Madara materialised in a rainy forest that he immediately recognised. It was a half a day's travel north of Konoha, near the border with the Land of Sound, and he could hear the nearby waterfall, the rushing bubbling of the river.
He grimaced, his jagged hair shadowing his face as he inclined his head slightly. There could be only one reason she was here, in the Valley of the End.
Running his palm along the rough bark of a nearby tree, Madara glanced around at the forest with unease. It was uncannily parallel to reality, perfect down to the tiniest detail. His sharp eyes caught the trails of ants across branches, the specks of pollen floating through the slightly foggy air; raindrops clung to the edges of leaves, dripping down into the heady musk of the thick brush underfoot. He could taste the petrichor of the storm, feel the breeze across his face, hear the patter of the rain across the webbed forest canopy.
It was much too perfect. Madara dismissed a flash of pride that the Rinnegan was this powerful, its genjutsu a level of potency that flawlessly recreated reality. This sheer level of detail meant that there was little chance Sakura had retained herself from full immersion, and he might have a more difficult time pulling her from this world.
Madara strode forward with a scoff; he ignored the rain streaking down his features. Of course he could remove her from this place. With the power to create a world so thoroughly real, he could destroy it just as easily.
He emerged from the treeline, a familiar cry ringing in his ears. Though he already knew what he would see of himself, Madara did not expect what he saw in addition; he stopped still in his tracks, openly staring.
The most beautiful woman he had ever seen curled around the collapsing figure of his younger self. A cloak of cherry-blossom hair fell around her shoulders as she kept younger Madara from crumpling into the water, her hands aglow with viridian green around the sword puncturing through his back. A rush of anguished, soothing words fell from the pale curve of her lips. Black ribbons rippled in a complex pattern down her willowy figure, bleeding through their matching dark clothing; the pattern curled around his visible skin as he stared dully down into the shallow river, unresponsive to her. As rain-damp hair fell around her fine features, the Uchiha symbol shone in blood red and pristine white upon her back over her old-fashioned clan-issued robes.
Madara caught himself, stepping back in his shock. That… was Sakura?
The beautiful woman that was Sakura hissed in frustration, her hands glowing brighter. Younger Madara slumped, his head falling forward as his eyes closed slowly; rain dripped in rivulets down his paling features. Sakura let out another cry, curling around his crumpling form and pushing desperate healing into his chest. "No… no! Why can't I heal you? Please — please —"
He grew limp in her arms, and she dipped her head into his wild black hair, the thin gray light glittering upon the tears that fell with the rain down her cheeks. Her half-lidded, broken stare drowned in the waters that flowed around their twined figures.
When Sakura bowed her head, the sheer intensity of what she felt shook the world around her in a powerful ripple. Madara had to steady himself with a hand on a nearby branch, continuing to stare at her as the genjutsu trembled with the earthquake she was the unwitting epicenter of.
She drew the body she held deeper into her arms, swaying with her grief.
Remembering himself, Madara stepped forward, clearing his throat. "Sakura," he called to her, but she didn't appear to hear him, her face buried in black hair and blood-soaked robes. He advanced to her side, reaching for her. "Sakura."
She shook as Madara lifted a hand to her face, but when his fingers drew through her hair, they tipped through her very being like she was a ghost.
Madara stared down at her, paling.
As he withdrew his hand, he could not help but to notice more about Sakura. She was older, perhaps in her thirties, her features sleeker and more refined. She lifted her head, and Madara could see the harshness about her eyes, hinting at the darkness in her past. He recognised a slight scar along her cheek as that from Akane, now faded from many years passing; her skin was hale and smooth in contrast to the sharp edges around her battle-hardened stare. The Uchiha robes she wore were fitted to her curvaceous frame, showing how lean and toned she was; slender, yet wiry and strong. Her presence emanated lethal, honed grace: darkness, yet warmth and fierce passion; strength, pride, and undeniable power.
Had Madara been anyone else, he might find her frightening. Already attractive before, Sakura was now honed like a fine blade, a vision of perfection itself. Every inch of her was hauntingly, unforgettably beautiful, and her image burned into his mind eternally.
Madara tried again to reach her, his hand falling along her shoulder in a frustrated grip. "Do you hear me?" he rumbled, "Answer me."
Sakura let out an anguished sound as she pulled the sword from younger Madara's back. Blood pooled in the water around their bodies, and she slid her hand around his face, her thumb grazing along his throat; no pulse, and she bit back a sob, tilting her face along his with a ragged exhale. "I don't understand," she whispered, the ribbons fading away. "It doesn't work anymore. I've failed you again." Her voice caught, the tears rolling fresh down her cheeks as she held him to her. "What will I do now? Why… did this happen?"
