Now
The Naka Shrine is the same as Sasuke remembers. He ensured that its infrastructure did not change during his absence, and Kakashi kept his promise of keeping maintenance and zero access to the public. It's not that Sasuke does not want to share the beauty of the temple, he just does not want intruders to find the secret passage to his family's hideout before he gets to thoroughly research every one of its corners. And fortunately, Kakashi made sure that no individual would enter the establishment unless it was to clear out the dust from the corners.
He thought he had it all covered before leaving Konoha, but it turns out that, at least according to his old teacher, the shrine is supposed to lead him to more secrets about his clan's past -and by extent, more secrets about Indra. It is ironic, he muses, how he left the village for a second time to find answers that were footsteps away from his old home.
A flashback of the time he spent talking to Sakura about the secrets of his family's hideout invades his mind. He can still feel her touch on his skin, clenching the heart he never knew he had on his chest. He pushes those thoughts away for later revision, prioritizing the present.
Sasuke moves his prosthetic fingers, having gained the new habit of testing them out at random times. He has already lost enough time -five days to be exact- recovering in the hospital by Tsunade's strict order. The old Hokage made sure his room was constantly monitored by high ranking ninja while she wasn't around. He now knows where Sakura developed that intimidating side of hers; her mentor never forgot to add a small threat before leaving his hospital room in case he decided to escape from the window.
His breathing is a lot more even now, too. Tsunade must have received the right list of ingredients from Orochimaru to come up with the same injection. He may never admit it, but the five day rest recharged his energies and gave him enough time to adjust to his new left arm, as well as to partially recover from the coughing attacks.
Nonetheless, anxiety itches his skin. Five days is almost a week. A week with Sakura lost, and his hopes are slowly decaying along with his heavy heart. At this point, Sasuke vividly remembers Kakashi's words before he and Sakura embarked on this mission. He would have to face a lot more than Naruto if something were to happen to her.
Of course he would have a lot more to face. He would have to face himself, his recurring failure of keeping those who matter safe. Sasuke would face the weight of his past, which can crush him with every reminder that losing those who are important to him is a lot more common than staying close to them. He has never wanted to admit it, but Sakura gave him that feeling he once craved beneath his revenge driven goal and it was cruelly ripped out of him when Indra took her.
The shrine's torii, adorned with his clan's uchiwa, welcomes the entrance, allowing its visitor to transcend from the profane to the sacred. Sasuke takes slow steps up the stairs that lead into the main entrance of the Naka Shrine. Even though it is nighttime, its main area is lit by the moon, showing the vibrant reds and whites of the Uchiha fan.
Konoha at night, once again, keeps his secrets concealed under its darkness.
Sasuke walks past the praying station, sliding the wooden door with his left hand while his right rests of the hilt of his sword. He finds himself in the same empty room he visited in the past, which conceals the entrance to his family's hideout. His footsteps are the only sound in the deafening silence. The smell of wood is mildly mixed with a sensation of abandonment, evidence that nobody has been inside the Naka Shrine in a long time. Its walls are adorned with ancient paintings of his ancestors' deeds, from murals of Uchiha warriors to clan leaders and legends.
He does not pay much attention to them, for it is in that moment that he feels company arrive.
"Sasuke."
As fast as wind itself, his chakra signature is the only one aside from Sakura's and Kakashi's that he would pay close attention to. Sasuke turns around, shifting his gaze from the empty main hall to the person standing behind him.
"Naruto."
His best friend is wearing an orange haori on top of his usual attire of an orange and black jacket with track pants. Naruto's blond hair is a lot shorter than a couple of years ago, and the glint of a wedding band on his left ring finger catches his attention. It is almost like the last time they saw each other the night before Sasuke set out on this unfortunate adventure.
However, before Sasuke can say anything, he feels a strong force pushing him until his back hits the wall, cracking it, and a pair of mismatched hands -one real, one fake like his- grab a hold of the neck of his cloak.
Naruto's Sage mode is already activated.
"Where the fuck is Sakura-chan!?"
It's been a long time since he has seen Naruto so pissed off at him. Back when they were seventeen and still fighting, Sasuke tried to provoke his best friend until the wrath bled out of his pores. But he never got the same result as he did now. Naruto has never aimed so much anger at Sasuke like he is doing it right now, his stance fully threatening. He knows his best friend's emphasis on friendships and family, especially when it comes to Sakura.
