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CHAPTER TWELVE

"War is cruelty, and none can make it gentle."

- Gilbert Parker -

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The village is burning. The Uchiha clan is famed for fire techniques, and now that they're in danger, their fear is consuming Konoha. Sakura sees shops and apartment buildings reduced to ash, orange embers flickering on the wind. Smoke billows all over, clouding the morning sky, making her cough.

Sasuke. The world is falling down around her, and even as she runs home—she must find her mother and make sure she's safe—he's all she can think about. The look of hatred he shot at her as she fled, leaving his cousin dead on the ground behind her. It's done, whatever love was growing between them, crushed underfoot with one blow to Saiyuri's chest.

She doesn't have the luxury of stopping, of taking even one moment to mourn her loss properly, but she cries as she runs. Fire and salt rest on her tongue, ashes and tears. This is supposed to be the first step toward freedom, but Sakura can only taste destruction.

She finds her mom outside their apartment building in her combat gear, and Sakura throws her arms around her before she can say a word. For a moment, she isn't a strong kunoichi or a woman who's known love, just a girl held close by her mother. She could be small again, a child made safe simply by her parent's presence. It can't last, though. There isn't time.

Sakura steps back, wipes her face free of tears, and says, "Mom, I need you to help protect civilians. Things are crazy out there, and a lot of people are getting hurt."

Her mother nods, then asks, "What will you do?"

Sakura gives the best smile she can, but it feels feeble on her lips. "I'm going to fight."

Mom cups her face between her hands, kisses her on the forehead, and says, "I believe in you, Sakura. I know you'll survive."

She wants to hug her mother again, but she's already spent too long here.

Large groups of the Uchiha and Hyuuga clans left to capture Naruto, weakening their ability to hold Konoha, but both sides have been caught off guard. It's chaos, fire and erupting earth, buildings crumbling and shuriken cutting through the air. This isn't a battle, just rebels against Uchiha clansmen and their loyalists, slaughtering whichever enemies they come upon in the streets.

And Sakura is among them, killing, killing.

She stabs an Uchiha boy no older than her with a kunai laced with a fast acting poison, and he falls to the ground, seizing. His veins turn black, spreading across his skin like rivers of ink.

She punches a Hyuuga girl in the cheek, and her skull splits open, ripe blood and brains showing beneath cracked bone.

Then she comes across a little Uchiha genin, brave but unskilled, and she disables him with a genjutsu. He falls to the pavement, lost in dreams.

Sakura finds Kakashi, Obito, and Rin encircled by enemies, and she rocks the earth with a strike to the ground, knocking down half of the shiboi around them. She leaves them then; those three can handle themselves.

The Uchiha compound is surrounded by her comrades, and just as she joins them, they take down the wall. Minato leads them inside, flashing from one enemy to another, taking them down with quick slashes to the throat and stabs to the gut. It's a sight she'll never forget, men and women falling, death delivered in seconds.

Minato leads them to the center of the compound, to the homes of the most influential families, and a Nara man shouts, "The Uchiha aren't the only ones who can use fire!"

There is a terrible beauty to it, wind and fire working together to burn down these fine houses, monuments to Uchiha wealth.

But then she hears the screams from within, and children run out of their homes, innocents who had been left behind to hide.

"Stop!" Sakura screams. "There are kids in there!"

Someone has the mercy to use a water jutsu, but the blaze is spreading down the street, consuming, relentless—

Sakura runs toward Sasuke's house, because she can feel Mikoto's chakra inside, waning and flitting like an injured butterfly, trying to escape.

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The Yondaime undoubtedly sent out a party to retrieve them and drag them back to Konoha, but Naruto and Hinata kept ahead of them—which didn't seem right. With the might of the Hyuuga behind a search like that, someone should have caught up with them, should have given them a challenge. But they make it out of the Fire Country uncaught and unharmed.

When their exhaustion slows them down too much to continue on, they hide in a cave on the edge of the River Country. The rebellion has allies here and in Sand, though Naruto doesn't know who they are or where they might be. Still, safer to be in friendly territory than that of enemies.

Rain started falling almost as soon as they crossed the border, and Hinata has been shivering for miles. Once they're settled deep in the cave, and Naruto is certain that no light can escape it and give away their position, he makes a fire with stray branches and a simple jutsu. Hinata leans close, rubbing her hands together over the flames. Her hair sticks to the sides of her face, as soaked as her clothes.

Naruto is cold too, but it seems like a distant matter compared to Hinata's comfort. He sits beside her, close enough that they could share body heat if either of them had any.

"Are you okay?" he asks.

Hinata lays her hands in her lap. "I'm worried about Neji and the other people in the branch family. My father, he—he won't accept what I've done. He might take it out on them."

Naruto didn't think about that when he asked Hinata to run away with him. He didn't think about much, except that he needed to get her away from Hiashi.

