just in case anyone wasn't interested in reading torture
(even though it's flagged in the prologue)
(and even though I'm not super talented at writing it)
I'll put a little warning here:
this chapter contains scenes of torture.
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Covenant
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Synopsis: Four years into the Fourth Shinobi War, Orochimaru offers to turn.
He all but requests Sakura by name to be the contact.
It is, quite clearly, a trap—least of all because he's supposed to be dead.
But what is a losing side to do except take the hand that's offered?
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17. The Debt
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SOMEHOW, SAKURA squished amidst a crowd in a field. It smelled of late summer rain. Pregnant grey clouds lazed overhead while wet pine needles clung to her peeking toes in the sandals.
Before them was a stone podium five feet off the earth that Madara stood upon, statuesque and imposing, accompanied by his most militant and high-ranking shinobi. Sasuke included.
Beside her was Suigetsu, arm wrapped around her shoulders tight as a bandage.
She wasn't sure how she arrived or how long it'd taken to travel here. One minute Sasuke was telling her Madara had her teammate and ordering her Don't watch—the next, she was three rows back in a sea of the enemy that swelled with anticipation and an undercurrent of apprehension.
Suigetsu's hold was all that kept her on her feet. Her mind was a storm with no eye. So many opaque thoughts battled one another that it was impossible to absorb her surroundings. Madara had Sai. Madara had Sai, and she was here. Madara had Sai, and she was here, and she couldn't do anything.
Gritting her teeth, she tensed for attack—she would do something—
Ghosts hazed into form on all sides, pushing out the bodies of the living that pressed upon her. Team Guy stood at her back, Tenten's soft hand wrapped gingerly around her elbow. Holding her in place. You'll only die along with him, Neji warned.
Choji was in Suigetsu's spot, his broad arm warm over her shoulders, an air of melancholy clinging to him. I know how it feels to want to save him, he said.
Kiba grazed her other side, looking across her at Choji. But he wouldn't want you to try.
Sometimes their resurrection wasn't painful at all. Sometimes their sham presence was the only thing in the whole universe that calmed her. It was the only thing that kept her feet from going to Sai at that moment. She fell into their comfort, knowing it wasn't real—knowing it was only her mind trying desperately to glue the widening cracks in itself together fast enough that she didn't crumble apart in this field.
She couldn't do anything.
Madara raised his hand and the army fell silent. "Bring him out." His words rang across the clearing.
A second stone platform rose from behind the first, and there was Sai. A gasp lodged in her throat, eyes swimming in hot tears she willed not to fall. The seal throbbed on her neck—Stay calm, don't watch.
Confined in a metal cage so small, he couldn't fit but on his hands and knees. Chakra-suppressing bracelets were on each arm and his head hung defeated. Different shades of red now coated his once alabaster skin. Deep crimson where a whip had bit into his flesh indiscriminately; uncountable cuts from a heavy switch littering every inch of his uncovered body—so numerous the trauma would've killed a civilian. The bright scarlet of fresh blood as it leaked from the torture and drenched him. Dull rust of dried blood caked between.
First shakes of her mind breaking rolled over her like a ripple in water. Suigetsu pulled her so roughly into his side that her shoulders might dislocate.
"Keep it together," he mumbled into her hair, the action intimate to any witness.
Madara walked back to stand beside the cage. "Today we celebrate one of the most significant victories this army—"
Don't watch, repeated the seal.
"All Root deserve death!" A shockingly loud rage saturated the familiar voice, one that rang in her head like the words spoken under a broken bridge. Sasuke body-flickered from his position with the generals to beside the cage. "Pass my regards to your master in hell."
The clearing froze in time. Every shinobi held the same breath. The two Uchiha men stood on opposite sides of the cage—one emitting visible tendrils of frenzied violet chakra, the other a mask of surprised annoyance.
He wouldn't, she thought belatedly. He won't—
"Chidori."
It hit the metal cage, the lightning snaking across the bars. Sai's body convulsed.
Her heart palpitated as if his technique branched into the mob and rammed through her chest. The shock of seeing Sasuke's murderous smile illuminated by the crackling hutch tilted her vision. He was going to kill her teammate. He was going to kill him, and she couldn't do anything, and she couldn't let it break her—
Squeezing her sights shut, she clenched her jaw against the rising bile. The surging of the army toward the podium, shouts of anger and support growing in the wind, washed her reaction from anyone who might've found her dread incongruous.
Sai was going to die.
"Uchiha Reflection."
She barely heard Suigesu whisper, "Fuck," before a resounding BOOM! splintered the air and quaked the ground, so roughly Sakura stumbled into him.
When she looked again, Sai was collapsed to his stomach, twitching unnaturally on the metal floor. Madara stood where Sasuke had been, his gunbai held protectively in front of the cage. And behind the podium, far enough away he was little more than a black mass amidst the cratered earth, Sasuke's body crumpled in the middle of a massive zone of impact.
Her foot jolted forward before she even realized.
"Stay!" Suigetsu hissed, jerking her back.
Madara's lips held a sneer as he turned to his generals. "Go chain that child in medical where he can't cause trouble, Obito."
