Dawn light cracked through branch-crossed windows, blending the small tea room into hazy orange among lingering shadows from the night. Steam rose from the cup in Isamu's hands, his eyes half-lidded. The light was the same shade of his hair that fell over his face in mussed, uneven locks, with several sticking up around the back of his head, still unruly from his recent early awakening.
He lifted his head with a sleepy blink as the sliding door to the room quietly opened. Armour scraped and robes rustled as Sasaki stepped into the room, her own cup of tea already in hand. Fully alert and crisp as the snow frosting the window panes, Sasaki paused, regarding Isamu and his early-morning self for a moment.
"With that hair and that beak of a nose, you look like an electrocuted bird." She settled in across from Isamu, tilting her head and staring at him as she took a sip of her tea. "Did you sleep out in some freak winter thunderstorm somewhere? Or get struck by chidori?"
"Yeah, well, not everyone is a morning person," Isamu returned grumpily. He sighed wearily as Sasaki slid a folder across the table to him, shaking his head. "What… work talk already? It's only the crack of dawn… How have you already gone through requests he approved? I swear, you give me work to do this early just because you know I'm at my worst in the mornings."
"I've been up for hours." Sasaki shrugged, releasing the folder and returning her attention to her drink, taking a grateful sip.
Isamu eyed the folder with increased tiredness. His sleepless stare shifted to her, weighed down more heavily with the thought of having to wake up further, a scowl forming on his face. "Hours?" he huffed, "What takes you so long to get ready? You don't wear makeup, as far as I can tell."
Sasaki didn't reply, her content expression masked by the steam from her cup. Isamu set down his tea, leaning back in his seat and sighing. She had that look she'd get when she was in no mood for personal questions, few of which he'd ever gotten far with, and so he let it go for now, dragging his sleepy attention back to his tea and falling silent.
The two of them sat in peaceable quiet for a time. The sun continued to rise beyond the windows and nearby forest, the red-orange light gaining intensity and losing colour the higher it lifted through the partly-cloudy sky. The wind breathed against the walls of the room, and the whole of what was an enormous building around them groaned just slightly when the wind pushed harder, the winter bite of it nipping frost along the corners of glass panes and snow-tipped balconies.
"I already handed off one of the approved requests just before I came to sit with you," Sasaki said quietly after the long pause, her gaze dipped in her tea. "The stone. I think… they're already working on it." She made the slightest smile in her otherwise flat expression as she took a sip. "I knew they'd start right away if he ever allowed them to do it, and they certainly didn't expect a yes. You should have seen their faces when I handed them the paperwork."
"Did he really approve their project?" Isamu sat up straighter, huffing the hair from his eyes. "I'm surprised. I didn't think our lord would allow any kind of project that isn't strictly practical."
"Hmm… I don't believe it's impractical," Sasaki replied, turning her gaze to the windows. She watched the clouds fleece past above the trees, pensive. "It relates to the heart of why we're all here, and would bring an improved sense of morale, I think. Improved resolve. There is certainly use in that."
"I suppose." Isamu leaned his head on his hand, thinking, his frown tight but skin-deep. "I'm hoping they'll allow more than one name per person. I have… well. I have a few."
Sasaki turned her head, meeting his eye. The touch of her gaze was the only affection she would ever show, but Isamu understood her enough to sense the comfort behind her gentled stare.
Isamu held her gaze until she looked away. His searching stare was as fervent as his voice as he spoke quietly. "It was kind of you to convince our lord to approve that. The Loss Stone will mean so much to every member, no matter their rank. It may just be a memorial, some big rock with names on it…" He ducked his head, pushing a hand through his mussed bedhead-hair with a short exhale. "You took a risk pushing for it, and it paid off. You stuck your neck out for the rest of us like you always do. Thank you, Sasaki."
"It was hardly an issue. It wasn't a risk." Sasaki shook her head, gently rejecting Isamu's praise. "I think you assume our lord is harder of heart than he is."
"Hah. We revere him for many of his qualities, for many reasons; but he is not sentimental or kind." Isamu held Sasaki's violet gaze, his expression serious but admiring.
She opened her mouth as if to argue, then promptly shut it, taken aback by the warmth in Isamu's presence as he spoke with her. Accepting the folder of approved requests for the sector he was in charge of, he leaned over the table with bright, much more awakened eyes. His words rang out in the quiet tea room around them, pinning to her mind where they would undyingly linger. "You know, Sasaki — he may be the soul and the mind of the Union, but you… you are its heart."
Sasaki had been quick to politely but hurriedly dismiss herself from the room after Isamu had started getting so sentimental, unwilling to stay for more undue accusations of kindness. He was beginning to become more of a friend rather than her fellow comrade in the high Union ranks, and the discomfiture in her posture as she walked matched the pensiveness hinting around her twitching brows as she strode away, leaving the captains' quarters corridor behind.
She walked with a purposeful gait towards the main stairwell leading to the single upper level as well as the multiple lower ones. There was a stack of folders under her arm, each marked with different symbols in the neat organisation system of her creation.
She bypassed the pair of scout guards at the base of the stairs without so much as a glance; they bowed to her in turn, used to her presence and her routine in ascending to the highest level of the headquarters. She strode onwards with swift feet, and nothing gave her pause until she stood before an elegant, beautifully-painted set of double-doors.