"They'll be okay," he says. It's an empty sentiment, because he can't know that, but he has to try to make her feel better.

Hinata shakes her head. "This was selfish. I shouldn't have done it. Maybe I could go back and—"

"No!" Naruto grasps her arms and turns her to face him. "Please, Hinata. If you go home, he'll hurt you."

He brushes her bangs away from her forehead and traces one line of the mark there. Hiashi caged Hinata, his own daughter, and he deserves to suffer for it. Naruto will make sure that he does.

"I've carried the seal for one day," Hinata says. "Neji has carried it most of his life, and he never ran away."

Naruto slides his fingers down the side of her face. He doesn't know why, but he can't seem to stop touching her.

"Neji didn't have anybody to run with him. You do."

Hinata closes her eyes. It's the most vulnerable thing a Hyuuga can do, to render their greatest strength useless, and he hopes that it means she feels safe with him. As safe as he feels with her.

She turns into his hand. "You're the reason." Her lips move against his palm as she speaks. "I—I wanted to be with you more than I wanted to keep my family safe. Selfish, like I said."

"Be with me?" Naruto asks.

The way she said it, it almost sounded like she meant—but no. Hinata can't want him like that. She's Hinata, the rightful heiress to one of the oldest, most powerful shinobi clans in the world. She's smart, compassionate, beautiful. And he's dead last, an idiot, the biggest loser out of their class. Naruto doesn't believe in blood or destiny, but he knows when a girl is out of his league.

Her eyes are squeezed shut tightly now. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have—never mind."

"Tell me," Naruto says. "Please."

She looks at him then, her pale eyes wide. He's seen her anxious a hundred times before, but she's never seemed more nervous than she does right now.

"I like you, Naruto. I have for… for a very long time."

She's always been nice, even when everyone else treated him like trash, but Naruto chalked it up to her innate sweetness. He still can't imagine Hinata being mean to anyone, but apparently it wasn't simply her nature behind her kindness to him.

"You mean you like like me, right? Boyfriend-girlfriend like?"

Hinata blushes so fiercely that he can feel the warmth of it against his hand. "Yes, I—I meant it that way."

No one has ever liked him before. Not Sakura, despite his best efforts, and certainly not any other kunoichi he knows.

Maybe he likes her too, and somehow didn't notice. It isn't that he's blind; he can't look at Hinata without seeing how pretty she is. She's such a good person too, the sort of girl any guy would be lucky to have. And he'd do nearly anything for her. It only just occurs to him that he wouldn't leave Konoha, his family and friends, for someone who wasn't precious to him.

Naruto presses his forehead to hers. He took off his wet hitai-ate earlier, so it's bare skin to bare skin, his clear and hers marked.

"Can I kiss you?" he asks.

Instead of answering, Hinata kisses him.

Her lips are cool against his, but it still sends a rush of heat all over him. It isn't what he expected a kiss to be like, so gentle. She tastes like rainwater, and it isn't until he notices that that he realizes his mouth is open on hers. Hinata makes a small noise, almost a whine, and opens hers too. Naruto pulls her onto his lap, and she steadies herself by grabbing his shoulders. She's pressed close but her jacket is too covering, and he wants it off. To feel how soft she is without it in the way.

He breaks the kiss and touches the zipper on her coat. "Do you mind if I…?"

Her pink blush spreads all the way down to her throat, disappearing beneath her collar, but she nods.

Naruto slowly unzips her jacket, then parts it further, until it falls down her shoulders. She only wears a black shirt beneath it, and it fits tightly enough that he can see her shape for the first time. Round breasts, slender waist, wide hips. He knows he must be blushing too now, because if he'd ever stopped to imagine what sort of girl he'd be most attracted to, she'd probably look like Hinata from head to toe.

He's been so busy mooning after Sakura that he didn't see the beauty right in front of his face.

Naruto looks her in her eyes and says, "You're perfect."

When he puts his hands on her waist she squeaks.

"Don't worry, I'm not gonna—" He swallows. "I won't touch you anywhere you don't want."

Hinata ducks down, hiding her face against his throat. Her breath fans across his skin as she says, "I do want you to. I just—I'm nervous."

He's caught on the first thing she said. That she wants—what exactly? For him to cup her breasts? Kiss her there? Touch her… other places?

But wanting and asking for are two different things.

Naruto nuzzles her wet hair. Beneath the rain, she smells like some kind of herbs. If he lives to be a hundred, he'll never forget the taste and scent of her tonight.

It kills him, but he says, "We need to get some sleep, or we won't have the energy to keep traveling. I'll take first watch, okay?"

"All right."

Hinata draws away but doesn't climb off of him yet. Her lips are red and swollen from kissing, eyes heavy lidded. Her lashes are long and dark, and he wonders how he never noticed that before.

