The Clone Gambit

by viridianeye

Sakura manages to stab Obito's Rinnegan when asked, sending the war into chaos anew that prevents Madara from casting the Infinite Tsukuyomi. Everyone's fate depends upon Sakura's game of cat-and-mouse with Madara. With the damaged eye her curse and key, Sakura's forced to push herself and her unexpected allies past their limits. Can she stop it all from ending in Madara's favor?

14. Chapter 14

14

— PART TWO OF TWO —

"Get out. Get out now," Obito repeated into his ear piece, slinking back behind the pillars as the crowd burst into uproarious cheering and applause. The shouting of a thousand voices was made louder by the crackling of fireworks with ear-splitting cracks. "Take the research and find an immediate exit. Do not engage any more guards unless you have to to survive. We're joining you shortly; Saito will have to wait for another time." He turned to say something to Sakura, but saw that she wasn't at his side anymore, having not followed when he instinctively got out of sight and into shadow.

Sakura remained where she stood, silent and still, the whole of her attention ensnared by the one upon the stage.

White hair fell in jagged locks down long black robes, the lapels white, the robes' original Six Paths design inverted in a sleeker fashion. Black fabric flared out over gloved hands and boots, the spotlights setting him afire in gold-white light as Madara strode out onto the stage.

He looked out across the crowd as they collectively lost their minds in excitement, his mismatched eyes flashing with subtle light of their own as his stare swept over the vast hall. Two thousand hands were erupting in applause, every voice rising with their shouts and adoring calls. He took position behind the podium, gloved fingers creeping around its edges as he leaned forward slightly, his presence even more electric than the excitement thundering throughout the sea of shocked and elated cultists.

"Yes, praise your god!" Saito was cheering at the side of the stage near Madara, just out of reach. His eyes were like two shining pins in his face, and they were tacked onto Madara's jagged mane, glittering with enraptured adoration. Enthused by the energy of the vast crowd and from his blinded perspective of Madara's utter glory, he jumped up and down like a child, his bright violet robes rustling and jingling with his many gilded pins and Union-branded adornments. Thoroughly hyped and unobservant, Saito didn't notice the irritation playing around Madara's frown as he squealed his praise once more. "Let your hearts rejoice and your souls be full! Our gracious, resplendent deity joins us at last! This, is our true occasion for celebration!"

The crowds' cheers somehow doubled in volume. Chairs were overturned as people rushed closer to the stage, desperate to catch a glimpse of the god they had prayed to and sung for for so long. Madness, from ground floor to the highest balconies, the crazed feverish zeal of religious fanatics and even the excited servants and guards becoming something dangerous when multiplied into hundreds of shoving, moving bodies pressing towards the front.

Madara lifted a hand, his features shadowed under his spotlight-tinged mane of wild white hair. The gesture was enough to give the vast crowd a brief pause, but it was not for them that he gestured.

Saito's screech rang throughout the hall as thick, fast-moving branches snared and skewered him where he stood. Blood dribbled from his lips, his face going blank, and he had no time for even a passing last word as he faded, slumping in the cocoon of twisted Wood-Style branches thicker than a person that had caught and killed him with such precise, merciless ease. Just beyond view of the stage, several of Saito's personal guards gasped for breath beneath gripping hands; forcibly silenced, their armour clinked and their lungs heaved as they struggled within the black and white grips of the Zetsus. Unseen by other guards or the crowds, they were dragged into the darkness.

Countless eyes shifted from Saito's skewered corpse to Madara behind the podium, center-stage. He had their full attention.

"It is true," he said, his glowing eyes sliding across his shell-shocked audience. "But I am not joining you. I am taking command of this 'Union'." Madara leaned forward, and hundreds of frightened listeners leaned back, wide-eyed and terrified. "For all of this time, I have grown tired of watching you masquerade for my cause. I have been a personal witness to your many failures; beyond your former leader's drudgery, you are every breed of weak."

Madara shifted, his powerful voice booming out over the transfixed hall. "You heard me correctly. I sat among you through all of your gatherings; I heard your hopeless prayers. I watched as you wasted time with choirs and speeches and pointless, vacuous small talk. Wasted resources. Squandered wealth. Misused, misspent power, with what influence and attention you've gained consumed by your gluttony and vanity." The silence in the hall was tinged with fear and a burgeoning guilt as Madara's words cascaded down upon the crowd. "You made this union a spectacle of senseless fools, serenading yourselves with the future blessings of my Infinite Tsukuyomi while doing nothing to actually attain it — and all of this, under my cause. My name."

Obito had rejoined Sakura where she stood, though he was not paying the rapt attention she was, his dark eyes darting around their surroundings, watchful and on edge. He occasionally spoke in a hushed voice into the mic of his hidden ear piece, departing updates about the situation. "...Won't stay much longer. Since Saito's dead now we're just gathering information until we leave. Stay outside and await us where you are at the dropoff circle. If this gets ugly, get out of here; I have Kamui…."

Sakura beside him was motionless, her face pale and veins spiked with an adrenaline rush as if she was mid-battle – though she was fixed in place, a sculpture of ice and silken fabric. She was numb to her teammates' voices in her ears and to Obito's extreme tension. The shock of the research they had discovered had sunk through her bones, smothered from being the center of her stress for now by Madara's arrival on stage; his admonitions of the Union rang out and took command of her thoughts as she listened with her full attention, her introspections on hold as she absorbed every facet of the moment.

"As such, I will not allow your parade of idiocy any longer. It is time to change." Madara's lifted hand clenched into a fist. Behind him, the blood-spattered cocoon crunched completely shut, causing another gush of blood from Saito's lifeless pulp of a body with shards of bones and scraps of red-drenched purple fabric pushing out between branches and skittering across the stage. Gasps rose in a discordant chorus among the crowd far and wide across the vast hall, and with this gruesome sight several groups broke loose of their paralysing fear to flee towards the nearest doors. Immersed in the numbers of the vast audience, Sakura and Obito's expressions were the only ones unafraid, their features taut in grimaces instead. They exchanged brief glances — Saito was definitely not their problem anymore.

"However…" Madara's voice deepened into a sort of purr as he leaned forward over the podium, the slightly off-kilter lights steadying upon his jagged figure. "With severe change under my leadership, there will be no misused resources or wasted time; no mouldering speeches, no frivolous, purposeless gatherings. After a purge the ones who still stand will find themselves in a union worthy of my cause: strong. Organised. Intelligent." His teeth flashed in a humourless smile. "Obedient."

The back doors shut before fleeing members could escape. Small crowds lingered beside exits sealed by criss-crossing arrays of thick Wood-Style branches that had crept around the sides of the crowded hall.

"And with the sacrifice of the weak and the faltering comes that very thing you all long for so much. Something I have an abundance of, that soon you shall have ad infinitum by the grace of the Tsukuyomi…"

Panicked voices hushed as the rare phenomenon of powerful Wood Style branches grew, expanding in a rapid network across the walls with the swell of Madara's thunderous voice. "Power."

Gasps once in fear were now in awe as thick branches wound around every pillar and wall. They splayed down balconies, slithered across floors, and fanned along the bars; greenery from every walk of life exploded from the tree-trunk thick webs of branches where they stretched across every level of the hall, dripping from eaves and curling around the legs of tables and seats. Rich, dark green leaves unfolded across every individual vine and extended branch, unfurling over framed paintings and brushing along shoulders and ankles. Grass shoots multiplied from beneath rugs and across the hall like the stony floors and tatami mats were made of earth instead.

The hall was vivid green in every direction, shivering with plant life rolling out from every surface, hanging from eaves and coiling around doors and decorations. In a boundless eruption of rich violet-white colour, full wisteria flowers fell in graceful blooms to hang from balconies and railings, unfolding from above upturned heads and dripping down in colourful heavily-laden branches from the high ceilings. Decorations once lavish were now outshone by the rich overtaking of life that had completely overwhelmed the hall's interior, the air scented with sweet fragrance and the savoury scents of fresh-cooked banquet food.

Warm gold and lavender lights sparkled off of rich life and hanging wisteria blooms, glittering off glossy leaves and sturdy branches cocooning the enormous hall. Stricken faces gazed around in all directions, each half-terrified soul breathless, suspended between fear and wonder.

Sakura's eyes fluttered in her stunned state as there was tickling along her ankle. Her heart racing her mind in a rush of adrenaline, she tore her eyes from where Madara stood distantly upon the stage, throwing her attention down to her feet.

A single vine, elegant and slender, had snared her boot and curled gradually around the curve of her shapely calf. It climbed slowly higher up along her leg beneath her long black qipao in a gentle spiral. She forgot to breathe as she felt it slide up around her thigh, several buds unfolding in subtle blossoms as the thickening vine pushed just past dangerous territory along her high inner thigh — close enough that she pressed her slightly trembling legs together with a sharp intake of breath. The vine stopped where it curled possessively around her hip, new leaves unfolding over her underwear, a single sprig catching on the hem and curling just beneath.

