nine

Sakura's heart stopped beating as Madara's dark eyes flicked from her flushed features to his robe that curled around her frame. She ducked her head, staring at his boots beside her sandals, speechless.

His smirk was audible. "...You kept it."

Sakura was jolted with the mortifying recognition that Madara had just caught her, not only unprepared to talk to him, but wearing his robe, and she clapped her hands over her face, the stinging across her cheeks spreading to her ears. "It was warm," she tried to excuse herself, "and you left me with nothing else to wear." She peeked up at him from between her fingers.

"That was long ago now."

Sakura felt a stab through her chest as she met Madara's frightening eyes. For a second, she thought he'd just struck her with genjutsu; but the longer the tense moment dragged out in suspension, she found that it was only the panic of her own pulse spiking into overdrive. With his stare narrowing upon her, all the inexplicable relief she had felt upon seeing him froze up and cracked with icy dread: he was here to kill her, now that she was no longer safe within Obito's dimension.

Sakura's hands flashed out, seizing Madara's sleeves as she searched his grim expression with urgency. "Before you do whatever you came here to do," came her words in a rush, "I need you to see something."

"Hm?" but she was already pushing past him, the workshop behind her forgotten. Her fingers grazed his arm as she darted out of his reach, her head of pink hair and her black and white robes disappearing down the dark stairwell in a fluttering blur.

Sakura could barely hear Madara's distant huff of annoyance over the thunderclaps of her heartbeat. She wasted no time, beelining to the back counter downstairs.

She shoved through the clutter with clammy palms. When her fingers caught on the pages she wanted, she spread them across the dusty worktop with a flourish; her rushed movements made the candle she'd left there topple, and she caught it with a sharp inhale, steadying it in its stand and letting out her breath slowly.

Feeling her shadow grow warm, Sakura stepped out of the way. Her gaze magnetised to Madara as he glanced over at the pages with folded arms, his face hidden behind fallen locks of silver-white hair.

The silence held for a lingering beat. The candlelight steadied, flickering high from its short waxen stand; it cast both Sakura and Madara in the same thin amber light.

Sakura took in a deep breath before breaking through the quiet. "This is the truth." She gestured at the spread of pages. "Everything that I know about the poison I threw at you is there. This shop, right here beneath that counter, is where I found it before."

Madara looked sharply at Sakura, making no move to read the notes scrawled on the arranged pages; his glare levelled upon her instead. A fresh wave of terror crashed through her as she took an unconscious step back. "That you did not plan what happened between us before," he told her, tapping his gloved fingers along his dark sleeves, "is the reason you are not already dead."

"You had already read the notes before I even got here today," Sakura realised, a brief recollection of the suspicious lack of dust on the pages crossing her mind. She pressed a hand over her pounding heart. "Then you know." Her gaze skittered to the side as shame burned her ears. "You know that it doesn't invent anything. It doesn't have lasting effects." Hair fell around her features as she tried to hide her conflicted expression. "It only amplifies. It doesn't falsify experiences, or create…" Sakura cut herself off, her hand brushing over her mouth.

She tried to remind herself of her previous resolve through her embarrassed dismay, all too aware of time ticking down. Madara might have allowed her to pull him down here for the sake of satisfying an erstwhile curiosity, but that was bound not to last.

Sakura's recent decision tried to reemerge in her thoughts, discouraging her seething frustration. If she wanted to succeed in her plan, she couldn't risk angering him. She needed to be cautious, even docile, doing her best to be patient; she had to be the picture of convincing and kind if she wanted her plan to have any chance.

Instead, fury turned hot embers over in her gut, igniting in a blaze. They burned away any interest in pretending to be pliant or falsely sweet. Damn her plan: she was too angry with him to try any fakery, and Sakura's fists tightened at her sides, the heat of what she felt burning behind her eyes as she met Madara's disdainful stare.

His deep voice echoed through the dusty shop, the candlelight shivering with the sound. "I allowed your little venture down here; now that it is finished, give me the answer to my previous question. What decision were you telling 'Obito' about?"

