Disclaimer: Naruto and its characters do not belong to me, they belong to Masashi Kishimoto

-Chapter Twelve-

Toka's Truth

Hashirama's words stunned Sakura, more so because immediately after saying such a shocking statement he turned his complete attention to Toka. It gave her the chance to sink into her feelings. Her brother may have only said that to convey to her just how much he was hurting, she knew their history better than anyone, but it did more than just that.

While she wouldn't say that the two men's relationship was weak, there was no doubt that it wasn't as strong as her own connection to Madara. Not currently anyway. Her brother was friends with him for just a little over a year. Afterwards they fought constantly for the next eight.

On the other hand she'd known him for those eight years and had forged a deep friendship with him. She was sure she had knowledge about things he'd never told anyone else. In her childishness she'd thought she knew him inside out. Except clearly she didn't.

Of course the fighting between the Senju and Uchiha was something she was aware of. She'd just never seen the effects of it before. They'd lost both Kawarama and Itama to the war, but she'd been too young to really take that in at its full effect.

Her wanting to stop the fighting was more of a moral compass that Hashirama had handed down to her. She knew it was right and also desired it for selfish reasons, but she'd never really thought very deeply about it beyond that. Faced with the aftermath of war, the wounded moaning out for help, is an entirely different feeling. It was motivation mixed with disgust.

Madara had said he wanted to end this war so why was he still fighting? It had been almost three months since Hashirama had taken up their Father's position and stopped the fighting with the Uchiha. The two only fought once after her brother became the Senju clan leader and he had declared a tentative cease fire. If the Uchiha didn't attack them, they'd return the favor.

When Toka had been sent off for battle, Sakura found out about the five Senju that were found dead. It was clear an Uchiha had done it, but she'd thought it was just a few gone rogue from their leader's orders. She hadn't expected her friend to have had a hand in it. Yet from what she'd just heard it was a possibility.

This spurred her into doing something that she had never done before. She questioned some of the Senju warriors on their thoughts about Madara. While Hashirama went from bedside to beside, healing others, she trailed after him. After he was done his thing and moving on, she would speak to the injured men.

None of them had good things to say about their enemy, but it was worse than she imagined. Some claimed their burns were due to his fiery flames. Others said he wasn't human, a monster that was able to stand against a god. All fairs judgements from men who'd faced such a beast in war.

In the end she decided to hold her own judgment until she spoke to Toka. The woman wasn't emotional in the face of battle and would be able to give a rational opinion on the matter. Though until then she would worry about the repercussions of this confrontation between the two clans.

After a tiring day of fighting and healing Hashirama was exhausted. Still his little brother demanded a debriefing of him. Such a slave driver he was. Though it was really only in this closed off room with Tobirama that he could let loose his emotions. Sakura was a nice second but she could never truly understand the horrors of war when she had not seen it firsthand.

"Hashirama, why did you save the young Uchiha?" He moved his face a bit so that his forehead wasn't pressed up against the floor where he was lying and blew his hair out of his face. Just as his mother had told him to all those years ago, he'd let it grow out. It was only in her memory that he kept it as long as it was.

With a face full of what he expected to be new wrinkles, he gazed up at his red eyed sibling. "…If Izuna were to die, there would be no chance of peace." He turned his face away so he could once again bury it into the floor.

"If he lives there will be no chance of peace. He hates the Senju and as long as he is unwilling Madara will never agree to a peace treaty." Tobirama did not understand how Hashirama couldn't see this. The hatred the younger Uchiha had of them was never ending. There wasn't one thing he could think of that would change the man's mind about them.

The brunet sighed and flipped himself over so he was staring up at the ceiling. "Maybe so, but people can change. Be persuaded. But people cannot be brought back from the dead." In his opinion saving Izuna was one of the best things he had ever done. If only Madara hadn't attacked Toka, they could have already been celebrating a truce.