A hooded figure in an orange mask jumped from the platform and made his way to Sasuke's unmoving form without haste.
Madara kneeled to examine Sai's spasming, twitching body—which meant he wasn't dead. Sakura's heart was torn: elation they still had an opportunity to get him out—yet desperate for her teammate to just let his life slip away. Death was a blessing to the torment that awaited him as a captive.
With a grin, Madara stood and kicked the cage. "That's right, a little electrocution can't kill a roach. Look how futilely they cling to life!"
Laughs and jeers roared around them. Sakura leaned into Suigetsu's warmth, her body sick with powerlessness. Madara walked to the front of the podium again as Obito flung Sasuke over his shoulder and disappeared into the forest behind him.
"Our army captured one of the highest-ranking shinobi in the Allies' intelligence unit. Sai of the now non-existent Konoha. Former member of the annihilated organization called Root."
The cheers grew. Suigetsu shushed her viciously when she gagged, dread lining her gut like rotten meat. Why did Sasuke insist on bringing her here? Suigetsu was right—she couldn't do this. Her lungs were failing her. The pressure on her chest could crush her; she wished it would. She wanted to fold into death.
The gathering fell silent as Madara raised a hand. "Today, we celebrate a victory. But every victory is only a decision away from the defeat of betrayal. I know a rat is feeding these roaches well enough for them to avoid collapse." A shiver of terror swept through the spectators, even though most of them were undoubtedly loyal to the core. "I'll give the traitor a single chance to come forward now. Come forward, and face your death like a true shinobi! The shinobi you failed to be in life. Come forward and greet your execution with honor!" he bellowed, loud enough to echo in the trees.
No one moved. Suigetsu's hand squeezed her arm, a trap locking her in place. Madara smirked at the crowd's nonresponse.
"Very well, traitor. But know this." He pointed back at the cage—at Sai, who was now still as a corpse. His tone dropped into something bone-chilling. "I will break this pathetic cockroach. I'll crush him until he looks like the bug he is. He'll scream your name, begging for death when I finish with him."
Sakura gripped Suigetsu's side to stay anchored.
"I'll find out who betrayed me, and you'll die slowly, dishonorably, and pathetically alone in front of my entire army when I do!"
He stalked back to the cage and kicked it again, flinging Sai's limp body to the bars on the opposite side.
"No one leaves base until I've exterminated thoroughly." Madara leaned down and placed a tag on the cage. It popped away. "Everyone report back to your rooms."
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Suigetsu pulled a mindless Sakura through the base, cursing under his breath each time she tripped over her own feet. It would've been suspicious, except that every shinobi they passed was just as jittery and nervous. Talk of a traitor lurking about could rattle even the most faithful of bones.
But Sakura didn't care what anyone might think. She couldn't care about anything except the dreadful horror that her friend was whipped and caged in Madara's clutches.
Sai was captured. Sai was going to be tortured. Sai was going to die. And Sasuke—
He'd almost killed—
How could he?
They turned a corner on the third floor into two Akatsuki-masked guards blocking a door. Suigetsu stopped before them, tugging her to his back.
"I'm here for Sasuke Uchiha."
"We're not to let anyone in."
"Fuck off. Do you know who I am?" He thrust his chakra out menacingly. It was cold as the depths of an ocean, eerie with the feigned tranquility of the unknown.
In the face of it, one man fell back, bowing his head.
The other stepped forward, unperturbed. "Suigetsu Hozuki, risen from the dead. Second under Sasuke Uchiha's command. Lieutenant General of Madara's army. Wielder of Kubikiribocho, Master of Water Release." Giving Suigetsu a once-over, he added, "And below the rank of the one who mandated that no one can enter."
Suigetsu chuckled darkly, cracking his knuckles. "I'll enjoy watching you try to keep me out."
The door behind the guards opened as Obito poked halfway out with a smirk. "I thought I heard an idiot arguing." He pushed the door the rest of the way in invitation. "They can come inside."
Both guards backed away at that order. Suigetsu retook Sakura's wrist, leading her as they entered. He sent a purple glare at the second guard when they marched past. Obito winded them through a hallway that smelled of antiseptic, the scent filling her like a comfort. Pained moans leaked from under doors lining their path—masked shinobi entered and exited rooms with practiced routes.
It was base medical.
They stopped at the last door, Obito knocking once before opening it and motioning them to enter ahead. A shirtless Sasuke lay on a sleeping mat in the center of the room, both hands bound by his sides to the floor. Although the stone chains held no suppressive properties and he could leave whenever he wanted, it'd be painful to escape with his injuries.
"Damn, dude." Suigetsu chuckled. "He fucked you up good."
Sakura appraised Sasuke's body with her medical knowledge and came to the same conclusion. His ribcage was purpling with the onset of a deep bruise—an indication of shattered ribs. From the severity and size of the coloring, most were broken. His left elbow bent at an unnatural angle on the ground. Black hair was clumped in odd patterns, stiff with dried blood. It flaked along his hairline; someone had wiped his face clean. Dirt-crusted gashes of skin scraped against rock ran the length of his arms and legs.
