It was midnight, but the Konoha hospital never slept. In the heart of the village it was among the only buildings still lit up in nearly every window, noisy and bright with activity as staff continuously worked. Each floor was overwhelmed with activity, each patient room full but for the top level; which had once been quiet, if it weren't for the new noise of pursuit down its long, winding hall.
A stairwell door slammed. The cut-off giggle just behind it along with clattering feet was the waving red flag for pursuers to attempt to seize. There was a hint of dark hair swishing past as their quarry ran down to the lower levels with another laugh.
Cameras bounced on lanyards and sweaty hands scribbled on notepads even mid-run as the group of mixed pursuers hurried their way through. The multiple red-faced, angry nurses among them led the charge; distracted by giving chase, they didn't have a passing thought of checking the presumably empty maternity ward rooms as they thundered by. Wholly focused on the source of their irritation, they and the journalists that accompanied them swung into the stairwell where they'd last heard a sound from their target.
It was a varying mix of journalists and photographers that tagged along after the bullheaded nurses. Breathing hard from the run and clutching at their sides as well as their cameras, they were exuberantly eager to capture this new story, pushing themselves to be able to do so. They were oblivious to the real story just behind one of the doors they passed.
The group left the top floor behind in a rush, hurrying down back to the lower floors down the stairs. Somewhere far below, another laugh sounded; one that was imitative enough of the real thing to keep them convinced it was who they were chasing, but enough for anyone with keener senses to see through it as a disguise.
If he was awake, Black Zetsu might have been both annoyed and relieved to know that White Zetsu's tactic was working well. He had known of it beforehand, and while he hadn't approved, it had a good chance of succeeding just for its shock value. Scandalous… and probably with repercussions. No doubt, the real version of Orochimaru wouldn't appreciate White Zetsu parading around as him and with such a silly personality.
But it wouldn't hurt for White Zetsu to also imitate Sasaki as he pretended, in a switching of disguises, that she and Orochimaru were evading pursuit out of the hospital in some wild goose-chase. No more harm could be done to her now… and she'd understand the value in drawing away all possible attention from the top floor no matter what it took.
This was now accomplished. Quiet returned to the halls and rooms in a peaceful stretch of hushed white-noise, returned to sleepy, undisturbed levels.
But Black Zetsu wasn't awake. Needing rest just as anyone else would, he was a splash of obsidian pooled near the door where he'd been keeping watch. Asleep as he was with his yellow eyes closed and grin missing, he looked like any other shadow but for the unusually matte dark of his shape across the floor.
The quiet settled deeper, as if strengthened by the dreams of those asleep between the rooms, the hush bolstered now that interruptions had taken their careening chase far away once more. The corner suite was distant enough from the rest of the hospital to feel detached from its madness; it was high enough above Konoha to be shielded from most of the noise of lingering activity in the streets. Locked behind a half-forgotten door in an empty ward, it was for now a quiet, safe corner of the world.
Twin moons shone through the partly-drawn curtains. They cut silver across the unlit room, the lights doused at some point long after Black Zetsu had withdrawn from Sakura, aching for sleep.
The silvery light reached her from the windows, drenching her figure. Sakura was hunched over on her stool beside the hospital bed still, though now she was asleep, sprawled along Madara's middle. Her face was turned against pale skin, her hair a splash of pink around her head and across the sheet over his lower half. Loose locks hid her face as she slept deeply, undisturbed and peaceful.
Stable, slow breaths not her own made her head rise and fall in a steady cadence. Their linked arms stretched over his side with her other hand limp near the tray of bloodstained forceps nearby, as if she was still amidst pulling glass free of his limbs. Like Black Zetsu across the room, Sakura was passed out completely: she hadn't heard the brief commotion in the hall beyond this room. Neither of them showed signs of stirring, being well and truly exhausted.
Madara had heard it, however.
Instincts honed for nearly a century would not allow him to sleep through a potential risk. Immediately awake and ready to kill, he cut a serrated shape where he towered forward over Sakura and the hospital bed. His narrowed eyes glowed like undying embers through the darkness.
A sheet whispered away from his shoulders where he sat up with one hand curled like claws over Sakura's head and the other ready to grasp a forming staff.
Silence ticked past him for a long moment before he relaxed slightly. The clamour outside had gone and would not return, for now. The danger of being discovered and otherwise interrupted had passed.
While summoning the Six-Paths staff had been a natural reaction both defensive and offensive, so had the grip he'd slid over Sakura, and Madara glanced at his hand upon her head with a twitch about his brows. While he released a slow breath and became increasingly aware of himself and his surroundings in a more deep-level awakening, his eyes bored into her for a long moment.
The first sense to trigger, his sharp ears continued to pick up everything nearby while the rest of his mind reemerged into full consciousness.
Early spring winds pushed against the exterior walls of the small suite in cold gales that made the building creak and groan in protest. Somewhere below in the streets, there were the lingering shouts of drunks at bars or perhaps some sort of festival finishing for the night, flagged by the faraway noise of people making excited chatter among flapping streamers and distant music. The beeping of heart monitors in nearby rooms could only just be heard; and below, the endless clamouring of busy staff and patients was a muted, muffled white noise, quiet enough to be forgotten when no longer listening to it.
His nose awoke second, registering everything with another drawn breath; scents of antiseptics and blood were heavy in the air, followed by hints of the cotton bedsheets. There was a distant earthy scent from the lingering spring air overtaking winter's bitter cold, and then there was the familiar sweet scents of Sakura where she was buried against his side.
