Hello old friends! I'll keep it short, just want to wish you all well and hope you're safe and healthy. Continue on and enjoy :)

CH 22

When you have a headache, sometimes it can get so insufferable that the only escape is to go to sleep. The relief that follows when you wake up hours later, possibly the next day, pain-free, is nothing short of heavenly relief. But for those times when you desperately fall unconscious, only to wake up haunted by that same pain again...utter tragedy. So when Sakura passed out along the way in Sasuke's arms while they flew through the Fourth Circle, she was nothing short of devastated to be woken in the same burning state of torture from before.

Sasuke felt her stir against him and glanced down at her strained features under the smothering pain of the Third Circle's sludge. He sighed. "We're close, I can see the rocks that line the River."

He picked up the pace, red eyes scanning the barren terrain for a water source. If he could just get her under the water that feeds into the River, she'd at least experience some form of relief. At least that's what his plan was. He couldn't recall in any of his years of existence or the passed down stories of his predecessors any detailed accounts of a soul being healed by the hell waters. Still, it was worth a shot.

"There," he murmured to himself, gliding down to a stream a few yards from the river bank.

"I don't think I can move," Sasuke croaked, all her energy having gone to the unrelenting pain.

"I'll wash you, then." The devilman lowered her onto the rocks, her body submitting to the angles beneath it. Her hair was thick with the dark mud and her skin at its clearest was stained by it. "I'm going to need to take your tunic off to rinse it as well."

She gave a meek nod, too exhausted for modesty. With careful hands, as delicate as a devil could be, Sasuke slid the soiled fabric off of her before resting her directly in the shallow water flow.

"Oh my god," she breathed as the cool water started to wash away the oily layers of muck from her skin. Sasuke's shoulders dropped in relief once he knew that this was actually working. His eyes trailed her body, watching the patches of black crumble away. Her delicate skin was left moderately raw and red, but it was better than he expected it to be. He still found her beautiful, even in her mange-like state. "Sasuke," her beckon pulled him from his staring. "Can I open my eyes?"

"Hn," he grunted, amused by how resilient she had been through even the worst of it so far. "Yes, go ahead."

She slowly cracked her eyes open and Sasuke could only smirk at his Ophelia in the stream of water. She was breathtaking. He was going to make sure she survived. Something deep inside him told him she could make certain of it all on her own.

Neither fully smiled but he held her gaze for a drawn-out moment before he sank his hands in the water to rub the stubborn mud from her body. Gradually, her hair returned back to its familiar pastel pink and her skin was clear once more. He asked how she was feeling and she braved her first true smile. "Grateful," she replied.

He snorted. "Grateful? I don't think anyone in Hell's history has ever claimed to be grateful down here."

She slowly sat up, her naked form adorned by a veil of water droplets and hair plastered to the sides of her neck and shoulder tops. He watched her lean forward towards him, willing her body to rise to her knees to level with his crouched posture beside her. Like a siren emerging from the sea, she placed her hands on his scaly chest and fell into him for a kiss. He groaned appreciatively into her mouth and wrapped his arms around her to bring her close. Soaking wet from the bath, she found herself straddling his lap and driven to express her affection.

As Sakura pressed her chest flush to his, she felt the unmistakable flutter in her chest and wondered if he felt it in his as well. "Sasuke," she whispered breathlessly against his lips. "I-"

"Well, would you look at what we have here," a boisterous voice interrupted. The pair looked up suddenly and Sasuke barely contained a groan. "Was the mortal realm not willing to play out all your little fetishes?"

"Shouldn't you be manning your boat, Jiraiya?" Sasuke retorted.

The rich laugh that bellowed from this demon gave Sakura a full show of his razor-sharp teeth and pointed tongue. As she fell distracted by his wildly long white hair, she quickly panicked and looked to Sasuke for guidance. Should she have not looked at him? Were her eyes supposed to be closed? Seeing her frantic display, the former Satan shook his head.

"You're fine, it's the souls of the damned you need to keep away from." The demon by the name of Jiraiya chuckled. "One glance and your living soul would be latched onto like a parasite on a dog!"

