The Last Ones Standing
Chapter 12
AN: The Last Ones Standing received 3 (three!) amazing fanarts last days.
Yomigaeru's illustration to Chapter 7: yomi-gaeru . tumblr post / 619659763620429824
And IvNarwhal's two illustrations to Chapter 11: twitter IvNarwhal / status / 1266787719872733184, and twitter IvNarwhal / status / 1267759282025627655
Thank you so much Yomigaeru and IvNarwhal! Please go check out their art, everyone!
The branch was long, more than nine hundred dimensions, though, as in the previous one, towards the end of it there were mostly voids. They've found the end soon after the celebration of Sakura's birthday, and she immediately announced it a present from fate.
It was a joy to see her happy.
Some hundred dimensions on the way back – they again followed the parallel line back, to cover more ground - they found well, a 'civilization' was an overstatement. But human-like creatures. Frighteningly human-like, though lacking any form of culture or technology, reduced to using tools made out of sharpened sticks and roughly chipped stone. Or maybe they were reduced to it. Maybe it was the pinnacle of their development.
When they saw them first, a group of maybe fifteen men, women and children crossing a wide river, Sakura literally bumped against the wall of Susano'o trying to get to them. When they landed, the poor creatures scattered in panic, some caught by the current, and it took them couple of hours to track down a group of two women with small children. They were scared out of their lives, women clutching their babies to their chests, trying to shield them from Madara and Sakura, older kids howling and crying.
Madara and Sakura sat down to look less threatening, but it didn't bring much. The only thing they achieved was that the women started to crawl away.
"We might have just founded a religion" quipped Madara. "With us flying down from the sky on the wings of a blue giant… Imagine the stories…"
"I don't think there will be any stories… I don't think they can even talk."
Indeed, those people didn't communicate with each other apart from some guttural groans, even as mothers were trying to gather the frightened children closer to themselves.
With heavy heart, they left the creatures to themselves, seeing that the communication attempts were futile. They checked the rest of this dimension carefully, but found only couple of other groups of those pre-people. They spotted them only because they were extra careful. Those people would scatter and lie flat on the ground at the sight of Susano'o or run and hide among vegetation and were to be seen only if Madara and Sakura surprised them in the open. That brought them to a conclusion that they could have missed similar situations in other dimensions. Sakura got really depressed, until she reminded herself that it was their teammates who were their objective, and they would have responded to seeing Susanoo and fire signs by active approach.
They ended up hunting down several deer-like animals for fresh meat supply, and leaving the dimension without any substantial interaction with the natives. Sakura's thirst for human contact wasn't quenched.
As he feared, she made a habit of that 'exchange of favours'. She never verbalized it again but she found a way to make her intentions clear. If she would lie down and nestle to him when settling down for a night – it meant that she wanted only to be held. If instead, she would traverse into his mat, and place herself between his legs - it meant she wanted to be touched.
He couldn't even say that he really regretted things taking such a turn. It was an outlet for the pent-up frustrations for him as well. And it was shaping to be a safe outlet. He put utmost care not to touch her in any way that would betray his desire, that could be read as making advances. He limited his touches to where she wanted them – between her legs. Still, she would always lean against him, he felt her warmth, her breathing, spasming of her body that accompanied her reaching her completion… And she was responding – pushing against his hand, moving her hips in the rhythm that his fingers played. It was more than he could have ever asked for.
He thought about embracing her, holding her fast when he was touching her, but in the end, he decided against it. He would plant his other hand firmly behind himself instead. When, and if at all, she wanted him to do something differently, she would find a way to communicate it, he was sure. She wasn't shy. He knew it wasn't easy for her, and he appreciated even more. He liked it about her. A small voice at the back of his head supplemented that he never liked timid women.
It would follow the same pattern each time - he would do her, then she would turn, or move to sit next to him, and do her part. When she sat between his legs there was at least some body contact to be had. Nevertheless, he liked it better when she sat next to him - then her shirt would slide up her thighs and he could see the curve of her behind.
He loved watching her in general – how her cheeks were turning redder as she worked him. The look of complete concentration on her face. Sneaky glimpses she would send up to check on him. She seemed more comfortable performing the act by then and he was immensely relieved by it.
Four hundred dimensions into their way back, in a barren rocky world that could in no way support life, Sakura de-attached herself abruptly from his elbow. And ran. He called out after her, but she paid him no heed.