Sakura tensed before closing her eyes. "That doesn't matter anymore."

"You still care for him a great deal, though he was your prison warden, all this time."

She inclined her head, the darkness pulling at her features as her brows knotted. She bit back guilt in her honest reply. "Yes. He was only trying to protect me."

"Are you sure about that? It seems all his mistrust was warranted, as here you are, consorting with me… and wearing my robe." Sakura's eyes flew open as Madara circled her like a shark through the shadows. "What, was that your declaration of independence from your keeper? Don't tell me you had decided to try and seek me out."

Sakura clenched her teeth as Madara's voice rose in a mocking cadence; she shut her eyes again, knowing he'd already seen the truth in her body language. "Oh?" His deep laugh made her shrink into herself. "What was it you hoped of me? Look at you, wearing my robe like a flag of surrender, or perhaps just a red flag." Madara hissed into Sakura's ear as she held herself perfectly still. "Should I interpret it as the candle you've held for me all these months? Or your trophy?"

"No," she managed softly, and Madara withdrew with a scoff, Sakura steeping her head in shame. He gestured at himself. "No? Then what else? I doubt you kept it for any other reasons. Either way…" Madara folded his arms, eyeing Sakura. "You don't deny that you were going to come after me. Tell me… did you think that you could enact some ill-begotten revenge upon me for stealing your innocence?"

Sakura shook her head, running her hands through her hair, Madara circling her once more and surrounding her with his merciless mockery. "How asinine that would be. No matter what your Obito tells you, you brought this all upon yourself." Madara drew close enough that Sakura lifted her head, her eyes widening upon him as his voice dripped with velvet. "If you remember, cherry blossom… you begged me for it."

"Bastard," Sakura spat back. She glared at Madara for a long moment before blinking oddly, her face reddening. "Obito's not mine." Her anger and shame fizzled somewhat as she eyed him curiously. "Did you think that he and I…?"

When Madara paused, Sakura choked on a laugh, looking away from him once more. Pink hair shook around her face as she lowered her head, exhaling unevenly. "No. You're wrong. Wrong on almost all accounts." She stepped towards the candlelight, setting her hands on the wooden counter and steadying herself. Unconsciously, she brought a hand across her once-stained side, wondering how it could be that her previous hopes could die so quickly.

Sakura took in a calming breath and held it, though it did nothing to soothe the pain in her chest. Her heart bled, Madara's cruel words lacerating her with their every echo through her head, and in the shreds that remained, she knew one thing for sure: she and her plan were misled and mistaken.

Her haunted gaze dragged down the pages, blurring in the corners of her vision with the tears she would not allow to fall. These notes were lies. There was no amplification, only hallucinations, as they had given Sakura ideas and hopes that were clearly nothing but wishful thinking from her last encounter with Madara. There was no warmth or gentleness behind those cold, powerful eyes. There was certainly no heart there either.

She hung her head. No… he was only here to watch her suffer a little more before he finally took her life. There was no hope to end this war in the peaceful way she'd wanted, the resolve to kindle a bond with Madara for the sake of persuading him to end the war something she now understood as hopelessly naive.

But I don't want to give up on you. Sakura released a ragged breath, viciously killing that thought and turning where she stood, facing Madara where he stood just out of her reach. His impatience was tangible, fingers gripping into dark sleeves and narrowed eyes glittering in the amber light. No: she could not grieve the unfair nature of it all right now. Now was her final chance to speak her peace before she met death through Madara's unfeeling hands.

