Sakura splashed herself in the face. Her skin was a crabby red from the scalding water pouring out from the bathroom faucet. Once, twice, three times, and she washed out her mouth again and again, scrubbing at her cheeks. Drenched, she stuck her tongue out at her reflection, scrubbing that too while shaking her head at herself.
Her mood was not improved by her other compounding problems. Sakura took a nearby hand towel and rubbed her scowl dry, still irate even just from the unfortunate conversation she'd endured earlier in the hour. This small village's equivalent of its political secretary had been not only rude and judgemental of Sakura's ruffled appearance, but had insisted she cannot speak with the village leader until tomorrow in the late morning, as his schedule was busy.
Too busy to speak with essentially the warfront's envoy, carrying out a vital mission to save everyone's skins. Sakura shoved the towel across the rest of her face, ceaselessly frustrated. No doubt, she looked every bit like an exhausted, grouchy, inexperienced young kunoichi in these rural civilians' eyes. They already had little interest in the information that she insisted was valuable, no matter what she said. People in the streets stared suspiciously, virtually unapproachable; no one took heed of Sakura's repeated warnings that their lives were in danger.
Sakura grumbled to herself, switching off the sink. She didn't need to look at the mirror to know she looked like a drowned rat. Turning from it to switch on the cheap, calcium-encrusted little shower beside the dingy sink, she let out a long-suffering sigh, supposing she should be grateful that there had been a room available for her in the single inn here. Though, she thought as her scowl deepened, she had a feeling they'd charged her double the normal rate, her bag now empty of what ryo she'd had. Her hand ghosted along her pockets, remembering unwelcome fingers digging through their paltry contents.
Awaiting the spray of shower water in its patient quest to heat up, Sakura shut her eyes, the memories of what had been her unfortunate first ever kiss continuing to replay in the back of her head.
Goosebumps shivered down her skin, and she shot a hand into the shower spray, testing. Ice-cold. She exhaled shortly, shaking her head; swallowing her irritation, she set about pulling off her dirt, blood and sawdust-coated clothes.
Her features wrung with anger as she pushed away pantlegs and peeled at bandages, kicking her joggers aside and continuing to undress. Sakura supposed, in the most positive way of looking at her situation, that she should be at least somewhat pleased with her victories; she had made a successful escape, after all. Even if having to wait to raise the official warning with this village's leader was idiotic at best, she'd done everything she could and warned whatever people would listen, though none had taken her seriously.
Sakura paused as her fingers drew along her chest-bindings. Her movements slowed; she unbound herself carefully. She caught the little bandaged bundle with a grimace as it fell from between her freed breasts, her bindings falling away to the pile of the rest of her clothes on the floor. Cradling the eye in her palm, Sakura rubbed at the inexplicable dusting of pink across her cheeks, remembering Madara's fruitless search of her pockets.
Setting the eye aside, Sakura stepped abruptly into the boiling hot spray of the shower, eager to wash him out of her head. Her skin turned a brighter red as she scrubbed herself raw in further futile effort to cleanse herself of today, her thoughts turning back towards her frustration with this village. It was so important that she warn them immediately… but she had to obey the rules of this village and be respectful, or they'd throw her out without any regard to what she had to say. Sakura had no official missive from her village to back her. No Anbu tattoo to give her visible credibility… no jonin ninja along to support her, and no reputation of her own that had spread this far either. She was an unknown, and what made it worse was that due to the strifes of war and fighting, she didn't have her Konoha headband. To this village and its people, Sakura was nothing but a loud-mouthed stranger who claimed her time was important enough to merit waking the leader and taking time outside of his "busy" schedule to meet.
Sakura continued to scowl as she wrung out her damp hair, the strands a magenta hue as they dripped with the scalding water. Whatever; she would do her best to prepare these people before she moved on from this village eventually. It would likely be even more frustrating trying to warn other villages without any official backing from Konoha or the war higher-ups themselves, or even Naruto, who had become rather famous. Sakura's fingers snagged out a small clump of hair as she thought of her teammates, missing them fiercely.
She consciously unclenched her teeth, trying to relax a little, but found it impossible to loosen the tension that held taut through the whole of her body. Sakura was like a wooden mannequin as she stiffly exited the shower, her shoulders hunched, her fists flexing, her every muscle knotted and tense as she towelled off and trotted into the tiny bedroom that was the rest of the tiny suite. Even if it weren't for all of the additional frustrations this village had wrought her, Sakura would be simmering in tension anyway, her earlier struggle with Madara sketched eternally across her mind's eye.
Dropping the towel, Sakura collapsed onto the single futon. Shoving a pillow over her face, she ran mental fingers over her newest memories, etching themselves once more across the living canvas of her consciousness. Habit had her memorising every moment, knowing she would have to summarise it for an official report later; she tucked the seams of each capricious, terse experience into her thoughts no matter how much they barbed her emotions, hunching against herself.
Gods. Sakura covered her face with both hands. She'd kissed her enemy. Madara's bewildered expression warmed her mind's eye, and she shoved the image away, pushing her face deeper into her pillow with a flush about her cheeks.
