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

All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream. -Edgar Allan Poe

The administrative building of the Senju Academy was as dark as it appeared from the outside. But as they traveled down the hall, lights flickered on above to guide them up to Hashirama's office. Their footsteps echoed eerily up and down the corridor. Sakura couldn't help but glance back at her cousins.

It was Shisui who took her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.

When they finally arrived at the headmaster's office, there was a soft green light seeping out from under the door. It pulsated like a heartbeat. Sasuke knocked.

There was a pause before the door swung open. Tobirama greeted them, still in his rumpled clothes from earlier that morning. Leaning a hip against the heavy desk inside the office, Hashirama raised a hand in greeting. His smile seemed genuine as he met Sakura's gaze.

"I never thought I'd see the day that you'd ask me for help," he said.

"Headmaster," she simply greeted him.

Hashirama sighed.

"You sound just like him," he lamented. And then his eyes drifted to her companions. "Quite a grim procession you've got here. It's like looking at three mini-Madaras."

On a normal day, Sasuke might have made a remark disparaging towards the headmaster in return. But Sasuke scarcely seemed to hear him as he exchanged a look with his brother.

"Yes, yes, banter banter. Snide comment. Okay, can we move on?" Shisui complained.

Hashirama smiled. His teeth brilliantly bright and straight.

"Ah, yes. I imagine you're feeling a bit… pressed for answers. Tobirama caught me up on the details," Hashirama conceded, clasping his hands together in front of him. And then his eyes narrowed as he looked over Sakura. "May I see it?"

Sakura pulled away from Shisui. She turned around and pushed her hair away from the back of her neck. She heard Hashirama step closer. There was a pause. He said, "Excuse me" before he pulled the collar of her coat down.

It was silent. Unnervingly so.

And then he hissed out a long breath through his teeth.

"Well. That's… wow. You're going to have one hungry demon on your hands," Hashirama declared, taking a step back.

Sakura turned around to stare at him. "That's it? Too bad, sucks to be you, and goodbye?"

Hashirama blinked several times. He slipped his hands into his pockets. Then pulled them out.

"Well… I mean, that's a bit meaner than what I meant. But my gut tells me that this is some old, complicated magic, Sakura. It's a bit tangled, even for me," Hashirama said. And when Sakura's disbelieving stare morphed into a scowl, he let out a sigh. He struggled with the beginning of a few different sentences before he seemed to settle on an answer.

"Look, you'd need several lifetimes to have the experience to deal with something on this scale. If even Madara doesn't know what he's doing, then…" Hashirama trailed off, rubbing his hands together. It was a dry sound. Like two pieces of sandpaper grating together.

There was a time when the single scrying bone had told her to break something.

Maybe that was why her rationality snapped the way it did.

Sakura took a step back from Hashirama, her hand clenching into a fist.

"You're. The head. Of a fucking institute of learning. So why don't you try to act like it? Tell your gut to start making some hypotheses."

Hashirama's mouth fell open. He looked to his brother, but Tobirama simply folded his arms across his chest and smirked.

"Let's just go. Uncle was right. He is useless," Itachi grumbled from behind her.

"Yeah, that woman you see underneath the dream would be more helpful," Sasuke added. He grasped Sakura's forearm, pulling her toward the door.

Hashirama held a hand up.

"Wait. What did you just say?" he asked.

Sakura's eyes narrowed. "Do you know something?"

"Where did you hear that term?" Hashirama demanded in return.

Tobirama let out a huff. His arms flopped down to his sides. "Oh for- Can you just answer the kid's question?" he snapped. When Hashirama looked at him, Tobirama snatched a folder off the desk and smacked his older brother in the chest a few times.

"You can geek out over the lore and implications later. This kid came to you for help. Why don't you actually help her?" Tobirama scolded.

Hashirama grumbled something under his breath. Tobirama hit him again, harder. The force bent the folder in half. Hashirama batted the folder away. Sighing, he turned to face Sakura again.

"Some spirits describe the dream world not as an extension of human consciousness. but as a separate realm," Hashirama began.

Sakura squinted at him. "Like a plane of existence itself?"

Hashirama pointed at her, nodding. He glanced around the office, patted his shirt and pants pockets. When his eyes landed on Tobirama, he snatched the bent folder away. He then pulled another folder off his desk. He held the two objects in front of him so that they were parallel to the floor, one floating just above the other. When he released them, the planes hovered there in a simple flotation spell. He pointed to the top sheet.