But Sasuke does not have time to revisit the old days when those dark emotions led his life. He has to save Sakura, and at this rate Naruto is only slowing him down.
He pushes Naruto's hands off his neck, sending him towards the opposite wall and causing a similar crack. Naruto's frown brings his eyes down to the artificial limb attach to Sasuke's left arm. His square jaw loses a bit of its tension, yet he has not lost his hostile demeanour.
"So Kakashi-sensei was telling the truth," he says. "You got your fake arm because you fucked it up and lost her."
Sasuke's right hand returns to the hilt of his sword. "I don't have time for this, Naruto. I need to get going."
"What does she have to do with Indra?"
Naruto's words prevent him from walking towards the secret entrance. "Indra captured her without a reason."
Sasuke feels his jaw tremble after saying those words. It no longer bothers him to show weakness in front of Naruto; they have gone through enough together to look past those details. Nonetheless, he is still not used to demonstrating his feelings like this, especially in front of the person who can read him like an open book and can reach conclusions his mind has not found yet.
"Jeez, Sasuke, you must've really fucked it up if a dead guy captures Sakura," Naruto's sarcastic tone gets under his skin.
Sasuke knows that he is wasting precious seconds, but he just cannot let that comment slide. He is gone in a quick flash, and appears in front of Naruto with his blade barely touching the skin of his best friend's throat. Yes, when it comes to Sakura, Naruto gets under his skin a lot faster than when they were fighting over the world.
"I don't know if I can live without her for much longer," Sasuke hisses, the words putting a heavy weight on his chest.
"What do you mean?"
Naruto's incredulity makes Sasuke question how he got to defeat all of those enemies and then get married. The dobe, in spite of his god-like powers like Sasuke's, still has the same thick skull as ever. Naruto's orange eyes, with a horizontal black pupils running across the middle, travel to his chest and then widen in shock.
"Oh -I see. I mean, I can really see it, Sasuke," he says. "Your chakra is-"
"Yes."
"But how?"
"Not. Now."
That should mark the end of their conversation, Sasuke concludes. Explaining how and why he is in this state hinders his chances of getting Sakura back. Everything that Naruto is doing right now is increasing the distance between him and his female teammate.
You need to get out of here, is what he says with the look he sends.
He makes his way towards the seventh tatami mat on the far right side without looking back at his best friend. Time shouldn't be wasted when their teammate is in danger -especially if it is due to Sasuke's own fault.
He crouches on his knees, ready to remove the mat and reveal the secret passageway. That is, until he sees Naruto crouch on the other side of the mat and placing his hands on it, imitating Sasuke's movements. His eyes are back to normal.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"Helping you, you idiot. Sakura-chan's my teammate too. And if you're tryina get her back, I better be there to make sure you don't do something stupid. Besides, I have a debt that I need to pay."
Since when is it that Naruto is the one to measure his own recklessness? Last time Sasuke checked, his best friend was the opposite of levelheaded. Marriage must have changed something in him.
"Naruto, I need your help with that portal."
Sasuke wonders how much trouble he would have saved himself from if his best friend had accompanied him on this mission instead of Sakura. She would still be in Konoha, safe behind the gates, taking care of her high-ranking kunoichi business and preparing to take on her new genin team.
"What portal?"
This is Naruto's first time in the Uchiha secret room. His eyes observe the grey concrete walls, decorated with the mystical figure of a man who looks too much like the old Sage of Six Paths. Naruto scrunches his nose, recognizing some of the traits in the same face of the man painted on the wall with another person he once remembered seeing.
Sasuke stands in front of a large, ancient stone tablet, between two flames on the ground and two symbols of his clan on the wall. The way he is dressed -a black cloak over his black long sleeve and nin pants- seems to go along with the ancient, formal theme of the Uchiha hideout. Naruto feels physically out of place, though he knows that his best friend should not go through with this alone.
No, this might just kill him. It's not like Naruto never noticed the looks Sasuke threw at Sakura during his short stay in Konoha. He just didn't want to say anything back then, too afraid that the small thread of hope that built between them might break over something like that. Now, though, Naruto can fully confirm his suspicion of a feeling that Sasuke has not yet grasped.
Or so he thinks.
"Sasuke, what portal are you talking about?" Naruto scratches the back of his head, impatience already invading his mind.
"Quiet. I need to concentrate."
"Alright, alright." He sits on the ground with his legs crossed, his chin resting on his artificial hand and his lips forming a pout. His best friend is still the same brooding bastard as always.
