Part 4 in the Obelisk Series:
Kingdom of Man, Kingdom of Beasts, Kingdom of Monsters, and Kigdom of Gods.

OBELISK:
KINGDOM OF GODS

"But the past cannot be changed, and we carry our choices with us, forward, into the unknown. We can only move on."
— Libba Bray, The Sweet Far Thing

The next night when she dreamed, a part of her was anxious and another part of her was afraid for what would happen, but most of her was excited for what would be there when she opened her eyes in the dream.

The world she came awake in was similar to the one she had been trapped in last time she dreamed. It was a tunnel of stone and clay bricks. He sat on the ledge overlooking a maze of stairs and arches that led anywhere and everywhere.

She took a step forward and he looked up, hearing her approach. "You're back," he said in the same matter of fact tone she knew him by.

"Yeah, but that's not what we're surprised about, is it? Isn't you being back a bigger deal?" Sakura teased, leaning down to sit beside her friend and dangle her legs off the edge as well. It felt good to let them swing freely.

Sai looked away from her face out across the maze pit. "I had not expected a second chance. I wondered if you would not chose the actor who's heart yours reached for, and compared to that, I doubted ever being able to see you again." He paused before adding, "Sasori would have helped you well, but not as well as I."

Sakura grinned, looking at the stairs and pits and arches and paths beyond her feet in the space below. "I know. I chose you because I…care for you Sai. I feel close to you as a friend, and that's such an inadequate word for it, but I cherish you as a great friend. I wanted you back so many times, I wanted your voice and you guidance, your help, your encouragement, and your belief in me. You don't know how many times I've missed you."

Sai's brows creased, creating wrinkles across his forehead. "You've done well enough to make it this far on your own. The actors grow less helpful the deeper you go into the dream."

"Yeah, I noticed that. But aside from that, I think if I had chosen Sasori it would have been because I wanted a beautiful distraction. I don't know if I would ever be able to make it out of this world if I had him at my side."

Sai wasn't an expressive person, but when Sakura looked over at him she caught a sly sort of smile trying to tug up his lips. "Yes. He would not have done you justice in this game. Is that another reason you chose me?"

Sakura shrugged. "Who else would know more than a guide, and who else could I trust more than a guide who gave his life to help me advance through these trials? Sasori might have been fun to dream about being with, but I want to win this, I want out of this nightmare, and I intend to take the straight and narrow for that. I know it's going to be hell, and another beautiful distraction might just be what breaks me."

When Sai laughs the sound is everywhere, bouncing off the walls and filling up the void. Sakura is only slightly unnerved by the sound of it.

"Yes. How terrible for them. The world was not ready for a winner to the Obelisk until now. I can see why I first believed in you." When he looks at her Sakura doesn't doubt he will follow her to the end of everything. "You were not like the others who came before, so blind with dreams of glory, they missed the weight of the nightmare."

Sai's words trigger a memory in Sakura and she turns away before Sai can see her expression sullen. "Blind with glory or blind with godhood? You never told me what the Obelisk really was. I thought it was a curse, a means of punishment."

"Was Madara really that bad?"

Sakura's face burns as she turns to glare at the boy who never joked. He seems more expressive now, lighter, freer, less restricted in her presence. "Did you just make a joke?"

"You've had a terrible effect on me," he said.

"I'm not sure if I can get used to this," Sakura grumbled.

Sai's eyes are more reflective, taking in everything, but he looks away from her when he speaks. "Would you have done as well as you have, come as far as you have, fought as hard as you have if you knew the truth? Your misconception fueled your desire to finish the worlds and progress through the trials with a unique purpose. You wanted such a humble thing. You will make a fine god."

Sakura stands up, scrambling off and away from the ledge. "No!" The dust under her toes makes miniature clouds around her ankles from her hasty movements. "No, that's not going to happen. I'm not going to become a…a…"

"You're understanding of godhood is extravagantly grand, but Shiva, Apollo and Isis were flawed creatures with plenty of sins between them. They existed in great power for generations and ages in many cultures with many names before their end. Gods die, new ones rise, that is the way of things. Things we can not touch, those things last forever, but not us."

"I don't want that," she snapped.

Images of churches and cathedrals, prayer candles, saints, weeping women, and prayer beads nearly drown her. Godhood wasn't something so trivial for her. Those who still believed in God from her family made mass and communion a way of life. She had seen shrines and temples, places where pilgrims could travel to honor minor deities, but that all seemed more like a fairytale. If godhood was something a person like her had access to…if she could become a god in some random twist of fate, the idea of god was insultingly underwhelming.