"I'm not dead," Madara growled beside her, his fingers digging through her shoulder until his hand swiped through her body like she was made of water. His pupils dilated as he weaponised his Rinnegan stare, trying again to take hold of her while influencing the fabric of the genjutsu itself.
This time, both she and the air around her warped with his touch. It was like he was pushing his hand through a painting, and still she did not feel him, tears falling down her cheeks.
Madara stepped back, his expression twitching. He gripped his hands together, knuckles white, as he stopped himself from trying to pull Sakura free again.
His teeth clenched as hers did, pulling her arms around his younger self's body. Madara took another step back, understanding joining his frustration as it overshadowed his previous anger.
Sakura was so deeply immersed that she had become a part of the genjutsu. She could unconsciously affect it to an extent, which was clear by the minutiae of her clan clothing, her battlescarred grace, the echoes of Madara's own past reflected in her face. Adrift within this dark world, she had lived through much suffering already; she was bound for so much more. He wondered what other minor details she had been able to affect while being entirely unable to change others, such as the deaths of himself and his brothers. As immersed as Sakura was, she wouldn't understand that she could not reverse such events.
Madara stood at an impasse once more, this time twice as conflicted: he should kill Sakura, but not because she was a risk to him. He should kill her, because she was trapped in an agonising century of darkness and despair that would only end in death. It would be a mercy.
He lifted a hand, feeling the power within his eyes respond; he could tear her forcefully from this place, but it would make the structure of her mind fall apart. If she did not immediately die, she would be left comatose in a living equivalent of death. Was that preferable to allowing her to live through too many more decades to the end of the genjutsu, when she would emerge on her own? Which suffering was worse?
With a sharp intake of breath through his teeth, Madara lowered his hand, beginning to withdraw from the genjutsu entirely.
"Don't leave me," Sakura whispered into blood-drenched black hair, causing Madara to flinch before he disappeared in a cloud of light.
Sakura was poisoned by that old confusion again when she stood beside Madara, staring down at a very young Obito.
Her brows drew together as she vaguely recognised him. Leaning forward, her ghostly touch feinted across his features, the aching of her heart a constant background hum she no longer noticed.
Why did she know him? How? Her thumb drew along his cheek, gentle, thoughtful. He did not stir where he laid; he was unconscious, bound in bandages. He was so young.
Sakura did not have memories of Obito at this age, but somehow she knew those eyes, that choppy hair, and her recollections of his voice rasped across her thoughts in a worn caress.
Sakura withdrew with a soft, cracked hum. She might have been more upset in past years over such a strange remembrance; she'd once have troubled over these memories, drawn out by a face she shouldn't know. Worn by time, she was merely perturbed, almost apathetic. Self-awareness was flickers of feeling and emotion she felt, but no longer questioned. Long ago she had accepted that she could not change what she witnessed. She could not affect the events of her life.
As she turned, her bones cracking with her movements, she wondered how long it had been. Her gaze drew automatically to the shadow at her side; without hesitation, she linked her arm with his, her feet sliding along the stony cave floor in time with his. They manoeuvred to the stony throne with careful steps, shuffling and soft.
Madara collapsed back against the hard stone, and Sakura slid down beside him, tilting her face into the falls of silver hair over his shoulder. He coughed; she brought a gentle, slightly trembling hand soothingly along his chest. She felt a tickle in her own ribcage, and bit back her own cough, pressing her face deeper into his robes with a sigh.
His weary exhale echoed hers, and Sakura swallowed her bodily pains, bringing her hand upwards. She trailed her touch along the lines in Madara's face, sliding along his cheek, her thumb tracing beside his shadowed eyes. He was exhausted from saving the boy's life. His weariness mirrored hers, aged and tired. It was time to rest.
But the boy's face — Obito, she remembered — haunted her mind. In images unexpectedly vivid, she beheld his adult face where he peered through her mind's eye. Red eyes, igniting with harsh rebuke; dark eyes, shaded with understanding. He had been a study of contrasts: sometimes he was as playful as a dancing flame, and sometimes he was all the burn of one, tongue sharp and mind sharper. His features themselves expressed his duality, half his face grooved with scars, the other half unmarred and smooth. She could hear the gentle rasp of his voice murmuring through ancient memories, still.
Though his past words were lost to time, the feel of Obito's expressions lingered, and Sakura seemed to recall his affection, followed by his hatred; not for her, but for Madara.
Why did she recall Obito like she'd known him well? Sakura's face twitched with perplexion anew, and she exhaled against Madara's shoulder, curling up against his side. Her legs creaked, her joints popped, and she ignored her body's protests, adjusting herself into place. Her head tilted across his chest, and when her hair mixed along his, their colours matched, silver upon white.
Madara inclined his head as he closed his eyes, resting; she did the same, willing her troubles to quell. Sakura tried to tell herself she'd imagined those memories, but they continued to persist, triggered vividly by the presence of the boy lying unconscious on the bed nearby. She knew him; she cared about him, and she didn't know why.
