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Covenant
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Synopsis: Everyone is dead or hunted. The Allies lost. The war is over.
Treacherous seal marring her neck as a collar, Madara parades her like a victory trophy.
And though he gave her to his patriarch—betrayed her in the worst of ways—
Here, in The End, Sasuke Uchiha is all Sakura has left.
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2:10. Execution
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SANNIN'S AND student's warning came true mere hours later when she awoke to Madara's hands crushing her throat. His thumbs drove into her larynx, fingers squeezing her side arteries shut. Long, pitch-black hair cascaded around them like a midnight cage.
It was nothing like Sasuke's performative act.
It was a drowning.
Sakura was drowning without water. Her head felt like it might explode. Straddling her, Madara pinned her hips down as she tried to thrash him off. Why was he here? Why now? Why like this?
But every additional second without air made rational thought exponentially more difficult. Her hands clawed weakly at his wrists. Her sight speckled black, eyes bulging out of socket. Terrified panic overwhelmed her as a ringing overtook her ears and a scream stuck in her lungs and he was all furied purple and snarling white and—
This was it.
She was going to die.
Finally.
She stopped struggling. Her mind slipped down a shadowy path toward a bright dot in the distance, its glow edging closer. The world spun into the past—back to Konoha.
Team Seven is on the bridge, waiting for Kakashi, as always. Naruto's tossing rocks he collected on his way here into the stream below. Sasuke's on the bridge's ledge, elbow on his knee, chin in his palm, pouting at the sky. She watches Team Ten through the trees as they practice Ino-Shika-Cho formations on a nearby training ground.
All the genins plan to eat barbeque together later. Their sensei's tardiness gives her time to plot ways to snag the seat next to Sasuke—to think of what might convince Naruto to sit on Sasuke's other side, so Ino can't. So he won't sit beside her while chewing with his mouth wide open and reaching across her plate every minute for more food.
Today, Kakashi is rather early: Only an hour past schedule, and he's finally walking towards them, that stupid book in his hands. I'm sorry for being late, I had to get a cat out of a tree. His eye crinkles in a hidden grin as he—
The hands left her throat, and sensei's face was gone.
Sakura collided with the present like a meteor hitting the atmosphere, her next unobstructed breath so fierce she choked on blood. Then she was emptying her stomach, acid burning up her swollen and busted esophagus. Pulpy crimson and yellow bile dirtied the sheets still covering her legs.
Madara was back on his feet, arms crossed and glaring at her from the middle of the room. "Heal her so that she can talk."
Two concealed individuals stepped forward. One to hold her down despite her lack of fight, the other with green hands hovered over her throat. Teary-eyed, she blinked up into the skull mask belonging to Hidan, his hands unnaturally cold on her shoulders. The agony in her neck and head crowded out the fear of this man looming over her in such a way.
They'd brought a skilled healer. The internal pain swiftly ebbed into a dull discomfort while the external damage and bruising were left unmended.
"Keep her down, Hidan." Striding to her mat, Madara anchored a foot on her knee, plowing it into the sleeping mat. "Were you working with him, kunoichi? Hmm?"
It took Sakura a beat to process that he was asking a question. "Pl-please, I don't—what do you—"
"Were you working with him or not?!"
"With—with w-who?" she stammered, panic finally skulking in.
She was alone in this room with Madara and four masked Akatsuki members. As her world reopened past her imminent death, Sakura recognized the dire danger she was in. Whatever this was—it wasn't an interrogation.
This was worse.
Mostly cognizant again, she was reasonably confident that Madara wouldn't kill her. Not yet.
Madara would merely do things to her that'd have her begging for death.
Sasuke...! Where are you?!
"Who, she asks." Madara chuckled savagely. "Are you working with Orochimaru?"
The Sannin's name was a map for her lost thoughts.
Ino.
A hope that could've crushed mountains pervaded every cell. Joy that would've brought an army to its knees saturated her.
The snake did it.
There was no other explanation for Madara to appear here asking about Orochimaru. No other reason for the near-uncontrollable wrath contorting the Uchiha's face.
