The Last Ones Standing
Chapter 5
They landed in a new dimension and from the first glimpse it's clear it was habitable. The air held all kinds of smells, mostly aetheric oils from sun-baked plants, and there were herbs and grasses growing between the stones of a mountain slope they were standing on. And there was buzz of insects in the air. Madara took a step and at least half a dozen of grasshoppers jumped from under his feet. In his peripheral view he saw Sakura falling on her knees and frantically grasping at a tuff of vegetation. She ripped a handful of plants and buried her face in it.
He could sympathize. He would never have made such a display out of his emotions, but he got her. The ruin that their world had become was becoming unbearable. The worlds they've been to recently were even worse – either black voids, or black empty planes. One had stars on what he assumed was the sky but those stars were overly bright and as if too close. They checked entire front side of the cube, and, save the lower middle one - which was a very hot, sandy desert – all the dimensions were empty.
Sakura was still on her knees, smelling the herbs, one by one. It looked as if she was assessing their edibility and not indulging in further sentiments. Her emotionality was something that needed getting adjusted to. He took it slowly for granted, but still, he preferred when she was keeping herself in check. He didn't quite know how to treat her in those moments, it was tempting to take charge of situation and stop taking her opinions into account. But he knew she will resent it later. But logical discussion with her when she was at her most emotional was near impossible. Usually his arguments were either reaching deaf ears or upsetting her more.
But he shouldn't complain. She was holding quite well, given the circumstances. She just had worse days. Like yesterday, when she was crying in the storage when she thought he wouldn't hear.
Something moved between the stones. Madara spun, immediately breaking out of his thoughts. He glanced at Sakura – she was with her back to the motion; she couldn't have seen it. Good that he was paying attention. He stepped in so that he was in line between of her and potential danger, and slowly walked down, towards the pile of rocks. A small snake wiggled its way down the slope disappearing between the rubble. Madara lowered his kunai. This world was definitely promising.
The slug that she summoned moments later was huge, she really must have put a lot of her chakra into it. But something was off with it. It wiggled and moved in agitation, and since it was so big, several rocks broke off and rolled down the valley.
"Sakura-chan! Why did you summoned me here?!"
"What do you mean 'why', Katsuyu-sama? It's the next dimension. And maybe the best we've got so far!"
"We don't mean to provoke any hostilities! Release me!"
"Hostilities?!"
"Summoning me so big, in a place like than! A war is the last thing we need when your world is trapped by the tree!"
Sakura stood with her mouth open.
"It's the snakes' dimension. They will consider my presence here an attack. Summon me again, but much smaller than I can explain more," finished Katsuyu and disappeared in a puff of smoke. A dozen of boulders displaced by the slug rolled downhill.
The next slug Sakura summoned was small enough to perch on her shoulder. And even there it looked anxious.
"Katsuyu-sama," started Sakura. It always amused him how respectfully was she addressing her summon. Clearly the hierarchy in this relationship was a bit skewed. "What are you talking about? The snakes, summons of Orochimaru? But Madara just jumped into a new dimension…"
"Exactly those snakes. I cannot stay here!" the slug turned around looking behind itself. "Even if in Triple Deadlock snake fears slug, now that I'm so small, I can get eaten… Sakura-chan, I'm confident that you can appeal to the snakes. Once they are made aware of the situation in human dimension, they will cooperate, I'm sure," finished Katsuyu and disappeared.
"It seems that summoning animals simply inhabit dimensions like ours… I would have never expected that… But if that's the case then it would make sense that they inhabit the adjacent ones," concluded Madara.
"Alright." Sakura squared her shoulders and started downhill. "They were in the end Sasuke-kun's summons as well. They cannot be that bad."
"Who is Sasuke-kun?"
He saw how she tensed and paused before taking another step. "My teammate."
"Which one? The Jinchuuriki?"
"No." Another pause in her descend. "The other one." Ah, so that was her problem. Uchiha kid. How interesting.
"That's a very untypical name for an Uchiha."
"Is it? I wouldn't know."
She was silent all the way down to the bottom of the valley. Madara caught himself being taken aback by it. The girl was always so talkative, chatty even. 'Not the girl, but Sakura,' he mentally corrected himself. He had learned her name only two days prior, when he had heard the slug addressing her. He still didn't know her family name. Judging from her summon and the properties of her chakra, it was possible that she was a Senju. But he wouldn't lower himself to asking. It will come up sooner or later.