Sakura watched her hand shake upon Madara's chest. It used to be unwavering, but somewhere in the decades, she had lost some strength. It had ceased to bother her; it was simply what came with age, with the blur of long decades in the darkness.
Still, a prickle came to the corners of her eyes, that deeply-buried feeling that she had failed, and she tensed up with pain. An announcing trill had Sakura blinking out of the tears, and she croaked a soft laugh as something jumped up onto her lap, nuzzling against the underside of her arm. With a wry smile, Sakura drew her age-spotted hand along the cat's back, his rumbling purr soothing her aching heart.
She settled more comfortably into Madara's warm side while stroking her cat's soft black fur. Ah… it wasn't all so bad. Though so many that she'd loved had fallen away from her life, she still had these two, and she was deeply thankful. Though she wished Madara would draw a hand along her face like she once dreamt of him doing, she smiled anyway, sliding her knobbled, calloused fingers through his.
Sakura closed her eyes, pushing her strange recollections from her mind and focusing on her gratefulness. Warmed, her turmoil fading, she faded into rest. At least… we have each other.
Sakura lifted her head as Obito spoke with Madara. Her expression lined with confusion, her faded yet potent memories returning at the sight of him. He sat up taller, the bandages changed – the fierce dark of his visible eye reminded her of several people she'd once loved. Izuna. Sasuke. Naruto.
Sakura was the thin echo at Madara's side, her back aching from the stony throne; she stared at Obito, chasing lost oscillations of memory. She searched his visage, finding him both familiar and unfamiliar at once. She was certain now that she had somehow known him when he was older, the grooves in his features scored deeper in his handsome face.
Madara's velvety cracked rumble reverberated beside her ear; she settled back against him, staring at Obito with spinning thoughts.
"Wake up to reality… nothing ever goes as planned in this accursed world."
Sakura sat forward with eyes fluttering wide open, Madara's words rumbling through the cave around them.
"The longer you live… the more you will realise, that the only things that truly exist in this reality are merely pain, suffering and futility." His dark stare narrowed upon Obito. "Listen… everywhere you look in this world… wherever there is light, there will always be shadows to be found as well. As long as there is a concept of victors, the vanquished will also exist. The selfish intent of wanting to preserve peace initiates wars, and hatred is born in order to protect love."
Sakura reeled with memory as Madara's words echoed a hundred years into her past, drawing out a moment that coincided with the present — his voice, coming from Obito's mouth, his eyes dancing with the light of campfire. Naruto, Sasuke, Kakashi, sitting with Sakura as they listened to him speak, his tone a rumbling velvet identical to Madara's now.
The clarity of her memories cut through her confusion, yet amplified it, and Sakura trembled where she sat as Madara glared down at Obito's young self. "There are nexuses, causal relationships that cannot be separated, normally. I want to sever the fate of this world. A world of only victors. A world of only peace. A world of only love… I will create such a world."
Sakura's eyes widened through the snowy falls of hair around her face. A world of only peace. Images of hanging cocoons by the thousands… a red moon… memories, and she inhaled sharply, looking out through the darkness with a crashing of awareness. Who was she? Who had she become? What were these memories of the world Madara spoke of in the far future, that she had somehow already seen for herself? She ran her wrinkled fingers over her temples, her breaths ragged and panicked. What was memory? What was dreamt?
Madara's deep voice resounded throughout the cave, and she searched his face for the truth, finding only his unfeeling calm. "For truly this reality… is a hell."
The cavern was impossibly dark. Sunlight was long forgotten, an old memory decades past.
Sakura slowly blinked to life. Enveloped in darkness, she didn't know when it was night and when it was day, having long stopped trying to remember.
She watched her hand where it rose and fell along Madara's chest. His breathing had awoken her, having become more uneven than usual. The warm echo of his voice resounded through the chamber, his words fading before Sakura had awoken.
Upon feeling Madara shift to get up, Sakura scrambled to the floor, falling on her aching limbs and coughing as he got to his feet with a tremulous exhale. Recovering, Sakura pulled herself to her feet, brushing the hair from her eyes; she looked to Madara with alarm as he lifted his head. A twisted white figure faded into the wall from where he had just finished speaking with Madara; news, Sakura knew, of Obito. She pressed a hand to her chest, fighting against confusion that she had since judged as senility, wondering if he was all right.
"He's ready. It is… time."
Madara's voice filled the empty cavern, resounding back before dying away. His shadowed stare dragged downwards, and for a moment, Sakura held his eyes.
Sakura sat up straighter, searching Madara's aged face with a fluttering feeling in her chest: hope, that he saw her at last, that he finally acknowledged her at his side. For endless years she had dreamt of this moment. Countless times, she had sought his eyes and never been granted their touch. With her heart pounding, Sakura adjusted her long white hair and swept at her lined features with a hand, hoping she was still at least somewhat worth beholding.
