Thank you for the support on this one, especially given how weird it starts out. xox,
Vivi
For the first time since she arrived in these once-mysterious woods, Sakura was tired.
People were speaking in hushed voices all around her, the sounds bouncing from wall to wall of her head like reverb. Men, she quickly surmised from the low, rumbling tones, their anxiety evident. She wondered, fleetingly, what they could possibly be so worried about—but she heard her name spoken by one of them, and figured it was her.
She mumbled sleepily and rolled to the side, pulling up the blanket that'd been placed on top of her who-knew-when. Wasn't she always causing trouble for everyone? She'd grown petty and callous in her adolescence, held back Team 7 on countless occasions, and had failed to stop global catastrophe in the form of an old lady with too many eyes.
Oh, she supposed with another little sigh. She also had been quite the unruly daughter, sleeping in well past noon on her off days even as her mother began to hiss and poke at her to just Wake up, Sakura. Breakfast had always gone cold by then on those days, but she didn't much mind. Not nearly as much as her parents seemed to, anyway.
Someone was poking her now. Or maybe not a poke; more like a gentle shove, open-handed on her shoulder. One of the men talking, she supposed, although that should have frightened her, right? A kunoichi being woken by strange men was usually not a good thing.
Begrudgingly she let her eyes flutter open, squinting at the dim light to try to take in her surroundings. She rolled again, returning to her back to fling her arm carelessly over her face. There were grumblings falling sloppily from her tongue, amazingly childish things that did not befit a young woman past the age of twelve or thirteen. Whoever was nudging her nudged harder, and she pursed her lips, wanting little else than to hide her face in the pillow and wave the intruder away.
Except, there was no pillow—she was on her cot in the middle of the deepest part of an ancient forest that breathed in time with her even in the dead of the night, and that was when she jolted fully awake.
Although it was Okojo's hands that'd tried to wake her, a separate pair were held up as readying to hold her down if she tried to sit. Bigger than the boy's, longer yet somehow leaner, pale white with little threads of pastel blue and purple veins snaking through the wrists that disappeared up under his palm.
"Oi, neesan," Izuna said in a whispered yell, startled—if only a bit—by her sudden movement. "Take it easy. You had a rough fall."
Beside him, Okojo dug an elbow into his uninjured side and signed something Sakura did not catch. The older one winced and swore under his breath, tousling his brother's hair with the a roughness that could only be shared between siblings. She propped herself up on her forearms, her temples throbbing momentarily before being soothed the next instant.
I told you she'd be okay, Okojo was insisting with a little huff from his nose. He picked up a wooden cup on the floor next to him and shuffled towards the futon. He held it out for her, the water inside sloshing a bit over the rim. With one hand he added, She can do anything.
"So it seems," said the other.
Sakura brought the cup to her lips, taking a small sip and relishing the feeling of the cool liquid soothing her throat. When she took down her hands and glanced into the surface, she jumped so hard half of its contents splashed out and onto the blanket.
It appeared that she had undergone one final transformation. Her eyes were lined with wide rows of that deep blue, in a style that almost mimicked the face paint of actors in old stage plays she'd seen. Sweeping arcs formed a gentle curve beneath her ears, shorter lines like Madara's scythe branching out from the inner corners. Beneath her bottom lip, a single stripe streaked down her chin and under her jaw, disappearing where her robes crossed over her body.
Her eyes themselves, too, were different: the color was the same, that pale springtime green, but her irises were tiny, black pinpoints at their center. A small light emanated from them gently, her power evidently too great to be contained by this mortal body completely.
She felt whole, this way; complete. There was none of the fear or confusion that had accompanied the first of her changes, replaced instead by a steady contentedness. How could she have forgotten herself, her role as the original slug?
A spike of pain through her head brought her back to reality. There was still much she couldn't remember, so she really should stop being so surprised by these things—and besides, she was slowly piecing together the bits of her past. If she could be patient and diligent, she was sure things would return, no matter how slowly.
Little hands were nudging her again. She blinked, looking back up to Okojo as he pointed to his face before asking,
Will that happen to me, too?
She gave him a gentle smile, returning the cup to its spot on the floor. It shouldn't, she answered. All this time I hadn't realized, but your chakra is different from what my body uses.
At the boy's side, Izuna shifted almost imperceptibly. It looked as though he were about to speak when there came a sudden thump from the wall behind her. The three of them flinched, Sakura and the second son shooting to their feet in unison as she understood that the hushed voices from her fleeting dream had been real after all. In the main room were Madara and his father, their heated argument coming to a head. It was the former's fist that had collided with the wall, his teeth grit and his brows set severely over his eyes, but a shamed expression crossed his features the moment he caught sight of her.
He righted himself immediately, bending at the waist and sinking to his knees to touch his forehead to the floorboards. "I apologize for losing my temper in your home."
Their father gave a frustrated suck of his teeth, giving a slight dip of his head but otherwise saying nothing.
It seemed to re-ignite the spark in his oldest son, who flung himself up with his nostrils flared. "First Izuna says she is hardly human, and now this? Do none of you know manners anymore?"
"Well," Izuna himself said with a hint of mischief crossing his face, "you both are the ones scheming in whispers in her own home."
"There are no schemes," Madara hit back as he brought up one knee to stand again. "We are in the presence of a sage, is all. A modicum of respect is the least that could be mustered."
"A sage?" Izuna raised his brows, looking to his brother. "Oi, niisan, is she really—"
"Of course she is," Tajima huffed, gesturing once up at her face. "The originator of the Uzumaki's yin seals, no doubt—and we know which clan they've fallen into favor with."
It was clear that Madara's annoyance was difficult for him to keep contained. "You disliked her before that much was apparent, Father. You know as well as I that their power is passed from mother to daughter—Sakura herself has not allied with the Senjuu."