"I hate," Sakura began, meeting his unwavering stare, "I hate all that you have done. I want to tell you to go to hell where you came from." She held the robe in constricting folds around herself, her fingers tearing the hems as she searched his impassive expression. "I should hate you…"

Sakura glanced over at the front doors of the shop with a troubled look. "And I shouldn't be here. I should never have left my team behind. I know that Sasuke… Obito… all of them would have listened to me, forgiven me." She bit back the tightness in the back of her throat, her shadowed gaze crossing the shapes of the dark shop and glancing across Madara's jagged figure before closing. "But I had to know. I had to find this place and seek out the truth of that poison, because I needed to understand if what we experienced was truly a lie. Because then…"

Sakura's fists shook; she looked to the pages on the counter, her knuckles white with pressure. "...then, maybe I could go back to the way things used to be. I could laugh off that night, or just have better luck leaving it behind in my memory, labelling it a nightmare or a strange dream." She avoided Madara's searing stare that was embedded into the side of her face; her attention lifted to the lifeless wind chime hanging in silence above her head. "Maybe if it had been a lie, I could have called what we shared fate's cruel joke."

When Madara drew breath to speak, Sakura swerved towards him with a hiss. "No. It is my turn to speak. I won't hear you mock me any longer." She jabbed a finger in his direction. "Everything you are is the opposite of me. You," Sakura's tone rose, "have single-handedly ruined my life. You brought about the end of the world. You've nearly killed everyone on my team so many times, and now, you've turned them against me…" Sakura gripped the counter behind her, the wood cracking, her heart inflamed with pain. "And now here you are, mocking me and enjoying my misery before you take yet another thing from me."

Her gaze swept over him searchingly in the hush that settled after her bitter words.

Madara was the embodiment of shadow. He wore dark robes in replacement of the Six Paths robe that she now wore, high-collared with long sleeves and a plain dark obi. His Rinnegan eyes were affixed upon Sakura above his folded arms, slightly aglow in the darkness he stood in, just out of reach of the candlelight. The oppressive lethality of his presence was as tangible as his impatience that continued to tick down like the timer on a bomb, and Sakura stepped towards him anyway, unafraid of the scowl he wore and her own roaring survival instincts that demanded she create as much distance between them as possible.

"Yet," Sakura finished with a tremulous breath, the anger softening into frustration across her features, "somehow… I wouldn't take it back. All this time after that night, armed with a hundred reasons to hate you and a thousand reasons to regret it, I still… don't regret a thing."

Madara lifted a single brow. "What is it that you want, woman?" His shadowed eyes glinted, just as cold and mocking as before. "Do you expect me to apologize?"

Sakura held her ground when he shifted slightly towards her, a slice of amber light illuminating his remorseless half-grin. "That simply will not happen. I, also, do not regret anything."

Sakura drew back slightly with a quick breath before she looked down at where her robe's white fabric fell in a pool by her feet; the light slipped off of her weary expression. "No. I don't know."

Madara's deep hum resounded across the cluttered shop. "Hn. All that bravery and sacrifice, wasted." He stepped back into shadow with disappointment. "You cannot even beg me to spare your life."

Sakura's head shot back up, her green eyes burning with the firelight. "I'll never beg you for anything."

"Oh, I don't know about that."

The depth of Madara's tone scorched heat from Sakura's face down to her feet. Thrown off completely, she stared at him in a stupor, her cheeks blazing as a knot tightened in her belly. She found herself trying to decipher him again, her wide eyes flicking back and forth across his features – there was that same frigid exterior, the arrogance in his frown and the glare of his ringed eyes, but the heat in his words was weaponized, stunning her into silence.

The interest turning over in her core had her running a hand through her hair, cursing internally. Embarrassed at the reaction Madara had so easily drawn from her, Sakura willed her heart to slow down, her unfocused gaze shifting between her feet. Damn him. He knew how to distract her just as he knew what to say to hit her where it hurt. Was this some kind of test to tease out a reaction from her? More mockery?

Sakura shook herself out of the spell of heat, glaring at Madara with her hands on her hips. "I gave you your answers. Now give me mine: why did you come here?"