The serpent that was waiting for them at the mouth of the gorge was an impressive creature indeed. Each scale glimmered around the edges and the entire creature shimmered as if it was one with the waters of the ravine. When it stretched itself to its full height Madara had to look up. A cheap intimidation display, he thought, but still he couldn't help to feel a small irk. Sakura, standing some meters in front of him, looked so small next to the snake. Fragile. Killable. He knew it was an illusion, as she could par the blow of the snake's tail probably with one hand. But still. He disliked the visual.
"Who are you and why are you here, humanss? If you sseek the ssummoning contract, you are painfully misstaken. We don't accept contractorss that eassily. Or at all."
"Forgive our intrusion." Sakura bowed formally, taking her eyes off the beast. Which was either extreme foolishness, or a sign of great trust in him, thought Madara. "Me and my companion," continued Sakura gesturing in his direction, "we're looking for your summoner, Uchiha Sasuke…"
"Our ssummoner…" hissed the snake and shifted its coils. Madara had impression that it was arranging itself in a more suitable position for an attack. He had the Sharingan still activated, but Sakura was too far to teleport her away. He would need to either fire an attack, which would be difficult with Sakura standing in the way, or to catch the beast's eyes so he could put it under genjutsu. "Our ssummoner, you ssay… That brat, he had audacity of killing one of our brethren… He sssummoned Manda and killed him…"
"I… I'm so sorry to hear that… But I know nothing about it… And I don't understand - I saw one of you answering his summoning, not longer than a month ago, during a great war in our dimension…"
"Only Aoda ansswers to him now. But it wass a while ssince he wass ssummoned. And yesss, it was for a war."
"So, you didn't have contact with Sasuke ever since?"
"No… And we're happy to keep it thisss way…"
Madara saw Sakura fidgeting. He wondered what does she still want from the snake – it was clear that her teammates weren't in this dimension.
"I'm sure," she blurted out, "I'm sure he didn't mean to! Please don't hold this tragic incident against him! I'm sure he was forced by circumstances, otherwise he would have never!" With her palms nervously balled into fists she stepped towards the snake. Too close. She breached the unspoken boundary. "Please forgive him!"
The middle part of the snake raised itself to give the incoming strike more momentum, but Madara was already next to her. He placed his hand on Sakura's arm. "Come. We thank you for the information, we will not impose any further," he said to the snake.
Her shoulder was still stiff under his palm when they landed on the fisher's bay beach. He let his hand linger there a split of second longer than it was necessary. Some very distant muscle memory was suggesting rubbing a soothing circle at it. Acknowledging this reflex with a great astonishment he removed his hand. "What has gotten into you to provoke him so?" he said. "You almost got him to lunge at you."
Sakura was looking at her feet - like a pouting kid who thought that not engaging in discussion would make the problem disappear. Oh well, he could let it slide. "Summoning animals' dimensions belonging to our dimension-lattice is best news we've got so far." He changed the topic instead. "All those animals have to live off of something – we can have food source there. For us now, and potentially for the rest of humanity once it wakes up." Sakura didn't seem overjoyed, she was chewing her lip, submerged deep in her thoughts. "Let's search further and see if we can find your slug dimension, shall we?" he added, despite himself feeling the need to cheer her up.
Their next jump led them to an inhabitable, but peculiarly looking place. Huge leaves of wild colors were sprouting from the ground. Strange, horn-like shapes spilled cascades of water from their tops. And the mountains surrounding the valley seemed too geometrical for anything made by nature. Or the nature as Madara knew it.
"Is this the slug dimension?"
"No." Sakura shook her head. "But those mountains remind me of something Naruto told me once… It might be Mount Myōboku!" Sakura clapped her hands together. "The toads' dimension!" she added when it was clear he didn't get it.
"And why are you so excited?"
"Because those are Naruto's and Jirayia-sama's frogs! I know many of them, Jirayia-sama used them to communicate with my shishou, and when Naruto came back, we hung out with some of them!"
