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?

18. Chapter 18

Sakura awoke with a groan, shielding her eyes from the dazzling white lights above her with an arm slung over her face. "Why the lights?" she grumbled, her voice thick with the morning. "Why with the damn lights… it's so early…"

Steam from freshly-brewed coffee warmed her nose, accompanied by the scents of steamed rice and miso soup. With an arm sore from its awkward angle during her sleep, Sakura kept her face hidden and the tank pulled in against her side, patting it a couple times to make sure it was still there. Grumbling incoherently, she shoved a hand through her wild hair, hunching her knees up against her chest and sinking deeper into couch cushions. "Too early," she repeated, her stomach flipping unpleasantly, her head spinning.

"We were all up hours ago," came Karin's casual response from across the room. Sakura could tell from the quiet off-tune humming nearby that Jugo was the one cooking, the kitchen typically his territory. There was noise everywhere of a wide-awake little world around her; clanks of plates and mugs, the scrape of cooking implements and the hiss of cooking food on the stove, the buzz of the aquarium and the white noise of a fan running making for the typical music of an average morning in the safehouse.

It was a morning Sakura would normally enjoy, but she was hung over: every sound, scent and point of light was painfully sharp to her senses, puncturing her awakening mind in successive tandem. Pulling both arms over her head with a grumble, she huddled in against herself, willing sleep to come back and bless her with darkness and silence. "Go away… need more sleep."

Karin plunked down next to Sakura on the couch, pulling one of her hands free and shoving a hot mug of coffee into her grip. Scrabbling not to drop the cup of boiling drink on herself, Sakura was forced to emerge, scowling at Karin and securing a proper hold around her coffee.

Karin looked fresh, her hair combed and washed, her attitude perky and energetic and the perfect opposite to Sakura's. She pointed at the cup, her confident and unrelenting manner making it clear Sakura had no choice here. "Your hangover cure. Drink up," Karin grinned unapologetically.

Sakura eyed her groggily before taking a sip. She shut her eyes with the fresh taste of the coffee, and the pleasant memories it brought to her had her relaxing, her grip on herself and the couch easing. Distant, warm images immersed her half-conscious mind; sunny weekend mornings, strolls down Konoha streets with her familiar dark company in hand, his drink stolen again for one more sip. Narrowed eyes regarded her with annoyance and amusement in her memory, adding to the warmth of the hot drink dissipating across her tongue.

Karin took a generous sip of her own coffee that swirled with the white of added cream. "I guessed right. Your tastes have changed," she commented. "I seem to remember you dumping sugar and milk in your drink the earlier days down here, but now look at you."

Sakura smiled into her coffee. She blinked at the shimmering darkness of the drink, warm with its bitter, subtly flavourful taste. Part of her still liked her old preferences, but the rest of her loved the familiarity of it, a taste she'd grown to love over time thanks to the one she associated it with.

Now that she was fully awake, all the facets of her situation had come to stand behind her thoughts like a funeral procession, a hundred grave reminders that tainted the warmth her brief nostalgia had brought her. Sakura's smile slowly fell, her heart beginning to ache.

Bare feet padded down the hallway. Sakura glanced aside in time to see Karin exchanging a knowing smirk with Suigetsu, walking past in a towel. Karin looked over him lingeringly; he shot her a wink, his smirk wider than usual as he strode off. Her gaze followed him long after he'd gone out of sight, and both of them shared the same invisible glow, like they were in on a secret only they knew.

Sitting back, Sakura gladly shifted her thoughts, her smile making a subtle return. "Good," she commented aloud, causing Karin to startle out of a daydream and turn back towards Sakura where she perched on the couch. Taking a swig from her coffee, Sakura passed her a knowing look. "You figured out he's into you. I'm so glad you finally moved on from Sasuke."

"What do you know?" Karin shot back defensively, sitting up taller in visible indignance. Her cheeks had flushed, and she looked away almost bashfully, pushing her fingers through her hair and fixing it so it was ruffled just right in its spiky red mess.

Setting her mug down on the nearby coffee table, Sakura leaned forward, suddenly intense in her manner. "Drop the crap, Karin. When will you accept that you would be so much happier aiming your obsessive dedication at the one spending so much of his life with you?" She gestured at the hallway where Suigetsu had been, her passionate, angry words making Jugo look up from his cooking and listen with interest. He nodded along in silent agreement to some of what was being said as he stirred a steaming pot on the stove. From around a corner, Suigetsu was eavesdropping as Sakura went on. "Suigetsu actually values your existence, daily, consistently. He actually reciprocates you, and he would never try to kill you like Sasuke tried once because he cares about your life just as the rest of us do." Sakura slammed her fist on the table, spilling some of her coffee. "So when will you wake up, Karin? Get over Sasuke and stop denying yourself already."

Karin opened her mouth, then shut it, blinking at Sakura a few times. After a pause, absorbing her frustrated words, Karin sat back, putting her empty mug aside. She had heard both the reason and the passion in Sakura's lecture, and she studied her with interest, folding her arms and clearing her throat.

"Is that how you moved on from him?"

Sakura stiffened. She could feel all the eyes of her teammates upon her, and she looked down into her drink with slightly reddened ears, a little embarrassed at how intense she'd gotten. They could see it, just as she was realising it belatedly; she was not only scolding Karin for her idiocy over Sasuke, but herself, as well. She could see her own mistakes and frustrating issues reflected in Karin's situation, an echo of the time Sakura herself had clung to a hopeless love for Sasuke she'd since shed.

"Yes," Sakura admitted, taking her coffee back and taking a slow sip, shutting her eyes so she might not feel their eyes digging curiously into her. "It took a while for me to see it, though. Too long." She let the coffee linger on her tongue, giving her the courage to voice it aloud. "It wasn't just that; I moved on for a lot of reasons, not just for… who I'm with now."

Her gaze skittered across the commons room, distant. "Sometimes I forget Sasuke tried to kill us both, huh."

"I was collateral damage he was willing to take, not like how he tried to kill you before your sensei stopped him," Karin huffed, remembering her own drink and taking a grateful slurp. She relaxed as Suigetsu stepped into the room, clapping Jugo on the back and pouring himself a mug of tea. "But Madara also tried to kill you."

"True." Sakura sat back, setting her mug aside with a sigh. "Until we started talking more, anyway. He hasn't actually killed even a clone of mine in a very long time."

"You're not charming," Suigetsu contributed, sliding in next to Karin with a grin aimed at Sakura. "I have no idea how you managed to sweet-talk such a cold-hearted shinobi."

Sakura bit into a secretive smile. "You know, I have my ways. I managed." Her stare tracked into the kitchen where Jugo gave her a little wave before returning his attention to the stove. Her hand drifted absentmindedly over the tank at her side, and with a more conscious awareness of it she glanced down through the glass, meeting the blank stare of the floating Rinnegan. "It just starts with realising he's human, like everyone else. No one's truly heartless."

Karin snorted, getting to her feet. "That's not true. You just saw something in Madara, and he happened to be willing to let you get closer to confirm it." Setting her mug in the sink, Karin accepted a bowl of miso soup from Jugo, glancing back at Sakura. "Eat, too. Coffee alone isn't going to help your hangover."

"Oh, I'm fine," Sakura mumbled, a glowing green hand pressed to her stomach, her nausea and dizziness gone from her quick healing. "I've got a lot of chakra back now that I don't have to make clones anymore."

She stared down at her hands as her own words rung out in her head, and Sakura rushed to her feet with a start. "That's right! I completely forgot!"

"Hm?" Jugo and Karin were mid-mouthful with soup, sitting at stools beside the kitchen counter. Suigetsu eyed Sakura oddly as she hoisted her tank into her arms, one hand raking through her hair with stress. "I was supposed to let her know by now! Dammit!" She waved at the other three, backing out of the room. "Talk to you guys in a bit. I have some overdue communications to make."

---

"Are you serious?" Katsuyu's soft voice barely made it past where she and Sakura sat in a small examination room, the tank faithfully set at her side, her fingers digging in near its tightly-bound chakra locks. All the devices in the room were shut off, the door locked and a curtain over its window, the fluorescent lights dim and washing out Sakura in dull blues and whites.

Sakura nodded solemnly. "Yes. Please tell Lady Tsunade all I've just reported to you."

Katsuyu's eyestalks waved with subtle anxiety. She looked around at the sterile, subterranean room and its familiar grooved walls, so reminiscent of the one who owned the complex as a whole. "I'm not sure if you will be commended, or reprimanded," Katsuyu said, tentatively. "And you've been working with him this entire year…?"
"Yes. Orochimaru, Karin, Suigetsu, and Jugo as well," Sakura confirmed. She sat up taller, her green eyes burning as she regarded Katsuyu intently. "I would like to make a strong recommendation that they be absolved of previous crimes and lauded for their recent efforts. I could not have made it as far as I have without all of their help, Orochimaru included. Each one has been an indispensable friend to me." She leaned forward, her folded hands steepled, pink hair falling around her bright green eyes. "I want them to be cleared to live peacefully and of their own volition after this war is over. Free of restrictions, free of judgement; if not Orochimaru, then at least the others."

Katsuyu's flat eyes widened subtly upon Sakura, taken aback still by her admission of working with them at all let alone her additional unexpected conviction. She shifted uncomfortably. "I'll try to pass that on in a way that does your passionate argument justice." She turned around once on the cushion Sakura had provided for her before resettling, looking around once more with visible unease. "Why didn't you tell us sooner?"

"I didn't want word getting out. I still don't," Sakura said quickly, "but I know Lady Tsunade wasn't going to let me keep my location secret any longer. Not when she has to arrange them coming to visit me." She frowned. "I'm worried about that. Even with their skills, and even with my relative safety, I worry that things will go wrong and I'll be… found." She kept Madara's name off of her tongue, wanting to remain unfaltering in front of Katsuyu. She kept her expression firm, determined. "As such, I hesitate to give you our current location. We usually have to move safehouses every month or so, because he's been looking for us, sometimes getting too close to where we are. It would be a grave mistake for me to accidentally leak our location and allow him to find us after all our careful work staying hidden."

"You have to," Katsuyu sighed. "I can't end this conversation without having your current location. If you don't mind me reminding you, you did agree to tell us all, for the sake of—"

"I know," Sakura bit back. "Fine. I'll tell you."

She recited her coordinates to Katsuyu in rushed, quiet tones, looking around shiftily. "Please remind them there's traps they have to avoid, and to remain absolutely unseen when they come down here. When will they come? I need to warn the others before they get here."

"I'm not sure I'm allowed to tell you that," Katsuyu replied neutrally. "Let me give this information to Lady Tsunade, and we'll talk again at our next meeting." She watched Sakura carefully. "The agreement you made with her a night or so ago was that you'd summon me daily for reports. You were late in summoning me for this discussion… and I know that's unlike you, Sakura. I know you're going through a lot; but is everything okay?"

"I'm fine, and until they arrive I'll just research and lay low, replenishing my chakra," Sakura nodded back. She ran a hand down the back of her neck, trying to hide her stress. "I'll be fine for now."

---

"Damn it. Damn it!" Red lights swirled, the monitors beeping, and Sakura was sweeping up papers from her desk while the others were running around with similar frantic urgency. The whole of the lab had dimmed, set in crimson from the warning alarms going off. "Again?!" Suigetsu was complaining as he and Karin tossed bundles of files into dumbwaiters, hitting the right combinations on keypads and sending their contents deeper into the complex through a hidden series of chutes. Jugo was gathering animals and supplies from another room, and Sakura was locking down the computer systems with frantic fingers typing hard against keyboards, biting down into the end of a pen hanging out of the corner of her mouth.

In moments, she and the others were pouring out from the shut-down lab, cold and empty of its contents, power shut down. Sprinting, they streaked down a long hallway, Orochimaru distantly in the lead. They kept up as a group, each laden with their own burdens; Suigetsu with files, Karin with multiple bags and boxes, and Jugo with a load of cages and tanks excepting the one Sakura clutched against her chest. Birds twittered behind bars, Karin's cat yowling and snakes hissing, liquid sloshing and clothes rustling over the soft sounds of their rapid footfalls.