But I escaped, she reminded herself, and she tried to relax, sighing into rough-hewn fabric. Her idiotic ploy had actually worked. She had drawn an effective enough stunned reaction out of Madara that he had hesitated long enough for her to make her getaway. Sakura bit her slight smile, letting herself enjoy the hint of smug satisfaction that warmed her expression — she'd flummoxed a powerful shinobi with a basic trick.
Turning over, Sakura pondered Madara's reaction. Though she knew little of him, she could easily tell that he was not one that was easily surprised. The success of her foisted kiss was not a small one. It had bought her the precious second chance she needed to continue her mission, so she couldn't fault herself too heavily for having done it, no matter how much it had initially mortified her.
She stared at the wall, caught between proud and embarrassed. Considering the nature of Madara's dark history and frightening personality, she found herself certain that no one had tried a trick of that nature on him before. He probably hadn't even considered it as a possibility, or had at least assumed she'd never dare try something so backwards in order to gain her chance.
Either way, Sakura scowled to herself once more, her first kiss should not have been with Madara. She rubbed at her face, annoyed, thinking of ways she might disguise the truth of that encounter when she inevitably had to report it later. She certainly wouldn't count it in her mind as her true first, which she had long promised herself would be with Sasuke someday.
Creaks outside the high latticed windows of the little inn suite, and Sakura stared up at the dim matte light of the moon, swallowing. It was only the wind in the trees — the rain of a new storm, pattering muffled against the thatched roof, but her heart kicked up in pace anyway. Her hand traced over her mouth, remembering; she shut her eyes, releasing a slow breath.
She'd gotten her second chance. It was worth that, in the least. It was worth preventing all that Madara would take away from her; all that she would do her damndest to prevent him from destroying.
Her shoulders relaxing somewhat, Sakura lifted the pillow away, stretching out upon the futon. She turned her head, looking out at the streaks of gentle early-summer rain and listening to its ambient night song; she pressed her lips into her palm, still able to taste a warm hint of smoke.
Groaning, Sakura shoved the pillow back over her face.
Pink hair fell around Sakura's face, green eyes ignited with worry. "What news?" she asked Katsuyu where she perched before her, steepled fingers twitching nervously. "How are they doing? Did you get to talk to them? Are they all right?"
"They're asking the same of you," Katsuyu answered, and Sakura sank back against the futon in relief. They were alive, and relief tingled pleasantly through her limbs. For a moment, the terrible images of her teammates' mangled bodies left her mind, leaving her with an almost placid calm that was soon broken. "They are alive, but not well."
Sakura stiffened. Katsuyu's voice remained neutral, though she could hear the grim edges around her tone. "Kakashi is gravely injured, as is Sasuke. Naruto has also sustained serious injuries, though he insists he is fine." Her eyestalks waved as Sakura hunched where she sat, clasping her hands together so tightly that her knuckles went white. "Don't fear. I was able to dispatch a number of my clones to their location, and we are healing them as you and I speak. Tsunade is also doing much better thanks to some… unexpected assistance we received, and she should be able to give them additional healing once she is back on her feet."
Katsuyu observed Sakura quietly as she slowly relaxed for the second time. Her hands broke apart to ease over her sweaty forehead, her slow exhale indicating her returned sense of thin calm.
Turning around in a slimy circle upon the cushion Sakura had provided for her, Katsuyu let Sakura absorb her words a moment longer, settling upon a particularly comfortable spot. "May I continue?"
Sakura nodded, pressing her folded hands against her mouth. As she waited in an intense silence, Katsuyu was reminded sharply of Tsunade; Sakura wore the same troubled expression, her gaze just as intelligent and sharp, her shoulders toned and strong in the dim light of the early morning sun. Though smaller in stature and with different hair, she was still Tsunade's spitting image in every other way.
Her voice warmed somewhat as she gave Sakura the rest of her news. "Sasuke's Rinnegan was damaged during their battle, by Naruto." Sakura frowned as Katsuyu added, "Kakashi tells me it was their plan to preserve their lives, should the battle drag on to a point that was getting too deadly… or if Madara was getting too close to stealing his eye successfully."
Sakura grimaced. Her face was the same shade as the pale morning sun as she looked away, casting her troubled gaze to the high windows of the dusty inn room. She closed her eyes, exhaling softly through her nose.
Katsuyu sat up a little taller. "They were right to place their trust in you and your mission."
Sakura's frown only deepened with Katsuyu's encouragement. "Thanks to you carrying out your mission, Madara was forced to depart the battlefield when your teammates played their part; as he came after you, myself and Tsunade had the chance we needed to save each of their lives." She eyed Sakura earnestly. "I'm so glad to see that you got away in one piece."
"Yeah, well, I guess I did," Sakura answered shortly, tilting her head on her hand; she glanced back at Katsuyu with a knot between her brows. "How badly is Sasuke's Rinnegan damaged?"
