"I totally called it, you know. A ten-tailed beast sealed in the moon." Sakura said, trotting over the snow.
"You did, yes." Hatake agreed with a nod. "Next time I will pay more attention when you theorise about ancient celestial objects."
"That's a good attitude, Kashi." She said before her face twisted, he glanced at her curiously. "How positive are we that the masked Akatsuki is Uchiha Madara?"
"Almost certain. He's an exceptionally powerful Uchiha. There's only one that is unaccounted for in recent history." He replied.
"Right, but there's the problem." She said. "How do we know he's even an Uchiha, I definitely didn't see his Sharingan turn off."
"It's too much of a chakra drain to use as frequently as he did for non-Uchiha's. And even then, it's not like there's spare Sharingan's just floating around."
"Danzō had at least eleven." She said, Hatake froze.
A single, questioning eyebrow was turned on her.
"One in his right eye, ten implanted along his right arm. The arm also had a half formed face on it and was made of this really gross, plasticky flesh." She grimaced. "He sent a ROOT shinobi to capture Kabuto to 'alleviate his problems' with them so I assume they were remnants of when he was still paying Orochimaru to work for him."
Hatake sighed and started walking again, visibly trying to process the information she'd just dropped on him. "Danzō was paying Orochimaru?" His voice sounded like a drowning man clinging to a stick.
"We found research files from after Orochimaru was chased out of the village. Meaning that even after it was common knowledge what kind of experiments the Sannin was doing, Danzō harboured a wanted criminal and paid him to continue." Sakura smiled humourlessly. "He also drove the Uchiha clan to attempt a coup d'état and then forced Uchiha Itachi to wipe the lot of them out. There's some question about why Sasuke is still alive, but I suspect he was used as a bargaining chip of some sort."
His slither of face turned sceptical. Sakura nodded.
"I spent the months you had me training with Gai making copies of the ROOT archives." She tapped her forehead. "It's what got me this."
Hatake sighed, tired and resigned. Her lips quirked.
"You won't be dealing with it alone, at least. I gave Shikaku the entirety of the copies before I came to get you." She said cheerily, he looked a little less depressed at the news. "Besides, it's not as if you've been inaugurated or anything, maybe Tsunada-sama will wake up just in the nick of time."
"If only."
"Don't worry Kashi, even if you're Hokage I'll still come around to bother you." She said with a shit eating grin. His eye turned conniving. Sakura felt a sudden, horrible, foreboding shudder work its way down her spine.
"You know, I heard that Bear was looking to retire soon." He drawled and her eyes widened in horror.
"You wouldn't!" Her voice was tinged with betrayal.
"You're smart, experienced with all manner of roles around the village and you have an excellent mission record." He began.
"I'll do anything! Absolutely anything you want, Kashi, just don't trap me in a paper job, please." She begged, her hands clasped in prayer, and his eye smile turned smug for a second before it became more complicated. Sakura's brow furrowed and she opened her mouth to ask when footsteps at the edge of her hearing caught her attention. "Someone's heading our way. Fast." She pointed in their direction, automatically averting her eyes as the mask was pulled down below Hatake's nose and he breathed deeply.
"It's Sai?" He sounded unsure. Another breath. "It's an ink clone." The gentle scratching of fabric being pushed into place sounded and Sakura glanced back at him. He nodded and they took off at a sprint towards the incoming clone.
"Kakashi-sensei! Sakura!" The Sai clone said. "It's Shikamaru. He's leading a team and chasing after Sasuke. They're intent on killing him."
"Where." Hatake said with a growl.
"This way." The clone said, turning and running. They followed. "It's Shikamaru, Kiba, Lee and my original body. The Konoha eleven decided as a group they had to kill Sasuke. Shikamaru decided he needed to be the one to tell Naruto himself. Naruto was obviously against it, but was stopped from following us by Yamato."
"He didn't stop the four of you?" Hatake asked and the clone grimaced.
"He tried, but we slipped away whilst he was dealing with Naruto."
"And why have you changed your mind and gotten us involved?" Sakura asked.
"Naruto was very…emphatic." The clone said with a forlorn look. "I believe killing Sasuke may be the wrong decision."
"Do everything in your power to stop the group from reaching Sasuke." Hatake ordered. "Sasuke's too strong, they won't be able to beat him."
