Madara's words were almost lost in the roar of fighting in all directions, but he knew that she heard him.

He did not withdraw the powerful pulse of chakra he'd sent through Sakura's system to free her until her eyes were opening. Consciousness lit her green irises as they contracted upon Madara, leaning over her with sharp focus. Her pupils flicked back and forth across his face, wide and searching, dazed but increasingly alert.

Sakura coughed, a hand rising to her throat, blinking with confusion undoubtedly from the genjutsu she had been in moments ago. Pulling back, Madara cut his glare across her neck wound, analysing. Behind his thoughts he tracked the movements surrounding where they were — his soldiers, versus theirs. So far it appeared they were winning in their practised and viciously determined battles, keeping the enemy Allied fighters distracted from trying to attack Madara in his retreat here while he dealt with Sakura.

Her wound wasn't deep. It was a surface gash, bloodied and gory as it had looked from afar. Either Obito had never intended to actually kill her, or Madara had ripped her free in time.

His eyes narrowed as he watched Sakura try to process his curt, passed words — do not give up now; nothing is over with yet — less a reassurance than a command. She had a palm pressed in over her temple as she sat up in his loosening grip, wincing at the pain, indicators of other repercussions of her genjutsu dream: and not simply physical ones such as the headache she was trying to ease. He could see the traces of despair that were left in her pale, blood-spattered features.

Smoke drifted through the small clearing they knelt in while figures blurred in fights all around them, the night's icy darkness hiding them but for the dulled moonlight drenching their outlines in silver. The smoke was a thin cover, though the vague obscurity it offered their position was buying them a few more moments of time.

Genjutsu. Madara's gloved fingers flexed as he loomed over her, his previous rage still electrifying his presence. What a small mercy they had given Sakura; a pathetic attempt to shield her from witnessing the trap laid with her as its bait, objectifying her into little more than a psychological play. Perhaps the genjutsu had its own purpose in turn; meant to corrupt her mind, turn her against him, extract information from whatever she might have left to hide from them. The intent and its content would depend upon who cast it on her.

It may have changed her, for better or worse; but Sakura seemed lucid enough, injured and chained as she was, and Madara withdrew from her further, vigilant of every movement in each simultaneous fight taking place around him. There wasn't time to ponder her condition nor the moment, not even the decision he'd just made before the eyes of the entire shinobi world. There was only time for survival.

Sakura was saying his name that became a deflated gasp, his movements a concise blur as he slashed around their clearing in a choreography of defensive movements blocking incoming attacks from Allied soldiers alerted to their location. The air was knocked from her as Madara snatched her up from the ground where she was getting to her feet, soaring high into the air.

The ground exploded where they had been with the thundering wave of a massive Wood-Style branch. Smoke and screams from the battles ongoing in every direction flooded through in swirls of tainted air as clods of earth sprayed up through the night sky, breaking apart upon the gigantic branches that had completely smothered the ground. Searing over the thousands of battle-locked fighters, Madara was fiercely focused in his newest absconsion, his leaps over the increasingly treacherous and crowded battlefield so quick that few saw him pass in a flash of sizzling power with Sakura locked under his arm. There. One of the craggy peaks he'd created at the other end of the battlefield, all a living tangle of thick branches, creating a separated space like a plateau detached from battle. There — he could spare a single moment, hidden from the clashing armies by the smoke and the fog, and he could have a stretch of precious seconds to think about what he'd just done.

"Everyone stay back!" Yamato's shout rang out over the large crowd as they stumbled back on uncertain feet once more. He had to dodge a thrown shuriken, brown hair swishing as he made a graceful swerve and a dipping gesture of clasped hands. The Wood-Style branches beneath them creaked and writhed like rough-backed beasts, and as another mess of projectile blades came slicing through the air, a branch rose into the way just in time. With a thunk-thunk-thunk, the shuriken impacted the wood, sinking uselessly into the thick bark.

Breathing hard, Yamato continued to forcibly redirect the Wood-Style branches that had erupted to swallow what seemed like the entire world in every direction. Comparing briefly in his mind to his experiences from before, this war was like no other, and nothing like how it had begun, nothing like how he could have ever imagined.

The battlefield around him was an ocean of curves and slashing trunks and branches each the size of buildings, shivering and cracking between the armies below. Fire versus water created billowing thunderclouds of steam hissing out in a fog the size of a city and twice as tall, stretching out over the thousands of shinobi fighting for their causes. Massive and thick as a whiteout blizzard, the resultant fog from frozen ground disturbed with fire and steam obscured them all but for the moonlight flashing on their blades. Their voices were a cacophony of shouts and cries. Lights in every colour burned as fleeting glows of hundreds of slung jutsus in every nature and element. Unmuted by the fog was the thundering of feet, the tang of steel and blood and smoke in the air through the roars of hoarse, raging voices — the hallmarks of a fully unhinged war.

"You all need to leave," Yamato was repeating himself frustratedly, glancing back at the large group of civilians behind him. He flinched as another stray shuriken impacted the metal face-plate he wore, skittering off into the smoke. "You shouldn't have come to the trial in the first place. I know to some of you it was your civic duty to attend, but you should have fled the battlefield when you were told. Before this," and he was swerving with a vivid curse, forcing another branch in his control into the path of an array of arrows, multiple cries of fear behind him becoming sighs of relief anew as Yamato continued to shield the group from Union attacks. Thock-thock-thock, the arrows shivering where they were embedded in the groaning branch he kept raised like a shield over them, his dark gaze flicking around with paranoia as he tried to seek any nearby Union attackers through the night-drenched smoke.