She stopped only at the edge of strange, concave rock formation – a crater of sorts, maybe fifty meters wide. When he approached, he saw Sakura kneeling in the middle of it and tracing her fingers along spiraling line that unwounded from the center of the crater all way to its edge.
She raised her head and her eyes were huge. "Look! This pattern! It looks like Naruto's Rasengan!"
Madara ran his palm across the ridges etched in the stone. Whatever created them, was powerful. "A jutsu of your Jinchūriki-friend?"
Sakura nodded. "It gives chakra a physical form. And it holds it rotating in the sphere, until the impact. That," she pointed down, "can be the effect of it!"
Those lines indeed could have been made by chakra. Madara straightened up. The months of forced idleness immediately forgotten, as he felt a familiar rush of adrenaline. "Get up," he barked, pacing towards her in long strides. "And concentrate."
He stood back-to-back with her, scanning the perimeter. Behind him, he could feel how Sakura was manipulating her chakra to sense natural energy.
"Nothing," she said after a while. "Nothing alive in my range."
Without a word Madara cloaked them both in Susano'o.
Sakura shouted out in protest. "Hey, don't lock me up inside it! I won't be able to fight when I'm stuck in Susano'o!"
"You're staying inside. That's not up to discussion." He'll be thrice damned if some harm comes to her. "We're both staying in, in fact. From what you've told me, the goddess relies on stealth with those portals opening voicelessly seemingly everywhere… I need you as another pair of eyes. Watch my back."
Whatever this damned goddess was, his Susano'o will withstand her. Or at least blunt the impact.
He will get the bitch.
They flew high, searching for any traces of the goddess or Sakura's teammates. Couple of kilometers away from their entry point, they found a crater of similar form, but smaller. The rest of day's-worth of search brought nothing more.
That night, for the first time since months, they kept watches again. Not that Madara slept much in his designated resting time. He suspected neither did Sakura.
The next day failed to bring progress. So did the one after it. They opted for systematic search of the entire world – flying in in circles from one pole of that small rocky world to another.
They didn't talk much – both concentrated and in permanent battle-readiness. It was the first time he saw Sakura so scared – she was tensing up each time they were flying over a mountain ridge, she kept turning her head to look behind herself in a way that would have spoken of paranoia under different circumstances. But she was simply anticipating the goddess appearing behind her every single second of their stay in this world.
They found no further traces of life, or fights. On the opposite hemisphere they discovered a tight cluster of depressions with spiraling patterns that were somewhat weathered away. And after two weeks of search they found themselves exactly how they started – examining the crater at the dimension's entry point. Sakura's nervous anticipation morphed into something akin to apathy by then. He suspected having the hopes up and then down once again was taking its toll. And so was the fear that was her constant companion.
Sakura was stroking the stone ridges, as if they were something alive, something she wanted to hold and caress. "At this point – I'm not even sure if it's really Naruto's jutsu," she said. "I'm not sure of anything anymore."
"Let's investigate this area more." The last thing Madara wanted was to be dismissive about her ideas. Or gut-feelings. And it might have been a break-through. "We're on the line once-removed from her cardinal direction. Check what was the counterpart of this dimension on our way up the branch."
Sakura took out her notebook. She sat cross-legged – the first time he saw her doing so in those two weeks. She must have been tense beyond belief all that time. Sakura leafed through her logbook. "Empty plane type. With no light source. We didn't do a proper search. That's a given at this point we should. But if she had gone as far as to…" Sakura glimpsed into the notebook, "to the 517th dimension without leaving any traces of fight, then it's unlikely she left any in exactly the 517th one."
"Unless she had changed her trajectory much earlier, and did most of her travel along the line we are on now. Maybe there are traces of fights all over this line."
"Yup. Or..." dragged Sakura, "she is able to jump hundreds of dimensions at once... Are such long jumps even possible? Can you jump more than one dimension? And if yes - how many dimensions can you span with one jump?"
"Something to check. I'll try tomorrow. Aiming into an already known one of course."
Sakura fiddled with a loose thread on the hem on her shirt. "If she can jump this far and if she changes her directions freely, then we're screwed. We can forget all out theories."
"We have no way of knowing how she jumps. We can only stick to our best assumptions."
Sakura let her head hung low. "Ok," she said after a while and she sounded more collected. "Checking the dimension next to this one on the cardinal direction line and checking the feasibility of long jumps - that's two things. But I think we should inspect the dimensions around this one systemically as well."
