ZERO / BLEACH / TWIST / REVERSE / DYE / RED / TRUTH (here)
I know how men in exile feed on dreams. -Aeschylus
"You know, I never expected him to be this stupid."
Sakura opened her eyes. She immediately regretted it as bright green lightning flashed across her vision. Hissing in pain, she clapped her hands over her face. And then she regretted it again as pain shot through her side. Points of neon pink light danced in front of her face. The light seeped in through her eyelids.
"Take a breath in."
She obeyed.
"Pull the magic from the air, draw it in through your nose. Breathe it down into the pain."
She could imagine it. The little water droplets in the air, clustered together with tiny sparkles of magic. Sucking it down into her lungs. Pushing it down and to the left. Warmth spread through her side as the bone and flesh knitted back together.
She opened her eyes.
It should have been her other self smiling down at her from the floor. They were inside her room in the dream world. And her other self was certainly there. But her face was blurred and soft around the edges. Like a low quality video where the pixels distorted the image beyond recognition. Sakura blinked a few times. Nothing changed.
"Are you dying?" Sakura found herself asking.
Her other self tilted her head from side to side. Considering the question.
"Not really. I've been dead. But you already know that," she replied.
Sakura's forehead wrinkled. "I do?" And then, she thought about it. "I do."
When she tilted her head back, she found her other self's face was even more distorted now. There were just smears of colors where her eyes and mouth should have been.
"The keyless lock. It's the big door, isn't it?" Sakura then demanded.
Her other self nodded.
"How do I get it to open? The right way?"
Her other self pointed. The newly-healed skin on her left side tingled. She looked down to find one of her ribs glowing through the stained fabric of her shirt.
And then, her other self asked a question. "Aren't you scared?"
"I am," Sakura replied. She looked around. The same, cluttered shelves surrounded them. A soft hum of magic rippled through the air as she waved one hand around.
"Are you going to disappear?" Sakura wondered.
Her other self sat up. She pushed off the ceiling, her hands reaching out. As her fingertips passed through a certain point in the air, it was like an illusion spell peeled off the tips of her fingers, then her palm, her forearm. She was bloody, filled with gouge marks. Exposed bones and muscles moved around as she grasped Sakura's hand.
"Not now. But soon."
Tears welled up in Sakura's eyes. She squeezed the half-skeletal hand back. It wasn't fair.
"You'll still be you," her other self assured her.
"That's not it," Sakura snapped. "You've been all alone for so long. It's not right. You should be the one out here. I'm-"
Her other self blurred again. And suddenly, Sakura could see her with startling clarity. She had always thought that they shared the same face. But she could see it now. There was something written in this other self's face. A hunger that she couldn't understand. That she didn't need to understand.
"Search your dreams. The lock will fail when you use your key. Reclaim the part of your heart that you've lost," her other self listed.
"Why couldn't you just tell me that in the first place?" Sakura complained.
Her other self smiled. It was such a pretty expression. It was a pity that it had been forgotten so quickly.
"You try communicating through scrying bones. See how easy it is," her other self scoffed.
They both laughed. Sakura squeezed her hand harder, laughing as tears poured down her cheeks.
"But I can't do this without you." Her laughter twisted into sobs. The hand holding hers began to fade.
"He's waiting. Keep your promise, necromancer."
It was early in the morning on a Friday.
A sudden ripple of magic in the air dragged Madara from his sleep. His dreams had been unsettling. He was relieved to start awake, his ears ringing and his ribs sore.
Something told him that there should be a finger poking into his lower back. He turned over in the bed that had always felt too big. There was no one there.
The air crackled with strange energy. The hairs on his arms stood up straight as he sat up in bed. His side still ached a little.
"Sakura?" he called out, just in case this was her running another experiment at an unreasonable hour. It wouldn't be the first time.
Silence answered him.
She wasn't falling, she realized. The dream world wasn't beholden to the laws of gravity. There was no falling if that wasn't what she wanted. She tilted her head to the side, staring at the colors blurring past. Her arms and legs stopped flailing.
The world tilted sideways. She was no longer plummeting. Instead, she was drifting at an easy pace.
Scenes slid past her. Conversations that she recognized. Outfits that she had already seen before.
