ZERO / BLEACH / TWIST / REVERSE / DYE / RED (here)
A dying man needs to die, as a sleepy man needs to sleep, and there comes a time when it is wrong, as well as useless, to resist. -Stewart Alsop
Most of the city of Konoha glowed. Some of it was just from the fixtures screwed into the brick and concrete next to doors. Some of it came from the streetlights spaced along the sidewalks. A lot of it came from the various signs that buzzed in the windows and above the doors of the shops crowded along the narrow streets.
The place next to the Uchiha family's dream shop specialized in glamour-imbued apparel. Wigs that enhanced singing and shoes that improved dancing were among the bestselling products. On the second floor was a beauty shop that boasted a treatment that could temporarily make hair shift colors depending on the weather.
All of these places advertised in bright colors that sparkled and shone at different rates.
The sign above the door to the dream shop had been painted on years ago. It was faded and peeling in the corners. The simplicity of it made it stand out in a city that dazzled day and night.
Sakura loved that building. Cramped and old as it was. The old wood and the clutter hanging from the rafters felt right. Even when she and her cousins knocked into each other on the narrow stairs, she couldn't help but laugh.
She dreamt of the dream shop sometimes. Where Sasuke would be leaning against the counter, complaining about no-shows. Shisui would skip down the stairs, grinning about a scandalous story a client had just told him. Itachi would pop his head out of storage to announce that they were low on a particular potion. But if she focused too hard, they would scatter into their individual components. Little bits of magic and memory that dissolved like a hand passing through mist.
She liked to weave new dreams out of these bits of memory. Particularly if somebody asked for a dream of feeling comforted. It was quite common, actually. And Sakura understood.
Loneliness was a terrible thing. To have a dream, however fleeting, of a place where one belonged. Even if that feeling disappeared upon waking the morning. She understood that feeling.
Madara came to visit her one night as she created a dream for a client. He knocked on the door. It swung open with a rush of white petals. He tracked droplets of water onto the carpet as he walked. As she noticed them, the water disappeared.
"You seem busy," he said. He took a seat on one of the cushions in the corner.
She smiled at him.
She popped the cork off a glass jar. A snippet of a conversation spilled up the long neck. It rose in a column of white smoke that pooled in her hand. She opened another container. This one held the rumble of a refrigerator and the tap of a knife against a cutting board. The smoke was orange with flakes of iridescent gold. She squeezed the fragments of the dreams into her hands. As the shape condensed, she twisted. The facets began to form, growing hot against her skin.
"What'd you wanna tell me?" Sakura asked, looking up from her work.
Madara crossed his legs. He leaned against the well. "Nothing. Just wanted to make sure you're alright," he replied.
"Huh," was all she said. She gave the dream one last squeeze. The dream cooled and hardened into a piece of kyanite. It was grey-blue, shaped almost like a blade. Sakura avoided the most jagged parts as she raised it to her face. She blew. The faint echo of laughter resonated from each of the sharpened facets.
Madara's forehead wrinkled as he squinted at the crystal.
"It's such a pretty dream and it turned out so… pointy," he observed. She could already see the gears turning in his head as he examined and theorized. That was just how his brain worked.
"I know. It's so strange. That's not what it usually looks like," she remarked too. When she brought her ear close to it, she could hear the murmur of voices. The snap of a can of soda opening, followed by the fizz of carbonation. "Still a good dream though. Weird."
Sakura held the crystal up to the light. It seemed to hum against her skin. She tossed it into the air. The crystal hovered. Then it found an empty spot on the shelf and flew over to settle there. The other crystals lining the walls glowed for a moment, as if welcoming the new addition.
Sakura held her hand out. Madara stared at it. When Sakura flapped it at him, Madara sighed. He got to his feet and took her hand.
"Where are we going?" he asked.
"Dunno. Where should we go?" Sakura asked in return.
Her room disappeared. They were enveloped in darkness. The black mist began to swirl, condensing into shapes and colors.