Her heart hammered with mortal fear as Madara's arms fell to his sides, his gloved hands flexing decisively in the darkness as she went on, "There is no poison preventing you from killing me quickly this time. So why do you continue to scorn me? Are you just amusing yourself by using the truth against me, like you did with my team?" Sakura clenched her teeth as she met Madara's unreadable stare with open pain. Her voice was soft, anguished, but steady. "I had thought you had a heart. I saw it, for a moment, last we met. It has haunted me ever since, keeping me from hating you like I wanted to. That glimpse has led me here, and yes… I had hopes, naive as you called them." She swallowed her fears, her heart throbbing in her throat as she held his eyes. "I understand now that I was only seeing what I wanted to see. You don't have a heart; at least, not anymore." She reached out, then, her pale hand hovering uncertainly in the air between them. "But please, if you ever had even the ghost of one," she whispered, "don't torment me any more… Madara."

A dark hand emerged from the blackness, sliding past Sakura's awaiting hand and glancing along her throat in a feather-light touch.

Sakura closed her eyes with an involuntary shiver, leaning unconsciously into the caress of his gloved fingers. Madara is not gentle or kind, echoed old pain from her heart, as she reminded herself that this was not a caress; this was a slow, torturous descent into her murder.

Madara's voice reverberated through Sakura with an annoyed sigh. "You overcomplicate things. All this excessive talking."

Sakura swallowed as his fingers disappeared, her skin tingling where they had been. "Well, how else do I tell you?" she snapped back, "I won't just be silent when you've come to kill me. You should know I won't just submit to you. I won't ask you for mercy, and I'll fight you to my death."

"Do not tell me any more." Madara's shadow crossed Sakura, and she looked up at him uncertainly as he went on in a silken rumble, "Show me."

She gripped her fists with a tang of regret hanging on her tongue. So it was to be a fight.

Countless ways to make an attack crossed Sakura's mind. From this close, there were many additional approaches she could take: years of training, countless taijutsu spars; a wealth of knowledge had prepared Sakura for this moment, and she stepped towards Madara with a new intensity, summoning all the rage and hatred she had ever felt towards him in a powerful rush.

Sakura slammed Madara up against the glass cabinet behind him with a hiss, her fists seizing the fabric of his robes. His arms flashed out, stopping the heavy cabinet from falling over them both, glancing backwards as vials and carvings topped out of its doors; when he looked back down at Sakura, her fist was readied, fury and hurt afire in her fierce green eyes.

Madara opened his mouth to speak, but her fist plummeted forward in a blur.

Glass shattered in an explosion of shards, every piece flashing in the candlelight and scattering over their shoulders, catching in their hair. Breathing hard, Sakura wrenched her fist from the cabinet a breath away from Madara's side, blood trickling from her knuckles; in a fashion similar to the glass, the wood of the cabinet behind him imploded from the impact, shattering with a creak as bits of wood and sawdust showered around them.

As Madara exhaled, eyeing Sakura with visible confusion, she stared down at her bleeding hand, her anger faltering. I still can't hurt you.

The frustration this wrought made her bite down on her teeth, regripping her fists, and Madara caught Sakura's arms before she could throw another punch, shaking his head. "You are weak," he was saying, fingers tight around her arms, and Sakura shoved at Madara once more, meeting his eye with a blazing glare. "I am not weak," she hissed, and with a surge of strength broke his grip on her arms, replacing her fists where they had been along the front of his robes. She felt his aura ripple with dark warning as his fingers dug into her hips, ensnaring her so she could make no escape.

Uncaring, Sakura's hands shifted up along Madara's neck, and she ignored the mortal fear burning down her throat like acid, her heart hammering against her chest. He glared at her, but made no move to push her away —- either out of curiosity of her actions or sheer arrogance, she didn't know.

No, she wasn't weak; for the choice to fight before had taken so much less of the strength than it took her to break her fists open now. A powerful compulsion she knew was entirely her own pushed her forward.

With a quavering breath, Sakura's remembering touch slid up along Madara's throat, her thumbs drawing past his warm pulse; her bloodied fingers splayed along the sides of his face. Her hands ghosted along his jawline in an achingly gentle caress as she tipped upwards. Her expression was full of anguished passion as she sealed her lips along his in a decisive, desperate kiss.