Her cousins were crowded together in Shisui's kitchen. Gaara waited outside a cafe, holding a single rose. Madara sat at the table drinking coffee as he scowled at a book.
Sakura reached her hand out. Her fingers hooked onto nothing. The scenes froze. So did she. She turned her fingers to the left. It took her a second to realize that it was like she was turning a dial. The scenes began to play in reverse until she stopped.
Was this the right moment? Even as she wondered, she knew the answer.
Yes. Isn't it beautiful to create something new?
Her eyes snapped open.
"She's up!"
"Finally!"
Ino was snapping her fingers in front of Sakura's eyes. Sakura reached out to grasp Ino's wrist and push her hand down.
"Is it November 3rd?" Sakura asked. She was already turning to Sasuke. He fumbled to check his watch.
"Uh… yeah," he replied.
"You okay?" Ino asked in a whisper. Sakura didn't look at her. But she moved her hand to lace their fingers together. She gave Ino's hand a little squeeze as she looked around the room.
Shisui sat in a half-crouch, like he had frozen on the way to move closer to her. Itachi sat beside him, his eyes narrowing as he scrutinized her face.
Hashirama sat on the other side of a huge circle drawn in chalk. He blinked long and slow, like someone who had just woken up. Tobirama was leaning against the desk, arms folded across his chest.
"I'm going to start bleeding in a minute. I need you to all stay calm when that happens," Sakura warned them. She looked down at her side, just to be sure. Everyone copied her, except for Hashirama, who now had his head resting on his knee. He let out a long, shaky breath.
That was odd.
He had never reacted that way before.
Tobirama turned his attention to his brother. He crouched down beside him.
"Bleeding? What do you mean?" Sasuke demanded, reaching for her free arm. He turned her hand over, inspecting her for injuries. Ino began doing the same with her other hand.
Sakura didn't have time to comment on that. The thoughts were rushing around in her brain. She ran her tongue along the front of her teeth. There was a metallic taste in her mouth. Her eyes found the headmaster again. He looked a little paler than usual.
"You think getting you here is easy? There's a price for all things. Matter, energy- it's all the same," her other self had told her once.
"Oh," she said out loud without meaning to.
She looked around the room. Shisui and Sasuke looked confused. But Itachi… Itachi with his too-sharp eyes. Itachi stared at her. Whatever he saw in her expression made him tilt his head a little.
"Okay. Maybe I won't," she amended.
She chose to tell them the truth. Not all of it. But whatever parts of the truth they would be capable of digesting.
She didn't tell them about the strange dream-memories that she had seen. She didn't tell them that she was both herself and not herself. She was having trouble wrapping her head around it. She couldn't imagine how much more difficult it would be for them.
The knowledge throbbed somewhere in the back of her skull. She was herself, as she had always been. But there was also a hive of memories whispering all at once, just behind her ear. They sat, a dull buzzing that she could ignore. At times, if she poked at it, the memories came swarming up to the surface in a rush of colors and sounds. She saw places that no longer existed and spoke with people who had long turned to ash and bones beneath the dirt.
It was frightening. Part of her understood bits and pieces of what was going on. But the more she struggled to hold onto the knowledge, the more it slipped away from her. Like the fleeting pieces of a dream that faded in the morning sun.
"Do you feel safe going back home? Do you want to stay somewhere else?" Shisui was asking her. His words pulled her back into the present. Just like last time, everyone chimed in with some sort of encouragement. She tried to smile. Was that the right expression to wear during a time like this?
When she asked to see Naruto, Ino dropped her purse again. Her makeup and unopened candies went rolling across the floor.
Everyone argued against the idea except for Sasuke. He stood with his arms folded, like some sort of scowling gargoyle. And then she saw Itachi whisper something to Shisui. They both frowned. Shisui sighed. Then he gave a half-hearted nod in her direction.
In the end, Hashirama began taking them toward the top floor of the administration building. But as they walked, Sakura began to lead the group. As she passed, she plucked at the string of one of the spells. It hummed, resonating with the natural pulse of her magical energy.
The area that housed Naruto was especially thick with wards. They criss-crossed over the space just in front of the stairs. Hashirama paused there, hands clasped behind his back. Everyone looked at him, waiting for him to undo it. He rocked back on his heels before peering over at Sakura.
She was already stepping forward, both hands extended.
