A/N: I don't think I ever had the chance to tell you guys that there's fan art for this. Amyenah on Deviant Art has done a couple. Check 'em out! :D

If anyone ever wants to fan art my stories, let me know if you want me to post it here. I love fan art! And no, I don't care if you think you suck. I love all of it. It's just so uplifting that anyone feels enough love for something I've written to art for it. ^_^ Yes, I verbed 'art.'

Chapter Thirty-seven: Illusion

As the fox shrank into little more than a ball of energy and slammed with gale force into the body of Uzumaki Mito, Madara was silent, too horrified and dumbstruck to say anything or even move. Judging by the fact that he had not been killed yet, Madara assumed Hashirama was experiencing the same effect.

But then Mito fell to the ground, convulsing with pain and keening, wailing sounds that shouldn't come from a human. It could only mean that she was suffering, and Madara's heart tore in two. He screamed, his body moving impulsively, carrying him to her. It was only years of experience and honing his instincts that allowed his blade to rise in time to meet his opponent's. "You won't go near her again," Hashirama snarled.

"She's dying!" he protested, desperately attacking, trying to fling Hashirama's sword away. Strike after vicious strike, they fought, for once attempting fervently to kill each other; Madara, to get to Mito, and Hashirama, to prevent just that. "Please!" he cried, his face damp, although he didn't much care. "Don't you care about her at all?"

Hashirama's gaze flickered sideways in between strikes, for the barest fraction of a second, and Madara saw. The Sharingan missed absolutely nothing, even glances so brief and diagnostic as that one. Yes, Hashirama cared. He loved her. How could anyone not love her?

There was a distortion in the air, the odd sound of a vacuum imploding, and a cry of alarm. Someone else had arrived, apparently to care for Mito. Thank the gods. He didn't care who it was anymore, be it Touka or even Tobirama or anyone else.

With Mito's condition no longer in his hands, he had other things to focus on. Like the fact that Mito had betrayed him, and that Hashirama was pressing him back with furious slashes. Apparently, he had remembered how angry he was at Madara. Well and good. Madara could embrace his darkness, too.

With a wordless, animal cry, Madara abandoned all restraint and advanced ferociously.

The first thing that registered in his senses was the scent, like fresh pine and newly turned earth. It was a welcome scent, one that reminded him of home. He breathed deeply, feeling completely at ease, freed from the restrictions of 'the village' and the expectation that he be some sort of role model for the younger generation, free of Hashirama's long reaching shadow and the constant feeling of inadequacy, that he might never catch up to the Senju warlord and would forever be doomed to be second. For a moment, Madara just relaxed, basking in the scent, glad to feel free once again. His mind lulled, drifting off to who-knew-where, content to breathe in the clean scent of virgin forest, letting his sore muscles rest.

A few minutes later, he felt her presence like a warm blanket on a January night. She was snuggled into his side, burning from within like an inner fire, keeping him warm body and soul. He cracked open one eye slowly, hardly daring, worried he would see something else in her place, that it was all a dream. But no, there she was, naked and sleeping, a serene, secretive little smile curving those delicious lips of hers. "Mito," he whispered, a soft caress on his own ears. He touched her lips with his fingertips, willing this to be real.

The moment his skin touched the sensitive blush of her lips, her mouth quirked in a happy, sleepy smile. "Madara," she said, the sound of his name in her voice a thrill to all of his senses. He had to stop himself from jumping for joy, so he settled for kissing those wonderful lips, devouring them, losing himself to complete and utter happiness. It was the kind of bliss that was so complete that he thought his soul would leave this world, or maybe that it already had. Beneath him, she chuckled with mischief, wiggling away from him to tease him, tossing her head from side to side to try to avoid his kiss, playing. "You're incorrigible," she laughed.

Her wiggling only served to excite him more. He pinned her with his body, pinned her wrists with his hands. She settled back and stilled, daring him from beneath the lashes of her eyes, a gaze so glazed over that it seared him straight to his gut. He growled, low in his throat, overcome with desire. "You make me crazy," he murmured, lowering his face to her neck. "You stay, you go, you stay…" he chastised fondly. "You love me, you love him… How am I supposed to keep you here?" He nuzzled her neck, reveling in the feel of her skin against his face. Stay with me, he willed her.

