It was on her third try that she got a rock to skip more than once, and Sakura scowled at where it had sunk into the center of the river. "You make it look so easy."

"I've done it a thousand times. This is your third," Madara scoffed. "You are still not positioning yourself correctly." Sakura glanced at him, letting out a soft half-protest as his hands slid over her shoulders, turning the angle at which she crouched beside the slow currents. "Your chest and shoulders must be facing the water. Keep your wrist backward so it is at a ninety-degree angle to your arm." Madara sat back, releasing her as he watched. "Take your time with the backswing."

Holding her breath, Sakura nodded, adjusting herself to match all that he'd said. Keeping her back straight and her body carefully poised, she felt like she was preparing to skewer someone with a blade rather than something as simple as skipping a rock. A backlit glow of recognising that this was perhaps relevant beyond learning an idle activity sharpened her interest in it, and she found herself absorbing everything Madara said with her full attention, the eager-student part of her resurfacing.

"Remember the way to throw it that I showed you; it must spin, otherwise your efforts are made useless." Madara was flipping another stone idly in his hands; Sakura caught it when he tossed it to her without so much as glancing at him, her fingers slipping into place over its shape, and she prepared to skip it with a serious expression fit for someone ready to kill.

Sakura couldn't help but to notice the amused smirk he wore as he observed her seriousness. Made uneasy by Madara's presence that was intense no matter his mood, she felt like he was mocking her even in silence.

Sakura let out a sigh, adjusting the new skipping stone. Her hesitation did not go unnoticed, his sharp eyes observing her tension, and she felt every touch of his stare upon her, a burning red colour rising inexplicably to her cheeks.

Sakura turned her face from Madara with a short huff. She couldn't let him distract her. She clenched the stone with sweaty fingers, shunning any thoughts of attraction or distraction, frustrated. Before she could make her throw, Madara shook his head. "You are holding it wrong again. It is not to be hurled like a kunai. I am losing patience; you struggle to retain such a basic technique."

Sakura bit back her curse and glared at him out of the corner of her eye. "I'm aware patience is a virtue you lack." She looked away again when his eyes flashed, changing the subject quickly. "How do you hold it then? I watched you do it before, but I need a reminder."

Madara exhaled tiredly, and Sakura felt his annoyance prod that underlying insecurity that she was a failure. For a moment, her confidence faltered: perhaps he was right. If she couldn't learn something as childish and easy as skipping rocks, she must be a failure – something she'd tried so hard to overcome for years, that fatal flaw she could never shake.

No. Sakura lifted her head, hearing Tsunade scolding her in the back of her mind. She felt the sun beating down on the back of her neck like it had done through years of training sessions, each lesson so much harder to withstand with Tsunade then than the comparably easy tension she endured in this moment. No; she would clear herself of her flustered state, and she would focus.

Madara was silent as Sakura redoubled her focus, ignoring him as she poised herself with remembered lethal grace. Her fingers slipped into place around the stone; with a steadied breath, she drew her arm back and threw.

The spinning rock bounced across the wide river's slow current, skipping once, twice, then many more times until it reached the opposite bank, skittering to a halt beside the one that Madara had thrown earlier.

Sakura released her breath slowly, relaxing. She lifted her head, feeling her frustration and insecurity slipping away. She smiled to herself: she still had her knack for quick learning.

Madara hummed beside her, his previous ire dissipating like a fog burnt away in the sun. "Good."

Aiming a beaming smile at him, Sakura clasped her hands together in delight, sitting so she faced him fully. Her little victory had her shining bright as the late-morning sun that licked off her pink hair and pale complexion.

Madara eyed her suspiciously. "I'll be as good as you at this rate," Sakura declared, causing him to snort, waving her off with an amused rumble. "Hardly."

"Tell me about you now."

In his grim silence that followed, Sakura glanced back over the sunlit river, thoughtful. "I noticed that you seem familiar with this river, or that it reminds you of something. Maybe that's why you wanted us to camp out here for now." She cleared her throat. "And I think, from what I've learned —" From textbooks, Sakura's memory supplied, and she skipped past that bizarre realisation in favour of persisting in her curiosity. "Didn't you and your clan grow up near a river like this one? The Senju clan, too? Closer to Konoha, not this far north, of course."

