She gritted her teeth: Madara had underestimated her. Her fist plunged downwards.
The riverlands exploded with the force of Sakura's furious, chakra-fuelled punch. Rushing currents and chunks of earth scattered high into the air, the displaced pearls of castaway riverwater scattering like liquid silver in the moonlight.
Sakura flew over the crumbling chasm her punch had caused, somersaulting through the debris and clouds of earth over broken waters and shivering mud. Landing hard at the other side of the maw of what was now a collapsing waterfall, she wasted no time, hurling herself into a full-speed sprint back through the trees and leaving her destruction behind.
A tree trunk thicker than a human exploded a breath from Sakura's head. Shards sliced past her, leaving slivers in her exposed arms and face. She dove between webs of branches, weaving through dense trees and shoving past underbrush, ignoring the pain. Pine needles scattered across her clothes and through her hair as she kicked entire evergreens out of her way, their trunks cracking and groaning as they fell before her; she was an unstoppable force pushing ever-forward.
Sakura ducked with a gasp as the entire stretch of forest before her was beheaded. Trunks severed neatly in half shuddered down to the earth in the roaring crash of a thousand trees, the blinding flash of light gone as quickly as it had come.
Leaping from falling tree to falling tree, Sakura used the new destruction to her advantage, propelling herself forward and shunning all fearful thoughts of what that attack had been. Entirely focused on escape, she nearly made it to the forest canopy before a dark presence struck a tree to her right, wild white robes shifting around him.
Sakura swerved left in an instinctive dodge. A black staff skewered the broken trunk she'd been on a moment before. She flipped backwards, avoiding several more pointed attacks that shattered swathes of cut trees and speared through the earth. Keeping the frightening spectre of death that was Madara in her peripheral vision, Sakura swept aside in a swift dodge only to cry out soundlessly, a fist breaking through her lower back in a powerful impact.
She dove down and rolled through wooden splinters and dense bracken, avoiding the vast collapsing severed trunk that crunched down beside her. The sheer weight of the massive tree's fall shook the ground itself. Sawdust, pine needles and dry earth scattered through the night air, sending loose leaves spiralling in the wind. Without a second to so much as breathe, Sakura swerved backwards again, Madara landing in the space she had been.
Sakura kept herself behind the shuddering, zig-zagged shapes of continuously falling ancient trees, using them as cover, flitting through the groaning, destroyed forestscape while assessing the damage she had already taken. She shoved a healing hand along her spine as she went, cursing; he had ruptured several discs with the force of that invisible punch. How had he landed a hit when he'd been in her sight, out of range? A multiple of himself that she couldn't see — Limbo clones?
And she had no way to sense them, not without Naruto's sage chakra or Sasuke's eye. With a soft tch, her teeth grinding, Sakura took in a steadying breath, dancing between beheaded falling trees, adrenaline skidding through her chest and slamming into her desperately-beating heart.
Standing in the heart of utter devastation, Madara wore a crooked, devilish smile. His jagged silhouette was matte silver in the moonlight that filtered down through the shaking forest canopy, cut through by inconstant shadows as the world around him shuddered and fell. Trees continued their groaning mass collapse in every direction, cracking and bowing at his feet; they thundered through the space between where he and Sakura stood in fierce opposition, billows of sawdust and frightened insects spiralling upwards in the thin light. His white mane drifted in the leaf-littered breeze over mismatched eyes that slowly narrowed upon Sakura.
"Make it easier for yourself," he rumbled as she took an instinctive step back. "Hand over my eye."
"Never." Sakura readied her fists, ignoring her panicked survival instinct raising the alarm to turn and run. Madara wasn't about to let her escape either way: she had to keep fighting, no matter how powerful he was. She gritted her teeth as a pure, hate-bidden rage burned through her body and soul.
She felt unseen fingers at her wrists, ripping at her limbs to pull her into a restraining lock. Arching her spine and throwing her weight, Sakura swerved like a swung blade, her swift chop slicing through invisible flesh and bone. Blood sprayed as her left arm was freed — she spun around with a synchronous fist and roundhouse kick, knocking aside another figure she could not see. She hissed in through her teeth as a fist crunched into her ribcage, right through where the staff had impaled her earlier. The sheer strength of his punch threw her bodily through broken trees and falling branches, sending torn leaves swirling through dirt-clouded air, her sandals leaving deep scores in the earth beneath her feet as she dug in her heels.