Sasaki brushed past the shut doors to where a slot in the wall awaited input. Flicking through her stack of folders, she slid several into the slot's mouth, shutting it neatly and exhaling quietly. Hopefully, he might be so generous in approving these as he had with the previous batch, though it was no secret to all that Madara was in worse humour than usual ever since the panel invasion.
This was partly why she stepped in perfect, polite silence past the elegant doors guarding his complex of rooms, his personal quarters. She'd never set foot in there; no one had but Madara himself, and perhaps Zetsu, whose strange face and stranger nature was vaguely known throughout the Union. The rest of him was a mystery; he managed to be even more of an enigma than Madara, never speaking to anyone else, rarely appearing but at his side in the grand hall where generals and scouts alike gave their live-update reports after returning from important missions.
This was fine by Sasaki. The less she interacted with either half of Zetsu, the better. She turned from the doors, quick to reapproach the stairwell, though she paused before exiting, glancing back at the shut quarters and listening.
The only reward for her dangerous curiosity was silence. Pulse thundering, she felt damned even just for her pause, as if Madara himself would emerge and condemn her for stopping to do the barest form of eavesdropping. She could imagine that all too well, and Sasaki dipped back down into the stairwell, reasserting from her hesitant poise back to confident as she moved into view of the lower-level scout guards.
She nodded to herself as she descended another flight of stairs down to the ground floor of the vast headquarters, asserting her schedule in her mind and dismissing the cloud of thoughts that had unfocused her.
Sasaki knew his schedule, just as well as she knew Isamu's, Hayashi's, and that of her scout regiment. It was important that she time herself carefully on a day like today: she could not be seen by anyone here, least of all their revered lord, when she left the grounds for her nervously-anticipated meeting. Madara should be occupied in his meetings when it was time for her to leave; with luck, that hadn't changed.
Nor could she be accompanied when she made her secretive exit, and Sasaki released a short, impatient sigh as a presence appeared at her side, his stride just as confident. "You're considerably better-suited for mornings than our counterpart," she said curtly in greeting as Hayashi waved at her cheerily, keeping up with her swift stride down a branch-streaked hallway.
He hummed in agreement. "Isamu's a night owl. It suits him. Long-range scouting is best at night, anyway, so forgive him for being cranky when he has to wake up at dawn." Hayashi glanced over at the folders Sasaki carried. "More administrative work. Are you sure you want to be a fighter? You seem to love running things like some steep-necked office manager—"
"Of course I want to be a fighter. I am one." Sasaki glowered as she kept her focus forward, bristling slightly beneath her armour. Hayashi chuckled, folding his arms as he walked. "Hey, now. I'm not insulting your abilities. Isamu can barely keep track of his own thoughts, and I'm too busy training our newer recruits to worry about things like requests, schedules, write-ups, all of that nonsense. You're appreciated, Sasaki. That's all."
"What is with you both today?" she grumbled, patting at her pale cheeks and checking her palms before shaking her head. Digging out one of her carried folders, she handed it unceremoniously to Hayashi, the two of them slowing pace in the long paper-screened hallway. Above their heads, leaves unfurled across ceilings, the vast headquarters still rich with thick branches and healthy flora from the day it had been taken over completely.
"Here," she grunted. "I was going to bring it to your office across the complex but I suppose you've saved me the trip, bothering me here instead."
"Ah." Hayashi accepted the folder, flipping through the stamped pages with a raised brow. "Most of them rejected again. I expected that." He sighed. "Funding isn't tight, but it feels like it when the majority of our requests get either slashed by our great lord or put off entirely."
"Madara isn't Saito. Much has changed since our early days as a Union. We don't waste anything," Sasaki replied gruffly, adjusting her long black hair and glancing across the semi-crowded hallway. Any scouts passing by that saw her inclined their heads in respect as they passed, careful to avoid malingering lest she assume they were listening in on hers and Hayashi's conversation.
Hayashi stiffened. Sasaki corrected herself quickly, looking away. "Our lord Madara. Excuse me. I've only just woken up." She met his eyes, her expression wooden, though there was a glint of apology in her gaze. "I know your requests aren't wasteful, Hayashi, but we can't channel much towards new recruits when we're still amidst ensuring who we already have is thoroughly-trained and equipped. I think it makes sense we fully elevate whom we've invested in first."
"It's fine. And don't say 'our' early days… you didn't join up with us until the night of our lord's takeover." Hayashi eyed Sasaki dubiously. "Are you feeling all right?" He tucked the folder under his arm, giving Sasaki a more thoroughly appraising glance. She shifted uncomfortably under his gaze, a subtle pearl of sweat along the back of her neck. "You seem — tense," he went on, "Almost anxious. I never see you on edge like this unless we're facing our leader in person."
Sasaki drew herself up, staring down Hayashi in return before shutting her eyes. Drawing in her visible patience, she seemed to forcibly ease her tension, though she was still far from relaxed. "You're right, I am tense," she replied after a moment, "I think I'm still just shocked after the panel. That was — that was close. I'm still on edge a week later."
Hayashi nodded with eager sympathy, patting Sasaki on the shoulder and resuming their walk down the hall towards a large room sunny with morning light. He stretched his arms, his knuckles and elbow joints cracking. "Yeah. I know what you mean. That was a shock for us all."
"I didn't think there'd be a fight, I'm glad there wasn't, but it was so close…"
"Do you think you could take on a Kage?"