Her skin was tingling as she listened. There were memories, foggy things, not quite so old as she herself but certainly from a time long past, crossing her mind in bits and pieces: bright red hair, the fading life of a newborn and the despair in her mother's eyes, a contract forged in water muddied with both dirt and blood. The baby's tiny hand had gripped one of Sakura's fingers as if in a last show of strength, proof that its life was worth saving.
She blinked away the stinging tears in her eyes, shifting her focus and nearly bursting into laughter instead when she realized that she indeed had much to do with the Senjuu, though only a specific one who hadn't even yet been born.
"No?" their father was saying, raising one of his brows as he laced his tone thickly with sarcasm. "I wonder where it was they learned the mokuton, then. Regardless—leave, the lot of you. I will speak with her alone."
"Father—"
"This is business for the head of the clan." He fanned his hand to wave them away. "Out. And not within eavesdropping distance, either."
Before Sakura herself could protest—who the hell was he to kick people out of her own damned home?!—Okojo gave a small tug at her robe. She turned to watch as he said,
Father came running when he saw you faint at the river. He was searching her face, then gave a little smile as if to comfort her. Don't be too scared to talk to him, okay?
He took Izuna's hand, hurrying out the door and into the night. What was she supposed to make of that, that this man who'd been so blatantly hostile towards her had come to her aid? She took the few steps to cross into the main room, watching the boy's grinning face as he drew his brother into the foliage, pointing out all of his favorite plants as they walked deeper into the illuminated woods where her slugs would watch over them.
Madara, though, hadn't budged an inch.
"Have you no shame?" he said quietly, anger evident. Sakura suppressed a shiver, recalling the force of the emotion in his reanimated body. Did his father know the outer limits of his eldest son's power, his patience? "At the very least, no tact?"
But his father merely blinked, the motion deliberately slow. "I'm tactful as I need to be. Please, excuse us." Then he got to his knees—not without a slight wince on his face, some ache or old battle wound making the motion painful—and waited.
Madara's shoulders sank, just a bit. He was silent for a long moment, contemplating his best course of action, before straightening and clasping one of Sakura's hands in his palms. There was something in his eyes beyond his frustration—a glint of hope, she thought, though she couldn't even begin to guess why.
"I know it goes without saying for someone like you," he said, not bothering to try to whisper, "but still—do not let him bully you."
He held her gaze for another second before he brought her hand to his lips, planting a chaste kiss against one of her knuckles before he brushed past her to make for the woods. Their instant obedience to their father left a bitter taste in her mouth, but one that also made sense. If this were the state of families in the years just before the founding of the Leaf, then it was plain to see how easy it would be to twist this filial piety into utter devotion to the village, its children eager and happy to be molded into weapons.
Sucking in a steadying breath through her nose, she smoothed the front of her kimono and knelt down to the floor, tucking her feet up under her. Tajima's posture was without flaw, his back straight as a treetrunk with his elbows bent at a sharp angle so that his hands could rest open-palmed on each of his thighs. The man practically symbolized dignity, though his sour face—mouth set in a long, hard frown beneath his severe brows—certainly didn't make him seem particularly diplomatic. Night was still settled upon the forest, and beside them the fire crackled, its light casting deep shadow in the corners of her small room.
Then, without any warning, he shut his eyes and bent forward. Not all the way to the floor, nor did he move his hands, but the gesture coming from such a stern man spoke for itself.
"I do regret," he said, straightening to look her in the eye, "sending my men here with the secondary order to kill you. You understand, surely, that I feared for the life of my youngest son."
She gave a little hum to hide the budding anxiety in her chest, pushing down the feeling of the men's skeletal remains in her hands. It was the last thing she wanted to re-live, especially after already reaching as much closure as she could manage on the subject with Madara. Mimicking his zarei bow, she said in reply, "Of course. You have my apologies, as well, for taking theirs. I did see to it that they were buried with traditional rites."
"The clan thanks you." His expression remained impassive as the both of them straightened. "But we've never known anything but war; it is useless to mourn them for long. Every Uchiha knows that our lives are at stake no matter where we go. Madara had made mention that was the bulk of his reasoning for leaving the boy in your care."
"It was," she said readily. It was becoming difficult to manage her distaste as he spoke so lowly of the value of life. "I see no reason for anyone to fight for a cause that isn't their own, especially not children."
"Yes." He lifted his chin marginally, his jaw clenching for a fraction of a second. "It seems the two of you are kindred in that regard. My second son is more in line with my own beliefs on the subject, to the degree I've a mind to disinherit your Madara."
"My—" But she stopped herself before she could get too indignant, for what he'd just suggested made her heart sink far more. To strip a son of his birthright? It was by far the deepest blow one could deal to their firstborn in this era. "Why would you confide such a thing in me? Does he know this?"
"Not yet. My mind's not quite made up—but there is something that could sway my opinion." There was a flash in his eyes, an intensity not unlike a challenge. "I'm getting old, little sennin. None of those boys had any time for girls, and before I knew it my eldest were men with no prospects. I fear the clan falling into the hands of a branch family, the pure blood of my father's fathers at its end."
Her eyes went wide as she found herself unable to stop the spreading flush across her face. The audacity of this man even consider saying this to her so directly?! The entire reason they'd had no time for women was because of his own strictness, after all!
After managing to school her expression, she took in a breath and pinned down the first of her racing thoughts she could catch. "I would muddy that lineage. I'm no Uchiha."
"You are a sage," he said as if she were actually just an idiot. "It beats the alternative, and certainly is preferable to Madara sneaking away again for a tryst with an enemy heir."
The flush deepened, his boldness seemingly knowing no bounds. It was Madara himself who'd admitted to her his fondness for their rival clan's powerful heir, but for his father to say it so plainly had been unexpected. She couldn't believe that she found herself trying to steer the conversation back to the idea of her bearing Uchiha sons.