There's so much he failed to notice about Hinata, but he won't make that mistake again.

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His home is ablaze, every childhood memory burning to the ground, but that's of no consequence compared to what he finds outside: Sakura bent over his mother, sobbing. Sasuke can feel a flicker of life, but his hope dwindles when Sakura looks up at him, shaking her head.

"I'm so sorry. I healed the worst of her burns and the smoke damage to her lugs, but… she went without oxygen for too long." Her face twists, as agonized as if she was the one to be caught in the fire. "I did everything I could."

Sasuke kneels on his mother's other side. Her breaths are slow and shallow, and from the way Sakura is holding her hands over her chest, he understands that it's only her healing that is keeping his mother breathing.

"She's not going to wake up?"

Sasuke never asks unnecessary questions, but he needs to hear this. Because if even some small part of him doubts, he won't be able to do what must be done.

"No," Sakura whispers. "When I stop helping her breathe, she won't be able to do it on her own."

Distantly, Sasuke hears the sounds of battle. People screaming and fighting and dying. His people, because he's too weak to protect them.

But not for much longer.

He's heard the legends. The next step is clear, inescapable. So vile that he can barely consider it, but he has to. If he doesn't do this, he might lose Konoha.

Sasuke brushes his mother's hair away from her forehead. He feels the most absurd urge to call her mommy. Something he hasn't said since he was a child of three or four. It's almost as if he's pushed backward from a man to a boy to a baby. Here at the end, he finds himself at the beginning again.

He whispers, "I love you, Mom."

It's too private for Sakura to witness, this girl who has betrayed him, but saying goodbye is more important than anything else right now.

Sasuke closes his eyes, and in that darkness he remembers. His mother carding her fingers through his hair when he was sick. Her voice as she sang him to sleep, the softest lullaby. The smell of her perfume when she hugged him. Love love love, shown in so many unspoken ways.

"Let her go," Sasuke says.

Sakura hesitates. "Are you sure?"

"Just do it."

As soon as she draws her hands away, his mom's chest falls still, no longer breathing. In a minute her heart will stop, and she'll be dead in every way.

Now. He has to do it now, or it will be too late.

Sasuke grasps his mother's chin and jerks her head to the side sharply once, with enough force to break her neck. It's a mercy, he knows, and an inevitable one at that, but it doesn't stop him from crying.

"Sasuke!"

He wipes his cheeks, forcing himself to breathe evenly. He can't afford to lose control, or this will all have been for nothing.

When he looks at Sakura, she gasps. "Your eyes…"

Sasuke doesn't know what she sees. The Mangekyo Sharingan looks different on each of its wielders.

Sakura has a flair for breaking genjutsu, but she won't be able to escape Tsukuyomi. No one can. Sasuke pushes her into a world of red and black, like blood and shadow. He's kind enough to make it a gentle dream, one that will hold her for the next day without causing her suffering. He's inspired by the genjutsu he fell into during their first chunin exams. He builds a pleasant world for Sakura, one where they're married with a daughter, and Konoha is at peace.

Sasuke catches her before she falls, leaving them in an odd embrace over his mother's body. He stands, pulls Sakura into his arms, and carries her like a bride into the woods, well away from the fire and the fighting. She can dream here safely until the battle is done.

And tomorrow, when it's all over, she'll have to face justice.

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Sakura knows in a vague and distant way that she's dreaming. This world is built in shades of red and black, oddly ominous colors in such a peaceful place.

Sasuke lies on the sofa in the living room with the baby asleep across his chest. Sarada is perfect, quick to smile and slow to cry, and she wheezes out precious little snores as she naps. Scarlet sunlight streams in through the windows, almost painfully bright.

Red like fire and blood, like the blistering burns on Mikoto's chest and the flames consuming Sasuke's house—

"Don't think about that," Sasuke says, and suddenly she doesn't.

"Will you put Sarada in her crib?" he asks. "I'm pretty sure if I move she'll wake up."

Sakura scoops up her daughter into a gentle embrace. Sarada wiggles but doesn't fuss. She never fusses, sweet thing.

Sakura carries Sarada to her nursery and lays her down in her crib. She squirms again, tiny face scrunched up, then settles. Quiet, breathing evenly.

Not like Mikoto, who couldn't breathe on her own at the end—

Sasuke wraps his arms around her from behind and kisses the top of her head.

"Your shift at the hospital doesn't start until five, right?"

Sakura can guess where this is going, and she smiles.

"Mhmm. Do you have any ideas about how we can spend the next two hours?" she asks innocently.

His hands drift lower, grasping her hips. "I have a few."

Sasuke leads her to their bedroom. It's a big house, somehow foreign and familiar at once.