Sasuke's bored regard swept across them, lingering on her a second longer before snapping back to Obito. "Seems he's still alive, so let me return to my room."
"I don't really care if you kill him, but Madara will kill you the next time you try. Do keep that in mind, cousin. You're free to leave once a medic sees you, since I don't plan on playing babysitter in medical all night."
"One jutsu did that to you, Sasuke?" taunted Suigetsu, still stuck on the injuries. "You're losing your touch!"
"Uchiha Reflection is proportional to the attack it absorbs. He really would've killed that prisoner without intervention," Obito said.
At those words, Suigetsu discretely shifted to check on her. He motioned her closer; she obliged, sliding to his side, shielded from Obito.
"Duh. Sasuke's been after Root for years. You all should've known better."
"I'm right here," said Sasuke with annoyance.
"I warned Madara as much after our meeting," Obito told Suigetsu, ignoring Sasuke completely. "Sasuke was obviously infuriated, but Madara thought the kid wouldn't be dumb enough to try it."
Suigetsu smirked. "He's dumb enough to try anything. Remember when he tried to take on all five Kage at once?"
"That's right, what a hot-head!" The Uchiha man laughed. "Well, he can't help it. Our family's blood runs naturally hot, it can be difficult to control our emotions. Madara understands that. Sasuke shouldn't be in too much trouble."
"Stop talking about me as if I'm not in the room!" Sasuke spat.
Obito leaned over Suigetsu to observe her. She studied the floor and cleared her mind of thought. The seal thrummed pleasantly as Sasuke's sights landed on the top of her head a moment later.
A slight tremble to her shoulders had started in the clearing, yet to cease. She held her breath and sent a prayer.
"What's wrong with your pet?" Obito strode around Suigetsu to stand before her, blocking Sasuke's mat. His shoes filled her vision. "Look at me," he ordered.
Sakura peeked up. She'd never seen him up close without a mask. Severe scars marred the right side of his face, the left unblemished and aristocratic. The distinctive onyx hair and eye twisted strangely at her soul as she pointedly avoided the purple of his Rinnegan.
"Cat got your tongue?"
"My—my brother was killed by that attack..." She praised her mother for her quick wits.
"The reflection?"
"The lightning," whispered Sakura, scrutinizing her toes again. "I haven't—it's the first time I've seen it in years..."
Obito sneered, backing away from her—satisfied. "Must've been Kakashi Hatake. You know, he used to be my teammate." A thought seemed to come to him; he glanced back with a creased brow. "Say, what's your family name?"
"Enough! Why the hell am I chained to the floor?" Sasuke jerked his hands up, then bit back a howl of pain a second later. "Fuck!"
"Madara's directive." Obito chuckled and turned away from her completely. "Can't have you running to find our source of information and electrocuting him successfully."
The air vacuumed out of the room. Red swept Sasuke's eye, his chakra fizzling like irate static.
"Did you forget what his master forced my brother to do?" His voice rose into a shout. "What he did to our clan, cousin?!" The edge of insanity tinged Sasuke's words—a hysteria Sakura had watched him embrace under the Samurai Bridge six years ago. "How dare Madara allow a Root member to continue breathing!"
"And this, cousin, is why you're restrained." Obito made his way to Sasuke's side and placed a foot atop his purpling chest. Sasuke gritted his teeth as his expression contorted in discomfort. "He's going to die, but we need the information first. Control yourself, and I'll talk to Madara about letting you be the one to kill him."
Sakura grabbed onto Suigetsu's arm so she wouldn't fall to her knees.
"Fine," Sasuke grated out.
The foot stamped upon his injury with more weight—Sasuke's head fell back to the ground.
"Your word you'll behave yourself?"
"Yes! Get the fuck off me!"
Obito smirked but heeded. "I'll be back then. A healer will be in soon," he called over his shoulder before the door shut behind him.
As soon as it clicked closed and Obito's signature faded down the hall, Sakura filled the empty spot beside the mat. She knelt, lifted her hands to Sasuke's chest, and pushed down upon it with cruel strength instead of soothing green.
As his entire demeanor broadcasted the agony with a heavy shudder, red and purple held her gaze bitterly.
"You could've killed him!" she seethed, pressing harder.
Suigetsu tugged her up. "I told you not to bring her!"
"We have to get him out, Sasuke," she whispered angrily. "He'll die if he stays here!"
"Shut the fuck up, kid—"
"That's right." Sasuke hadn't looked away from her once. "He's going to die since he's here, and you're going to shut up like Suigetsu suggested."
She nodded, ignoring the venom. "So we can—"
"We can't."
"What?"
"We aren't going to do anything, and he's going to die."
"Sasuke, Sai had nothing to do with your clan—"
"Uchiha-sama," he fumed. "And don't talk about my clan, Sa—Rei."
Was Sasuke truly angry at Sai for being forced into Root as a child? Sakura inspected him with a desperate plea, eyes watery and breath shallow. Would he really doom her teammate to torture and death over Danzo? Sai would have to die slowly, betraying everyone he'd learned to love, because a cruel man indoctrinated him against his will? Did Sasuke honestly feel that was just? Did he genuinely believe Sai, open and awkward and inquisitive Sai, deserved such a fate?
