Under the Rabbit Moon
Part II
Recap:" Tobirama waved a hand over his shoulder. "I've also heard about your matriarchal lineage and past practices. I could see your clan forgiving a lot if only Sakura and her offspring were tied to them."
"I'll not lie about it, I'd be happy with such an arrangement if that's what Sakura wanted, but it has to be what she wants, and right now she's closer to your brother than me. I don't have that place in her heart."
"Maybe that is a justified fear, but right now it's secondary to the matter a hand. Until Sakura is well again and until she is returned, we'll both do our duties to protect our village together and sort the shit out later."
Izuna grinned and it looked terrifying on Madara's face, but it had Izuna's character in spite of all that. "I think I can agree to that with you, Senju."
Izuna delighted in the looks on the clan elder's faces when they walked into the room and saw a stewing Madara. Some were better about it than others, but Izuna's eyes were too keen to miss the smallest of details, and his mind was too sharp to miss their meaning. The elders walked in, cautious of his mood, and kept their reports and grievances short. Madara's expression stayed rotten and grim the rest of the day, breaking only when he was back in the privacy of his solitude.
Towards the end of the day an older woman from the Akamachi clan came back to visit with a jug of honey wine. Madara told her he wouldn't be bribed as she laughed in spite of the cloud his dark aura spread.
"It's not a bribe because I don't want anything. Share a drink with Senju and sort things out between the two of you."
Izuna almost smirked, but he was wearing Madara's face so he schooled his expression into a scowl. "There's nothing to sort. Bothersome woman, do you seek to create conflict where there is none?"
The plump redhead rolled her eyes, unbothered by his language or tone. "It's not a rare thing to see you under a storm cloud, but Hashirama sama is just as dour and I can't help but notice a difference in his work. It's not typical for such a jolly fellow. I think you should both work out what you need to."
"There's nothing to work out!"
Izuna scoffed loudly, while on the inside he delighted endlessly about the drama his act with Tobirama was producing. All of it was drama his 'dear' brother would have to inherit upon his return. It was the least Izuna could do considering how bitter he still was about not getting to go with Sakura and the rest.
A terrible idea bloomed in his brain and he wondered how terrible of a brother he was because as soon as the idea was there he knew he was going to run with it, no matter how much grief it would bring Madara later on. (They were brothers, it was a cosmic law that they bring each other grief in some measure on a regular basis.)
"Tell the Senju he can take his honey wine and drink it without me if he has a woman to drink it with!" Izuna made an effort to pout with Madara's face but it was hard.
May Akamachi the clan matriarch stilled and turned back around to face Izuna fully. "Uchiha san, you understand you friend is at that stage in his life where he might have to break from you. You should appreciate that. Don't you feel the same?"
Izuna was a terrible brother.
"Why should I feel like that when it's been just fine until now?" Madara huffed, turning away and glancing out the window in his best impression of Madara when he was pouting about something petty. "We've been everything to one another from war to peace and it's always been that way. Where else might I find my equal? Where else could he do so?"
Any other woman on the council might have taken the gossip and ran to spread it like wildfire, but May Akamachi was as noble and sweet as her clan were known for being. She left the honey wine on the desk and rounded it to kneel in front of him. She took Izuna's hand in hers and pat it fondly, smiling like a mother would smile at her child.
"There, there, you've had a rough go of it, have you? It's a hard thing to watch your best friend move on without you, especially when you have such a strong bond together. Have you communicated this to him?"
"He'd be an idiot not to see it."
She chuckled and he could already tell he would end up liking this woman for her small measures of kindness, but the way she chuckled in understanding helped him favor her that much more. She knew people thought Hashirama was an idiot.
"Maybe, but you still need to communicate. He needs to hear it in your own words. I know Hashirama sama is not in the best of sorts right now."
Izuna grumbled under his breath, knowing she would hear. "He's telling everyone he has a cold."