"He is your first-born," she protested, her whisper harsh. "You can't afford for him to have a bastard as his legacy. It's hardly appropriate—hardly proper—"
"I respect little more than tradition," he countered, volume rising. "In the eyes of the gods, a man spending three nights with a woman is enough to constitute a marriage. It is only improper if either of you decline."
She pursed her lips, not trying now to hide her distaste in his attempt to preemptively control her response. Not that the idea of being an Uchiha wife was a new one for her; how often had she daydreamt of such a thing in her human girlhood? Somewhere within her, the young, blossoming preteen she used to be was squealing with delight, ready to fistfight her adult self for such apprehension. But Tajima's lack of respect for her—not as a sage, for that status mattered little to Sakura herself—but as a woman, as a person, was grating on her. He cared not for the happiness of his sons but rather for what could benefit the clan's name in the long-term.
There was just something, though, that tugged at her innermost empathy, for a human in need to ask favors of her. It was only made to burn hotter in her chest by the fact that she was sure the clan, in the era from which she'd come, certainly hadn't descended from any of Tajima's sons. Hadn't they undergone tragedy enough? If she could change it, shouldn't she?
He carried on, heedless of (or maybe simply refusing to acknowledge) her pouting glare. "Further, it will calm my fears in regard to your care of my boy. With you tied to the Uchiha by divine decree, I have less reason to suspect you have any real ties to the Senjuu."
She stayed silent, finding herself assessing his seriousness even though she knew he was not the type to joke. She couldn't tear her eyes away from his, her courage far too great in spite of the discomfort of the topic at hand. If there was one way to make him feel even half as out of his depth as he'd made her, it was this.
"I am not a womb," she started daringly. "Nor am I a thing to be bartered to turn the tides of this war you've inherited. But you're a smart man, and I don't believe you would be making such a proposition if you had any doubts of my feelings for your son. Know this—if I accept, it will not be of sympathy for your lack of progeny."
"You're more clever than I assumed." He shifted, a gradual discomfort becoming apparent as his gaze flickered away for a beat. "Indeed, he...is fond of you, as you claim to be of him. It may well be the only thing upon which he and I will ever agree."
It was a strange—but not unwelcome—feeling, to know that Madara's feelings were clear to someone who knew him as well as a father. Whether they had discussed the matter or if it was simply obvious to the older man's eyes, she couldn't say. But she couldn't linger on the sentiment when there was something else she had to address.
As she stared him down she could feel the glow of her eyes rise like the sparking flames in the hearth. "I have one condition."
If it were possible for him to straighten any further, he would've. "Name it."
"The fighting stops."
He narrowed his eyes, something dangerous flashing through them. "You know full well how steep of an ask this is."
Just as he'd done, she lifted her chin. "I wonder what you think it is you're asking of me."
"The war has—"
"Killed two of your sons already!" Her anger was threatening to burst; she'd leaned forward, her brows furrowed deeply. "You expect me to bear you a grandchild that you'd readily send to bleed out far from home? This war's ripples reach some eighty years into the future! I watched it end more bloodlines than just your own, Tajima-dono."
Though her words seemed to make a dent evidenced by the deepening crease between his brows, it was marginal at best. "It would dishonor each and all of my ancestors. To surrender is out of the question."
"This path," she tried, finding herself close to winded, "leads to nothing good for the Uchiha. Not only did I witness Madara robbed of a peaceful death just to die again, alone and humiliated, but the entire clan ended up massacred in a single night long before that day." A horrid chill shot up her spine, the wave of empathy nearly doubling her over to think of what Sasuke must have endured.
"Massacred?" he repeated, his voice suddenly diminished. "In a battle?"
She bit her lip, shaking her head. "The truth of that is...complicated."
Tajima chewed at a spot on the inside of his cheek, glancing away from her fully for the first time. The firelight that'd once lent itself to his intensity now made him seem anxious and unsure. "Madara did make mention that you'd flung yourself here from a time not yet passed. I wonder..." He gave a small grunt as if he were resigning himself to something, meeting her gaze once more. "I wonder if you would allow me to test the veracity of these frankly outlandish claims."
It took no time at all for his Sharingan to activate, the glow of it rivaling the firelight—and certainly putting to shame the delicate green shimmer of her own eyes. And though she knew she shouldn't be surprised that he hadn't waited for an answer before snaring her in his doujutsu, she could still feel her stomach flip and the little tug of panic in her chest.
"Show me," he said with echoed authority.
His presence in her psyche was massive, though she could not discern whether it was due to his strength or his inflated opinion of himself. What was it he'd called her mere hours ago? Sharingan-breaker? Just as she drew forth the shizen energy to push him clear from her mind, he held up a hand as if to stop her.
"Please." They were standing in blank space, suspended in void, his voice like a ghost's. "I know already what it is you'll say: I doubted your ability to break free of our kekkei-genkai. It is clear to me here and now that I remain here with your permission. My visual prowess grants me access to memory only, not imagination; I humbly ask that you show me what lie ahead should I stay the course I and my fathers believed in."
If there was even the slightest chance to change his mind and, with the two biggest clans out of the fighting, establish peace far sooner than Madara and Lord First had managed, she had to take it, her discomfort be damned. He stood alongside her with his arms crossed, dressed in a regal ensemble of dark hakama pants and a finely-woven haori bearing the embroidered Uchiha crest on the back. The bruises he'd sustained in the skirmish that led he and his family here in the first place were gone here in their shared mindscape, his cropped hair meticulously pulled and gathered at the back of his head.
She shut her eyes, grateful for her recently-restored memories while cursing them all the same. The last thing she wanted to revisit was her human life in adolescence, desperate for attention and capable of a cruelty that shocked her to think back on. Tajima watched silently as she sifted through them, lingering on the boyish curves of Sasuke's face as he would sit, countless times in countless places, staring off into the distance, his hands folded in front of his mouth. Always alone, and though sometimes incredibly angry about it, Sakura found herself rather stunned by the composure he displayed so much more often, trying as he could to grasp at a normal life amid his life torn apart by the chaos necessitated by the Hidden Villages.