Snow crunched under their feet. They were walking along a long path nestled between frozen trees. The bare branches glittered with ice and snow.
There was a tug on her hand as Madara hesitated. Sakura squeezed his hand. He began walking with her, the crunch of his steps just slightly out of sync with hers.
"You really like the snow," remarked Madara.
Sakura nodded. She stole a glance at him. He was wearing a brown wool coat and a thick scarf. He looked warm. Just as she had hoped.
"Everything going ok with your thesis?" he asked.
Sakura laughed. "Not really. I've gotten really off track and now I'm looking into other stuff. I don't think I'll ever finish at this rate."
Madara heaved a sigh. "That's the tricky rabbit hole of magic research, unfortunately. What've you been looking at instead?"
"Oh, just a little of this and that. I can't really decide. There's so many things I've never considered before."
"You know…"
Sakura's stomach dropped a little. She hadn't technically lied about anything. Had Madara caught on anyway? Had she let something slip?
"You don't have to get your Masters."
She relaxed a little. "I know. You told me that before I even applied to the program."
They both ducked to avoid a low branch. The ice and snow had piled up on it so much that it had begun drooping toward the ground.
"You could travel. See the world."
"I know. You have friends all over."
Madara made a face. "I don't have friends. I just know people," he corrected her.
Sakura laughed again.
"My mistake. The Great Arcanist doesn't have friends. That's beneath him," she teased.
He snorted. "Friends are pointless when you've lived as long as I have," Madara retorted.
"Well, I guess you don't need friends since you have me," she replied.
When she looked over at him, something about Madara's smile felt a little wrong. Like touching a potted plant that looked so real only for it to feel like plastic.
Even that false smile faded as Madara stared straight ahead.
"What's wrong?" asked Sakura.
She followed Madara's gaze. In the distance, there was a dark shape peeking out from the trees. It looked like some kind of wooden building. Smoke rose from the top of it in the cozy way it did in picture books.
Their feet sank into the snow, filling their boots. The cold seeped in through her socks, biting at her feet. That wasn't right. This was a dream. Hot and cold didn't exist here.
"You don't like it," Sakura guessed.
Those words seemed to draw Madara out of his daze. He blinked a few times.
"No. It's…" He cleared his throat.
Sakura squeezed his hand.
She reshaped the dream. The snow disappeared. Concrete appeared beneath their feet. The staleness of the city replaced the crisp air. They stood in front of their home: the narrow brownstone apartment with black window frames.
Madara squinted.
"Is that… bird shit on the window?" he said, pointing at one of the lower windows.
"Yeah. I noticed it the other day," Sakura replied.
Madara laughed. He shook his head. "Your dreams are always so detailed. This is really good," he commended. He climbed the stone steps, taking a seat on the very top step. He patted the space beside him. Sakura climbed to sit next to him.
They sat in the sunlight, not really saying anything. Instead, they watched the cars driving past. Watched the faceless strangers walking down the sidewalk.
After a while, they heard a distant ringing noise.
"That's your alarm," Sakura said. He was probably the only person in the entire city that still used an old fashioned alarm clock. That could only be the clamor of the little hammer in the middle as it smashed against the bells.
Madara raised a hand in greeting before he disappeared.
It was time for her to wake soon anyway. Sakura leaned back on her palms. She waited for the dream to dissolve all around her.
Instead, the perfect blue sky began to turn bright red. Thunder boomed in the distance before everything tilted and flipped upside down.
She looked down. She was standing on the sky. Pink clouds floated past under her feet.
Sakura tilted her head back to stare up. To her surprise, the stairs were empty. She had expected the woman from beneath the dream to be sitting there waiting for her. There was no one.
As neon green lightning crackled beneath her feet, Sakura felt magic tingle at the tips of her fingers. She pointed at a random spot on the sidewalk. A kaleidoscope of black butterflies erupted from her nails. They swarmed together before they disappeared in a puff of ash.