"There hasn't been a lot of research on this, of course. Even in a city like ours that specializes in dream magic, there are many unknowns. You know… dreams can be…" Hashirama trailed off. He gestured with one hand as he struggled to find the word.

"Temperamental," Tobirama supplied.

At the same time, all four of the people educated by Madara said: "Assholes."

Hashirama pressed his lips together, like he was trying not to laugh. Tobirama looked decidedly less amused. He sighed, rolling his eyes.

Hashirama cleared his throat before his expression sobered again.

"At any rate, if dreams run parallel to our world, then it means that in dreaming, we actually leave our world to enter another."

Sakura thought of the huge door covered in vines. The way the inside of that hallway was always the perfect temperature- neither hot nor cold. How her footsteps didn't sound the same as when she was awake.

Sakura's gaze trailed back to the two floating folders. They had begun to spin very slowly. She raised her finger and pointed at the top folder. As she twisted her finger around, like turning a key in a lock, the top folder turned the same shade of purple as the door leading into the dream world. Then, when she pointed to the bottom folder, she repeated the spell, tinging this one the same shade of black as the door to the dream shop.

"If dreams exist on top of the waking world, then that means that this is beneath the dream," Sakura mused. She flicked her fingers out. Sparks flew out from her nails. The swirled beneath the purple folder, bouncing back and forth between the two folders like bits of confetti.

"Are you thinking that beneath can also mean between?" asked Itachi.

Sakura clenched her hand into a fist. The sparks zoomed back into her palm, dissipating in a puff of grey smoke. She shook her hand to dissipate the residual magic as she replied. "It's just a theory."

And then her eyes returned to the two oldest men in the room.

"What does this have to do with my question?"

Hashirama's eyebrows rose. He pressed his hands together in front of him. "It could be nothing. But it's odd that such an esoteric phrase would pop up in an already esoteric situation. I'd say it's worth investigating."

Up until now, Sasuke was the only one who had remained completely silent. So it startled Sakura a little when she felt a spike of negative emotion leak through their linking spell.

What?

Didn't this old dude say you weren't a dreamer in the first place?

Sakura almost said, "Oh" out loud. That was true. She had nearly forgotten that.

So how do you know he's telling the truth now? We've already established that he's a liar.

Tobirama's eyes flickered back and forth between them. He had already witnessed this particular spell earlier in the day. Hashirama also seemed to have picked up on this bit of magic. His expression turned thoughtful as he observed them both.

"That's not the way I would've taught you to forge a link. That's a very unusual shape for that spell," Hashirama commented.

No one asked, Sasuke thought across their link.

Sakura bit back a smile.

"The best thing we can do given your obvious urgency is to tandem dream," Hashirama declared.

"Why? So you can conveniently withhold information from me again? Like how you never told me I was a dream caster?" Sakura retorted.

Hashirama's expression froze. And then, a look that could have been guilt crept onto his face. He glanced over at Tobirama, who simply elbowed him.

"Well… it's true that we did know that you had the potential to walk dreams quite easily," Hashirama slowly admitted. Sakura just stared.

"But I felt that it would be cruel to reveal such a thing to you. Especially given how you weren't even able to channel the most basic spell at all. That would be as if I approach a person who has lost use of all of their limbs to tell them that they had once had the potential to become the fastest runner in the world."

Sakura's eyes narrowed.

"That's all?" she prompted.

Hashirama sighed. He touched his fingers to his temple. "A dream caster without access to their own magic is a rarity. I suppose I might have been concerned that other researchers here might… grow curious. I wasn't about to allow experimentation on a child under my nose."

He met her eyes then. He didn't seem like he was lying. But did she know this man enough to even know when he was lying or not?

What do you think?

Silence answered her. Sasuke didn't seem to know either.

Sakura looked to Shisui and Itachi instead. Itachi pursed his lips. He moved his head from side to side, which meant that he wasn't sure. Shisui made a so-so gesture with his hand.

"What would tandem dreaming do?" she demanded.

Hashirama's face brightened. "Oh, it's simple. If you say that you've accessed what's 'beneath the dream', then I'd like to accompany you the next time you do. We would have other people in the room, of course. To ensure that nothing untoward is happening. And to monitor us," he explained.

Sakura's frown deepened. "I always thought dream casting could only be performed on someone else. Not with someone else."

"It's complicated. And therefore frowned upon. But not impossible," Tobirama answered her.

