This chapter is a screamer. I hope you survive- I mean, enjoy it.
Chapter CV
Hope will wane in the dark,
As a potent curse completes its mark,
Blood turns to stone, a heart will still,
Compelling hands to defy their will,
A life taken - a life in its stead,
A call that shakes the very dead.
~x~
Sakura's screams reverberated deafeningly in Sasuke's ears, merging with the adrenaline-fuelled roar of his own rushing blood as he lunged forward, Susano'o's armour flaring brightly from his body. His gaze locked onto her wide, terrified eyes, then flicked in cold fury onto Obito, who had instantly blurred into existence behind Sakura. His arms were wound around her neck and midsection, trapping her arms at her sides, holding her close as they freefell together into the scorching, fiery mouth of Tartarus.
His Rinnegan honed back in on Sakura, blazing with intent.
One moment she was falling - the next she was overcome by a strange, weightless sensation and the rushing whoosh of air whipped around her ears as she felt solid ground beneath her once again, landing roughly back on the cracked, harsh terrain surrounding the infernal crater.
With an alarmed gasp, Sakura pushed herself up onto her knees to look over the precipice in horror, just in time to glimpse Sasuke rapidly descending into the blistering flames, enveloped in Susano'o's armour. He had just collided bodily into Obito, sending him spiralling, and stabbed him straight through the chest with a Chidori-charged blade.
Sakura's eyes widened. Sasuke was dragging the older Uchiha down with him in a glowing, skeletal fist that pulsed unsteadily, its chakra more unstable than she had ever seen it. Her heart hammered at the base of her throat as she realised what that had to mean. Sasuke had somehow switched places with her - but was wounded, his chakra flow clearly disturbed. In the next moment, he had vanished from her sight entirely, swallowed up by the bubbling lava.
"No!" she choked out, clutching mindlessly, frantically at her hair. Panic exploded within her, sending her pulse skyrocketing. She had absolutely no memory of what had happened, her mind drawing a frightening blank as to how she had ended up at the edge of Hell itself to begin with. And now Sasuke was alone with a formidable enemy, plummeting into a dreadful place where she could not follow, where she would have no idea what was happening, where she was powerless to assist him.
"Sasuke-kun!" She screamed in terror, stretching out a hand in despair. "SASUKE-KUN!"
~x~
Blazing hellfire rushed up to meet them as they plunged into the chasm at great speed. Sasuke clenched his teeth, dragging more chakra to his eyes, and felt his optical pathways burning in protest when the Curse Seal's reserves responded, confirming that his own chakra was rapidly becoming overrun by the raging venom that was waging its toxic war inside his bloodstream.
Shit! His heart skipped a terrible beat. The only chakra he would soon have at his disposal was that of the Curse Seal, which would swiftly accelerate the rate of petrification. But there was no alternative. It was the only readily available supply with his own reserves diminishing. The lightning that screeched along the blade he had embedded in Obito's chest, lightning he had managed to summon with his own chakra, flickered dangerously, erratically, irregular in its flow.
'SASUKE-KUN!' Sakura's telepathic voice blasted down the sacred bond that held them tethered to one another. It was full of fear and panic, and shook him to his core. He could not sense the agony of poison afflicting her, and realised with a brief, fleeting sense of relief that Obito had not yet done what he had threatened to do and released the venom into her blood. But he did not have time to question why, nor could he afford to allow his concentration to slip for even a second by responding to Sakura's frantic, desperate calls of his name. He had to hold out hope that either Chiyo would soon return from whatever disaster had struck on the surface, or The Fates would keep to their word and sustain Sakura long enough for her to be healed.
Now that he had returned Sakura safely to the edge of the crater, he knew that he needed to hasten their descent to the lowest level of Tartarus and could not risk sparing any further chakra on another stronger ability like Amaterasu until they had reached their intended destination.
Obito's eyes locked onto his, empty and emotionless. A cold smile graced his lips. As if he did not feel the anger and pain of being stabbed, as if Sasuke had just played directly into his hands.
"How sentimental of you, to use Kakashi's old blade," he said, over the loud hissing sound of Susano'o deflecting the boiling lava that roiled and churned lethally around them, enveloping their surroundings in a blindingly bright ocean of fire and pure anguish that appeared to have no end.
Reaching up to wrap a hand around the metal that protruded from his chest, Obito taunted, "It was I who gouged out his eye."
Something ruptured within Sasuke, leaking murderous rage. But the stream of Chidori faltered, and he realised that Obito was using his abilities to absorb the lightning energy into his own body. As if all the tailed beasts he held provided him with some manner of elemental immunity. It was no surprise, given that each tailed beast possessed its own chakra affinity and special set of gifts.
Obito's confession made Sasuke see red. He yanked the sword ruthlessly out of Obito's chest and swiftly formed seals with his hands, transporting them in a heartbeat from the bubbling sea of lava, to the lowest depths of Tartarus.
The skeletal fist holding Obito slammed him with pulverising force against a black ash-strewn ground, sending a plume of dark cinders into the air.
The most feared level of Tartarus consisted not of licking flames, but of sweltering, eerie, lightless wastelands. A vast graveyard of shadow that was littered with venomous bones and rivulets of a thick, bitter, dark liquid that oozed through the deep cracks in the drought-parched ground. Tasting it was akin to drinking corrosive acid, burning tar. Suffocating and scalding. The bones and toxic liquid were the only sources of nourishment provided to the condemned eternally confined within the most horrific of Tartarus's prisons, compelled to eat and drink to quell a hunger and thirst that could never be sated.
The air itself was oppressive and hostile, each breath of it taken was poisonous, smothering smoke. Souls of the most sinister, who had committed the most heinous and unspeakable of sins, wandered the ghostly plains, or were shackled inescapably to lifeless, unsightly, gnarled black trees that grew from the barren ground, their roots the source of the dark liquid that seeped into the earth. Forced back into their physical forms, the damned walked upon blistering ash so hot it melted the soles of their feet to the bone. They were bound to roam aimlessly forever, with no purpose or direction, unable to stop themselves even as their legs trembled from exhaustion. They moaned and cursed and screamed and sobbed and wailed, clawing and tearing at their own naked flesh as fatigue and madness consumed them, their self-inflicted wounds festering and infected, never healing but never killing them, either.
When they hungered, they ate and drank from the bones and liquid around them, burning their insides, causing them to vomit so violently that they bled from their eyes and every orifice in their body until they longed to die, begging to be allowed to rest, pleading for a forgiveness that would never be bestowed upon them, offering prayers that fell upon unhearing ears. Because death was forever denied to them, and they had no hope of salvation, their existence an unbreakable cycle of horrific pain, anguish and eternal suffering, of bitter regrets and self-loathing as they stumbled unseeingly through an impenetrable darkness, blind and petrified, stripped of all the pride, arrogance and power they had once known.
In their worldly lives, they had all been the predators, cruel hunters without morals and principles. In Sasuke's kingdom, they were nothing but helpless, whimpering prey.
This was the land of the cursed, the desolate, and the wretched. There was only endless torment and horror to be found here. But all its miserable captives had been cleared from the area they had alighted at, at Sasuke's command. He could remain unseen to the damned, but that did not stop his eyes from seeing them in the dark, and he wanted no distractions.
A loud, sickening crack filled the air as Obito slammed into the ground with great force, the flickering light of Susano'o briefly illuminating the barren landscape that surrounded them. It quickly snuffed out, plunging the pair into absolute darkness.
But they were both forged of shadow, able to see perfectly through the veil of blackness that stretched on endlessly in all directions around them. Sasuke knew Obito would not be stunned by the impact for long, and ignoring the pain of his wound, wasted no time lunging at him, even as his ravaged pathways screamed with the effort to provide him with the chakra reserves he needed to call upon his more taxing abilities.
Ghostly, incomprehensible whispers filled the air as the Infernal Shades, the shadowy, shapeless guardians who dwelled in the lowest level of Tartarus, who watched over and tormenting all its inhabitants and who enforced the iron will of its monarch, breezed through the darkness, circling around them before closing in on Obito, ready to assist their ruler.
'Command Us, Hades King.' Their echoing, inhuman voices spoke in unison to him, words only his ears could hear. 'Your will is Ours.'
'A barrier. Now!' He telepathically ordered, instructing them to use the powerful sealing abilities they possessed to trap Obito within a chakra-negating barrier. Setting Kusanagi alight with Amaterasu, he simultaneously winked out of sight, using the Rinnegan's impossible speed to close the gap, aiming straight for Obito's eyes-
A sharp gasp hitched in his throat, and his horrified eyes widened when a Kamui portal rippled and Sakura once again stood there before him. Thrown abruptly off momentum, he stabbed his sword into the cracked earth, changing course at the very last moment, barely avoiding impaling her with his own blade as he violently twisted and crashed into the ground with a pained grunt, almost losing his grip on Kusanagi entirely.
Obito stood behind Sakura once again, and had enveloped her form with a protective dark shield forged of tailed-beast chakra, rendering her both unable to move, and safe from the effects of their hostile environment. Not out of kindness or sympathy, but in order to force Sasuke to cooperate. Likely the same reason he had yet to release the venom in her blood, Sasuke realised. He was once again using Sakura as leverage.
"Sasuke-kun!" she cried. "I couldn't stop it!"
Sasuke cursed to himself, and rose slowly to his feet, fighting to keep the wince from manifesting on his face when his midsection throbbed with a pain so profound, it briefly robbed the air from his lungs. He could feel his breaths progressively growing heavier, more laborious, and his skin felt both clammy and cold, and insufferably hot. The unwelcome, encroaching sense of nausea was increasing by the second, and his lungs felt like they were on fire.
He coughed, and felt warm liquid pooling from the corner of his mouth. Pressing his fingertips to his chin, he found crimson blood there. A stark reminder that with every passing minute, the poison was inching ever closer to shutting down his body entirely.
Time was running out.
"What have you done to him?!" Sakura exclaimed in alarm.
Obito paid her no heed, and silenced her by pressing his knife against her neck. "I told you," he addressed Sasuke. "That I will release the venom into her blood if you fight or resist. If you do not lower your blade now, if you do not draw back the Shades and retrieve the gourd, her life will end here."
Sasuke's eyes narrowed at him in response, the loathing that burned within them promising a most painful death.
"Coward," he seethed, angrily spitting out a mouthful of blood, hastily wiping at his chin with the back of his hand as he glared daggers at Obito. "Only a coward would use a mortal for a shield."
Obito was unperturbed by the accusation. "The realm answers to you, Sasuke. What sense is there in expending time and chakra in battle, when persuasion instead can be used to secure your cooperation?"