"At least we have you to protect us," an elder croaked somewhere behind him. Yamato grimaced, adjusting his clasped hands as he braced himself to shield them again at any moment. Being responsible for the lives of these civilians, he was urgently trying to help them flee; but each time he saw an opportunity to propel them towards the very distant forestline miles off in their one way out of here alive, they kept hesitating.

Even in the face of thousands of shinobi fighting, the entire landscape a living, writhing hazard, it was something like a morbid, mortal curiosity keeping them here. Elders, mothers, fathers and genin alike in this group of surviving civilian trial attenders were shaken by what they had seen and heard both in the trial and now, after the Allied side's failed trap. Driven to try and understand it, or perhaps just unwilling to leave behind all of those they loved and knew among the Allied shinobi fighting now, they wanted to see more.

But wasn't that too much to expect? Was not the failed trap they already saw enough? Though Yamato himself couldn't make sense of Madara's shocking choice, he didn't have the time or capacity to ponder it: these civilians' safety was his duty, and right now they were in imminent, active danger.

Yamato made a wide, rising gesture. The bizarre crest of branches hosting him and the civilian group he protected shuddered in response, and under his forcible, strong command, a wall of branches rose around them in each direction, shielding them more effectively. It was not a perfect barrier — it was a latticework like a cage, the Wood Style branches beneath them difficult to control since they weren't his own creation, but it would do for now while they searched for another opportunity to escape. He must break them out of their desperate need to see more. Their curiosity was only deadly, and no matter their worries for loved ones fighting or their wish to understand why Madara had done as he'd done, Yamato needed to evacuate them before they were all killed as collateral damage in this war.

He swerved with a hiss as he heard another click-click, getting angrier in his fervent frustration. "Damn it all, this is not the time to be taking pictures. This is war concerning life or death, not some kind of tourist attraction!"

The group of photographers Yamato was shouting at paid him little attention. They were steeling their frightened focus upon the war's madness through their zoom-lenses. Turning towards them with every intent of taking away those cameras like a disgruntled children's chaperone, it was now that Yamato noticed that their cumulative attention was focused upon a single point in the distance, their voices a mixed murmured rush of hyperactive excitement like they'd just found their dream shot. Little metallic scraping sounds were barely audible through the distant roars of battling shinobi as they zoomed and focused their cameras' lenses.

The rest of the civilians huddling around them had caught on, hurrying over and surrounding the photographers' group with excitement and hushed curiosity spreading like a disease. "That's them!" one was yelling to the others, hopping from foot to foot, "I swear it! I've photographed them before. I just know it! Look, all of you. Get every picture you can. This is history in the making!"

"What the hell?" Yamato approached, only for him to be waved off dismissively as one of the civilians passed around binoculars, more of them grouping around the photographers. Their voices mixed in excitement, spying on the scene across the battlefield that was invisible to the naked eye through the distance and the smoke.

"It's them," they were saying to each other, faces stuffed against zoom lenses and mouths flapping in eager exchanges, "it's really them, the famous two, reunited. What are they doing? What do you think they're saying? Does he know what she said at the trial?"

"He's about to kill her. Gods, look how frightening he is, how is she not cowering?" another pitched in. There were endless clicks now of shutters and mashed buttons as pictures were taken in an infinite stream. "Get every picture. Maybe we can understand why he reacted to the big presented choice that way. Do you think it's just another trick?"

"Are you sure it's really them?"

"Are you kidding? Even in my old age I could never mistake the sight of Uchiha Madara, as demon as he looks now."

Yamato was made a silenced, frustrated witness as an angry hiss interrupted both whatever he'd been about to say as well as the civilian crowd's excitement. A woman he didn't recognise with short blonde hair and somewhat familiar icy green eyes shoved through several huddled groups, snatching the binoculars off of one of the watchers. "If the demon is there with my daughter, then I get to see," she spat at them, stress and emotion wringing her features.

With a sheepish-looking man at her side apologising to the others for his wife's brash, angry behaviour, Yamato watched what he now understood as Sakura's mother look through the lens with a fierce scowl, squinting out at the distant sight all were so affixed upon.

Her husband was shaking his head as people argued around him, the formerly loose groups of civilians from different villages all drawn in as whispers bound them. "You're her parents — Mebuki, Kizashi? You were at the trial – you saw what she said, heard all that she did. How could you let her get to such a point? Did you know about her… relationship… since the start of it all?"

"None of that stuff about her and Uchiha Madara can be true. That isn't who she is," Kizashi was trying to tell them as Mebuki clutched the binoculars she'd stolen. "Even if some of that evidence was real, Sakura's just misguided, manipulated by someone powerful. But she has a big heart, and much of her words about Naruto and the shinobi world were truthful. She's just young…"

"Didn't you see the choice he just made? No one thought he'd go for her, over the eye." Murmurs of agreement; more voices speaking up, no one person standing out as they continued to exchange words, the opinions among the civilians almost unanimous. "Not even the Kages predicted it right."

"Did anyone?"

