Two years ago
Thump, thump, thump.
It was a loud, rapid tempo, surrounding Konoha like a thundering omen. It was like fist-sized stones falling from the sky, like a monster that had awoken after its hibernation of a millennium laying beneath the surface of the Earth and banging its fists against the confines of its cage, like standing in the eye of the hurricane and waiting for the inevitable as the storm closed in.
Ino stood beside her, and when she began to shake as Kakashi appeared before them with news of the coming attack, Sakura slipped her hand in hers. Ino gripped her hand, tight and painful, and when the hold started to feel punishing, she swallowed the words of protest and tightened her own grip in reassurance.
Kakashi was blinded in his Sharingun eye, blood swishing around the gaping hole where an eye should have been. He looked on the verge of collapsing. She stared at his feet, unable to meet his gaze. It was too gruesome and too telling of the strength of their enemy.
"Kakashi, report," Tsuande said sharply.
She watched as he shuddered a breath and swallowed.
"It was—thousands. Thousands of them. The enemy must have used the same technique as Oroichmaru used to bring back the First and Second to—to fight the Third. They are—formidable. Powerful, legendary shinobi. Their personalities are erased. Everyone else—died. I—"
His shoulders began to tremble as he seemed incapable of forcing out the words of damnation.
Tsunade appeared grim and troubled.
"There are thousands of them," Ino rasped into her ear. "How are we supposed to kill them all?"
Sakura didn't respond to her question, because she didn't have a good enough answer. They were soldiers waiting for their deaths. Even if they endured the onslaught, it would be a Pyrrhic Victory. Too many comrades dead, too many enemies alive waiting to make their next attack. Except their side was people, full of emotion and memories and dreams, and their side might as well have been mindless ghosts made into human flesh that should have long been dead.
Murmurings sharing the same sentiment echoed throughout the crowd. Morale was low. It was never a good idea to fight a battle with low morale—if the battle had already been lost in the people's hearts, then reality would follow shortly.
She looked over her shoulder and past the crowd of solemn Konoha shinobi and through a narrow passage of thick forestry. Several kilometres from here would be Konoha. From here would be children finishing for the day at the academy, from here would be friends and families coming together to reminisce and celebrate, from here would be a man's vision of a bright and peaceful future where children are not sent to the battlefield to die for an adult's vendetta. They couldn't fail. They could not.
And her heart went thump, thump, thump as she hardened her resolve into stone.
Guy stepped forward, breaking from the crowd, and walked up to Kakashi, before placing a steadying hand on his shoulder.
"Kakashi, go back to the village and rest. You've done enough. We'll take care of it from here."
Kakashi glanced sideways at him as he panted and then shook his head.
"No—I'll fight. This will be our only chance to save Konoha. I'll fight."
Sakura squeezed Ino's hand before releasing her grip and stepping forward.
"I'm fighting too. Until the end." Her gaze searched the crowd and found only faces full of despair and resignation. "This battle means more than just you and I. It means the entire history and future of Konoha. It means the history of our ancestors can continue to be passed down to the next generations. It means our very way of life. It means more than anything in this very world. And so I will fight—until the end."
It should have been Naruto. He was their village hero and saviour. He would speak motivational words of hope that would move people into action and purpose. But he wasn't here—already gone on a mission to find Sasuke and bring him back home, when Sasuke had already returned home with an army in his footsteps.
She thought irony was a terrible thing.
Sakura held a battered breath as she stood separate from the crowd. Nobody stepped forward. Nobody said a word. Nobody even made a single noise.
She was alone.
She tilted her face skyward as she felt moisture build in her eyes. Kakashi, Guy and her weren't enough to fight an army in the thousands. They couldn't just give up. The odds of them winning were too slim to none, but at least they could go down fighting for what they believed. At least their deaths would mean something. They would die anyway even if they didn't fight.
"Well said," her head snapped towards the direction of the voice, and it was Tsunade grinning at her. "I'm glad I made you my student, Sakura."
Despite her fear, she felt a smile tug at the corners of her mouth.
"We should create a plan," Shikamaru said as he stepped forward and leveled her with a sullen look. "We have about two hours until they reach this point. Most of our shinobi are out of the village, and we have already requested backup from those stationed inside. We are the first line of defence. There are two more lines of defence if they get through us. Then, the village gates, the final line of defence. Tsunade-sama, as the Hokage, you should be stationed as the final line of defence. We should divide into groups of long-ranged and short-ranged, and then elemental affinities and special abilities. We should divide evenly into each line of defence."
"The first line of defence is as good as sending sheep to the slaughter," Kiba argued.
Shikamaru avoided his gaze as he frowned.
"We don't have much of a choice."
"Why don't you go on the first line of defence if you're so willing to make shinobi sacrifice themselves?" it was a Hyuuga, and one she didn't recognise.
Shikamaru wore a brittle smile.
"I plan to," he said.
Her heart dropped as she thought of words of protest that wouldn't come. She wanted this. It was fight or die. Some of them were going to die no matter what they choose. But she didn't think to put names on those who would die and those who would get to survive.
Ino stepped forward, and Sakura felt lightheaded as she stared at her. Ino sent her a small smile that spoke of a million words. I love you. Survive. You're my best friend.
"I will fight on the front line too," she said as she held her gaze. "Until the end."
There was something stuck in her throat as the world became blank and meaningless around her. Icy blue eyes softening at a little girl crying about her big forehead, icy blue eyes widening at the little girl who became so much more and fought her on equal strength, icy blue eyes fearful and loving in one last goodbye at the little girl who grew up and became her best friend. Sakura could see nothing but icy blue eyes.
"Me, too," Choji began.
"Until the end," Lee finished, full of determination.
And one by one, as the forest went thump, thump, thump and matched the rhythm of her heartbeat, people stepped forward and swore to fight until the end. People she knew all of her life, people she saw once before. People old and experienced, people young and naive. Eventually, everyone.
Tsunade and Shikamaru arranged people into groups, and within half an hour, they had moved into their respective positions and were prepared for the enemy.
Sakura could hear the forest groan at the march of the undead and inhaled. Sakura watched thousands of grey, peeling faces of the dead pepper the greenery and exhaled.
Thump, thump, thump went the heavy steps of soldiers who knew they had one last battle left. Thump, thump, thump went the march of an undead army meeting an alive one.
Sakura flew forward with a kunai in one hand and a paper bomb in the other. Warrior cries and screams and metal clashing against metal exploded in the once quiet forest.
And the world went thump, thump, thump.
The world was grey. The sky was painted in monochrome water paint with a coarse brush and heavy strokes. Even the forest was grey. It was as though a greedy beast had gnawed all the vibrancy from the world and left only its skeleton and rotting carcass behind.
She rose her arm and stared at her hand. There were scars she knew well. On the knuckle below her pointer was a faint one—one that she earned from the blade of a puppet in her victory over Sasori. And there were scars she didn't recognise at all. Like the deep one running along the inside of her thump.
Her head was pounding something terrible. Perhaps she had a concussion.
What was it about concussions she had to be careful about?
She couldn't remember. As she stared at the monochrome sky, there were other things she couldn't remember. Like what she was doing on the ground in the first place. Like the reason for the metallic taste of blood on her tongue. Like the dried mud sticking her shirt along her spine. In fact, there was very little she could remember.
Concussion, she reminded herself. She remembered that was important.
Why was it important?
She pushed herself into a sitting position, and before her was a sea of corpses. She breathed deeply at the sight of the still, pale bodies and choked on the stench of smoke, copper, decaying flesh and burnt wood. Purple asters splattered in red fluttered with a howling breeze, and the sudden cold felt like ice on her cheeks.
The stinging cold in her eyes made her look down—at the corpse of Neji Hyuuga by her side, thin as though he hadn't eaten in years and grey as the world.
There was something complicated happening inside her. It was a string that had been stretched too far; thinning and fraying. It was the last of her strength. Her stomach was churning and lurching in protest. She could feel it breaking, taking all the belief that the world was fair and just with it.
The beast was Death. Death had turned the world grey.
She could feel bile rising in her throat and then she vomited all over herself.
There was something important she was supposed to remember, but none of that mattered as she let light-headedness push her down to the ground and quietly hoped Death would turn her grey too because it was too painful to be left behind.
She awoke to the stench of her own vomit. She wasn't dead yet—why wasn't she dead?
She stared at the grey sky and wondered why it was so hard for her to die when everyone else had died so easily. She wasn't special. There was no reason that she should have to survive when everyone else had to die. She didn't deserve life if it meant every one dead.
There was a whistle, whistle, whistle in her ears, and the grass tickled her fingers with the coming wind.
Minutes passed, and then a few more. Still, she would not die.
An hour passed. And still, nothing.
And, then, Sakura was tired of waiting to die. All she could think about was that it shouldn't have been her. There was nothing that made her special enough to be the only survivor. She should be dead.
Dead.
Dead, dead, dead her mind raged as the wind went whistle, whistle, whistle.
It was maddening. She couldn't stand it. She scraped her fingers against her head, and the pain of her nails clawing her skin barely registered.
"Make it stop," she cried, as her mind went dead, dead, dead.
She shot forwards, her mind whirling as she panted. One breath, two breaths. Sakura could not see beyond the sea of corpses. Three breaths. It quietened as grief rose inside her and tightened around her throat, like a hand choking her.
There was a wetness in her eyes as she looked down at Neji. He always looked so tense, but now, with the birdcage seal undone, he looked at peace. No longer was his right brow furrowed just a small bit. His skin had turned pink, and there were maggots in the flesh wound on his right leg. He looked skinner than she had ever seen him, as though all the fat in his body had been stolen. The stunk made her nearly throw up all over again.
She crawled, unable to stand. Maybe there was another survivor. Maybe she wasn't the only one. Maybe the rest of her classmates had survived.
She searched each corpse she came across for a familiar face, and none she recognised. Some had limbs torn off. Some had gaping holes. Some had bits of their head blasted off so she couldn't identify them. All the bodies appeared malnourished, just as Neji's had.
