Sakura grieves. Leo suffers.

Sakura was a vessel of churning turmoil. She did not try to speak. Her words had left her. She only held her trembling hands over her trembling lips. Thoughts flitted in and out of her skull like bolts of lightning. Some sparked and then vanished. Some illuminated the gnarled dread that had sunk its fingers into the soft membrane of her mind. They held her firmly in place, prevented her from moving. From fleeing. From sobbing. From crumpling.

She couldn't see the body now, but she had seen it, had been the first one to see. Before the shroud had been draped over top it. Before the word had gotten out. Before the crowd had gathered outside. Before they had begun whispering, "What do we do?"

Leave her alone, Sakura thought. Leave. Leave. Leave.

Her silent pleas were answered only by the quiet sniffles around her and the pelting rain on the other side of the window. She didn't know when the storm had begun only that it had come soon after Elise and the other healers had come to help and soon before the poison had spread.

But then the poison had spread. And the blood had stopped flowing. And Elise had fled. And the other healers had offered their condolences.

"What do we do, Ryoma?" Hinoka said. Her voice was a rasping hiss. Her eyes were red and her face was splotched pink. She sat on the desk chair with her arms wrapped tight around her chest. Takumi stood behind her. He kept a steady hand on her shoulder. The other quivered at his side.

Ryoma said nothing. He stood by the window, hands laid flat against the windowsill. He hung his head low.

This is the first time we've all been together in over a year.

"Ryoma?" Hinoka pressed, standing from the chair. Her arm shook as she reached for him. He shied away from her touch and then she shaking all over. Sakura turned her gaze to the floor. There was nothing gut wrenching about scuffed floorboards.

Someone yelled in the hall. They sounded angry. Then, the door shot open with a percussive thud to rival the booming thunder. Leering eyes glistened from the gloom of the stairwell. Their rampant, hungry fear drifted through the cloying warmth and preyed upon the raw misery exuding from the room. Then, they were shut behind a seal of wood. Their prying gaze lingered.

Three figures joined them, two standing on their own feet and the third hanging off the taller of the two. Their hulking forms sucked away all the air in the room. Sakura's head spun. She bit her tongue. Blood welled and fragments of memory spurted in her mind.

The pulse fading. The last choking breath. Her own voice screaming, "Get Ryoma!" Subaki bolting for the door. Elise following after him. The unending silence.

Fingers prodded at Sakura's wrist and then squeezed tight around the prone hand. The sensations fell out of her head. Sakura let Hana hold her hand. There was no feeling that came with it.

"You're not welcome here," Takumi said to them but they only stared with horrible violet eyes.

Elise looked at her from her brother's side, but Sakura couldn't meet the other girl's eyes. She stared at the dark blotches on the Nohrian's cheeks and the disheveled mess of hair that clung to the wetness on her face but never dared to glance at her eyes. The sorrow would only stir the sludge of emotions in her chest.

You left me. You're supposed to be my friend and you left me.

Hana squeezed her hand again. Sakura blinked.

The Nohrians stood at the door. Then, Xander moved, taking Elise with him. Two footfalls and then he was at the bedside. He was the only moving thing in the whole room. Elise clung to his neck. Her legs wrapped tight around his waist. His groping fingers reached for the shroud.

A formless weight wrapped tight around Sakura's forearm. It pulled. Her arm bent. Twisted into a limp and helpless angle. She went with it. The world slipped behind a curtain of calloused fingers. She struggled. Broke free. Said, "I see this all the time."

"Not your sister."

And it was her sister. Corrin. Poisoned and bleeding. Screaming and thrashing. Fading and stilling. Pale and bloodless. Dead.

"I—" Sakura tried but only burbling, infantile noises followed.

I couldn't save her, Sakura thought feverishly. Nobody knew the poison. It was necrotic. It was anticoagulant. It spread too fast. It emptied her veins. It rotted her heart.

The unsaid words and medical explanations filled her throat and strangled her tongue.

I wasn't enough. And she was everything.

