Upon hearing the front doors slide open, Sakura lifted her head, fingers still tangled in her hair from where she had been taming it from its morning frizziness. Her brows knotted as the silent question of what he was up to squeezed worry from her thoughts. She got to her feet, padding through the hall and stepping out onto the front veranda, tucking her long loose bangs from her face and squinting at the blinding noon sun.
Sakura's attention fell upon where Madara stood at the foot of the meadow, his gloved hands conducting a decisive, cutting gesture. Sun flowed across the rippling grass and set his wild mane afire in white; it shifted over the Uchiha symbol high on his back upon his dark robes. It looked as if he was directing the rushing breeze over the shivering meadow, commanding the clouds across the sky.
Sakura folded her arms, leaning against a beam; content to watch, regardless of her confusion.
Madara paused, his task completed, and Sakura glanced around; she frowned. What had he done? She studied his surroundings with more focus, and her observant glance caught upon where several invisible feet indented the fluttering grasses. Though it brought her the initial understanding that Madara had summoned a number of Limbo clones, she still felt worried, and drew back slightly as he turned, glancing back at her.
Light reflected sharply off of Madara's metallic stare; he regarded her with his usual impassiveness, leaving Sakura with a taste of disappointment that the distance between them had returned. He blinked at her coldly as she spoke first, her arms falling to her sides. "Where are you going?"
"It is time that I do a full patrol of the Divine Tree branches myself." Madara glanced with her simultaneously at the distant severed trunk of the vast tree, a speck across the horizon from the hill they stood upon. Its many branches spiderwebbed across the landscape, curving and curling above forest canopies and the dead faces of empty homes, so far that they were speckles across the face of the sweeping view. The cocoons that hung from the bellies of the branches were nothing but lines of snowflake-sized dashes of white.
Sakura paled as she took in his words. A full patrol? Had she heard him right? The shock of it was making her numb – just imagining walking every branch even at a sprinting pace would mean far more than a few days, or even a few weeks. She took a step down the veranda stairs towards Madara, her frown deepening. "Don't you have clones doing that for you?" Her gaze touched across the invisible gathering of Limbo clones that surrounded the two of them. "Send these to do that. There's no reason that you have to do it yourself."
Madara turned to her with a glare. "You do not tell me what to do. You would do well to remember that."
"But…" Sakura ignored his sharp tone, taking another step towards him, an aching in her chest. "Why? And why now? I…" She glanced to the side with a troubling thought before returning her sharpened attention to him, searching his face as determination took hold of her. "Fine, then. You want to see it with your own eyes; I can understand that." She adjusted herself, beginning a mental catalogue of things she needed to prepare and where her belongings were scattered in the house. "Give me two minutes and I'll be ready to go."
"No." Madara shook his head, the sun falling across his pale scowl. "You will stay here."
Sakura's eyes flew wide open, and she parted her lips, shifting decisively towards him; he blocked her reaching hand, cutting her off. "Do not argue."
Her hands flexed as she just barely kept her voice beneath a shouting volume. "But you'll be gone for weeks even if you run the whole way! Weeks! There are so many branches. They go so far —"
"It will take some time to travel the entirety of them, yes," Madara rumbled, turning from her with a sigh. "I will return in several months."
He withdrew from her reach, striding through the grass; Sakura growled, stomping towards him, and she yelped as she was held back by an invisible arm. She fought the clone's grip, her voice rising as Madara grew more distant from her by the second. "Months?! Why can't you take me with you?" She nearly broke free, and cursed as the clone kept his wrenching hold on her; Sakura ignored the singe of pain she felt, though it caught in her voice. "You can't keep doing everything alone, Madara."
He didn't respond, halfway across the meadow already; Sakura knew now that she wouldn't be able to stop him from leaving, and she ceased fighting against the clones, breathing hard. "Don't you dare leave me here," she protested softly.
Sakura stared until the wind-whipped white of Madara's mane was gone, his figure a streak that fizzled out of her view until nothing remained but the rippling meadow and her view of the distant Divine Tree.