Sakura twisted, catching herself before she could be impaled by the razor-sharp splinters of a shattered trunk waiting just behind her bleeding back. Spitting out blood, she didn't hesitate to launch herself back towards the Limbo clones attacking her, her hands flashing out and seizing the arm of the fist that had struck her. Dragging him closer with a feral snarl, she snapped the clone's forearm in half with one hand while throwing her fist into where she knew his face was, pulverising skin and bone. Invisible gore splattered across Sakura's ferocious, bloodied grin.
Victory had the briefest moment to catch in a silver gleam across her eyes as Sakura dove to the side. Her chest heaved as black ribbons dripped down her face like warpaint. The dripping red fist-shaped puncture through her ribs mended itself, a cracking sound audible as her spine reset, the seal's chakra doing its patient work. Her teeth bared, Sakura threw her fists back up as the moonlight flashed in a wide swirl of white; the earth shook as if in fear as Madara struck the ground at Sakura's right, coming at her himself.
Their flurry of strikes were barely visible to the eye, the speed of each punch and arching kick almost too quick to see. Madara matched Sakura's every move, countered her every punch; he drove her through the trees with every movement, his expression stony and unchanging while her face wrung with unleashed hatred.
Back and forth they fought, kicking between trees and shattering others that got in the way, leaping over severed trunks and vaulting past descending pieces of destroyed forest canopy. Weighted chunks of dense leaves fragmented and spread in a rising cloud of thick dust as they battled. Fists met; legs swung, and teeth clenched. Sakura was aflame with her fury, channelling it with deadly energy through her taijutsu against Madara, who remained cold as the moonlight above.
Even while utterly intent upon fighting back, Sakura knew that he was toying with her. He had a multitude of abilities he could use, more power he could wield that he was reserving, but now he was using only physical attacks. Was he intending insult by playing such games? She didn't know, but she was only getting further enraged the longer she fought Madara, and she used the sheer adrenaline of it to sharpen her senses, her heart pumping with rage.
Sakura twisted as Madara aimed another powerful fist her way, taking the hit against her side while locking his arm between hers. Ignoring the agony in her body, she glowed briefly with green light, her hand a blur of quick scissored movements before she broke free. She aimed a kick at Madara's head that he dodged while she bucked out of his range, skidding backwards through a patch of brambles. Spitting out more blood and wiping at her lips, Sakura preemptively dodged right, only to see that Madara had paused; she created a larger distance between them, breathing hard.
He was looking down at his now slackened, useless arm with a curious expression. Sakura danced further through the trees on light, careful feet, wary of any more invisible clones; she eyed Madara mistrustfully as he inspected his arm. "Medical ninjutsu," he commented aloud, "hmm. You actually managed an interesting attack."
Madara began to stride confidently in Sakura's direction, probing along his limp arm with a thoughtful expression. Sakura kicked up her pace to a fast backwards trot, maintaining the gap between them, unwilling to take her eyes off of him.
"I see now. You severed the nerves and tendons in a variety of places so that my regeneration would take longer to work." Madara's gloved fingers prodded along his sleeve, one slim brow rising up behind the piece of curved bone that protected his forehead. "And… reversed the blood flow? Certainly more effective than simply taking the arm off completely." He began to flex the fingers of his injured arm, steam rising from beneath his wide white sleeves; Sakura grimaced as he lifted his head, aiming a grin at her through the trees. "If I were a normal shinobi, that attack might have disabled this arm for life. Too bad for you… that I am a god instead."
Madara's sharp eyes flicked to where Sakura was subtly running healing through her back and side, the minty glow muted against her black wartime shirt. She glared back at him as further understanding flitted across his expression. "You purposely allowed several more lethal injuries, knowing you can reverse them with quick healing. I see now how you survived my attack in Obito's pocket dimension; perhaps you were not bluffing when you bragged to him that you could fix my damaged eye."
Sakura winced. He had crushed several internal organs with that side-punch earlier, and damaged several parts of her spine with the punch before that. He was right that if she weren't a medic, those hits would have killed or disabled her. A test. She clenched her teeth, angry that he'd forced her to reveal her level of medical skill: she had unintentionally proven to him that her foolish proclamation earlier hadn't been a lie.
Even in her agony, Sakura hid the pain she felt from her expression, showing only her hatred as she finished healing her injuries. She kept her fast pace through the trees, never taking her eyes from Madara and his continual, patient advance towards her, wild hair shifting down his back.
"Even so," Sakura spat, "you were holding back. Why?"