Thumbs dug into her hips; Madara's understanding hum reverberated through Sakura's body. She gasped when he slammed her against the wall beside the destroyed cabinet, the force of her lips outmatched by the fury of his. Her mouth opened in invitation for him to take her breath, and he angled her to his liking before taking her lips, drinking her in. Sakura shook against him, her body softening along his, and her eyes flew open as Madara forced her up harder against the wall with a resonant growl, his teeth dragging along her ear. "Show me rather than waste time telling me from now on."

Sakura let out a keening whimper as he pressed into her, gripping her roughly. "Answer me."

"Yes, Madara," she gasped, and he accepted her answer by devouring her once more. Her hands slid tenderly around his face before slipping through his wild shock of hair; their teeth clicked as they fought for dominance, tongues sliding and swirling, their figures undulating once, twice, as folds of fabric interrupted impatient friction building between them. Sakura pushed back against Madara eagerly, her body immured in his, closing her eyes as her passion was ignited by his dangerous intensity.

Neither noticed or cared as the sweeping movements of their twining bodies cast off more objects from nearby displays and sent them shattering and splashing across the shop around them. Sakura's eyes fluttered open upon hearing cracking and creaking; she broke searing eye contact with Madara to briefly notice the branches that burst through the walls and caved in the ceiling, a shaft of sunlight piercing through clouds of dust to reveal voracious greenery rushing in and blooming to life around them.

She was smiling as she fell back with him against a mess of viridian leaves and curved branches, vines creeping over her shivering limbs. "I forgot you have —" She gasped when Madara flipped them both around to pin her down against a conveniently curved tree trunk that had grown rapidly through the center of what had been the shop. The Six Paths robe fell from Sakura's shoulders as she managed to finish, " — Wood Style and —"

"Enough talking." Sakura didn't have the breath to protest Madara's rumbling command as his tongue dominated hers through battling mouths. She dragged her knees up his sides, enjoying the thrill his rough hum of approval tore through her, his untamed mane a silvery jagged shadow descending around their faces. The shop around them was unrecognisable now as the dust began to clear; Sakura's arms curled around Madara like he was her lifeline in the ocean of green that was taking over, clearing the way and spreading rapidly into the skies. She held his face to hers, gladly immersed in madness once more.

Sakura was dizzy from her desperate heartbeat, Madara's palms dragging down the curve of her hips; fabric tore and seams popped as she was quickly bared, her skin burning with shy heat beneath Madara's brusque and decisive ripping movements that shredded away what was left covering her slender figure beneath his. In a spinning haze, Sakura focused on doing the same, her own hands tugging at the obi securing the robes around his waist, untying and unwrapping.

With his obi falling away, her fingers snaked beneath his dark robes in victory before pausing along the thick fabric of Madara's waistband. Pausing, Sakura took in a deep breath, focused upon it; she startled when Madara glanced his mouth along hers teasingly. Blushing harder, Sakura broke free, redoubling her focus on the falls of black cloth that still covered most of his tall frame. She slid cool hands around his sides, her thumbs venturing beneath the sides of the waistband. Her heart pounded desperately, her lack of bravery to push forward making her ears burn.

Madara chuckled deeply, occupying himself by palming one of Sakura's breasts. She let out a shaky huff and shoved at his robes, tugging the dark fabric away and revealing his pale shoulders and chest. Madara pushed Sakura down against the leaves and tree bark, dipping his head of wild sunlit silver-white hair and biting into the side of her neck; she let out a desirous sigh, her hands returning again to the edges of his dark pants and pushing at them, her bare legs sliding beside his thighs with heightening friction.

The offending dark fabric slid several inches lower with Sakura's heated efforts, but then she felt slickness, and she sat up with a start, breaking loose of Madara's hold and forcing him to stand back as she looked down his front – there was blood spattered across his abdomen, only just beginning to dry. Sakura cursed, green light flickering automatically to life in her palms as she ran healing over the bloodied expanse of skin that had been hidden beneath his black robes.

"Are you all right? Did I hurt you earlier?" Sakura said in a rush. Heat bloomed in her cheeks as Madara shook his pants away, catching her wrists and stopping her healing with a short exhale. "I'm fine, and no, of course you didn't," he replied in an impatient rumble, Sakura discovering that the bloodstain was only that; a stain with no wounds beneath it. Was it even his own blood?