"No." Sai's voice broke her train of thought. He was standing up, moving away from the ledge as well. "Do not think of it like that. I know what you know, I've been in the library of your mind and your limited language is partly to blame for this. Don't think of an incomprehensible being, but the fairytales and mythologies. Those are gods and they are not the end of the story, nor are they the beginning of anything. What you are in this world right here," he said reaching for her hand. In the palm of her hand a poppy flower bloomed. "You are a god here."

"I remember saying something like that," Sakura groaned, crushing the flower between her fingers and pulling away. "But I was being stupid and emotional and I was just so…so angry." Her heart skipped into a faster beat. "I caused so much destruction, I killed a lot of people."

"Dreams-"

"I killed them because I wanted to! I liked killing them, I liked feeling powerful. I wanted them to suffer for what they did to me. I felt justified, so very justified in all that I did because I could. It didn't matter if it was a dream or not, I don't think it would have mattered if it wasn't a dream. Sai, I'm capable of killing. These trials have made me into a-" her breath caught in her throat, keeping the words locked in there. "Shit, that's what's supposed to happen. In order to advance you have to be cruel, don't you?"

"Most gods are."

Sakura moaned, dropping the crushed poppy to hold her face between her hands. "Sai!" She stumbled back a step, rocking. "I can't think like that. If I won, if I won and took those powers with me into the waking world I would be a monster. I would end up killing someone one day."

"It's not the same. Here is not there."

She dropped her hands from her face and grabbed him around the shoulders. He wasn't much taller than her, so when she held him close they were nearly eye level, with him being the taller person by a handful of inches. She squeezed his arms, looking up into his eyes. "Sai, you said you thought I could beat this thing, you said you believed in me. Was it because you thought I was cruel? Did you think I would win because you saw something dark in me?"

He didn't shake her off, but reached up to touch her elbows, holding her where she shook. "Many men before you have been cruel, few have been kind, others have been viscous beyond description. When they dreamed, they dreamed selfishly with narrow minds and narrower imaginations. I never believed in any of them and I did not believe in you because you were cruel or kind."

Sakura felt grass underneath her feet and the cracks between the stones began to sprout a bed. It wasn't much, but when she looked over her shoulder down the hall she saw the body of a white deer, and then a couple of doe. Between then the shadow of a horned king walked. She blinked and the vision was over.

Shikamaru and the deers

"Cruel as you may believe yourself to be, we do not believe in you because of it. This dream loves you in a way I've never seen before. Manipulating it comes so easily to you after all this time. The confines and restrictions other actors have tried to put on you were broken by your will. All actors are lovers of the dreamer, but never has a dreamer been so widely loved as you."

Sakura felt herself shaking and dropped her head to his shoulder. "You didn't see the last gate. They nearly killed me."

"They were supposed to. The Gate of Bones, or the Gladiator Boneyard was meant to be a loveless, hopeless wasteland. No one should have adored you there, and yet…"

It still hurt to remember. "Kiba protected me."

Sai nodded. "Also, the one who was meant to be your tormenter was more conflicted over you than he should have been. Indra and his brother were almost gods themselves, thanks to their bloodlines. Alas, godhood was not for them. They carried that darkness with them into this state of existence, bitter at their loss and tormenting others who attempt to do what they could not. He should have done far worse to you than a kiss or two."

Sakura made a noise of embarrassment and turned her face away in Sai's shoulder. Exhaling she felt her fingers again and pushed away, straightening up and pushing down the front of her dirty shirt-dress from the night previous. She felt the rough fabric under her fingertips and focused on that to help ground her. She trailed her hands down the front of her shirt again and again calming down with each pass.

"Better?" he asked.

"Yeah. I think it would just be better if I didn't think about it right now. I need to take this one step at a time, one thing at a time. You were right, this was easier when all I had to worry about was dying. I'll think about the godhood stuff after I win. For now, it's a bit conceited to think that's really something I have to worry about. Didn't you say this was the hardest kingdom?"

Sai hummed, taking her by the wrist and tugging her along. "Yes, typically it is. However, your strengths and weaknesses are well suited to this world. You can manipulate the dream with fluidity and have a mind for puzzles. In this world, there are fewer actors and more horrors."

"Wait a jog-what's my weakness? What do you think is my weak point?"

Sai pulled her along and Sakura followed willing, even as they approached the head of a staircase that led to another tunnel. "Your compassion for the dead is misplaced. You care too much for these actors." They started to trot down the stairs and Sai let go of her wrist to trust her to follow on her own. "Though they seem to care for you just as well, so maybe it is not a weakness, only a distraction."

She huffed, following him down the stairs and onto the landing that turned into an path under an arch. "If you say so. Where are you taking me now?"