She had to play dumb; she had to play dumb, or it'd all be for nothing.
Her own face expertly twisted in pain and fear, she offered him a scared and confused girl. "I—I've been in his lab. Learning. He—I haven't worked with him yet—I don't—"
He shifted his weight further onto her knee. "And what is he teaching you?"
"How to keep the cells healthy." She grimaced as her kneecap squeezed under his heel. "How to reintegrate them."
"What else did you two talk about?"
What crumbs had Orochimaru given her about Madara's scientific interests? She needed something that Madara might've ordered the Sannin to work on. Shifting through her medicated memories, she proffered the first things she found.
"The byakugou seal."
"What else?"
"Sasuke's successful implant."
"What else?"
"I—I don't know what else," she sputtered. Her legitimate distress in this position made covering up her thrill over Ino much easier. "There's nothing—"
He stomped down on her knee, squishing it as easily as one might a bug. A grotesque, cracking crunch rebounded on the stone. Her body's shock response swiftly subdued the intense pain—but not fast enough to stop the pang of it from slicing a shriek out of her and starring her vision. She lurched up against Hidan's hold, involuntarily going for the injury.
SASUKE! Please, come—
Madara waved Hidan away to take his spot, crouching over her again. He seized her cheeks with an ungloved hand, yanking her forward.
"Let's cut to the chase, Haruno. Stop bullshitting me. Your pretty Yamanaka friend—did you two discuss her?"
"Why—would—we...?!"
His hand heated. "Don't you dare lie to me. Was it your plan or his?"
Help, please, I need your help—
"I don't know what you're—" His fingers suddenly burned like fire. "STOP! I—DON'T KNOW! I don't know what you're asking!" she screeched, smelling her skin roast under his grasp. Feeling it sizzle into charred crisp. She tried to push away from him, stunted by her knee flaring in pain with every movement, his fingers sprouting small flames that were blazing through to her teeth. "I swear—I swear—please!" The flames licked her cheekbones and singed her hair as she shrieked.
He flung her head away from him with an irate curse. Her temple hit the wall beside her dangerously loud. Dazed, her hands pressed to her scalding face. The area under her palms felt like roasted pig skin. Her tears hissed down the burns, their salt stinging with every centimeter.
On the far wall, the healer spoke up. "Madara-sama, if you want answers, you should avoid damage to the head—"
"Quiet! Don't tell me what to do." Madara's chest heaved. His expression verged on madness.
Brain oscillating inside her skull, she inched as far into the corner as she could without moving her leg too much. Her mind slowed, thickening into drying mud.
"Strip her."
Hidan took charge once more, a kunai drawn. With crude cuts, he tore down her sleeping gown from its neckline. Sakura trembled, too concussed to form words and too frightened to resist. She called to Sasuke a fourth time.
The seal's silence laced her veins with the chill of betrayal.
After sawing through her dress' bottom hem, Hidan lifted the blade and slashed its sleeves. The fabric fell away. Her unbound breasts exposed themselves to the room.
When Hidan hooked into the underwear hugging her hips, the haze fogging her brain cleared with a rabid gust. She tried to grab them back—tried to rotate herself in a way that'd break his grip. But the shattered knee hindered her chakra-less floundering and she fast lost the struggle. Her world briefly blacked as Hidan ripped the garment down her legs over the swelling damage.
Five enemy shinobi's heads tilted down to her freed flesh. Crying, Sakura futilely tried to shield her body with her hands.
"How bad this gets, how painfully this ends, is all up to you, Haruno. Do you understand?"
She nodded, trying to curl into herself. Please come, Sasuke, she pushed into the seal, anguished.
"Did you tell Orochimaru where to take the Yamanaka?"
She was truly scared now.
It wasn't the kind of fear a fighter felt on the battlefield when the adrenaline blanketed all but instincts, nor the kind a medic felt when the dying body below them was a familiar face. It wasn't searching corpse piles for unaccounted-for friends, or sprinting through a forest with enemies in tow, or waiting for a week-late letter. It wasn't even like seeing Madara for the first time; wasn't walking into an interrogation room suppressed and weak.