"Ah…" Madara's mismatched eyes flashed in the moonlight. "You know why."
He surged through the trees so quickly Sakura barely had time to dodge, scraping against the rough bark of a tree in her violent twist to the side into thorned underbrush. She choked on the cloud of dirt that resulted as she was suddenly pinned on her back in the grass and weeds, a black-gloved hand at her throat, her knees locked with knees as Madara loomed above her. His face and falls of silver hair blocked out the light from high above.
Sakura struggled hard in his shadow. She twisted violently from side to side, trying to kick him off of her with every desperate shove.
He caught her flailing arms before she could hit him, slamming her wrists into the earth. "Cease your struggling. You won't get away from me again."
It didn't matter what he said, or the odds of escape: Sakura would never surrender, and she fought against Madara relentlessly. Her flexing hands strained and scrabbled at his restraining grip; she tried to knee him, but he kept her body locked with his own, preventing her from shoving him off or digging a shin into his center. With gritted teeth, Sakura flipped her head from side to side, bucking and arching and fighting with every bit of moxy she had.
Madara kept her pinned easily enough, though annoyance shadowed his frown. He redoubled his grip upon her wrists as she nearly broke free. With a quick gesture, he adjusted himself, withdrawing a hand as sturdy branches slid over Sakura's arms in tight bindings. Her eyes widened as she registered that Madara had Wood Style, feeling the branches tough as rocks grow in restricting loops over her wrists and arms.
Several cracking sounds had Madara gesturing again with a scowl. Twice the amount of branches, twice as thick, grew over Sakura's wrists. Sakura glared up at him, her arms untensing somewhat as she decided to pretend for the moment that she could not break herself free. She watched him then, assessing, saving her strength and chakra, waiting for her next chance.
With his hands now liberated, Madara sat back, one knee pinning Sakura down by the stomach and his other leg locking through hers to keep the rest of her restrained.
"Now, then." Madara brushed off his gloved hands, eyeing Sakura. "Are you going to tell me where you've hidden my eye? Or are you going to continue to make this more difficult than it needs to be?"
"Go to hell." Sakura struggled again under Madara's grip, forcing him to push her back down with a grunt, his knee leaning harder into her lower belly until she stopped twisting to get herself free. Breathing hard, she levelled her baleful glare back upon his face, affixed to his cheek as she was ever-careful to never directly meet his dangerous stare.
Madara sighed. "I thought so." He lifted a gloved hand, flexing his fingers; green eyes flicked to it, watching its descent to her side.
The colour drained from Sakura's face. Her expression slackened entirely, white as snow, as Madara's fingers slid along the curve of her slender waist in a sudden, unexpected touch.
Her heartbeat drowned out any other sound as it slammed against her eardrums. She stared uncomprehendingly at Madara's offending hand, time slowing in her mind as she failed to process what it meant over and over.
No. Sakura's body went numb as she absorbed the image of Madara's fingers upon her with disbelief and shock. She must be assuming incorrectly. No matter how ruthless and evil he might be, he wouldn't resort to that.
Would he? Sakura's head was spinning, and she remembered to breathe, inhaling sharply as Madara's fingers continued to shift down the curve of her hip. Transfixed with horror, she watched, holding perfectly still.
She couldn't understand. The suddenness of what he was initiating blindsided her completely. She had already known Madara wouldn't kill her, because he needed her alive to fix the damaged Rinnegan; she had known that he would interrogate her for where she'd hid it, and she had mentally prepared herself for torture. She had trained for years to resist genjutsu, physical torment, and other brutalities of battle. She had been bracing herself for this inevitable encounter since the moment she'd realised he had caught up to her… but she would never have guessed that Madara would decide to get what he wanted from her through that kind of assault.
Sakura's chest rose and fell rapidly as Madara's fingers snagged on a seam along her black wartime joggers. Both of their eyes were intent upon his hand; his, shadowed with focus, and hers, wide with disbelief. Her breath hitched in her suspense.
Sakura froze as Madara dipped his dark fingers into her pants pocket.
Slowly, she relaxed somewhat. Her spinning thoughts returned to time's usual flow as she recognised that her shocking revelation had been a false one. Madara was simply performing a forcible search of her person, since she'd refused to tell him where the eye was. Sakura was all too relieved to confirm with herself that he wasn't the kind of man who would resort to abusing a kunoichi at his mercy.