His responding chirp was deceptively cherry. "To the first of four tasks meant to kill you."

"Of course."

Sakura kept her mouth shut as Sai led her through a labyrinth of halls and turns, both up and down staircases in seemingly no coherent order. The walls were painted in places and Sakura noted with a sick roll of revulsion that so many of the murals were illustrations of actors who had traveled through the dream in the past. Most of the illustrations were of how the past dreamers died. A few were recognizable as actors.

She almost paused when she saw one that couldn't have been an actor, even though it followed the pattern of all the others. The man in the center of the art piece was more creature than human with curling horns and long feathered wings. He was breathing fire into a horde of hands coming up from underneath him. He stood atop a pile of dead bodies, blackened from flame.

"Sakura?"

When she turned Sai was walking back towards her. He glanced at the mural and then down at her with a knowing look. "Madara came very close. He understood how to manipulate the dream well."

"That's Madara?" Sakura asked, eyes darting back to the body in the middle of the piece, searching for a sign she could recognize. Black wings made sense, the horns, and the fire were also logical clues, but there was something about him that didn't look or feel like the Madara she had gotten to know in the previous kingdom.

Sai shrugged. "He was one of the more popular dreamers in our history. He got far, but after his death in the last kingdom it seemed like every son he sired made an attempt to do what he could not. So many of his kin have been forgotten by the Obelisk. You've seen only a fraction of the decedents of his once proud clan."

Sakura felt Sai tug on her wrist and turned away from the picture to follow her friend down another set of stairs and through a tunnel of stone before emerging in a new room that looked to be at the bottom of the bit, since Sakura could see dozens of staircases in and around the walls above her.

"I'm not going to ask how that made sense, we didn't go down enough stairs to be at the bottom."

"Did you forget who I am? I am the Sigh of Dejection, the boy who guides the Appointed, bane of hate, bastard born, ash formed, and the knower of hidden ways." He looked backwards at her over his shoulder, eyes gleaming with memory and mirth.

"Do these count as secret ways?" Sakura asked, waving a hand around her at the walls and floors above her.

Sai nodded. "Anything built in the dream, with few exceptions, is known to me. I am the knower of hidden ways as well as puzzles and paths you may encounter. I will be able to help you circumvent the world you are trapped in better than any actor. But, you knew I would be useful to you when you chose me over the redhead."

"Maybe the thought crossed my mind."

Sai took a few steps towards one of the walls and touched the outline of the mural. "Here, this is where we must begin."

The mural was different from the others, drawn in a different style that suited ballpoint pens and wood prints better than the flat forms on stone that Egyptian art was known for. The wall had two murals carved into it's stone, and the wall directly opposite it had two as well. When Sakura turned, she saw that each of the four walls that made up the open room had a pair of murals decorating it in the same bizarre style.

The first of the two murals on wall one was larger and the more dominate art piece, while the other was less mural and more hyrogliphics. Sakura had to take a step back to see it all. It was a creature, not quite beast and not quite like any monster she knew about. It had the upper body and arms of a old wrinkled human with fingers too long and pointed to be quite right. The body beneath the rib cage was a writhing mess of tentacle like appendages curling and rolling each other. The creature floated above a water source against a black sky. When Sakura tilted her head back to look at it's face she saw something that looked more like a knot in a tree's trunk. The head was a hole between twisted and withered flesh. It's face was void and watching.

"What is that thing?" Sakura asked, almost afraid to speak in fear of this creature painted four times as large as her.

"It is the Crawling Chaos. One of the primordial creatures birthed out of what gave the Obelisk it's power. Before the Egyptians from ancient times sealed the power away inside the Obelisk you hold on your nightstand, it was a free roaming power that birthed four terrible creatures. Bastard gods." Sai pointed. "This is the first of them, the Crawling Chaos, but it goes by many other names. God of a Thousand Forms, Stalker among the Stars, Black Pharaoh, Faceless God, Messenger of the Other Gods, and so on."

"Sounds pleasant."

"You'll have to fight it."

Sakura gut dropped like a stone in a pit. She had faced down monsters and beasts before. One more shouldn't be a big deal, but for some reason this one was. This one felt like it was…a whole other level.

Swallowing her fear and masking her discomfort with an easy shrug of her shoulders, Sakura waved to the drawing. "Yeah, no big deal. I can take one on."

"You'll have to take the other three on as well."

Sakura couldn't hide the way she flinched. "Four? Why are there four of them?"

"Because this is the Kingdom of Gods and it's not meant to be easy for you to attain godhood. Did you expect someone to hold your hand at the end?"