"I kept them. Like you asked."
She whirled around. Her surroundings shifted.
She was back in that little hut in the snow. The creature was still sitting by the fireplace. Everything in the hut was covered in a thick layer of dust. The fire had burned out a long time ago.
It opened its bright yellow eyes to look at her.
"But you're still not here," the creature went on.
Something squeezed in her chest. She fell to her knees. She held its face in her hands.
"I'm here now," she reassured him.
It closed its eyes.
"We're almost there. Hold on for me," Sakura whispered.
The creature opened its eyes again. Red tears began dripping down its incomprehensible face that was neither human nor animal.
"I didn't mean to," it pleaded.
Sakura hugged it to her chest, sighing. "I know."
Sakura jolted from the dream with a gasp. Tears were trailing down her cheeks, soaking into her pillow.
"You're still asleep?" Madara appeared in the doorway while brushing his teeth. Sakura scrambled out of the bed and half-tripped her way across the room. She threw her arms around his middle. Her hands twisted into the wash-worn fabric of his t-shirt.
Madara patted her back as he went on brushing his teeth.
Sakura could only wake up bleeding so many times before she began to seriously worry about the impacts on her health. She tried asking the woman beneath the dream. But she answered in the half-helpful way that spirits did.
To her surprise, it was Ino, who had zero talent in dream magic, who gave her an idea.
"So this lady under your dream…" Ino said one day as they sat at their usual diner. Her french toast sat untouched in front of her. She waved her fork around like it was a magic wand rather than something to eat with.
Sakura looked up from her plate. She didn't react as Sasuke placed half his turkey club on her plate and stabbed his fork through one of her pancakes.
"Is she a person? A spirit?" asked Ino.
Sakura pushed the syrup over to Sasuke with the back of her knife as she answered: "A spirit, I think."
Ino's lips puckered. "Shit. I thought I was onto something."
"Tell us anyway. It might not be completely useless," Sasuke said.
Ino rolled her eyes. "Wow. You're so kind."
But then Ino's expression sobered. She nudged her cold waffle with the tip of her fork.
"I don't know. I was just wondering. The headmaster was talking about tandem dreaming and all that stuff. I was just wondering why you guys can dream together without all that fancy extra stuff," Ino told them.
Sasuke stopped chewing. He and Sakura looked at each other.
The ritual in the headmaster's office had required a full magical circle, along with incense to focus on magic into the right parts of the spell. In the dream shop, they used a smaller version of that spell to enter their clients' dreams.
But entering their rooms in the dream world didn't require anything. They just slept and found each other because that's what dream casters could do. Manipulating the dream world was what they did.
As she thought, Sakura's forehead wrinkled. If that was the case, then tandem dreaming with the headmaster also shouldn't have required all those steps. Because he was also a dream caster. Madara had explained that with family, it was different, because the shared blood was all the connection they needed. And when she had stare at him, Madara had ruffled her hair.
"Metaphorically. You're family too."
Then, it occurred to her.
That night, Sakura took home a copy of the magic circle they used in the dream shop. It was tedious to rewrite the spell each time. So they had it sewn into a piece of fabric that they had clients lay on top of. Sakura picked one of the ones Shisui had made. He always added little polishes to the runes to make the spells flow better.
She closed her eyes, one of the scrying bones held in her right hand.
But to her disappointment, she just opened her eyes to the regular door that led to her dreams. She tried to visit the underneath, but she still woke with pain in her side. Luckily, most of the blood dripped onto the magic circle and not her bed. It was still a pain to have to strip her sheets all over again.
She tried again the following night with the same magic circle. This time, she kept the entire set of scrying bones together, holding it against her chest like a stuffed animal.
She opened her eyes to a red sky.
This time, her face was staring up at her from the top step of the stoop.
"Nice work. Now you won't need to pay with blood," she said.
"Was it the bones? Did I need more?" Sakura asked.