Sakura was in the heart of the group as they ran, Jugo at the back with Karin and Suigetsu on either side of her, their formation vaguely protective. Her expression was hardened, her stare focused on the shadowy path ahead. The tank in her arms glowed dully, the eye within swirling in its saline solution.

Orochimaru up ahead dipped left, disappearing through a wall; the rest followed him without hesitation, the false wall maintaining its image as they leapt through. Several traps snapped into place behind their footsteps, metallic sounds echoing subtle and sharp down the cold and dark corridors as they settled to lie in wait.

Down, the team descended, further and further down through narrow hallways, then through winding tunnels, traversing multiple shadowed doors and false walls. They moved past other potential labs and safehouses to travel deeper, their future living space one they'd chosen as fit for future habitation a long stretch into the subterranean network.

Her hands shifting carefully so she still carried the tank, Sakura summoned Katsuyu during the long sprint with her team. The conversation exchange she had with her was her briefest yet — we're moving locations again, don't send them yet, and with her confirming understood, Katsuyu was dismissed once more.

They ran in silence, this group escape something they had grown used to. For the others, it was a begrudging and tiring annoyance, but for Sakura, it was a bitter one.

She maintained her fierce, almost pained expression of resolve until Suigetsu broke the tense, breathy silence of their running, glancing her way. "The eleventh move we've had to make in almost five weeks. He's really looking for you now."

Sakura's features cracked slightly. For a moment, her set gaze forward wavered. It was almost enough for her to turn and look back, but she held strong, her jaw shivering for just a fleeting second before she shut her mouth and glared forward. Karin swapped a look with Suigetsu, subtly shaking her head.

They ran in renewed, much tenser silence after that, focusing wholly on following Orochimaru's distant, confident lead. None of the rest of them said anything more on the subject, but it was crushing Sakura with all the weight of the tonnes of earth between them and the surface world. Suigetsu's statement hung behind her mind's eye, haunting, repeating, even as they slowed their hours-long breakneck run. There were sighs of relief around her; they'd arrived at their next temporary safehouse, their home until the day came that Madara's hunt brought him too close to his target once more.

He's really looking for you now.

Sakura was the only one to stop at the doorway to the newest deeply underground safehouse. Standing alone, she stared numbly at her feet as her teammates hurried past her to begin settling; Orochimaru bringing the lights and labs back to life, removing trap-seals and locks with careful gestures; Karin helping Suigetsu unload their carried research and supplies, Jugo unloading their pets with all the caution and compassion of an experienced caretaker.

This time, Sakura let herself look back, deep into the dark of the long corridor behind her from where she'd come. There was no presence there; no eyes returning her aching stare, but she lingered anyway, her heart sinking into the earth beneath her feet.

---

Sakura's voice was tight and unsteady with her breaths as she was running again, again, hers and her teammates' silhouettes crossing the grooved walls as they streaked down another complex corridor: Katsuyu swaying slightly on her shoulder, her alarmed eyes moving between Sakura and Karin, Suigetsu, Jugo, and distantly Orochimaru, leading the way once more.

"Okay, I've noted the new coordinates," Katsuyu whispered, sensing the tension between all of them. "Are you sure you'll still be at this future location when they arrive?"

"We've been in each safehouse maybe a few days before having to move," Jugo offered, running in the back of the group with arms full of tanks and cages again. He frowned at Katsuyu. "Our visitors you're sending better be both careful and quick."

"It shouldn't be a problem. I'm glad we could get another location from you, Sakura," Katsuyu sighed. "We'll finally be able to resolve some important issues."

"Yeah," Sakura said back flatly, her eyes forward and her face pale and drawn as she ran. Katsuyu disappeared from her shoulder in a brief plume of steam.

Sakura's expression was actively pained now as she ran, her stoic facade falling, and Jugo set a hand on her shoulder for a moment, offering her a wan smile. "It's okay."

"It's not. It's not," she said back, her voice wavering above a whisper, cut with short breaths, her sprint slowing slightly.

Karin's head swivelled, her glasses flashing in the flickering sconce light of the tunnel. "We have to keep running no matter how you feel, Sakura. We're still at war." She jabbed a finger upwards, her other arm clinging around multiple hastily-packed bags that bounced as she ran.

Their group jogged past the shadowy open doorway to a room full of screens, still aglow with a frozen image repeated across all of the monitor's faces. They glowed with thin light, the slightly grainy image sharp enough for them to glimpse the jagged shape visible in a locked frame upon each screen: wild hair, a shadowed grimace, his frightening eyes stabbing through the camera's final capture before the feed had been disconnected.

Sakura's head turned to linger on that image as she ran past with the others, looking back with wide eyes into the darkness falling behind them. She wore a tortured expression, and the pained words she let free were almost a plea, spoken in an exiled breath. "I don't want to run from him anymore."

"The war remains," Karin repeated, jabbing at Sakura's shoulder, causing her to jerk her attention back to her. Karin was snarling, refusing to let go, her fingers digging into her arm. "You can't stop running. That damned eye is why you can't. The remaining threat of his damned Tsukuyomi is why you can't stop. Don't you dare give up now!" and she forced Sakura to keep up with the rest of the group, their feet pounding against the tunnel floors. She relented with tears in her eyes; the weight of the Rinnegan tank in her arms and the pressure from her teammates propelled her deeper into the dark, her pursuer left behind again.

---

"You're better at this than I thought." Karin grumbled as she pushed a shogi piece into place, half of hers already off the board. She eyed Sakura as she made her move.

She was poised like a taut steel cord where she sat, every part of her tense; she held shogi pieces she moved with pinched fingers harsh enough to indent the wood. Her green eyes were ablaze with intensity as she focused on the board, and Karin knew her well enough to understand it was not the game they were playing that Sakura was so intent on. Her thoughts were all over her face, yet guarded at the same time.

"So, our visitors arrive today." Karin didn't think too hard about her next move, already aware Sakura had won this game before it was finished. "You haven't mentioned why they're coming here."

Sakura glanced around before meeting Karin's probing gaze. "Please don't be offended that I ask you this," she said softly after confirming no one else was nearby, "but can I trust you not to talk to them about anything to do with—" she shut her eyes, the words hard for her to say. "With myself and Madara."

Karin sat back on her cushion a moment, taken aback by Sakura's question. She huffed after a pause, primly adjusting her shirt. "Friends don't snitch on friends." She offered Sakura a toothy grin. "Your embarrassing secrets are safe with me."

Sakura regarded her humorlessly, causing Karin's grin to fall and for her to nod solemnly in turn. Letting out a shivering sigh, Sakura returned her attention to her shogi board, though Karin watched her with concern. "You know, I've avoided asking because I know it's a touchy subject; but what exactly did you tell them all up there about the two of you, back when you first got caught some months back? What exactly should I avoid saying?"

Sakura shook her head, her face having gone pale. Karin grimaced — it was clear that she was afraid to speak anymore, unsure of when their guests would make their arrival.

"Well," Karin sighed, sitting back and conceding the shogi game, "with luck, we won't have to move safehouses yet another time before they get here. Madara is relentless…" Her gaze tracked across the small commons room, towards the distant lights of the lab across the hallway. "We're lucky we've mostly finished our projects what with how often we've had to move now. My knees still hurt from that last run." She stretched her legs with a sigh, keeping a casual, conversational tone. "He must be so pissed off that all your clones up there disappeared. I can't believe how many clones and cultist-groups he's sent down into the complex in search of you. Their 'scouts' seem to have gotten smarter, too; more directed. Our traps haven't snared any in a while."

Sakura looked down at the board, a deep frown on her face as she made her final move. She said nothing, as solemn as ever.

Karin hummed, recalling all she'd heard about the Union's reformation as well as their efforts to hunt Sakura up on the surface. She'd decided, as had her teammates, that it would be wise not to stress Sakura with details of what was going on up there — just how hard Madara and his Union was looking for her, and just how famous she was, her sudden withdrawal and total absence from the shinobi world just as talked about as her downfall had been.

She decided, however, to voice something that had bothered her long enough between each move that it was worth a little more of Sakura's stress. Leaning forward, Karin kept her voice quiet, almost conspiratorial. "Did you tell him we're down here somewhere?" She quickly amended her question, wanting an honest answer. "I won't snitch on that either, if you did. I get it; pillow talk can be impulsive."

Sakura whipped her attention back towards Karin. "Of course not." She gripped herself tightly, pale as snow from head to toe. "Madara is intelligent. I'm sure he's scoured the surface enough now to reason that we have to be down here somewhere." Her expression grew nauseous. "It's only a matter of time. We're going to run out of places to run. I don't know…" Sakura trailed off, sighing heavily. "I've never had a chance to have 'pillow talk', Karin."

"It'll be fine." Karin leaned back, stretching her arms behind her head. "Though you're right we can't run forever. You're going to have to figure out this problem of what to do with your man and his cause eventually."

Sakura stared numbly down at the shogi board before slowly shutting her eyes.

"Let's play again," Karin exhaled, hiding her increasing concern for Sakura and leaning over, breaking Sakura from her internal spiral with a splash of her hand across the board.

---

Several games later, Suigetsu and Jugo had joined them, spending time together as a group each with their respective books and studies as they watched Sakura win at shogi against Karin. Each of their heads lifted in near-unison as a shadowy silhouette appeared in the doorway.

Orochimaru's luminescent stare slid over to Sakura. She rose to her feet, leaving the game behind; she read the calm warning behind his slitted stare, her last moment to prepare herself for the guests they all knew had made their long-awaited arrival. Adjusting her qipao and tucking her hair behind her ears, she gave him a nod in return, knowing she was as ready as she could be.

Two dark figures stepped into the room past Orochimaru, stopping near him as the light of the commons room revealed their faces. Shadows fell away from their winter cloaks that fell around their shoulders in tresses of fabric as obsidian as their hair and even darker stares.

Jugo and Suigetsu cracked small smiles, each lifting a hand in a wave. After a pause, Karin waved as well, though less enthusiastically.

"Sasuke; Obito," Sakura greeted them cautiously, nodding respectfully. Orochimaru moved aside, striding into the room; Sakura stayed where she was, looking between the guests with unease.

Obito's remaining dark eye narrowed mistrustingly upon Orochimaru before he met Sakura's tentative gaze. "Before we talk, I think you know what promise you need to uphold at long last."

Sakura's gaze shifted over to Sasuke. He had gone over to stand near his team, and he was addressing them coldly with his arms folded over his cloak. "—with her all this time without telling me?"

"You didn't ask," Suigetsu grinned back, leaning beside Karin. Jugo offered Sasuke an apologetic glance. "Sorry we've had to be so distant from you. We weren't trying to be unfriendly… and it wasn't up to us to tell you. This operation was — is secret."

"Karin?" Sasuke asked, shifting his narrowed dark eye over to her. "Why didn't you tell me this was all going on?"

"Don't look at me. I've been busy," she huffed, folding her arms with a moody pout. "You can go ask Orochimaru if you need to know stuff. It's whatever." She shuffled a little closer to Suigetsu, squeaking when he slung an arm over her shoulders almost possessively; he ignored Sasuke's curious, annoyed look.

"Come," came Obito's command. Sasuke glanced back at him with a tch. "I'm sure you're impatient to get on with it," Sakura agreed, nodding to him and Obito both. "There's an examination room nearby where I can get this done. We shouldn't waste any time."

They shadowed her as she led the way down the hall, leaving her team back in the commons room where they peered after them a moment before diving back into their distractions. Sakura kept her back straight and her head high, refusing to show her nervousness as she directed Obito and Sasuke into the small room a short distance down the corridor. Flipping on the lights, she pointed Sasuke towards a steel table, Obito remaining where he was by the doorway as he prepared to watch.

Sakura showed no reaction as Orochimaru materialised at the doorway, sliding in and shutting the door behind him. He settled near a counter, golden eyes glittering with a clipboard in hand.

"You don't need to be here," Obito growled at him, only for Sakura to wave him off dismissively. "He's my research partner like the others. I think he deserves to be able to observe. Sasuke," she said, meeting his dark eye as she approached where he sat tersely at the edge of the examination table, "I'm sorry it took so long for me to fix your eye. I meant to do this so many months ago."