She looked back to Madara to see him frowning at the waters, a knot between his brows. Sakura settled on her knees more comfortably as she went on, "What were you like back then? What was life like then too?" Imaginings of him being like an Edo-era Sasuke passed before her mind's eye as she added to her questions. "When did you meet Lord First? Did you skip rocks when you were a kid? Is that why you've 'done it a thousand times'?"

Madara's frown deepened; he looked back to Sakura with a calculating look behind his ringed eyes. Fully honest in her interest, Sakura sat up straighter, knowing she appeared eager and not caring. She was excited to know, and there was surely no harm in asking him about years that had passed so long ago (banning all thoughts of what that meant for how old he must be).

Madara narrowed his eyes, his scrutiny making sweat pearl at the back of Sakura's neck while she awaited his answers. There was a furrow drawing two lines between his brows, shadowing his features. Basic maths says he's probably near a hundred years old in total. Ino reared her head in the back of Sakura's mind, her voice shrill. Your first is with one of the Konoha founders?! He's more ancient than the village elders! Older than all of Konoha itself!

Sakura shifted uncomfortably with slightly tinted cheeks as Madara's fingers paused in their tapping along his arm; she searched his face with more uncertainty than eagerness from before as his expression changed. Silent decisions harmonised behind his dark pupils, his guarded look becoming thoughtful as the harshness about his eyes subtly softened. "I suppose it is harmless for you to know the answers to those questions, within reason."

But he looks thirty at most, inner-Sakura argued with her inner-Ino as the sun caught on Madara's hale features. Her heart stuttered as he was suddenly so much closer, their knees touching, his shadow enveloping her.

She opened her mouth to speak, and Madara shook his head, catching her chin with a warm hand; her eyes fluttered, but he did not close the distance, meeting her eye instead. "It would waste too much time to tell you," he explained, cupping her face and tilting his head slightly as a glint shone in his dangerous stare. "Do you trust me?"

"Um," Sakura answered, swallowing her doubts as she searched Madara with curiosity and hidden worry, "Now? After everything that's happened? I think so, yes." She bit her lip, unable to stop herself from adding, "But… why? Are you going to do something I won't like?"

Madara's grip on Sakura's jaw tightened, his eyes narrowing slightly. "If you do not trust me, then go back to your exile."

"I trust you," Sakura replied softly, willing her doubts to quell, and he exhaled, his cool breath making her skin prickle. She swallowed as Madara's thumbs swept along her cheeks, and he angled her face upwards, his eyes becoming all she could see as his voice now surrounded her. "Then question me no longer." Sakura's eyes widened as Madara's Rinnegan eyes pierced through her, their power an intangible ripple her mind quivered beneath. "Instead," Madara finished, securing her face in his grip as he loomed over her, "I will show you."

Sakura emerged from the memories slightly dizzy; black-gloved hands caught her shoulders to prevent her from falling over as she swayed. With her palms pressing in over her eyes, she inclined her head, breathing a little harder. After a long pause, her breaths steadied, and she shifted a hand up to rest over the gloved one securing her shoulders. "Thank you. I think I'm all right. I'm just… spinny."

"Spinny," Madara quoted, Sakura able to feel his dubiousness without looking up, and she giggled; his audible scowl deepened until she lifted her head, her beaming smile returning. "I can't believe," she started, searching his face without a trace of her earlier doubts, "that you had short hair! I can't even imagine it, even after witnessing it myself!"

He released her with a scoff, and Sakura caught herself on his knee, steadying herself in her slightly dizzy state. She lifted her hand back to her temple to heal her headache while still smiling from all she'd seen. How amazing it had been — a powerful genjutsu, one that allowed her to walk among a memory. She had witnessed it in perfect detail, the river and surrounding forest just as crisp and vivid as the waking reality around her now. Every sense was sharp as she had watched a very young Madara skipping rocks with Hashirama Senju.

Sakura giggled again, gripping Madara's knee for support. "And Lord First's hair —!" She cackled a little, finishing healing away her headache and looking at Madara. "That was much worse than seeing you with short hair. And I thought my hairstyle was bad when I was little." She reached up, catching one of the jagged silver locks that fell over his face and fondling it thoughtfully. It caught the light, reflecting white in the sun. "I like your hair as it is now, too, though."

Madara frowned down at her. "Hair styles were not a foremost concern in those days."