"With ease." Sasaki scowled as she and Hayashi moved through a parting group of scouts, their eyes forward as scouts bowed politely and hurried out of their path. Sasaki tucked her hair behind her ears, shaking her head. "We're lucky the unfortunate original owner of our lord's Sharingan eye didn't follow us into his pocket dimension after our quick exit. To have such a power as that… I can only wonder how strong he'd be with both of his eyes back."
"Uchiha Obito would never be able to take us on alone, strong as he is," Hayashi agreed. "That strange cubed dimension of his is Lord Madara's now. With how many clones he's left in it, hunting…"
He turned to Sasaki as they approached the open doorway. He didn't speak until there weren't any scouts milling around nearby, holding Sasaki's gaze with a new intensity layered with his own anxiety. "Sasaki… we've used all of our resources, searched every corner of all the nations. More than three months — utterly fruitless." Hayashi looked suddenly aged as he spoke, his fear visible only to her behind his searching stare. "If our lord himself can't find her, how can he expect us to succeed where he failed? When do you think he'll lose patience and replace us with someone else to do the job? He'll kill us if we continue to find nothing. I know he will, regardless of what we preach to our scouts about us all deserving the dream. Lord Madara doesn't waste his time with mercy, and I think we've reached the bottom of his patience now."
It was Sasaki to reach out this time, setting her hand along Hayashi's shoulder. Her smile was slight, not quite forced, barely perceptible in her typically inexpressive features, though he was able to read it within her violet stare. "I won't let that happen. Breathe, Hayashi. We've more cards at play than you think."
She turned from him before he could question her, releasing his shoulder from her brief touch and glancing over the vast hall. She and Hayashi stood at its precipice, and they looked out across it now, heads slowly lifting.
It was nothing like how it had been the night of Saito's death. Any sign of lavish decor had gone. The sake bars had been replaced with a variety of workstations in their stead; kitchens, always steaming with activity in their ongoing task to keep the large Union numbers fed; a tiny post office, its distant window alive with wings and scrolls as messenger birds flew in and out with a steady stream of information. There were multiple forges, cluttered with tools, racks of half-completed black armour, and crates of supplies, many with the fading symbols of villages that had involuntarily given up resources to support the Union's crafting of weapons and armour of their own. The heat and glowing orange light of forges and paper lanterns matched the dawn light rising above, seeping through high skylights latticed and elegant in the heights of the great hall. The only detail that had remained the same from that fateful night months previously was the Wood-Style takeover, winding around the inner balconies, webbing across the walls in a network tangled and sturdy. The branches were a passive threat in their permeating presence. They had crunched and woven through every structure of the building, now forcibly its main support and foundation that kept the place supported while also under tight, restrictive control.
It was beautiful in its organised chaos. Neither of them tired of the sight of the wisteria falling in soft, backlit blooms from various eaves and ceilings. Vines wrapped around columns and creating living overhangs had an air of power and grace reminiscent of their wielder. Their contrast against the vivid red symbol of the changed Union stamped on paper screens and painted across signs and backdrops was striking but not unpleasant.
"I still can't really understand," Hayashi commented beside Sasaki, "speaking of that day at the panel. His 'offer'… hm." He glanced over at her. "I'd assumed our lord had demanded the pink girl so that he could forcefully pull what information he needs from her and then be done with her. That much makes sense to me. But his requirement that we all speak of her with extreme respect is… interesting. It's been no issue commanding that of my scouts; they've enough sense not to bring her up anyway. But what do you think of that? What's the girl's value beyond her abilities and the Rinnegan she has hostage — does she really deserve such respect? Maybe the rumours about them having a secret love affair are true."
"Tch. I thought we'd moved on from discussing this." Sasaki's mouth tightened as she folded her arms, leaning back against the open doorway and flicking the tendril of an errant vine from her shoulder. "Her value is in the information she carries as well as her renowned medical ninjutsu; never mind the idiotic rumours about the two of them having some kind of relationship. Lord Madara is far above lowering himself to be with someone like her." She scoffed. "His reasons are his own for commanding that all Union members respect her; but he was right to withhold his ire and let the Kages speak as they did. It would have shown them that we do value her as a resource. I expect that the only reason he didn't punish the mouthy Kages at the panel was that the more worthless they think she is, the more likely they would have given her up to us."
Sasaki glanced over at the crates beside the forges and kitchens, overflowing with stolen supplies; Hayashi followed her gaze as he listened to her speak. "They were in a rush to get their roads and resources back… they would have turned her over to us with hardly any thought to her actual worth if it weren't for the Hokage in charge of her." Sasaki gripped her gloved fists as she turned back to Hayashi. "It's unfortunate. I wish we could have silenced her. The war would be won if they had handed the girl to him like the rest of them wanted to."
Hayashi brushed the long straight brown locks from his face, his thoughtful, slightly rueful gaze touching along a wisteria bloom that grazed the top of his head. "You're right, as usual. I couldn't stand listening to them all bicker and complain, though. The risks aside, I would have loved to see our lord in action beating them all down."
"I'm sure the Kages will get a taste of his wrath in due course. Anyway, Hayashi," Sasaki sighed, "Lord Madara's machinations are his own; let's not question this any longer. With our luck, he will show up and overhear like he nearly did when Isamu tried defining us as 'Team Eight.'"
