Sakura

The thing was, she was so ready to be offended, until Sasuke showed up at her door.

Because Sakura came to inside the genjutsu, stomach rolling and sweat beading across her forehead, tucked into bed inside the pretty little house Madara had imagined for her. But the details of the room were sloppy (the fabric of her bed sheets felt thinner than air between her fingers, the pictures on the walls were vague and blurry, the colors were off, either dull or hyper-bright). The rest of the house was empty, echoing rooms that shouldn't have echoed, because it betrayed the nothingness behind them, the vacuum of hollow air.

Sakura had braced herself for traps, prettily spun illusions of what she'd always wanted, working to keep her calm and complacent inside the genjutsu. The fact that Madara hadn't even bothered, hadn't woken her up with the apple-pie parents from before, or the sweet-faced kitten curled up inside her blankets, smacked of disinterest. Of him viewing Sakura so far below the level of 'potential threat' that he hadn't even wasted chakra on crafting her an acceptable snare, and Sakura was so ready to be offended about it, until Sasuke turned up on the front step.

"Oh," Sakura said. "Okay."

"It's not just me, then?" he asked, glancing around at Sakura's empty rooms, the carpet beneath his feet that kept giving at odd and unsettling times, like wading through a patch of mud that sucked at your shoes. "I'd expected more…detail. Layers of potential trickery. Something."

"I know, right? Madara didn't even bother to, like, put a nicer, less asshole-ish version of you in my bed, or something. Lame."

Sasuke blinked at her.

"A nicer, less asshole-ish version," Sakura repeated, slow and deliberate. "So, obviously not you."

"It's lazy," Sasuke said, recovering through visible repression, as was his way. "Unworthy of the Uchiha ability level."

Sakura sighed at him. "You're complaining that you didn't have to untangle some super messy and probably emotionally damaging ball of genjutsu-stupidity. Of course you are."

"Itachi would have been disillusioned with our ancestor had he seen it."

"If that was a pun, Sasuke, I swear to God."

Sasuke blinked again in a way that communicated if it was, you'll never know it. Out loud, he said, "Let's go."

"Huh," Sakura said, as they stepped out of her house of echoes and onto the walkway. The street around it looked better, less gaps in the construction. The sidewalk was solid beneath Sakura's feet and she could feel an actual evening breeze, the streetlamps beaming convincingly overhead. But normalcy ended with the sky; even though the street was awash in night—darkened and dim and smelling of evening-damp air—there was a blazing sun where the stars should have been, burning like a red eye in the purple dark. "If nothing else, you have to admire the Uchiha commitment to the Sharingan aesthetic."

"Hn," Sasuke said, like he didn't incorporate Mangekyou-red into every piece of clothing he owned. "Let's try the school."

"You don't want to find Kakashi first?"

"What for?"

Sakura's laugh had a strange aftertaste to it, something sharp and bitter. "Oh, sure."

The school was unoccupied, cavernous, dark. Empty desks and whiteboards scribbled with half-finished equations backlit by the strange reddish sun outside. Abandoned notebooks and backpacks, like the students had simply disappeared once their presence was no longer needed to maintain the genjutsu. Sakura ghosted her hand across a Geometry textbook (which went blank after the chapter on irrational numbers, because that was the last unit they'd been working on before the genjutsu release) and had the strange sideways feeling of another life, of an echo, of sitting in these seats with ribbons in her hair and actively choosing to let math homework be her only problem.

"Aw," she said. "I remember hitting Naruto in the face with this book when he said something about the birth of our apparent offspring and how 'I'd totally carry our spawn on my back in one of those pouch-things—like a kangaroo of love and devotion, Sakura'. Bless."

"He isn't here." Sasuke paced a tight circle.

Sakura closed the textbook. "So I see."

"Maybe he's at that stupid ramen stand he loved? Or that ice cream place he dragged us to that one time, because he wanted to try their 'unicorn cones'. Or, wasn't there a park? One that we were no longer allowed in after that one game of tag?" Sasuke glanced over at her. "We should check them. Don't you think, Sakura?"

She hummed a little, tapped her ankle against a nearby desk. It felt mushy against her skin, giving way where it shouldn't, and that was…unsettling, really. "I don't really see the point of any of those places, Sasuke. He isn't there."

The tiniest frown line appeared between Sasuke's brows. "How do you know? He could be anywhere. If we're not thorough in our search, we could lose him."

"I know he's not there because you just told me so."

"What?"

Sakura sighed and stared out the classroom window. That reddish sun was sinking in the purple sky. Sakura didn't know what that meant, exactly, but she was betting on nothing good. Such was the motto when Uchihas were involved: One may not truly comprehend the vast and complicated layers of their quasi-storybook magical bullshit, but one could always assume that there was a nightmare waiting at the end of the Uchiha fairy tale. An upsettingly obtained power. An emotionally damaging family revelation. An ancient relative that didn't have the decency to be dust like he was supposed to.

"I really don't have time for this," she explained. "Visually ruling out one location is all well and good, but I don't have time to play goose-chase with you. You said the school, and Naruto's not here. You said the ramen stand, the ice cream shop, and the park, so I can safely assume he isn't there, either."

"You…" Sasuke did his Sasuke-version of boggling. Which basically boiled down to looking slightly less constipated that usual. "What are you talking about? I thought we were working the same mission, here."

"We're really, really not." Sakura studied Sasuke with a coolly appraising eye. "It's good work. Much better than the house, or the road, or whatever the hell this squishy desk is. I might have believed it once."

Sasuke stared at her in the fading light, silent.

Finally, he said, "You knew."

