Sakura sank into Naruto's tight hug with a sigh. "I'm so happy you're alive," he was saying into the mess of her pink hair, squeezing her harder, "everyone kept saying you had to be dead. But I told them! There's no way anyone could manage to kill you. Not even Madara."

She stared dully at the cubic concrete of Obito's pocket dimension, her chin settling on Naruto's shoulder. Comforted, Sakura's eyes closed as he continued to chatter by her ear. "'Cause you're a badass, Sakura! You warned us in time for our escape and held him off for so long. We actually got some real rest while safe here. Okay, and you have to tell me! Did you land a couple of good hits on him?"

"Naruto," came Kakashi's warning in a stern tone, and Naruto pulled back, looking at Sakura with sparkling eyes. "It has to have been an awesome fight. Obito said something about the aftermath being super destructive. But you look okay." A funny expression crossed his face before he gripped her by the shoulders, searching her weary features with fresh urgency. "Are you okay? I probably should have asked that first. You look okay. But… you don't seem like your usual self."

"I'm fine," Sakura assured him with a small smile. She looked away from Naruto, folding her arms over her chest and taking a step back.

Though he observed her lie, Naruto let out a sigh, letting her go. "It's all right, Sakura. I get it… you're probably tired. But make sure you tell me all about it later."

"Sure, Naruto." Sakura glanced past him to where Sasuke idly examined his fingers, leaning against the slightly singed tent. He had made eye contact with her once after her return, and had said nothing since, continuing to ignore her existence as much as possible like he had done before. Sakura found herself caring a lot less than she thought she would, and she turned from them both, her face falling into shadow. "I'm going to go rest."

"You just got here," Naruto whined, "and this weird cube dimension is so great for training. Let's get a couple rounds of taijutsu out at least. Please? We can all rest later." His head swivelled as his bright blue eyes locked onto Sasuke. "Sasuke, you in? I'm itching for a fight."

"Fine," Sasuke sighed, and Sakura shook her head, shaking off Naruto's pleading glance as he began following Sasuke towards a distant flat expanse. "You guys go on without me."

Before Naruto could continue insisting, Obito lifted his head from where he had been having a quiet conversation with Kakashi. "Let her be, Naruto. For god's sake, she just came back from a battle with Madara."

Naruto's pout dissolved, and he shrugged once more. "Hmmph. Yeah, I guess. All right. Get some good rest in, Sakura. Train with us next time, though, okay? It'll be just like the old days." His eyes sparkled, and Sakura couldn't help the tiniest smile. "Like Team Seven's back together?" She huffed, though her smile fell as her gaze tracked over to Sasuke. He was already out of earshot, striding towards the makeshift training grounds in the distance. Her gaze paused on the Uchiha symbol on his back before she ripped her attention back to Naruto, all the light gone from her eyes. "Later, Naruto."

A shadow crossed his worried expression as she turned from him, and his stare lingered on her until she disappeared through the nearby tent's opening.

Sakura pulled herself into a cross-legged sit on her bedroll, taking a deep breath and forcing her tense shoulders to unknot and relax. Exhaling in a long, toneless note, her frame slumped, her head bowing. Her hands slipped up to cover her face.

No more tears. She inhaled again, finding a gradual calm that kept her steady. Now is the time to rest, recover, meditate, and regain my chakra.

As her rippling emotions smoothed out, Sakura sank into a glassy calm. She slowly lifted her head, soothed by the empty tent, shielded from the eyes of others, their judgements and worries. Floating within the cool darkness, Sakura focused, the breath she held remaining steady; she began her meditation.

A ripple of metallic eyes pierced through her thoughts and broke her concentration. Sakura pitched forward with a curse, clapping her palms over her eyes and scowling into her hands. No. She could not allow him to linger on her mind any longer. She set rules for her mind: no thoughts of the recent past, no thoughts of any Uchiha. She must focus and regenerate her chakra. Whenever they ran low on supplies next, she and her team would need to make another run through the nearest town to pilfer more, and that meant the risk of lethal battles would return.

Sakura drew in a deep breath and tried again, lowering her head and willing away her troubled thoughts.

Rinnegan eyes again, but this time glinting with rage and heat, burning upon her through the flames – more memories of their faceoff and what followed trampled her calm. With warmth flagging her cheeks, Sakura fell back onto her bedroll; she released a withered sigh, pressing her arm over her face.