"He might just need a little time and space. Heaven knows he hasn't had a lot of that recently. He's such an important figure to so many."
"That doesn't mean he can forget the people that helped him along the way. Have I not been there since the beginning? Have I not been his closest companion all this while?"
Izuna scrunched up his face, twisting his expression into something pained. He wondered if he was laying it on a bit thick and worried his acting might come out too stale. Madara wouldn't be so obvious, even if he truly was crushing on Hashirama and not Sakura.
May didn't seem to mind or find anything in his act out of character, but she wasn't Madara's brother and didn't know him nearly as well as Izuna. She smiled up and pat his hand once before standing.
"I'm sure Hashirama sama considers your friendship invaluable, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't talk to him about how you feel right now. It's something that's bothering you, so voice your concerns and see where you stand. Try to see things from his perspective as well."
"You speak like a woman who has counseled others," Izuna admitted.
She laughed and pat his hand affectionately. "Don't think I haven't. I've got two sons married and a third still looking. I know a thing or two about friendships and lovers and family.
"You don't judge but you counsel?"
"Of course." She sounded surprised by his assumption. "Why wouldn't I? What benefits the young better, love or judges?"
He couldn't remember his mother well, not nearly as well as his brother, but talking with the Akamachi woman felt like how it was supposed to feel like getting advice from your mother. He hadn't had that before, so he wasn't sure he was accurate in his sentiments, but it was a bit different from how he saw Sakura so many years ago. Was this how the youngest Senju, Kawarama, saw Sakura? No wonder the kid was so attached.
The way he felt around Sakura was different from the way he felt when May Akamachi told him to talk about his feelings with Hashirama. He felt like he could be a little more whiney and selfish. When he stood in front of Sakura he wanted to be perfect. He couldn't stand the fact that she saw anything less then his best side, his best self, his most highlighted features. He was desperate to win her attentions away from others for himself.
Even as he thought about it had realized how wrong that sounded. He would never be perfect for her and she never asked for that. But that's what he was taught, and that's what he was told. The way to win another person's heart…
Kagome Hogotomo turned his face to the side and whispered in his ear, moving one hand where he could feel it and the other where he couldn't.
'I'm taking something of value out of your pocket, do you feel it? No? Because this is how you distract someone. Now it's your turn to try.'
'I don't want to distract her I want to-'
'This is the first step. You'll need to know how to win her feelings. Practice with everyone else.'
'I don't want to.'
'Women look at men who are admired. Your brother is admired,' Kagome Hogotomo hissed into his ear. 'Will you be admired or ignored?'
The further he got from those lessons with the Hogotomo woman the more he saw them for what they really were. Yes, they helped him fashion his silver tongue, but in return every encounter tasted like ash. He didn't want that with Sakura. He didn't want to manipulate her into anything. He didn't think he was manipulating her! But was he?
May saw something on his face and it was a testament to the gossamer thin layering of his genjutsu that his expressions showed through so naturally on the face of his brother. May Akamachi saw something troubling in Madara Uchiha's face and reached up to touch his shoulder. Izuna remembered who he was pretending to be and pushed everything else to the back of his mind. He was working.
"You may be troubled by a great many things my lord, but remember your family isn't only blood and bone. Remember the bonds that connect us and the will of fire you preached of so fiercely. I know you will find your peace whatever you decide to say to Hashirama Sama."
"You are too kind," Izuna sighed. "I am a petulant child."
She laughed, but it wasn't a sound of consideration or mockery. It felt sad. "No, my lord, you never got that chance to be a child. Don't be too hard on yourself."
She stood and bent over to kiss the side of his head, and it wasn't something Madara would have allowed, but Izuna didn't push her away. It was a bit forward and not something Uchiha were known for, but he couldn't find it in himself to admit he hated it. The Akamachi were a very different clan from the Uchiha, but Izuna didn't think that was a bad thing. If anything, the Uchiha could stand to learn a few more things from their friendlier neighbors.