"Understood." The clone said.
They ran mostly in silence, only the soft panting and gentle footfalls giving away their presence.
"Things are getting tense. We need to hurry up."
A few more minutes passed before the clone started to melt. "Shikamaru's knocked me out. Please hurry!"
They both picked up the pace.
Sakura followed Hatake as he landed on a stretch of road, New Kid's unconscious form laid out in the dirt. As the man checked him over, she stretched out her hearing, picking up the sounds of four sets of footfalls on the edge of her range.
"I can hear them." She said, he moved New Kid onto the grass, out of the line of sight from the road, and gestured for her to lead the way. By unspoken agreement, she used her nature transformation to speed her movements and Hatake pushed himself to match her.
They both knew the others were dead if they fought Sasuke.
"Why have you appeared before me?"
Her foot hit a branch, she forced her charka faster. Pushed more out to cover her further. Until her very mind felt like it was speeding up.
"As Konoha Shinobi, we are here to eliminate you and stop the darkness you are spreading."
Her cells crackled and charged with energy. She began to leave Hatake behind. She pulled a kunai to clearly mark her path through the trees. He didn't need it, but it would make things easier for him.
"Don't make me laugh. You think you can kill me? Three chūnin and a dog?"
She became little more than a blur of blue through the trees. A bridge came into sight, the white bricks glistening with rain. The three chūnin standing on her side, the Uchiha on the other. The Uchiha's shadow was caught but he was ignoring it.
"You've already been caught." The Nara said. Sakura launched at him the same moment the Uchiha's eyes bled into stars.
Black flames engulfed the spot the two of them had been a moment before.
"You idiots." Sakura said to a shocked trio of boys. "Need to run."
"We'll hold him off." Kakashi added, appearing beside her and immediately moving to distract Uchiha with conversation.
"We're going to fight him together!" The Inuzuka insisted. His dog whined. Apparently the dog was the smart one.
"It it very unyouthful t-" Sakura blurred and pulled the green kid out of the way of another swirl of black flames. The Nara was staring wide-eyed at the ribs of pure chakra that had appeared around the Uchiha.
"As your superior, I am ordering the three of you to leave. I refuse to protect you any longer." With that she threw herself into the fight, tagging out with Kakashi in an instinctive movement driven by long hours of practice drills. She tested a fist against the construct, it hit like a solid wall.
"Susanoo is the ultimate defence." Sasuke said. The construct grew an arm, the hand slamming into where she'd been just a second before. Her chakra was working overtime, driving her faster and faster.
She ducked and rolled under a swipe of the chakra arm, a blast of water from Kakashi driving it backwards before it could follow her, and gathered chakra in her fist.
Her memory of the fight with the Pein's was blurry, but she remembered smashing the foul summon distinctly. Sakura expanded her senses to feel the construct's signature, and forced the chakra building in her fist into it's opposite.
She hit. Released. The rib exploded. The entire construct shattered.
"That's impossible!" Sasuke screamed. Kakashi burst from the ground below him, kunai in his hand as he went for the kid's heart.
They were aiming to kill, then.
Sasuke just barely dodged, a thick line of red appearing over his ribs, right eye widening and Sakura flickered away just as another ball of black flame appeared where she'd been standing a moment before. The edge of her skirt caught and she slashed through it mercilessly, working on forcing her chakra back up to speed.
Sakura felt tendrils of foreign chakra seeping into her system and she threw it in reverse for a moment. Stopping the illusion before it could even start. It didn't take much. The jutsu had been sloppy and obvious, even without her control. Sasuke had used far too much chakra in his panic.
Kakashi was driving the kid back, attacking him in a flurry of Taijutsu and kunai that Sasuke was only just dodging. Sakura dashed in, intent on backing Hatake up, when a wave of chakra poured out of the kid and Hatake was thrown backwards, a massive skeleton-like figure bursting up from Sasuke. The bridge shook.
Sakura changed courses and grabbed the flying man, catching his arm and righting him before he crashed into a wall. Kakashi was panting and the top of a bruise was visible at the edge of the mask, but his limbs were steady as he stood.
Sasuke was screaming and clutching at his eye, blood pouring down his face, but he seemed be mentally working himself up to something. His face twisting further and further in anguish. Pulses of wasted chakra being pushed into the air around him.