She didn't realise how long she stood there, staring, until she felt the restrictive grasps on her arms loosen; she shook off their hands angrily, running her fingers through her hair with a curse. "That absolute jerk." She turned, clenching her fists. "Just leaving like that! And I thought he was an arrogant jerk before!" She swerved, fist coming down, but caught herself from bringing it down against the house just in time. Sakura's frustrated expression twitched with new conflict, her gaze sliding along the house's thoughtful symmetry, stopping upon the Uchiha print above the front sliding door.
Sakura straightened, releasing her fists with a heavy sigh. There was a crunching in the grass around her as clones withdrew; she heard one walk away, and her tingling skin warned her that another remained close by, watching her closely. She pretended not to know they existed, swinging back and sprawling against the front steps; she tilted her head back against the wood, upset and exhausted at once.
How could the progress she'd earned with her frustrating quarry go from so high to hopelessly low so quickly? She glared at the innocent, fleecy clouds that floated across the sky. Thunderclouds would be more sympathetic to her mood; that, and rain.
But she wouldn't cry. Not over this. Sakura was tense where she lay back against the front steps, casting her thoughts into the sky and reeling them back one by one. How am I supposed to enact my plan when he's abandoned me to be babysat by clones?
Sakura scowled, folding her arms. How absolutely stupid. All that she'd been through, all she'd said and done to get here, and now she was stuck here, unable to enact her goals, frustrated and alone.
Well, not quite alone. Her glare slid to her right. A shadow crossed her figure, cast by no apparent source, but she knew what it was; even just the serrated edges of his shadow gave him away. She snorted, looking away. Madara and his stupid, silent, mute clones. They would be sure that she didn't get up to anything untoward in the ages he would be away; no plotting, no escapes, and certainly no talking with her estranged team, should she or they get the idea that that was a possibility. They were stronger than they seemed, she knew; should Sakura change her tune and attempt a violent exit, she knew she would still have trouble leaving alive. He was unfairly strong, even in echoed versions of himself.
Sakura pressed her palms over her eyes. Breathe. She could find a way to make this situation less disadvantageous, surely.
Feeling anything but soothed, she sat up, her hands falling away from her face; her long cherry-blossom locks framed her features, shadowing her from the warmth of the sun. Troubled, Sakura's gaze touched upon the landscape around her. The breeze billowed across the grassy field that shivered like the fur on the back of a vast golden beast. Flowers pushed up from between yellow stalks, their faces opening in shades of red; bees hummed around their stamens. Sunlight dipped the tips of the reedy grass, splashing across the meadow in rippling gold, shining across to the dappled dense greens and early autumn umber colours of the surrounding forest. Birdsong rose above the wind; dead leaves drifted in lazy spirals overhead, adding the taste of fall's musk to the fresh, clean air. Just beyond the trees, the stolid structures of the small shrine hinted in curves and peeling paint, creaking gently in the constant whispering of the elements.
Sakura tilted her face against her palm, relaxing somewhat; what a beautiful place this was. Madara was still a bastard for abandoning her here, but this was hardly a hell of any kind, like cubic-cement prison had been.
Sakura bit her lip, glancing down with a shade of guilt. Hopefully Obito was all right, now.
Getting to her feet, she faced the house once more, putting her hands on her hips. She scrutinised it, her eyes narrowed. It was much too nice. Nicer than any place she'd stayed in before, and it was clear the Uchiha clan had plenty of wealth in his time if this is what he was used to. Sakura hummed to herself with a shake of her head. "Temporary," she quoted Madara aloud, "'I'll be destroying it after we are finished with it'. What nonsense."
She wandered along the veranda, pondering what the hell she was going to do with herself, stuck here for months. Her fingers traced along the ornate gables, following the fine wooden lattice of the sliding windows. She would certainly not waste her time here. She could think of plenty to do, and Sakura pushed back indoors.
She scowled as she heard the door shut apparently on its own behind her.
Sakura continued her scrutiny of the house with more interest than she had before, now that she knew she would be forced to spend longer than she'd previously anticipated in it. She took it in with a blink before letting out an amused huff. It was just as old-fashioned as Madara himself was, and she was shaking her head to herself as she padded along the tatami-mat flooring, unconsciously following her growling stomach to where she thought the kitchen might be.
She poked her head through a doorway and paused, staring at the kitchen space blankly.