"He...looks like my Izuna," said the current—or wasn't it the past?—Uchiha patriarch. "The spitting image, even."
He was watching with wide eyes, his intrigue too great to be hidden as he glanced around the bustling streets of Konoha. Beside her, Asuma raised a hand in greeting to Kakashi; Tajima took notice immediately of the way Sakura had braced to see Ino, but was far more interested in the small, three-man squad mirroring her own.
"This village, these small teams...I've never seen so many people in one place that wasn't a battleground."
"It's a collaborative of all sorts of clans I'm sure have clashed with yours over the years," she explained. "The more prominent families live in compounds, the others in smaller sects. Even the clanless are welcome to be trained as part of its army. It's called the Village Hidden by Leaves, and its first ruler was Senjuu Hashirama."
He gave a huff, displeased. "Show me where my family resides."
"I can't." She turned her head, watching through her own eyes as Sasuke walked down a dimly-lit street late one evening, his hands stuffed in his pockets with his head cast downward. At the time, she'd been too nervous to approach him, to wrap her hands around his elbow and keep him company—she ached now, wishing she had. He'd certainly needed a friend. "I didn't know Sasuke-kun until...after."
"Surely a woman of your skill hails from a powerful clan? They were not on good terms with mine?"
"My human body was born of civilian parents."
"More of these ridiculous claims," he said with a scoff. "Why, then, do you bear a crest on your clothes?"
"I—" she started, but cut herself off. The scene had changed to some unimportant memory of her standing before the mirror of her childhood bedroom, testing the look of the dress onto which she'd just stitched that white, empty circle. She watched herself through her adolescent eyes, her spindly limbs feeling strange and awkward for the grace she'd become accustomed to having in adulthood.
She exhaled, bringing forth the image of the ring of smoke against the black forest.
"I see," Tajima was saying with a hint of disappointment. "You came up with it yourself."
She could feel something within the genjutsu shift, almost as if he had taken his hands and placed them square on her shoulders. Beside her, he'd shut his eyes as he began to flip through her memory as mundanely as if he were fingering through files in a cabinet, searching for signs of his firstborn until he reached the place where the Fourth Shinobi World War loomed in her thoughts.
It didn't matter how deeply she'd wanted to look away: he was watching her life through her own eyes. He could feel the exhaustion deep in her bones as if it were his own, felt the heat of stray flame across her face and the rumbling of earth beneath her feet. The fear that'd so nearly choked her to see Madara standing there seemed to have no effect on his father, who Sakura worried for a moment would have nothing but pride to see his son at the height of his strength.
It was definitely there, and in no small amount either. She could also sense his marginal appreciation for her fighting ability—and his flat-out impression with her rather brash personality and tendency to dash into danger, a stark contrast to the elegant, composed woman he'd assumed she was. He could feel her hand as if it were his own, coated in chakra and stuffed far into Naruto's chest cavity, pumping his heart for him her damned self. She had to fight the urge to openly weep, the force of her resolve and her love flooding her as much as the relief that she'd kept her dear friend from the icy hands of death.
But hadn't it been so short-lived? Too soon she was watching along with Tajima as all his son had worked—dedicated his life—towards stab him in the back in no metaphorical sense. She winced, wishing she could look away from the terrible swell of his body and the way the war-torn world had darkened all around them. His father's confidence had wavered so greatly it nearly shattered, the force of his heartbreak unable to be concealed as connected as he was to Sakura's nervous system.
Even after the explosion, he did not deactivate his Sharingan. The smells and the pathetic feeling of helplessness beat over her like a hammer, her body as useless as it'd been in her genin days and all of it laid mortifyingly bare to this strange man who hardly saw her as anything beyond a vessel to secure his lineage. But even so she dared not push him from her mind, for he was with her even as the ethereal vines of the God Tree wrapped themselves around her.
Anticipation had made her nerves come alive. Her world went black, but Tajima's sudden voice, hoarse and tired, made her flinch.
"I have...seen quite enough."
"Wait," she said, her voice smaller than she'd wanted it to be. Her heart was pounding, desperate for answers and squeezing with the worry that she may be denied them yet again, close as they seemed. "How I got here—it's..."
He blinked at her, face impassive—but he did not end the genjutsu, lingering there as her chest rose and fell, but it was for naught. Even in her memory, it seemed, the decision to throw herself back in time had been subconsciously done. It was like little more than fighting sleep, her heavy lids a sharp contrast to the fire in her soul and the bursting activation of shizen energy that shielded her from the pod's nefarious chakra-sapping capabilities.
Then it seemed as if she submerged herself in shimmering water, letting it envelop her fully before she'd woken up here in burnt and tattered clothes. The world shifted, her vision crossed by strange waves as the Uchiha head began to sever the link between them. But she couldn't let him, not now, not yet, not when she was this close!
"Wait!"
His bubbling frustration was becoming more and more apparent as he glared at her openly, seemingly waiting for her to speak.
"There's something else. Could you—I..."
That hard expression was impossible to read. His silence dragged on for so long that she began to accept this defeat, resigning herself to seek out what she needed elsewhere. She didn't know where, but perhaps she could speak with Madara, ask him to follow up on his lead with the Uchiha onjin and—
"Out with it, woman."
Her heart sputtered over itself. "Really?"
"Before I change my mind," he snapped.
She took a step towards him to look up into his scorching eyes. "Things that must have happened," she breathed, "but that I can't remember—is it possible that your Sharingan can unearth them?"
His gaze was searching hers, his intentions maddeningly unclear. "Memories are precious things." Then, almost as if he didn't want to say it aloud, murmured, "You would do well in the future not to be so careless."
There was a fire full to bursting in her heart. She took another step, placing her palms on his jacket and gathered the fabric in her balled fists. "Is it possible?"