He could learn a few things from them too.
"Akamachi sama," he called, standing as she neared the door. "Please, would you be willing to speak your words of wisdom once more with someone else, someone close to me? I think he needs your counsel more than I."
"How much further?" Hashirama asked Madara while pausing to kneel down beside Sakura.
She had one hand braced against the bark of a tree, scratching chunks of it free with her ling nails while her face spasmed with passing pains. Looking worried, Hashirama reached to rub circles into her back as she bent her head over her knee and screwed her eyes shut.
It wasn't really Sakura who was in pain though. Sakura had been asleep and distant since falling in her kitchen two days ago. When she was awake enough to walk and be on her feet, it was the pale haired goddess who controlled the body. Kaguya didn't speak much, if at all, but the closer they drew to the cave the more impossible it was to hide her discomfort. The proximity triggered something awful in her.
"We are very near," Kaguya whispered to Hashirama.
Madara jogged back down from the lip of the nearby ledge. He frowned at the sight of Sakura on the ground, but didn't comment on it. "I think we are close enough to reach it in under an hour. We'll have to trade speed for vigilance."
"I know how to get us there," Kaguya rasped, pushing up on her knees and righting her body. She exhaled and turned her face upwards, but didn't open her eyes. "I remember this place well."
"You're in pain," Hashirama said.
"My body is fighting me."
"You don't mean Sakura's body, do you?" Madara asked, red eyes spinning. "You mean the body that's your original form…"
Kaguya opened Sakura's pale green eyes, paler and more clear than ever. They were almost white. She met Madara's red stare without flinching, something not even Hashirama could do.
"I'm growing like a cancer inside of her. Yes, my body, the cells that stemmed from me. They seek to take over and know too well what we are approaching. I will not be able to sleep or slip under until this is finished."
Hashirama stepped forward. "Until what exactly is finished? You still haven't made your intentions clear to us."
"I told you Sakura would not be harmed."
Madara touched Hashirama's shoulder, easing his friend back. "You also told us it was the only way to save her, and that's why we're here. Don't think we are unwilling, Kami sama, but we still want to know what will happen. Our desire to save Sakura hasn't changed."
Kaguya looked down at her hands, staring at them as she spoke. "Sakura and I may no longer dwell together. We are…incompatible. That is the nature of all gods. No god can be saved through love alone. We are worshiped in blood and fear, nothing less. I told her that."
"You're going to separate from Sakura. Then what?" Madara pressed.
"Then what?" Kaguya sneered. "You think there is anything to come after? What else is there? You return with my Sakura, you live your lives. You make what you will of them."
"No," Hashirama softly interjected. "He means, what will happen to you and Sakura?"
"Sakura will not be harmed. I wouldn't let that happen, I told you."
"And then yourself?" Hashirama whispered.
Kaguya shut her eyes again and turned away from the two of them. "We are close, but we are not there yet. We should press on. Come now."
Madara and Hashirama exchanged a look behind her shoulders but nodded and turned to follow where she led. It took less than thirty minutes before she found the entrance for them, an opening in the earth Madara thought he might have recognized from his boy hood travels. A long time ago he had played near the cave's site, but never trespassed further.
"This should be a cursed place," he murmured out loud.
"I should hope so. We can't have just anyone coming down and learning all our secrets," Kaguya hummed, flaring chakra to unravel the navel of a complicated genjutsu. It fell apart like an untethered kite. Suddenly, even Madara could see the truth of the cave's interior and where it led.
"I've not seen a genjutsu of this sort before. Sakura couldn't…"
"No," Kaguya interjected. "I did not show her how."
"She's smart, I'm sure she would have figured it out on her own if she set her mind to it," Hashirama grumbled.
"I don't mean to disparage your love," Kaguya laughed. "She's terribly competent in many ways, but everyone has a their weaknesses. Isn't that the whole point of this will of fire, of this ninja community? You're banding together and making a new family that transcends tradition."