As his mind wandering to Toka something else came to the forefront. He sat up a little so that he was at eye level with Tobi who was sitting properly, seiza style, sipping his tea next to the table. "While I was healing Toka, Sakura helped me."

"Of course she would. Toka is her master after all. If she didn't attempt to help, I'd be more concerned." He took another sip of his tea not at all sure why Hashirama would believe this an interesting enough topic to bring up in this debriefing.

"No, you don't understand." This time he sat up completely, moving into the seiza form that he hated with all his soul to convey his seriousness. "She helped me heal her. I had no idea what I was doing and…I thought we were going to lose her, Tobi."

Almost in slow motion the white haired man lowered his cup until it made a clanking sound as it connected with the saucer. "Are you trying to say that Sakura has your healing property?" He shook his head at his brother's foolishness. "Impossible. She does not share our blood."

"No, not my healing property! It was like…I can't even describe it." Now that he had his brother's attention he fell out of the seiza. "But my healing ability isn't really a Senju thing. I think it's the Uzumaki blood we have." The idea seemed to hit them both. "Maybe Sakura has an Uzumaki lineage! It would explain her hair color."

When their sister had first shown up Butsuma had considered this but dismissed it quite quickly. The Uzumaki weren't a clan that would just let one of their own go missing without searching for them. They were a close knit group who valued family.

What he hadn't considered was the possibility that a clan member could have broken off and started a line all their own. The relation could be distance, but there all the same. "If that's the case we should invite the Uzumaki for a visit when we get a chance." With that they started to talk about actual battle outcome.

A week passed before Toka regained consciousness for a considerable amount of time with her full cognitive abilities intact. The drugs they'd been pumping into her had kept her pretty incoherent. Every day of that week Sakura was by her side, talking about random things even though she could hear her chattering. Which was good because if she could she'd have told her to shut it long ago.

Her guard stood outside of the infirmary, content that no men in the cabin were well enough to attack her. She didn't even know his name but he was still the biggest pain in the ass she'd ever met. He was fairly quiet but when he did speak it was usually something insulting. He behaved like quiet the prince around her brothers though, at least smart enough to understand the likelihood of death if he didn't.

Sakura was actually in one of her rare moments of silence when Toka woke. In all the time she waited for her master to wake she didn't consider the option of a brutal awakening. The female warrior jerked out of bed without warning and had her hands maneuvered in such a way around the girl's neck that she could easily snap it. Almost as if she'd been halfway to doing it before she'd realized who she was defending herself against.

Both of them were breathing heavily as the women cautiously let the girl go. "Sakura…" Her gaze roamed the room as she calmed, sinking into herself on the cot. Carefully, her hand went to her stomach to check for damages. Fingertips traced the bandages wrapped around her midsection absentmindedly.

The girl pulled her hand away before she could yank at the wrappings. She knew Toka well enough by this point to understand she would want to see the result of her injuries. "Don't do that. The skin is till new. After the first healing it was thin enough to see through."

That only made her want to see it more. "Hey! It's not that interesting. It turned my stomach. Plus Hashirama's healed you every day since. It isn't see through anymore." This seemed to kill the woman's interest and she laid back submissively into her bed, still exhausted. "So Toka…"

Brown eyes glanced over at her, waiting for her to finish, irritation slowly climbing as the clock ticked on the wall. "Spit it out already! Ugh." She clutched her abdominal, realizing her mistake at having shouted. Sakura smiled a little and Toka glared. Business as usual.

"I just wanted to ask how this could happen to you." Better not to mention Madara's name, the woman was too smart not to notice she was fishing for information on the man if she did. For a moment everything was silent besides the quiet breathing coming from the other patients.

Black hair fell around her shoulders as she leaned her head back against the wall behind her, starring up at the ceiling. This was actually the first time she'd seen Toka without her hair done up in an elegant knot. "The leader of the Uchiha clan was about to use a fire jutsu against your brothers. At the time they were distracted with other matters. It would have hit and they'd have died." This was Toka's truth, what she understood of the situation.