She'd been so singularly focused on Ino, so uncaring about her own survival for so long, she'd forgotten how paralyzing real terror was.
"...Where? What did—what did you do with Ino?" Shaking like a leaf, Sakura somehow managed to portray worry over the fear.
"That's what I'd like you to tell me." Madara peered at her; dissected her naked body with his gaze. "The Yamanaka's escaped."
She mustered up every ounce of kunoichi training she'd undergone in the past 15 years. All the warnings Tsunade had drilled into her, all the tricks Kakashi had shown. Every bit of courage and skill and—Sakura gasped, eyes wide, muscles frozen in surprise.
"Escaped?"
With a sneer, Madara aimed his hand and shot a Black Receiver into her left shoulder. It tore through her, impaling her to the wall in a sitting position.
"The painful route it is, then."
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—ra!
—kura!
Sakura—
A ripping sensation near her collarbone burst her into consciousness. Something warm and firm pressed into the area the next second, keeping her shoved onto the stone.
"Sakura, wake up!"
A novice healing jutsu was driving the cells of her cheeks to mend themselves against nature. The sensation nearly made her sick.
"Shit..."
Her stump of a right hand throbbed. Her knee ached. The carvings across her stomach stung with incoming infection. Laughs of Madara's men rang in her ears.
"Come on, look at me," someone angrily mumbled—a familiar voice.
Wincing, she opened her eyes.
Sasuke was beside her, a green hand on her chin, tilting her head to him. His other hand held a cloth tight to the open wound the Black Receiver left, using the wall to staunch the bleeding in the back. There were cuts littering his face and arms, dried blood crusted on the grey of his shirt, a black circle forming around his Rinnegan. A split down the middle of his bottom lip.
"...You still with me?"
At the sight of him, she wept.
His healing jutsu flickered. "Relax. You're okay."
"Where were you?!" she shouted, vision blurry. Unsure or in denial about why his sudden impression felt like a gutting.
She'd never undergone torture without him nearby. Never been alone with Madara before. It was her first time in a room full of Akatsuki with no cat mask, or wave mask, or strange tattooed face to focus on.
"Madara knocked me out, then woke me for an interrogation after he'd finished with yours."
"I was calling for you, Sasuke!"
His brow rose slightly, eyes searching hers. "...I can't hear you when I'm unconscious."
He watched her sob as he continued to heal the burns on her jawline, studiously not looking below her shoulders. A blanket had been partially laid over her, covering her lower half; everything above her waist remained fully exposed. Sakura didn't care anymore—didn't bother trying to hide herself.
He'd already seen it. They'd already seen it. What was the point in modesty now?
Caked in her own blood, she was but a macabre piece of meat, anyway. After Madara chopped the fingers of her right hand off one by one at their lowest knuckle, she'd held the bleeding appendage tightly to her chest, trying to slow the bleeding as best she could until she'd passed out from shock and blood loss. From the state of it now, the healer had patched it up just enough that it wouldn't bleed her dry while unconscious.
A minute filled only with her miserable sniffling and chokes passed before he professed, "She was smuggled out successfully."
She knew as much. Madara already confirmed it.
But she still needed to hear it confirmed by him. "Swear it."
"I swear."
The assurance only made her cry harder. Sakura collapsed into him, fingers of her left hand fisting into his dirty shirt. He cursed under his breath as he tried to keep the hole in her shoulder compressed at this new angle.
Ino was out. Ino was out.
She didn't have to do this any longer.
Finally.
"I'm going to remove your suppressors so you can heal yourself," he said, leaning towards her ankles while she clung to his chest. "This puncture needs to be closed quickly. You're losing a lot of blood."
"Leave them."
Sasuke paused. "Hm?"
"I'm done. Ino's out now and I'm done," she lamented, empty and elated all at once.
"What are you saying?"
Gathering herself, Sakura tipped away from him, resting her back on the wall behind her. "Tell Madara I was already dead when you found me." Tears kept leaking from the corner of her eyes as she spoke, though she felt nothing but a barren surrender.