Sakura exhaled unsteadily, one hand drifting over her dress where the vine had snared her leg, her cheeks burning. She had to admit to herself that she was impressed with not only Madara's incredible power, but the levels of finesse he possessed in wielding it, showing far more control than she had ever witnessed.

Glancing around, she saw that no other feet had had greenery entangling them, and Sakura swallowed hard as she stood tall again. She was almost afraid to look back at the stage as she carefully shook off the vine: he knew she was here, and he knew where she was.

Her glance at Obito had her following his dark stare to the shadows. Several Union members had indeed been snared, but unlike the vine slinking up Sakura's leg, these people had been bound and gagged by sharp branches that snatched them out of sight as mercilessly as those Madara had inflicted upon Saito. A glimpse of another person being pulled into the dark was someone Sakura knew was among her torturers back at the library months previously, their face familiar and hated.

She briefly shut her eyes before returning her attention to the stage as Madara spoke once more, the crowd settling back into a whispering hush.

"With the Infinite Tsukuyomi will come a world of only peace; a world of only love. But it is not only endless power, fortune, and joy that it will grant you, should you prove worthy to remain in this Union." Madara gestured out at the broad assembly, causing an instinctive ripple of fear across many who now knew to fear those hands. "It also takes away what you ache to be finished with: the elimination of pain…" His rumble reverberated across the vivacious hall, heard and felt by all. "...and ultimately, of loss."

Loss. In Madara's significant pause, the crowd was somber, the word's weight striking them hard as he swung it against them. It was the chain that bound them together through skin shades, class differences, skill distinctions, and village origins; the common wound, binding each to the cult's cause. It was the reason they had not yet fled this changed hall just yet — sundered down to their bones with the converse hope that they might be able to reclaim loved ones dead, loved lifestyles ruined, within the infinite dream Madara reminded them of now.

He knew this well, allowing the word to linger and echo until it had branded across their minds in a fresh, searing scar. Powerful enough in his iteration of it, loss was what let any cultists left that were trying to open barred doors let go and step back. Resolve tightened a great many faces that upturned back towards the stage, reminded in such a simple, effective slice of the word that they were here for a reason; not to celebrate or drown in wealth, but for the cause Madara wielded, for the promises of a future in which they might regain what in reality could never be brought back. Behind a thousand minds, countless more memories of the innumerable and beloved dead were recalled in a long moment of silence.

Those lost dead would return to life within a dream that only Madara could grant, and he had once again fully captured the attention of the widespread throng that watched him now with silent, calmed intent. They were no longer doggedly excited, and they were sober of terror, though tension pulled taut throughout every standing body like a drawn bow.

Madara had been watching them with an imperious frown, his mismatched eyes glittering in the high spotlights. The podium beneath him gave a creak as he loomed forward, his bright, powerful eyes scouring over the faces of the crowd like two stars burning in a pale sky. "We will watch the Infinite Tsukuyomi shine over this world. With me at the helm…" His presence became so electric, so charged with the thundering of his voice that a kind of exhilaration built up throughout the many hundreds watching. "We will see this vision of unparalleled peace through, and soon."

With the resounding finish of Madara's words came first the final hush, like the dying breath of a storm before sunlight's return. In that pause, the exhilaration built was visible behind thousands of eyes glued to his jagged figure upon the stage, his contagious, intense energy having infected all with a slow-building fervency. Somewhere in the far back of the unnaturally still throng, Sakura and Obito stood in shadow, tense with increasing dismay as they sensed they were in the path of a brewing tempest.

The eruption of the crowd was more uproarious and loud than ever before. Cacophonous cheers were nearly lost beneath the noise of endless applause and shrill whistles; stomping feet, even clanging drums and instruments from musicians among the many, with every noise of joy that could be made done so with eager, mindless joy. Any ominousness or threat within Madara's speech was well-forgotten as the many members rejoiced, their hopes reaffirmed, and with the subtle shifting and dimming of the lights, the vast mob of glamorously-dressed Union cultists returned to their boisterous celebrations, delving into banquets and platters and drinks while navigating the flora explosion that had taken over the well-decorated hall.

The music swelled back to life; movement, now of many in every direction, rushing to explore the wisteria and wild greenery, to return to their cliques and the numerous bars, the doors to the hall creaking open as thick branches made way at last. A space opened near the front of the stage where couples swept over in lively dances; the feel in the air was even more anticipatory than it had been before, the hall itself looking almost completely different with the rich greenery dripping from every ceiling and surface, the wisteria blooms catching the glow of the paper lanterns and ambient light in warm hues.

Madara had disappeared from the stage, leaving nothing but the wild, almost violently joyous crowd and the blood smear across the polished stage floor where Saito had once stood. Sakura was the only one left unmoving in a sea of flowing people, still staring up at the podium, her brows knotting tightly as she was charged with all she had heard and seen.

"We've stayed long enough. Sakura, we have to go." There was chatter in hers and Obito's ears from their teammates agreeing, waiting at the palanquin dropoff in a safe range away from the main building. It only made sense to make their quick escape well before the purge the crowd had so conveniently forgotten — that both of them knew would surely happen tonight.

Sakura finally turned, and her eyes were bright in the dim, warm lights of the hall. Her shoulders were squared, her stance both defensive and confident, and she removed her ear piece, sliding it into Obito's hand with her chin up and a resolute, stubborn look on her face. "You all go ahead," she told Obito. "I — am going to deal with Madara."

"What?!" came the combined exclamation in her ear. Obito's features twisted with surprise and anger, and before he could speak she gestured cuttingly towards an exit. "Go like you said, according to the plan. I'm going to go get more answers. Madara is my responsibility anyway."

Obito's surprise had resettled into an icy calm. "Sakura," he growled, "Damn your 'responsibility'. You are my subordinate, not the other way around. I've had enough of your stubbornness, and unless you want to answer to the Hokage herself, you will listen to me now." He towered over her. "I am ordering you to leave with us immediately."

Unfazed, Sakura lifted her head further, pink hair falling around her fierce scowl as she stood her ground against Obito. "I'm just a clone," she argued. "We need more answers about this takeover. About everything. As an expendable clone, and as someone doing both this mission and another that's much more important for the sake of the war, I can take that risk." She broke free of Obito's grasp with a hiss as he went to pull her with him towards the nearby exit. "Because if I die here tonight by Madara's hand or in the cultist purge, it means nothing," Sakura went on, staying out of reach as she took another step back from Obito and towards the distant stage. "We still gain information, and we lose very little. If you die, it means everything — so all of you just go." She turned, and without hesitation or even a glance backwards, Sakura wove into the crowd until she disappeared, leaving Obito to his escape.

---

It didn't take long for her to find him: always the spectacle, now surrounded by a throng of admirers where he stood within reach of a bar, though he didn't have a drink in hand. Arms folded beneath his mildly annoyed, mildly amused expression, Madara was a striking set of contrasts in a wave of lavender and black-clad Union adorers, his gaze sweeping among them with a hint of distaste and boredom. Even the bravest of those to approach still kept a polite, wide distance out of his space, forming several loose rings. The first was littered with the wealthiest executives and Union patrons who had funded this event, followed by a wider second ring of those who wished to speak with Madara or draw close. Several fanatics had made it to this circle, hands waving and faces gawping that never had a chance of catching his eye, quickly pulled away by the event guards. Every circle of people in the fascinated crowd was dotted with ladies, their painted faces bright with adoration, their interested stares even brighter.

Sakura shoved past one such lady in the third layer of the throng surrounding Madara. Several guards inserted themselves into her warpath, and she easily struck them aside despite their gruff protests and attempts to grasp her, shoving her way into the second circle. Voices rose in vexation, hands shoving her in turn that she slapped from her person, pushing through anyway.

Madara's mismatched stare levelled above the heads of the throng, his lips quirked in the subtlest of smiles.

It was when she nearly reached that inner ring of admirers that she was blocked by a wall of guards. With green eyes ablaze beneath loose, shifting pink hair, Sakura stood tall against them, fists clenched. "Get out of my way or I'll throw you across the hall."

"We'll do the same to you first, little lady," one guard answered, her and several others forming a human barrier between Sakura and where Madara and the inner ring of admirers stood. Many were craning their necks to watch the conflict as Sakura scoffed.

With an unimpressed look, she cracked her knuckles, eyeing each of them. "Who's going first? You?"

"Is that Haruno Sakura?" voices in the crowd were saying. Sakura let her hair fall over her face, though she knew that under this much attention it was very likely her thin disguise would collapse anyway.

She could feel the amusement in Madara's interested attention even through the many people between them as two of the guards snatched at her. Sakura slipped through their fingers, dodging each heavily-adorned guards' robes and seizing them by the belts, one with each hand. She effortlessly lifted them high into the air above her head while they struggled, their limbs flailing like children swimming in deep waters for the first time. "Which wall?" she asked the one who had spoken to her with a mean little grin. "You could be a nice splat on that one past the stage, or maybe above the entryway doors over that way. What do you think?"