"In a…roundabout way….I suppose you could say that," Madara answered.
Kaguya walked ahead of them, unraveling the genjutsu bit by bit as she moved through it. Behind her the threads of her illusion found their odd ends and reattached the image meant for the rest of the world. "She's been like a god to you both for a long time, but she's still just a girl. That'll be more true after today. You'll be good to her."
"Of course," Madara snapped first, sounding annoyed at the possibility of doubt. "Why wouldn't we be? She's still Sakura."
"Right?" Hashirama echoed, slowing down so that he walked parallel with Madara. The Uchiha glared sideways at the hesitation in Hashirama's tone.
"Sakura will be without my aids. She won't be able to enact god level jutsu. That may not matter to either to you, but be sensitive about how that might matter to her. She'll see the pair of you in a new light as well. Her oldest memories of you plus Tobirama will come to the surface."
"Not Izuna?" Madara asked.
The approached a dip in the passageway that forked and Kaguya turned left. Fungi glowed in the cracks along the walls and ceiling, but it was barely enough to see by. Each of them had to rely more on their other senses to make it through without stumbling.
In the dim, Madara could barely see how Kaguya shook Sakura's head in answer to his question. "No, she never met your brother before coming to this world. In that timeline Izuna died as a young boy, as did Itama and Kawarama. It was one of the reasons why she was so desperate to save the youngest Senju."
Hashirama stopped where he stood. "Wait? Timeline?"
Madara took a few more steps and then stopped as well, forcing Kaguya to pause and turn back around. Her face was void of expression.
"What do you mean when you say she came to our world? Clarify," Madara demanded. "Do you mean like from a summon's realm or from a different country across the Demon's Sea?"
"The former," Kaguya answered, lifting a finger. "In the world I came from, Sakura lived in a village much like yours but much older with several preceding Hokage before her master. She-" Kaguya gasped and staggered back, clutching her head.
Madara and Hashirama both reached for her, but Kaguya bat them away and gasped for breath, sucking in air and screwing her eyes shut tight. A moment later she straightened and rubbed the front of her face. In the dim light it was hard to be sure, but it looked like she had grown paler.
"Sakura didn't tell us much about her past before coming to the Gardens," Hashirama said in a voice barely louder than a whisper. "I don't think she would want you saying anything else if it's her story to tell."
"It's not," Kaguya groused. "It's mine. She can resist and make it painful, but in order for our separation to be complete, you both will have to see and know some things to help with the ritual. A part of that is how we came to be."
"She lost a lot of precious people," Madara interjected. "I don't need to know more than that. If she wanted to she would have shared more, but that's her past, not her future. It doesn't matter."
Kaguya looked up, her eyes paler than ever before turning sharply and dashing down the hall the rest of the way. Madara and Hashirama both exclaimed in surprise before giving chase after her. The hall didn't last much longer and soon they were stumbling into a new room filled with ruins and painted walls. Kaguya blew and fire flew from her lips to light the troths of oil that circled the entire room. Vents high in the ceiling filtered in free air and carried out the old. Far, far up Hashirama could see the stars through the cracks.
There was a small pool near the front of the room Kaguya stopped beside. It was the same pool the brothers approached carefully, hesitating once they were at the edge of it. Kaguya lifted the hem of her yukata and stepped into the water, matching with her reflection from the ankles down. Sakura's reflection rippled and then detached, growing younger and brighter in color. Her hair turned short and her face bruised around her cuts as she screamed something to someone far off. The reflection of Sakura in the water turned and then waved to a pair of boys standing outside of the water's limits.
"What is this?" Hashirama asked.
"You already know," Kaguya answered.
Madara held his breath as she summoned a giant slug and healed an entire army before dashing off and crushing the bodies of her enemies. Hashirama gasped at the sight, having never seen her superior strength used in such a way.
"Is that me?" Hashirama asked.
