Chapter 26
Chapter Summary
"Cause she's a cruel mistress,
And a bargain must be made.
But oh, my love, don't forget me
When I let the water take me." - What The Water Gave Me, Florence The Machine
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
The seal on her bicep burns like searing fire, spreading outward until it consumes her body - Zetsu and all.
"What is this?!" Zetsu cries out, a crimson barrier forming up around them. It flies up just in time for Minato to hit it, bouncing away with a pained shout, and Sakura almost feels bad for him and the chakra burns she'd just given him.
She's a bit too preoccupied to care much, though.
"This…" Sakura pants out with enormous effort, "is the work… of Uzushio… seal masters… you idiot." There's blood in her mouth. It's on her clothes, oozing from the stab wounds Minato's attacks had left her worth. The Strength of a Hundred trickles into her wounds, but pours into the barrier.
"You… you're draining me! How are you draining me?!" Zetsu cries out, struggling to peel away from her, but Sakura has a foothold now. She seizes him hard, using all her willpower to hold him in place. Black Zetsu pulls against her, but the seal helps to anchor their combined chakra together. He can't get away.
It drains at them both, chakra funnelling away - and Zetsu, unlike her, is a creature made of pure chakra.
"Tsuru… says fuck you… from the afterlife… you asshole." Sakura struggles to say, every word coming through clenched teeth. It's impossibly hard to do anything, but if she puts all her effort into it, she can manage the smallest things. Sakura looks up at Minato through damp lashes, tears drying now, and glares at him. "Go help… Kushina and Obito… He can't escape… this jutsu."
"What are you doing?" Minato asks, staring at her with a tense expression.
"Draining him… and myself… away." Sakura pants heavily, sinking to her knees. Her body trembles. "Our chakra is… fueling the barrier." She shares, and it truly is a work of art.
Kahan had said so himself.
The seal latches onto the chakra of it's user and it's target, siphoning away the chakra to fuel the barrier sealing the victim in. It's an inescapable prison of slow, carefully measured death.
Minato seems to realize this, his skin paling and his expression becoming pained.
"Go. Help Kushina." She urges.
"Don't die." Minato instructs before, with a pained, grim look, he flickers away at light speed.
Sakura immediately sinks the rest of the way to the ground, laying on her left side. Zetsu struggles against her in vain, her entire attention focused on forcing him to stay attached to her. The seal helps, weakening him and her at the same rate.
"No… this isn't right. Release me! Let me go!" Zetsu snarls, struggling viciously - but the barrier drains him away bit by bit.
Just as it drains her.
She's not sure how long she's lied there, eyes closed and body braced to hold Zetsu in place, when someone interrupts her. "Senpai…" Obito's voice says in a pained tone. She opens her eyes to see him, Kakashi, and Minato approaching. Obito kneels down at the edge of the barrier, looking through it at her with a tense expression. "Drop the barrier. There must be some other way to destroy it."
"There's not." Sakura murmurs tiredly. "It's a creature of chakra… so I'm draining it."
"I won't let you." Zetsu hisses, but it's in vain. It's all in vain.
Sakura closes her eyes, exhaustion licking at the edges of her.
"It's draining you, too!" Obito protests and Sakura opens her eyes a slit to look at him. "Cancel it! Find another way!"
"There is no other way, Obito. This is... the only way I could come up with. It's draining me as well, yes... but that's the price of it draining away... this monster." The seal binds Zetsu to her, holding his chakra to hers, and thus the seal drains them both. It'll kill them both, soon enough.
But with the Strength of a Hundred still flowing through her, there's a good chance Zetsu will die before she does. And even if he doesn't, he'll be severely weakened.
"Let me go!" Zetsu snarls furiously, but she refuses, holding him tight. His struggles get weaker and weaker with each passing second.
"I won't." Sakura vows fiercely before looking up at Obito, Minato and Kakashi a step behind him. Obito looks stricken, but the other two watch her grimly. "Hokage-sama. Is Kushina…?"
"We took care of it. Obito and Kushina did as you instructed. The Yin half is back in Kushina, but the Yang half we sealed in our son - Naruto." Minato explains quietly, kneeling down beside Obito at the edge of the barrier. "That was genius of you. It would have been impossible to re-seal while still whole. Kushina's too weakened."
"Good. And… the others?"
