Dreamt

Chapter 13

AN: There is a new scene in this chapter.

Sakura leaned against the closed door. Her breath was doing funny things to her, as if every portion of air entering her lungs was making her more and more drunk. Madara stood at the other end of the tiny room. More a cell than a room; there was nothing but tatami on the floor for furnishing. Was it his room back then? When he was young?

"So, what now?" He cocked his head with such a boyish smile that Sakura was suddenly sure that it was indeed the case.

His whole demeanor was becoming more like the one she knew from the dream. That of a young man, not burdened by tragedy and responsibility yet. The man she met and knew.

"I don't know…" Sakura smiled back a bit sheepishly. No need to act tough anymore, he will take the lead anyway. And now he won't hurt her.

"How 'bout you coming over here?" Sakura couldn't stop smiling. He was as she remembered. She wanted to run, not walk towards him. She reached to stroke along his arm – he was here, flesh under her fingers, dream turned reality. She closed her grip for a moment.

Madara spun her around to gain access to the knot of her obi. He slowly undid it, the robe sliding down her shoulders. He traced patterns along her arms, along her bare sides, around the wound on her back, carefully not touching it.

"Why did you let me do this to you?"

"I wanted… I wanted to show you that no matters what happens I am in it with you. For you…" She paused. "Why did you stop?"

"So that I won't have to apologize to you. I've told you, you'll never hear it from me again."

Sakura turned to face him again, pulled him towards her, but he stayed where he was and kept tracing lines on her. Around her breasts, down her belly… Familiar pressure was building even from these slightest touches. Sakura reached to his belt; she wanted to feel his skin as well, to have her heart skip a beat.

Why was he so careful, so uncharacteristically slow? Was he trying to live up to her girly expectations? 'You don't need to... I don't have any expectations… I don't expect anything from you. Just come…' Sakura closed up the gap between them. And then they stepped and stepped, until Sakura felt her heels touching the sleeping mat. She lowered herself on it, opened her legs.

'He is looking...' His Sharingan was activated, Mangekyo even. "How do you see me through it?"

"You shine. You dim the torches."

Madara knelt in front of her, kissed her knee, kissed her inner thigh. Put fingers in her, opened her up. She almost jumped when he licked her there. He dug his fingers into her, entered her and still there was no pain, no scream, not even a gasp. There was nothing in her that offered resistance.

Sakura stretched her arms to pull him to her but he stayed where he was, straightened up before her. 'He wants to see it. To see it happen to me for the first time. And it's happening any moment now.' Pity he was so far because she would really need to bite onto something. Now she will have to bite onto her own fingers.

When she was done he pulled her on his lap. Finally, she could touch him as well. She wrapped her arms and legs around him tightly, dug her hands in his hair. Hanging onto him for support. She was moving as hard as she could, trying to find and keep the rhythm, put all her strength into it. Then he grabbed her legs stronger than before, spread them even wider and pushed so deep that it hurt. And for the shortest moment she could see it as well. See him vulnerable and defenseless. Only she out of all the people can see him like that. Can make him become like that even if it was just for a split of second… They both breathed heavily; face to face, nose to nose.

Madara grabbed a fistful of hair at the back of her head and Sakura gasped. And then he kissed her. A violent kiss into her open mouth, as if he was trying to bite her. Sakura would have jerked back in surprise if not for his hand in her hair. They never kissed before, not even once. She never kissed anyone in real life either, so she really didn't know what to do and could only try responding to him.

She felt him stiffen again inside her. He let go of her hair to grab her behind and started pushing into her. Each thrust almost hurt and she had to gasp over and over again into that kiss that just kept lasting. In the end it was her who broke it because she had to scream. Then he flipped her on her belly and just kept going until she really wanted it to finish because it cost too much energy to stay solid under him.

When he got up from the mat and went to find his clothes, Sakura wasn't really surprised. There was no way he would stay, he never did… But then, he picked up her kimono as well and covered her with it. Now, that was unexpected… And very considerate – she was getting cold already and there were no covers.

"Make sure you get pregnant from this. It's not as if you have a month to spare with these things." He nodded towards lower half of her body.

He apparently believed his job was done. Sakura threw him a rather stricken look.

"Oh come on, you can do it. I know what kind of control you have over your body…" He paused and when he spoke again, he sounded concerned. "Good luck with it…"

"Maybe… I can come back later? When you're done?" he added from the door. He sounded so uncharacteristically unsure that Sakura just had to smile. She nodded her enthusiastic support for the idea. And when he left, she rolled onto her back and laughed.