"How did you-" Sakura started to ask.

"I am Jiraiya, boatman to the River of Styx!" He interrupted, beating his chest. Similar to Sasuke, he had some human likeness but was covered in a rough, bumpy skin much like that of a toad.

"But how did you-"

"Sakura, forget it." Sasuke put a hand on top of her head as he stood to his full towering height. "Jiraiya, we need to cross to the City of Dis."

The boatman had a lighthearted air to him, but the glint in his eye kept her from even thinking about putting her guard down around him. He was shamelessly ogling her naked form and she defensively shielded herself with her arms and knees.

Sasuke saw her shift from the corner of his eye and sighed with annoyance. "Stop staring at her, you're making her uncomfortable."

"But doesn't she look all the more delectable that way? Hmm," the demon hummed to himself in thought as a devious grin curled at his lips. "You need a ride, you say? And you wouldn't happen to have the coin payment needed to cross, now would you?"

Sakura looked up at her companion and caught him narrowing his eyes while his taloned hands curled into tight fists. It was an old tradition to bury the dead with a coin under their tongue to serve as payment for safe passage into the Underworld and she was afraid that's what this old demon was referring to. By the looks on his face, it was obvious he knew neither of them had such coins in their possession. Her stomach churned.

"I have business in Dis, there is no need for me to pay you."

"Ah-ah, dear Sasuke! I wasn't asking for you…" He only grew smugger in his expression and tone. Sakura's eyes widened when she realized he was talking about her.

"She's with me and you will take us across. That's final."

Jiraiya shrugged. "If only you had some sort of authority over me to force me to transport this trespasser," he rued theatrically.

"Do I need to remind you of the time I spared your existence after you were trespassing amongst the mortals?" Sasuke hissed, his patience thinning.

The cocky demon grew serious at that. He was quiet for a moment as his eyes glazed over with an old sadness being revisited. Sasuke straightened up as he saw this as well. Sakura couldn't help but feel for the demon, just for a split second. As soon as she did, he looked over and right at her with a penetrating gaze. "She reminds me of her," he said solemnly. "I can see that annoying spark in her eye."

Sasuke didn't say anything in response, he just stood in his strong silence until Jiraiya sighed with defeated shoulders. "I'll take you both across, but the girl sits with me."

It was a victory, but Sakura couldn't help but feel upset at the cost. Sasuke agreed to the arrangement and Jiraiya turned away with a giddy smile as he made his way in the direction of where Sakura assumed the River of Styx ran. While her mind was processing what had just happened, Sasuke wrung out her tunic and handed it to her to pull back over her head.

"It's damp, but the River is hot so this will cool you...and you'll want a barrier between you and Jiraiya."

As she tugged on the rough material she made no effort to hide her scornful glare. She felt like a piece of meat being traded to this slimy demon without any attempt at an argument from Sasuke. How was he okay with this? Morals and sensibility came in a different flavor in Hell, but she expected him to try and treat her better than this.

"Right this way," Jiraiya sang as they crossed the rocky landscape to the water's edge.

The demon was standing in his long but simple boat, a single steering oar in hand. There was a rotting dock between them and his vessel, the inky water below so opaque she was certain it ran all the way to the bottom of Hell itself. In the distance through the fog over the water, the gates of Dis were roughly silhouetted.

"Let's go," Sasuke spoke in a firm and distant tone. Sakura followed his order, but couldn't help but chew on the inside of her cheek.

She took careful steps along the splintered dock, wincing once as a particularly ragged plank bit into her foot. Jiraiya happily offered her a hand as she stepped into the boat while she braced herself, but she shook her head to decline the help. His cheerful demeanor cracked then.

"One splash in the Styx and you'll dissolve into nothing more than a faint memory."

Her eyes shot up to meet Jiraiya's and she saw he still had his hand extended, but his eyes were cold and steely. After a second more of internal debate, she reached out to steady herself with his help as she stepped down into the boat.

"Your Lowness," Jiraiya sardonically bit out bowing before Sasuke as he boarded behind his mortal companion.

