Bonus (Technically Non Cannon) Side Story to Appease the Masses
Obelisk:
Monarch City
Chapter 1.5
"You can carry a knife and still trust everyone. Carry it in your mouth. Everytime you open it, We await the sharpening noise of worship. Cry out into the darkness The sermon that doesn't cease: You cannot be abandoned. You can only be released. "
-Church of the Broken Axe Handle, by Derrick Brown
The world was a gallery of paintings all in muted colors. Each one was just as drab as the last, never ending, never changing, just like his days. By now he had come to recognize the pattern and had a certain level of precognition in how his days would roll out with little variation from his predictions.
It was stifling and it was unfair considering the divine grace of God on his lineage and his birth into one of the most powerful families in the edges of the world curled up under his fingers when he brushed his hands by. People and places were just things for him to play with.
It was the chilling season when one of his men found him in the sanctuary, standing feet from the base of a marble likeness of the saint Paul. The younger male knew better than to interrupt when his better was caught in a with the likeness of a long dead saint that may or may not have been more than just human.
"The old woman wants me to depart soon, does she not?" Madara eventually asked, turning his ruby eyes onto his subordinate.
Kagami nodded. "There are, however, reports of dangerous activity outside the walls. She suggested you move with the royal procession. For added security."
Madara hummed lowly before turning his eyes back to the saint. In the low light the shadows stretched like lifelines over it's features. "If that is her wish, though it matter little to me. I've not had a thought for my own safety in many these years. It will make no difference to me."
Kagami kept his eyes downcast, but his voice did not waver when he addressed the crown price and heir to the throne. "Which is why your mother insists on you joining her in Krepost for the winter."
"No, it's because she wants me to find one of its women. Krepost is no more or less safe with her walls than my own drafty palace." Madara tisked loudly and turned on his heel away from the saint. "Fortress city it was name, but it is now a city of wealth and drunken Boyer. The only true consolation will be the hunting. I've not shot bear this season."
"Tsarevich, your mother waits for you."
In an alcove against the wall was another likeness of a lady saint in frozen garments that fell from her hands like actual fabric, in spite of being carved from stone. An arrow tipped with gold sprung from her heart and the cry of her features was one that haunted his dreams. The saints had always fascinated him. The mortals who were not quite human. He wanted one for himself. He wanted to touch one and hold it and know divinity was true for the flesh. Ever since he was little and a choir boy for the sake of his family's appearance, saints followed him wherever he went.
"Tsarevich?"
Kagami called to him once more and Madara tore his gaze away from the mayter to focus on the younger boy who was a half cousin of sorts. The rest of the world seemed dull, and not worth his time, but there were appearances he had to keep up. A duty he had to withhold.
"She's leaving now, isn't she?" He asked it like it was a true question, when it was obvious he was dressed for travel and had been prepared for the inevitability of this situation. What a bother. I would have like another day to pull myself away from this place with grace, but there is no time for that now, is there?" Madara turned his partly lidded gaze to his half cousin. "Don't you think a man with as much blood on my hands needs a bit more God than the others?"
"Not at all."
Madara didn't sneer, because Kagami was one of his blood, but he wanted to. Not at all indeed. As if his devils could be so easily excused with the weight of a crown. No wonder the paupers and the people were restless. Did he blame them? Did he want to?
"I will come," Madara said at last. "But only because it suits me. Maybe Krepost will be worth my attention this Solstice."
Without another word from either male, Madara exited the church with Kagami following close behind. Outside under the light of the clouded sun a procession of men in black waited for him outside a carriage meant for his mother. A horse of his own was out of the question, so he climbed in without protest and closed his eyes without remorse, pretending to be tired or asleep. Either way, it prevented conversation for the first day of the trip.
One gray painting after another, and another, and another. Even the landscape was seeping gray.
Was Budapest this drab during the chilling seasons? Budapest where they celebrated the autumn equinox with masks and secret dances under devilish lights in ballrooms large enough for peasants? What of Prague with her cursed cobblestones and spires built for impailing falling angels? Even Saint Petersburg took a little delight in revelries when the spirits crossed over on the darkest day of the year. The merchants from Venice always brought the best of their wines and the pagan Gallic beggars were welcomed for once to tell their fates and read their palms.
It hurt his head to think of such pleasantries, to think of places that burned brightly with life for one day out of the year before fading into ash like all the other paintings. He wanted red, he wanted vibrance.
"Stop the carriage." He stood and banged on the wall that led outside. His pale haired mother, Kaguya, looked up at him in question, but knew better than to question him. Any answer she sought was obvious enough after a simple glance at his expression.
Madara looked ready to sprout wings and fly away if that was at all possible. The urge simmered under his skin and it made the hairs along his arms, all the way up his neck, stand straight and erect like soldiers at attention.
"Take the soldiers with you," the woman hummed, returning to the exquisite beaded detail of her embroidery. Hands that had once wielded steel against the barbarians and pagan raiders now handled much finer needles with just as deadly precision.
If he was younger he would have told her he didn't need them, and if she were younger she would have told him they weren't for him, but for his crown. A prince needed an appearance befitting him. Because in a world of teeth and treachery, image was just as much a weapon as steel.
Madara wrapped the black fur around his shoulders and let the cowl fall down his back. Four men on either side walked with him away from the carriage to a place in between the trees. None of them addressed him or spoke, but there was a lax to their posture that had been developed over time. These were the men that served him closer than the others, the ones who were at the pinnacle of the Uchiha standard of fitness even if most of them were bastard children who would never be formally acknowledged by their blood's linage. Not that Madara ever felt unsafe, but his entourage was enough to take down a small battalion if he was there to lead the pack.
It wasn't long before he found a humble stream not deep enough to wet his heels in, but Madara kneeled down in front of it and striped his left hand of the black riding gloves.
"Tsarevich…" one of the men cautioned him. It was cold and the water would be freezing, but Madara didn't seem concerned with the cold.
He reached into the stream and pulled up a smooth stone, rubbing his thumb over it's surface before tossing it back into the water, not caring if it sank or drifted. When he looked down at his hand he could see the flesh was agitated and tight with pink color. It was cold, but he wasn't.
"I just want to stay here for a while," he said out loud.
An Uchiha knelt down in the snow close to where he lay and nodded, tucking his chin into his scarf, ready to dig in and wait for however long it took. This wasn't the first time Madara needed time to forget how gray the world was.
Before long Madara stood and breathed a little easier. Nothing was fixed, but things were easier. He turned around and the men from his detail stood at attention. Madara tugged his black gloves back on before adjusting the black fur of his cowl.
Before they even approached the road where their procession waited he heard the titter of the men and their semi masculine version of subtle gossip. But then Kagami was there, trying to break them up. He looked a little more agitated than usual and it almost made Madara wonder.
Madara followed the direction of the hidden gazes to the second carriage at the back reserved for storage and saw the Hyuga boy leaning into it, talking. There was someone inside for him to reply back too, and whoever they were just asked about him because Neji turned around and looked. Madara tried to appear less intimidating, but it was difficult when the very bones of his body were built to be intimidating. Neji turned away quickly enough and Madara decided not to mind it any.
