He didn't know how many hours had already passed, but he was still quite tired from all the adventures they had earlier, and when he opened his eyes, all he could see was an infinite number of stars; so much more than what he had seen earlier. The sky was even darker, contrasting so many colors from afar, which he guessed were clouds that resembled what he assumed were two suns that collided into each other and exploded into a sea of vapor.

There seemed to be bulbous, spherical rocks with millions of craters on their surfaces, floating in the sky around him as well, slowly spinning in their own axis. Their colors varied too. This was what he imagined he would see if he were to travel in space.

Wait, that's not what the sky usually looked like—,

He looked over at Sakura and realized that she too was floating along with the rocks while still sleeping peacefully, and that's when he realized that he hadn't felt a flat surface below him. No grass, no dirt, no ocean, and no trees surrounding him, but darkness and levitating rocks, which made him lose control of his balance, making him float away from her.

When he gazed back at Sakura, he noticed that she was hovering further away from him as well.

Madara began to wonder if this was only a dream or another part of the genjutsu, but when he pinched himself; he felt an ache right away.

"Oi, Senju! Wake up!" He yelled, but as expected, she did not hear him. She was still deeply asleep. He tried to reach for her but he could barely control his pace, and only furthering his distance from her. "Sakura!"

He yelled her name repeatedly, and every yell sounded more and more desperate, but Sakura could still not hear his exclaims, as she was still in the same laying position as she was when he first saw her in this dimension.

An idea struck him when a large rock floated in front of him. He crawled on top of it, and it moved him forward, making him reach another rock, and he started doing the same for the rest of the rocks that levitated towards Sakura's direction. Soon, he was able to stand on top of the rocks, making it easier for him to jump onto another.

When he was finally near her, he reached for her forearm and carried her up to the rock, laying her gently on the surface as he shook both of Sakura's shoulders, uttering her name repeatedly to wake her up. Then, he noticed her eyebrows furrowed, with her eyes slowly squinting until she woke up.

"Madara?" She asked, but then her eyes went fully round as she caught spherical rocks suspended in the air behind him, then realized they were also on top of a levitating rock, traveling to the unknown. "What? Where are we? Are we–, FLOATING?"

"It's the genjutsu, I think we're in space." He said, still holding her forearms firmly.

"You're insane,"

"Look around."

"No way," She said in disbelief, her eyes traveling everywhere it could and being in awe by the amount of stars and planets she could see around them. "This is so amazing. It's even more beautiful than what I have always imagined."

The space was indeed beautiful, but he couldn't help but stare at her instead while she was enjoying herself with their view. He couldn't resist admiring the way her vivid green eyes lit up. He wished he could just keep witnessing it just like when they were young.

"And look! I think that's our solar system!" She said with enthusiasm, pointing her finger onto their opposite, where Madara was heading towards earlier when he still couldn't control his movement. "The sun is so big compared to all of the planets! That is crazy! But I can still see Jupiter, it's also so big compared to other planets! The details are so gorgeous and recognizable even from afar! And Saturn with its rings, oh my. Wow. And I think that blue one is Neptune!"

He looked at the planets she was pointing at briefly and glanced back at her face again, not wanting to miss every moment of her blissfulness. Then, her eyes locked with his all of a sudden, making him look back to the planets again instead, with his heart rate suddenly racing.

Stupid, he thought to himself.

"Do you—want to go there?" He asked, trying to sound more composed than embarrassed.

Her eyes lit up again, being surprised that Madara was yet again being friendly towards her.

"We could?"

"Yes. If that's our solar system, then I think that could be where we will find the portal back home." He replied, standing up from his feet and readying himself to jump to another rock. "Follow me."

But when he hopped onto another rock, Sakura didn't make it, as the rock she was standing on moved quickly away from him.

It was as if when they were apart from each other, the further their distance got.

"Madara!"

He extended his arm to her, but the distance was too far already, leading Madara to jump over onto another rock that was closer to hers. She also hopped onto another rock leading to his direction, and onto another, until they were both near enough for Madara to reach her hand. When he pulled her to his rock, his grip was so strong that both of them fell onto the surface, with Sakura on top of Madara.

Their lips were only inches away, with both of them staring into each other's eyes so intensely.

Hearts raced so quickly that they could practically feel each other's heartbeats intertwining.

Sakura stood up immediately on her feet, while Madara did the same. For a while, they just stood in silence, looking around everywhere aside from each other, acting as though they were looking for a rock they could hop onto.

It wasn't as if that was the very first time they almost kissed. When they were much younger, there were also instances where their lips were only inches apart from all the adventures and sparring they had in the forest, but Madara was easily dismissive about it back then.

This time, it was just different.

From Sakura's perspective, it was as if Madara wanted to kiss her at that very moment.

Perhaps, she was only assuming again, giving herself yet another false hope.

"There's another rock nearing us, let's go!" He said, grabbing her hand as he pulled her to jump with him onto the said rock.

She felt her cheeks flushed from their hands holding.

Sakura couldn't count how many rocks they had jumped over to reach the solar system, but their fingers never unraveled from each other since then. As if they ever separate, they would never find their way back to each other again.

There were millions of icy rocks in varying sizes that they had to encounter as they were entering the solar system. Some had no choice but to be destroyed with their raw strength and weapons, unable to dodge them since they couldn't really control the movement of the rocks they were standing on.

"Pluto!" She yelled, pointing at the closest planet after they had passed by the icy objects.