Nothing was modern. It was every bit a traditional daidokoro kitchen from the Edo era, not a plumbed steel sink or electronic rice cooker in sight. Ornate chests with many different sized drawers stood tall along one wall, holding various ingredients and cooking materials; several multi-boiler stovetops hugged the adjacent wall, lit in a low light through the high latticed windows. Sakura glanced over with mild surprise at the irori set in the floor in the further end of the kitchen, a square frame filled with pale sand where a pot hung from a hook hanging from the ceiling.
It wasn't as if she hadn't seen a traditional kitchen like this before, but they had become uncommon since powered stoves and ovens and plumbing had come along. Sakura didn't notice her own smile as she sighed. Of course Madara would recall what he'd grown up with and replicate it here. It wasn't as if Wood Style could summon electric wiring and appliances, anyway.
Dried meat hung from a nearby rack, and she turned her nose up at it. She didn't need Madara to provide for her. She could cook for herself.
With a short exhale through her nose, Sakura strode into the kitchen, familiarising herself with it with glancing touches and curious peeks into mostly-empty cupboards. There wasn't much. She supposed she shouldn't expect a stocked kitchen - it was amazing enough he could summon it with so little effort or outside resources; but she was hungry, and Sakura reached into her pack automatically, her hunting fingers catching on the last food pill she had.
She pulled it out, regarding it with a grimace. Bits of dust and lint stuck in its dark surface, along with part of a pink hair.
"Not eating that," she told herself, pulling it from her pack and setting it on the counter; it fell to the wooden surface with a plop. Sakura made a face at it before turning to the pantry-cabinet, rifling through its drawers impatiently as she tried to think of something she might be able to cook.
"Steamed buns!" she decided, pulling out a sack of flour among a few herbs and other ingredients, slapping them onto the nearby counter with palpable excitement. Never mind the already-prepared and cooked dried meat he'd left; she would feed herself with no help. Having to temporarily reside in a house he had created was bad enough and she needed to retain at least some independence.
Keeping her independence is what kept Sakura inspired as she thought through how she would navigate her mother's steamed buns recipe in this unfamiliar kitchen. She noticed the old-style water basin with bamboo chutes running water into it; catching some of it in her palms, she mixed the water with the flour, trying to recall how her mother had done this as she attempted to mould it into a dough.
It didn't yield, instead sticking to her fingers, smattering over her clothes, and otherwise entirely refusing to become any semblance to dough. Sakura shoved the not-dough against the counter like it might surrender to her lack of cooking skill. "Dammit!" She scooped the mess of loose water and flour back together, patting and pushing it, but only succeeded in filling the air with more clouds of white dust, powdering herself with it and making her cough.
Sakura hacked up the flour from her lungs, shaking her hair of it like a wet dog. The flour in the air swirled from an amused huff somewhere nearby, and with a growl, Sakura took a handful and threw it in the smarmy clone's direction.
Whiteness revealed his scowl in powdery speckles that settled all across his face and wild hair, marking him visible in a dusty shroud. Sakura blinked at Madara's clone as his scowl deepened; he reached up, brushing his face off with annoyance. "Hah!" Sakura tossed more flour at him with delight, her frustration forgotten. "Look at you! Not so invisible now, eh? That's what you get for laughing at me."
The clone folded his arms, glaring at her with visible ire, white and inconstant as a ghost in his flour-smattered appearance. Sakura smiled to herself as she tried again to make dough from the mess on the counter, endlessly entertained. Perhaps this long delay of her plan wouldn't be so bad after all.
Sakura curled up on her futon, feeling more alone tonight than she had her whole life.
For the first time, she was truly by herself. No teammates, softly snoring in their bedrolls nearby; no parents or roommates quiet where they slept in nearby rooms. Now, she had not even Madara, his presence something she wasn't used to, yet one that she missed just as much.
She turned her face into her pillow, closing her eyes and willing herself to sleep. There was no use laying here pondering how she might get through so many future nights alone, crushed under the weight of silence all around her. No use, not in the little realisations that she somehow missed Naruto's snoring, or how she missed the crackling of the campfire nearby as Kakashi would stay up late reading; some nights, she'd roll over to see the red eyes of Obito, looking away from her as soon as she'd catch his stare. Rarely, she'd see Sasuke watching her as well, and she wondered if all Uchiha were such silent insomniacs.