Her other self looked confused. She tilted her head. And then she shook it.
"Why should that matter? You've already got 206 of them inside you?"
"Then why? I still I don't understand why I wake up bleeding." Sakura sat cross-legged on the sky. She leaned back on her palms.
"Mm… necromancy demands payment in life energy. So what would the magic circle change?" the woman beneath the dream asked in return.
Sakura took a deep breath. She almost wanted to throttle the other woman. But she knew that wasn't the way to get information out of her.
"Magic circles regulate and contain the flow of energy… So… it would require less energy to accomplish the same task," Sakura guessed, thinking back on her lectures on magic theory. The other woman nodded, but her eyebrows rose. As if expecting something more. When Sakura just shook her head, the other woman pointed at Sakura's feet.
She was standing on top of the fabric with the magic circle now.
"What makes this one special?" the other woman insisted.
"Shisui made it," was all Sakura could think to say.
"Why is this one not like the ones at the shop now?"
Sakura stared down at the white fabric. It was stained with brown splotches of dried blood. She had forgotten to throw it into the wash with her other things.
"Blood," she said without meaning to.
"Your blood," the other woman corrected her. "Just remember to top it up when the blood starts to fade. Yours is potent. You don't need a lot."
Sakura stared at the uneven spots. And then she lifted her gaze to the other woman.
"You mean our blood," Sakura challenged.
The other woman threw her head back and laughed. She wiggled her feet like she couldn't contain her excitement.
Sakura woke up smiling, too. As if the other woman's emotions had transferred over to her.
When she checked her phone, it was still way too early to be awake. She tossed her phone somewhere onto her bed and instead lay on her back. Tried to gather her thoughts instead.
The scrying bones had given her several warnings by now.
Beware the dreams that linger.
Pity the child who trusts the keyless lock.
Do not give your heart away.
Isn't it more beautiful to create than to destroy?
And then variations of the word "broken" were added to that list too.
Some of those phrases were starting to make sense now.
She was convinced that the keyless lock was referring to the weird lock to the dream world that she still hadn't figured out yet. Maybe she could ask the woman beneath the dream about that at some point.
And on the subject of that woman, she was somehow connected to the scrying bones. And Sakura was connected to her. Was that why the bones felt so right to her? Madara had never explained where they had come from. But that was normal. People didn't go around rattling bags of scrying bones and calling them 'The Great Spellcaster Such and Such". They had probably been taken from some powerful magic user. Just like hers had been taken from an illusionist after he had died.
Sakura had tried casting with her set of bones a few days ago- the ones Madara had given her . They gave her the right responses. But in the dry way that all scrying bones did. After all, they were dead.
Tobirama was right. The ones tucked under her arm weren't normal. They were alive.
The frustration welled up inside of her.
So many bits of information that failed to connection. Yet the clock kept ticking. New Year's Eve loomed ahead like her execution date. Each passing day was the tightening of a noose around her neck.
She had brushed off Ino's concerns like dying didn't bother her anymore. That she was used to it by now. Of course Sasuke had called her out on her bullshit the minute Ino was gone.
Of course she didn't want to die again.
Of course she wanted to live.
But not if it meant that she had to lose someone she loved.
And she remembered Sasuke looking her in the eyes as he asked:
"Does that include Uncle?"
"Of course. Of course it does," Sakura said out loud, rubbing her face with her hands.
November drew to a close too quickly.
Sakura stared at the calendar, wondering if she had misread the numbers.
"Are you alright?" Itachi asked from behind her. She turned around. He was leaning a hip against the front counter. The appointment book was open in front of him.
"Huh? Oh. Yeah," she fumbled for the right answer.
Itachi made a face that said he didn't believe her. Still, he picked his pen back up and went back to crossing out completed appointments in the book.
"You never told me what you want for Christmas, by the way," he told her. "If you don't hurry up, I'm getting you socks and a gift card."