Sakura tensed again as Madara's hand shifted lower, having found nothing in her upper pants pocket. The skin beneath the fabric of her joggers burned, following the trailing of his fingers along the slender shape of her leg until he found the hidden pocket closer to her calf.
It was happening in a brief smattering of seconds, yet felt to Sakura drawn-out and agonisingly slow, the realisations hitting her rapid-fire.
As Madara withdrew from Sakura's calf-pocket, she shifted her attention back to his face. She rested her head back in the grass, swallowing, her pulse a painful thudding between her ears. She absorbed the frightening image of him overshadowing and surrounding her; as the smoky pine scents of his stifling presence rose to her nose with the sawdust of the decimated forest around them, Sakura recognised that she hadn't even seen him as human before now.
Madara had been an otherworldly figure to her, like a demon. He was a legend, haunting campfire stories, ghosting through textbook passages in half-forgotten studies. She had nearly forgotten entirely that beneath all of his power, his unnatural jinchuriki features, and intimidating, oppressive presence, Madara was still just a man.
Sakura shivered, her skin rashing out in goosebumps wherever his fingers glanced over the thin cloth of her wartime outfit. If Madara noticed her shiver, he ignored it, his scowl slightly weary and silently focused as he looked for her captive Rinnegan prize.
Remembering to struggle, Sakura thrashed with renewed vigour, Madara's search shifting over to her other leg. He shot her an irritated glance, his mismatched eyes pausing upon her face.
She glared back at him, the dislike in her tight expression masking the fresh panic behind her eyes. In the habit of affixing her gaze to one of Madara's facial features rather than his eyes, Sakura's attention flicked over his face, shifting erratically over his cheeks, his chin, his nose, his mouth. Anywhere but that shadowed, mocking, ringed Rinnegan nor stolen Sharingan that caught the moonlight as he observed her with detached interest.
Sakura had become painfully, sensitively aware of Madara's extreme proximity as he continued what she knew would be his fruitless search. She couldn't help but to notice it, especially in the wake of her earlier, incorrect presumption of his intentions — how his knees were locked around hers, loose folds of the Six Paths robes brushing around her sides, the whole of him much too close. She could feel his calm, even exhales against her skin, sending fresh waves of goosebumps across her exposed face and arms. The cool night air had no effect upon her flushed skin, overheating as she was drowned in Madara's warm shadow of body heat and breaths.
A shiver of fresh loathing and panic had Sakura struggling again, her body jerking beneath his and fingers digging into her palms beneath her restraints. He had her other leg in a vice grip, keeping it still as the rest of her wriggled; she sucked in a harsh breath as Madara's searching hand dipped into the second thigh pocket he'd found. He withdrew a mostly-spent roll of bandages, glancing at it before tossing it aside into the splintered branches and trees surrounding them both.
"Get your hands off of me," Sakura managed.
Madara paused, Sakura's slender leg in hand; he gave her a cryptic look. "Your protest comes curiously late, considering."
"Because I know you won't find it," Sakura shot back in a rush.
Madara searched near the calf of her captured leg anyway, lifting her slightly and digging through another hidden pocket. Sakura shifted, her other leg sliding along the side of his knee where he had it pinned down. Her ears hot with embarrassment, Sakura was hyper-aware of every detail of their struggle, her other foot hot where it was forcibly pressed in along the side of Madara's tense leg. Her toes curled, her head tilting back as she sweat beneath her clothes, trying to kick off Madara's grip and causing him to grunt with annoyance as he wrenched her back into his control.
There was a creeping stain of red burning across Sakura's cheeks that she hated with particular vehemence. This struggle was nothing to blush like a schoolgirl over, she reminded herself, no matter her mortification over her close proximity to Madara, no matter her physical reactions to his actions. This was a fight amidst war. The results of this deathmatch determined the outcome of everything. She needed to wrench her frazzled mind from its haze and think of a way out of this situation before it was too late.
Though his search of her wasn't made with lascivious intent, Madara's patient, unrelenting touch scorched Sakura like he was a living bonfire, and Sakura remembered to struggle again, thrashing and fighting as she tried once more to buck him off of her. The Wood-Style branches keeping her arms above her head groaned in protest as she fought, her lips pulled back in a feral snarl. Her knuckles were white in balled fists; her wooden bindings creaked dangerously in response.
Releasing Sakura's leg, Madara ensnared her in a redoubled grip, pressing her back down into the earth. He glowered at her, gripping her chin bruisingly and keeping her still as he fought to retain control. "You insisted upon being stubborn and forcing this search. Stop wasting my time and hold still."