She bit back the pain like she had done for most of her life when Madara closed his eyes instead, unseeing; unfeeling.
Sakura was the one to cry out when Madara tore off the life-giving connections between the great husk of the Gedo Statue and his back. He stumbled, Sakura catching his shoulders, and Madara collapsed back on the throne, breathing harder in his pain. He let out a ragged, bloodied cough, his back searing with agony – his organs were rapidly shutting down, his body caving in and collapsing.
With a gasp, Madara braced himself on the stony edge, crumbling against it. He was unaware of Sakura's supportive grasp, unhearing of her words as he began to fade at long last. Here, he would die alone, alone as he had been all of his life, and he closed his eyes, ever unfeeling of the tears dripping down his face that were not his own — his name murmured into his ear, her unseen arms a warm shadow around him as he released his final, shuddering breath.
Sakura's expression slowly softened and grew still.
The vigilant figure beside where she lay shifted slightly. He did not move; he did not speak. Two consciousnesses flickered.
The wind outside the distant window wailed, dragging the silhouettes of trees past the square of light in jagged relief. The pale silver light cut across Sakura's bloodless features; her eyelids fluttered, gradually opening.
She stared blankly at the arched wooden roof above her. Her hands, folded over her chest, twitched.
Sakura drew in a harsh breath that ached in her throat. With determined effort, she turned onto her side, the whole of her body screaming with pain from the movement. Swallowing the scorched, dry feeling in her mouth, Sakura stared at the mass of silvered whiteness at her side. Though it caused her great pain to do so, she forced her arm to lift, her hand shaking violently.
She drew the long hair away from a hidden face, revealing the slightly luminescent glow of Rinnegan eyes beneath.
Madara caught Sakura's hand, steadying it where it had hovered in the air. With his grip cautiously light as if she was made of glass, he held her searching gaze, his stare the only part of his face unshadowed.
Sakura blinked at Madara several times, registering the touch of his eyes. She recognised it with a shock, her frame stiffening in her startlement: he could see her.
He could feel her, and his thumb slid over the fine bones of her wrist like a reminder that he was with her in the present moment: she was not invisible to him any more.
With her blood beginning to turn in hot, rapid circles, Sakura reread what she was seeing over and over again, unable to believe it. Adrenaline cycled beneath her skin like she'd been thrown over a cliff's edge rather than simply seen. With so many seasons passed where she was unnoticed, Sakura had lost count of all the years that she had waited for Madara to meet her eyes – for anyone to.
Madara released her with a frown. Though her now unsupported wrist continued to shake, her muscles afire beneath her skin, Sakura forced her unsteady fingers forward, bringing them to the side of Madara's face. With boundless wonder, she memorised the feel of Madara's gaze connecting with her own, tracing her fingertips along the angled edge of his jaw and skimming the heel of her palm along his cheek.
Relief. He was so warm, he was alive, and he could see her at long last. Sakura swallowed through her dry throat, barely aware of her own shallow breaths as she immersed herself in this wonderful feeling. Perhaps it was another dream — but it did not matter if this was a fantasy, or perhaps some kind of afterlife. Relief. She let herself sink deeper into the rare sensation, losing herself in it.
Understanding registered in Madara's expression, deepening the lines in his grimace.
He knew why she reacted like this all too well. A perfect copy of what Sakura had endured in the genjutsu had archived into his own mind upon her awakening.
As a smile ghosted across Sakura's expression, Madara continued to process all that he saw of her life, echoed behind the shadows in her eyes.
He had been well-prepared to receive this new onset of memories. They did not flood over him in a tsunami like the experiences of his dismissed clones had, though these had the same potency and crispness of detail; they embedded in the background like they were his own, ready for perusal at his leisure. However, if Madara's mind was a library, its magnitude had now doubled, an entire new wing of volumes waiting to be read looming over his thoughts like a mountain's shadow. He could not help the fingers of his curious, stressed mind slipping over the new pages of memories, reading and memorising the countless new moments, images, sensations. His conscience wandered the aisles of Sakura's years in his past — comparing, debating, processing.
Madara wanted to pull back from the present and be alone. There was much to think through now that Sakura's genjutsu was finished. A literal century of memories awaited careful analysis, and he itched to see certain parallels, to play them out in the powerfully sharp center-stage of his mind. Days spent awaiting her awakening had been enmired with impatience, frustration, conflict, and a certain unmitigable curiosity, building up question after question.
Each question, however, carried the undercurrent of an answering reality Madara could not will himself to forget, and he resisted showing it in his eyes as he beheld Sakura now. Lessons well-remembered from deep into his past allowed him to adjust his expression in a careful facade, masking everything he felt. It would not do to allow her to know the truth of it; not now.