He said nothing, though his glare on her softened a touch as she stood before him with an apologetic expression. She pulled on a pair of gloves, wearing a focused, neutral expression and switching on a professional demeanour as she prepared to work. Clearing her throat, Sakura stood tall once more, her confidence returning. "I need to concentrate for this. If you have questions, please ask me now, before I begin. I can't be interrupted once I get started."

Sasuke shook his head. Reaching up, he pulled his eyepatch free, tossing it aside. After a pause, he spread open the eyelids of his uncovered eye as if he was about to remove his damaged Rinnegan.

Sakura caught his hands, gently pushing them away. "You don't need to do that," she told him, releasing his wrists and shaking her head, "I've learned it needs to be within a host as I work on it. It needs reconnection to your chakra network, and it needs both mine and yours at once as I heal it, since it's such a powerful, chakra-greedy thing. I hope you've gotten good rest before this; you'll need to focus, too."

While Obito behind her winced slightly at the sight of Sasuke's sliced-open eye, Sakura and Orochimaru both showed no reaction to it, only a focused, clinical interest as her gentle fingers parting his eyelids revealed it in the sterile white lights of the examination room.

As her careful gaze flicked observantly over the length, depth and other details of the gash across Sasuke's ruined Rinnegan, his other eye blinked open in red, his complexly-detailed Sharingan iris intent upon her face as she began her silent examination. Sakura showed no sign that it bothered her, unperturbed by the eye's activation; it could indicate Sasuke's silent threat or warning, or it could indicate his intense interest in what she was doing, unconsciously memorising her movements as she lifted fingers glowing green with powerful healing chakra.

Sasuke remained silent and still as black ribbons dripped from the diamond aglow on Sakura's forehead. The inky black of her released seal painted dark patterns past her face and arms to curl around his head as well, moving across his features and running down through his hair. One black stripe pooled around his damaged Rinnegan.

Slight wisps of steam rose from his eye's gash as she used the powerful combination of her released seal and extraordinarily fine chakra control through her poised hands. Chakra threads fine as spider-silk wove between her skilled fingers, and Sakura had her breath held as she painstakingly began to weave the slice shut.

Her other hand was bracing around his eyelid, sending an aura of healing energy deep into and behind the whole of his eye while she worked. With dual concentration she kept the eye stable, her regenerative ribbons supporting his own healing and tripling it. She wove not only his eye, but the chakra within his eye, reconnecting it to his own network and mending it on every level from physical to intangible.

Sasuke inhaled sharply, though he held still. His dark brows twitched, his fingers digging into the metal of the table he leaned against. His Sharingan eye never wavered from Sakura, burning bright in the cold lights of the examination room.

Silence filled the room as all remained quiet, allowing Sakura to stay immersed in her intense focus. Long minutes passed, her skilled hands steady and patient.

There was not a breath drawn from any in the room as Sakura finally released him, many long, painstaking minutes later. With her seal's black ribbons quickly fizzling away from the both of them, she slumped backwards, Obito's hands on her shoulders stopping her from falling. She shot him a grateful glance as Sasuke looked downwards, pushing dark hair away from his vision.

Two pupils moved this time as he tracked his gaze across the room, slowly, with thoughtful, cautious pacing. None spoke as Sasuke tested his Rinnegan that moved in easy tandem with his Sharingan at long last. He read the labels on jars and cabinets; he scanned the text on a computer monitor's screen, and he tested the focus of his stare, pupils dilating and contracting in the light. Lifting his hand, he moved it closer and then further away from his face, finding that his newly-healed iris never faltered, never failed in his restored focus.

Sasuke's repaired gaze shifted from his clasping fist to Sakura just beyond it. With his eyes widening upon her, his pinched expression eased, and she stood a little taller as he drew a breath as if to speak, sitting up from the edge of the examination table.

But he paused, searching her face. The white light caught in the metallic rings of his Rinnegan eye. Her expression flickered oddly from the sight of Sasuke's mismatched gaze; the reminders it brought her had her looking away almost with shame. Only the sound of his voice, softened with an unusual tone, broke her attention back to his face.

Sasuke looked not angry, not resentful or bitter, but grateful, something she couldn't remember crossing him in years.

Sakura blinked back at him in a kind of shock as he spoke. "It's working, Sakura." His stare upon her glowed, intense. There was life within his Rinnegan eye, a lost vigour brought back with the gratitude behind his gaze. "Sakura… thank you."

She opened her mouth and promptly shut it, finding herself unable to respond. A squeeze in her chest had her smiling slightly, glad for her friend; she knew Sasuke, and she understood that this reserved, limited expression of gratefulness was an unusual display of joy from him. He'd never thanked her that she could remember; never looked at her with such respect and warmth, and she glanced away after a moment, inexplicably uncomfortable.

"An excellent success." Orochimaru opened the door, his clipboard covered in notes. His teeth flashed in a grin he aimed at Sasuke. "Do you need subjects to test its powers on?"

"No," Sasuke replied, rolling his eyes. Sakura shot Orochimaru a look that he returned with a smirk; there weren't human test subjects nearby he actually intended to hand over to Sasuke, but she didn't appreciate the joke anyway, narrowing her eyes. Unperturbed, he followed Sasuke out into the hallway, eagerly prompting him with more questions. "How does it feel? Is its current drain on your chakra comparable to before?"
Before Sakura could leave the room to ask her own questions, an arm blocked her way, the one that had supported her from falling before. She swallowed thickly as she looked up at Obito, who was watching her solemnly. "Good work, Sakura; but seeing as we likely have very little time left in your safehouse, I can't let you celebrate your success just yet." He let the door fall shut, turning to face her, his expression darkening. "You and I need to talk first."

With a curt, nervous nod, Sakura stepped away, putting a number of supplies back in their proper places on the nearby laboratory shelves, so familiar with the space and the organisation system used that she rarely needed to look at what she was doing. She wiped the sweat from the back of her neck, more than uneasy from Obito's ominous mood. "I thought fixing Sasuke's eye was the main purpose of your visit?" she asked.

"That's his reason for being here. Not mine," Obito replied cooly.

Sakura typed a few notes onto the computer, her fingers a blur across the keyboard; she didn't look back at Obito as she typed, hoping he couldn't see just how nervous she was for whatever he was preparing to talk to her about. "How's Ino?" she blurted after a long pause.

Sakura turned in time to see a surprised, wholesomely embarrassed expression cross Obito's normally grouchy countenance. He shuffled where he stood, and some of the darkness sloughed from his imposing figure. For a moment, he was more like the good-natured sort of friend Sakura had known briefly over the summer, a boyish, ruffled attitude tarnishing the intimidating image he'd cut since everything had gone downhill. "She's good," he replied quickly, pushing a gloved hand through his choppy black hair.

Sakura smirked as she spotted the slight tint across his cheeks. Somehow, this revealed detail of knowing he was still seeing Ino at least in some capacity made Sakura feel a little lighter, a little less nervous. She found it cute, no matter her recent conflicts with him; it reminded her of the life awaiting her back in Konoha witnessing the antics of all her friends that she hoped to restore.

"And 'Kashi-sensei, and Naruto?" Sakura pressed, the ache in her heart from how much she missed them all hurting more with the reminder of them. It had been so long, trapped down here; and now she didn't have incoming memories from clones to ease the pain anymore, feeling blind and deaf without any connections to the surface world.

But Obito's lightened moment had already faded, and he regarded Sakura again with a reasserted, guarded expression, standing tall in front of the doorway. She could tell that what he had to say was grave, and she withheld the warning she wanted to give — that anything said in this room would be picked up by hidden recording devices, any movement registered by the sensors littering the vast complex, the same ones that had allowed them to track and flee from Madara's increasingly invasive investigations deeper and deeper into the underground tunnels. Perhaps it could be insurance for her, a trust in her newfound subterranean teammates to bail her out should the hell he might assign her be too much for her to bear.

"Tsunade and the Konoha elders have accepted the explanation you gave for your grievances. They've come to some new decisions based on the information you gave them… regardless of any concerns myself and your teammates have expressed," Obito stated flatly, his dark eye sharp upon her. His gloved fingers tapped along his folded arms.

"You can ask me anything," Sakura replied softly, shutting her eyes. "I can explain it. Or you can read my written report. It's all there."

"Ah, yes…" Obito scowled. "In summary, that you had a self-assigned secret mission, long-planned, that you didn't dare tell to anyone else in fear that Madara would find out. Your underhanded plan beneath a plan; your motivations for lying to all of us about your increasing friendliness with him."

"I really couldn't tell any of you," Sakura protested, shifting uncomfortably where she hunched back near the computer. "If Madara had gotten even a hint of my secret mission, it would have failed in an instant. I couldn't talk about it, I couldn't even consciously think about it, or he'd know."

"And so you fooled him into entering — what, a relationship with you? At least a physical one." Obito scoffed. "You claimed you did this so that you're close enough to Madara so he'd trust you… almost bragging about your apparent success."

Sakura looked away as Obito's growl rattled through her ears. "I don't buy it. Your feelings for him seem far too genuine."

"They had to be, at least partially," Sakura shot back. She gripped the arms of her steel chair, the metal creaking in apology beneath her nails. Desperation burned behind her eyes, her neck reddened above the collar of her qipao, sweat clinging along her skin. "If my feelings weren't genuine; if I'd really faked attraction to him, he would have seen through me in an instant. Do you really think I could have succeeded otherwise? I had no choice." She drew a shaky, angry breath. "I made my sacrifices, and damn you, Obito, it worked. You saw it yourself when he stood down from fighting because I asked him to. I've managed to make that bond; I have influence over him: he likes me, he listens to me."

Obito eyed Sakura for a long moment before exhaling slowly. "It was clear that Madara does allow you closer than anyone else I've seen or heard of. He favours you, but not for the reasons you think." He paused before continuing, his gloved fingers tapping along his sleeves. "I want to believe that you're telling us the truth, as they have decided you are. I myself will trust your admissions after you complete this new mission."

Sakura tensed as Obito reached into his dark robes, pulling out a scroll that he handed to her with an ominous scowl. She accepted it gingerly as he spoke. "This… is why I'm here. You are to carry out this mission as soon as I can safely escort one of your clones up to the surface, to the Union headquarters."

"New…?" Sakura stared down at it, her eyes wide upon its official Konoha seal, Tsunade's stamp of approval just beneath it. Before opening it, her gaze strayed, a thoughtful tic between her brows. "I do have a Union contact. If you need me to do something with the cult, she could get me in anywhere, I think. But I'd need some time to get a coded message to her, some time to prepare and amass chakra…" She lifted her head, meeting Obito's single eye searchingly. "Does this mean they're reinstating my status as a Konoha kunoichi?"

"Temporarily." He blinked, his gaze on her a touch less shadowed. "Succeed, and you'll get more than your life back. Not just titles, positions, accolades; you'll be more than just Konoha's heroine."

Swallowing hard, Sakura carefully broke open the scroll, beginning to read.

Her heart sank down to break at her feet, the blood draining from her face as she registered the commands written upon the parchment.

"Again, Sakura, the fate of it all rests upon your shoulders; and this time, you have no freedoms, no choice in how it will be done." Obito leaned forward, his dark eye spinning in blood-red, all the haunted memories of his past afire behind his stare. "And before you redeem yourself with the world by killing Uchiha Madara, I will be enlightening you on who he really is."

Sakura had lost all words, staring blankly down at the scroll in her hands. It was brief, and it hit her hard. Making use of her professed, trusted bond she'd secured with him, Sakura was to take Madara's life. Failing that, she was to maim his remaining Rinnegan eye.

She couldn't move; she couldn't breathe, her stare bleeding tears as she couldn't look away from the missive she held, signed and sealed by all the Konoha elders and council including Tsunade.

Obito had pulled up a chair beside her at one point, causing Sakura to realise that silent minutes had passed. Blinking a few times, she furled the scroll, still finding that she couldn't quite breathe.

"I know it's difficult."

She shut her eyes, breaking into shallow, loose breaths, trying not to lose her mind as Obito spoke in a gentled tone. "No matter what has been said or done, this is a tough mission. Beyond S-rank. But they know — and I know — that you can do it."