Madara had tried to kill her precious siblings. She couldn't believe it. He'd said he wanted peace. That he wanted to keep her safe from war above all else. Why had he lied to her? If he'd at least been honest with her it wouldn't have felt this bad. She would have understood.

This was war after all, but to give her hope of peace was just cruel. Could she really marry someone who had been so willing to kill her family? Maybe it was possible that Madara even had a hand in the death of her other brothers. He'd probably killed too many Senju to even be able to tell her if he had.

She'd known he had killed before, he was a shinobi. Killing was just part of the job. This hadn't bothered her when she thought he'd had a conscious. That it wasn't something he really wanted to do. Yet he'd been ready to take out Hashirama and Tobirama in cold blood when the Senju offered peace. His willingness to harm others was evidence to the fact that the five Senju deaths could have been ordered by him. Her mind was in disarray over all the possibilities.

Toka noticed this and misunderstood it as distress over her brothers being endangered. "Don't worry, your brothers weren't hurt by the attack. I stopped it."

That pulled her right out of her despair. "By taking the attack all by yourself! Not even deflecting it or warning them instead. You must have a death wish."

Her tone raised Toka's hackles. "There wasn't any time for that!"

"Tobirama is probably the fastest man alive! There is always time." The door to the infirmary suddenly slammed closed. Neither of them had even heard it open. Their heads spun around in alarm. Tobi stood in the entryway starring them both down with his intense red eyes. For the first time Sakura was a little intimidated by her brother.

"No, I wasn't fast enough to have escaped the kind of attack Toka is speaking of, Sakura. I'd have been able to stop her if I was." It left a bitter taste in his mouth to admit to it but his next words were sincere. "We would have died without her. She saved us."

The twelve year old looked back at him with what appeared to him to be disappointment. He wasn't strong enough to save her master, wasn't fast enough. It was then that he started to wonder about the possibility of a jutsu making him faster than he already was. Something that would make it impossible to escape from him. He put it into his stock of jutsu ideas.

A week later Toka was practically begging to be released from the infirmary. Right after Sakura left that day the female Senju had tried to get out of her bed. Tobirama had pushed her back into it, which was the wrong thing to do. They ended up fighting and he wound up with a bite mark on his hand.

After her stubbornly refusing to give herself time to heal he'd ordered the healers to drug her again. The next day they started to restrain her instead of using the drugs so her wounds wouldn't open up again.

Sakura was sure the minute she was released the woman would be aiming for Tobi's head. She spit nails at just the mention of his name and he returned the favor, often calling her a rabid dog. The compound would be a war zone when Toka was deemed well again. In fact that's just what the healers were about to do.

She made sure to be out of the way when the woman's restrains were unlocked. The nurse didn't get the chance to discharge her, Toka was out the window before she even got the papers out. Walking over to the window, the girl examined the claw marks on its edges. Her master was like an escaped animal heading straight for its main gatekeeper. She almost felt sorry for her brother.

There was movement at her side, making her peek out of her peripheral vision. Her guard stood next to her, running her finger along the new groves in the wood. "What a vicious women." Her head spun around to get a better look at his face, but the smile shoe could have sworn was on his face was gone.

"Hey, Guard. What's your name?" He glanced at her questioningly, surprised that she would ask him such a thing. "Don't overthink it! I'm just getting sick of calling you guard." The man nodded acceptingly.

"They call me Sai." For no reason at all she felt her body tense up as a familiar feeling came over her. It was the same feeling of longing and loss she'd had about her 'spot' so many years ago along with what drew her to Madara. A sense of closeness and an image of a boy with a broken smile hit her out of nowhere.

There was a pain in her chest as another image accompanied it. A girl with long blond hair laying bloody on the dirt floor. Gasping, she stumbled away from the man, holding her head. She felt heartsick, as if she'd just watched her puppy die. Choked up, she physically turned her body away from Sai to try and hide her reaction.