Sakura wriggled continuously, forcing Madara to keep her pressed down by the shoulder with one hand while his other found her side-pack that was strapped to the back of her thigh. He thumbed open the flap, tugging the zipper open.
He rummaged through its contents, his grip upon her rougher and twice as ironclad than before. Sakura gritted her teeth, tossing and turning under his grip while searching for a plan through her scattered thoughts. She must escape, or it was all over: if she failed here, the war was won in Madara's favour.
She could see that Madara knew this well. His smugness was ever-present around the corners of his eyes even through his irritation as he searched Sakura's person with much less patience than before.
He was only being careful with her because he didn't want to accidentally cause more damage to the hidden Rinnegan, Sakura knew, and she scowled. She released a shaky exhale as Madara let go of the thoroughly-searched pack, his free hand drawing across to her other side where her secondary pack was strapped. Her chest rising and falling rapidly, Sakura bit down on her teeth while Madara ignored her anger, his fingers digging into her shoulder as he kept her restrained during his ongoing search.
What plan could possibly help her here? She shut her eyes tightly with a rush of despair as the reality of her current situation pulled over her in a tidal wave of fear and frustration. She was thoroughly trapped, snared directly in the crosshairs of the most feared and powerful enemy she had ever faced. There was no one nearby to help her. No one to even witness her inevitable death, either. Without someone to stop Madara, Sakura had no chance and no hope.
She shivered involuntarily as his sigh warmed her face; he had found nothing in her secondary pack but more bandages. As he drew back slightly, Sakura was sharply reminded how close Madara was, the large frame of his body boxing hers in. She was engulfed in shadowed limbs and heated darkness as he kept her pinned in his grip, pressed into the grass. Sweat drenched the back of Sakura's legs and arms, trickling down her chest; her skin tickled near her ears and cheeks where Madara's wild, loose mane of silver-white hair had fallen down around their faces. She shivered again as he blinked down at her, mismatched eyes slightly aglow in the dark.
She knew how compromising the two of them looked from any other perspective. Blushing hotly with shame, Sakura turned her face away, hoping he'd not had the same realisation. How perfectly embarrassing. Maybe it was good that no one else was around to witness Sakura's probable final moments, entwined with her greatest enemy as they struggled together in the grass.
"Not here, either," Madara rumbled. Sakura tensed as his voice reverberated through her own ribcage, his words like an earthquake from this close. She squeezed her eyes more tightly shut as she felt him draw closer, his irritation spiking.
"I threw it into the forest earlier," Sakura admitted quickly. When he didn't immediately retort, she cracked an eye open, glaring upwards. Madara's face loomed over hers; she bit back an embarrassing thought as she watched his lips twist into a frown. "No, you didn't. Do you take me for a fool?"
Sakura bit her lip, frustrated. As always, Madara was mocking and arrogant in an indefinite calm. Everything depended upon her somehow escaping him; but even if she somehow broke loose from his iron grip, he'd easily recapture her. She couldn't get away without a head start, and she couldn't get a head start without incapacitating him. Sakura's brows furrowed as she thought through a dawning plan, piecing together the steps.
"I can easily sense that it's on your person as we speak," he was saying as Sakura's thoughts rolled further towards an idea. "I would have easily spotted such a stupid move, and thus would not have taken the time to search you myself."
Sakura's gaze swept up and down Madara once, twice, dismissing each of the hundred ways she could injure him from her current position. She knew based on their earlier fight that he would continue to regenerate and heal too quickly, her normally fatal medically-inspired moves not enough to slow him down for any significant amount of time. She could try any of her best moves and he'd recover in a short enough timeframe to simply catch her again if she ran.
Sakura laid back in the grass with a short sigh, exhausted and frustrated; Madara adjusted his grip on her shoulders, mistrusting of how she had relaxed slightly. He loomed over her with a narrowed, calculating look. Analysing her as she was analysing him, neither spoke for a moment, breaths mingling as clouds of steam in the cool summer night air.
Was there a way to break Madara's perfect calm? Sakura debated if there was any way to use mental warfare without genjutsu, doubt flipping around in her chest. He was certainly one of the most stubborn, unflappable shinobi she had ever encountered, as well as the strongest. He had the tenacity of a hurricane with all of the unstoppability of one. How could she have any chance of throwing him off, as he'd done to her?