Sakura kept herself perfectly still. She bottled everything she felt in favour of an emotional shutdown; when she opened her eyes to look over at Obito, she was numb on her exterior, her expression lifeless and flat. She couldn't agree to this, even if she knew she would have to; just as she couldn't shout at him to take this mission and go to hell.

"Listen to the truth about him and his past, and I think you'll find this mission easier on your conscience." Obito leaned back, cracking his knuckles. He'd shed his cloak over the back of his chair, leaving him in his typical dark Uchiha robes. He didn't mind Sakura's apparent apathy, instead taking it as his cue to continue, his dark eye never leaving her pale, bloodless face. "I'll start with telling you all the crimes he has committed, including how he ruined my life as well as that of my team's, your sensei's, and countless others. Then, with all the atrocities he and his reformed Union have done in these recent weeks."

Sakura hunched up, tears spilling silently down her cheeks. Obito's tone was quieter now, intensified, and she met his eye as he went on with an almost sympathetic fervour.

"Madara has nothing good within him, Sakura. He is the greatest manipulator I have ever known; someone who manipulated me for most of my life, even while dead. You should realise from his return to such crimes as mass-murder and terrorism after your disappearance that he only withheld from violence when you were around in order to gain your favour, since he couldn't put a curse tag in you." Obito's dark eye sharpened back into a Sharingan as he spoke with frustrated, furious intensity. "His lost eye is the only reason he let you think the two of you are in a relationship at all. He manipulated you almost to the point that he'd have won you fully over. What if we hadn't intervened, Sakura? He would have seduced you into giving the eye up to him at last, and he'd win the war." Obito leaned forward on steepled fingers, Sakura his captive audience. "Listen to all I have to say. You will come to understand that he's not someone deserving of your love. Your efforts to make that false bond with Madara won't have been in vain, your self-sacrifices worth your time; because completing this new mission will allow you to purge a great evil from this world."

Sakura hung her head, having no choice but to listen.

---

The double-doors to Madara's quarters swung open. Drenched in the red light of a dying day, Sakura stumbled out, falling to her knees. She collapsed as the doors thundered shut behind her with heavy finality.

Pale locks fell around her face, her lips pulled back over her teeth in a pained grimace. She hunched within the pool of her winter's cloak. Doubled over, she breathed with a ragged cadence. Tears flowed from her eyes, and she hugged herself as if to brace herself from impact, her soft, punctuated breaths unsteady.

The hall around her was silent and still. Somewhere beyond the branch-crossed windows far beyond her reach, snow had begun to fall, the air as cold as the stony floor at her feet.

She was numb to the sounds of approach, the echoes of scraping armour and rustling robes as someone ran up the nearby stairwell. Sakura didn't react as Sasaki skidded to a halt near her, her blade drawn. "Sakura! What happened?"

"It's done." Sakura deflated further. Revealed as she tilted her head back, her eyes were wrought with anguish; her cheeks shone, lined with cold streaks.

She spoke barely above a whisper. "I did it… it's over. It feels like…" Sakura's hands flexed, her fingers collapsing into fists, "like there's blood on my hands."

Sasaki needed nothing further. Without hesitation she swerved towards the double-doors, ready to burst through — only for Sakura to snare her ankle in a vice-grip, stopping her in time. "Don't."

Sasaki kicked her off with a hiss. "Get off of me!" She brandished her blade near enough to Sakura that several sliced-off locks of pink fluttered to the ground, Sakura barely so much as flinching. "Don't go in there right now." Her face was hidden again as she slowly hung her head, drawing in another perforated breath.

Another slash of Sasaki's blade — a threat and a warning, this time positioned against Sakura's throat. She held still, staring dully at her clasped hands, a hunched, unmoving pile of fabric and cold tears. If she was intimidated by Sasaki's aggression, she didn't show it, her eyes slowly closing.

"What did you do?"

Sasaki was a razor-edged shadow of ice and steel, and she spoke in a low, rough-edged hiss, her knuckles white where she gripped her blade. She nudged Sakura with the blunt edge of it, right beneath her jaw. "Tell me whatever you did or I'll kill you here and now. If you attempted what I think—"

"That's fine." Sakura hung her head lower, her chin brushing against the blade. She seemed almost at peace if it wasn't for the slight trembling across her taut shoulders, visibly shaking beneath the tresses of her winter cloak. "Go on, so my original can tell them. I've done what I had to as this clone, now."

Sasaki remained still, her brows twitching as she stared down at Sakura, who let out a terse, frustrated exhale. "Why are you waiting? I don't want to be here anymore. I've done it, and—" her breath caught. She withdrew further into herself, her movements causing Sasaki to pull her blade back so that she didn't kill Sakura by accident instead. "I did the right thing," Sakura whispered, almost to herself. "I managed; but it feels like I've been torn in half."

"Is he dead, Sakura?"

"No." Sakura sank further, her head bowed to the floor as she fully submerged in her utter misery. "Of course not. No…"

"Then what?" Sasaki looked again to the double-doors. She couldn't hear anything; couldn't sense anything off other than the waves of pain flowing off of Sakura. The temptation to push through those doors and confirm if Sakura was lying or not was hard to resist, but if Madara was alive as she hoped he was, he would not take kindly to her unwarranted invasion of his private quarters. It was more than enough grounds to execute her on the spot.

But if Sakura had tried to kill him, or if she'd managed to injure him, how was she able to leave alone and alive? Sasaki's stare narrowed upon the doors. Sheathing her sword, she stepped past Sakura, taking hold of the carved side-handle and taking a deep breath. Her own death by Madara's execution was worth making sure he was alive. Because if he was laying there, injured and dying, or worse—

"I said such awful things," Sakura whispered. Sasaki froze, listening as she went on in a tremulous sigh. "I ended it all, and he'll never forgive me." She repeated it once more like a mantra she hoped was true. "I did the right thing, but—" she inhaled like the air hurt to breathe, "the way he looked at me…"

She stared down at herself, her shadowed eyes haunted.

Sasaki stepped back as she understood. Turning, she bent, sliding a hand beneath Sakura's elbow. "Come on." She pulled her to her feet. "Let's go."
"Huh?" Sakura sniffed, wiping at her eyes and nose. Sasaki didn't let go, pulling her along in a steely grip. "No more secrets from either side. You're spilling everything about what's happened and why, just as you're going to hear me out this time about the truth of what's happened up here while you've been away."

---

Smoke tinged the cosy expanse of Sasaki's small quarters from the irori stove embedded in the floor, its embers aglow. Snow billowed against the single window, where a potted vine rested upon the sill in a bright splash of green hanging down to the tatami-matted floor. Scents of tea tinted the air, carried with the hints of smoke, creating a warm, cosy atmosphere.

Sakura looked around from where she perched sitting on Sasaki's cot, her tea in hand. Sasaki had just finished divulging a long list of all the Union's activities over the winter in great detail, including heavy emphasis on policies and actions made in consideration for sparing lives and preventing killing or suffering while also furthering the Union's control of the land.

Sakura sought solace from the mixed feelings such news brought her, her gaze wandering Sasaki's quarters.

Several candles were lit on the small desk beside the door. Papers were stacked in neat piles, colour-coded, shuffled and labelled. More plants were scattered across its surface, well-tended and pruned; empty cups of tea dotted open surfaces, spreading across from the desk to a small corner of the room with a mirror and a locked wooden case beneath it. There was an empty armour stand, a winter cloak hung on the wall, and several blades mounted nearby, sharpened and ready for use.

It was homey in a functional sense, but it wasn't the sort of home Sakura would make for herself. She adjusted where she sat, her knees sinking into the slightly rough woollen texture of the cot, and she returned her curious attention to Sasaki in time to hear her say her name.

"...Sakura?" Sasaki was reclining on a cushion beside the small fire, sipping her own freshly-poured tea. She caught Sakura's distant stare with a sigh. "Did you even listen to me?"

"Of course. You listened to me; I owed you the same respect." Sakura cleared her throat uncomfortably, taking a more generous slurp of her green tea. "Your version of recent events, while I believe you, is very different from what I was told." She winced as she recollected Obito's words from before. "Tales of mass-murdering. Villages starving. People dying everywhere as Madara and his Union threw the nations into the true hells of war…"

Sasaki sat up taller with a look of shock. "What? That's not right. We haven't been 'murdering' at all. I told you; my trio took well to the idea of non-lethal attacks, of making all members follow that rule with the point that everyone deserves the dream. We don't kill civilians or shinobi if at all possible. And no villages have actually been starving — just tight on supplies…"

"He told me you, your 'trio' and Madara initiated an attack on that peaceful, important war panel you just explained to me. Attacked civilians. Innocents." Sakura lifted her head, staring at Sasaki with a searching look. "Completely different from what you told me. I had no idea about the demands Madara made, either."

Sasaki stabbed the fire particularly hard with a metal poker, sending sparks flying. "Those are filthy lies. All of them. Who would tell you such falsehoods?"

"Does it matter now that you've told me the truth?" Sakura drew a careful breath, adjusting her hold around her tea and sitting back more comfortably in the cot. "I sort of knew it had to be at least partially lies. I know the lot of you as well as Madara so much better than that. I knew it, but I let what I was told make me upset. I needed to be upset," she finished with a sigh, "in order to be able to confront Madara and tell him it's all over and done. To make him hate me… I couldn't show anything but fury and resent."

With this said, Sakura tightened like she'd been compressed, hunching against herself. Setting her tea aside, she pulled her knees up against her chest, hiding her face in her legs and hugging herself as she spoke. "Why do you think I didn't want you telling me when we first met up earlier today whatever good you, him, or the Union might have done? How it hurt when you said how well I'd be received? Oh… how painful it was when he was pleased to see me…"

"Why?" Sasaki asked, simply. Her gaze was unwavering upon Sakura as she sat back beside the fire, her black hair falling in waves around her thin, pale face.

"Why?" Sakura echoed her, lifting her head enough that her tortured eyes slid over to the fire, dipping into the flames. "Isn't it obvious? I was forced to choose in a harsh reality check, Sasaki. Him or them." Her expression twisted with anguish. "I wasn't about to shed my teammates, my mentor, my friends. I can't." Sakura stiffened, her breath catching as she searched Sasaki's face. "I had no other choice. With the mission I had… with what it came down to, there was no other way. I couldn't have both."

Sakura hunched up further in the wraps of her dark cloak like a frightened bat as Sasaki shook her head, staring into the heart of the fire. "Stupid. You made the wrong decision."

"What the hell do you mean?! Are you so delusional that you think I should've given up all my friends and family just to stay on good terms with Madara?!" Sakura slammed her fists into the cot, the mattress bouncing beneath her. "I could never do that. No matter what people say or think, I'm loyal to the village. My plan was always to be on their side, even if I had to take perilous paths and make tough decisions. I would never turn my back on them no matter what."

Sakura finished with gripped fists and slightly uneven breaths, huffing the hair from her face as she glowered down at Sasaki. Her passionate words echoed until they softened into the shadowy corners of the quarters, and the silence that followed was tense, stretched out over the soft crackling and popping sounds of the fire and the snow-littered wind howling outside.

"No. I'd never suggest that you turn on them. I know you wouldn't do that." Sasaki stoked the fire with the poker, her dark hair falling around her frown. "But; you still made the wrong call tonight."

"It was better than trying to kill him!" Sakura hissed. Her haunted eyes shifted from her hands to Sasaki's face. "It's so much better that I keep everyone else in my life; and that Madara hates me, than him getting injured or dying."

Sasaki's eyes narrowed. She leaned back in her cushion where she sat by the window. Moonlight dripped down her tall, skinny figure, her black hair falling in dark tresses around her snow-white face. "And why would he be dead? Was I correct in guessing that's the mission you were given?"

Sakura paled. She said nothing more, Sasaki reading all the confirmation she needed in her anguished expression.

"Is that really what they asked of you?"

Sakura pulled a scroll from her pack that she tossed to Sasaki, who caught it and scanned through it with sharp eyes.