Hesitantly, he moved towards her to check if she was okay. Sensing his approach, she considered her escape options. Being vulnerable in front of a virtual stranger was terrifying. There wasn't a chance of getting away though. It was his job to follow her.

Instead of touching her and turning her back around he went around her so that he was facing her. No one said anything until she raised her head to look at him. Then his eyes widened and he started to call for a medic. "What's wrong?" His head turned back around from when he was searching for a healer.

"Miss, your nose is bleeding." Just as he said that she felt something wet touch her lip. Raising her hand, she touched her face, feeling the warm liquid run through her fingers. Taking it away she stared down at her hand. It was covered in a dark red blood.

A year later there was no question that Toka was fully recovered. The woman was the daughter of Satan himself. A real demon. A horrid slave driver. It was a mantra Sakura repeated to herself over and over as said demon placed more weight on her back while she did pushups.

This wasn't as bad as running in the river with weights tied to her legs though. All this training had changed her body in a way that she hadn't thought of. Her previous string bean arms had muscle now, even if they were still slim and lean. The most drastic change was surely her calves. She swore they were at least twice the size they were before.

Plus she had abs now, certainly they weren't as amazing as Toka's but she'd take it. More than ever before she felt strong. It still annoyed her that all they'd done was strength training though. Her master hadn't taught her how to fight yet at all. She constantly said that this step needed to be completed before moving on. 'Basics first.'

"Okay, you're good now. You met your quota." Sighing in relief, she let her arms go, throwing herself to the floor. Laughing, Toka removed the weight from her student's back. "Okay Hercules, let's go get something to drink." The teen grimaced, not sure if that was the best idea.

It was something they did fairly often but it was starting to get weird. She was thirteen now and, as Tobirama liked to say, the wolves were moving in. Whenever they went to Toka's family's teashop, a lot of men tended to follow them inside. Some did nothing but stare, others were bolder. One came up to them to ask her guard for a chance at courtship.

Toka's reaction hadn't been friendly at all and so after that first time few men were still brave enough to do the same. Their stares still made her uncomfortable. Toka noticed this and would sip at her water, pointing out the lecherous men, having a ball at her expense.

At one time she even got serious, ordering Sai away from the table to speak with her alone. She'd asked her if there were any men she found attractive or interesting. Honestly, she didn't know how to respond to that.

She knew of her master's deal with the elders, the classes she was forced to take in etiquette never let her forget it, so she also knew the importance of this discussion. Toka was hoping for her to find someone she found tolerable. Had promised that if she did, she would fight the elders tooth and nail so Sakura could marry the man she loved.

At the same time she was scared to let her student go out on her own to meet men. She didn't trust that side of their species at all. Hashirama and Tobirama were rare exceptions to her rule of thumb.

This mattered naught to Sakura though. There was just no way that she would fall in love with someone besides Madara. For a while it was hard for her to connect what she actually felt for the man and what she felt obligated to feel for her family.

Finally she decided that there was no way she could erase her feelings for him, but that as long as the fighting lasted she would not continue their relationship. It was difficult to stay away at first, but the longer she did the easier it became.

There was no question that she still thought of him, her resolve was just stronger. She shoved him in the darkest corner of her mind and tried to believe that out of sight was out of mind. Still occasions occurred that made her yearn to see him.

Toka shoved her shoulder to get her attention. "Are you coming or not?" Pulled out of her thoughts of Madara and knowing she did need to talk to her master about something, she decided to go along with her to the teashop as usual.

Before they walked in though, she ordered Sai to stay put outside of the shop and make sure no one followed them in today. He did as asked flawlessly. Left alone now, master and student took their seats in the farter booth possible away from the customers already inside.

Toka could sense that something was up, but kept silent while she waited for Sakura to speak up about what was bothering her. This wasn't the time to be impatient. The teenager was relieved that she was given time to figure out how to bring up such an embarrassing topic.