Then she straightened flat and started to gently pump chakra into her organs. It was good that she was still in the first half of her cycle; she didn't need to work against the current here. She only had to speed it a bit up. And make sure it will be twins… Sakura concentrated and focused the flow of her chakra.

She must have fallen asleep because she found herself again in the Uchiha compound. They were standing in the middle of a yard, and Madara was looking at her with such bewilderment, as if there was something in her that he had never seen before. Something that held his attention long enough to make him recalculate.

"I guess I have gravely underestimated you," he said at last with a smirk.

She reached her hand out to touch him but her fingers went through. Needles of adrenaline poked through her palms.

"What's happening?!"

"I guess whatever it is," he gestured around, "it's dissolving."

"Why?!"

"I don't know. Maybe because we've met in real life."

"Maybe because you changed your mind. Changed your heart."

She tried grabbing him and this time she succeeded, interlaced her fingers with his.

Madara shook his head. "Either the way, it's all over. Have you ever wondered why it all happened?" he added after a moment of silence.

"Mercy. It was a mercy." She didn't know where this thought came from, so bright and sharp as a blade.

"I never deserved it."

"That's the whole point of mercy. Those who need it don't usually deserve it. It's granted undeserved."

She didn't really know why these conclusions came to her now. But she was no longer afraid to talk about such things with him.

Madara rested his forehead against hers.

A patter of little feet from the side, approaching. Children's laughter from behind the wall. Sakura turned but no one was there. When she looked back to Madara he was again on the porch. Sakura shook her head in disbelief – it couldn't be that he moved so fast. She turned, looking around and noticed that the courtyard had changed. They were now on their sparring grounds. When she glimpsed back in his direction, Madara was walking across the training field, sand marked with signs of fighting. Sakura dug her feet into it; it was warm and making its way inside her sandals.

"Is it enough now?" Madara asked.

"What is enough?" It was so hard to concentrate. Instead of answering she spun around, following the pattern in the sand. Her vision got blurry, and Madara was suddenly right next to her. He took hold of her arms.

"Here," said Sakura. "It was right here." And she was not sure herself what was she referring to: their first fight, or the one when he first took her. Was the sand that warm also back then? Her head was spinning. She spread her feet apart to maintain her balance.

"Don't you feel it?" he asked as if he didn't hear her remark.

Sakura tried her best to focus through the haze in her mind. "Feel what?"

"It's fading. The dream is fading."

Sakura closed her eyes.

When she opened them back, all was black. And she couldn't breathe, because there was nothing, just absolutely nothing around her. She strained her eyes, trying to see an outline where her hands should be, but there was only blackness. She was suffocating. Concentrating all of her willpower, she opened her mouth and inhaled. And then once again. Air entered her lungs. With all the willpower she had, she coerced her brain to perform a logical operation: if she was breathing then at least there was air around her, not just black nothingness. She forced her senses to work and realized that she was sitting. She was about to move when a grip on her arm made her heart jump.

"Awake as well?"

Fighting through her racing heartbeat she felt like grasping at mooring rope – this voice belonged to Uchiha Madara and this one piece of information made the scattered pieces of her consciousness finally fall together. She was in a cell in the Uchiha hideout, the war was over and she was married. She grasped blindly at her side, trying to get an idea about where he was lying.

"Shh, calm down. It's over now."

She found him, rolled onto her side to embrace him. "I know… Why am I so shaken then?"

"It was a rough waking up process. For both of us."

"Do you want to try sleeping again?"

Madara manoeuvred her so that she was lying on top of him. "I think I'd rather do something else…"

When she finally found the kitchen – finally, because Madara's 'end of the corridor' didn't specify the corridor being hundred meters long and bifurcating twice – she almost walked backwards out of it. As Obito was sitting at the table in front of a non-started cup of tea. And he lifted his gaze to her. For the first time actually, as yesterday he was carefully avoiding her eyes.

'Ah, so that's how it feels… That's how it feels like when someone just hates you so much'. It was never the case for her before. Even enemies didn't hate personally; they confronted her, tried to kill her but there was never much emotion in it. Here, there was. And it felt awful.