Madara blinked at her once, then twice.
After a pause he glanced at his free arm, his calculative gaze flicking along his skin. Not only were the many shards from before missing as he'd immediately felt, but his skin was so fully mended that there weren't any marks or scars signaling that he had ever been injured. While he was still smeared with dried blood from where he'd been bleeding out before, the whole of his body was healed in full; Madara was free of the glass, free of injury, and free of death, once more.
He noticed the removed glass in his peripheral vision, causing him to grimace.
The cart beside where Sakura hunched against him on a stool was absolutely covered in blood-soaked bits of glass. It was filled on each level of it in scattered piles that caught the light, reflecting in glittering red as Madara's blood soaked every piece. There were so many… easily past the hundreds into perhaps over a thousand pieces, and his body still sharply recalled the pain of when they had been embedded, regardless of his high tolerance for it.
It was now that Madara looked to the window, unable to ignore the touch of the unusually strong moonlight anymore. With mismatched eyes widening slightly, he took in the sight of it for the first time since he'd survived for days underground, hidden from its gaze.
Two moons, just as sure as the stars around them. They made a slow, synchronous dance across the velvety sky, the clouds dissipating beneath the strength of their combined silvery light. The new one was identifiable in its smaller size between the two, lacking the time-earned marks of the original older moon, though it shone just as brightly. The pair of moons' starry waltz was an eternal one to mark every night to come, come year or decade, century or era; a change that hailed a new age.
Madara's frown stiffened: he saw it as no romantic vision, but a grave reminder. That had very nearly been his tomb, from which he could never have been retrieved nor resurrected. There would be no restful death in such a fate, no peace for body or soul; only an endless suffering.
With a disquieted tensing of his expression he returned his attention to where he still had a hand clasped over Sakura's head. His fingers dug in slightly as he regarded her with a new weight behind his gaze, pulled back down to her with a heavy array of questions.
Sakura did not stir from where she slept along his side. Slouched forward in a crashing of pink, only the tired curve of her shut eye and part of her pale cheek was visible through the falls of her hair. While her fatigue was visible in the soft lines of her features where it emphasised shadows and cut over her expression, it was contrasted by the way the moonlight caught in the beauty of her face. The silvery illumination stroked across her slender figure and her lean, strong arms, glowing across the paled expanse of her skin.
She was as white as he was in this light, made to match. The both of them were so bleached of sun that they'd still be nearly silver even without the moon's touch.
Madara recognised for the last time, with a pause, that this was Sakura's original he beheld; not her clone. With the conclusion of everything up to this moment she was the last version of herself left.
With what he knew now… his questions continued to multiply, regardless of the piecemeal answers he'd found amidst flitting bouts of consciousness after the war's end. The more he beheld Sakura, the more he understood both this and the fact that again — somehow for another time, after all the events of the past year — he had vastly underestimated her.
The thought was both grave and very slightly amusing as he recalled her warning him about this from the very beginning; that his arrogance in underestimating her would be his downfall. It seemed, Madara thought as he lifted his gaze once more to the twin moons, that she had been right.
He had his many questions; but there were too many to answer in a single pondering, and now was not the time to allow his mind to steamroll down a path of analysis. He could conduct a post-mortem of the past a little later. Now that he had awakened, determined there was no immediate danger, and recognised his fully-healed state, he had other important questions to answer right away.
Madara removed his hand from Sakura's head, pulling it towards himself. He paused as she hummed in her sleep, her half-hidden face twitching like she was annoyed at his touch's loss.
His lips quirked before he brought his gaze then to what he'd meant to examine sooner, feeling her arm draw forward in time with his as he shifted.
Madara regarded the fusion between his arm and Sakura's without surprise. He turned their linked wrists slightly, examining the site with calculative, curious interest and immediate understanding. He saw the masterful mending of their arteries and skin around them; he also noticed the equilibrium of blood flow between their arms, balanced in an exchange now rather than in the one-way donation it had been when she had first created such a visceral method of blood transfusion.
That… was curious. Madara frowned with thought: while he'd had one question answered, this spawned several more.
Shifting back, he lifted the pad of his thumb to his mouth and bit down lightly, drawing blood as if he was about to call forth a summoning jutsu. Blood pearled at the site of the wound, welling up and catching the light when he drew his hand away from himself.
Steam rose immediately from the minor cut. Madara watched with confirmed satisfaction as his thumb healed itself in a matter of seconds, mending with all the power and speed that his regeneration had done as a standard before.
His keen gaze returned to their fused arms resting upon his torso. Sitting up further, Madara slid a hand through Sakura's hair as he steadied her head along his middle, preventing her from falling to either side. She continued to sleep peacefully, and his fingers lingered for a moment in the silky strands of her pink hair, her head looking so small beneath his hand. Though her skin was pale as snow, she was warm, and he could feel her even exhales through her nose where her face was pressed in along the side of his abdomen. In a subtle reaction to his touch, Sakura seemed to soften slightly, a hidden expression twitching across her features and her hunched shoulders untensing where she sprawled against Madara in her sleep.
He watched her for a moment longer with a complicated look in his eyes.
Sakura tensed slightly as if about to awaken from the tangible weight of his attention. Madara turned his gaze from her to their arms once more, taking back the hand that he'd used to steady her head against his side. He glanced at it as it glowed to life in a teal-tinged luminescence of green, a near-perfect imitation of the healing chakra he'd copied from watching her so long ago now.
