The Last Ones Standing
Chapter 9
AN: The last scene of this chapter is dedicated to the wonderful crowd on ficbook! Your burning interest in certain aspects of Madara's ehem... inner life motivated me to write this scene! Though I might have taken a bit more serious approach ;)
Also, for the ones that missed it: The Last Ones Standing got a fanart! Here it is: : / / victoriacapo . tumblr post / 616200597144748032 / i-did-te-illustration-to-the-fanfic-the-last (remove all spaces) Thank you so much victoriacapo for making this beautiful art!
He was waiting for her break down. He was looking at her with so much attentiveness, waiting for her to collapse and break into tears.
That's what she wanted to do. That's what she was doing entire last year long. Crumbling under pressure, falling apart like a house of cards with ever blow. And he was there to pick her up.
As he was now.
What was she good for if she only needed to be taken care for?
How was she contributing to their quest?
Will she collapse now and wait to be picked up again? Or will she finally grow to the task?
Sakura remembered her shishou. When she first saw her she had though: 'no way this women is fit to be Hokage.' How could someone so flimsy, so undependable take over such a responsibility? But then the burden was placed on Tsunade-sama's shoulders, and, instead of smashing her, it made her grow. Grow strong enough to carry it.
That's what she should do. That's what she had to do.
She was looking at him. Or rather not at him, but through him. Then she turned and started walking towards the beach. He followed. He wanted to be there when it happens. When she starts shaking and sobbing. He didn't know if she really wanted his company in such a moment, but he knew that she shouldn't be alone. And he was the only option she had.
She sat down on the sand and stared at horizon. She didn't look particularly sad. Rather detached. Focused on the inside. Which could have been a very bad sign.
"Sakura?" She turned her head, and looked at him surprised as if he interrupted her in something. "What is it?"
"I… I need to think…" she answered and turned her head away. She was studying the horizon with concentration that had to be in reality directed at something entirely different than the sky and the waves. Then she stood up and started walking nervously along the line of water. He was considering following her when she turned back and paced in the other direction. Then she turned back again. When should he stop that? When should he take her home and force her into bed? Would he need to knock her out again? Or maybe he should put her under genjutsu?
She finished another round. And stopped. Turned around, but this time with more spin. When she walked to him, she was looking at him, really at him. Madara stood up.
She wasn't about to break down, he realized. There was something stony in her face combined with a flicker of determination that he had never seen before in her eyes.
"Well?" he asked. "Have you done your thinking?"
"Yes. Yes, I have. And I know what I need to do now."
"I understand that you want to set off as quickly as possible, but we need to think about supplies… If we split up and are efficient we should be done in couple of days."
"No. I mean, yes, we need supplies as well, but that is not what I wanted to say."
Madara tilted his head, indicating that he was listening.
She looked at him and this time there was such a tenderness in her eyes. "Until now you did everything by yourself," she said. "You guide us through dimension, you jump. You fly us in Susano'o when Katsuyu is not there… I only tag along. If you are the ship and you are the navigator, then what am I? Only the fuel."
"Fuel is no less important than the ship," interrupted Madara. That she was fuel in more sense than just one, he left unsaid.
"We need more fuel."
"What do you mean?"
"I want to learn Senjutsu from the slugs. It will take me a while, so the search of the next branch will have to wait. With all the consequences of it." She looked towards their house, where the cocoon she called Yoshiko was sitting on the porch. "But once I master it… I will have access to so much more chakra. We will be more efficient, we will travel much quicker as I will be able to put much more into healing you. I… I think it is worth sacrificing some time now to gain this advantage."
She wasn't really asking his opinion, Madara realized. She was presenting him a plan.
"And I know what you want to say," she picked up. "That out of us two you should be the one learning it."
"I wasn't going to claim that. In fact, I know little about Senjutsu – Hashirama mastered it after I left the village. But since you raised it, for sure you have a good reason why I shouldn't?" he cracked a smile at Sakura's newly found seriousness and determination. She was really climbing on her toes; he could see it. Which was somewhat endearing, but he could appreciate the change in her mindset even if he had some doubts about the outcome.
"The bottleneck of learning it is not the ability to tap into it but the control needed to balance it with your own chakra. And my control is better than yours. I'll be quicker to learn. Plus, I don't know how mixing a third component would effect your damaged chakra system."
"Fine. I'm not to keen on checking that either, given the circumstances."
