IMPORTANT: If you read chapter 23 before this chapter (24) came out, then no need to read this chapter - instead, please go read the new ending scene to chapter 23! (Or don't, as you see fit.) The new scene starts with "It would be an understatement".
Basically, I split the original chapter 23 into two parts because I realized I forgot to include a scene that should have been in the middle.
Thank you for supporting this story!
Chapter 24
When Sakura opens her eyes, she is sitting beneath a giant, leafless tree, so thick nearly ten of her, linking hands, would be needed to wrap around it once. It is that same tree she had seen before, she recalls distantly as if from a dream, when she had plunged out of the nascent sky and into the void. But the ground is no longer the endless black of nothingness she remembers. Rather, the earth is soft, and the world just bright enough for her to make out an unbroken field of spring grass stretching out in all directions. As she watches, however, small plants begin to poke out from the grass, growing taller and thicker and stronger until they turn into trees that sprout small buds from their delicate branches and which in turn bloom into flowers, fresh leaves unfurling and blocking out the sky with a canopy of dark green. And then the flower petals slowly drift off the branches, dispersing through the air and filling the clearing with their sweet scent as small lights begin to flicker into existence and float through the air like lazy fireflies. The added illumination allows Sakura to finally see the tall stone wall rising in the distance, its long and unbroken form completely encircling the forest of trees around her, so high that its upper boundary melts seamlessly into the pitch blackness above.
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
Sakura gasps and stumbles away from the still-barren tree, watching as a figure slowly emerges from its trunk. It is a woman, if she could be called that, for she seems to be made entirely of darkness, her form outlined in white. The only other points of light on her are her eyes, which burn as if they contain the sun, and a kanji etched boldly upon her forehead: 'interior.'
The woman steps out from the shadow of the tree, and in the glow of the firefly lights, Sakura realizes that she is breathtakingly beautiful, all slender limbs and elegance swathed in flowing cloth. Beautiful but terrifying, as her darkness is made all the more apparent in the light, her body seeming to suck the color and vibrancy from the air around her to fuel the intense emptiness of her form.
"There is no need to fear me," says the woman. Her voice is oddly familiar: at times lilting, at times hollow. "I would never harm you."
And her words ring true. Sakura suddenly knows this as she knows this woman would never lie to her. Just as she knows that she knows this woman, and that this woman knows her.
It's all very confusing.
"Who are you?"
The woman seems to smile. "I am Inner."
"What does that—," Sakura begins, but the lady cuts her off with a finger raised to her lips, her other hand outstretched as if pointing towards something in the distance.
Reluctantly, Sakura turns—and freezes. Around them, fruits of all types are growing where the flowers had been before, swelling and ripening right before her eyes. She watches, spellbound, as peaches and pears and prunes begin to appear on the trees, their round, plump forms bobbing serenely overhead; oranges and apples, so heavy they look ready to tumble to the soft grass below, swaying in tandem as if to greet their neighbors. Blackberries and grapes hang amongst the leaves like clusters of fairy lights, strawberries draping delicately around the willowy trunks. A magnificently ripe watermelon swings righteously from a thick branch laden with pomelos, their skins round and bright like lanterns.
Sakura gapes.
"Lovely," Inner remarks in the tone of one who has seen it all before, and sweeps past Sakura to the nearest fruit-bearing tree. The edge of one wide, shadowy sleeve brushes against Sakura's arm and she flinches out of instinct at the contact with pure darkness, but it doesn't hurt—in fact, it feels like nothing more than a slight breeze, as if the woman were made of cool air. Tentatively, she follows the woman to the tree: a rather low-hanging one, its branches filled with berries and drupes. Inner is examining the fruits with a rather clinical eye, inspecting them from different angles with an air of faint approval. Now that they are closer, Sakura realizes that the fruits are each surrounded by a faint halo of light, created by several spinning rings of ghostly symbols. Inner gestures at a bare branch just above eye level.
"Do you remember how we first met?" she asks in that same, frustratingly familiar voice.
Sakura stares hard at her, willing herself to remember, and the woman stares back evenly. In the gentle glow of the fruits, her eyes no longer seem as unearthly as before, their radiance no longer a burn but a glimmer, the irises nearly colorless like ripples in a pond. And finally the memory resurfaces.
"That genjutsu lesson! With Shisui-senpai!" Sakura flinches at the name, but right before a fresh wave of grief could engulf her, the feeling drains away.
"Wonderful," Inner praises, and more memories start to come, though curiously detached from the emotions they had originally evoked in her. Sakura recalls that day she had tried to cast her first genjutsu and had accidentally pulled herself into it, the dizzying visions she had seen, that small glimpse of a figure—Inner, she now realizes—beneath that barren tree, her voice—
"I completely forgot everything when I woke up!" Sakura exclaims.
"The mind is a curious thing," Inner murmurs with another secretive smile. "Though I confess to having had a hand in that particular instance."
"What do you mean?"