'Hades King.' The Infernal Shades called to him, having observed the exchange, realising that the mortal woman being held hostage was of significance to their monarch. 'What is your will?'
"Do not test me," Obito threatened, and began to slide the blade slowly across Sakura's throat, drawing a pained gasp from her lips and a thin trail of blood from the shallow wound he'd inflicted.
The muscles in Sasuke's jaw tensed. No wonder Obito had appeared so smug earlier. He had merely allowed Sasuke to think that he might have gotten Sakura safely out of the way, but had only done so to catch him off guard once again.
'Fall back,' he reluctantly ordered his subjects. 'If he releases the mortal, shield her from this place. Let no harm come to her, here.'
'Your will is Ours, Hades King,' the whispers returned obediently.
Sakura had eaten from the food of the dead, and was irrevocably tied to his realm. From her wide eyes and the look of abject horror and open distress on her face, Sasuke could tell that she was able to glimpse a section of their surroundings, and could make out the Infernal Shades too, unidentifiable in the shadows save for the fiery slits that formed what resembled a pair of eyes, the only visible feature they possessed. They abruptly winked out, vanishing at Sasuke's command.
"The gourd," Obito prompted. "Find it. I will remain waiting with the girl here. You will bring it to me."
Rebellion poised itself at the tip of Sasuke's tongue, and he forced himself to bite back scathing words. Unaccustomed to taking orders, he shot Obito a contemptuous, disgusted glare that glittered with such malice, it would have turned anyone else to stone.
"Don't do it! Don't give it to him, Sasuke-kun!" Sakura cried, only to gasp again when this time, Obito pressed the dagger across her mouth, pushing its sharp, cutting edge between her lips, as if he intended to slice her face open.
"Stop." Sasuke snarled.
"No harm will come to her as long as you cooperate," Obito answered flatly.
The death deity's heart drummed riotously against his ribcage. He met Sakura's frightened gaze, and knew he had no real choice. Even in the lowest depths of Hell, it was apparent that he could not trap Obito in place, because the loophole afforded by Kamui's unnatural displacement of space and time itself was still working for him as long as he possessed enough chakra to use it. And Sasuke could not get close enough to enforce a chakra-negating barrier while his enemy was holding Sakura as collateral. Not without catastrophic consequences.
He had told himself that he would leave her to The Fates to sustain. But he could not risk her being taken to Madara again. He would not allow Sakura to suffer such horror. It left him with no choice but to play along - until he found another opening. After all, the action of handing the gourd over to Obito would not release the Titans in itself. Sasuke still had some time - but he had to move quickly.
Swallowing back the bitter, metallic tang of blood that lingered in his mouth, he telepathically reached out to the Infernal Shades once again, silently ordering them to guide him to where the gourd was held. Spearing Obito with one last frosty, hateful glare, before silently communicating to Sakura to hold out for just a while longer, he then bled into the shadows, vanishing from their sight.
~x~
The Infernal Shades led him to a lone black tree and set the tips of its barren branches alight with blue flames that blazed like dancing leaves of ice, illuminating the area clearly for him.
And there, at last, Sasuke found it. Resting at the base of the tree, concealed almost entirely in a bed of dark ash, was a black gourd.
His heart pounded, a reverberating drum inside his chest, as he slowly staggered toward it, dragging his heavy legs beneath him, fighting against the debilitating fatigue that was weighing his limbs down like lead. The gourd appeared innocuous, utterly unremarkable - but Sasuke knew it was anything but ordinary. For it was the legendary Totsuka, his cherished elder brother's sacred sealing blade. Entrusted to Itachi in childhood by The Fates themselves. The very weapon Sasuke had believed to be lost forever, was now within his reach.
He could see the seal on it, scrawled in ancient markings that were invisible to an ordinary gaze. But Sasuke's Rinnegan was extraordinary. He could read every symbol with perfect clarity, and saw that the gourd was indeed locked in a dormant state. There was no sign of chakra, not even the faintest whisper. The intricate workings Itachi and Shisui had woven had sealed the blade firmly shut, not allowing for even a trace of the Titans' powerful chakra signatures to be detected.
Sasuke stared grimly at the weapon. Without him, he knew that there was no way the enemy could have ever located the gourd. It would have taken them lifetimes to search the vast, barren terrain without map or compass.
Drawing to a stop before it, he splayed the fingers of his right hand, summoning ripples of shadow to lift the gourd and deposit it into his waiting palms. It was cold and heavy as it landed, and in his hands it felt like stone. But Sasuke knew that dropping it would not cause it to shatter, no matter what surface it was thrown against. No force in any of the three kingdoms could reopen it against its Master's will.
No force except the combined chakra of the tailed-beasts - and its Master's blood. A displacing, alarming revelation that had swept through Sasuke with the force of a destructive tornado, leaving behind pure carnage in its wake.
Denying Obito the gourd would damn Sakura, and Sasuke could feel himself growing weaker by the second, the venom draining him of all his strength, robbing him of the ability to summon the chakra he so desperately required to use the Rinnegan and to fight. It would not be long before he could not call upon any technique or warp at all, and then he would be powerless to help either himself or Sakura.
But to cooperate, to hand Totsuka over to Obito, to allow him to infuse it with the tailed-beast essences that had been locked away inside him for safekeeping, would be a betrayal to Itachi and Shisui, would be akin to spitting in the memory of the sacrifices they had made to ensure the gourd was never removed from its resting place. It would give Madara the very thing he had always wanted. The key for escaping from his confinement.
The Fates had not spoken to him again, had offered no counsel or further warnings. There was only silence in his mind. Whatever it meant to be their Marked servant clearly did not include guidance on what actions he ought to take. He had been given a task to carry out. How he ensured he completed that task, and what he chose to do with the warnings they imparted to him - those were his responsibility. His free will.
As he stared gravely down at the gourd in his hands, Sasuke thought that his was once again an impossible choice to make, and yet no real choice at all.
~x~
Obito did not speak a word as they awaited Sasuke's return. He had kicked Sakura's legs out from underneath her after the Underworld's ruler had vanished, forcing her roughly to her knees with her back turned to him, and held her in place by a tight fistful of dishevelled locks that had escaped from the pins of her crown braid. The kiss of an ice-cold dagger pressed against the right side of her neck, making it clear that Obito would not hesitate to slit her throat if she so much as made a single wrong move.
Sakura's discomfort amplified with every passing second spent in stone-cold, smothering silence, the tension in the air so palpable and thick that it could be cut with the very same blade Obito held in his hand. Her heart galloped against her ribcage, and her mind hurtled at an even faster speed, trying to find a way out of the calamitous situation she and Sasuke had found themselves snared in.
Thinking of Sasuke made Sakura's heart ache. Seized by panic, she had failed to initially recognise the horrific extent of just how grievously wounded he was, how his strength was clearly waning by the minute. She had none of her weapons on her, and knew that even if she had been carrying them, she would have stood absolutely no chance at overpowering or outrunning the monster that was Obito. And neither was Sasuke in any condition to fight anywhere near his full capacity. It meant that they had to figure out another way to make it back to the palace together, to stall their foe for long enough to heal themselves and figure out a way to stop him.
Where was Chiyo? Anxiety closed like a choke hold around Sakura. She had no idea what had happened on the surface. There had been no time to get answers from Sasuke - everything had happened in a disorientating blur. And any chance Sakura had thought she'd have of finding a way to reach one of Sasuke's subjects to raise the alarm had been swiftly stolen away by the Kamui portal Obito had summoned to whisk her off the edge of the pit, and back to his side.
Sakura wondered how Obito had managed to infiltrate the Underworld, how he was able to keep up the use of his dangerous technique and move freely within the realm, how he was able to still use it to transport others to his location, regardless of where he, himself, was. She found herself questioning whether it was because Obito was an Uchiha, too, and whether the distorting, manipulative nature of his Kamui ability simply presented some kind of anomaly that allowed him to escape the realm's many wards and barriers. Whatever the reason was, it made him even more lethal, even more deadly.
But how had he poisoned Sasuke? Sakura's stomach flipped, and she suddenly felt sick. She could not remember how she had moved from tending to Jugo, to the edge of the crater. Something had obviously happened during that time. She recalled seeing Sasuke, uninjured, answering his questions about Jugo, and then-
And then everything had gone frighteningly blank. She gulped, realising that the only way she was going to get answers was if she asked the right questions.
Lifting a hand to her forehead, she wiped at the sheen of sweat on her skin. The pitch-black air was sweltering, unbearable in its heat, so oppressive that Sakura could feel it even through the strange, buzzing, dark barrier Obito had extended around her, which she could only assume was to prevent her from both escaping and to stop her from wasting away in the unforgiving harshness of the terrain in which they stood. Clearly no environment for the living, least of all a mortal.
Licking her parched lips, she decided to address the deity behind her. Maybe if she kept him talking, that would create some kind of opening for Sasuke, or buy him additional time to think.
"How did you poison Sasuke-kun?" she demanded.
There was a long pause, in which she feared he would not answer her. Then, he finally replied, "I did not. You did."
Sakura stiffened in horror. Her heart lurched. No. She stared, wide-eyed, at the cracks in the parched, ash-coated ground before her, through which oozed a pungent, thick black liquid, one that smelled suspiciously like poison. Like the decay of death. Something her eyes could only make out because they had adjusted to the shadows around them. What little she could glimpse of the lowest level of Tartarus was a nightmarish wasteland strewn with bones, rocks and twisted shapes that resembled gnarled trees.
That was why she could not remember. The enemy had possessed her. Then the stab wound in Sasuke's midsection…
She had inflicted it. That was how Obito had managed to weaken Sasuke. By using her to get close to him, knowing full well that he would be unguarded in her presence. He had made her hurt him.
It was almost enough to make her spin around in blind , the desire to claw his eyes out itching through her fingers. But instead, Sakura drew in a slow, steadying breath, willing herself to calm down, reminding herself that she needed to play her situation smarter, not harder. She could not afford to risk losing her cool. One wrong move was all that stood between her and a fast-ticket to Cronus. And being taken to Cronus would mean certain death.
She sifted through the information she held about her enemy. Obito was the holding container for the tailed-beasts, and he was Cronus's brainwashed puppet, an Uchiha who had once resided in the Underworld before the war. It was evident that he still retained some element of basic memory, for he had known how to enter the realm, how to find the palace, and Tartarus-
An idea slowly morphed into shape in her mind, giving birth to the tiniest spark of hope. Obito had once been Kakashi's friend, she recalled. He was the Uchiha from whom Kakashi had acquired his own Sharingan.