The skeleton shifted. A massive knight appearing instead, one hand with a crossbow and the other with a giant sword.
A giant bolt of energy raced towards them.
Her hand shot out, her chakra covered Hatake's and they flickered backwards fifteen metres.
Sakura fell to a knee and coughed blood. Dimly aware that the bridge had exploded. She closed her eyes through the head rush and opened them just in time to see Kakashi standing before her and a second, giant arrow heading straight for them.
Her storm transformation had died out and she wouldn't have enough chakra to flicker Kakashi as well even if it hadn't. Her hands were shaking on the ground. She'd never tried doing that before and she found herself abruptly glad. It had used twenty four percent of her reserves and she'd only reached half her normal range for the move. There was a mixture of bile and blood in the back of her throat. The familiar numb sensation of chakra exhaustion creeping into her skin. She couldn't dodge.
Hatake didn't even try.
Instead, the arrow simply disappeared into nothingness a moment before it would have hit.
"I can't believe you, a non-Uchiha, awakened the Mangekyou Sharingan. So that's what saved you, your eye's ability." The Uchiha said from inside the chakra construct. "I hope you're grateful to the Uchiha."
"Sasuke." Hatake said, standing tall. "Your clan and your hatred can't be the only things left in your heart. Look deep inside of yourself one last time."
"Still reciting the same old phrases."
"You know what's really there."
"…They're all laughing." The Uchiha said. "They're all laughing it up! At the cost of Itachi's life! Cackling in unison with no idea of the price he paid! All I hear is laughter now! Scorn and ridicule! But I'll change it, I'll turn your laughter into screams of anguish!"
The construct morphed into a giant nightmare creature that bled furious, violet chakra like a slit throat before rapidly fading. The Uchiha was left blinking at the other side of the bridge, his eyes morphed back into his natural black as they blinked and flickered wildly over the bridge.
"Is he… blind?" Sakura asked, pushing shakily back to her feet. Hatake steadied her with a hand on her shoulder as she wobbled. All of her insides felt bruised. She was beginning to wonder if she hadn't just only moved her outsides in her haste, leaving her stationary organs to be slammed against her ribcage as the bones were shunted by the jutsu.
Of course if that had happened she'd probably have liver dripping out of her ears but something had definitely gone wrong. She made a mental note to never try that move again.
"Every use of the Mangekyou deteriorates your vision slightly." Hatake said and she glanced upward at the his own Sharingan in alarm.
A yellow and orange blur launched over them and landed between them and the Uchiha.
"Sasuke! Tobi told us the truth about Itachi!" The Uzumaki shouted. "I don't know if I believe him or not, but either way, everything you've done, I understand why you did it!"
The Uchiha visibly flinched.
"Naruto. I told you once before, you never had parents or siblings. You never had anyone." The Uchiha's face and tone were poisonous. "So shut up you outsider!"
"Danzō is dead." Sakura said. "You're playing a tragedy without a villain. There is no one to get revenge on."
The Uchiha's face twisted into deranged superiority. "Of course there is." He snarled. "EVERY LAST PERSON IN KONOHA!"
The Uchiha threw himself forward with a Chidori, the Uzumaki throwing himself to meet him with a rasengan. Hatake tried to stop him but was stopped by a shadow clone latching onto his arms.
Sakura didn't bother trying.
The jutsus hit. The world exploded.
Sakura stumbled backwards and found herself being lifted by Hatake as he leapt away from the centre of the explosion. An arm around her waist pressing her against his side and keeping her suspended off the ground, her hands automatically clinging to his shirt to help stay upright. They landed on the grass, the dust settling to show the bridge almost entirely gone.
Sakura spent half a moment fighting incredibly inappropriate arousal before she glanced down and scowled. Her ankles only just reached his knees, despite the fact he'd only lifted her so her chin just reached over his shoulder.
The Uzumaki had been caught by his shadow clones. The Uchiha had been caught by the Akatsuki that had appeared at the kage summit.
"Now. I'm certain." The Uzumaki said, staring at the Uchiha on the other side of the gorge.
"Certain of what?" Hatake asked, staring at Uzumaki's back and sounding thoroughly annoyed at the entire situation. "What the hell are you talking about!?"
In a swirl of colour, the masked man appeared.