"Oh-ho. Confident, are we?" Hashirama commented.
Sakura ignored him as she flexed her fingers. She felt for the magical threads that wove the complex spells together.
"If you can get through the first six layers-"
Hashirama was still talking as she dug her fingers into the surface of the spell. The individual pieces were woven together like scale armor. The top layers of the spell overlapped with the bottom, offering a little extra protection. The individual runes shimmered across the transparent surface as her fingers split into the connections. They distorted in a confusing shimmer of blues and reds. The jagged edges dug into her skin. Blood pooled in the tiny cuts. As the oily pattern of the runes turned more red, she saw that the other connections began to unravel, snapping like thread pulled too tight.
Last time, she had to search for the thread that held everything together. This time, she listened to the hiss of her blood as it sizzled against the wards. There was nothing wrong with subtlety. But, she realized, that wasn't really her style.
Break.
The spell inverted. The chains snapped apart and then together in a strange tangle. The neat rows of the scale-like layers rearranged into a shape that there was no word for. It was jagged and filled with too many angles. The space inside the new shape roiled with magical energy, buzzing like a thousand angry bees contained within.
"What the fuck is that," Sasuke whispered.
The spell collapsed like a sandcastle scattering into dust. Each of the elements severed from its neighbor, exploding into a billion pieces of glimmering green magic.
"You're bleeding," Itachi said. He pushed past the others to examine her right hand. She let him grasp her forearm. Blood dripped down her fingers, splattering onto the ground. Wildflowers burst into bloom inside. The petals were bright pink, the stems and leaves somehow too green. As Sakura exhaled, the flowers withered and the cuts on her fingers hissed as they fused together.
Itachi turned her hand over a few times, examining her newly-healed skin. She had always struggled with healing magic. It was like the magic particles repelled one another whenever she tried to get them to collide in a healing spell. On the occasion that she had hurt herself, Ino had usually been the one to patch her up. And her cousins were able to do some basic first aid in a pinch.
"Oh. You've… guess you've been practicing," Itachi said in a voice that told her that not even he believed what he was saying.
Sakura stared at her hands. They clenched into fists as she whispered: "You know that's not what this is."
Itachi's eyes darted to her face.
"Please tell me you did that on purpose," he begged, matching her quiet voice.
All Sakura did was shake her head a little.
She knew without looking that Hashirama and Tobirama would be exchanging glances behind her back. This was confirmed when Itachi's gaze flickered to somewhere behind her, then back to her face. She put her hand down. Itachi released her.
"There's no need to keep it a secret. I already know," she said out loud. When silence answered her, she peeked over her shoulder. The two professors stared back at her.
"We've had this conversation before, then?" Hashirama was the one to respond.
Sakura tried her best to smile.
"Yes. You were very nice about it," Sakura said. That didn't seem to make anyone feel less uncomfortable.
Sakura moved ahead, flicking the last bits of blood off her hand as she moved. Everyone followed her, except for Itachi, who paused to stare at the blood flecked across the ornate tile floor. A few tiny flowers bloomed to life in the droplets before they withered into dust.
When they reached the double doors at the end of the hallway, Hashirama moved forward to undo the barrier. This was an even more complex one that took several steps. The spells here joined like the teeth of a bear trap. And then there was an additional lock on the door itself.
Hashirama hesitated, glancing over at Sakura. She gestured for him to proceed. She would feel bad if he had to redo all the spells on this one too. She had completely shattered the other barrier. It would take him hours to fix that one.
Sakura walked straight in, Ino and Sasuke flanking her. She felt a hand rest on her shoulder. It was Shisui. He gave her a light squeeze.
She stared at the back of Naruto's head. The basketball game playing on the flat-screen TV behind it bathed him in light. She could hear him crunching through his cheese puffs.
A name came to her. One that she had never heard before.
"Kurama?"
The silver chains flew out to wrap around Naruto's throat and his arms. They buzzed with icy blue runes as Naruto twisted his head around the wrong way and lunged at her. The chains yanked him back, suspending him in the middle of the room. The crowd groaned on the television as someone missed a shot.
"Are you awake?" Naruto asked, grinning.
She was confused by that question. And then, something clicked inside her.
"Not quite. I'm here in bits and pieces," she heard herself reply. Before she could question why she knew to say those words, she heard a whisper in her ear: the voice from beneath the dream.