Both flailed harder, their noises of protest incoherent. She held them away from herself, avoiding their increasingly panicked and poorly-aimed hits, her toned arms showing not even a hint of strain as she held them up high with ease.

Madara remained where he was in the heart of the crowd, his arms folded and his eyes glinting as he watched; though as more guards rushed towards Sakura, weaving through increasingly agitated cultists, he lifted a single hand, inclining his head with a smile. "That is enough."

Faces turned, the crowd stilled by the sound of his voice, their features pale from the sight of his gesture. Guards facing off against Sakura with their blades half-drawn looked back at him with uncertainty; why was he allowing his and the Union's worst enemy near? But Sakura needed no more cue, and with a shrug she dropped her captives unceremoniously, letting them fall into shivering lumps on either side of her. She strode towards Madara with all the confidence and poise that none of his admirers dared have, her stare dagger-sharp upon him. Sakura halted just out of his reach, her hands on her hips, her unabashed glare meeting his head-on.

She held perfectly still as Madara's equally unabashed scrutiny glided slowly up and down over her figure. His narrowing, smouldering stare slid from curve to lovely curve, following the lavender lines embroidered along her silken cheongsam; he traced the slit in the side of her long slim-fitting dress that revealed a hint of her toned thighs. As if it were the heat of his hand rather than his eyes appreciating every facet of Sakura's appearance, her skin reacted to the touch of his gaze with a visible flush of rosy red wherever Madara shamelessly stared, the hale flush of her skin creeping along her bare arms and up along her throat above the dress' collar.

His journey across Sakura's polished beauty finished where it began, settling upon her face and wandering along the mascara that accentuated her striking green eyes now sparking with heat behind her glare. "Hello… my dear," came Madara's sly, familiar greeting, ignoring the subtle gasps across the crowd around them.

"Don't you dare pet-name me," Sakura shot back, stepping towards him with a hiss. Several nearby mercenaries reactively shifted towards her that she ignored, her slinking, quick-footed steps carrying her almost up against Madara as she challenged him directly, standing within his space without hesitation or fear. "We're talking. Here and now."

His glance over her this time was more appraising than appreciative. Ignoring her threatening poise, Madara folded his arms again, tilting his head slightly as he held Sakura's burning stare. "You're merely trying to be angry," he commented. "I can see that you've enjoyed putting on a show just as I have, though you were less willing to spill blood." He leaned over her, white falls of hair slipping forward over his sleek black robes. "The games are over with; not only for them, but for us as well. If you wish to argue with me, Sakura…" Sakura glanced around uneasily as several more gasps and interested, recognising eyes magnetised to her, the crowd around them growing bigger as increasing numbers of cultists noticed her altercation. Her attention returned to his face in time to see the deadly serious flash about his mismatched eyes and the gloved hand that was extended towards her as Madara's velvet tone descended into a lethal rumble. "Then you will join me."

Sakura held his gaze, reading the significant glint in his stare signifying what he meant as the music swelled nearby in lively instrumentals, the vast square dancefloor filled with couples swinging and swaying to the merry rhythms.

She swallowed hard, her pupils contracting and sweat clinging to her skin as Madara's words sunk through her. They hit her gut with the weight of an anchor, her mind spinning in a whirlpool as she processed what he was asking of her.

She knew Madara, and with that knowledge came her unflinching understanding that his simple invitation was anything but. This was the second time she was faced with that offered hand, and this time she had to make her decision under the eyes of many in all directions, curious and judging. The more stares she drew, the more she knew she was being recognised for who she was. Time was running out: and whatever Sakura chose now, everyone would see, and no longer as the person she'd faked being at their meetings.

Just as before, this was a test, but she knew it in the moment rather than in retrospect; and he wasn't hiding it within false words or uncertainties, letting her see it in plain, bold letters stamped into her mind's eye until she made her decision.

Sakura took in a steadying breath, knowing Madara would allow her another few heartbeats' worth to consider, though no longer. She held his eyes as she thought, unafraid of how he might see her deliberations. He was as serious now as he was at the beginning of the war, as if this choice offered meant life or death.

Sakura shut her eyes briefly. It was a choice like that of life or death. This was so much more than an invitation to dance, and more of a demand than anything else; Madara was forcing her to decide to take her final chance to leave and thus end what it was between them, or to take his hand and go public with him instead.

Her brows cinched, her heart pounding. It wasn't too late just yet. Sakura could still choose to make her swift exit, to catch up with her teammates out in the country on their way back to Konoha and redeem herself with them before they made their report to the Hokage. It would be her rejection of Madara and the end of their bond; it would mean a return to before, the days of stress and death and blood, but it was the objectively best option to reaffirm her Konoha loyalties. It was the best way to seek out a true end to Madara's existence and by extension the war. It was the choice Sakura knew she should take, with no doubt.

She opened her eyes once more, meeting Madara's subtly searching stare, unaware of the quiet hush in the immediate crowd surrounding them. He was the whole of her focus as she determined the fate of whatever hung so thickly between them like veiled chains.

To take his hand would be to announce whatever they had become to the world. Sakura's blood was rushing as she held Madara's stare for another heartbeat. Had he noticed her shadow of a wistful thought about how what they had could only ever be secretive back when they had dealt with the photographer? She'd dismissed it so quickly, but he'd read it in full anyway, calling her out on it here and now.

Madara knew her better than she thought, and he'd used that knowledge to pin her down with it here, in the view of hundreds; to make an extremely personal, important decision without time to deliberate nor space to let the question itself sink in. Sakura's throat was tight as she clenched her teeth behind her tight frown, and her gaze had a shadow of resent as she read Madara's watchful stare, knowing what he was demanding of her now.

But it was just a dance, when it came down to it, no matter the complexities layered beneath his gesture. Beyond it all, Sakura knew that she'd already long decided how she would answer his well-anticipated demand; and her decision was easy in the end as she slid her hand over his, stepping fully into the warmth of his presence with a deep breath.

Madara blinked down at her, pleased, any lingering ice in his aura shedding from his shoulders. He pulled Sakura closer with a hum, aware of the dramatically shocked reactions all across the surrounding crowds. He didn't care about them in the slightest as he leaned into her enough to draw his smile along her ear, burying her in a cloud of white hair. "I knew you would exceed my expectations."

Sakura's skin burned as she felt the many eyes upon them both, and she clasped her hands around his nervously as Madara pulled her with him towards the dance floor. "You don't know everything," she countered him in a tight voice, though remembered ease from bantering with him over the months helped slough some of her tension as she followed him through the parting sea of people. "But I thought I asked you not to test me anymore."

Their hands secured, Madara brought Sakura to the edge of the dance floor. It quickly cleared, every set of eyes glued to the two of them. He glanced at her as they stopped, Sakura standing uncertainly at the precipice of the great empty space beyond him, shifting from foot to foot on flighty feet as he spoke. "It should not come as a surprise," he told her, "I gave you ample warning to deliberate for such a decision; far more than any other would get."

Sakura nodded, her expression determined and pale. Meeting Madara's gaze, she refused to let herself look around at anything but him, focusing on her footing and recalling what little she knew of how to dance. She disallowed herself from thinking too much about the thousands of eyes stabbing into her, and she shunned her fears of the inevitable consequences of her decision as she prepared to dance with him. He took a step back, and Sakura followed him with a decisive shift forward, a new song starting to play.

---

Sakura danced infrequently. In fact, the amount of times she could remember ever doing so were in brief stints at friends' houses during informal parties, and her limited experience in it was the definition of casual and amateur; so she was more than nervous as she slid her feet in time with his, already sure she would embarrass herself in front of Madara and the vast crowd watching. Her grip on his dark sleeves was tight, her expression pale in a pinched look of focus.

Her focus was sharp enough that she was silent, temporarily forgetting her previous anger with him, and Madara had a brow raised as he swung her around in a circle to the swell of the strings, watching her as she concentrated. He moved with ease and grace, and Sakura was quick to match him, keeping her feet from stumbling or her steps from straying. Her intense attention to every nuance of his leading movements was intelligent and observant, betraying her quick learning and inherent natural skill.

Madara's thoughtful hum was lost beneath the music, not needing to look around to know exactly where he led the two of them throughout the dancefloor. His footwork was precise and agile, while Sakura's was somewhat halting, though she was quick to correct any missteps. Within only a small stretch of music measures, she had begun to match Madara step for step no matter the changes in pace nor each twist and turn.

Now that she was flowing more easily within the dance, she finally looked back up into Madara's face, noticing the smug look he wore.

"Don't tease me," Sakura scowled. "I don't have your eyes. I can't just copy and repeat things effortlessly. I have to learn it, and I've never quite done this before."

"I can tell."