Sakura considered all of this.

Sasuke's pointer finger hooked the edge of her sleeve.

If he tries anything, I'll punch him in the dick.

Sakura struggled not to laugh as she said: "Alright."

The spell to tandem dream was very similar to what they did at the dream shop. Hashirama bickered with Tobirama as they etched the magical circle onto the floor with pieces of chalk. They lit incense to help focus the magical energies in the room. When the older men had their backs turned, Shisui smudged one of the runes with the toe of his boot and redrew a portion of the rune. When Tobirama turned around, he caught the movement.

"What're you doing?" Tobirama demanded.

Shisui pointed at his work. "It's an overflow to redirect excess energy back into the spell. It's essentially a stabilizer," he said.

The irritation melted from Tobirama's face. He crouched down to scrutinize the work. He asked a few more questions, which Shisui answered with his arms folded across his chest.

Itachi watched as Sakura laid down on one side of the circle, her head pointed toward the center. He looked over when Sasuke suddenly moved. He was shedding his coat to drape over Sakura's body.

"Tap out if it gets scary in there," Sasuke instructed. Sakura nodded.

"We'll be right here," Itachi then reassured her. He fixed the edge of Sasuke's coat to cover her shoulder. And then he patted her arm a few times.

When she was a child, Madara had spent many weeks casting sleeping spells over her. It was to help her better understand how much magic was needed. So she could feel the flow of the energy and what shapes it took.

Sometimes the clients at the dream shop giggled or even started. She heard that the magic tickled or felt a little cold. She had never experienced that with Madara or her cousins before- organic and warm, like pulling on a sweater on a cool day. So it startled her when Hashirama's magic washed over her, smacking her like a cold ocean wave.

Bubbles were pouring out from her mouth as she sank deep into dark waters. And then she was tumbling down through a thick forest canopy. Fingertips brushing against gnarled tree trunks and tangling with the vines.

Sakura thought she glimpsed the purple door to the dream world between a few leaves. But then it was gone. A hand caught her wrist, jerking her to a stop mid-fall.

"Are you alright?" she heard Hashirama say from above her.

"Yeah. I'm fine," Sakura replied. She dangled there, listening to the chatter of birds and insects all around her.

"This isn't beneath the dream," she observed.

"We're in an in-between space. Somewhere between your dreams and mine. Look up," Hashirama instructed.

Sakura tilted her head back. An ocean's waves rippled above their head, but the water was completely black. She also saw Hashirama laying on a branch as he gripped her arm. Then she looked down and saw the sky between tall trees. A few birds flew past. She could hear the leaves rustling.

Sakura squinted. "But the ocean isn't my thing. That's… I've never seen that before."

Hashirama arched an eyebrow. "That shouldn't be. The forest is mine. And the other half should be yours."

Before Sakura could say something in return, she felt an icy hand seize her left ankle. Her scream got caught in her throat as she was suddenly tumbling down again.

When she managed to pry her eyes open again, a familiar face was staring up at her. Or down at her. Why wasn't this any less confusing after all these times?

Her other self tilted her head to one side. And then she hummed. A smile stretched her mouth. The expression was neither friendly nor threatening.

"An interesting choice. You're getting better at this," her other self commented. Maybe said another way, it could have even been a compliment. But there was a hollowness to those words. Not that they were insincere. It was something that she couldn't quite put her finger on.

Sakura glanced around. Hashirama was nowhere to be seen.

Her other stretched her arms over her head, yawning.

"He won't be of much help, though. You'd be better off asking him to look into the demon problem. He might actually be useful to you there," she then said.

Sakura couldn't help the sigh that left her mouth. Her other self tilted her head as she considered that sound. Her eyes narrowed. Bringing her hand up to cup her mouth, she tapped her fingers against her cheek. It was exactly what she did when she was thinking. It was eerie to see it from the outside.

"Alright. I think you're ready for this. I'll give you a hint," her other self relented.

"Really?" The word burst out of Sakura's mouth. Her other self laughed. It wasn't a mean sound.

"Sure. You've been working so hard. All you need to do is wake up." The last two words sparked through the room like electricity. Sakura felt a flash of heat across her rib cage. The pain made her gasp.

"She's up!"

"Finally!"

Someone was snapping their fingers in front of her eyes.

"Will you cut that out!" Sakura groaned, shoving the fingers away.

"She's alright."