And so, she went off, skipping up every third step. Madara shook his head - how could she change her mood so quickly? The pink of her hair was barely visible between the leaves' stalks already so he followed. He found her by a small puddle talking to what looked like a tadpole with already developed legs. And an ornamental, orange ribbon around its middle. And another, red one at the tip of its tail. Madara reigned in an urge to roll his eyes.
Sakura stood up. "Yosh! We should head that way." She pointed left. "Oh, I'm so excited to meet them! I'm sure they can offer us advice or at least just... just..." She went sad again. "Or just have a chat." She wrapped her arms around herself and started in the pointed direction. "I miss having someone to talk to…"
When after good two hours of hike they stood in front a funny looking, tiny hut, Madara thought that maybe the effort was worth it. That maybe there will be a meal and hospitality to be had there. His hopes were cut short when Sakura flat out refused a dinner invitation from a creature that looked like a cross between a toad and a tiny, shriveled grandma from a very remote village. And, staying in character of that grandma-persona, was very keen on feeding them. But the looks of the creature were just a ruse. Madara could feel raw power swimming through and out of the it. Power more raw and primal than the one of Hashirama's Mokuton.
Nevertheless, in they went, and, crouched by a too small table, between the sips of awfully bitter greenish concoction they gave account of the situation. Madara felt quite out of place reporting like that to the creature, but it was mostly Sakura anyhow who did the talking. Only from time to time the creature would ask him specifics, unfailingly addressing him as 'boy'. When after half of an hour, a second toad-like creature arrived, the entire story had to be repeated. As the male toad was served his meal Madara understood the Sakura's reasons for refusing the food. To avoid watching the creature gorging on living worms, Madara concentrated on scrutinizing how two toads' chakras complemented and complimented each other, creating something akin to a perfect sphere enclosing them both. Truly an ultimate defense it must have been. And, most probably, an equally fearsome offense.
The pause in Sakura's tale brought Madara's attention back to his interlocutors. The male toad was pacing the room, stroking his goatee pensively. "So child, you're saying that the goddess jumps around dimensions like ours?"
"I believe so. Obito-san, using exactly those eyes," Sakura gestured in Madara's direction, "was able to access her dimensions. But at that point we didn't know that your dimension would be accessible this way as well…"
"Hmmm… It means, we can have a direct solution to the problem…"
"A solution!?" Sakura jumped on her feet sending her tea cup crashing against the floor. "Fukasaku-sama, what do you mean!?"
"Naruto-chan has a contract with us. If you could summon Katsuyu into those dimensions, it means we can reverse-summon Naruto here."
Sakura stilled. Madara could practically see the cogs turning in her brain. "But," she said slowly, "you don't have contract with Sasuke-kun…"
"Of course, we don't. Ma, would you join me? Together, our summoning will be stronger."
"No! Wait! What about Sasuke!? Are you going to leave him there?"
"We'll get out one, and then we'll figure out how to get the other."
"No." The Sakura's voice reached a pitch reserved for enemies, and not allies.
Madara stood up. "Calm down. They have a point. Your Sasuke has contract with the snakes. If it works with the toads for the jinchuuriki, it will…"
"No! Are you all crazy?! You want to leave him alone?! What if rabbit goddess is still there?! Alone he won't stand a chance!"
"We'll go and negotiate with the snakes, we'll find this Aoda…"
"Over my dead body!"
Female toad hopped to the middle of the room. Madara could almost see the rivers of chakra sinking into her. Sakura lunged forward. Too slow. He grabbed her by the waist. "No!" she screamed and twisted in his grip. He hands flew to the arms encircling her and he felt a powerful pull of chakra-enhanced strength. But he saw it coming – his arm was already covered in Susanoo armor and it didn't budge. "Noooo!" she howled.
In unison, toads raised their paws to their mouths, bit at them and dug them into the ground.
"Kuchiyose-no-jutsu!"
Madara could feel how the girl in his arms stopped breathing. In the silence that followed she didn't inhale for many long heartbeats, eyes plastered to the summoning seal in the middle of the room.
It took them all a very long while to realize that nothing was going to happen.
"It didn't work…" croaked the female toad.
Sakura slumped over his arm like a rag doll. He released his hold and she fell to her knees. "But why? Why?"