The touch of Sakura's hand along his face was achingly gentle, like she thought Madara was the one who was fragile; or perhaps it was that her body had weakened enough while she was away that she could only be gentle, her strength wasted within decades of genjutsu.
In the demure gliding of her fingers along his jaw, a lost grace echoed, circling back to the lines Madara remembered beside her eyes, the recollections of poise along Sakura's slender figure. Even in her infinitely young face, her stare was wizened and sweet, like a fine vintage — her relief was tangible, visible, and so very pure. Sakura had become a living contrast of age and youth, her old soul a well of pain and beauty that flowed through every movement of her frame and every shade of colour in her eyes.
The sight of her like this had Madara clenching back from her with unexpected pain. Pain, that showed him a thousand versions of her at once, each one just as striking as the last: the grim guardian, the bloodied samurai goddess, the proud shadow, the kindly elder. He knew her infinitely well now, recalling her across the decades. Sakura's memories were vivid and concurrent with his own, and Madara recognised her now as if she had truly lived his entire life at his side, the feeling that she had overshadowing the knowledge that she hadn't.
She hadn't, and he accepted this – but he regarded her the same.
In the suspension between conflict and resolution, Madara lifted his hand, sliding his much larger fingers over Sakura's where she continued to hold his face regardless of her body's aching protests. He released a long sigh, closing his eyes briefly.
Immeasurable understanding brought Madara a modicum of kindness; it bled patience into where anger and frustration had lived before. His fury had made its retreat when she had awoken, when her memories had become his. He had no use for anger for now, though it left an aftermath of guilt that burdened his mind.
Guilt grew heavier as Madara became more aware of Sakura in the present once more. He hated the feeling. It did not suit him, and it rarely crossed his heart. As if guilt had resented its absence for so many of his years, it swelled in him now, weaponizing what he knew of her coming fate through every passing second with greater and greater strength.
She shivered beneath the glancing touch of his palm, and Madara opened his eyes, meeting Sakura's searching stare once more. The words unfurled from him softly, like his tone itself might break her. "I'm here."
She was the one to close her eyes this time, her expression tremulous with returned relief. She absorbed the sound of his voice, rumbling and calm, echoing her own words from so long ago.
Sakura exhaled shakily. Somehow, Madara knew what she had gone through, down to every last word. She felt steadier, the winds buffeting her soul through stormy skies calming; her heart soared as the rough pads of his fingertips brushed along her chin, lifting her face upwards, and her eyes fluttered open. She fell into his metallic stare. "You are seen."
Her skin sung beneath his hand, a hundredfold more sensitive than it was before, tingles drawing fires in her pores where his hand caught the side of her face. Sakura quavered, revelling in the sensations as Madara acknowledged her, and she could hear his next words through his touch alone. You are felt.
Her eyes welled up with tears, not of sorrow, but of joy.
Upon Madara's silence that followed, Sakura lifted her head, eyes open once more. She brought both of her hands to his frown, focused upon his features rather than his conflicted, regretful expression. Her pale fingers traced where she remembered deeper lines; ceaseless memories of his face drew out from her touch, sketching across her mind's eye. Grounded from the soaring of her heart, she kept her attention affixed upon his familiar features. She might not know what time she was lost in now, or if this was reality or not – but she knew his face, something that permeated through so many years of her life.
Her comfort rippled with the interruptions of observations, plucking through her previous relief as her gaze shifted to her own hand where it laid along the side of Madara's face.
It was young, lacking wrinkles or spots of age, and Sakura stared at it in silence, uncomprehending.
Madara's skin beneath her palm was nearly as young. Gone were the telltale lines from decades passed; gone was the almost rough, leathery texture of aged skin. Belatedly, she recognised that his voice had lost the coarseness of age, the velvet depths of his timbre fully restored.
Sakura jerked her face back to Madara's as she searched his eyes with urgency. "When —?" she asked haltingly, seeing again how he was a lifetime younger, and so pale. She saw now the hidden eye in his forehead that she both recognised and didn't understand, the memories she had of it old and fractured like antiquated photos falling apart in her mind. He was no older than thirty, yet his hair was silver like she remembered from so recently; his eyes were Rinnegans.
So familiar, yet not at all, and Sakura breathed harder with rising panic in her confusion. Madara parted his lips to speak, and she whispered instead, "When are we? Who am I? What— happened to you? When… where?..."
"I could not pull you from the genjutsu."
Madara exhaled wearily as Sakura pressed her palms against her face, trying not to let her dizzying confusion overwhelm her. It was useless to panic. She willed her usual calm to return, to soothe her fears, but felt only a void in her mind. Too many memories clashed with too many questions, and she didn't know which aligned with her reality; there was a sharp disconnect between herself as she was now and her memories from before she'd awoken.