"I didn't say I couldn't do it," Sakura bit out, looking back at the Crawling Chaos on the wall. It wasn't the most terrifying image she had ever seen, but it still chilled her in a way that couldn't be rationalized by mere visual study. "I've done hard things before."

Sai watched her a moment before adding. "At the center of this world you will find the Obelisk, but it is surrounded by a never ending sandstorm that is impossible to pass through. Defeating the four gods and sealing their remains in stone tablets will end the storm, allowing you access to the Obelisk."

"How do you know this?" Sakura asked.

"That is how it has always been. Every other kingdom has been something constructed out of the dreamer's memories and dreams, but this is the only world that never changes. These gods can not be erased from the dream's narrative, and so this world remains unchanged. You were wise to summon me for more than this reason, but one of my roles was to help build the secrets of this world. I will know how to guide you, but the trails are for you to face."

"You're not going to be my support companion in battle?" Sakura teased, imagining Sai equipped with a standard melee weapon for the first time, following her around and getting his butt handed to him when he didn't know what to do.

"I have many skills, but that is not one of them," he admitted freely.

She could have asked for Kisame, but she didn't. She chose Sai and she wouldn't regret it.

Her voice was firm when she spoke. "Show me the other gods."

Sai took her to each of the remaining three walls, one at a time. The Deamon Sultan, The Black Goat of a Thousand Young, and lastly, The Key and the Gate. Each was terrifying in it's own way, each sent chills down her spine. Sai told her about each, about how they were named, why they were named as they were, and what she could expect when she encountered each.

"At the base of this tomb the Crawling Chaos resides. The other three will be for us to find, but in the past they have either been hidden in similar tombs or ensnared by rulers. I suspect, there is at least one Pharaoh in this version of the Kingdom of Gods that you must face."

"Only one?"

Sai shrugged. "Sometimes there are two, of upper and lower Egypt, who fight for power. Sometimes the king of the thieves is an enemy, and sometimes the priests are warmongers, I only know of the unchanging things. All else is left to Baki to decide."

"What do you think he'll decide?"

"Baki is the most difficult to predict, as his motives are the least tangible, but I think it would be safe to say it will depend on how much he likes you. He knows you have an unnaturally strong sway over the other actors, and even the ones most famous for their hatred of the dreamer are reluctant to oppose you. If he likes you we will see more actors. If not…wild gods in the desert."

"I'm not sure which I'm more terrified of."

Sai suddenly jerked his head off, staring off into the darkness of a far off corner. Sakura opened her mouth to ask him about it when she felt it too, the tug of the dream ending. She would be waking up soon, and it was about time. She felt like she had spent days walking and talking with Sai, but knew it couldn't have been that long…could it?

"In the last world, the last gate, I dreamed for several days in the curse's world before waking, but when I did truly wake, only hours had passed, why is that?"

The dream was closing in, Sakura could feel it tugging for her. She pulled back, just enough to stay the extra minute she needed to hear Sai answer her question. She would leave only after she heard him speak.

"You let the dream take too much of you. Never let it ever forget again who is the master here." Sai's gaze held her's firm as the rest of the world bled into white around him. She felt light, like she was filled with feathers and air. "You are the master of our worlds, Sakura."

Sakura blinked and the world was crisp and clean: a world of Ino's generosity. Another blink and she felt the fullness of waking come over her. She knew exactly where she was and what she was doing there.

Seconds later a high pitched scream from the next room over drew her upright. Sakura's body was taunt like a drawn bowstring before reality forced her to relax. It was only Ino getting excited about something. There was nothing to fear here. She was in the real world. There was nothing dangerous here that wanted to kill her. She was fine.

There were heavy footsteps and then Ino's slender frame was filling up the doorway, her hands high above her head as she waved her phone. "I got the part. They chose me!" she screamed.

Sakura had only enough time to brace for impact before Ino had launched herself across the room to land, bouncing, on Sakura's bed. She was a mess of giggles, reaching for her friend.

"I'm glad for you. You don't mind that it's the part of the villain?" Sakura asked.

"Are you kidding me, it's the best part. I get to wear pretty things and be mean. Plus, I have an awesome laugh already picked out for it and everything. You wanna hear it?"

Sakura yawned before falling back into the sheets. "Yeah why not?"

Sakura had expected to face the Crawling Chaos right away, but Sai told her that while he knew how to navigate the labyrinth of traps set up to confuse the dreamer, he wanted to take time to teach her all he knew about the Obelisk and the history of its magic. There were many tests set up along the way, puzzles she dismantled with ease and effort alike. Sai only had to help her once, when she ran out of hands to hold puzzle pieces that would begin to burn if in the palm too long.