She frowned, shaking off his touch again to continue probing his muscles and sides, worried. "Are you sure?" Sakura's quick check found that Madara was in perfect health, and she wiped her bloodied hands on the bed of leaves surrounding her, aiming a sharp look of concern up at him. "It looks like it was a pretty bad injury. How thorough are your regenerative abilities, exactly? Maybe I should do a full diagnostic on you. You could have some remaining internal damages."

"I was not injured. I am just fine," Madara replied with a grin, and before Sakura could question him he pulled her face to his, tasting the curve of her mouth. Her eyes fluttered shut; his hands around her wrists pulled her arms back to where they had been around his shoulders before sliding up the soft skin of her bared underbelly and cupping her breasts. "Ah— but you'll let me look later?" she sighed, Madara humming in agreement as the rest of the fabric between them was torn away. He angled her face and took her mouth more deeply, the both of them exhaling in unison as at last their bared bodies slid against each other in full, skin-on-skin.

Sakura slid her hand up Madara's chest, feeling his heart beating in time with hers, and she breathed him in, fully distracted and intoxicated by him once more.

Madara held her gaze, his large hand gripping her pale thigh and drawing it high up along his side. He set Sakura's ankle along his shoulder, and she was flushed with colour as he gave her a devilish look, his other hand drawing down her chest and teasing along the inner thigh of her other leg. She covered her chest with an arm that he caught and pulled away, pinning it above her head. She held his stare with wide eyes, breathing harder.

"What is it that you think you can hide from me?"

Leaves and vines unfurled by the hundreds around Sakura as she shivered from Madara's velvety question, her free leg shifting to hide her bared lap, and Madara leaned down into her, capturing her mouth. She closed her eyes, relaxing into the sliding movements of his lips along hers, the sensitive skin of her face tingling as their features brushed together, his wild hair tickling down her neck and shoulders.

When his hands disappeared from her heated skin, Sakura opened her eyes worriedly, lifting her head slightly just in time to see Madara peeling away the long black gloves from his lean arms and pale hands. He met her gaze as he did so, his ringed eyes narrowing, and a full-body blush scorched downwards through every part of Sakura, her heartbeat quickening with anticipation.

Tossing the gloves aside, Madara's freed hands returned to Sakura's nude body, and she gasped as he slid a bared finger inside of her, testing, slow, teasing. She moaned, pinning her arm over her eyes and tilting her head back, her face burning red with his unhurried explorations. He strummed her like an instrument, her sounds rising in timbre and trembling with each of his slick progressions; she arched her hips unconsciously, shifting back and forth as she welcomed his touch. Leaves continued to unfold and rise around them; sunlight spilled across Sakura's pale skin from the gaping maw that had crumbled away the roof and half the second floor.

Madara leaned into her, enjoying the music of her pleasure, a teasing look crinkling the corners of his eyes as he loomed over Sakura's crimson face and parted lips. "You could have saved us so much time and initiated this sooner." His thumb rubbed along her pearl, making her whimper, and he grinned, circling it with greater emphasis and eliciting a higher wail from her. "Were you this ready for me the whole time?"

"Madara," Sakura sighed, her hands shaking as she found his arms. She took in an uneven breath, absorbing his unapologetic smile; she blinked with the almost random thought, teetering from the dizzying heights of pleasure he had orchestrated her to with devious fingers. He looks happy.

Her head fell back with a soft cry as said fingers were replaced with the slow sliding of his length up against her. He teased her with it, once, twice, and on the third time he teased her, Sakura tilted her head back up to glare at him, lips parted and green eyes afire with her own impatience. She rocked towards Madara, but his thumbs dug into her hips, controlling her movements. He was a shadow blocking out the dust-veiled sun as he loomed over her, teeth glinting in the light. "Go on," he rumbled, sliding up against Sakura languidly once more, "Beg me."