The Sasuke she'd come to gently understand was harsh—but he wasn't irrational. He wouldn't condemn Sai for something that wasn't his doing. He wouldn't do that.
...Right?
But Sasuke's stony stare gave nothing away—and that gave everything away. Sai was going to die. He was going to die—because of Danzo—and she was powerless to stop it yet trapped in the same cell: a compelled, worthless bystander to his murder.
Sakura felt her lungs tighten, her heartbeat climbed. Breath rasped out of her, less and less sucked in with each inhale. Sai's going to die. The room fuzzed into an open field, the walls shifted into piles of human mush, the air dipped into metallic rot. Sai's going to die—and there he was, tens of yards away from her for the first time in a year, standing alone on the battlefield, a hundred jutsu flying towards him at once—and suddenly he was chained, in a box, locked in place for the onslaught—
A panic attack was coming.
"God damn it," Sasuke cursed. "Watch the door, Suigetsu."
His tomoe spun, and the battlefield that was just a medical room fell away. There were no chains or injuries in this space; Sasuke stood healthy in a crisp black shirt before Sakura. His hands dove into the pockets of his pants. She fell to her knees in the abyss, tears leaking out.
"Please, Sasuke. Please don't kill him. I'm begging you, help me get him out."
"He's not getting out." His tone lacked the ruthlessness it'd held in the room.
"Stop saying that! Help me!"
"Sakura."
"NO, Sasuke, please!" She reached out towards his feet like a captive appeasing her captor, aware and uncaring of how pathetic the action was. "He can't die! I can't lose him—I can't lose anyone else. Please, please." She didn't know how else to beg. "Please," she repeated. "Please don't do this to me—" Her throat locked as her fingers touched the edge of his sandal.
A nip of anger laced the darkness. After a moment, he knelt before her.
"He has to die."
Her head fell. "Oh, Gods," she sobbed.
"Otherwise, he'll be endlessly tortured," he continued.
"Please get him out!" Lifting herself suddenly, she grabbed the fabric on his chest. "I'll do anything you want—anything. I'll give myself to Madara—"
"No. You're getting out of here."
Her clutch on his shirt tightened. "With Sai."
Sasuke scrutinized her with an indecipherably blank look.
"He has nothing to do with Root anymore. I promise. I promise, I wouldn't lie—not to you. Please."
His face seemed to inch closer to hers. "Sakura, I don't care about Root. Listen closely. Sai has agreed to come here—" She whimpered and shoved on his chest. "—so that you can get out."
A hollow sob escaped her as she released him and fell back to the invisible floor. The sentence bombarded her from every direction, its significance setting into her soul like a scourge.
Sai has agreed to come here so that you can get out. Sai has agreed to come here so that you can get out. The sentence echoed in the darkness as it bounced inescapably around her skull. She shrieked and curled into herself, pushing her hands to her ears.
Sasuke didn't move to comfort her, but he didn't move away. "The Kage sent him—"
"Stop!" she cried. The Kage wouldn't do that. The Kage wouldn't do this to her!
"—to give up some sources and end the lockdown."
As she writhed on the ground in tears, the air pulsed with controlled wrath.
"How—how do you—"
"Orochimaru sent a snake with Tsunade's plans."
"Tsunade?" whispered Sakura, raising her head to see him. Her mentor's name was a flash bomb in her mind. "Don't lie, Sasuke."
He stared back—he had no reason to lie about this. Sakura shook her head; the words Tsunade wouldn't do this to me reverberated around them.
"Tsunade wouldn't do this," she said softly, despite him already hearing the thought. She shifted between his mismatched eyes. "Not to Sai. Not to me." Tsunade wouldn't do this to me. "Tsunade didn't do this."
His gaze hardened and finally, finally, he reached out to touch her, finger hooking under her chin, tilting her head up. "Death is a mercy for him now that he's here," he declared. She choked on a sob, vision locked on him like he was the last thing she'd ever see. "It's death or torture—you know that."
Tears were thick across her cheeks, breath coming in pained huffs. Sasuke examined her as a medic might; she looked back as one hung over a deep ravine, desperately clinging to a fraying rope.
"My life isn't worth his," she whispered. "I don't want him to die for me. I can't live with that burden."
His lips pursed. "Do you want to watch me do it or return to the room?"
"I'll never leave this place if he dies here… I'll never leave, even when I'm back in Konoha—I'll be here. You'll trap me in this cave forever, Sasuke—"
"Sakura. They're getting you out. It was decided over our heads. Now I can't do anything but finish it." His knuckle on her chin's soft underside tipped her face more. "...Do you want to be there or not?"
Ugai's words invaded her mind. What's worse, seeing death take someone you can't save or finding out that it happened when you weren't there?
"I—I have to be there. I have to be there! But, I—I don't—I'm not—I can't do this!"
His dojutsu spun into her, and the abyss crackled with so much fury it nearly drowned out her despair and suffocated her. Sakura wished that it would.
"You can do this. I order you to keep your composure. Let the seal help you through it."
