Chapter 25
Chapter Summary
"I'm gonna be released from behind these lines
And I don't care whether I live or die
And I'm losing blood, I'm gonna leave my bones
And I don't want your heart, it leaves me cold." - Leave My Body, Florence The Machine
Chapter Notes
Watch out for cliffs on your way down.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
Time passes quickly and all Sakura can do is be dragged along with it.
October comes in the blink of an eye, and Sakura watches Kushina leave Konoha with a heavily worried mind. Tsunade, Biwako, Minato, Shizune, and a host of ANBU escort her, but it doesn't feel like enough.
It doesn't feel like anything can be enough.
Not when it comes to this.
Black Zetsu, Sakura thinks, reaching up to cover the seal on her bicep.
Where are you? What are you plotting?
Sakura stays at the wall around Konoha, waiting - just in case. She stands there and she waits, ignoring the curious looks she gets.
It pays to be cautious.
There's a faint tickle of wrongness in the air, hours after Kushina's gone.
And then suddenly, the Kyūbi appears in front of the gates, massive and tails furiously stirring the wind.
No, Sakura thinks numbly, watching the creature throw it's head back and roar. How did it get through them all? Through Tsuru, Obito, and the rest?
The chakra rushes over her in a burning fury and Sakura quickly flickers to the top of the wall, nearly swallowing her tongue. The chakra is insanely strong, pressing down on her like a physical weight, and the beast is insanely huge. Even from the top of Konoha's walls, she's barely past the monster's elbows.
The Kyūbi lunges, paws obliterating the wall on either side of Sakura. For a moment, all she can see is the Kyūbi's furry, chakra-fiery chest, and then it throws its head back. A black bijū ball begins to form in its mouth, chakra becoming somehow more dense. Sakura wavers under the force of it, nearly falling to a crouch, before the ball is shot at Konoha.
Sakura watches it go, sailing over her head and going right for the Hokage monument - before being abruptly sucked up and vanishing. White chains shoot out from the ground, wrapping around the Kyūbi's neck and legs, wrenching the beast down. Sakura finds herself at eye level with it for a moment, and surprise jolts through her.
The bijū has Sharingan eyes.
Sharingan- of course.
Sakura turns and flickers away, moving as fast as she can. She tags everyone she passes, funneling her chakra into keeping them alive, until she reaches her destination. She arrives in the Uchiha's compound in a mere minute, immediately heading for Fugaku's home - but she finds it almost empty. "Itachi," She greets the young boy, cradling a baby Sasuke, and the boy looks up at her.
"Uzumaki-hime? My parents are out." He says and Sakura curses softly. Itachi frowns at that.
"Your elders. Where are they?" Sakura asks urgently and Itachi points to a few houses down.
Sakura moves as fast as she can.
The Kyūbi's chakra has moved past the outskirts of Konoha by the time Sakura finds what she needs.
It's an elder named Heizo who has it and she carries the elderly man on her back, pushing all the chakra she can spare into her legs. She flickers rapidly, not pausing to do anything more than to take a breath.
It takes them nearly five minutes to reach the Kyūbi.
By the time she does, Tsuru's kneeling on the ground, a pool of blood twice her size under her, and Kushina's on the other end of the Kyūbi. Both of them have chains out, wrapping around the beast to hold it down.
"Now, Heizo-dono!" Sakura pleads urgently, and the man's eyes flicker. The Sharingan twists, becoming something else entirely, and the Sharingan vanishes from the Kyūbi's eyes.
For a moment, the beast goes still.
And then it fights almost harder than before. Tsuru grunts and Sakura goes to her side, pressing her hands to the woman's back. "Stop," Tsuru snaps. "Don't waste it on me, save your chakra for this thing." She snarls.
Sakura ignores her, healing the woman enough that she stops bleeding quite so much, and then looks at the Kyūbi. "What happened?"
"It was Fugaku." Tsuru says darkly. "But it wasn't him. Something's wrong with him - half his body was solid black, and the he was barely conscious. His eyes- something's controlling him." Tsuru pants out, reaching up to clutch her wounded chest.
One of the Kyūbi's claws had gotten her, nearly cleaving her in two.
The words send ice running down Sakura's spine and she looks up at the Kyūbi with new, horrified eyes.
Shit. Black Zetsu… but why…?
"Tsuru. I need you to do something for me."
"I can't do much right now, Sakura-sama." Tsuru hisses out, sweat and blood running down her temple.
"I need you to isolate what half of the Kyūbi you're holding onto. Seize only its Yin chakra. Can you do that, Tsuru?"
For a moment the woman just kneels there, panting heavily, before she gives a jerky nod. "Yes. I can. But why?"
"Don't worry about it. Just hold on." Sakura instructs, and then flickers past the Kyūbi as quickly as she can. She kneels beside Kushina, setting a hand on the woman's back - and recoils the second she does.
The woman's chakra coils have been fried by the removal of the Kyūbi. "Kushina, I need you to do something. Move your chains so you're only holding onto the Yang half of its chakra."
"What?" Kushina asks breathlessly and Sakura shakes her head.
"I can't seal something this big. We need to split it in two, and then I can seal it away."
"Split it?" Kushina repeats, panting heavily, but after a moment, she gives a shaky nod. "Right. Let me just-"
The air moves behind them and Sakura has just enough time to turn, and then she scrambles sideways. She covers Kushina and Fugkau's jutsu hits her back, searing at the skin. Sakura cries out briefly, the pain taking her breath away, and then she releases her Yin seal.
Strength of a Hundred, she draws out immediately, not hesitating to use the trump card. She turns, ready to punch a hole through Fugaku's chest - and then hopefully heal him afterwards - but Black Zetsu moves.