Sasuke places an index and middle finger in front of his face and closes his eyes in concentration. He has not used his dōjutsu in a while, and he confesses to feel hesitant when changing his eyes. The injection Tsunade provided him had helped stabilize his physical body, but Sasuke is still not sure of what his limits are at this point. Time is running out, for sure, and every measure needs to be taken with detail.
He thinks of Sakura. He thinks of the kind of danger she is in right now, in a strange, foreign place. A place that he is still trying to figure out how to enter.
But Kakashi is right. The Naka Shrine has provided him answers in the past, and it is known that the large stone tablet in front of him holds the secrets behind his dōjutsu, of Madara, and the story of Kaguya. The latter implies that, due to the Uchiha's descent from the Rabbit Goddess, there must be information about Indra's life.
When the time is right, Sasuke once again opens his eyes. His left eye holds the Rinnegan, while the other displays his wheeling Mangekyō Sharingan. The scriptures engraved in the stone tablet become clearer to his vision, and he travels his eyes up and down the symbols in an attempt to find information about his ancestor.
He feels the room spinning around him, but keeps his feet firm on the ground while reading the tablet. It gets more difficult the more he tires to read, his mind determined on finding key words.
Sasuke does not realize when his knees hit the cold ground, his hands holding him up while he is out of breath.
"What happened?" Naruto places a hand on his shoulder. "Did you see something?"
He struggles, "No. It's too exhausting on my body... I need-"
"You need to evaluate your decisions before trying that again, Uchiha Sasuke," a strange voice says from behind.
Then
Sasuke lies down on his old bed. It's been years since he has felt the same mattress, the same one that was never able to give him a good night's rest. During his training with Orochimaru, Sasuke cannot recall a time when he closed his eyes and did not wake up with nightmares of Itachi. It was either that or not being able to sleep properly, tossing and turning, reminding himself of his goals, far away from the people that gave him comfort.
He lies on his back, the dim light on the ceiling still the same. The small room holds nothing of his possession, just an old bed, an old night stand, and cold walls carved into the soil. He feels the needle going into a vein on his right arm, taking a deep breath while its sharp tip digs into his skin until it connects with his blood.
He takes another deep breath, trying to get used to the IV. The tubes that connect to the needle lead to different pouches. His eyes travel from his arm until the hanger where all the sealed plastic bags are found. So far, there are only two: one almost full with a transparent liquid and a smaller one collecting a sample of his blood.
It is almost like fate is laughing at his face. Here he is, lying in a place he never fully trusted, being treated by one of the few people who actually give him comfort. This whole situation is an oxymoron, an image that does not make sense in his head. He would have never thought he would be back here, much less with the person who begged to join him in these hideouts all those years ago.
Sasuke hears the scratching of a pen on paper. He turns to look at Sakura, who is wearing a white lab coat, with her hair up in a ponytail, and with her full concentration on the notes she takes. She slightly frowns, reading over the notes she just wrote and then checking the blood bag before returning to her notes. The silence that settles between them is only interrupted by the steady beeping of the heart rate monitor.
"That's enough blood sample," Sakura finally says, detaching one of the tubes from the needle. She carefully takes the smaller, red bag and quickly checks over the transparent one. "You stay here. I just have to go to the laboratory."
She lightly squeezes Sasuke's right hand before heading out the door. "I won't take long."
Yes, she gives the sense of comfort Sasuke has craved for a while.
The smile Sakura sends to Sasuke disappears after she exits his old room. She holds the blood sample and her notebook tightly against her chest, in an effort to slow down her heartbeat and her trembling jaw. She knows that she must be objective with her patients, but leaving Sasuke alone sends her into small panic attacks because she is not keeping an eye on him. If something were to happen while she is absent, she would not forgive herself.
Sakura is still getting used to Orochimaru's hideout. Though she avoids the snake Sannin as much as possible, Sakura cannot deny her need for help when it comes to finding certain tools in his laboratory. The hideout is one of the smallest ones, all of the main underground labyrinths having been destroyed after the end of the war to facilitate monitoring over Oto. Orochimaru is short in some materials, but Sakura has worked with less before and does not trouble herself with the limited resources. Hence why Sasuke is currently hospitalized in his room and she has to walk back and forth between him and the laboratory. Furthermore, hence why she took a blood for sample from a clear bag and not the usual tube.