"Team Eight." Hayashi quoted Isamu as Sasaki did with a chuckle. "Waspish and dark as you are, you really are our Sasuke. Are you sure you're not an—"
Hayashi was interrupted by a low boom that shook the great hall. Instantly poised to fight, he and Sasaki swerved towards the heart of the hall, their matching armour scraping and blades drawn.
Sasaki was the first to relax, though Hayashi remained tense, sword shining in the light; she waved dismissively at him as they watched the sight before them. "Stand down. My, they are eager. I didn't think they'd get this far with it since just this morning."
"What are they doing?" he questioned, standing and slowly sheathing his blade, though he kept a hand on it as he squinted outwards.
Several Union garb swathed shinobi stood near the heart of the great hall with their hands still readied. They shifted back, their heads craning as they checked their work. More shinobi circled, some making neat sign-weaving motions, creating adjustments and smoothing out rough edges. At the very center of the wide floor where they stood was a stone more than a story high, its face flat and smooth. It had taken the place of what once was a stage, the only sign that it had once been used for that the grand curtains now serving as the great stone's shadowy, gilded backdrop. The great stone's edges had choppy fragments, a great cloud of dust and dirt still settling around it from where the Union shinobi had pulled it up and shaped it from the ground below.
"Oh… that idea those former Hidden Stone shinobi had." Hayashi relaxed fully, folding his arms. He stepped forward with a new, restrained eagerness. "I can't believe how quickly they shaped it already. I can't wait to see it finished. With that thing's size, we could fit the names of everyone's lost ones throughout the entire Union!"
Sasaki didn't join Hayashi as he walked forward, remaining where she was at the open doors to the great hall. "Go check on their work, see if they need anything. I have a full schedule for the day."
"Of course." He tossed her a wave as cheery as his first, jogging forward as he left her behind, eager to catch up with the shinobi working on shaping the memorial stone more to their liking. Sasaki turned away, striding through a narrow side-hall. She let a shadow cross her face as she was alone once more.
Grim, she adjusted the stack under her arm. Good, she'd shaken her company. No more interruptions; she had to give these last few stacks of approved and rejected requests to their respective recipients among the Union. With that out of the way, she could focus more on stealing away to her highly-anticipated meeting before she was waylaid by her trio members again.
Sasaki's face set in a wooden, resolved expression. It was imperative she do this right. She knew she likely had only but this one chance to change everything for herself and for them — and she was going to do it her way, without her comrades hounding her at her side.
It was high noon by the time Sasaki made it outside, and she was careful not to leave tracks in the snow, leaping between various objects and trees instead to ascend to the dark, leafless expanse of the lifeless forest canopy just beyond the vast Union headquarters complex. Steadying herself upon an icy tree-trunk, she paused to look back again, this time upon the whole of the main building and its grounds, her heart pounding beneath her thick black robes and armour.
Sasaki didn't expect the sense of ownership she felt, rising within her chest as she beheld the vast grounds she'd called home the past several months. She was proud, and beneath her pride and responsibility was an affectionate familiarity as she stared out at the winter-swept face of the headquarters' complex. The home of nearly a thousand members strong, the Union lived within the deceptively elegant pagoda-like stretch of multi-leveled structures, further complicated with several Wood-Style outbuildings and additions bound in with branches on their exteriors as well as interiors. Distant squadrons trained in the hilly stretch of the carved white landscape laid out around the main complex, far enough from Sasaki that they were but patterned groups of black dots moving in unison together as they followed the commands of their leaders. Others still gave movement and life to the monochromatic expanse of the winter-crested sight below: members maintaining the grounds, scouts following its vast perimeter in watchful, routine walks; some, posted along the roof, shivering slightly in their revolving shifts watching for threats. Nearly every window of the complex was alive with light and occasional silhouettes.
Far across the grounds, Sasaki could hear the almost ethereal hints of a melody, sweet and soft with the hushed, joined voices of those in secretive song.
She shut her eyes briefly, knowing that though Madara had ordered the ceasing of the Union's former hours spent in choral harmony, these little rebellious groups of singers still found their ways of sneaking away to make music anyway.
Sasaki's soft exhale was a puff of white, her gaze straying to the distant shed where she'd picked up the singing. How funny, the little things that kept some members going, the threat of herself, her trio, and Madara still not enough to intimidate them out of their passions. She shook her head, turning away; she'd let them have something as little as that, if it kept their hearts and loyalties strong otherwise. She suspected she wasn't the only one to turn a blind eye to their music.
Hm. Sasaki couldn't help the quiet return of her smile. She didn't realise that her sense of ownership over the sight of the Union was proud, that her familiarity with it was protective; it was her life, just as it was her home. It was all of who she had become.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the lights on in Madara's high throned hall beside the sprawl of his upper-level quarters. Sasaki cringed backwards deeper into the trees, ever-wary of his sharp eyes even from this distance. Remembering herself and the grave consequences should he catch her sneaking off like this, the certainty of her condemnation and accused betrayal heavy on her mind, she darted deeper into the canopy southwards without any more hesitation, leaving the headquarters behind.
Sasaki was but another innocuous shape in the trees as she waited. Her armour aglint in plates down her shoulders, chest and sides, she was a skinny curve of black and white, the Union pin bright red upon the throat of her high-necked collar. Her fingers twitched in her slim-fitting gloves; her dark hair was loose around her face. When the sun caught in her watchful stare, her eyes were a shade of lavender akin to that of a Rinnegan's, set afire in the light.