"I can still hardly believe my own eyes."

"Doesn't the demon's choice of her instead of that Rinnegan prove what she said at the trial correct?"

"It's funny… I think they were trying to prove her wrong by forcing him to make such an obvious decision."

"Hardly obvious when he chose what no one expected!"

"Well, maybe she's right that he's not a demon."

None but Yamato noticed as the First Hokage himself landed silently beside where Yamato looked on. Pale traditional robes marked with the Senju clan symbol whispered around his frame, the armour long-gone, though his Edo-Tensei nature was still betrayed by the cracks in his hands and his face. His famous, calm features were flaking like he was made of ageing porcelain.

His breath caught, Yamato bowed his head with deep respect towards the man who had already been an idol to him before mentoring him these past months. If it weren't for Hashirama he might not have been able to shield these civilians like he'd been able to; nor could he have created that trial hall, one of his proudest buildings to date.

Hearing the great creaking of all the Wood-Style branches that had taken over the world around him, Yamato was briefly struck odd with the bizarre knowledge that not only was he no longer the only Wood-Style user alive, but he was the least talented of three in total, all present at this madness-wrought battlefield. Three… though Uchiha Madara's Wood Style capabilities were as stolen as Yamato's technically were, borne from the First Hokage's incredible regenerative cells.

"What's going on?" came Hashirama's calm question. He directed his question to Yamato, who opened his mouth to give his calm answer only to be interrupted by Mebuki's soft exclamation nearby, her voice so entrenched with emotion that he and Hashirama both paused to hear her.

"Run away," Mebuki was whispering. Tears streamed down her pale cheeks from beneath the binoculars she pressed over her hidden eyes. "Please, Sakura, run, before you get killed."

There was a hand pressed over her heart. She was leaning up against the barlike walls of the latticed wooden cage protecting her and the other civilians; her knuckles were white around the binoculars. Wholly intent and focused, Mebuki continued to ignore any facet of her immediate surroundings as the photographer group shifted away from her, including Kizashi's light touch along her back in uneasy comfort. Hashirama and Yamato stood beside her, only distantly able to see the sight she was watching unfold from across the battlefield on a plateau just above the clouds of fog and smoke.

From here they were white and pink specks standing upon a flattened peak, a sizable gap of space between the infamous pair. None of the thousands of soldiers below appeared to have seen them yet through the fog and thick darkness, distracted battling each other, and none of the higher powers within the war's opposing sides had caught on to where Madara had tossed down his captured choice, though surely they would find them soon.

Sakura rose to her feet on her own from the unforgiving rough ground. Even from this far Yamato and those at his side could see the chakra-muting chains that remained around her wrists and her ankles, glowing from having to restrain such frustrated power beneath her deceptively slender limbs. Even from this distance, all watching could feel the cold, heartless power in Madara's presence as he stared her down with all the imperious, unfeeling detachment of a god.

The civilians' excited exchanges ("Look, she's approaching him so boldly. Are they about to fight?" among "Take every picture you can,") had hushed in the wake of Mebuki's words. She trembled where she stood, quaking like a leaf in the wind until she startled hard from the cracked hand on her shoulder.

She relinquished the binoculars upon noticing who it was offering her comfort, hissing air in through her teeth and deeply inclining her head with respect. "Oh, forgive me. Lord First—"

"Please allow me a clearer view of this with those binoculars of yours."

"Yes. Of course."

Yamato passed Kizashi a reassuring look in turn. Of course her parents had insisted on attending Sakura's trial. It made sense; but no doubt it had been incredibly difficult for them to witness, just as it had been for Yamato as her captain, for her teammates and her friends sitting around him as well. Listening as the Kages had gone through all the evidence presented before Sakura's arrival and speech, listening to their harsh words and judgements then and after — it had been painful, but he couldn't imagine how her parents must have felt, enduring both that and Sakura's passionate speech that had moved so many.

He looked to Hashirama with some concern as he lifted the binocular lenses to his eyes. They could hear the photographers' cameras clicking more photos as they too witnessed the scene unfold.

Hashirama made no explanation of what he saw but for the way his expression changed. First, his deep frown, furrowed and troubled, aged with wizened, practised stress worn through his features from a lifetime of duress; then a look like wistful expectations fulfilled when he hadn't wanted them to be.

Yamato's gut clenched with understanding. Ah; the worst assumption, proved true simply from Hashirama's mood, his indication that Sakura had just been struck down for good. Disappointments expected; disappointments witnessed, as Madara had done the unthinkable and turned against her as so many had been certain he would. He no longer needed to ask, certain in his assumption, and he looked away, brows twitching with an unexpected pang of grief.

Yamato briefly shut his eyes, garnering what strength he could to hide his sorrow for her. If Madara had quietly taken her aside to kill her himself, then his shocking choice in front of the thousands really was a psychological play to throw off the Allied side and shake their confidence. It was worse than lowly or evil. It was utterly vile.

This look on Hashirama's face was enough for Mebuki to glean the same that Yamato had. She collapsed against Kizashi with a wail; he held her to him, dipping his face into her hair with an expression of anguished sorrow.

"He took her away just to kill her," she was sobbing, her slim frame wracked with her ragged breaths. "Just to kill her himself. The evil, terrible man he is. How could he do all of this to our daughter… What did she ever do to deserve it?..."