Sakura felt guilty. Even if for the whole world it was a reason to rejoice, this one person here was truly grieving. And she didn't have anything to offer him in the stead of his loss. She knew parts of his story from Kakashi-sensei and heard about his motives from Naruto after the two had fought. Obito desired the Tsukuyomi, dedicated whole his life to developing it, wanted to meet his lost love inside it… Wanted to be a hero. She took it all away from him, not giving anything back. 'I carry a grave sin against this one'.

She forced herself to enter. Took a cup and a teapot, put them on the table, sat down. Poured herself some tea. Sat there, looking inside her cup as he was. All the mysteries of the world were hidden in that bowl of tea, weren't they…?

"You don't know me and I don't know you, Obito-san. Yet, what I did caused you great pain. I am sorry. I know it doesn't change anything, but I truly apologize for hurting you like that. I don't expect you can ever forgive me and I probably cannot do anything for you, but I truly hope and wish that one day your pain will lessen." Sakura drank a bit. Put the cup down, looked inside it. Obito's hands were around his cup, as if he was trying to warm them up. Only that his tea was surely cold by now. "I understand that you hate me, you have every reason to. Nevertheless, you are my family now." She drank some more. The cup was warming her fingers.

It was not even a conscious thought, just pure instinct that made him spin. Too late though. The enemy's hand had impaled his chest. But not too late to catch a glimpse of yellow pupil-less eye. A glimpse was enough; the black humanoid form was now twisting on the ground and losing its shape, rounding at the edges, becoming more and more sphere-like.

It wasn't helping Madara much though – he was bleeding extensively and each breath was a fight for his life. Black Zetsu has missed his heart by millimeters, only because he moved to look back. He managed to destroy his left lung completely though and ripped a hole through in his chest. Madara fell on the ground. Hashirama's cells held great regenerative power but this was too brutal of an injury; they could never keep up with it. Blood was flowing and forming a coherent thought was getting difficult very quickly. He could not get up anymore. But still, he could do something. He turned his head and looked into Black Zetsu's eyes, making the Tsukuyomi, the creature was already under, completely impenetrable.

When Madara woke up, he was lying flat on the kitchen table. Sakura's face framed in soft green glow loomed at the periphery of his vision. She was so focused, effort stiffening her features. Madara wanted to say something but no words came out.

"Stay put. I still need time here." Her voice was all control and professionalism. The tears rolling down her cheeks were not. After some time, she wiped them into the fabric on her shoulder, took a deep breath and spoke again, "I'm rebuilding your lung. It's amazing what these cells can do, I just have to stimulate them and guide their growth. Otherwise it almost doesn't require external chakra." Sakura paused. "You know that it was very close to the heart, don't you? He wanted to kill you on the spot. He almost did." Tears started to flow again.

Madara managed to move his hand; he brushed against whatever part of her he could reach.

"He didn't in the end. No one gets my back."

"He almost did. It's all different now. Now if something happens to you… I mean… you don't belong only to yourself anymore. Also to me…"

He never thought about it like that. It was clear that she belonged to him, she did for months in the dream world, but the other way around…? She might be right about it though. But most importantly, he had to protect her.

"Hurry and patch me up. I need to take care of this creature."

"You cannot walk yet!"

"That thing is extremely dangerous. And as long as I don't know its motives…"

Madara spent the next few days mostly in the chamber, where he closed the oblong shape that Black Zetsu reverted to. Even when he would go out, he would leave a wood clone to have his eyes on the creature. Once, Obito came in and when he left the room, he looked completely shell-shocked. Sakura didn't see him afterwards for days.

And regardless of whether Madara was inside or not, Black Zetsu kept screaming, shrieking in a most horrible way, never stopping. When Sakura asked him why it was the case, without batting an eye, Madara answered that he was being tortured. When two days later she asked if he got what he wanted from the creature already, Madara only laughed.

"Oh, I got it all out from him some time ago already. And I couldn't believe it myself. Apparently that thing was manipulating me from the beginning, acting on behalf of some ancient power that I heard about only from myths. He made me believe the Tsukuyomi was a salvation for mankind while in reality it was just a means to gather all chakra in one place. For the purpose of the revival of that ancient power. He used me. So, now I am taking my revenge."

"What will you do?"

"I will keep him like this. He will not die, he's immortal. I will keep him suffering for as long as I feel like it. And maybe he can become useful as a bargaining chip later."

AN: Thanks for reading and please tell me what you think about this chapter!