Once she enters the laboratory, Sakura puts on a pair of latex gloves and gets her hands to work. She takes a small amount of blood out of the bag and places it in another Petri dish, a similar attempt of what she had previously done. The Petri dish goes under a microscope, and she adjusts the magnifier until she is can see the red and white cells.
This is the most tedious part of her research. She has to continuously analyse, to observe how, under a microscope, the red and white cells gradually turn black, invading all components of Sasuke's blood sample until it turns darker and darker. It takes twenty minutes for the sample to turn black, a sign that it is converting much faster than the last time Sakura looked under the microscope. When they first arrived, the transformation time was twenty three minutes.
It is a growing disease, which stems from an invasive chakra and affects the blood cells. She writes down that thought on her notebook before she forgets it.
"Anything new?"
Sakura looks up from her notes to the lab's entrance. Karin leans against the door frame, her arms crossed and her attention on the laboratory table.
The redhead arrived in the hideout a day after them. Karin had been gathering intel for Orochimaru from the neighbouring villages, and Sakura guesses that it is on Indra. She immediately noticed Sasuke's condition and when Sakura asked her for assistance in the lab, Karin hesitated at first. Sakura did not push for help, but eventually Karin began to stop by the laboratory to offer an input or two. In the past five days, the two young women had struck conversations here and there.
Five days, she repeats mentally. It is the longest she and Sasuke have stayed in one place during this journey, mostly due to his strange condition. Orochimaru has not shared any information on Indra, which visibly makes Sasuke restless. He appears to still be gathering data, waiting until it is the right time to inform his former student of Indra's whereabouts.
Sakura wonders how much longer it is going to be until they can be on the road (or until Sasuke has to be taken to Konoha as an emergency patient, she adds as an afterthought).
"Take a look at this," she motions Karin to look through the microscope. "The blood cells are gradually turning black, and the pace it happens has also shortened. This is a condition that I've never encountered," Sakura adds like she always does, waiting to hear Karin's response. Showing lack of knowledge in her field may be seen as a sign of weakness, but Sakura learned a lot time ago that it is normal to not know everything.
Medicine is a complex and vast subject, after all.
Karin may not be a medic ninja like Sakura, but her chakra sensor abilities and her healing techniques can offer enough input in her research.
"I've seen this happening before." The redhead pushes her glasses up her nose after she stops looking through the lens. "Gimme a sec."
She leaves the laboratory and comes back five minutes later, with a red manila folder on her arms. Karin takes a seat in front of Sakura, setting the manila folder facing the Konoha kunoichi and opening it. Sakura's eyes widen at the information in front of her.
Uchiha Itachi's picture stares back at her, his personal information written on the first page of his file.
"Orochimaru-sama kept records of all members of Akatsuki. Itachi, because of his Sharingan, had one of the most extensive archives," Karin explains, turning the pages until she reaches the right one. "Here it is. Read this bit."
Sakura skims her eyes through the paragraph that Karin's finger is pointing. She highlights the important bits, finding connections between Orochimaru's data gathered and the notes written on her notebook.
"Why didn't you show me this before, Karin?" Sakura asks, lifting her eyes from the printed words and looking directly into Karin's.
The redhead shuffles in her seat, scratching the back of her head in a way that reminds Sakura of another Uzumaki when he gets uncomfortable. "I forgot," Karin mumbles the lie.
Sakura knows the sort of trauma Sasuke left on his other female teammate. He had done something similar to her, but never to the point where she was about to lose her life. She understands Karin's hesitance to help her in this, to do anything related to a man who out-right ignored her after he was done with Taka. If Sakura had been the one left out, she would have had to think twice about helping Sasuke too, even if she loved him as much as she does now.
She just accepts Karin's excuse, not wanting to push more into it. They are not sixteen anymore, and her teammate may still have a chance of beating this condition. Sakura's eyes choose finish reading the excerpt.
"They share the same symptoms," she finally concludes. "Random coughing attacks, affected lungs, chest pains."
"It appears to be an auto-immune disorder," Karin adds.
"But Itachi did not die from this disease. He must have stayed alive somehow before he let Sasuke kill him."
Karin raises her eyebrow in amusement. She flips to the next page. "I think you'll find the answer to that here."
Now
Sakura is in a trance. Her feet aren't touching the ground, her hands do not have the sense of touch, she is floating in the middle of it all.
The only thing her mind registers is the pair of lips that move against hers. They are inviting, warm, thin lips. The ones she kissed so many centuries ago, that she remembers so well. She feels a pair of large hands firmly holding the small of her back, bringing her close to an imposing, strong torso. She feels how her face tilts to one side, letting his lips deepen on hers.