Kagami came up to his carriage to make sure Madara made inside safely. "What is it?" Madara asked, sounding bored. But his tone changed when he saw the look on Kagami's face. "Oh, something interesting."
Kagami kept his eyes down, but didn't wast time on useless flatteries. "You might not be able to hunt in the surrounding areas. There are reports of wolves carrying a sickness and attacking humans on their lands."
"Oh, now I'm interested. Mad wolves you say? Is that what our visitor told you? I do hope it's true."
"There were reports proceeding our arrival of such issues, but aside from that her state of distress was evidence enough of a wolf attack and Neji Hyuga was willing to vouch for her word."
Madara tilted his head to the side, seated on the bench of his coach but close enough to the door that he could keep it open with the toe of his boot. "Her?"
"Yes, her. She is a female. Normally I would have sent a civilian out on their own, but because of the incident from her report and her state, I gave her permission to ride along in the luggage carriage. When she gets to the city she will have to see another doctor."
"I hope you've kept her as far away from the other men as possible. If she was attacked by a diseased animal she's not safe company," Kaguya spoke up, still threading her fabric with beads. "You'll keep her carriage far from our own, starting now."
Madara scratched the side of his face, watching Kagami run off and transfer the instructions to another member of their family before they finally began moving again. Absently, Madara let his eyes wander out the window and caught sight of something red. Blood was on the ground, staining the white lily of the valley flower that grew like a weed alongside the road.
It was so read he actually reached out and grabbed one of his bastard soldiers, shaking him by the shoulder before instructing the strapping young male to fetch him the blood stained flower. In moments he was holding the stained flower between his black covered fingers and never before had he seen something so lovely.
"What a mystery," her marveled almost silently to himself.
"Is it?" his mother asked with a hum. When Madara looked up she hadn't bothered to hid her secret smile.
Madara was met by Boyer officials and had obligations to his mother to keep his appearance in mind as he disembarked, but as soon as his responsibilities were fulfilled he tracked down the old infirmary that had been built for treating wounded soldiers and not bleeding women who fought wolves for the heck of it.
When he reached the old tall room of stone there was nothing there to suggest any activity. Kagami was the next item on his list in this misguided scavenger hunt.
"A girl?" Kagami asked, sounding surprised. "Who?"
"The one who was injured. The one attacked by wolves."
"Ah, the beauty, the one from days ago. She left before we entered the city. She was staying with the wolf nomads hired to curb the infestation."
He thought of the stories his mother banished from the lips of elders, the tales of her days from before pearls and lace. There were days were his mother was wild and free and not at all what a queen in whalebone corsets should be. He felt excited. "She was a nomad?"
Kagami put the papers he had been looking through down and turned the fulness of his attention to his prince. "No, but she was staying with them last I heard. I don't know much of her situation, but I could learn more if that was what you wanted."
"Hn, don't sound so eager. I'll see to it myself in due time. For now I need to hunt. Mother has already begun to stir the servants into a frenzy for this pointless celebration of hers." Mara traced back a stay stand of black ebony that feel down in front of his eyes. "Ready my horses and prepare the weapons, I want to leave as soon as possible."
"But the wolves!"
"The Hyuga were the ones who hired the Wolf tribe here in the first place, they can arrange a guard for my detail if they know what's good for them." He paused before speaking again. "I won't be left here inside these walls without a window to the world."
The first night was terrible, as it was overly formal and full of a lot of lackluster hand shacking and small talk over satin gloves. By the end Madara was ready to fly off the walls and rip into the plaster to claw his way out. Thankfully that wasn't necessary as there was a balcony where he could hide away under the sky and stars while the satin dancers swirled across the dance floor.
It was late and Kagami was absent. He had left earlier that evening, well before the start of the party, and it was now past midnight. Several of his men and the Hyuga were missing as well. Madara glanced back inside and searched quickly for the boy from the wolf tribe he had made a part of his guard. He was missing as well. Something had happened without him and it was pissing him off. How dare they g off and have fun while he had to suffer the tandem of pre rehearsed greetings and exchanges. He wanted to be running or hunting or shooting something from horseback. This wasn't what he was meant for.
"Someone will be asking for you sooner or later, it would be best to give an excuse before disappearing so that others do not take it upon themselves to seek you out and rescue you," a cool voice cut into his train of thoughts.
He turned and saw his mother, smaller than him and shorter even in her heels. She was aged, but there was little evidence of it aside from her carriage and the weight in her eyes. She was as youthful a beauty as the day his father found her and fell in low with her.
"I didn't wish to be rude, or dishonest. In this situation, I would have been forced to be one or the other." Madara watched his mother approach the rail and stand alongside him. "What was your excuse for leaving?"
"I needed some fresh air in my old age to clear my head. Really, you should know me better by now. Everyone knows to be sensitive of my fainting spells and how easily they can be triggered," she laughed. Only those privileged with a close enough relationship to the older woman knew that her fainting spells were a lie dreamed up to get her out of situations she didn't want to be a part of. She had a strong disposition that could rival any man's.
"What troubles you, my son?"
"I think I have been left behind."
Kaguya hummed, nodding along. "I thought I felt something agitate these old bones of mine. Some of the guards are missing as well, but I had hope they were only escorting distinguished guests. The lady saint never showed, and I'm greatly disappointed."
"You don't truly believe in that, do you?" Madara asked with a suppressed sneer. "You should know there are no living saints for us to dance with. Such talk is blasphemy."
"Don't be such a zealot. You're starting to sound like that angry monk that always followed you around cursing and swearing out the heathens and pagans who came near you." She chuckled fondly at the memory. "You made him your advisor and he took off into the mountains to spread the Word of God and poor thing has been lost or busy ever since. You shouldn't bother yourself with such matters. Come back inside and suffer another dance. Tomorrow night won't be so terrible, I promise."
Madara wanted to say more, but something caught his attention and silenced the worlds in his throat. "There are horses approaching. I will greet them."
His mother made a face that was almost disapproving. "What excuse should I give on your behalf?"
"What excuse is there that could justify the absence of your unwed heir at a social event with so many bachelorettes?" he asked with unnecessary sarcasm.
His mother might have tried to connivence him further to stay, but Madara had recognized the sight of his cousin and was hurrying down the side stairs to the courtyard to greet the wounded soldiers. There was one body held limp in the front of a shared saddle, but no soulless bodies were being carried. There had been a fight, and it had been fierce enough to wound most of them, but not enough to end a life.
So why did so many of them look like they just buried their commanding officer? The Wolf boy with tattoos on his face looked especially distraught. His expression looked equal bits nauseated and franticly enraged. How he had managed to ride back on his hound alongside the others was a mystery.
"What happened?" Madara demanded, not waiting for the men to catch their breath. The solider with the limp body was dismounting and another was coming over to hurry and help in the transportation of their wounded comrade, but Kagami made a beeline for Madara, his face ashen.
"We were in the Monarch Woods, exterminating the mad wolves."