Sakura shivered with cold, drawing the sheet over herself and burrowing deeper into her pillow. She wouldn't miss Madara's warmth. She would tamp down on how much she ached for her team as well, determined to miss no one. She was strong, and she was self-reliant; she would survive loneliness just as she had survived everything else so far.
Sakura lamented again that she didn't have a comb as she ran her hands through the wet tangles of her hair, sitting beside the hot onsen in her towel. "Why did I let my hair get this long?" she complained, wincing as her fingers caught in a snag; she pulled at it moodily, working through it to release the knots.
"You can make a whole house but not a comb," she continued to gripe, glancing back at the empty area behind her; she paused, her hands mid-tangle in pink locks. "You know what, make yourself useful and come help me. I'm tired of you standing there staring at me all the time."
Silence, and Sakura growled, "I'll destroy this house so you have to remake it. Didn't you brag how it wasn't tiring at all?"
A sigh through the steamy air, and she startled when she felt a warm exhale across her bare shoulders; she recovered quickly, reaching up and finding a pair of lean wrists, pulling Madara's Limbo clone's hands down to her head. "Help me fix my stupid hair," she growled, and hummed as his fingers ran over her scalp; her complaining ceased as he tugged experimentally through her pink tangles, and she purred as he ran his fingers down along the sides of her head, unknotting her long locks. "Hmm, that's nice," Sakura sighed, leaning back into the clone's invisible touch.
He chuckled under his breath, and Sakura scowled even while sighing happily from her scalp massage. "You can speak," she accused, and his exhale flickered the hair around her face from behind her.
Once Sakura's hair was successfully untangled, Madara's clone withdrew, and Sakura turned, catching his arm and tugging him back towards her. "No, don't go back to being boring." She poked his invisible cheek. "How do you manage your own mop of hair anyway? I thought my hair was unruly, but look at you."
"It is not a mop," he replied waspishly, and Sakura clapped her hands together in glee. "Hah! I knew you could talk. You were just ignoring me, all this time."
The invisible clone groaned. "It was also in hopes that you would talk less."
"Shut up then and let me play with your hair." Sakura shifted, her hands already running through wild choppy locks, and Madara's clone swatted away her touch. "That's enough. I told you we aren't on equal footing, and you are talking to me like a child."
"Well before, clone, you were pretending not to exist at all, so… I think I can be how I want around you, if not your original." She tugged curiously at his invisible mass of wild hair, running her fingers through its volume, feeling its jagged yet unexpectedly silky texture. "What? Your hair's so nice. Do you condition it?"
"Do I… what?"
Sakura pushed her face into the mass of smoky hair, breathing it in. "Never mind. Considering this old-fashioned house, you definitely don't know what conditioner is."
"Conditioning? Why would my hair require exercise?"
Sakura's face went blank before she laughed, doubling over in a fit of giggles that had Madara scowling over at her with a warning rumble of her name.
She shook her head, clearing her throat of her laughter and leaning affectionately against him. "Sorry. That's too funny." She hummed, pushing aside thick locks of hair so she could run her fingers over his head through his mane. She smirked to herself as he relaxed slightly. He made no reactive sounds, but she could tell in how he leaned subtly into her massaging hands that he was enjoying it just as much as she had earlier.
"Please don't ignore me when I talk anymore," she said softly, her thumbs rubbing circles by his temples, "I don't like feeling alone." He hummed, and she relaxed into the mass of his wild hair, leaning against his back as she continued to scratch gently across his scalp and enjoy playing with his unruly mane.
"And so she's called me Forehead ever since," Sakura bemoaned as she patted freshly-turned earth over the seeds she'd planted. She sat back beside the garden-plot she'd made beside the house and sighed. "I call her Pig back but I think Forehead's a meaner nickname. I mean, she's my best friend, so I'll put up with her most of the time. But ugh, I do think my head looks too big, I wish she wouldn't call me that." She ran a hand through her hair, looking thoughtfully at the earth and patting it gently. "Hopefully these grow well. I'm not much of a cook or a gardener."