The genjutsu dropped away. Suigetsu regarded them with a question from his position against the door. Sasuke was purple and shirtless on the mat, assessing her with an odd intensity that vanished a second later.
"Stand there. Don't do anything," he commanded.
Sight blurred, Sakura dissected the floor. Endorphins flooded her brain at her inaction. Sai was going to die for her. Die—for her. Tsunade had sent Sai to die in her place.
She would never forgive the Hokage. She could never forgive this.
Sakura was done.
She held a breath and shut off her mind.
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Sai was strapped to a vertical, metal operating table. The welts of his whipping were so much worse up close.
A dozen shinobi filled the spacious room, including Madara and Obito. It was on the bottom level of the base, more cavernous-like than any other room she'd seen. The ground was uneven and damp with the drippings of stalactites hanging perilously high above them. The muted rush of water from somewhere below swallowed any drop of silence.
She stood in a far corner beside a rock desk, cloaked in an Akatsuki robe, Sasuke stoic beside her. Madara had already warned him not to move from this spot until it was time for Sai to die.
Madara hadn't paid her any attention.
As the hours dragged on, Sakura was a frozen and mute spectator to her teammate's merciless torture. Sasuke's orders and her obedience shielded her from the onslaught of trauma that surely awaited her as soon as this was over.
As soon as Sai was dead.
They drowned him, leaning the table back until he was upside down and head dunked in a water basin. He was left until his body limped in his restraints, then tugged up and shocked with Lightning Release to bring him back to consciousness. He'd barely finish regurgitating liquid before they rotated the table to start anew.
A shinobi with odd silver hair and a strange kekkei genkai encased Sai's head in a bubble of over-oxygenated air until he coughed blood. It splattered on the invisible walls and dripped down his chin. Medics healed his lungs in real time as the silver-haired woman changed the air's composition every minute.
They ran fire over the back of the metal plate he was strapped to. Ripped his nails from their finger beds. Forced poison down his throat until he foamed at the mouth, then slammed him with a needled antidote.
Sakura watched it all with a feeling that had no name. Something horror paled before, a hellish agony the devil would covet.
Don't move, Sasuke mumbled to her every few minutes as if sensing the shake of her knees.
In between the new methods of torture, they'd question him. When he didn't answer, they'd lash an iron-tipped whip across his chest.
"Who's giving the Allies information?" Madara asked lazily for the fiftieth time.
And, for the fiftieth time, Sai opened his mouth, only for his entire body to lock up and no words to come out.
Madara sighed a waved his hand—the signal to whip him again.
The metal snapped in the air and slapped on the skin of Sai's belly, his body unnaturally motionless despite the undoubted pain. A deep laceration welted and bloomed crimson, sinking into the patchwork of gore that hung shredded from the front of him.
"Move on," Madara drawled.
A shinobi came forward and clamped pliers down on one of Sai's nipples. He tugged it out, brought a dull kunai from under his robe, and began sawing it off. Halfway through the process, Sai's body seemed to uncoil, his face twisted into something that belonged in nightmares. An animal-like scream clawed from his throat.
It was the first time Sai had shown such pain; Sakura wanted to shout at him to take it back. Madara grinned, and she knew—
They'd stick with this method until he broke. She tensed.
"Stay still," Sasuke demanded under his breath.
She did so, as she had been the whole time, and her seal responded accordingly. She focused on how her brain was fuzzy with hormones—not on how Sai sobbed with every back and forth of the blunt weapon. The torturer was carving off the whole bottom half of Sai's pectoral, skinning his muscle underneath without skill.
When the man had sawed off the whole thing save for a sliver of skin at the bottom, he twisted the pliers and ripped it the rest of the way off with brute force. It peeled down his mangled ribcage like a hangnail.
Sai shrieked, then bit down on his bottom lip as if it'd erase the sound from anyone's ears.
"Do the other one," said Madara gleefully. "Unless you want to tell me who's giving the Allies information?"
Sai's body froze again, and Madara waved to continue.
"Hold on," said Obito, strolling up to the operating table. "Give me those." He held a hand out for the pliers.
Obito pressed his fingers into Sai's cheeks, forcing his jaw apart, then rammed the pliers into his mouth, grabbed hold of his tongue, and yanked it out. A tattoo of three black lines followed by two parted ones contrasted brightly on pink.
"He's got the Cursed Tongue Eradication Seal," Obito remarked. "Tch, I thought that died with Danzo."
Madara approached to investigate. "It looks recently placed, probably right before he was captured. Smart." Crossing his arms, he shrugged. "Let's see what happens when we cut it off." With a lazy signal to the shinobi with the dull kunai, he huffed, "Go on."
Sakura finally raised the flag, ducking her head into Sasuke's side. She couldn't watch that. No amount of hormones could douse that trauma. Sasuke angled forward, hiding her head behind his arm.
Wet screams filled the whole room in an endless repercussion of torment. It crowded every inch of her being—sliced through her mind like a core memory. Her hand shot out to fist in the fabric on Sasuke's back.
And then, abruptly, a pang of guilt swept over her. When Sai was incapable of turning away, how cruel of her to shut her eyes to his sacrifice. Sakura inhaled and held it, returning her gaze to Sai.