The stoic demon sat on the bench along the vessel's port-side with an unreadable expression as Jiraiya stood at the forward with an arm greedily hooked around Sakura's waist. She looked over her shoulder at Sasuke but he did not meet her eyes. Instead, he was glaring straight ahead with a grim line holding his lips.

"What's your name, girl?" Jiraiya barked, jostling her attention back to him.

She winced under the potent stench of his breath. "Sakura."

"Sakura, you say? What a fitting name for such a flower like you!" He laughed then, swinging his opposite arm out with the oar in front of them. Without even touching the water, the boat began moving, steering itself in the direction of the City of Dis.

The boatman didn't say anything after that for some time, just hummed a tune to himself that Sakura found painfully familiar but couldn't place. She was desperate to ask him what the song was but didn't want to chat with him any more than was necessary. His arm clamped to her hip was more than enough to manage.

"Here we go," he said a moment later, unwinding his arm from around her. "Go sit with your pouting devil back there, we're about to hit the soul stream." Sakura didn't waste a second and padded her way to Sasuke who still had that frigid mask on.

"What's wrong?" She asked in a whisper.

"Hn," he grunted. "Just sit down."

Sakura first felt a jolt of hurt but quickly rebounded with soured anger. If anyone was going to be mad, it was her. While all he did was hold her a little too close for comfort, Jiraiya had taken advantage of her vulnerability and Sakura had no choice but to obey. Sasuke should have been writing her checks of remorse. She was going to give him a piece of her mind and -

The boat clashed with an oncoming wave that sent her gripping the bench beneath her and only made Sasuke scowl. "Here they are!" Jiraiya shouted back at them. "Keep your hands inside the boat, girl!"

Like a rolling storm, the guttural screams of the angry souls that were damned to the River burst from just under its surface by the hundreds. Sakura gasped at the sight of the countless heads and raging limbs tearing at each other around them. As far as the eye could see, souls were clawing their way up out of the water with nowhere to go. That is, except those surrounding their boat.

SMACK!

The impact on the side of the boat could be felt by everyone onboard. From all around, the grey hands reached up to grip onto the vessel. They were inches from Sasuke's back in what she thought was a blindspot until he turned to swipe off half a dozen in one motion. She tightened her jaw and struggled with knowing what to do. Just sitting while they were being attacked seemed beyond shameful while Sasuke continued to fend off the intruders, but Jiraiya was yelling in almost a jovial fashion that made her all the more confused.

BOOM!

Another blow to the boat sent her toppling to the floor on her hands and knees, hair flying in front of her face. She was confident Sasuke had muttered something under his breath, but couldn't hear it over the shriek that erupted from behind her. Still bracing herself like a wet mutt on the floor, she turned to see what it was that broke the Devil's facade.

"Close your eyes..!" He had commanded her, but only when it was too late.

Sakura looked right into its eyes.

Her eyes.

Sakura's breath hitched. If she were in her proper body she was certain her heart would have stopped right then and there.

Her mouth opened to speak, but she took too long to find that word she hadn't used in years. The sudden paralysis did her no favors, nor anyone else on the boat. Bony, tight fingers gripped the edge of the siding until it splintered. Pupilless eyes sucked Sakura in with no chance of escape. The hands that had held her as a baby and beat her as a child, the unforgettable frown lines that haunted her dreams - here was no mistaking it. It was her. The soul coming at her from the depths of the Styx was her dead mother.

"Mom," Sakura whimpered just as the boat dipped with the water's stormy path.

"Mom?" Sasuke echoed in a shout to be heard over the roar of the raging water, completely incredulous.

"Hahaha!" Jiraiya howled, steering the boat with a fierce grip on his oar. "Isn't this great!?"

With a whiplash force, they shot up on the tail of a vicious wave, forcing everyone to brace themselves, including the ghostly soul still clinging on. Sasuke looked down at Sakura before looking back at the soul that stubbornly clawed its way closer.

"You're sure it's her?" He shouted over the roaring storm of the dead.

She could only nod, not a single word able to pass the emotions clogging her throat. The soul resembling her mother managed to crawl completely out of the boiling hot river and into the boat. "Sakuraaa…!" She let out in a guttural cry.