A vicious, sizzling rage wound across Sasaki's normally flat features. The scroll crumpled beneath her grip, the room shivering with shadow. "Those… absolute… bastards."

"Of course this happened," Sakura whispered, hiding her face in her palms, ashamed. "I don't know how I didn't even think of it at the time. I was so stupid to say what I did…"

"This," Sasaki hissed, raising the scroll above her head between two pinched fingers, "vile, heartless order is what's evil; a command devoid of empathy or forgiveness that you kill someone you love for their own selfish benefit." Her breath rattled through her gritted teeth. "I can't believe they dared demand such a thing. And after all you've done for them?!"

Sasaki simmered, her aura shivering with rage and power. Taking in a deep breath, she looked calmly over to Sakura, rising to her feet. "But what exactly did you tell them that led them to this conclusion?"

Guilt crossed Sakura's expression as she looked away. "I panicked." She looked sickened, and she sipped her tea, her breaths unsteady again. "After they caught us together I panicked. My world started to crash around me, and — and I told them my backup plan in my panic." She inclined her head. "The one I first intended that I'd essentially abandoned by the end of the summer. The one I never wanted to weaponize and use unless he turned out to be truly evil and unable to change. I'd been focused on my other idea, but that night, in my panic…"

"Backup plan?" Sasaki was pacing, running her hands through her hair. She looked out the window, watching the blizzard howl and swirl beyond the frosted glass.

"I think I've told you." Sakura's gaze strayed, haunted once more. "To use the bond we have to draw close and kill him, just as they've asked of me. It was a thought I held in the back of my mind the moment the sparks between us became obvious. A suggestion Lady Tsunade never voiced but I know she understands. For a kunoichi to use her beauty against her enemy…"

Sakura shut her eyes, silence settling between them in the small room. "But like I told you, I became more and more distant from that plan the more the summer progressed. I had a different idea instead; one that just like the first, I never dared to tell anyone, for fear he'd find out." She inclined her head, pink hair falling around her features. "A secret hope that I could, somehow, pull him back into the light. It was so much like what Naruto and I tried and succeeded in doing with Sasuke. I didn't want to change who Madara is, really, but to open his eyes to a better path, because the person I found beneath the monster everyone else sees is worth it to me." Sakura's lips twitched in the fading ghost of a smile. "Naruto, idiot as he is for giving my relationship away… he understood me. He more than anyone could understand that need to save someone from the burdens of their hatred; to pull them free from it."

Sasaki looked over to her slowly, her features shadowed in silver-crossed light from the window. Cold, wordless, she watched her, sensing the weight in Sakura's every word.

"It seemed increasingly possible with every passing day, the closer we got. What I allowed at first to develop for the sake of an underhanded assassination became real. Somehow… genuine, beyond attraction by itself." Sakura's green eyes flickered with the heat of the flames, wide and vivid with conflict. "By the time summer turned into fall I knew it was possible." Her voice softened, breaking. "But then we were caught, and I ran my mouth in my panic…"

"You told them your old original plot in order to save your skin."

Sakura nodded, staring dully at her feet. "They would never have believed any other plan."

"So you didn't lie; but you didn't tell them everything, either."

"It's too late now." Sakura slowly rose, her cloak falling around her shoulders as she got to her feet. She stood beside Sasaki, watching the snow cast the speckled air into inconstant shapes, coating the distant trees in white. "Now, upon my dismissal, my original will report to Obito and the rest that she made her attempt to kill Madara. She will truthfully be able to say her mission failed; and since her bond with him is severed, they won't be able to order her to betray his trust to try and kill him like that again." Sakura stood taller, her brows furrowing over a resolved grimace. "They'll accept that I tried my best, and Madara will continue to live. I'll be saved from exile and ruin with just their disappointment to deal with instead. One love lost… so that I don't lose all the rest." Calm, numb, Sakura offered Sasaki the smallest pained smile. "Perhaps it could be mended someday, if we live through however the war will end now. I can only hope that he'll be able to reach a path of light on his own."

Sasaki turned to Sakura, her violet eyes heavy with shadow. What little light shone through the blizzard caught in her stare as she turned to face her fully. "I maintain what I said to you, Sakura. You made the wrong decision."

She lifted a hand, pausing Sakura from her protest. The fire crackled in its hearth, the wind pushing harder against the window, Sasaki's gaze deadly and bright in the scattered thin light of the dying day outside.

"You always have another choice." She gestured across, from the modest quarters to the sweeping forest of trees outside, the storm clouds billowing across the darkening sky. "You forget that what is right or wrong isn't determined by your loved ones. Not by him; not by them… not even by rules, laws, elders, councils. You, and you alone — decide what the right thing is to do."

Sakura paled, standing taller, Sasaki's words fervent and final. "Do you understand? Right and wrong are subjective, different between every perspective, every village. It comes from instinct, from the heart, and," Sasaki set her hands on Sakura's shoulders, holding her wide-eyed gaze, "we both know that the one you made back there tonight was entirely wrong."

"I had no choice," Sakura tried. Sasaki shook her head. "You make your own choices."

"What are you telling me?"

"That there's a way to have both. You don't need to give up either side. You can be the bridge between them if you would only see that you can forge that path for yourself." Her fingers dug into Sakura's shoulders. "There's always a way; an alternate future — you just have to look for it. You have to believe that you can. That plan you didn't tell them; the one you began to follow because you knew it had started to be possible — you were so close."

"But I messed it up." Sakura shook free, looking away with shame; tears welled in her eyes that she furiously wiped away, letting her hair fall over her face. "It's too late now. I've made that choice. Even if I could find a way to keep all my bonds, I've severed the one with him tonight. He told me to never return — I know it's over."

It was Sasaki's echo of Naruto's strong, heartfelt words that had Sakura looking back to her then, stunned.

"Don't give up."

Sakura lifted her head, her heart open and her pulse beginning to thunder.

Sasaki stepped back, the light behind her fading in the storm, succumbing to the intensifying blizzard. "With all of my heart I believe that you can do what you once believed was possible. You — can fix this. You can bridge the divide and find a way to stay true to all you love. Sakura…" Sasaki's eyes burned brightly, "it's not too late."

Sakura looked towards the door, her tense hands flexing.

"But if you disappear tonight without attempting to repair what you've broken, I think it will be too late. I fear that he'll collapse fully back into the dark." Sasaki looked out through the glass, her weary gaze drifting across the expanse of the headquarters extending down into the snowscape. "Those kinds of wounds sink deep, and who knows if you'll ever get this chance again."

Sakura was staring at her in silence. Her fists were gripped tightly, and all the light had returned to her gaze, a fire relit behind her eyes.

When Sasaki looked back to her, she caught the spark in Sakura's presence – the intensity of her, brought back to life. She could feel her decision, her reinvigoration as all that was said between them sank in: the intangible, unkillable return of hope.

---

The weight of the air in the shadowed, crowded hall had never been so oppressive. The huddled hundred collectively tensed, drawn together like a taut bowstring disallowed release. Light rising weakly from the wall sconces did nothing to dissuade the aura of vicious dark rippling outwards from Madara upon his throne.

Powerful eyes no one dared meet burned upon their sorry heads, burning brightly with sheer, contemptuous hatred.

"Failures."

The word was a slivered, caustic hiss, slicing another level of frightened tension across all of those who bowed in fervent apology before him.

"Disappointments… again, and again. To fail is the only action any one of you can consistently perform; through trial, through deaths, through punishments and torment, you all continue to fail me."

There was a scatter of pages beyond where Madara leaned. The pages caught the light, the dull glow on inky words expressing reports of more failed searches, several units of scouts decimated by villages and underground traps, and an additional apology letter from one of the trio members over the amount of time spent upon the memorial stone. Too much time wasted; too many disappointments, and all felt Madara's fury and frustration, fearing for their lives where they trembled upon the floor.

The pages were scooped up in the dark-handed grip of Black Zetsu, living in the shadow of the throne. His flat yellow eyes were watchful upon the shivering horde of cultists before him, his dark presence a spread of sinister blackness surrounding Madara and deepening his powerful aura of lethality and malice.

At the front of the throng, Hayashi and Isamu bowed. It was them who spoke first, their voices only just strong enough to be heard. "We can't express our apologies any more deeply. We only wish to serve."

"You have run out of time." Madara's deep rumble made the two shrink into themselves, their sharp inhales audible to all; perhaps their final breaths, and they crumbled to the floor further, knowing their deaths were nigh. "But we did bring her to you," Isamu tried, trembling. "We did succeed in that, no matter the difficulty of procuring such a meeting. We did our best…"
Madara rose to his feet, dark robes and wild hair shifting around his tall silhouette. Everyone else in the room sank lower to the floor in a unified, terrified response, especially Hayashi and Isamu.

But he had not risen for them. Dark Six Paths robes swirled around Madara's tall, foreboding frame, his pale features twisted in a snarl with defensive hands lifted just as the double-doors to the hall burst open in a noisy thundering.

Bowed cultists leapt out of the way, all rising to their feet en masse in a panic. Gasps and exclamations – shoving and shouting with confusion afoot, the hall echoing with conflicting voices rising and feet shuffling from the sudden invasion now obscured by the hundreds who crowded the way.

Something was shoving through them in a path straight down the heart of the vast hall. Light glowed as hands shifted with defensive chakra; swords were drawn as more panicking members were jostled and pushed.

Attacks were stopped in mid-air as they recognised the pink hair bobbing as she ran, shoving anyone out of her way in a bee-line towards Madara where he stood radiating murderous power.

As her barriers recognised her one by one, more moved out from her path like a living sea, stepping away with her name rippling among them all. Sakura was an arrow splitting her way through the parting horde, pink hair bouncing around her determined expression and blazing eyes, and she came at Madara at full speed like death was at her heels.

She impacted him with such speed that he stumbled backwards, catching himself against the edge of the throne. His sound of angered surprise was quickly muffled as she clasped her hands around his jaw and wrenched his face down to hers in a fierce, unstoppable kiss.

Gasps rose throughout the hall. Any who were near the throne retreated with fear and respect of the shocking sight before them, the crowd looking on silent and still.

The darkness surrounding Madara's dangerous figure intensified. Yellow eyes glared down from behind him, vivid and bright as the dying rays of sunset piercing through the windows. It spread, surrounding Madara like night manifest, oppressive and icy-cold with tangible hatred intensified by Sakura's unwelcome intrusion.

"Madara. I'm sorry," she said as she pulled back, winding her arms around the back of his neck through his wild hair. She tilted her face against his with a quavering breath. "I'm sorry."

Madara stood as still as a statue, braced against the side of his throne. His hands twitched behind her back, crackling with power itching to kill, his mismatched eyes aglint with hate and rage as he stared her down. There was no give in the way he stood against her — no sign he registered her as anything other than his enemy but for the way he had not yet taken her life.

Sakura's tone was softer, but just as sweet, her hands falling to rest against his chest. Lifting her head, she held Madara's lethal eyes without faltering; her nose brushed his as she stayed close, her words meant only for him. "I was such an idiot earlier. If you'll let me — I would take it all back." She leaned up, her lips brushing over his in the ghost of another unrequited kiss. "I've missed you."

Madara blinked down at her, glowing eyes burning through the dim wintry light of the silent, stunned hall. His arms tensed behind her back, still smouldering with power as he had been prepared to smite her from this world.

Kill her.

The thought scored across the back of his mind with a voice like claws, gravelly and sharp with hatred. It repeated in a whisper near his ear, almost pleading, laden with warning. Don't tolerate her manipulative lies anymore. Finish this off at last: she is the final obstacle between you and your destiny as the saviour of this world. The blackness shifting in all directions around him intensified, burning with waves of frustration and malice. Kill… her.

Madara barely registered the thoughts as separate from himself; it was his will, Black Zetsu, a piece of the darkness that had consumed him all of his life. It was all he knew; a hateful manifestation of all the suffering and hate he'd felt. Madara was a void like the night sky, and he stared down at the light almost blinding where it lived within Sakura's eyes, burning into his soul with the same intensity of the sun.

Where there was desperation in his urging thoughts of killing her, there was no desperation in Sakura's expression. She was a being of both light and of warmth; the way she looked at him was completely open. No more secrets: no walls, nothing guarded as she let Madara see through her eyes her every hope, twined with her fiery will to repair what she had mistakenly tried to break.