A week later, Sakura felt safer and stronger as she walked the halls alongside her friend. They had cleared out most of the traps and made an easy path from the Mural of the Four Gods room to where Sai knew the Crawling Chaos slumbered. He wanted her not to engage it until she was ready, and she hadn't been in much of a hurry.

When she awoke she was in the center of the mural room, but she was alone. She blinked and turned, searching for Sai, and not seeing him anywhere. She called out his name, but only silence echoed back. That was odd. Sai was always there for her when she woke up, or if he wasn't, he was close by that he could come running after a minute or two. It had already been a couple of minutes and the stillness stretched too far, too deep. Even when she called again and again, nothing moved. The stones refused to even echo her call.

This time was different; Sakura felt it in her bones ringing like truth. Different, different, different, different….

"Who's there."

Silence.

Sakura viewed the four exits to the room, one for each wall, and slipped off through the exit closest to the drawing of the Crawling Chaos. Most of the traps had been disabled. There was only one remaining danger between the stones and she didn't want to waste time thinking Sai could be anywhere else. She needed to check and make sure he was safe. She would not loose him again to anything or anyone.

Her footsteps were the only sound, dull and soft as she traced backwards the memorized path to where she knew the malformed god slumbered. A line of red made her skid to a halt. On the ground in front of her someone had drawn an arrow in blood. There was no way to know who's blood it was, but Sakura didn't doubt it was anyone other than Sai's blood on the floor in front of her.

Sakura cursed and took off like a bullet down the hall, not knowing what had happened. She had only been gone a few hours from the dream, and things happened so rarely when she wasn't there. Nothing was supposed to happen. They were underground and lost in a maze. Nothing was supposed to happen. Nothing was supposed to happen to Sai. Nothing was supposed to happen to him!

The looming doors to the Chamber of Chaos-the room where the Crawling Chaos slept- were opened. Sakura stopped suddenly, heart twisted at the blood on the edge of the door without handles. They hadn't been left open wide, but there was enough room for a person to slip in and out.

Sakura wanted to feel anger so easily, but she stopped herself from drowning in her heart's emotions, it was what Sai warned her about. She needed to focus, and she didn't dare be anything less than her very best if she needed to rescue Sai. There was no way that's not what this was. Sai needed to be rescued, nothing terrible had happened to him without her yet. He was fine, he would be fine once she got to him. He would be fine, he would be fine, fine, fine….

Sakura dreamed up her bone sword and the armor from the last world. It was flexible and strong as woven spider silk. At her hip a gun rested in it's ivory holster. It would do little against a god-only holy blades or sacred blades like her bone sword would be enough to kill it, but distractions could be the difference between life or death.

Armored, Sakura stepped into the chamber, noticing the grand display of steps leading down to a shallow hall, higher and wider than any other room she had discovered with Sai. It was poorly lit, but she could see enough to make out a raised platform towards the center of the room.

Sakura advanced a step, and then another. The more steps she took, the higher the flames burned, chasing away the darkness from the cavern. The walls were lined in reflective bronze, making the room glitter.

"Child!" a voice laughed from behind the rise in the floor.

Sakura stopped, waiting for the torches' fires to rise enough to see the room in detail. A figure stood in front of the raise, hooded and slender with one hand peeking through the folds of his robe to hold it all in place. Sakura saw red staining his hand and smelled it for what it was even from so far away.

"What have you done with Sai?" Sakura snarled, hating how fear made her heart skip. She had gone too long without Sai, she had been missing him for too many dreams to loose him now, not when she just got him back. She wouldn't loose him again!

"Child dreamer, child dreamer, when she dances the world grow clearer," the figure sang in a voice that wasn't truly male or female to her ears.

The hooded figure lifted it's head up and the robe's shadow receded far enough that Sakura through she could see the face of a woman. But in the low light the woman's eyes shimmered like sour honey. Yellow eyes slit like a snake's.

Snake eyes.

"Orochimaru!" Sakura roared, eyes widening. "You're a dream killer. You were defeated. You have no place here!"

The figure laughed and it was a tither the filled up the whole room in an unsettling way. "How clever for a dreamer, yet you do not speak truth. Orochimaru may be a name of mine from another place, but I am the Woman from the Grass when you meet me in the Kingdom of Gods, and I am your Dream Killer."

"Nice to meet you Snake Eyes with a vagina, now you ready to go or do I need to introduce myself. I'm in a hurry. I need to find my friend." Sakura eased into a prepared stance, feeling confident. She had no limits. The dreamworld couldn't hold her back, couldn't keep her down. She wasn't going to be stopped here.