"About as badly as the eye you currently have. He and the rest of your team trust your ability to heal it, once you can be reunited."
Troubled, Sakura tapped her fingers over her mouth, weighed down with uneasiness. It really was all down to her, now. Her, and her increasingly complicated plan for this mission to succeed. The pressure of it all was already beginning to stifle her, and Sakura adjusted her shirt, resettling uncomfortably where she sat.
"Where is Madara now?" Katsuyu asked, and Sakura's shadowed eyes flicked to her, her pupils dilating. "I… don't know," she said, "but he'll be here soon, I'm sure. Looking for me."
Katsuyu was silent. Though she did not have the kind of countenance to express a wide range of emotion, Sakura could sense her tension and worry. "I should inform you," Katsuyu said neutrally, "Tsunade expects your full mission report. You could give it to me now and I can tell her post-haste."
"No," Sakura answered quickly, getting to her feet, "thank you, but I'll wait until I can tell her in person. It's… it's a lot," she excused herself, "and I have an appointment soon to talk with this village's leader. I'm trying to warn them about Madara's inevitable arrival. I'm recommending they make a full evacuation, if they won't want to follow my other plan."
Katsuyu's gray eyes widened. "We're all worried about you, Sakura. And very curious how you've fared this well so far —" she caught herself, "with no offense meant. Madara is just a very difficult enemy." She held Sakura's eye, guilt expressed in her waving eyestalks. "How can I assist in your plan? Do you have the time to tell me about it? Maybe we can offer some advice?"
Sakura pulled on her gloves, tilting her head to glance down at Katsuyu with a confident smile. "Don't worry; no offense taken." She pulled on her sandals and waved as she dismissed Katsuyu. "Tell my teammates to rest easy. I can handle this."
Her hastily-planned speech finished, Sakura leaned forward where she knelt on a mat, green eyes aglint with deadly seriousness. The village leader sitting across from her was frowning over the cup of tea he held, the crinkles around his face deepening as he processed all that she'd said.
He wasn't a particularly sightly man. Sakura kept all hints of her already deep dislike of this village's figurehead to herself, hidden behind her friendly mask. Ito Daichi was all the things a leader should not be; a self-important narcissist, insisting upon royal treatment, though the village he led was both largely unknown and quite small. The hall he sat in day and night was decorated and lush for what his village could scrape together to afford. Surrounding homes were humble, with thatched roofs and patchy walls. Ito was leagues away from the power and importance of any Kage, and his resent of that was obvious in every word and action he made; in the flowery, relatively pricy robes he wore, and in the well-fed roundness of his face, which was a stark contrast to the skinny citizens living hard lives in the streets.
He had interrupted Sakura constantly while she'd explained everything, inserting comments about his own merits or lamenting the time, though it was his interruptions that had pushed their meeting past an hour. While Ito lacked the observation skills to see the subtle frustration that was building into rage beneath Sakura's polite demeanour, Sakura was getting more and more abrupt in her words, the constant wasted seconds increasing her tension exponentially the longer she sat with him in this stuffy, over-decorated village hall.
Ito set his cup of tea down on the small side table hard enough that it splashed onto the wood. "And you led this… undead, over-powered, jinchūriki Uchiha Madara directly to my village?!"
Sakura opened her mouth to speak, but Ito was already full-steam into his tirade. "I thought you Konoha shinobi were supposed to be smart, as ridiculously expensive as you are to hire. With all that whiney nonsense about 'saving the shinobi world' and important whatever plans you made, you're supposed to help citizens like us, aren't you?! That's been your 'noble' goal since even before the war?" He was nearly frothing, brandishing his sausage hands, Sakura unable to help but to notice his lack of calluses. "And now you've doomed every one of us. From the way you described this demon of a man, he's undefeatable. I don't have shinobi like your village does. This is a modest farming village. We'll be trampled to dust, thanks to your ignorance, and—"
"Madara may be a ruthless, heartless, conniving villain," Sakura replied as cooly as she could, picking up her own small cup of tea, "but he's not an unintelligent enemy; and this, we can actually use against him. Should we have to enact the things I spoke with you about doing, I —"
Ito dramatically slammed both fists on the table, rattling it slightly. "I haven't agreed to your little plan. Who says I have to harbour or protect you? It's already a huge danger to have you here at all. You're such a big risk that I'm going to be demanding quite the compensation from your precious Konoha, at least at the jonin price."
As Sakura opened her mouth to correct him, the village hall trembled with the noise of shouts and screams coming from outside. They looked to the distant doors with opposite expressions: Ito's slack look of fear versus Sakura's fierce scowl, the cup shattering in her hand.
Madara found that he need not do a thing in order to intimidate the whole village into submission. His stride through the heart of the town accomplished plenty.
Confidence rippled off of his jagged silhouette as he glared out across the streets. He knew the picture he made to these helpless civilians: the merciless god Sakura no doubt warned them of, his distinct Six Paths robes billowing around his stride, untamed mane a shifting mess of white down his shoulders and back. His aura of pure, sinister strength was visible even to the blind.