Pity the child.
She frowned. But the child was Madara. This wasn't the time to remind her of such a thing.
Pitiful nonetheless. Half-hollow and half-sorrow.
Sakura frowned even harder. She made a note to really lay into her other self the next time she dreamed. These cryptic half-hints were more confusing than anything.
The chains rattled again. Her attention returned to the demon snarling in front of her.
"Careful. Don't let your attention wander. I might take a bite while you're distracted," he leered.
Sakura stared at him. On New Year's Eve, she knew that he snapped through those chains and ran off into the city without fail. Even now, as she watched him struggle against his bonds, she began to suspect something.
She took a step toward Naruto.
"What're you doing?" Ino hissed.
"Sakura, I don't think that's a good idea," Shisui called out. Sakura felt someone try to hold on to her arm. She jerked away from the contact. She took another step toward Naruto. Then another.
Naruto watched her, eyes glittering with hunger.
"You can't do anything," Sakura guessed.
"Because you have me all locked up," Naruto agreed. "…for now."
Sakura shook her head. She stepped all the way up to him.
It didn't matter if she was wrong. This could all be undone again.
He bared his teeth at her.
Her hand reached out to grab his face. It would have been the easiest thing in the world for him to sink his teeth into her hand. He snarled, but her flesh was unharmed.
She scoffed.
"You can't touch me until the day the contract expires," she declared.
"What do you mean?" Sasuke asked from just behind her. Sakura glanced at him over her shoulder.
"It means that he can't do anything to me until New Year's Eve. Which means this whole fucking cage is pointless," Sakura ground out. And then her gaze whipped back to Naruto. He raised his eyebrows as he scrutinized her.
"Oh… you've done this before," he realized. His face lit up, as if he had discovered something delightful. Eyes sparkling, he then asked: "How many times has it been?"
She wasn't quite sure of a number. The timelines blurred together at some points. It was hard to remember what she had or hadn't said in certain ones.
"…Six… maybe more," she replied.
Naruto's lips pressed together. He nodded a few times.
"Which death was your favorite one?" he then queried.
Before she could answer, something blurred past her face.
It was Shisui. His fist connected with Naruto's jaw. And then his cheek. Itachi and Sasuke ran to grab him under his arms. They dragged him back. Shisui howled, flame spurting from his mouth, along with profanities that she had never heard him use before.
"You okay?" Ino whispered. She sidled up and linked her fingers with Sakura's.
Sakura nodded.
The demon she had once known as a friend threw his head back and laughed. Blood oozed from a cut on his cheekbone.
"Looking forward to eating all of you. I'll save you for last, dream caster," Naruto cackled as they hurried out of the room.
Sakura didn't exactly remember what she had told Madara. Had she left a note on the kitchen table? Sent him a text? It was so hard to keep track of it all. All she knew was that she had told him not to wait up for her. He wouldn't listen to her. He would be up as late as possible, pretending not to listen for her footsteps and the jingle of her keys. That was just the kind of father he had always been.
It was still dark outside, though. She hadn't slept for twelve hours, this time around. She had expected everything to be the same.
I was so worried. I thought you would never wake. It's been twelve hours-
But Ino had never said those words.
It was just after 9 pm. She didn't know what to do with all this extra time.
Her cousins tried one more time to convince her to stay with one of them for the night.
"It'll be okay," she tried to reassure them as they sat on the floor of Tobirama's office. It was closer than the headmaster's office. And Tobirama didn't even try to kick them out. He was hunched over at his desk, scowling as he pretended to grade his papers. Ino sat in the corner healing the cuts on Shisui's knuckles.
"It's clearly not okay, Sakura. Were you serious when you said you've died six times before?" Sasuke grilled her.
Sakura folded her arms across her chest. "…I definitely remember six. There's… probably more." And then she met Sasuke's gaze. "But Madara's not the one that kills me. Remember that."
Sasuke threw his arms up. "Oh, well, that's great. That really changes things."
Shisui was oddly silent. Then again, she had never seen him use his fists on someone like that before. Sakura bit her lip as she stared at Shisui. He pretended not to notice her pointed looks.
Sasuke looked between his two cousins. With a sigh, he picked a book off the ground and threw it. The spine hit Shisui right in the chest.