Calculations went unseen behind his stare as he reasoned through a set of theories before bringing that hand down to the site of their fused arms. He slid an observant eye back to Sakura to watch for any further signs of awakening as he lowered the glowing hand along where their arms were linked.
She showed no reaction as he carefully peeled their arms free, numbing the nerves beneath her skin and mending both of their parting arms as he did so. With skilled, quick fingers he pressed in and sealed their separated veins, pulling his freed wrist away from hers and noticing it heal already in a small plume of steam.
Madara readed his hands to patch Sakura's own wrist, knowing obviously that it could not reseal itself without help like his did.
He stopped and observed with great interest as his newest theory proved him wrong before his eyes.
Letting go of her wounded wrist, healing steam rose from her arm. Madara watched with a sort of smug satisfaction that he'd deduced this already, and with surprise as well that it was possible: Sakura was regenerating on her own now, without needing her released seal.
She continued to sleep peacefully against his side, ignorant of this revelation. Madara's sharp gaze slid between her now-healed wrist to her.
Her choice of method for donating blood to him had earned her his regeneration as a result. The Hashirama cells that lived in his blood now lived in hers as well. Certainly once those cells lived in a body, they never left, granting permanent benefits in their near-immortal vitality.
His mismatched eyes narrowed upon her, his mind driving forward through what this meant.
If he did not know her; if he was only guessing at her true intentions, he would be furious. Sakura had directly fused his veins with hers and given herself his regenerative capabilities that he knew she'd keep for life. If she was anyone else, this would be an obvious theft, and Madara would strike her dead under the obvious presumption that she did this not to primarily save his life but for her own selfish benefit. A treachery — to steal his coveted abilities for herself during the very rare opportunity of him being unconscious and fully vulnerable.
Stolen, or perhaps copied, as he'd copied her healing chakra. He certainly hadn't lost regeneration for himself. Madara eyed Sakura as his thoughts rolled over her back and forth, debating, though beneath the surface he already knew what he really thought of this development; for she was no stranger to him at all.
Madara had haunted her life almost daily for a year, knowing her on deepening levels both for keen war-related reasons as well as his own curiosity and fascination. After observing her actions, learning her personality and way of thinking, and coming to understand her to levels her beloved teammates hadn't even come close to knowing, he knew that Sakura had undertaken this surgery for him with utterly selfless courage and determination, ready to spill her life's blood for his sake.
Any thought of it becoming an exchange or gaining power for herself from his blood had never crossed her mind. She pushed herself to a narrowly deadly point just to save him from the brink of death himself; she had risked herself yet again for his sake with no thought spared for her own well-being.
Madara knew her, and so he understood what had happened without having to be awake to witness it for himself. He had no doubt: Sakura had finally found him in a hell of a state and been pressed for time to save his life. She'd employed this brutal way of blood transfusion as an emergency method rather than anything intentional or premeditated. She wouldn't have known she'd pass out from her own subsequent blood loss and exhaustion after extracting thousands of bits of glass and being certainly stressed; and thus being unaware of the point when his own regeneration had fully recovered. Once his body began to replenish his blood on his own, that fusion site where she'd once given, had become an exchange.
And for long enough, while the both of them had been unconscious, that she'd gained regeneration. Perhaps more, from the Hashirama-cells that lived in his blood and now in hers as well.
She seemed to soften in her sleep as tracing fingers returned to the soft curve of her cheek, sliding up along her features and pushing through the silken pink of her hair. She was shielded from the touch of the moon once more as Madara's shadow enveloped her, his watchful eyes settling with less severity on her head, along the tired hunch of her shoulders and her sun-leeched but still lovely skin.
No; it was not a stolen gift, but a reward. He decided this easily, finding that he was glad she now was bestowed with and protected by his rapid-regeneration healing factor. She was finally getting something in return for her loyalty and selflessness, something that would last her lifetime, and it was well-deserved.
Sakura had done so much more than he'd known. He had underestimated her. Madara glanced back up at the moons, his features tightening once more.
He didn't shift to acknowledge him as Black Zetsu rose from a shadowy puddle across the room, forming back into a human shape and striding over quickly while rubbing at the corners of his eyes. "Master; you've awoken. We weren't sure if you'd be up so soon."
Black Zetsu stood just out of the moonlight's reach. In a single, unified moment both his and Madara's attention switched between Sakura and the window, the air heavy and somber.
Madara glanced at Black Zetsu, who was nodding in confirmation at his unspoken questions. The grim mutual mood weighed heavily upon them both. "It was all her. Everything…"
Silver hair streaked with dark red fell around Madara's face as he returned his gaze to Sakura, mismatched eyes embedded upon her half-hidden features pressed in against his waist. He remained silent with his fingers trailing through her hair as Black Zetsu went on, watching her in turn. "She hid it so well. I didn't even know until the very last second. I saw right before she—"
Sakura drew a soft breath, punctuated enough that both of them went quiet, realising what it meant. Black Zetsu retreated deeper into the dark of the room, becoming a watchful shadow once more beside the door.
Madara remained still, his burning eyes affixed to Sakura as she stirred at last.
Sleepy, heavy-lidded eyes blinked beneath mussed locks of pink, her weariness circling beneath her gaze. She exhaled slowly before breathing in once more, registering the large hand buried in her hair and lingering along the side of her cheek.
Sakura stiffened, her shoulders hunching back up. The one green eye that was visible through messy pink was pinned to the pale hand along her face, blinking a few more times like she wasn't sure she was really seeing it.