Powerful mismatched eyes swept boredly across the plain little village and its pitifully-constructed thatched buildings, the latent knowledge that one twitch of his finger would utterly decimate it all just a thought away beneath his stare.
Madara smirked to himself as he advanced through the panicking village, fingers flexing restlessly in his gloves. He was strength without weakness, and he was also death walking, missing only his old scythe from his past life. He was long used to being feared before his decades underground, and it was pleasant to be reacquainted with the feeling.
Power emanated from his sunlit stride, a frisson of dread shivering through the air that spread like a poison cloud. The sight of him alone effectively terrified civilians in all directions. Children screamed and cried, pulled by wailing mothers that stumbled away down side-streets. Working men gasped and ran, not a single half-competent shinobi in sight; not even a visible pretender, no vested jonin, chuunin or genin springing out to defend their home.
Madara blinked at the now-empty main street, annoyed. He swatted away a wasp, already bored. It would be entertaining, should someone with an iota of strength stand up to his arrival, but they were all being tiringly complaint by fleeing instead. He wondered if everyone competent in the rest of the nation in general had already been decimated in the battlefields he had so recently left behind.
Flashes from the fight against "Team Seven" and his recent conflicts with Sakura kept Madara somewhat entertained as he continued forward, the recollections dancing in his mind's eye as he was thoroughly bored by his surroundings, the slight satisfaction of the civilians' fear already fading away.
Madara stopped in front of the little hall that served as the village's heart, arms folded. He frowned, sensing a chakra presence nearby that could only be hers.
He tapped his fingers along his arms as his eyes narrowed upon the shut door. He noticed the scribbled warnings upon the posters and community notes posted upon its surface, fresh ink only recently dried, warning of Madara's approach; he snorted, taking note of Sakura's handwriting. It appeared that her warnings had gone entirely unheeded, as the occupants of this village had been going about their normal routines when Madara had finally made his unhurried arrival.
But why had she had remained in this nearby village for this long? He would have expected any intelligent kunoichi or shinobi alike in her situation to travel much further before daring to rest, no matter their exhaustion. Had she lingered with some notion that she could hide herself in disguise as a civilian? No costume would hide the detectable sense of a chakra-user among all these civilians, no matter how contrived.
Madara shook his head as he pushed the hall doors open, stepping into the shadowy interior and glancing around once at the empty and unremarkable main area. She was somewhere around here… she would be easy to track, even just based on the fact that no one else with any real presence or power was around.
Noticing a sliding door to a side-room that was slightly ajar, Madara let out a weary sigh, pushing it all the way open. He easily shifted the makeshift blockade of a wooden dresser out of the way, revealing the figure cowering on the floor.
"Don't kill me," Ito begged, hands over his bowed head. "Please don't kill me. I didn't do anything wrong. I swear it."
"You are harbouring two things I need." Madara leaned against the doorway as Ito shook his head vigorously, sweat covering his forehead. "No! No I — well I —"
Madara waited another moment, letting Ito tremble in his reeking fear for another moment; his pause was enough, as what he understood as this tiny village's pathetic leader cowered a little lower to the floor. Shiny, expensive robes shivered around the man's untrimmed figure, a high contrast to the wiry, unfed civilians hiding somewhere in the streets beyond the hall.
"She's in a safe room downstairs," he simpered, Madara grimacing from the man's sheer, obvious weakness. "She's there. I swear to you. There's a secret door behind my throne in the hall."
"Hmm. That was easy." Madara turned from him, glad to leave the coward behind so soon and striding towards the heart of the hall. He glanced over the "throne" of cushions and poorly-crafted wood to see the trapdoor.
No seals. No jutsu traps. Not even a lock, and Madara tugged it open with a frown, seeing the dark of a hidden room below. He could sense his runaway kunoichi's presence more clearly now, and Madara was almost disappointed. Would it really be this easy?
He leapt down into the darkness, his wild white hair falling in a jagged cloak around his shoulders as he landed silently. Standing to his full height, Madara's sharp, slightly luminescent eyes burned through the dark, searching.
He heard a sharp intake of breath upon his arrival, and he stood taller with a victorious twist about the corner of his lips. A familiar voice emerged from across the darkness with a sigh. "He gave up my location already?"
Madara smirked, folding his arms. "It was hardly a challenge to find you. Is this your idea of hiding?" Striding forward, Madara had Sakura by the throat in a flash, pressing her against the wall in the blackness. Glancing to the side, he cast a flame from his other hand to an unlit wall sconce; it lit the cellar room in a deep amber, revealing several half-empty wine racks with loud labels declaring Ito Daichi, a clutter of crates, and a lot of dust covering everything but for the figure he'd ensnared in his grip against the dirt wall.
Sakura was smiling when Madara returned his attention to her. She watched as his smug look faltered, sundering gradually into a scowl.
"What?" she asked, her lips quirking into a smug look of her own, "you look disappointed. What's wrong? You've found me." She gripped the wrist of the hand that he had around her throat, heart pounding beneath his gloved fingers.