"Complete cube as around our home-dimension?"
Sakura chewed on her lip. "I think so. I know it will take a lot of time... But couple of layers at least?"
"Alright."
She smiled at him and some tension disappeared from her shoulders. He never understood why his approval seemed to her so out of her reach.
They set up a camp, put guard seals around it - just for Sakura's peace of mind, because the dimension was empty - and lied together the first time for two weeks. Sakura crawled into his embrace and pressed herself to him, as if she wanted to hide.
"Shh… You can relax now. The goddess is not here. For the good and bad of it."
Sakura sniffled into his shirt. "I just want it to be over… I want it to be all over!" She moved her head, and it was clear she is wiping her tears. "You know… even if we find their bodies, even if she kills us. I just wish for an ending."
"She won't kill us." Madara clenched his teeth. "At least that I can promise. I know you're tired, but finding their bodies isn't really something you want. Right?"
Sakura nodded.
"Sleep now. Tomorrow we start the search."
They checked three layers completely. In one of the fourth-layer dimension Sakura found a cracked and blackened patch of stone near the entry portal. For Madara it didn't look particularly convincing, but Sakura claimed that those could be traces of Chidori. He also didn't understand why would a jutsu aimed at the goddess end up dispatched into the ground. This dimension was empty as well. But, incidentally, it did lie on the cardinal direction from the putative Rasengan-dimension, so they followed this line.
Sakura's hopes were like tides, like moon itself – waxing and waning. And they brought her mostly suffering, from the looks of it. She was agitated, as if with every dimension she expected to see the faces of her teammates. And every dimension was a bitter disappointment.
In the evenings, he saw her going through her notebooks and scrolls, scribbling notes. She never admitted it, but he knew what was she doing – she was calculating how long can they still spend on their search before they run out of supplies. They had packed for a year and a half, with some safety margin, but the branch was longer than they anticipated, and now they invested already months into an additional, unplanned search region.
She was sleeping badly, waking up multiple times a night, tossing and turning for hours before dozing off again. Sometime she had nightmares – hers were of a silent sort, she wouldn't scream, but rather wake up drenched in cold sweat and unable to draw a breath. He wondered what was she seeing in those dreams. She still slept in his arms, but since the Rasengan-dimension she never initiated intimacy.
One hundred and fifty dimensions later, Sakura announced the end of search.
"We can come to this region again. Once we're properly stocked up," he proposed. "517 dimensions is not that far. Once we have a map and I know I'm not jumping into lava or acid, I can do longer jumps. If you want. This might be a more rational strategy than the branches."
"But the entire theory is based on those craters. And I don't even know what I recognized and what not. They could be just geological formations…"
"You are to judge – I don't even know the Jinchūriki's jutsu."
"It would make sense to decide after we come back home. After we see if we find any traces of fights on the way back. If we don't and we assume that she jumped five hundred dimensions in one go, then she can be anywhere. It makes no sense to come back here. Then I'd rather chose to believe that those craters were just a coincidence."
Despite all her cool rationalizations, she seemed very deflated that day, her movements sluggish, the corners of her mouth always slightly downwards.
They made a quick progress towards the 'Rasengan-world' – the way was mapped, and Madara learned that he could span three dimensions with one jump. That evening he insisted on having meat for supper. She had tendency of saving the choosiest supplies for imaginary bad times, but he knew she liked that deer meat a lot. And that she would justify eating it if he wanted to.
Then he wanted to play a game of shogi. He won, and he could see that the challenge he posed took her mind off the real problems, at least for as long as the pieces were moved on the board. When they lied down for the night, she didn't fall asleep for a long time, lying motionless, as if deep in her thoughts. He couldn't sleep either.
Then she moved. Pressed her palms against his chest to have him roll to his back. And traversed the bedroll to sit between his legs. "Can we do it?" she asked propping on his thighs and leaning over him.
Wordlessly, he sat up and gathered her to his chest. She twisted around and opened her legs. He wound one arm around her waist and the other he slid downwards. She was wearing the underwear that he favored - the one from thin fabric, that would get transparent when wet. He followed the outline of her slit with his fingers.
He liked doing it, he had to admit it. And over last four months he had missed it dearly. And 'liking' was a grave understatement.
Sakura propped her head against his chest and opened her legs more. He tapped the familiar rhythm on her clit - he could already feel the light swelling of it through the fabric. She nestled against him more comfortably. And then, to his endless surprise, she reached down and edged her underwear to the side.