"What?"
"I can't do this anymore. I can't do it. I know you can't kill me, but if you section off the seal and leave the room, you can let me die on my own."
"Ha?"
"It'll be easier for you, too. You won't have to worry about me giving you away," she muttered, falling into the numb stupor her brain sought to provide. She'd lost a lot of blood—was already malnourished. With the addition of her shoulder, death should claim her in a matter of minutes if left completely untreated.
He flattened the cloth to her bleeding again. "...Did they touch you? Is that why?"
"No."
And that was true. They'd stripped her to humiliate her, but Madara warned one of the masked shinobi off when they propositioned more, saying the seal might react poorly to it. He still needed her, after all...
"But it's only a matter of time," she concluded.
"It isn't," Sasuke snapped.
"It is." Sakura slumped further into the wall. "Just leave. You don't need to keep this up. Ward off the seal with chakra and you won't feel like you have to do anything." Her voice lost all inflection. "I've got nothing left, anyway. I know my parents and friends are waiting, and I'm tired, Sasuke. I'm done."
Warm hands encased her ankles a moment later, and both suppressors popped off simultaneously. He'd removed them so frequently that she'd unblocked all the pathways weeks ago. Jolting out of dissociation, Sakura rounded on him in outrage as her chakra began innately mending the minor wounds across her body.
"What the hell—!"
"Heal yourself." Sasuke scowled at her, his words infused with the strongest command she'd ever felt.
The seal ignited like a furnace. Its persuasion seared violently through the channels of her neck and chest. Startled by the pain of it, she cringed away, uninjured hand grasping at her heart.
"Heal yourself now. Shoulder first."
"Stop ordering me like that!" It was smoldering right through her bones. "It hurts!"
"Then listen," he growled, sharingan activated.
Phantom limbs were sprouting inside her, taking control of her arms. Moving her against her will. A green hand that looked like hers and was attached to her body covered the Black Receiver damage. She watched in horror as the gruesome cavity sealed under a jutsu she hadn't wanted to perform.
Then it was reaching for the amputated fingers scattered beside Sasuke's knee.
"Stop this!" pleaded Sakura, observing herself pick up her thumb and press it to the crimson stump it belonged to like a marionette. "Sasuke—"
"Reattach it," he demanded.
Barely salvageable tendons rewove themselves with the bleeding mess her palm was. Skin sealing shut, her thumb locked into its rightful place.
Sakura sobbed. "Don't make me do this—"
"Don't make me force you."
"Just let me die!"
He snatched her shoulders with such strength she had the urge to cower from him as she did Madara. "Even hearing you say that is too painful already."
"Then block out the seal! Wrap it in chakra! Please—"
"That's not how it works."
"You don't know how it fucking works!"
"I do know you're not going to fucking die."
"Please, Sasuke. Please. I did everything you asked. I did everything! I don't have anything else to give! I can't do it—"
"Stop." The decree stoked the coals, kindling a fresh affliction through her. "Heal yourself or I'll call in a healer."
Weeping, Sakura gave in to the strings compelling her movements. It was too potent an edict to ignore. And she didn't want some stranger putting their hands all over her in this state.
She wept and repaired her knee. Wept and erased the ragged UCHIHA PROPERTY they'd carved into her belly and chest with a dirty kunai, lines deep and thick. Wept and finished healing the burns on her face. Wept and reattached the rest of the fingers she could.
The pinky was severed too jaggedly. It'd been too many hours to save it. Weeping harder, Sakura patched the skin over the exposed tendon. Buffed it into a nub that could've been years old.
She stared at her four-fingered hand when she was done, unblemished and almost whole once more. "I hate you," she quietly said.
Every time. Every time—the instant she deluded herself into believing he wasn't as bad as she'd thought, he found another way to prove her wrong.
Clean, soft fabric fell over her head. Sasuke pulled the new sleeping gown down over her shoulders and stomach with one tug. It hid the new scar she'd been transfixed on; she didn't bother putting her arms through to keep looking.