She could watch the world fall apart and not give a damn if Indra kisses her like this. Sakura recalls that same feeling from many years ago, when the world had actually fallen apart and all they had left was one another. Her body reacts to the way he touches, reconnecting past sensations to the present.
Present, her mind snaps.
This is now.
The feeling she gets is from... the past. Indra is from the past. Sakura, she is from the present. Now she is from the present.
And this, this is just...
"Stop!"
Sakura pushes him from his chest, and Indra flies to the opposite wall with the magnitude of her strength. She stares at him wide-eyed, chest heaving. It doesn't make any sense, how she is beginning to feel all of these things that were concealed in her for such a long time. That Indra's memory is slowly seeping into her mind, connecting to the faraway thoughts she had in past lives.
It doesn't make sense that she enjoyed that kiss, either.
"What the hell do you think you're doing!?" she is yelling at this point. "I'm not your old love, Indra!"
Unconvinced.
In denial.
"You are," he responds and wipes his mouth with the back of his sleeve, which stains with red. "Even if another thousand years pass, you will still be."
With blood. Oh Kami, if he bleeds it means that he is actually alive and that Sakura is not encountering an old memory. It means that this whole thing between them has been real from the moment he captured her, and that it could very well happen again.
And he is confessing again, even after another thousand years. It is all too real to Sakura, for Indra to confirm what she has been suspicious about in the last little while. Somehow, deep down, she knows that what Indra claims is true. She remembers their first meeting, their first time together, their conversations from all those lifetimes ago. She remembers the way he used to say her name in different volumes with many meanings.
"Indra, you're living in the past," her confusion tries to reason. "Fuck, why are you even alive!? You've been dead for thousands of years, reincarnated like I have! Why-"
She falls on her knees. The tears are already rolling down her cheeks, each reminding her of the life she had built in Konoha from birth until now. The love she held, the friendships she treasured, the passion she developed. It is as if her past life and her present one fuse, her memories no longer mixed but categorized in what she remembers and what she has lived in the past twenty years.
Sakura knows who she is. She knows the heavy weight carried in her shoulders for more than a thousand years. The past cannot change, but the choices she has made in this current life should have been sufficient to keep her happy, shouldn't they?
"Why do you come back now?" Sakura weeps. "Why do you want me to come back to me in this lifetime?"
She thought she had it all figured out until he showed up. She was ready to accept love, to accept her career and her role in the village. In peaceful times like this, Sakura's life should not have been interrupted with a twist like this. She worked hard to get to her happiness, dammit!
Indra's voice sounds close to her ear when he speaks. "Sakura, there are many questions that will be answered once you collect yourself and rest for a moment."
He let his instincts invade his conscience, and the result looks back at him with puzzled eyes. Though Indra enjoyed to finally kiss his long lost love, he knows that it must have been too early for Sakura to experience it. He does not want to shake her anymore than this, and has to return to the gentle approach. Time has passed, he reminds himself, and every second will bring them closer together. He repeats the same words in his mind like a mantra.
Small steps, small steps, small steps.
"Do you promise?"
But the way she moves her lips when she talks, or the way her current position makes her significantly vulnerable, invites him to try her out one more time. Indra tightens his hands into fists, fighting back his desire.
There will be another time.
"Promise."
We will be together, at last.
Hi everyone! The next chapter is already being written. I should not be allowed to have so much fun doing this.
Thank you for all your support. If I could, I would send all of you sweets and tomatoes in the mail.
Who appeared out of nowhere in front of Naruto and Sasuke!? Will there be bromance between the two!? Will Indra finally answer Sakura's questions!? All of this and more next time you tune in to KoG.
The two following chapters will veer a bit away from the usual route. The next one will mainly focus on the Then timeline and the one after on the Now. I guess that we're getting close to the point of answering questions. I've realized that I don't like to milk my stories anymore, LOL. My writing gets to the point too fast, and I don't think I can write 40 chapters for a story that only needs 25 or 30.
The length of the chapters may increase depending on how much I have planned. There have been tweaks here and there on the plot line, but the main events are still the same.
Does anyone know where I can promote this story? I kind of wish it had more coverage, even though I LOVE LOVE LOVE all of you for sticking around since chapter 1 and who keep me going :')
Best wishes,
MSM
PD: The rating will soon go up to M.