again. "Sorry," she muttered and motioned for him to go on.

Madara huffed, but accepted her apology and carried on with the explanation, "The Divine Tree became the Juubi, the Ten Tails."

This time Sakura felt wholly justified in interrupting him. "Whoa! Wait. What do you mean Ten Tails? You mean there's another tailed beast?!" She was very alarmed. The bijuu were extremely dangerous. She knew that the more tails they had, the stronger they were. The thought of one even more powerful than the Kyuubi was frightening.

"Yes and no," Madara replied, not bothering to scold her for butting in yet again, although she could tell by the slight exasperation in his tone that he was still annoyed by it. "All of the bijuu that exist today originally were part of the Juubi." Sakura opened her mouth to ask another question, her mind buzzing as it processed all this new information, but he preemptively held up a hand to silence her. "I'll get to that in a moment. The Sage, Hagoromo Otsutsuki, fought and defeated the Juubi when it attacked. He sealed it inside himself, becoming the first Jinchuuriki."

The Sage was the first one? And for the Ten Tails too. She felt some degree of awe for the Sage. She knew Naruto struggled a lot with the Kyuubi. The Juubi must have been so much worse. "I had no idea..." Sakura admitted, choosing to fully believe what he was saying. There was no way that it was a lie, not a story this elaborate. Madara was a dick, but he wouldn't make all of this up just to mess with her, especially if this was all somehow related to his world peace plan. "So all of this actually happened? I can't believe no one knows about this..."

Madara chuckled, however, there was a hint of bitterness in it. "Many truths are lost to time, unfortunately. Anyways, the Sage is the one who distributed chakra to man and taught Ninshu." Sakura made a soft, questioning sound, successfully prompting him to elaborate. "Chakra was originally intended to allow people to connect with and truly understand each other. Humans turned it into a weapon instead... ninjutsu, going against the Sage's teachings. They twisted a gift into a curse and only made the following wars even more violent and bloody." A dark look settled on his face, unsettling her in an odd way.

She pushed aside her uncertainty and asked, "I thought Kaguya had created peace though? And what about the Sage and the Juubi?"

With a casual shrug, Madara replied, "Death is inevitable, as is conflict. It's just the nature of mankind." It was a simple answer, but he did not need to elaborate further. Everyone died eventually. "When the Sage was approaching the end of his life, he split the Ten Tails into nine different beasts and sealed the body of the Juubi in the moon."

"Really? The moon?" Sakura said, frowning slightly as she considered that bit of information. At Madara's single nod, she hesitantly accepted it and voiced her racing thoughts, "So, the bijuu... if they were made from the Juubi... then is it possible to combine them together again?"

"Yes, and I intend to do so," he answered, unaware of the steely bite of fear that shot through her body. In order for that to happen... the fox would have to be removed from Naruto... and that would kill him. She could not let that happen.

"...What? Why? From what you said, it sounds like the Juubi is way too dangerous to revive. Wouldn't it try to get chakra back again? It'd be a death sentence..." Sakura stated, her voice betraying how tense she felt. She was afraid of the idea of the Juubi coming back to life, and she was terrified for Naruto's safety.

Madara snorted and dismissed her concerns, "That won't happen. I will become its Jinchuuriki and cast Infinite Tsukuyomi onto the moon, which will shine down on everyone, creating a dream world of only happiness and peace for all of mankind. There will be no more wars, no suffering, no hate, no sadness... everyone will be happy. That is my Eye of the Moon plan, as I have taken to calling it."

Sakura stared blankly at him, her mouth hanging open a bit, as she slowly processed what he had just said. It absolutely baffled her. It was so far beyond mind-boggling that she had no words for it. That?! That was his world peace plan?! Tsukuyomi was a very strong illusion technique... she knew that Itachi had used it when he was alive. Adding the word 'infinite' in front of it only made it sound so much worse. And Madara wanted to cast it on the entire world population?! Stuttering off and on, she managed to say, "But... that's just an illusion... it won't be real..." How could he think that a dream world was an acceptable solution for world peace? She couldn't even wrap her mind around the concept.

With a roll of his eyes, Madara replied as if were the most obvious fact in existence, "No one will be able to tell the difference. The Infinite Tsukuyomi will create the perfect world for each person according to their desires and wishes. The important thing is that it will break the cycle of hate that we shinobi... that we humans are doomed to suffer."

Everything about the idea of living in some fake dream world offended her on a deep level. She shook her head, gathering her wits, and protested strongly, "I don't understand how putting everyone into an illusion will solve anything. All it does is remove free will!" How could he not see how absolutely wrong that was?

Madara narrowed his eyes at her, a harsh look settling on his face. His expression hinted at all of the horrors and suffering he'd seen over the course of his life. "Free will?" He nearly snarled, "From the earliest known history, humans chose to wage war against each other. They chose to turn chakra into a weapon and the fighting became even more devastating. Humans are destined to spiral down a path of perpetual and endless tragedy. And nothing ever changes. We always make the same choices. It's our fate to suffer from our own foolishness. In this world, a true dream is nothing more than illusion. No matter how hard and long people struggle and hope for a better future, no amount of effort ever brings about any real change. The only answer is to create a new reality with Infinite Tsukuyomi."

Sakura flinched at the force of his rant, but shot back, "You're insane... How can you..." She stalled, unable to deny the bitter truth of his words. Still, even if he was right about everything he had just said, she could not accept that the way to fix that was throwing away this reality. "What makes you think that it's okay to make that choice for everyone?!" she nearly yelled.