What she had in mind was not guaranteed to work. But it stood more of a chance than remaining quiet and saying nothing.
"Why are you doing this…?" She got out shakily, knowing full well that the subject she was so insolently about to breach could very well land her with a severed tongue - or worse - but it was the only chance she had, the only option out of no options at all.
"Cronus murdered your clan. He's enslaved your mind and body. He's going to kill you after he's done reviving the Titans. Why are you helping him…?"
She held her breath, every inch of her on edge, not knowing what to expect, how he might react to her words. She had never spoken to him alone before, and knew nothing of his character. But Obito did not respond, as if he had not heard her at all. Or as if he was determined to ignore her.
But Sakura wasn't going to give up so easily.
"Kakashi-sensei told me that you were his friend." She tried next. "That Zeus was fond of you, and that you didn't agree with the war back then. He told me about the girl you both cared about, Rin-"
The gloved fingers in Sakura's hair tightened marginally, causing her heart to leap. There! A memory he not only remembered, but one that affected him.
"He told me she was human," she rushed on. "That she didn't want you both to fight-" she inhaled sharply, when the tip of the dagger was pushed against the underside of her chin.
"Be silent," he warned.
A tremor shot down Sakura's spine. She had only heard Kakashi's version of the story, and was taking a gamble with how much sway the mysterious Rin had held over Obito. She was running her mouth about a subject she didn't know anything about - a risky strategy. But Obito's voice was dark and heavy with threat, where it had been flat before, hinting that perhaps Sakura was not stabbing as wildly in the dark as she believed.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she pushed back her fear, and exclaimed, "You loved her. Didn't you? She was human! It's her world you're helping Cronus burn down! Do you think- do you think she would want that?!" It was too late to take any of the words back, and she continued on, desperate to get a reaction, any reaction, out of him.
"What would she think of what you've become?! Are you doing this to get revenge because you think Kakashi-sensei killed her? He didn't! It was an accident! He told me he tried to make her immortal, just like you asked him to. He wanted to look after her for you, he wanted to honour your wishes, but her body couldn't make the change, and that's not his fault, or anyone else's, it was just her time to-!"
She cried out when she felt herself being hauled painfully off her feet by her hair. Before she could comprehend what was happening, she had been spun roughly around to face the taller Uchiha. He grabbed her throat with his free hand, squeezing his fingers around her windpipe so hard that the edges of Sakura's vision began to cloud over as he pressed the blade against her mouth once again. This time, Sakura felt its edges slice at her skin.
She met his gaze in the darkness, saw the deep scars he still bore from the accident Kakashi had told her about, scars he could have chosen to heal as an immortal - yet curiously never had. As if he had wanted to keep them, to be reminded. She looked into the haunting, glowing crimson Sharingan that were devoid of all emotion and pity-
Inside her chest, Sakura's heart seemed to stop entirely.
Two. He had two identical Sharingan.
"You speak of things you know nothing about," Obito's gaze bore into her, terrifying in its intensity. His voice was cold, clipped, but there was a spark of anger in his eyes that had not been there seconds earlier. "It would serve you better to hold your tongue-"
Something slammed with great force into his side, ripping him away from Sakura, tearing her out of his hold. Obito skidded back, just as Sasuke bled from the shadows in front of her, clutching a gourd in his hands.
"You will not touch her," he hissed at Obito, who straightened, his gaze immediately walling off as it locked onto the weapon Sasuke carried.
He held out an expectant hand, emotionless once again.
"The gourd," he prompted.
'Hold onto me,' Sasuke's voice echoed in Sakura's mind. Shielded from Obito's probing stare, she lifted her right hand, gripping onto the back of his cloak. Pain pierced through her, noting the exhausted lines of his broad shoulders, the way he was clearly battling to hold himself upright.
"You want it?" Sasuke's voice was sharp, jagged ice. "Here."
He tossed the gourd high up into the air with great force. Obito's gaze immediately rose to track it - and the next thing Sakura knew, ripples of shadow had closed around her, and the landscape blurred away, disappearing into a howling gust of wind as he transported them back to the palace's throne room.
They landed gracelessly on the cold marble floor, and the shadow wisps that had briefly enveloped Sakura immediately snuffed out. Sasuke pushed himself onto his hands and knees, his entire body trembling with the effort to move. To her horror, the Curse Seal had started to seep out from its mark onto his skin, its angry, inky blotches crawling over his flesh, a sign that his body was almost entirely compromised.
"Sasuke-kun!" she gasped in alarm.
"The… throne…" he panted breathlessly, lifting his head, disorientated, as if he barely retained control of his own thoughts and actions. Sweat beaded upon his brow, and both his Rinnegan and Sharingan had receded. A trail of fresh blood was spilling from his right eye.
She slipped his arm around her, understanding without the need for any further instructions to be spoken. The throne would restore his chakra. With all her might, she got to her feet, hauling him up with her, and began to drag him toward their only chance of salvation. But Sasuke, precariously close to running on empty, had only managed to land them just halfway over the vast expanse of the throne-room, and the seat of power had never looked or felt so agonisingly far away.
"We'll make it, Sasuke-kun," Sakura gritted her teeth, her own body shaking from the strain, desperately wishing that she had her strength orb equipped to help her shift his weight. But it was in her chamber, too far from where she was at that moment. Nor could she summon her own chakra, and knew that the Black Zetsu spores inside her had to be responsible for that, for every time she attempted to focus her energy, its flow was interrupted, and slipped uselessly from her grasp.
And so she had no choice but to struggle. With every step, Sasuke seemed to grow heavier and heavier, the arm around her shoulders growing rigid-
With a cry, her knees buckled, and he collapsed, falling out of her grasp. Her heart lodged into her throat when she saw that his skin had started to turn to grey. The arm that she had been holding was as heavy as stone, and a loud, metallic clatter rang in the air as Kusanagi slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor.
He was starting to petrify.
"No!" Sakura grabbed his other arm, but found she could not budge him, no matter how hard she pulled. "Sasuke-kun! No!" Tears blurred her vision, and she furiously blinked them back. "You have to get up! Sasuke-kun!"
The air rippled before them, the beginning of a Kamui portal opening, and pure, unbridled terror exploded inside her chest. Sakura scrambled back to her feet, snatching Kusanagi up from the ground, and placed herself protectively in front of Sasuke's prone form.
"Sa… kura…" he wheezed, trying desperately to move, to push himself back up, but every single chakra pathway to every single muscle seized as his body began to shut down. Within seconds, even the excruciating pain began to ebb, and he could no longer feel his hands, his arms and legs, his feet, or the burning in his chest and gut. Everything turned cold and numb as ice began to creep over him, and the room would not stop spinning long enough to allow him any respite, or chance of regaining his bearings and focus.
The last vestiges of chakra he'd had remaining had been used to return them to the throne room, and now the potent, lethal venom was finishing the catastrophic chain reaction it had started, accelerating the Curse Seal to its final stages. A terrible weight had settled upon Sasuke's chest, making breathing laborious, near-impossible. He felt that he could sink into the ground from the incredible pressure that crushed down upon his bones, turning his limbs to deadweight.
He fought against it with every bit of willpower he possessed, his mind screaming at his body to resist, clawing to drag back the smallest ounce of strength, a strength that had been so cowardly stolen from him. He had to get up. For Sakura. To keep the Crown from falling into the enemy's hands, to protect his kingdom, to stop Obito from undoing every sacrifice that Itachi and Shisui and his parents had made. But even as he thought it, even as he tried to send a telepathic call out to his subjects, to The Fates, to scream at Hecate to return, his thoughts were unravelling, becoming fragmented, turning to incoherent slush. His eyelids grew heavy, and his body pleaded with him to give in, to stop struggling. To rest.
Obito stepped out of the swirling vortex, the gourd tucked firmly under his left arm.
It was just as Sakura had feared. No barriers could contain Obito in the realm, which meant he could follow them anywhere. With Sasuke so close to losing consciousness and unable to protect himself, she was all that stood between Obito freeing the Titans from their prison.
The awful weight of that realisation, the staggering magnitude of it - that she was the sole person capable of shielding Sasuke from an enemy she had no hope of matching in battle, was terrifying. Sakura had never felt so afraid. Not for herself - but for Sasuke, who was slowly turning to stone and on the verge of losing all control of his body.
But despite her fear, she stood her ground, lifting her chin in defiance, bravely pointing Kusanagi's tip straight at the enemy.
"Stay back!" Sakura exclaimed, willing her arms to remain steady.
"Step aside, mortal," Obito uttered curtly.
"I won't let you," she whispered, gripping Kusanagi's hilt hard enough to turn her knuckles white. "I won't let you hurt him!"
Obito stared at her in silence, his expression schooled into a perfectly blank slate. Then he stepped forward - only to stiffen abruptly. His jaw clenched and his features contorted, eyebrows knitting together in pain. A hand flew to his head, clutching at his dark hair, and he shook his head wildly, as if he were battling with something inside of himself.
Sakura did not wait to figure out what was happening to him. She saw an opening, an unexpected window of opportunity in his distraction, and threw herself forward, managing to slip behind him. Heart racing, she drew back Sasuke's blade, and with a furious shout, stabbed it straight into the centre of his back with as much force as she could physically muster.
A growl of pain flew from Obito's lips. Panting with effort, Sakura wrenched the sword out, but before she could strike again, this time for his calves to incapacitate his movements, she felt the muscles in her body lock in place, freezing her to the spot. Her arms shook, trying to wrestle control back from the Black Zetsu spores, but no matter how much she willed it, she could not move.
Obito turned, his Sharingan blazing with anger, and Sakura felt the blood drain from her face. She knew what it had to mean that he had possession of both his eyes. Her own stung with tears, thinking of Kakashi. She could only hope that her mother, Naruto and the others had, at the very least, managed to retrieve him.
"You…" It was a struggle to even form words. She glared hatefully at Obito through the pool of water that had started to blur her vision, spilling tears before she could stem them. "You monster!"
Sakura swore that she glimpsed another emotion flickering in his eyes. But it was promptly snuffed out, before she could even think to identify it. Her heart thundered like the beating wings of a frantic, caged bird as Obito took the sword from her hand and turned its tip slowly toward the centre of her chest.
Despair crested within her. He was already using his horrendous chakra reserves to mend the wound she had inflicted. He was truly unstoppable, and she had never stood a chance. Nor had Sasuke. Their enemy had planned and executed their choice of attack flawlessly, disabling every advantage in order to turn the tables in their favour.