The hand shifted slightly in confirmation he was here. Her eyes fluttered at the familiar feel of his calloused palm drawing along the soft hollow of her cheek. For a moment, Sakura shut her eyes as if to sleep once more, her own hand rising slowly through the dark and grazing lightly along the one over her face. Her touch was as gentle as if Madara was made of air or the stuff of dreams, like he was a vision about to disappear with her awakening.
It was only her who heard the murmur against her ear, a lasting trace of the dream she had been having. Clasped in warmth, secured in his ancient red-eyed gaze tempered with pride — Indra's voice faded away as she opened her eyes completely. Well done.
Sakura sat up so suddenly that the both of them veered back from the other, his hand withdrawing and hers pressing tightly over her heart. She sat up perfectly straight upon her stool, staring wide-eyed at Madara.
While he maintained a perfectly cryptic expression as naturally imperious as ever, he could not help the slight twitching about the corners of his lips at the sight Sakura made. Her hair was a wild ruffle sticking up past her head like pink rooster's feathers raised in alarm. Half of her face was red from where she'd slept at an angle against his side, and she was every bit the picture of disheveled and disoriented.
She continued to gawp at Madara, blinking a few times. Sitting up in the hospital bed with loosely folded arms, he regarded Sakura calmly with that hint of amusement now dancing about the corners of his eyes. The moonlight coated a pale glow across his bare upper half and glinted in the wild silver-white mane over his shoulders. While Madara, too, was somewhat disheveled — his wild mane more unruly than usual, skin smeared and blotched with countless patches of dried blood over sealed-up wounds — he still carried a certain serene grace in contrast to her own awakening.
Sakura opened her mouth, her lips moving as if to speak, a hand lifting. Then she paused, again, her expression changing several times. Their locked eyes never wavered until she finally blurred forward with returned decisiveness.
Seizing one of Madara's arms, Sakura thumbed along his pulse by his healed wrist, her other hand drawing up along his face near his forehead to check his temperature. Her sharp green eyes now fully lucid analysed him with quick focus.
It took her a second to fully register that Madara was, indeed, doing perfectly fine: a complete turnaround from earlier in the night and from what she had thought for the last several days since the war's end. No longer injured, not dead, nor sealed; he was alive, and he was well.
Sakura pulled back once more, her hands withdrawing back to her own vicinity, her gaze returning to Madara's as he continued to observe her with grim, silent calm.
"You…" Her voice was slightly cracked and unsteady as Sakura searched Madara's face, drawing up where she sat by the bed. Her brows were twitching and her skin was beginning to flush red; but not for the reasons he initially began to assume as her tone changed to match the expression that seized her face: thunderous.
"You idiot!" Sakura threw her hands in the air. Black Zetsu was the one to flinch from where he stood nearby as Sakura launched into her tirade. Her words were an explosion like she was a volcano of emotion, her hands a pair of gesticulating fists cutting and swinging through the air between them as she shouted at Madara. "You threw yourself back into battle without stopping to hear what I had to say! You risked everything because you just couldn't let go of the past! You couldn't just stick with the decision you'd already made. If you'd listened to me a moment longer… if you had trusted me to help you — none of that would have happened! And how you just let loose too! All of those people I had to nearly kill myself expending chakra to save with my seal when you got so destructive — and then while I was stuck fixing your mess, hoping my teammates wouldn't die or that you wouldn't either, you were sealed away from me forever…!"
Sakura was crimson from head to toe, her glare flashing angrily through the dark room. Taken aback from her outburst, Madara sat back from her, his mismatched eyes contracted upon her with restrained surprise. Sakura gripped the railed edge of his hospital bed hard enough that the metal squealed beneath her strong fingers, bending beneath her hands.
She leaned forward in her passionate fury, her tone fiery and aggrieved. "Or so I thought. I thought you were dead, Madara. I grieved for you. I attended your funeral. I…" She shook away angry tears as she recalled inscribing his name on the Loss Stone as the whole of his remaining Union looked on with sympathy and sorrow. "All the hell I went through, and then the hell your damned Zetsus put me through—"
Sakura didn't notice Madara's sharp glance behind her that Black Zetsu avoided as she went on, pushing the loose hair from her face and unafraid to slash through Madara with her direct, angry stare. "And then after all of that, I nearly died again expending myself to save you when I had thought you were sealed away just minutes before. After everything I've been through, I've been so frustrated! So guilty. So angry with you and even more with myself. If I had just told you sooner… did we not trust each other enough?..." Sakura reached up, wiping at her eyes once more and shaking her head. Hair fell around her haggard, tired expression as she looked down at her hands still stained with Madara's dried blood.
Silence followed her question, and then she swallowed thickly, shutting her eyes.
"...Sorry," Sakura said then, her brows drawing together over her anguished expression, her continuous stress harshening her features. "I shouldn't have lashed out like that. You've just woken up after a serious close call with death. I—"
"No." She fell quiet as Madara's decisive interruption had her looking back up to him with a heavy pause, listening.
He shifted his weight. Sakura moved back to allow him space as Madara swung his legs over the side of the hospital bed. Sitting forward with Sakura between his legs upon her stool, she stared searchingly up into his face with growing uncertainty before he spoke once more.
"You are right."
Sakura stiffened as he brought his rough palms up around her face, securing her head so she could not look away from his narrowed, glowing stare that burned into her widening eyes with almost unbearable intensity. "You are justified in your anger. I accept that the course of action I chose was not the right one for the time and," Sakura's eyes widened even further as Madara continued without hesitation, "I regret what I chose."
