I'm back!

Sorry for the long leave of absence. I really appreciate the continued support and encouragement to keep updating—I have you to thank for motivating me to get back into writing.

This chapter is pretty short; I need a bit more time to finish writing the theory section, which will be in the next chapter. I hope you enjoy this in the meantime, and, as always, thank you for reading.

Chapter 18

A lone swallow sweeps across the clear cold sky.

"—sure she's not under?"

"No, we definitely caught her in time…"

"…shouldn't still be out…"

"…minutes. Then we go to the hospital."

"Like that'll do any good if she's under!"

"I know."

"Oh, God."

Awareness returns to Sakura gradually, a gentle thaw. She's lying on something soft, her arms tucked at her side, and her torso is warm and heavy. It feels nice enough that she almost doesn't want to fully wake.

"—kumo's still calm, which is a good sign…"

"…seems a bit twitchy though…"

"…perfect record up till now…"

Something cool and wet tickles her cheek. Eyes snapping open, Sakura looks up into cloudy fur and a blue-gold stare. Masakumo blinks back at her, then yowls and leaps off her chest. Sakura only has a moment to take in the dusky rose of the evening sky before her vision is once again obscured, this time by two pairs of sharingans.

"Don't be alarmed, Sakura. We had a bit of an accident during our training session and you passed out for just over two hours. Nothing bad appears to have happened though and your vital signs are normal. Can you nod to show that you follow?" Shisui's voice is calm and measured, his face lined with a professional seriousness that turns him into a completely different person from the jokester she knows. Beside him, Itachi hovers quietly, his eyes nearly glowing in the sunset light.

Sakura gives a slow nod. Feeling is trickling into her fingers now, and she no longer feels as disconnected from her body as she initially did upon waking up. The last echoes of her earlier dreams recede into distant crevices within her mind.

"Her chakra signals look fine," Itachi murmurs as he eases her into a sitting position. Gently wrapping his fingers around her wrist, he checks her pulse point and nods at Shisui. "How are you feeling?" he continues in the same soft tone. "Any pain or discomfort?"

"No," Sakura replies. It sounds like a croak. Her throat is stiff and dry. "Dizzy," she tries to add, and it comes out as more of a whisper.

Water is immediately brought to her lips, but is held at an angle that forces her to sip at it rather than gulping it down. Slowly, the liquid soaks her tongue and rinses the fog from her mind.

"Better?" asks Shisui.

Sakura nods. "What happened?"

They exchange a quick glance.

"Well, it didn't happen, thankfully. But you almost spun a genjutsu around yourself." Shisui pauses, his face grave. "It's…not very common—"

"You would have been as good as dead." Itachi cuts in bluntly. He does not look at Sakura as he speaks, but at Shisui, the usual delicate warmth in his eyes replaced with something sharp and chilling.

Shisui winces. "It's my fault. I'm really sorry, Sakura. I should have been faster."

"What do you mean?" Sakura feels as if she's been tossed out into winter air half asleep, frozen and dizzy and trying not to panic. "I would have died?"

Shisui sighs. "Not physically, but a self-cast genjutsu essentially traps you within your mind with no way out. It's…theoretically possible to escape, I guess, but it's basically impossible in practice. The one time someone broke out, it was an Uchiha whose sharingan manifested suddenly while he was trapped. Our sharingans act as automated monitoring and safety systems for genjutsu, so the activation of his sharingan instantly released him. But by then his mind had already gone."

"He was an empty shell," Itachi murmurs. "After being stuck in an infinite progression of genjutsus for months, he could no longer differentiate between fantasy and reality—he went insane. Ever since then, the Uchiha have never allowed a clan member to begin genjutsu training unless their sharingan has already manifested or Masakumo has consented to oversee their practice." The cat meows as if in agreement, ears swiveling as he stalks around the edge of the clearing, tail swishing erratically to some mysterious beat.

"Masakumo's ability to sense and disrupt a self-cast genjutsu is better than even mine and Itachi's," Shisui explains. "That's how we managed to catch you in time. But I should stress that self-cast genjutsus are a really rare occurrence in general. It's usually only a risk for intermediate and advanced practitioners—virtually unheard of for beginners."

"I see," Sakura says. "So you didn't think it would happen with me."

"I…it didn't even occur to me that it could happen, until it did." Shisui bows his head.

Sakura stares down at her lap as she chews her lower lip. She does not feel angry. She almost died—and yet she didn't. It does not seem very different from crossing the street and almost—so close, but not quite—getting hit by a passing carriage.

"So I'll be fine so long as Kumo-chan keeps watch while I practice."

Shisui looks surprised for a moment, then nods. "It'll be completely safe, I promise."

Itachi is not pleased, however. His expression remains stony. For several seconds, he stares wordlessly at Shisui, then abruptly stands up.

"Your chakra sensitivity may also be affecting your genjutsu ability," he says quietly, slanting Sakura a sidelong look. "We should take care of that as soon as possible."

"Oh!," Sakura gasps, "I'm sorry, I meant to tell you that—"

"I know about your lack of elemental affinity." He does not look at Shisui. "Don't worry," he murmurs, finally gracing her with a small smile, "that actually simplifies the seal, I think. Helps with the symmetry."