The male toad shook his head. "I don't know… Maybe there are limits that to Kuchiyose-no-jutsu that we are not aware of…"
"They might simply be out of our reach. Too far away," suggested the female toad, eyeing Sakura who knelt slumped on the floor. A cheap attempt on consolation – the power that those toads wielded was magnificent and if there was a limit, it must have been huge.
Sakura didn't buy it either. She didn't budge, didn't even raise her head. "Or maybe… maybe…" she whispered and suddenly lifted her hands to her mouth. "Oh gods, please no! They cannot be dead!"
The next day it took quite some goading from his side to get the girl moving in the morning. She had cried through half of the night again, and dark circles under her eyes were a testament to it.
They found the slug dimension on that day; it was indeed adjacent to the toads' and snakes' ones. She smiled a bit seeing an apparently familiar place and chatted with some of the lesser slugs, but all in all was much less overjoyed than he imagined she would have been. The failure of summoning from the day prior had taken a toll on her.
The next days they checked the entire top and most of the right side of the first layer and found several dimensions inhabited by various summoning animals, all clustered around the up-right edge of the cube. He kept a careful eye on the girl. During the first day there was certain stiffness in her movements – she must have been actively fending off the thoughts about futility of their pursuit. After she finally slept through a night, she seemed in much better disposition. Or maybe she was just acting – he didn't know her well enough to tell.
It occurred to him that she can very well be the last person he will ever have chance to know. Know her, understand her, learn her world view, know her enough to guess her words before she would speak them, guess her mood from her gestures, guess her thoughts from the expressions of her face…
It was decades since he was intimate enough with someone to know that. He remembered vaguely how it was with Izuna. But it was so far away. Images were still there, but the emotions were gone. He wondered when did it stop hurting. After his first death? After the second? Or maybe it was just the flow of time that blunted the edge of pain?
Only the bottom and the back of the cube were left. It took them eight days if his calculation was correct – even longer than he had initially estimated. But they were almost done with the first layer, just six dimensions more… They couldn't finish it today, but maybe tomorrow. Madara molded his chakra and focused on a dimension in the bottom plane, the one directly behind him. He felt Sakura tightening her fingers on his shoulders, as she sent a pulse of energy into his system, reinforcing the chakra channels in his core one last time.
He jumped.
'Fuck,' was his one and only thought in their free-fall into a lake of boiling lava. He didn't think. He didn't think at all. He reacted. Grabbing Sakura blindly with arm bent to the point of pain, he jumped again.
They collide with the hard ground and rolled. Sakura's shriek still rung in his ears, even though she was silent now, save small noises of discomfort. Those noises allowed him to localize her, as the dimension was completely dark.
"Madara? Where are you?" she called out.
He propped himself up and crawled on all fours in her direction. "Here." He reached out and his hand landed on her leg. "I'm here."
"What the hell happened? Where are we?"
"I escaped that lava dimension – I jumped again."
"But why didn't you come back to our word?!"
"I was already concentrated on the back-bottom direction, so it was easier to just continue along the same course. It was quicker. Changing direction requires me to move my attention and 'grab' with my chakra someplace else. And turning back even more so." Madara ran his hand down the leg of his trousers. They were whole. He touched his sandals – the straps were in place, but the soles… His hand jumped away instinctively – the soles were hot, and probably partially melted. "That was close… Are you hurt?"
"No, I'm fine. I think you were a bit lower during the fall. But that lava chamber - I know it, we've been there already when Kaguya teleported us! We need to come back!"
"We'll land over the lava again. Do you have a death-wish, girl? I barely managed to get us out of there."
"But they can be there! There, in that very dimension! She could have taken them there! Make a Susanoo instead of jumping - it can fly!"
"It requires time to form it."
"And don't tell me that the great Uchiha Madara doesn't have enough skill…"
She was playing dirty. 'She really didn't have to do it,' though Madara with resentment. He would have agreed anyhow, he could recognize a solid argument when he saw one. "Fine. Heal me," he said. And now it looked as if was doing it only due to his ego.
He did manage in time. Susanoo took flight some three meters above the level of the magma. Its armor protected them partially from the heat, but still their clothing caught fire. Nothing that a small Suiton technique followed by medical jutsu wouldn't remedy, but still – the call was too close for Madara's liking.
