Sakura rolled over with a groan. She reached, her arm finding nothing but cold air before falling, drenched where it sunk into an inch of mud and flattened grass.
Her fingers dug into the earth, her eyes opening. She watched her nails curl into her palms. Her fists paled, knuckles white, the pressed ground next to her seeming impossibly empty.
Tears welled up, and she shut her eyes again, willing it all to go away. None of it happened. Nothing is real. Go back to sleep.
But to sleep again meant more dreams of the one Sakura found herself missing now, and pain rattled in her ribcage. She curled up into herself, shaking, her face hidden in her rain-soaked knees, and she could not stop the hot tears from streaming down her cheeks.
Shivering, Sakura was forced to reckon with the fact that she could not keep laying here in cold mud and rain without risking illness. She sat up with a wince, clutching the fabric around her shoulders and burying her face in it, drying her tears. Damn it all. Damn the pain in her chest and the soreness all over, especially in her lower belly.
Sakura bowed her head, burying her face deeper in the damp fabric around her, letting it comfort her with darkness. She couldn't convince herself to be angry that Madara had left her. They were at war, still. What had she been hoping for anyway?
Though she couldn't conjure the righteous fury she wanted, Sakura gave in a little longer to the hurt, shaking as she hugged herself in an empty attempt to soothe her tumultuous emotions. She didn't care if she got ill from the cold. She was just too upset, and her tears did nothing to alleviate the thoughts barbing her feelings. It's not fair, repeated the phrase through her heart, it's not fair that after losing her innocence and intimate firsts that she'd valued and saved for years, the one who had violently starstruck her would just… disappear. Even if his decision to abandon her was actually merciful, considering the undeniable fact that he was still her enemy, she resented that decision with a vehemence that stung her over and over.
Sakura let out a shaky breath, almost a laugh. She had no idea how to feel, and as conflict built with each turn of her pulse, her frustration broke through the haze of hurt; she shoved herself to her feet. Wrenching her robe about her shoulders, Sakura looked around the slope of muddy earth for her clothes, shaking rain from her dripping features and tangled hair. She turned in a circle, her feet squishing in the sandals she still wore, and she realised with a soft curse that her clothes must have blown off in the wind sometime in the night. Only her pack remained, its weight allowing it to stay half-sunk in mud.
Sakura scowled at the imprints in the ground she stood upon. The impressions of their bodies were still vaguely recognisable, sending murmuring images through her half-groggy mind that tickled her cheeks with heat.
Sakura brought her fist down upon the impression-pressed mud. The ground exploded around her, obliterating the reminders of the night into flying bits of mud sludge and buried rock beneath; the robe fluttered around Sakura's shoulders where it was damply draped as she rose, wiping off her fists, and she blinked down at it with the sudden recognition that it was there.
This isn't mine.
The grinding machinations of her conflicted mind shuddered to a halt. More carefully, Sakura drew it open, unconsciously holding her breath as her touch remembered along the velvety black interior, the symbols on the long sleeves, the deep almost-obsidian red of its wide collar that she'd comforted herself in earlier. There was dried sweet-apple red stained along the left side of it that she avoided touching; ash flecked along the slightly singed white of its long sides, mud caking its edges.
A minute inch of relief had Sakura's shoulders relaxing somewhat, and she inclined her head with the tiniest of smiles.
Taking in a soft breath, the frustration melting away, Sakura lifted her head, feeling her boiling feelings and conflicts slipping into the background of her head, allowing her focus to step into view. She relaxed somewhat, securing the robe more tightly around her figure. She needed to clean herself off, perhaps clean off her new acquisition, and assert a plan. Then she could let herself wallow and debate as much as she wanted.
Nodding to herself, Sakura reasserted her attention to figuring out where the nearest water source might be. Glancing back down at the vast crater and ignoring the memories she associated with it, she saw that groundwater had created a small lake not too far out of the way, the rocks split into a newly-created canyon, water spilling down their exposed faces like they wept from the destruction.
Hefting her pack and shoving it in the hidden inside-pocket of the robe that was now hers, Sakura started towards the lake before stopping, wincing, her hands aglow with healing chakra pushing down her thighs while colour slashed through her face to her ears. Madara had certainly made good of his threat last night, and that thought had her both blushing and cursing herself for being such an idiot the whole bow-legged walk towards the lake.