"No," came Hashirama's quiet, simple answer.

Silence across the crowd as he stepped forward, brown hair swishing around his broad shoulders, his cracked lips parting, and his expression was obscured to them now as he witnessed the distant reunion change. Gasps among the photographers — then a violent scrabbling as desperately curious civilians fought to get a look of their own. Their squabbling forced Yamato to step in and intervene with frustrated exclamations once more. "For the love of — stop fighting! This isn't becoming of Konoha elders, or of you, or you of the Hidden Cloud — hey! Stop trying to snatch her camera. Do you want me to report you to the Tsuchikage? I don't care what you paid for your seat at the trial, it doesn't entitle you here. And you over there—"

Mebuki was more restrained than the rest, though she did not hesitate to grip along Hashirama's long sleeve, her question demanding beneath a level tone of taut respect. "Lord First. Please. Tell me."

She didn't expect the way he looked at her as he passed her the binoculars, his silence intense as she lifted the lenses once more to her eyes.

As she witnessed this last moment herself, tears streaming freely down her cheeks, Hashirama was gone in a swirl of smoky breeze.

Dizzy, disoriented, Sakura landed hard against the tough wood ground, catching herself against its curve and taking a sharp breath. Her side-glance showed her that they were separated from the battlefield atop a mountainlike peak of knotted branches, thicker than houses. She and Madara were hidden from the view of the thousands, if just for the moment.

She could see the carnage already. Smoke rose from huge swathes of wood-smothered land set afire from slung fire-jutsus. Steam from water moves thrown in response rose in great, thundercloud-sized plumes, obscuring the rest of the fighters. Through the thick, stifling air Sakura could still see flashes of multicoloured lights through the fog; she could hear the roars of countless soldiers at war, and she could taste the scents of blood and bile and steel rising even to where she was pulled aside to the fringe of the battlefield high above.

What had happened? Sakura pressed a hand along the shallow cut across her neck, deciding she didn't care how it got there: she was alive, and — she wasn't alone.

But she wasn't freed. She seized in the chains around her wrists and ankles as Madara landed before her, wild white hair adrift around his broad shoulders and his dark Six-Paths robes whispering beneath black armour. He emanated deadly, powerful grace and poise, and Sakura felt briefly insignificant, like a ragged prisoner bent in the shadow of a king.

She rose to her feet on her own with a grunt. In this first time meeting Madara as her true self since the beginning, she would not let herself feel demeaned, and it was with ferocious, undying pride that Sakura lifted her head, meeting his narrowed glowing eyes directly.

The seconds passing hung between them for a suspended moment, the realisation hitting her again as it undoubtedly occurred to him as well: this was the reunion they'd awaited through the entirety of a long, wildly turbulent year.

Sakura pressed a hand over her pounding heart, pierced through by Madara's unwavering, cryptic stare. This moment wasn't what she'd imagined so many times over the months she was hiding underground.

She'd wondered if their reunion might be violent, or romantic; or she feared that perhaps it would end up as a reality check that there wasn't actually a real spark between them in a gut-wrenching falling out. The moment proved to be none of the above.

The air between the two of them was bioelectric, the silence drawing out in a permeating pause shocking her thoughts into a standstill, but it wasn't the type of intensity she'd hoped for.

It was conflicted, and Sakura felt almost awkward as she stood before Madara at long last as her true self once more. Awkward — vulnerable.

It occurred to her that a large amount of her previous bravery and brashness with him from before had been from her clones knowing they could afford to be reckless and push the limits. They could test boundaries fearlessly; death wasn't a true consequence when they were as dispensable as they were. Before, if things went awry, she could simply dismiss herself from the moment.

But she was vulnerable, now. Living, breathing, with no safety net, standing before the greatest enemy she'd ever known. This person who had changed her life completely — someone incredibly intimidating, much older, overly powerful, with eyes that seemed to stare directly into the marrow of her being — Uchiha Madara was as incredibly intense as she remembered him being. But something was off. The both of them felt like different people than they had been when meeting before, almost like their many encounters over the past year were somehow falsified.

She knew better than that. She and her clones might have put on a variety of masks, but that didn't mean that the emotions beneath them didn't match.

However, in this tense moment of their anticipated reunion, there was no sign of who Madara had been to her in the past year. He regarded her now with the same distance and cold clarity as he had in the beginning. Sakura wondered again what had transpired before he had assisted her in awakening from that genjutsu.

Her expression flickered oddly as she processed her own hesitation while facing off against him. Her features pinched slightly as the sweep of her gaze over Madara struck her again with a separate reminder. Just as in at the start, no matter their tension, no matter if they were at battle or in conversation, she found him striking. He cut a frightening image more than he ever had: standing tall, rippling with ancient power, drawn in jagged edges and fitted black armour over dark robes subtly showing Six Paths symbols along its sleeves and hems. Wild white hair drifted across his blood-spattered, pale features. Truth-seeker orbs she remembered him using at the start of the war floated around him in a threatening aura; the Six-Paths staff was in his gloved dark hand, his expression imperious and unreadable as ever as he looked down upon her, his mismatched eyes luminescent in the bladed moonlight.

Uchiha Madara was sinister; he was strong. He looked every bit like the god that the thousands of Union shinobi fighting below worshipped him as.