She poised suspended among the the criss-crossed leafless winter branches, unmoving and silent. Her gaze was fixed upon the slight dip in the forest floor that led to the hidden maw of a cave opening, half-covered in a snowdrift. She knew without investigating that there was a door within that cave, and she remembered the number painted beside it.
She waited in simultaneous anticipation and dread. The minutes ticking by made Sasaki's internal questions turn faster and faster, looping the same queries and answers until the answers became less sure. Had she made sure she'd left no trail? Yes. Was she certain no one from the Union or otherwise had tracked her? Yes. Was she sure that the Zetsus had not noticed her exit; that Madara, too, had not grown suspicious and followed her?
Sasaki grimaced at the thought. Should he have the slightest whiff of what she was up to and who she was about to meet, he'd hunt her down with swift vengeance.
She glanced around, wanting to reaffirm another yes within her worried thoughts, but the absurd skill and uncanny instincts she knew Madara possessed disallowed her from feeling too confident. This meeting needed to happen as soon as possible, before things could get worse.
She melted deeper into the trees as her silent wishes were suddenly answered.
A dark figure, tall and lean, emerged from the dip in the snow. Black from head to toe in choppy black hair and midnight-shaded undecorated robes, his pale, grooved face was the only part of him exposed to the cold, his glaring single dark eye slashing out across the wintry forest.
Sasaki didn't move an inch, unbreathing, unblinking, as Obito brushed the snow from his robes, his observant stare scanning and careful across every detail around him. He was grim, and he was silent, his foul mood wafting from his frame to chill Sasaki where she poised on a high branch in the thin cover of the dark leafless trees.
"I expect her arrival to be soon," came his gruff, rasping growl. Sasaki remained perfectly still as a second voice sounded, just as curt, but lighter, higher. "We're early anyway."
"I'm sure you don't need me to remind you…" Obito turned as a smaller figure emerged from the dip in the snow, just as dark as him in her unmarked robes and winter cloak with a few locks of pink falling from the hood over her head. She stood beside him, her gloved hands fists at her sides as she looked up into his face with a hidden scowl audible in her tone. "No. You don't."
Her voice had been strong, but Obito's eye narrowed as he read her face beneath her hood. High up above them in the trees, Sasaki dared not take nor release a breath just yet, watching and listening for her signal to approach.
"I expect a full report as soon as it's done. And you will be honest in every detail: actions, conversations, everything." Even Sasaki could feel the menacing tone Obito had taken, followed by his softer hiss, a change he seemed to have taken based on something he read in Sakura's hooded expression. "Don't look at me like that. You brought this on yourself, Sakura, when you chose this path. I can't and won't pity you."
"I'm not asking you to pity me," she countered. Her leather gloves creaked from her straining balled-up fists. "But you're so cold and heartless to me, even though I've tried to fix my mistakes. I don't know you that well, but in the time I got to know you as my comrade, I understood you were working to be a good, kind person like Kakashi-sensei says you once were before your days trapped in that cave. Before the curse tag." She paused, her tone wrought with shivering tension. "You're changing for the worse now. Why? Why do you hate me so much, even now that you know everything — now that you understand why I did what I did?"
Obito fell silent, standing tall beside Sakura. His dark eye was unwavering on her; they stared each other down for a long, tense moment.
"Complete what you agreed to do, and then we might speak as comrades again." Though he was a dark figure cut from steel and ice, Obito's presence had tempered just slightly, his sharp gaze piercing through Sakura where she stood. "Only then will I be able to trust you again."
She drew a breath as if to argue, then paused, looking down; she stiffened with surprise as Obito's tone lessened in harshness. "You remind me of my old teammate. Before this all went to hell, you were kind to me as she would have been, worsening that image. It's probably why I weigh your actions more heavily than I otherwise would."
Obito lifted a halting hand as Sakura lifted her head. Her hood had fallen back just enough that her wide, searching eyes were visible, her hands drawn up tightly over her chest. Her features were haggard with stress, her skin as hauntingly pale as the snow, like she hadn't seen the sun in years.
"However, it doesn't blind me to your actions, and don't think any of us have come close to forgetting your mistakes. You lied to all of us when we depended on you to slow or stop this war; your evasiveness, stupidity, and dishonesty could have gotten all of us killed. The fact that you showed any kind of love towards the person who single-handedly ruined my life and brought about my old teammates' death…"
Sakura looked away, her hair falling over her face as Obito went on coldly. "You deserve this. This is what you wanted, what you worked for under our noses, all year. Go prove it, and you'll earn the chance to gain back not only my respect, but that of your teammates and your village as well."
She gave him a short nod, lifting her head and holding his eye once more. "I will." Her expression was resolved; set; and grim.
Satisfied, Obito turned from her, dark robes aswirl around his tall frame. "Good luck." He glanced around before looking back at Sakura with a returned look of suspicion. "Where is she? I need to see this Union contact of yours or I'm not letting you continue. If this was another lie—"
Sakura gritted her teeth, folding her arms tightly and standing up a little taller before clearing her throat. "Sasaki! It's okay to show yourself, if you're here." She glanced uneasily at Obito. "He isn't going to attack you, or leak to anyone that you're a loyal friend to me…"
He didn't give her any confirmation that her declaration was true, instead dragging his serrated glare across the trees with impatient expectation. Obito was subtly tense from head to toe, visibly mistrustful, ready for battle at a moment's notice just in case that contact of Sakura's ended up being the one he hated most.