"I can stay with you here," she offered, her voice husky, eyelids hooded with desire. She squirmed beneath him, her knees caressing up the insides of his thighs, ignited passions long denied.

He shut his eyes, charged with electricity, chin tipping skyward. He groaned again, delighting in the way this woman could enliven him so quickly. "And where is here?" he purred, cracking open an eyelid. She didn't have to answer, though, for it was then that he saw. Around him towered the moss covered trees and dappled sunlight patches of the grove in which she had healed his injuries. It was the place that they had first met, when he was certain he had been rescued by an angel, or that he had died and the heavens were filled with pretty women (or just one, in particular). "Impossible," he blurted breathlessly, overcome with awe.

"Yes, quite," she said with a giggle. "This is where we first met, remember?"

He nodded dumbly. "Yeah. But… how?"

Her hands roamed, disappearing underneath the hem of his shirt, playing with the edges. "Forget about that," she commanded, nipping at his collarbone. "Take this off. It's in my way."

He frowned, gripping her hands, stalling her. Not that he didn't want, but something was not right here. "Mito," he barked with an air of authority. "Where are we?"

She pouted. "I already told you."

"No, for real," he demanded seriously.

She sighed and turned her face away. "I can tell you, but then you'll be sad. Then you won't want me anymore."

"Mito," he said more fiercely, grasping her jaw and turning her face toward him. "There's nothing that can ever make me stop wanting you. I love you, truly, like no one else ever could, not even Hashirama. He could fuck you every day from sunup to sundown and I would never love you any less because I know that when you're with him, you lie." He dipped then, kissing her tenderly, releasing her hands. "I know," he whispered against her lips, pressing their bodies together, "what a kunoichi looks like, and what she is expected to do for mission success. It is he that is the victim, me the victor. Our hearts and souls are entwined. Your lips may lie, but your heart never does." He pressed his hand to her chest then, felt the powerful drum of her heartbeat. "Ahh," he sighed with pleasure. "There's the truth." He smirked at her.

Her gaze softened. "Madara," she whispered, her throat constricted. "Don't make me say it. Please, just don't."

He looked down upon her face, so filled with pain and longing. He could stay here forever, with her, frozen in a moment in time that was no longer real, couldn't be real. If he stayed here, wherever here really was, he would be lying to himself. Somewhere, in another time, he and Mito were not together. A war was being waged, man to man, and he had no idea who was even winning it. He considered swallowing his curiosity and his pride, doing as she wished, to stay here with her until his life force died out. It would be a sweet way to go.

And yet, he needed to know. Perhaps there was still time, to save them both. "Tell me," he commanded softly, no less powerful for its lack of volume.

Her pupils dilated, blown out by his order. Her body went slack beneath him. "You're dying," she barely spoke. "This is a dream."

Her words struck him like a faceful of ice. "Dying?" he choked out. "No…" he denied, eyes wide with disbelief. "No, I can't be dying. I… I…" he stammered, struggling to find the words. "You said you'd leave with me. You told me you loved me, that we should run away together." The memories of the Kyuubi and her role in their battle coalesced, reminding him. "You—betrayed me! If I am dying, it's your fault!" He pushed himself to his feet, glaring down at the woman who had deceived him, thoroughly, raping the last shred of his humanity, leaving him emptier than void.

She curled up upon herself, holding her knees to her chest, looking troubled. "I didn't want to!" she protested, tears forming in her treacherous eyes.

"How am I supposed to believe that?" he begged, tears forming in his own eyes, burning with the sensitivity of tender blood vessels, exposed from use of the Mangekyou. "Mito… how could you?" His voice broke. He hated how weak he sounded, how pathetic, but then, she had always managed to soften all of his hard edges. It practically blew his poor heart wide open, priming it for total annihilation.

"Just once, could you think of your daughter, instead of yourself?" she cried out, immediately clamping a hand over her mouth in horror at what she had just said, for she had just, from her own lips, declared the absolute truth.

His lips curved cruelly. "Ahhh," he crooned knowingly. "I see. You did all of this to keep Momo-chan safe. Did you not think I could have provided for her?"