He was frightening, though he didn't scare her. She hadn't been afraid of him since she'd first taken in the sight of him a year ago, fearing for her life with every passing second in a tangible understanding of his sheer lethality. Madara was the most dangerous shinobi she'd ever met, and he'd always commanded her attention no matter what she wanted, whether through the rush of adrenaline his hazardous presence brought her or through his unpredictable actions. The intensity he possessed had always drawn Sakura's eye, both from survival-driven awareness as well as that unbidden, undeniable gravity he held over her; one she'd come to understand was more than from respect or admiration of a powerful enemy. Madara was terrifying, and he allured her like a moth drawn to a deadly flame.

Sakura gripped her fists with uncertainty, swallowing her epiphanies with all their bitter tastes. She saw beyond Madara's surface image all of the invisible facets of him that she had come to know and love; his mean sense of humour, his snobby tastes and penchant for storytelling, his stubborn headstrong nature, his repressed soft side she'd once uncovered. She had wished, once, that she might learn the truth behind every scar, to know him as well as he knew himself, to continue those lost golden days of misadventures and the chase that was finally over.

Sakura briefly shut her eyes as the realisation repeated: the chase is over. Madara had caught her, not just in body, but in heart and soul. In a painful clenching of her heart, Sakura knew she loved all of his oddities, his every quirk and irritating habit, and knew even in this spiralling moment of her self-doubt and anxiety that there was no escaping this fate for her. Not now.

He had caught her; and with the death of the chase came this standstill moment between them, Sakura's heart beating hard in her chest as she held Madara's glaring mismatched eyes. There was a dizzying spiral of déjà vu clashing over her vision like the two of them had been brought back to the day they had first faced off so long ago. All of the tension and darkness in the air was even more oppressive now than it had been a year previously.

Just as she'd felt unconsciously then, Sakura still felt distinctly not good enough now, compared to Madara in the powerful, intimidating vision he made. She was a pink-haired nobody civilian girl grimy and exhausted, thin as a rail and brittle where she stood in her chains; and she was utterly powerless to boot, made useless without her chakra.

She worried in a nauseous pull of her gut that Madara was looking at her and regretting all the decisions that had led him to stand before her as she was now. Perhaps, after countless efforts in a year of turmoil and stress, he was seeing her as a letdown. She was the dissatisfying conclusion to so many months of pursuit; the chase itself revealed to be the extent of his interest beyond his lost eye. All of his former fire for her was dying against the regrettable successful capture she made now. Perhaps she had lost her value to him, now that he knew she was fully immersed within his grasp, the games of clones and mischief finished with.

Sakura bit back the tightness in her throat, steeling herself, though the pain permeated through her body like a virus with such halting, sickening thoughts. Perhaps Madara was realising that she had not been worth any of it at all.

Sakura stayed where she was, feeling a little unsteady on her feet, and she had to look away from him, unable to bear these thoughts and unwilling to show how they were affecting her. She felt Madara's gaze continue to sink through her figure like twinned blades.

Had he made the right choice?

Madara had witnessed her self-awareness in a moment of visible doubt; his calculating eyes cast across her again, measuring, weighing.

The value of the half-destroyed eye he'd chosen against was immeasurable, itself. It was, in its core, one of Izuna's eyes, and it was nearly as old as Madara himself. With decades upon decades of death, war, suffering, darkness, plotting, and hatred, he had honed and curated that eye into the Rinnegan it had become, the boundlessly meaningful twin to the one he still possessed. He had masterfully manipulated Obito into further preserving and protecting that lost eye… all for it to be nearly destroyed by Sakura a year ago, and then dangled in front of him so recently now, just within his reach.

Regardless of the Allied side's setup with all of their fastest shinobi at hand Madara had no doubt he could have snatched it from Sasuke. He would have thwarted and survived whatever other traps and setups they'd have premeditated for that obvious choice of saving his eye. It was the representation of a hundred years of suffering and planning, a symbol of his past and who he was, and the key to the future he had been working for for so long. It was all that he had sacrificed for, only for him to sacrifice it — for her sake. If it could still be saved, it would be difficult to fix it into usability, if that was even possible anymore; clearly, she did possess the ability to mend it, the proof visible in Sasuke's newly working Rinnegan eye of his own. But was that enough for this to be worth it?

Madara stared Sakura down, the decision he had made to steal her from the Allied forces instead of his Rinnegan printed across the whole of his vision as he took in the sight of her, realising on deeper levels the true weight of his actions. When he had made that fateful decision he hadn't thought about it, hadn't debated — he'd simply known without question, as if his body had moved without needing input from his mind. All of the bitter reflection he should have made before his actions were coming back to lash at him now.

With this, repeated that final question… had he made the right choice?

Why had he made this one?

Sakura's expression morphed into a fierce scowl. She took a step towards Madara, refusing to stand back like a starstruck schoolgirl any longer. The two of them had gone so far beyond that point, and it would be foolish to waste this reunion pontificating when they had so little time. She knew what she wanted, and she knew what she felt; she knew the path that her resolve would always take her on, no matter her fears nor whatever might happen now. She had chosen it long ago with the understanding that she would follow it even if it led to her death.

Madara's coldly analytical expression twitched. His stance shifted slightly with Sakura's sudden bold move. The instinctive hostility in his manner didn't fade with her approach.