Sakura touched along her throat, her voice a little sore, and huffed with mild embarrassment. She hadn't even realised how much she'd been venting, gardening in the sun for hours beside the Limbo clone that leaned nearby, only his shadow visible where it cooled her in its shade.
She sat back in the grass beyond the planted garden, glancing up at where she thought his face was. She touched along her smile, pondering, and for a moment she felt a strange déjà vu, a second of dizzying bemusement on how she'd gotten here – hanging out casually with Madara's Limbo clone, learning how to garden, telling him stories about her life while he listened as her captive audience. It felt almost like they'd been friends for years.
She shook her head at herself. She had gotten too far off track from her plan, and she pushed her dirt-smeared palm over her sweaty forehead, trying to right the track of her thoughts. Her plan. She needed to remind herself again: she was here to persuade Madara to end the war, which required knowing him well and being much closer.
Sakura shrugged to herself. His original wasn't due back from his patrol for many weeks still, and she'd been enjoying the company of his clones in the meantime, poking fun at them and getting enough of a rise sometimes that they'd grumble at her or tease her in return. She was still bonding with the clones, at least, so she wasn't completely off-course, though they still rarely spoke.
Sakura's cheeks reddened like a sunburn, and she dashed her eyes from Madara's invisible clone. Remembering her previous plan to elevate that one steamy evening had her feeling overheated and intimidated at once. How would she be able to take it up another level for the sake of persuasion when that had already been a dizzyingly high level of intimacy?
Sakura puffed as she got to her feet, tying her hair back and willing her blush to recede. If only Madara would open up to her in casual conversation… but he was almost always closed-off, aloof and cold, only warming to her when they were as close as that night before he'd left. He had told her himself; there was no need for her to know him well. But she'd seen for herself through his actions rather than his words that he might, perhaps, eventually. Maybe through her persistence, he'd let her come closer beyond physicality.
Sakura glanced over at the shadow that gave away the clone's presence, fanning herself from the heat in her skin. "It's too hot in the sun." She tilted her head towards the small stream a stone's throw from the house. "Care for a contest?"
"You'll lose," Madara's clone answered easily, and Sakura scoffed, tossing her hair from her face in a fashion she belatedly recognised was much like Ino's. She turned from him with a swing of her hips. "Let's go see."
Even after twelve times, Madara's clone won out over Sakura, his aim true. She only managed to skip a stone seven times in a row or fewer while he often scored higher than twenty.
Sakura sat back in the sand and rocks beside the stream with a frustrated huff, one hand snatching a sheaf of his invisible robes and tugging at him to sit beside her; she glared in his general direction. "You're too good at this. It's not fair. Did you teach me wrong on purpose or something?"
The rocks crunched as Madara's clone accepted her silent demand and reclined beside her. She could hear his disdain in his voice. "Hardly; you are simply not good enough at skipping stones."
Sakura shoved at Madara's shoulder, who chuckled at her ire; her grip on his arm softened, and she let her weariness tip her against his side. "Whatever," she said, shifting herself and burying her face in his shoulder, slinging her arm over his chest and collapsing into his side with a whistling sigh. Her muscles sore from hours of digging and gardening eased with the warmth of him, his familiar smoky scents deepening her comfort.
"What — are you doing?"
Sakura ignored Madara, snaking her other arm around him and sighing contentedly as she sank against his side in a cozy sprawl. He was tense, as uncomfortably stiff as the stones they leaned on, and Sakura trailed her fingers along his arm; she frowned as she remembered Madara was entirely unused to affection beyond what she had foisted upon him herself.
Too bad; get used to it. Sakura smiled to herself as she relaxed into Madara's warmth, settling her head against his chest and closing her eyes.
She hid her smile in the folds of his robe as he slowly exhaled, one large hand resting lightly atop her head; he untensed somewhat, the both of them melting into the sunny quiet beside the stream full of skipping stones.
Sakura sat up with a yawn, stretching her arms. She squinted at the bleeding sunset filtering down through the trees and catching in the ripples of the stream; she glanced down at the empty space at her side, patting the stones with a reaching hand. She'd fallen asleep?
And her warm pillow had gone. Sakura scowled at the empty bank beside the stream, an ache in her neck from how she had ended up sleeping on rocks. Of course. She'd been through this before; Madara was not exactly cuddly or affectionate, but she still found herself disappointed.
