ZERO / BLEACH / TWIST / REVERSE (here) / DYE / RED

Darling, darling, darling, darling/ Why did you shoot yourself in the foot again? - DPR Ian

Shisui cradled Itachi's head in his arms. He sobbed in that choked, wordless way that people only did when they had lost too much to even curse the world. Sakura watched from a distance. There had been a time when she had seen someone else mourn that way before. She had wanted to say something to him then. What had it been?

Pain shot through her head. Like a sharp needle passing through her temples. She flinched, blinking hard as she clenched her hand into a fist.

She only realized that she was crying too when she felt the tears trickle down her cheek, dripping off her chin. Dragging her sleeve across her face, she forced herself to stand. She sent a wave of magic through the apartment searching for anything that might be hiding in darkened hallways or behind closed doors. Only when she was reasonably certain that they were alone did she cast a barrier over the apartment. It was woven together like translucent fabric that clung to each wall and each corner. It fell over the windows and doors too, sealing in the sounds and smells.

"We can't call the cops. We don't have time," she said.

Shisui only hugged Itachi's head tighter against his chest.

Maybe, Sakura realized, these loops had twisted her. Seeing Itachi mangled this way was painful. But another detached part of her coldly remarked that she had seen worse. That things would only continue down this path if she didn't at least try to do something. Her numbness scared her. It was almost like none of this was real.

The scrying bone in her pocket flashed hot. It felt like boiling water had been poured onto her hip. She yelped as she dug it out of her pants and threw it onto the floor. The bone glowed an angry red, pulsating with strange energy. Sakura cast a barrier over just her palm before she bent over to pick up the rib again. It sizzled against the barrier. An angry voice flooded her skull, scolding her.

Do not give your heart away.

As if she had forgotten something important.

Shisui finally lifted his chin.

Sakura held out the rib for him to see, but it had already cooled again. "Shisui, we need-".

Her phone rang.

She almost declined the call until she read the name on the screen.

When she held her phone up to her ear, the sick feeling started to build in the pit of her stomach again.

"I'm sorry."

The voice was warbled and faint. There was a long pause before she heard a shallow intake of breath. Shaking. Like he had been crying.

"Gaara, what happened?"

Part of her already knew the answer before she asked. Madara had always warned her not to ask questions that she wasn't prepared to hear the answers to.

"I don't think I can keep my promise to you. I'm sorry," he apologized again. She heard something clatter to the ground.

"Is it…the enchantment?" she asked.

"I'm unraveling. I can't… I…"

The call ended.

Sakura stuck her phone back in her pocket. She hesitated to even speak. Shisui was still crying silently. There was blood on his pants, his hands, even his face.

"Shisui… I can go on my own… if you need to stay here," she offered.

Shisui placed his hands on either side of Itachi's face. He stared at the unchanging expression for a long moment. Then he carefully laid Itachi's head back down on the floor. He folded Itachi's hands over the hole in his chest. He sniffed once, rubbed his cheek with the back of his hand.

"We'll come back for him. Once we figure this out," Shisui croaked.

Sakura had known Shisui for a long time. Long enough that she knew when he was lying. He didn't believe that. And neither did she. But that didn't stop her from reaching out to take Shisui's hand, slippery with blood. She cast a simple charm to whisk the blood off of him. He nodded his thanks, gaze still lingering on Itachi. Sakura pulled Shisui to his feet. She stood, clasping his hand, staring down at Itachi too.

"Is he still warm?" she asked.

For a moment, Shisui's face tensed. He looked like he might start crying again. Then he set his jaw. Shook his head.

"No. But he's not stiff. It hasn't been long," he replied, voice wavering but not cracking.

"I'm sorry, Shi. I thought this time he'd… This is all my fault."

Shisui didn't deny it. It hurt that he didn't. He didn't let go of her hand, though. Instead, he gave it a soft squeeze.

"Let's go," he said.

Neither of them looked at Itachi again as they walked out of the apartment, passing through Sakura's barrier. Sakura was certain that if they did, they wouldn't have been able to leave him alone like that. Before they could leave, Sakura did stop to search Itachi's room. Shisui waited alone by the door. He refused to even set foot in Itachi's room.