Madara breathed in sharply as Sakura shifted. There was complete trust in her movements as she slid her arms around him, burying her face in the wild hair over his shoulder and falling completely in against his tense, unresponsive frame. She lacked any trace of fear; not of the curious, judging eyes that looked on to the both of them, not of emotions nor stresses, and not of him.

Not of him, even as she understood he was about to kill her. He knew Sakura sensed his hatred; that he would only take her life, in the end. Madara was never one to forgive, and her grievances weighed too much for it to ever be a consideration. To destroy — to kill. To fight to the bitter end no matter the consequences in attaining what he believed was the only future: this was the way things should be, as he had done for all his life. There was simply no other way.

None, and Sakura knew it, knew the futility of her apology. There was no sense in it, no redemption. Madara would not, could not let her taint the dark he had reimmersed in since his violent revelation tonight. He could not allow himself to weaken like that ever again.

Weak. To have mercy, to show emotion, to surrender oneself to love as she did — all of it was weak. Dark whispers echoed Madara's thoughts, bolstering them, encouraging them deeper into the blackness surrounding his silhouette. They deepened the old, familiar despair, the decades of resentment that lined his very being. To even hesitate as he was now in killing her was weak; and he despised weakness in its every form. Sakura's previous attempted execution of the bond between the two of them had made him see that it was only weighing him down from his motivations to end this war. It had been eroding him from beneath, a distraction becoming something much worse.

Kill her.

One gloved hand dug in over Sakura's shoulder to hold her still, and the other steadied, a staff forming in his outstretched fingers. Madara ignored the shock rippling fresh across the eyes of many looking on as he raised it behind her back, positioning it where it would plunge through her heart in an instant death once he brought it down. There was strength in his movements; strength in his resentment, in all the rage boiling within him from her rash, vicious words earlier in his quarters. It was so easy to let it be what formed the staff into existence, all the vengeance in its sharpened end hovering just behind Sakura's fragile figure so trustingly embedded into his gravity.

Yes. She would die knowing she would never be forgiven. She'd die with a taste of the despair and resentment Madara himself had drowned in for nearly a century of hate and misery. She'd awaken as her original, knowing that the next time she dared show her face, she'd die once more at his hand. She would know what it was to lose in finality what she'd never deserved to have in the first place: their useless bond created from her naive notions and his foolish whimsies in a death of tears and of blood.

"I know it's too late, but I still had to try, once I realised my mistake." Sakura's murmur was soft; she tilted her face along the side of Madara's neck. She hugged him tightly, her arms wrapped around his torso with her fingers pulled tight against his back, her tears dripping from her cheeks to cool against his throat. Closing her eyes, she pressed a final kiss into his skin, showing only trust no matter the daggered edge awaiting just above her spine in his readied grip. She was warm even still with hope, and just as he brought down the staff to end what he should never have let himself have, Sakura spoke one more time, lips moving gently against his hate-poisoned pulse through flickers of wild white hair. "Know that I'm sorry… and I love you."

Madara stilled, her words enough to stay his hand.

In the suspended moment of silence that followed her whisper, his mind stood still, a clean slate cast in ice. He had been paused, her words like wind making thoughts of death and vengeance blow away like dead leaves.

Living dark around him twitched in response, raging with the urge again to kill; but this time Madara didn't feel it, detached from it, turning his head to look down at the woman within his lethal grip. She had not noticed his significant pause. She remained calm, her face hidden along his shoulder, splashed with pink hair mixed with white across his robes. Her breaths were shallow, her toned arms curled around his torso; she smelled like ember-smoke and tea with a hint of strawberries, and her skin was cold, like she'd been outside too long in the snow. He could feel her heart beating fast beneath her cloak, pressed up against his own, her curves skinnier than he remembered where he could feel their fronts brushing together.

Sakura was fragile as sculpted ice, a tangible ghost, her embrace persistent to the last moment before a death she fully expected: a death she yet still defied for the sake of her now-declared, futile love, proving it heartfelt, proving what she'd shown to be in her heart as somehow, somehow even still… genuine.

Madara released a long, weary sigh.

Like he'd stolen all the air from the room, no one else dared take a breath as the staff in his hand dematerialised.

His other hand sliding carefully around Sakura's shoulders, he shut his eyes briefly. "Zetsu," he said, his voice booming through the otherwise silent, vast hall. "Sir," Black Zetsu quickly replied, his dark head emerging from the side of the throne with a vicious scowl stretching unnaturally across his face.

"Leave us."

"What?" he protested, but Madara brought his glowing, lethal stare to him, long enough that Black Zetsu regretfully pulled free of the throne, slithering down into the ground and disappearing in a blink. Returning his attention to the one buried in his arms, Madara brought a hand carefully along her lower back, exhaling quietly into her mussed pink hair.

He didn't acknowledge anything more as voices rose again in the hall. First was that of Sasaki's, herding the onlookers away towards the exit with quick, curt commands. "Go on now. This meeting is rescheduled. If I catch any of you staring a moment more you'll be answering to me." She let no one past her notice as she ushered them all into the connecting corridor to disseminate throughout the building, and she glanced back with a smile before shutting the tall doors, leaving the two alone in the echoey, empty hall.

"I've no use for someone so indecisive," Madara finally said, standing taller before his throne. Sakura pulled back within his arms, meeting his eyes searchingly. "I've always decided upon you in the end," she said softly, "just not in the right ways. This last time I thought I was trapped. I thought," she glanced away with shame, "that I had to choose between you and everyone else I love."

"And so you chose them."

"No!" Sakura lifted her head, her hands fisting Madara's robes. "I tried to choose both!" She sighed. "I was afraid. I'd fallen for you, but our causes, Madara…" Sakura looked down at where their feet were tangled. "They still differ. The war… what we each believe in; those haven't changed, even if we have."

Her voice softened into a whisper. "I still don't know how to close that gap. But I made a mistake, trying to end things with you; I can't imagine a life without either side, now."

Madara remained distant from her, not returning her embrace. He'd withdrawn his hands, folding his arms and staring down at her, his mismatched eyes glinting beneath falls of jagged silver-white hair. "So you feared our impassable differences. You knew since long ago that neither of us would be swayed from our causes. I warned you, and still you pushed to progress."

"I'm just as stubborn as you are," Sakura answered him easily, frowning. "It wasn't our differences I feared, but the chasm of the war. I had a stubborn hope that things would change anyway. I was optimistic…"

Madara tilted his head, his wild white hair falling around his pale frown. "You have a naive saviour's complex."

"You have a naive villain's complex," Sakura shot back, prodding him in the chest. "But I still like you regardless. There's a lot of reasons I still stuck with you even though we're on opposite sides; but surely you understood I wanted to bridge that gap, eventually."

"I understood, indeed," Madara answered cooly. "It does not mean I regarded the idea as feasible."

"But you still let me try." Sakura let out a soft sigh, glancing over to the snowy windows. "You knew I was going to keep doing my best to pull you with me towards a better path; a path of light."

"You were enlightened so quickly of your mistake tonight; coming back to me mere hours later," Madara changed the subject, looming over Sakura with narrowed eyes, and she looked quickly back to him with a swirl of pink around her face, her ears turning slightly red with her sheepish expression. "Yeah. I needed to be verbally punched in the face. Sasaki… delivered."

"Oh?" Madara chuckled, and Sakura nodded almost sagely. "I got cornered enough in my own head that I thought there were only two ways out; choosing to essentially end my life as I knew it and abandon all my friends, or leaving you instead. She forced me to realise just how wrong I was." Sakura gripped her fists, looking back up into Madara's face with fiery determination. "I'm going to make it all work. There has to be a way; a different plan."

"You assume I will even allow you to keep making your attempts," Madara countered quietly, and Sakura reached over, taking his hand and slipping her fingers through his. "Madara, if there was a way in this world I could say damn this war and disappear somewhere with you… if I could erase all the conflict and focus only on our selfish desires, I would, in a heartbeat." She swallowed thickly, holding his intense stare. "But neither of us can do that. I know… we both know better. And I do mean that I'm sorry for all I'd said earlier tonight. I was afraid, and I was disillusioned, but my eyes are fully open now."

His frown deepened. She clasped her fingers around his before releasing his hand. "I meant that night at the Union gala that I want to be by your side as well. I didn't accept your offered hand for empty promises; I keep my word. I'm strong enough to make this work no matter what it takes, belonging to both their side and yours; but—"

Madara's eyes narrowed once more, and Sakura was shaking slightly, forcing herself to say it. "But I have to know." Her voice grew stronger, more pained. "You told me then that you would honestly answer what I might ask you in the future. Please answer me honestly now; before we speak of anything else, and before I commit myself to whatever hells the future might hold for either of us — I must know."

Snow blew against the tall windows along the painted walls. Branches waved, criss-crossing shadows across the flickering lights of the hall and painting a silence heavy enough that she took another breath before continuing, Madara listening to her in a dark, fathomless silence.

"Is there any chance… any way in which you could ever be swayed from casting the Infinite Tsukuyomi?"

Madara tensed at Sakura's question, the glow of his eyes intensifying as if she'd stoked a blaze behind his stare.

Sakura shifted back, moving out of his space, releasing his gloved hand. She watched him solemnly with her hands crossed over her heart, saying nothing more as she awaited his answer.

A line appeared between Madara's brows. His frown deepened, and he watched Sakura in turn, shadows shifting around his tall figure like the darkness was reacting to his hidden thoughts. They were both wrapped in silence, now; beyond the thick air between them, the wind howled against the hall, snow swirling in spirals past the frosted glass panes.

Sakura shut her eyes, reigning in visible pain from her realisation that his silence must be his inevitable answer. Her fingers dug in over her chest; she hunched her shoulders, a thousand agonising images of all the troubles due to come weighing her down. Madara would never shed his cause, just as she couldn't shed hers; any hope that she might keep him and the rest of her loved ones in her life was slim, difficult, and almost completely lost in the wake of such a reality check. How could she hope to love and keep both, when his cause sought to cast them into enslaved, dreaming ruin?

She shook where she stood, struggling not to fall back into despair.

"Yes," came Madara's quiet answer.

Sakura opened her eyes, frowning up into his face. After a pause, she glared at him, taking a step back. "Don't — do that. Don't just tell me what I want to hear." She turned from him, pushing her hands through her hair, her heart aching. The weight of it all began to crash down upon her; their earlier fight, Sasaki's words, the difficulty of the future to come, and all the fluctuations of her hope, rising and falling in painful crests and chasms. She had no regrets fixing this bond, if she had indeed managed to do that, but the knowledge that keeping all of those she loved in her life at once was nearly impossible was crushing.

She doubled over like she'd been stabbed with her emotions, swaying — "Yes, do you hear me?" Madara hissed, catching her with an arm pulling her towards him, Sakura's soft sobs echoing around them both. "There is a chance, though it is very small. I do not know how you might attain it. But it does — it does exist."

She leaned into his support, pressing her face in along his shoulder. "I don't believe in these people as you do, Sakura," Madara was telling her, his wild hair falling around them, both crouching to the ground. The wind wailed relentlessly around the hall, causing the building to groan and creak. "Not after all I have seen them capable of doing over a lifetime of endless frustration and wasted efforts."

Sakura was nodding, understanding, thinking of the heartless mission she'd been given she had thought wise not to mention; but her despair in her disbelief of his admittance had her still sinking, held up from drowning in it by his secured grip upon her, anchoring her at his side.

Madara's voice was deep as he surrounded her, softened with words only meant for her to hear. "Convince me."

Sakura looked up. Green eyes shimmering with pain and hope held mismatched, glowing with his resolve. "Make me believe in them again as you do. Show me what gives you your faith and open my eyes to it. Give me undeniable proof against the Infinite Tsukuyomi… convince me, that this world may yet be worth saving instead of casting into dreams. For it is only you, now, who ever could."

"I will. I'll find a way. I promise you," Sakura replied, her voice choked with emotion. She absorbed the glorious warmth of Madara's stare, all the truth she tasted in his revelation, and it was him pulling her face to his with her affirmed promise, lips meeting with nothing short of beautiful relief.