The deed was done. The shinobi held Sai's severed tongue in the pliers, wagging it like a prize. Tears streamed down Sai's face, blood spewing from his mouth, coating his jaw and neck in a crimson shower. He coughed as its thickness choked him, blood spraying into the room.
"Release him," Madara commanded.
Two shinobi unlatched the restraints across Sai's body. He fell from the table, knees smashing against the stone with a resounding crack, barely catching his body with his hands. His head lulled forward, blood gushing to the floor quick as a waterfall.
He was losing too much blood. He was going to die. Sakura wished that he would, now.
Madara barked out a hasty, "Stop the bleeding."
A medic obeyed, kneeling with green hands over the back of Sai's cranium. The waterfall gradually dammed off. After a minute, Sai lifted his head and peer bleakly at Madara—a hopeless act of defiance.
"Take him to the table and give him paper and a pen."
Sai was heaved up and dragged to the table near her and Sasuke. If she didn't already know it was him, she'd never recognize him under the bruising and blood.
Madara spared Sasuke a single glance. "Don't try anything."
Sai skimmed them with a defeated stare. Sakura stilled. Her breath left her. I'm here, Sai. I'm here, she tried to convey when their eyes met. I'm with you.
But his expression held no recognition, and it flitted back to the paper before him. Sakura felt her body tremble.
Madara leaned over Sai's shoulder. "Write out the names of the traitors and I'll give you a quick death."
Sai picked up the pen and set it to the paper—just for his body to lock. The seal was still in effect.
"If I ever meet Danzo in hell, I'll kill him again!" roared Madara.
In a fit, he punched Sai in the side of the head; the paralysis of the jutsu sent Sai flying to the ground without resistance. His shoulder and skull smacked the stone so hard Sakura prayed that it just killed him. He lay there unmoving.
"...Get him in the chair."
Two shinobi lifted Sai back into place as his body slowly thawed. Not dead.
"Write out a list of names for him," Sasuke spoke up. "Read them aloud. If his body tenses up, you'll know he's ordered to protect them."
Madara's brows raised. "Huh." He towed the paper over the desk and started listing names. Once he'd filled the page, he handed it to the medic beside Sai.
"Read those. Phrase it, 'Is Obito Uchiha a traitor?'"
"Really?" scoffed Obito from across the room.
The medic commenced—the list did indeed begin with Obito. Sasuke was next; Sakura tensed, but Sai didn't respond. Every general and high-ranking shinobi was on the first page of names. The medic read through over 20 before reaching a name Sakura had never heard before, and Sai's body tensed up.
A deadly smile spread across Madara's face. "Perfect. Keep going. Bring me more paper."
By the time the medic read the last name, it'd been another hour, and Sai had given up 14 sources. Some were sources Sakura knew to be credible, which meant the names she didn't know were probably real informants as well.
That they'd all lose their lives along with her precious teammate only because she was present in this base was a debt she could never repay. A weight of sin too heavy upon her soul. Something Tsunade should never have forced upon her.
"Better than I even anticipated. To think all it took was three days of torture to break someone of his rank!" Madara was grinning like a madman. "Pathetic... Just imagine if we find a way to release the fuinjutsu..."
"You got what you wanted, Madara. Hundreds of other Allies who won't know how to do this seal can be captured," said Sasuke, voice controlled.
Madara tsked. "What's your point?"
"It's time to give me what you promised. You said I could kill him once you got the names, not that I had to wait indefinitely for you to break a jutsu that's never been broken."
"Hmm. Did I promise that?"
Sasuke flared his chakra—"His organization—"
"Shut up, boy. Did you not learn your lesson earlier, or shall I break your ribs a second time for good measure?"
Sasuke reigned his chakra back in and fell into silence.
After a few tense seconds, Madara shifted away, and the moment dissipated. "Indeed, he's no longer useful with that jutsu. I doubt the seal will break before he dies from the trauma anyway. Do what you will with him." He gestured for Obito to follow. "I've got rats to catch."
They strode out, followed by most of the other shinobi. Some stayed behind with hungry bearings, eager to watch the execution.
Sasuke stepped to Sai's side without hesitation. Sakura's nails dug into her palms. She couldn't do anything—she was so close, and she couldn't do anything.
Suddenly, Sai angled his head and caught her eye. Time stopped. The corners of his lips lifted into a smile, recognition blossoming across his brow.
He'd known it was her all along.
He knew he'd be tortured and killed, but he still came. He'd known she was in this room, and he hadn't given her up.
Her heart shattered as her eyes welled. It's me, Sai. It's me. I'm here. I'm so sorry. Please forgive me, I never wanted this. I don't want this from you, Sai. I don't want this!
He stared at her with conviction and a genuine smile. Just like Tenten. Just like Tenten.
Sasuke drew Kusanagi, running chidori up its length. Look away—the seal ordered.
But she disobeyed. Sakura held her friend's loving stare, begging him to forgive her. Sai didn't seem afraid—he wasn't crying, his smile wasn't fake. Though his face didn't look like Sai's, she knew her Sai well enough to know it anyway: He was greeting death. He wasn't angry with her.