The contact stirred something in him, but good or bad she could not discern. He'd frozen for a split second before a look of anger crossed his features, replaced almost immediately by that stony gaze that Madara had surely picked up from him. Then, almost gently, he reached up his hands and wrapped them around her wrists. They were hot and dry, lifelong callouses poking out from each of the places where his fingers met his palms like little mountains.
She could see it then, evidence of the compassion he'd been trained to wall off and ignore.
"It is possible." For only a moment the corners of his mouth tugged downward, a crease forming between his brows same as Madara. Something crossed between them, the notion, perhaps, that his stony exterior could crack after all, that there was a chance he would withdraw his family from the fighting. That instead of a warmonger sacrificing one son after the next, he could be a loving father turned doting grandfather. "Tell me what it is you're looking for, little sennin."
It's not real until you declare it so, the White Snake had said. But that does not make it unimportant.
"The jutsu I used to travel back in time," she said with no hesitation. She had to do everything she could to solidify this as her timeline of choice, to undo what Kaguya had wrought. "I must have learned it somehow. Can you find where it began?"
He released his hold on her wrists, taking his right hand to place it firmly on her left shoulder. His gaze was somehow even more piercing, the black pinwheels rimming them spinning slowly, endlessly.
"That could take quite some time," he warned lowly, but even so, the two of them began to be dragged backwards through the years. All the while he stared intently into her eyes, searching them, searching her. In her peripherals she watched her most precious memories pass her by in reverse, catching glimpses of the people she loved and cherished and even those she'd never gotten to know.
Blinking away her tears, she tried, "If you'd rather not—"
"Quiet," he all but barked. "We are nearing your infancy, but there are...hells, countless years behind it. You really are as ancient as you claimed." He allowed himself a smile, briefest of things. "A sage, in love with my son. Finally the gods have fallen back into Uchiha favor."
Any witty retort she had evaporated on her tongue when she caught sight of the Great Snake. "Here!"
Squaring his shoulders, he halted their trek through time and turned, the break in eye contact a startling mercy. Her breaths came shaking and thin through her nostrils as she instead stared into the gaze of the elder sage, the memory like a breath of air, fresh and crisp after being submerged in muddy waters for far too long.
You are not listening, the old snake was hissing at her, forked tongue flitting out from her head atop her reared-back neck. She was massive, her golden and bejeweled adornments adding to her stature. Beside her, Gamamura's wrinkled face was turned towards the heavens. Why don't you simply adopt the guise of a human instead, as I sometimes do?
I want to be one, Auntie, Sakura—Katsuyu—replied simply. She was not quite as big as Hakuja-sennin, but was massive enough in her own right. They were seated near the flowing river on the outskirts of the slugs' territory, the snake's cave not far from here, overlooked by the mountain full of sagely toads. To love like they do, to be new to the world as only they can be and—
Enough! The hurt was evident in Hakuja-sennin's tone. Gamamura and myself have made families, in our own ways. I did not expect you, of all sages, to need a lesson in contentment. You know that this is your lot in life.
Back then, Katsuyu's heart sank. The toads were outliers, many of them existing with shizen energy that allowed them to mate as any regular animal would. And as for the Snake Sage, the venom that flowed through her body contained concentrated amounts of her natural power; all she had to do was give one bite from the fang rooted at the top of her mouth to human or snake, and they would become her kin. How many sons and daughters had she and Gamamura acquired, while Katsuyu had herself alone? Her acid could destroy any substance, and her shizen energy could heal any wound, but none of her ability seemed to include creating the family she so desired.
Beside her, Tajima was watching in silence—and a bit of awe, too.
Do not be so hard on the poor thing, said the toad, eldest of them all, watching the stars for a moment longer before leveling his gaze between the two women. Why, she was born beneath a moonless sky all by her lonesome. Surely, Haku, even you remember a time when you were alone in this world.
The snake at first made no remark at that, merely glanced away, jewelry chiming like so many little bells. I've tried, she said softly, to make her feel welcome.
I mean no disrespect, of course, Katsuyu breathed, pained by the insinuation. The love she had for the old woman and her efforts to keep the slug included were boundless. And didn't that make her a bit selfish, just as Hakuja-sennin had implied?
Gamamura waved one of his webbed hands. No one has offended anybody. Tsu-chan, what you are asking is dangerous. You know better than any the types of ways humans can hurt each other.
The snake nodded, pleased that things were seemingly swinging into her favor.
If you did this, he continued, stroking his chin thoughtfully, you run the risk of being killed inside of a mortal body. It will mean the end of the Great Slug Sage.
I know, she said meekly, her sadly-drooping eye stalks swaying in the night breeze.
Though, of course... He glanced away from Hakuja-sennin in an attempt to hide the grin slowly spreading on his face. By means of senjutsu, it would certainly be not impossible for you to throw yourself through time. We are in tune with it as we are with all things natural.
There at Tajima's side, Sakura had stilled completely.
Gamamura! scolded the snake. Think about what you say before you say it, for once in your life!
I do hardly anything but think, Haku.
If this were one of your own daughters—
Tsu-chan is family, he said plainly. A little sister who is hurting. I see no reason not to help her where we're able.
Hakuja-sennin huffed, shrouding the grassy clearing in white mist that was slow to dissipate. We can only observe the past, not twist it to our will! Besides, it could put us all at risk—
Nonsense, he said with another wave of his hand. The Slug Sage has the unique ability to split herself not into mere clones, but fully-realized segments of herself. He turned to face her, mouth curled up into his usual gentle smile. Leave one here. Something tells me you'd be able to jump right back to it, if you needed to.
You cannot be serious, said the snake, defeat ringing clear through her voice. It is too much of a gamble.
But he simply shrugged, his smile never faltering. It's worth a try.