"...Can you heal me, now?" he asked softly.
She glared at him. Her eyes felt terribly swollen. She felt terribly betrayed. Sasuke merely gazed back, mismatched dojutsu swirling, expression a blank canvas.
After what he'd done, she shouldn't. She should let him wallow in the ache for as long as possible.
But if he was asking, it meant he wanted it. If he wanted it, she'd be coerced into capitulation one way or another. And she'd no energy left to fight. Barely any energy left to exist. Dead, she stuck her arms through their holes, lifted both palms to his chest, and scanned him.
He had signs of a concussion. Cuts and bruises all across his body. Three broken ribs.
Nothing to whine about. Nothing life-threatening. Nothing like hers.
She finished.
He reached out abruptly. With a grasp on her elbow, Sasuke pulled her to him and laid them down on his mostly-clean sleeping mat. She landed awkwardly on his upper chest. Shifting them both, Sasuke turned onto his side to face her. He guided her to lay on his shoulder, tucking the arm she rested on around her head. It caged her in above while his other hand slid to the center of her back and dragged her flush to him below, hauling his blanket over them with the same maneuver.
She stayed inert as a corpse through it all, dumbfounded.
"...What are you doing?" she queried, voice shaking with new tears.
"Giving comfort."
"..."
"You wanted it so badly before, I thought—"
"Stop talking."
"Aa."
Her face was hot in the crook of his neck. His fingers faintly brushed through the hair on the crown of her head. Sakura didn't understand anything about this moment—was once again struck by the idea that she was sharing a room with a man she'd never met.
Sighing, Sasuke skated the hand on her back to her arm, gliding it down to her wrist. He caught hers under the cover and ran his thumb over where her pinky no longer was.
She thought, for a second, that maybe she shouldn't let him feel something so vulnerable. Remembered that he was technically an enemy, despite their fragile cooperation, and this was a level of weakness that she ought not to show—that she should perhaps pluck her hand away.
But she didn't.
Undoubtedly, it'd ruin whatever...this was, and she wasn't quite ready to crash back into reality yet.
This was like a dream. The rough callouses on his fingers were soothing. His body was warm with life. Here, there were no screams or cries of pain. No information to hide or torture to bear. No one could touch her while Sasuke shielded around her. Nothing in the world compared to his small consideration.
"I shouldn't have let myself get knocked out," he murmured. "I'm sorry."
She didn't know how to respond to this strange, human-acting thing that'd possessed Sasuke's body, so she said the first thing that came to mind that wasn't attached to any emotion.
"You smell like blood."
None of this made sense.
Sakura was vaguely aware that this wasn't what sane people would do after being brutally tortured. She'd just been dismembered and carved and burned by his family. Had genuinely wanted to die not half an hour ago.
"Should I take my shirt off?"
Her cheeks flushed. "N-no! That's not what I meant.."
There were things they needed to talk about.
Things that involved Ino. Where she went. Who he'd made contact with in the Allies to facilitate her escape. How he'd convinced Orochimaru to go along with it. What exactly his mentor's involvement was, and what would happen to the snake now that Ino was gone.
Things that involved her. Madara's doubt about her lab activities. How she was totally opposed to helping maintain the undead man's health. What bases was she to visit and new captives she'd have to see.
Things involving this interaction—like what was that emotion in the back of his gaze when she first opened her eyes? How come he only seemed to react when she was hurting? Why wouldn't he just let her die when it was the easiest end for both of them? And why was he apologizing? Why was he holding her like this?
Sakura wasn't sure if she wanted to know any of those answers. Was mostly sure she already knew his answer.
The seal. It was always the seal.
She'd brought them before a ravine and he'd jumped. Now they were swept away in a current too fast for her to keep her head above water. The longer they left all these ambiguities unaddressed, the harder it'd be to have the conversation when it came around. If it came around.
But right now, under these sheets, she should've asked him why it felt like he was embracing her willingly—and he should've asked why she hadn't tried to break free, despite him never replacing her suppressors.
Neither said anything.