"G-go ahead. Kill me…" Sakura ground out, meeting his gaze directly, refusing to allow him the satisfaction of seeing her cower. "I'll find her in the afterlife! I'll tell Rin about every terrible thing you've done! How you've killed innocent humans, hurt Kakashi-sensei, and everyone he cares about-!"
This time something incredibly hostile flashed across Obito's eyes, and the next thing Sakura knew, she had been flung with incredible force against the nearest marble pillar. The back of her head struck against stone with a hard, sickening crack, sending a searing, pulsing, blinding pain exploding through her skull, and she crumpled to the ground like a marionette clipped off its strings.
Lying dazed on her side, she blinked, seeing stars, vision swimming and ears ringing in a high pitched whine as the throne room blurred dangerously in and out of focus. Releasing a pained groan, Sakura dared to turn her head, the motion causing her surroundings to spin even more violently, sending a crippling wave of nausea crashing into her. She knew the signs of concussion, knew that she was moving in all the wrong ways to treat it, risking even more damage to her head, but she could not worry about herself, not when Sasuke lay helplessly before her, not when the fate of the world depended upon her stalling Obito long enough for Chiyo to come back to the Underworld.
Sakura prayed for the goddess's return with every fibre of her being. She was their only hope, and Sakura could not fathom the reason for her delay. She could only assume that something dreadful had indeed occurred on the surface, and it was preventing Chiyo from hastening to their aid.
The copper taste of blood filled Sakura's mouth, and she felt warmth trickling from her nose. Blinking against the agony throbbing in her skull, she desperately willed herself to remain conscious, fuelled by the fear that if she closed her eyes then, she might never awaken again.
It took almost an entire minute for her vision to clear enough before she was able to attempt movement again, and when it did, Sakura wished it had not. For Obito had reached Sasuke, who was breathing raggedly and had been trying to crawl to the throne, dragging himself with great effort toward it, inch by excruciating inch.
The older Uchiha crouched down beside Sasuke, observing him stonily for a long moment.
Then, as fast and pitiless as a striking rattlesnake, Obito stabbed Sasuke's own blade straight through the death deity's right hand. Sasuke released a low snarl of pain as blood poured from the wound, and then Obito had grabbed his wrist and was pressing Sasuke's injured palm directly against the stone gourd he had deposited onto the ground.
"Stop…!" Sakura gasped, pushing herself gingerly up onto her elbows, almost vomiting from the debilitating onslaught of nausea that rushed up to meet her. Her entire body screamed in protest at her movements. The force of impact with the pillar had left her bruised and broken. Everything hurt, but it was nothing compared to the harrowing, emotional pain of witnessing Sasuke's great suffering, of watching the heartbreaking way he tried so desperately to pull his wounded hand back, to stop Obito, even as the last of his strength abandoned him.
But the blade impaled through the back of Sasuke's hand kept it pinned firmly in place, and Sakura looked on in horror when invisible markings etched onto the gourd began to illuminate, rune by rune, glowing with a faint, ethereal silver light. Just as Obito had claimed, Totsuka was starting to stir, reacting to Sasuke's blood. Blood that had also been shared by his brother, Itachi, its true Master with whom the sword yearned to reunite.
Ominous, dark chakra flared from Obito's body, and then it was enveloping the gourd, as Obito spoke incantations in an ancient language Sakura's ears did not understand. The old language of the gods.
As Obito continued to chant forbidden magic, he suddenly lurched, contorting like a disfigured mannequin, as if something were being wrenched violently out from inside of him.
The blood drained from Sakura's face. He was extracting the tailed-beasts from inside himself, one by one, and using Sasuke's blood and the forbidden arts to transfer them into the gourd.
Desperation roared like an inferno within her, yelling at her that she had to get up. She had to. But her limbs felt like they were also turning to stone, caught in a paralysis that refused to release her. Sakura's vision blurred again, this time with hot, thick tears of frustration, and she knew that it was already far too late to stop Obito when he then began working a complex set of hand seals in quick succession.
The pain he was experiencing seemed to magnify each time he extracted another tailed-beast. He grunted, doubling-over as the dark chakra surrounding his form was sucked into the gourd, only to be replaced by another aura belonging to the next offering.
He was becoming weaker, Sakura realised with a jolt. Losing power with every tailed-beast he transferred into Totsuka. But before that fact could lend her any hope at all, before she could think of any strategy to try to take advantage of his evident discomfort, Obito released his hold on Kusanagi's hilt and staggered back up to his feet, breathing heavily, his creased brow beaded with sweat.
Sakura could not comprehend what happened next, for it happened far too quickly, and with such devastating swiftness, that she was entirely ill prepared. Obito bent down and lifted Sasuke up by the throat, holding him up so high that his feet no longer touched the ground, holding him up as though he weighed nothing at all. Then Obito reached his other hand out to Sasuke's face - and savagely tore something from him.
Blood spurted into the air, and the King of the Underworld was discarded like a puppet a moment later, Kusanagi clattering to the ground beside him.
A shrill, piercing scream resonated in the air, and it took Sakura a few seconds to distantly realise that it was her mouth making those awful, blood-curdling noises. Ignoring all her own pain and dizziness, she forced herself up again, the room tilting precariously around her as she ran to Sasuke's side, dropped to her knees beside him, and scooped him up into her arms.
Something twisted violently inside Sakura's chest. Sasuke's beautiful left eye, which had awakened the Rinnegan, had been gouged ruthlessly out, leaving a horrifying open socket with severed optic nerves that wept blood. So much blood. A crimson river spilled over Sakura's skin and clothing, warm and free-flowing. His body was broken and cold and every inch of him had turned rigid. The only signs of remaining consciousness were the shallow breaths that were escaping his parted, chapped lips, and the palpable anguish in his remaining ebony eye. An anguish that told her he was suffering deeply, in so many ways.
Sakura sobbed, deep, ugly, shuddering sounds that seemed to wrack her very soul. Her lungs heaved for oxygen that would not come. She could not breathe, could not gulp down air fast enough. She could not think as her own heart bled. Everything had fallen apart, and there was nobody who could help them. Obito would unleash the Titans, ascend the Underworld's throne, and Cronus would walk the earth once more, wielding the very Rinnegan that had been so brutally stolen from Sasuke. Orochimaru would claim Sasuke's body at last. All hope was well and truly lost.
"Sasuke-kun," she choked out, stroking the left side of his face gently with shaking fingers, fingers coated with his blood. "Sasuke-kun, Sasuke-kun…"
He took in a ragged, rattling breath. His gaze, unfocused and exhausted, somehow found her face through the clear haze of his pain.
"Please," she sobbed, her tears spilling onto his cheeks like gentle raindrops. "Please stay with me, Sasuke-kun. Please don't give up!"
"S… Sa…kura…" he rasped.
She pressed her fingers against his lips. They were ice cold. Turning ashen. The black marks on his face had tinged his skin with a deathly pallor.
"Shhh. I'm right here," she soothed, trying desperately to offer him the only thing she could in the despair and dejection of that moment - comfort - to let him know that she was close, that he was not alone. She swallowed back her own hysteria, fighting to keep herself from breaking down entirely in front of him. She knew that would only cause him even greater pain.
His lips moved, and for a few horrible, soul-destroying seconds, he did not seem capable of forming any words. Then, with great difficulty, he whispered, "I'm… s… o…rry…"
Sakura clutched him closer, her body shaking violently from the turbulent force of her overwhelmed emotions.
"No," she wept harder, pressing her forehead against his, feeling as though her heart, her soul, were being ripped apart, shredded to pieces. "No, this is- it's all my fault! Please! Sasuke-kun!" She cupped his face, willing him to stay with her, praying for a miracle that might save him, that would save them both.
His eyebrows drew together, his lone eye fixed onto her, as if he was trying desperately to memorise her face one final time. Sakura's own distraught gaze trailed over his features in turn, taking in the sweeping lines of his chiselled jaw, his sculpted cheekbones and straight, aristocratic nose. The long, dark lashes that framed his eyes. Intense, stunning pools of darkness that had reeled her in from the moment she had first looked into them, casting a dark enchantment over her senses.
At last her gaze settled on the proud, petulant, alluring lips that at that moment were parted, struggling to draw in air. The once supple pink flesh touched with the grey of stone. The grey of lifelessness.
He was everything she had ever wanted, and had never known she had been searching for, the great, forever love she had always yearned to find but had felt would forever elude her. He was perfectly imperfect, stubborn, courageous, proud, wise, formidable. As seductive and beautiful as he was dangerous and devastating. A wild, deadly, and unyielding force of nature who had taught her strength, dignity, valour, how to fight and how to believe in herself. He had taught her patience, taught her to appreciate the beauty in both life and death, the beauty of living in the moment. That she was capable of anything and everything, that nothing was impossible or beyond her reach, if she only summoned the courage to chase after what she wanted. He had pushed her, challenged her, taken her away from every comfort she had known and forced her to open her eyes, to grow. He had been the one who had first shed light on the deception that had been her old life. And by his touch, she had been forever changed.
It seemed to Sakura that they had been made for one another. Yet the universe seemed hellbent on keeping them apart, on dealing them sorrow and strife. He was slipping out of her grasp like sand blowing in the wind, and there was nothing she could do to help him, to save him, to stop the tragedy that was unfolding before her.
She had always expected to be taken from him. That the curse upon her existence would cause her death. She had never entertained, for even a second, that she might ever lose Sasuke first. That she would be holding him in her arms, powerless to do a thing as he wasted away before her.
Something was wrong with her heart. An icy fist was squeezing around it, and it hurt to take a breath. She was drowning in her emotions, crippled by what she felt for him. A love so sincere, so steadfast, so enduring and ardent, that she knew nothing could ever break it. Not even time itself. It was a flame undying. After all, they had found each other again, millennia after they had originally met, and despite not remembering one another, had ended up falling for each other all over again.
"I love you," she whispered to him, stroking his cheek, his hair, speaking the three words she had always been too afraid to say, three words she had been too much of a coward to confess to him, though she knew she had felt them for a long time. But she needed him to know, before his eyes stopped seeing her, before his ears stopped hearing her words. And the moment she had spoken them aloud, it was as if a dam had been removed from her tongue and opened the floodgates, for she repeated with feeling, "I love you. I love you, Sasuke-kun!"
She heard his breath still, and his lone eye widened slightly. As if her words were a wish, a prayer - or a dream. The sweetest dream he had ever known, after millennia spent alone, deprived of warmth and starved of love. Fresh tears flooded her vision when one corner of his lips twitched, in a phantom rendition of a faint, exhausted half-smile.