"So suddenly? Why was there need of such rash actions?"
"There was an attack, earlier this afternoon in our compound," Neji interrupted. "They were assassins from the Hare tribe and from them we were able to expose their intentions. They were the ones poisoning the wolves and feeding them man flesh to drive them mad. They planned to antagonize them into a frenzy outside the walls and start a riot."
"In the chaos, anyone settled within these walls would have been trapped," Kagami added, picking up where Neji paused.
The Hyuga was looking back over his shoulder at the wolf boy and seemed just as sick when he forgot to hide it. As a Hyuga, he was better at concealing his true emotions and masking what he felt, but even he was human and had to crack sometimes. Both boys looked like they lost something.
"Who died?" Madara finally asked, eyes hardening on the reactions among the company. From far back he saw the wizen Monkey King climbing down from his steed alongside the female doctor. The pair flinched at his tone and exchanged a look of shared hurt. So it had been someone they knew as well.
"It wasn't one of our men, but the girl who was attacked by the assassin from the Hare tribe initially," Kagami whispered, suddenly unable to speak in a level tone.
Kiba, in the background choked on a strangled cry and dropped to his knees, grabbing at the stones underneath him and gripped their edges till his knuckles were white. He looked more animal than man, making his sounds of grief and strangling over them. He raised his fists and struck the stones beneath them and only his hands were hurt from the impact.
Neji ran over to shove him off the ground but Neji countered and swung at the Hyuga. Neji easily blocked and the pair separated with fists raised above their heads. "Don't touch me!" Kiba snarled in a werewolf's voice worn raw from howling. "Don't you fucking touch me with your hands! She's not coming back from that! There wasn't even anything left to burry, so don't touch me with your damn hands like you understand."
"Shut up, like you're the only one who cared," Neji snapped, balling his hands into fists. "I'm not the one who lift her behind with that monster. Don't think you cared about her more than anyone else when you were the one that left her alone!"
Madara watched as the wolf boy he had grown fond of went white in the face. It was as if someone had punched the air out of Kiba's lunched and sucked the life out of his skin. His eyes went wide and vacant all at once and it was as if his spirit had left through them.
"You couldn't find a body?" Madara asked Kagami in a lowered tone, not wanting to set the boys off even more. He looked to his cousin and Kagami shook his head, grimacing.
"And she had looked so magnificent riding out in front of us with her bone rifles and…" absently Kagami touched his mouth, as if he were lost in his memory. "She seemed immortal, like this world couldn't touch her. She was strong."
Madara tried to remember the girl they picked up off the road, the one who bled so prettily over the flowers, but he had never gotten a good enough look at her face to remember it.
Ah, but he remembered the stories he heard of her, the ones the halls seemed to whisper to him when he walked on by. Everyone inside the city seemed obsessed with this girl, the one they dubbed saint. She had been curing the diseased and the near dead as a healer, which was her profession, but she ran with a wolf at her side and had the hands that could kill just as easily.
There were all sorts of stories about her history and her fate, few of which he believed. Even if he had met a few of the people she had cured of an incurable disease…it was no simple think to be one of the blessed.
"And she's gone?" He asked, quietly, feeling a quiet loss.
"The body must have been devoured and mutilated beyond recognition. Her wolf companion was….also mutilated, but left in the mouth of the beast it died under. The only one who tried searching through the grime for her pieces was…" And at this Kagami looked to Kiba who still stood like a ghost. "He was the last the come….the last to leave."
Madara studied the boy again and remembered the times they had gone hunting. Kiba had been talkative and cheerful and full of youth. It wasn't hard to imagine him falling in love with a pretty older woman who came into his family all of a sudden. It was the trademark of young boys with imaginations larger that their ages.
Thinking back, Madara almost recalled Kiba mentioning his dream woman to a few men, lamenting their separation and his seemingly unreturned feelings. So she had been the one who ruled his heart and mind. It all made better sense now.
"I'm sorry for your loss. Quickly, you should get out of the cold and into the warm waters to clean yourselves of the blood. You're all a sight. Kagami, you'll come with me for a more in depth brief. I want to know more of this incident."
The men broke off as they were told and Shizune went over to Neji's side, ushering him away when he tried to shy away from her upon initial contact. She said something soft and honest that made him turn to follow, but there was noone for Kiba.
Before anyone who noticed could say anything, the wolf boy turned sharply and mounted his wolf before kicking in and steering his dog out of the courtyard and beyond the gates to the castle.
"Leave him," Neji said when a solider nearly turned to follow Kiba out. "He will mourn his own way."
"I will vanish in the morning light; I was only an invention of darkness."
-"The Lady of the House of Love" by Angela Carter
That night Madara slept fitfully, and the next night's parties couldn't even annoy him enough to shake the numbness that came from hearing Kagami's story. Kagami told all, and explained in greater detail the connections and relationships of the plotters and the thwarters. He learned of Sakura, the living saint they all adored. Shizune's stories and accounts of her miracles were too detailed and honest to be elaborations.
He learned of the day she came back, bloodied beyond the scope of Shizune's capabilities. In the story Sakura dragged herself all the way back from the lands devoted to the mad wolves with her injuries owning whole chunks of her body. Shizune did her best, but it was bad and yet somehow Sakura pulled through. No, she did more than just pull through. In mere days it was as if she had never almost died. The nuns at the church called it a miracle and prayed for her blessings to be their own when they bent their knees.
Madara was supposed to be asking more about the Hare tribe and their plots and the assassins they had managed to capture alive before they could kill themselves, but all he wanted to hear about was the pink haired beauty who healed with the power of God and fought like one of His avenging angels. It was only a little agonizing to hear about such an amazing dead woman he would never be able to touch.
He could appreciate what the Hyuga boy and Kiba saw in her, even if he had been denied that possibility thanks to circumstances. It was five days later when he caught himself in the middle of prayer and had to stop because his lips were whispering latin for her, for Sakura's blessing, for her healing hands to do something other than heal. A woman he could never touch, he felt closer to than any woman before or after.
"God, send me some relief from this fervor," he prayed, feeling frustrated with the wanting that wouldn't leave his heart alone.
He wanted her. He wanted the saint for his own. He wanted to touch something holy and burn under her lips. He could see it in the candles he lit for her, the anti shadow of her form dancing for him. Her candles danced more wildly than the others.
He clutched her icon in his hands, holding it as firmly as he dared without wrinkling the likeness of her face framed in golden halo rings. "I pray for a miracle." His thumb brushed the outline of her face and he felt the warmth of it through the petty paper. "In a world where there is no color, I pray for fire."
When he stood from the alter he felt oddly emptied, as if he had poured himself into his words and spent himself into a deficit. It wasn't a terrible feeling, but the emptiness was gnawing. All of his wants and greed were that much more evident when he looked inwards to examine himself.
'I want, I want, I want….'
Every step he took with another woman in a dance he had played through the night before was like another heartbeat that echoed his feelings.