Sakura's attention shifted from the captured silver-white hair in her hand back to his face, and upon reading his seriousness, Sakura was sobered somewhat. Letting go of him, she offered him a half-apologetic smile. "Sorry. Of course; you had to fight so young."

The memories Madara had shown her through genjutsu replayed in her mind's eye as if they had always been her own. Even staring directly at him now, Sakura struggled to reconcile the solemn black-haired boy with this wild, silver-drenched vision of him now. She studied him for a long moment, her smile fading to a shine in her eyes; her fingers ghosted along his knee, a pleased calm warming her expression. He had shown her a piece of himself, however small, and Sakura felt that thrill of victory singing through her veins like she'd won a battle.

Madara had an odd look as he shook her off, shifting back and causing her to have to catch herself on the rocks as he rose to his feet.

Sakura caught Madara's arm as he stood, steadying herself at his side as another wave of dizziness found her. She swayed, gripping his forearm tightly, and he glanced down at her as she exhaled breezily. She had healed her headache, she thought. Pushing more cool green chakra through her temples, Sakura ignored the persistently annoying headache in favour of pondering what had just happened a moment longer, a taste of insatiable curiosity lacing her interest. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you can show me memories like that," she commented, rubbing her forehead with massaging fingers, "considering all that the Rinnegan already does, it's hardly shocking." Sakura leaned into Madara's side before realising herself, stepping away and standing on her own, a pink shade warming her face.

"Yes," Madara agreed simply, looking back to the skies, and Sakura cleared her throat, embarrassed that she'd been staring at him so much – but she had more to say before he changed the course of their conversation. "I'd like to see more. That was just one memory. I really enjoyed it," Sakura said, meeting Madara's unreadable eye, "and in case I didn't already say it, well, thank you." She folded her arms, her gratitude vivid behind her gaze as she eyed him with hope. "Can you show me more?"

"I can." Madara's stare darkened, tracing along the branches scarring the sky high in the horizon. "However, I will not. We have other matters at hand."

"Right, the Infinite Tsukuyomi," Sakura remembered her previous request, nodding. "You'll show me everything about it, like we talked about earlier?" Her already well-uncovered student's mind shivered with excitement.

Madara shifted into a run towards the Divine Tree branches, his mane a wild tangle of sunlit white streaming behind him. Sakura pushed herself to keep up with him, grateful that he'd chosen to run rather than use one of his multitude of abilities to get there – like flying, somehow, as she'd seen him use in battles before. She was constantly aware of the power gap between them, and felt less like a burden when she could run beside him rather than be carried, retaining at least a sense of independence.

Sakura's features hardened as the cocoon-littered Divine Tree branches centered in her view, dashing across the tree canopy at Madara's side in silence. Never again would she allow herself to be a burden to anyone.

The moment Sakura's clone arrived at the gates to the Yugakure village she'd so recently been taken away from, a shadow stepped into the path before her, blocking her way.

Silver hair drifted slightly in the sunlit breeze, and Sakura brought her eyes up to meet Kakashi's cold stare, her heart squeezing in her chest.

"I'm here to help," she tried hesitantly, "I had nightmares, and saw something that worried me, and… I'm here." She thought of the mysterious bloodstain upon Madara she had discovered back at the destroyed shop with a twisting in her stomach.

"None of us have a reason to trust you anymore." Kakashi shook his head. When Sakura stepped towards him, her features wrought with conflict and a heartfelt guilt, he moved back out of her reach; the shng of his blade cut through the air. Sakura froze where she stood, wide-eyed – he had drawn his kunai, his stance defensive, and though he lacked his namesake Sharingan, he was still extremely dangerous should he choose to attack.

It broke her heart, and Sakura drew a sharp breath through her clenched teeth, bracing her shoulders. She'd sparred with him as her sensei countless times, had clashed blades in many contexts, but never as enemies, and she ached with the pain of it. But surely – Kakashi would never actually hurt her. She could see behind the cold of his dark eyes that he still cared about her, and in a bold move, Sakura moved to dart past him.

Kakashi caught her arm, his fingers digging into her skin. "Do you think I'm kidding around with you?" he hissed, the sunlight unable to touch the shadows around his eyes above his mask. "You've betrayed us. I won't let you near the others."