She crawled for hours, her hands covered in blood and maggots that have crawled from their chosen corpse to her to feast on the broken-off flesh that had gathered in-between her fingers in her pawing, and still, she recognised none.
Her skin itched, and she could hardly breathe through the putrid stench, but she didn't think of anything else but finding her teammates.
Maybe—
She tripped over a leg torn from its owner and fell on top of a corpse. She came short just centimetres before the rotting face, and it might have as well been another limp for as identifiable the features were. The face looked to be burnt off, with massive, red blisters coving the eyes, nose and mouth so that it was all one big wound. And then a wave of stench flooded her nostrils that she couldn't stop herself from startling. She went forwards, knocking the tip of her nose with soft, burnt flesh, before shooting back and falling on her back. Her cushion was soft and furry, like a blanket. She laid there for a moment, before she turned her head and found the head of a decapitated dog. It was one she recognised. It was Akamaru.
She shot forwards and whipped her head back. She had been laying on Akamaru's decapitated body. She swallowed thickly and closed her eyes. When she opened them, she thought she recognised the grey jacket of the man with a melted face.
It was Kiba.
The bile rose before she could stop it, and by the time she was done, she was panting and sobbing.
It's as good as sending sheep to the slaughter.
"No more, no more, no more," she begged, and Kiba's burnt face stared back at her like a mockery to her pleading.
Sakura counted fourteen sunsets on her journey to Konoha. Normally, it would have only taken half a day, but she felt too sluggish and lightheaded to even walk most of the time.
Sakura was a medic, and she knew the limits of the human body well. By the seventh day, she should have been so dehydrated that she died. The human body had enough stores of fat to last longer than seven days, but not enough water. But Sakura did not die. Her throat felt like the Sand Country had been compressed and compartmentalised into her esophagus, and she felt like she was a second away from collapsing as soon as she stood, but Sakura did not die.
She didn't understand it. It didn't make sense, medically speaking. But she accepted it because she was too exhausted to ponder why. And she really just didn't care at this time.
She only really cared that she remembered how to walk. One leg forward, and then the other. It was simple enough—she had done it all her life, after all—but she kept forgetting.
When she forgot, she would get all caught up in her surroundings. She would remember how it should be and how it was not.
There was colour again. The sky was blue, the forest was green, the clouds were white. Things were as it should be. But sometimes she would get lost in her head, and when she blinked and looked up, everything would be grey. The sky would be grey, the sea of corpses would be grey, the sun would be grey. Perhaps the only thing not grey would be the field of purple asters splattered in red. She would forget how to breathe and looked down as she tried to remember. Then, she would blink and look up, and everything would be as before. Startlingly normal and vibrant, and she would think, this is not how it should be.
Death was grey. This was not.
Sakura did not want to forget the dead.
One leg forward, and then the other.
She didn't want to think about it. There was nothing to think about. What was done was done, and there was no use living in the past.
Sakura had to keep going.
She didn't think she could bear more tragedy, but tragedy had come her way all the same.
Her village was little more than a mass of rubble and bodies. There was nothing left—nothing except the Hokages' faces on the Cliffside that said this was once Konoha. The world was not grey. On the contrary, it was full of vibrancy, with sunlight pouring down on the fallen village from a bright, cloudless sky. A crow stared at her from across the rubble and tilted its head as if to question her purpose there. As though it thought she did not belong among the ruins of Konoha.
Sakura sat and stared at the sun, wishing that it would burn her away. It only prickled her eyes, as though to tell her to stop being silly.
Moss and weeds had already grown over the rubble, and Konoha might as well have been a fairy tale told to children as bedtime stories.
She was full of grief, but the world had moved on.
She had been cooking a tin of beans she scourged from the rubble over a campfire when Sasuke appeared before her. Just like that, with no warning, no ominous wind, no thump, thump, thump of thunder answering his call.
She once thought villains were ugly with giant warts on their faces and wrinkly skin, but Sasuke was the most handsome boy she had ever seen, and she couldn't think of anyone as evil as him. It wasn't fair that people beautiful inside were judged so harshly because they were ugly on the outside, and people who were ugly inside were praised because they were beautiful outside. People as rotten as Sasuke should look like what they were.
"You're alive," he said, sounding surprised.
She wasn't offended by his surprise. She didn't think there was anything unique about her that warranted her survival over everyone else either, but clearly, she missed something important that gave her an edge over the others.
"Why did you do it?" she wanted to know before he killed her too.
His expression became guarded as he stared at her flatly.
"Kill everyone, you mean? I didn't," he said.
She could feel liquid swishing around her ears as she stared at him. It wasn't the answer expected—but, then, what answer had she expected? There was no good excuse for becoming a mass murderer. But she didn't want an excuse. She wanted the truth.
Why bother lying anyway when everyone else was already dead? Why not just kill her too?
She tensed her jaw.
"Why lie? I already think the worst of you. There is nothing to save face for."
The tin in her hands was becoming cold. She had sat and stared at the fire for so long, lost in her numbness, and now she was sitting and staring at the man who destroyed the world, lost in her ire. By the time she got around to finishing her meal, it would be as cold as the lake several kilometres to the South, frozen over by the night chill.
He raised his eyebrows at her. She thought he didn't look so pale at night, lit by soft, amber flames. Then she remembered she hated him and wasn't supposed to notice anything about him that wasn't synonymous with deviltry, and she scowled because it was all his fault and he distracted her.
Sasuke didn't look earnest as he stared at her—the great Sasuke Uchiha didn't do earnest, because earnest was below him. But she thought there was a look there that she had seen once or twice when they were children and Sakura Haruno was convinced that she would one day marry Sasuke Uchiha and so she took care to notice every little thing her future husband did. It made him look small and vulnerable. It was close to earnest because he looked like he wanted her to believe him.
"Hn. Think what you want. I only came for Danzo, and Danzo alone. I didn't kill anybody. That was Madara and his jutsu. He said he would help me infiltrate the village—but he never told me it would mean everyone dying. He made a mistake, I think. They tried to kill him. But they listen to me—sometimes. Mostly, they're just like hungry dogs feeding on chakra. They don't understand stop."
The look made his gaze burn into her skin, and suddenly she couldn't bare to meet his eyes. She looked at the fire instead, small and vulnerable in an oddly familiar way, struggling to brave the night breeze in an expansive, lonely forest, reaching towards a better future with spiraling, twisting arms of flames, before being taught a lesson in manners and pruned and shoved back to its rightful place. Goose bumps raised along her skin as she placed the tin on the ground and hugged herself, moving her hands up and down in repetitive motions along her arms and shivering. There was barely any heat coming from the fire, and it was gone and chased away by the chill long before it reached her.
"Well, are you going to say something?" he demanded.
Sakura was very certain that if she so much as looked at him, never mind spoke, she would snap. So, she thinned her lips and kept silent.
Up and down, round and round, her hands went along goose bumps.
"You would have done the same thing, if your entire family and history was killed a greedy man, because the village had given too much power to one person, only for it to be passed off as an unfortunate accident. He's still not dead. I won't stop until he is dead. I'll take the entire world down with me if I have too. I don't care."
Her hands began to cramp and her fingers twitched. She stopped rubbing circles on her arms and let her hands fall into her lap in an ungraceful heap.
The fire began to splutter and hiss as the last of the wood turned into coal. Soon it would die—and they would be thrown into darkness and swallowed by the bitter cold.
"I'm sure you saw the army—it is the undead. The masked man—his name is Madara Uchiha, if you don't know—he only summoned one, and he didn't try to summon any more after that one nearly killed him. It didn't try to kill me, though. It completely ignored me. Except when I said to go to Konoha with me—then it started in the direction of Konoha. As we traveled more seemed to pop up without my notice. Then I saw it—a dead person rising from their grave and joining the rest of them.
When we fought your battle platoon, they turned into killing machines. I thought I watched one strike a blade into your heart. I really thought—that you died. Everyone else did. Everyone died—and then, after they died, they went placed their mouth over the corpse and...I don't know, it looked like they were sucking their soul. In hindsight, I think it was their residue chakra. The corpse turned thin. Then they went to the next corpse.
I told them to stop. It was too much death. They weren't Danzo. But they didn't care." He became petulant at her rising look of condemnation. "And I don't care too—I don't. Konoha deserves it. My clan is all dead because of Konoha, too."
Hysteria bubbled in her throat, making her choke on smoky air. She thought of a grey world, with a grey sky and grey people and grey trees, everything grey grey grey except for a field of purple asters spluttered in red. She thought of the skeleton, grey corpses of her friends. She thought of the vile, grey stunk of rotting flesh and metallic blood and burnt wood and smoke. She thought—
She jolted onto her feet, knocking over the tin, and the abrupt gust of wind smothered the last embers of the fire. Beans spilled over the ground. They were hurled into the darkness with only the moonlight to guide them.
Suddenly, she was laughing. It was hysterical and neurotic and demented, and it was the sound of mania. She thought it felt so good to laugh.
So, she laughed and laughed, until she was wheezing and choking, until she was gasping and clenching her teeth so hard that they grinded, until she was quiet and there was no more the sound of mania.
She stared at Sasuke with a carefully constructed look of apathy. It wasn't hard to look blank with how dead she felt. He looked startled by her reaction, as though he wasn't sure how he was supposed to respond.
"You destroyed the world because you were miserable and you wanted the world to be miserable with you," she spat because words of condemnation could not be spoken with the same degree of apathy. "Well congratulations, you did it. Now the world is just as miserable as you are. Was it worth it?"
He looked like he was thinking hard on something before the wrinkle between his brows smoothened.
"Yes," he said simply.
She stared at him as though she had never seen him. Then, she shook her head. It was the answer she had been expecting, but that didn't explain her surprise at hearing it.
"You really are the most selfish person I know."
Then, she turned away from him and stared into the darkness, because she had very little fight left in her. She hoped he would take the hint and leave.
He didn't.
"I want you to come with me," he said.
Her head snapped in his direction.
"No," she snarled. "Did you forget the part where you killed everyone I know and love? I hate you."