She didn't linger long at the crater, hurried to leave it behind. Deep in the forest, the rain gave way to sun, warming the damp robe she'd washed off best as she could. Sakura did her best to keep her mind focused on the plan she had formulated while rinsing off evidences of the night into the cold lakewater. Pushing aside branches and the tiredness that trailed after her, Sakura burned it into her unfocused mind once more. Clean up: done. Make a plan: done. Next: find the nearest house or town and change clothes. Find food. She bit into her lip. Find my team. Avoid Madara the rest of my life.
Sakura felt somewhat comforted by this sense of direction, though she was quickly reminded of her other problems when her skin tingled beneath the loose robe that fluttered in the wind. She found the clasps, but discovered they were all snapped and broken – colour flashed across her face as she remembered ripping the robe off of Madara like a woman starved.
Sakura reached into her pack and tugged out the roll of ribbon she had found at the same shop as the red poison. She tore off a stretch of it, shoving the rest back into the pack and tying it around the robe as a makeshift belt. It effectively cinched the robe to hug around her more securely. It was still loose around her neck and dragged a little on the ground around her — it was much too big for her, after all – but it was the only set of clothes she had, as embarrassing as that was for her.
Shame stung Sakura's face, warming it more than the touch of the sun through the trees. How could she face Sasuke now that she was tainted?
A frown twisted her mouth as she leapt over a massive fallen tree, her half-dry locks of hair falling around her flushed face. She didn't feel tainted, and she didn't feel as guilty as she should. Caught between shame and frustration at her own odd emotions, Sakura doubled down on the guilt, reminding herself: she had given herself to someone other than Sasuke, the love of her life. She had ruined her plans for the future, for she knew as soon as he ever found out what had happened, he'd never forgive her for it.
A troubled knot stitched Sakura's brows. She found a small path through the trees and began to follow it, hopeful that it led to a house where she could pilfer some clothes and finally hide the robe she wore. Her thoughts continued to fight amongst themselves as she ran a hand through her hair and picked up the pace, utterly distracted by her frustration. I don't feel tainted.
She tried to pick that thought apart on its own, and found in response that she didn't feel like apologising to herself, Sasuke, or anyone. What did she have to apologise for when she had successfully saved her team from capture or death? She had gone in to that hellish encounter prepared to die, knowing that she might struggle to save her teammates' lives, and avoided tragedy entirely. She had saved them in exchange not for her death, but the intense night she'd just gone through instead.
Lifting her head, Sakura pondered these thoughts, pausing and setting a hand along the rough bark of an evergreen. Was dying better than being with Madara?
Sakura found herself shaking her head already as the no resounded through her in response. She felt more alive than she had before the whole mess had happened, and she released the branch with clenching fists, her blood racing a touch faster. It was all going to be okay. She could reunite with her team now. She could keep fighting in the war and continue to protect the ones she loved until some end to it all was found.
Sakura scowled. The thought of facing Madara again terrified her. The last thing she wanted to do ever again was face him, regardless of her resent that he'd left her. Why hadn't he killed her after the chakra-potion had worn off, or at least taken her hostage to use her against her team?
Sakura stopped in her tracks. Had it worn off? She held herself still, probing chakra through her blood for a quick diagnosis, and when she found that she appeared normal – or at least nothing like she'd felt last night, and in full control of all of her faculties – she relaxed somewhat.
Her own questions from before echoed as Madara's burning eyes flickered through her mind like the flash of steel. She grimaced. Perhaps he still intended to come back and kill her.
Heart pounding, she wove through the trees, following the mostly overgrown trail and hoping it would bring her to some kind of residence she could get clothing from. After that, she wasn't sure where to go. It occurred to her too late that her team would have searched for her near the last place they had seen her; thinking of the demolished camp site, she sighed, hoping it wouldn't take too long for her to catch up with them, wherever they were now.
It also occurred to Sakura that she didn't know where she was now. She knew it was somewhere north of Konoha, but that in itself was too vague to help her find her way anywhere. Even going blindly south might not lead her home, and what did home have to offer anyway? Nothing but Divine Tree branches and countless hundreds, thousands, of human-binding cocoons.
Sakura's cheeks flushed as she half-jogged through the sunlight, more motivated to find this house and hide herself; she reaffirmed her plan in her head. She definitely had to figure out where she was so she didn't get anywhere near the trunk of the Divine Tree; nearing it heightened the chance of running into Madara, which was the worst idea. Even if she was stupid and bold enough to purposely approach him, there was no guarantee he wouldn't just laugh off whatever excuse she came up with and kill her without hesitation this time. He might have spared her this morning instead of finishing her off for the carnal conflict they'd shared… but who knew how long it would be before he was fully back to his merciless, deadly self?