After he threw a skeptical glare back at Jiraiya, Sasuke lunged forward to grab the soul by the throat and hold it at arm's length away from him and Sakura. It didn't need air or anything but clawed at him to get away desperately.

"Y-You're hurting her! Stop!" Sakura screamed in a panic.

He looked down at her with little patience left. "I'm not hurting her-"

"Sasuke, please!" She pounded on his side, her eyes wild with fear.

"She looked her in the eyes, boy!" Jiraiya shouted over his shoulder.

Sasuke sneered at both the situation and the condescension. As the boat bucked again, he used his wings to block Sakura from tumbling forward when she was solely focused on beating as his ribs.

"Listen to me, Sakura." His voice bled authority and a limited amount of patience, but it was a fruitless tactic. She was still trying her best to fight him and he knew then that she was completely lost to the effects of seeing her mother's soul.

"Let her go!" She screamed as she pounded on his hand-wings. "Sasuke, fucking let go!"

"You leave me no choice," he growled before tossing the attacking soul back into the River.

"Mom..!" Sakura screamed after her, making a dash for the side of the boat to go after her.

Jiraiya watched from the corner of his eye as the devilman wasted no time in grabbing the frantic woman and pulling her back into the boat as she continued to scream and kick. The retired Satan could have held her down in his sleep like a lion on a mouse, but the pained look in his eye told the boatman everything he wanted to know and more.

"What the fuck was that, you slimy shit?" Sasuke shouted over the screams.

Jiraiya turned away to look straight ahead as he steered them onward. "I needed to check something," he grumbled with no further explanation offered.

"Needed to check something?" Sasuke seethed. Before he completely lost it, he turned his attention to the hysterical woman in his arms, fighting to free herself. Unlike the mud of the Third Circle, if Sakura found herself in the boiling waters of the River, he wouldn't be able to pull her out. She would be trapped to spend the rest of eternity fighting for an escape she would never reach. "Sakura, you have to stop. You can't save her."

Tears were streaming down her face as she sobbed. "We can't leave her! How could you throw her back in like that? That was my mom..!" She spat up at him, eyes bloodshot and overflowing.

"Sakura…" He took a second to temper himself. "Once a soul is in the River, it can't leave. Jiraiya summoned her to you for his own sick amusement. If she had gotten her hands on you, she would have dragged you into the River with her."

She stopped trying to writhe her way out of his hold then, consumed by confusion and sadness. The boat continued to dip and bob in the soul-filled waters. "Mom," she cried. "Can't you do anything to get her out?"

He looked away as his eyes darkened. "I don't have that kind of power anymore."

The boat was quiet after that with the exception of a few audible sobs from Sakura's crumpled form on the floor. Sasuke sat hunched behind her with his face brooding behind tented hands propped on his knees. Hell wasn't the place to sort out her pain, so he had no choice but to table any productive conversations with her on the trauma she was ambushed by. He shifted his glare to the boatman. Jiraiya steered onward as they approached calmer waters in the direction of Dis, seemingly unperturbed by the chaos he dumped on them moments earlier. If it weren't for Sakura, he would have shredded the old demon to bits and fed him to the damned.

"Old toad," Sasuke called out. A slight tilt of the demon's head let him know he had his attention. "Explain yourself."

Jiraiya hummed to himself in what could have been interpreted as playful thought. This wasn't unfamiliar to Sasuke, so he remained as stoic as ever. "How long has it been since you've been in the River?"

Sasuke narrowed his eyes. "Ages. There wasn't any reason for me to come here."

He could see the corner of his old grin and a mischievous fang poking out. "My, my...maybe it was the right time for you to step down when you did, after all." He chuckled to himself and shifted the oar from one side of the vessel to the other. "You don't recall what's supposed to happen when a living soul encounters a damned one?"

"Enough, Jiraiya," Sasuke snapped. "Tell me what's going on before I show you just how fit for retirement you are."

"Forgive me, my Lord," Jiraiya threaded with sarcasm. "When a living soul engages with a soul damned to the River, why do you want them to close their eyes?"