"If he's in as bad of condition as I think he is," Sakura countered, her face a white pallor at Kakashi's bristling hostility, "then you need to take the risk and let me see him. I know it has to be bad…" She gestured at the Yugakure village behind Kakashi before pressing her hands tightly over her pounding heart, glaring at him. " …because you're all hiding out here, and not in Kamui."

With their eyes locked, silence pulled taut between them, Kakashi's fingers white-knuckled in his grip on Sakura's arm, her skin beginning to bruise; she held his stare, searching his face.

No, he would not hurt her, not unless she pushed him much too far. She could identify all the emotion behind his fury. Anger, confusion, judgement, and beyond that, a wistful tiredness that wrenched guilt through her again. Sakura looked down with shame, clenching her fists at her sides. "I know, sensei. I know what you must think of me now… what all of you must think." She swallowed, her head bowing further as her eyes closed in her guilt. "I abandoned Obito and left all of you behind. And you probably know, too, that I'm — no longer alone in my exile."

"No longer alone?" Kakashi's incredulous tone carried his harsh words. "We saw you with him last night. We saw far too much… and it was abundantly clear that you have chosen to join Madara rather than remain loyal to our team. To Konoha. To the rest of the shinobi world." His hiss seeped with bitterness. "Do you understand what you've done? The gravity of your betrayal? Obito and I tried to have faith in you, to let you heal and recover, and trusted that you'd given him the whole truth when he found you months ago. But…" Kakashi exhaled, pausing, and Sakura looked up, seeing clearly behind his glare the sheer depth of his anger and broken trust. "I had thought you were strong enough to resist such manipulation, even if it is Madara. I had thought you could, for the sake of not just us, but for everything. You know what is at stake… and still, you joined him."

Sakura looked away, the hair falling over her eyes and shadowing her expression as he went on, "Not only joined him, but gave yourself to him — again… without that poison, this time. Willingly. Why? Do you think you're in love?"

"I didn't know that you'd witnessed that." Sakura tried to steady her breaths that had grown shallow, a growing panic numbing her limbs, and she exhaled unevenly, willing away her mortification. Kakashi scoffed, releasing her arm and standing back. "And you think you can just walk up to me expecting to be welcomed back like nothing happened."

Sakura levelled her glare with Kakashi's, standing taller. "I have a plan. What you saw between Madara and I – that wasn't exactly what it looked like."

His responding sigh was both disbelieving and weary. "I'm not stupid, Sakura. It's obvious you have feelings for him, just like you once did for Sasuke; you couldn't stop yourself from caving in to whatever he wanted of you." He looked away from her as if the very sight of her pained him, lowering the hand in which he gripped his kunai. "I'm sure he manipulated you into it, but I can't just forgive you so easily, even if you are his victim. You still possess your own mind, and you still have your free will." He looked out over the forest in a sweeping, suspicious glance before glancing back at Sakura with narrowed eyes. "How do I know you're not here as some sort of plan with him? How do I know you're not lying?"

"I'm no victim. I have a plan to save everything. To end the war," Sakura persisted. "I promise I didn't join him for anything other than that. I'm not a child anymore. I know better than to chase hopeless love," she said, her voice faltering somewhat, and she looked away, hating the twist of pain in her core. She was telling Kakashi the truth; so why did it feel so wrong?

Kakashi scrutinised Sakura's face for a moment, and she stood tall, her heart beating guilty rhythms in her chest. After a moment, a knot appeared between his brows, all his troubledness darkening his charcoal eyes. "I want to trust you," he replied softly, "but you must know that I can't. Not now."

"All I want to do is heal whomever is hurt." Sakura hid her aching heart with folded arms over her chest, unconsciously imitating Tsunade as she stood with her back straight and her manner proud regardless of the pain she felt. "I'm not asking you to take me back into Team Seven, or to trust me beyond letting me make sure that none of you die. I don't expect you to forgive me." She cleared her throat, forcing herself to stay strong. "Please, 'Kashi-sensei. You know this is too urgent to not take the risk. Neither of us wants any more bloodshed or death."

Kakashi eyed Sakura, observing the truth of her conviction written across her face, her poise sure and strong through her guilt. The moment held still as leaves swirled around them in a looping dance across the empty dirt road, the trees of the surrounding forest tinted in yellows and pale greens that hinted of the autumn season's arrival.