In Itachi's closet was a duffel bag issued by the police station. It even had a label with his name sewn into it. Inside, buried under his other tools was his silver dagger etched with black runes. Sakura shoved it into the pocket of her jacket. It thumped painfully against her ribcage with each step, but that seemed right.

Sakura led the way, pulling Shisui down the right steps and into the subway cars. The usual rush of morning commuters had already passed. There was even room to sit on the train.

No one responded when they arrived at Gaara's place and knocked on the door. Sakura hesitated. Then she placed her hand on the doorknob. It twisted open under her touch.

As soon as the door opened, Sakura felt bits and pieces of enchantments smack against her face. It stung, like trying to walk straight into an ice storm. Still, she pushed ahead, ignoring the way the scattered spell fragments whispered in her ears whenever they brushed past.

Gaara's apartment was a little studio. It didn't take more than a moment for her to look around to spot the thickest swirl of unsettled magic on the floor next to the bed. She took a step toward him. Hesitated. But when he lifted his head to look at her, she felt her knees give out. Shisui grabbed her waist with his free hand before she could hit the ground.

Gaara truly had unraveled.

The beautiful network of enchantments that bound his body together had come apart at the seams. The skin on the right side of his face had split open like a healing sunburn, revealing the storm of magic underneath. It was a network of glowing red lines criss-crossing. Pulsating with each pump of his artificial heart. Beneath was a swirling void of deep purple. His right sclera had turned the same shade of iridescent purple. Patches of the skin on his arms and neck had untangled in the same way.

"Oh no," she whispered.

The skin near his mouth was beginning to flake away, dissolving into little bits of gold dust. His left eye watered as he reached his hand out to her.

"Has this ever happened before?" she asked. She took a step forward. Stopped. She felt Shisui tug her hand back. When she just stared at him, magic tingled at her fingertips as he cast the first half of a linking spell. Sighing, she finished the spell. Warmth rushed through her, along with Shisui's fear.

It's fine. He won't hurt me, Sakura assured Shisui.

Shisui held her gaze.

Sakura squeezed his hand and added: He never does.

Shisui's lips thinned. He glanced over at Gaara one more time before he slowly relaxed his hand. Let Sakura slip free of his grasp. His arm fell to his side as she stepped over to Gaara to kneel beside him. She clasped his hand. Gently. Little bits of his construct flaked away under her touch.

"No," Gaara rasped. Sakura started. She almost pulled her hand away until she realized that he was answering her question.

"Does it hurt?" she then queried.

Gaara blinked, and even that seemed to take so much effort. His face scrunched. When his eyes opened, he just nodded. Then he took a deep breath.

"Madara called me last week." She had hoped that the phone had warped his voice somehow. But it really did sound like this. Modulated and tinny- almost like a microphone tuned to the wrong settings. He swallowed. It looked like it hurt. But when he resumed speaking, his voice was closer to normal. "He said I should come for a tune up. I told him I couldn't make it until after the new year."

Sakura turned back to look at Shisui.

"The timing's too precise," Shisui said.

"You think he planned this?" she whispered, horrified by the very idea. Shisui didn't say anything, but his frown deepened.

Sakura returned her gaze to Gaara. He was weeping now, but only on his left side. The unraveled side of his face apparently had lost the ability to produce tears. His right eye just stared up at her, dead and glassy. Only blinking when its partner did on the other side.

Gaara grimaced. He curled in on himself, grasp on her hand tightening.

"I need… to see him. I- I can't… I'm sorry," he whispered. His fingers clenched so hard that it began to hurt her.

Sakura looked away from him.

It was getting hard to keep track, but at the very least, she remembered the first time.

Madara's neck bent at the wrong angle. Beside him, Gaara with a hole in his chest, his hand still clinched around Madara's arm. Blood creeping across the floorboards, so deep red that it was almost black.

All things considered, it was one of the less grisly ways that this whole thing could end. That didn't mean she liked the outcome. But even if the results were messy, there were choices to be made. After all, Madara had always taught her that even the most difficult problem had a solution.