"Genjutsu, Sakura." Madara turned her face back to his, his large hand securing her jaw; he held her wide, worried eyes. "Look at me. Focus upon me, and listen."
She tried to, but her gaze swept over his strange changed face distractedly. He was old as he was at the Valley of the End, but as pale as when he'd been an elder with her. He had never had two Rinnegans while this young, and the third eye —?
"I don't know what's going on," Sakura whispered back, heart pounding hard as she held Madara's stare. "I'm so confused, and I don't…" She swallowed her panic. "Nothing makes sense anymore."
He regarded Sakura grimly as she tried again to figure out the situation. Her hands told her that she herself was still young, but she did not feel her youth; she had left it behind somewhere as Madara had, before Izuna had died. She didn't understand what he meant by a genjutsu, just as she couldn't remember why she still partly recognised this different version of him. Why was he no longer the aged man she had grown old and died beside? Had this young, changed Madara killed her once? She thought she remembered him stabbing a staff through her gut, but that couldn't be right.
Trembling, sweat covered Sakura's forehead, her thoughts churning. What were the true memories? When had it all ended and begun?
"You need to focus." Madara's eyes narrowed upon Sakura, shadowed. She withdrew into herself, pressing her hands over her aching heart. "Focus on what?" she bit back in her panic, "I don't know what world this is, anymore." Her gaze broke away from him to her own hands, pale and unlined, youthful once more. "I remember so much… so many years…"
"I did not mean for you to endure an entire lifetime in genjutsu." Madara closed his eyes, deep lines furrowing between his brows.
"Genjutsu?" Sakura repeated the word, trying to recall the right memories to help her understand what he was talking about. She lifted a palm to her head to heal her splitting headache before remembering that her healing abilities were ineffective. Bloodied memories — Uchiha falling from failed healing, Izuna's dying breath, Madara collapsing through the water with a sword through his back, his aged self shuddering into death in her arms —- every moment Sakura's chakra had failed to heal ran through her mind's eye, and she crumpled into herself with a sound of pain, her hands falling to the floor with their brief flicker of light fizzling out.
"Breathe," Madara reminded her, and she tried to listen, her thin frame shaking like a leaf in the wind; her lungs strained in her chest, her breaths inconstant and shallow. "I just watched you die," Sakura wept, curling deeper into herself. "Again, and I remember —- I remember…"
"I know." Sakura closed her sore eyes as his rumbling voice soothed her somewhat. She relaxed slightly where she had folded up in a fetal position, shivering. "You know? Did you actually see… what I went through?"
She missed the slight wince in Madara's stare that he quickly snuffed out, bypassing her question with his answer to another. "I intervened a few days ago," he said as he sat up beside her, "and found that pulling you out would have killed you. It was necessary to let you finish it on your own." He looked away as she lifted her head, searching her memories as he finished, "You wouldn't remember. You could not sense me."
"What?" Sakura whispered back, staring unseeingly into her knees. She shook her head. "I don't understand. What could possibly have been genjutsu?"
Madara grew still, tensing up; Sakura's voice was barely audible. "Are you trying to tell me that some of the past years I lived weren't reality?"
"Sakura…"
"How much?"
There was a long stretch of silent minutes before he answered her. With her face buried in her knees, Sakura did not see how Madara withdrew his briefly outstretched hand, regret clearer than any other emotion in his otherwise calm mask. "All the years that I did not acknowledge you."
Sakura was too stunned to react, though her hands shook more violently as she held onto herself, curled up on the floor.
Madara cleared his throat. Slowly, Sakura lifted her head, wrangling her aching body into a sitting position beside him; when she met his eye, she was taken aback by his intense expression. "Can you even remember the war?"
"Of course," Sakura replied with some acidity, "how could I ever forget losing Izuna —?"
"Not that one," Madara replied sharply. Sakura frowned. "The war that Obito fought in? We didn't participate. Not when we were as old as we were."
She could feel Madara's frustration, and she cringed deeper into herself with inexplicable guilt, her confusion worsening again. "I'm sorry," she whispered, "I'm… I'm trying to piece it all together. I just… I don't know…"
"The fourth war, Sakura." Madara was shaking his head. "Surely you remember."
"Help me," she answered, meeting his shadowed Rinnegan stare with a glimmer of hope. "Maybe your eyes…? You could —"
"No." Madara's growl resounded through the small moonlit room, and Sakura closed her tearstained eyes as he went on, "My eyes are what cast you into this in the first place. I will not use them against you again."
"Your Rinnegans…" Sakura frowned at the ground, her fingers flexing uncertainly. "I think… I remember."
Madara was silent, and Sakura hummed as a memory rose to her mind, sweet and faded. It felt so very long ago, yet fresh, and she smiled to herself, feeling bittersweet. How had she forgotten? "That's right."