'I want her hair, I want her eyes, I want her lips, I want her hands,'
It was terrible and he felt miserable for it, knowing this was not how a healthy man his age should act about a saint he worshiped. In his pocket he kept a bone from her wolf's spine on a string. He had paid a fortune for it, but treasured it like it was beyond measure. He had wanted a bone from her, but the Uchiha who went to the grounds couldn't find anything human. That made sense. The divine didn't seem to like leaving their pieces behind for the greedy to covet and hoard. Why should she be any different?
He excused himself early from the dance and retreated to his room, taking the long trip in silence. He didn't take an escort and he didn't pass anyone in the halls, but when he stopped outside the doors to his retreat he felt a presence. His saber felt lighter at his side, eager to be drawn, but Madara only kept his hands there to hover before pushing open the door and letting himself in.
The room was dark, but there was enough light to see the shape and figure curled atop his bed. And even without the light he could smell the blood and see the stains seeping into his white sheets. The form moved and he was quick to throw the modest candles into the heart, setting off a roar of flames the brought enough light back into the room so that he could see what he was looking at.
His breath caught in his throat and he wanted to fall down on his knees when she raised her head up and stared at him through his broken lashes. A ribbon of blood encircled her temples, like a circlet of suffering. Her hands were bloodied too and her chest was dark with the fluid as well.
"You're dead," he breathed, daring to approach.
"I'm also supposed to not be here," she intoned, tilting her head slightly like a bird would. "Sometimes things work out that way. Are you going to give me trouble about it?"
He took another step until his waist was up against the mattress, his eyes looking across those sheets at her. "Never." His hands shook at his sides.
She breathed out loudly into her arm and shifted back onto her side, showing off the stains of red that pooled around her form. There was a terrible amount of blood already soaked into the sheets, but she didn't look like it bothered her.
"What happened to you?" he breathed out, studying her in greater detail, trying to be critical and less star struck. "They said you perished."
"I'm sure that's what it was. It wasn't the first and it won't be the last time I nearly die in this stupid dream." Absently she traced one hand over the hole in her stomach and he saw her fingers hover over a cleaner area as if remembering an old wound. "But no, I'm not dead. Not like any of you are. Damn if that makes any sense to a dream like you. Just…don't think about it, don't mind me."
She tried rolling over but froze and flinched before sliding back onto her side and into her original position. Her skin was pale and her eyes shadowed deeply.
Without meaning to, Madara reached over to feel the cool of her skin and recognized the touch as being something unhealthy. "You're sick."
"Don't know how that happened," Sakura hummed. "Doesn't matter. Won't stop me…"
Madara climbed atop the bed and crawled over to her, hesitating when her eyes flashed up to pin him with a stare. He swallowed and moved slower, taking her gently by the shoulders and folding her up between his arms to rest against his chest. She protested with a verbal grunt of annoyance, but didn't try to move away. Pulling a cloth from his pocket, he dipped it into the water basin beside his bed and used it to clean the blood off her face.
"What are you doing?" She asked with her eyes closed, head limp against his chest.
"Removing the grim and blood of battle. I may not know how you came to me wounded, but I can only assume you're here for a reason. I'll treat you with care so long as you're under my roof and protection. You need not worry while here."
"I'm not worried," she grumbled, not bothering to move. If anything she seemed to relax against him. Only when his free hand traced the curve of her cheekbone did she look up with a thin veil of annoyance to her eyes. "What are you doing now?"
"You're real."
"Duh."
"No. You were, for so long, a story, an idea. You were never human. You were a saint raised by wolves, a warrior with fur, a healer from the trenches. You were never a…."
Her eyebrow twitched a millimeter, barely noticeable. "A what?"
"A girl."
"I assure you, I'm very much human. It hurts like hell so I know I'm still alive, too. Ah, I better not wake up here tomorrow night. I should still be in the kingdom."
"What kingdom?"
Sakura shook her head. "Doesn't matter. It won't make a difference. I should have moved on from this place but for some reason I came back, to recover from these I would guess." The illustrate her point she held up her hands and Madara saw the blood crusting over her palms.
He grabbed one and began wiping it clean, taking extra care around the site of the wound so that his rubbing wouldn't break open the natural seal of blood. "How did you do this?"
"I grabbed a sword the wrong way." The way she said it she could have been laughing about it. Maybe she was.
"You should be more careful than that. You could hurt your hands more seriously if you're not careful."
"I'm only alive because I'm careful. Trust me, I didn't want to end of here like this, chased out with my tail between my legs like a coward. I hate retreating."
He hummed in agreement, understanding the sentiment perfectly. "It hurts as well as any other wound, the injury of pride, but that is what we must endure to survive."
Her laugh was a tickle of sound. "Somehow I have a hard time imagining the Tsarevich ever retreating from anything or suffering a loss of pride."
"Madara."
"Hm?" She looked up, almost confused, but her eyes were too heavy with drowsiness to pull of the expression convincingly.
"Madara, I am the Tsarevich to my subjects, to my citizens, to my enemies. I am Madara to few."
She made a thoughtful sound deep in her throat, almost like she understood. "Hm. Madara." He felt a shiver when she said his name and he wanted to hear it again. He wanted her to say it over and over for him, but he kept his wishes captive from his voice. Her voice had oddly silenced him and now all he could do is let her settle against him and drift closer and closer to sleep.
He laid her cleaned hand down and picked up the second bloodied palm. He was just as gentle as he was with the first and when he was done she was nearly asleep on his chest. Instead of laying her hand down he held on, curling his fingers around her own. She was much smaller than him, right down to the size of her hands. She was still cold to the touch so he pulled her closer, trapping her in between his shoulders and knees like his body was a cage dressed in black. He unfastened the half cap of black fur and pulled it around to drape over her. She managed to open her eyes and look up at him when he tucked the fur under her chin, but didn't stir more than that. She was a dozing doe in his lap.
"Dorogaya, he whispered into her hair. She didn't respond when he called her love. The men called her other names, and he remembered a few of them.
Devushka, the beauty.
Volk zhenshchina, wolf woman, or sometimes just Volk.
Svyatoy, hallowed or saint.
He wondered if anyone before him had held her like this and called her love into her hair. He hissed her crown and whispered the word again. "Dorogaya."
He loved the way it rolled off his tongue and weighed on the tip before spilling past his lips. He imagined she liked hearing it too, even though she didn't say anything. Her eyes fluttered every so often, so that he knew she wasn't fully awake or fully sleeping. She was caught in between, weary and weakened from her adventures and troubles no doubt.
The cynical said of his brain wondered if that was the only reason she was staying with him in his arms. He shut down that camp of thought and kissed her hair again, fiercely protective of the idea that she didn't mind his affections. A part of his heart would always worship her, but a larger part of his heart wanted to possess her in a way that wasn't forceful or cohesive. He wanted his chest to swell when she called him hers. He wanted her to want him almost as much as he wanted her.
"My dorogaya."
With his nose he edged the hair away from her face and kissed her temple. He felt high so he kissed her again.
Her eyes twitched and she almost moved. Her voice was a whisper riding her breath out past her lips but Madara heard it well enough to recognize it for what it was. "Sasori."