Distantly, the sounds of Naruto and Sasuke's spar resounded through the vast cubic dimension. Sakura's brows knotted together as the realisation wound around her thoughts. Now that she was back, she and her team would resume the cyclical hell from before: running, grabbing any vital supplies they came across, getting injured and nearly killed, making desperate escapes, and restarting the cycle again, exhausting her chakra in saving her teammates' lives over and over.

Sakura clenched her teeth, pressing her arm harder over her face as the frustration brought back all of her tension from before. They weren't any closer to finding a solution to ending the war itself, let alone the Infinite Tsukuyomi. Any Edo Tensei had scattered or disappeared as Madara had annihilated Black Zetsu and her team had made their escape; everyone else helpful was stuck in a dream, and as Sakura stewed in her thoughts, she felt an overwhelming hopelessness rushing over her in oppressive waves.

No more tears. Sakura held her breath, biting back the emotions rising from her hopelessness. There had to be an end to it all that wasn't each of their deaths. In the very least, her team had a better chance now that they could rest in reasonable safety within Obito's dimension. I must focus. I will focus. I need to just pretend that everything with Madara and the poison never happened.

Every following attempt to meditate only brought Sakura more frustration, her attention continually frayed by her many fears for the future. Her vivid memories wound back and around, looping in circles around her like constrictive bindings. A thousand questions and unvoiced thoughts she could not ignore whispered immutably from where the stained folded robe hid in the pack at her side.

"Come on, do it!" Naruto bounced up and down where he sat, bright with his idea. He nudged Sasuke in the side with an elbow, shooting him a look. "Come on, help me convince him. It'd be so great."

"No," Sasuke answered easily, turning his nose up, though he glanced curiously at Obito beneath dark hair as Naruto returned to needling him. "Come on. No one could do it better but him. Say something silly."

The campfire's amber light danced across each of their faces. Sasuke at Naruto's right leaned against his elbow with a sigh; beside him, Obito was rolling his eyes. Kakashi was half-paying attention, his book in one hand, though his eyes were on Sakura. She was the only one looking at the fire, huddled in a blanket and shivering slightly. Her weary expression was otherwise blank, unresponsive to the conversation that was tossed throughout the loose circle her team made around the fire.

"I told you before, no," Obito growled as Naruto continued to stare holes through him. He moodily poked the fire with a stick. "It's inappropriate. I'm not going to —"

"Please?" Naruto clapped his hands together with a beaming grin. "Please please. Whenever life's back to normal, I'll buy you ramen. And I'll buy me ramen, but also you."

Obito eyed him dubiously as he went on, "We could all use a good laugh. You, me, Kakashi-sensei, Sasuke, and definitely Sakura. We've all been stuck in your dimension for like a year now." Naruto nudged Sakura, and she had a flicker of a reaction, her green eyes dragging from the flames to Obito, who then realised all eyes were on him. "A month," Sasuke corrected Naruto's exaggeration with a roll of his eyes before he too gave Obito a subtle glance, hinting that even he was interested in the impression they all apparently wanted to hear.

Obito scowled. So be it.

He cleared his throat, sitting up tall and folding his arms; haughty and arrogant, he aimed his imperious expression upon them all. His voice was a flawless copy of Madara's that boomed across the flat expanse they were gathered on. "You were always just a motley crew anyway." A maniacal, insane grin twisted his features. "Do you want to dance as well? HASHIRAMA!"

"Pffhahah!" Naruto laughed, and Obito smiled just a little. It had been a long time since he'd had to use Madara's voice.

Spurred on by Naruto's giddiness, even Sasuke smiling ever so slightly beneath a shadow of his hair, Obito leaned forward, eyes narrowing. Shadows flickered over his features as the campfire rose a little higher, the flames licking orange and gold over his lined features as he continued using Madara's rumble. "Wake up to reality. Nothing ever goes as planned in this accursed world. 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 grim expression matched his memory of Madara's ancient face as he'd spoken his dark words, so long ago. "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."

While Naruto chortled himself silly, all the colour had drained from Sakura's face.

Sasuke scowled. "I don't remember him ever saying that. That must not have been when we were there."