Her face pinched again, and Madara chuckled at Sakura's cross expression. "I mean that in the sense of how hard you work to keep up. You try too hard…" He pulled her around in a circle, his grip light on her palm and her side, their feet sliding together in time. "You need only recognise that it is the same as fighting, simply without the violence." He grinned.

"Speaking of violence," Sakura freed a hand to gesture at the partially bloodied stage where one attendant was scrubbing at the varnished floor in effort to clean it up. "What I wanted to 'argue' with you about. Well — we both already knew we'd each be here; I'm not angry about that." She sighed. "And I do have to say I don't regret Saito's death. If it hadn't been you, it would have been me taking his life tonight. Though—" Sakura grimaced as the cleaner scooped a bit of gore into a trash bag, "...perhaps less gruesomely."

Madara smirked as she let out a quick breath, returning her attention to his face, their feet sweeping in tandem with a slow-paced melody. "But I had no idea you'd be taking control of the whole thing. That's… that's huge, and I thought we were on the same page with things. I wish you had told me; you shouldn't have lied."

Swinging around with Sakura again, Madara blinked down at her, his wild mane a cloud of jagged silver-white locks that fell forward around his shoulders. He shook his head, their joined hands sliding to lock over each other's arms in the wide spiralling curves of the dance. "I did not lie to you," he replied, "I never denied I'd take control of the Union in the future; nor did you ask me."

Sakura frowned at his words. She was keeping up with him without misstep now, matching each of his twists and turns, her hands shifting carefully in progressing stances as they swung to the music. Percussion beat through Sakura's chest as the spotlight trained above them continued to follow wherever the two of them danced; they served as the main spectacle for the entirety of the thousand event guests.

Sakura squeezed along Madara's fingers where their hands clasped in the dance, hoping her anxiousness didn't show too much: it was a relief that her team had made their swift exit, now deep into the forests as they made their way home. Her relationship's spotlit reveal wasn't something she could afford for them to see.

She couldn't particularly afford for anyone to see, but Sakura held her head high as she and Madara danced, keeping her attention trained on him instead of the increasingly large ring of viewers gathering around the dancefloor. There was a knot between her brows as she sought his face shadowed in the brushing sweep of his wild white hair, and she hated how right he was that she was less angry with him than she was troubled. Anger was obligatory; her worriment was heartfelt.

Madara spoke just loudly enough for her to hear him over the sweeping music and the noise of the crowds. "Ultimately, I do not owe you information of any kind."

Sakura grimaced at his blunt words as Madara swept her closer. His mismatched eyes glinted in the glow of the spotlight, his white hair adrift around his frown. "For what are you to me, woman? What am I to you?"

The inevitable question, now unavoidable, but Sakura was calm as she held onto him, allowing him to turn them both around and around in the increasingly swift pace of the next song. Her throat was tight as she met his eyes, however, and Sakura glanced down with the visible excuse of checking her footings, her dress shivering around her figure in a twisting flare. She wasn't hurt; Madara had not asked his question unkindly, his tone implying it was a genuine question rather than a mocking hypothetical. Breathing deeply, she looked back up at him quickly as he cut through her thoughts.

"Define us."

Madara loomed over her, fingers sliding up her arms, the lights reflecting sharply off his sleek black robes and luminescent stare. "Define us, and I will involve you in my future plans."

A quick razing of her eyes across his serious expression told Sakura he meant it, and her pulse quickened as she tasted the dual meanings in his words. "Honesty," she returned, her fingers tightening again upon his flared sleeves, the fabric bunching beneath her fists. "Be always honest with what I might ask you, and then I'll agree to your demand."

"That depends upon how you choose your definition." Madara's eyes slowly narrowed.

"Fair enough," Sakura replied a little primly, holding her head high. Short locks of glossy pink hair swirled around her face as he spun her around in their dance, her henge long-forgotten and released.

She looked to the side as the pace of the music slowed, their bodies drawing a little closer; she focused on the feel of his large hands secured over her hips, letting it warm her from head to toe. "Well," Sakura began, "you were my enemy."

She ignored Madara's scoff, taking it slow. She wouldn't let him rush her this time, and she enjoyed the play of irritated impatience across his mismatched stare as she paused, drawing her fingers down his toned arm over his sleeve with a half-smile. "It's still a surprise to me how that alone changed. So much has happened since I first saw you." A flicker behind the green of Sakura's gaze, her oldest memories of Madara briefly aglow passing behind her mind's eye.

She and Madara swung together in an almost violent curve across the dance floor, the strings pushing forth a trebled note. "There are many names I have for you, from then up to now. You've been my killer, my tormentor. The source of all my stress and anger." Her grip on him tightened as they moved to the swell of the music, her gaze drifting away into the crowd, tracing along the distant blooms of wisteria hanging from all the balconies full of curious onlookers. Sakura had begun to lead the dance, her confident feet in perfect opposition to Madara's, their spirals elegant and assertive under the dazzling spotlights.

She looked gradually back to him with the softening of the music. "I'm happy that's changed. I would never have thought that it could; and in my denial it all completely turned around. Beyond my enemy, you became… a curiosity," she said, her smile falling as she searched Madara's once-strange features, the curve of bone over his forehead, the crimson red versus lavender-metallic of his clashing eyes and his unnaturally pale skin. "My vested interest, negatively or not. Then, more of a fascination," Sakura reddened, "less a tormentor than an annoyance, and the more I knew you the more I liked you."

She cleared her throat and looked away again as Madara raised his brows. "What an admittance," he teased, and she let out a soft huff of amusement, shaking her head and pressing closer, their dark clothes fluttering in the hot air of the vast hall. "It is, though." Sakura looked down at the natural position of her hands across his shoulder and arm. "That alone took a long time for me to recognise, and longer to accept. But then we became more, both on the surface, and beneath. I let you become my patient, and I your only doctor; then we were like mutual confidantes, too, during all those meetings. You know—" Sakura's smile returned, hidden beneath falls of pink hair. "You've biased me. It's because of you I don't really like the Second Hokage anymore."

The glint in Madara's stare was pleased in a smug way as he turned her in an effortless spin. "Do not forget I was also your pillow, quite often."

Sakura flushed pink before shaking her head vigorously. "Absolutely not! That didn't happen. You're supposed to forget about that."

"You have a list of things you want me to forget; but you are well aware I never intend to. You may as well abandon that hope here and now." Madara's grin became positively sinister as he pulled Sakura closer, his voice slipping into a darker register and causing her pink flush to burn red instead. "Your midnight-hour habit is among my favourites to recall."

Sakura pulled hard at Madara's sleeves, glancing around quickly with the redness seeping to her ears. "Madara—!"

The music was voluminous as it floated around them, and though she knew his words were known only to her, she still kept her voice hushed. "I'm still mortified you witnessed that. What if someone hears us over the music? You love to bring that up…"

"You made a song in itself that night. Music of a different kind," Madara continued. He drank in the blooming colour across Sakura's face as he pulled her with him in a lively swinging rhythm. "You showed off to me that you are a musician beyond a medic-kunoichi… being both the orchestrator and the instrument. It would have been a waste not to learn the song." His fingers dug into the silken fabric hugging her hips with emphasis.

Sakura took in a ragged inhale before pushing lightly at Madara, turning them around and around in a dizzying spin with the upbeat jive of the continuous live music. "You didn't learn it. I disappeared," she shot back with a huff, though there was a twinkle in her gaze as she glared up at Madara, matching the smile playing around the corners of his mouth.

Gloved fingers rippled slowly up both sides of Sakura's waist, his thumbs tracing up the hollow of her belly and pausing beneath her bust; when she met his piercing stare once more, his dark eye flashed red once over his crooked grin.

Understanding Madara's unspoken point, Sakura stiffened within the swirl of their dance, their feet moving so fluently together that neither thought about their footwork while moving with style across the floor. Neither paid attention to the lively crowds, the spotlight following the two of them as doggedly as the eyes around them; their surroundings were a secondary priority to each other. Other couples had returned to the dance floor, though all kept a safe distance, modelling their dances to avoid the unpredictable turns of the path that Madara and Sakura followed.

She was prodding him in the chest with a hiss, shocked at what he was implying. "You used the copy abilities of the Sharingan to memorise that?!"
"I certainly did. You created such a fascinating display for me."

"Why?!" She seized him in the swinging dance, their feet shuffling together in a balanced to-and-fro rhythm. While Madara chuckled in response, Sakura shook her head, cheeks blazing. "You know what, don't answer that."

He leaned into her ear, his falls of silver-white hair temporarily shadowing her in warmth; she leaned into him in turn, giving a warm shudder with his murmured question. "Why do Sharingan users utilise visual prowess to copy techniques, Sakura? Remind me."

Sakura slid her hands up Madara's sides in their close dance as his palms swept back down to curve around her hips. They swung in tandem, the heat in her face making any words she might have in reply simmer away before she could speak.