When they parted again, they had risen to their feet, Sakura drawn up against his chest. Searching his face, she saw Madara in a new light, her eyes widening as she took in the sight of his face. Her brows twitched together; her chest squeezed, and she pulled closer, pushing her hands up through his robes to examine his heart and neck and head. "How have you been?" she questioned him urgently as she checked him over, "I've missed you all these months. Have you gotten hurt? How have your eyes been doing? Are you feeling all right?"

Madara watched Sakura with visible, tolerant affection, allowing her to fuss over him for a moment. She checked his pulse; she felt along areas she'd once healed from injury, and she pressed her ear against his chest, closing her eyes as she listened to his heartbeat.

Sakura got lost in the sound. She remained there, her head resting along his chest, and after a pause he pulled his grip around her, setting his chin atop her head and wearily closing his eyes himself. Her shaky, unsteady breaths slowly drew out between each exhale; in his hold she became stable, steadied, calm.

They remained quiet and still like that for a long time.

Wind continued to howl. Snow drifts had cast up against the tall windows across each wall, shading the hall in a downy gray light. With the fading of an unseen sunset came the silvery mantle of twilight, shading them both in gentle shadows.

Fingers turned cheeks, and mouths met at once, the initiation of an inexplicable kiss made in unison. It started slow; sweet, a reacquaintance made without rushing, and then it began to deepen with heat and with speed, familiarised lips starved and demanding.

They met again and again until Sakura pulled back for a breath, her foreheads tilted against Madara's, her words slipping free in an uplifted whisper. "You acted differently than I'd feared up here while I was in hiding these past months." She caught her breath, her heart pulsing in her throat, her hands caught up in his robes. "Though you didn't create it yourself, you allowed a widespread policy of non-lethal combat across the Union ranks. In this, and in general…"

Madara caught her eye as she spoke, her gaze glimmering with serious, heavy gratitude. "You spared countless lives when you would normally have killed them, as you had done in so many wars in your past." Sakura pressed a kiss into his cheek, tears sliding down her own. "You took power and influence without bloodshed. Without even nearing the deaths of my comrades; even when you could have… even when you wanted to."

She slid her hands up around his face, and she was smiling as she shut her eyes. Her words were light, like she had been freed, floating away in an illuminated feeling of relief. "I don't care if you did these things for me or not. I'm just so happy you chose mercy so often over vengeance and death. No matter what anyone says… some part of you has changed, or, perhaps, been restored."

"'Up here', hmm?" Madara quoted her, his smirk sliding against her cheek, and Sakura stiffened before scowling, giving him a lighthearted shove. "You've been relentless. You teased me for all the clones I made for your sake this year, but look at you." Heart pounding as she'd come much too close to telling Madara where her original was, Sakura quickly changed the subject, pulling back to search his face with her fingers splayed around his familiar features. "I can't believe that you demanded to have me at the panel meeting. My original, anyway, in exchange for at least a temporary peacetime. I wish that they hadn't said no."

"It was difficult not to break their necks when they refused." Madara's lips quirked, Sakura's gaze flicking back up to drown in his luminescent eyes as his rumble surrounded her. "To be clear, most were in agreement, even your friend Naruto; it was your mentor's rebellion that ruined it."

"Naruto?" Sakura stood a little taller, her searching stare widening as she absorbed what he'd said. "Did he really want to agree? She didn't tell me that…" She pressed her fingers over her smile, shaking her head. "That idiot. He really does understand me."

Before Madara could say anything in return, she had met his lips again, leaning up against him with a huff of air through her nose that was tilted into his cheek. She rippled in response with the tracing of his gloved fingers down the sides of her figure beneath her cloak; he was wrought with tension beneath the gentle scraping of her nails down his back, their fronts brushing together. He angled his head and pulled her in deeper, breaths mixing and tongues meeting, wordless statements made between sliding mouths.

"What," Sakura managed between a pair of increasingly scorching kisses, "would you have done if they did hand me over? Other than ask for your eye?"

Madara's velvet chuckle made her shiver bodily. He didn't need to answer, and with the way her grip around him tightened with anticipation, he released her, ghosting a hand around her shoulders and turning them both towards the double-doors of the hall. "Come, now," he brought a smug, dangerous grin along her ear, "let us retire for the evening after a very long day."

She walked at his side in easy unison, sliding a hand over his arm; leaning against him with relief, Sakura turned her nose against his shoulder, breathing him in. "Yes. I'd love to." She briefly shut her eyes, thoughts of rest more than welcome. She shied away from the decidedly not-restful ideas that the lingering heat between them brought her, uncertain that it was what he wanted as well; she chose against asking in the wake of the intense, exhausting conversations they'd just had.

Exhausting, yet invigorating for her heart and soul, and Sakura lifted her head with a tired, bone-deep smile as the double-doors opened before them, bowing scouts holding the way open. Madara also had a similar, more subtle grin as he led her forward, an arm drawn possessively around her lower back. They strode ahead with matching steps; he was her jagged, looming shadow, his luminescent eyes piercing through the soft dark of the corridor.

They walked in companionable, pleasantly tense silence. Scouts snuck one last look before making themselves scarce, knowing better than to malinger as the pair stopped before the doors to Madara's quarters.

He turned to her as the corridor fell back into muted silence. Far behind him, the doors to the hall fell shut, and the wind howled against the windows, the blizzard continuing on. The firelight from the high mounted sconces caught in his mismatched stare as he towered above Sakura, his eyes gleaming with an unnatural light of their own.

"I think it is obvious that you owe me, Sakura."

She inhaled sharply as he went on in a confident rumble, his gloved hand closing in a fist. "For your prolonged absence, as well as the… stressful events of today."

Sakura was smiling up at Madara tentatively, glad to be harmoniously back at his side no matter the subject at hand. She had a feeling she knew where this was going, and she pressed a hand over her desperately pounding heart, her skin flushing with adrenaline-spiked excitement mixed with a hint of nervousness. She was unprepared; she had not known today could have ever ended up here, at the precipice of diving back in to a love she'd tried to shed. She was without words as she awaited his sentence for her that she knew would be a sinful one.

It was with a mean glint in his eye that Madara went on, his deep voice rolling over a tone of silk. "As such, your reparations to me will be twofold. Punishment…"

Sakura's head jerked over as another Madara appeared, holding the doors to his quarters open. He was identical to the one beside her, his mane of white hair licked amber in the warm light of the hearth behind him. His gaze was narrowed upon Sakura with a knowing look both demanding and smug. "...And a long-owed favour to me."

Sakura looked between Madara and his clone for a moment. Both had folded their arms; both had the same sinister, nasty smile, and her ears began to turn a bright red as she started to catch on to his meaning. Her green eyes going wide, she stood tall with her hands tightly clasped together, her breath caught in her ribcage.

Her heart had begun to pound desperately against her ribs. It climbed up into her throat as she made a high, breathy laugh. "I knew it. Ever since I let you call it a favour, I knew it would end up being—" she glanced over to Madara's twin with reddening cheeks, "—physical," she squeaked.

Madara leaned against the door with a crooked grin. "Yet you still agreed. Eagerly, I might add."

Sakura tucked her hair behind her ears with a huff, smiling wryly. "I certainly did." She walked through the doors to Madara's quarters with all the courage she could muster, able to feel the body heat emanating from his clone when she passed by him. Her skin prickled with anticipation as she made her way less hurriedly into the heart of his rooms this time, extremely aware of the two sets of dangerous eyes burning into her back as she went.

She took a moment to ground herself, feeling her excited nerves getting too antsy, her blood rushing so fast from her pounding heart that she felt a little dizzy. Looking around, she observed his quarters with greater attention to detail, ignoring again the thundering of her pulse as she heard him shut the doors behind her.

Madara's quarters were reminiscent of him; impeccably organised, decidedly old-fashioned, and warm with the heat of the blazing hearth, the flames rising high against a backdrop of stone. Elegant furniture echoing the Edo era sparsely decorated the firelit space, and her gaze caught on the black and white gunbai mounted on one of the walls, perfectly maintained without a scratch evident on it.

Sakura turned her head, increasingly fascinated by the details of what he'd made his home for the time. Wood-Style branches criss-crossed along the ceiling and near furniture as it did throughout the rest of the headquarters, though it seemed more reserved here, its growth controlled and cut-back so it was well out of the way. Across the wide, comfortable commons area was a wide set of shelves, filled from top to bottom with books and scrolls, labelled and neatly stacked in piles Sakura found herself itching to investigate and study. She spotted a desk around one corner; a shogi table by a window, though no kitchenette.

Madara had servants here, just as he'd had as a child, she supposed, her brows drawing together over a frown. Having grown up in a prestigious clan with some measure of wealth, he might never have needed to cook for himself, at least until his exile in much later decades.

No — she spotted the spit over the fire, seeing fish carcasses neatly flayed and prepared on a table she hadn't spotted nearby. Curiously, she eyed them, noting the signs of expert knife skills, the fillets cut free with hands well-practised. She'd judged him too quickly; there was so much more to him than she'd assumed, even still.

What was in the other rooms? An armour set somewhere, Sakura was certain, and a private restroom, perhaps even an onsen, if these quarters were as luxurious as they already seemed to be. Maybe he'd even added on a room for target practice, if he still bothered to train with all the power and experience he possessed.

She stopped before the dark, open doorway to another room she'd soon see much of, and she glanced across it quickly, spotting a wide futon by the latticed windows overlooking the forest and vast snowscape from high above. Her heart back up in her throat, Sakura turned only to startle slightly, Madara standing beside her and watching her with a mix of veiled amusement and impatience.

As his clone walked up to her other side, Sakura swallowed thickly, holding Madara's glinting eye. "You dirty bastard," she said, admiringly.

She inhaled sharply as he wrenched her closer by the collar with a grin. "What, are you too faint of heart to continue?"

"You don't need to dare me. I have every intention of giving this a shot." Shivering bodily, Sakura glanced between Madara, his clone, and the wide futon in the dark room beyond, allowing every suppressed lascivious and desirous thought break free as she did so. "I won't know what I'm doing… but let's go, anyway."

She stepped forward with a red-cheeked resolved expression, a hand on the doorframe; two Madaras followed until she stopped again, swerving to look up at him. "Wait," Sakura said, searching his face, "but what is the actual punishment supposed to be?" She stood tall, some of her giddy, nervous excitement taking a back seat to the worried affection shining in her gaze as she went on. "I'm more excited for this than you must think. I—" Sakura blushed harder, but persisted. "I don't find being with you punishing at all. I've been missing this… I've wanted to uh," she ran a hand through her hair with a soft laugh, "pick back up where we left off for a long while. Even before we reconciled, and even more afterwards. I haven't been able to get it off my mind since the first time."

"Hn." Madara leaned up against the doorway, his tall frame taking it up in jagged relief. Blocking out the warm firelight flickering from behind him, his mismatched eyes glowed with their own luminescence as he regarded Sakura with a half-smile. "You're sweet." He drew a hand along her jaw, his thumb tracing over her heated cheek. "Sweet… and sometimes still naive. But worry not… you will still enjoy yourself. I would not have it any other way."

Sakura leaned into his hand. He brought his fingers up the side of her face in an easy caress, enjoying her responsive reaction, her unabashed affection. "Although," he murmured then, his shadow overtaking her as his clone stepped further forward with visible impatience, "he will have you one way; while I will enjoy a little review of our previous encounter."

Sakura took a step back in response, her green eyes glittering with invitation. Madara stalked towards her, and she led him back until her boots hit the edge of the bedframe. He towered over her, a daring look in his eye, and she paused one more time, her fists bunched up in the fabric of his robes, her gaze wandering over his once more. "I still don't understand which part serves as my 'reparations' when it all sounds like a reward to me."

The straying of his gloved hand along her thigh, an echo back to their last encounter as well as their very first, was enough for Sakura to pick up what Madara meant; and she laughed, shoving lightly at his chest, shaking her head. "Well, it is unfortunate that I have to go through the pain of my first time again. That'll repeat if every time we meet I'm just a clone of my untouched original. But it barely hurt." She reached up, tugging Madara down to her and pressing her lips in against his jaw, tasting his skin in a chaste peck. "You're the sweet one. I'll deal with such a minor pain anytime, any number of times, if the one causing it is you."