When he woke up in the morning there was blood staining his sheets and the breast of his jacket front, but there was no sign of the saint. Sakura had vanished as if she were nothing more than an invention of the night.
"I will tell you what she was like. She was like a piano in a country where everyone has had their hands cut off."
-Angela Carter
Samhain was upon them, and the servant were in a tizzy to prepare everything to perfection. A whole week of resting had proceeded this night and by now most of the Boyer were chomping at the bit to rub elbows again.
The Samhain festival celebrated on the Autumn Equinox had always been a favorite of the dark haired prince, but this year the festivities seemed especially dry in comparison to previous years. Or maybe it was just him, lacking the motivation to become excited for anything that didn't have green eyes and scarred palms. Even the hunting had become mundane. Noting seemed capable enough to thrill him anymore.
Outside the room there were people in a frantic rush to put together the last minute details for the night, but Madara didn't pay it any mind as he stared down at the body on the floor. The body belonged to a young male with skilled hands and silver hair to match his gray eyes. He was glaring up at Madara through his bloodied lashes. A pool of red was seeping out from beneath him to fill the spaces in between the stones like black mirrors. He would not live much longer.
"You've become desperate to try and come at me with only one body. Was I not worth a pair of bunny assassins?" Madara taunted dully.
The boy tried to rise and Madara brought down the heel of his boot across the man's face. There was a splatter of red against the wall and Madara heard bone fall against stone.
"Bastard prince," the man spit, jaw trembling.
"I'm impressed. You're still able to speak with your face looking like that. Maybe I wasn't forceful enough." Madara kicked again and sidestepped a stray kick from the wounded male before dropping only his heel down on the assassin's throat. The male looked up, his eyes wide and whiter that bone. There was an unspoken question being asked.
"No," Madara answered. "I'm not going to ask you anything, I don't bother with interrogations, and unfortunately for you, I'm not in the mood to go fetch anyone else suited for information extraction, so your voice means nothing to me. Pity. You cursed me well enough."
There was an awful choking sound and Madara almost winced at the black blood mixing with spit as the assassin tried to breath through a crushed windpipe. He would be dead in seconds, but Madara didn't feel like waiting seconds.
His blade was a thin fold of metal through the man's neck, severing the spine and ending his life.
Madara had just killed a man. He stood in the man's blood, towering over the man's limp body. He had just extinguished the life of another human being, a sin in the eyes of God, and he still didn't feel anything. Normally such trespassed from religion could at least excited him. Not this time.
He wiped his saber clean and sheeted it at his side before turning and returning to his room, leaving the door to the hallway open so someone would see the body in the servant's study sooner or later. If he told someone it had been him or that this assassin had been out for him he would be assigned a detail, and he didn't want that.
In his room, with the door closed behind him, he took a stalk of dried wisteria and threw it onto the fire, not caring that it was already pleasant smelling enough in the room. The colored smoke drifted up with the flames and he could smell the earth from his hearth.
Breathing in a lung full of the smell, he undid the buttons to his jacket and stripped down to his skin. In nothing but his unmentionables he pulled a comb though his hair, braided it down the back, cleaned his back and neck with oils, and dressed himself.
He watched the figure in his mirror pull through the double layer of buttons on his military jacket in bright red. He straightened his sash and pierced it with pins and medals, taking care to keep them straight.
He was pulling through a gold pin in the shape of the imperial double headed eagle when Shisui knocked. Madara knew it was Shisui at the door because that boy was faster than any of the other Uchiha and the knock had been hurried. Also, Madara had known the boy long enough since the day Shisui became part of her personal guard.
"Enter," the older prince called out to his other distant cousin.
Shisui opened the door a crack, bowed, and then stepped forward. "A detail has been assembled to lead you from your room to the grand hall. A body was found."
"I know, that was my work," Madara replied dully. He finished with his pin and turned to look away from the mirror. "There will be no such escort. Tell this to Kagami personally, that's my order."
Shisui knew better than to argue. He clicked his heels together and bowed low at the waist before stepping out backwards. Satisfied, Madara turned back to the mirror to look his appearance over once more. His boots were freshly polished and shone black against the fabric of his equally dark pants. His younger brother left behind in St. Petersburg would have worn white, but Madara was not a man known for his use of color. His red military coat and the gold of his medals was the only pop to distinguish his outfit. Even his sash was black and the half cape he wore over one shoulder was trimmed heavily in black bear fur.
He was tugging on his gloves when Kagami entered, not even bothering to knock.
"I told you no detail."
"I'm not detail, I'm your cousin. My responsibilities include making sure you're properly dressed and arrive without being assassinated in the hallway." The younger Uchiha pointed to something left on table by the bed. "Your mask."
Like the grand parties in Budapest, his mother was throwing a masque ball to celebrate the Autumn Equinox. The black half mask that flared like bat wings at the ends was handpicked for him by his mother. Few knew him better and few loved him as well, so he picked up the mask and tied it on, willing to endure it for her.
He didn't say anything more to Kagami and Kagami didn't say much in reply, but he did pull out his own mask and hold onto it as they walked the halls. He didn't tie it on or lift it to his face until they were closer, and when he did Madara saw that his cousin's mask was gold to match his buttons. Fitting.
The grand ballroom was decorated splendidly. No expense had been spared to show off the wealth of the Russian crown and the walls in and of themselves were testimony enough for that. Mirrors in golden frames hung floating along two parallel walls, the back wall was window and glass doors up to the vaulted ceilings, and the last wall was choked full of a small orchestra.
Small rooms off to the sides had been lavishly decorated with fainting couches and lounge areas for more intimate conversations and activities. One of the rooms had a fortune teller there reading the palms and cards for the guests as they pleased in exchanged for their toss away coins and a place to sleep in the kitchen at night. Another room had a small glass table fashion in a round design set up for the seance a Boyar woman promised.
Madara found his mother with his eyes easily enough as Kagami led him in. She was seated prettily across a couch by the back windows, fanning herself demurely and watching him with her hawk like eyes. If he tried to leave again she would see. Maybe she wouldn't stop him, but she would see and that was enough to keep him from thinking about escape.
"I will go greet my mother." Madara nodded across the dance floor but didn't bother mentioning anything about what he planned on doing afterwards.
Kagami hung back, but was still a shadow to Madara's movements, even though the elder caught Kagami getting distracted by all the pretty ladies in full skirts dancing across the floor. There were quite a few beauties tonight, due to the importance of the the presence of the unmarried, unengaged crown prince being promised to attend.
"Looking for someone?" Madara teased his cousin before pulling ahead and reaching his mother.
The queen reached up to kiss his cheeks and he returned the gesture. Her headdress was immaculately decorated in beads and jewels that tapered to a point, encasing her head in the outline of a spade. Her neck was thick with just as many jewels.
"My lonely child, why do you look so forlorn all the time? Tonight is a festive night. You should enjoy yourself."
Madara sighed, kneeling down next to his mother. "Forgive me. I can't seem to find any interest in anything these days. I even killed someone earlier and I felt nothing for it."