Sakura showed no sign that she was intimidated by his icy distance, making another step forward. Her green eyes burned like two bright suns in her fierce features. Around the wooden peak they stood upon, smoke and fog rose from the battlefield, a mess of action down below making a dull roar in the vast, bizarre landscape beyond; lights and fires lit the night beneath the watchful eye of the moon above.

In this moment, Sakura was unaware of how she truly looked. She was nothing like the raggedy, powerless prisoner or insignificant, worried girl she'd visibly worried she was. Lit in the reds and silvers of the blazing, war-torn night with her hair adrift around her face in the wind, Sakura was glorious: even restrained in her already-cracked chains, her presence emanated power like she was a walking plume of flame, her curvy figure undiminished in her dirt and blood-splattered clothes. Confidence echoed in the ripples of toned muscles down her slender limbs and honed form. Beyond her monstrous strength and beauty untainted by her condition nor her stress, she was still afire with passionate hope behind her thinking, intelligent stare: a living beacon of it, more than she'd ever been before.

She held his gaze bravely, unwaveringly, yet still unaware that she was a living vision of strength. If his cultist following were watching, they might view her as a goddess to match their deity leader, the both of them painted in the same frenzied firelit colours of the night.

Glorious. And still blooming, only ever becoming stronger through each stress and strife. No matter the gravity of what she endured, she kept rising higher out of it, a phoenix out of the ashes.

Madara's gloved hands twitched, his expression terse and mismatched eyes bright through the darkness. His stance had become uncertain as Sakura strode another pace towards him — without pause, without any further hesitation, as she watched the ice across his expression crack a little further. It was as she always had been; deciding when he would not, choosing light when he would choose the dark, stubborn despite the odds that were always against her. He'd never expected Sakura would have any power to sway him in the decisions she made; nor that she'd wield that power, weaponizing it now in her decided approach.

Madara's glare was set upon her, just as unwavering as hers in her bull-headed advance. He'd not be moved by so little. He had just thrown away a lifetime of careful work; and for what?

That lost eye was a symbol of all he'd worked for. It was boundlessly precious; but he had to admit in this fallout of its loss that it was also a burden, a physical representation of decades in darkness. It symbolised years spent fully immersed in hatred and resentment, living on nothing but bitter determination and the set resolve that he would be the one to save this wretched world by casting it into eternal dreams.

Madara had sacrificed the latter half of a lifetime most others spent creating stability and family trees. He had spurned natural instincts to further his bloodline or seek light. Peace created through forcing the shinobi world into peaceful dreams was a vision still better sought than indulging in selfish pleasures and allowing the cycle of death and hatred to continue.

Madara still believed in that, but — this woman, this deceptively strong kunoichi that had thrown him off so much more than he had ever thought she'd be able to — had come to represent the opposite that the Rinnegan did. Somehow, she'd become a living vision, so much like flame; hot enough to melt, bright enough to catch both of his eyes, and strong enough to turn his attention away from the darkness surrounding him in every other direction, if ever so temporarily.

He could feel it beneath his skin: Sakura had always aimed to keep him turned towards the light, to shed his bitter burdens at long last as if she was purging a poison from his soul. It was her true intention, in the end, even if he was to decide that he was finished with the courting he'd entertained with her for so long now. Even if he was to make that clear — Sakura meant to close upon that final goal anyway, and she was moving to do it here and now.

Even within the calculative moment of reflection Madara sunk through, he could not ignore how her value had evolved past the black and white points of abilities and skillsets. Too much had happened against his stone-set expectations. He was stubborn, ever more stubborn than Sakura, but he was not such a fool that he'd look into the face of reality and deny it still.

He had drawn close enough before that he had gotten permanently burned, just as he might now if he allowed her any nearer. That lost eye was the cost in Madara's ultimate choice to take this living vision, to look to that sliver of light she'd made in his dark view of the future that maybe — maybe her belief in peace, once his own, could be attained again.

But was that not selfish? She made those decades in darkness feel like the waste that they were, almost as if there could have been a different way; the way that she offered, somehow still within reach. But would it not be borne of selfish greed to allow himself to be a moth to a flame; to let the flames consume him? Such a choice would surely result in nothing but his destruction as well as that of everyone else's. He had long determined from the way history had unfolded that he could not trust the younger, weaker generations to fix such a vicious cycle that the shinobi world endlessly followed.

Until her.

Sakura had spoken as brashly, passionately, and naively as Hashirama had about how true peace must be possible. She had since the start, just like her obnoxious jinchūriki teammate. Madara had hated it, resented it, but he'd listened to her anyway just as he'd listened to Hashirama, shaking his head with resigned patience and the bitter knowledge that there wasn't a way either of them could be right in the end. He had understood it impossible well beyond the brief days that he, too, had shared these hopes; hopes dashed as he'd left childhood so long ago, and dashed again with the failure of Konohagakure being a peaceful village unmarred by war. Failure. The village was no proud creation of his. Madara had viewed it as a failure ever since it became clear that the pettiness and hatred between clans, even under Hashirama's leadership, would never end. It was something neither Hashirama, Sakura, or any of these Allied fighters would ever understand.

Their vision of peace simply wasn't possible. Madara had made the sacrifices he'd had because trial and error had proved all other versions of peace unattainable. He had let the darkness become who he was as it let him forget the bitter taste of letting go of hope so many times through his lifetime.