Indignance coloured her expression before she glowered at him, doused in her full-bodied blush. "No." She slid her hands up along his arms and pressed up against him with increased frustrated anticipation, and Madara withdrew from Sakura completely. He stood before her in a shaft of sunlight, arms folded, and Sakura sat up with a hiss, feeling bereft; she clamped an arm over her chest as she protested angrily. "You—!"

"I'll just leave you here," Madara teased, beginning to turn away with a swishing of his long silver-white mane, and Sakura's hands were a blur as they shot out, seizing him by the sides and yanking him towards her. He let out a low huff of surprise as Sakura turned them both around, slamming him on his back against the vine-wrapped curve of the tree. She was on him in a flash, mirroring his movements from before, her hands pinning down his shoulders as she hovered above him with smouldering eyes.

Sakura held her body just above his, not quite touching, absorbing the heat in Madara's expression with a little grin of her own; she was breathing hard as she slid her knees along his sides, her voice a little rough at the edges. "You were just bluffing, weren't you? Now you — will beg me."

Sakura beamed down at him, proud of how she'd turned the tables. Madara eyed her for a moment before seizing her hips with a nearly maniacal grin. "No," he thundered, pulling her down and impaling her in a single vicious thrust.

They both breathed in sharply and then exhaled in successive groans, melting into each other, hands finding shoulders while their waists met. Sakura slid her body along Madara's while their hips remained connected, her knees locking around his sides, rocking against him with a sweet gasp. He guided her next movement with a hand along the curve of her waist, fingers sinking into soft skin. She cried out again when he pulled her further into his lap through their tangling limbs, pushing deeper. She slid her hands up his chest, leaning down to tilt her face into the side of his, her eyes closed in a tight expression of focus and pleasure as his hot breaths grazed her ear.

Sakura clamped around Madara tighter, her rippling muscles making his next breath a shudder, and he thrust into her harshly, turning her to face him and catching her next gasp in a hungry kiss. As their lips moved in tandem, her arms curled around his shoulders; he growled as she rocked against him again, pistoning into her in response with a particularly rough push that made her arch backwards with a groan. Her head fell back, her chest rising and falling as she breathed hard, her hands dragging along Madara's toned sides. When Sakura looked back down at him, her gaze was ablaze like he had set her afire, her hair glowing in the high noon sun. Golden light spilled across her features and down her fluted neck, warming her curves and drifting down in dappled patterns to where her body joined with Madara's. His Rinnegans memorised the sight so that it might replay in his mind eternally.

Sakura seized Madara's shoulders and met his scrutiny with an intense expression before moving with him in a determined push, breaths rising and falling as he continued to stretch and fill her. Together they rocked deeper into the explosion of forest around them, clouds of steam and dust puffing around their faces and twined figures. Wood cracked from the force of it as Madara flipped Sakura, their locked bodies bucking against the hard bark of the tree trunk.

Her sweaty hands scrabbled around the corded muscle of his shoulders, their lips tangling again as she breathed his name like a prayer, repeating, the syllables broken between his reckless thrusts that were throwing them both towards a rising peak. A large hand tangled through her hair – sizzling electricity when green eyes met metallic ones, lips parting, the golden haze surrounding them both as there was no world but each other in this moment.

There it was, Sakura realised through the heated daze of passion and pleasure, losing herself in Madara's forest-fire stare. With the sparks from their clashing and the heat between their bodies, what she had witnessed that night months ago had returned, unmistakable this time. That certain warmth, the fever of a tempered-steel heart buried beneath, visible in physical expressions shown, not told; Madara's heart was no ghost. Not only had Sakura not imagined it before, but now it was aflame, vivid, alive.

Pushed over the edge on every level, Sakura's heart bloomed between the pounding of their bodies. She was soaring into heights of sensation she had never dreamt of reaching, and as she lost herself in Madara's gloriously burning eyes she realised in a panic that she had feelings for him, enough that it scared her and oh she was about to —

Sakura's cry resounded throughout the branch-broken streets and echoed out into the forest beyond.