"So they don't get drawn into the Circle," was Sasuke's curt response.

Jiraiya nodded, facing ahead. "But more specifically, what happens if they interact with a soul from the River?"

Sasuke's red eyes widened before he looked down at Sakura. Her head was a rock on her folded arms and knees. She would've appeared asleep had it not been for the jerking movements of her shoulders as she continued to mourn and cry. Sasuke's mind was racing as he continued to stare down at her with a mixture of confusion and disbelief. His lack of a response at that point told the boatman enough. He knew the old Satan had figured it out. An encounter with a damned soul should send a living soul to a similar fate and state of mind. In the River, that state of mind is one of unrepressed violence.

But Sakura's reaction wasn't all that violent - or at least not the kind that puts one in Hell. It was an act of unconditional love and an instinctual reaction. It was unheard of. The old Satan didn't know what to think, but he knew the boatman had some thoughts on the matter.

"Why wasn't she overcome with rage?" Sasuke asked, his shock evident in his tone.

"I suppose spending all your time tending to the scum of existence would have prevented you from encountering something like this before," Jiraiya mused. "She's a pure one, Sasuke."

"Pure?" The devilman repeated, the taste of it not sitting well on his tongue. He wasn't even sure if he had ever used that word before.

The City was within sight now and the impenetrable walls seemed to grow larger by the second. Jiraiya turned to face Sasuke with a lopsided grin. "A soul so resilient, not even the powers of Hell could tarnish it."

"What?" Sakura croaked, her voice hoarse. She lifted her head as she caught the tail-end of the conversation and squinted at Jiraiya. "What did you say I am?"

"You're like a sin virgin. You're able to resist the seduction of sin born from the very bowels of Hell you're stewing in now. Pretty lame, if you ask me," Jiraiya taunted her at the end with a wink.

"Pure…" Sasuke mumbled to himself again.

"Why did you do that to me?" Sakura shook her head, not able to move past the horrors from moments ago and pushed herself to her feet. The water wasn't exactly calm, but it was much more predictable at this point which allowed her to hold herself tall.

"I wanted to find out if my hunch was right or not," Jiraiya shrugged, not at all phased by her sudden movement. "And I was right. Congrats to us all, you didn't get sucked into the River for all eternity."

"That was my mom you toyed with, you asshole." Her voice shook with anger she hadn't felt in years. Not since the burial.

"She was an abuser, was she not? She didn't take care of you, she isn't worth-"

"That's none of your business..!" Sakura was suddenly lunging at the demon with the full intent of tackling him and Sasuke almost let her. His Hell-born reflexes allowed him to grab a hold of her just as she reeled back a punch.

"Stop it, Sasuke! Stop!" She screamed, using every mobile part of her body to jab or kick at him.

"I'm not letting you go until you calm down."

He sounded surprisingly calm to the point of irritating Sakura. She was heartbroken and angry... So, so angry. The large arms bracing her against her demonic companion became too much to fight and she eventually lost steam. Her eyes were still burning with a vendetta and Jiraiya found himself simply amused at the sight.

"There's something else," Jiraiya piped up just as the dock was coming into range.

Both Sasuke and Sakura looked up at him as he held back a chuckle. "Pure souls aren't born any different than the others, they're just protected."

"Jiraiya…" Sasuke growled in warning. He was at his wit's end with the games.

"Sasuke here wouldn't be able to detect it, but I would know that old hag's protection spell anywhere."

"What are you talking about?" Sakura asked, masking the churn of her gut with a brave tone. They drifted into the shadow of the City's stone walls. She forced herself to keep her eyes steady on the boatman, not ready to leave until she got an answer.

"If you make it back up to the living world," Jiraiya started as he put a foot out to steady them to the dock, "say hi to your aunt for me."

Sakura's eyes widened as did Sasuke's. "Aunt...Aunt Tsunade?"

Another chapter down for the count! I'm so excited to hear from you all in your reviews to get your thoughts on the journey our favorite pair has taken and the shit Jiraiya has stirred up. Again, I hope you're well and look forward to hearing from you soon! xoxo