Madara had to do a double take, because in the reflection there was a warped version of Hashirama with inverted black and brown eyes, laughing and complementing the young Sakura for having the strength of his granddaughter?
"What is the meaning of this?" Madara demanded. "They met before?"
"Briefly," Kaguya hummed, pointing to where Sakura passed Tobirama in the memory. There wasn't much contact at all, and most of what was shown was of her fights with men made enterally out of white.
"Who is her enemy? What battle is this?" Madara asked.
He caught his breath when Sakura drew up alongside two other young men. One of them was an Uchiha who looked too much like Izuna. Madara leaned in, watching her lips move soundlessly in the water. He couldn't be sure, but he thought she called him Sasuke-kun. She watched him in a way that made his stomach twist. The other male, the blond one, was strong but also sensitive to where Sakura cast her eyes. Madara didn't doubt the blond had a soft spot in his heart for Sakura.
"Her enemy appears,"Kaguya answered, staying still where she stood.
A man with half his face crushed and wrinkled fought with another, but then Madara saw someone new show up on the scene.
"Me?" he gasped in shock.
In the reflection a crazed version of himself, cracked like a china doll and sporting a face over one side of his chest. It was bazar to look at, but his confusion turned to horror as he watched Sakura run for him. The crazed Madara raised his weapon and even though he cried out for the reflection to stop, he had to watch a version of himself run her through.
"No!" he cried. Hashirama had to hold him back from the pool's edge. "Stop it. It never happened. I would have never done such a thing!" Madara protested.
Kaguya closed her eyes as the reflections played on."No. Not you. A different version of yourself would though."
"No! This is a lie, take it away. Sakura would-I wouldn't have done this. Sakura never said anything or acted any differently around me." Madara looked back over at Hashirama for confirmation and Hashirama nodded in agreement.
But then Madara remembered all the things he forgot-the times Sakura would flinch or look away form him until after he opened his mouth. It had happened after he grew up, when they rescued her from the sealing jar. When he looked like the version of himself in the reflection.
But she hadn't avoided him, and she never used out of a conversation with him. She had never been nervous with him. And if that vision had been true, wouldn't she have avoided him from the very beginning?
"What happened in this world?" Hashirama asked, stepping forward. He touched Madara's shoulder and encouraged his friend to step back and let the scene play out.
Kaguya glanced up at Madara and then back down at the images. "All your villainy paled in comparison to mine."
The trio watched as Sakura fought alongside her teammates and failed. The other two boys barely survived until the end, even when their teacher died protecting Sakura. She screamed for him desperately, even thought the water rippled with no sound. The other two joined together to seal Kaguya away, and almost failed, but Sakura was there, winding her fist back and sending the moon goddess sailing right into the boy's joint seal.
There was chaos as she killed them on her way out, and then a lot of darkness.
Days later, in the same filth and fabric, Sakura climbed the tree that grew around Kaguya, pale and bruised. As Sakura began to dig her hands into the tree's sap seal Kaguya spoke up, narrating the events from memory. "I asked her…'You hope to kill me? If only you could. There must always be a cursed one. That is the price of things. Magic, chakra, power…it isn't free. Don't you know that silly child?' She told me she was taking me with her and then I asked her if she would free me from my curse."
"And then?" Hashirama asked.
"Then there were years enough for her anger to fade after she woke up here and realized she wasn't dead and I wouldn't let het die to be with the rest of her friends and teammates. She hated me for a long time, but eventually she just…came around." Kaguya looked down at her hands and then past them to the last few seconds of the reflection. "I told her about my legacy and she…shared her history with me in turn. We were alone on this new earth for a long time."
"But you were enemies."