"There's no need for that. Your friend is already here." The woman moved tot he side and behind the tail of her cloak Sakura saw the trail of red leading up to the table in the center of the room. Stretched out across it was Sai, tied down and unconscious. His clothes had been torn to shred and his chest, scraped and bleeding, still rose and fell as he breathed. He was alive, but just barely.

Sakura felt anger pool like coper in the back of her mouth. She wanted to tear the woman apart with her teeth. "What the hell did you do to him?"

"Didn't he tell you a sacrifice was necessary to summon the Crawling Chaos out of its den. These levels go so much deeper, deep enough that men might fall forever if they leave the ledge. Nothing less than the scent of fresh blood from an offering will raise it from it's sleep. You wanted to fight the thing, did you not?"

"Sai sin't a part of this. Let him go."

The woman hummed into her bloody hand before trailing a long tongue down her digits. "Not true, he has everything to do with this game. He's gone and made himself an important player for you, and he's too valuable for that. He needed to go."

Not Sai, not Sai, not him, not Sai, not Sai, not him, not Sai, not SAI!

Sakura ran so her sword cut the wind. The woman was moving backwards, drifting over the stones like a wraith when Sakura swung. She imagined her blade longer than it was, and the reach extended in mid swing, slicing through the bloody cloak.

The woman howled in laughter as Sakura passed right through, stumbling only slightly. "My curse, my curse, my curse," the woman chanted, dancing backwards in something like a jig. "I can't touch you and you can't touch me, but the belly of the beast is where you'll sleep."

No sooner had the words been spoken than the chamber they were both in shook. A great vibration loosened the stone and unsettled the dust. Sakura tensed, glancing off into the darkness where a deep maw opened up in the center of the floor there. Something moist and heavy was crawling up from there.

Sakura felt a breeze and turned to swing at the woman again, but the dream killer was gone. The door to the room fell shut on a bang, sealing her in. Sakura cursed, feeling the god draw closer the way a woman with broken bones feels a storm rolling in.

"Sai," Sakura gasped, rushing to the stone table where her unconscious friend bleed. "Damn it Sai, you better be okay." He wasn't tied down, and the drag across his chest wasn't deep enough to be worried about. Sakura reached over and slapped her friend across his face. He twitch and then his eyes fluttered open.

"Sakura?"

"Shit, don't scare me like that. Are you okay? How did you get like this?"

Sai blinked, and Sakura recognized the manner of his movements from too many nights taking care of less sober friends. Sai was out of it. He blinked again and then swallowed, trying to squint to see her better. "…Sakura?"

"Yeah, okay princess, we'll talk later. I'm getting you somewhere less in the way. I've played enough video games to know how this is going to go and you are not going to end up collateral damage."

"Saaaakura," Sai sighed, reaching for her as she tugged on what was left of his belt loop to get him moving. He sighed, falling against her shoulder and limping off towards the side of the room behind the pillars. He murmured her name into her shoulder and than yawned before dropping his eyes closed again.

"You're so lucky I like you and that I know what I'm doing with you. Things are going to get messy in here."

Sakura knew what the rumblings were, she knew what they meant. She had played enough video games and coached Ino through enough boss battles to know what was coming next without a shadow of doubt. She didn't have much time left, but she was sure she would have enough time as she found an alcove mostly out of the way, big enough for someone to kneel inside of. All the other alcoves of similar make and design had pottery in their spaces.

Sakura reached into the dream and pulled out a shield, solid as steel and too impossibly heavy to be useful in battle. She heaved it up and dropped it's spiked end into the ground in front of Sai, barricading him in. He lightly punched the steel and Sakura growled a warning.

"It's for your own good. This will protect you when I can't." When Sai tried to push it away Sakura slapped his hand. "No, you need to stay here. You can't help me this time and you're still out of it. Stay here and stay quiet."

"Sakura-"

"I said stay quiet!"

He looked at her once and for a moment he almost seemed lucid, but when he tried to push through he shield once more Sakura knew he couldn't be trusted. He wasn't in the right state of mind and the Crawling Chaos was drawing closer.

Sakura pushed him back and then dreamed into her hand a cloth thick with chloroform. He didn't even struggle as she helped him to sleep, slumped in an alcove. Sai was always pale, but he looked even more so against the dark stones in the dim light. The blood on his chest had clotted and wasn't running anymore, but it still stood out starkly against the rest of his chest.

"I am not loosing you again," Sakura swore softly as a lightweight helmet grew around her head, shielding her on all sides.

She braced with the handle of her bone sword secure between her only part of her body not covered in flexible armor was the palms of her hands and the underside of her fingers. She felt the texture of her sword, felt the weight of it too.