"Because I will obtain the power to do it, and afterwards any objections won't matter," the Uchiha stated, his temper now calm, although the dark look on his face remained.

This was worse than she ever expected. It wasn't only Naruto she had to fear for, it was the entire goddamn planet. "You can't put the whole world under an illusion!" she yelled, then caught herself and tried to control her temper better. It was incredibly frustrating though. "That's so beyond fucked up... even if you're right... that humans have fought and killed each other for so long, with or without chakra... doesn't taking everyone into a dream world invalidate all we've sacrificed to get here? Sure, it's not perfect, but we're slowly making progress. If we keep trying, we can achieve real peace, and not an illusion," she pleaded. She could not let Madara go through with this, even if she had to keep him sealed inside her for the rest of her life, even if she had to fight him every step of the way.

Madara sighed heavily, "I thought so once too, but that was a false hope. Your generation has lived an extremely sheltered life in the shinobi villages. Back when I was young, children often died in battle. Hashirama and I created Konoha to change that... however, it turned out to be a failed experiment. There's no breaking the cycle of hate without creating a new reality, a world of dreams."

"It was a step forward!" Sakura interrupted, trying to point out that things were better than back then, that less children and people died. The villages had brought a good amount of stability and some times of peace. There was still fighting, yes, but it was definitely less chaotic...

He fixed her with a sharp, piercing stare. "Nothing changed. Other villages formed, and you know well what happened afterwards. More wars, more fighting, more children dying... exactly the same as before. Humans will always kill each other, Sakura... especially shinobi."

Feeling increasingly strained, desperate, and upset, she said, "We can't just give up hope. If we keep trying... reaching more people, slowly we'll change the world for the better." It sounded a bit lame after it had left her mouth, but she still could not accept giving up the current reality for a fake one. Her very core self protested against it.

"That's a nice sentiment, but unrealistic," Madara replied in a serious tone. "Say that a peace is established. How long do you think it would last? As soon as a nation, village, or even a person decides to harm another, be it for power, wealth, love, whatever the reason, it starts the cycle of hatred and suffering again. The person who was wronged will seek revenge, and in turn others will pursue their own justice. Eventually that will escalate into larger battles, then war. As I've told you before, this reality is only made of pain, suffering, and emptiness."

Sakura shook her head again, "I... I don't believe forcing everyone into a world of illusions is the answer, Madara. It seems like it's running away from the problem. Do you truly believe that escaping into a fake dream is the solution? What happened to you... what sort of pain twisted your thinking so much to go this far...?" She didn't like trying to appeal to his emotional side, assuming he had one, but she was running out of arguments. If she could not talk him out of casting Infinite Tsukuyomi, that only left one option on the table, and it would inevitably lead to fighting with him for the rest of her life.

Of course he saw right through her ploy. Madara tsked, amused, "Oh please, don't even try that with me. I simply have lived long enough to see this world as it really is." He relaxed back into the couch, then tilted his head at her. "Tell me something, considering all that I've told you today, what would your answer to ending war and suffering be? Hm? How would you break the cycle? How would you ensure that no one ever felt pain again, that no one ever lost a loved one, or was ever betrayed, or suffered alone?"

Wow, way to put her on the spot. "...I don't know," Sakura admitted truthfully, "But it certainly wouldn't involve a fake illusion instead of reality." She glared at him, angry at him for having such an unacceptable world peace plan, if it was even worthy of being called that, and angry at herself for being unable to come up with an alternative answer.

He smirked at her, "Again, no one will know the difference. It will be as real as this world, without the negatives." She wanted to yell at him that it was still fake, but she'd already tried to make that point several times. Maybe she could try to find a way around the seal on her tongue and warn someone...

Sakura sighed, emotional drained for a second day in a row and feeling a bit overwhelmed from the amount of information Madara had just filled her head with. Yelling at him more would do no more good, as much as she would like to. Honestly, she really would love to scream at him. He deserved it for being dead set on a plan that would fuck over everyone, take their free will away from them, and lock them inside a fake reality. But... she was smarter than that and would not let her temper rule her, not when it came to something so important and critical. What she could do now is stall for time until she had a better idea. "Let me think about it," she told him. Worst case scenario was fighting him for control of her body until she died... though... speaking of death... no... no reason to think about that yet.

Madara nodded at her, wearing an irritating grin she wanted to wipe off his face. "Take all the time you need. I look forward to your realization that there is no solution but the Infinite Tsukuyomi."

Sakura breathed deeply, then met his cocky smirk with a challenging look of her own. "I'll never accept that," she stated. It was the truth. She would never chose a fake world over the real one. Fake peace and happiness was still just that. Fake.

"You don't need to," he pointed out. She opened her mouth to counter with her own snarky remark, but a knock on the door interrupted her. Without excusing herself, uncaring if it was rude, she left Madara and got up to answer it.

She unlocked the door and opened it to find the fourth young member of Team Kakashi staring at her. "Sai? What are you doing here?" she asked, the unusual occurrence leaving her somewhat concerned.

"Hey Ugly," he greeted, and she glared at the use of the nickname. "The Hokage wants us both in her office right now."

Next Chapter: Team Seven gets some very bad news. Madara sees a chance to pursue investigation of his side project. Sakura is not happy at all.