"Oh, right," Obito laughed uneasily, the rasp of his own voice having returned. "Some speech he gave me a long time ago." His dark gaze flicked across the faces of his team; Naruto was blinking at Sasuke, Kakashi was nose-deep in his book, and Sakura held Obito's stare, a glimmer of pain behind her eyes.

He grimaced. That hadn't been a good idea.

Giving Sakura a subtle apologetic look, he cleared his throat once more. "I think that's enough."

Naruto made a face, folding his arms. "Aw, I thought you were gonna do more than that. Can't you come up with more stuff? You've known Madara longer than we have. Tell us jokes or something too, not some boring speech about dark and light or whatever."

"I highly doubt Madara even knows any jokes," Obito snorted. All eyes gravitated to Sasuke as he interjected, "I seem to remember you had another persona that you used in the Akatsuki."

Kakashi nodded in agreement, setting his book aside. "When you were… Tobi?"

Sakura hummed, some of the colour returning to her face as she remembered. She shed the blanket she wore, her skin rosy with warmth. "I forgot about that. What did you call it? Ninja Art: Whack-a-Mole Jutsu? Weren't you waving a stick at us while fighting eight of us at once?"

Obito idly prodded the campfire with the branch he held, smirking as he remembered. "That's right."

Sasuke was blinking at Naruto and Sakura in confusion as Naruto shook with laughter. "Don't forget Hidden Jutsu: Frill-Necked Lizard!" With a sigh, Naruto leaned back on his elbows, watching the flames contentedly. "Man, it wasn't funny back then but it is now. I was so mad I couldn't land a single hit on you or that aloe vera guy."

"'Aloe vera'," Obito quoted, chuckling to himself. "That really rubbed Zetsu the wrong way." He glanced over as Kakashi tapped his fingers along the cover of his book with a frown. "That day was the first time I saw that you had a Sharingan. I was so close to figuring it out then."

"When was this?" Sasuke was getting increasingly annoyed at the group's reminiscing. Naruto glanced at him, the humour fading from his face as his smile died. "Obito was purposely wasting our time to keep us away while you fought with Itachi."

Sasuke inclined his head, dark eyes falling back into the campfire; he said nothing more.

"You sure have a lot of dimensions, Obito," Naruto said with a yawn, stretching his arms, "and I don't just mean Kamui. I couldn't keep track of it all if I tried juggling more personalities other than my own like you did."

Obito stared into the fire without responding, his expression distant. As Sasuke laid back, rolling over with his back to the others, Kakashi returned to his reading. Naruto yawned, continuing to chatter. "Like, being silly and crazy, but also pretending to be evil and hateful like Madara? And then there's who you actually are. Man, I can barely keep track just saying it aloud. How did you swing all of that for so long?"

Sakura's troubled gaze drifted away from Obito as she stopped listening. Her ears still echoing with Madara's voice, she turned away as well, curling up beside the fire. The cement beneath her was uncomfortable, but the last place she wanted to be was alone in the tent, so she would remain here — even if it meant enduring Naruto's chatter.

She stared out into the dark of Obito's endless cubic dimension, willing sleep to soothe her. Those rumbling words pooled in her head, Madara's face a dark reflection within; Naruto's words disrupted his image in a shallow ripple.

Evil… hateful.

Sakura closed her eyes as ghostly memories caressed past her ear and down along her cheek. She flinched at the silent sensations dipping through her head, filling her with the warmth she was still trying to purge forever from her heart.

Hidden behind a large cement wall, Sakura huddled in a crouch, pressing her hands over her lower belly. She reminded herself to breathe as she threaded careful chakra through her skin, her green eyes narrowed in absolute focus. Her reminders served little purpose as her chest rose and fell faster with each cycling of her intense anxiety.

She eased her chakra-thread through her abdomen, ignoring the panic that was on a rampage through her frantically-beating heart. The frightening question stamped itself repeatedly through her vision, sweat dampening her palms.

Upon finding her answer, she fell back against the cement wall, her hands slipping away from her belly to the cold ground. She slumped, her eyes fluttering shut as the tension left her body in a deflating exhale. She barely felt how the rough concrete scraped her skin on the back of her neck and her arms.