Madara's grip tightened as he loomed over her, his stare glinting dangerously in the firelight. "Watch your tongue." He tilted her face, fingers digging into her skin. "I will make you pay for all of this wasted time."
Sakura's eyes widened innocently as sarcasm laced her saccharine tone. "What are you talking about? Here I am, helplessly caught and cornered." She emphasised her trapped state, struggling briefly under Madara's iron grip.
Madara snorted. "Do not think you've won with such an amateur trick."
"I succeeded with the last one I pulled," she bit back with an unapologetic half-smile.
Madara's pupils dilated slightly as Sakura made a dry, half-choked laugh, gripping his wrist with both hands. "You should have seen the look on your face."
"Such a move will never work on me again, kunoichi." Madara's expression was harsh in the inconstant firelight, and Sakura huffed, both of her hands seizing the front of his robes as she shoved at him. "The name's Sakura, bastard."
"Die, clone," he thundered. She was gone in a plume of steam, his gripping hand around her neck collapsing into a fist as she disappeared. Madara turned, pulling back up into the main hall and leaving the cellar room behind. His gait was quick as he crossed the hall to the side-room where the gibbering fool had been hiding. Seeing that the room was empty, he followed the reeking scents of fear to the outside, shoving the main doors open. The frame cracked from the force of Madara shoving his way through.
He caught up to the half-jogging coward Ito in less than a second. He had gotten a block and a half away, zig-zagging wall to wall and gasping for breath.
Madara had him beneath a boot in a flash, crushed against the dirt. Flowery robes and golden stitches tore in their seams as he leaned his weight down against him, the heel of his boot digging into Ito's side; Madara was already out of patience, not a scrap of mercy so much as crossing his subconscious as he spoke. "Now tell me where her original is, before I flatten you into a pile of quivering viscera."
"Oh gods, oh please don't kill me. Please, sir, Lord Uchiha, she's, she's at the, she's… well, I… she's…"
"Let me remind you," Madara growled, the heel of his boot scraping through ruined fabric to dig into the side of Ito's swelling jaw, "that if you lie to me again, you will become nothing but an insignificant pile of gore. I will make sure your suffering is drawn-out so that you might remember it in the afterlife." Madara's deep voice echoed in circles through the alleyway, fading into the shadows, the sun unable to touch his jagged silhouette as he loomed effectively. He twisted his boot, Ito making a pitiful wail in response, squirming in his dribble and sweat and torn expensive robes.
"I promise," Ito gasped, "Promise I'm being honest — she's — she's in the mine," he blubbered. "She's in the abandoned mine — east of — here, and she's the real thing, I — I swear, and please don't kill—"
"Good." Madara wasted no more time, kicking off from the coward's prone body and towards the east. He was deaf to the simpering he was leaving behind, utterly intent upon hunting down the increasingly elusive and annoying kunoichi before she got further away from him.
Madara stood over the vaguely square mine shaft, peering down into the utter darkness with a scowl.
Around where he stood, old wooden beams creaked and groaned, holding up their dusty, no longer maintained frames. Ropes swung loosely from unsecured supports; loose sand and dirt fell in fine silt from the roughly-cut rock ceilings above his head. A fine layer of dust kicked up around Madara's boots.
He brushed off his gloves, glaring down into the fathomless depths.
How annoying. Madara grimaced. He had no desire to wander unstable, abandoned mining tunnels. He glanced once at the ropes leading down the precarious edge into the void, dismissing the idea immediately; he doubted the girl had used them either, considering their advanced age and lack of stability.
Madara hesitated no longer, becoming a blur of black and white as he leapt down into the darkness.
He landed with a hard thud upon loose rocks and mining equipment after falling a greater distance than he'd expected. Shaking off the minor injuries he took from the drop, Madara stood, his hands and feet steaming slightly as he looked around.
It appeared that though abandoned for years, this mine had once been prosperous and busy. A variety of tunnels were dug into several directions; tracks for mine carts followed each one, twisting and winding in a maze of paths. He wondered how extensive this network might be; did it lead far enough that it connected to other villages?
Madara's knowledge of the region told him that wasn't possible. This village was remote, having become so insignificant now that it wasn't mentioned on most commonly available maps even during the time that he was last alive. Its dilapidated state indicated that the death of its mine was the loss of its fortunes, putting it into its modern obscurity; there was no way it had grown enough at any point to connect to other villages, or it might have had a chance to stay open and profitable.
It was another dead-end that Sakura had put herself in. Madara cracked his knuckles as he advanced forward, choosing one direction and sending Limbo clones into the others. For the sake of recovering his other Rinnegan and casting the Infinite Tsukuyomi, he could be patient. He would take enjoyment from hunting this annoying little kunoichi; he would enjoy watching her smugness fade as he beat her at her own game.
Stepping back and brushing off her gloves, Sakura watched the ceiling tumble in from between the broken supports crossing above her. Rocks in every size from pebbles to boulders tumbled downwards, thoroughly walling off the one way to leave this dead end. She was perfectly still where she stood in the center of the dead end room; she only began to relax when the flow of rock slowed, turning into a hissing trickle that calmed into the groaning of settling rocks. She was truly trapped, now.