"The first step is to learn to sense natural chakra." Katsuyu wasn't prepared for her idea, Sakura could tell that. Her shishou never attempted learning Senjutsu, Katsuyu had all the right to be surprised by the revelation. "But Sakura, are you sure about that? The process is exceedingly long, as far as I recall…"
"I know. But Naruto told me toads were using some special oil…"
"We don't have anything like that... You would need to start on your own. And…" Katsuyu hesitated. "Tsunade-sama was the only slug-contractor in her generation. And in the generation that came after her. In the past as well, those who found the way to Shikkotsu Forest and were deemed compatible with us were always very few. Senjutsu wasn't taught for more than a century. I remembered Hashirama-sama learning it, but I was maybe fifty at that time, much too young to be involved in his training. There were others, better suited for the task. But now they are gone."
"Are you trying to tell me it is a lost knowledge?!"
"Maybe not entirely lost, me and some others still remember how it was taught. But we will need to do a lot of digging and to re-discover certain things… It won't be an easy road for sure. Not that learning Senjutsu ever is."
Sakura bit her lip. "I can help you with figuring that out as well. We can research it all together. You said I need to learn perceiving the natural chakra, right? Meaning we need to increase my sensitivity to in in some way," Sakura trailed off. "Open me to it…"
Immediately after he came back from their home dimension - from an outing to Kiri which proved to be less fruitful than he expected, as the damp weather accelerated the damages in the village - he was intercepted by a small Katsuyu part.
"Madara-sama, good that you are back, we need your assistance," told him the slug and lifted the upper part of her body indicating that he should pick her up. "Would you head towards the river, please?" Katsuyu crawled up his extended arm to perch on his shoulder. He didn't even mind the sensation anymore.
On the grassy riverbank – one of the few places not covered by humid, dense cloud forest – Sakura was sitting cross-legged in the company of several Katsuyu clones and two other slugs - one entirely brown, and the other similar to Katsuyu but with reddish markings. Sakura was completely undressed safe her underpants. She was sitting with her back to him, and when she turned, she was covering her breasts with one arm and she extending the other one towards him.
"You need to place those," she opened up her palm and showed to him what looked like thorns of some exotic plant, "in my tenketsu."
Madara knelt behind her. "Why?" He turned one thorn in his fingers – it looked sharp.
"Those are hollow inside. If you hit tenketsu, it should create a direct channel connecting the outside with my chakra system."
"That sounds like a risky thing to do. And unpleasant too."
"I can easily handle any pathogens that will get in."
"And why do you need me for that, exactly?"
"I need them along me spine and on the outside of my arms so that I they don't bother me when I will be sitting meditating. The slugs cannot place it – they don't have hands… And… I'm not sure if I will be able to place them on my own." There was a trace of apprehension in her voice.
The plane of her back was just in front of him. Her hair was tied up, so nothing was hindering the view. The brown slug crawled up her arm, joining small Katsuyu that was already perched on her usual place on Sakura's right shoulder.
"Whose idea was it?" he asked.
"Mine, why? I think it's a very good idea! I spend last wo weeks studying the theory and I think it can work!"
"Alright. So, where should these go?" Madara grabbed the first thorn.
"Exactly into my tenketsu. You see chakra don't you?"
"Flares of chakra. But not the tenketsu. I'm not a Hyūga." But he activated his Sharingan nonetheless.
"Nyobu and Katsuyu will direct you. They are sending chakra in my system and will tell you where the points are."
The brown slug positioned itself on Sakura's left shoulder blade. Katsuyu took position on the right and Katsuyu's other cloned climbed up from the direction of Sakura's behind.
"Alright, Madara-sama. There are two strings of tenketsu going on the both sides of her spine. Aim a finger-breadth from her axis and half centimeter deep," instructed him Katsuyu.
He placed his hand along her spine, measuring the distance. The flesh under his palm was hard and unyielding. He placed the tip of the thorn on Sakura's skin. "Higher? Lower?" he asked.
The slugs arranged themselves into a triangle around the needle point.
"A bit higher," said the brown snail.
"And a bit more to the right," added the lower Katsuyu clone.
Madara pressed the needle in. Sakura didn't budge.
"A miss," announced the red-marked slug that was seated on Sakura's chest. "Please try again."
It took him five attempts to find the damn tenketsu. On the fifth try he didn't have to be told that it was a hit, because the sound Sakura made was unprecedented. He had never heard her cry out from pain. Grunt with effort, make sounds of discomfort - yes. Such a sound - no.
"That bad?" he asked. His hand landed on the small of her back in a well-memorized gesture of comfort. Which now, that she was naked, could have been read very differently, he realized. "Does it hurt?"