The darkness had always held the correct way forward. It was the foundation of his every decision made over multiple decades, over half of his lifetime. If he were to choose correctly according to all he'd worked for… to Black Zetsu, and to all the decided goals he'd finalised in his mind for decades — he would kill Sakura here and now to end his doubts and then leave to retake his lost eye at last. In the cold eyes of Madara's experiences and all he'd planned for, there was no hope beyond the Infinite Tsukuyomi. All of his previous losses were only contributing to the greater good of shinobi-kind in bringing about his great jutsu at last. She would be no different, painful as such another loss might be.

It wasn't too late. Madara could still pursue and complete the Infinite Dream. Even now he knew it, detached from the battles below as he was in this moment — they weren't complete fools. He knew they hadn't fully destroyed that eye when they understood its value as a hostage if nothing else.

The power in Madara's being oozed outwards in a dark sort of cloud. He knew Sakura could feel it.

She had reached him, now. She stopped directly before him, looking up into his face.

Madara blinked once, realising she had halted, letting a last length of distance remain between them; though she remained just within reach. It was a silent expression that it must be him to bridge it, this time.

Lingering, Sakura stood tall, regarding him with that boundless courage he'd always admired in some capacity; whether with irritation, or sometimes hidden affection. So brash, so stupidly brave, never concerned for herself… she was so much like the very few he'd ever cared for in his time in this cursed shinobi world.

Madara paused as he saw it again, written in Sakura's face in this suspended moment. There it was in her eyes, burning bright like stars, never fizzling out… that will of fire Hashirama had always gone on about, as sure as the moon shining down from above. Somehow, too, was a warmth in her eyes like that which had once glowed in Izuna's gaze; the vivid, familial love Madara hadn't felt himself since he was impossibly young. It disarmed him: how long had it been since he had been regarded in this way?

Madara's frown deepened, subtly withdrawing from her a hair's breadth as he realised Sakura had no idea what he'd given up in standing with her here. She had been unconscious during that presented decision made by her side of the war, forcing Madara to choose between her and all he'd ever worked for. Sakura didn't know why he looked at her like he regretted his decision; didn't understand his distance, but even through her fears and doubts she'd persisted through anyway, driven forward with almost blind courage, persevering with that impossible, selfless will of undying love.

It rang true to him again, absorbing the sight she made standing bravely within his lethal reach. Sakura had no underhanded aims, no selfish goals or Allied-forces plans against him. She had no tricks up her sleeve, no final backstabbing truths to reveal, nothing but that final determination behind her eyes, that furious and selfless resolve to pull him fully from the dark into the light. Similarly to how he understood the truth of her intentions back when they had reunited at his Union headquarters, Madara understood her now, with everything on the line for either to lose and her selfless desire to save him inextinguishable in the face of it all.

Something aligned behind Madara's eyes as he stared her down then; a long-sought understanding arrived, long unwanted, long needed. With it resettled that rare feeling she'd finally earned with him in full, crested beneath his respect: a certain, hidden trust.

"Fool." His exhale was a cloud of steam that rose between them, shifting forward, and her breath joined his in a huff of cold night air as his voice brushed over her firelit features. Her pupils widened upon his face as she reread the shades of colour across his eyes — all in rich, affectionate hues, founding the touch of his large gloved hand folding around her cheek, drawing along her upturned features.

Sakura's eyes fluttered with the relief she couldn't hide. She was smiling a little, though the tears were falling freely down her cheeks now with the space drawing to a close between them, her own hands lifting along his chest and finding his face.

"That's you," she managed in a soft quip back, "maybe… both of us."

Her pale hands shivered around his even paler cheeks. Fingers paused beside mismatched eyes smouldering upon her with warmth reaching boundless depths, the last of his ice melting away.

Foreheads tilted together, eyes closing and exhales rising in a mingling rush of steam between their contrasting faces. They had but the single moment to taste again what it was to be one; without barriers, without doubt, and without regret.

His hand splayed across her cheek, her jaw, the side of her bloodied neck. Fingers drew slowly along her refined features, tilting down her chin, pausing beside her tear-streaked smile. No… regardless that he remained undecided on the future of the shinobi world, regardless of the war around them — this was not a decision that he regretted, though she was right. They were fools, the both of them.

The dual blurs of motion in Madara's peripheral vision had him tensing instantly, Sakura similarly breaking of his hold with her chained fists raised and eyes blazing with the fury of one tired of too many interruptions. She and Madara turned in unison, him with a staff already raised and Truth-Seeker orbs hovering in preparation to attack, the both of them restraining great power: hers beneath chains due to break, and his ready to unleash without pause, his glowing mismatched eyes burning through wintry darkness upon the one who dared approach him now.

As smoke swirled around the figure rising to his feet, Madara's mind was dually focused upon the other blur he had seen, the one that had soared over the battlefield just now with unnatural speed. Sasuke, outrunning them all in his quick reflexes and fast mobility, no doubt the reason he had been chosen to be what he was: the ultimate bait for the Union's cause, carrying not one, but two invaluable Rinnegans in his possession, the singular keys to unlocking Madara's great victory.