Sasaki had backed away through the forest canopy in practised silence, and it was with a subtle inhale of stressed regret that she leapt down now, a hard-edged shadow of black armour and robes landing quietly in a billowing of snow. Black hair shivered around her bloodless face as she slowly stood tall, just out of Obito's reach.
His eyes widened, his pinched, irritated expression going blank as he recognised Sasaki. For a moment, Sasaki blinked back at Obito with hidden alarm, taking a single step backwards with a twitching about the corners of her mouth. Watching him warily, she didn't bother with a greeting nor any sort of respectful bow, ignoring the obligation to incline her head with respect towards someone of such renowned respect and power within both Konoha and the Allied Shinobi forces' ranks.
Sakura grimaced, nodding to Sasaki, looking away from her after a moment. She didn't speak, pulling her hood further over her head as she seemed to take a moment to try and breathe after her previous tense conversation. If she had looked stressed before, she looked utterly frazzled now, taut across her hunched shoulders and closed-off in the way she stood with her arms hugging around her thin figure.
"I've seen you before," Obito addressed Sasaki after a pause, any surprise in his face gone as he assumed an imperious look again. "One of Madara's famous little trio, playing at being his guard at the panel disaster."
Sasaki cleared her throat, but said nothing else, keeping her eyes on him; her fingers subtly relaxed from the fists she'd unconsciously made.
Obito kept his piercing attention focused upon Sasaki with interest and automatic dislike. "Why are you loyal to Sakura?"
Sakura took in a tight inhale like she knew the interrogation he intended to enact; Sasaki narrowed her eyes, her obsidian hair flickering around her flat expression in the wintry wind. "I met her in the early days of the Union, when she was there as someone else. We were fast friends; I was the only one to remain her friend after her false identity fell."
"That doesn't answer my question." Obito's growl was threatening, his dark eye as cutting as Sasaki's.
She remained just as icily calm in her reply. "I don't answer to you or your questions. I'm here for Sakura."
"Sasaki," came Sakura's hiss, and Sasaki's brows twitched as she briefly looked between them, resettling her increasingly irritated attention upon Obito once more. "I value her for who she is as a friend would do; regardless of either her victories or her mistakes. She doesn't need to obey me or complete favours to earn my loyalty." She bristled like an affronted feral cat, braced as if for impact. "Being hateful and suspicious — unforgiving, pressuring, mistrustful — that is not what I understand a friend to do, even when they've let you down. Judge me as you wish, Uchiha Obito, but I'm proud that the way I treat those who matter to me is the opposite of how you treat your own."
Sakura had gone even paler, Obito's teeth gritted and dark eye flashing, but Sasaki stood strong, unfaltering and angry. "I would prefer to escort Sakura to the Union headquarters as agreed now rather than waste words on you any longer."
"I ought to kill you," Obito growled, and Sakura caught his elbow with a quick protest. "Don't. Forgive her rudeness. She's just protective, and she's too valuable to me. I can't complete my mission without her help, at least this time."
He glared at her from the side, but he had heard the truth in her words. With a resigned, short exhale Obito skewered his glare back into Sasaki. "You only live for your usefulness to her. For now."
"You assume you'd even win against me," Sasaki replied easily, and Sakura stepped between them, waving her hands with annoyance. "That's enough. Obito, I let you meet my contact as promised. Now please, let me just get this done."
"Don't fail us again, Sakura. You know what will happen if you do." With a swirling of dark robes, Obito was gone, the subtle thunk of a hidden underground door sounding from the dip in the snow beside her.
Sakura turned towards Sasaki with a snarl. "Not only did you argue with him, but you eavesdropped?" Before Sasaki could speak, Sakura cut her off with a hiss. "You should have minded your own business. I didn't need you overhearing that. What were you thinking? It would have been idiotic if you had fought him! You did at least come here alone, right?"
Conflicted and just as irate, Sasaki replied with bitter ice in her tone, standing tall over Sakura as Obito had done and nearly his height as well. "Watch yourself. I'm not your subordinate."
"Answer me." Sakura brushed the snow from her cloak, glowering up at Sasaki, her arms tightly folded.
Sasaki restrained herself from lashing out. Having overheard what she had, she knew Sakura was in a stressed mental state at best, and no matter her sudden regret meeting her here at all, she had no choice but to go through with it. Steeling herself, Sasaki regarded Sakura coldly, folding her own arms in turn with gloved fingers tapping along her sleeves. "I'm alone. I'm as sure as I can be of it."
"Good. Let's get moving."
Sasaki nodded, and she turned towards the north; Sakura poised as if to begin running, turning back with a frown when Sasaki didn't do the same.
"It's too soon. We can't arrive too early if we want this to go right; I know the schedule and you don't. Just walk with me," Sasaki sighed, striding forward. Sakura kept up with her at a brisk walk, irritation playing across her wrought, stressed features.
Silence stretched through the tension in the air as they made their way together through the trees. Occasional bird calls broke the quiet, but any sound beyond the crunch of their feet in the snow was quickly muffled by the sheer amount of it, stretching thick and white in a freezing blanket in all directions.
Sasaki found she had many questions hanging on her tongue, so she chose one of the heaviest ones first, keeping her eyes forward rather than curiously upon Sakura at her side as they walked. "What has been going on with you, these past three months?"