"Whatever. I'm kind of over it. I've done this Christmas before," she replied without thinking. The glamor of the holiday season sort didn't feel real anymore.
Itachi's pen froze. She was startled by the sharpness in his eyes.
"I'm aware. But you also told me I was missing or dead for at least some of them. I'm guessing that probably ruined your Christmas." His words stabbed her like knives.
Itachi slashed through the last few boxes.
"So we're going to have a party whether you like it or not. We'll stay together. We'll order some food. And we'll…"
Itachi broke off mid-sentence. He sucked in a deep breath. He clenched his jaw.
"What's going on with you? Do you remember all those times?" asked Sakura. She ducked under the counter to stand beside him. It scared her a little. Itachi was always so level-headed.
Sakura hesitated to reach out. Put a tentative hand on his upper arm.
"No," Itachi snapped in response. "But you do. I can see it in your face all the time. Like you've given up already."
Sakura's eyes widened.
"I haven't," she insisted.
Itachi didn't look at her.
"Hey. I haven't," Sakura repeated.
Itachi went on avoiding her eyes.
"I know there are things you don't want to share and that's alright. But don't act like you don't have people who are worried about you. Do you think any of us will be able to go on like normal if you're not around anymore?"
Something flashed in front of her eyes. The cracked face of a clock. The world up in flames.
Sakura blinked and it was gone.
There was just Itachi with his shoulders slumped. As if the weight of the entire world was weighing on his back.
Sakura tried to think of the right words to say to him. She settled for patting his arm.
"Say that you want a Christmas present," Itachi demanded.
"I want a bracelet. With bigass diamonds. And a designer handbag," Sakura answered.
"Good. What else? I'll buy you everything you want. So you have to be alive because I'm not getting gift receipts."
His answer was ridiculous. She didn't feel like laughing. In fact, that made the corners of her eyes sting.
She didn't dare to say it out loud. But next time, to spare him all this pain, maybe she would find a way to tackle this problem on her own. So that she wouldn't have to see him looking so weary and filled with fear.
By the time Sasuke arrived with coffee, Sakura was already upstairs with a client. She untangled a recurring nightmare, a simple task that she almost felt bad taking money for. There was still time left, and the client was still sleeping. So Sakura lit a candle and slipped out of the room to give them time to rest. As she approached the stairs, she could hear voices. She cast a charm to boost her hearing and another to silence her movements.
"- doing everything we can."
"I know. I know," sighed Itachi.
Shisui replied to him: "Look, Itachi, we all care about her. I get why you're freaking out."
"I'm not freaking out."
"Ow! Did you seriously hit me?"
"Can the both of you shut up? She'll hear you."
That was Sasuke's voice. Sakura could imagine his look of irritation.
There was a long silence. So long that Sakura wondered if they'd caught on to the fact that she was eavesdropping.
Then Shisui spoke.
"Do you guys remember the day Madara brought her home with him?"
"I was gonna call the cops. I thought he abducted her," Sasuke replied. He was completely serious.
The others chuckled.
And then someone began sniffling.
Sakura wasn't sure who, because no one said anything. After a while, Sakura stood. She backtracked a few steps before dispelling both charms. Hands in her pockets, she began descending the stairs. She heard someone say something before the front door opened and shut.
"I'm hungry. Did you order lunch yet?" she called out. She ducked under a low-hanging beam.
Sasuke was missing.
"Hey? Done already?" Shisui greeted her from behind the counter with his usual smile. Itachi was busy restocking bottles on the shelf. He paused to nod at her before he turned away again.
"Sasuke just went out. I'll ask him to pick up pizza on the way," Shisui then told her. He pulled his phone out, thumbs busy typing a message.
Sakura paused on the last step.
Shisui looked up from his phone, his expression a little too bright.
"What?" he asked.
Sakura blinked, then smiled. She pointed at his phone. "Tell Sasuke I want garlic knots too."
Shisui made an 'ok' gesture with his thumb and pointer finger as she walked past.