Sakura got to her feet with a groan. She was decidedly tired, and wondered if it was too soon to fall into the cool futon back at the house; but her attention snagged upon something in the near-distance, the sound of a whistle ringing through the air.
Her gaze followed golden-yellow leaves that flew through the breeze and caught on an invisible figure, standing in the tall grasses — then, to the streak that flew through the air with a sharp cry. Sakura watched with amazement as a massive falcon landed upon something invisible, its yellow taloned feet digging in, and it preened, looking pleased with itself. "You're still alive," she heard Madara's clone commenting warmly, and Sakura made her way towards him, blinking at the falcon in disbelief.
"Woah," Sakura breathed, approaching the massive bird, and it looked over at her sharply, its dark eyes glinting with intelligence. She stopped in her tracks.
Madara hummed, drawing a hand along the falcon's wing; it relaxed again, leaning into the touch. Now that Sakura was closer, she could see slight damages along its feathers, the flaking of the skin along its legs; the colour was fading in some of its feathers, indicating its advanced age. She folded her arms, resisting the urge to try petting it as he did.
"What is he, exactly?" Sakura asked, and Madara corrected her, "She. Her name is Akane."
"You practise falconry?" Sakura could see the deep reds among the browns in the patterns of the falcon's feathers, and she tapped her fingers along her lips thoughtfully. "Yes, for most of my life," Madara answered as Sakura's gaze shifted along Akane admiringly.
Akane was a dark gray with rich reddish browns down her back and the outside of her long wings. The feathers beneath her beak and down her front were a pristine white, asymmetrical lines of black almost like stripes hashing horizontally down her feathery breast to her legs and the undersides of her wings. Her feet were scaly and strong, her talons as obsidian black as her sharp eyes and sharper beak. Looking more closely, Sakura could see the feathers in Akane's face that were finer; she knew without touching them how soft they were.
"Can I try holding her?" Sakura asked, and Madara looked to her with surprise. "You can try, but don't expect it to go well."
"I'm good with animals," she countered, and she offered her arm to Akane with confidence. "Come here, Akane."
Akane leaned over and groomed a spot in her wing, remaining where she was sitting comfortably upon Madara's clone's invisible arm.
Sakura made a face before trying again, a growl in her voice. "Come here, I said."
There was a lot of squawking from the both of them as Akane not only landed on Sakura, but clawed at her, pecking at her with her curved sharp beak – feathers flew, locks of pink hair frizzed, Sakura cursing repeatedly while Madara's laugh rumbled across the grassy hill they stood in.
The aftermath resulted in Akane returning to her preferred perch upon Madara while Sakura blinked down at herself, her hair sticking in several directions. There was a feather or two across the scratches along her face and clothes, and her arm was shredded, bleeding from gashes leading up her forearm to her shoulder.
Madara's clone stroked Akane's back with a cross expression as he awaited Sakura's tantrum. She looked between him and Akane before straightening, bringing a healing hand to her arm and mending the scratches. This done, she wiped off the blood and shook her head of mussed hair before extending her arm again. "Sorry. I should have been more polite," Sakura sighed. She brought sunlit eyes back to Akane, calm and steady. "Please come here."
She couldn't see the impressed look that flashed across Madara's face before he cleared his throat. "She is not used to you, and doesn't know you. Your approach must be slow and gentle. There are specific commands that you also must use…"
Sakura bit her lip, but continued to listen, adjusting her arm and nodding as he went on, "Normally, you would have a glove protecting your arm for this. You will have to make do with some scratches for now."
"That's fine." Sakura brought her free hand to her face, absentmindedly healing another scratch she'd missed.
Madara eyed her. "Vocalisations are good. You are communicating your intent to the falcon. Don't stare at her in silence."
Akane blinked at Sakura, who blinked back, humming admiringly. "She really is a beautiful bird."
"Peregrine falcon." Madara's clone grinned invisibly. "She eats other birds."
Sakura's expression slackened before she pressed a hand to her mouth, muting her laugh. "Well, why am I not surprised this is your pet of choice?" She extended her arm carefully with an encouraging low hum, her eyes affectionate as she shifted them from him to Akane, who preened once more before shifting over and resting atop Sakura's arm.