Lightning flashed outside.

Sakura watched Camilla stumble. Watched her hand latch onto the bookshelf and knock dozens of books to the floor. They landed in rapid succession. Each thud was a nail driven into Sakura's skull.

Sakura watched Elise nearly fall from Xander's side. Watched him catch her before she could lose her grip. Elise began to weep. Her pitiful blustering breaths were nauseating until she buried her face into her brother's shoulder and the sound of them dampened.

Sakura watched Xander stare and do nothing but that. She hated it worst of all.

"Are you satisfied?" Takumi spat. His voice was dry and brittle. "You've seen her. Now get out."

"They have just as much right to be here as you," Xander said.

Sakura felt her sister move more than she saw it. One second, Hinoka was still and immobile. The next, she was gone from the chair, sending a gusting breeze through the room. Sakura's bangs flittered and then Hinoka stood toe to toe with him.

"You have no right!" Hinoka shouted. "None of you do! You stole her! You stole her and you kept her and you changed her and—"

Sakura's vision doubled and then she couldn't hear much anymore. Hinoka's fury had faded into rumbling fuzz. Sakura could only watch.

Tears coursed down Hinoka's face as she continued to scream in muffled bursts. They glistened on her cheeks that had turned as red as the strands of hair brushing against it. Spittle flew from her wrathful tongue. Takumi nodded at her every word. Ryoma stared at the displaced shroud. Lightning flashed outside.

Hinoka jabbed her finger into Xander's chest. Accusation strained the tendons in her wrist and sent tremors through her arm. Elise's lips parted in shrieking protest. Camilla slapped at Hinoka's offending finger. Rage crackled across Camilla's face with every quiver of her lips. Takumi came to Hinoka's side. His expression was unabashedly hateful. Hands shook in anger. Lips twisted into sneers.

It happened the moment Hinoka curled her fingers. Her hair lifted into a corona of red and then the room exploded in scorching light. There was nothing but that light. It felt like falling. It tasted like dust.

The light receded. Thunder shook the room.

Sakura was on the floor. Her face was pressed flat against the wood. Rain peppered her skin. There was pain where her nose should have been. Somebody screamed. She turned her head. The floor was dotted with shattered glass and outstretched limbs. The storm wailed through the broken window. Her arms were butter. Her thoughts were a spinning typhoon. Sakura struggled to lift herself.

"Why's everyone on the floor?"

The voice was thick, slurred with slumber. Sakura's arms gave out. The jolt of pain kicked her thoughts into overdrive and she thought, I'm hallucinating, several hundred times over. She stared at the broken landscape around her until it changed into a flurry of moving bodies, all clambering to stand. Two bloodied feet swung off the bed.

Sakura arched her chin to see her sister moving, blinking, breathing, living.

Impossible.

"What's going on?"

You're supposed to be dead.

Corrin's voice was weak, barely a whisper, but, to Sakura, it was the loudest noise she'd ever heard.

"Why am I here? What happened?"

Ryoma took one of Corrin's arms. Elise took the other, pressing her fingers into the crook of Corrin's wrist. Sakura willed herself to stand but her body refused to cooperate. Her vision dotted black. When it cleared, Sakura wished Corrin would look her way, if only so that she could see her eyes sparking with thoughts and dreams and memories again.

Corrin stood. Ryoma let her. Elise's fingers were still pressed into Corrin's flesh. Her face was slack.

"Why can't I—?"

The question withered. Corrin had seen the ruined flesh of her leg.

"Oh."

The ruby red of her eyes slipped backwards into her head. Corrin pitched forward. Xander caught her before she fell.

Sakura took little note of what happened next. She knew that she had been helped to her feet, that her nose, which had most assuredly been shattered, had been healed, that nobody had been able to say anything beyond "Gods," that she had confirmed that the poison had inexplicably vanished from Corrin's body, that she had worked alongside Elise to heal the gash in Corrin's leg, that she had yelled at all of them to give her space to work and that they had only crowded in closer, but she could remember none of it. The first thing she remembered after Corrin's revival was Takumi's flinty presence beside her as he said, "This must be some sort of trick" and then the sound of Camilla flinging open the door and shouting into the hallway, "Corrin's alive!"