Oh, Uncle! Elation was exuding from Katsuyu, mingling with a bit of apprehension that her daring plan would come to fruition after all. I will exercise the utmost caution, I swear it. I have already seen a perfect couple, who came to pray to ask me for a child and—
Of course, of course, Gamamura said, a bit sadly. You've spoken of little else but these mister and missus Haruno. Why, it was just last month they visited your shrine, wasn't it? When she nodded, he gave a low hum. You were born in spring. Feels a bit like it's meant to be, doesn't it?
Sakura's heart pounded furiously in her chest; at the same time, though, she could scarcely breathe. Tajima's presence was almost completely lost to her, were it not for the feel of his chakra in her head.
The toad elder cleared his throat, then reached up to adjust the hat upon his head. Now listen close, my dear. Come and look upon the water. Time is tricky: it may not seem like it, but it happens all around us all at once. The flow of it is much like the river here—turbulent at some bends, calm in others. Further, there is no new water in the world; only that which has strayed so far from its source, and it all cycles back eventually. Did you know that some mortals even summon water for their own little jutsu?
Sakura hadn't the time to even smile. In the next beat of her heart there came a terrible crack from the sky, too sharp to be thunder but too all-encompassing to be anything less. Her skin broke out in goosebumps, dread piercing her in an instant. Somehow she knew this was not part of the memory—rather, something in reality had managed to land a blow upon her forest with such ferocity that it shook even the scape of her mind.
She severed Tajima's connection to her, his chakra cut from her like thread met with scissors; he went reeling there on the floor of her hut, one hand holding his head and the other propping up his otherwise slouching body while she shot to her feet. He appeared frozen, not breathing but not dead, and terror nearly undid her then and there.
Madara was already breaking through the treeline and back into the clearing, clouds of white smoke dissipating from his hands that gave way to the same war fan and sickle she'd seen him wield in her future. He, too, was staring at the sky with those blood-red eyes that made her shiver. Sakura, shutting her own, saw Izuna crouched low to the ground, Okojo nestled securely beneath him.
"Sakura." Madara still wasn't looking at her, transfixed by something she could not see from the small porch of the hut. He was stretching out his hand to point with the bladed edge of his kama, and as she ran to him and looked upwards, her stomach flipped so suddenly it brought her to her knees to retch in the grass.
It was the night of the new moon. She'd only just been standing on the cliffside beneath the stars making love to the heir to the Uchiha clan, her power at its height—another cycle of the moon both at its end and at its beginning, another slug born of her to expand her territory and solidify her power beneath the same sky under which she'd been born.
No, what she saw in the sky as her bile ate away at the grass was not the earth's moon; it was the Rinne-Sharingan, its light dousing the land in stark blacks and bright reds. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, her legs shaking as she tried to stand. Madara spun the long hilt of the blade and held it out for her, its metal chain clinking against itself as it coiled on the ground. She swallowed, pushing through the overwhelming images of the damage he'd caused, the people he'd killed all before they'd even had a chance to be met with her healing hands—and all for the creature who had, somehow, found her.
She took hold of the hilt with both of her hands, feeling his strength as he helped her to her feet. He was still staring up at the eye with his brows furrowed deeply, grip tight on his weapons.
"What is this?" His voice was a whisper, the uncharacteristic anxiety speaking for itself. "Is this—the entity you spoke of?"
"Yes." Her own voice sounded faraway in her ears. Whatever jutsu she'd used to grant her access at such a level must have been meant to incapacitate, but those of them who had taken in enough of her shizen energy seemed to be unaffected by it entirely.
"What is our course of attack, my lady?" He shifted, finally looking back to the earth and the surrounding trees, the tomoe of his own red eyes spinning as he scanned the darkness. "I see nothing of her body. Even this horrid moon bears no signature to speak of."
Sakura bit at her lip, considering. Could it be that Kaguya, as all-consuming and menacing as she'd seemed, had not yet managed to fully infiltrate whatever jutsu Sakura was weaving?
"Niisan!" cried Izuna, who'd burst through the trees in a rush. Okojo's hand was held tightly in his, the boy's eyes wide as he broke into a sprint to crash into her side. The second son winced for a split second, the arm clutched around his abdomen the only betrayal that he was still recovering from a wound.
"Stay still," their older brother cautioned. Then he passed off the sickle to Sakura and signed, And quiet, as well.
Izuna nodded seriously. Little brother saw something near the forest.
Pulling back to explain, Okojo's hands were a nervous frenzy, describing something she couldn't catch.
They approached you? Madara pressed.
The boy shook his head. At the edge, just standing and watching with yellow eyes shining like animals.
Who? Sakura tried, prompting Okojo to quickly trace out the strokes for the characters forming the word Ghost across her ribs.
Her mouth had gone dry. What he'd seen were Kaguya's minions, those things called Zetsu, no doubt. She swallowed thickly, recalling their wide grins and the strange, gnarled twists of their bodies and the warbling cadence of their voices. When she closed her eyes, she could see them—hundreds of them, maybe even thousands—just as her apprentice had said: amidst a thick fog dyed red in the unnatural light, they stood, and they watched, unable to breach the barrier she'd crafted all that time ago.
Somewhere in the future, her mortal body was surrounded by a protective shell of her sagely self's shizen energy. No doubt Kaguya had breached the pod of her own making and was now attempting to beat her way into Sakura's mind, to thwart her travels through time by way of senjutsu and undo her efforts to rewrite history.
And, Okojo was adding then, one of them was made of shadows.
The same sensation began to throb through her pulse as the night she'd killed the Uchiha assassins. A roiling boil in her gut, heat like fire in her veins. Back then it'd shot from her mouth as acid, but all she could think now that it was it was the silence before the scream. She clutched the sickle now so tightly that her hands shook. Beside her, Madara turned his head in her direction.
"He is the one who killed you." She could see it again, the fist through his heart, the look of shock and the disbelief and the hurt. "The one who orchestrated this whole thing, her revival." Through her gritted teeth and her set jaw she had one final revelation: Okojo and Izuna hadn't even made it close to the border of the woods.