After a few minutes passed between them without either saying anything, Sakura finally leaned in. Feeling secretive she followed along with her. Together they were bent over the table, the girl not even daring to look into her master's eyes.

"My…chest is starting to bother me during training. Is there a way too…I don't even know what I'm asking." There was a deep red hue dusting across her cheeks, clearly uncomfortable talking about this part of her anatomy.

Toka reeled back, her spine now flush against the booth behind her. This wasn't in the job description of master. She was completely unqualified to help her with this problem. There was no reason for the teenager to be embarrassed about her own natural body, but the shock was too much for her to convene that with her reaction.

In turn Sakura pulled back from her, more ashamed than before. "I'm sorry. I just didn't know who else to talk to about such matters." Flushed in dismay, she tried to flee the booth. Before she could get away, Toka grabbed her by the back of her qipao dress.

"No. I'm sorry." Pushing the girl back into her seat, she tried to explain herself. "I just don't know what to say. It is impossible for me to help you much in this regard. I don't know much about this topic." Under the table her leg started to shake nervously.

Her student didn't seem quite willing to believe her. "How can you not know? Don't you have this problem too?" Her other foot started to do a tap dance, not prepared for this line of questioning. She'd thought Sakura would just be a good girl and not ask her things like this.

Her silence made the girl frown and it was obvious she was starting to think ill of her, believing her to be lying. Faced with that option or disclosing the truth, she choose something she thought she'd never decide to do. She told the truth.

"You don't understand. My father…I had my breast tissue removed when I was younger. Therefore I never needed such knowledge." Bringing up such a long forgotten incident unnerved her, flashes of the forceful surgery coming to the forefront of her mind. It was more of a butchery than any type of surgery really.

When it because clear that removing the tissue was beyond his capability, her father had burned it away. The pain had been terrible but not as much as her other surgery had been. "I only know about menstruation because of what I have heard from other women. My womb is long since gone." That had been the truly unbearable operation.

She still had nightmares of the elders standing over her as an unqualified healer cut her open and tore out her uterus. Her father's idea of ripping out her femininity at its core had intrigued them after he had used fire to erase her breasts from existence. They'd offered up a more permanent solution once they found out what he had done.

Someone they'd gotten it in their convoluted heads that they might really be able to turn her into a man. Battle strength in numbers had always been their ideal way of war, but many of the Senju male population had been lost to the war already. Women had always outnumbered men but it quickly became hugely disproportional and wives were still giving birth to girls.

With such uneven numbers a large number of these women would be unable to find a husband. Wasted resources in the elders' eyes. They'd liked the idea that they good turn these 'wasted' women into a better resource, men able to fight for them.

She truly had no idea what they'd expected to happen, but clearly they thought their experiment a failure. Without a care they used her life as a trial run. She had not even had her first period when they took the option away from her.

In the eyes of men she was never marriageable and never will be. She supposed her torture was somewhat worth it since it made it possible for her to be able to save her student from those old men's clutches. It was still hard to bear though.

Smart as always, Sakura seemed to at least get the gist of what her master was implying even if she didn't understand how things like that were possible. Her master just didn't have the same anatomy as her anymore. Wait. Did that mean…

"Am I going to have to be like you to be a warrior?" Immediately she regretted the way she'd phrased that. It made it sound like she thought less of her master because of the way she was. That wasn't true at all though.

Her thoughts were stopped from going any farther when Toka grabbed her by her shoulders. "No!" Panic warped her face into something terrible to glance upon. Sweat beaded down her forehead as she stared down into her student's wide green eyes. "Never let yourself think that. I no way am I a better warrior for what was done to mean."

Not quite true, she'd probably never have even glanced upon this profession if things hadn't happened the way they did, but regular females could make just as good fighters as males did. Take the Uzumaki clan for example. Their women could be fierce and Toka was glad to never have to go into a real battle against one.

Sakura relaxed after hearing this, glad that she would still be able to retain the ability to have children for Madara. Her thoughts came to a screeching halt. That desire had totally come out of nowhere and it made her face far rosier than it had been before.