Sakura turned from the cave-in, her heart beating hard against her ribs. She closed her eyes in the darkness, taking in a careful breath of cold air. This dead-end was now a room, being the end of a long track surrounded by nearby tunnel systems; its wooden supports that were still intact held strong, reinforced by steel joints.
Backing up against one of the walls, Sakura released a dusty, shaky exhale. Willing her nerves to be soothed, she pressed a hand over her pounding heart, swallowing the fears that churned in the back of her throat.
She strained her ears to listen. The walls between her caved-in room and the other areas were relatively thin and barely holding up. There were slight gaps in the rock and wood of the wall behind her, letting her feel the air currents in the tunnel beyond, allowing her to sense any approaches well before they were made.
Sakura steeled herself, biting back her anxiety. She needed to tread carefully here; she needed to keep quiet.
She tensed as a stream of dirt fell from above her, sprinkling over her face and front. She clapped a hand over her nose and mouth, fighting back the instinctual need to sneeze. Exhaling slowly, Sakura willed the feeling to fade; her lungs tickled, and she seized up, refusing to cough. No. She must be silent.
She could feel the slightest shifts in the air currents nearby, could hear the distant slight crunching of rocks disturbed, of tunnels traversed. Her pulse thundering between her ears, Sakura leaned back against the wall, successfully fighting off the urge to sneeze. She held her breath, her skin tingling, goosebumps dancing down her body in a telltale warning.
Sakura's eyes flew wide open as she felt warmth somewhere behind her through the fine gaps in the wall. She continued to hold perfectly still, but she already knew.
"Don't move," she said quickly. She sensed Madara's pause. "Do anything, and I'll completely destroy the eye." She held out her fist, knowing he could not see her through the walls in her enclosed room, but that he would understand the sincerity of her threat.
The eyeball oozed beneath her vice grip. "You can sense it, right? Can you feel how weak it is? It needs to be restored soon, or it will disintegrate on its own. It's so damaged at this point that I wouldn't be surprised if you couldn't feel it at all."
Madara's disbelieving, mocking laugh made Sakura shiver in response. She could feel his presence where he stood just opposite of her, the rock wall the one barrier between them. "You are not in a position to make demands."
Sakura tilted her head back against the wall with a hidden smile. "You won't be able to get to me before I crush it and finish it off. Not without being crushed yourself."
"I am not worried about the mine caving in."
"You should be," Sakura answered; her eyes strayed to the collapse that blocked her into this dead-end. Madara snorted from where he stood behind her, his voice slightly muffled through the rock wall. "It was your choice to endanger yourself by coming down here, your own stupidity that trapped you in a dead-end. Do not pretend that this is your heroic self-sacrifice, your noble little last stand. Your attempt at blackmail does not impress me."
"Well," Sakura answered evenly, folding her arms, "As soon as you try anything, I'm crushing this Rinnegan. I see no value in it… I'm not the one who needs it so badly." She glared at it, blood seeping from between her fingers; the deep amber light of the weak firelight caught in its warped metallic rings. "The only one who truly loses here is you. I'm happy to die for my team—" Sakura inhaled steadily, determination tensing across her shoulders, her blood racing hot in her veins. "I would gladly die for all of them. I'll be elated to die if it means the deaths of your cursed Rinnegan and all your hopes for the Infinite Tsukuyomi. And maybe," she laughed bitterly, tilting her head back against the rock wall, "Maybe if I'm lucky, my death will bring about yours, too."
She heard the creak of gloved fists and sucked in a breath before pitching forward, gripping the eyeball in her palm harder. More ooze dripped from between her knuckles. "Don't resort to destruction. Do you know no other way? Do you have no intelligence or finesse but brute strength? You must have noticed that all the remaining walls in this dead-end are load-bearing." Her words flowed out on unsteady, nervous breaths, mortal fear yanking at her heartstrings. "If you punch through a wall to get to me, everything collapses on us both, and my wishes come true. I'm dead. You're dead. Everything's done with. The whole war will be over."
Silence, and Sakura got to her feet, awaiting Madara's decision. Her pulse throbbed painfully. Adrenaline surged through her body in an addictive rush, and she tried to even out her shallow breaths, wanting to think clearly. She was prepared to die, but she knew Madara wasn't stupid — he was battle-honed and determined, sharp as a blade and stronger than one. This was a gamble she knew she could take.
Sakura nearly jumped out of her skin upon hearing Madara's deep rumble through the rock wall behind her, his ire seething in the depths of his tone. "You are a fool to imperil yourself just to inconvenience me."
"Maybe." Sakura put the ruined Rinnegan back in its place, running her palm over her sweaty forehead and through her dirt-streaked pink strands. "Wasting more time is on you, now. The longer you take, the more your precious Rinnegan is imperilled." Her confident voice made the dust rise and swirl through the gaps in the stone wall between them.