He took another step forward, causing Sakura to stumble backwards, and she pulled Madara with her as they fell back onto the mattress, bouncing together in a mess of limbs and wild loose hair and robes. "You know," Sakura was saying breathlessly as she tugged at Madara's obi, her inhale hitching as he started by pulling off her boots and working up to unclasp her thick winter's joggers, "they told me I was tainted by giving myself to you. But being with you… I only ever felt more pure, more complete."

Madara paused at this, and Sakura turned her face beneath his so she could see his expression. Her eyes widened upon the slightest tinge across his cheekbones, his mismatched eyes narrowing upon her.

Her voice rose in a delighted squeal. " —Are you blushing?!" She clasped her hands around Madara's face as she shrugged her cloak free, pulling her knees up around his sides with a sweet, tinkling laugh. "I've always wanted to know if you blush red or teal with how pale you are in this form."

Madara's growl rippled through the dark bedroom. "I do not blush."

"Yes you do! The evidence is right here!" Sakura poked his cheeks, giggling, kicking her bared legs out behind his back. "I actually got the great Uchiha Madara to flush red just like I do! I can't wait to—"

Her yelp of surprise cut off her words as she was muffled beneath his biting kiss, gloved fingers tugging away layer after layer, unwrapping her from her tightly-bound wintry gear. Breaths exchanged between meshed mouths; hair falling around faces, noses brushing, chests rising and falling rapidly. With each lost layer the heat between them only increased, the friction hotter and more unbearable rather than less. Sakura shoved the dark, elegant robes from Madara's shoulders, revealing the pale, honed expanse of his neck and collarbone; she pressed a kiss along his throat, tasting his pulse, her hands scraping down his bared sides beneath the shadow of his undone robes. The obi was tossed aside, her hands catching on his waistband, remembering along its elastic only to shove it away unceremoniously.

She met Madara's eye, a playful, devious glint in her gaze as her wandering hands slid up around his sides only to trace back downwards and seize a healthy hold of toned glutes. Delight lit Sakura's expression, an old daydream finally fulfilled.

Madara huffed with amusement, pushing her down deeper into the mattress and taking her lips again decisively, unrelentingly. Her knees tightened around his sides, and she had a full-body blush that inked along her cheeks, pooling down her throat over her heart, dipping lower to flush down her limbs and heat between her legs where he had settled himself just above her with a deep hum.

Sakura was quivering with anticipation, looking down between their entangled bodies only to blush hotter and look back up into Madara's face. He was suspended over her, brushing up against her, his wild silver-white hair falling down around her face in a serrated curtain. As their eyes met, each was sobered of their previous adrenaline-spiked rush to progress. It felt like time slowed around them for a stretch of rapid heartbeats, poised against each other in a unified, perfectly-fitting matchup of puzzle pieces about to mesh together into one.

"I'm going to uphold my promise to you," Sakura whispered, one hand lifting to shape against the side of Madara's face. His gaze softened upon her; she gladly sank into the warmth of his eyes.

"And afterwards," she said, her throat tightening with all that she felt, her bared chest brushing against Madara's as he slowly lowered down against her, "afterwards, I'm going to take you on that date I had almost agreed to that evening by the Hokage clifftop. We're going to go see all the best places in Konoha, including the secret ones that survived since the Founder days that you've told me about." Sakura was breathless, her voice sweet and constricted as she held on to Madara tightly like he was about to float away. "I think we should go see how that forest we ruined so long ago is doing, and maybe you could teach me falconry. I could teach you medical ninjutsu, since I don't think you know it. Maybe we could travel. There's countless things we should do… there's so much I want to show you."

"Woman…" Madara brought his lips along Sakura's cheek, dragging his mouth over her ear and enjoying her bodily shiver beneath him. "We will do so much more than that." She hummed as she realised he'd turned the both of them around; her head was no longer back against a pillow, but at the edge of the bed, their bodies horizontal together across the mattress. Moonlight spilled over Sakura's pale, creamy skin, her pink hair spraying out behind her head down the side of the futon.

Madara brought a hand along her cheek, and Sakura was distracted again by the vivid intensity behind his burning bright eyes. "Now… with no more thoughts of the future, let us savour the moment." She gasped, then moaned, as he gripped her hips and began to push into her slowly. "It is time to enjoy our reunion, at last."

Sakura squeezed tightly around Madara as he invaded her, her knees high up his sides, and she arched her head back against the edge of the bed with a cry as he slid deeper, tugging her hips against his in a harsh, impatient push. He rolled against her, slick sounds accompanying his movements; she moaned with pleasure, the pain already gone, her hands gripping tightly around his shoulders and her expression twisted with ecstasy as their bodies reunited.

Madara rocked into her with a grunt, pulling her back enough that her head was just beyond the mattress edge, her breasts bouncing with his every thrust that he watched with wicked delight. His untamed hair shifted around his shoulders, fell in frayed locks around his face, a jagged kind of crown mussed and drifting in time with his every push and pull.

Sakura was enjoying herself as much as he was, and it was only when a shadow crossed her to block out the gloss of the moonlight that she stiffened. She tilted her head all the way back, her eyes drifting up to Madara's awaiting clone she had completely forgotten about.

He stood before her with a grin. The moon dripped down his nude figure, cutting around his jagged silhouette, painting a silver line along his proud length that sprang beside Sakura's face. Her eyes widened upon it, her heart back up in her throat.

She looked back up at the clone; his eyes narrowed upon her, unapologetic and commanding. Her hips moved as his other self slid slowly into her, watching her reaction to this silent demand with silent caution. His movements slowed to a gentle, deep pistoning as he was wary of any sign she needed him to back off or change plans, and it was partly this consideration of her that gave Sakura the courage she needed, chuckling to herself softly.

His clone had the warning of two lithe, determined hands wrapping around his length before she took him into her mouth, tilting her head back and pulling him closer so he could sink into her completely. Her throat rippled around him, and he stumbled forward with a sharp gasp of pleasure, bracing his hands across Sakura's slender shoulders and leaning over her. He absorbed her slightly grinning expression, her visible pleasure from hearing his gasp while she began to bob slowly back and forth.

Madara matched her pace, increasing the speed of his thrusts into her in time with the pace she set for her own efforts. Sinful sounds of skin slapping together, slick movements in unison, his groans of twinned elation the deeper undertone beneath her muffled cries and sweet moans.

Both Madara and his clone grunted with surprise when Sakura unexpectedly tensed up like a coiled spring. In moments, she'd broken free of both their holds, and she had Madara on his back with his hair scattering across the pillows. She bore down on him, reuniting their laps and crying out as he slid back into her; and this time she was the one undulating against him, riding him with unrestrained vigour.

She absorbed the wicked pleasure in Madara's expression as he allowed her to impale herself upon him repeatedly, rocking with and against him at once. Power in an echo of his rippled across Sakura's lithe frame, a devilish satisfaction of her own aglow in her fierce expression as she took control. She was visibly afire with her passion that mirrored his, and there was no innocence or hesitation in the way she reached to the side, tugging his clone her way; only the red flush scorching her skin, the determination etched between her brows, their glorious reconciliation giving energy to Sakura's movements and eagerness in her bold decisions.

He climbed onto the bed beside her, and she resumed what she had been doing as soon as he was ready, her head turned and bobbing along his length as she bounced atop him on the mattress. Two pale hands steadied her head, fingers raking through her tangled pink hair; two more hands digging in around her hips, rocking together in pleasurable union.

Sakura's half-lidded eyes flew wide open as Madara's clone towering over her was the first to finish. She trembled, holding on to him tightly, her eyes sliding up to his face as he kept her wrenched all the way up to the base of him — she absorbed his rapturous expression, her hands squeezing around his legs and her knees wrenching tight around his original beneath her while she braced herself, swallowing thickly and breathing hard through her nose, the odd taste of him an entirely new sensation.

She had little time to recover, the clone disappearing in a plume of steam and her world turned around as she was suddenly on her back — her legs thrown over his shoulders, Madara rammed into Sakura with a crazed look of mad pleasure, his wild eyes glowing through the darkness. Slick sounds became wet claps, and she rocked back with him with matching vigour, taking his energy and vicious passion as a challenge to match him in intensity. Hot, shivering breaths harsh enough to become clouds of steam exchanged as the two of them united again and again — passionate violence, violent passion that both had let completely loose, running a rampage between their connecting figures twisting and bucking together against the mattress hard enough that the bedframe had cracked in several places throughout their unhinged sex.

Their passion had deepened fathomlessly past just the physical, and green eyes locked with mismatched as both reached the height of their pleasure. In a rough cacophony of their mixed, gasping cries they soared past the peak, their locked bodies arching together, then collapsing together, sinking deep into the futon.

Sakura's peak still had her aquiver, tense head to toe. As she blinked back into this reality her eyes widened upon Madara in a slack expression of a sudden realisation, her fingers tightening over his arms and her knees squeezing hard around his waist. "Wait — I'm going to—"

Embarrassment fizzled across Sakura's expression as what both realised was the sheer and utter force of her climax forced her to be dismissed. Steam rose from her limbs, and she clung to Madara in her final moments, her face freshly red. She saw in time the amused, almost flattered forgiveness behind his eyes as she unwillingly disappeared, leaving him sinking into the mattress on his own.

Madara slowly rolled onto his back, pushing the mussed white hair from his face and exhaling in a long, slow sigh.

He shut his eyes, his body singing with an overwhelming but welcome sensation of complete bliss. Every part hummed together in the harmony of his afterglow, a feeling he'd never experienced in such an intensity, nothing even close in nearly a hundred years.

With this came a certain clarity, a reserved shine in his stare as Madara's gaze rose to the windows. His attention snagged inevitably upon the moon that rose high above the trees, the storm clouds fleeing from it.

This time, when he regarded the moon's image, it didn't bring him the vexation it normally did; thoughts of the Eye of the Moon plan, frustrations at its delays, machinations in how to finish the dream he'd been building for decades. Sometimes such ponderings brought reminders of the countless sacrifices that had led him to take on this cause; sometimes dark nostalgia, bitter and filled with hatred.

Not tonight. Madara regarded it now with his perspective refreshed and renewed, like the dark had been cleared from his vision and he could see the full picture.

Stretching his arms behind his head, he cracked his joints and knuckles, his body tingling pleasantly. He sat up, his wild hair falling around his shoulders; getting to his feet, he threw his robe around his shoulders, tying it around his waist. He glanced over the pile of Sakura's clothes with a brief smirk before padding up to the windows, staring out over the forest and rolling hills that served as his view. High above, the moon shone down on rolling snow drifted peaks of distant mountains; it crested the forests in white, crowning the land in cold, beautiful silver.

Madara was pensive as he stared down over what he thought of as his kingdom, his hands folded behind his back.

Had he meant what he'd told her? Was there truly a chance in this world that he could be swayed from the Infinite Tsukuyomi cause?

Madara's mismatched eyes widened slightly as he felt the answer to that question where it rushed in his blood, pooling in his heart like a poison, or — perhaps — like a cure.

Hmm. Beyond that… for the first time in many decades, Madara felt like his old self again. It was not simply his afterglow, nor the satisfaction of fully consummating what had become an unbreakable, worthy bond; it was the feeling of being whole, the sense of being genuinely beloved and trusted no matter his reality. This was something he hadn't experienced since well before his exile from the village, not for a long time in his multiple lives he'd endured until tonight.

Madara looked down at his pale hands, at the unnatural teal-tinged white that his skin shade had paled to. He looked out at the headquarters of the Union stretching out beyond and below his high-mounted quarters with eyes anew, and in this moment Madara understood with a sense of foreboding and anticipation that that answer he had given Sakura was indeed the truth.

Madara inclined his head, his briefly moonlit face falling back into shadow. For now, he would continue as he'd planned, forging ahead with all he'd planned and sacrificed for; but buried in the back of his mind was his certainty that she would, somehow, fulfil her promise.