"I thought I told you to come back and rest." He said, staring at the Uchiha. The mask turned towards them. "The Kyuubi…" Sakura wondered if the Uzumaki was going to be disappeared like the Uchiha had been. "When we fight them, it will be in a more suitable place. For now we retreat."
Her eyes narrowed.
"Let me handle them. We've gotta handle the Kyuubi sometime, right?" The white freak said and a mass of more white freaks melted out of the trees.
"No, Zetsu. I don't think you'll be able to capture Naruto. You're really not a front line fighter, the Kyuubi is too much. We'll leave that hunt to Sasuke, it should be entertaining." The masked man said. "Plus I'm worried about Kisame. Go check up on him and rejoin with you blacker half on the way."
"Aye, aye sir."
"Naruto." Hatake said as the Uzumaki stepped forward to the very edge of the smashed bridge. Sakura became abruptly aware she had not yet been put down. Hatake was a solid pillar of warmth that she was using to ground herself against the cottony feeling of mild chakra exhaustion- closer to just extreme fatigue than anything- and the dull throbbing pain from her squishy, human organs. She was somewhat worried she'd burst something, but she figured she'd be feeling a lot worse and coughing up more blood if it was serious.
"I know." The blonde said. "But first there's something I need to say to Sasuke."
"C'mon, Sasuke." The masked man said but the Uchiha pushed him aside, forcing himself standing as he did.
"Wait." The Uchiha teen muttered and walked to the opposite edge of the bridge. Both teens staring at each other across the gap, faces screaming DETERMINATION.
"Sasuke." The Uzumaki started. "Do you remember what you told me back in the valley of the end? About top-class ninjas. One direct clash later I understand a lot more. We've become top-class ninjas, Sasuke. Both of us. So tell me, did you see what was in my heart? How I really feel? Did you see what would happen if we fight again?
"We're both going to die." It was deadly serious. Sakura let out an exasperated huff.
"Our battle will be inevitable if you really do attack Konoha. So keep your hatred and let it fester and hit me with it full force. I'm the only one who can bear the full brunt of your hate! It's my job and no one else!
"I'll bear the burden of your hatred and then we'll die together!" The Uzumaki screamed across the gap.
"What?!" The Uchiha's voice was incredulous. "What the fuck is wrong with you?! Why do you care about me so much?!"
"Because I'm your friend." The Uchiha looked like he might cry. "Sasuke, we'll never understand each other through words alone. I knew that from the moment I met you. The only way you and I can communicate properly is through our fists! Remember what I said, we're both top-class ninjas now! I haven't given up yet!"
Sakura was exasperated.
"Still, I'm done ranting at you. If we really do take this all the way to the end and we both die, we won't be Uchiha, jinchūriki or anything. They'll be no more burdens to bear, we'll come to understand each other in the next world!"
"I will never change!" The Uchiha responded. "I don't want us to understand each other! And I'm not going to die, you will!"
Hatake stepped forward. "Enough Naruto, I'll handle Sasuke. You still have a dream of becoming the Hokage. Sasuke may have fallen, but don't let him drag you down, too-"
"How could I call myself Hokage if I can't even save one friend?! The only person Sasuke's fighting is me!"
"Have it your way. I'll kill you first."
"Any time. You still haven't accepted me as an equal!" The Uzumaki said. Did he really see himself as the Uchiha's equal? They could be if the Uzumaki trained a heck of a lot more, but this was the same kid who didn't train unless he was forced to.
Sakura gave up on the pair. She accepted that she would never understand teenage boys and decided that if the Uzumaki wanted to march to his death and the Uchiha wanted to spend his days miserable they could do so. If Uzumaki wanted to flush the years of work she'd poured into him down the drain than that was his prerogative. He wasn't worth the attachment she'd previously felt.
Hatake set her down- lowering her to sitting when she'd wobbled and proved unable to remain standing under her own power- and stepped forwards. She pushed the subsequent wave of disappointment firmly into the very back of her mind.
"Okay. Sasuke is all yours, Naruto." He said. "But take care of my body, alright?"
Wait what?
Hatake leaned forward. A fist clenched. Sakura assumed he was using the Mangekyou.
Nothing happened.
"Don't bother Kakashi." The masked man said, a strange humour in his voice. "Techniques like that have no effect on me. Let's go Sasuke."