"We were both actors caught in the script of an ancient narrative by a capricious author," Kaguya snapped, showing real antagonism for the first time as her pale eyes flashed. She looked so little like Sakura now. "I was driven by a nature that wasn't mine, and guided by the voice of a devil. I was a mother. No mother wants ill for her children. What-what mother would?" Her eyes turned wide and desperate for the pair of them to understand. "I am terrifying and mighty to my enemies, but I earn my enemies. I will not allow my children to succumb. I will not allow Sakura to fade into a nothingness within me."
The pool turned black and the veins of oil diverted, extinguishing in some areas and then deepening in other. Madara and Hashirama both tensed when the new light showed off the husk of a dead monster in frozen agony, face twisted and gnarled. They turned and saw along the walls of the rooms what looked like lithographs of different animals and creatures. Hashirama saw one and stopped spinning.
"Kawarama?"
The nine tailed fox was painted larger than life with a swirling mass of tails behind his crouching form, teeth bared, claws extended. There was a crack through his picture, but the drawing was immaculate.
"We do not need him here. I do not need any of the tailed bests for this. Come."
Kaguya gestured to the pair of them and climbed up out of the pool and made her way to the mouth of the husk. It's mouth was wide and open, turned sideways on the floor so one might walk in between two rows of teeth on either side.
She hesitated at the edge of the jaw and then turned around to face the pair. "You have your marks, correct?"
Hashirama and Madara glanced down at their hands where a moon for Madara and a sun for Hashirama marred their palms. It was a mark she gave them.
"You need to cycle your chakra through it and use it to filter all the energy in your body. Then you will need to push me out of Sakura into the throat of this beast. I will be able to finally separate from Sakura, as she can not follow where I go." She caught Hashirama's eye and frowned. "This is the only way for Sakura to reemerge. Her will is strong, but she is no god."
"Very well," Hashirama said.
Beside him Madara lifted his hands as well. Together, like mirrors or brothers, the pair began to cycle their chakra through the mark, faster and then faster. The marks seemed to break down and seep into their chakra, flavoring it with something a bit more cosmic and wild. Hashirama had been bracing for it, but it still it almost made him falter. Madara's control was just as strong, but the strain showed on his face.
Kaguya began to filter her own chakra through Sakura's body, raising it above Sakura's natural, doormat, chakra. It cycled faster and harsher, making the distinction between the two chakras near blinding. After years of intermixing, they were finally coming apart.
Her hands came together and she fixed them into a seal, then another, and then another, flickering with her fingers through another half a dozen seals, twice as long as the typical jutsu. Even Madara had a hard time catching up and watching all the seals.
Kaguya grunted and then looked up, her eyes start white and veined like a Hyuga's. "Now."
Madara and Hashirama pushed with their chakra in their hands, and it crackled violently with Kaguya's when it made contact. Kaguya's face cracked and her body broke apart like the earth after an earthquake. A crack ran up her face and split under her third eye. A chunk broke off and lifted. Underneath, Sakura's green eyes were wide.
"Stop!" Sakura screamed. "You're killing her!"
Madara flinched at the sound of her voice. It was so different from Kaguya's, but he had been listening to the rabbit goddess for days, or long enough to get used to it. He opened his own mouth to measure her, to explain what they were doing, but Hashirama was the one who pushed ahead. Hashirama's chakra spiked, louder and wilder than before, loud enough to drown out her screams. Madara flinched, but shut his eyes and pushed as well, telling himself again and again that what he was doing was for her good-no matter how she screamed.
"Don't stop," Kaguya growled even as her horns grew out, longer and wilder with wide spirals curved like the points of a crown.
"Kaguya," Sakura cried with the same mouth and a different voice. "They're killing you."
She sounded desperate and afraid enough to break Madara's heart. After what he just saw, hurting Sakura was the last thing he wanted to do. It disgusted him to know what he did was necessary. He never wanted to make her cry again.
The cracks over Kaguya's body spread far and deep, she was barely together anymore, but what was left of her looked peaceful. Hashirama screamed something like a war cry and pushed on. Madara followed through and together they broke Kaguya's shell off Sakura. The mouth behind her groaned and al the broken pieces of Kaguya were sucked back into the dark throat of a dormant giant.