"Ow! Sasuke! What the hell!" Shisui complained.
"Good. You're paying attention. What the fuck was that, Shisui?" demanded Sasuke. And then he whipped around to give Sakura a judgment-filled look. As if wondering why she hadn't done that in the first place. She tried not to laugh. A huff left her nostrils anyway.
Shisui rubbed his chest. And then he snuck a glance at Sakura.
"There's nothing to explain. You mean you didn't want to punch him after hearing that?"
"Well, yeah," Sasuke said.
At the same time, Itachi replied: "Of course."
"So why am I the only one who's pissed right now?" Shisui then barked out. He pulled his arm away from Ino. She scowled at him and yanked it right back to finish healing. Shisui blinked a few times, surprised. But he stayed still.
"Shi, I believe Sakura. But I've been friends with Naruto for a long time. It's kind of hard for me to process," Sasuke responded. And then his eyes drifted to Sakura. His expression shifted. She could imagine that she didn't exactly look sympathetic.
Then again, she supposed, it was hard to muster much pity when she'd felt his claws and teeth rip into her on several occasions.
"Process it faster. Naruto isn't real. He's a costume worn by that demon," she told him. She got to her feet. Her eyes narrowed as she added: "And if you can't, at least stay out of my way."
She heard Itachi call her name. She pretended not to hear him as she grabbed her things and hurried out of the office. The heavy door slammed behind her.
Before she realized it, she was sitting on the last train home. A spectral skeleton's hand gripped the subway pole to keep her from toppling as the train jerked to a stop at each station.
She was right. The lights were still on. She knew he would be sitting at the kitchen table when she got home.
She tossed her coat in the air. One of Madara's spells caught it and draped it over a hanger. Just like the one that gathered her discarded shoes and slipped them into an empty spot on the shelf. She climbed the steps, wringing her cold hands.
When she paused right before the kitchen, she heard the dry rustle a book page turning. The click of a pen. The scribble of Madara's uneven handwriting digging into a page to make notes.
"Did you take the train?" he greeted her.
She swallowed. Trying to control the sudden swell of emotions that clogged her throat. After a few seconds, she let out a shaky breath and replied.
"Hi, Papa. Yeah."
She put on a smile as she walked into the kitchen.
Madara was bent over the kitchen table, still adding notes to his book.
"You could've texted me. I could've picked you up. You didn't feel unsafe?" he asked.
Sakura moved past him to scrub her hands clean in the sink. The smell of the fruity soap filled the room. She rubbed her hands on a kitchen towel before she took a seat next to Madara at the round table.
"It was okay."
She stared at his pen moving. Couldn't bring herself to look at his face. There was a scar on his knuckle. White and faded. Like time had tried to scrub it off his skin.
"You sound tired. Did you eat dinner?"
She had to think about that. She honestly didn't know the answer to that question. Her pause drew Madara's attention. He slipped a bookmark between the pages of his book before he shut the cover. He pushed it to the side.
"You didn't eat? No wonder you sound like that," he grumbled. The chair scraped across the floor as he got to his feet. Madara must have pulled his glasses off. She saw the lenses glinting from the silver chain as they knocked against his chest. He crossed the kitchen to pull the refrigerator open.
Sakura stared at his back. He was framed in the glow of the bare bulb inside the refrigerator. He drummed his fingers against the top of the appliance.
"You want leftovers?"
"Nuh-uh."
He scoffed. "Brat." He heaved a sigh. He tapped his fingers a few more times as he stared at the shelves.
"You want pancakes?"
Her response came out too sharp. Too rushed. "No."
She saw his head tilt back toward her. But he didn't comment on her tone.
He waved his hand. A couple eggs flew off the shelf, along with some vegetables that were about to start wilting.
"Fine. You're getting an omelet and toast," Madara declared. He left the kitchen to begin prepping the ingredients as he reclaimed his seat at the table.
"You… wanna talk about it?" he asked.
Her eyes were drawn to the way the eggs cracked themselves into a bowl. Slices of tomato and garlic spun through the air, throwing themselves in after the eggs. And then, she caught sight of a pair of white, luminous eyes peering at her over the edge of the sink. The water spirit blinked at her. But it didn't flee upon being caught eavesdropping.
Sakura held the spirit's stare. It didn't move.