The hint of heartbreak in her expression was enough for him to correct her quickly, his mismatched eyes narrowing on her a little further. "I regret leaving you behind for the sake of retrieving my eye. I do not regret choosing you over it in their little trap, before then."
Sakura's lips parted, then closed. She couldn't speak as her throat tightened. She read the truth in Madara's eyes; heard the integrity of his genuine apology. It was one she hadn't expected, and it was very much needed.
"I am," his voice drew into a murmur, his fingers shifting slightly around her face and causing her eyes to flutter slightly with the warmth that seeped through his words, "sorry."
Sakura shut her eyes, absorbing the word. Madara held her face still, watching the emotions play across her face like he was observing a drama unfolding; not with the detached curiosity of a practised liar, but with the invested, serious interest of one who had given her his truth. He knew, as he studied the complicated facets of her thoughts and feelings that unfolded and resolved across her expressive features, that she understood he was apologising for more than just the last events of the war.
It was for everything else, as well… each slight; each time she had been left to stand alone for his sake and all the consequences that followed; each time she'd deserved more and had received less, and for all that she had been through in the time after she and the rest of the world had believed he had been sealed away for eternity in the new second moon.
Madara startled slightly when Sakura shook his hands from her face; then he softened as she pulled him to her abruptly, burying her face in along his neck and hugging him tightly. The stool fell over with a squeak and a crash behind her as she pulled into his arms in a tangling of limbs. "Utter idiot," she was saying into his skin, the tears falling fresh and hot down her cheeks. "Don't ever do anything like that again. I swear to you…"
"Hmph." Madara made eye contact briefly with Black Zetsu as he secured Sakura in his grip where he sat forward on the edge of the bed, accepting her tight embrace with his hands sliding down her back possessively. It was a questioning glance; Black Zetsu eyed her too, shaking his head as if to confirm she doesn't know.
He had tired of this question hanging on his head since he'd awoken; indeed since he'd first regained consciousness before Sakura had found him. The memory of Team Seven's remainder coming at him just as he'd hesitated and heard her call his name was fresh in his head. The sight she had made as he'd looked just in time to see her… and all the revelations afterward when Black Zetsu had told him who she was, driving him mad to know for sure if it was true even while he'd been actively dying in the days since.
Madara withdrew enough from Sakura's hug to meet her gaze once more. She seemed to stiffen with almost sheepish embarrassment as he pinned her with his inescapable, inquisitive stare. "It was you, the whole time." He didn't phrase it as a question.
"What?" Sakura swallowed, shifting so she stood back from him, kicking the fallen stool aside. She met Madara's burrowing gaze again, increasingly uneasy. "What do you—"
"Sasaki."
Her pupils widened and her face paled. She drew back from Madara, her hands wringing nervously. Black Zetsu looked on with intensive interest just as Madara did, the weight of their combined attention upon her almost unbearable. Beyond the little corner suite room, clocks ticked and heart monitors went on in their beeping, the wind crying against the walls; the tension between them was almost audible in itself as it grew as taut as stressed steel. Madara didn't try to pull Sakura back into his vicinity, watching her with glittering, unrelenting eyes incandescent in the dark room.
After a long silence, Sakura cleared her throat, running a hand through her hair and making a shaky laugh. She stood alone, hugging herself tightly, her voice a little unsteady. "What do you mean? She's got nothing to do with…"
"There's no need to protect her identity anymore, Sakura." Black Zetsu's growl was tired, echoing from across the room as he stepped forward into the twinned moonlight. She glanced at him as he pointed towards the night sky where both moons kept their vigil beyond the windows. "Nothing can hurt or help her now."
Sakura seemed to connect something behind her shocked stare as she watched him gesture to the moons, his words fading away into the pause that followed. Horror ghosted her expression, mixed with shock and a very subtle thread of pride before she reasserted her features into a hardened look. "No…"
Black Zetsu wasn't having it, the weariness in his tone just as steely as her manner. "I helped her get to where Madara was in the battlefield before the end. I saw her identity slip right before she went in to sacrifice herself. She didn't deny it either in the seconds I had left to ask."
He eyed Sakura, remembering the almost insane grin Sasaki had worn as she had thrown herself through the night air, fearless in the madness of the battling around her like a goddess of war. The image was imprinted in his memory… her mask, slipping, and that familiar glint in her eye as he had finally called her out for it at last.
Sakura. And Sasaki had smiled, as if glad to finally be known. Violence, chaos, flying debris in the absolute insanity around them from Madara and Team Seven's battling above had been frightening at the time… but the surefire confidence and passionate, vicious zeal in Sasaki's face had burrowed into Black Zetsu's memory like an awoken fear. He'd never forget her final move, her courageous risk that had paid off in saving his life by sealing away her own.
It had become a curiosity afterwards, as he'd pulled Madara from the battlefield unseen and watched the aftermath from afar before fully escaping with him. From curiosity it became a deep admiration; resentful respect, transitioned to Sakura after he had time to understand it all. Now, it was a weapon he was using to wrench the truth about Sasaki from Sakura herself at long last.
He had told Madara of this memory, and he was looking on cooly as Sakura looked paused by Black Zetsu's words, having heard the truth in them. She made a face once more like she was trying to think of a lie, but then that slipped away as she looked back up to the twin moons, her expression slackening as she began to realise it.
"No," she repeated, the horror dampening her tone once more as she truly began to understand. Sakura's words were soft, barely audible, like she was thinking aloud. "No; surely not. I'd have known. She's surely…?"
"It's a seal. Even if she dies in there her spirit, or… whatever she has, is trapped there forever. You won't," Black Zetsu finished, leaning back against the wall and staring at Sakura as he spoke, "receive her memories."