'You really are…' His voice echoed distantly in her head, growing quieter with every word, '… annoying…'
He released one final quiet exhale - and then he stilled, his right eye glazing over, all signs of consciousness and life leaving his body.
Sakura's heart stilled with him. She saw the moment all clarity snuffed out, the moment he slipped away from her, his autonomy, his whole self, devoured by Orochimaru's cursed chakra. Frozen inside a stolen body that would become his own prison, a prison from which there would be no escape.
And then Sakura was weeping and screaming. Screaming and screaming and screaming his name like she had never screamed before, ear-splitting, hysterical wails that echoed against the cold walls of the resplendent royal throne room. Screaming as if her shattered heart had been ripped out of her chest, cleaved in two and turned to stone along with him. Screaming as if she could not bear to live without him.
And then she was somehow on her feet, everything a red haze of pain and hurt around her, Kusanagi in her hands again, charging at Obito in blind rage, in grief, distraught and inconsolable.
Obito caught the end of the blade in his gloved hand, easily halting her enraged attempt to cut him down. Potent, dark, malicious chakra flared from his body, and Sakura was once again flung forcefully backwards. A piercing pain followed, as she found herself impaled through the gut with Sasuke's sword, skewered in place to another pillar by the force of Obito's attack.
Blinking in shock, Sakura looked down to find warm blood pooling around the wound, saturating the damaged fabric of her gown. She gripped onto the metal of the blade with trembling hands, unable to summon the strength to pull it out, to move at all. Helpless to do anything other than bleed slowly out and watch the nightmare that continued to unfold before her horrified eyes.
Sasuke was gone. He was gone. She sobbed, stricken, weeping his name as he lay motionlessly on the ground before her. She did not see the way Obito watched her. The way his gaze moved from Sasuke to her, then back again. She was too consumed by her grief to tear her eyes away from Sasuke, and thought she had to be hallucinating - or perhaps it was the effects of her concussion or sorrow - when a shadowy blur suddenly shot out of Sasuke's body, and Sakura swore she heard the ruffling of flapping wings - closely followed by a loud, echoing caw.
Obito paused, seeking out the source of the unexpected noise, but it had already vanished into thin air, and silence reigned supreme in the throne room once again. Disregarding it, he turned his attention back to Totsuka, speaking the final few lines of incantation as he transferred one last tailed beast into it.
The final runes on the gourd glowed silver, and a loud cracking sound filled the air, as if a key had been unlocked. Sakura's hurtling heart leapt into her mouth. Nononononono. The words pounding inside her throbbing head were synchronised with the frantic beating of her chaotic pulse. A fissure had formed on one side of the gourd. Whatever forsaken unsealing ritual Obito had performed - using the combination of forbidden, dark arts and Sasuke's blood - was clearly working.
"Stop…!" She cried out hoarsely, but her attempt to speak caused yet more blood to overflow from her mouth, and sent fresh pain radiating from her stab wound. She was starting to feel light-headed, and her extremities were growing cold.
Another deep fissure zigzagged along the opposite side of the gourd, and the dread Sakura felt twisting in her gut was even more acutely painful than the blade that had been stabbed through it.
No! Sakura thought out hysterically. No! Stop it, stop him, help me! PLEASE!
"Release," Obito commanded, and at the word the room exploded with light as the activated gourd finally yielded, shattering violently, blowing into many fragments that scattered in all directions upon the ground.
And then Sakura saw them - the wraith-like, shapeless dark spirits that escaped from their broken confinement. Triumphant, sinister laughter reached her ears as another Kamui portal manifested in the air. Obito tossed something through it - what Sakura numbly assumed had to contain the stolen Rinnegan - and then, just as suddenly as they had appeared, the wraiths were gone, had passed through the portal, plunging the throne room into deafening silence once again.
All but one shadowy-wraith, which to Sakura's astonishment, took on a tall, physical form that manifested from particles of purple chakra.
He wore a long dark cloak, his red, shoulder-length, straight hair falling in limp strands that concealed half of his skeletal face. His features were hollow, as if he were severely malnourished, with sharp, protruding cheekbones, ashen skin, and thin, parched lips.
Sakura did not know who he was. But when he opened his eyes, they were ghostly white, vacant and glazed. She then realised with a start that it was not a Titan, but a body possessed, which meant that it could not be anyone else except for Ares, who must have left Obito's body to take on another physical form. Had opening the gourd finally freed Obito from his influence? The Uchiha stood hunched over, breathing heavily, one hand pressed to his forehead. When he straightened, there was a flicker of something in his eyes akin to the faintest trace of clarity, as his gaze lifted and settled onto the red-haired stranger.
Sakura's heart slammed against her ribcage. No. The Titans had escaped. Their spirits, fused with that of the tailed-beasts which had aided in awakening them from their enforced slumber, had been unleashed upon the world, and transported back to the surface through Obito's space-time vortex. Orochimaru was likely waiting for them on the other side to complete their restoration, reuniting them at last with their full forms, and with their leader Cronus. Then he would surely claim Sasuke's body, and have at his disposal all the powers it afforded.
"It is time. Ascend the throne," Ares commanded. His distorted voice still echoed, and Sakura's mind reeled. Whose body had he possessed?
She did not have time to dwell upon the thought, for horror threatened to devour her whole when Obito's gaze turned to the Underworld's onyx-carved seat of power. The final step of the enemy's plan - to place Cronus's puppet upon it, and seize the kingdom once again. To enslave it under a tyrant's rule.
"Ascend," Ares repeated, "and the power will be yours to see your mortal lover again."
Understanding ripped through Sakura. Was this what they had promised Obito? The throne, and by extension, the power he needed to find Rin's soul in its final resting place?
"No…!" Sakura rasped, tugging feebly at the blade deeply embedded in her stomach. The Crown belonged to Sasuke. Obito and the barbaric murderer Cronus had no right-
He took a step toward it, then another - only to stiffen when a figure quietly manifested from mist before him.
Hecate stood before the dais that climbed up to the Underworld's throne. Her dark, assessing eyes flicked onto Sasuke, grimly noting his condition, then onto Sakura, and finally onto the fragments of broken stone that were the pitiful remains of Totsuka - before they settled onto Ares and Obito, glittering with unrestrained displeasure.
~x~
A tense silence roared as both sides cautiously sized one another up, as if trying to pre-empt what action the other was planning to take next.
Sakura blinked, struggling to keep her head raised, to cling onto the frayed ribbons of consciousness that she could feel were rapidly slipping beyond her grasp. The light-headed sensation was now bordering on faintness. Her body was starting to go numb, save for the dull, splitting ache in her head, and the screaming pain in her gut. She whimpered, and tried to call to Chiyo for aid, but her tongue could no longer form any words without the risk of choking on her own blood.
"Obito of the Uchiha," Chiyo's voice finally cleaved through the stillness, her voice echoing strongly against the throne room's walls. "How low you have fallen. Yet a chance at redemption is still not entirely lost, even to you, if you choose to turn away, now."
"Stand aside, old hag," came the stony, clipped response of Ares. "We would not wish to dispose of you before affording your kin the chance. Sasori has been waiting a long time to meet with you again."
What did he mean? Who was Sasori? Sakura's mind struggled to form coherent thoughts. Her eyelids were growing heavier and heavier. She fought against the overwhelming temptation to close them, battling with all her might to remain conscious.
Chiyo pursed her lips. But she did not rise to whatever bait Ares was trying to dangle before her.
"Possessing the boatsman Nagato," she remarked. "How cowardly of you, God of War."
"A temporary vessel," Ares assured her. "One that will be discarded once Hades and the mortal are returned to Lord Cronus."
"I cannot allow you to proceed," Chiyo answered, forming hand seals that made Obito straighten. Even Ares eyed her cautiously, vigilantly, knowing better than to underestimate the great Hecate herself.
Pale blue chakra extended from her form, enveloping protectively around Sasuke. Sakura felt soothing warmth closing around her body in turn, and the pain afflicting her immediately began to wane as healing chakra seeped into her bloodstream.
She almost wept again with relief. But the sword was still wedged into her midsection, and she still could not move.
"Are you not forbidden from intervening, old crone?" Ares taunted. "What reason have you to defend a kingdom that is not your concern?"
"You are quite mistaken. It is very much my concern, and my intervention here is quite necessary," Chiyo retorted. "For your actions seek to destroy this realm, and with it, the balance of life and death itself. A balance it is my sacred duty to uphold."
"It is too late," Obito stated. "The blood in Sasuke's veins has already stilled, and you cannot deny me from claiming the throne. The human," he gestured with a hand toward Sakura, "is poisoned with Black Zetsu spores that carry the venom of Achlys. If you interfere, I will release them into her bloodstream."
"Upon my word. A shame you are upon the Uchiha," Chiyo censured sharply. "Hold your impertinent tongue. I will not be threatened by an errant child of a god." With that, she formed another set of seals, prompting a cloud of smoke to explode around her. When it had cleared, Sakura was astonished to find ten, humanlike puppets of varying heights standing behind the goddess. They exhaled white mist through the openings in their painted wooden masks, and were clothed in identical, long white robes. Animated soldiers wielding weapons that were connected to the tips of Chiyo's fingers with faintly glowing chakra strings.
Ares remarked, "I see where Sasori learned his craft."
Four of the puppets immediately lunged at Obito and Ares, slashing at them with slicing blades. Their attacks were swift, but Obito still retained one tailed-beast, and although he was clearly fatigued from the extraction process, had still been able to heal enough to defend himself. Ares assisted him, cutting through the puppet's chakra strings and disposing of them within seconds.
Another puppet had slipped beside Sakura during the distraction. With mechanical movements, it freed her from the blade that held her impaled to the pillar, and she dropped to the ground with a pained grunt, her skull and midsection screaming in agony. A wooden hand rested gently on her back, and she felt another surge of healing chakra that began to mend the damage to her gut.
"Step aside," Ares repeated in warning, tossing one of the broken puppets at her feet. "Your existence is paramount for Lord Cronus's plans. Our orders are to return you to Olympus with us, unharmed."
"Foolish little upstart," Chiyo clucked her tongue chastisingly, as if speaking to a very young, very naive god, and not the strategic mastermind that was Ares, the monster who had orchestrated the stealthy attack on Sasuke's kingdom. "You speak as though you believe yourself capable of causing me harm. My healing technique will stay the spores you have planted within the child long enough to administer an antidote. You may find it more prudent to forget the girl and preserve your own chakra while standing before me, now that your friend holds only one tailed-beast."