When hard edges around his eyes softened, his gloved hand lowering his blade and hilting it, Sakura relaxed somewhat, her shoulders falling; she ran a hand over her face, hiding her immense relief.

"Answer me this, then." Kakashi folded his arms, his words cautious. "Why did Madara allow you to come here?"

"He didn't." Sakura let out an uneasy puff of air, a new flash of guilt tinting her expression. "That's why we need to hurry. I'm only a clone," she admitted further, "I managed to get here undetected, but you know how perceptive he is. I'm not sure how long my original self can keep him distracted."

Kakashi grimaced before nodding. Sakura reached out, placing a hand over his arm with a grateful half-smile. "Thank you, 'Kashi-sensei."

"All is not yet forgiven," he countered, and he wheezed a surprised sound when Sakura hugged him in a nearly bone-breakingly tight hug, pressing her face into his vest. He patted her back awkwardly; she shook away her unshed tears, releasing him as quickly as she'd embraced him. Kakashi led the way down the street, his brisk walk becoming a sprint that Sakura matched, shadowing him as he darted down empty midday streets.

"How did Obito get hurt?" Sakura asked as they ran, and Kakashi's answer was curt as he turned a corner and led her down a side-street. "He nearly caught you before you reached this village. Yesterday, after you left him in the hot springs cave. Madara made sure he could not reach you."

Paling, Sakura said nothing more, following Kakashi down several more alleys and cobwebbed streets.

They stopped before a dust-covered pharmacy, Sakura pressing her fists nervously over her hammering heart as Kakashi gestured for her to stop and wait. He disappeared through the dark doorway.

Arguing voices rose through the cluttered dark beyond the door. Shifting between her feet nervously, Sakura glanced down either direction of the leaf-littered road, trying her best not to think about the consequences should she not only fail to regain her team's trust, but if Madara caught her here as well. She shuddered, standing in a shadow and looking back to the pharmacy's shopfront, fidgeting restlessly.

Sakura nearly jumped out of her skin with a gasp as Naruto materialised in front of her. "Sakura!" When she met his eye, hesitant and hopeful, all the light faded from his face – his initial joy upon seeing her quickly died as he remembered recent events. With a cautious breath, Naruto stepped back from Sakura, regarding her uncertainly.

"I'm here to help," Sakura repeated herself from earlier, swallowing her anxiety and hoping Naruto would see the truth in her expression. "I know you're all upset with me, but I also know that Obito's hurt."

"Kakashi-sensei said that. Sasuke's not happy about it." Naruto frowned as Sasuke's cutting voice continued to wrangle with Kakashi's in the dark of the shop behind him. "I don't know if letting you in is a good idea."

"I'm not here to fight anyone," Sakura hissed, clenching and unclenching her sweaty hands. "Tell Sasuke to cool off a minute. I'll heal any injuries you all have, make sure Obito's okay, and then you don't have to see me anymore."

"I don't," Naruto started haltingly, his mistrustful hesitance making Sakura's guilt sink deeper, "I don't want you to go anywhere." His troubled blue eyes swept over her searchingly. "Is that really why you're here, Sakura? Just to leave again and go back to him?"

"Please, let's not waste any more time," she pleaded. "Not only do I need to make sure no one is bleeding out, but I can't get caught helping you here. I have to hurry up."

Naruto was taken aback a moment before nodding. He shifted back towards the pharmacy, Sakura following him with a resigned look. He glanced at her as they approached the shadowed doorway. "Well… you have a point. And if sensei trusts you… but—"

"I know." Sakura moved past Naruto, her grim features lined with weariness as she stepped into the darkness.

Naruto was at her side in a flash, and she looked over with confusion at how he shielded her before seeing how he stood between her and Sasuke. His mismatched eyes glowed through the dark, narrowed and cold, though he made no move to attack as Sakura passed him by. "Don't try anything," Sasuke growled as she passed several metal shelves, Naruto staying behind with Sasuke as Kakashi appeared once more at Sakura's side; she looked to him as he guided her through tipped-over displays and empty, narrow aisles to a door in the back of the pharmacy.

Sakura could still hear Naruto and Sasuke arguing in hushed tones as Kakashi shut the door behind them, though all worries about them muted as her eyes fell upon the body upon the steel countertop in the heart of the back room.

"Oh no," Sakura gasped, rushing forward with hands aglow.