The rumblings of the room around her grew in intensity and frequency, compounding louder and harsher till it felt like there was an ocean behind her ears. Loose stone fell and dust jumped from every crevice. Sakura focused on her breathing, on her stance. The world was a thing of thunder around her until suddenly, it wasn't.

Unearthly silence and stillness made her want to fall apart the way a sudden stop on a roller coaster would. Even the dust and the dirt seemed stunned. She noticed flecks caught in mid air, forsaken by gravity as they floated between the surfaces. The skin on her arms under her armor stood up.

Without a sound the behemoth of tentacles and darkness oozed out of it's hole one silent strides. It came up from the deep and then it kept coming, and coming, and coming, and coming.

'Stance, don't forget it!' Kisame's voice snarled in her ear. He had been the one to guide her through her fights with tailed beasts much larger than her. She would need to remember his wisdom.

Sakura summoned a set of daggers like a halo around her head. With an exhale the band of blades expanded and turned so that they were parallel with the horizontal floor. When on of the tentacles uncurled closer to her than the others, she shot off one of the daggers to stab it clear through. By the time her blade made contact, it wasn't a dagger anymore, but a blade thick and long as any Welsh two handed weapon.

When it hissed Sakura felt her ears bleed and dreamed a guard for her mouth so her teeth had something to bite into. Her jaw ached as the bones of her teeth screamed in pain.

She fired another two daggers into the bulk of it's body.

With a ghost of memory Sakura flew behind a pillar just as a shadow crashed into the ground where she once stood. The tentacles of the god were not all the same. Some were fatter and heaver than the others, requiring more effort to pick up and move. Others were thin and fast like the ends of whips. One of those wrapped around the pillar she stood behind and pulled, bringing stone and dust down where Sakura once stood. She was already gone, raising her sword up and bringing it down across the length of the god's tentacle. It severed in a hissing gush of blackest ink.

A pair of tentacles came at her from different directions and Sakura fell backwards, rolling ungracefully away and shooting off another set of daggers that hit like broadswords. She looked up, pleased to see they hit something, only to frown when she realized they didn't do enough harm to stop the next volley of swipes.

Sakura was suddenly on the defensive, racing and running backwards and forwards to avoid being squashed. She dreamed up another dozen daggers to fly around her, catching and protecting her from the things that aimed for her back. She lost them to the swipes as quickly as she could dream them up. If stamina had been something she was limited on, she would have already been dead.

'And we started out so well,' Sakura moaned to herself, ducking behind another pillar only to have it swiped into rubble.

Cursing Sakura dreamed up a heavy shield to hold above her while the rocks came down. Reaching to her side, she put her sword away to grab her gun and poked it over the edge of her shield. Arms were raising up, preparing to crash down on top of her. Sakura pulled the trigger and her gun was a rocket launcher before it fired, raining hell and fire down on the underside of the god's body. Ink spilled everywhere and Sakura took the distraction for what it was.

Her lovely armor had been dyed black, blending her into the shadows around her. Where she struck with her gun the wound was already healing, unlike the strikes from her sword. Her projectile daggers did longer lasting damage, but even their blades weren't enough to make the wounds permanent. If she wanted to kill this thing, she would have to get close.

Sakura saw stairs in her mind, made out of stone and connected to nothing, floating in air as solid as ever. Rubble rose up to make what she dreamed and she ran for it, climbing up and up for height that would put her above the thing that crawled from the deep.

She was nearly there when the entire body of the Crawling Chaos shifted, heaving upwards to crash against her stairs and crash against her. Sakura fell on the lower body of the creature and stabbed her sword down to keep herself from tumbling into the writhing lower half. She struck solid meat and gold, molten gold, gushed from the wound. Where it fell it stung like acid, burning through her armor.

Sakura screamed and fell away from her sword, rolling down the body and across the floor.

"FOOLISH CHILD," it scratched with a voice like knives being sharpened. Sakura felt blood in her ears. "NO MAN HAS EVER BESTED ME, ME THE ONE WITH NO END, ME THE FACELESS GOD OF A THOUSAND FORMS, ME WHO STALKS AMONG THE STARS, THE BLACK PHARAOH, THE GOD WHO HELODS, YOU DARE DRAW MY ICHOR?"

A human hand of black bone reaching out and grabbed where her sword still stuck out of it's upper body. It hissed at the touch but yanked it clean off and tossed it across the room. Sakura screamed when she saw it spin into the black maw in the back of the room, swallowed up by darkness.