For the first time, Obito seemed to hesitate. He appeared uncertain, as if he was not at all sure of the game Chiyo was playing with them. He directed an assessing glance toward Ares, then Sakura, noting that she had been freed from the pillar, before directing his attention back to the old crone.
"You, too, have been poisoned," Chiyo arched her eyebrows. "By the very air you have just breathed."
Ares stiffened, and Obito inhaled sharply, both deducing that the true purpose of the puppets had not been to overpower them, but to administer a more covert form of attack. Chiyo's strengths lay in her spell-brewing and in her knowledge of all affairs. But she was a cunning battle strategist in her own right, and had used her mannequins to release venom into the air. A venom she had shielded herself and her allies against, using the chakra barrier that surrounded them.
"You will require the correct antidote to be rid of its effects," Chiyo informed them. "If you want it, you will leave this place at once. If you refuse, you will soon be incapacitated. Either way, you will not claim the throne."
Ares stared coldly at her. "You would merely be crippling this coil. Obito cannot die, so long as a tailed beast continues to occupy his form. Your threats are empty, Hecate."
Sakura used the distraction to crawl back to Sasuke's side. His chest was still, his eyes closed, and the small hope she'd carried for a miracle, that Chiyo's chakra might have somehow helped reverse what had happened to him, was crushed when she realised that Sasuke was too far gone for healing. He had well and truly been claimed by Orochimaru's Curse Seal.
"It appears you have failed to recognise the nature of this venom," Chiyo's tone was unconcerned, as if she were patiently teaching an ignorant student a lesson. "It is not intended to kill, but to steadily hinder the chakra in your pathways." She gestured toward Obito. "It has already begun disturbing the flow to your Sharingan. The heinous crime against this world that you have just committed, releasing the Titans and relinquishing seven tailed-beasts, has already compromised your reserves. You can use Kamui to convey these poor children to Cronus, or you can use it to flee here before your ability to use chakra is disabled entirely. You will find you cannot do both. Choose wisely."
Obito felt the chakra flow to his eyes spiking erratically, the unstable flow threatening to recede his Sharingan. He redirected another surge of energy toward his optic pathways, only to feel a burning resistance as he did so, confirming Chiyo's warning - that he would only have one more opportunity to drag enough chakra to his Sharingan to open one last portal.
And the more people he carried through a portal, the more chakra he required.
Through clenched teeth he admitted, "She speaks the truth."
"If you choose to remain, rest assured that you will be trapped here, Obito, while your friend will be forced to flee his form and will be expelled from this realm. And he will not be suffered to enter this kingdom, again."
"You have no such control over the Underworld and its barriers to expel us from this realm," Ares retorted. "Your King," he mocked, pointing down at Sasuke's petrified form, "is as good as dead, and will never again possess free will. The throne bleeds shadow, and calls for its successor. You cannot stop Obito from ascending. Once he does, the throne will heal him of all ailments. You are out of options, old hag."
Raising her arms, Chiyo erected a rippling, transparent barrier behind herself, a high wall of pulsing magic that extended from the ground to the high ceiling of the throne-room, blocking off all access to the throne.
"I have told you," she said. "That you will not take the throne."
Sakura trembled. She could feel her strength steadily returning, but did not know how to assist Chiyo without the risk of drawing the enemy's gaze back onto her. The last thing she wanted was to be used as leverage to force anyone's hand again.
'Lady Chiyo,' she thought out telepathically. 'What can I do? Tell me how to help you!'
'This enemy is beyond you,' came the firm response. 'They are intent on acquiring the Crown. I will draw their attention away from you, and you must use the distraction to leave the palace at once.'
Sakura was appalled by the idea of running away and leaving Chiyo to fight alone.
'No! I can't leave you. I won't! And what about Sasuke-kun?'
'I will not allow them to take your King,' Chiyo vowed fiercely. 'They will not lay another hand upon him so long as I draw breath.'
'Let me help!' Sakura insisted. 'Lend me chakra. If you can control puppets with your chakra strings, then you can control me, too. Let me fight with you! Please!'
'You are barely healed. I would not place you at such risk.'
'If you won't use me, then I'll just fight myself!' Sakura threw back defiantly. 'I'm not leaving you, and there's a higher chance of me getting hurt if you don't lend me your chakra!'
A long, tense, hollow silence invaded Sakura's mind, and she saw that a grim expression had fallen upon Chiyo's face. Then Sakura felt a strange coolness pooling into her arms and legs, and her heart leapt into her throat when she realised in astonishment that Chiyo had agreed to her request. Had attached her own chakra strings to her limbs, ready to wield Sakura as one of her soldiers.
'You are stubborn, child,' Hecate's voice admonished. 'Just like your good mother. Are you prepared?'
Sakura felt the warmth of the goddess's chakra coursing through her veins. The healing barrier was still around her body, seeping continuously into her, keeping the Zetsu spores at bay, freezing them from unleashing their venom inside her cells. There was a gentle tug at her back and she was pulled away from the ground beside Sasuke to land gracefully on her feet next to Chiyo. Facing their enemy together, head on.
Reaching down, she used chakra to help rip off the restricting ends of her skirts, cutting the fabric up to her knees to free her legs. She had the distinct satisfaction of seeing Obito look slightly taken aback, as if he had not expected her involvement. As if he had instead expected her to lay down and die.
Fixing them both with a glare, Sakura said softly, charging chakra into both fists, "I'm ready."
With those words, Chiyo wasted no time in propelling her forward, and Sakura had never felt so weightless, so free in her movements despite the numerous strings attached to her. Her fists and feet flew, connecting with skin, bone and the stone of columns that were heavily damaged upon impact. Any time the enemy closed in, Chiyo yanked her out of harm's reach, only to relaunch her like a vengeful, streaking missile upon Ares and Obito.
The battle passed in an adrenaline-fuelled, head-spinning rush. Elemental chakra explosions and the whipping sound of chakra strings filled the air as Sakura and the other puppets fought to wear down their enemy. When Ares unleashed dark rods from his palms that stabbed into the puppets, Sakura stared at them in confusion, before realising with a jolt that they were absorbing chakra directly from Chiyo - and transferring the reserves to Obito.
"Lady Chiyo!" she gasped out in warning, when Obito amassed enough chakra to unleash a tailed-beast bomb at them.
Though significantly smaller in size than its usual radius due to his dwindling reserves, it nevertheless made the air in the room vibrate with oppressive static, and sent crystal glass raining down from chandeliers that were blown off the ceiling, causing the light in the throne-room to diminish. The howling gravitational orb slammed into Chiyo's barrier, pushing at it, trying to blast open a path to the throne, before it fizzled harmlessly away into nothing.
Hecate's chakra strings whistled through the air, sending Sakura into flight once more. With a furious cry, she aimed a chakra-charged kick into her heel, straight at Obito's head as she fell into descent. He flickered away, and as her foot slammed down on the tiled marble floor, a deep crevice formed, zig-zagging outwards from the point of contact.
They could have fought for a minute, or for hours, as Chiyo sought to drag the battle out long enough to shut down Ares and Obito's chakra pathways and incapacitate them, whilst upholding the forcefield behind her to prevent them from advancing on the throne.
But Obito was a god possessed. Driven by his Lord's command, as well as the burning desire to obtain vengeance, to be reunited with Rin again. And although he was poisoned, he still retained possession of one tailed-beast, whose waning chakra protected the depletion rate of his own, and Ares's black rods were steadily giving him enough reserves to prepare another bomb and more than one Kamui portal. Charging at Chiyo, he severed the strings she was using to control the puppets, repeating the action with any others she summoned to replace those that had been smashed into pieces.
His gaze then locked onto Sakura.
"You wish to play puppets with War," Ares's voice boomed darkly, as he snapped the neck of another mannequin, absorbing its chakra before reducing its body to broken pieces of wood. "Very well."
Abruptly, he changed direction, tearing through another puppet Chiyo had sent flying down to intercept him, and hurtled three dark rods into the air. They speared with lethal accuracy straight through the chakra strings behind Sakura, devouring them, reducing them to limp threads. Before Sakura could even comprehend what had happened, before Chiyo could restore the chakra-flow to her, she felt herself being grabbed roughly by her hair. She cried out in pain and fury as she was dragged backwards by Obito, who had somehow materialised behind her without warning. She did not dwell on what that had to mean. Without hesitation, she slammed Kusanagi's hilt upwards and behind her with as much force as she could muster, piercing his body through his right side, eliciting a pained hiss.
In retaliation, he angrily wrenched the sword from her hand, and before Sakura could think, before she could even realise what had happened, Ares was standing behind her, his hand on her shoulder sucking away the chakra shield Chiyo had placed around her body, taking away her protective healing barrier and-
Her entire body grew rigid when she felt the violent plunge of metal skewering straight through her windpipe.
Chiyo's eyes widened in alarm as Ares released Sakura, tearing Sasuke's sword brutally out of her wounded neck. Thick blood poured from her mouth, into her throat, pooling into her lungs. Her pulse throbbed in her ears, its forceful beat a deafening rush. The pain. She had never known such pain. She could not breathe, she could not breathe, she could not breathe. She was suffocating, she was dying-
Another stab of agony, this time straight into her back, through the centre of her chest, and suddenly every nerve ending in her body was strewn alight with a fire so devastating, it was akin to scalding acid coursing through her veins.
Ares had impaled her with a dark rod that seemed to guzzle away her very life-force. Sakura's wide eyes met Chiyo's, her scream manifesting in a broken gurgle as she choked on her own blood. She had never before seen Chiyo look truly afraid. But at that moment, the old goddess's face was plagued with pain and dread.
"You have underestimated me, old hag." Ares gripped the end of the rod embedded in Sakura's back with a skeletal hand. "There are no more restraints upon my abilities, now, no limitations. Any healing you attempt to give to this mortal, I will use to restore our own chakra." Glancing at Sakura who was clutching at her throat and clamouring for breath, he added, "You have precisely thirty more seconds before we release the venom into her blood. If you wish to be allowed to save her, call back your puppets and lower your barrier. Know that we will not leave until Lord Cronus's will is done."
Sakura staggered forward, falling to her knees, her trembling body going into shock. The rod channelled what felt like an endless current of debilitating electricity through every nerve-ending in her body. Her skin was clammy and cold, and the room began to spin once again. Her vision clouded from oxygen deprivation, and she stared numbly at the blood that spilled onto the dark marble floor. Her blood. So much of it, pouring out her mouth, from the fatal injury in her throat, onto the hands she had pressed against the puncture wound in a futile attempt to stem the blood-flow. She was drowning in it, and this time Sasuke was not there to regulate her heartbeat or to save her.