There was a moment of heavy silence, and she hoped the words were sinking into him and slicing him in half. She watched his form turn away from her, and his boot crunched a leaf under its heel.
"I'll come for you in three days' time," he said like he hadn't heard her. "Be ready."
The words of protest came too late, and he was already gone. So, Sakura sat and shivered, swallowed by darkness, and she felt so small and vulnerable in her raging grief, just like the dying fire, just like Sasuke Uchiha who had no right looking like a victim.
She had never hated anyone in her life, but she was certain she hated him.
True to his word, he did come for her in three days, and he gave so much of a fright that she nearly lost her balance and fell into the river. She glared at him, but he didn't seem to notice.
"I'm blanking out. I'm having periods where I blank out for hours, and then when I regain my consciousness, I don't recognise where I am. I can't control it. I don't know what's happening."
She thought he looked like a scared, little boy when he turned to look at her, and it did funny things to her stomach. A villain wasn't supposed to look like that.
"You're a medic, aren't you? Help me—please."
He didn't have any trouble asking for help, unlike she would imagine he would—not that she imagined he would ask her for help in the first place.
The muggy water reflected sunlight onto her eyes, making her squint. Everything was sticky and humid and uncomfortable. He looked odd in his clean, unzipped, high-collared shirt and ironed, dark blue pants that were damp at the ends. In comparison, Sakura's clothes were the best she could find in the remains of Konoha, since her old outfit had become pink rags mixed with blood and vomit. Now she wore simple green leggings and a baggy, grey shirt. With her hair razzed to her ears and frizzed worse than a neglected shrub, Sakura suited the grimy lake that undoubtedly had crocodiles laying about—Sasuke looked like a model who got lost on his way to a fashion show.
Sasuke always had a few screws unloose—really, saying that his life's ambition was to kill a man and start a giant orgy to repopulate his bloodline when he was twelve should have been her first hint, though Sakura was living in a make-believe world then—but he was more far gone than she realised if he thought she would be willing to help him after everything. She watched him shift his weight to his left leg and frowned. There was a redness to the tip of his nose and his cheeks, but it was likely just a sunburn—he was far too pale, a likely result of living in underground hideouts under Oroichmaru's watch for so long.
She wondered how he found her. Sasuke wasn't a chakra sensor as a child, and even those particularly gifted at sensing chakra had a limit on their range.
"No—go away," she said at last, fed up with thinking about him.
She didn't care what he said or the justifications for his actions—it was still all his fault.
His jaw worked as he mirrored her expression and frowned at her.
"Why not? It's not like you have anywhere to be."
She was reminded that his social skills were next to non-existent and snorted at his audacity. Well, no one could ever accuse him of being charming, that's for sure.
"For your information, I do have somewhere to be. I'm travelling to other countries to let them know of the coming threat, if the threat hasn't already arrived. And if it has, I'm helping to fight back. You could say I'm cleaning up your mess. You're welcome," she said sweetly, and hoped that he got the point and left her to it.
He didn't.
"Hn. You'll die before you reach any of the other villages—the fact you have survived so far is just sheer luck. You need my protection."
"Your faith in me is astounding," she commented dryly, unimpressed with his conclusion.
He didn't seem to hear her. He was on a roll, and nothing would get in his way, because Sasuke gets what Sasuke wants.
"I need a medic. I need to kill Danzo. If I don't, this will be all for nothing—"
"It already was for nothing, you twat—" she started with an ugly sneer.
"—so, I decided. You're coming with me," he said with finality in his tone.
Even though the Uchiha clan had been long extinct for a long while now, the world had never forgotten the cardinal rule when fighting one: under no circumstances should you look an Uchiha in the eye. Sakura hadn't forgotten as well—she knew the lethality of those three spinning tonnes in glimmering red too well after having the last Uchiha in Konoha as a teammate as a child—but everyone had sporadic moments of madness and amnesia, and Sakura made a mistake that she could not take back.
It happened like this—
Sasuke made a demand when he was no position to demand anything. This demand was particularly unforgiveable. And so, she inhaled sharply and shot her gaze to his as a retort jumped to her lips, and faced with his red eyes, spinning, spinning, spinning, she knew she messed up. Because the next thing she knew she was slumped across Sasuke's shoulder caught in a debilitating genjutsu, unable to move her body and retaliate.
And she was reminded once more— Sasuke got what Sasuke wanted.
It was hard to say where she was. Somewhere in the Land of Fire if the towering trees were any indication. But the Land of Fire was a big place, and she wanted out. She could be closer or further away from the boarders—either scenario seemed likely.
As it was, Sakura was slouching on the ground with only a thin tree to keep her upright for support. She wasn't sure what Sasuke had done to her, but it sure as hell wasn't anything he could have done when they were on Team Seven. The three spinning tonnes in his eyes made an unfamiliar pattern, and the next thing she knew she was out of commission. Now she felt like a body paralysis victim, unable to move or speak but still very conscious and aware of everything happening around her.
She watched Sasuke grill six fish over an open fire. It looked excessive for one person and enough for two, which concerned her. She wasn't sure when he intended to release his control over her body so she could use her healing skills that he wanted so badly, but she doubted it would be anytime soon. Which meant that he likely intended to feed her if he wanted her alive and able to work on him. Sakura didn't think she would survive her mortification at being fed by her greatest adversary.
Sasuke appeared distant as he sat and stared into the fire. He kept leaning towards it, making her silently cheer that he would fall forwards and burn himself alive, before he would blink and catch himself, souring her mood all over again.
He seemed to notice the varying looks she shot at him, which became smothered into hate whenever he looked her way, and he sent a passive stare her way. Finally, he had enough of the standstill they had reached and didn't bother of giving her the luxury of receding his stare for her ease. Sakura would have shifted if she could, feeling worms wiggling over her skin under his unyielding attention.
"You're still annoying," he said shortly, and it was the most in-character thing he said since abducting her.
Sakura wanted to spit at him. She settled for a glare.
Her glaring amused him, because he cocked a brow and smirked. She could only feel disheartened that her glare wasn't quite as menacing as she thought it was.
"At least you're not useless anymore," he finished, and then looked to the fire. Sakura never wanted anything more than for him to burn. "I'm not feeding you if that's what you're concerned about. I'll release you—try anything, and I can't promise you'll be safe from the consequences."
I'll release you—
Had Sasuke always been a fool? Her heart pounded as she the words rattled back and forth in her mind. She couldn't just not try anything when a golden opportunity for freedom went and fell into her lap.
Her breathing became faster as she watched Sasuke stand and stalk towards her. She imagined what she would do as soon as she had control of her body—she would uppercut him as soon as she was free, use the smoke bomb in her pouch and create a diversion to escape. She might punch him a second time for good measure, but this time square in the face. Then she would pump chakra into her legs and run before he had a chance to recover.
Her muscles tightened as he squatted before her. His eyes flashed red, and she stared as the three tonnes spun into a pinwheel, that same unfamiliar pattern that she thought she hallucinated the first time around. What was this, another stage of the Sharingun? As if it didn't have enough power ups already that gave the user an absurd advantage. Unfair, she thought. The world was happy to give Sasuke free handouts, but it made her work for it.
Sakura knew the exact moment that she had regained control of her body. Sasuke had been hovering too close to her face and staring into her eyes, and then there was the feeling of a bone snapping back into place, of her ears becoming unclogged after resurfacing from a body of water, of air rushing into her after gasping and suffocating for so long, of a mindfulness that only came along after stumbling upon an exit in an elaborate, metaphorical maze that had her running circles. She clenched her jaw and flexed her fingers, feeling the tendons spasm underneath her skin. He was still too close. With her quickened heartbeat vibrating through her skull, she made a fist and swung—
He flinched violently as he stumbled to his feet. Sakura stared, because it was all wrong and her punch should have made him fly at least several metres. Maybe she hadn't coated her fist in a thin layer of chakra? Whatever the case, this was embarrassing. Here was a golden opportunity that she couldn't possibly mess up, and yet somehow, she found a way.
She gritted her teeth so hard she could hear the grinding of camel coated bone. She would just have to do it a second time and get it right. She needed him injured enough that he wouldn't be able to follow her.
She balled her hands and raised her fist and—
And Sasuke caught her hand with a disgruntled grunt. There was red mark on the left side of his jaw where she had punched him, and that was all. Sakura felt her mouth go dry as her hand engulfed by Sasuke's punishing grip began to throb.
He was looking at her with extreme annoyance. Sakura should have been used to it by now, since he never looked at her with anything other than that up until now, but it still made her heart drop into her stomach. Though, now it was for different reason.
Something told her that this wasn't her golden opportunity that she thought it would be, and Sasuke's next words proved her right.
"Surprised? I knew you would make an escape despite my warning, so I placed chakra repression seals on you. Don't expect to be able to use your chakra unless you want to faint. You're lucky you didn't try something more chakra extensive, like ninjutsu."
At least the onslaught of exhaustion wearing down on her body wasn't a figment of her imagination. But she had never heard of chakra repression seals before.
She clenched her jaw and scowled at him.
"You're lying," she declared. "Chakra repression seal? Really, Sasuke? I would have heard of them by now if they were actually a thing. You did something to me and you don't want to say."
He returned her scowl. Then, he did something unexpected and fished through his pouch. His hand receded and held what look like a paper bomb.
"I'm not. Being Orochimaru's student had its benefits. This particular creation took hundreds of failed experiments. They died, but it wasn't such a big deal. They were civilian shinobi used as cannon fodder for the clan shinobi, so nobody missed them when they were gone. Just like you."
It felt as though she had been slapped in the face. He pocketed the seal like he hadn't just slammed words of katana through her heart.
"I hate you," she said, fierce and raw, because she never hated anyone more in her life. Because she knew what he said was true.
She said it before, but this time she said it with heavy emotion to convey that she meant it.
He was standing by the fire, inspecting the cooked fish. His back was to her, and she wished she could see his reaction. She wanted to know that her words affected him just as his affected her. Then, as though he heard her thoughts, he turned around, and his eyes were as dark as the starless night sky. His expression was cold and unreadable.