Everything in her body resisted in warning not even to ask. The answer, she knew even then, would break her when she needed to be here for her forest, for her lover, for her family.
Okojo. She couldn't bear to speak, opting to sign single-handedly to avoid hearing the fragile tremor she knew would be evident in her voice. How did you see these men?
He blinked up at her, and not in that slow, incredulous way of his father—but in the way Madara would, his quiet curiosity evidence of his respect for her. The slugs showed me.
In an instant her world went silent. Not even the terrible eye looking down on them from above the treetops remained in the forefront of her focus, nor the spectral presence of her Zetsu army. Everything was instead replaced by that low hum rising up from the earth itself and reverberating in her bones. Izuna had begun to explain that through his Sharingan he'd noticed Okojo emanating the same mixture of chakra and that foreign power he'd seen in her, but she did not hear it. She could think of nothing but the thrum of the world and the empty white circle and the sensation of submerging herself deep in the waters of time, an endless pathway of shizen energy that'd pooled at her ankles and flooded the tiny spaces between her fingers and bubbled against her exhales and soaked her singed hair.
Will that happen to me, too?
She hadn't known when she took in the breath. The scream that burst from her lungs was sudden and loud as the quaking of the earth, the force of it tearing at her throat. Each and every leaf hanging from every branch and bush and stem bellowed in unison, their glow rising brighter and brighter until the red of the Rinne-Sharingan was bled out of the forest entirely, drowned by green-white shining harsh as the sun. Through her veins Sakura could feel every plant and bud and root down to the fibers that threaded them together, her righteous fury electrifying them just as it did to every cell in her body.
The brothers had gone wide-eyed as they stepped back. Madara positioned his war fan protectively in front of the other two, while Izuna had toppled over trying to keep Okojo from rushing back in to Sakura's side. And it was just as well—what came next even Sakura herself had not anticipated. When her echoing screams ceased, she stared down at the shimmering ground. The stripes on her hands that disappeared up under her sleeves were, too, lit—she assumed the markings lining her face like warpaint were as well.
"You stay the hell away from my woods," she bit out, quietly at first. She sucked in a breath through her nostrils, the air thick and heavy with the smell of dirt and blooms. Still gripped tight in her shining hands was Madara's scythe, her shizen energy channeling through the hilt and into the blade. She raised her head, staring up at the false-moon and watching the army of Zetsu at her borders all at once, more in tune with the forest than she'd ever been. She could even see—in flashes only—the other pods that hung from that abominable tree so far in the future, holding captive everyone she'd ever known.
She drew back the kama, her pinpoint pupils staring straight at Kaguya.
"You stay the hell away from my friends."
The weapon swung slowly but with marked grace. Time itself slowed just as it had when the destroyer of worlds had begun her descent from the heavens, all things natural to the earth holding a collective breath of intense anticipation. The treetops began to sway like a monsoon was billowing through them, the wind a howling gale that lent its strength to her voice.
"And you stay the hell away from my family! Sha—nna—ro!"
The red eye bulged as Sakura concentrated all of the shizen energy she could muster into the blade's edge—and then catapulted it into the sky at the apex of the swing. It was a catastrophic blow, the whole of the forest following the projectile like hands outstretched in prayer. Blinding light shone as if from a star imploding, the force of her power flowing through every inch of the woods. Kaguya's presence burst like sudden snowfall, the Zetsu on the outskirts evaporating into dust.
A second went by, and then two, and then five. The tearing wind calmed like the final exhale of a tantrum, rush of a whisper from all directions. The world then was still, so horribly still. The thrum did not fade, and though the trees and the brush were settling and dimming, their light was not snuffed out entirely.
She perhaps should have collapsed onto her knees to catch her breath, but she could feel nothing but resolve as she stood in her red kimono and turned to Madara, her pink hair spilling down so long it trailed behind her on the grass. He lowered the fan slowly, evidently still processing what all had just happened; indeed, it was Okojo who came running to her first.
Are you okay?!
She was fine, but seeing his face twisted up in concern was enough to shake her. It was as she looked into his gentle eyes that it dawned on her: she had to complete her space-time jutsu before Kaguya could break through the pod and stop her—but something was tugging at her heart, a nagging thought she could not deny.
What would she give to stay here, at this point in time? She had Okojo and she had Madara, and was certain she would be as welcome in Izuna's heart soon enough. Tajima too had love hidden somewhere deep beneath the exterior, and even if he hadn't suggested it, wouldn't she be pleased to be his eldest son's wife? To fall asleep in his arms and bear his half-deified children? The family she'd dreamed of as both Haruno Sakura and Katsuyu the Great Slug Sage was well within reach, and yet...
"I..." she tried, her voice cracking.
She saw her mother's smiling face, heard her father's laughter. Ino's delicate fingers brushed the fringe from her tear-swollen face as Naruto's eyes gleamed with the depths of his kindness. She shivered as she heard Sasuke's voice, that quiet Thank you that'd split her heart in two. Kakashi's good eye crinkled as he smiled down at her, trying his best to convince her that things would be all right at the same time that Tsunade all but beat her into the dirt in the name of instruction. She could feel the cold stinging at her chapped fingertips at an inn somewhere in Iron Country, her arms snaking around Naruto's middle to beg him to stay with her. Her scalp tingled and her muscles itched for the exhilaration of both sprint and spar, the flush of her face and the honed instinct that accompanied a battle that could mean the difference between life and death. She ached so hard for sleepless nights working overtime at the hospital that she almost laughed—how could she have known, at the time, how precious to her even that would become?
Madara had strode to her side, the war fan left discarded on the grass as he took her face in his hands. There was something in his eyes like reverence that reminded her of the way humans described the relationship with a god, half-fear and half-love.
But when he shut his eyes and bent down to kiss her deeply, she knew he did not fear her at all.