Sakura shook her head. Slowly and stiffly as if she was afraid to move too much. "It's not even exactly pain. Or not only. It's similar to that feeling when you hit the nerve in your elbow with something hard, you know? But in all my system at once."
"Should I take it out?"
"No! Are you kidding?! Don't you dare to stop! We have some sixty more to go!"
Somewhere around twentieth thorn he got it down to only three attempts per tenketsu. It was around the same time when she started to breath shallow and with effort. When he was done with her back, sweat was running along her spine, mixing with traces of blood seeping from around the needles. As he moved in front of her to deal with her arms, she made no attempt to cover herself. She clearly didn't care anymore, for how exhausted and pained she was. Not that it would have been necessary. He took note of how did her chest look like, but he wasn't in the mood to contemplate her charms. If her tears-stained face wasn't enough of discouragement then the needles protruding from her back surely were.
He grabbed the wrist of her extended arm and pointed the needle. The slugs moved in concert with him hands.
"To the left."
"And a bit up."
He immobilized her wrist – since the last couple of tenketsu she started to jerk away - and pushed the needle. A miss.
"More up."
Sakura screamed.
.
"Do you want something to drink?" he asked after Katsuyu deemed the last tenketsu successfully opened.
Sakura opened her eyes and carefully nodded. She started to raise her hand towards the canteen he offered, but it was clear that she was having troubles moving it with all the needles in.
"It's ok, I'll do it," he said bringing the canteen to her lips. She drank greedily. "I'll leave you for now, then. Do your best." He patted at her knee. He wanted to lift her spirits somehow but that empty gesture probably didn't do the job. "I'll set up the camp and prepare some food. I found some pickled fish in Kiri, seems like their local specialty," he said. "We can have it for dinner if you want."
She sent him a very small and a very tired smile and closed her eyes forming a meditation seal.
It took her another four days of training with the needles until when one evening she showed up in the cave - that he chose for the permanent camp because, being located high on the southern slope, it was the driest place he could find - she was positively beaming.
"I did it! I got it!" she announced rushing in. "Today, when I was taking the needles out something felt different, so I sat down again and concentrated and I felt it! I felt it without the needles!" She turned around and swept her gaze across the walls of the cave. "It's everywhere! I see... No, it's not seeing. I feel it everywhere! We're swimming in it, there is just so much! It's still very blurred, but now I know it's there!"
She was very chatty that evening, obviously excited with her accomplishment.
"You cannot believe how happy I am! Even getting Byakugou didn't feel this way – then I sensed it filling up for years. This one is something completely new! I bet that's how the boys felt when they mastered a new jutsu!"
"Yeah. Unlocking a new ability is one of a kind feeling."
Sakura grinned at him. "Even for you? Aren't you a bit jaded with so many jutsu that you have?"
"I was trying to recall how it felt in the past…" he said, suddenly aware how defensive it sounded.
Sakura grinned some more. "And it's such a relief that I finally made a progress," she continued, serving herself a bowl of stew. "I was already doubting myself. Second-guessing if this whole Senjutsu idea wasn't only a waste of time…" she trailed off and fell serious. "But it seems I will be able to make a contribution in the end. Maybe for the first time ever…"
She was all somber when she picked up again. "Back then, all those years ago, I told him that I will defect with him, that I will follow him and help him out with his revenge. He didn't quite take up my offer." Sakura chuckled but there wasn't much mirth it that chuckle. "Obviously. And idiot would notice that at that point I was only a dead weight. I understood it then as well. I started training like stupid, I grew. But he wasn't there to see it. And when we've met again, he didn't know I got better. Which was irrelevant, because his growth was… was astonishing. Not necessary in a good way. But astonishing. He was even more… magnificent. He was… He was just… I could just look at him all day. Even if it was the last thing I would do in my life." Sakura shook her head as if trying to dispel the mirage from the past. "But now, I can finally, finally do something for him. You know, not with the intention to buy myself into his favour. But for him. I just… I just never could until now. And it kills me. It kills me every single day that though I love him, I could never change his life for better. Because if you love someone you need to be able to do it, right?"
"Right… If you don't then it's not love, but a blatant lie," agreed Madara. But she was still looking at him, as if she was waiting for validation, for his input. "But it doesn't have to be an act of heroism. Always, no matter the circumstances, there is some action you can take to make their life better. Sometimes you kill for them, sometimes you die for them. But sometimes those are much mundane things. And sometimes the best you can do is to remove yourself from their life."