She had expected the planets to be a billion times bigger, but in this genjutsu, the planetary objects seemed to be about the size of a house with three floors depending on the planet, and their distance were very close to each other as well, with Jupiter and Saturn almost overpowering the other planets surrounding the sun, as if they were just intricate models of what humans imagined the solar system would look like in a smaller scale.

Nevertheless, hopping onto another planet was still a major challenge to both of them, as the rogue rocks were very scarce in this bound.

They had successfully jumped onto Pluto, with Sakura admiring its moons orbiting around it, especially the biggest one which she called Charon, as Madara had recalled.

Then, they both landed on Neptune when it finally orbited next to Pluto. The surface of Neptune was very slippery, Madara had thought it felt like they were standing on ice just like Pluto, but this one had fog in them, and the longer they stood there waiting for the nearest planet to orbit next to them, the more he felt like they were being swallowed by a thick vapor of gas.

"I-I think we're sinking,"

"We need to get out of here, quick."

Luckily, all the planets orbit around the sun quickly, as they were able to hop onto the nearest planet which was very identical to Neptune in terms of its surface.

"Saturn's rings are actually just a chunk of rocks just like Uranus and Neptune? I wouldn't have known that because they looked like a flat plane from afar!" Sakura blurted out, finally seeing the ringed planet closer.

They were both also slowly sinking onto the core of the planet, as Madara dragged her immediately to move on to another rock on their way to the biggest planet, which he remembered was Jupiter.

It was such a beautiful and colorful planet, as if it was painted by an abstract artist, just playing with their paint brushes and creating different patterns. He looked over at the girl beside him, and just as expected, she too was in awe.

"That is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life."

To him though, she was his Jupiter, as she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen in his life, especially when she was happy.

"Let's go!"

They managed to reach Jupiter fairly quickly, but as they hopped on it, they sank much quicker to its core, as the wind was too strong. It felt as if they were being sucked by a strong tornado and clouds were so thick that they could practically not see anything but fog.

It was suffocating both of them, but Madara not once let go of her hand as they both reached the closest rock he could find.

Once they reached the rocky surface again, Sakura fell on the ground and coughed heavily. Madara immediately kneeled next to her in panic, with so much worry in his voice.

"Are you okay?"

"Y-yes. I am. This may just be a genjutsu, but that smoke definitely felt deadly." He only frowned at her response.

Then, his body suddenly had a mind of its own as it scooped her up and carried her, rushing to the other rocks leading next to the closest planet.

"Eh? Put me down, Madara! I can handle myself!" She said, blushing furiously as she stared at the boy carrying her.

But he didn't respond; he only concentrated on jumping onto the rocks.

Sakura just stared at him the entire time. There was something about the stars in the background that made her want to forget about everything and just fall in love with him all over again.

As they landed on Mars, Madara was thankful the planet had a rocky surface again.

"Whoa, so the color of the dust is really rusty. I don't know why I'm surprised. And look at those mountains! It's as if we're on earth again! But a never ending sunset." Sakura commented.

He agreed silently. Out of all the planets they've landed, Mars was the closest to what felt like home, just an earthlike planet that has reached its death. Nevertheless, he also found the planet quite amusing because of its color schemes. Like the Earth during its golden hours with the absence of blue skies.

She wandered around for a bit, dragging Madara with her as she indulged herself at the sight of the rusty mountains. But once Mars was finally orbiting close to Earth, Madara dragged her with him to ready themselves to travel their way back to Earth, but Sakura was hesitant.

"What?"

"I-, I don't want to go back yet."

"You're crazy."

"I want to see a bit more. It's just so peaceful here, right? Away from all the worries and chaos of our world. Well, aside from Jupiter that is."

"Bu-,"

She didn't let him talk. She dragged him to the other side as they hopped onto the rocks on the path to the brightest planet.

"What are you doing? The earth is on that way!" Madara yelled, but she didn't respond.

He knew he was much stronger than Sakura and he could just drag her to the opposite end of where she was headed, but somehow he felt helpless.

They hopped onto the other planet. They sank onto its core like it did in Jupiter, but this time it was slower. The vapor was extremely hot, though nothing too painful.

She held him closely and faced him.

"We're on Venus. Planet of love."

For some reason, his heart beat quickly again.

"Okay."

"Madara, ever since we got here you have become more friendly to me again. I miss that. Why can't we just be friends again like we used to?" She asked, biting her lip.

She looked at his eyes deeply, but he felt paralyzed.

He felt the urge to place his lips on hers and forget about the past. She was right, when it was just the two of them, his problems and worries all just seemed to go away. Or maybe it was just the warm temperature.

But then he saw the Earth and the Moon behind her, reminding him of Izuna, his last remaining brother who was all alone back in his village.

He freed his hands from her hold and climbed to the nearest rock.

He needed to get off this genjutsu quickly. His little brother is waiting for him. He shouldn't have left him alone in the first place, being the only protector of his village.

"Madara!"

When he looked back at her, his eyes widened at the realization that Sakura, together with the rest of the planets, were floating further away from him.

They were no longer orbiting around the sun either, and it was as if they were being sucked onto a black hole.

And Sakura was still in the atmosphere of Venus.

"Sakura!"

He hopped his way back to Venus, but he was facing a much more difficult challenge this time as Sakura was being rapidly sucked onto the black hole. The wind was too strong, so much debris was covering his vision as well.

Panic had driven inside of him as he witnessed Sakura could barely hold onto the rock she was desperately grasping for survival.

He cursed to himself, why did he let her go?

"Hang in there!"

When he was finally near her, he reached out his arm for her, but the wind was making it very difficult for their fingers to even touch.

And when he successfully grasped her hands, the black hole seemed to slow down, only for both of them to be both sucked into this void.