Obito laid back on the blood-smeared steel, eyes closed and arms limp at his sides, unconscious. His skin was pale as snow; he breathed shallowly. Any visible skin beyond his sleeves and dark collar was burnt; second- and third-degree burns blistered him from head to toe. There was a gaping wound visible through the rip in his robes over his chest and shoulder; his arm was bent unnaturally at his side. More wounds seeped dangerously beneath the swathes of his dark clothes, and Sakura set to work immediately, hunching at his side.

She peeled the blood-soaked cloth away from his shoulder first, wincing at her discovery. The shoulder was not only dislocated, but nearly torn off entirely, hanging on in gory threads that she began to carefully reinforce with healing, holding his arm in the correct position and mending with intense focus. Her other hand shifted to the circular gash in his forearm; there was a matching one in his other arm, and her brows drew together in a thunderous expression as she recognised them: piercing blows from Madara's staffs.

"Will he live, Sakura?" Kakashi was Sakura's shadow, her fierce healing setting them both aglow in mint green. Sakura bit down on her lip hard enough to make it bleed, drawing a hand along Obito's neck and feeling his rapid pulse and clammy skin.

"He's in hypovolemic shock. He's lost way too much blood. I need whatever sheets or clean fabric you can find, right now." Kakashi was gone in a flash; Sakura redoubled her focus, her fingers covered in blood as she gently opened the wound further so she could access the bones and joints beneath. She mended those before retracting her careful touch and beginning the painstaking work of rejoining torn muscles and nerves in his shoulder. Obito's features twitched in his unconsciousness, his expression wrought with pain even in sleep.

Sakura cursed as more hot blood covered her hands, Kakashi reappearing beside her with several folded sheets in hand. She shoved her sleeves up her arms, years of practice keeping her calm as blood soaked her skin. "Tear those into strips," she said as her healing glow lit her grim look of concentration, "They're going to be bandages. I need as many as you can make, right now. Douse them in any rubbing alcohol you can find so they're as sterile as possible."

Kakashi set to work in focused silence. Sakura finished Obito's shoulder, tearing away more of the matted fabric across his shoulders and chest to find more gashes and wounds seeping blood. She cursed again, accepting the strips Kakashi handed her and pressing them to the wounds to stop the bleeding. At this rate, Obito would be dead from blood loss before she could fully heal him. And he'd been like this since an entire day ago? Her face twisted with confusion and anger, her memory of Madara's no longer mysterious bloodstain filling her with trembling rage.

"How is he still alive?" Sakura asked, packing several more severe lacerations and wounds with the makeshift bandages in a hurry. Kakashi nodded to a crumpled sheet with visible black patterns nearby as his quick hands continued to tear neat strips. "We found a medical sheet with a stasis-jutsu on it, like the ones we had in Konoha hospitals. It helped for a time, but it was limited."

"It has to be properly activated by a medic-nin to work right," Sakura said with a grimace, "but that was good thinking. It must have slowed the bleeding. But… his chakra is so low too. When did it stop working?"

"Not long before you got here." Kakashi shifted uneasily. "He sent out a clone for something before going unconscious from his injuries. I'm just so glad that the stasis sheet was here."

Sakura shifted her attention to bandaging wounds across his torso and legs, covered in Obito's blood up to her arms, her green eyes glittering with harsh focus as she worked. "What else can I do?" Kakashi asked quietly, and she shook her head; he stepped back, allowing her to work in silence.

The door to the back room opened, and two more pairs of eyes fell upon Sakura as she healed Obito's many wounds. Her hands were a blur as she bound wounds, tied the makeshift bandages, wiped away dirt and tore off bloodstained fabric; she shifted back up to Obito's upper body, running her glowing hands over his head and concentrating.

"Hang in there," she told him softly. He was breathing faster, every inhale shallow, each exhale ragged; Sakura ran a diagnostic check on his internals with her palms running over his chest. Sweat beaded on the back of her neck. "His temperature and blood pressure is far too low. I need blankets, if you can find them," Sakura said aloud, and didn't need to look over to know that Naruto and Sasuke had gone to get what she needed. She checked Obito's blood levels, shaking her head with anxiety she hid in favour of beginning her work on the worst of the gashes she'd bandaged to stop their bleeding.