Nothing. Not a damned thing, and she let the relief wash over her. This was a problem she should have worried about so much sooner, and Sakura pressed her palms in over her temples, cursing at herself. You were lucky, this time.

When she imagined what it would be like should she have found the results she'd feared, she hunched deeper into herself, twitching with pain.

What if? Sakura exhaled against her palms, her body shaking slightly. She scowled. There was no debate. If she had ended up carrying Uchiha Madara's child, she would have gotten rid of it.

Her heart stabbed through her chest in protest. She bent further into herself, hiding her face in her knees. It wasn't that easy, she knew: if she had been forced to face that decision… she didn't actually know what she would do.

Sliding a palm over her lower belly again, she checked herself once more, reaffirming that she was not pregnant; an uneasy relief curled there instead.

Sakura stared hollowly at her knees as tears slipped down her cheeks and spattered down her legs. The next what-if that questioned her brought a different answer this time, one that rose from the warmth of her memories. The empty ache in her chest reverberated with one image, and she resented that she had been unable to let it go for so many weeks now.

She pressed her face into her palms, trying to shut it out, instead reminded of the warmth she had discovered behind Madara's eyes that night; that tempered steel hiding a gentleness that she would never be able to forget. It rose from where it lived in her ribcage, rising up through her constricting throat and bringing her that what-if with a different tone.

Sakura fought the image with whatever she could, curling into herself and biting down on her tears. Madara was not gentle or reassuring. He would not comfort her as she wept over anything; he did not care about her. Be glad you can blame it all on a poison, Obito's voice growled through her head. She glanced backwards where he was asleep in the nearby camp beyond the cement wall. Resent sparked in her heart from the amount of times she had argued with him in the past month.

She bit her lip. A month, trapped in cubic hell? Or had it been longer? Sakura couldn't remember anymore, and as she returned her hollow stare to the cement at her feet, she recalled his other occasional lectures whenever Madara had been brought up and the others weren't around. Don't waste time worrying about Madara or what you do or don't feel about him. See him only as your enemy as you did before. Besides; the longer that poison's out of your system, the easier it'll be to move on from the feelings it fabricated in you. Obito hadn't noticed the hurt in her expression as he'd gone on, I'm sure he's already forgotten you anyway.

Sakura's teeth gritted as she forced herself to reabsorb those words over and over. She tried again to feel unanimously relieved in her emptiness.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when the air blurred beside her, and she quickly relaxed, slouching forward as hands appeared upon her shoulders. She bowed her head, an unexpected push of relief tightening her voice into silence. She leaned into Naruto at her left and Kakashi at her right. With their arms around her allowing her to let herself go, Sakura slumped, comforted in their silent, unquestioning support.

She shook in their arms for uncounted minutes before drawing the back of her hand along her face, wiping away a streak of tears and glancing up into Kakashi's troubled dark eyes. He said nothing, and he didn't need to, all of his patient compassion expressed in the worried crinkle about his eyes.

Sakura looked over to Naruto, who watched her with a somber calm, his arm crooked about her shoulders above Kakashi's. "Thank you," she managed in a tremulous whisper, and Naruto offered her a kindly smile. "Whatever happens, whatever's upset you, we're here for you, Sakura."

Naruto patted the dust into a vaguely wall-like shape, completing the square barrier around the lumpen sand castle he'd made. He tapped his fingers along his mouth as he contemplated it. "Yeah, not bad," he complimented his own work, his boredom easing somewhat.

He scowled as another cloud of dust whooshed across the slab he sat on, and he cursed as the castle collapsed from the powerful gust, disintegrating into a pile. "Dammit! That took me forever," he whined, and standing at his back, Obito was running his hands through his choppy hair, red-faced with rage. "What do you have to complain about?" he hissed, coughing up dust and glaring outwards, "Just look at what she's doing to my dimension!"

"I mean… you did tell her no, again," Naruto answered him. The slab of cement they stood on trembled and shook – a distant boom forced the ground to give a pleading groan. Obito tore some of his hair with a curse, Naruto gathering more of the dust into a pile and shrugging as he resumed entertaining himself with sculpting shapes from the gray sand-like mess.

The world continued to quake, and as Obito paced the slab, Kakashi sighed where he crouched, turning a weary eye to him as he brushed falling dust off the pages of his worn Icha Icha copy. "You knew this would happen."