"Heizo-dono is safe. Tsuru… was beyond saving." Minato says softly and Sakura squeezes her eyes shut. "It wasn't your fault."
"It was my hand."
"But not you controlling it."
"It's still my hand... that her blood is on, Minato…. and my sword." She exhales a harsh breath, swallowing thickly. Zetsu's stopping moving all together, turning a faintish grey instead of black, and Sakura blinks back spots from her vision. "Do me a favor, Minato?" She asks, voice wavering.
"Yes?"
"Don't let Kushina... buy the fish. She doesn't... deserve that."
"I'll do it." Obito chokes out immediately, tears flowing from his eye. "I'll take care of it."
"And someone… take this eye... and burn it. Before someone uses it."
With shaking fingers, she lifts her hand - now starting to return to flesh-colored as Black Zetsu is slowly siphoned away - and sinks her fingers in. With a small cry and a hard flinch from Obito, she rips the Rinnegan from her eye socket and lets it fall, rolling away with a disgusting squelch.
The pain vanishes almost immediately, the Strength of a Hundred still flowing, but even that is slowing down now.
"No…" Black Zetsu whispers weakly. "Mother…"
He fades further and further, and eventually, he goes away completely.
Sakura drifts away, too.
"You've done it." The Sage of Six Paths says to her quietly. She's standing in a white abyss, the man/alien floating cross-legged in front of her. "It wasn't quite what I expected, but you stopped him."
"Why did he come after the Kyūbi? It was too early for him to seal it away, wasn't it?"
"No. Zetsu never needed the Akatsuki to seal the bijū - he only needed the statue and the Rinnegan, and he had both. The Akatsuki were only his means of capturing the jinchūriki and using the Rinnegan. The Kyūbi's seal was weak, you know this well. He could very well seal it away into the statue himself. The only difficulty lied in him controlling it and keeping it from resisting - and having a body to use the Rinnegan through."
"Henc e Fugaku." Sakura realizes quietly and the Sage nods.
"Hence Fugaku." He confirms. "I asked you once to save everyone, Sakura Haruno. And as Sakura Uzumaki, you have. But there's work to be done yet."
"Work? Haven't I done enough?" Sakura asks tiredly, rubbing at her eyes.
"Do you forget so easily? Black Zetsu may no longer be here to cause strife, but my sons may yet follow in their past incarnations steps. I need you, Sakura-hime, to serve as a bridge between them. To keep them from killing one another, or causing another apocalyptic event themselves. Help them become what they were at the end. Brothers, not enemies." The Sage implores.
"How? How can I do that? You made me too old, Sage-sama." Sakura says, lips twitching a tiny bit bitterly. "I'm old enough to be their mothers now."
"Be their mentor. Be their sensei. Teach them, and teach yourself alongside them." He says, a small shiver running through her at that idea. To train herself to be a kunoichi? "There are wrinkles in time. Things that were not meant to exist. You've felt one yourself - every time you go near your once-mentor and her husband that's meant to be dead." Sakura blinks at that, surprised. "It's wrong. It wasn't meant to be, and you can feel that. But you brought it, Sakura, and that power you have will be needed in the years to come."
"You changed the world by saving one life. You created something that was never meant to exist. You'll feel that every time you're near your incarnation. Sakura Haruno will be a toxin to you, overwhelmingly wrong to you every time you go near her. But I will help you with that. Her life force calls for yours, trying to pull together two pieces of the same puzzle." The Sage explains and Sakura understands now why she's been so exhausted, day in and day out. No matter how much she's slept, or how long she's rested.
"So I will remedy that. Once, I gave your teammates my chakra. Now, I will give you my lifeforce. With it, you will be protected. Your lifeforce will go to her, and mine will go to you."
The Sage pauses for a moment, looking at her intently with his eerie, three eyes.
"You will never hear from me, after this." He warns her.
"I lived an entire life without hearing from you." Sakura points out and he bows his head slightly in acknowledgement. "I can continue that path."
"So you shall. One day, I'll return to give my chakra to my sons. But until that day, farewell, Sakura Uzumaki. May you spend this lifeforce wisely."
There's a faint rushing of air across her skin, roaring in her ears, and the world goes black.
In the shinobi hospital of Konoha, in one of its highest priority room, Sakura Uzumaki opens her eye.