"Am I supposed to care?" him, mocking and callous.
He tossed the two grilled fish at her, and they landed on the dirt beside her. She stared at them so she had excuse to break her gaze from Sasuke without looking weak.
"Hn. Eat. We'll be leaving soon."
With that, he jerked himself forward, his steps heavy and quick as though he was in a rush to leave. He disappeared into the thick greenery. She knew he wouldn't go too far.
The fish tasted like mud, and though she hadn't eaten in a day, she hurriedly shoved it into her mouth and swallowed large amounts, cringing at the taste.
She didn't try to escape again.
It had been more awkward travelling after that. Sakura didn't want to be anywhere near Sasuke, and he clearly felt the same if his avoidance of her whenever they set up camp was any indication.
It was different before when she had no control over her body and had no choice but to let Sasuke drag her around like she was his favourite pet. Now that she could move on her own free will, it put a different light on events whenever she let Sasuke carry her as they sprung from tree to tree like a cheetah of a forest. She thought he didn't have much of a choice either, since it wasn't like she could match his pace without chakra.
The silence was tense and thick between them, and it felt like barricade around her person.
He didn't speak at all, and Sakura wasn't inclined to speak either.
It was a day before they stumbled upon a small, farming village. It was a shock to see people going on about their lives as though an army of the undead hadn't just destroyed Konoha. Sakura forgot just who her companion was as she voiced her surprise.
"Why are they..." she trailed off, because she didn't have the right words to say it politely.
Why are they alive?
Sasuke snorted, and she startled. Her arms tightened around his neck, but it didn't seem to bother him as he spoke.
"Civilians don't have much chakra. They have little more than trees. The reanimated shinobi only care for those with chakra. They'll be safe for a while, so long as there are still bigger targets running about. And so long as those targets don't linger in the area too long and draw them in."
Her body tensed as the words sunk in. Targets like Sasuke, targets like her. They were a ticking bomb with a set timer, and every minute they sat idle, their timer ticked down. Eventually, it would count down to zero, and the reanimated shinobi would come one by one from the woodworks.
The village was harbouring a timed bomb, and they didn't even know it.
Dawning horror made her stomach drop as her mouth went slack. Sasuke came to stop, and she didn't even realise he was meaning for her to climb off his back until he was unwinding her arms and pressing his fingers into her wrist as a silent reminder. She gasped and scrambled off him, flushing as she hid her face with her hair.
"Sorry, sorry," she said, and then her chest clenched in humiliation when he turned around to raise his eyebrows at her and she remembered just who she was apologising to.
She avoided his gaze as she surveyed her surroundings, and then she was too busy watching civilians going on about their business to take back what she said. A little boy holding his grandmother's hand as they hobbled down the busy street. A street vendor calling out to pedestrians and persuading them to buy his products with sleazy discounts. Children screaming and flying on a merry-go-round.
"How can they be so normal?" she whispered.
She hadn't expected an answer, and she wasn't speaking to anyone but herself really, but Sasuke took it like she asked him directly.
"The news of Konoha's destruction probably hasn't reached them. It probably won't for some time. Villages that are self sufficient and all civilians like this usually are pretty isolated. It's too dangerous to travel as a civilian without a shinobi, so they send a hawk to Konoha whenever they require a guide. But nobody is answering their hawks, so they likely suspect something."
She felt herself go pale as her panic rose and bubbled in her chest. She turned to Sasuke, pleading.
"We need to leave. We can't be here." Her voice was hysterical.
Death was grey. She didn't want to see Death turn this town grey too.
He looked impassive to her pleading.
"No," he said, like it meant nothing for him to ignore her pleads. Like it meant nothing to condemn a population to death.
She felt her anger, hot and red, burn her as she worked her jaw. It was one thing to act like a dick and insult her, but it was another to murder an entire population out of selfishness. Even if Sasuke wasn't doing the murdering directly. She wondered if he had any morals at all, or if Itachi Uchiha had killed those too at the night of the Uchiha massacre.
"You can't just—" she started.
"Don't annoy me, Sakura," he said coldly.
She clenched her teeth as she stared at him. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe he was born without any morals at all, born as an abomination. Maybe—
"I hope you get what is coming for you," she sneered, because words were the only weapon she had. "I hope those zombies take their time feasting on your chakra. I hope you die alone and scared."
His lips thinned as his eyes appeared wild.
"Are you done?" he asked flatly.
She exhaled loudly.
"People like you think themselves invincible and never listen to what people like me say. It will be your downfall, just as it was for the monsters before you."
He looked away to stare at the playing children. She was so sick of the apathy masking his face that she wanted to see his features twist in emotion just once. Even if it was an ugly emotion like anger.
He didn't give her so much as an ash speck of the hot heat of his anger that he usually kept buried deep inside him and only made its appearance at the sight of his blood brother, Itachi, or his soul brother, Naruto; he gave her only a carefully blank gaze.
Sakura wasn't good enough to deserve his anger.
"I'm a shinobi, and so are you. We're all monsters. If you think you're better than me, then you're not a good shinobi. Good shinobi aren't heroes in any story."
Then he started in the direction to the village centre, and Sakura stood for a few moments before having no choice but to follow him.
In hindsight, it made sense that he likely came to the village for supplies, but that thought hadn't passed her mind as she felt hysteria rise and ebb like waves on a beach. She felt slightly ashamed that she expected a slaughter, but that said more about Sasuke than it did her.
He stocked on weapons, food pills and general necessities.
Then, he turned around and considered her. It had been so sudden that she nearly walked into him and stopped herself just in time. Her were wide from the possible disaster that she narrowly avoided as she looked back at him.
"You're going to heal me now," he said, just like that.
"Why would I—"
He disappeared for a moment that had her blinking at the space he had been, and then there was a rush of air and she had disappeared too. Her hair whipped her face as she lurched through the air, and it was sailing past her ear louder than a wail of a dying animal. Her face stung something terrible at the backlash. Then, she came to an abrupt stop, and hands held her shoulders to steady her as she swayed.
She realised that Sasuke could travel much faster than he had been and wondered why he purposefully slowed himself. Was it for her benefit? She wasn't able to handle high speeds as well without chakra strengthening her body, but she doubted he cared. She dismissed the ludicrous thought.
When she had regained her bearings, her first thought was that Sasuke was too close, and so she ripped herself from his grip, leaving her shoulders bruised and aching. Then, turning around to meet a girl no older than twelve, her second thought was that Sasuke had done something awful again.
She looked confused, as though she didn't know her own name.
Sakura whipped around; teeth bared as she snarled at him.
"What did you do?"
He flexed his hand.
"I told you that you'll be healing me now. I thought you might want motivation." He gestured at the girl.
"You're blackmailing me," she said as she felt her expression go dead.
"She's under a genjutsu. This particular one doesn't break without the caster doing so. She'll be under it forever without my help—until she dies from not eating or drinking."
"And you'll free her in exchange for me healing you?"
"Hn."
She took that as yes.
"You're lying," she said.
"See for yourself."
And that's what Sakura did when she marched over to the girl. The girl didn't seem to even notice her coming her way. There was drool spilling over the right corner of her mouth and dripping to her chin. Her gaze was unfocused, like she was seeing ghosts. Sakura knew the feeling, but in a different way.
She placed her hands on her shoulders. The girl didn't react.
"What's your name?"
Nothing.
Sakura began to shake her as her stomach dropped.
"Go," she barked. "Run! Go now!"
Nothing at all.
Her hands fell by her side as she turned to face Sasuke. He looked victorious, and it put a bitter taste in her mouth.
"Is this what you meant by good shinobi not being heroes in any story?" she asked humourlessly.
"I'll release control of your chakra for you to heal me," he said, ignoring her. "If you try anything, then that girl will die. You won't be able to release the genjutsu."
He made hand signs, and Sakura felt like she had a full night of sleep as chakra flooded her veins and sang beneath her skin when the truth was far from it. She curled her hand into a fist and then inhaled noisily. She went up to Sasuke with heavy thuds, and he watched her quietly. She uncurled her hand and exhaled.
Then, she placed her hands over him and began a medical diagnosis. He seemed healthy enough, with his organs working as they should and little cancerous cells. Perhaps he lacked some essential vitamins, but she supposed a proper diet was hard to come by as a shinobi in wartime. She bit down on her lip; he would not accept her diagnosis of him, she knew, so she kept her hands moving. That was when she saw it—a strange, corrosive chakra that was unlike his own, festering at the front of his brain. A parasite feeding on his own chakra and breaking neural connections in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex of his brain, responsible for sentiments such as empathy and guilty. It had begun spreading to the amygdala, responsible for fear and anxiety. It was a black substance, an almost demonic entity, and the cells making up the substance were that of a virus, tricking and entering his own cells to perform a takeover.
She pumped her own antibodies to fight the virus, but it was only a band-aid solution. It would only slow them down—Sakura wasn't sure how to get rid of them entirely. She would have to make a vaccine specialised for this virus, which was already notoriously hard to make, but this virus didn't seem to behave like anything she had ever seen.
She released a shaky breath as she stepped away from him. She looked him in the eye.
"You're sick. Something had infested your body and taken refuge in your brain. I don't know what—it doesn't look like anything I have ever seen. It's breaking the connections in your brain and making you feel less. Soon it will break everything, and there will be none of you left."
Sasuke was pale as he stared at her.
"Did you get rid of it?" he demanded, and she thought she heard fear in his voice for the first time.
"I can't. I can slow it down—but I can't get rid of it. I'll give it two years before it takes over your body. By that time, you'll be dead in all respects, even if your body is still alive and healthy. With me to slow it, it'll be five."
He took three big steps toward her. When she began to look away, he grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him, and she winced at the tight fingers pressing against her jaw bone. His glare was fierce.
She wanted his anger—and now she got it. Somehow, it didn't seem quite as rewarding with his fingers bruising her face, and she wondered if this was what they meant by being careful about what you wish for.
"You're a medic. You're supposed to get rid of it."