His words rang out for a long moment afterwards. Black Zetsu finally understood Sakura's ignorance of Sasaki's fate after speaking with her earlier; he felt annoyed he hadn't realised it sooner: of course she wouldn't know. Completely sealed and isolated away as she was now, only Sasaki would ever possess her own experiences and memories no matter if Sakura tried to dismiss her or not; and Sakura had been across the battlefield when Sasaki had given up her life, unable to witness her final act. Since they hadn't met up before the battling had even started, neither would have had the chance to exchange information or plans; so there wasn't a way Sakura could have known until now.
Of course Sakura would assume she was alive somewhere, while she had also thought Madara was the one in the moon. She'd be confident Sasaki was alive until she received her memories.
Sakura paled a little further, drawing up tightly against herself. She seemed to steel herself after a second, and then she released a long, uneven sigh before turning to Madara, her expression barely hiding her dread. "Look; the point of Sasaki wasn't to go against you. I wasn't trying to deceive or lie to you. She—"
"She was deception itself." Madara tilted his head quizzically, his incandescent eyes glowing upon her through the darkness. "She, or rather you, was the living image of trickery; a farce you crafted with great precision and planning."
"She was impressive," Black Zetsu added, making Sakura glower a little bit at her feet, unable to look Madara in the eye as he went on, his stature seemingly even more intimidating and towering above her as he spoke. "I do not know how exactly you had managed. I should have seen the truth of her from the beginning; in fact—" Madara leaned forward, causing Sakura to step back slightly, her wide eyes flicking back to his face with alarm. She couldn't read his expression or emotions, only able to register his sheer intensity as he questioned her. "When did you create her… your single remaining clone?"
"The day of the gala," Sakura answered truthfully. She swallowed hard, knowing she could no longer hide this truth from Madara; not now that he knew of it. She remembered telling her teammates she'd left a backup clone near the gala event and saying nothing more of her plans for her, that day; she remembered well how that clone had gone on to join the Union that very night, proving herself in her forged new identity, proving herself in the purposes Sakura had in mind for her and going far beyond her expectations into what she had become now. Before things got worse, they'd exchanged a few fleeting communications, and of course, Sasaki had received the memories of the rest of Sakura's dismissed clones just as Sakura herself did.
Madara continued in his line of questioning. "You learned how to selectively rather than mass-dismiss clones over the last year."
"Yes… I practised while in hiding." Sakura glanced away. "After you and I first got caught… I promised Tsunade I'd dismiss all of them, but I spared…" She shut her eyes. "Of course, I spared Sasaki."
"Why did you send your clone to infiltrate my Union? What was her true purpose?"
This question, Sakura didn't immediately answer. She gripped her fists, staring down at the floor. "Look," she said, finally bringing her gaze back to Madara's face and refusing to let herself be intimidated, "Sasaki was a backup plan; kind of like an experiment. But she became so much more than just a clone of me. She…" Sakura's expression twisted up slightly as she tried to describe it, figuring it out for herself as she realised it aloud. "She became her own person. In the end, she wasn't really me, anymore. She and I shared the same goals; the same love—" She watched a strange understanding flicker past behind Madara's eyes, " —but we still argued sometimes. I was frustrated she wasn't doing what I told her to do anymore. She was frustrated with decisions I was making, and pushed back. I mean…"
Sakura bit into the smallest of smiles, looking away again. Hair fell over the curve of her smile as she remembered, a hand drawing over her heart. "She was the one to help change the path I started taking, wrongly. She convinced me to go back and fix things with you, and helped me see the right way again. I guess… technically, I helped convince myself."
Her smile fell into an almost thoughtful frown. "It was certainly strange not only to argue with myself, but to realise that she'd actually become the identity forged for her. She really fit into her role, too well. I got mad at her for that. I think she actually enjoyed being a general in the Union."
Sakura looked somber then, a hand drawing unconsciously along Madara's knee as she thought, a certain sadness softening her expression. "I can't imagine her loneliness. Being isolated from everyone else, pretending to be a cultist; and having to stay so distant from you the whole time when she's just me, in disguise—"
"How?"
She lifted her head, Madara's simple question puncturing but not aggressive, and she wondered if it wounded his pride that she had managed to hide Sasaki's identity from him so well. Sakura searched his face once more, finding only a great curiosity within his intelligent, piercing stare, and there was a slight curl about the corners of her lips as she reached up, poking him affectionately in the cheek. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
"Makeup," Black Zetsu supplied helpfully, causing Sakura to shoot him an acidic, murderous glare that had Madara humming with amusement. "That would not be enough to fool me. Tell me how you disguised her from me so effectively."
"You remember my costumery trick?" Sakura relented, unable to wipe away her own smug, victorious little smile as she shifted back into Madara's full grip with a silent sense of relief and spreading joy, "that day, ages ago, chasing me through some little village's streets?"
"Sasaki was not in full costume," Madara countered her with narrowed eyes.
"You couldn't tell if I was a clone until you saw some of my real skin, my real hair. You admitted this to me before the gala event." Sakura's expression fell into a serious one as she explained. "So Sasaki was perfectly fake. Not a henge, because you'd see through that. I don't know her whole routine, which I have no doubt took her hours to put together every day; but she wore heavy facial prosthetics, makeup, hair dyes, hair wigs, contacts… and she had to make it look good, and make it look real. She probably used some combination of both that and some subtler henge. It's why she had kind of a wooden look to her, not expressive like me, I guess. And," Sakura pondered, "I'm sure she had to avoid getting too much of your direct attention. I mean, you were busy, weren't you? Running the Union and searching for me? You probably didn't pay her much mind, if she was doing her job right. The point of her was to be in the background. To see how you'd act when I wasn't around; to see how you really are to people you don't have any reason to value."
Madara was silent as Sakura's voice carried softly but steadily between them both. "She was my backup plan… to be the sword at your back if you proved truly evil, or," Sakura swallowed as she looked between the moonlit window and Madara's burning, unreadable stare, "to be there to protect your back if you proved to be who I know you are."
He blinked at her, absorbing her words.
"Knowing she was out there, kicking ass for me," Sakura went on, relaxing slightly now that the bulk of her truth was let free, "was what kept me sane at all while I was stuck there amidst all of the fighting, listening to Lord First prattle on about how I had to hold back and honour your choice and all of that stuff as I healed everybody."
A certain glinting smugness sidled across Madara's expression as he watched Sakura, fingers trailing up the sides of her arms. "You humbled all five of the Kages for me."
"What? Don't give me credit. Sasaki was me, but she also wasn't me," Sakura tried to wave Madara away, but he was looming over her a little further with a growing grin, disallowing her from her slightly embarrassed escape. "You insisted on being my personal guard. My best general… how the masses of soldiers feared you."
"I'd promised I would join you, didn't I? The night of the gala. And I set for her to join you even before I'd agreed to commit to you with that dance," Sakura surrendered to Madara's hold. He turned her face back up towards his as she slid her hands up his chest, her face brushing along the side of his. His wild hair fell around her; she shivered gladly as he took hold of her shoulders, her escape impossible, and Sakura was ever so glad of it. "Wasn't going to let you go unsupervised. Unprotected. No matter how powerful you are. And, well." She huffed against his cheek, breathing him in, smiling against his skin. "I felt how proud she was of you when I talked with her, before the trial. She loved you as I do, but she just had to do so from afar. And—" Sakura huffed, "I wasn't going to let anyone seal you away. She trained harder than I myself ever trained just to be able to save you if—"
Sakura was cut off by the hands around her cheeks and the lips engulfing hers, her words becoming a muffled squeak. Her shoulders hunched up tight and her skin flushed red, and before she could respond Madara had withdrawn once more.
His stare branded her enough that Sakura was silenced.
"You sacrificed yourself to take an eternal punishment meant for me."
They were both extremely aware of the twinned moonlight shining in from the side windows, lighting them both in silver. Madara drew a hand in a caress down Sakura's lovely face, capturing her chin and absorbing all the humble sweetness in her expression. "You cannot receive her memories, so I will describe her to you, and she was no falsehood in her actions nor beliefs. You were noble; independent; dedicating the whole of your life every day for my sake and that of my followers. You were respected, feared, and incredibly strong… in fact—" his expression twitched with regret, "in the end you sought not to be recognised as yourself to me, not to admit your love or to seek it in return after months of isolation, but simply to be acknowledged."
Sakura's eyes widened while Black Zetsu was nodding grimly as Madara went on. "I knew this; I saw it in your eyes and rejected it, for I did not know she was you. I had no love for a stranger no matter her strength nor her deeds for me."
"She knew… I knew. She understood that," Sakura managed, her throat tight.
"As both Sasaki and as yourself, you have done more than enough for me. I do not know…" Madara trailed off, brows twitching as he regarded Sakura with a great weight.
He fell silent, having reached his limit; but Sakura was brimming over now, the tears spilling down her cheeks, feeling more than overwhelmed in every way. She pulled him to her once more with a soft sound almost of pain.
She wept against his neck with her teeth bared and emotions no longer bearable to contain. Her whole body shook in his grip, silvered with moonlight and overheated with feeling.
Madara tilted his face into Sakura's hair, breathing her in, letting her fall apart in his hold. He had been through a lot in the last few days, but she had been through even more.
As her tears streamed between them, her breaths shallow and unsteady, he held her steady, his deep and infinite calm giving her safe harbor from the world that whirled on outside. The white noise of the hospital's ceaseless bustling went on beneath their feet; the soft beeping carried through the halls; the breeze sighed against the glass of the window, and the skies danced with clouds that drifted over the twin moons. Somewhere far below, happy drunks continued on in their loud reveling, their yells carrying through the streets. From instrumentalists finishing up post-war celebrations from the night, there was a distant song that could be heard, a sweet-toned melody carrying the hope and relief of a better future up through the night air in plucked notes and song.
Not dirge nor elegy, but a joyous refrain both haunting and lovely in an uplifting way, floating on the spring winds up to where they stood near the windows.
Madara shut his eyes, dipping his subtle smile into Sakura's hair. Shifting his feet, he began to move with her, her much smaller frame swaying along with his. She made a short teary little laugh, dancing along with him in a lulling sway to the song beneath the watchful gaze of the night sky. Each measure, each shuffling step made in tandem let her feel his deepening calm; easing her emotions, easing his mind, both recalling old memories of gala night dancing as they made gentled swinging steps to the street song below.
Madara felt her weight fully surrender into his grip as the song eventually faded away into the quiet of the night, realising that Sakura had fallen asleep. Her face was tilted against his shoulder, and her expression was weary, but tranquil; at peace.
He was the one to carry her now as he hoisted Sakura onto the hospital bed. She was so light, like she had all the weight of a leaf rather than a person, a strange revelation against his knowledge of her innate strength; though it was so much more than Sakura's strength or beauty that Madara pondered as he stretched out beside her. He traced his thoughtful hand along the soft skin of her throat lit in pale silver, drawing aside locks of pink.