His mother made a sympathetic face and kissed her fingers before touching them to his face once more in a sign of affection. "My poor pet, I'm sorry you're in such low spirits that not even blood can rouse your mood. Dance for me, will you? You might be able to run away from your melancholy."
Madara smiled up at his mother in appreciation before reaching over to kiss her once more. He loved how she was so understanding of his natural tendencies and disposition. He inherited them from her, after all. His father was fierce, to be sure, but it was his mother who was the fearsome one.
Before he could move far a Boyer his mother favored approached them with her daughter on her arm. Madara pretended to smile and listen, but tuned out the excuses before numbly accepting the girl's hand and leading her out onto the dance floor. A slow waltz by Shostakovich made it easy for him to insert himself in between the dancers on the dance floor, but made it stiff company as the girl in his arms looked like she wanted to talk during the slow steps. He wanted to bite the inside of his mouth. The waltz would not last much longer.
"Forgive my silence," he intoned.
"Of course, treasured Tsarevich. I should not dare to think that you remember the child from Kurba.
Madara's mind processed this information. Kurba was an old Russian village of Yaroslavl Oblast situated 20 km southwest of Yaroslavl on the open high place on the right bank of the river Kurbitsy. The only reason he remembered so much was because of the church there. The main attraction of the village was the Church of Kazan Mother of God Icon. Beyond that, his memory served him little, but that was fine since the waltz was ending.
The pair stepped away from each other, she curtsied, he bowed, and another woman was waiting for his arm. He quickly lost track of the masked faces that took up space on his arms, one right after the other.
Across the room he saw the Hyuga boy dancing and when they passed close enough, Madara saw enough to guess that Neji wanted to be at the ball just as much as Madara. At least someone aside from him was suffering through this.
Without his consent, his mind fell back to Sakura, the pink haired saint with greed eyes rarer than emeralds. Neji still thought she was dead and that wasn't true. Was it worth telling anyone? Was it even worth mentioning at all? For all he knew she was a dream, or something he made up inside his head and convinced himself to be real.
No, she was real, those bloodstains were real enough. Her skin was real enough. There was no way he would have been able to dream up that night in such perfect detail. And considering the way it ended, it wasn't his ideal dream. The name she whispered when not quite asleep still haunted him like a splinter stuck under skin that's healed over. It wasn't painful, but it was annoying.
Once the waltz ended, Madara was quick to back out of his bow and make his way towards the room with the vagrant hired to read cards and palms. If he was lucky, enough mingling would be enough to shake off the bulk of his female suitors. At a masque, several gentlemen had taken advantage of the night to imitate the crown prince in style and looks. They were good decoys.
There was a line outside the makeshift tent she had set up, but he wasn't in a rush, so he waited his turn just like any other Boyer would, being careful not to attract too much attention. Minutes later, it was his time to be called forward. He pushed aside the curtains and let them fall behind him once he stepped inside.
The woman smiled at him from underneath her hood and chuckled to herself as he took his seat. "Give me your hand, boy."
"I was hoping for a reading of the cards."
The woman turned her head to one side, staring at him with a single eye before turning her head the opposite way and doing the same with her other eye. "It won't be as accurate. Don't you want both? One might have something important for you."
Both would take more time, and that meant more time away from the women. Madara nodded and scooted closer, looking interested as the old woman shuffled through her cards. The were faded, long, and soft when spread out across the fabric table top. "Choose three. Look for ones that call to you, that feel warmer, that reach farther."
Madara didn't give it much thought, but he picked three out and she removed them from the rest before laying them out in a row. She then held out the deck to him and shook it until he chose the one more card. She took it before he could get a look at it and laid it horizontal beneath the rest of his cards.
"First, your present." She flipped over the card and Madara saw that it was labeled the Three of Swords. A red heart hung suspended in the air against a background of clouds with three swords skewered through it.
"Your past," she intoned somberly. The card was the Two of Swords. On the card he saw a young, blindfolded woman who held a sword in each hand. She sat in front of a sea filled with rocks and crags that present obstacles to ships which need clear passage.
"Your future," the witch interrupted. When she flipped the last of his three cards his heart stung a bit. The Queen of Swords was clearly depicted on a throne of white with one held extended, palm out, the other brandishing a sword. There was growth and greenery towards the bottom of the card too, making it stand out against the others. But it was her face that made him stop breathing. It was the face of a saint with pale skin and rose hair. And even though here eyes were peacefully shut, he knew they were green.
"To elaborate, we look at where you are now before looking at where you have been. You are in pain, emotional pain of some sort. The Three of Swords is a card of grief and loss. It's a card for pierced hearts."
Her wrinkled hand moved to his Past card and tapped the woman in the picture. "In the past, you were face with a difficult decision. The blindfold shows that the woman in this card is confused about her situation and that she can see neither the problem nor the solution clearly. The swords she holds are perfectly balanced, showing a balanced and stable mind, and that both sides of the situation need to be addressed. The crossed swords are also symbolic of the need for a truce and the Suit of Swords indicates that the problem at hand needs to be resolved using logic and intellect. The waxing moon to the right of the woman shows a new beginning arising out of the solutions found for this problem."
"And the last one?" Madara asked, mentally making a connection between his inheritance of the thrown and the decisions he face at that point in his life.
"Your future….ah, yes. The Queen of Swords sits high on her throne with a stern look on her face indicating that no-one can fool her. In her right hand, she comfortably holds a sword pointed to the sky, and her left hand extends as if she has something to offer to others. Behind her is a spring sky, different from the winter settings on most other Swords cards, and this has an emergence and growth quality to it. The sky is clear, representing her clarity of mind as she considers matters of the intellect. A good card for you my prince, it shows you will rule well."
"But there is another meaning to it, isn't there? Why is it her on the card?"
"You're asking me why? The Queen of Swords represents the sternness of a mature intellect which is devoid of emotion." She pointed to the female's face. "In mythology, the feminine is associated with emotion, yet in this card the woman is stern and composed, and without much feeling. This card therefore represents the intellect's ability to judge and discern impartially, without the influence of emotion or sentimentality. This is in your future, and it could mean someone else, a person of such character is in your future, or it could mean this is your future self….which brings me to our last card. Turn it over yourself."
Madara did so and saw the face of a bearded white man on a throne pointed with four ram heads. Along the bottom banner it read, The Emperor. The woman across from his cackled. "Of course you would draw that card. No one other that our precious Tsarevich would have such a fate."
"What does this card mean?" Madara asked, only slitely annoyed that he was being laughed at.
"This is your card, the card that represents you. The Emperor is the father figure of the Tarot deck. He is the 'provider' and protects and defends his loved ones. He has established a solid family line and is often seen as the patriarch of a wide network of family members. He offers guidance, advice and wisdom to others and in doing so, demonstrates authority and grounding. Does this sound like you?"
"I wouldn't be able to tell you," Madara intoned, glancing back up at the Queen of Swords. "What about that palm reading?"
She held out her hand and he removed his glove for her. She made a sound deep in her throat as she traced the lines across his palm and then told him something about a short life, a lot of blood, a curse, and a frayed love line.