"I can't," she rasped. "I wouldn't lie about this. It would go against my vow as a medic. I want you dead—by my hands, not at this thing."
He searched her eyes for a long moment, and his breath was minty as it fanned her face. Then he sneered and shoved her away from him.
"You're a terrible medic," he spat.
With that declaration, he stormed away, and behind her the girl started her wheezing. Sakura turned.
"Can you—" the girl started, as she scrambled to her feet and caught her breath, searching for comfort in the older woman.
Sakura was in no mood to comfort someone else right now.
"Shut up," she snapped and ignored the girl's widening eyes. "You're a fool for letting a stranger kidnap you. What kind of moron doesn't take care to observe their surroundings? Stupid girl! Leave."
Sakura knew she was being unfair and slightly hypocritical seeing as she was kidnapped herself. A civilian was no match for a shinobi—but she was too exhausted to care. The girl let out a soft cry at the harsh words and then spun on her heel and ran, disappearing into the forest.
Sakura sat and stared at nothing for hours, feeling strangely hallow, before Sasuke appeared.
"We're going," was all he said, and so they did.
Eventually, Sakura grew bored of the silence and started to ask questions.
Questions like—
"Where are we going?"
And questions like—
"Why did Madara help you?"
And questions like—
"Are you sure there weren't any survivors in the attack?"
And questions like—
"What will you do after you kill Danzo?"
Finally, Sasuke's patience wore thin, though calling it patience was a bit of a stretch. Barely tolerating was a more apt description
"Stop talking, Sakura," he said, his fingers squeezing into her thighs as a warning.
"I'll stop talking when I want to stop talking," she retorted, a smug smirk sitting comfortably on her mouth now that she finally got him to speak. "Answer my questions and I'll think about it."
They came to a skidding stop, and the sudden motion change made Sakura nearly hurl her guts. She never appreciated just how much chakra made everything more bearable. Then, just as she was tempering her nausea, she was rudely dumped on the ground.
"What—" she started, and then stopped at the cold look in Sasuke's blazing red eyes.
"You overestimated your value. I don't need five years to kill Danzo. I don't even need two. And once he's gone, I don't need any." He towered over her, his shadow engulfing her. "Stop making demands—you're expendable, Sakura, just as you always have been."
Sasuke wasn't a cruel child, but he grew up to be cruel. She wondered if he was a victim of circumstance that made him that way, or if it was always there but she was too enamoured to see it, or if the corruption taking root in his brain was already making noticeable behaviour changes. It was likely all three, but knowing why still didn't make the sour taste on her tongue go away.
Sometimes she wished she could just logic away her emotions—she was always so emotional and it was pathetic—but it never worked.
"Fine," she snapped.
They returned to silence after that.
Sasuke's pace quickened, and she had to hold a wince as the wind slapped her skin and her cheek flew to her eyebrow. Her whole body felt as though she marched a marathon, even though she had been only piggybacked for a day. She thought this was a silent retaliation for her annoying him earlier—it made sense, seeing as he was extremely petty.
But then his foot slipped once, and then they were hurling towards the ground before there was a whoosh and Sasuke had caught a branch to break his fall. It wasn't enough to support their weight, and the snapped branch tossed them to the ground several metres below. They rolled over, his back crushing her body as he went over her, and then her body crushing him. They skidded to a stop after rolling for a few seconds.
He shoved her away, scrambled to his feet, and rolled his shoulder. Sakura glared at him, blaming him for the cuts now littering her skin. It was all his fault, she thought heatedly. If he hadn't been so petty and stopped to take a break—
That's when she noticed the dislocated bone jutting out at his right elbow. His arm was broken, having positioned them to take the brunt of the fall.
She felt her anger mellow as she swallowed.
He didn't seem to notice her change in attitude, too busy glancing around, dark eyes flinty as it zipped from left to right.
"Give me my chakra back for a minute," she said, because mistakes happen. "I'll heal our injuries."
His gaze snapped to her.
"No," he said. "We don't have time."
"What do you mean—"
"We need to go," his tone warning.
He looked wild, like a cornered animal. Sakura didn't show it, but it troubled her.
"Fine."
Sakura climbed onto his back, and they were flying through trees a second later.
They didn't fall after that, but Sasuke slipped more than once. They kept at lower altitudes where it was easier to catch something to regain their balance.
It wasn't for several more hours before they came to a stop.
"We'll take a short break," he announced.
"Let me heal us."
She expected him to be stubborn and refuse, but he only nodded at her and made hand signs. She felt her chakra returning to her body at once, and she had to take a step back at the force of it. She went to him and steadied her hands over her arms. She told herself it was in her best interest to have him in his best condition should they come across adversaries as her hands glowed green.
Although she knew that having a bone mended wasn't exactly pain-free, he didn't make any noise at the bone snapping into place—though she did spy the brief downturn of his mouth as his jaw hardened.
When she stepped back to heal her own injuries, he flexed his arm as if to experiment her work. Then, deeming it satisfactory, he looked at her.
"We're being chased by three reanimated shinobi. They all seem to have strong elemental affinities. I've put some distance between us, but I'll say we have three hours at best before they catch up."
Even though Sasuke was determined to stay awake, she caught him nodding off more than once. It wasn't exactly easy to sleep while being piggybacked, but it was possible with great strife. The same couldn't be said for the one doing the piggybacking.
They left before the second-hour mark hit.
Sakura stared at the mountain with a slack jaw and wide eyes. There were mountains, and then there was that. It was so tall that she couldn't even see the peak. There was snow-whitening tall pine trees several kilometres above, and then there were thick clouds folding over the raised land after that. There were many mountains in the Land of Stone, but there were few in the Land of Fire. As a result, fortunately, Sakura didn't have to climb many mountains, and those that she did weren't nearly as monstrous.
If her hiking experience taught her anything, it was that it got very hard to breathe the closer you got to the top.
"We're not climbing that are we?" she asked, dreading the answer.
Sasuke said nothing, but he started towards the mountain as she feared he would and it told her all she needed to know. Sakura sighed, lowering her chin against his shoulder as she breathed in smoke and metal and mint.
It was going to be a long trip.
They had long since traveled past the manmade hiking trail and now were braving the thick bush. She was certain she had bugs and leaves in her hair, and she thought she saw a spider crawling her arm at one point. There were thorns all over her clothes, but she thought it was even worse for Sasuke, who had to make way and push through the dense forest face first. The grass was so tall that she could feel it scratching along her ankles, even though she was held above Sasuke's waist. She was surprised that a snake hadn't come along and eaten them yet.
There was sweat sticking to Sasuke's shirt and so sticking to her as well. It was getting colder, and so the sweat made the icy winds bring a harsher bite. Shivering, she licked her upper lip, tasting salt, and pressed her face against his neck to hide from another particular bad breeze. If she clung closer to Sasuke for body warmth, none of them acknowledged said fact.
She would have thought the cold wasn't bothering him at all if not for the slight tremble to his shoulders that rippled through her body. He swallowed a hiss every time a branch scraped against his cheek. Sakura thought his tough guy act was beyond pathetic, because his footsteps were heavy and uneven like he might careen to the ground at any moment.
She couldn't begin to even comprehend what was going on in Sasuke's mind to think this was a good idea, but at least he was taking the worst of it.
Then, they came to a dead end, where the only way forward was up. The passage had been getting narrower until there was nothing at all. There was a thick line of pine trees surrounding them, and if they took three steps in any direction, they would be met with a drop that was certain death. Sakura was sure she wouldn't even be able to see the bottom.
Sakura was no stranger to heights as a shinobi, but even this was a bit much. She could feel her stomach performing intricate gymnastics whenever she thought about it.
"We'll be climbing that. It's about three hours climb."
He was dropping her to the ground, as though he hadn't just punched her in the gut.
She sent him a flat stare, unsteady on her feet after being carried for so long. Sadly, Sasuke wasn't looking at her to see it.
"You're joking."
He made hand signs, and she felt her chakra rush through her body at once.
"I can't carry you. You have to climb by yourself." He sent her a sideways glance. "If you think about running off, good luck finding your way back down. The cliffside of the mountain has too much black ice to grip with chakra, and this mountain is too much of a dense maze to not get lost. People die here all the time giving up and trying to find their way back."
"And you just happen to be special enough that you're the exception."
"I came prepared," was all he said in response. "There's more of them now. About five. They're closer, about an hour away. We need to get going."
She swallowed—it made sense that the gap between them was shorter than before since they were people and they were moving corpses. They tired and exhausted their chakra, the moving corpses didn't. She thought that it didn't help that Sasuke had to carry her, making him noticeably slower as time passed. And the fact that they were human and had to take breaks.
Sakura pressed her hands against the wall, wedging her fingers into the gaps in the cliffside, then reached with her left arm and swung her body. She sailed a few metres at the momentum before dropping, and her fingers skidded across the dirt as she dug her nails into any hole she could find. Eventually, with bloody nails and scraped arms and legs, she came to a stop. She looked down. She gained some distance, and she lost some too. Then she looked up—Sasuke was already a good distance ahead of her, swinging his body like a monkey made for slippery mountains, the bloody overachiever.
She shivered at a harsh breeze and thick mist stung her eyes. Midway through the climb appeared to be snow pillowing the mountain. As if the climb wasn't already hard enough.
She looked up a second time. Sasuke was disappearing into the mist. She wondered if he would even notice if she slipped and died. Then she wondered if he would go down to retrieve her body and make a burial in her memory if he did.
She grimaced—she didn't need to be thinking about heights and death right now. She already wanted to chicken out.
Inhaling thin air, she started to climb.
She was going to wring Sasuke's pretty little neck as soon as she got to the top.
She was wheezing, gasping for air. She couldn't see beyond her raised hand, and she couldn't see below her foot. The grunting and skidding of rocks from above that told her that Sasuke was still there had come to a stop—he could have plummeted to the ground for all she knew.