Sakura nearly stumbled at the reminder of the Divine Tree. She kept her jog up, though she craned her neck upwards to stare at the branches scarring the sky. How was she not bound up in a cocoon? She was no longer under Sasuke's Rinnegan protection.
Sakura shook her head. It must be that the tree captured its victims only at the initial casting of the jutsu, not constantly over time. This made the team having to be near Sasuke at all times less of a necessity. This fact could make their future escapes a little easier.
She pushed forward with a scowl on her face. That was her next reality, she supposed. As soon as she reunited with Team Seven, all of them would be back to running and plotting and hiding, with occasional life-or-death fights against Madara's endless clones.
Sakura rubbed at her cheeks and pressed onwards with a grimace, her mind conjuring endless fresh images of Madara that kept her face burning red. She managed to stave off the bits of guilt about Sasuke that arose this time, especially while reminding herself that she'd never tell him or anyone else what had transpired between herself and their great enemy, but she couldn't as effectively ignore her continuous conflict over Madara. It was like a seduction mission. Sakura focused on that, folding her arms tightly over her chest and slowing her jog to a walk as tiredness twinged the soreness that still hinted in nearly every muscle.
Pushing her hands through her hair, Sakura tried to keep seeing it as positively as possible. For her first seduction mission, that had been an explosive experience; and from what she had heard from other kunoichi's stories, more pleasurable by a long shot than it normally would have been. Their experiences tended to be either uncomfortable at best or traumatising at worst, rarely memorable in a good way, and Sakura bit her lip as she shoved a tangle of overgrown branches from her path, remembering how Tsunade purposely avoided handing her such missions. Sakura had been grateful for Tsunade's favouritism, wanting to save her first time for Sasuke, even if she knew it was an unrealistic expectation as a young kunoichi.
Sakura scoffed, swatting a fly from where it had been buzzing by her ear. All considered, it was better that her first time was pleasurably with a man like Uchiha Madara than painfully to some pigheaded lord on a B or A-rank mission. She shivered, her body still singing beyond the soreness: she wanted to regret all of it, but the way she felt didn't allow her to.
Feeling comforted yet also much worse at the same time, Sakura hugged her robe more tightly around herself as she went, wincing continually at her thoughts.
I'll never tell anyone. Her resolve deepened. No one will know, and the only one to judge me will be me. Everything will be okay in the end.
Sakura travelled for hours, her mind beginning to drift pleasantly as she navigated the forest landscape. These might not be the same forests she had grown up in, but they felt the same, and the familiarity brought Sakura soothing she didn't know she needed. Though the trail only led to more trails tangling through the woods and not residences, she did find some inner peace as she reflected.
Her calm allowed her senses to heighten the deeper into the woods she travelled. Sakura had begun remembering to cover her tracks better, leaving no footprints, avoiding making any loud sounds, staying sharply aware of everything around her. Though she was in a defensive state of stealth, she felt oddly relaxed, the humming of her body giving her sharper focus than her background exhaustion would normally allow. Her sun-dappled surroundings of birdsong, keening insects and summer heat warmed her, soothing some of the roiling debates fumbling in the back of her mind. It wasn't until another hour had passed wandering that Sakura began to get more worried. Surely there was a house or village somewhere nearby. It was imperative that she recoup, change clothes, and forage soon.
She flattened herself in the scratchy breadth of a large bush as her skin rashed with goosebumps, her instincts flaring with warning. Someone must be nearby, and Sakura clenched her fists, missing her kunai. She was ready anyway, no matter who it was: no one would be taking her by surprise.
She scrutinised the forestscape around her, hoping her heart beat wasn't too loud. Was it someone from her team? Was it Madara? Her heart pounded harder, desperately, and she pressed a hand over it tightly, willing herself to calm. She couldn't face Madara yet. What would she even do? She absolutely hated that the obvious logical answer – fight him if I can't escape – didn't feel as obvious anymore.
Sakura made a face at herself. This was the worst time to speculate. Incinerating her thoughts of Madara, she redoubled her efforts on finding whomever was near her before they caught her instead. She crept through the brush on silent feet, pulse pounding as she was ready to fight.
"Sakura!"
She tensed up before closing her eyes, relaxing somewhat. Thank her luck: it was Obito.
"...Sakura, what in the hell…"
Sakura froze from where she had begun to stand up, her blood stopping in her veins. She could hear Obito behind her, his raspy voice shifting from a gradient of relief to astonishment. "What in the hell are you wearing?"