Madara's grin slid against her cheek, his voice dangerously silken. "...Future use."

Sakura shivered beneath her sleek qipao dress before Madara reasserted her in his arms back into a more distanced position, gloved hands secure around her shoulder and side. He stared down at her imperiously, all the mirth gone from his expression as his eyes shone dangerously in the spotlights.

"Now… let it be clear that neither flirtation nor guile will buy you an escape from the newest deal you've made with me." Madara withdrew from her somewhat, the two of them still locked in a spinning dance, though there was space between their bodies again. His presence regained some of his usual oppressive, shadowy power as he narrowed his stare upon Sakura. "Define us — or our dance ends."

Sakura swallowed hard. His words stayed staked through her heart during the next song change, and she caught her breath as Madara pulled her into the ferocious beat, keeping up with breathless, almost dizzy movements. She was reminded of their fights long in the past now as their limbs were a blur of precise, mirrored movements, countered and matched, twisting endlessly within the bright lights of the spotlight. Beyond the ebb and flow of their conversation, she felt unconsciously safe within his grasp; dancing with him now was as natural as breathing. The two of them spun in a rhythm they followed together with ease as if they'd been made to move to its song.

Madara spun her in a tight circle that she accomplished in a graceful loop before he caught her. Dipping in his arms and rising to her feet, Sakura's eyes wandered along the deep violet subtly woven in along the tailored black Six Paths dress robes he wore, the strings rising in a chord around them. Fingers dug into her waist as the two of them turned round and around in a careful swirl, the music slowing somewhat. Sakura sighed as Madara was at her back for a moment, breath tickling her ear.

She shut her eyes briefly, and the look on her face was focused; not with fear or anxiety from his daunting demand, but with confidence, of the thrill burning steadily through her veins alongside her heartbeat.

Their hair was a pink-white spray as he pulled them back to match the lively music. Sakura met his eyes with a steady, serious expression, her tone slightly tremulous but collected. "We're more than acquaintances."

Madara's gaze sparked with displeasure at her disappointing answer, but Sakura was smiling as she reached up and touched his face, her thumb stroking along the edge of his jaw. "And we're more than friends." She adjusted her footwork as they swayed to sidle closer, daring to draw her murmur up against where her hand had traced down his cheek, speaking with her lips grazing along his heated skin. She let her front press lightly against his, one of her shy hands sliding down from his shoulder to catch upon his dark obi and settle low along his side, their dance becoming slow and intimate. "We're almost lovers," Sakura let out in a warm exhale. "Almost more than that, even."

"Hmm." Gloved hands slid around Sakura's figure, pulling her back so Madara could meet her eyes. Never had she seen his stare burn so brightly, brighter even than the spotlights endlessly following them around from above. "Let us change that tonight."

Sakura's heart dropped to her stomach as he went on. "No more 'almost'."

"Yes."

Sakura watched the surprise glow in Madara's eyes as she gave him her unhesitant answer, the flush along her cheeks and down her neck heated without any trace of bashfulness. She had thought this through enough. "I'm ready."

Almost unbearable heat was his first response to her, crackling both in his expression and in the way he kept her seized within his grip, their movements together synchronous and suggestive bordering on feverish; Sakura absorbed his voracious excitement, as afire as he was. "Are you ready?" she asked with a beaming, not-quite-innocent smile, "I'm a lot to handle."

Madara gave her a rich, rumbling laugh before pressing into her with a grin so wide he looked crazed. His mismatched eyes were bright in their unnatural luminescence, his pupils contracting as he stared her down in tangible, vicious joy. She could feel the violent itch of his anticipation in his grip digging into the fabric of her dress, spiking the frantic beat of her heart. "I could ask the very same of you. Yes… I have been ready for far longer than you have."

Sakura couldn't wrest the smile from her face. "That's unbelievably flattering."

She found Madara's crazed look more than attractive, gladly snared in his increasingly dangerous clutches, her skin rashing with tingling goosebumps beneath her dress wherever his progressively daring hands went. She had forgotten their audience now, far beyond caring, Madara the only thing she was willing or able to see in light of the fierce pull set fully aflame between them. She held on to him tightly, letting him lead them both, trusting that wherever he brought them would be somewhere they both wanted.

Exhilarated, Sakura breathed lightly as she held Madara's lethal eyes, barely noticing the sway and movement of their tightly-bound frames across the dancefloor. Madara pulled Sakura closer as the song slowed; she tilted her head against his, spinning in the moment, allowing the movement and sway of their bodies to carry her in the current of music around them, their previous words passing into warm silence.

She didn't notice how the circles the two of them spun gravitated ever-closer to the dark of the back stage as the two of them left the dancefloor. She ignored the whispers of hundreds that looked on as they made their exit, Madara's acidic, sweeping glance keeping guards back as he pulled Sakura in a concentric circle through a parting sea of people. One look upwards, and the spotlight spun away, leaving the two of them in a warm dark that had her relaxing as he pulled her through a dark doorway beyond view of any others, no guards nor cultists daring to follow as he led her deep into the quiet shadows of the cluttered back stage and its complex of rooms. Sakura's feet continued to move in time with his to the sound of the now-distant live music, her eyes closed where she leaned into him; the side of her face grazed along his throat, his wild hair tickling around her face in a curtain of silver.

"Did my definitions satisfy you?" she murmured, soothed by the cool darkness. She shifted with him over polished wooden floors, barely hearing the slithering sounds of Wood-Style branches Madara had exiled with a twitch of his fingers, clearing their vicinity of clutter or tripping hazards; the carefully-controlled flora zig-zagged over the doorway they had gone through instead, blocking any from following them should they dare to try.

"I expect that they will result in satisfaction," he answered as he returned his attention to Sakura, causing her to huff softly, her heart continuing to pound wildly against her ribs. "I do, too." She slid a hand around Madara's back with a hum. "But you didn't answer me… did I overshoot?" Nervousness, and Sakura pulled back, meeting his eye. There was a glint back in Madara's stare, and he slid his fingers along her chin without an immediate answer.

She scowled. "Don't you dare tell me this—" she gestured at their general close proximity, "is all my doing. You're just as guilty as me when it comes to how we came together. Since the beginning, I—"

"No. You did not 'overshoot'." Madara blinked down at her. "I think you could have been bolder."

"Bolder?" Sakura scoffed, and then his words hit her again, and she stared at him with wide eyes for a moment, stunned.

"Let us begin with what you said, before." Madara was smiling slightly. Though he was ever so calm and had become patient with her again in the cool dark of the backstage, he finally had her alone, and they could both feel the electric impatience that burned between their closely-drawn figures, friction sending unseen sparks between their tangled limbs.

Sakura continued to stare for several heartbeats longer, distracted from what he said by him, himself. She had recognised Madara as attractive more and more frequently over time, and in this moment where she had that recognition anew, it hit Sakura in a more complete epiphany, like a painting coming fully into view. It was not simply his appearance or other features, but the whole of who he was both in himself and to her now. All of his complexities; mannerisms that annoyed her and ones that didn't now blurred beneath the weight of how much she enjoyed him overall.

Madara was an enemy she was awed by; a shinobi she respected and admired; a friend she relied on and trusted, and a man she was drawn to on every level. He affected her so potently that the only time she felt adrenaline anymore was within his presence. If she had begun enjoying their encounters from the thrill alone before, she'd long become addicted now, each new meeting a kick to please her thoroughly-embedded need for his breed of danger.

And now, as if he knew what it did to her, he'd showed up somehow sleeker than how she already saw him, his dark Six Paths robes tailored to his honed frame and his black-haired disguise she had grown so used to long-gone. Sakura's gaze raked over Madara, and she smiled up at him, her voice soft. "You know… I loved seeing how you used to look through your henge, but," she lifted her head, letting her nose brush along his cheek before turning her face along the side of his with a sigh. "It's nice to see your real face again."

"Is that why you have been staring?" Fingers danced down Sakura's spine, causing her to shiver; she inhaled slowly as his palm slid down, down until he was teasing away the dress where it was split along her thigh, his thumb sweeping over soft revealed skin. "You have not been the only one."

"I'm glad you like my dress," Sakura smirked against Madara's cheek, causing him to scoff, his hand digging in along her inner thigh. "It is not the dress."

Several potent reactions from her body, but it was the stabbing ache in her heart that had her pulling up against Madara and burying her face in his neck in a partial, sudden embrace. His hands flexed behind her back as he inhaled quietly with surprise.

"Sakura…"

Her eyes fluttered open, her skin tingling from gloved fingers that traced in a feather-light touch along the side of her cheek. He'd lightly allowed her embrace, and now she pulled back, embarrassed with herself.

Sakura's gaze gravitated up to Madara's mismatched stare that glowed in the darkness, red and metallic, and there was a fervent warmth within his gaze that had her stresses already melting under the weight of his deep rumble. "Are you afraid?"