Sasuke chuckled at her nervous stutter, and she gave in to a new wave of tears, and they lay hushed and dirty until the morning, their unspoken words mounting around them like a barricade.
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"...I have to go?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I didn't ask. I don't care, but it's a hassle to escort a captive around." His cat mask rested on the top of his head. He glanced expectantly at the hand he held outstretched for her. "Come on. Let's not be last."
"Will he...interrogate me again?"
"I don't know."
She smoothed her grey servant's garb down nervously. "How many people did he summon?"
"...I don't know that either. He won't want to make a spectacle of something like this, but I'm certain he'll use it to threaten the upper ranks."
"Will Suigetsu be there? Did he help Orochimaru?"
Sasuke frowned. "He didn't help. Why?"
"Just wondering..."
Truth be told, in the hours since she'd learned that Ino was free, she'd tried to deduce what plan Sasuke and Orochimaru executed. She hadn't shaken Sasuke awake for input, knowing full well he was as unlikely to disclose anything as the sun was to rise from the west. But in those musings, she'd grown worried that Suigetsu was presumably involved—presumably was also under Madara's suspicion and being questioned.
And then she'd grown annoyed with herself.
Who cared about anyone else? Ino was free. That was all that mattered.
Lost in her thoughts, she didn't notice he'd closed the space between them until he wrapped the hand that'd been patiently waiting for hers around her wrist.
"This is what you asked for. Don't stall now." It was as close to an I told you so as he'd come.
A teleport jutsu jerked her navel. She wanted to ask, You've been holding that in all night, haven't you? Before she could, the world swirled into a damp, green, blooming forest, and the words left her in a gasp.
Months.
She hadn't left the cave in months.
She inhaled budding spring wildflowers and her vision went blurry. Falling to her knees, she palmed the wet grass under her. Dug her nine fingertips into the loose earth. Gaped at how blue the sky was—how viridescent the leaves were—how warm the sun felt.
Sasuke's muted worry invaded her pleased wonder. She peeked over her shoulder; he was studying her with creased brows, hands hidden in the pockets of his Akatsuki robe. When their eyes met, he dropped his mask into place. His tangible emotions leaking into her seal vanished as his face did.
"You do realize you're crying over dirt, right?"
Scowling, she got to her feet and swiped her nose on her sleeve. "It's not over dirt, asshole."
"Regardless." He strode past her into the trees. "Follow closely, prisoner."
Birds called from the treetops as they marched. Crickets jumped around their feet. Sakura followed Sasuke's heel, lost in the nature around them. Ivy crawled up thick, brown trunks. Puddles reflected between roots.
Had the world always been so—colorful? So loud?
So it was obvious they'd neared their destination when the forest grew noticeably silent.
Sasuke's step faltered; she nearly bumped into his back. Tapping his wrist as he pivoted, he summoned a black cloak and swept it over her shoulders in one smooth motion. Faster than she could question what he was doing.
"Almost forgot," he drawled, tugging the deep hood over her hair.
This time when his hands dipped to tie it closed on her neck, she let him. The more barriers between her and Madara, the better.
Tightening the bow he'd knotted, he warned under his breath, "Don't speak unless asked something directly."
"Okay."
"Don't react to anything that happens."
"I know."
"Don't needlessly rile him, or anyone else, up."
It was months ago, in her first meeting with Madara, that she'd even come close to doing anything like that. The only value in it was the potential to make him so angry he killed her. Having become more familiar with the Uchiha patriarch and those he frequently tyrannized, Sakura now strongly doubted the man lacked enough self-control to do such a thing.
She'd only end up bleeding and regretful by poking that bear.
"Got it."
"If you want," he added, unwinding her seal from all his previous statements. "...Did you eat breakfast?"
Did you take all your medication? is what he was truly asking. He'd been buzzing around her all morning like a bee in a hive. Observing her as she'd once observed Kakashi years ago, chained in a medical bed.
She should ask what it was that he was doing. What he wanted to accomplish with this new strategy of his.
"...Yes." But she didn't.