"What," Madara replied flatly, and Sakura's face warmed, her heart beating a little faster. She held the memory on her mind another lingering moment before understanding, the rush of recollections finally finding an order through her dizzied mind. She exhaled, shuffling forward and tipping her face up against Madara's, her lips grazing sweetly along his cheek. "Thank you."
There was a slight break in his voice that she didn't notice, focused upon the memory she savoured – a recollection of a kiss, of her fervent granted request so long ago. "Why are you thanking me?" Madara turned his face to hers with a scowl Sakura saw through; she slid her arms up around his neck, meeting his troubled stare. "For letting me into your life, letting me closer, even before the genjutsu." She swallowed the tightness in her throat, the guilty words breaking free at last. "I'm sorry. You were just so hard to talk to sometimes, so closed off, and so I wanted this genjutsu —" She paused, letting out a soft sigh and tilting her face into his neck. Memories stirred, enough that she remembered her guilt, though she still struggled to remember her reasons behind her request beyond what she felt now. "I really did love the life we lived, before. I remember… missing it."
Madara narrowed his eyes disbelievingly, and Sakura offered him a smile. He shook his head, the darkness in his expression causing her smile to falter. He continued to be as cold and unmoving as a statue beneath her affectionate grasp, his hands flat at his sides.
Sakura's stomach sunk. Had he still not forgiven her after all this time?
Black-gloved fingers curled around her shoulders, giving her a brief flutter of hope that quickly died as Madara pulled her away from him; she sat back with a heartbroken exhale she tried to cover with a cough. Though she kept her head held high, Sakura avoided his eyes now, ashamed. Her apology hadn't been enough. She remembered wistfully that with someone like Madara, forgiveness did not come easily, and she should be grateful that he was here to greet her upon her awakening at all.
"Right now, none of that matters," Madara said, the moonlight criss-crossing the space between them as he addressed her grimly. "Confirm one thing for me. I need to know…" He paused, Sakura feeling the tension rolling off his shadowed silhouette in intangible waves. "When did the genjutsu place you in my life? Did you live through every day, or did time pass in a blur you don't fully remember each moment of?"
Sakura brightened as she was able to answer without a doubt. "I definitely lived through everything. In the beginning, you and Hashirama warned each other against your clans' imminent ambushes with your skipping stones." Her smile faded, though she felt good that she could give Madara the answer he wanted, her memories continuing to shuffle into an order that made sense in her head. "It was hard, some years, but I'm grateful I got to experience everything rather than just whatever moments were most significant for you." Sakura glanced aside as she thought, shifting where she sat. "It was an incredible genjutsu. Even still… I'm having trouble reframing it with that understanding. It all felt real, and I still feel like —" Sakura let out a short, bitter laugh. "Like an old woman, within."
Madara let out a low curse, startling Sakura. She looked to him, but he was getting to his feet, his silver-white hair as pale as the moonlight where it fell over his hidden face; she reached for him, her voice softening. "Wait."
Though his expression was obscured in shadow, Sakura felt Madara's dark glance. For a moment, he was still, staring down at where she bent in the windswept silver light; jagged black branches cut through her image from where they waved across the high windows. She held herself up with whatever strength she had, refusing to appear weak even when every inch of her body was immured with pain. However, even her pride had to admit she did not have the capability to stand on her own, not right now; her hand stretched out towards him, bloodless and slightly tremulous. "Take me with you," Sakura said, her voice steady as she met his hidden eye. "I don't mind the cold. I just need…" She took in a slow, slightly raggedy inhale, her throat parched. "I need fresh air."
Still, he was a frozen visage of black and white, and Sakura bit her lip. She understood his distance, to a point, and she shook her head with a gentle press of forgiveness that slid across her heartbeats. She would talk with him more later; she would find a way to bring him back around, to understand that her intentions had always been good.
Sakura frowned down at the ground, her hand retracting. Had they? It was still a hazy, fogged memory when she looked back to her pre-genjutsu self. She recalled her emotions, her determination, but in this moment, she struggled to remember why she'd pushed for this, what had driven her beyond her desire to understand and know Madara. Decades of new memories layered over such details, obscuring their clarity.
Sakura shook her head to herself and pressed her palms to the ground, willing her muscles to cease their complaining. If Madara would not invite her to his side, she would put herself there, regardless of how much it hurt. She would repair what damages remained in the bond between them, and she would clear her own head, reasserting her usual mental acuity. She would not be weak any longer, and Sakura grunted with pain as she forced her screaming limbs to obey her, shifting her knees along the mat and arching her back; she pushed against the ground, sliding a foot against the mat and demanding for her knees to steady themselves as she forced her body to begin to stand.