She tried to ease the knot in her throat, but her expression remained worried as she searched his face. "No. Not of this," Sakura emphasised, sliding her own hand over his along her face, "I don't regret anything in our past. I'm just worried about the future."

Madara's rumble permeated through Sakura and settled deep in her bones, his stare luminescent in the shadows. "You accepted the consequences of being with me when you accepted my hand."

"Yes. I did." Sakura lifted her head, holding his eyes confidently, as fearlessly as when she'd first fought him. Her gaze was weighted with all she knew she had accepted as a burden, yet still aglow, burning brightly regardless with anticipation for all to come.

"Hn." Sakura's heart stopped as Madara took hold of her face, the gleam in his eyes the only thing she saw anymore as he tilted over her with a low, warm hum. "You have taken a great many risks for me. I do not intend to let that go unrewarded." Dark fingers swept around Sakura's cheeks as he leaned into her, keeping her still within his steady grip, his mane of silver-white hair sliding forward to shadow both their faces. "It is about time that I return this to you, beautiful, fearless woman."

Her eyes fell shut as Madara took her mouth decisively with his.

The kiss Sakura had first given him many months before had been decisive as well, though innocently halting and terrified, sweet in its aftertaste. Returned now, it was far from innocent and sinfully heated in the sliding of Madara's lips against hers, forceful yet thoughtful in the way he angled her head to devour her more effectively. He was not halting, either, driving her back until she hit a wall, disallowing any chance to break free, and Sakura fisted his dress robes with a sharp breath through her nose, the fires within ignited with the heat of his own.

How long she had wanted this, the reality of remembering his lips meshing with hers so much better than fantasy or memory. She knew Madara had the same thought, his eyes opening again as she met his gaze and finally broke free for air, her nose filled with his scents with her gasp, her mouth afire with the taste of him. Suddenly her stresses and doubts had no weight to her anymore. Nothing mattered but Madara and the desire jolting between her body and his. Why had she tormented herself waiting so long to do this? She felt she'd wasted months in which she could have repeatedly tasted such electric joy, and never had she understood his former frustration with her teasing so thoroughly, her legs clamping together with her almost painful thrum of aching desire.

If only she could forsake air. Sakura pulled his face back to hers, realising in Madara's warm huff that she might have said that aloud and it didn't matter — white hair falling around their faces as he pressed her hard against the wall, teeth clicking in a kiss that had become a vicious fight for power, tongues racing to meet, breaths hot and short. Gloved hands pinning her shoulders and pushing her upwards; Sakura kicked her legs outwards, her boots crossing behind Madara's back as she arched her lap against his, his frame supporting her weight against the wall. He pushed against her, her dress hiking up her legs, and she shuddered as fingers found the silken fabric of her underwear, causing Madara to pull back from her lips and look down, glowing eyes flashing in the dark as he stared between her legs at black silk and deep lavender stitching.

Sakura's heart was in her throat as he dragged his stare back up her captured figure – her pushed-up cheongsam, her slim tan limbs, her heaving chest and up to her eyes.

Madara's expression was feral. She could see that he understood she had worn this new silken set of underclothes just for him to see.

She could feel how close he was to violently descending upon her, which she anticipated with her heartbeat throbbing between her legs — but he slid a hand up under her dress instead, his palm finding his way up to settle between her breasts over her pounding heart, discovering the matching bra she had worn.

"No chest-bindings this time." Madara's grin was crooked. Sakura swallowed hard as she drank in his frighteningly attractive features, her gaze dragging down his neck to where his robe had fallen open over his chest, hinting at toned muscles she ached to touch and explore for pleasure now rather than for healing. And she would: she shivered bodily in his merciless grip with pent-up excitement as she thought of the long night ahead. Part of her was terrified — she had never ventured into such territory before, and Madara was every kind of intense — but she had wanted this long enough to consider the risks worth it.

Sakura knew her thoughts were written all over her red-flushed face as she held Madara's burning stare with a smile of her own. His growl rippled through them both, fingers digging into the frame of the bra and snapping it between his fingers as he wrenched her closer by the frayed ends of it, her chest rising and falling rapidly in response. "When you look at me like that—"

They seized each other at once, their lips snared instantly. Sakura pulled at his robe lapels, squeezing her knees around his waist and breathing shakily through her nose as Madara gripped her face with a hand, forcing her mouth open wider and dominating her lips in a kiss she gladly surrendered to with her eyes fluttering shut. She melted against him, but didn't give in entirely, her own stubborn, strong-willed nature igniting her to both push into and pull him up against her with gripping limbs and stolen breaths between their battling mouths. His hand under her dress ripped away the broken bra, freeing her breasts; he caught one, palming it with a guttural growl, shoving her harder against the wall and pushing the dress higher.

Sakura took hold of Madara's broad shoulders, breaking free of his lips. In a spirited shove of strength she pulled them both around until they were spiralling deeper into the dark, pushing the other from wall to wall, paying no mind to toppled end tables and stage equipment that fell around them, catching against overgrown branches that consumed their environment in vivid greens and violets. They cast aside a sliding door hard enough that it broke in its frame, and they swerved down a dimly-lit empty back hall. Managing to pull them both against another wall, Sakura slammed Madara against a wooden beam, their mouths meshed again, tearing at his obi with quick fingers.

It fell away, his dark robes falling open over his black pants and pale chest. Madara seized her by the dress collar, dragging her with him into a nearby dark room. She slammed the door shut behind them with a foot, lifting her head with a ragged inhale as the clasps of her dress broke open with the force of Madara's pull. His red-metallic eyes glowed brightly through the darkness, his own fingers just as quick as hers to free the fitted dress, and Sakura shoved him hard enough that they both fell back onto a futon, pink and white hair spilling around their faces.

She drank him in, slinking up atop him to sit over his lap, savouring their kiss that gentled enough to be a slower, appreciative sliding of their mouths rather than a passionate fight for dominance. Madara was quick to turn her back over, pinning her down, and she tasted the smirk indenting his lips with one of her own. They pulled back slightly, eyes meeting through the dark.

Their stares held, and he was smiling as her gaze fluttered with pleasure with the slow drawing of his gloved hand along both of her breasts, tracing her nipples and beneath the curve of her bust, admiringly along her toned stomach and across to her waist; he slid his hand down the shape of her thigh beneath her opened dress, further, capturing her calf and tracing its honed muscles over her long boot before pulling her leg up and positioning it behind his lower back. His open robe swept around Sakura's partially nude figure, and she was breathless as Madara gave her other leg similar treatment, hooking her boots behind him and sliding her closer, staring over her prone body hungrily.

When Sakura gave a quick, cut-off giggle, Madara glanced at her sharply. She blew away tickling locks of white-silver, reaching up and shoving both hands through his wild mane, pushing it away from both of their faces and arching up to kiss him. She did so sweetly, capturing his cheek and leaning into him, speaking to him wordlessly with the movement of her lips with his; every taste, every vibrant sensation between them expressed her passion, her desire, and her deep sense of closeness to him in every passing second.

Madara answered her by snatching her arms from around his shoulders, pushing them up above her head and looming over her with a grin that flashed through the darkness. He pinned her wrists down, and he held her gaze as he slid his hand along her thigh, pausing long enough to let her recognise why he made this emphasis. Several Wood-Style branches bound around her pinned wrists, and his grin grew heatedly sinister as he loomed over her.

Sakura's eyes widened, her face flushing redder. Her skin tingled beneath his hands, her blood thrilling, both with anticipation in the moment and in remembered sensation from when Madara had first pinned her down that night months previously.

She made a soft, breathless laugh, her voice rough around the edges. "So we come full-circle." The look she gave him then was deeply warm. "But I won't be running away after I kiss you this time."

"Indeed…" Fingers wandered back up her leg, circling around her thigh to pause beside Sakura's silken underwear. Madara's luminescent gaze flicked between her parted legs and her flushed face. "I also fully intend to debauch you this time."

"Good." Sakura swallowed hard, her body hot from head to toe, the remaining parts of her dress still clinging to her shoulders and part of her stomach and waist feeling constrictive. She was terrified and stubbornly excited as she stared back up at Madara, towering over her in the darkness where he was thoroughly enjoying his view of her splayed figure beneath him.

"I want it to be you," she said softly.

He paused where he had been about to pull away the last of her underclothes, fingers caught in silk growing still, and Madara hesitated a moment before understanding Sakura's meaning, his pupils subtly dilating in the darkness above her. After a moment, he inclined his head, his wild hair falling around his shoulders in a shift of jagged white.

Leaning forward, he released her wrists, capturing Sakura's chin and hovering over her face with burning eyes boring into hers. A more careful, thoughtful hand slid along her curves. "I will be gentle, when you flower for me."

He pushed his knees up around her waist, supporting her legs higher along his back. Sakura's hesitant expression had fallen into one that was resolute and almost dangerous. "Don't be."