The slug Sakura summoned when on the edge of the crater was comparable to a tailed beast in size. He didn't know that the summoning animals would grow this large. And then, when the slug failed to detect anything, she had him fly them in Susanoo hundreds of kilometers in some random direction because 'she had a feeling'. The re-summoned Katsuyu found no signs of life and it was her who finally convinced Sakura to consider the dimension as checked.
The situation was about to repeat itself, when they landed in the next dimension – full on rolling hills and deep valleys, all striped, in strange shades of purple. Sakura called this place Kaguya's core dimension and promptly attempted to summon another huge Katsuyu. She failed quite spectacularly, collapsing on her knees with blood gushing from her nose and mouth.
Seeing that further search made no sense, Madara grabbed her and jumped to their world, where Sakura made a proper scene demanding him to go back and continue the search. He indulged her for quite some minutes, but his patience got exhausted when, running out of arguments, the girl charged at him with a kunai. So, he knocked her out, slung her over the shoulder and went to the village.
Now she was securely tucked in her bed in the storage and he was waiting for the tea water to boil.
They found two additional 'Kaguya's dimensions' as Sakura called them – an ice-world and a high gravity-world - and spend days scouting them. Both, along with the 'core dimension' turned out empty. Sakura took it badly. And so did Katsuyu, who sustained damage being repeatedly squashed into a pathetically looking, disk-like shape by the increased gravity. Madara, despite being amused, had to marvel at the lengths the slug was willing to go to for her summoner. Such a loyalty spoke volumes about Sakura's worth, more than any of her own actions.
Now she was sleeping, curled like a cat, wrapped in the covers.
They were scouting the second layer already, and decided against returning to the fisher village after each jump. This way, they were saving their energy on exploring new dimension, and not wasting it on going back-and-forth. The downside was necessity of setting up a camp in those alien places. Madara never let it show, but even for him it was an unsettling experience. Sakura was downright afraid. He could see her double- and triple-checking the barrier seals around the camp and carefully wrapping her feet with the blanket, so that no part of her body would peek from under the covers. She also needed longer than usual to fall asleep.
But now she was sleeping. This ridiculous pink hair of hers was splayed across the mat and it looked reddish in the light of the campfire. It grew a bit longer already since the war. Madara wondered when will she cut it. Or maybe she won't. She might look good with longer hair. But she will cut it – she was so earnest on emphasizing how tough she was. A mark of a person who needed to work very hard for the recognition, he assumed.
He went back to staring into fire. He always liked it. The dance of flames, how the heat ate into the timber until it glowed, how it disintegrated the matter until the logs of wood would become filigree and see-through. He liked watching the delicate balance of the randomly put-together construction that was being constantly challenged by a yet another piece breaking down under its own weight and collapsing.
But today, the sleeping girl was more interesting. She was motionless where flames were dancing. But there was some solace in that. He didn't want her to wake up. He didn't want her to get up and put on that brave façade of hers, to mull over what ifs and passing time and all that she perceived as her responsibilities.
When awoken, the reality would come crushing down on her. Her face would tighten again into that tense mask she wore trying to keep her grief to herself. She would again grow exhausted and homesick and sad… And lonely. And if she kept doing that, day by day, she would grow as hard and bitter as he was. That was it - he didn't want her to become like him. That optimism, that faith in life she still held inside her - he had lost those long time ago. He learned to hate it because that was driving the resistance against the Tsukuyomi Plan. But now the Plan was gone, but here he was – still with the worldview he constructed, with the worldview that proved false.
But if this world was to come to life again, it would need people like her. People with hope.
He looked at her again. What kind of dreams were on the other side of those close eyelids? On the outside, she seemed so calm. And her eyelashes were also pink, he concluded with amusement. And thick – like little fans they cast funny, feathery shadows on her cheeks. He never noticed such details on anyone before.
No, she would never give up on mankind, no matter what horror she would witness. She would always find good in people. In general, as well in particular. Like she fought for this stray Uchiha teammate of hers – it was clear that the boy was perceived as enemy by the rest of ninja alliance. But not by her - she had nothing but love for him. She was like that – forgiving and welcoming. Open to people. Exactly how a woman should be…
There was a briefest flash of a visual. So brief, that he almost missed it – woman's arms opening to embrace him. Woman's lips half-open as if in a…
'No,' he thought. He wouldn't dwell on such things.
Thank you for reading and I would love to hear your opinions!