She clenched her fingers as the feeling of them ebbed. They were blue and stiff. She had gotten used to the bitter cold of snow covering her bare hands that she hardly felt a thing now. The rest of her was better clothed, but still hardly suited to freezing temperatures, never mind the snow. She was fading in and out, forgetting where she was and panicking before finding the focus to push through. There was a loud noise in her ears of rushing snow caught in strong winds. Everywhere was white, white as a dream of nothing, white as a sea of powder. Sakura felt like she was the only person in existence in a white world of nothing.
Me, myself, and I.
Now that the thought of Sasuke's death entered her mind, she couldn't get it out of her head.
If he was gone, then Sakura had to find her way down by herself. She couldn't help but remember his threat. Too many begin the climb, then give up and get lost on the way down. They don't find their way back. If he was gone, then that would mean she was lost.
She blinked her eyes at the sudden wetness.
Sakura wouldn't find her way back.
Her heart leaped to her throat. But Sasuke wasn't the type to die so easily, she thought.
She turned that thought into steel as she rose an arm and moved—
Or, well, trying to. No matter how much force she put into her limbs, she just couldn't move.
She looked down, and that's when she saw it. First, a hand around her ankle. And then, black eyes with glowing white irises. Eyes of a reanimated shinobi.
She kicked and screamed, but that was smothered by rushing snow. By a white world of nothing.
The corpse was applying pressure now, tugging her down, and even with the chakra she pumped into her fingertips for grip, she struggled to stay put. It was pulling out a sword with its other hand—to kill her, she thought, and then it would drag her down with it, making them both plummet, because it was already dead and could survive such a fall. Then it would place its mouth over hers and suck her chakra. Suck her soul, and turn her as grey and thin as the battlefield of dead Konoha shinobi.
Grey grey grey.
She was slipping, and she was screaming, and she was slipping, and—
A flash of blue struck, narrowly avoiding her person and severing the hand. It was lightening from the heavens. Then, another lightning bolt struck, cutting the reanimated shinobi in half. Even though its body was cut in half, it was still staring at her with impassive black eyes with glowing white irises. Skin began to flutter like paper as it started to join back together again. Another struck of lightning, and its fingers were severed, breaking its grip. And it was still staring at her. Then it was falling.
Sakura felt so lightheaded that she thought she might fall with it.
Sasuke appeared beside her, annoyance twisting his features like he hadn't just saved her life.
"I thought you could keep up," he said.
Despite the pounding of her heart, she felt old rage froth in her stomach.
Always so useless.
"I can," she protested because she wasn't.
He looked apathetic like he knew what she was thinking and didn't care what she was.
"Then keep up."
She swallowed but didn't say anything. Though he didn't offer any words of comfort, he kept within a visible distance of her.
Once they reached the top, Sakura decided she had enough with Sasuke dragging her around as he pleased. She was shaking from head to toe from more than just the snow, and she had enough.
"Where are you taking us?" she demanded to know.
Sasuke continued to unravel a scroll as though she wasn't in his face, shouting at him. He only spoke to her when it suited him, and of course, he wouldn't tolerate Sakura ignoring him, but that wasn't the case when she spoke. Sakura thought—it was infuriating.
He made rapid motions with his hands that she barely caught, and with a burst of chakra, clothing appeared on top of the scroll. It was an assortment of cloaks, gloves, and scarves. He tossed some her way, barely looking at her.
Sakura took it grumbling. This would have come in handy hours ago. She watched him pull over the black cloak with an overly dramatic flair and snorted to herself. Rolling her eyes, she did the same, but with much less flair.
Then, she crossed her arms and glared.
"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me."
He rolled back the scrolls and shoved them back into his packets. Then, he considered her, and she was startled by the bags underneath his eyes. His skin was dull and tired. He needed rest—but he was the type to keep going until his limits had been pushed well and beyond their baseline. In that respect, he was like Naruto, but she thought that was where their similarities ended.
Naruto wasn't an unlikeable asshole, nor was he a killer. She didn't think he was in the business of kidnapping people for his personal goals either.
"Hn. We're going to a city from before," he said, like that made any sense at all.
"A city?" was her first question.
"Well, what remains of it," he corrected. "I wouldn't expect to see much—it had been standing since the ancient ones, long before the Sage of the Six Paths came along into this world and invented chakra."
Call her unimaginative, but she never thought of history before the Sage of the Six Paths. She hardly thought of history as far back as the Sage of the Six Paths—she wasn't even sure if the man existed since details about him were so vague. In truth, anything beyond Konoha's creation was vague and sparsely documented, so she couldn't entirely be to blame. History seemed to start in the Warring States era, and everything beyond that was questionable bordering on mere legend.
The question had arisen once or twice (what was a world before the Sage of the Six Paths like?), but nobody seemed to have any answers beyond wild speculation, and a world without chakra seemed boring and uneventful anyways.
"Most of the technology in our time had come from translating and understanding texts and technology of the ancient ones in the forgotten cities, and even then, there is still much that is lost and that we can't understand. Most of the forgotten cities had been destroyed, but this one still stands because of its remoteness, the powerful fuinjutsu placed on it to hide its location, and Konoha's protection. I have reason to believe we'll find Danzo there."
She exhaled, and though she made a show of looking unimpressed with his explanation—what kind of hostage would she be if she was actually impressed with her jailor? —she was rather excited to see it. She didn't understand how technology worked, but she liked that it was available for her to use. It did seem quite strange to her that it all came about out of nowhere, after Konoha's development. Now she had the opportunity to see its origin, a piece of history older than the Sage of the Six Paths himself, a time period that made people discover impossible things without an impossible tool like chakra to help them.
Though, she did hope Sasuke was wrong and Danzo wasn't there—she would rather not be made an accomplice to a traitor of Konoha if she could help it, even if Konoha no longer existed.
She raised her chin as she walked past him.
"Let's go, then."
It happened like this—
Sakura had been quietly hoping that Sasuke wouldn't remember to take her chakra. He was too exhausted to carry her, so even if he did remember, it wasn't like he could take it from her unless he wanted to travel at a civilian's pace.
Sakura had been searching her body for the seal he placed on her. It was hard to find when she was heavily clothed and trudging through the snow. Her fingers skidded over a bump, a small incline over her waist, and then it was paper glued to her skin. Bingo, she thought, as she attempted to tug and pull at the seal. When it didn't budge, Sakura felt herself deflate. Of course, it couldn't be so easy as to just peel the seal away and be done with the problem. She didn't have much experience with seals other than your typical storage seal, and she was scared if she applied too much pressure the thing might explode on her.
Reluctantly, she receded her hand, swallowing her pride and deciding to wait until she pried more information from Sasuke to make for a better plan. Or a plan at all, since this one was just blind hope.
That's when she saw it—a silent kunai shooting past her. It struck Sasuke in the ribcage.
Sasuke fell to the ground, blood spilling over his wound and staining the white snow. His chakra flared and manifested as a strange, giant, translucent, skeleton warrior of blue flames surrounding him, but it was kneeling, just as Sasuke was, panting and coughing blood. It was an otherworldly entity as much as it was a monster.
Then two reincarnated shinobi sailed past her. One had long hair pinned in a high bun, and it was one she recognised that attacked her earlier. They completely ignored her as they ran to Sasuke, like lions jumping on their wounded prey.
Sakura was faced with a dilemma: she didn't want to help Sasuke, but he looked like he was close to death any moment now. He deserved to die—but he had also saved her from a certain death hours ago, and in doing so, had turned the dilemma into one of ethical debate where Sakura would be in the wrong if she turned her back on him now.
He deserved to die, but Sakura owed him her life.
It was a funny thing to owe your kidnapper your life.
So, with a split-second decision, Sakura flew forward with a raised fist and a cha. She punched the ground, making it ripple as it cracked open, causing the reanimated shinobi to lose their balance. It didn't seem to deter the woman with the high pinned bun, bur her companion, a man with short blonde hair and nasty-slitted eyes in Hidden Mist clothing, turned to face her as he made rapid hand signs. Water bullets flew from his mouth. She rolled and tumbled to dodge them, and then felt her heart drop as she heard explosions behind her. A quick glance told the water bullets had made small explosions upon impact, shattering trees and flinging melted snow her way. She flinched at the sudden contact on her cheek, wiped away at the hot water with the cuff of her cloak and struggled for a plan of attack.
It was one thing to fight a talented shinobi with a kekkei genkai that made water boil to extreme temperatures and then explode, and it was another to fight a talented shinobi that couldn't die. She could punch him into oblivion, throw fistful amounts of poison at him, stop his heart with the precise placement of her hand over his chest with a burst of healing chakra mixed with her special technique, but it would all be for naught because he would just regenerate anyway, like some powerful lizard.
They had to flee. There was no way to beat them but to flee.
The woman was already on Sasuke, raising a hand that made unnatural motions, like flesh made into a kunai with human skin for metal, like the head of a snake. He was still coughing and spluttering, and he wasn't going to be able to recover in time. Sakura had to do something, and something now.
Without a better plan of attack, Sakura pumped chakra into her legs and flew, smacking right into the enemy. They rolled and tumbled until they slammed into a tree. Sakura ignored the pounding on the left side of her skull as she flipped them and punched her so hard that she crashed several metres to the ground. Rock crumbled over her, making a grave. It wouldn't be long until her body regenerated and she dug her way out with her bare hands.
A water bullet sailed to her left and exploded. Sakura was thrown several metres as her ears rung and wailed, and there were third-degree burn marks all over her body. She didn't have much chakra reserves left, but she reached for the last of the chakra she had saved over the past three years and healed her body. Then, she dodged and leaped to avoid another explosion.
She raced to Sasuke's body and threw him on her back, ignoring the sticking feeling of his blood on her hands. She didn't have time to heal him just yet—they had to create distance before she could heal his injuries.
She jumped into the trees and flew. All around her trees exploded and dropped one by one as the enemy pursued them.
"Sakura," Sasuke wheezed into her ear. "Sakura—stop. Heal me first."
Was he insane?
"We can't—" she snapped.
"Just do it," he hissed before she could finish.
For someone who just had their life saved, he didn't sound very grateful.
"If I die because of you, I'm coming back to haunt you," was all she said before she used a branch as a launch pad to fly into a bush as cover.