"Can't you release your seal?" Kakashi asked, and Sakura shook her head. "I don't have enough chakra. Original Sakura could, but I'm only a clone. I think the strain in itself would make me disappear." She pushed more healing through Obito in a frustrated, determined wave of green. "But I'll do everything I can. He's getting closer to being stable, but I need those blankets."

She startled upon hearing Sasuke's cold voice beside her. "Here."

Sakura glanced at him before accepting the thick blanket, tossing it over Obito's shivering body and resisting the urge to relax as her healing diagnostics near-immediately told her he was stabilising. With its warmth and Sakura's careful healing, he'd stopped losing blood; his temperature was rising to safe levels, and she felt his pulse slowing, the pattern of his breathing steadying.

Keeping her mending chakra running through Obito and sealing his wounds, Sakura worked on his burns next, a deep crease between her brows as she tabled her fury and guilt to unleash at a later time.

"Make sure he drinks water when he wakes up. He can't be active for a while. And he'll need foods with a lot of iron in them. Don't let him use his eyes too much, either, it's just too risky when he's in this condition. No Kamui. And no clones." Finishing her work on the worst of his wounds, Sakura slumped at Obito's side, the minty glow receding as her work on healing away his burns finished as well. "...and, tell him I'm sorry," she sighed.

"Are you going so soon?" Disappointment filled Naruto's voice, though his tone carried a grateful note. "I mean, you just saved his life."

"He's okay enough now," Sakura agreed, her gaze tracing along the lines scoring the grooves in Obito's weary face. An absentminded thought in the back of her mind noted how his choppy hair had fully returned to Uchiha-black, the months that passed since he'd so briefly hosted the Ten-Tails allowing all the white his hair had adopted to darken back to obsidian. "He should be fine after several full days of rest. Ideally a week or two, if that's possible." She swallowed, closing her eyes. "I'll do what I can to make sure you all are undisturbed, but just in case, don't stay in this part of the village after I go."

"What are you even doing?" Sasuke stood behind Sakura; she could feel his stare stabbing through her back. "Whose side are you on?"

"I told Kakashi-sensei." Sakura exhaled softly, tilting her head against Obito's side as he breathed evenly; she closed her eyes, some of her guilt easing but remaining where it weighed down her stomach. "I'm not with Madara just for…" She swallowed her words, rephrasing. "I have a plan."

Sasuke didn't miss a beat. "Madara will never be persuaded to end the war. It doesn't matter how much you think he's interested in you or vice-versa."

"You're wrong. I'm going to find a way." Sakura sat up, wiping her hands on an unused sheet strip and getting tiredly to her feet. She met Sasuke's mistrusting eyes before looking between Naruto and Kakashi as well. "Don't come after me anymore. I don't want to be rescued." She swallowed bitterly before looking down at Obito, drawing a hand along his arm over the blanket. "I don't want to see any of you get hurt again. Please… I mean it; don't come near either Madara or I. I can't risk sending any more clones to you."

"Where is the original Sakura? What is she doing?" Kakashi's urging question startled her before she looked away, redness flagging her cheeks. "I am, well, she is… keeping Madara distracted." She ran a hand through her hair as risqué images crossed her mind, her teammates' faces of disgust going unnoticed before she lifted her head, meeting each of their eyes with fiery determination. Resolve burned through her bright eyes. "All of you rest. I will end this war for us with no more bloodshed and no more death."

"How?" Naruto's expression was twisted with a mix of conflicting emotions, and she looked to him with a soft smile. "Madara isn't the evil, hateful man you think he is."

He pinched his lips, a funny look on his face. "So you and Madara really… did it again? Like on purpose?" He made a crude explanatory gesture with his index finger and thumb that had Sakura's blush burning twofold across her face. She shook her fist at him. "Naruto!" She withdrew her fist just as quickly as she'd waved it at him, her ears hot. "I mean… yeah. Shut up."

Sakura shook off her blush as she made her way to the door, trailing an affectionate hand along Kakashi's shoulder and leaning against the doorway beside Naruto. Conflict bit into all of their expressions in unison as she declared, "If any of you ever felt for me, then trust me."

Sakura squeaked when Naruto wrenched her into a hug. "Thank you for saving Obito again. And… good luck."

She relaxed with a smile, pressing her face into his shoulder; just before she disappeared in a cloud of steam, her confident words echoed out to all of them. "Everything's going to be okay. I promise."