More rumbles, rippling with aftershocks; the slab cracked beneath their feet. Bits of cement and rock exploded out through the empty air. In the distance, there was a roar, a figure of pink and red becoming a blur as she brought her fist down again into the crumbling, broken shapes of the once-cubic landscape.

"This place isn't infinite!" Obito shouted, but even Naruto and Kakashi beside him could barely hear his yell through the cracking and groaning of breaking cement and shuddering ground.

"First the east expanse last week, and this northwest bit this week," Kakashi commented, turning the page in his book. "I wonder which region she'll decimate next week."

"It's not funny!" Obito was hopping from foot to foot. "I'm going to kill her! Does she think this place just regenerates itself? Did she treat Konoha training grounds like this?"

"Oh yeah," Naruto affirmed. He poked a drooping dust-turret back into place as Kakashi added, "Yamato had to work overtime hours whenever she trained, repairing the landscape with Wood Style. It got pretty bad on days people mentioned Sasuke, in particular."

Obito glowered out at where Sakura stood in a vast canyon of broken cement and clouds of dust. She lifted her head, breathing hard, making eye contact with him; the fury in his expression didn't outmatch the rage that was visible in hers even from this distance.

"Why don't you let her come with us anymore?"

Obito glanced at Naruto, his dark eyes narrowed. "It's none of your business."

"But —"

He stormed past Naruto with a flourish, his dark clothes whipping around him as he went, and Naruto let out a defeated sigh as his sculpture collapsed yet again. He looked out in the opposite direction of Sakura where Sasuke was approaching, raven hair drifting over his dark eyes. "She's having another tantrum?" he asked as he grew nearer, and Naruto shrugged, Kakashi ignoring them both in favour of turning the page in his book.

Sasuke scoffed. "Who cares. Let's train, Naruto."

Naruto eyed the decimated landscape that stretched out with dust-like sand dunes far into the horizon, the random symmetry it once had gone, and he laughed uneasily. "Well… sure, but maybe we should be careful not to destroy anything this time? I think Obito's going to lose it if any more of this place gets wrecked."

"It's his own fault. Come on, I'm already bored waiting for you." He noticed the pile of sand Naruto was scowling at. "Were you making sandcastles? Are you five?"

"Shut up, Sasuke," Naruto bit back, Kakashi coughing to hide his laugh as Sasuke turned, Naruto following him off the slab and towards what remained of Obito's dimension that was still intact.

Kakashi put Icha Icha away when a slim figure landed silently beside him, hair drifting around her face. Getting to his feet, Kakashi set a hand on Sakura's shoulder. She lifted her head, the anger and frustration still tight in her features; he watched her patiently, and she let out a shaky exhale through her nose. He turned with her, and they looked out at the ruined landscape, Kakashi's hand returning to his pocket.

Sakura glanced at Kakashi, her lips pinched. "Aren't you going to lecture me about the destruction?"

"No." He blinked at her. "Do you need me to?"

She let out a bitter laugh before running her hand through her cement-dusted hair, sighing. "No. No, I just…" Sakura closed her eyes. "Why does Obito trap me here like this? Why don't you argue when he always tells me I have to stay behind?" She drew up where she stood, her hands pressed over her chest as she frowned at the unsteady ground at their feet. "I don't even know when it's day or night anymore. I'm losing my mind, 'Kashi-sensei."

Kakashi shrugged. "I can't say."

"Doesn't he trust me anymore? Do you?"

His dark eye slid back to her as she searched his face, hurt written in her expression. He held her searching gaze a moment before inclining his head. "It's not that, Sakura," he carefully lied, "He's just letting you fully regenerate your chakra. You were dangerously low far too often before we were safe here. It is important that you are well, and you would expend yourself too much if you came with on supply runs right now."

She scrutinised him with suspicion, and Kakashi held his steady, flat expression above his mask. "It's all right, Sakura. We haven't encountered Madara on any of our recent runs, so there haven't been any injuries for you to heal. Even if we did, we would be able to use Kamui to get to you immediately." His dark eye crinkled, his gaze kindly upon her. "You always trouble over things too much."