"Madara," she started helplessly, breathing in deeply. "If it had been any different… if you had only found us in time… if we had never said goodbye…" she loosed the rest of her breath in one frustrated huff. "I can't afford to be selfish. I love you more than anything… except for Momoka."

You're dying. This is a dream.

None of this was real. She was not real. Nothing that she said was real. So he turned his back on her. "You're an illusion," he declared, feeling his heart growing cold, perhaps for real. After all, somewhere else entirely, he was dying, probably bleeding out from a wound her treacherous husband had inflicted upon his person. "My Mito would never have allowed me to die."

"I still wouldn't—"

"THEN HEAL ME YOU TRAITOROUS BITCH!" he shouted at her, rounding on her, his emotions breaking free, a torrent of rage and hurt so potent he was sure he was literally shattering from the inside out, blowing out his chest in a storm of glass and steel, cut to ribbons from the shock of betrayal and heartbreak.

She recoiled, shrinking away from him. And then, without another word, she faded away from their special place, leaving him alone at last.

Illusions, he scoffed. He knew a thing or two about illusions, oh yes. The Mito that walked the living world was an abomination, a bastardization of the woman he had known, hollowed out and replaced with something foul and sly, a cunning she-fox that played with feelings and made men dance upon the palm of her hand. That wasn't the woman that he had loved. That woman was here, trapped in the dream. He wasn't sure how, but the certainty of it snuggled deep within the wounded part of his heart and refused to die, for there was no possible way that he could ever believe that his true love had made the conscious decision to kill him.

Not Mito.

Dreams were just illusions. It wasn't too late. Somehow, he could fix this.

I promised, he thought. I said I would protect you, that I'd find you. If you're trapped in some kind of illusion and cannot be freed… I will join you there.

"Madara," she wept, her hands glowing with the green of her chakra, torn between saving him and letting him die. Her hands darted towards him and away, breaking apart inside. "If it had been any different… if you had only found us in time… if we had never said goodbye… I can't afford to be selfish. I love you more than anything… except for Momoka." Finally, settling on healing him, she placed her hands on his chest. The blood was gushing at an alarming rate, staining the ground. His chest hardly moved at all, his skin already too pale from blood loss.

His chest rose slowly, filling with cumbersome air, trying to speak. "You're an illusion," he rasped, his voice trapped in a lake of blood. "My Mito… would never… have… allowed me…. to… die."

Her breath caught, her heart pounding so hard she could barely think. All the force of her chakra filled her to bursting, fueled by the malevolent presence of another signature, far more sinister but promising absolute success. She would heal him if it killed her, bring him back from the brink of death itself. She no longer cared about her earlier decision to let him die. She would heal him and walk away. Perhaps now that he had been soundly defeated, he would stay gone and leave them in peace. Still, she could not bear to watch him die. She was so filled with the power of two chakras that she was sure her skin would burn off, that she would simply flare into a single, blinding flash of light and be no more. She sobbed, thrusting her palms against his chest, ready to prove him wrong. "I still wouldn't—"

He coughed, a fountain of blood spurting from the depth of his throat. He was drowning, she realized, shutting her eyes. He swallowed a deep, deep breath, his throat rattling, clogged with the clot of lifeblood. When he spoke, his voice was barely audible, but she heard every torturous, crystal clear word of it. "Then heal me you traitorous bitch," he sneered, the corners of his lips curling,

She was so startled that she fell backward, severing the connection between them. Then he went still, and so did she.

She didn't come back to earth and the harsh reality of what her life had just become until Touka's heavy hand fell painfully upon her shoulder. For once, she was grateful for the pain, for it shocked her back to her senses. "What did he say?" Touka inquired.

Mito stared at the dead husk of a man she had once known. He had been beautiful and perfect and so, so passionate. She blamed no one but herself for the words that had blistered forth from his mouth. "'Goodbye,'" she mumbled, lying for her own sake.

Touka squeezed her shoulder in understanding, though Mito was certain that she had heard the lie anyway. Touka was like that. "Let's go home, Mito-kun," she bade her gently.

Mito nodded, swallowing the lump in her throat, unable to tear her eyes away from him. "Yeah," she agreed. "Let's go home."