Without another word, Sasuke resumed their trek. Sakura kept her head down, carefully stamping her feet into the footprints he left on the forest floor. There were other recent footprints outlined in the mud. No more than a handful.
Their anonymity still made her gut curl in anxiety.
She heard the voices before they hit the clearing. At the sound of so many enemy strangers awaiting her, it was impossible to ignore the need to bend over and empty her stomach—so much so that she gagged and tripped on her next step.
"Walk right. You slowed me down too much already," Sasuke snapped coldly.
"Sasuke!"
Suigetsu.
Sakura's eyes darted up, searching the masks for one resembling Haku's. For someone known. She found him on the side of the clearing they'd entered: a hand raised in the air, his sword perched on his back. Suigetsu beckoned them over loudly, drawing the attention of the dozens of masked shinobi huddled in the clearing with him.
Focusing on his uninjured form, she released a sigh of relief as Sasuke angled them toward the nukenin. He'd said Suigetsu didn't help—but seeing Suigetsu here and unbound confirmed that he wasn't at risk—
…That he wasn't a liability.
"What's your prisoner doing here?" Suigetsu inquired as they neared.
"Ask Madara."
Suigetsu laughed as he clapped Sasuke's shoulder. "You've got jokes, huh?"
"Quiet down." He knocked Suigetsu's arm away.
"Seriously, Hozuki. Do you ever shut the fuck up?" someone called from across the glade.
"Do you ever mind your own damn business?" Suigetsu taunted back. "Stay over there with the small fries, Junior."
"Least my friends over here aren't turning traitor."
"Ha! You think that twisted snake was a friend of mine? Trust me, no one's happier to see that sicko die than me."
"Enough, Suigetsu," Sasuke growled. As close as she was, she could feel him flare his chakra on the order—noticed how the surrounding shinobi shrunk back.
"Yeah, yeah." Suigetsu sent her a quick wink before ignoring her completely.
Behind the two men, she was sufficiently shielded to avoid most notice. Thankfully, the summoned group was subdued and silent, seemingly completely uninterested in her. An air of apprehension domed around the clearing.
More than four dozen crowded into the small opening in the forest, fanning out on its edges and perched on the branches nearby. To her utmost shock: There were a few shinobi sporting the same grey outfit she donned in the mix, anklets unobstructed by their quarter-length slacks. Although she carefully searched, she didn't see anyone from Konoha—didn't recognize any well enough to name. From the way they were already staring at her as her vision passed over them, however, it was apparent they recognized her.
But when her scanning met the black and beady irises of Akatsuchi, her heart beat thrice in a row. Even though she'd never been close to the Iwa man, Sakura had to stop herself from running across the field to hug him. He'd lost a substantial amount of weight. A shadow hovered over his brow. Littering his arms were the white scars of a thin leather whip. He held his weight favoring his right side, but—he was alive.
He was alive and nodding at her with a tilt of his mouth, and Sakura had the empathic thought that it felt like he was saying: Good job, medic.
Then his gaze drifted back to the ground, and the thought fluttered in the wind. She scoured Akatsuchi's vicinity, scrutinizing every nearby face.
The armless boy wasn't with him.
Most of Madara's shinobi wore their masks and red-cloud robes. Some were in sparring attire. Some had their masks perched on their heads like hats to block the sun. At least one visible kunoichi wore bindings and nothing else as she lounged on a tall rock partly hidden in the trees.
The loungers popping up on their feet and lowering their heads alerted Sakura to Madara's incoming presence.
Sasuke sent her a—Keep your head down—as he looked into the forest with a lifted chin.
Two minutes later, Madara swept into the clearing, a bloodied Orochimaru behind him. The Sannin was locked in hefty chains across his wrists and ankles. A thick collar choked him, a leather leash attached to its front that the Uchiha patriarch yanked.
An animal being led to slaughter.
Sakura peeked up once, then trained her sights on the hem of Sasuke's cloak. Mentally recited the recipe for soldier pills methodically. Prevented her mind from straying into the perilous territory christened Guilt.
Ino was free. That was all that mattered.