"Uh…" Sakura forced herself to break the staring contest. She refocused on Madara. But she made the mistake of looking into his face.
Tears began forming in her eyes.
"Oh," Madara said. He began to look around, blinking too quickly. He found a napkin and shoved it into her hand.
She lied that she had had a nightmare and that her period was coming up. Madara eyed her like he didn't quite believe her, but he didn't grill her. He just scrutinized her as he spread butter and jam on her toast.
While she chewed her food, he manipulated the water molecules into a cup of hot coffee. And then he gently asked her about mundane things. Things they could laugh about, even as she sniffled and dabbed at her eyes. And he pretended not to notice those things as he pushed another napkin into her hand.
He looked disgusted when she got up to do the dishes. He swatted her away with a little tickle of magic.
"Go to bed. You look terrible," Madara scoffed. When she lingered, he nudged her toward the stairs.
Sakura stood in the doorway, swallowing back another round of tears. He had his back to her, shoulders hunched as he pretended to be reading again. She knew he wasn't. He wasn't even turning the pages.
She wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his shoulder. Madara stiffened. And then he patted her hand a few times. He tolerated the hug for a minute before he elbowed her away.
"Go to sleep," he ordered.
She watched the backs of his ears redden.
"Night, Papa."
"Night, kiddo. Sweet dreams," he grumbled without looking at her.
Somewhere between dying and waking, it felt like she had watched a movie. It was a long one. Complicated, too. And like many dreams, the more she tried to remember it, the more it slipped away.
She remembered being sad. She remembered wishing that someone would help someone. Because he was… something… Maybe alone?
That night she drew a little magic circle with her blood on a sheet of paper and went to sleep on top of it. And when she finally fell asleep, she tried to inspect the door to the dream world. The colorful wood pulsated under her hands as she tried to examine it again. And before she could make much progress, she felt the dream spin and turn black.
The upside down version of her dream room hovered ahead of her, blurring around the edges. She frowned. Instead, she imagined a crimson sky streaked with bright green lightning. Little bursts of light crackled around her left hand. She raised it. Light continued to pop off it in sporadic bursts. She pointed at the vision of her room in the dream world. Energy gathered in her fingertips before it shot into the vision. It twisted the shapes around until she recognized the front steps leading up to her home.
She stepped into the dream. Everything tilted sideways before righting itself again.
The silhouette of herself greeted her as it stood on the sky.
Sakura hesitated.
Her other self waved at her. And then stopped waving.
"Oh. I'm sorry. Do you prefer it the other way around?" she asked.
Sakura nodded.
"That's no problem."
The world spun again. Now she was standing on the sky, staring at the sprawling city blocks. Clouds swirled under her bare feet. A swarm of butterflies swept past, leaving magical dust in their wake.
There was no sign of all of the damage and decay from the last time she had seen her other self. In fact, she had no face at all. She was just a dark shape. If she squinted into the void, she could almost make out a mouth and blinking eyes.
"Why the butterflies?" Sakura asked.
There was a long pause. Her other self tilted her head.
"What butterflies?"
Sakura stared back at her. She pointed to the swarms of butterflies that fluttered around with every burst of green lightning. And then at the back of her neck.
She huffed when all her other self said in response was "oh".
"I can see why you would be confused. Here," her other self then said.
As Sakura watched, her other self raised an arm. A sequence of icy blue runes spiraled around her wrist before they exploded in a shower of black sparks. Wildflowers began to sprout up all around her. The bright pink petals twisted, iridescent and bright, as if none of them could agree which they were supposed to be growing.
Sakura jumped back when a swarm of the butterflies suddenly appeared in front of her.
"Look closely," her other self instructed.
Sakura squinted at the blurring black shapes that fluttered past her. Something about them made her feel like she had forgotten something important. And as she caught the shape of a pointed wing, she realized that there were no butterflies. The true shape of the creatures emerged. They were hundreds and hundreds of skeletal birds. A shimmering aura of black magic filled in the shapes where their flesh and feathers had rotted away long ago.
"What happened to them?" Sakura whispered, horrified.
"We did," her other self replied. Her hands folded together. "But we didn't kill them. We never liked that. We only picked up the ones that had already fallen."
"Isn't it more beautiful to create than to destroy?" Sakura repeated the words that the scrying bones had once whispered to her.