And then Ino's face appeared in front of her. "What happened? Are you okay? Are you hurt?" Ino bombarded her with questions.

Sakura's accusatory gaze rolled around the room until she found her cousins sitting right next to her on the floor of the headmaster's office. Before she could start complaining, Sasuke slapped his palm down onto her shoulder. It stung.

"If she's going to die anyway, she might as well know why she dies this time, Sakura," Sasuke snapped.

There was another sting. On her other shoulder this time. That one was from Ino.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Ino demanded. As Sakura opened her mouth to respond, tears began welling up in Ino's eyes. Sakura shot another glare at Sasuke. This time, he looked away.

"Even if things get bad, I'm supposed to be there with you. That's what friends are for, stupid," Ino hiccuped, hitting Sakura's shoulder again. This time, it didn't even hurt. Sakura heaved a sigh.

"Sorry, Ino," Sakura replied.

Ino burst into full tears. It was hard to catch everything she was saying through all the snot and gasps, but Sakura managed to get the gist of it. I was so worried. I thought you would never wake. It's been twelve hours-

Sakura jolted upright.

"What?"

She stared right at Hashirama. He sat on the other side of the runes drawn on the ground. He blinked long and slow- like someone who had just woken up too.

"Twelve hours on the dot. Not a second over," Tobirama answered instead. He was leaning against the desk, arms folded across his chest. The dark circles under his eyes backed up his words. He turned his attention to his brother. "What did you see?"

"I…don't even remember. She was ripped away between the dreams… and then… I woke up," Hashirama tried to piece the memories together. But Sakura knew exactly what that was like. To wake and to feel a dream slip away like sand between fingers.

She caught Sasuke staring at her. Then an odd look crossed his face before he huffed.

"The link broke," he complained.

"Did you run out of mana?" Sakura asked. She cracked her neck to one side. There was a sore spot where her neck and shoulder met. Maybe from sleeping on the floor.

Then her eyes snapped open.

"Did you?" she demanded a second time.

Sasuke wrinkled his nose at her. "How would I run out of mana? I've literally just been sitting here all night. What am I? A phone battery?"

She forgave the crankiness of his answer as her thoughts began racing.

A linking spell was one of the basics taught to the youngest students. It was technically a type of divination spell, which was why it had always been easy for her to cast them. Madara and her cousins had commented on several occasions that her links were always more durable and stretched across longer distances.

But the rule of all linking spells was that they could only bridge the gap between two minds up to a certain distance. She remembered long summer nights spent running around with her cousins, meeting at one corner and walking in opposite directions from each other until they felt the connection split like spidersilk stretched too thin.

Years of practice had made that limit stretch more and more until they could be in neighboring districts of the city but still send snide thoughts to each other through boring lectures and meetings.

As all these thoughts raced through her head, Sakura felt someone hold her upper arms. When she focused, it was Shisui kneeling in front of her.

"Where did you go?" Shisui questioned.

"Beneath the dream," Sakura whispered, trying to cling to the dream even as it grew hazier and more distant with each passing moment. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to focus. She rubbed her palms against her eyelids. "I… saw her. She said I was doing good. So she'd help me out. All I had to do was-"

Wake up.

"She's up!"

"Finally!"

Someone was snapping their fingers in front of her eyes.

Sakura blinked. She had just been sitting up with Shisui steadying her. Now she was lying flat on her back again. Staring up at a wooden ceiling.

"She's alright," Sasuke sighed from somewhere near her leg.

Soft green lights hovered around here and there. One of them landed on her nose. It was a weak earth spirit. Like all lower level spirits, there was no distinct face, but she could tell that it looked concerned.

"What's wrong?" Sakura whispered to the spirit.

"Nothing. Just making sure all of you came back from elsewhere," the spirit told her in a voice like tinkling bells.

Elsewhere.

Hadn't another spirit said that to her before?

"Are dreams elsewhere?" wondered Sakura.

"Yes. But you went even more elsewhere," the spirit clarified.

"My body was here, but I went under the dream. Where dreams come from," Sakura recited what a water spirit had said to her before.

"So smart. You're almost you," she spirit praised her, brightening a little. She tapped Sakura's nose. A little puff of magic dust tickled her there as the spirit disappeared.

"What?" Sakura called after her, struggling to rise on her elbows. She felt hands push her back to support her.

And then Ino's face appeared in front of her. "What happened? Are you okay? Are you hurt? What was that spirit talking about?" Ino bombarded her with questions.