"What does that mean?" he asked, not entirely sure why he was bothering to ask anymore, since less and less made sense anymore.
"Nothing much, but you have a pocket here that's telling me you need to be out there tonight…on the waltzing floor with the one who holds your frayed love line together." And when the witch looked up over his palm he knew she was saying something apart from what she saw on his hand. "She will be waiting for you, alongside that curse."
He tried opening his mouth to say something but she shrieked over him, rising to chase him out, chanting loudly a mantra about his others were waiting and if he didn't like his fate he shouldn't have asked.
Before he could protest further, she was already inside with another customer, having not even bothered to ask for his coins in exchange for her troubles. Feeling a bit sideswiped and off kilter, Madara headed back out to the main room, taking care to keep to the corners and not attract too much attention. Those who looked too long would recognize him, but he hid behind his mask well enough that he could stay on the down low for a while.
"Curses and love lines…what I am to do after listening to such nonsense. It's not as if I believe any of it."
He caught himself mid step, captivated in an instant. There were so many skirts and so many bodies between her and him, yet the fullness of her form burned in his eyes like the light of the sun after an eternity underground. She had been dancing with the Hyuga boy, and after some quick little quirk of her lips, she was separated form him, hidden by a wall of bodies as she glided through the dancers to meet him and fall into his extended arms.
The band was playing his favorite waltz, and they fell into it perfectly. Her swan-like hands ghosted over his form to hold him at the shoulder and hand while he cupped her tapered waist.
"A vision," he breathed, still taken in by her.
She was his perfect match, dressed in flowing robes of black silk that shone like patches of the naked night sky when she moved. Encircled around her bodice was a belt of painted gold leaves to match the one around her face. Her hair was hidden under her headdress of black and gold, but her mask was fashioned like leaves that grew outwards away from her eyes. How she could have danced with Hyuga without him recognizing her was a mystery until he remembered the way she swept herself across the dance floor.
The Hyuga had recognized her, most likely, but had lost her.
Sparing a glance to his surroundings, he angled her away from the bulk of the dancers towards the back of the room with the windows. It was easier to move with a partner, and Sakura was a perfect partner, complimenting all his steps, even the ones he thought might be too long for her to match.
Together they waltzed away from the dance floor and when Sakura turned to look at where Madara was steering them he pulled her closer, drawing her hips towards his.
"I'm selfish," he whispered into her hair, not daring to say more about how his greed kept him from wanting any of the other men to look at her or chase her down or ask for explanations as to why she was alive.
"What a greedy man," she sang in her bell like voice.
He held her protectively to his chest as they danced straight out the door and onto the patio. She tried to pull away from him, out of the dance, but he kept going. Even outside they could still hear the waltz and the steps were too fiercely engrained into his memory he didn't know if he could stop midway through.
That, and he really didn't want to let her go.
"You left without a word."
She almost smiled, but it was too sly for him to read her lips. "I do that. Apparently it's a bad habit."
"I didn't enjoy your absence." He rubbed his thumb over her knuckles and loved the way she shivered. "It was quite vexing to have to clean up all that blood without so much as a thank you."
Her eyes went wide as she played innocent. "Thank you?"
She was painfully cute when she looked up at him like that. He wanted to take a bite out of her mouth and keep eating her until she was his. He wanted to teach her how to hunger for another man's lips the way he hungered for hers. His head made his face flush with the idea of her weak in the knees, pressed up against a wall, his mouth on her mouth…his mouth on her neck, his mouth on her chest. Oh, his heart was starting to hurt.
"Someone told me tonight that you were my future."
"Of did they?" Sakura asked with a hum, her lips curling at the corners into an almost smile. Maybe she knew what he was thinking. Maybe she knew how crazy she made him. Maybe it was all on purpose. "How did that happen?"
"I had my fortune read," Madara answered her, staring down at the saint he held in his arms. "I couldn't care about anything else. But she told me you will be in my future."
"Maybe she's right then. I don't know where I'll be going after this last kingdom, but I'll pray you're in one of them. It wouldn't be the first time someone's followed me or met me somewhere a second time around. Ah, sometimes it was annoying, too." Sakura closed her eyes and let her head drop down against his chest. "Not that I couldn't handle it."
"You shouldn't have to." He kissed the side of her face, where the bones around her eye stood out. "Point them out to me and I'll tear them apart for you, my dorogaya."
"You've called me that before." Sakura shook of his lips as they hovered above her ear. "But you told me to call you Madara. Why aren't I Sakura to you?"
"It's a term of affection and it's only for you. It makes me feel closer to you. For my dorogaya, anything you wish for is yours, any body not desired is removed, and any pleasure you seek is for me to provide. But this is true only for my dorogaya."
Sakura made a noise deep in her throat like she was thinking it over to herself. "For now…" she began. "I just want you to dance with me."
He pulled her closer and they fell out of the waltz steps. They swayed a bit from side to side her folded up against him. "You're wish…. He bent down to drape his black, bear trimmed cape around her shoulders. "…Is my command, dorogaya."
Like the clasps on a chain, they were looked into each other's embrace, secured with their bodies in spite of the movement of regal dance work that pulled on them. It felt natural and easy in a way dancing had never been before. Madara had no difficulty mastering the footwork or manners of dance, but when he danced perfectly he never notice. The perfect dance never felt like anything to him. When he danced with Sakura, he felt easy.
"You can't leave me again," he whispered into her hair.
"I have to. I'm not supposed to be here, and I should be going back."
"Don't ever leave. Stay with me like this. Dance with me forever, I beg of you. I'll make no request of anyone else, for I've never had need of such tactics."
Sakura almost pulled away to grin sarcastically up at him. "You mean 'asking someone?' Don't you ever ask anyone for anything?"
"No, I am the head of this empire, the one who wears the crown. I ask for nothing, I only receive." He closed the distance she had made when she pulled away by tugging her closer. He nuzzled his nose against the side of her face. "And in this moment of honesty I must confess I've never wanted anything so badly."
He felt her chuckle against him. "I almost hate to deny you."
"You wont," he answered, meaning his words to be a prophesy. He would make them truth, one way or the other.
"You're only human, Madara. The devils of my world aren't things you can stand against and I have to keep running, have to keep fighting, have to keep trying….least they devour me."
"You wouldn't have to run if you stayed with me. No satanic or heavenly power could possibly claw you from my side if that was my desire."
Sakura didn't laugh or smile. There was no subtle curve to the outline of her lips, and her eyes were dull when cast over his shoulder. She made a sound that resembled a stifled groan and squeezed the shoulder she held on to with her right hand. "Speak of the devil and he shall appear," she whispered.
The waltz was loud and demanding of attention in the background, but Madara faltered in his steps and fell out of the waltz to turn Sakura in his arms, holding her, while looking behind him to see the black sulfur creature with long ears and white eyes standing across the balcony. Something on four legs crouched alongside it with hunched shoulders and two rows of teeth in it's mouth, one behind the other.