She heard Madara shift where he stood in the tunnel behind the wall, boots scraping through loose gravel; she could sense frightening power or perhaps just anger emanating from his presence. Sakura tensed with instinctive fear, yet held back an absurd laugh — there was something that delighted her about enraging Madara, like the twisted joy of a matador. She was flashing her flag before the furious bull and dancing out of the way just before getting impaled. Riding upon the thrills of danger, she was driven to another end where she knew she could die any second, her conviction and her ferocity brought to heel in a fiery mix of adrenaline and intense resolve.
Sakura bit her lip as she heard robes shifting, bracing herself. She was terrified by the fact that she'd thrown her fate into Madara's ruthless hands. What could he possibly do to get her out of here in one piece now? They were miles below ground, so if he did cause a collapse, he couldn't just pull the two of them back up to the surface in time. There was too much earth between this underground stretch of tunnels and the surface. What might the machinations of his mind decide?
Sakura pressed her hand lightly over her chest, closing her eyes. Trusting her own conviction, she waited in silence, her heart ever-pounding. A knowing smile remained upon her pale lips.
Green eyes opened wide as the world around Sakura trembled.
It shook like a frightened animal from floor to ceiling before the thundering started. The groans of earth vibrated around her, the sounds of vast chunks of rock giving way, and Sakura tried to stay standing from the earthquake of force with a gasping curse, having not expected destruction to be Madara's answer. She didn't have a chance to exclaim as the wall behind her exploded outwards, her breath sucked back in through her mouth as she was wrenched backwards, thrown bodily through falling debris and cracked rocks into darkness. She pulled her arms protectively over her head as she hurtled and rolled through destruction, a pair of gripping hands tight around her — she was slammed roughly into rocky earth, head down, the thundering of the world a deafening roar in every direction. Darkness swallowed her just as thoroughly as the massive cave-in did.
Breathing hard, Sakura realised she was caught between two hard surfaces; first, the cold rocks beneath her, and secondly the body pressed against her back, caging her in against the ground. She turned her head against gravel and hissing sand, her wide-eyed gaze reflecting ethereal blue from the unnatural light shimmering all around her.
Locks of white falling around the sides of her face partially obscured her view of huge ribs that curved over where she lay. The Susano'o was acting as a shield against the ongoing avalanche of earth and stone collapsing in all directions, holding strong beneath the force of tons of earth thundering down.
Her heart climbed into her throat as Madara's snarl grazed her ear. "Damn you…" Sakura exhaled harshly through her teeth as his gloved hand shoved her down harder into the rocks. Sweat was like a dew along her back where heat burned between their pinned figures, her skin prickling from the weight of his glare. "...another waste of time."
Sakura turned her face, meeting his furious stare with a half-smile. "I win again."
"Is this all a game to you?" She bit down on her teeth as Madara regripped her, kneeing her harder into the rocks. "It is not, to me."
She yelped as he flipped her roughly, her back scraping the jagged stones. Her pained grimace reset as green fires burned in her eyes, and the rush of adrenaline that seared through her wrought the grin that she aimed at Madara, not a trace of fear in her expression. Beyond his scowling countenance and glowing eyes, she could see the Susano'o skeleton much more clearly, its glow painting Madara a deep teal through the shadows. Streams of fine earth still fell through, but it kept the mass of the cave-in from crushing where two of them lay beneath it.
Sakura's attention returned to Madara's face. His lips were pulled back in a snarl; his teeth and unnatural eyes glinted in the ethereal light. Her heart thudded in response to the whole of the deadly situation, that sharp, spiked feeling of mortal thrills smouldering in her veins; she wondered in the back of her mind if she was a little drunk on her victory or perhaps just insane as she found Madara unexpectedly attractive.
Definitely insane, she decided with a gasp as he pressed her harder against the jagged rocks at her back, turning her face with bruising fingers and forcing her to hold his furious stare. "Only an idiot would think they've won here. You've merely distracted me an insignificant amount of time longer. Soon… you will taste regret for this."
"If you can find me," Sakura managed, the weight of Madara's body making it hard for her to breathe, "if you even escape this place." She grinned wider, her expression laced with a kind of madness not dissimilar to Madara's.
He scoffed. "A bit of dirt is hardly a threat to me." The world around them shuddered in answer, more streams of earth and sand falling from above where glowing bones caged them in.
Sakura shifted beneath Madara with her knees around his sides, allowing her to breathe more easily where he pinned her down; she boldly held his stare, blinking away white strands falling from his mane. "I'm not afraid of you either way, bastard. You can't scare me with your lofty threats."
"I noticed that," Madara growled. He narrowed his mismatched eyes upon her as she challengingly held his gaze. He resisted the temptation to throw her into torturous genjutsu, knowing that she would only disappear – this damned clone was as useless to him as the last one had been, and the amount of time that had passed made him all the more angry. The whole point of her charade had been to win her original self more time to escape.