Her talons dug in to her skin for support, and Sakura only winced slightly through the look of delight that lit her features. She looked back over at Madara's clone with a dazzling smile, and he exhaled, shaking his head at her. "Satisfied?"
"She's amazing," Sakura breathed. Hefting Akane's surprising weight carefully, she lifted her other hand to pet her; she eyed Sakura warningly. Sakura swallowed before retracting her hand. "...I'll just be happy she let me hold her." Her beaming smile returned. "This is even better than skipping rocks. You're going to teach me to be a falconer like you, right? Since your original left me behind for months with nothing else to do? And because you know I'm going to pester you about this daily until you do teach me?"
With Madara's annoyed sigh, Sakura beamed brighter, sneaking a gentle stroke down Akane's back with a note of joy.
"I don't see why this is necessary," he was complaining as Sakura set another folded crane along the careful pile she had created, her quick fingers beginning work on another one. There were several more along the table, some leading across other surfaces, tables and ledges covered; she focused on the one she folded delicately, ignoring the nearby clone's judgement. "It's fun, and I have a wish to make," Sakura answered primly. "And my arm hurts from healing it over and over so I'm giving Akane a break today. That, and I need a break from meditation. I can only muster so much patience for chakra amassing daily."
"These are everywhere." An invisible hand poked a crane that rested on a nearby window sill. "Leave that," Sakura shot back, and he grumbled; she patted the cushion next to her at the low table she sat beside. "Help me with these."
"No."
Sakura rolled her eyes, knowing Madara's clone leaned against the wall with folded arms and a grouchy expression without having to see him. "You don't always have to destroy stuff, you know," she sighed, carefully folding one of the wings on her newest paper crane, "It's better to create sometimes."
"I do not waste time folding paper for making impossible wishes."
"You don't know what I'll wish." Sakura set aside her crane and tilted her head back, looking over at where Madara's clone shadowed the wall, glancing over where she thought his face must be. "What would you wish for, now that your grand Infinite Tsukuyomi dream is cast?"
Silence, and she waited a long moment before shrugging, returning her attention to what she was doing. She adjusted the dark robe around her shoulders that was too big for her – her own qipao was hung out to dry outside, so she'd donned one of the dark robes Madara had left behind. Its large collar fell in loose folds around her neck and shoulders, shifting slightly as she worked. She pocketed the thought that it was quite comfortable (and smelled good), and that she might have to make a habit of wearing it while its original owner was away.
Sakura felt Madara's clone's stare burning through her back, and she paused, glancing over her shoulder again. "Surely there's something. Didn't you have a plan for what you'd do once you were emperor of the dreaming world?"
Madara's continued lack of response frustrated Sakura, and she folded a piece of her crane wrong, cursing softly before fixing it and looking back to him. "Did you really not think of that in all your years planning your takeover?"
"Enough," he growled, and Sakura frowned before setting another crane atop the pile, pondering the questions rising in her chest she would never ask.
"Being away this long is just ridiculous," Sakura complained aloud into her pillow. She laid on her stomach, her robes cast aside in a neatly-folded pile along with her damp towel; she shook her damp hair from her face, the cool air of the room breathing over the pale skin down her slender back. "No warning. No consideration of me at all, and just ditched me for the fun of it. Why am I even here if he was just gonna leave me behind? Why bother taking me to his side at all if he doesn't trust me? And all of this, after I made an effort."
She sighed into her pillow, staring moodily at the wall, a flush stinging her cheeks as she recalled the exact efforts she had made that night with Madara before he'd decided to up and leave her behind. Sakura scoffed, pushing back against the hurt squeezing her heart. It felt good to voice her thoughts, even to an empty room, and she sighed again, moonlight catching along her skin. "What am I, his maid? Stupid. I was so stupid to be a part of any of this."
"Stop all this whining," came a rumbling growl from the far corner of the room, and Sakura eyed where the clone shadowed the wall with a huff. "And he left me clones I can't even see, that are somehow twice as grouchy as he is."
Light and dark shifted, and she stilled upon sensing him behind her – her heart began to pound as the imprints of large hands appeared in the pillow on either side of her head. Warmth shaded down her back where she felt him hovering above her without touching.