Madara's head whipped back towards her, and Sakura pulled his face to hers, revelling in the endlessly addictive feel of his skin on her skin, his lips against her lips. He pushed her into the futon, and she caught one of his arms, feeling up along his toned muscles until she caught the seam of his long glove; she peeled it off, tossing it away and twining her fingers with his bared ones, clasping their hands. He freed his other arm of the second glove, drawing his palms around her face as he kissed her slowly, a sense of power behind his gradual movements she flowed within, a ripple of breaths and sliding mouths.

"If I am not," Madara murmured after enjoying her lips thoroughly, "you will not be able to withstand me for long…"

Sakura tensed, remembering she was nothing but a clone, and she tilted her face against Madara's with a sigh. She didn't take long to recover from her disappointment, however, and she arched up against his still-clothed lap, her heart pounding wildly. He shuddered at her teasing before shoving her back down, biting down into her mouth and hissing through his teeth when she squeezed their laps together, feeling him strain between the thin layers still separating their bodies from uniting at last.

"Woman," Madara rumbled warningly, his seizing grip on her wrists digging in tightly as he restrained himself. Sakura met his lips in response, and he replied to her with fervent heat before pulling again at her dress, baring more of her creamy skin. He tilted her head, burying her in wild hair as he tasted along her neck, biting into her shoulder and finally tearing away the scraps of silk between her legs. "Not fair," she gasped, shivering with the air rushing over her exposed skin. "I want to — to feel you. To see more of you."

"Oh…" Madara smiled along her throat, pressing a kiss into her warm, perfect skin. "You will."

"Please," Sakura sighed, and he dug into her at the sweet sound of her voice, almost curled around her as he forcibly restrained himself once more from responding with violent desires unleashed. He threw one of her legs over his shoulder instead, his pale hand a flash in the dark, and Sakura cried out as he flattened his palm between her legs, feeling her heat before exploring it. She throbbed beneath him, breathing harder, and Madara prevented her from shyly closing her legs, meeting her eyes with a smouldering look and holding her stare as he slid a finger into her with a devious quirk about his lips.

He watched Sakura ripple in reaction, her gasp unsteady, her green eyes wide and bright in her flushed, scarlet face. Beginning a gradual rhythm rocking his exploring finger in and out of her slick entrance, Madara grinned down at her, his sense of power deepening with her every expressive sound and look of pleasure. "Look at you — fully prepared, and I have barely begun to touch you properly."

"Same to you," Sakura returned with a twitch about her brows. She sat up, pulling Madara roughly to her and kissing him hard, her hands more decisive as she found his waistband and shoved at it. He replied to her kiss with unhurried, appreciative ease, tasting her slowly as he continued to feel her between her legs with turning rhythms, pushing a second digit into her channel and devouring her moan as he did so. Sakura made another attempt to push away his pants, her skin flushed and her chest heaving, only for her palm to find what it was caught on, gripping his hard length over the fabric like a staff's shaft that she paused upon discovering.

Madara was the one to ripple in reaction now with a barely-suppressed sound of mixed pleasure and surprise. Sakura's victorious, beaming smile quickly was smothered as he slammed her down into the futon, the waistband pulling down enough that she caught hold of him properly, managing a languid stroke. He seized her face, devouring her in punishment, teeth clicking and her boots locking behind his back — Madara pushing his knees up around her figure once more, this time aimed to make the attack they had both been waiting for. He caught Sakura's cry with his lips as he slid her against the futon with him, pinioning her beneath him, feeling the needy squeeze of her hips as he prodded her with himself, her entrance slick and pulsing with her heart-pounding need for him to take his place within her at last. Their gazes locked over their aligning bodies, burning intensely through the darkness.

She whispered his name in the rapid falls of her breaths, her hands braced around his shoulders, and when Madara paused himself once more he felt how she trembled beneath him. Her eyes were wide with fear of the unknown that conflicted against the desire in her body language; her searching gaze was a window into her inner battleground of warring emotions.

Madara frowned down at her, pulling back enough that Sakura seized a quick breath, realising he was reacting to what he read in her expression. She tilted upwards, their foreheads brushing; she reached up and held his face with both hands. Closing her eyes, Sakura centered her focus upon him and the feel of their limbs twined and hearts beating beneath hot, bared skin.

When she opened her eyes she met Madara's gaze with an expression so fervent with warmth, trust, and passion that he had a stricken look as he absorbed all that she let him see. He recognised in vivid definition the genuine bond woven between them; her wordless reassurance that dismissed doubts and fears for the future. They were swept away in the aching within her chest, matched in the rapid thrum of his pulse beneath her gentle hands like she had strung his heartbeats in tune to her rhythm.

Madara bent to her with a softened expression he would only ever let her see, answering her familiar touch along his face with a kiss much more gentle than any he had given her before. Sakura's eyes fluttered shut, her arms sliding around his neck through his mane of hair, relaxing within his hold and melting beneath the unexpectedly tender sliding of his lips with hers. His bared hands grazed along her hips — she lifted them to glide against his hard length in a gesture both asking and teasing.

Sakura had ceased trembling as Madara withdrew slightly to meet her eyes this time. All the electricity had returned to their levelled gazes twofold: there was no doubt, no hesitation between them any longer.

She took a sharp, gasping breath as he pushed the tip of himself into her. He persisted, slowly, listening to the way she breathlessly keened with his gradual invasion. Her whole body was as tense as living stone beneath Madara. She began to shake again as she braced herself with her grasp around his shoulders, her eyes wrenched tightly shut in a pinched expression of pain.

Seeing her pain, he halted, and Sakura kept Madara where he was half-seated within her, holding on determinedly. Breathing hard, she held his eyes once more, letting him see the pleasure behind the pain in her expression.

He breathed with her, a knot between his brows until Sakura pulled his face back to hers, arching her slender figure against his body with a desirous and stubborn push that had him sinking deeper into her with a rumbling growl of his own pleasure. Madara rippled into her, and when he hilted himself all the way inside of her tight heat he dipped his face along the soft skin of her neck with a soft gasp, pulling her cradled body hard against his with a full-body shudder.

Sakura hugged her arms around him, wrapping herself around him with her knees high along his sides, legs crossed along his back. Her smile buried in his hair, she kissed Madara's ear; she relaxed somewhat as her initial pain eased away into nothing but a strange new bliss that they revelled in together. Both of them were immersed in a raw sense of wholeness, complete at last.

Each were unhurried as they breathed again, this time as one. Their shared exhales and the slick sensations of their fully joined bodies were the only sounds in the quiet room around them. Their heartbeats were audible only to the other, hair brushing against tatami mats and the indented futon beneath them, his robes and her mostly-shed dress rustling with their mutual movements. Somewhere far beyond the back rooms and clutter of the stage equipment hallway, music could be heard, floating in a choral harmony for the rejoicing hundreds still celebrating.

In the quelling of their previous seductive violence came a deeply-seeded peace between them in their long-awaited union; a reverent moment, savoured.

With deep breaths becoming slowly faster bare chest-to-chest, their heads turned — eyes met, Sakura's smile a match to Madara's grin, hands pushing up into the mattress and knees squeezing; he claimed her mouth as he took her in a harsher push, tasting her groan, enjoying her cry as he withdrew and then thrust her down with him in a return of their mutual crackling energy. Her legs locked behind his back, and Sakura threw her head back with a louder cry with the depths Madara was achieving, her brows twitching in a rapturous expression. Seizing her hips, he slammed her down in a much harsher push, all his crazed vigour he'd threatened her with before setting him afire in a victorious return. Sakura couldn't get enough, breathing hard with parted lips and holding Madara's burning mismatched stare with his every push and pull, their every ebb and flow of eager, pleasurable reuniting. Sweat slid their limbs together, palms dragging over toned arms and legs slick in their every undulation. His wild hair fell in a silver-white over their meshed bodies, bouncing at every thrust and heave and cry, his own groans becoming grunts as each movement was faster and more urgent.

It was now that light shone over them, cutting through the heated dark with a rush of movement of sound, and the combined Zetsus shoved through the sliding door frame with a shout. "Madara! They're back—"

Madara lifted his head, swerving, Sakura gasping where she was splayed beneath him while curling into herself — the Zetsus dodged out of the doorway, Madara blocking the slash of a blade just in time with a summoned staff and stopping the attack from cutting through him all in fractions of a second.

Parrying the blade, he swerved in a spiraling of loose black robes with an enraged snarl. Their attempted warning having been just enough, the Zetsus sunk into the floor deeper into the room, eyes averted from both Sakura and Madara.

Just as quickly as he'd attacked, Sasuke and his brandished sword was pulled back by Naruto. Sasuke's dark eye burned upon Madara with shock and hatred, his features drawn tight and pale as he shouted at him. "You filthy, disgusting bastard. Doing such a thing to her—"

"Calm down, Sasuke!" Naruto tried. Behind him, Obito and Kakashi had caught up, already in fighting stances with expressions caught between shocked and ferociously protective. Around them where they were poised in the hallway, the signs of a struggle that Sakura and Madara had left behind earlier were evident; broken beams, toppled objects and smashed doors, snapped Wood-Style branches and punctures through papered decorative wall screens, indicating violence. Every detail no doubt fed the teams' assumption that the two of them had been fighting before they reached this room.