"Madara." The Uchiha said, confirming that he did also think that the mask man was Uchiha Madara. "You and I need to talk."
The three vanished in a swirl of colour.
"I'm ready when you are, Sasuke." The Uzumaki said.
Sakura's mind was whirling. 'Techniques like that have no effect on me' rang in her ears.
Did he mean Mangekyou techniques in general? Would something like the black flames work on him? Or was is specifically Hatake's Mangekyou that didn't work on the masked man? Could their techniques cancel each other out? Would that mean they were opposites? Or somehow different versions of the same?
Sakura pressed her eyes shut against a number of wild leaps and connections that her sleep addled brain was both half making and pulling from nowhere. The lack of logical pathways left her head ringing as she tried to pull the pieces together. She couldn't tell if her ideas made sense or if her fatigue just led her to believing they did.
She really couldn't wait for the seal to be finished. Sakura was never going to be this pathetic after a fight again.
When she opened her eyes again Hatake was crouched before her and she climbed onto his back with a smile.
"Thanks, Kashi!" She said cheerfully as he stood with a fond sounding sigh, one hand holding her up whilst the other pushed down his hitai-ate again.
"Time to go." He said and the Uzumaki nodded, the blonde wearing a pensive expression as his eyes lingered on the spot the Uchiha had disappeared from.
They started walking back towards the road and Sakura hummed. "Hey Kakashi, what exactly does your Mangekyou do?"
"It's Kamui. It sends what I aim it at into another dimension." He said.
"In a swirl?" She asked and he paused.
"Yes."
"Maybe he uses a different version of the same technique then, and that's why it didn't work on him." She rested her chin against the man's shoulder and dutifully ignored the way his hands had tightened painfully on her thighs where they held her up.
Sakura had read the mission reports. The more she considered it, the less she thought the similarities between the techniques were coincidences. Nor was which eye, exactly, the masked man used. Whilst the chances of Uchiha Obito having survived half his body being crushed were near zero, that chances of a single eye surviving the destruction and someone with large enough chakra reserves to handle it or another Uchiha getting their hands on it?
Not that low.
"When he teleports is he just throwing himself into the other dimension and then appearing somewhere else of his choice? And his 'intangibility' could instead be him putting the body parts that were attacked into the other dimension." She mused. "Do you think it's the same dimension as yours? Is there a history of Uchiha's with eyes all linked to the same place? If the masked man goes into the dimension after you've used your eye on something would it be in there?" A smile stretched on her face and she started giggling at the imagery, the exhaustion and resulting lightheadedness making her giddy. "Imagine if he had like a secret base in the dimension and every time you used it just random weapons and various body parts appeared all over his furniture."
She buried her face into the fabric of the flak jacket to- unsuccessfully- stifle the giggling.
"Is Sakura-chan alright, Kakashi-sensei?" The Uzumaki- loudly- whispered to the man. He sighed.
"She's just a bit tired." He replied.
"Is that why she's all…" the blonde gestured at where Sakura was giggling hysterically into Hatake's flak jacket, one hand pressed over her mouth and her entire body shaking with the effort of suppressing them.
"Aah." Hatake confirmed solemnly.
Sakura couldn't help it, she just kept picturing the masked man obsessively cleaning his super-secret alternate dimension base, only for Hatake to have a bad mission and someone's torso or head appearing in the middle of it all.
Oh, god, what about the giant chakra arrow?
"Come on." Hatake said, shifting her weight and grabbing one of her hands with her own. In a pavlovian response from months of nights doing the same thing, she switched her chakra to his. "Time to calm." He murmured.
Sakura's giggles died out as the warmth flooded through her. The feeling of warmth running through her system and into her forehead causing her to relax subconsciously. She snuffled and squirmed closer to his back, free hand twisted in the fabric of his shoulder and face pressed against green.
It didn't take long for the rushing to stop, Hatake not having that much chakra left after using the Sharingan, and Sakura yawned. The rhythmic rocking of his strides and the slow warmth quickly lulled her to sleep.
Sakura awoke to a finger poking the side of her face. She screwed her eyes closed and tried to bat the offending appendage away, only to be forced further out of her sleepiness by the finger dodging and moving to poke her forehead antagonistically. She forced her eyes open to look up at Hatake eye smiling down at her.