Inner shushes her again, directing Sakura's eyes back to the bare branch where several beautifully-shaped plums are now growing and ripening as if in response to the newly-recovered memories. "You had been caught in a self-cast genjutsu which warped your perception of the inner world, among other things. You weren't safe, it wasn't the right time. I had to send you back."
"I remember," Sakura murmurs. "I thought Kumo-chan had stopped me before I'd gotten trapped. It was you?"
"The summon was an instant too late. Luckily, you had me." Inner smirks faintly.
Sakura recalls the voice which had thundered across the world and shaken her to the core at the time—it had been so powerful and terrifying then, but Sakura now recognizes Inner's voice to possess those same undertones. And now she can also recall other instances when Inner had spoken to her.
"You told me where to go that time Kakashi-senpai chased me out of the cemetery!"
"Among several other occasions. Thinking clearly under pressure is quite an advantage," Inner says loftily.
"But—" Sakura doesn't even know where to start.
"Life has not been too kind to you," says Inner, "but you are thankfully resilient, and have adapted. Those adaptations have side effects, however, and as a result the way you experience the world is unique to you."
"You mean, hearing voices?"
"Haven't you wondered why the difficult dreams and visions you endured as part of your genjutsu training never resulted in lasting trauma?" Inner gently touches Sakura's shoulder and smiles down at her. "I have been drawing those emotions into myself and thus sparing you from feeling its effects."
Sakura gasps at the revelation. "But what about your—"
"It doesn't affect me. It is what I am built for." Inner reaches up towards a newly-grown peach, fingers caressing the halo of light surrounding it, and the rings of symbols dissolve beneath her touch. "But I am a part of you," she continues as she plucks the peach from the branch, offering the fruit to Sakura, "and so none of the trauma has disappeared. You merely do not feel it now because it is currently within me."
The peach is so heavy that Sakura has to hold it in both palms, its scent mouthwateringly sweet. She takes a deep inhale and, at Inner's encouragement, takes a bite.
Fresh juice bursts across her tongue and runs down her chin, the taste deliciously cool and clingy as it coats the inside of her mouth. And then the world fades, and Sakura is suddenly transported to her father's study at the age of five, playing with his ninja wire and getting so tangled in the strings that she ends up tied to his chair leg; age six, getting lost at the market and crying all the way home; the smell of weapon oil, the taste of umeboshi, the vision of sunrise over the Hokage Mountain in the cold repose of winter.
"Manifestations of the mind," Inner murmurs. Sakura opens her eyes, not knowing when she had closed them, and tries to follow Inner's words. The peach has disappeared from her hand and, looking up, she finds a fresh peach hanging lusciously from the branch.
"You see now? This entire world—an incarnation of your mind. And you just witnessed its re-creation."
"Re-creation?"
Inner shrugs, nonchalant. "Even though I can prevent you from the experiences caused by trauma, I cannot fully neutralize its effects. Repression has a cost—a certain type of fragility, a propensity for fracture. But it has never been a problem, as I am fully capable of holding the inner world together, and recently it has become an advantage. Do you remember the events precipitating your arrival here?"
It takes Sakura several moments to wade through the thick fog of before, especially in a place where reality and fantasy seem so equally possible. But eventually, his eyes resurface.
His eyes, cold, red, spinning…
"He was trying to invade the mind, and I could not stop him. But if I allowed your mind to fracture instead, then there would have been no inner world for him to infiltrate."
Sakura gapes at Inner as she puts all the pieces together. "So you just—let go? And my psyche—shattered, or something?"
"It splintered into countless fragments," Inner confirms, "so you lost consciousness. But, luckily, we have been able to put it back together." She sweeps an arm out as if to demonstrate, and Sakura notes that the orchard does look fully restored now, every tree tall and proud and every branch laden with fruits, the firefly lights shining brighter than they had before. Beautiful, perfect, complete. Above them, a single star emerges in the otherwise jet-black sky.
In the middle of it all, however, the biggest, tallest tree remains strikingly barren.
"Do not worry," Inner murmurs into Sakura's ear. "That tree serves a different purpose. Now is not its time. Though," the lady closes her eyes, tilting her chin up as if feeling something in the air, "I believe it's your time, now. The mind is ready." She looks back down at Sakura with a smile.
"Ready?" Sakura asks. For what?, she wants to add, but even as she speaks, Sakura can feel the beginnings of weightlessness pulling at her extremities, the slow fog of wakefulness starting to roll in.
"Good-bye, Sakura. Until next time."
"Wait!" cries Sakura as if shouting across a great, empty distance, "But how will I find you? When will I see you again?" The edges of the world are dissolving now, and the colors are beginning to blur like wet paints.
Inner laughs and it is a sound full of secretive amusement. "When the time is right," she calls in that voice like wind over the mountains. "Look inside and you will find me." The last words dissipate like mist in the sun, a light so bright it leaves nothing behind.
And the garden fades away.
.
.
.
Alright, see you next time! Comments and constructive criticism are warmly welcomed as always.