Sakura processed this with a knot between her brows, and Kakashi slouched with relief as she accepted what he had told her, her stare drifting off from him and tracing along the clouds of dust that were still settling around them. Darkness sunk behind her eyes, wistfulness shading her saddened gaze.

She jumped slightly when Kakashi patted her head. "Let's rejoin the others. Perhaps consider training with the other two next time you need to… vent your frustrations."

She nodded, though her gaze remained troubled and hollow as they set off in the direction the rest of their team had gone.

Sharp eyes flicked over rooftops and across cobwebbed streets, unwavering from the figures flitting through the shadows of the dead village.

Madara bent a little lower from where he was poised on the roof of an abandoned shrine that towered high into the sky, watching them go; his metallic eyes were narrowed. Four. Four again.

It was easy to tell through darkness even just by the hints of hair colours – the obnoxious yellow of Naruto, the salt and pepper of Obito, the raven-black of Sasuke, and the silver of Kakashi that reminded him of Tobirama. Even hanging back on watch, or to the side – no fifth presence, and Madara leaned his head on his hand, boredom dragging across his irate expression. No pink hair… and it had been months, now.

His gaze drifted towards where the little group was going. Ah; another supply run. Madara's brows twitched. What had they done with the girl? Or was she purposely hiding? He knew for certain that they had found her and reunited – quite quickly, only a few hours after he'd left her there in the mud and ash.

He closed his eyes briefly. He had stood there a moment, staring down at her slim, rain-damp figure. She'd nuzzled the robe he'd cast over her, pressing her nose into the collar; there was a rare peacefulness in her face as she'd slept. Her hair had been a nightmare of caked mud and sweat, her skin streaked with rain and dirt, but still she had been a vision of beauty.

Madara frowned. Damned kunoichi. He definitely should have taken her hostage. Then he wouldn't find himself on watch like this, his irritation increasing each time he caught sight of her team missing its pink-haired medic. He resented that he'd had no desire to take vengeance and kill her when he'd had the chance to do it.

It annoyed him to no end.

Lifting his head, Madara moodily pushed silver hair from his face, getting to his feet. Without a doubt, Obito was keeping her hidden with the rest of Team Seven. There was nowhere else she could be; if she was in this realm, Madara would have found her by now. That left Kamui, the one place he could no longer go — unless he stole Obito's eye again.

Madara folded his arms, debating the idea. It wouldn't be difficult. Even as on guard as their little crew always was, it would be a simple thing to catch Obito by surprise and rip out an eye before disappearing. However, it would be risky to remove a Rinnegan to replace it with Obito's Mangekyou Sharingan again, even temporarily. It wasn't quite worth trying, though it was tempting. He'd certainly be able to squash Team Seven in its entirety if he could access what had become their safe haven.

His eyes narrowed, continuing to follow their winding path through the streets as he thought. He should have killed them all the first time they had dared to venture out of Kamui, months ago – just as he should kill them now. He had grown tired of this cat-and-mouse chase.

Scratching his chin, Madara eyed the group as they paused at an intersection. He had expected their troubled cherry blossom to return long before now. He had been looking forward to what would certainly be her entertaining reaction when next their paths crossed. Would she rage? Perhaps foolishly try to face off against him again? Or would she fold in fear? He guessed the former over the latter, based on the fiery, stubborn nature she'd displayed to a fault.

Madara was interested to see how she had decided to view him now, knowing what he had recently learned about her interesting mistake of a poison. His hand drifted unconsciously over his side where the red stain had long since disappeared.

His scowl deepened. He should be wholly focused on Team Seven's total annihilation, not interested in the whereabouts of some wearisome woman. It annoyed him enough that she hung on to the back of his mind, his Rinnegans worsening this problem by replaying his memories of that night with her in perfect detail as many times as he pleased.

Hmm. They were indeed pleasant images. Madara smirked to himself.

After letting them play out in a spinning reel of colour once more, he archived the memories, dismissing his previous indecision along with them. He must ensure that he focused clearly on protecting the Infinite Tsukuyomi, reigning unopposed as the god of this world. It was time that he cleared the distractions from his field of view.

Madara's glare levelled upon Sakura's teammates as they flitted in and out of stores in a great hurry. They looked worried that they might be discovered soon, and his scowl lifted into a knowing grin as he decided how he would satisfy his curiosity and boredom.