"Think of it this way," he had said, pulling off his glasses and letting them fall against his chest, "Even the most tangled rope has a place to start unknotting from. You just need to search for that one point."

There was a simple solution right in front of her eyes.

And that was to do nothing.

Let Gaara unravel completely. It seemed like each loop reset with her death. That meant that whatever was happening to Gaara would simply go away at the end of the night. When she opened her eyes in the morning, he would be fine.

There wasn't much time left until midnight. They had already spent half the day looking for Itachi and then running to Gaara. If they simply abandoned him, they might still have time to check out a few more places, meet with a few more people. This was valuable time ticking away while she sat holding Gaara's hand.

She almost said it out loud.

But it didn't matter whether she did. Because Shisui flinched. He felt it.

She couldn't meet Shisui's gaze when he sent back a thought across their link:

But that's cruel. You're not cruel.

Sakura almost whirled around to snarl at him, demanding what he knew about her. In all those other times, he was one of the first to disappear. Leave her to pick up the shattered pieces of their family only to be ripped to pieces herself. It was easiest to die first.

Shisui's pain seeped in across their bond. It was suffocating. He wasn't doing it to punish her, though. He was pleading.

"Don't do something you'll regret, Sakura. None of us will have to live with your decisions. You will," he said out loud.

Sakura's eyes fell on Gaara again. She let out a long breath through her nose. Her head fell against her shoulder.

"Can you walk?" she asked Gaara. She pretended not to hear when Shisui very quietly said "thank you".

As it turned out, walking was possible, but difficult for Gaara. He still had use of his legs, but he could only really move with someone supporting him. Draping his arm over her shoulder, Sakura managed to get him to stand. When Shisui took the other side, they were able to slowly guide Gaara forward. Before they could reach the door, Sakura stopped.

While magic was common in the city, there was nothing common about Gaara's condition. There would undoubtedly be stares, maybe even well-meaning strangers who wanted to help. It was still light out, so there would be plenty of people in the street.

Sakura turned the possibilities over in her head. And then she rested her hand on Gaara's abdomen. She imagined a fine mesh of magic wrapping around him. To hold the broken pieces of him together, but not to bind. To diffuse the appearance of his magic, to make him blend in with the sea of people rather than to stand out.

The enchantment fell on top of Gaara. It glowed, flashing through every color before it slowly sank into his skin. It faded the bright red of his hair a little. The colors of his clothes dulled, too. And even his appearance turned translucent around the edges. Unless someone was really searching for him, it would make most eyes glide thoughtlessly over him.

Shisui's eyebrows rose. "Wow. Strong stuff," he commended her.

They helped Gaara outside, pausing to let him catch his breath every few steps. Taking the subway or bus would be impossible in this state. They flagged down a taxi to drive them to the home that Madara and Sakura had shared for so many years. Shisui took the passenger seat, giving worried glances over his shoulder every few blocks. Sakura sat in the back. Gaara lay next to her, his head resting in her lap. His breaths, it felt like, were turning more shallow. Sakura rested her hand on his shoulder, hoping that she wasn't hurting him even more.

By the time they reached the apartment, Gaara's left leg had begun to come undone too. Shisui slung Gaara over his shoulder and began hurrying up the front steps. Sakura scrambled after them, fumbling for her keys. The apartment was quiet when they stepped inside.

"Where do we-"

"The library," Sakura answered before Shisui could finish his question.

The barrier around the door was easy to handle by now. She hooked her pointer finger around the threads of the spell. It dissolved, falling away like cobwebs.

Unlike the last two times, there was no hum of magic rumbling through the floors and walls. There was no magic circle, no vials and potions lined up. Instead, Madara stood at a table, his magical research scattered all around, as if he had thrown things in frustration. A chair lay overturned on the floor too. He held his head in his hands. He was muttering to himself, flipping through his notes in rough motions.

Shisui nudged Sakura with his elbow. The linking spell was still live, so he shot his suggestion to her through it.

Stay hidden? Can we make him walk down himself?