It was over. She could feel her frantic heart palpitating apprehensively inside her chest, almost as if it were anticipating the moment that her blood would begin to clot and thicken from the poison that was about to be released into her veins, a poison that would finish her off. She somehow knew, with certainty, that not even Chiyo could help her once that happened. The wounds that had been inflicted upon her vulnerable mortal body were already too devastating.
Within seconds she had slumped forward and collapsed onto the ground, the rod still impaled through her, the traumatic loss of blood too great, forcing her body into a state from which it could not hope to recover. She could feel her organs shutting down rapidly. And there were no more lifelines left to save her.
Thudthudthudthudthud, thud thud, thud thud… thud… thud… …thud…
She had tried. She had tried so hard, so valiantly to fight for Sasuke, to defend his Crown. She had tried so hard to fight for the world, for life, for good to prevail over evil. But there was only death and suffering waiting for her in the end.
Sakura's exhausted eyelids began to lower, her mind blanking as she succumbed at last to her deadly wounds.
~x~
Chiyo froze. With the rod stabbed through Sakura, she could not heal the girl without restoring strength to her enemy. Her gaze darted to Sasuke, and an immense pain pierced through her chest as she looked down upon the young deity over whom she had watched and cared for since the aftermath of the war. The boy-prince turned king who had lost everything, and battled to grow into a powerful, respected ruler in his own right. A deity who had found his long lost Persephone once again, the one who filled his lonely existence with love.
But their love was now in pieces, and on the verge of being ripped apart for eternity. Everything Shisui and Itachi had so painstakingly put into place to protect them, to protect the rest of the Olympians and humanity itself, had been shattered under the ruthless fist of the enemy. The blood in Sasuke's veins had stilled, his frozen body no longer under his control, securely locked in the clutches of the cruel Curse. His consciousness trapped away. All that was left was for Orochimaru to inhabit his vessel, and a once-proud, regal king would become just another mindless pawn for Cronus to control.
She could not allow that to happen. The throne behind her was indeed bleeding wisps of shadows. A sign that the bond it had with its monarch had been severed. A sign that it was without a recognised ruler, and open to accepting the next.
She had seen the way Obito's eyes flew to it. Known, from the look on his face, that he had immediately heard its seductive whispers, the moment it had been ready to receive him. How it beckoned to him, enticing him to approach, to take the Crown and power it so freely offered. The throne knew no loyalty. It knew only dominion. And it called to the only one left of Uchiha blood who possessed the lineage of shadow required to ascend it.
If Obito sat upon the throne and was crowned its king, there would be no way to wrestle the Crown back from Cronus's clutches. The Underworld would be lost if it fell under his command once again. Cronus cared not for the balance of life and death, and would throw the realm into lawlessness, with no regard for how his selfish actions would impact upon the afterlives of mortals.
She knew she could not extract the remaining tailed beast from Obito, not with Ares present beside him, in possession of Nagato's body and able to absorb chakra into his borrowed vessel, passing it in turn to Obito. Not without the risk of Sasuke and Sakura being taken to the enemy. Neither could she expel Ares and Obito and bar them from re-entering. That was a power only the ruler of the Underworld commanded, but Obito was a shadow-dweller by blood. The only way to stop him using Kamui to infiltrate into the kingdom again was to cut off all his chakra reserves.
The venom, she knew, had been working, slowing down their chakra flow with every passing minute, but it could not work fast enough with Sakura bleeding to death before her very eyes and Ares's ability to absorb foreign chakra which would slow down the neutralising effects of her venom. The enemy would not allow Hecate to heal the gravely injured mortal unless she surrendered the barrier surrounding the throne. But to do so would be to hand the Underworld into the enemy's hands. To relinquish the very kingdom Sasuke had worked so hard to maintain.
"Twenty more seconds," Ares's voice cut through her thoughts.
Chiyo's mind raced. If she lowered the force-field and used her healing chakra to save Sakura's life, allowing Obito to ascend, he would have ultimate control over the realm, and possess the power to prevent all access to it. Fully restored and healed of his ailments, he would open a Kamui portal and send Ares to Olympus along with Sakura and Sasuke's bodies, delivering them to Cronus to wield against the Olympians. She could not let that happen.
Yet if she chose not to heal Sakura, to stand her ground instead and defend the throne, she knew Ares and Obito would eventually call in reinforcements - the newly restored Titans - and she could not battle against them alone and maintain the barrier that barred Obito from taking the Crown. Nor could she summon the Olympians down to her to assist. They were too few, too ill-prepared to encounter the fearsome Titans, and it would only take a second of indecision, one slip, one heartbeat, for Obito to claim the throne.
Both options carried incredible risks, and neither option reversed the damage inflicted upon Sasuke. The first would allow her to restore Sakura - but only temporarily. As soon as the enemy took her to Olympus, her life would be over. Cronus, she knew, would not allow the girl to live. And it had already been made clear to Chiyo that the Titan intended to make use of her to fulfil his diabolical plans. If she surrendered the throne to Obito, he would have the power to expel her from the realm, and into the enemy's waiting clutches.
Both options were not options at all.
But there was a third choice. A terrible choice Hecate had always hoped she would never have to make - but had discreetly made arrangements to execute, in the event that a situation as disastrous as the one they found herself in ever came to pass. A situation where all hope appeared to be lost.
Her body almost trembled to think of it - a most powerful, ancient seal, one uniquely tied to her function, that was capable of trading death for life. Casting its workings would allow her to immobilise Obito for a brief period of time, and simultaneously expel Ares from his body. Incapable of possessing anyone else in the realm, Ares' spirit would be forced to flee from the Underworld and return to his true form on the surface. The seal also offered a lifeline, a way to reverse the effects of the catastrophic damage that had been dealt to both Sasuke and Sakura. A way to stop the enemy from taking them to Cronus.
A way to turn the tide in what was fast becoming a losing battle for the Olympians and the forces of good.
It was a forbidden craft that she had created millennia ago, and kept hidden from The Fates themselves. Because it belonged to the dark arts, and was one that came with a terrible price. The breaking of rules she had always faithfully upheld as Goddess of the Crossroads, a direct interference on their will and a transgression against the flow of time itself. For there was only one way to return death with life.
She pursed her lips, not afraid but resigned to her decision. There was no alternative. No other way out, without risking everything, without losing everything. The third option, in comparison to the first two, only required a single sacrifice.
Perhaps she had known, the moment she had entered the throne-room, that it was how the encounter would end. Perhaps it had been her intention all along, to allow the enemy to believe they had trapped her in a corner, and were forcing her hand.
"Ten more seconds." Ares warned. "Make your decision, goddess."
Chiyo released a heavy sigh. She dispelled her puppets. Feigning compliance, cooperation.
"Lower the barrier," said Obito.
"I suppose you leave me with little choice," she croaked. "But you are making a grave mistake, Obito, if you believe you can resurrect the mortal Nohara Rin. Death and its powers will never lie in your hands."
"Lower it," Ares interrupted impatiently. "Or your mortal dies, now."
Meeting their gazes directly, she answered, undeterred, "You may threaten me all you wish, but you would be simpletons to assume that you are the only ones who have made preparations to protect your cause. In truth, I had hoped that the darkness of this hour would never transpire. And yet, I find that I am quite ready now that it has."
Obito glanced questioningly at Nagato's possessed form. Unable to comprehend the cryptic riddles the goddess was sprouting, and it appeared that Ares was none the wiser.
Eyes blazing like coals, the crone continued, "Did you truly believe that tampering with the gourd of a weapon forged by The Moirae themselves would not beget undesirable consequences for you, in turn?"
"You cannot play your mind games, here," Ares dismissed flatly. "Obito. Release the venom."
Chiyo's eyes dropped to the unconscious Sakura. Impossibly, against all odds, she was somehow still breathing. It appeared that Atropos had not yet cut the thread of her life.
"I believe the only one who tampers with minds is you, war-mongerer." Raising her hands, she began to weave a sequence of seals so ancient and forbidden, neither Obito nor Ares recognised them.
"Did you truly believe that we would not put our own measures in place, to counter any attempts you make to destroy this world and all the good that resides within it?"
"Release the venom!" Ares repeated, immediately flash-warping before Chiyo, sensing that she was about to unleash something unexpected at them. He reached out, another dark rod shooting out from his outstretched palm - but Chiyo threw up another barrier to deflect it.
Sakura's prone form started to convulse, foaming at the mouth as the venom of Achlys worked instantaneously. Devastating and destructive, it crept ever closer to her heart.
That was when Hecate heard the whispers Obito and Ares could not. Whispers that commanded her to protect the throne, regardless of the cost. A thin sheen of frost had settled over the rod that had pierced through Sakura's back, and tiny fragments of glimmering mirror began to manifest above her.
The temperature in the room suddenly plummeted. And Chiyo realised with a start that the reason Sakura had not yet perished was because Atropos herself was keeping her alive.
It changed nothing, deterred Hecate not from her resolve, for even if Sakura survived, there was no other way that she could stop the throne from falling into Obito's hands. But it provided her with some comfort, to know that the girl's life was being shielded by the very Fate who snipped mortal threads. What she assumed was part of whatever bargain Sasuke had surely made with the goddesses in exchange for agreeing to become Chaos's new vessel.
They had told her to stop Obito ascending, at any cost. Hecate smiled grimly to herself, a sense of peace and acceptance settled over her. The workings she was about to cast felt not wrong, but right. She was glad to save the children she had grown to hold in such deep affection, to return hope to their sides. She was glad to protect the Underworld and to assist her dear friends on the surface. Long had been her existence, but Hades and his Persephone's had barely begun. And she could not stand to witness the pain of seeing her grandson returned, walking a sinister path that would lead to his inevitable destruction.
Obito was looking at Sakura, disturbed, open confusion flickering in his eyes, failing to understand how her heart was still beating. It was not possible for a human to withstand the venom of Achlys, but she was still breathing, still unmistakably alive. He stared at the tiny glimmering shards that floated above her form, his mind drawing a terrifying blank. He had seen those before. Where had he seen them before? The throne-room had turned to frost, and he could not remember-
"I am not one, but three," Chiyo began to chant.
"Kamui!" Ares barked an order, finally succeeding in stabbing one of his rods through the barrier Chiyo had erected. He began to absorb her chakra, transferring it to Obito, rapidly restoring his reserves. "Open a portal. Send them to Lord Cronus and let us finish this. Now!"