"Has it only been three?" Sakura's exhale was a steamy cloud through the brisk air. "It feels like years." She reached up, wiping at her eyes, shaking her head so more hair shadowed her face in pale pink. "I can't really say, Sasaki. I can only tell you that most of it has been hell."
Sasaki scowled. "Why can't you say? No one's around. I told you, I've made sure of it. We've a long walk, Lady Sakura, and a long time in which we've barely communicated, so now is the time to tell me before we reach headquarters. I need to know what's going on with you before then."
Sakura scoffed. "Don't call me 'Lady Sakura'. I hate that."
"And as I reminded you… I'm no peon taking your commands. I only answer to Lord Madara." Sasaki sighed once more, weary already of speaking with her and thinking of the hours of walking ahead. "We are equals," she reminded Sakura after a thought, "and I'll do as I please."
Sakura swerved, snow flying around her cloak as she snarled at Sasaki. "Who do you think you are? Why do you think you can treat me like this? This arrangement is supposed to benefit me, not make things worse!"
Sasaki drew herself up, the wind whipping the hair around her face and catching in her armour. "I am the first of the three leading the Union army. I am among the most respected and powerful in the great Tsukuyomi Union. I am not accustomed to callous disrespect, and though you and I have something of an arrangement outside of those bounds, I won't tolerate you spitting poison at me like I haven't made a thousand sacrifices to get to where I am now. I may need you, but you need me so much more, Lady Sakura."
Sakura's expressive face twitched with conflict, but in the end she stood down, shaking her head. "It's not worth fighting with you. How deep into the cult have you gotten?" She covered her face with a hand, taking in a deep, shaky breath. "This is hard enough without you yelling at me."
"What is it you're all stressed about doing? I wouldn't worry, if I were you," Sasaki sighed, the two of them resuming their walk northwards through the forest. "You will be nothing but well-received."
Sakura didn't reply, staring forward numbly as she walked. As silence took the cold air between them once more, Sasaki slid her occasional side-glances, resisting the natural urge to have a hand on her hilted blade in her high tension. She chose to observe Sakura quietly instead, trying to glean what she was refusing to communicate.
Stress. First and foremost, Sakura was intensely, deeply stressed. Whatever had happened in her time in hiding these past months had aged her, and not well, lines almost like permanent creases between her brows and around her tight lips. Her posture was similarly bound up and taut; her skin was as blindingly white as the snow around her, indicative of her subterranean imprisonment for many months on end without sun. The sun avoided her still, hidden behind thick winter clouds that followed them overhead.
It was as if all the colour had been bleached from Sakura, left in pale pastels and monochrome shades, even the formerly vivid piercing green of her eyes dulled with shadow. She wrung her fingers together at her sides, her hair lank around her features beneath her hood.
Beyond her stress, she was as grim as Sasaki could ever remember. Sakura had the look of someone approaching a dreaded open-casket viewing, sickened, resolved in a regretful way, and the feeling of dread sinking through Sasaki's chest was deepening with every moment. What she'd overheard her cryptically discuss with Obito… what she was observing with her now — what was she truly intending to do? Why was she refusing to share it?
She should try to learn more. It wasn't too late to try and learn what Sakura's unspecified but apparently extremely vital task from Obito was. Perhaps by sharing information herself, and Sasaki cleared her throat uncomfortably, her expression as stiff as her posture as they strode through the snow. "Well, you'll be happy to hear some of the things our lord Madara and our Union have done since the dawn of his leadership. We've—"
"Don't say our or we," Sakura interrupted, shaking her head with a knot between her brows. "I'm not a part of the Union; you are. And no, I don't want to hear any of it."
Sasaki nearly swerved, but kept herself composed, only her tone giving away her anger and surprise. "What do you mean?!"
"Don't — tell me anything," Sakura replied tightly. She ignored Sasaki's daggered stare, keeping her stare affixed on the path ahead. "And don't ask why. You have no idea…" Sakura's chin was unsteady for a moment, and she clamped her jaw shut, swallowing her distress.
"I want to know," Sasaki tried, her tone almost pleading. "Please. I do know at least some of what you're going through; all that happened the night of the takeover and before, before you went missing. I know it must be hard; the investigation, the fallout of it all, the public opinion of you turning so sour. I'm sure you've heard some of what the Union's done. But I'm your most trustworthy source. If you can trust anyone, it's me." She turned her head, her violet eyes bright upon Sakura, her voice soft. "It wasn't in vain. None of it was. I can promise you that."
Sakura held her eye a moment before shaking her head, looking away. Her voice was warbling, tight, like she was restraining her emotions with all the control she had. "I — I just can't. Even if I wanted to tell you it'd be a bad idea; you're in way too deep. I don't know if I could even say it all aloud. Just…" She took in a shuddering breath of icy air, blinking away the remnants of frozen tears away from the corners of her eyes, pulling her hood further over her pale features. "Just trust me that I'm doing what's right."
With that, Sakura turned from Sasaki, her face obscured and her presence growing colder as she walked. Silent, she said nothing more.
Recognising that she wasn't going to get anything further from her, Sasaki fell silent as well, her hands flexing with frustration.
Hours walking in aching silence, the two of them cresting a hill, and there it was — the grand rolling white lands of the Union headquarters, only a short walk further ahead. As she lifted her head, the both of their stares struck the lit-up hall Madara unwittingly awaited their arrival within.