Gaara's labored breaths and his face twisted in agony didn't exactly make her keen on the idea. Still, there was no telling how Madara would react when he realized that they were there. When Sakura leaned in close to whisper the idea to Gaara, she worried that he wasn't coherent enough to understand. Instead, Gaara opened his eyes. The good one, the one that still looked like him, focused in on her. He nodded, already pushing away from Shisui.

Shisui grabbed Sakura's wrist, pulling her as close to the door as possible. They watched as Gaara hobbled his way down the stairs, gripping the railing as tightly as his hands would work.

There was a long moment of silence. And then they heard a book thump shut.

"I had hoped it wouldn't have come to this. You should've just come when I asked."

Madara's voice sent chills up her spine.

This wasn't him.

Gaara's response was so quiet that she couldn't make out the words.

But it was easy to guess when Madara chuckled: "Deserve? That has nothing to do with it. Your suffering is incidental."

Maybe the anger renewed Gaara's strength a little. Because this time they could barely hear what he said.

"My suffering is a side-effect? What's that supposed to mean, Arcanist?"

I've got you, kid. Don't worry.

"You were a lab rat. Did you really think that altruism exists in this world? Help doesn't come for free- especially when it comes to magic."

Hey kiddo. Ready to go home?

"Your existence means nothing to me. All I need is this construct."

It's just a bad dream.

Sakura jerked out of her reverie when she felt the shape of the rib in her pocket grow hot again. Pressing her palm to it, she channeled magic into the bone. It sounded like a chorus of screams that couldn't even form words to express their agony.

"Why do you need his construct, Papa?" Sakura called.

"What are you doing?" hissed Shisui, grabbing at her hand. She pushed him away. She took steps away from him to lean over the balustrade. Gaara knelt, but Madara was standing. And when their eyes met, the color drained from Madara's face.

"What…are you doing here?" he breathed.

"How will taking Gaara's construct protect me from what you did?" Sakura demanded.

Madara's eyes bulged. He staggered toward her, hands reaching.

"Wh- How- How much do you know?" asked Madara.

Before she could decide what to say, a screech assaulted their ears. One of the windows shattered, spraying them with splinters of wood and glass. She caught a flash of bared teeth glistening with saliva. Claws slashing. Headed right for her face.

Sakura swept her hand out in front of her. A shield wove up to block the claws that would have torn through her. As the snarling creature bashed against the woven shield, Sakura recognized the feral form of Naruto.

"He's early," she remarked. She raised her other hand to stabilize the shield.

Spittle foamed up at the corners of Naruto's mouth as he slashed at the shield again. It warped the fabric of the shield, but it held firm. Naruto swung one more time. When her shield didn't budge, he let out a scream that shattered another window. His eyes glowed red as he opened his mouth impossibly wide. A barrage of black shadows in the shape of crows shot out, peppering her barrier with sharp beaks and feathers like daggers.

Sakura felt her stomach twist. That was one of Itachi's attacks he saved for the most dangerous situations. To see it thrown so casually at her was sickening.

"You killed my cousin," Sakura spat.

And to her surprise, Naruto cocked his head to one side. His sharp mouth stretched into a grin.

"Which one?" he hissed in response.

Her stomach did another turn as Naruto heaved. He spat up an arm that landed on the stairs with a thud. She recognized the sleeve of the ugly sweater she had bought Sasuke for Christmas last year. Recognized the partially-digested watch melted into his skin. It had been Itachi's- a hand-me-down that he had pretended to complain about but had worn every single day.

"I liked the younger one. Less stringy."

"Fuck this."

"Sasuke! No!" Sakura called, before remembering that this was Shisui, not Sasuke. Not that it mattered. It was the same thing all over again. Different, but the same.

Shisui slipping through her fingers. Him dashing through the edge of her shield. Not screaming. Just engulfed in flames, like a walking volcano. Flames streaming out of his mouth, his eyes as he ran at Naruto.

There was a grisly tear and a snap. She felt her stomach twist. When she opened her eyes, she found Naruto howling in agony, clutching the stump where his arm had twisted off.