But Obito hesitated. As he stared down at Sakura, her image changed. All he could see was Rin, bleeding to death. Seconds that would cost him.
"Three forms, past, present and future. A life for each path found within the Crossroads," Chiyo went on, her time-worn hands rapidly forming seals as a memory flashed through her mind. As clear as the dawn itself.
~x~
She could see them again. Brilliant, luminous blue, feline eyes. The gold flash of a glinting, lightning bolt earring that caught the surrounding candlelight as Zeus shook his head in disbelief, looking in dismay upon the two masked young deities who had slipped into his personal quarters in the dead of the night. Only days before the war.
They were gathered close to the open archways of a pristine white balcony that overlooked one of the palace's many, magnificent gardens. Hecate stood quietly behind the King of Olympus and his Queen. Listening intently. Watching closely.
"You ask us the impossible, my friends. You ask us to teach you the most forbidden of Death seals, one that cannot be reversed. It would be akin to ending your lives with my own hands, here. No. I must refuse. I cannot grant such a request."
"There is no other way," Hypnos stated. "We cannot suffer the Titans to escape from their imprisonment."
"I beseech you to reconsider!" Hera exclaimed in alarm. "There are other ways to fortify seals without the need to throw away your lives! This forbidden working was created by my ancestors. I know, first-hand, the devastation it causes! Your souls will be forfeit, my princes. There would be no afterlife for you!"
"There are other ways, yes, none of them anywhere near as permanent." Hypnos reasoned. "Totsuka is tied to my cousin's life-force. So long as he lives, the blade remains active. But if that bond is severed, it cannot be restored. All that is contained within it, shall remain so."
Hera and Zeus stared speechlessly at the young gods for a long moment.
"You understand, Shisui, that should the gourd ever be found, that there still remains the slightest risk of it being tampered with and reactivated?" Zeus argued back, frowning at them in displeasure. "If the enemy were to somehow assemble enough chakra, and find a way to replicate your own-"
"The enemy would have to locate it first, my Lord, and only the King of the Underworld can track Totsuka in the lightless depths of Tartarus, into which it shall be discarded." Shisui replied. "Furthermore, we have put many measures in place to protect Sasuke from falling under the enemy's control. The enemy would also have to know the forbidden workings required to attempt to tamper with it, and there is no guarantee that they will succeed. A great deal of calamities would have to befall us indeed, to allow them to even attempt it."
Zeus raked a hand stressfully through his unruly blond hair. Looking at the solemn, quiet Thanatos, he entreated, "Itachi. This is madness. Do not do this. Let us find another way."
"There is no time. We cannot return here after tonight." Shisui shook his head regretfully. "Madara watches our every move, and we cannot risk drawing any further suspicion without compromising Sasuke's safety."
"We have determined this to carry the smallest risk of all other alternatives." Thanatos finished.
"Perhaps that is so, but the alternatives would allow you to live, at least! You would leave Hades to rule alone?" Hera demanded. "The poor child knows nothing of any of this!"
"There is no time for doubt. It is as my cousin has said. This is the method that carries the least risk." Hypnos's tone hardened, shifting from polite to unyielding steel. "My Lord and Lady, we did not come here to seek your permission or counsel. We are not your subjects, but your allies, free to act as we deem and see it best to act, in order to safeguard our own. Sasuke's safety is paramount, and we must do everything in our ability to empower him.
"We ask only for your assistance. Itachi knows of every seal tied to his role that is capable of terminating mortal lives. He knows of other seals that you do not know. But the Reaper Death seal to trade an immortal life falls not within his domain. It is surface-wrought magic, and its workings the oldest secret kept by your good ancestors. Will you help us?"
A long silence ensued. "You are determined, then." Zeus's eyes narrowed, clouding like a brewing storm. "To throw away your young lives."
"I suppose that makes four of us," Shisui remarked. "You cannot expect us to allow you to take all the credit for averting disaster?" He punctuated his statement with a most charming and disarming grin.
But Zeus did not smile at the light attempt at jest. Nor did Hera.
"You are making a mistake," the Olympian King finally said.
"It is our choice to make. We ask that you respect it. We are glad to lay down our lives for peace, and to protect the balance of life and death." Hypnos answered.
Both sides stared at each other, neither refusing to budge or back down, having reached an awful, tense impasse.
Thanatos murmured quietly, "Show us the runes, My Lord."
Hera and Zeus exchanged grave glances. Neither of them appeared happy. Then, Hera laid a gentle, reassuring hand upon her husband's left arm. His gaze lowered to it. Another brief silence followed.
At last, Zeus reluctantly relented, "You are correct that this method carries the least risk, and will at the very least ensure the Titans remain sealed for a very long time, if not permanently, within Tartarus. It would be near impossible to extract them, unless a great deal of variables are manipulated to work in the enemy's favour. But it also carries the most risk to you. You understand, that once cast, the contract is irreversible. It cannot be undone."
"We understand." Both princes responded.
There was another staggered pause, before Zeus supplied quietly, "Very well. For the great respect and affection we bear for you, I will teach you the runes."
Chiyo watched him demonstrate the sequence of seals without speaking the words to activate the forbidden, deadly technique out loud. Watched as he taught Hypnos and Thanatos workings that even she, in her great knowledge, had not known. For they had been one of Kushina's clan's most closely guarded secrets. Never written. Never spoken. Only shown in silence to a select few throughout history, to prevent the technique from being abused for selfish gain.
She watched, in silence, as two pairs of crimson Sharingan memorised the sequence.
And she had listened, on the final rune, as Hera's voice in her mind told her its name. Different to the one that Zeus had formed with his hands. Listened as Hera told her something else. Another combination of workings, equally as forbidden.
~x~
The memory faded, and Hecate's hands were weaving the tenth seal.
"A life for a life, and three threads have we. Past, present, and future uncertainty." Her voice began to echo ethereally, and a bright, hallowed aura surrounded her body.
Obito had snapped out of his hallucination, and was opening a Kamui portal just behind Sasuke. Another began to ripple behind Sakura.
Chiyo chanted, completing the tenth working. The air whipped around her, howling, as if space and time themselves were gathering around her form, and she ignored the thundering of her erratic heartbeat, the excrutiating pain that was starting to seize her body - and the screams and furious hisses of The Fates in her mind, as they at last came to realise what she was about to do.
The new paths her actions would unravel. The way she was about to disobey them and defy her very function.
"Let what was done become undone."
"Let the threads of past to present run."
"Let what is broken come to mend."
"Let a slumber deep come to its end."
Her hands formed the eleventh seal.
"The life I hold to death conveyed."
"Let what was taken be remade."
"Let crystal to blood return, restored."
"And with my life, remake the gourd."
At the last word, and the completion of the final, fatal rune, the throne-room exploded into blinding light, and the forcefield around the seat of power disintegrated, vanishing into glittering particles that dispersed into thin air, the chakra sustaining them severed. Obito immediately lunged forward to claim the Crown - only to feel every muscle in his body seize in place, as if an invisible barrier had been slammed down upon him, preventing him from taking another step, his limbs frozen, trapped mid-movement.
One moment Ares had been turning toward him. The next Nagato's body crumpled to the ground, and he knew with certainty that Ares had been expelled.
The Kamui vortexes diminished, and when the light finally faded, Chiyo's body lay lifelessly on the ground. Her eyes were open, her chest still.
She was dead.
Silence roared in Obito's ears, punctuated only by the awareness of his heartbeat thundering against his ribcage. The Goddess of the Crossroads had done something. Something dreadful. He could no longer call upon his chakra, felt his Sharingan receding to black. And the throne, he realised with a start. It was no longer bleeding wisps of shadows, but great, rolling plumes of it.
Another caw filled the air. Obito could not move his head to follow its source, but he heard the beating of wings, glimpsed a dark streak in the corner of his vision before everything fell silent once again. His eyes, the only part of his body still capable of movement, darted around the rest of the room, scanning the area visible to his immediate line of sight. Sasuke still lay motionless, locked in a catatonic state. Sakura had stopped convulsing, was still breathing, and appeared to be in no further discomfort, as if she were simply asleep in a pool of her own blood. He blinked, perplexed by the paradox of the sight - and battled to free himself in vain. He had to get to the throne. He had to complete the task required of him. But no matter how hard he willed his limbs to obey, they remained locked in place.
Another movement suddenly caught his eye, and he watched, in silent astonishment and staggered disbelief, as the broken shards of Totsuka's remains flared with silver light, roaring furiously back to life.
The cracked pieces of the gourd then floated up, elevating from the ground, shaking and vibrating in place as if a great, invisible force were acting upon them - before they shot toward each other like magnets drawn to their polar opposites, fusing back together, exploding into glorious, argent light.
Obito squinted, and when the light had faded, he felt all the blood drain from his face at the impossible sight that met his stunned gaze.
Totsuka hovered in the air, no longer in its gourd form. It was a flawlessly restored sword, returned to its former glory, from its ornate, jewelled hilt to the cold, sharp, ruthless metal of its cutting blade.
A blade that was suddenly set alight with a brilliant aura of sunset-orange.
He did not know how much time passed then. It could have been minutes or hours that he remained there, heart drumming, frozen helplessly in place, staring at Totsuka with wide, angry eyes as it floated before him. Eerily suspended, as if it were waiting for something - or someone. His confusion crested. How had the sword been remade? The one who had once wielded it was dead, and it did not simply take on a new Master-
Obito's mind blanked when without any manner of warning, Totsuka finally stirred into movement. It spun around in the air, its piercing tip angling in his direction, and shot straight at him, whistling ruthlessly toward him with incredible speed, commanded by an unseen will. A burning pain exploded in the middle of his chest as the sword skewered violently through him with such savage force that the air was ripped from his lungs and blood immediately gushed forth from his mouth.
The invisible binds on his limbs immediately loosened, like strings clipped by shears, and he collapsed to the ground in agony, unable to move, every muscle in his body paralysed.
No...! He blinked, unable to fathom what had gone wrong, what Hecate had done that had wrestled all control from them in a situation where they'd commanded absolute control. He had been so close to completing his task. Finally rid of the nuisance of Ares' constant presence, ready to ascend, and to reunite at last with the very thing he yearned most to find.
But the rage that flared through him was short lived, as he suddenly felt his eyelids growing heavy. Seconds later, all consciousness slipped quickly from his grasp, and he was flung into the torturous oblivion of a nightmare-fuelled sleep.
~x~
Author's note
If you're still alive, please kindly leave your thoughts. Thank you.