"What is that?" Madara hissed, reaching for his saber with his free hand without hesitation. The animal at the demon's side snapped his teeth and Madara saw how long it's ears were. It was a fox, a black fox made out of darkness and ash with a fire heart that glowed throughout the body.
"My demon. I thought I might have been safer here, but I guess there is no dominion I can flee to between the woods and the kingdom that isn't under his power. How pitiful."
Instead of pressing up against him or hiding behind him, Sakura pulled out a long japanese sword with a bone handle inscribed with carvings of scorpions and wolves. The Scrimshaw sheath dangled from her free hand, detailed with the same beautiful artisan work. Absently, he made a mental note about the scorpions on her sword, wondering as to their significance.
"Sakura stay back," he commanded, his voice deeper and heavier than before. It was the voice of a prince who would be king. Of a man who would be emperor. Of a boy who would be Czar.
"I thought you would have noticed by now, Madara, that I'm the only person in your life you can't boss around. This is my demon, not yours."
She extended her sword arm and her blade followed like an extension of her limb. The stories of the saint said she used knives and a rifle, but he hadn't heard about how she wielded a sword. By the looks of it, she was expert with her blade of choice. In the moonlight, it almost seemed to glow a soft blue silver along the edges.
The demon snarled and from his side the beast fox opened it's mouth and our poured a black mass that transformed into a stampeding heard of bulls Sakura charged for. Madara took off after her, his own safety of no concern, and angled his sword out to slice through the first bull while she vaulted over it's horns to slash away at the second and third. She used few strokes, but each one was purposeful and took apart her beast enemies in a moment.
She leapt up over the fallen bodies of her enemies and when she touched down, they were ash along the cobblestone. Under the wind the folds of her dress flapped wild and Madara caught a glimpse of the pale skin of her ankles and the delicate curve of her bones sticking out. She was such a tiny thing, but she was in the dirt of danger ahead of him making her hands filthy.
She leveled her sword as another wave of animals poured forth, each set less threatening than the less. Rams, Cats, dogs, hawks…. It was apparently very early on that Madara was, at best, an afterthought in the demon's mind. The black creature couldn't care less about the crowned prince. His enemy was the saint. That only served to enrage Madara all the more. Not only was he being ignored, his treasured one was being targeted while he was being pushed back by wave after wave of monster beasts made of out black ash.
"Sakura!" Madara roared, hoping to summon her to his side. They could regroup together and he could keep a better eye on her from where he struggled. "Moi Sakura!"
The fox himself launched itself at her and Sakura swung her whole body into a decisive blow that flashed with the fox's claws in a furry of sparks that screamed at hissed with heat. She screamed a battle cry and the lights around them grew blinding. The demon dressed all in black hissed and threw up his hands to shield against the light a millisecond before Madara could. It lasted only a second, glowing brilliantly, and fading just as quickly as it came.
'We hid this world inside an egg,' a voice echoed in the whiteness before the blinding light became less.
And just like an invention of the darkness, Sakura was gone with the light. For a moment, Madara was stunned numb by the absence and then shook by it.
"Sakura," he called once. Then, louder and deeper in the voice of a Czar, "Sakura!"
There was no response and the dread grew vicious in his gut. A snake coiled around his heart.
"Sakura!"
One of his men came running from inside, eyes wide, hands ready to hold a sword for his prince. "Tsarevich?" Shisui asked, voice hesitant.
Madara pivoted on his heel, still searching for a shred of her, a sign or trace or track to prove her existence. His knuckles were white underneath his gloves and his saber rattled. Shisui didn't dare approach his prince, or dare to speak in his presence once again.
The echo of something he wasn't sure he actually heard reverberated inside his head. 'We hid this world inside an egg, and the egg was cracked open.'
"If the moon smiled, she would resemble you.
You leave the same impression
Of something beautiful, but annihilating."
-Sylvia Plath
It was hours before Madara returned to the interior walls of his castle, and by then it was early morning and most of the boyer were dead asleep in their own homes and beds. The ballroom was left a mess, but the maids would see to it in the later mornings after the sun came up.
Madara's mood was a cross between uncaring and foul. The world around him was a mess of leftover splendor and he couldn't care about any of it. His searching had proved a worthless endeavor. Even after enlisted the aid of some of his men and the hounds, nothing could be found of the saint.
Madara came in through the back and was going to cut straight to the hallway leading to his room but paused outside the separate room where he had his cards read to him last night. Not knowing why, he turned in and approached the table that had been left behind from the night before. The witch was gone, and so was the tent, but the table remained behind, and it had something on it. Madara took a step closer and stopped.
Still face up and on the fabric was the card for The Queen of Swords. Nothing else, no other card or cards, were left behind. In the picture a woman with rosy pink hair sat atop a throne with one hand outstretched, palm up, offering peace. In the other she held aloft her scrimshaw handled katana. Around her delicate white ankles grew a thicket of blood red poppies. Her crown was a laurel of gold leaves standing high on point, reaching for the empty sky.
Removing his gloves, the pads of his fingertips traced the fabric of the card, resting on her face. Her eyes were solid stones focused on a point with unwavering certainty.
Was that a future he would be a part of?
In one fluid movement, he scooped the card up and slipped it into the pocket above is breast within his jacket. It weighed almost as much as the cloud in his mind that was stripped with lightning and adorned with thunder.
He felt a stabbing behind his eyes and narrowed them into a polished glare. A tear of red pooled under the corner of his lids and snaked down his pale face.
"I always get what I want."
His eyes flashed red.
AN:/It was only a matter of time before I broke down and wrote in some Madara. Originally I was going to wait until the third kingdom where he has a major role along with the rest of the Uchiha, but it's a long ways off and I wanted Madara for Halloween. So, this was something I tinkered around with while writing Kingdom of Beasts. I got distracted by something shiny. Like Madara. Madara was my shiny thing. So, he will show up later, but I couldn't wait. Sorry, but not sorry.
What I'm working on mostly is the main piece, Kingdom of Beast. KOB will be the second chapter, this was like chapter 1.5.
I'm...between 1/3 and 1/4 done with the kingdom and it continues to be my main focus. I took a couple of weeks off where I did no writing at all, only because my internship got super intense and life just got really bad. (No, for real. I got sick from all the stress and lost like 10 pounds and had nightmares every night and felt like retching every morning.) But I'm past it and I told on of my teachers I felt like a Pokemon that evolved and got stronger. Not being able to write was super stressful and I'm glad I've worked enough to be able to have some free time I can give to writing.
I just want to write forever. Especially with that Naruto chapter 700 dick ending. I got mad and ranted about it and now I've moved on to pretending it never happened. I'm just going to look at the fanfiction. The fanfiction was what really sealed the deal for me with Naruto. It was a good story and a good series, but the fans were amazing and creative and all around awesome. Thank you for being amazing human beings. My efforts are for you guys. You deserve all the happiness in the world.
So, I hoped you liked this little bonus novella. The main course is still in the process of being written, but I'm on track to have it done by mid December/New Years at the latest. I hope you enjoyed yourselves. Please feel free to review and let me know what you thought. I always love hearing from your guys.
Vesper chan