"There you go," Shisui scoffed. He threw Naruto's arm down beside Sasuke's.

"Shisui, you idiot! Get out of there!" Madara shouted from below.

As Shisui smirked, mouth opening to retort, Naruto pounced. Sakura watched as Naruto's claws pierced through Shisui's chest. She could hear the ribs snapping, the flesh tearing. And then Naruto's mouth opened wide to snatch Shisui's beating heart out of his chest. Shisui's eyes met hers. For some absurd reason, he was smiling.

I'm sorry, he said across their bond. And then it snapped. She could just barely taste the hint of agony that would have rushed into her through him.

The shield flickered as she turned her head to vomit. Naruto's gleaming eyes spotted this. He sat back on his haunches, red coating his mouth, his chin. It flowed off his chin, down his throat.

"Sakura!" Gaara screamed. He sprinted up the stairs. Naruto whirled toward the sound. His arm swung. Sharpened nails slicing. Blood sprayed through the air from his throat. Gaara crumpled, rolling down to the bottom of the staircase.

"Get down here!" Madara shouted. A great blast of fire rocketed into Naruto, sending him flying through the air. He smashed through the balustrade. He landed on the floor of the library, among bits of shattered glass and wood.

Sakura gathered energy to her fingertips. She imagined the air turning hard and unyielding. She willed the molecules to slow, to grow cold, so cold that they stilled. A black web of magic billowed out from her fingers. It wrapped around Naruto's twitching form. Binding legs and arms. Part of the web broke off to form a muzzle over his snapping teeth.

"Where did you learn to do that?" Madara was asking her.

But when Sakura turned her gaze to him, she wondered what expression she wore for him to look at her like that.

The binding spell wouldn't hold forever. Even now, her arms quivered with the effort to keep Naruto bound in place as he screamed. Blood and spittle flew from his mouth. The droplets sizzled wherever they landed.

She took one step down. Then another.

She was certain that her skin was sizzling and burning where the scrying bone sat in her pocket. One hand rose to wipe the vomit clinging to the side of her lips. The inside of her mouth tasted like acid.

The bonds began to snap part as Naruto thrashed against them. He snarled and cursed- some of it in a language that she couldn't even understand. Still, she advanced on Madara.

"Why are you a child to be pitied?" Sakura wondered. Another tether in the spell snapped. Naruto freed his arm. He smashed his fist into the ground, splintering the tile and shaking the room.

"Why am I not supposed to give my heart away?" she went on.

Madara stood rooted in place. His eyes flickered past her as Naruto broke a leg free.

"Sakura, there isn't time-"

"And what did you want so badly that you paid the price with my heart?"

Madara's eyes flickered back to her. His hands clenched.

"What was so important for you to kill all of us, Papa?" Sakura wondered. Her hand slipped into her pocket.

The sound of that name seemed to break something in him. His face crumpled.

"I'm sorry."

She took the final step to Madara. He reached for her. Before he could touch her, the tip of Itachi's dagger was plunging into Madara's stomach. She had never killed anyone before, but she understood it in theory. Aim for the soft spots. Twist the blade if you're really feeling cruel. She didn't. So the dagger only went in and then slipped out. Blood spattered against her boots.

Madara's eyes widened.

He staggered back a few steps. Collapsed.

Sakura felt the last threads of her binding break. Naruto howled. She could hear him scrabbling across shattered glass and tile. As she turned to cast another spell, fire burst from Madara's hands. The attack sent Naruto smashing into a bookcase. The ancient, priceless tomes on the lower shelves exploded into ashes and scraps of paper.

Using the distraction, Sakura cast another binding spell. This one was thinner, trembling even more from the get-go. When the magic left her fingertips, pain shot up from her nails, all the way up her shoulder, like a bolt of lightning.

She didn't realize that she was falling until she hit the ground. She suddenly couldn't move her body. All she could do was stare straight ahead, at Madara's face turning whiter and whiter as the blood drained from the gash in his stomach.

She was used to dying by now. She had done it a few times before. So she recognized it this time too. That she was dying.