There were several quick-footed Union squads on his tail as Sasuke ripped through the air across the vast battlefield, the very best the cult had to offer doing their damndest to catch him. Even from here Madara could sense their vicious resolve to snare him and the Rinnegan, perhaps both, if they could rip the living one from his head. It only made sense: the Union didn't need their outnumbered army to win the brute fighting against the Allied side. They only needed to get a living Rinnegan to Madara so he could cast the jutsu at last — after which it would all be over.

Sasuke had his living Rinnegan eye, and Madara's damaged one, still. It had been clear even from a glimpse he was protecting it within his grip.

Regripping his staff with a grimace, Madara became more aware of the roar of the battle below in all of its madness: in his peripheral vision, he could see how the Union forces were evenly matched against their enemies, needing their powerful leader to help turn the tide. It wasn't too late. Sasuke was far faster than anyone in his army, probably stronger as well, but if Madara dove into the fight now there was a good chance he'd be able to defeat him and take both eyes for himself.

The eye. With his head turned towards the battlefield and eyes agleam, Madara ignored his visitor's cautious approach while Sakura was growling a warning at him, his thoughts hyper-focused on the hope that remained. Both, both choices yet still here.

Madara could feel Sakura now as she slid a hand over his arm, his name on her breath, though he didn't look away from the battlefield below. He was tracking where he'd seen Sasuke go last. While his trio of Union generals were directing their forces effectively to relieve struggling parts of his vast army, he could assume control of the chase he'd just witnessed and take down Sasuke easily. He could have thrilling — dangerous — memorable fights like some of the ones he'd tasted at the start of this war and finally make use of all of his godly Six Paths power. And he could take back his precious, century-old eye at long, long last; without losing the unexpectedly vital choice he'd already seized where she stood at his side, and while keeping his Infinite Tsukuyomi plan within reach, should he ultimately decide again that it was the correct fate for this accursed shinobi world.

It was only Sakura that had given him any pause in that decision, which was still not completely made. There was enough doubt deep within him now that he did not know if he would cast the Infinite Tsukuyomi right away after repossessing his long-lost eye.

Either way, he'd made one right choice, Madara knew as he glanced at Sakura beside him, his stare locking with her searching one before he looked back to the battlefield with fierce renewed interest. There was still ample opportunity to seize the other right choice as well.

Both. It felt so obvious now that he'd finally realised it. Both… and he'd worry again about deciding the fate of the world after he'd fully affirmed his possession of both precious assets.

"Madara." Recognising the visitor's voice, Madara turned, noticing how Sakura stood slightly in front of him with a protective stance as the both of them glared at Hashirama where he'd stopped nearby. His hands were raised in a placating gesture that was not a surrender, but a silent indication that he'd come without hostile intent.

Madara's eyes narrowed upon him, though he made no move to attack. Taking this as his acceptance to at least listen to what he had to say, Hashirama went on quickly, his stare switching briefly from Madara to Sakura; all three of them could sense the oncoming shinobi dashing towards them from below, having figured out where Madara had absconded. "My old friend: there is not time for the words I wish I could exchange with you; the both of you."

Sakura beside Madara had her teeth and fists clenched, her rage murderous even while her chakra was muted beneath her clinking chains. He was silently surprised at her show of hostility towards Hashirama as he went on, gesturing towards Sakura with a resolved set about his features while speaking directly to Madara. "Witnessing what I have now, I have come to understand that my initial judgement of you and the bond between the two of you was not correct. While I cannot be certain that you have fully turned against your Infinite Tsukuyomi plan, I can still offer you this from an old friend to an old friend: I will protect her for you. You chose her over yourself… and I intend to make sure that choice is honoured. No further harm will befall her from either side; nor," Sakura's features twitched with anger as Hashirama's dark eyes shifted to her, "from herself."

"I don't need you to protect me!" Sakura snarled. She bristled, throwing her fists forward in a frustrated gesture. The chains around her wrists and ankles glowed slightly as they suppressed the spike of monstrous power beneath her skin. "You bastard. You put me under that awful genjutsu — I can't trust you! Neither of us can trust you!"

Madara's own mistrustful expression as he regarded Hashirama eased somewhat. He stood taller, and felt Sakura glancing at him as she read in the both of their faces a mutual understanding: Hashirama meant his promise, one he made from his heart. It was an extension of something akin to an apology and familial love for his old friend.

The roars of approaching shinobi rose high into the night air. Madara stood back, giving Hashirama a single nod.

His mismatched eyes flashed in the light as he shifted his heavy attention to Sakura, glowing through the darkness with unwavering intensity while she spoke to him urgently. "Madara… please don't listen to him. I don't need protecting and you know that. Break these chains and I'll fight beside you. I won't let anyone hurt the other: I'm going to stop this war just yet. And I need to tell you. I have—"

His answer was to disappear in a flash, the air swirling in the space he'd been, Sakura stumbling backwards as a stone projectile destroyed the ground he'd been in moments before. She cursed as a group of flitting black shadows raced past, and when she craned her head she could see the monochromatic slash of power Madara was as he seared back down into the battlefield.

"No," Sakura shouted, lurching towards the edge of the wood-tangled mountaintop, straining against her chains with rising fury. Hashirama had stepped up beside her, his powerful shield of branches stopping any further attacks from either side's soldiers from nearing Sakura where she screamed out over the great cliff's edge. Her voice rang out over the fray of battling thousands below. "No! Madara, wait!"