A girl like her would never be allowed to live in a place this grand. She wouldn't be allowed to marry Sasuke either. Any children she gave him would be bastards who couldn't carry the name Uchiha—

Sasuke kisses her, and Sakura can't remember what was worrying her so much a moment ago. There's no reason to worry here, in this shadowed paradise. No reason at all.

Sasuke undresses her slowly and carefully, as though they have all the time in the world. It's a welcome luxury after all the months they spent sneaking around, stealing each kiss because they couldn't share them openly. Now they have the freedom to indulge in patient lovemaking, because no clock ticks down the minutes they have to spare.

Sasuke moves on top of her, kissing her with each thrust. She feels connected in a new way, closer than ever because there are no secrets between them anymore.

Her lies far outnumber the kisses they've shared, and she knows Sasuke would never forgive her for that—

"I love you," he whispers. "More than anything."

When Sakura looks up, his dark eyes change.

The Sharingan comes to life, but it looks wrong, different. Distorted into a star shaped pattern, like three overlapping eyes within his irises, blooming into a crimson flower—

Sasuke rocks into her deeper, and Sakura cries out, clinging to him. Lost in pleasure, trapped in the sweetest dream, and she hopes she never wakes from it.

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Fire consumes Konoha. Red, mundane flames and the black of Amaterasu, destroying everything. Rebel, loyalist, they're all caught in it, but nothing burns more fiercely than Sasuke's anger.

Sakura lied and Naruto lied and Itachi lied. All the people he loves have played him for a fool. All but his mother, and now she's gone. Dead at his own hands, sacrificed to give him the greatest power an Uchiha can hope for.

He needs every bit of it to face Minato. He's heard the tales of his prowess, but they don't live up to the man himself. Naruto's father moves with impossible speed, disappearing in the flash he is so famous for and reappearing a moment later, poised to strike. Sasuke has to call upon Susanoo for protection, an impenetrable shield that even Minato can't get through.

Orochimaru battles Tsunade, and in the distance he can see Ino, Shikamaru, and Chouji squaring off against Masami and one of her sisters. He wants to protect her, but even looking away from Minato for a moment is dangerous.

Naruto's father is out for blood, which is fine by Sasuke, because he is too. Minato darts out of the way of each of his attacks, so fast that Sasuke feels like he's swatting at an irksome fly.

Kakashi seems to appear out of thin air and shouts at Minato, "We need to retreat!"

No. He can't let them get away. They're traitors, every single one of them, their hands red with his mother's blood. He's seen so many of his kinsmen fall tonight, but the tide turned when he joined the battle with the power of the Mangekyo Sharingan. Twenty-odd rebels are trapped in Tuskuyomi, a dozen were burned in the first wave of Amaterasu, and he's this close to killing their leader.

"Get everyone out!" Minato screams, and then Kakashi is gone, no doubt doing as he's told.

Sasuke sends a burst of black fire at Minato, but he dodges it. He dodges everything, the bastard.

What if Kakashi finds Sakura? He'll steal her away, take her far from Sasuke's reach, and that's unacceptable. He needs to end this fight quickly—

Minato summons a creature unlike any Sasuke has ever seen before. A great, white hawk, big enough to put Manda to shame. And when it opens its silver beak, a storm comes out. Dousing flames all over and freezing Uchiha and loyalists where they stand, their feet and legs caught in ice.

Sasuke has no choice but to fight the hawk, and in the moment that he turns to face it, Minato slips away.

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Sakura wakes in an unfamiliar bed. Sunlight streams through the curtained window, golden and warm.

Golden, not red. She's free of the genjutsu.

It's morning, and the village outside is quiet. Too quiet. She missed the battle, and now she has no idea what awaits her outside. She doesn't know whether the Uchiha still hold Konoha, or if the rebels have taken it. They needed to win in one stroke, because anything else means a war at best and failure at worst. And failure is tantamount to mass execution.

Sakura sits up, and it's only then that she realizes how tired she is. Utterly exhausted, like when she's spent too much chakra—

Her chakra. It feels wrong. Subdued somehow, tamped down. She tries to heal a minor burn on her left forearm, and nothing happens. It's like she's reaching into a well, her fingertips just shy of touching the water.

That's when she sees them. Metal bracelets around her wrists, almost like shackles. No, exactly like shackles, because even though they're small and light, she can sense that they're what's suppressing her chakra.

She gets up, fights a wave of dizziness, and heads for the door. It opens just as she reaches it.

An Uchiha officer stands before her, and she can see two more behind him. That tells her all she needs to know about the state of the village. The rebels lost. The Uchiha Clan still holds Konoha.

And she's a prisoner.

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AN: Thank you so much to everyone who has given me feedback on this story, especially my dear friends DeepPoeticGirl and Heat in Freezing. I value every review, favorite, and follow. I hope you liked this chapter. If you have a moment to comment, please let me know what you think. :)

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