Sakura nodded pensively. "I understand it so much better now. Earlier, it was an infatuation, it was egoistic. I wanted him for myself, I wanted to grab him, hold him, consume him. I was trying to make him love me. That's not love."
"No, that's not."
"Then when he was gone, I understood that I wanted to save him. So far, I've always failed. I don't even know if I can do it now. I don't know if I can bring his soul back from where it dwells. But now I can bring his body out from this maze. And I will. And then… Who cares what is then. Because then, finally I would make a positive difference in his life. Even if he doesn't … even if he never… Never looks at me the way I look at him…" Tears rolled down her face.
"I hope that my own clan didn't degenerate that far to produce a mentally impaired. Especially if he is the last one… How could possibly someone not want you?"
Sakura giggled smearing residual wetness across her cheeks. "You think so…?"
He came back from his second scavenging hunt in Kiri. It was still relatively easy to find food but the impact of passing seasons was already apparent. And in the damp and salty atmosphere of Kiri the changes were most pronounced – the sacks were falling apart, rice stored once inside them turned to mush. Even cans were slowly getting rusty. So Kiri was the first one that had to be thoroughly reaped. Madara collected more supplies than they needed for the trip, but if they would be gone for a year or longer, there won't be much to recover once they return.
He unpacked in the cave and went down, towards the river. Sakura was sitting in the middle of the lazy-flowing current, cross-legged on the surface and meditating. It seemed no more difficult than the classic water-walking exercise, but Madara knew it was just the facade. She was doing something else. He focused – the energy was shifting around her. Raw power was flowing from all the directions and sinking inside her. He couldn't quite sense it, but he could feel how the portions of chakra that were tangible for him shifted and moved to make space for something else. Something huge. And inaccessible for him.
He remembered how it felt to face Hashirama in his Senjutsu mode for the first time. How daunting it was to find his friend-turned-enemy even more powerful. How beautiful it would have been had he not hated it.
Now he saw this power in a very different context. All negative connotations were gone – he wasn't envious or angry or embittered anymore. But the power was the same and the hypnotic allure of it remained.
To witness all that energy getting trapped into a human body. Closed down to be controlled and wielded and used… The potential of it alone should make her glow.
She wasn't glowing, she looked as usual, he observed with certain surprise. With Sharingan, even from this distance he could see the evening mist rising from the river precipitating on her arms, forming little droplets. Droplets that joined together until they were big enough to roll down her arms, across her chest into the valley between her breasts.
How would it feel to lick along those rivulets? What would happen if he did? Would she snap out of her concentration?
Sakura's eyes snapped open. "I know that you're here," she said.
"You will need to summon me before your chakra pathways tear," informed him Katsuyu.
They were preparing for his solo trip to layer five. Sakura got a bit fidgety about 'losing time' and as the fifth layer wasn't completed, he proposed searching it while she continued her Senjutsu training. She agreed – with mix of reluctance and relief - but now was going a little overboard with safety measures.
"Why bother? You can heal the damage when it is substantial enough to hinder me."
"My healing is soothing and strengthening existing tissues. And cannot re-create the pathways from nothing the way Sakura-chan does. I lack dexterity to do this." The slug undulated her upper tentacles, retracting them a bit inwards. "I'm a little bit clumsy, you see…"
"Ok. Madara, you've heard her," cut in Sakura from over the half-packed food scroll. "You need to summon Katsuyu-sama after each and every jump!"
"What if I hit a deadly dimension?" mocked Madara. "Am I to stay and summon her as well?"
"Drop the bullshit! And no hitting any deadly dimensions! Avoid the deadly cluster on the bottom of the cube altogether – just don't go there at all. And you are to solemnly promise me that you will call Katsuyu after each and every jump, otherwise I'm not letting you go anywhere.."
"Sakura. I'm not a child."
She let out a frustrated huff. "I just worry that you will get into your head to play a hero and.."
"And stop confusing me with your teammates."
"I just wanted to say… Just be careful. Please be careful."
"I will. And if anything is amiss, I'll summon Katsuyu and she summons you, and from there we will deal with any problem. At any time I will be no more than four jumps away from home. Four, or maximum five jumps away from you."
He did summon Katsuyu after every jump, and at the evening camps he even opted for having her stay a bit. He realized that the slug was very fond of those foul-tasting leafy greens Sakura had packed in his ratios and forced him to promise to eat every day. But if he politely shared his portion with Katsuyu, there was less of it left for him. He was sure Sakura would control the supplies very carefully once he returns. Of course, he could summon his ratios of greens and burn them, or conveniently leave that in some forlorn dimension. But he promised in the end.
"How is Sakura doing?"