"Tell me," he mumbled as he pulled back only marginally, her glow reflected on his sun-worn skin. There was warmth radiating from the markings on her face and into his palms, but there were traces of her inside of him, too, that she could sense now that her power was so fully active. "You are beyond troubled, so tell me what it is you must do."
She'd come back in time to save herself and to save the world; she hadn't, of course, anticipated falling in love had been the way to do it. But she'd loved her life as a human—and couldn't bear the thought of leaving behind everyone who'd loved her, too.
"There are..." She couldn't tear her eyes from his. "There are people I need to see."
He gave a little nod, expression serious. "I assume these people are not yet born."
Was it possible to keep anything from him, for as deeply as he seemed to understand her? She pushed her toes into the damp earth to kiss him again, wrapping one of her arms around his sturdy middle.
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. This time when he drew back from her, he pried his scythe from her once-crushing hold and held it out for Okojo to take. "I know you must do what you think is best, but I wonder if..."
She tilted her head, bring her newly-freed hand to rest somewhere at his thick waist.
"Wherever it is you end up—whenever," he murmured, searching her face and lingering for a long moment on her parted lips, "I wonder if you will keep me in your heart."
"I will," she answered readily, pulse quickening. A small laugh bubbled from her, almost in disbelief at how many things had happened in just a few hours. "If your father is to be believed—"
Madara winced, dropping his head before giving his own laugh through his nose. "You must forgive me on his behalf. Regardless of what the gods of old once decreed—"
"But I accept," she breathed, pulling free from his hold to take a step back. Just as she'd done the first day he'd left her, she put out her upturned hands and touched her fingertips to his chin, forcing him to look up and meet her gaze.
"You are a sage," came his earnest protest. "A powerful one, at that. We—I..."
"You are my lord husband." Her stomach flipped, the sentiment so strange but so wholly welcome. "You refuse?"
"Certainly not!" A light blush was spreading across his cheekbones. "It would be the honor of a lifetime. Of any lifetime, but—but you must understand." He furrowed his brows, looking down at some spot on the glittering grass. "How can you find me worthy, after all that I've wrought in the future? Even should it never come to pass, I am an imperfect man, Sakura."
"We are all imperfect," she said softly, touching her forehead to his. Already she could feel the pull of her senjutsu, some innate part of her drawing on the ancient ritual to cement the change in time and throw herself back into the body of the human girl who'd carried her farther than Katsuyu had ever thought possible. Tears began to stream down her face, her smile broad. "Imperfect—and irreplaceable."
Beside her, Okojo had also begun to weep; he pulled himself against her, taking deep sniffles as he squeezed the fabric of her kimono in his free fist.
"Oh," she cooed, sinking to her knees to take him in her arms. She kissed at his temple, smoothing back the strands of wet hair sticking to the other side. When he wiped at his eyes with the long sleeve of his robe, she smiled at him. Take good care of your brothers, won't you? And your father, too. She could see that, still on his knees in her hut, he'd begun to move again, glancing around in confusion.
But the youngest of the Uchiha clan shook his head, pursing his lips in defiance. If you have to go, then we can't leave the slugs alone. I'll need to stay here.
Stay? The thought of that didn't break her as she expected—no, his time in the forest with her had indeed begun to change him. He was becoming a part of it, a part of her, inseparable and essential. It had been a cold and empty place before his arrival; filled, yes, with life and her expanding network of slugs, but for all of her millennia on the earth, her woods had never known the spectacular sensation of a family.
He was nodding fiercely, his decision unyielding. They need someone, like I—like...I did.
She pulled him close again, taking in the smell of his skin and his hair, wishing she wasn't on the verge of full-blown sobbing. Something within her sputtered, like the beat of a heart off-rhythm—the jutsu wavered along with her resolve, the love she had for him as equal in measure as her love for Madara. He certainly had scooped her up and saved her as his dream had foretold.
The time was now, though. If she lingered for much longer, Kaguya would find them again. Sakura, with her forest thriving and her heart full, gave an affectionate squeeze of Okojo's shoulders.
"You woke the world in me, sweet boy."
As she stood and took his small hand in hers, his cries quieted. There amid the glowing grass and sparkling trees as he held his brother's scythe, he looked every bit the protector of the Shikkotsu Woods that she herself was. When Madara reached out to hold her free hand, she shut her eyes and steeled herself, steadying the breaths through her nose and letting her consciousness begin to slip into the ether as easily as sinking down into the river, just as Gamamura had said.
Bit by bit, she could feel as the things she'd witnessed unraveled and reversed. Madara's horrific second death, the destruction he'd caused, gone with the pain and the heartache. Natural energy pooled around her ankles once more, cool and soothing and familiar, erasing all parts of history that had been caused by the ripples set in motion by the shadowy Zetsu, things she hadn't known and would never know. As it rushed up past her hips and hugged at her waist, she knew that creature was still out there somewhere, and that its schemes would be redirected elsewhere—and she would be ready, in whatever new future in which she would emerge. In their shared psyche, Okojo made a small sound of understanding: he, too, would do what he could to thwart it in her absence.
But it wasn't her absence, was it? All this time, she'd been fortifying the place of her birth. How many slugs had she ushered into existence, pieces of herself that made even the trees and the moss one with themselves? Sure as the moon would cycle on endlessly, month after month after month, she would be here, simultaneously unchanging and ever-learning. It was, to her, what a mortal life was all about.
The shizen energy of time and space closed in around her neck and her chin; she drew in one last breath, the world around her gone dark and silent. Her hair, weightless in the void, undulated around her in graceful waves. In the moments before the power covered her ears and she brought up her hands to form the seals for Water and Earth to solidify her place in time, the last thing she heard were the low tones of Madara's unmistakeable voice, reaching her even here, full of a longing that made her ache.
"Be well"—and she would swear she could hear the trace of a smirk on his lips as he added, "wife."
(thanks again for reading. More to come, because this AU has absolutely bewitched me)
-Vivi