Their discovery of them now created their much worse assumptions, the sight of the opposing pair half-dressed and with her pinned beneath him and crying out a sight that stunlocked them.

Sasuke's face was brittle and pale, glaring with a bitter hatred of Madara that was reflected more subtly but just as deeply in Obito's eyes as well. Kakashi's expression was tight with stress and concern, his dark gaze darting around Madara's towering silhouette, seeking Sakura. The only one who wasn't poised to attack Madara any second was Naruto, his grip tight on Sasuke's arm.

Madara stood tall, glaring out at them, his waistband already adjusted back up and his robes falling dark around his frame. He blocked out the sight of Sakura, who was frantically reassembling her dress. She accepted her tossed underclothing from Zetsu who was quietly keeping her out of view as well while she redressed; her expression was sickly-pale and squeezed with distress.

Madara gripped his staff, several obsidian-black orbs appearing around his frame. His wild white hair fell loose around his face, his sleek black robes adrift where they hung down his sides, its small white Six Paths symbols catching the hall's light; his mismatched eyes smouldered with a similar hatred as he glowered at the rest of Team Seven before him. Power rippled off his frame as he was intensely aware of every tiny movement that each present made, and his aura burned with furious, deadly rage, the tension in the air almost visibly electric as all prepared to fight with intent to kill.

Sakura had gotten to her feet, stepping up to Madara's side. He glanced down at her, withholding from retaliating against her team a moment longer with her approach.

With her attention wholly upon Madara for the moment, Sakura didn't notice the utter horror across her teammates' faces as they observed the line of blood that had crept down her leg, their alarmed stares flicking between the sight of the bashed-up hallway and the red flag of what Madara had done to her, glaringly evident as it fell in a single red drop upon the matted floor.

She held Madara's gaze, sliding a hand over his arm and instinctively standing closely at his side. With a slow blink, he gave her a subtle nod in return, a signal she understood was his mark of validation and respect for her.

This soothed Sakura enough that she untensed just slightly. She turned her face slowly back towards her teammates, her skin bloodless and pale, fingers squeezing in gently over Madara's arm where she unconsciously leaned into his side.

Their shared moment took only a fleeting heartbeat, but it was enough for Sasuke to take a step back, his face as stricken as Obito and Kakashi's. He rebrandished his blade after a pause. "Wait — he wasn't forcing you. You and Madara were…?!"

Obito shouldered past Sasuke. He stared Sakura down, his presence lethal and dark. "Give me one good reason not to kill you both, here and now."

Sakura startled slightly, not from Obito's words, but from Madara's reflexive hand that shadowed down along her back. Her skin sung beneath his touch, and she shut her eyes briefly. "As if you could even manage," Madara growled.

She felt him shift beside her, and she looked to him and her teammates with wide eyes as each gripped their weapons — even Zetsu behind them had split into two and positioned themselves on either side of Madara, ready to fight. Obito drew a blade of his own, similar to Sasuke's, who stood at his side with a resolute, twisted look on his face. Kakashi was prepared with multiple kunai, and just as Team Seven began to move into their attack Sakura stepped into the space between them and Madara with a vicious growl. She turned her head towards Obito, her arms spread and feet wide in a defensive pose, her green eyes as sharp and fierce as her words. "No. There will be no fighting today: not here, and not now."

Shock rippled briefly between her teammates, and she levelled challenging, deadly eyes between each of them, power of her own sizzling from her slender frame as she stood in their way before Madara. He had hidden his surprise in time, his murderous fury at her teams' invasion and interruption still a dark wave prickling the air around him, but he watched Sakura protectively standing at his defense with slightly widened eyes.

Kakashi and Naruto hesitated with the affront of Sakura's passionate command. She stared Obito and Sasuke down in turn, burning with fervour so strong they could almost see it like a haze of red around her. Her voice lowered into a menacing tone, as sharp and deadly as a poisoned blade.

"Back… off."

There was an odd look that flashed over Obito's expression. He halted as Kakashi tugged him back, forcing him to stand down with him and Naruto; they stayed in defensive stances, but they were no longer poised to attack as they had been before.

Sakura slid her attention over to Sasuke, who continued to glare at both her and Madara just behind her.

"Sasuke." All eyes shot to Naruto as he was the one to move now. He turned, standing beside Sakura, and he shook his head as he held Sasuke's incredulous stare, all the usual light gone from his somber, serious expression.

Sasuke's teeth were clenched, his knuckles white around the grip of his sword. He shifted slightly as if he were about to attack anyway, causing a reactive ripple across all who were present — Madara's staff almost cracking in his grip, Sakura afire with her scowl of passionate will and clenched fists, Kakashi and Obito moving to assist Sasuke — but Sasuke didn't look away from Naruto, paused for just a moment longer with his drawn blade shining in the low lights.

Naruto didn't move, remaining beside Sakura in a two-person wall. After a suspension of tension so taut it was unbearable, Sasuke grimaced, sheathing his blade — his revulsion and fury remained in his twisted expression as his stare flicked back to Madara behind Sakura, wholly consumed with pure, unbound hatred.

With her team subdued for now, Sakura slowly turned towards Madara, still readied with his staff in hand and his powerful presence crackling with hate. It was clear that he still fully intended to strike them all down, the countless reasons he had to do so emblazoned in his mismatched eyes. The power emanating from Madara was a push of hazardous energy, a tsunami of lava swelling against a levy breaking down with each passing second. His itch to smite and to destroy was betrayed by the intense burning within his imperious expression, pulled back in a near-snarl. It was obvious to all why; Madara was finished with interruptions, he was finished with those who opposed him, and they had thwarted whatever his plans were with Sakura.

Sakura understood the layers beneath of his fury, every additional tinder thrown into the fire, and she called his name softly as she turned, moving into his space and setting a hand upon the staff he gripped. With an unsteady breath, she looked up into his face, seeking his eyes that stabbed into each of her teammates.

"Madara." Sakura brought trembling hands to rest over his along the staff. Ignoring the rippling of deadly power around his frame, she closed the distance between them, leaning up against his chest and turning her face against the side of his cheek. She breathed him in with her quiet but unhesitant murmur. "Please."

Madara stood still within his weaponised position. Ahead of him, the rest of Team Seven had taken a collective step back into the destroyed hallway, their instincts visibly calling for them all to flee while they stood in defensive, grim stances instead. They watched him, ready to fight for their lives, for the inevitable, destructive battle that was about to take place.

With her eyes tightly shut, Sakura exhaled against Madara's cheek, her heart breaking in her chest. She gave him a last murmur of his name, all her agonised emotions taut in her unspoken plea.

When his grip upon the staff relaxed slightly, she stiffened, understanding.

Relieved enough to remember to breathe, she leaned into Madara a moment longer, ignoring the acidic stares of her teammates stabbing into her back.

Bringing her hand along the other side of Madara's face, Sakura held him to her with a long exhale, her slender frame trembling against him. The staff shifted to his other hand as he was no longer poised to kill; it dissipated into the darkness.

It wasn't clear who initiated as both shifted simultaneously. Wild white hair fell around pink as their lips met in a slow, deep kiss. Breaths translated between warm mouths as her hands slid up around his cheeks, his finding the slender curve of her waist, their eyes shut in the sweet, dark heat of their lingering kiss. Surrounding incredulous stares went ignored, their tense silence unnoticed in the depths of the stolen liplock.

Sakura pulled back slightly, her heart in her throat. Green eyes were captured by mismatched ones, and she could not help herself in the desperate worry that this was the last time she could do this, dipping back up into Madara once more. Lips slid together angled and open, their tongues meeting in a passionate, unapologetic second kiss; with her eyes fluttering shut, she missed how Madara's glowing stare flicked briefly across the stricken faces behind her. His eyes glittered with lethal warning upon each of them, his possessive hands sinking in more securely around her slim figure.

Breathing in sharply, Sakura hid her face against Madara's, tears sliding down her face.

"I'm sorry."

She wouldn't meet his eyes as she withdrew, her head inclining. His fingers grazed her arm as she stepped out of Madara's space; she forced herself to move away from him, her voice a broken murmur. "I'll be seeing you."

Madara stood to his full height as Sakura hung her head, letting Obito seize her arm and wrench her into the vicinity of the rest of the team.

He caught Obito's glare for a moment as the whole of the team shifted back, preparing to make their swift exit with Sakura in tow.

Hatred, sizzling and deep, drew an electric undercurrent of murderous intent between them. It lingered long after they pulled away, all of them but for Sakura glancing back warily at where Madara stood in thunderous silence, hands twitching in the darkness.