Leaning down, he briefly places his palm on her forehead, then checks her pulse again before straightening. "I'll send word when the seal is ready. Probably before the end of the week." He flicks a glance at Shisui and then leaps into the trees.

"He's mad at me, not you." Shisui drapes a soft black cloak around her shoulders and helps her to her feet. "Not many people know this," he whispers conspiratorially, "but Itachi's got a grumpy overprotective streak. I think he developed it when Sasuke joined the family." He snickers, then smiles ruefully. "Not that he's wrong, this time. I really messed up, and I'm incredibly sorry."

"You couldn't have known, Shisui-senpai." Sakura takes a tentative step and, when the world doesn't wobble too badly, takes another.

"I should have." Shisui sighs. "Maybe Itachi would have caught it. I'm just so—so distracted, these days." He inhales quickly. "Anyway. Let's get you back to your friend before he wakes up, shall we?"

Shikamaru! He would undoubtedly chew her out for days if he woke up with her gone. Before she can even begin to panic, however, she finds herself on Shisui's back and hurtling through the trees at a breakneck pace.

They alight on a branch with a grace that Sakura is far from being able to achieve, even on much stabler rooftops. Shikamaru snoozes several meters away beneath the budding branches of a cherry tree, his face still peaceful in youth.

"Your friend is quite a sleeper." Shisui sounds amused. "I casted the mildest scene I had, but it doesn't look like he'll snap out of it anytime soon unless you dispel it for him." Dropping to the ground, he carefully sets Sakura on her feet. "How are you feeling?"

"Completely fine," Sakura reassures. The strength has returned to her limbs, and she is suddenly bursting with questions. Shisui regards her with an assessing eye, then makes a quick seal with his hands. Two puffs of smoke poof into existence by his feet.

Masakumo's familiar yowl fills her ears as he leaps into Sakura's arms, purring contentedly when she scratches him behind his ears. The other cat is sleek and black with a long, slim tail, eyes a muted blood red. A scroll balances delicately between its gleaming fangs.

Shisui kneels down and whispers in the black cat's ear. It drops the scroll into his palm and vanishes in another cloud of smoke.

"Here," he says quietly. He takes Masakumo and hands the scroll to Sakura in exchange. It is unadorned and clearly very old, though kept in excellent condition. The paper is so thin it is almost translucent, and yet its edges are still crisp and perfectly aligned. As Shisui's hand slips away, the colors and texture of the scroll seem to bleed away with him until the scroll looks drab and ordinary, just another scroll from the library.

"Don't dispel it." Shisui sets Masakumo onto the grass. "It's from the Uchiha library—don't let anyone know that you have it, okay? Only read it in secret. These scrolls can only be signed out with the aid of a sharingan and are never supposed to be shared outside the clan. Give it to Masakumo when you're finished and he'll return it to me."

"I promise." The scroll weighs heavily in Sakura's hands as she nods. "What's in it?"

Shisui regards her with an assessing eye. "I know you're burning with questions and I can't stay right now to explain, so I wanted to leave you this instead. It'll probably explain better than I could, in fact."

"About self-cast genjutsu?"

"And some other stuff." He waves a hand vaguely. "Here," he adds, tossing a small bottle at her. "Consider this a super lame, classic shinobi-grade, early birthday present."

Sakura turns the bottle in her hands. It is unlabeled, the glass tinted brown. The pills inside are small and oval.

"They help with anxiety and insomnia. I wish I could tell you differently, but the dreams will probably only get worse."

Sakura nearly drops the bottle. "But I thought you said they'd stop."

"The hallucinations will stop," Shisui corrects. In the shaded half-light beneath the cherry tree, he suddenly looks distant and unreachable, a silhouette of lines and edges. "That's because your subconscious now knows how to turn off the ability. But the dreams are caused by Masakumo—deliberately, as part of your training. It doesn't matter how skilled you are at the art of genjutsu if you simply don't know what a hand looks and feels like as the flesh is being burned off the bone, or the sound that a liver makes when it splatters against a tree trunk."

Something must show on Sakura's face. Her fingers feel cold and her face numb, throat thick and eyes dry. Shisui's eyes are bleeding red and his frame sharpening, thinning, dissolving, disappearing. And then he bends down and engulfs her in a sudden hug, and she cannot see him anymore.

"I'm sorry," he says into her hair. "I wish things were different. You're so young. Too young." He gives her shoulders a squeeze and abruptly steps back, face a mask. "I'll see you, Chibi."

And then Sakura is left standing before a small swirl of leaves, Masakumo slowly winding between her legs and Shikamaru's quiet breaths ebbing and flowing in her ears.

Carefully, she slips the scroll inside the cloak he had left around her shoulders. The pockets are all empty, the fabric thick and soft enough to be new. She draws the material more tightly around herself and looks up. The buds of the cherry tree are swelling with the dream of spring, and yet she finds herself gazing beyond that, at the drowsy twilight sky, its wistful arms draped over the branches as if already preparing to say goodbye.