She had created some distance—but it wasn't enough. The enemy would be on them at any moment.
She started to heal him. Luckily, the kunai hadn't hit any internal organs, but it would still take time to heal. She could stabilise his condition so he didn't bleed out and no lasting damage would be caused, but any more would have to wait.
She said as much.
"I don't care—just do it already."
She had to bite her lip to stop herself from screaming at him as she worked her chakra. She was already so low in reserves.
Then, he pushed her away more gently than she would have thought was capable of him and stood.
"I haven't finished—" she started, but he was already gone, racing in the direction of the enemy.
Sakura hesitated, before following short.
In the clearing was roaring black fire. Squinting through the smoke, it seemed to be devouring the reanimated shinobi. Within minutes, there was nothing of either one of them left.
She turned to face Sasuke, who was leaning against a tree for support. Blood was swishing and falling from his left eye, and she gathered he used some sort of visual jutsu and a powerful one at that.
She exhaled, shaky, and dropped to her knees as she attempted to calm her erratic heartbeat.
"That was..." she trailed off.
Scary? Exhilarating? Awful?
Sasuke nodded as though he knew exactly what she meant.
"Yeah."
Sakura thought Sasuke had a new appreciation for a well-rested mind and body because they took many more breaks from thereon. His extreme exhaustion was the reason he had been caught off guard, after all. One of them would keep watch, and the other would rest.
"I didn't do it because I wanted to," she said one time, making Sasuke look at her. "I did it because I had to. You saved me, and I owed you. Now I owe you nothing."
She told him because she wanted him to know that she still hated him and blamed him for everything. Because experiencing a life-threatening event with someone can make you forget past grievances, and she wanted to remind herself that this changed nothing.
Now, she didn't owe him a single thing. And next time, she would leave him to die.
"I know," he said quietly, and there was nothing more to be said after that.
Despite its old age, the temple was still a sight to behold. She soon put two and two together and realised that the temples belonging to Monks were the same ones as the cities in Sasuke's tales.
This temple was purple and red and gold. It was taller than any building had ever seen, and there were many smaller buildings surrounding the main building that was still taller than anything you would find in Konoha. If she remembered Sasuke's earlier words correctly, it was built before the Sage of the Six Paths, which was incredible, since everything only seemed to start with the Sage of the Six Paths, and that history was so far back that it was scarcely documented at best and a fairy tale at worst. She was standing in front of a monument of ancient history, proof of a world that existed without shinobi and chakra. She wondered if such a world had any problems at all since every single problem in this one was because of shinobi. At the very least, she thought such a world be in equilibrium, constant and unchanging—the closest thing to peace.
The architecture attested to its foreignism. She had never seen some of the materials making the city, and the design was unusual, stunning, and alien.
"I never imagined it would look like this," he said quietly, and Sakura privately agreed. She thought his words were all exaggeration and little truth, as words often were. Evidently, she was wrong. "A branch of my clan that would send materials to the main used to reside in one. Not this one, but one along the coastline. There are stories of its grandeur and the ancient language scribed on its walls and texts. It depicted pictures of cities and technologies with text that no one had been able to translate. Its been destroyed by enemy clans for a long time though—long before Madara Uchiha was even born. I suppose that's why they keep the location of this one secret."
"And you think Danzo would be hiding here?" Sakura asked, skeptical.
Other than them, there didn't appear to be any people in sight. As grand as the buildings appeared to be, they were also showing their age and tear, the paint dulled with time and the stone smothered in thick vines and weeds.
"Hn."
She translated that into a yes and sighed, following him. He pushed against the large door that was several metres taller than herself with a grunt, appearing to struggle, before the metal gave way and swung open, groaning as it moved. The interior was too dark to make out anything from where she was standing, and there was an unexpected ominous weight to the air that affected the way they approached the building. She almost expected a full moon to hang low in the night sky, a wolf to start howling in the distance, or a ghost to slip through the metal. All those spooky things that went along with ominous.
Sasuke stepped inside, and Sakura was forced to step inside with him.
Her first thought was that it was just as dark inside as it appeared from the outside. And her second thought was that it was really, really dusty.
She coughed and cringed at the feeling of dust in her throat. Sasuke was a little while ahead of her, a form of black that made the outline of his body. Then, he was a form of colour, as he lit fire to his fingertips, yellow throwing light onto the walls. Sakura had to hold in a startled gasp. There were naked bodies everywhere, of muscular men and voluptuous women, some with wings and some without, all of which were reaching to the heavens. Sakura was a doctor and was no stranger to the human body, but the absurd number of genitals was a bit much. They were even on the ceiling.
"Why are there naked people everywhere?" she blurted and then blushed.
She hadn't meant to say it, but she was curious. It wasn't every day you walked into a grand building with masterful paintings on its walls, and all naked people. She thought this was supposed to be the remains of the ancient ones, who were all-knowing since they laid the foundations for current technology and science. Apparently, they were also obsessed with nudity. This wasn't what she expected at all.
"This is likely a place of worship for the ancient ones. My clan has writings about this. They obsessed over religion, so much so that they fought over it. I don't really understand it."
Sakura didn't either, but she nodded sagely as though it made complete sense.
There was an altar at the very front, and behind the stage were tinted windows of red and gold. Before the stage were rows and rows of wooden chairs.
Sakura looked around and searched for more, but that was all. There was a sinking feeling in her stomach, and she thought it was disappointment.
All that traveling for this?
"There's nobody else here," she said instead of her thoughts.
There was a moment of quiet, then—
"Danzo was supposed to be here."
He stood beyond her with his back turned to her, and he was staring at the paintings. The crack in his voice made her hesitate.
"Can you sense anybody?" she asked.
Another long moment.
"No," he admitted.
Sakura was glad that Danzo wasn't here, but she didn't say this. She didn't think it would be appreciated.
"We should rest and explore in the morning," she suggested.
Sasuke didn't say anything to this, but he went to a wall and slumped, and there was the sound of his cloak being unzipped and thrown to the ground. He placed his head in his hands as his shoulders began to shake. Uncomfortable with the display of emotion, Sakura went to the other wall to rest against and hugged her legs to her chest.
Snowy winds rattled the window. It was warm in the temple, at least.
Soon, she thought she heard a muffled sob but passed it off as her imagination. Sasuke wasn't one to cry—she didn't think she had ever seen him cry in her life. Except, she heard it a second time, and she was certain it wasn't her imagination this time. Her whole body tensed as she was careful not to look up. She was scared of what she would see and how it would break her mental image of Sasuke Uchiha as a cold, heartless killer.
Sasuke Uchiha, as the man who ruined it all.
"Do you know what you will do after you kill Danzo?" she asked because she was tired of pretending like she didn't hear Sasuke's muffled sobs, even if he did get better at hiding them.
She had asked the question before, and she was asking it again. It was thoughtless of her since it was smarter to stay away from the topic of Danzo, but it was the first thing that came to mind and she would have said anything to make the tension in the air go away.
At first, Sasuke went worryingly quiet, and she thought she would just be speaking aloud to herself. At first, she thought he wouldn't answer—and she was fine with that, because at least now she couldn't hear him in pain. But then he did.
"I'm not a hero," his voice was raged and thick with emotion, as though he had to tear the words from his throat to get them out. She had heard them before. "I told you shinobi aren't heroes. Nothing good happens to people like me—and I don't care. I'm going to kill Danzo, and then I don't care what happens."
Sakura wondered if that was his mantra—shinobi aren't heroes. She wondered if that was his justification.
"Everyone cares," she said softly, because Sasuke was speaking to her, and that was a miracle in itself.
"I don't. Nothing else in this world matters to me anymore."
Sakura didn't give an inspirational speech as to why he should care, because she thought she understood.
Nothing else in this world mattered to her, either. But she still wanted to live.
They fell into silence, with only glass rattling against metal to remind her she was still awake.
The next day saw them exploring the old city. Sakura didn't appreciate the height of the buildings until the morning sun was spilling through the window just beyond the altar, and she had an impossible view of a bright sun and a drop of more than a few thousand metres all at once. The window was from the floor to the ceiling, and the sunlight made the artwork embedded into the stained glass all the more impressive, even if it was all naked people.
It seemed unnecessary to have such a tall building and have a whole lot of nothing inside, but everything about the whole situation was strange. It didn't make sense to have it situated on top of a mountain. She was a shinobi, and even she had trouble getting there. She thought it was next to impossible for civilians.
Just as she was walking up to the window to admire the view better, she tripped over a missed step and stumbled a small distance. She thought the altar was a safe bet to catch her near fall, but evidently, she couldn't have been more wrong when it swung to the side at the force of her body like a door. Then, after she took one last look at Sasuke's surprised face, she was falling.
The Earth was all around her, pressing against her body, and she was falling as though she were on a slippery slide. It was strangely smooth, not at all like rock and gravel was meant to be, and she hardly got any scratches along the way. Still, Sakura screamed, and the Earth screamed back at her several times louder.
She thought she would never stop falling, but she was proven wrong a second time when she began to slow and then came to a stop, her feet hitting the ground in an open area that was lit by electricity.
She would have thought that if she did stop falling, it would be to a normal cave if she were lucky or a narrow passage that became too small for her to fit if she wasn't, but she was proven wrong about that too. It looked like she stumbled upon the entrance to a mansion, with marble flooring and bricked walls lit by ambient lightning. She had no idea how there was electricity down here or how she could even breathe, but none of it made sense. As it was, Sakura was trying very hard to keep her vomit down, with her stomach having leaped to her throat.
There was a hole beneath the altar. Why was there a hole?
She turned around and inspected the narrow hole that she came from. She ducked her head forward and decided that she wouldn't have any luck returning the way she came. Just as she was running her finger along the surface, she heard a whooshing and whipping of fast wind. She hurried away, taking several steps back.
Sasuke appeared before, feet first and then the rest of him came through, and it looked as though the Earth had pushed him out of its womb and gave birth to him. He looked disgruntled as he thudded to his feet and stared at her and then stared at everything else. Had he jumped in the hole to go after her? She nearly snorted—it was all so odd.