The god was bleeding gold, it was speaking to her in anger. Sakura had done real damage, but her weapon was gone and her body was broken in places. She could feel her bones scream when she breathed. Her ribs were smashed.

The god screeched again, looming closer in a swirling mass of black. "NO MAN HAS EVER BESTED ME AND NONE EVER SHALL."

She saw it raise up the whole front of it'sefl to bring down on top of her and Sakura snarled against the pain, struggling to right herself in time. She had handed close to where Sai hid and she knew if she moved his hiding space would suffer the blow.

"You let the dream take too much of you. Never let it ever forget again who is the master here." Sai's gaze held her's firm as the rest of the world bled into white around him. She felt light, like she was filled with feathers and air. "You are the master of our worlds, Sakura."

Sakura felt the burn between her breastbones and drew from her chest the hilt of her bone sword. Her body was broken, but she forced herself to stand without her armor, dirty and stained black and gold with both god blood and ichor.

Feeling oddly sentimental, Sakura shook the remains of her helmet away and her short hair was a halo around her head. "I'm not a man."

The god came down on her and Sakura poured as much of herself as she could into her sword as she cut upwards. The blade of chakra danced away from her swing and cut up into the writhing mass like a knife through hot butter. Black rained down as the creature writhed and Sakura summoned the stairs again. It was so much harder to mount them, and she knew she was slower reaching the top, but the burns and broken bones wouldn't mean anything to her if she didn't survive. She felt her chakra, the magic of the dream world, flutter around inside the palms of her hands. It was erratic and wild. She had enough of it, but could she contain it.

The upper half of the creature looked backwards, up at her and Sakura saw it's void like face, yawning, stretching, expanding beneath her. She stared into the eye of a black hole. She was frozen in place, her pain magnified as the hole kept her petrified. The rest of the world faded away as the hole grew bigger. No-it wasn't bigger, she was just getting closer.

Teeth, teeth, there were teeth all around her, some were in her thigh, others were hovering.

'No man has ever bested me and none ever shall,' a voice tore into her brain. It was the voice of truth and it spoke truth and only truth; she knew that in her crushed and broken bones. The truth of it. No man would ever best the Crawling Chaos, it had been seen and known and recorded ten thousand years ago when they first fell to earth. No man, no man, no man, no man, no man-

'You are the master of our worlds, Sakura.'

Sakura screamed, opening her eyes and ramming her sword down into the void face of the god that already had her half devoured. She couldn't see anything but darkness past her thighs, but her sword hit something when she rammed it down between her knees. It felt like spearing meat.

Sakura's ears bled red as the god roared in a voice she had never heard before. It wailed and screamed and then it screamed even more, but Sakura couldn't hear any of it. She was in a vacuum without sound. She was lost somewhere in space. It was still screaming, but she couldn't hear it anymore; the wold was a quiet calm.

Sakura felt like sobbing but she pushed her sword down further, further, till the hilt was at her ankles and her wrists were sucked into darkness. Something like an egg shattered beneath her feet and molten gold oozed out around her, sucking her down, swallowing her in.

She was broken with too few whole bones left, her head was a bleeding mess, her ears couldn't hear, and her body was drowned in burning gold. She couldn't hear it, but Sakura knew she was screaming.

Wounds of the dream are not wounds of the waking world, but they can not be severed.

When Sakura woke up she was in pain. She didn't know anything else, but she knew she was in pain. Moving her fingers was all she could do. She felt dampness on her face and knew she was crying. The pain was great. The pain was everywhere, the pain was all around her. The pain was all she knew.

She passed out again.

When she awoke she knew time had passed, but she didn't know how much. She was still in pain, but she was able to think. There was no sound in the world around her, and when she moved she though she could hear her own bones groaning in pain from their broken settings, but she knew that was her brain trying to invent sounds to fill the void.

She shifted in the dirt and stilled.

Dirt.

Sakura gasped, leaning her head back to see around her. Crawling branches new with apples that weren't yet in season surrounded her. Apple season was another month or two away. Apples? She was in an apple orchard. She was in an apple orchard! She wasn't in Ino's apartment anymore. She likely wasn't even near the city anymore.

She felt something in the earth and looked up. There were shoes, and then the body of an old man dressed in worn old overalls faded at the knees. He was staring at her in horror and Sakura guessed she didn't look pretty.

"Fuck."

AN:/ Okay, three for three! This is going well and I'm hoping I can update every week like this for the rest of my summer break. I will try my best to keep you guys from waiting too long because I know I hate it when I have to. I've already started writing the next chapter and have a few things to sort out (which actor gets which of the three biggest roles) but I know where I'm going.

Please remember to review, because really, that's what sustains me.