"Fine. She's making great progress. Two days ago she started with the combat training."
"Combat training? Forgive me Katsuyu-san, but how can she train combat with you?"
"Several part of me surround her and spit acid at her. She either dodges, or blocks it with mud walls, and so on. And she tries to annihilate my copies."
"Acid, huh…? She really has a penchant for it, doesn't she?"
"What do you mean, Madara-sama?"
"Wasn't she training this way when she was a girl? She has a scar on her right arm which she says is from an acid burn. It must be still from the times when she couldn't heal herself."
"Ah, that one. No, this scar isn't that old. She got it when they were looking for Sasuke-kun, it was acid from Kaguya's dimension. I guess she didn't remove it for sentimental reasons."
"It would seem so." Madara took a bite of roasted fish. "Strange creatures we are that we keep mementos of our loved ones as scars on our skin…"
"You, shinobi, live violent lives… I suppose it comes with that…"
"Violent lives indeed. I had a couple ideas for changing that. Neither quite worked out…"
Katsuyu pulled in both pairs of her tentacles. "So, I think it will take her two, maybe three weeks until she is ready." She changed the topic in such an abrupt and ungainly fashion that Madara had to smile. Diplomacy wasn't Katsuyu's strength. "Then you can set off."
"That's fast."
"She is very gifted. And very focused. She is much more goal-oriented than Hashirama-sama used to be, much more diligent."
"Yeah, Hashi couldn't concentrate for the life of him."
"Hashirama-sama was… full of turbulent emotions. It surprised me when he joined us for the training, though later I learnt that he was like that his entire life long. But when he sought us out in Shikkotsu Forest, he was doubting in himself so much. Which was absurd to anyone who witnessed his power. I think it was directly after you left the village…"
"Was it?"
"He was blaming himself. He never really understood why you left..."
"I thought I made myself clear enough."
"I think the topic was too emotionally charged for him to understand your… reasons. He just could never find his peace with it."
"It didn't stall his hand though, when he stabbed me in the back…"
Katsuyu undulated her tentacles again. "I wouldn't know what was he thinking back then… But he was never the same after your final duel."
Flashes of their last battle appeared in front of his eyes; Hashirama's power so much bigger than his own. A bad memory – Madara shook his head. But now this power will be serving them, now it belongs to Sakura… He couldn't wait to see her make use of it - even the sight of her harnessing it was exhilarating.
"Goodnight, Katsuyu-san. Greet Sakura from me."
"I will. Goodnight." Answered the slug and disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Madara lied down and closed his eyes. But sleep was far away. There was certain tension, certain uneasiness… Something on the border of his consciousness that wasn't letting go.
He opened his trousers and took himself in his hand. That was a nice change that Sakura wasn't around – he finally didn't have to be sneaky about that. Hopefully that will be quicker this way and he will be done with it sooner.
He stroked slowly up and down, as his member stiffened under his fingers. He called back the images, the memories of warm body trapped underneath him; of slick, hot tightness around his cock. He never bothered to activate his Sharingan when bedding women – pity, now it would have come handy.
He thought how it felt to push into another body and feel it yield and open for him. How it squeezed and surrounded him. He pumped his fist harder. How it felt to tense his muscles and piston his hips, all the effort that was needed for it. Madara bucked into his hand. How he had to hold the woman's hips and pull her into himself to provide himself with enough stimulation, to go fast and hard enough. How it was to grab at the waist, how the softness and swell of hips felt under his fingers when he held them down.
How would the hard plane of her back feel under his hands… How she would match his thrusts and respond with equal fervor. How she would moan in that high voice of hers and throw back her head and tell him not to stop… Not to dare to stop. He felt himself hardening further, even if he thought it impossible. How would he search in her for the place that would make her clench around him, and how she would once he finds it – he tightened his fist. How she would she come…
For a split of second he saw it in all detail – her spine arched, sweat beaded on her back, pink hair plastered to her cheeks, eyes clenched shut and mouth open. Sakura's face contorted in a paroxysm of ecstasy. He spilled into his hand and immediately sobered.
A cold current ran down his spine – why did he imagine her, out of all people? How could he?
The sleep didn't come at all. After three hours he packed the bedroll and sat by the fire for the rest of the night, carving one piece of firewood after another into nothingness of small shavings.
AN: Thank you for reading, and please tell me what you think! If you didn't realize it so far, let me stress it again: Feedback amplifies the joy I experience from writing! It not only motivates me, bur directly influences what and how I write, so it is really a two-way street. So please, do share your impressions with me :)))