A terrible, nauseous dread sunk deeper and deeper through Sasaki's heart. She knew it as she sensed Sakura's grim presence at her side: she had made the worst mistake of her life in leading her here.
Sakura pulled her hood more securely over her face as she and Sasaki strode up towards the front doors of the main building, her identifying pink hair tucked back behind her ears and face obscured. Other than the lack of Union symbols or armour upon her, Sakura blended in well enough to the scouts crowding the landscape or passing by, though her head was hung slightly to hide her face, her shoulders taut beneath her cloak.
She and Sasaki drew up at the doors. The guards had their heads inclined respectfully, but the door was still closed; one spoke up, hesitantly. "I'm sorry, Lady Sasaki, but who is your guest?"
"It is no business of yours, but of our great lord's. Let us through, lest I report to him that you delayed his most anticipated goal."
Both sets of eyes widened, their gazes magnetising to the hooded figure at Sasaki's side. They didn't hesitate any longer than that, sweeping the doors open for them, their stares hanging on to Sakura as she followed Sasaki through indoors.
"Just follow me, and say nothing to anyone," Sasaki instructed her quietly under her breath. Her heart pounded as they walked up the nearby stairwell. Curious scouts knew better than to greet Sasaki in passing, her terse, stressed mood obvious to anyone who drew near; they parted ways for her and her guest, though they openly stared as they made their way higher.
Higher, until they were at a top floor. They stopped just beyond the top step within the elegant corridor, Sasaki gesturing subtly for Sakura to wait, their heads turning as a figure strode towards them with a hissing exclamation.
"Sasaki! Who is that!" Isamu, followed shortly by Hayashi, shutting his folder of files as the two of them strode up to Sasaki and the unbranded, hooded figure at her side.
"Are reports still in session?" Sasaki asked curtly, glancing down towards the hall where Madara received reports from the trio and other leaders. Isamu shook his head while Hayashi continued to stare. "Is this—"
"He's in his quarters, taking a meal," Isamu answered Sasaki's question. Ignoring Hayashi's cut-off question, Sasaki slid a hand up Sakura's back, leading her the other direction towards the distant set of shut elegant sliding doors.
They both stiffened when Hayashi's quick tug had the hood falling away. The hall full of bustling scouts and decorated generals halted at once as Sakura's head of pink hair was revealed.
Sasaki slid burning eyes over to Hayashi, who glared back at her unapologetically. He gave her a significant judgmental glance before switching his attention over to Sakura at her side. Slowly, he and Isamu descended in a deep, respectful bow, speaking in tandem. "Lady Sakura."
Mirroring them in a collapsing of knees bending to the tatami mat floor, every other Union member that had caught sight of Sakura in the long corridor fell into their bows, leaving her and Sasaki the only ones standing. Hushed murmurs of awe whispered between more distant scouts, her name obvious between them.
"Leave us," Sasaki commanded. The crowds in the hall made their quick exit all at once, their robes rustling as they crowded their way down the stairwell; in a clambering of figures they were gone, leaving Hayashi and Isamu rising to their feet.
"I am handling this," Sasaki hissed to them. Her hand twitched along Sakura's back as she turned back to her. "A moment, please, Lady Sakura."
Sakura nodded numbly, her gaze straying to the double-doors of Madara's quarters while Sasaki swerved with her fists clenching. "You two didn't need to intervene. It was best she be brought here quietly, not rudely announced in such a way, you absolute shitheads."
"We were supposed to complete this mission together," Isamu shot back accusingly. "And you snuck off and did it yourself? How, even?"
"I'll give you both credit for her retrieval if you're so afraid you'll get killed for failing." Sasaki brushed them off, seething.
"You have her original?" Hayashi exclaimed.
Sakura subtly shook her head, causing the trio to exchange glances before Sasaki pulled back, bringing Sakura with her. "Only a clone, but this is still critically important. Don't intervene again or he'll kill all three of us. We'll talk about this more later. Sakura?"
Sakura nodded, her gaze distant. Hayashi and Isamu grimaced at once, exiting the hall and following the others downstairs, leaving Sasaki alone with her. In a rare moment of unison, she and Sakura met eyes, their grimaces matching. Together they walked forward, stopping just outside of the shut double-doors.
Sakura stared at the painted screen and engraved wood of the door, her eyes wide and face paler than ever, and when Sasaki looked more closely she could see that she was trembling.
"I…" Her voice was barely audible. "I don't know if I can do this."
Sasaki's hand shifted to rest on Sakura's shoulder, her own tone soft in an attempt to soothe, in a final hope that this wasn't what she was terrified it was. "Of course you can. I can tell you for certain… Madara will be more than pleased to see you again."
Sakura shut her eyes tightly. Her voice broke. "—don't tell me that," and she shook Sasaki's hand from her shoulder with an unsteady, sharp breath, forcing herself to stand tall. She cut a steel, rigid anger across her expression before she lifted a hand to the door.
"Lord Madara," Sasaki announced before Sakura could make her move, clearing her throat. "I apologise for the unannounced visit, but—" she glanced at Sakura with nauseating dread, "We have brought her to you, at last."
They could hear the clink of something set aside, the rustling as he rose to his feet — Sakura was already pushing the doors open, and before Sasaki could make any decision to stop what she had become certain was an upcoming assassination attempt, Sakura had stepped through, leaving Sasaki alone with her half-drawn blade and the doors slamming shut with ominous finality.