"I knew."

"When?"

"The second you showed up at my door."

"That's...unbelievably fast."

"I've always been the best at spotting genjutsu." Sakura's smile was sharper than any of the kunai in her pouch. "And honestly. Madara thinks he knows everything. But Sasuke would never go looking for me first. Even if he did find me first, he'd want to go looking for the others right away. And he definitely wouldn't stop to ask my opinion regarding his next move. Not because he's actually considering following it, anyway. I don't know, he might ask just so he can make sure he's doing the exact opposite at all times?" Sakura sighed. "I figured, if the genjutsu really was falling apart around us, then Madara was obviously expending his energy on a different trap. A sneakier, Uchiha-style trap, like you said before. And then you showed up at my door and I thought 'well, I guess genjutsu don't always have to be places or things—sometimes, it's a person that you want the most'."

Sasuke, his identity as a figment of the genjutsu uncovered, folded his arms. Any attempt at credible emotional response had drained from his face, leaving a totally blank slate behind. Disturbing. Sakura had memories of Sasuke's face going blank like that. Most of them ended in blood and tears and coming up with newer, better swear words while trying to heal any gut-wounds Naruto's fox wasn't quick enough to heal."You didn't say anything."

"And you're…pouting about it? Well. I guess Madara got a few things right, then." Not so many, though. Real Sasuke would have responded with that extra special scoffing sound that made Sakura want to kick him in the face. Genjutsu Sasuke just blinked. "I figured you'd try to keep me away from where Naruto really was. I tagged along to check a few locations off the list. Thanks for that. You just lightened my work load by four separate places."

"But I don't have time to keep this up." Sakura sighed and rocked back on her heels. "Because there's one place you didn't mention, deliberately didn't mention, and it's a pretty big place, stakes-wise. So."

Sasuke studied her. "So?"

"So. Do you need to fight me, or something, before letting me leave?" Sakura offered, all weary politeness. "Because we should probably get that out of the way. I'm on the clock, like I said."

"You really think you could beat me?"

"Oh, look! Madara got the Sasuke Arrogance Factor exactly right. Possibly because it's a genetic trait?"

Sasuke just blinked a second time. And again, it was an eerily wrong response. There should have been at least one dramatic hair-flip. An impassioned speech on exactly why Uchihas were entitled to be arrogant. Maybe a Chidori to the face followed by an impassioned speech? Sakura wasn't as fluent in Sasuke Rage and Insanity as Naruto or Kakashi.

Instead, he asked, "Isn't it sad? What you said earlier. About your supposed teammate."

"Sad?" It was Sakura's turn to blink. "What, that Sasuke wouldn't come looking for me first? That he wouldn't ask for my opinion?"

Genjutsu Sasuke's gaze was considering. Almost sympathetic. And man, if Sakura didn't already have all the evidence she needed that he was an illusion, this would have sealed the deal. "He obviously means a lot to you. You said it yourself. 'Sometimes it's a person you want the most'."

"Maybe," Sakura allowed. "And maybe I used to think it was sad for me. That there was something wrong with me, and that's why he was treating me that way. But I haven't been a twelve-year-old girl with a confidence-swallowing crush for years, despite what Madara apparently thinks? If Sasuke's not looking for me because he somehow thinks I'm less important? If he doesn't value my totally valid, probably better than his opinion? Then that's sad for him. Because I'm, as Naruto would say, totally awesome. And I'm done working twice as hard to make people see the worth they would praise others for without a second thought."

"For example," Sakura continued. "I know where Naruto is. Because it's exactly where you didn't say. He's at home."

The Sasuke Genjutsu continued to stare, impassive.

"Right," Sakura said. "So. Fight?"

But the illusion shook his head. "I'm…non-combative. Meant to distract and delay, not fight. Most of the echoes are. Except for…one."

"Translation: Madara took all the energy he would have used on making fighters of the rest of you and pumped it into one single person. Which, dropping a cryptic and vaguely terrifying threat with a blank face? Another accurate representation of Sasuke Uchiha. Points for that, Madara."

Sakura pushed a hand through her hair. "Well. If you're not going to stop me, then I'm going. Because I have a pretty good idea who that one combative echo is. And if I'm right, Sasuke's probably already bleeding from places it shouldn't be possible to bleed from, and Kakashi-Sensei's probably curled up and guilt-crying into the mush-carpet."

Genjutsu Sasuke inclined his head. He was fading a little, like he couldn't hold a physical form now that Sakura had figured him out. There was something metaphorical about that, maybe. What Sakura would have wanted once, more than anything, disappearing into dust and shadows when confronted with all the things she hadn't known when she'd wanted it.

But as Sakura moved past him, Genjutsu Sasuke let out a quiet, "You are more. More than he expected. I don't know how he didn't see it."

Sakura laughed over her shoulder. "Yeah, I think it's another Uchiha thing. A big, old blind-spot where my awesomeness is concerned. But I know myself, now. And I know my team."

She left Genjutsu Sasuke where he stood, flickering in the reddish light like a ghost. Once she hit the street, she ran.

Kakashi and Sasuke weren't at the school, which meant that they'd probably reached the same conclusion Sakura had regarding Naruto's location. They would have rushed right over, because they lived for giving Sakura indigestion and wearing the imprints of her attempts to curb their impulsive behaviors with her fists. But someone needed to check the other locations, just in case. And being practical had always been Sakura's job. She knew herself now, like she'd said. And she knew how that helped her team, no matter what they thought of her usefulness.

Having done the job only she could do, Sakura ran.

The sun was going down and, knowing her boys, she was already late.