But she wanted him to be angry with her. He deserved to be angry—to hate her—to curse her in his last breath for this fate.
I don't want this, Sai. I don't want you to die. I don't want you to die for me. Please—please don't accept this. Please don't do this for me. Don't do this.
She would never escape this room. She'd never escape his smile. Sai's battle was over for him, but now his battle would rage inside her a hundred times over. She'd see him whipped and drowning—sliced and screamings—caged like a criminal and convulsing with voltage.
All so she could live.
His mangled, unrecognizable smile would fester, an infection, until it boiled over her brain and cracked through her skull like the hatching of a demon.
Look away, Sakura! the seal shot through her.
She wouldn't. Sai gazed upon her as if he had found his salvation. Please forgive me. She wasn't sure if it was her thought or Sai's.
Sasuke brought the sword down swiftly. It cleaved through Sai's neck in one swipe. His head struck the rocky earth with a sickening wet splat and rolled until he faced her.
Sai was still smiling.
.
.
The base gathered in the field the day after. Fourteen shinobi lined on their knees on the podium. Madara stabbed them shallowly through the stomach, one by one—a slow and painful death. They were chakra suppressed and chained naked to the floor, and Madara forced the whole base to watch until the last one bled out.
Everyone was permitted to leave that night. Sakura didn't recall how she left the clearing—or got to the clearing in the first place. Didn't remember leaving the torture cave the night before. Couldn't remember returning to their empty bedroom, porting to the tag lodged in a tree in Water Country, nor the hours-long journey back to Orochimaru's base. She wasn't even certain how long she spent lying on Sasuke's sleeping mat, studying the flower bed mindlessly.
It could've been hours. It could've been days.
Food was left and taken, untouched, from beside her.
Sasuke was there sometimes, though how many times, she couldn't say. At least once, he was at his desk, pen scratching parchment. And at least once, he sat leaned against the wall by her head, quietly spinning a kunai between his fingers.
Sai was everywhere, all the time. It should hurt. It should, and she knew that awful pressure sinking its talons into her chest was all-consuming grief that would surely kill her when she gave herself to it. But she was as detached from it as clouds were from the wretched earth.
Sai was beside her, sketching her flowers into his notebook. He was smiling that fake smile and calling her Ugly. He wore Guy's green one-piece tracksuit standing in Sasuke's bathroom, asking her how he looked. He whispered into her ear because a stupid magazine told him to, but this time she didn't punch him. This time she laughed and taught him why it was wrong.
This time she did things right.
Something about his ghost was different from the rest of the dead Konoha 11, though. He was never bloody or dying—never gasped for life. Was always perfectly in one piece and happy.
Perhaps because she couldn't remember how he died.
It was a plunge into arctic waters when she realized it. Sai died for her, and she couldn't recall his last moments. She knew it happened in the cold depths of an enemy cave. Knew that he'd screamed, knew he'd held out for hours, and she'd been there, and that it was Sasuke who ended it.
But she didn't remember how—she didn't remember what Sai looked like in the last hours of his life. Didn't know what he was forced to endure. Couldn't picture his last breath.
Was he scared to meet death? Had he begged? Did he think he was alone?
That she couldn't answer any of those questions made it like she hadn't been there for him at all, and that sentiment made her wish a painful end would find her in the following second.
"I'm sending you back."
Sakura heard the words like they weren't spoken to her. She heard a sigh too, and then someone was lifting her from her horizontal stupor with two hands under her armpits like a newborn baby. The person twisted her body into a sitting position.
Squatting in front of her on the balls of his feet, hands loose under her arms, knees bent and parted, was Sasuke. "You can't lay here forever. It's time to go back to your base."
Her sights fell to a piece of fuzz on his dark shirt. White—as pale as Sai's skin.
"Can you get up?" he asked.
"I don't want to go back." Her throat was hoarse with underuse—how long had it been?
"You have to. I can't hold them off any longer."
Glaring daggers at the lint on his chest, feeling fragile and empty, she muttered, "You killed Sai."
He sighed again, more profound this time. "I did."
Then she was crying. She knew it because his shirt fell out of focus behind the water, and she felt dampness on her cheeks.
It happened without her fully understanding why, though. She felt no emotion, so there wasn't feeling behind the tears. But she knew there should be—knew it was there inside her, blocked and waiting.
Wet eyes slid up to his. "Kill me too."
"No," Sasuke answered plainly.
"I'm so tired."
His fingers tensed into her back. "We're all tired."
"No—I can't do this anymore. If you won't kill me, let me lie here and wait for it to come." Sagging against his hands, Sakura released the small amount of energy she'd been expending to sit properly. "I'm done."
"The war isn't over."
"I'm done," she repeated.
"Think of revenge, then." His hands were still tight on her. "If you die, you'll never pay Madara back for what he's taken."
"But you're the one who took Sai from me." Sasuke's right orb bled red, and she didn't feel a thing about it. "And Tsunade's the one who sent him to be taken. It's the people I love who take the most. Hurting them is no retribution, so—I'm done."
"...It'll be the end of my agreement with the Allies if you mean it. I won't take another contact," he warned lowly.
