CHAPTER 8

Three Weeks Ago

Hidden Location

Sakura fidgety stood, waiting for the dining hall doors to be opened. There was always a sense of fear whenever he summoned an audience. She glanced at Obito menacingly for a moment, wondering if he was in trouble for something she was not aware of. In terms of Uchiha, she much rather be on the side of the devil she was familiar with.

The doors finally opened. Servants greeted them as they entered the hall. A long dining table and chairs were situated in the middle of it, with medieval food and wine already prepared. And there he was, at the end of the table, sat the ancient psychopath – the actual mastermind, the puppeteer, who pulled all the strings and was responsible for everything that has happened in this shinobi world.

"Madara, you summoned for me," Obito greeted without a gesture of titles or ranks.

She noticed the tension in his voice as he spoke to the ancient psychopath. His smirks and grins completely disappeared and were replaced with seriousness and calculative expression.

"Come," Madara gestured his hand at them to take a seat.

She sat two seats away, with Obito settling himself in between. As soon as they settled in their chairs, the servants served them food and poured wine into their glasses. She watched their every move with a tormented heart, studying the scars on their lips. Madara demanded the servants to serve in silence, and so, he commanded them to have their tongues cut off and lips surgically sewed together before healing them with chakra. She knew this because she was the one who assisted with the healing process.

Sakura looked away as the shame and guilt finally sunk in. She patiently waited for the service of the first course to be completed, as a lady would. She learned that Madara hated people who lacked etiquette and manners, with Obito as an exception because they were from the same clan. For others, it was not a pretty sight. She had witnessed his temper that when one presented itself, it resulted in some victims being burnt to a crisp, while others had their throats cut off.

"Right, let's get on with business," Madara insisted as he started with his first-course meal. "The Anbu spies of the Shinobi Alliance have been scouting across the five countries. It seems that they're still looking for us. To think that they still have hope is pathetic enough; are these the followers of Hashirama? Weaklings don't deserve to live, especially that granddaughter of his."

"What do you expect when we declared war on them?" Obito scoffed. "A few have crossed into our land; some were captured to slaughter, and others were kept for compulsion. Brutal, but it's effective; our location remains unknown."

Madara swirled the wine in his glass before he made a toast. His dark eyes lingered on Sakura, challenging her for an opinion. Knowing that it was a test of her loyalty, she responded with a glare and a fake smile, refusing to answer the ancient psychopath.

"I see that you've managed your temper well," he mused and drank his favourite wine before returning the conversation to his descendant. "How's her progress so far?"

"Based on your guide; she managed to expand her knowledge, skills and moulding her chakra storage. Her genjutsu – unfortunately – is slow to advance," Obito answered as he picked at his food.

"Yet somehow she had managed to easily break my compulsion spell in the last war. For a raw genjutsu user, that would be impossible," he paused, drumming his fingers as he made his decision. "Her genjutsu skill needs to be sharpened for the coming phase. I will train her personally from now on. Time is of the essence, and I simply can't have precious moments delayed when you could have trained her into greatness."

"She's not strong enough for that level. Her body will not be able to take the pressure. It will break her apart if you push her too far."

"I am Uchiha Madara!" he roared, slamming his fists on the table in rage. "The first user of the Eternal Mangekyō and Rinnegan. Teaching her on a higher level of genjutsu is nothing but a child's play to me."

Silence hit the hall as the Uchiha challenged each other to a glaring contest. The candlelight fluttered, struggling to survive the dungeon's gloomy air. Madara then gestured to his servant, ordering him to come forward. The servant presented a stack of scrolls to Sakura. She grabbed one of the scrolls, opened it and read its content.

"There's nothing but scribbles," she said.

"Symbols, my dear, not scribbles," he corrected. "You are to read the content of these scrolls to me after you have figured out the meaning of these symbols. You have a month to do your research and complete this assignment. Just so you know, these are the scrolls that belonged to The God of Shinobi himself."

Those very words earned their immediate attention. Obito snatched the scroll from Sakura and glanced it through.

"These are the lost scrolls of Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki. You expect her to understand and interpret a thousand-years-old dead language that was left forgotten in the shinobi world?" he asked.

The ancient psychopath did not answer but smiled maliciously instead.

As soon as she was done with dinner, she excused herself and instructed the servant to carry the Hagoromo scrolls to her chambers. She walked slowly, listening to the conversation between Obito and Madara that was still within an earshot.

"We have to re-group. I have several men who are still allies of the Uchiha clan. You are to travel east from the Country of Water on the morrow," Madara demanded.

"What is there in the distant east?" Obito asked his ancestor.

"There are those people that still dwell on an unknown island; those that are considered outcasts, lost, and betrayed."

"Those people – they're deemed as murderers, barbarians and traitors; they're not of the shinobi way."

"Yet they are men who bound no fear," Madara assured.

"They will answer to no one," Obito argued.

"They will answer to one particular bloodline…"

Sakura was on the verge of giving up the research. It has been three weeks, and she has yet to solve the task she was given. Fresh air was badly needed, but it was impossible because she has been isolated in an underground gothic dungeon for years.

She rolled up her sleeves, and frustratedly, gravity pulled it down. She then stared at herself in the mirror, acknowledging the fact that she has yet to cut her hair since the last war. With her long pink hair tied loosely on the side, and her kimono in pale white, any sane human might have mistaken her as a Yurei – a female ghost searching for her lost husband.

She sighed and returned to her notes and the ancient scrolls, only to lose her motivation and knock her forehead on the table instead. The amount of time left for her to solve the scrolls was shortened each moment, and she could not afford to waste it because Madara would unleash his unforgiving rage onto the innocent servants. She cared for these people, which was one of her weaknesses; and the ancient psychopath knew her so well to use it as his leverage.

A soft knock on the door startled her. It was her handmaid, Yui, who made sure to check on her every night. Like others, Yui's tongue was also cut off, with lips sewed together. Sign language was a way for them to communicate.

Sakura interpreted and verbalised each of her maid's hand gestures.

"It is late, Sakura-Hime. Pulling a late night is not healthy for your complexion. You must rest. I've brought you herbal tea to aid with your sleep."

The handmaid smiled and insisted Sakura to take the drink.

"Thank you, Yui," she smiled in return, refusing to take the tea, "but I must complete deciphering these scrolls–"

She stopped her sentence midway, observing Yui's hand gestures. As she watched her handmaid communicating in sign language, it slowly hit her. She glanced at the scroll and studied the symbols again – some were in odd patterns and shapes, while others were in lines and dots. She then used her fingertips to graze along the edges of the scroll, wondering if there was ever a way to read the text using the old ways. Before the development of the alphabetical system, it was known that the age of writing always started with pictures and then evolved into more complicated symbols. To make the symbolic signs speak in a certain way would take another great conceptual leap, and that conceptual leap would be the power of representation.

She analysed each of the ancient scrolls closer. These odd patterns, shapes, lines, and dots represented something that was not current, but a conceptual revolution in the meaning of a symbol. Ergo, if a symbol could represent a thing, it could represent a word. Indeed, the interpretation of the symbols represented a subject or object that an individual could recognize. Yet at the same time, it could also be used just for the sound of it, so that it could provide different meanings or representations. And just like the sign language, using a picture to represent a sound in this manner made it possible for her to translate the ancient symbolic text into words.

Without further delay, Sakura rushed to gather old texts from any books and scrolls for her new findings. She grabbed a fresh piece of paper and started to decipher the meaning behind the lost ancient scrolls that once belonged to the great Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo.