The Clone Gambit

by viridianeye

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

30. Chapter 30

She careened down the tunnel in a blaze of fury like an incarnation of Death.

It was only through his ability to phase through solid walls and floors that Black Zetsu avoided his immediate slaughter, something that only just barely worked as an obstacle in Sakura's warpath. In a cascading spiral of crunching stone rubble and clouds of dust she allowed him no chance to escape — punching out new doorways when he'd try to slip through walls, kicking down through floors and ceilings and whatever else he might try to evade her through in this frenzied pursuit. Bits of rebar and shattered tiles made a rain of destruction that followed the zig-zagging, downward path they made, deeper and deeper into the earth.

Her focus zeroed in and locked on, she registered through the red haze of her rage that Black Zetsu's escape was desperately paced, as if he feared for his life. He hadn't said anything else since she'd come at him with all of her fury, focused entirely on avoiding being prematurely killed in the chase the further down he led her through this unfamiliar underground complex.

Sakura knew in the back of her mind that the Zetsus were likely leading her to a trap, but she harbored a steely, murderous confidence reinforced by her iron fists that she threw through another wall, somersaulting through rubble to land hard on her feet in a parallel tunnel. She swerved, spotting the splash of matte obsidian limbs across a wall as Black Zetsu fled down an intersection of paths, and she roared as she thundered after him once more, unhesitant and enraged. Her voice echoed down dank, musty tunnels oppressive with the scents of dirt and time.

There was no trap that would keep Sakura from killing this bastard at long last. She didn't care about the risks anymore; not now that her life had been upended, with nothing but depression, guilt and grief awaiting her above.

Such cautionless confidence made Sakura reckless, just as it made her stronger and viciously keen as she kept up with destructive ease no matter what turn Black Zetsu made. The tunnel behind her collapsed as she sprinted towards where he'd gone; but it didn't matter. After a year of subterranean living Sakura wasn't anxious about being deep underground without a clear way out. She'd similarly destroy her way back to the surface later after splintering him into a thousand pieces.

She would have this singular, passing pleasure of vengeance. Unfazed by his apparent desperation, Sakura only barrelled onwards harder, unconcerned for herself as well as pitiless for Black Zetsu.

He had heralded his doom. She had no intention of allowing him to live another day.

This was her focus in her unhinged fury as she slammed her fist through another wall, following Black Zetsu into another, deeper tunnel system. While she was fully enraged like this Sakura was only vaguely aware of passing details, consciously registering only the information that was relevant to her immediate survival and pursuit while the rest took a back seat in the blazing flames raking over her mind.

She didn't know this tunnel system, but she knew enough to easily tell that it wasn't one that belonged to Orochimaru, though like his own complexes this one snaked far beneath Konoha proper. Walls she tore past were marked in Anbu symbols and subtle signs that it had once been Danzo's territory. The walls were thick, well-built, and quite old; maybe a century or less, and certainly from the Founder's era. They were strong enough to survive Pein's attack on the surface, but they weren't strong enough to endure Sakura's direct wrath.

"Bastard!" came her scream as Black Zetsu took off down another winding turn, his pace breakneck fast, faster than she'd ever seen him move. "You asked for this! Now face me!"

As if in answer, he sprinted down a long, straight tunnel, directly within Sakura's crosshairs. She picked up speed, fists and teeth bared, ready to obliterate—

Black Zetsu swerved, his hands in the air. He barely melted down into a puddle in time to dodge Sakura's fist.

The wall behind him exploded into a shower of rubble. He had to dodge another of her lightning-fast strikes with a hoarse shout. "Stop! This needs to end now. Sakura — stop!"

She came at him anyway, forcing him to twist so that her next punch didn't obliterate another of the walls. The one she'd destroyed caved into the side of a cavernous room, leaving a nearby door standing freely without a frame; dust rose around their feet, and White Zetsu was visible flattened up against a nearby intact part of the tunnel, looking on helplessly.

"I won't take a surrender," came Sakura's hiss as she swerved to face Black Zetsu again. He'd dipped into the wall and circled around her like he was trying to make sure her strikes didn't destroy any more of the surrounding area; she gritted her teeth, the dull light of a distant wall sconce gleaming in her eyes. "Afraid of a cave-in, Black Zetsu? I'm not. I'll kill you any time, any where."

He was a splash of blackness that rushed up the side of the wall, a living puddle with yellow eyes that flashed with urgency anew. He tried to speak, then paused, taken aback by just how dangerous she really was.

Sakura stepped towards him once more. Incited by the rage that steeled her limbs and honed her figure, the shadows seemed to cling to where she stood, dripping from her fists like she had gored Black Zetsu already. The low amber light caught like twin flames in her narrowing eyes.

She cut a dark image of hazardous, razor-edged power and strength once more; strong — sinister. The thought crossed Black Zetsu's expression in a brief imagining: she was well beyond Akatsuki level by this point, though he could envision her in their dark robes with ease. She somehow reminded him in this moment of Mother in her echoes of grace and power, which had struck him into a moment of stunned silence. He had never considered her in such a light before. Did she have the right potential? He had already known she was incredibly capable, and much more cunning than he'd credited her for at the start. If everything failed tonight and if he could find a way; with how strong she had gotten, what would Sakura be like, crowned with Madara's stolen Ten-Tails power…?

Sakura didn't catch the strange flash across both of the Zetsus' expressions as she stepped forward, smouldering with her readiness to kill. "If this is your surrender already, Black Zetsu, I couldn't care less. I won't accept it." She raised a fist with a grin all teeth and malice. "I have a long, drawn out death to give you, whether you want it or not. With everything you've said and done, it is long deserved."

Was that guilt in Black Zetsu's wide yellow eyes? Surely not; but his unnatural mouth was in a tightly sloped frown, uneasy and almost nervous. His words were hurried as before as he waved at her placatingly with quick, anxious hands. "Sakura, listen—"

"No, you listen." Sakura brandished that lethal fist, causing the Zetsus to flinch backwards as she cut them off with her barbed, singed words. "I have been through enough. Your callous insults and accusations back there, everything you judged of me…" Sakura's bladed voice sliced over the Zetsus as they backed away from her instinctively. "I don't need to make any excuses for my grief, nor for my actions before that in the war. Not to you or to anyone. I did everything that I could while staying loyal to both sides, which was impossible enough on its own. And what…" She lifted her head, staring down at them in a manner aggravated and imperious, "...am I not allowed to grieve? What did you expect of me? That I would move on immediately… or lose my sanity in a feverish craze?" She leaned forward, her bitter words mocking and edged. "Should I have sprouted wings and tried to fly to the moon? Or did you expect that I should have lost it completely and smashed Konoha like Pein did in rage and vengeance?"

Sakura drew a raggedy breath, her fists seized before her, her unleashed words fervent, wounded and angry. Her green eyes shone through the darkness as she stared the Zetsus down in opposition. "No. I'm not stupid enough to release my anger and grief in a way that would hurt those that I love. I'm flawed; I'm not the strongest, and I'm not the person the Union people seem to think I am, but I'm not that selfish. I know restraint, even in the worst of my grief." Her hiss breezed over them, venomous. "Whatever you expected, you can't rightfully judge me. I lost…"

Sakura trailed off, her breath hitching. After a pause, she bit back the pain. "I lost someone beloved to me. Even if that means nothing to you… you, who would view him as a tool instead of a person — I loved Madara for everything he was."

They looked away from her; she clenched her raised fist, which was slightly shaking. "I loved him for his failures and for his victories. I loved every facet of his being; every single one."

Her words spiralled around them, softening against the dusty stone floors and melting into the dark. Her words carried weight, and in their wake the Zetsus were silent, paused by Sakura's intensity.

She waited until they looked back at her, and she was still an active threat as they were back in her reach now, her presence burning with her pain and her determination. While the urgent manner Black Zetsu carried itched with visible impatience, they seemed to understand that Sakura's torrent of verbalised rage was not only long-coming but needed, as well.

"You only know the black and white of it. It's all you care about, so of course you would never understand." She tossed her hair from her face, her snarl lashing out against them. "You called him weak for loving me, but how much strength did it take for him to question his decades-old plan for my sake — for the sake of realising it was wrong? How much more strength does it take to hold back against others rather than to lash out? It is so much harder to show mercy." She stood before them, her fists flexing. "It's incredibly difficult to change, especially after lifetimes of planning for one thing. After being so sure, for so long."

They were grimacing. The rest of the rubble around them had settled, the dust a fine cloud that seeped around their feet, and the tunnel creaked and groaned occasionally, cracked and tired from Sakura's punches and a hundred years carrying the weight of the village.

"With all he had been through, with all he had seen and done, all the years he had lived… you credited Madara as able to achieve anything except for change." Sakura's expression hardened as she regarded the Zetsus with all of her hatred and disgust for them. "You only saw his capability for sheer destruction, but he was so much more intelligent than that. He was never weak, no matter what you say. He was only ever stronger for his willingness to begin to evolve what he'd once been sure of."

She finished with a softer voice, but just as fervent, towering over the Zetsus in the darkness. "He was capable of seeing light where you tried to make him only see darkness. He wasn't a devil or a ghost or a god. He's a person, a thinking, feeling, complicated person, and no one, no matter what they go through, is two-dimensional." Sakura's features twisted in a snarl. "You wouldn't know… you monsters."

They paused, drawing breath to speak, then were silent once more. Sakura had shut her eyes, and her next breath was slow, less steady. "As much as I hate to say it, though; maybe you're right, that the king of the world was wasted on the dirt of it. I was… lucky. I'll always be grateful to have had any time with him at all." Her throat tightened, her voice warbled with pain. "I only wish that I could ease Madara's suffering. The nightmares. The nightmares…"

"Sakura—"

Her eyes flew back open, and she shifted back into a defensive position, her teeth bared and fists back at the ready as White Zetsu was the one to address her in return. He'd come to stand near Black Zetsu as he reformed into a human shape, and while he could never look kind, his gaze was unwavering and solemn upon her.

"We're sorry."

Silence stretched between the three of them. The stone corridor flickered with distant sconce-light, dimly amber across their faces. Theirs were grim and serious, while Sakura's expression had gone completely blank.

Sorry?

She quickly reformed her hardened look from before, easily recalling her rage and letting it scorch through the way she looked at them. It didn't matter their changed, utterly strange attitude that effectively made their abrupt apology seem genuine. Neither of them were sorry. It was a joke in poor taste, a thinly-veiled trick.

Black Zetsu stepped forward. Hyper-vigilant of gleaning whatever their plan must be, Sakura watched him and his counterpart carefully. What were they intending with this?

He, too, had a somberness that threw Sakura off. It was as if he had casually sloughed off his malicious aura of arrogant evil that she was used to; like he'd pulled a cloak of something knitted from humbleness around himself instead. She didn't trust it… she couldn't trust it, though his strange, flat features were more serious and solemn than she had ever seen. "I should be clear," he said, watching Sakura warily as she observed him in turn, "that most of what was said up on the surface, was not meant. Most… if not all."

She scoffed, but he didn't flinch nor falter, keeping his flat yellow eyes burning upon her face. There was a certain intensity about he and White Zetsu that was making her increasingly uneasy rather than ready to fight, and she hated it. Was this emotional manipulation?

"We mean it," White Zetsu pitched in again. He made a thin, oddly genuine smile, which was doubly strange on his somewhat inhuman face; he was watching Sakura with a slight sense of relief already, like she'd backed down from attacking them officially.

It was definitely manipulation. Sakura opened her mouth to call that out just as Black Zetsu interrupted her instead. "Yes…" She watched what was definitely a truthful flag of wounded pride flash across his eyes as he looked away from her briefly. He grimaced like it pained him to say it. "We are—" Black Zetsu hissed in through his teeth, "I take back what I said, before. It was unfortunate."

He glanced back at Sakura, untensing slightly as he searched her face, and she was struck again with the apparent truth of his words even while refusing to believe this wasn't an active lie. "I had to be hard on you in order to provoke you properly, but it had to be done."

She blinked at him once before narrowing her eyes, mistrustfully.

Now that he'd gotten those words out, Black Zetsu pushed a hand over his forehead with a heavy sigh, ignoring Sakura's disbelief. White Zetsu gestured encouragingly at him as if in congratulations, causing Black Zetsu to toss a glare in his direction.

"In fact," White Zetsu continued for him, patting him subtly on the shoulder, "Sakura, you really blew us away. We admire you a lot. What you actually managed to pull off…!"

"What?" but now it was both of them turning to look at her in complete seriousness again; and with a new level of visible emotion, this time admiring. Both of them, not one or the other; White Zetsu more excitably staring at her, while Black Zetsu was eyeing Sakura with grim, wistful esteem.

What? Sakura clenched her teeth, baring them in her hesitant, taken-aback expression. She withdrew from them a step, thrown off. Internally, she debated between theories on why they would say these things to her; what goal would it achieve for their unknown plans? What benefit would Black Zetsu glean for slashing his pride and actually apologising for his harsh words? Had he ever said sorry in the whole of his life before, even as a lie?

Their combined attention was heavy upon Sakura. Yellow eyes pinned to her brightly through the dark, intense and ever hurried with that silent urgency beneath. Again she felt instinctively not only that there was something off in this situation but that their words were somehow truthful.

Sakura had lived this long because she listened to her instincts, but she doubted them in this moment, her hands flexing in and out of fists. How could they possibly be honest with her in what they were saying? And why?

The Zetsus regarded Sakura with searching stares, their bright yellow eyes pinned to her through the dark. Her confusion was visible, and both moved to explain at once, their descriptions differing as they spoke at the same time — White Zetsu with a more wondrous, dramatically gesticulated "It was totally amazing!" versus Black Zetsu's begrudging "We were all impressed. It was… respectable." He looked away from her then, as if he was ashamed to have passed her a compliment.

Respect?

It was what was written between the both of their features in black and white: the lines clear, and while that respect was somewhat resentful in Black Zetsu's face, it was still as plain as day in the way that both of them regarded Sakura. Rereading their expressions registered that repeatedly for her, and she continuously refused to believe it even while they laid it out for her plainly.

Sakura bit down on her teeth, confused and still very angry. Why would they respect her? What White Zetsu had done and what Black Zetsu had said while they were at the tunnel mouth still lashed at her. Only just before, he'd blamed her for Madara's death and had mocked her for being weak and useless in the war. What had she possibly done that could garner this revealed respect from them? Why? It was too strange for her to fathom… too out of left field, and so Sakura determined again that the best course of action here was to kill them at last. They couldn't be trusted, and it was the best way. It was better than letting herself be played around with through their word games.

No longer. She summoned her anger through the thin haze of confusion and turned towards them just as Black Zetsu was speaking again with an urgent new intensity, dark hands pointing through the musty air between the three of them. "We're calling not for a surrender, but for a truce, Sakura. Neither of us want to fight you, of course; not after what was done. For now, our goals align, and if we hurry, we—"

"You don't want to fight?" came her incredulous interruption that Black Zetsu cut off in turn with a frustrated hiss. "No! Don't you see? That's not why we needed you to come down here. Not at all… but when you were sharp enough to see through our fake-Madara ruse quicker than we expected, back while we were in potential earshot of others on the surface, it left me with no choice. I had to get you angry enough," he scowled, "in order to get you to follow us down here all the way."

Mistrust was taut across Sakura's expression. Her fists were raised; she was still well-prepared to murder them both regardless of their expressed sentiments.

"We need you here, not for vengeance, but—" they both peered at Sakura, "because we need your help."

"You should have come to us sooner, as well," Black Zetsu growled as he was stepping to the side as if getting out of the way of something. "We figured you were acting before, but you somehow seem truly ignorant of the whole situation. Why didn't you seek us out days ago rather than wait until we had to resort to luring you out? Why did you waste so much time?"

"What? I told you." Sakura ran her hands through her hair, coughing out some dust and glaring their way. "We hate each other. Why would I ever seek either of you out? I didn't know where you were, anyway; I hadn't cared. And you were right before that we've wanted to kill each other all this time. I want to fight. What is going on? What kind of backwards new trick attempt is this?"

Black Zetsu stepped towards an open doorway Sakura hadn't noticed before, his feet quick and hands quicker as he pushed the heavy door open, revealing little but the dark void of a cold blackness beyond it. "With as little time as we have, I'll clarify quickly, since you seem much more confused than we thought you'd be," he was saying, his yellow eyes shifting from her to the darkness beyond it in utter solemnity. "We mean that he needs your help."

White Zetsu held the door open. Both stared at Sakura with heavy expectancy.

She scoffed, and chose to humour her piqued curiosity with a single, unsubtly threatening final question. "Come on now; don't mess with me any longer. What's this really about?"

They narrowed their eyes, but didn't falter, waiting for her to step forward.

Sakura shook her head, her hands on her hips. "'He'? What are you talking about? If you think this trap of yours isn't obvious…"

There was a deadly serious shine in their eyes. Beyond where they waited, she thought she saw something in the thin, dying light beyond the doorway, immersed in shadow. There was a tang of blood in the air beyond the stone dust and earth, and if she breathed in a little deeper, she thought she could smell something faintly ashen…

No.

Sakura lurched towards them with brandished fists and a snarl. "You won't trick me again. I won't take any more of such cruelties. I won't accept this false truce—"

"Look," Black Zetsu hissed, "if you don't hurry up, all of our efforts including yours will have ended up for nothing." He gestured towards the dark once more in cutting, impatient motions, and Sakura continued to glare into his face, willing herself to start tearing him apart rather than continuing to listen to his blather anymore.

"You're just bad liars, both of you." She turned fully away from them and the open doorway into darkness, tired of all of this now. "You know what; you're not worth the effort of killing right now. I'm tired of you, and I'm tired of this back-and-forth. I'm exhausted. I'm going to bed."

"Sakura…"

She didn't pause in her walking, though she slowed slightly as Black Zetsu's growl reverberated around her through the shadowy tunnel. "Are you sure you don't want to look and be certain it's a lie? If you walk away now, it really will all be your fault. All that you did before will be worse than for nothing. Without even looking to be sure—" His voice quietened, his tone tired as well, almost defeated. "Can you really live with that?"

Sakura stopped. They waited in silence as his words struck her; and with a face like Death she turned around once more, her piercing eyes stabbing through Black Zetsu. "You understand; I'll kill you both and destroy this place." If this turns out to be another lie, came her unspoken, understood implication.

They nodded, saying nothing more.

She stepped towards them once; twice, her second step halting as she fought with her own mind, and then a third larger step that brought her between both Zetsus to stand before the doorway, a hand drawing over her beating heart. Their gazes on her were solemn as before; more so, and shadowed with an attentive respect as Sakura testingly, cautiously stepped into the mouth of the room without sound or breath.

She was aware of every detail, increasingly observant of things she hadn't previously noticed: there was a trail of dried, heavily bloodied footsteps that led into the room from the tunnel beyond, smeared and deep red, surrounded by dried spatters. She saw, too, the little glitters of bits of broken glass left behind amidst spatters of shed, dried blood. It all led into the blackness the Zetsus were pointing her towards now, hurrying her, urging her forward.

That scent in her nose… and she could feel a fourth presence, so faint, but so very familiar.

No, but even as Sakura refused to let herself believe it she stepped another pace forward, her breath caught high in her chest as they continued to speak behind her, watching her enter with great caution. Her mind was on the questions she was answering for herself: there was something in the shadows, and whatever it was was not another White Zetsu clone. She could feel their presence… feel their muted, latent power, which even in its barest glimmers far outshadowed anything the Zetsus could fake. While the whole of her body stung with intense, prickling awareness the further she ventured, she could feel how different they were from the Zetsus; she could feel that separate, definitive fourth presence, though yet she didn't trust who it could be.

They were talking at Sakura almost animatedly, offering more information as she slowly made her discovery. "We wanted to come get you so much sooner," Black Zetsu was explaining, "but your house has been surrounded. And your damn guards — it was nearly impossible. If this all ends anyway just because you delayed getting to us…"

White Zetsu pitched in with an apologetic tone, his sentiment belated but not disingenuous. "Pretending to be Madara was the only way to get you to come out. We didn't have any better options."

"Couldn't tell you the truth while up there either." Black Zetsu leaned against the doorway as Sakura took a final step forward, unable to breathe. "If anyone had overheard us, it'd all be over in a second. It took some doing to throw off the Anbu squads that had been keeping watch of your house as well as your… watchful acquaintances."

They went quiet once more as she fell to her knees.

She had reached the back wall. Light streamed in from the west part of the room she'd partially smashed through earlier, an unsteady orange-amber from the tunnel light sconces. It was just enough to cast Sakura's figure in thin illumination as she fell forward, reaching towards the mass of jagged black shadows slumped against the wall before her.

"No…" Her voice was soft, constricted, "is it really possible…?"

The Zetsus were talking again but Sakura wasn't listening anymore. She was realising that this wasn't a lie.

It wasn't a trick or a nightmare. This… this, was real.

---

More than shadows… the serrated figure unmoving in the darkness was exactly the one she had been unable to believe it was. He made no response or reaction as she pulled close, knees brushing up against ragged robes and scraping through dust and dried blood that surrounded them both. Creeping fingers urgent and gentle brushed through falls of silvery hair and up against rough fabric; Sakura winced but did not make a sound as her seeking touches cut her in every movement. The dim light from behind her caught sharply on the chunks of glass in every size that glittered wherever she touched.

His head was hung, still taller than hers where she leaned in without sound or breath, her practised hands shaking slightly in her suspension of shock. Wild hair moved aside allowed her to draw her palms around his hidden face to clasp against his cold cheeks. Blood trickled down Sakura's hands as she caught the sides of his jaw, tipping closer, ignoring the pain of the glass puncturing her fingers and breathing unsteadily as she brought her palm along the side of his throat while gently holding his head steadily by hers.

Immersed in the dark now, Sakura became perfectly still. Her palm along his throat had never been so sensitive to signs of life she hoped she would find. Her ears had never been so sharp, awaiting the thrum of his pulse. Her heart had never ceased to beat like it did in this moment.

She shut her eyes, focused wholly upon finding if Madara still lived.

The silence stretched on in a singular eternity as Sakura felt… listened; waited. Beyond where she was immersed in ragged robes and falls of blood-matted hair, a statue half-hidden within his slumped figure as she sought her answer, the Zetsus remained silent, looking on from the doorway without movement or sound for fear they might interrupt her.

She had known he was the genuine thing the moment she had drawn close enough. Already the life-giving ribbons dripped from Sakura's patterned face and limbs into his, seeping beneath clothing and skin and wrapping around him from head to toe. She wasn't going to wait until she knew for sure he was alive; it hadn't even been a conscious thought to release her seal, an action borne from natural instinct.

She held his face to hers, ignoring the shards embedded in his features that cut at her skin. She shared her life's energy with him even while increasingly certain that he no longer lived at all.

Somewhere within the terrible waiting the analytical part of Sakura's mind assessed his condition, free to move while her emotions were locked behind a cushion of shock. She already knew by how Madara was slumped here that he'd dragged himself to this place, fallen against the wall, and collapsed to the ground. He was struck with unconsciousness sometime shortly afterwards, slowly dying of blood loss most likely due to his countless injuries; grim reminders of this were painted by his blood where it was smeared across the wall and pooling around him on the floor. The smell of it encompassed his being, overwhelming everything else but for the scents of permeating stone dust and heavy, ancient dark around them.

She also noticed the bandages pinned over Madara's hands and arms that she could see through tattered black wartime robes. They were stained through with blood, but neatly wrapped and pinned as if by one practised in tending to injuries. While she questioned where bandages could have been found in a place like this, she noticed too a sharp glittering to the side — a pile of bloodied glass that had been pulled free presumably from where the bandages were now. There was also a hint of a scar along his arm beneath one of the wrappings, stitched shut by what could only have been some degree of healing chakra.

Had someone else attempted to tend to Madara and failed? How long had he been unconscious, as well?

Sakura couldn't breathe, the gravity of these observations making her stomach lurch. Unconsciousness… or was it worse than that? The blood around him had mostly dried. By the look of it, Madara had been here for days, now.

With how close she was, his nose brushed slightly along her ear, his head supported by her other hand along the side of his face. She could feel the limp weight of him; the lack of warmth… the lack of breath where his face was close to hers. Suddenly, Sakura couldn't bear to look at his already mostly-hidden face, stiffening with the sheer trauma of the idea that she was not holding up Madara with her strength and her released seal, but something that seared her even just to name.

"Have you…"

Sakura's voice only just carried beyond where she curled into Madara's body, the words flickering through his mane. She had remembered to breathe, now, her lungs seizing shallowly in her chest as she hunched into him, her hand still splayed along his cold throat and her supporting arm leaning into his limp frame. Her words were warbled with pain, indicating her horror. "Have you brought me to his corpse?..."

The Zetsus were black and white figures shadowing the doorway, looking on gravely. "He was hanging on before we came to get you. Asked for you again, last he was conscious."

But Madara was silent. He was cold and unresponsive beneath her searching, gentle touch.

Sakura shook as a whole, her frame shivering against his limp one. She still held on to him instinctively like he had the living strength to support her; her shadowed eyes welled with tears. As they fell, they tracked along the black ribbons that flowed between their faces.

She tilted her cheek against his with a shuddering exhale. She hadn't given up, as she'd promised Indra; she had found Madara now, but far, far too late.

Sakura's tears flowed freely now as her heart broke all over again. The ribbons of her released seal wrapped continuously around them both, flowing and warm without hesitation or restraint.

She brought her murmur close to his ear through falls of blood-matted hair. "I'm here," she managed, her teeth bared with her pain. She leaned into him with barely-suppressed sobs threatening to break her completely; she kept her palm along his throat in fading hope, and the limp weight of Madara's injured, collapsed body against hers felt like one impossible for her to bear. "I'm here."

"Sakura—" Black Zetsu interrupted the tense silence, hands wringing, just as hurried as before. "Is he still alive or not?"

"I…" She held onto Madara more tightly, then consciously unknitted her grip, well aware of his fragility in this state. Turning back to him, Sakura's eyes were searching and filled with tears, her pale face marked in high contrast against the deep obsidian of her seal's ribbons. "I don't know. I don't… think he is."

She heard one of them curse in frustration in response as she leaned back into Madara's slumped form, refocusing again upon him. The Zetsus paced the room; Black Zetsu was muttering something to White Zetsu, and if she wasn't wholly intent on what she was doing, Sakura might have seen the grief that began to spark in their hope-devoid faces.

She wasn't listening to them. She was beginning to recognise that there was a certain draw upon the energy she shared with Madara; a pulling on the ribbons that seared her skin with her powerful, unleashed chakra.

A pull, like her healing energy was being used; like it was helping.

Sakura's sharp inhale echoed through the blackness.

The Zetsus stood in petrified silence, watching her intently from the doorway. She had frozen where she curled around Madara in the darkness. In wisps so subtle that none of them saw it, healing steam had begun to rise from where the pair was intertwined. It was only Sakura that could see or hear it: the pulse beating to life beneath his skin, now strong enough for her to feel it against her hoping, awaiting touch.

The Zetsus startled backwards when her head whipped in their direction. Burning green eyes glowed through the darkness with dangerous fire within them. "What the hell were you thinking hiding him down here? He needs care, urgently. Sticking him in a dark room in abandoned tunnels—!"

"He had to be well hidden," Black Zetsu hissed.

"This section is beneath the hospital," White Zetsu supplied.

"For gods' sake get moving!" Sakura was on her feet in an instant, pointing out towards the hall with a roar. "I need light. Now. Light and secure passage to the hospital immediately!"

"He lives?" but Black Zetsu was rushing the both of them to the side, and in moments a number of unlit hallway sconces were afire, allowing Sakura to see what she was doing as she bent once more this time with readied arms. Both Zetsus paced in an action mode anew as they impatiently watched her cautious movements that contrasted against her urgent attitude.

"Can't do this wrong. Moving a severely injured patient carelessly can kill them," came Sakura's rushed words as she slid her arms beneath the mass of jagged shadows beneath her, now illuminated with thin, shaking orange flamelight. Madara's dark wartime robes were somewhat visible now, as was the extent of blood that had pooled around where he had collapsed into unconsciousness. Much of his silver-white mane was a deep red, his face hidden under matted locks and bits of glass and shadow. Now, as he was painstakingly shifted into Sakura's grip, his very gradual, barely perceptible breaths could be seen.

There were subtle cracking sounds that made the Zetsus wince when Sakura gently hoisted Madara into her grip. With deliberate, careful motions she adjusted him so that his head rested against her shoulder in a cascade of red-streaked silver hair. Ragged black robes fell around them both as she lifted him fully into her arms. Most of her was obscured as he was much larger than her; her strong, lithe arms were licked with firelight as she steadied Madara's body in her hold, one beneath his knees and the other sliding up behind his back, stabilising him gently against her chest.

Sakura swerved once more with hurried purpose, Madara's bloodied wild mane drifting down her shoulder and side with the sudden movement. Black ribbons made spiralling patterns down from her forehead, curling protectively around his body slung across her arms.

Her intense stare daggered through the Zetsus. "He's alive. He's got a pulse and he's breathing but he's still very close to gone. Get me up to the hospital, now."

"Right away," came Black Zetsu's growl, followed by White Zetsu's cheery "Yes, ma'am!" before they darted to the right, leading the way.

---

"Urgent as this is, we still need a plan." Black Zetsu's voice echoed down the stairwell as the four of them ascended, Madara swaying slightly within Sakura's secure grip. "What exactly does he need? Is it something we can snatch and retreat with? It would be safer to remain down here for any operations right now, at least until he's recovered. We can't just walk into the hospital and expect anything less than hostility and danger for him."

"That might be true, but I need too many things." Sakura's sharp gaze was honed in upon Madara in her arms as she strode up after the Zetsus, her figure tense with urgent focus. "Sterilised tools. A lot of clean bandages. Pliers and forceps. IV fluids. Sterilised needles and tubing equipment. A clean bed, counterspace, bathroom access, available medicines, a prepared area that's tidy and sterile. And a whole lot of other tools and equipment, especially if his condition worsens, or has complications… That bloodied, dusty old basement room will never be suitable."

"What," Black Zetsu's growl was something close to bitter, but still borderline polite, "you expect to just… carry Madara through the main Konoha hospital to a patient room…. unaccosted?"

"Where exactly is this tunnel connecting to?" Sakura countered him in reply. She was levelling her challenging stare with Black Zetsu's while remaining intensively aware of Madara within her arms, keeping one hand gently placed high along his throat as she monitored his pulse.

Neither Zetsu answered her, for they had reached a large stone door at the top of the stairwell. It was pocked with age and heavy with layers of dust, clearly having not been used in years. Beneath it, there was the thinnest crack of blue light seeping through into the dark stairwell, carrying hinting scents of antiseptics, ash, and the tainted tang of embalming chemicals.

Sakura aimed an incredulous look at the Zetsus. "The morgue?! What sick-minded person with what intentions would build this—"

"We didn't make it this way. These are old Founder's era tunnels. Ask him when he wakes up," they answered petulantly, gesturing at Madara.

Sakura blinked a few times, drawing up tall where she stood, feeling a sense of dizziness pulling at her mind for a second. Their almost humorous reply had struck her with a rebounding recognition of the situation, which fell back against a safe wall of denial even while she carried Madara's weight in her arms.

She took a breath in through her teeth, calming herself. This felt like a dream again, which was what gave her the fortitude to push forward without allowing emotion to distract or frazzle her. Because this didn't feel real, she didn't feel a need to try and process any of the emotional or consequential impacts of it — she was urged forward through shock and through feelings almost apathetically, propelled by the dominating need to act.

This was all right with Sakura. She tightened her grip on Madara in her arms, fully ready to accept this path even if it was just a dream: she would save his life, and she'd savour having the opportunity to do so, no matter if this was reality or not. Even if she had to work with the Zetsus in any capacity, saving him was worth it.

She could deal with this insanity for that. She could handle anything that was thrown at her.

"Sakura?" They had begun to push open the door, but were glancing back at her with hurried concern, their respective black and white faces tightening with worry that perhaps she was losing her composure.

Sakura's probing caress along Madara's neck was reassuring; to him or to her, she didn't know, but the sheer relief that the response of his living pulse brought her had her swaying slightly where she stood for a second. Sakura caught herself immediately, the strength of her resolve to succeed in saving his life no matter what she thought or felt being unbreakable.

She looked to the Zetsus with iron calm. "I'm fine," Sakura declared as she took another step forward, careful not to let Madara brush up against the narrow walls as she went through the darkened doorway White Zetsu had pushed open.

---

She was at the elevator door near-instantaneously, the Zetsus now the ones trying to keep up. "A sheet," Sakura calmly declared, pointing towards a closet door just visible within the empty nearby office across the main entry area. "Two, if there's that many in there. Black Zetsu, be one of our shadows. Create distractions if unwanted attention gets drawn to us. White Zetsu, hurry up. The elevator's on its way down to us."

Black Zetsu was scowling, but didn't protest at Sakura's takeover of command: she knew what she was doing; she was doing what they all needed her to do, and with an admirably stoic manner, considering Madara was a gory near-corpse dying in her arms. His blood was slowly dripping down her forearms where she held him to her; his pulse was thin, his breathing barely present, and Black Zetsu knew that if he were anyone else he'd have been dead days ago. The sheer life force and will that Madara possessed as well as that of the Ten Tails had kept him going despite the odds thus far; but death was still close at hand.

As he melted into her shadow with little further protest, trusting that she knew how to get Madara the care he needed without blowing their cover, Black Zetsu recognised that fierce, courageous flash across Sakura's eyes. Ah… he'd somehow forgotten; she was no fragile spring flower, despite her namesake. She had the tenacity and strength to face pure adversity and trauma and brute-force her way through it.

Or perhaps brute-force was the wrong word. While Sakura's physical strength was obvious in the lean ripple of muscle beneath her wiry limbs, facing the elevator with a tall back and strong poise while she held Madara's heavy weight in her arms, there was tactical finesse in the way she carried herself. He had seen for himself the extent of her extreme chakra-control and intelligence, as well as sharp instincts; and the sheer power she'd shown in her previous rage—

Hmph. Black Zetsu's scowl deepened. He had mocked her earlier but even at her young age this woman already was, indeed, a worthy fit for Madara; for Indra. She had come back just as strong as she had been in previous lifetimes: stronger.

It wasn't good to reunite them. Sakura had all the ferocious resolve and strength that Black Zetsu feared could truly pull Madara away from the Infinite Tsukuyomi cause.

He almost regretted bringing her to him, but knew that it had been his only choice. If Madara died, the Tailed Beasts, the Infinite Tsukuyomi plan, and most importantly Mother would die with him. It would all be over. Immortal as she was, Mother could be brought back with the Tailed Beasts too, over a long period… hundreds of years, in which a new plan could be born; but Black Zetsu had waited long enough as it was. There was still hope for Madara. There was still, perhaps, time.

He'd concluded even before bringing her down to Madara that Sakura was worth the risk posed in reuniting them. She might be the biggest obstacle for the plan overall to succeed, but she was also, in this moment, their only hope of saving it. He and White Zetsu lacked her medical expertise, her healing abilities. There was no one who matched her in skill, and it would take something like a miracle to save Madara from the brink at this point.

Perhaps it was a forged confidence that gave her the fortitude to push through such a shocking situation foisted on her without warning, but Sakura appeared to know what she was doing as she accepted the sheet White Zetsu had fetched for her, unfolding it over Madara in her arms and tucking it around him. She was making sure he wasn't visible to onlookers as who he was, the white folds obscuring the whole of his long, lean body that she cradled against her chest, sweeping his wild silvery hair up underneath so his mane wasn't still trailing down beside her feet in plain view.

"Wear a believable disguise like you did earlier as Madara, but obviously not that particular one. Anyone but him; whatever works within reason. Quickly," Sakura commanded White Zetsu. She herself was beginning to change in appearance; a new henge, shimmering over her hair and skin, hiding the black ribbons continuously flowing between her body and Madara's. Her henge masked her dark clothes to look like a doctor's coat and scrubs.

White Zetsu was frowning, and Black Zetsu could practically see the smoke coming from his ears as his mind ground to a halt.

Black Zetsu sighed. His pseudo-latter half never did particularly well with nonspecific commands. Hopefully he'd pick something plain and unremarkable so the already strange sight this group would make would be less noticeable to any potential onlookers. The faster they made it through the crowded hospital above and to a patient room without obstacles or distractions, the better.

He was about to offer White Zetsu a suggestion when he noticed the identity Sakura had cast over herself, causing him to straighten with an unpleasant jolt.

She was already turning away from him with a swish of dark hair, the door to the elevator shuddering open with a noisy ding and Black Zetsu had no chance to protest before she was striding into it without hesitation.

Sakura turned, her changed violet eyes burning with vivid intensity upon the elevator buttons as she hit the top floor button and then the button to close the door, hard enough to crack it. Morphing into a new shape, White Zetsu was giggling as he noticed her disguise while Black Zetsu made sure to slide into the elevator in time before the doors shut. "Oh! What a henge! I'd believe it if it wasn't impossible!"

She eyed him oddly through falls of black hair as the elevator began to groan upwards, towards the main floors.

"You can't use her image," came Black Zetsu's hurried growl, frustrated and agitated at once. "As ironic as it is that you're using her as your disguise, it's—"

To their unified frustration, the elevator stopped at the very next floor, halting with another loud, decisive ding. Ah… the hospital was still incredibly busy in the aftermath of the war. Overrun might be the word, and so they might be delayed from floor to floor. Black Zetsu grimaced harder: Sakura couldn't change her henge now, in front of others. He would just have to hope she still didn't draw too much attention, somehow.

Sakura took a retreating step further into the heart of the dimly-lit elevator until her back was against the rear panel, her face half-hidden beneath waves of hair around her pale, wooden expression. Her eyes hardened with annoyance upon those who stared in at her from the lobby. She let her hair fall a little further forward and hugged the sheet-covered body she held closer to her, obscuring her face a little more in an instinct that she should hide herself a little more effectively, sensing the unexpected draw of all of their stares. She ignored the furtive, irate glances Black Zetsu was shooting at her from her shadow.

As an angled, two-dimensional shadow with a single fully-formed hand he'd made sure wasn't in sight of those beyond the elevator, Black Zetsu was already jabbing the close door button repeatedly, cursing under his breath for it to hurry up. Damn these old, useless things: why wouldn't it just shut already? It would be nothing but bad to let strangers into the elevator and up close to the precious asset they were trying to save, that the rest of the world wanted and expected dead.

There was a small group of nurses hurrying over to the elevator, undoubtedly the ones who had called for it to stop on the ground floor. One was calling out for those in the elevator to wait for them, while the others in her group were catching an eyeful of Sakura, their whispers similar to those of others nearby that could see them; civilians waiting in the lobby, staff as they passed by in the hall, all beginning to recognise her, her name on their mouths.

The leading nurse in her group had almost reached the doors, and she noticed Sakura with a shock: "Are you… are you Uchiha Sasaki?!" but then her breath was cut short and her expression petrified, her group behind her skidding to a halt on squeaking shoes, a hush cutting through the crowds beyond the elevator as Sakura's company stepped into view from where he had been standing to the side of the elevator.

"Yo." With a voluminous hum like he was pretending to be pensive, Orochimaru leaned forward, his glittering golden snake eyes contracting into narrow slits as he offered the nurses a fanged, almost gawping smile. "How are you lovely ladies this fine early evening? What are you up to? Nursing some people, right?" His grin grew giddy, his silken black hair falling around his unnaturally pale face as he leaned forward a little further, his shadow looming over the group of petrified nurses. "I like snakes. Do you like them? Do you wanna see one?!" He went as if to reach for one from his pocket.

The discordant squeals the nurses made rang throughout the lobby as they fled. Faces aghast across the lobby were now struck with fear of Orochimaru amidst their confusion, and Sasaki behind him went forgotten.

Finally the door was closing, Orochimaru — or rather White Zetsu in disguise — stepping back with a self-satisfied smile.

Sakura and Black Zetsu's shouts were in unison. "You idiot!" He had to dodge two fists, making a wheedling protest. "What? I thought it'd be fine, he's a friend of yours anyway, right? And the sight of me made them forget about 'Sasaki' here." He glanced between the other two for validation of his point, and after a stony pause from them, sighed. White Zetsu slid a narrowed golden eye over to Sakura. "Since famous people are apparently off-limits, and you said I could be anyone other than Madara…"

"Idiot. Idiot — idiot!" Sakura was hopping from foot to foot, her sharp violet eyes bright with anger. "You drew all of the attention! And he never says 'yo'... and he's not so gauche. Oh, the things the papers will say now… he's going to kill me… and," she blinked at both Zetsus oddly, reflexively clutching Madara a little closer to her as she checked his pulse for the hundredth time, "what do you mean, Sasaki's famous?"

The elevator had nearly reached the next floor. They paused as a group as it began to groan to a halt, then cursed together as well: it was going to stop again. "I tried to warn you about using that disguise. Have you been hiding under a rock since the end of the war?" came Black Zetsu's rushed hiss from Sakura's shadow, "don't you know anything at all?"
"And don't you pay attention to the news?" came White Zetsu's question just as the elevator ground to a halt with another loud bell-toll. He straightened out his expression, adjusting his silken black hair and standing tall in front of Sakura as the doors pulled slowly open.

The second floor was all people. Things like rooms and equipment were secondary to the crowds amidst every available space. In a flash it was clear to them that every single patient room was occupied, and with queues of nurses hurrying between rooms, with doctors scribbling on clipboards and zig-zagging from room to room like their own lives depended upon getting their taskloads done.

"Don't tell me coming to this floor was your plan," Black Zetsu's growl was just audible to Sakura where she was half-hidden behind false Orochimaru.

He was already hitting the close doors button again while Sakura snapped back at him. "No. Do you think I'm stupid?" She was uncomfortable in her Sasaki henge now, forced to keep it up since she couldn't change it while there were curious, unwelcome eyes upon her beyond the elevator.

Yellow eyes swept over Sakura's Sasaki henge, and she scowled back at him with his silent answer; but then their attention was caught by their false Orochimaru again as he was waving excitedly at someone beyond the elevator. "Oh, I'm so flattered! I've never been interviewed before! Oh… I would love to… but I'm really busy right now! Another time?"

Sakura was cringing backwards as she and Black Zetsu saw with horror the journalist crew that had been milling outside of the elevator, waiting for its arrival. When she peered over Orochimaru's shoulder she saw pictures of her own face on their clipboards, making her clench with anxiety: they had been here doing some sort of story on her already, probably getting more information from her coworkers… nosy questions, nosy prodding and poking into her private life for the newspapers. And now… Now—

"Don't joke with us, mister Orochimaru! In our last interview with you, you told us you had never met miss Uchiha! But…!"

The journalist was excitedly gesturing at where "Sasaki" was leaning in just behind false Orochimaru's shoulder. Her cheeks pinking slightly, she stiffened upon being called out directly, clutching Madara's unconscious body protectively.

Sakura silently thanked her luck that he wasn't visible to the journalists. The narrow viewing window that the open elevator doorway made and the way in which she stood behind White-Zetsu-Orochimaru made him unnoticeable to them from their angle. They wouldn't see him; unless they entered the elevator.

"Close, close, close!" came Black Zetsu's barely-restrained hisses as he jammed the button over and over with a shadowy hand. "Orochimaru" was beaming back at the journalists with another inane answer. "Oh, the rumours about us are all true," he jerked a thumb back towards Sasaki, "Every single one. You got me. Oh, interviews are fun. Do you guys do this all the time?"

Gasps, and then sounds of awe; apparently what he'd said was a goldmine to the journalists as they scribbled furiously on notepads. Then, as Sakura tried to pull back from where she'd peeked from behind his shoulder, trying to see more of the hallway behind the journalist group…

Flash-click-flash. There was furious clicking as their photo was taken: and then another, and another, until the door creaked shut in sharp protest, forced to close faster by subtle shadow-hands wrenching at the metal with desperate strength.

White Zetsu had pressed his hands over his cheeks in a vaguely schoolgirl-like fashion. "Oooh, they took my picture!"

Sakura slid up against the back panel with a tight, restrained breath. She blinked a few times at the glossy black hair both in her own vision and the locks dripping down White Zetsu's disguised back before shutting her eyes, feeling the elevator shudder upwards one more time.

Calm. She must be calm. No matter the situation; no matter what.

Sakura looked down at the comparatively much larger body she held in her arms. Madara's head was resting on her shoulder; she could make out the outlines of his face through the sheet, and she could feel his breath against her skin, ragged and shallow, almost inaudible. And she could feel his blood, seeping hot against where she carried him… darkening spots of the sheet all over, dripping down her forearms, his wounds ever-oozing. She still had the ribbons of her released seal supporting his vitals beneath her disguise, strengthening his heart and lungs and sustaining him with her own life's energy, but Madara was still only hanging on by a thread. One mistake, one wrong move and he'd be gone for good.

Her seal wasn't enough. He needed so much more.

Calm.

With a cool hand slipping up along the column of Madara's throat beneath the sheet, Sakura could feel again the living thrum of his heartbeat; erratic, thin, faint, but still there. It was like the beat of a single, punctured drum versus the percussion of an army of drummers compared to the strength of his heartbeat she remembered from before… weakened, dying; but hanging on. He was still here. He was still alive.

Sakura straightened where she stood, her violet stare dead-set upon the doors as the elevator halted for the last time. Beside her, White Zetsu had lost all of his former giddiness, and he and Black Zetsu watched Sakura with all the attentive respect of soldiers gazing at their general. They awaited her next command.

Her expression was both tense and wooden as she braced herself for a final onslaught of spectators; journalists… nurses — whomever they were, she would fight her way through if she had to. She would invent the most extravagant of lies to pass through them; or she would knock them unconscious and avoid wasting the time, dealing with all the consequences later: saving Madara's life was too important. She'd never resort to violence against innocent people, but the desperation Black Zetsu had shown was mutual among all three of them. They were running out of time.

Sakura adjusted her sturdy, protective hold around Madara as the doors slid open, heart pounding with adrenaline. The Zetsus shadowed her now as she stepped forward bravely.

The hall was empty.

She wasted no time marvelling at this, pivoting on a foot and darting to the right. Both Zetsus followed without question, their disguises gone and speed at maximum as they took Sakura's lead. Her own henge melted away back into green eyes and pink hair while they raced past room from quiet room, the sign long-term care swinging slightly above their heads as they went. Soft beeping filled the hall, with no voices, no bustle of nurses; only still figures in beds, deeply asleep.

"Damn," Sakura was saying as they ran down the hall towards its end, "they took all the supplies from these rooms, other than what the coma patients need to live. But surely not…"

Her swerve down another side-hall led past another sign, and this area was just as unoccupied, holding only a couple of doors to rooms at all. Both were closed and locked.

Sakura skidded to a stop beside one. Her green eyes were fiercely aglow with determination, and the lock was dealt with in a single chop, the handle falling to the ground in a heavy metal thunk. "Maternity suites?" Black Zetsu was asking as she pushed into the dark room without pause.

Sakura was already issuing commands as she strode forward, the sheet that had been on Madara fluttering to the floor in a flourish. "White Zetsu, I need you to block the second-floor stairwell access to this floor without being seen or heard by anyone. I also need you to dissuade any curious people that might come looking around for us on this floor in any non-lethal way that doesn't draw them to this room. Black Zetsu, stay here with me." She was rushing over to a bed against the wall. "Shut the curtains," and he was already doing just that as Sakura carefully laid Madara down on the wide bed, its white sheets already slowly darkening with red. She positioned his head and limbs upon the starchy mattress with gentle, painstaking caution not to aggravate or worsen his injuries.

"I've got you," Sakura was murmuring to Madara. She swept a hand over his forehead and up through his hair, hunching over him.

When Black Zetsu returned his attention to her, he saw the look of indecision and then frustration on her face. "What do you need?" he asked, but Sakura was shaking her head. "He's lost so much blood. What I need… but we don't have time." Her features resolved into a grim, resolute expression.

Sakura took hold of Madara's wrist, turning it up towards her. She turned hers as well, and as she stood over where he laid on the hospital bed, she raised her other hand; her palms flat, her fingers aglow with razor-sharp green chakra.

She didn't acknowledge Black Zetsu's hiss of surprise as two decisive slashes of her bladed hand cut open the wrist of her other hand, and then Madara's. A quick spattering of blood across white sheets and Sakura's pale, bitter expression, and then a bright, pulsing green glow as she took hold of his injured arm with hers: Black Zetsu had stuttered forward to stop her too late, only pausing again in the last second, recognising what she was doing.

Sakura positioned her sputtering wrist wound over Madara's. She clasped her hand around his arm, drawing their matching gashes in parallel; then she leaned in, her sharp eyes honed in upon them through blood and glowing light that had begun to knit and mend.

"Sakura?!"

She ignored Black Zetsu. He could see their skin binding around the wounds; sealing, as if two limbs were now knit into one. But why? They'd both stopped bleeding now, their vital arteries exposed only for a couple of seconds, Sakura's moves decisive and fast-moving.

"Now the flow…" She hunched over Madara further, her pale face even paler in the light of the dimly-lit room and the green of her chakra. Keeping the hand of her fused wrist gently gripping over Madara's arm, Sakura focused harder, her other hand that had acted as the blade now moving over their linked arms, drawing forward as if encouraging something to follow her direction.

Black Zetsu stared with wide eyes, understanding. "But your blood types have to be…?"

"I am the doctor. I know," Sakura answered flatly. She was utterly focused, and her answers were curt and quiet as she worked. "They have to be compatible. I'm surprised you know that. Maybe you won't be a useless nurse…" Sakura's lips quirked just slightly as she leaned forward, her eyes fluttering with a fleeting look of victory as whatever she was doing seemed to go the way she wanted. She looked haunting in this light, like a living ghost; and almost like she was insane, the shadows dancing across her face and the mixed blood that spattered her face and clothes. "But it turns out, between him and me, I am the one with the fancy blood. Type O," Sakura's smile came and went quickly, "Madara should consider himself lucky."

Sakura narrowed her eyes, intent upon her work. Black Zetsu could just see it: her blood, flowing in through the fused wrist wounds she shared with Madara, moving into his body.

He grimaced, admiringly. Lacking time to find and set up the proper equipment, Sakura had set up the most brutal of blood transfusions, pumping her blood directly from her veins to his veins in the wrist gash she had created between them. Brutal… gory… admirable. It had to have been incredibly painful to inflict that wound on herself, as well as risky, and by all accounts stupid. The wrist cuts had to precisely match, just as their blood types had to be compatible; she had to move with great speed to seal the wounds together or risk both of them bleeding out, and she had to have real guts to cut her own wrist just to complete a direct blood transfusion. It must have taken serious courage as well as fine control to pull that off, just now.

Black Zetsu stood back, feeling a new level of respect for Sakura. He doubted that any other medic in the entirety of the shinobi world could even come close to matching her skill… and that none other had the steel to do such an operation. He certainly couldn't imagine being willing to do that; either to himself, or for anybody else.

"Yes… the flow's just right," Sakura was saying half to herself, inspecting her wrist. "Just enough; not too much. Perfect…"

She pushed a hand through her hair, paling a shade. "This will be hard on me. But I'll be fine."

She collapsed back onto the stool that suddenly appeared behind her with a grateful exhale, careful not to pull at her fused wrist transfusion over where Madara's arm lay over his chest. She hunched forward once more.

Black Zetsu blinked as he realised Sakura was releasing her seal again: she must have withdrawn it for a few seconds while initiating her risky blood-transfusion. It made sense to him; the regenerative powers it offered wouldn't have given her enough time to bind the skin and veins of their wrists before the cut would have sealed back up. She had still done it so quickly, and she must have had to line up their exposed arteries just right, with precision and control. To do it while exhausted as she was and through dim light and so much blood…

"What's that face you're making?" Sakura was saying. She had steadied herself from a dizzy spell with her spare hand on the railing, taking a deep breath; she slid a fiercely intent green eye over to Black Zetsu, who backed up from her with a deepened grimace. "Please make yourself useful," she went on, returning her intense, frightening attention back to Madara before her, keeping her arm over his. "Thanks for the stool, it will help. I'll be here a while. Since I can't move until he has enough blood to be stable I need you to act as my aide. Can you do that?"

"Yes." Black Zetsu was used to aiding others from the shadows. While he couldn't even fathom doing the visceral blood-transfusion operation Sakura had just done, he could definitely do just about anything else.

"This maternity suite should have everything I need. There's a kitchenette and private restroom over there; beside it is a cart in the corner. It'll have bandages, disinfectants, alcohol wipes, and a lot of other things I need. Bring it over. I'll also need you to give me the tray of forceps that you'll find in the second upper drawer."

"Got it." He was off in seconds. Sakura remained utterly focused upon Madara, her intelligent, practised stare raking over his body analytically. By the time Black Zetsu had returned, the cart's wheels squeaking while he pushed it into reach, Sakura appeared ever more decisive. She didn't look away from Madara and his thousands of wounds as she spoke with her free hand reaching to the side. "The middle one. Put the tray in my reach. I'll need space in it to deposit the glass." Accepting the tweezers he had handed her, Sakura took in one more deep breath, her eyes flickering over Madara's face once before she returned her intense attention to the shards of glass embedded all throughout his body. "You can check on White Zetsu if you need; but return to my side when you've made sure he hasn't messed up again," she said, clicking her forceps once with her razored glare honing in upon the first section of puncturing glass wounds she intended to attack.

"Yes; ma'am," Black Zetsu growled. She didn't see the undeniable glint of resentful, deepened respect that continued to shadow his gaze as he followed her commands, disappearing into the dark.

---

How many hours had it been? There was no sun trying to pry through the curtains, and she'd come after the Zetsus only just after sundown… it must be near midnight, by now. Sakura felt her tunnel-focused mind waver a little as exhaustion continued to pound on her head, demanding sleep. No… she could not rest. She couldn't rest, nor falter, and she barely spared herself time to so much as breathe beyond her work as she pulled shard after shard free.

Sakura's expression was hard and emotionless as she flayed back another ragged piece of dark robes away from the part of Madara's leg she was working on. She had to work the fabric free of chunks of glass, spotted with blood, prying away threads and ruined cloth to bare the skin beneath the embedded glass. Her careful work revealed swollen red skin, streaked with blood, peppered with shards in all sizes that shone in the dim light.

Largest, first. Her silently extended palm was soon occupied with the appropriate size of forceps she needed, dark fingers withdrawing from where he stood beside her. Black Zetsu was proving a good aide; he was perceptive of what she needed, anticipating her requests and granting them without question or chatter, allowing her to think and to keep her focus honed and undistracted. The bizarreness of working with him on anything had long past for either of them in the hours that had passed since Sakura had begun working on healing Madara. It was a painstaking, agonising process that required more patience than she'd ever had to muster, far worse than the time he'd come to her for this before, far more dire; and now, with the additional strain and literal drain of their fused wrists, allowing his body to replenish blood while pulling from hers.

It was why she was exhausted, so soon. The sheer mental focus required and the constant drain on her own blood stores was striking Sakura with fatigue she was starting to struggle to ignore. She had been able to retract her unsealed ribbons from their bodies a little while ago, no longer needing its additional regenerative support, but while it had been helping Madara it had also been replenishing Sakura's blood, in turn. Without it, she was back to a finite supply; one she was giving away now without reprieve.

Her fingers twitched over his arm where their wrists remained connected, Sakura's thoughts untroubled by these things. She had felt Madara's natural regenerative abilities kickstarting with all of her efforts thus far. His rapid-healing was no where near back to his typical capabilities, which meant she needed to keep donating blood until he was able to regenerate his own once more, but it was more than a good sign. He was, at this point, as long as Sakura continued what she was doing — definitively on the mend.

Madara wasn't out of the woods yet. Sakura's sharp eyes flicked over to his face, and she ignored the weary blur beginning to pull at the edges of her vision as she gazed at his slack, unconscious expression; not peaceful, but also no longer pained.

Madara had suffered five times the amount of blood loss that would have been lethal for anyone else. He should have bled out the day the war had ended. His incredible regeneration had delayed his death, even while it had begun to fail; Sakura guessed his healing factor had slowed down to a halt rather than stopped immediately, allowing him to hang on as long as he had. However, he'd had a small amount of help; someone had pulled shards free of most of his vital arteries before his regeneration had stopped completely, and they'd not only bandaged those areas and stopped their bleeding but had used healing chakra to seal them shut more quickly. Sakura had been able to tell, glancing over the scars; whomever had helped him didn't have her own level of skill, but their skills were advanced anyway, requiring great chakra-control and intimate anatomy knowledge. But who…?

Ah; she hummed to herself. Of course. Having pulled free several large chunks of glass in the time she had been pensively internally debating, Sakura set her large forceps aside, extending another asking open palm to the side. The smaller, more medium-sized pair she needed arrived in her hand almost instantly, and she half-smiled to herself as she accepted them, returning to her work upon Madara's leg.

"Who did you learn from?" she asked quietly. It was the first time either of them had spoken in hours.

"Hmm?" Black Zetsu sounded tired.

"When you worked on his wounds."

He paused. She could feel his strange yellow eyes sweeping over her in a brief, confused glance. "I didn't."

"Don't lie to me…"

"You should rephrase your question," Black Zetsu answered Sakura, his gaze shifting over to Madara in his unconscious state. The fluorescent lights painted his already pale visage nearly white, tinged in blue, the shadows aging his face; his falls of wild silvery hair fell loosely, tinged with mats of blood from around his head on the pillow down to the floor around the bed. "You should ask me when he learned from you."

Sakura nearly paused in pulling out glass bits, and her stare slid over to Black Zetsu as she tugged the next shard free, unable to hide the surprise across her face. "He… did this?"

She remembered the neatly-tied off bandages she'd removed from his arms and hands earlier, as well as a few other vital areas in which arteries had been punctured amidst his wounds. The worst of those punctures had been where she'd seen bandages, the places where extractions had been made before she had found him. That pile of glass beside where she'd found him crumpled down in the dark… Sakura grimaced: it made sense. Madara was experienced and intelligent enough that he most certainly knew more than the basics of first aid. But to go so far as to not only understand bodily anatomy and the locations of vital arteries; to make all efforts to extract, heal, and bandage those areas even while actively dying from the effects of extreme blood hemorrhaging?

She sat back slightly, her eyes returning to Madara's face. Her throat was tight, her heart tighter with pained admiration. He never ceased to impress her… he must have picked up how to use healing chakra from watching her heal him, months before. Without proper training, Madara wouldn't be able to copy just from sight all the medical knowledge and intimate details of her healing jutsus, but he had come damn close just with intelligent observation and the power of his absurdly capable eyes.

Frightening. He was a genius in his own class, something she already knew, but was reminded of in this moment. It wasn't unbelievable that Madara could guess that healing ruptured arteries was paramount to extending his survival, but it was no small feat to be able to replicate Sakura's healing skill from a single time observing her work. She had never taught him any of its principles; Madara still would have had to surmise much of it from keen guesswork and instinct. While he hadn't been able to erase the wounds completely by removing the scars (which Sakura knew was something only master medics could manage), Madara had shown skill in what he had done in his first try that most medics in the shinobi world took decades of study to replicate. Incredible… and he had accomplished this while lethally injured and dying. Extreme blood loss wasn't just an inconvenience; it was a severe danger, causing weakness, dizziness, confusion, and shallow breathing, making the focus required for any level of healing an impossible task.

His breathing had steadied, now. Sakura had to resist the urge to reach over and offer a comforting touch along his face, both of her hands occupied. Madara was mostly out of danger of dying, thanks to his efforts and now her own, but she still worried for how much damage had been done to him by the sheer blood loss he'd suffered. There was still a high chance he was in a coma; she didn't know when he would be able to awaken from it.

"How is it that you don't know," Black Zetsu began, pulling Sakura from her thoughts as she pried another shard from Madara's skin, "what happened to Sasaki?"

"Sasaki?" Sakura frowned as she set her forceps down, running a healing hand over the gaping wounds she'd freed the glass from. Pale skin knitted beneath her glowing palm, sealing so completely that there wasn't a trace left of there being a wound there at all. "Answer me first, as I've been dying to know, Black Zetsu. How is Madara not," she glanced over at where silvery light from the two moons fell through the drawn curtains, "in the moon right now?"

He snorted, leaning back against a pillar. "You really don't know."

"No; I—" Sakura let out a soft curse as her hand slipped, the forceps nearly falling from her hand; which is when she realised that her hand was shaking.

"Shit. We'll swap answers later. I have to focus," she swore. Trying again to hone in, Sakura cast away the thousand questions that cascaded down her thoughts from their brief exchange, refocusing her slightly bleary eyes upon the shard-embedded stretch of Madara's thigh that she was working on. That chunk had to be removed before it went deeper and cut a main artery; those there posed the same risk, potentially worse from their many fractured sizes that threatened to embed deeper with any more movement. And if she didn't pull free hundreds more of these shards as soon as possible from Madara's limbs and torso all over, he could get multiple infections, which in itself could kill him in his weakened state.

No. Sakura cursed again as she tried to force her wavering hand to steady: she could not stop now. Madara's life was not yet fully saved. If she failed, he would die. She refused to squander this unexpected second chance to save him.

She sensed Black Zetsu drawing closer, but didn't acknowledge him nor her natural instinct to increase the distance between him, protective of both Madara and of herself. She had to focus.

"Sakura."

She was furious at the stinging around her eyes. Why was she almost in tears? Was it her exhaustion? Was it all the stress and tumultuous emotions she'd suppressed throughout this night after the utter shock of discovering Madara? Or was it that she was about to fail him again, and unable to forgive herself for it?

"Sakura…"
She stiffened, unaccustomed to such a gentled tone from him as Black Zetsu stood directly beside her. It struck Sakura as she met his unwavering yellow eyes; he truly wasn't human… but he was more complicated than she had assumed before, clear in the very human way he regarded her now, not with flat malice but with understanding and calm. She could sense his complicated lack of hostility; beyond that, the strange respect he had regarded her with before.

His gaze shifted from her face, to her shaking hand. Her fingers were trembling, her skin clammy and pale. Black Zetsu's attention shifted back to Sakura, and she understood what he was saying to her in silence, her heart slowing to a stop.

"No," she answered automatically.

"I know by the look in your eyes." He was unfazed by Sakura's defensiveness, watching her levelly. "He'll still die if you stop now."

Sakura clenched her teeth — the observant bastard. He must have been watching her face as well as anticipating her needs, this whole time; analysing her expressive features for all of her thoughts and emotions. Had she always been so easy to read? For a time she'd thought it was just Madara who could see through her, but now she wasn't so sure.

Black Zetsu's raspy chuckle was dry, half-humourless. "Surely you understand; you have done far crazier things than daring to trust me." His yellow gaze switched between Sakura and Madara where she held on to him with protective, resolved determination, her blood still flowing from her arm into his. "Him, being one of those things."

A slight flush dusted her cheeks as she looked away quickly.

Sakura slowly shut her eyes.

"Make no mistake, Black Zetsu… My hand is shaking from my own blood loss, now, not from lack of strength." She looked over to Black Zetsu. He stood back from her as she looked at him with the eyes of a killer. "If I allow this, and you betray this very temporary trust I will extend to you only for Madara's sake… then I will pry you apart into pieces so infinitesimally small that you will feel a thousand times the suffering that either of us would feel. I will eviscerate whatever it is you are made of… I will make you die slowly."

Black Zetsu was grimacing as he nodded to Sakura, but there was that gleam of renewed respect in his flat eyes, unmistakable and strong. "Understood."

"We'll get on with it, then." She returned her fierce attention to Madara beneath her hands, hunching forward once more on the stool.

Sakura showed no reaction as the shadows around her began to seep over her figure. Slowly, like night was drenching her in a coat of paint, her right side grew inky dark, a matte shade of deep obsidian that melted over her curves and completely covered her skin and clothes in a perfect slice over her body's half.

She only flinched slightly upon the change of her vision — with her right eye now overtaken by his eye, she could only see through her left.

"Breathe." She stiffened from the utterly bizarre sensation of Black Zetsu talking while having possession of half of her body; his growl resounded around her as if it was her who had spoken instead. Heart pounding and thinned blood racing, Sakura was panicking.

She had agreed to this, knowing it would be strange, but it was overwhelming and terribly, unexpectedly intimate in ways she hated. Black Zetsu was perfectly moulded along her right half. It was such an invasion of her privacy, and her dignity, and her pride. And while she had meant her threat, if he tried to hurt her, or worse, decided to try to use her to hurt Madara—

Sakura blinked a few times in her instinctive panic, her frantic single-eyed gaze flickering over until she saw how her right arm and hand were entirely matte-black, only the forceps she held remaining uncovered.

But now her wrist no longer shook. She felt a firm strength return to her arm and shoulder, a steadiness stabilizing her fingers. A deep, soothing calm seeped into the other half of her body. Steadiness… strength.

Breathe. Sakura inhaled gradually, feeling Black Zetsu's reactive slight relaxation along her right half as he sensed her starting to calm down. How absolutely strange: she could feel him as a separate living being with thoughts, emotions, and independent movement, yet he was a part of her body, tightly covering and supporting the right half of it. She could feel where Black Zetsu would be able to try and take command of that half, and she could feel how he withheld from doing so, lending support to her limbs rather than taking control. She could sense an echo of his pulse separate from hers; he was a slightly warm shell with a voice and a mind of his own where he enveloped half of her figure.

Is this something like what Obito had felt at the very beginning of all of this? Except, of course, with Black Zetsu being entirely hostile and controlling?

"What… are you?" came Sakura's question, her voice slightly shaky.

"I've never possessed a woman before. This is strange," he was saying in return, and she could feel Black Zetsu's own dubiousness at this new experience, sharing the same taste of hesitance where both debated if this was a good idea. Twitching fingers… rapid pulses; calm, but uneasy breaths, as one adjusted to the other. The power balance stayed steady for now, but felt so very fragile, like any continued conflict could not just tip the scales but overturn them.

Their attentions unified as they looked back to the one who lay before them, vital for them both.

Sakura flexed her dark right hand, then experimentally made a fist. She tested the forceps with a couple of clicks before nodding. Shifting locks of pink from part of her vision, she had to resist tucking her hair behind her right ear, reminded how he enveloped that entire side. "It's steady again."

"Naturally." Black Zetsu's growl reverberated around her.

"This is crazy," Sakura commented as she pulled the cart closer to where they sat combined on the stool. "I know." Amusement took place of any other emotion either might have felt as they lifted a shared, dark hand, intent eyes in yellow and green fierce upon Madara stretched out before them. "Then let's get to work."