"I'm surprised as you are," she said.
Then, he went white as his eyebrows knitted, and now Sakura was the one staring at him. She didn't think she said anything that unusual, unless more words came out her mouth without her knowing.
"Danzo is here."
Ah, she thought as she felt her body go weak. That makes sense.
They were running, and the bricked walls were watching them. They were running, and their feet were beating against marble like the galloping of the horse. They were running, and it was corridor after corridor, left turn after right turn. They were running, and Sakura felt as though she were a skeleton made of glass.
She wanted to shatter and then blame it all on Sasuke, but she kept running.
There was an old man resting on a crane at the end of the corridor, with a left arm covered in bandages, just as the left side of his face was.
There was Danzo.
And they were running no more.
"I knew you would come. You thought yourself smart, but I led you here. And you brought the girl with you—how convenient."
Sasuke was already pulling out his executioner's sword.
"Then you wanted to die," Sasuke said. "I'll make you regret what you did to Itachi."
"Your brother was a smart, talented child. He saw the world through a Hokage's eyes. Geniuses like him only come along once in a generation. He knew there were sacrifices to be made to keep the peace of the village, and he was wise enough to put his desires aside from what needed to be done. If only Itachi knew the selfish shinobi his younger brother turned out to be, he would have done away with you too."
Danzo stared at Sasuke like he was a fly beneath his cane that he wished to crush.
"Don't speak his name," Sasuke roared. "You have no right!"
And then he was rushing towards him, and Danzo sidestepped his attack with a quick movement that didn't look possible for his old, hunched body as though it was nothing. Then, Sasuke twisted his body and swung his sword as it burst with lightning, and the sudden light make harsh shadows on the walls. Danzo dodged this too. But then Sasuke flung his sword like a kunai, and this was one move that Danzo didn't account for and subsequently dodge because the sword drove straight through his heart.
Sakura felt her breath leave her. Just like that, she watched an esteemed elder of Konoha die, slain by Sasuke Uchiha. It couldn't be so easy. It couldn't be so quick.
Sakura was right, and Danzo appeared some distance behind Sasuke. The bandages on his left arm had fallen to the ground, and his arm was white flesh with eyes bulging from his flesh. Uchiha eyes, she realised as she stared at the red eyeballs. One of them began to close.
"Do you know the significance of this place?" his voice was gravelly, and Sakura was still trying to process how he recovered from a life-ending attack and traveled through space and time.
Sasuke responded by turning his left side into black flames. She had seen them before on a reanimated shinobi. They didn't stop burning, not until every bit of the reanimated shinobi had turned into ash, and nothing could have put it out.
She was even more startled by the look on his face; full of rage and desperation and hatred.
"You have their eyes. Why do you have their eyes?" It was screamed, the words torn from his chest and chewed up by the time it was spat from his mouth.
Danzo disappeared and then appeared at the opposite end of the room, perfectly fine with no black flames to be seen.
Another red-eye closed. Only five open red eyes remained.
"No, I don't suppose an ignorant fool as you would," he finished, gaze impassive as he stared down Sasuke.
Sasuke was panting now as blood dribbled from his left eye like the lonely trail of a single tear. His jaw was rigid, and his eyes were so wide that there was more white than crimson. For her own part, she was frozen, incapable of moving her body into action. She hated Sasuke—but Danzo wasn't much better either.
She didn't want to help any of them. So she stood and watched, her body feeling as though ice had been poured over her head.
It was Danzo's turn to attack, and attack he did. He sent several strong wind jutsu his way that ricocheted off the wall. She wasn't how the cave wasn't burying them alive, but she guessed the walls were stronger than they looked. It must have been a sort of technology turning them into steel.
Evidently, Sasuke wasn't expecting the walls to take the brunt of the attack and then fling it his way either, because it got him from behind before he could realise the gust of wind coming his way. He stumbled two steps forward as he choked a scream. Sakura stared at the damage—his high-collared shirt was in tatters, and there was a giant slash traveling the length of his spine. Blood spilled over the wound and stained his pale skin.
Danzo sent three more wind gusts his way, but this time Sasuke was prepared as a giant, blue, skeletal warrior in ancient armour surrounded him his hunched, injured form. Sakura had seen it once. Before Danzo could summon another jutsu, he whipped his hand forward, and the skeleton moved its giant hand forward in accordance.
It was clutching Danzo, squeezing, squeezing, squeezing, and Sakura was sure she was about to see a man pop to death, eyeballs flying and intestines splattering the walls and all that terrible, disturbing gruesome imagery.
She was going to be sick.
She looked away—and sure enough, when she looked back, Danzo had appeared behind Sasuke, perfectly fine and well.
One eye closed. Four eyes remained.
Sakura gritted her teeth; of course, the Uchiha would have a visual jutsu that allowed them to change reality for their own benefit and avoid death. As if they didn't already have enough advantages.
Sasuke turned—and suddenly, Danzo went as still as a rock. He summoned a giant fireball that made her feel uncomfortably warm even from her far distance, and still, Danzo didn't move. Sakura waited for Danzo to reappear as she had connected the eyes to his incredible maneuvering from death's way, and there were still four left. She grimaced as she watched his skin turn red and blister as his face melted.
Another eye closed. Three eyes remained.
Then, Danzo appeared above the blue skeleton warrior and summoned a dragon of fierce winds. The walls shuddered as it became evident that Sasuke could not withstand the blow and fell backward. As soon as he touched the ground, the blue skeleton burst into flames and disappeared.
Danzo had a kunai in his hand as he flew to Sasuke with an impressive speed for a man of his years. Before he could make the finishing blow, Sasuke slammed his head against Danzo's, and in Danzo's minute confusion, he withdrew his sword within the next breath and thrust the blade into his heart.
He disappeared—and then appeared before Sasuke to sink a kunai into his side. He meant for his heart, but Sasuke just barely dodged before he could take his vitals. She watched him swallow down the pain as he made summoning hand signs. A giant purple snake appeared, and it flopped on top of Danzo, its weight enough to kill a dozen people.
She held her breath—
One eye.
—and then shuddered an exhale when an arm wrapped around her throat. Danzo had appeared behind her and taken her hostage. He was rapidly draining her chakra, and she was so sick of people taking her main defence. She twisted to punch him square in the face, but she slumped just as she felt the last of her energy give out. Her eyes glazed over as she hissed.
A kunai was held to her throat.
"Admit defeat, boy. I could make good use of you—the darkness inside of you calls for purpose. Bow before me and let me seal you. I will let this girl go and have her heal your injuries. You'll die before long otherwise. Help me achieve my ambition and do away with this wretched, shinobi world."
Her stomach gave a low swoop as her vision began to dot.
He stared at Danzo, ignoring her as his gaze sailed past her shoulder, as his expression flattened into apathy despite the unnatural pallor of his skin as his injuries worsened. She didn't think he would. He didn't care enough about her to give up his own ambition, and she didn't think he even made his own life a priority. Besides, Sasuke bow? She would sooner see him confess his secret admiration of her.
And yet, he took a step forward, and then another. Sakura thought she was about to faint, and she wasn't sure if it was Danzo thievery of her chakra or Sasuke proving her every instinct wrong.
She swallowed as she watched him with wide eyes, and he didn't once look at her.
Then he was before them, lowering himself into a bow, and a sideways glance told her Danzo was smiling. It was a worn, ugly thing of sallow, waxy skin and thin, dry lips.
Then, he looked at her, and her heart stopped.
"Sakura," he said, as calm as a cloudless sky, "don't move."
Then, lightning crackled at his right hand, and he was plunging the weapon into her chest. Only his shoulder wasn't reaching through her body. Sakura stared at him as her mouth went slack, barely registering the attack, and he stared back. When he twisted his mouth into a maniac smile, his teeth were covered in blood.
"You did well," he complimented as he withdraw his hand.
Sakura stumbled backward as the arm around her throat went slack. There was a burst of pain tightening her chest at the absence of balled, lightning fist, and she was coughing blood into her hands.
Then she laughed, spitting blood as she did so. There was too much blood. Of course, Sasuke didn't care about her life.
She didn't care about his, and he didn't care about hers.
When she looked up, still huffing breathless, wheezing laughter, Danzo appeared behind Sasuke.
All eyes were closed.
"A shame," Danzo spoke. "I could have made you great, but you decided to remain a fool."
Sasuke twisted to avoid his attack, but he was too late.
Danzo shot his arm forward and took Sasuke's left eye. His other slashed a kunai across his face, making a gaping, bloody laceration. Then, he shoved the eyeball into his paper white arm that did not match the rest of him. Sakura watched in slow fascination as Sasuke thudded to the ground and screamed, clutching his empty eye socket.
"It was just like that," Danzo began, watching Sasuke as though remembering a fond memory, "when I stole the eye of Shisui Uchiha."
Sasuke could not respond. She wondered if he even heard him.
"I savaged the rest from the dead bodies of your clansmen."
Then, he faced her, and Sakura felt something snap inside her. Sakura wasn't quite sure what had changed, but all she knew was that she would serve Danzo and make his ambition into reality.
She went to her knees as she bowed.
"Would you like to make the finishing blow, my dear?" he asked.
Sakura lifted her head to stare at Sasuke. He was still on the ground, screaming and clutching his eye socket. She felt oddly unattached; like nothing mattered except for Danzo's ambition.
"No," she said slowly. "Leave him. He'll die of his injuries anyway."
Danzo was expressionless as he stared at her, before nodding.
"Very well," he said with a tone of finality. "Come along then."
They left Sasuke, bleeding and injured and screaming and blind in one eye on the ground, as they ventured through the beating heart of the mountain to the exit, and her injury, though life-threatening at the time, was all but an afterthought.
A/N: I decided to change the layout of this story. I don't really know how to write, and I defintely don't know how to write a good plot, so I'm really just flying in blind.
I'm an engineering student, so my time to work on this is limited. I also wrote this entire thing on my phone on the bus, so it may be a little disjointed. I'll try not to repost chapters in future.
Comments are much welcomed :D