Years of training and countless bloodied battles flashed through Sakura's mind as she focused harder on keeping her body steady, using the fury of her will to make her calves support her weight, allowing her to begin rising from the floor. She had slaughtered powerful shinobi, fought alongside legends, and rewritten entire landscapes with her power. She would not be bested by the simple difficulty of standing.
Sakura got to her feet at last, and she lifted her head with fierce pride. She would best this weakness yet. She'd be back to her full strength by the end of the week; she would make sure of it. Not only was it embarrassing to be so weakened in front of Madara, but it was embarrassing for herself; she was so much better than this.
Her knees crumpled, and Sakura hissed with surprise as she found herself not an angry pile of limbs back on the floor, but caught in a sturdy grip. Silver hair fell around her shoulders as Madara overshadowed her, his fingers digging in to her shoulder as he held her up. "You are pushing yourself too hard."
Sakura resisted leaning into him, tired of seeking his approval; she tried to pull forward, ignoring his words. "I'll be fine."
She felt the thrum of Madara's frustration, and he pulled her against his side, walking with her out of the room; she glanced at him with ire that he similarly ignored, his arm secured around her slim shoulders.
As he led her out through the front doors and down the front steps, Sakura growled with a painful tightness in her chest, "If you're still going to be distant from me, refusing to forgive the past, then I don't want you here like this, pretending to care." She tried to shake him off and coughed, her lungs seizing as she doubled over; her unsteady feet slipped on the ice, and again Madara caught Sakura from falling, his grim face set in stone.
"Damn it," Sakura cursed, pressing a hand against her lungs, breathing in slowly through clenched teeth. She let herself lean just a little into Madara's warmth, frustration knitting along the ache in her chest, closely akin to her wistfulness; she kept herself from meeting his eyes, knowing she would find in his gaze the same icy cold as the winter landscape around them. She could not bear it; not now, when she feared for her lack of strength, for the extent of the genjutsu's fallout on her body.
Keeping herself from meeting Madara's eye, Sakura looked to the skies, the fleecy clouds parting way to show her the blood-red Tsukuyomi moon.
Years in the dark, years of listening in to plots and planning and yearning, bloomed: Sakura stared at the moon in wonder.
Her hurt temporarily forgotten, Sakura looked to Madara with a beaming smile, gripping his sleeve where he held on to her. "I can't believe it," she breathed, her eyes sparkling with joy, "you did it! You achieved it at last… I'm so proud."
Taken aback, Madara read her genuine expression of kindly joy for a moment before he looked away. "You are not well."
A fog settling back over her mind, Sakura's smile faltered; she looked down at where their feet stood carefully distanced through the tufts of glittering snow. She coughed again, her entire frame shaking with the painful force of it, and Madara set both hands around Sakura's shoulders, keeping her from slipping. Closing her eyes, Sakura took in another slow breath, tasting the fresh winter air and dismissing her confusion and pain. "You're right," she managed, a wave of dizziness turning her head around, "I think… I think I need to rest."
"Heal yourself." Madara's command was simple, direct, and Sakura shook her head, trying again to stand on her own; he kept his unrelenting grasp upon her shoulders, glaring down at her as she sighed. "I can't."
"What do you mean, you can't?" His incredulous tone only just hid the concern buried beneath. Sakura swallowed, her legs shaking from standing this long. "I accepted years ago that my healing abilities can only fail."
"It has not been many years, Sakura." Madara's sharp words cut through her ears, and she shut her eyes more tightly in response, her throat constricting with emotion as he went on, "it has been a week. And regardless of what it felt like, it was not reality, but genjutsu."
She brought her eyes slowly up to his as he went on slightly less harshly, "Your healing abilities never failed. You were attempting to change a past that was set in stone. Of course your efforts would be wasted."
Tears prickled Sakura's eyes as she searched Madara's frustrated gaze. "I couldn't just watch you or Izuna die. But I had to… I thought… I thought that I had failed you both, over and over."
Madara parted his lips to speak, but paused. His words stolen by understanding, he stared down at her, unable to respond.
Sakura swayed, falling against his chest. With her body giving in to pain, her will to keep her distance faltered too, melting beneath the persistent warmth of her heart. "It's all right." Her face pressed into his chest, and she could feel his heartbeat beneath her ear, something she had long treasured. "I'm just so glad… to be home."
Madara kept Sakura's slackening frame from crumpling to the ice, waiting long minutes for her to speak again until he glanced down at her face. She was limp, unconsciousness taking the light from her eyes once more as they slowly closed.
Arms seizing around her slender figure and pulling her fully against him, Madara bowed his head, burying his face in her snow-flecked hair.
He was frozen beneath the weight of all he knew, a moonlit shield of jagged white from the snow howling on around them. Unmoving, he held on to Sakura's fragile warmth, time continuing to slip ceaselessly past with the wind and the cold.