Orochimaru had done atrocious things his whole life. Human experimentation. Child abduction. Regicide. Murder. Terrorism. One good deed in service to her wishes didn't redeem him. His agreeing to free Ino from a situation he created—when he forced one of the two of them into this seal over a year ago—didn't abdicate him of his fault.
"Welcome, everyone," boomed Madara, coming to a halt in the center of the clearing. "Don't worry. This won't take long."
Sakura heard a grunt and something that sounded like a body hitting the ground. She peered over Sasuke's shoulder to see Orochimaru on his knees, head lulling in an unhealthy way.
"Gossip travels fast, so I'm sure you've all heard—I caught a traitor late last evening. Orochimaru here helped one of the Allied captives held on a nearby base escape her confinement and run away." The forest was as soundless as her cave bedroom when she was left there alone. Sasuke and Suigetsu were marble statues in front of her. "His reasons are pointless. Idiotic, in fact. For years he's coveted immortality. For years he's worked tirelessly for a means to never meet the Gods. And now, on the cusp of actualizing Infinite Tsukuyomi and achieving that dream, he's instead chosen to die. His life will end amounting to nothing but years of wasted, worthless, insignificant work."
Madara's speech jumbled in her ears as Sakura wondered what story Orochimaru fed him so successfully.
She wondered what words had shielded Sasuke from no more suspicion but a short beatings-worth. Wondered what lie had been enough to make Madara doubt whether Sakura, the one with the most significant interest in Ino's freedom, did or didn't have a role in the conspiracy. Wondered just how well Orochimaru had played Madara all these years to fool him this easily. This quickly.
Her eyes sought out the Sannin, his prophecy tittering in her memory at the sight of his purple tattoos. A heavy foreboding unexpectedly floored her.
I won't be around to sweep up after either of your blunders anymore.
Now that Ino was safe, it hit her like Tsunade's punch.
This had all been Orochimaru. All of it. From the agreement, to the seal, to Ino leaving Lightning with her life, to Madara's body. The whole damned war only became what it was because he and his student resurrected dead people.
What plan of theirs in the last year hadn't the Sannin orchestrated? What position were any of them in, if not one he'd mapped out? Even those choices she thought she'd made—weren't some directly influenced by his strange, roundabout words?
Everything had been Orochimaru—even saving Ino without losing a single other pawn.
Her breath hitched, jaw unhinging as awareness shot into her heady dose of calmative.
...Had she traded too valuable a piece to save her queen?
"Let this be a lesson for all of you here. No matter how important you think you are—how careful you think you're being—how powerful you think you've become. There's not a shinobi alive who can face me. I've been alive longer than anyone on this planet. I've defeated the strongest shinobi known in recent history. You can remain loyal and reap the benefits of being my supporter, or you can betray me and die a traitor's death. There are no other options for any of you here to take. The day you forget that is the day you lose your life, no matter how high you've risen in my ranks."
Madara turned his back to the Sannin, directing his attention to the glade. "Ino Yamanaka is the kunoichi that's escaped. Any shinobi here that finds her will be promoted to general and granted control of their own base." He spun to find Sasuke—then his lined eyes landed on her, full of baleful delight. "If you don't know what she looks like, think of the most radiant flower on a mountaintop you can imagine. The one who catches her can imprison her on their base in any manner they see fit."
Sakura felt sick.
Orochimaru was smiling at the ground, his chest bouncing on an inaudible laugh.
Madara waved in the snake's direction. "Sasuke."
Lifting his hand without any hesitation, Sasuke called forth, "Chidori." It sprung to life in his palm. Sakura watched it branch and leap, cackling in the silence of 60 shinobi.
Then he straightened his arm, pointed two fingers at Orochimaru's slumped form, and fired a bolt of lightning at his mentor's head.
Covenant will take a break next week, see you 5/15 :)
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there's a DISCORD for this story, if anyone wants to join to chat about it,
or just wants to chat about sasusaku in general!
the invite code is: WV62DCrCqM
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thanks for reading, as always.
and thanks to Leech for beta-reading