And Sakura could think nothing but a fevered refrain of, Alive! Alive! Alive!

Leo awakened to the smell of antiseptic and an unreasonably dry mouth. He blinked at the sterile magelight that hovered on the ceiling above him. Shifting to prop himself up onto his elbows was agony, but he managed. He stared out at his unfamiliar surroundings, taking note of the drawn curtain surrounding the cot he lay in and the soft gauze encircling his head, and then surmised that he was in an infirmary.

"How are you feeling?"

Leo turned to the voice, finding his brother sitting in a chair that was much too small for him. Niles snored in another equally small chair beside him. Odin lay bunched at Niles' feet, murmuring softly in his sleep.

"I… Fine, I suppose. Where am I?"

Xander furrowed his brow.

"You don't remember?"

Through the thin partitions, Leo could hear someone groaning in pain. Their voice rose and fell with each audiation of anguish. Leo's head ached.

I hate these damn places, he thought and, to his brother, he said, "If I remembered, would I be asking?"

"They told me they had to sedate you, but I didn't think that would affect your memory."

"I was sedated?"

Xander nodded.

"You were rather upset about Corrin."

Leo stared at his brother and then fractured memories began to rise from the panging dark.

It was pouring rain and he was in the courtyard of some fortress. He didn't recognize the architecture or any of the people that flitted by. A storm had engulfed the sky. Rain fell in massive sheets of sopping wet. The air stank of battle, but there was no battle. They'd leapt into the canyon to escape the rolling tide of the ghostly army and now they were here. Wherever here was.

"I need to see Corrin," Leo protested. His adrenaline had completely abandoned him. His legs barely held him anymore. His eyes saw spurts of black and purple with each blink. The rain plastered his hair against his skull. The limp strands tickled his face and hung before his eyes.

"You need to see a healer," Niles said. His fingers were tight around Leo's left hand, Odin's were tight around the right. Leo's gauntlets were gone. He didn't remember taking them off. With each step, his mind grew fuzzier. Someone shouted directions to the infirmary. Odin and Niles pulled on his hands, strong-arming him towards the voice. His eyelids were heavy. Numb sensation spread into his limbs and then dulled his fingers. He blinked and then when he looked out at the world again, he was on the ground. He coughed up water. A child was shrieking nearby.

"Shit," Niles said. "I think he's concussed."

His dark face swam in Leo's vision. Leo smiled, but he wasn't really sure why. He felt like a sunken stone lying prone in the mud and the storm like he was, but the sight of Niles lifted the weight a little. Then, Niles was running away. Leo watched his retreating form squirm and shimmer.

"C'mon," Odin grunted and then Leo was sitting up. Odin's arms buoyed him upright. Flaming purple shielded him from the deluge as Niles' silver sheen had before. His sister knelt before him, her face tight and concerned beneath the grit of war. Leo blinked at her and then thought,Where the hell did she come from?

"Is he alright?" Camilla asked, shouting above the cascading water. She touched her fingertips to his forehead. They were warm against the sweat and the grime and the rain.

"He passed out. Niles went to get a healer," Odin said.

"He definitely needs one," Xander said. Leo grimaced. He didn't know where Xander had come from either. The rain made their forms waver. They looked like they had stepped from the ether of a dream.

"Xander!"

The shriek knocked against his hollow skull. Blotting pain dotted his sight. Behind Xander, the crowd broke apart and then Elise stood in the emptiness. He hadn't seen her after the last leg of the battle, but he'd been told her retainers had dragged her from the field long before the supernatural army had arrived. Her face was abnormally red. Her shoulders shook. Her pigtails were two sagging slugs off the sides of her head.