When Madara's eyes suddenly went cold, her heart seized like it was being squeezed in a vise. She would have laughed if she could have willed her mouth to move the way she wanted. Instead, as darkness filled her gaze, she felt her mouth and her voice say something that filled her with dread:

"I'm sorry. This wasn't what I promised for us."

It was early in the morning on a Friday.

Magic trembled in the air. Like a raindrop clinging to the underside of a gutter. Wobbling. Waiting until the moment that gravity would drag it down.

Madara rolled onto his side, his ears ringing and his ribs sore. He started when he heard someone exhale beside him. He let out a sigh. Pulling the covers over his shoulders, he turned over. He wondered what time it was.

"What do you want?" he groaned. It must have been Sakura, hounding him for some favor. Or trying to wheedle him into making breakfast. And like a sap, he always caved in.

Madara opened his eyes.

There was no one there.

"What the hell?"

He could have sworn that he felt Sakura poking at his lower back, whispering for him to wake. He stared around the darkened room. Shook his head.

Dreams could be weird that way. He lay back down and tried to fall asleep again. It took a while. And when he did, he dreamt of strange, twisted things that weren't quite nightmares.

Sakura was under the dream again. She didn't remember the entrance to the dream world or walking down that familiar corridor with all the doors.

Instead, she was floating. Above her, was the floor of her room in the dream world. Her other self was sitting cross-legged on the floor. Her face was shrouded in darkness.

Her other self gave her a thumbs up. And then a second thumbs up. She tilted her thumbs to the side, pointing them at each other. She touched the tips of her thumbs together before miming a breaking motion.

"Wha-"

The room was gone. Warmth and pressure surrounded her. This was familiar. She felt around in the darkness until she found a gap. Her fingers forced their way through, pushing and prying until she burst out into the open. Then, she was tumbling down. Endlessly. Plummeting into an even deeper darkness. Her hands grasped, scrabbling for purchase on anything. Her right hand grabbed hold of something first. And then her left grabbed something too. She was certain that she would fall straight through the earth and drift off into the emptiness of space.

"Sakura!"

She jolted awake. Her eyes darted all around the room, searching for her phone. To check the date. To be certain that this was another fresh start.

Shisui stood over her, hair rumpled and face unshaven.

"Are you alright? How did you guys get in here?" he demanded.

" 'You guys'?" Sakura repeated. The world was spinning all around her. The inside of her skull felt like it was a bad carousel ride. She tried her best to sit up. There was a groan to her right.

"Hell if I know? I was dreaming and then something grabbed me," Sasuke rasped.

Sakura's head whipped around to the sound of his voice. It made the world spin even harder. She tipped to one side.

"Careful," Itachi's voice said from her other side. Hands grabbed her upper arms to steady her. She took several deep breaths. Blinking slowly. Deliberately.

When she looked up, the spinning had mostly stopped.

She was sitting on the floor of Shisui's kitchen. She recognized the linoleum and the painted cabinets. She was in her pajamas and her feet were bare. To her right sat Sasuke, looking like he just fell out of bed, complete with his usual wild bedhead. To her left was Itachi, also looking similarly disheveled. In front of them crouched Shisui, who appeared to have just pulled on a shirt because everyone knew that Shisui always slept shirtless.

Shisui was the first to speak. "This is weird."

"Super weird," Sasuke agreed.

"I…" Sakura hesitated to say it. But Sasuke nudged her with his elbow. It made her remember how he always believed her without hesitation. And that filled her with new guilt over how keeping him in the dark hadn't even managed to protect him.

"I think we fell through the dream," Sakura finally managed to say.

It was quiet.

Then, she added in a smaller voice, "Also, I think I really need a hug right now."

Shisui didn't need to be told twice. He waddled forward to wrap his arms around her.

She really didn't mean to. But the tears came without warning. She gripped the front of Shisui's shirt. Not that he would mind. It was already wrinkled.

"Shi, you were right," she mumbled.

"…I generally am. I'm pretty smart," Shisui murmured in return. That would have made her laugh if she couldn't feel the sliminess of Madara's blood dripping down her palm.