And then her other self held a hand out. Sakura took it without thinking. Immediately, she felt the world blur past her.
Now, she was standing on the sky with her other self. Staring down at a memory. Only, she wasn't experience things through her own eyes. She watched everything from outside her own body.
Madara pulled his glasses off. They fell against his chest, dangling from the chain he wore around his neck. He reached out with both hands. Sakura watched herself step closer, turning and pulling her hair off her neck.
"The fuck is this shit," Madara muttered. He fumbled to pull his glasses back on.
"It looks like a demon contract, Uncle," Itachi spoke up, arms folded across his chest.
"What's it look like?" Sakura heard herself ask.
As Sasuke whipped his phone out to snap a picture, something felt wrong.
Sakura reached a hand out toward the memory. It froze.
The mark on the back of her neck was bright red with black markings running along the edges. But at the bottom of either wing was a large splotch of blue that looked disturbingly like a pair of eyes. The colors were so vivid and the lines so real that it looked as if the wings were about to flap as the creature took flight.
"But…" Sakura mused. She didn't even finish her sentence. She couldn't piece her thoughts together yet.
"But?" her other self repeated from just over her shoulder.
Sakura's free hand rose toward the strange symbol. The eye-like markings swiveled to follow the movement. Sakura recoiled. Something rippled through the lines and colors of the butterfly, like a pulse of energy. The pattern on one of the wings twisted into what looked like a sneer.
There was a huff from behind her. She almost asked her other self to take a step back until she realized that the breaths were touching the top of her head.
Too high. Not right.
She took a step forward. Magic surged to her hand. Not gold and sparkling. She could feel it rippling up, under the skin. When she looked down, her skin was glowing from within with a sickly, neon green light.
"Boo," a voice whispered into her ear.
She whirled around. The flesh and bone of her arm split apart as a bright green ray of magic shot from her palm. And then, with a screeching sound, her arm stitched itself back together again.
A huge shadow fell across her. She tilted her head back to take it in. It must have spanned up at least two stories. Glistening black teeth grinned down at her. Bright red eyes narrowed as they focused in on her. There was a hole in the darkness where she had shot through. She could see through to the other side. But there was no blood. No gristle.
Sakura took a quick look around. Her other self was nowhere to be found.
"Isn't it interesting… how you choose to remember the world? How beautiful your imagination is," the giant growled at her.
She stared at her hand. There wasn't even the slightest mark to hint at how the flesh and sinew had been ripped apart just moments before.
There was a tickle against the back of her neck. She slapped at it. She just barely managed to feel something like a fingernail graze her hand before it slipped away.
She whirled around.
The scene from her memories was gone. And then when she turned again, so was the giant.
Her other self was staring up at her from the floor of their room in the dream world. She was still just a dark shape, but her eyes were visible now. She recognized the look they were giving her.
"I'm sorry. Was that too much?" her other self said.
Sakura rubbed her hands over her face. She plopped down on the ceiling.
"You can't just give me the answers?"
"I can only tell you what you're able to understand. And you're incomplete, right now. Reclaim the part of your heart that you've lost."
At that, Sakura's head whipped up. She glared. "I was trying before you threw me into all that shit," Sakura snapped, gesturing vaguely behind her. Her other self was quiet. And then she closed her eyes so that she was just a dark silhouette again.
"Sorry…. I'm… not good at relying on others. I'm so used to just… doing things on my own."
Something flashed through Sakura's head. A cold, dark street. The cobblestones were wet. And then she recalled the huge library at the Senju Institute. Staring at the endless rows of books as she listened to the cheers and claps as other students participated in magic duels.
"Me too," Sakura replied.
Her other self opened her eyes. They were soft now.
"I'm sorry. This is all my fault," her other self sighed.
Sakura reached up to her. Grasped her hand. It was cold, but it squeezed back.
She blinked awake to light blaring in through her windows. Birds twittered away outside. And then there was a loud clang and beeping as the garbage trucks rumbled down the street.
Her pillow was wet under her cheek. She wiped her tears away as she sat up. There was a crackling sound. When she glanced back, the slip of paper from the night before lay on her bed. The magic circle was gone, as if someone had gone in and sucked her blood out from between each fiber.
She sat there for a long time, head in her hands.