Xander turned. Leo watched the water ping off of his armor and then began to feel the cold seeping through his own metal shell. Elise shrieked again and then she rocketed forward, launching herself against Xander. Her entire body shook with sobs. The air was thin. Her hulking sobs thundered in time with the fury of the storm. The noise made Leo's teeth hurt. Camilla stood, moving to stand beside the others.

"What's wrong sweetheart?" Camilla cooed as Xander lifted Elise onto his side. Elise tried to speak, but she failed to form words.

Leo had seen her do so once before. He forced the two syllables out, even as they grated against his tongue.

"Corrin," he groaned, as loud as he could muster. Elise wailed, nodding in hysterical confirmation. Then, he was struggling to stand with leaden feet and numb hands.

"Stop that!" Odin commanded, locking his arms over Leo's chest. Leo thumped solidly against the ground and, as his head rolled back and the dark threatened to take him again, Camilla asked, "What's wrong with Corrin?"

Her voice had lost all pretense of maternal warmth. Elise began to hiccup. Leo looked at her and saw she trembled so severely that Xander had to brace his arm against her back lest she fall from his grip and tumble down into the mud. Camilla snatched Elise's wrist. Lighting crackled across the rolling black sky.

"What's wrong with Corrin, Elise? Camilla demanded. Her voice was colder than the floodwaters eking into his blood. Her fingers were bloodless around Elise's plump wrist. Elise wailed.

"She's dead!"

Camilla released Elise. Her head tilted down, chin pointing to the muck underfoot. The rain flowed from her hair and then slipped off her nose and jaw. She looked like a statue of marble and anguish. Then, she broke into a sprint. Xander followed after her.

Leo lurched against Odin's grasp. The sky split and the thunder roared and the mud was a lake beneath him. He thrashed and he rolled and he screamed until Niles returned with the healer. Odin shouted. Niles shouted. The healer knelt before him.

Then, conjured dark. Artificial slumber.

Leo stared at his brother as frigid dread blistered in his stomach while numb softened the rest of him.

"She's dead?" he croaked.

"Not anymore."

Leo blinked. Xander shrugged. Beside him, Niles shifted and then mumbled incoherently.

"She was dead, but she's fine now,"

The swirling grief abated.

"But… how?"

"I have no idea," Xander said. "It seems more your area of expertise than mine."

But it wasn't. Leo had seen many things that were beyond belief and had heard of even more, but had never seen or heard of anyone being brought back from the dead.

At least, not successfully, Leo thought and then he could see mangled sinew and smell raw meat as he recalled Iago's attempts at necromancy. The closest the sorcerer had ever gotten to restoring human life was the Faceless, but they were only mindless husks of reanimated flesh, possessing no thoughts of their own beyond animalistic rage.

Fresh dread soured Leo's thoughts. He asked, "Is she herself?"

"I assume so," Xander said. "I didn't get a chance to ask. She passed out soon after… coming back."

"And you didn't remain to see if she really was alright?"

Xander frowned and then he shifted, catching the imitation light in such a way that Leo noticed he was free of his armor and his face was clean of the filth of war that had marred it earlier.

How long have I been unconscious? he wondered as he became uncomfortably aware of the pungent stink emanating from his unwashed skin.

"The entire army is looking after Corrin. I thought it best to check on you."

Leo didn't know what to say.

He just doesn't want to face Corrin after fighting a war against her for the past year and a half, Leo thought, but he knew that was only partially true.

Someone began to hack loudly and wetly. A curtain was drawn and then hushed voices began to whisper as the hacking became wheezing gasps. Soon, the silence was worse than the noise had been.

I've had enough of this place, Leo thought. He grabbed at the rough blanket covering him and then threw it back. He swung his legs off the cot as Xander asked, "Where are you going?"

"To see Corrin."

Then, he hopped to the floor, landed on legs far weaker than he'd anticipated, and then careened forward. In a flailing panic, he snatched at the curtain, but only managed to take the partition down with him. He fell to the floor in a jumbled heap of ache. The curtain descended on top of him. The rod whacked him across his back.