Her captive Rinnegan hidden somewhere on her person beneath him was also no doubt some clone, a transformed useless bit of junk. I wouldn't be surprised if you couldn't feel it at all. He recalled her mocking words from earlier, his scowl deepening, and he was tempted to strike down this clone here and now, to end this little struggle and find his way out of this disastrous cave-in.
Madara stayed his hand as Sakura shifted again under where he pinned her. Her brows twitched as her hands didn't seem to know where to go. In an unintentional orchestration of hesitance, they hovered around his sides, patted along her own, then lifted to his broad shoulders, resting lightly across the wide lapels of his robe. Her gaze slid back to his, and he arched a brow.
Sakura blinked a few times. Madara bit back a smile as she removed her hands from around his shoulders like she'd been burned; her knees squeezed around his sides, and she flushed red, seeming to realise that the way she was pinned was compromising. Reminded of their last encounter, Madara's smirk deepened. Sakura turned a deeper shade of scarlet, no doubt thinking of the same thing.
She recognised belatedly that Madara's anger had warmed into his current amusement at her embarrassment, and she glowered up at him. Her expression shifted into tight dislike, ever-fearless regardless of her position. The world continued to tremble around them both, Madara having to adjust his grip on Sakura as the earth shook beneath their weight; the two of them continued to ignore the ongoing cave-in, staring the other down.
Some of Madara's smugness dissipated as he decided he didn't like her lack of fear or respect. She had been visibly terrified by him once; what had changed her perspective?
Madara's extended pause had Sakura beginning to wriggle uncomfortably, having expected him to kill her by now. Observing her discomfiture, he watched it progress in an extended silence, staying still where he held her down but for the air currents whipping his silver-white hair around the both of their faces. The collapsing mine groaned as it buckled down further around the protective Susano'o; streams of dirt hissed around their heads where earth pushed from beneath the glowing ribcage. Cold, dusty air swirled between them, doing little to cool the angry red flush across Sakura's pinched features.
Madara shifted experimentally closer, Sakura's uncertain hands shoving against his chest in reaction. He was unmoveable, and her fingers seized in his robe. Her eyes widened upon his face; her uneasiness grew with his increasing proximity.
Was that fear beginning to spark behind her brave facade? Madara shifted his fingers from her chin to her cheek, forcibly tilting her face so she had to keep holding his eyes as she tried to look away.
He was interested in finding what would throw off this feisty kunoichi. Her fear would be a useful tool to use against her. He wanted whatever advantage he could get in their future encounters; he wanted information to manipulate her with, and her expressive reactions told him more than she probably knew. With this in mind, Madara observed Sakura with keen interest, like he was studying her through a microscope.
Her chest was rising and falling rapidly against his, her neck damp with sweat. She struggled as he held her still, his large hands shifting; one held her down by her hip, the other splayed around her shoulder, fingers digging into her shirt. Her legs hiked further up his sides, then back down, indecisive on which position was worse; she clenched her knees tightly around Madara's waist as he chuckled, meeting her gaze with a mocking, knowing smile. "That's right… it is only appropriate that you fear me, kunoichi."
Sakura's eyes dilated, her lips tightening. She glared at him, and he inhaled slightly as she pulled him unexpectedly closer with a low hiss. "I will never fear you, demon."
"Oh?" Madara reminded her of his control of the situation by pressing her bodily into the shivering gravel, fingers digging into her soft skin through her clothes. He enjoyed her responsive shudder from his voice. "You are not a good liar."
He knew all too well that he had found what sparked Sakura to be afraid: all the signs of her fear were there, regardless of her continued bravado. Her temperature was feverish. Her heartbeat in the hot skin beneath her ear was desperately rapid, and her breaths were shallow as her hands flexed and gripped hesitantly along his robe, her slender frame shivering. She was terrified just from this abject proximity to him, and Madara enjoyed it immensely, pleased that he'd discovered what truly threw her off.
Sakura's fingers curled harder into the loose folds of the Six Paths robe that fell around her prone figure, her toes curling in her sandals as Madara murmured into her ear. "Remember that you are weak compared to me… you are but a fallible, ignorant woman that I will hunt and kill, over and over, until every runaway copy of you is dead to this world."
Her breaths were shaky as his rumble reverberated between them both. "Carry this knowledge wherever you go on this ill-begotten chase you have begun; in every game that you play with me." Madara withdrew enough to meet Sakura's wide eyes as he went on. "I will find you no matter the number of clones you make. I will take what I want from you, and when that day comes, you will watch as your world is cast into my Infinite Tsukuyomi."
Sakura's brows furrowed as Madara took hold of her face once more, meeting her eyes with a devilish grin. He drank in the visible signs of fear dancing across her flushed features. "I will not allow you to dream with the rest of them. The Infinite Tsukuyomi and death are both too good for you. You will be stuck here as a prisoner… my servant, answering my every beck and call. There will be no one left to save you. Where will your pride be then? Your entitled little victories… Sakura?"
Sakura blinked once in a speechless silence, stricken, and Madara's mocking, velvety purr was the last thing she heard. You should see your face.