"Can you touch me directly?" she asked. If it had been little bit quieter, he wouldn't have missed it. "And yes, I am sure, in case you're wondering," she added when he failed to make a movement.
Madara raised his eyebrows - she was really full of surprises. Tentatively, he moved his hand to touch her flesh. It was very, very delicate, and very slick. Just with two fingers, he explored the folds, opening them more with every iteration. Sakura was staring down, and so was he. If she was breathing, then he couldn't feel it. He wasn't even surprised - he forgot to do it, himself.
He reached her bud - Sakura gasped and squirmed.
"Sorry." Madara withdrew his hand.
"No, it didn't hurt... I'm just not used to it..."
He put his hand back and as carefully as he could, touched her again. She didn't flinch away this time and a deep inhale she took spoke of pleasure. He tried replicating the movements he already knew she liked and soon she was breathing heavily and shifting her hips to grant him more access. He knew that if he put some effort into it now, he could finish her off in no time. Which he should be doing. But he didn't want it to be over yet.
He slid his fingers a bit lower. She was so slick that they glided with no resistance. He past her mound and crooked his fingers to reach her center. He couldn't see his maneuvers anymore, which was regrettable, but for Madara it was a fair deal. The heel of his palm pressed against her mound, keeping the pressure where she needed it while his fingers dipped deeper. Gently, gentlest he could, he circled her opening. Sakura moaned - a rare occurrence. And immediately stiffened. Her hand shot out to grab his wrist.
"Stop,' she said. 'I mean... don't stop completely," she corrected herself, "but... don't go further. Just... don't put anything inside, okay?"
Madara swallowed. He overstepped. "I won't. I promise."
Sakura got hold of his hand and rubbed her thumb against it. "But I didn't mean to complain... That what you did a moment ago - that was so good..." she added encouragingly.
Madara propped his forehead against her shoulder to gather himself. A whirlwind of conflicting emotions was raging inside him. Urge to plunge his fingers inside her as deep as they would go. And to replace them with his cock right away and drive into her with full force. Pain of disappointment about how this urge will forever remain unfulfilled. Completely irrational sadness at what some idiotic, inexplicable part of his brain interpreted as rejection. Self-loathing that he even felt all these emotions.
And immense relief. Because if she drew a line, it meant she still believed. She hadn't given up.
Sakura bent her arm backwards, behind her head, reaching to his temple.
"What is it? Did I upset you?"
"No. That's just a bit... intense for me."
Sakura laughed. "For you?! But it's me who's getting touched!"
Madara regained his bearings enough to resume drawing lazy circles around her entrance. That should deconcentrate her away from asking uncomfortable questions.
"You still don't get it, do you? There is pleasure in doing that to someone." He managed to ban the sadness from his voice.
Sakura bit her lip. "Oh," she said, and he wondered if it was a reply to his words or to his touches, because he just switched back to her clit. "Really?" she trailed off, and it was clear she wasn't paying much attention.
"Really," he snickered. "You're missing out on a lot."
He strummed her bud the way she liked and he could feel how she was balancing at the edge. A minute longer and she will finish, just like that. But Madara wanted more entertainment. Taking a risk, he grasped her bud between two fingers and pinched.
It was worth it - Sakura screamed.
She never made such a noise before. She arched tensing all her muscles and he kept applying pressure until she slumped against him.
Madara was so hard that he couldn't believe she didn't feel his erection against the small of her back. It took all of his willpower not to rut against her.
Sakura closed her eyes and stilled for a moment. When she turned to him, he opened his legs wider to give her a space to kneel. She busied herself with opening his trousers, both her hands and breathing still a bit unsteady.
He finished as quickly as it was humanly possible. He barely needed a couple of firm strokes from her.
The return home wasn't accompanied by joyful apprehension this time, and the gloom wasn't dispersed by finding any traces of the goddess and Sakura's teammates. A hundred dimensions before home, Sakura fell anxious and jittery. When they entered Katsuyu's range she stopped chatting in the evenings. They both dreaded the moment of reveal of the extend of the damage, but there was nothing they could do to avoid facing it.
She didn't run to the village this time; they walked there together in quick, nervous steps, not exchanging a single word.
The porch of their house was empty. Sakura climbed it anyway. She knelt where the cocoon used to be and broke into tears.
"Yoshiko-san…" she whispered between the sobs, trailing her hand on the rough planks of the porch. "Yoshiko-san…"
He sat down next to her, unable to offer any consolation.