"Anything more to say?" Hot air tickled along Sakura's ear where Madara's clone murmured, and she shivered, tilting her head back; she bumped up against his shoulder and neck, drawn in. "Um," she breathed, one of his hands slipping lightly up along her throat, long calloused fingers drawing across her skin that rashed with goosebumps. He held her there, unmoving, and she cleared her throat through the hazy fog passing through her head. "...Yes, I have a few more complaints for… management," she squeaked, wincing at her word choice, but Madara's deep chuckle surrounded her, vibrating through her ribcage where he pressed against her back. "Go on." His other hand slid down her side, drawing down her leg.
Sakura put her head down on the pillow with a hot sigh, pushing her hips instinctively into his and gasping a little upon realising that he also was unclothed, her thighs sliding along bare lean legs that framed hers. "Other than your original being away too long, uhm," she sighed, her sensitive skin tingling as his fingers danced around her knee and slid up her inner thigh maddeningly slowly, "You watch me struggle on things and never offer help unless I threaten to destroy stuff over it…"
Madara cupped Sakura's mound, and she let out a soft sound as she shuddered into his touch with a breathy remark. "You tease me relentlessly because you're a bastard."
He flattened his palm up against her, and the note of pleasure Sakura made etched into a higher octave. She shifted her hips against him with frustration, feeling his hard interest resting along the curve of her lower back. "What did you call me?" Madara growled, his rumble echoing through the room, and Sakura arched against him with a keening sound as his other hand regripped her face. His thumb slipped into her mouth, holding her jaw taut, the rough pad of his thumb grazing the edge of her teeth. He forced her to look back at him, and even though she couldn't see him, she felt all the intensity of his expression, his burning eyes stabbing through her own. "Bastard," Sakura repeated with a little grin, her tongue flicking his thumb, and he pressed down into her with a hiss, pinning her to the futon and sliding up against her as their hips met again. She groaned, and as he withdrew, they pushed together in a singular motion, legs sliding against each other, breaths drawing in a sharp note as he sheathed himself inside of her.
"Oh," Sakura relaxed, melting back against Madara; he gripped her hips, leaning over and brushing his lips over her ear once more, dragging his grip from her cheeks down her throat, squeezing gently along her windpipe with a threatening rumble into her cheek. "Your complaints are heard," he informed her with a slow withdrawal, making her whimper in disappointment before he slammed into her harshly, "and disregarded."
Sakura cried out, moving with Madara, her breaths white puffs in the air as he took her in fluid thrusts she matched with rippling undulations of her hips against his. Her sweaty palms scrabbled in the sheets, gripping at them tightly enough to tear the fabric, and she bit into her pillow as he rammed into her without mercy, her pleasured shouts muffled through her clenching teeth. She groaned in approval as his fingers dug into her waist, seizing her with iron control; she gave in with a cry that rang through the house when he doubled his pace, skin slapping against skin and their rapid breaths panting in unison. Her whole body was taut like metal as she was lost in a wave of pleasure that blinded her entirely. He joined her, pulling up against her and seizing up, throwing his head back with a deep broken groan.
Another slow undulation, this one of tension softly releasing; Sakura turned around as Madara began to descend, reaching up and capturing his shoulders in the dark. She pulled him down to her, turning her face into the sheen of light sweat along his neck, tangling her legs with his; she didn't mind the weight of his tall body enveloping hers as he relaxed into her arms. Wild hair fell around their faces as he exhaled slowly beside her ear, palms sliding around her shoulders. Sakura pressed a kiss against where his pulse throbbed beneath the skin along his throat.
Sakura curled her arms around Madara's clone, a tender swell in her chest bringing prickling to the corners of her eyes. When he sighed into the curve of her shoulder, sliding onto the futon beside her and fully collapsing into the sheets, she turned to him, drawing a hand down his cheek. He leaned into her caress, and the breath caught in her throat, the painful press of Sakura's heart against her ribcage aching in response. It beat like it wanted to escape, like it no longer belonged to her, and the realisation came to her again that she was falling in love.
With an anguished expression she was glad Madara would not see, Sakura turned over and buried her face in his hair, breathing in time with him. She closed her eyes, holding him tightly to her as she hoped against hope that this was not all in vain.