"Maa, Sakura-chan. Time to wake up." He drawled delightedly. "You were cleared by the medics whilst you slept, get one of these guys to give you a hand if you're still too tired to get around on your own. I have to go and be officially inaugurated as Hokage." She snorted and her mouth pulled into a smile.
"Have fun with that."
His eye smile turned threatening, she back peddled. Fast.
Her face light up in an overblown supportive grin and she patted his arm a bit too rapidly. "I mean I'll totally support your appointment in any way I can, I'm sure you'll do great with everyone helping you out as they definitely will!" Her voice high and fluttery with nerves.
He wore a smug expression as he disappeared in a swirl of leaves. Sakura's face dropped and she looked around her surroundings, realising the man had placed her on top of a giant pile of wood. She swung her legs over the edge and watched the teens gathering below her, the Inuzuka and his dog settling on top of the wood opposite her and the green kid sitting next to her. He sent her a nervous look, a blush developing on his face, and shuffled a centimetre closer. She tactfully ignored it.
She figured she'd just punch him if he came within a half metre of her.
Naruto- untactfully- declared that he was planning to fight the Uchiha one on one and that none of them were allowed to interfere.
"You're going to fight Sasuke alone!?" The girl with the buns roared, smashing a fist against the wood. Unfortunately for her, Sakura was Sakura and trying to make a point by not being able to even break a plank was entirely unimpressive when she was there. "And you think all of us are just going to stand back and let you?!"
"Tenten's right, Naruto. We can't afford to let you have your way on this one. This is a problem for the whole village." The Nara interjected. Sakura tilted her head, she would have thought he, of all people, would get what Uzumaki was trying to do. Especially after seeing just how outmatched he'd been.
"So this is what you meant when you said you'd 'explain when we got back'?" Yelled the Inuzuka. "We're all prepared to kill Sasuke, man!"
"I'm not trying to be selfish." The Uzumaki said honestly.
"Naruto, you're not trying to convince us to let you handle this so you can turn around and protect Sasuke, are you?" The Nara said.
Sakura snorted. Loudly. The group turned to stare up at her. "You really don't get it, do you?" She said, her tone far too cutting to be considered nice. "Sasuke is out of your league." She hissed. "Currently, I am the strongest one here. Frankly, I'm pretty sure I could take on all of you at once with my hands tied behind my back." There was some disbelieving mumbling, but not as much as she'd expected. She'd been getting a lot more respect since the invasion. Apparently most of the village knew she'd killed two of the Pein's and had actually seen her explode a mountain sized summon with just a fist. She leant forward, eyes narrowed as they ran over the gathered group.
"If I took on Sasuke seriously right now, I would die." She said matter of factly. Their faces turned downtrodden. "The good news is, whilst I am currently the strongest here, I am not the one with the most potential. That is Naruto." She pointed at the Uzumaki. "Naruto is the only one of us here that has the potential to match up to Sasuke. In fact, Naruto's probably the only one in the village with the potential to match up to Sasuke's full potential. He is taking the brunt of that potential because otherwise, it would just end as another Pein but without the life returning Deus ex Machina."
The group was grim faced. Sakura turned to the Uzumaki and smiled reassuringly.
"Naruto, train hard, I believe in you." She said and he grinned back. Maybe if he did he'd actually make it. She wasn't lying about his potential, just maybe exaggerating how likely she thought it was that he'd reach it within the next decade. The harder he trained, at least, the easier it would be for her to stab a tired Uchiha in the back after Uzumaki was dead. "You're always welcome to come to me if you need help with your chakra control or you just want to spar."
"Thanks Sakura-chan!" The Uzumaki said with a thumbs up.
She hopped off the wood and landed beside him. "Wanna go get a smoothie and then hit up Ichiraku?" She asked and he cheered, turning and heading towards the village with a hurried bye to the others.
Sakura waved dismissively over her shoulder as they left.
They all needed the wake up call. Even the male Hyuuga- whilst strong on paper- had a pathetically small mission record, making jōnin thanks to his clan connections but with none of the actual battle experience backing him.
War was coming. If they didn't wise up, they would die.
(Naruto never made it to Ichiraku's, instead poofing out of existence just as they walked out of Panda's new smoothie shop. The last time she'd seen that happen it had been done by the toads, so Sakura figured it was probably fine. Maybe.)
(She had a smoothie to enjoy, after all.)