That memory replayed again: the moment he'd hesitated in the face of death for the first time, paused by regret and the recognition that he did have something to lose that he very much valued; that he didn't want to die, for there was still so much he had to do. Regret, and a realisation that he'd chosen the wrong course of action. Following his instincts for violence and vengeance had led him astray rather than to victory for one of the first times.
He had expected to fight to his death anyway, while he'd had to recognise that he would indeed die here. Madara had looked to see her screaming from that far peak, the regret deeply bitter where it had swelled painfully from within, worsened by Sasuke's words that had only awoken such realisations further; though far too late.
Because he had underestimated her, he hadn't expected that final call of his name, causing him to look away from his enemies to the one far to the side, having arrived just in time. While her hair was still a spray of black and her gaze a piercing violet, her voice as she'd roared his name had been Sakura's voice. Sasaki had never been as much of a dead ringer to her as she had been in that moment, right before she'd completed what she had come to do.
Madara snorted softly, finding it almost funny: a substitution jutsu. Simple… brilliantly so, and done so blindingly quick with one more push of Sasaki's incredible speed that he hadn't even realised what she had done until he was crashing into the place she had been across the battlefield from him. Coughing up blood, he had looked back in time to see the chaos of battle clearing and the new moon already beginning to form. He had retained consciousness long enough, as Black Zetsu had hurriedly helped him away from being seen and towards any kind of safety, to hear Sakura's agonised screams while the moon rose above the devastation and into the skies.
He watched Sakura's peaceful face as she slept, beginning to recognise all the hints of her within Sasaki in all the times he'd interacted with her over the months. How funny, that he'd searched for Sakura for so long, and she had been right beside him the whole time; supporting, protecting, watching.
That she'd brought herself to him, a clone leading a clone. That she had helped forge nonlethal policies in the cult and had whipped his soldiers into shape, and had trained herself to be an expert swordsman in a short time. She'd known no one would suspect her as a Sakura clone should she wield swords, rather than fists, and never display her medical knowledge; and he guessed easily that she'd used henge on her eyes to fool others into thinking she was an Uchiha along with her trademark black hair, a red-herring tactic to further draw their guesses away from her true identity.
Sakura as her clone had gone to great lengths to hide her identity, compromising her values in joining up with the Union cult. Madara guessed that some of her actions such as insisting on nonlethal combat was one of the compromises she made with herself in order to keep herself sane.
No doubt that she as Sasaki had also feared Madara finding her out too soon, as well; fears that he would be angry with her for her deception, for spying on him. It would have foiled her final moves should he have known her as Sakura any sooner than he had now. He wouldn't have ever let her sacrifice herself, either, if he knew who she was.
Madara shut his eyes, recognising it all further. She must have learned the snake jutsu from Orochimaru, through memories shared between clones and her original in her time hiding underground, and considering the allyship between them it made sense to him. More distractions from Sasaki's true identity… wielded expertly enough in battle to fool her very own mentor. That and her Uchiha ruse had thrown them all off well enough; which was essential to her survival, for if any of them realised she was Sakura, she'd be condemned even worse than her original already had been.
Madara hummed to himself. That also naturally explained why Sasaki hadn't used her apparent Sharingan in battle with the Kages: she didn't actually have Sharingan at all, just flashes of red eyes used to fool others when she had to, and then that speed jutsu of hers—
Of course. Such an ability had been derived from intimate, master-level knowledge of anatomy, to a level Sakura and few others would know. She had used her expertise to create her dangerous jutsu for bestowing herself with incredible speed for when the time came that she'd need it. It had been a balance, in the war: Sakura's original expending all of her powerful chakra stores to heal all, and Sasaki her sword on the battlefield, fighting hard for what she believed in; for who she loved.
Her invented ability was dangerous enough that anyone who valued their lives would never use it. However, since she had been a clone, Sasaki feared for her longevity so much less. She had known she could take such a risk, and in the end her absolute speed had saved him in her final, sacrificial move to swap places with Madara and accept suffering in that moon's seal for the eternity that he should have. She'd managed to come just in time; she must have known he would have ended up where he had, and she had planned ahead to save him from it. Now that he thought of it, he recalled her trying to protest going to battle at all; like she was trying to reroute the inevitable.
Madara realised again now how it was Sakura looking at him, each time he'd met Sasaki's eyes. He retroactively recognised that fierce spirit; that unafraid, stubborn resolve, passionate, disciplined, strong. The times he'd caught her staring at him made sense to him now; that leashed, carefully-hidden longing, masked with admiration and respect that were genuine on their own as well.
It hadn't been the revolving chase of clones that had been Sakura's game. In the end, Sasaki had been her biggest gamble and risk, her ultimate clone gambit.
Brave, unstoppable Sakura. Madara rested his head beside hers, admiring her still; he'd never tire of doing so. The words he hadn't had the capacity to express earlier returned to the back of his mind, settling through the warmth, the gratefulness, and the disbelief he felt as he regarded the woman who had changed his life. I don't know…
…what it was that I did to deserve you.
"Zetsu," he said.
Black Zetsu was instantly at his side. He had been unusually quiet this whole time. "Yes?" he asked.
Madara's wandering hand rested over Sakura's middle, his larger frame shadowing hers in warmth. Very much awake with no desire to dream, he kept watch over her, never taking his eyes from her as he spoke. "It's time."