"Kaguya!" Sakura sobbed.
There was a loud echo of an explosion and then the white noise rang in their ears. In that moment Kaguya's voice cut through on a whisper one last time. "You were never mean for fear and blood, my child. Be better than a god, the world has no more need of them. I'm sorry for what I took from you. Be happy, Sakura."
And then they all fell apart. Sakura collapsed like a puppet with her strings cut. Madara dropped heavy onto his knees and braced against the floor with his palms while Hashirama went limp.
There was a groaning echo as the husk like statue began to pull back and close its mouth. Deep in the dark of its thought a god was putting herself back together, damed to never die but doomed to sleep forever.
Sakura turned over, tears trailing down her face from her glassy green eyes, still too weak to stand. Hashirama crawled up next and tugged her over to his lap to cradle in his arms. Madara approached her then, still on his hands and knees.
"Sakura?" he asked her, voice soft and fun of fear. "Sakura please, look up. We're here. You're safe."
Hashirama reached down to brush his knuckles under her eyes, smearing her tears. He only seemed sad to see her crying whereas Madara still felt convicted about what they did to Kaguya, a woman Sakura loved.
"We'll keep you safe, no matter what it takes, Sakura," Hashirama added. "We love you so please don't cry."
Sakura reached her own hands up to her face and ground the heels of her palms over her eyes, hiding them from Hashirama and Madara. "I didn't deserve it. I meant to-ugh. Naruto and Sasuke died because of her but I couldn't help it. I'm sorry I-I'm so-sorry…" Sakura moaned and hunched up in Hashirama's arms. Her shoulders shook with silent sobs.
"You loved her. You don't need to apologize for that," Madara whispered in what he hoped was a soothing voice. "She loved you too, enough to die for you."
Sakura's sobs broke into smaller hiccups that Hashirama cooed away while rubbing circles into her back. He meant down and kissed the crown of her head in front of Madara before whispering in her ear.
"It's going to be okay. We're going to take care of you. We're your family and we love you just as well as she did. We're not going to let you be alone," Hashirama said.
Over her shoulder Madara met Hashirama's eyes, and then swallowed before nodding. "Yeah."
The three of them sat together in silence, interrupted only by the occasional hiccup or cry from Sakura as she exhausted herself on tears in Hashirama's arms. Around them, the fires died out and the bioluminescent moss glowed to light, coloring them all in shades of blue and green.
AN:Ta da!
I'm sorry it's late. I meant to publish this earlier but...yeah, sorry. I hate how long it is taking me to update each chapter, because once I get the time to sit down and write it, the story comes quite easily. It's just a struggle finding the time and energy to spend. Ah. I was able to get Izuna's part finished during my break, but that went too fast and it was crazy.
I know I'm in the minority when I say that I'm a fan of Kaguya's potential, because I think she was just dealt the worse hand by Kishimoto instead of being utilized as a character with agency. Her whole existence and purpose in the manga series is to be a crazy woman scapegoat for poor writing. To show up at the end and make everyone confused about aliens and chakra. She could have been an interesting character, but no, can't have that. It's a common theme with the females he writes.
I've always had a sort of morbid fascination in the relationships between humans and monsters, and now, humans and gods. What does it mean to be divine, or a Kami? How do they love? From the beginning, Kaguya and Sakura were together in this story and I'm a little sad to see this scene come about. I wanted more time for fluff and fun, but the narrative demands it's due and I've been meaning to get Sakura to this point for a while now. She's finally without her godlike powers. What will she do?
Better question: What will her boys do?
Madara and Hashirama both have to take her back and that trek back to the village isn't going to be awkward free. Someone has something they want to confront her about while she has her own confrontations to make.
Thank you for being patient and waiting and letting me know you're still reading! You guys are the best!
Please review and let me know what you thought please!