There were cries of alarm from all around and then a shout of "Damnable damnation!" followed by a deep growling of discontent as his retainers awoke. Leo's face burned. He began to scramble against the sheet, trying to find the end so that he could emerge from beneath it, but had no such luck. The harder he struggled, the more entangled he became.

In the dimmed light and thinning air, Leo thought of when he'd taken in a stray puppy from the streets and, in an attempt to hide it from his mother, had thrown a blanket over top of it, but the dog spooked and then thrashed and clawed against the blanket until he'd freed it. The puppy had died soon after, poisoned in an assassination attempt of which he was the target, but he thought of that puppy now. He knew he must have looked the same as the dog once had, a wiggling, nonsensical bump of alarm and idiocy.

There was a scuffle of boots and then the curtain was shorn free. He stared at the points of Odin's boots, recognizing them immediately by the atrocious fashion his retainer boasted. He shallowed the knot of embarrassment in his throat and then, though his limbs ached and his head tipped, he forced himself to stand. He brushed at his shirt and pants with all the nonchalance he could muster. His brother pressed a fist into his mouth, but the edges of a smirk crept out. Niles' shook with constrained laughter. Leo glowered at both of them. A gaggle of healers stood by Odin's side, staring at him in mingled alarm and confusion.

"Are you alright?" one of them asked, coming forward to prod at his skull. He brushed her off, snapping, "I'm fine."

She backed off, presumably more from having found nothing of concern rather than from his hostility, and then looked past him, announcing, "We'll get this curtain back up in a jiff."

"Thank you," came the quiet response. Leo turned to offer an apology to express his humanity or a haughty remark to reinforce his princely status, he hadn't quite decided yet, but he fell silent upon seeing the group that had previously been obscured by the curtain. There were four of them sitting at the bedside of a small child. Leo could tell nothing of the child in the cot, as their back was turned to him, but the others, three boys and a girl, stared unabashedly at him.

He looked to the one closest to him first and, taking in his blonde hair and astonishingly sharp nose, he felt like he had seen the boy somewhere before. In fact, as he swept over the rest of the assembled group, he felt that he had seen all of them before. No distinct realization sprung at him, but he'd always been dreadful with pairing names and faces.

They stared at him like they knew him, but he was used to the stricken expressions that his status garnered. He returned his attention to the healers, snapping, "Fix the damn thing."

Then, he hobbled to his cot, shrugging off Odin's attempt to assist him, and then burrowed back beneath the blanket, sating his residual embarrassment with the meager camouflage it gave.

His brother's reprimanding frown was heavy on his brow, but Leo ignored him.

I know I'm an idiot. You don't have to tell me, he wanted to say, but didn't. Xander stood and then went over to assist the struggling healers. Leo scowled as they gushed admiration and awe.

Niles came to his side, peering down at him. The magelight wreathed his shaggy hair in a faux halo. Leo did his best not to squirm from his emotionless gaze, demanding, "What?"

Niles shrugged and then said, "It's just good to know a near death experience doesn't make you any less of an asshole."

Leo glared, but a blush broke out as he did. Niles smirked.

"Indeed, the dark currents are still quite potent within you," Odin agreed, coming to hover over the other side of him as the healers oohed his brother's attempts to reaffix the curtain rod.

Assholes, Leo thought, rolling his eyes. But they're my assholes.

Staring up at his retainers, he didn't feel quite so spiteful anymore.

A/N: It took me a very long time to decide whether or not to include Leo's section in this chapter or to make it a separate chapter from this one, as I really like the note Sakura's ends on, but I divide the chapters by days so I couldn't justify in my head separating it out. It's not wholly necessary to the narrative, but I like it and I think it adds another dimension to Leo.

Huzzah, no more weird, dubiously narrated fever dreams! There was a reason for their inclusion, but the main motivation was really just that I wanted to include how events played out in Birthright & Conquest in this universe, but the way I did it was not the best! They'll still be hints dropped throughout but they won't be as simultaneously explicit yet confusing ;)

Also, this marks a major divergence from the original so strap in, enjoy, and bear with me through the twists :p