"She let us live in her house! And now she's dead, she's gone! And it's all your fault!" she screamed clenching her fists.
"I know. That's why I'm helping you," he said. He stood up, entered the house and closed the door behind himself.
She stayed outside until late in the night. When she came in, he was already asleep, in his pallet in the corner of the main room. Instead of going to the bed she had assembled in the storage, as she always did when they were overnighting in the village, Sakura crawled under his blankets. He opened his arms to give her the place to lie down. But instead of nestling against his chest as usual, she wound her arm around his neck and peppered kisses on his face, dragging her fingers repetitively across his cheeks and his temples, over his closed eyes, his nose, his lips.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, "I'm so sorry about what I've said."
"Nothing to be sorry about. You stated the fact. The fact we have to live with. Both you and me."
Next morning it became apparent that almost all villagers were gone. Left were two cocoons by the harbor – probably belonging to young males. In an impulse Sakura wanted to cut them off and open, but he stopped her, reminding her that she didn't wanted to see the state in which bodies of those people must have been already.
Tentatively, they checked the Allied Forces Army by the tree – the cocoons were too numerous to tell for sure, but the absorption seemed to have spared the ninja so far.
They moved permanently to the slug dimension couple of days later, to the cave in one of the few drier spots in Shikkotsu Forest, the one next to the river. Madara sealed and transferred the bed and a low table to put into what will become their new home. One bed, because it was enough now.
From Shikkotsu Forest they made re-stocking trips, rummaging first through Konoha and then through the capital of the Fire Country for supplies. Or rather, it was mostly Madara doing the rounds, as he wanted to give Sakura some time with the slugs – at least they were living creatures she could interact with, and gods knew, she needed it.
Days spend with Katsuyu, under the gentle sun of slugs' dimension reminded Sakura of better times. At least when they weren't talking. Because when they did, all the topics circled around their mission… Oh, how did Sakura wish to have something else to talk about…
Until visible uncomfortable Katsuyu started a conversation that had Sakura immediately regret ever wishing for that.
"I don't want to temper your enthusiasm, and please don't get me wrong Sakura-chan, because I believe in our success, I really do." Katsuyu was always overtly politely, but such a preamble was something, even coming from her. "I know we have a theory and a search plan. Nevertheless, the outcome is still uncertain… And I must tell you that in my opinion you shouldn't engage in reproduction just yet."
"I'm sorry Katsuyu-sama, reproduction of what?"
"Of your species. The way humans are built - that you have to carry your offspring inside you for so long - it would put you under severe strain during dimension travel… And, Sakura-chan, I just don't think it's the best moment for that…"
Sakura's eyes went as wide as saucers. "No! Katsuyu-sama! We're not… We're not trying to produce any offspring!"
"But you and Madara-sama are exchanging your reproduction fluids, don't you? Though I always thought in humans only the exchange from male to female is necessary…" mused Katsuyu.
Sakura couldn't draw the next breath. "We don't… We don't." She pushed the air into her lugs by sheer power of will. Now exhale. "We're not procreating." Sakura forgot about the keen chemical sense of the slugs. Katsuyu was just smelling their respective body fluids on them… Denying the act was pointless. Katsuyu knew. "How to say… The exchange of fluids that we do won't lead to production of offspring…" Sakura finished weakly.
Katsuyu extended both pairs her antennas to her, mark of acute focus. "Then why are you engaging in such an activity?"
Sakura's wanted the earth to bury her right then and there. "Because… Because… It is for fun…"
Katsuyu undulated her antenna. "I'm sorry Sakura, but if it is for fun, then why are you so upset now? You look like you want to cry."
"Those matters are kind of private and we usually don't discuss them with the parties that are not directly involved…" Sakura decided if she will keep it matter-of-fact, Katsuyu won't realize how shameful this conversation was for her. "It is something that two people do… uhm… in certain seclusion…"
AN: Thank you for reading and all the wonderful feedback I'm getting for this fic. It really motivates me and gives me wings! Please share your thoughts about this chapter with me as well!
Since I recently got quite some messages from readers concerned about their English skills, I would like to state the following: firstly, I'm not a native speaker myself, and I'm really not *at all* concerned about the quality of English grammar in your comments (lol). And secondly, if it's more comfortable for you, please feel free to write in the language of your choosing! There is a chance I will understand it ;) and if not, what do we have google translate for?