She pushed her face into the table to try to hide it. "Hey are you okay, Brat?" Pressing her face even harder against the surface she tried to erase the image of cute dark haired Uchiha children from her mind, but was completely unsuccessful.

It had been a year, a full fucking year, since he had last seen Sakura. He worried over her constantly and hoped for her to reappear even as he searched for her. His worry and hope of her recovery turned to frustration as the days and months dragged on. It was killing him, slowly but surely.

Frustration and he dare say even hatred at the girl, drove him to madness. At time he'd get unreasonably snippy at their troops, something only Izuna dared to point out. That, as always, led them to fighting in front of said troops. He took quite the pleasure in kicking his little brother's ass in front of his own men. After a while it became so common that even Izuna stopped bothering to call him out on his temper.

When picking fights stopped working to cool his anger, he turned to drinking. He just hadn't realized he was such a sad excuse for a drunk. Izuna came across him one day sprawled across the tatami mats in his bedroom.

The sun wasn't even up yet but his brother always had been an early riser. If only he'd remembered to close his door when he stumbled in his room last night, the younger man never even would have seen him. It was beyond his abilities to turn back time though.

Izuna stopped and stared into his room. "Madara, what are you doing?"

He shoved the empty sake bottle under the lower part of his back, attempting to hide the evidence even after his sibling had already seen it. Shaking his head for no reason, he answered him, "Nothin'." He stared back at Izuna as innocently as he could.

"You're drunk off your ass, aren't you?" He couldn't quite decide between being angry or amused by the situation. Madara replied in the negative, but with the way he slurred no one would have believed him. Sighing, Izuna joined his big brother on the floor of his room, sprawling himself out next to him. "…What's wrong with you lately?"

Turning his head in stared into eyes that matched his own, somehow comforted by it, and asked his sibling a question he'd wondered about. "Hav you evera been in luv?" Shaggy black hair shifted across his face as Izuna shook his head. "Hurts. Right ear." He patted his chest, over his heart, turned his body towards his brother's and told him about Sakura.

It took hours to describe the progression of their relationship over the near decade that he'd known the child. Trying to justify himself to Izuna about the age difference was a significant portion of that, even though his brother never said one word about it.

The gap in their ages didn't seem that big to him when he compared it to their own parent's difference. Twenty years was a large one. Their father had lived far beyond the estimated thirty years of a shinobi. Their mother, sadly, had not. She'd been just brushing twenty-three when she passed.

Still he listened to Madara's wallowing, a little happy that he was telling him about this even if he was drunk. The sun was well over the stop of the trees when the story finally stopped, his brother having been sober for a while now. Together they dozed off, sleeping cuddled close to one another.

After that incident he realized alcohol wasn't doing it for him. It didn't melt away his frustration at all, only matching it with depression. Long nights alone remembering that kiss he shared with Sakura was the worst part. He was a twenty-two year old virgin and completely male. Urges hit him out of nowhere at strange times.

Once he decided he would marry Sakura, he had put all that on the back burner. He planned to wait for her until she was ready, but now there was no end in sight to this particular kind of frustration. In one broken down moment of indiscretion, he laid with a women that he did not love.

What killed him the most was that he liked it more than he felt he should have and knew he was probably going to do it again. He'd always thought himself a faithful man and this turn of events made him ashamed of himself.

Men had free reign in this world but he still felt like he'd betrayed Sakura. He was not the type to keep a mistress or tolerate any such behavior from the person he wed. This left a terrible feeling in his heart.

These feelings intensified until it grew into a typoon inside of him. Then it all came out in one long drawn out period of endless despair. He had no clue that this would just be his first lapse of many as his body broke down from starvation and sleep deprivation.

A poll has been released on my profile for pairings.

Toka's past finally comes out in this one. I was actually kinda surprised when no way questioned what she was blackmailing the elders with. It also shows just a bit of what Madara was up to before the last chapter.