"I don't care anymore, Sasuke."
There was something to read in his eyes—something she was so detached from that it looked like a foreign language, like a written language known only to the Uchiha. Her seal throbbed with a dull warmth that offered no comfort.
After a minute, he commanded, "Release your transformation." Chakra seeping out of him, he thickly coated the room with his signature. Enough to drown out any others concealed inside.
Not even the hormone rush from compliance could dent her indifference. She compromised herself in the middle of the not-exactly-enemy base and she didn't care in the slightest. She hoped someone walked in and saw her. Sakura wanted to be seen. Wanted to be captured, deserved to be tortured and killed.
She wished for this to end.
Sasuke's hands shifted to her shoulders and gently tugged them once toward himself, inviting her closer. "Come," he prompted, arms dropping away to rest elbows on his bent knees. There was perfect space between his legs for her to fit into him.
Her chest constricted in childlike hope—the first feeling she'd had since Sai's execution.
"Stop it." Her voice was shaking. "I don't want your pity."
Then the whole world slowed. Sasuke's right knee dropped to the floor as he leaned into her. His arm snaked around until his palm laid on the space between her shoulder blades, and he pulled her face into his chest. She inhaled hemlock and travel-fire smoke.
His hand fell away. Sasuke wasn't holding her, and he didn't extend the contact beyond her pressed into the front of him—but he willingly offered this small comfort.
Sakura reached up, palms flat on his stomach, to force him away. "I said stop—"
"Just be quiet and sit there," he said. She stilled, face only an inch back. "This seal is loud enough already."
A breath passed between them, heavy with implication. The weight of the question he'd forced upon her held all 16 years they'd known one another—every moment they'd shared as Academy kids, teammates, ex-teammates, enemies—allies.
Somehow, this felt more consequential than him kissing her inside a genjutsu. More real. Sakura wondered if it was safe to take this inch he was conceding. She wondered whether she could handle the fallout he'd impose for this lapse into gentleness.
Then she stopped wondering—leaning back into him without another thought, resting her forehead on his heartbeat.
It was comforting, but she didn't want to be comforted. And he felt good, but she didn't want to feel good. His blood pulsed against her, her own syncing with its rhythm mutinously.
He was warm and solid. Though he didn't hold her, his arms rested on his knees, sheltering her. The seal hummed its approval each time hot air from his exhales fanned the crown of her head.
She could stay like this forever. Here, there was no blood or cries of pain. No orders to follow or injured to watch die. No one could touch her while Sasuke shielded around her. Nothing in the world mattered besides his small consideration.
In this room, they were just a man and a woman with a history. With a covenant between them. The only two people in the whole world sharing this moment. They could be anyone inside this almost-caress. They could leave from here and go anywhere, do anything, if they were together—just forget the war, and who would ever find them? Who could ever stand against them? Who couldn't they beat?
"I'm sending you back," he restated after what felt like a lifetime.
And again, she whispered, "You killed Sai," into his shirt as if she couldn't quite believe it still.
"Aa."
A sob tore from her throat and felt like it should've hurt. "I hate this."
"Then let's finish it."
"No. I think I'll stay here like this." Under her fingers, his chest moved on a laugh he swallowed down. "I think I'm done."
Then he really was chuckling—chuckling, while she rested on him—while he allowed her to rest on him.
"You're not done, Sakura. You Konoha shinobi are terrible at knowing when to give up."
Sakura's mind stirred back into gear, taking in the moment by its parts. She tilted into Sasuke Uchiha's chest after he'd invited her to do it. Sasuke Uchiha told her to stay like this with him. Sasuke Uchiha was dragging her, shockingly and painfully, out of detachment—even though he was the one who killed Sai. Even though he'd been left with no choice but to slay her loved one in front of her. Even though it was a kindness in the end, and he didn't have to comfort her over it. No pact or obligation in the agreement bound him to this solace.
Her heart beat treasonably fast and healthy, though she'd begged it to stop altogether only minutes ago.
"We need to leave soon."
This time, when the silence was broken, they remained just a man and a woman. But she was still Sakura Haruno, and he was still Sasuke Uchiha, and the war still existed beyond these four walls. There were people she loved who needed her to fight. An enemy to beat she couldn't run away from. Friends who'd died for a battle that hadn't finished.
Sasuke leaned back on his heel and stood, offering her a hand.
She immediately missed him. The mental admission sent her psyche spiraling with renewed energy. Their seal pulsed warmly on her neck, sinking into her chakra channels like the numbing technique—washing through her as spring water for her parched heart. Surrounding her like the bars of a birdcage.
It was too late for her.
"Kakashi's on his way." Dipping his outstretched hand further her way, Sasuke stared at her expectantly.
With a start, Sakura realized she never wanted him to look away. She wanted his attention to stay on her, and only her, forever. If the world wasn't crumbling around them, she could stay in this room with him until the end of time—just the two of them—alone, comforted, calmly connecting.
"When can I come back?" she asked, peering at him like she was an Academy student again.
He held her gaze as her seal hummed with satisfaction. "I'll send for you soon enough."
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As always, thank you to my beta-reader Leech :)
have a good week!