Sakura looked around the room instead of answering.

Everyone had reset back to the positions they had been in before. Itachi and Sasuke sitting by her legs. Shisui helping her sit up. Across the magic circle, the headmaster was rubbing his head like he was still trying to wake up. Tobirama sat on the floor, leaning his back against his brother's fancy desk.

It took her a while to articulate what had just happened. Ino didn't let go of her right hand the entire time.

"So you dreamt of… waking up and what we would say?" Ino tried to summarize.

"More like a possibility of what we would say, it sounds like," Hashirama suggested instead. Sakura nodded.

"It sounds like a trick," Shisui mused.

Sakura shook her head. "She wasn't a fairy."

"How do you know?"

"I just… do. She's… whatever she is, I don't think she's tricking me. I think…. It feels like.. a clue."

As they cleaned up the magic circle, Hashirama beamed. He even whistled as he scrubbed the chalk markings. Sasuke shot looks at his brother, who just returned the look.

"She recommended having you look into the demon problem. She basically said you'd be useless with the dream side of things," Sakura informed the headmaster. Hashirama just laughed.

"Are you sure that woman wasn't just Madara in a wig?" he chuckled.

The corner of Tobirama's mouth lifted. "It does sound like him."

There was a long pause. And then Sasuke asked: "Where's Naruto anyway?"

"I ran a couple tests on him. Then I fed him and he's been sleeping pretty much the whole day. Don't worry, we'll treat him well," Hashirama responded.

And that was true. During her time living here, even though it had been lonely and discouraging, she had never once gone hungry. Never once been scolded because she couldn't cast spells. A thought crossed her mind.

"If I hadn't gone with Madara. If you thought my magical pathways were dead, what would have happened to me?" Sakura questioned.

Hashirama's eyebrows rose. That had caught him off guard. But Tobirama answered right away.

"You could've stayed here. Taken on a secretarial role. It pays well. Or if you liked cooking or cleaning, we could've used your help there. We wouldn't have thrown you out on your ass."

"Oh." That wasn't the answer she had expected.

Tobirama's mouth twisted like he had eaten something sour. And then he sighed. "I hate to admit it, but we obviously failed you when you were little. I'm… sorry."

Hashirama's eyes widened. He clapped quietly. Tobirama glowered at him.

She hadn't been fishing for an apology.

"Oh," was all she could say again.

There was a long silence. Even the others in the room had stopped their conversations. They finished scrubbing the chalk marks that way. They didn't revisit the topic again. But when it was time to part ways, Tobirama nodded at her. She nodded back.

Hashirama promised he would keep Naruto under surveillance. It was clear that Hashirama had explained things to him. Because Naruto called her to apologize for something he hadn't even done yet.

"I don't know why your contract is tied to me, Sakura. I always thought I was just… a person. But, I'm gonna help the Headmaster figure out what this is. Sorry that you're… just… I'm sorry."

Tobirama and Hashirama cast strong wards over him to try to contain whatever changes would happen as the New Year approached.

And Sakura, using her thesis as an excuse, began spending long nights at the library of the Senju Institute.

Hashirama pulled strings and borrowed books from other schools, other libraries. The dusty tomes overflowed in the little space she used as an office. So she took over tables in the library itself. People would drop by to keep her company and to help her sort and take notes.

She spent long hours learning about what would tie people's life forces together. Particularly since in her last iteration of the dream, she had died when Madara had. Perhaps she had been misremembering things in the chaos. Maybe Naruto had been the one to kill her. But something told her that that wasn't the case.

Her research took her through the basics of contracts and curses. None of those things fit the description of her current predicament.

The closest she came to finding something even remotely similar was the concept of familiars. Familiars had fallen out of style many centuries ago. The practice of creating a close bond to an animal companion had once been a way for magic users to gain some help in casting their spells. A familiar would serve as an assistant- which was useful for the more complicated magic that required extra hands.

But as cities developed and magic users gathered together, there was no shortage of helping hands. That and the fact that the nature of a familiar bond ensured that when the master died, their familiar would die with them. Many criticized the cruelty. So the practice had faded into obscurity. In fact, no matter how Sakura searched, she couldn't find the precise steps to create a familiar. Some of the oldest books came close to hinting. But it seemed like it was one of those things that had been so commonly known in the past that no one had bothered to write it down.

This was all fascinating, but ultimately unhelpful in her search for answers.