And unintentionally. Sakura scowled up at Madara, reminded of how very easily he had utterly flabbergasted her earlier with one unexpected touch. She had been almost pliant for a moment while he'd begun his search of her person, wholly stunlocked by her frightening set of presumptions; it had taken her far too long to recover and kickstart planning her escape.
Sakura was briefly grateful that she hadn't yet found out what it was like when Madara was being intentional in trying to throw off her mental game. Her cheeks stung at the thought.
Sakura paused as it occurred to her: if she tried something equivalent — would he react like she had?
Sakura grimaced up at Madara, heart pounding again.
Noticing the subtle shift in her demeanour, his mismatched eyes narrowed with suspicion. She didn't struggle as he adjusted his hold; his large hands seized around her slim shoulders, pressing her down harder into the dirt in preparation for her next attempt to break free.
Sakura's stomach turned over as she realised that this wretched, final idea was her one and only chance left. It was idiotic. It was terrifying, and it was the most desperate thing she would ever try. She didn't have the time to linger on how much she didn't want to do it, nor how much she knew she'd regret it for life.
Inhaling slowly, Sakura drew strength from within herself, building up the courage she needed. Her heart slowed to a skidding, halting rhythm high in her chest, hiding within her ribcage. Adrenaline flowed out into her limbs in a silver rush, her skin tingling with frightened anticipation. She was aware once more of Madara's legs locking hers, of his exhale hot across her cheeks scented like ash and smoke, of the thick branches keeping her wrists restrained above her head in the grass.
With her eyes closed, ignoring Madara's confusion as he drew breath to speak, Sakura repeated her new plan to herself. She would make her move. She would get her head start. She would run like she had never run before, and if fate allowed her to get away, she would never let him catch her like this again, upholding her mission no matter what it might cost her.
She grew very still, readying herself.
Madara was eyeing her quizzically, one slim brow lifted. "What is it that you're—"
With a burst of enraged power, Sakura broke free of her branch restraints. Shattered slivers of wood flew in every direction as her arms swung around, her fingers digging into Madara's shoulders. Using all the strength she had at hand, she shoved him up off of her and then swung the both of them to the side, keeping their legs tangled. She pushed him into the earth, sitting up and exhaling sharply as his fingers reactively pressed into her hips. Before he could wrench her back into his control, Sakura slammed Madara back against the grass, hands tight around his shoulders as she came down at him like falling bricks, all force and no warning.
His eyes were wide upon Sakura as her face sank down along his, tilting into a pressing, decisive liplock.
In a silent ripple of bewilderment, Madara remained perfectly still where he was splayed back beneath Sakura, his wild hair a silvery mess tossed through the grass. His outstretched hands around her sides froze where he had been about to seize her; he remained suspended where he was pinned, like moving might shatter the bizarre, unexpected illusion poised upon him.
Sakura exhaled shakily through her nose where it was pressed into his cheek. Her eyes were tightly shut, her hands shivering around Madara's broad shoulders.
His brows twitched as the hard line of her lips against his softened slightly with the slow breath she drew. The silver of the moon dripped down Sakura's cherry-blossom hair, following the curves of her slender figure perched over him, shading her in the same light that drenched his tense frame. In the second unsteady breath she released, this one from between parting lips, he could taste her — like flowers and steel, both subtle and sweet.
Slowly, Sakura withdrew. Her eyes fluttered open, meeting Madara's wide-eyed stare as her lips slipped away from his. He held her gaze.
Her heart's jagged percussion having stopped in their shared moment in suspension, Sakura read Madara's shock that was freezing him in place. All of his smugness, his arrogance, his frightening aura — gone. He looked almost younger, the surprise softening his face. Somewhat dazed herself, Sakura absorbed everything she could read from Madara's expression, a hand rising unconsciously to her lips.
She didn't realise she was holding his eyes directly until her heart began to beat again.
With a gasp, Sakura ripped free, throwing herself backwards. Swerving at speed, she turned and broke into a run, hands glowing green as she slid them along her thighs. Tearing through the trees at a breakneck speed she concentrated fiercely upon controlling, she didn't look back to where Madara was slowly sitting up through flattened grass in the shivering, obliterated forestscape.
He ran a hand through his jagged shock of hair, head swivelling towards where she had made her escape.
Shaking his head, Madara hummed to himself as he recovered. Stunned no longer, he rose to his feet, dust and earth kicking up around his boots. A gloved hand ghosted over his smile as he set off in the direction Sakura had gone.