Not Fugaku.
Just Black Zetsu.
The black half of him springs away and Sakura finds herself freezing mid-punch, the inky blackness swallowing her extended arm - and then her entire left side.
No, Sakura thinks, but it's too late.
She straightens up, Fugaku collapsing to the ground like a puppet with it's strings cut, his eye sockets bleeding, and Sakura turns against her will. "You're still alive? Stubborn." Zetsu says to Kushina, who watches her with horrified eyes. Sakura's left hand reaches down, wrapping around the hilt of her sword, and she draws the katana in one smooth motion. "We'll remedy that."
No, Sakura urges, struggling against it, but it's like trying to knock down a brick wall. Zetsu barely seems to notice her struggle, and that makes her fight even harder. Her right hand curls around something hot and wet. She can't move her neck to see what it is.
"No." Kushina murmurs, her expression pained.
A chakra chain flies out and strikes Sakura, whipping her in the left side. She soars through the air, Zetsu wavering for a split second. Sakura reacts too late, and the second they hit the ground, Zetsu has regained full control. Damn it. Her sword arm rises, Kushina watching warily from a few feet away.
"Sakura, don't do this. You can overpower him." Kushina urges.
Sakura had thought she'd been able to. Obito had made it look so easy.
She'd severely underestimated Obito's willpower.
"Don't bother with that." Black Zetsu scoffs, and for a moment, Sakura's head turns to watch the Kyūbi. "Ah. I see now." He muses, and then moves.
Sakura can do nothing but fight helplessly as Zetsu flickers them to Tsuru's side and buries Sakura's sword in the woman's spine.
No! Sakura screams in her mind, but her lips don't even move as the woman falls in a spray of blood. Tsuru looks up at her, blue eyes blown wide, and her mouth moves soundlessly before she coughs up blood. It gushes from her lips, so fast that Sakura knows only the Strength of a Hundred could save her now, but Zetsu won't let her move.
"Saka," Tsuru coughs before she begins to choke.
Zetsu finally moves, pulling her sword from the woman's back, and Sakura's forced to turn away from the woman drowning in her own blood.
Tsuru, she thinks desperately, tears burning at her eyes - but she can barely even blink the tears free.
They roll down her cheeks and she turns to the Uchiha elder, whose eyes flicker. Black Zetsu immediately flickers them away, reappearing beside Kushina, and Sakura braces herself. Her sword comes down, almost hitting Kushina before the woman's chains lash out again. She's struggling, panting for every breath and barely holding the Kyūbi down on her own now. Zetsu jumps nimbly over the chains, drawing on Sakura's chakra.
She spits out a bullet of water, piercing straight through Kushina's shoulder, and the woman wavers. The chains go slack for a split second, the Kyūbi moving to strike, but Kushina tightens the chains just in time. The Kyūbi's paw slams down so hard that the earth shakes with it.
She stumbles, Zetsu catching their balance.
A whoosh of air and suddenly a kunai is thrown straight at the back of her head. Sakura sways around it, turning to see Obito and Minato standing there - Obito bloodied and battered but intact.
And watching her with horrified eyes. "Senpai?" He breathes out, a pained expression flickering across Minato's face at his voice. Obito, Sakura thinks achingly.
"You're complicating things." Black Zetsu murmurs through her lips.
"Obito, help Kushina!" Sakura manages to blurt out, and the next thing to escape her is a cry. Black Zetsu battens down, suddenly feeling more like he's strangling her than stifling her.
It hurts.
She feels like she could choke on her grief as she looks at them, doubled over slightly at the pain before Zetsu straightens them up.
"Let's take this somewhere else." Minato says grimly, making a quick hand sign before holding one of his kunai out.
There's a faint sensation of being dragged, and then she finds herself standing somewhere new. It's still the Land of Fire - the forests are the same - but Minato appears before she can figure out where. He doesn't hesitate to do his duty as Hokage.
He appears behind her and lashes out, kunai stabbing through her shoulder. But the Strength of a Hundred is still flowing through her, easily sealing up the hole he leaves.
He doesn't make the same mistake twice.
He leaves every kunai still buried inside her, and Zetsu has to keep pulling them out before attacking - and then getting stabbed more times. "Damn you," Zetsu hisses, "Stop getting in my way."
"What do you want?" Minato demands, nearly impaling her throat, but Zetsu ducks in time.
"The Kyūbi. Oh, and world peace," Zetsu chuckles at that, like it's some big joke.
There are still tears running down her face.
"At least, that's what I told the man who gave me this." Zetsu murmurs before he reaches up.
There's nothing in the world that can stop Sakura from screaming as he pulls her right eyeball out. He throws it carelessly to the side, replacing it with a new eyeball, and Sakura's stomach churns viciously. "Minato," She half-sobs out through the pain and grief, the Strength of a Hundred healing the eyeball into place. "Stop me, please." She pleads.
The eye settles in.
Her bloody hand rises up to go for the other one, Minato watching with wide eyes.
"Please!" Sakura screams.
The fingers start to sink it.
At the last second, the hand wrenches away, Zetsu throwing himself to the side to avoid Minato's attack. The man flies at them with blinding fervor, every strike aimed to kill, but the Strength of a Hundred keeps her alive and intact.
Minato goes for the head, kunai grazing the side of her skull, and Zetsu wavers.
For just a split second, he wavers.
This time, Sakura seizes the chance. She manages to raise her hand just a little, curling her smallest and ring fingers, and hisses out, "KAI!"
The seal on her bicep burns like it was set on fire.