It felt like the eye was looking at her no matter which way she turned it. Sakura scowled down at the Rinnegan where it rested in her palms, her glare just as acidic as if she were making a face at Madara himself.
It wasn't possible that he was looking at her; not through a damaged eye, long-parted from his body, but the feeling persisted nonetheless. It made Sakura even more uneasy, her tension already high-strung considering her current circumstances.
She glanced around her workstation with hunched shoulders. Orochimaru leaned over something he was writing at his desk at a distance not nearly far enough away. He was scribbling something in neat, inky script; a cobra wrapped around his shoulders like a scaled scarf while a python was curled up atop a stack of files to the side of his desk, its forked tongue flicking occasionally. His black hair fell in parted waves over slitted eyes wholly focused upon his research. He paid Sakura no mind, which suited her just fine.
To see Orochimaru at all was a constantly paranoid experience. All of Sakura's survival instincts teetered upon the brink of alarm at every moment. To see him regularly, daily — him, and his team of misfits — had her pondering how it was that she'd gotten herself into this bizarre, personal hell.
She sighed, sliding saline-dipped fingers over the eye in her palm and failing to return her attention to its gashed stare. Her uneasy gaze passed around the room.
Jugo was propped up in his chair along the wall, reading a book Sakura vaguely recognised as a reference book regarding avian creatures. Near him, Suigetsu was aiming a toothy, sly grin at Karin, who shot him a cantankerous glare in return. No doubt, he'd made a crack at her again, and she was ready to claw him to watery bits for probably the eighth time today already.
Feeling her stare, Jugo gave Sakura a polite nod, his sienna eyes tipping back into his reading. Sakura nodded back, deciding she disliked him the least of this strange crew; he was tolerable enough, his steady calm balancing out the chaos that was Suigetsu and Karin.
Suigetsu was entirely preoccupied with causing Karin further annoyance, which seemed to be their shared pastime. As Karin shoved her hands through her wild red hair, fixing it back into the angle she wanted, Suigetsu flicked water at her. She shrieked, slashing a hand through his grin and trying again to fix her hair with an angry huff while his grin only widened with her ire.
Sakura pulled her attention back to her studies before Karin noticed her staring. While Jugo and Suigetsu could be put up with, Karin was utterly unbearable. Since the first moment she'd arrived, Karin regarded Sakura with contempt and rankling dislike. Every sentence out of her mouth was either an accusation, insult, or an invasively nosy question, and Sakura avoided interacting with her like she was a walking disease. Having to share a room with Karin had Sakura deciding that feral alley cats were far better company. Or maybe even the owner of this eye.
Sakura scoffed as a new chakra thread flickered to life between her fingers, staring back at the Rinnegan. Somehow, tensions had gotten high enough in this dungeon of a lab that she found herself preferring Madara's company.
The thought sobered Sakura somewhat. Perhaps she should find some way to thin the oppressive cloud of uncomfortable tension that fogged between herself and her unfortunate, unexpected new comrades, if it was already this bad barely a couple of weeks in; if not to maintain her sanity, then simply to survive, before she broke her contract terms and launched into a full-out fight with any of them.
Her grip on the pen in her hand hardened, a squirt of ink sputtering onto the page of her clipboard as annoyance fizzled through Sakura just thinking about it. To avoid punching any one of these fools through the ceiling was hard, every day, what with Karin's aggressiveness and constant wheedling about Sasuke, Suigetsu's irritating instigations for fights, Jugo's lacking conversation and judging looks, and Orochimaru's bizarre and arrogant mannerisms. If her team could see Sakura now, they might think she'd lost her mind already.
Karin's next shriek shook the room. Sakura ducked her head with an irritated huff while Orochimaru glanced over sharply, his slitted pupils narrowing upon where Karin had already rendered Suigetsu into a chortling puddle.
Jugo's book was drenched. The keyboard at the desks nearby sparked, ruined by the splashing from Karin and Suigetsu's ongoing fight. He rose to his full height as Karin swatted at the puddle that was Suigetsu. "I'll kill you again and again, you stupid toothy bastard! Don't you ever call me that again, and stop messing with my hair already!" She stomped on the water at her feet.
She squawked as a watery hand on her ankle pulled her hard enough that she slipped, falling to the floor with a shrill yip. Sakura covered her ears, Jugo growling something to the two fighting idiots. Orochimaru sighed, returning his attention to his research and running a finger along the back of the cobra dozing around his neck.
Sakura covered her face with a hand, thumb running over the glaring eye in her palm. She almost wished for new clone memories to come and entertain her while she survived another day down in this indefinite hell she'd contracted herself into.
Sakura startled when someone cleared his throat behind her.
The sentence she'd been scribbling stuttered into an indiscriminate line, her heart dropping to her sandals. She turned slowly, worried already for all the innocent hospital staff hurrying around her.
Her eyes fell to the relatively short and entirely nondescript boy that stood with a bored expression and a plain, unadorned scroll in hand.
Sakura untensed somewhat, relieved that he was not Madara. She hurriedly dismissed her paranoia, glad she had been wrong and annoyed she'd been worried at all. Madara's presence alone would have sent the whole of the hospital into a wild, frightened frenzy to vacate the area. Nurses, doctors, and interns alike still wove around her in their busy, fully focused paths, no one so much as noticing Sakura nor her unexpected visitor.
The tired-looking boy handed Sakura the small scroll he held. "This is for you."
"Are you sure?" Sakura looked around uneasily at the lively, bustling halls of beeping instruments and preoccupied nurses before gesturing to herself, shifting in her scrubs. Her voice was slightly muffled beneath her face mask. "I'm only a contract-hire. I just help around here when I can. I'm not permanent staff; you must be looking for someone else."
"Haruno Sakura, right?"
"Yeah."
"Then it's definitely for you. Bye, now." The bored-looking kid strode off, leaving Sakura staring after him in confusion. What had that been? He didn't wear any shinobi garb nor identifying symbols, looking every bit like a normal civilian, leaving her mystified. Sakura shrugged the odd encounter off, slipping the scroll into her pocket to read later.
It wasn't until Sakura was settling against an alley wall for the night that she tugged it back out, muscles complaining from her long shift. A stack of ryo fell into her hand.
She gawped at it before swallowing, pulling open the scroll further; she caught the separate note tucked into its curves, reading that first.
As agreed, here you are. I trust you will use this wisely. — O.
With a slightly pinched, hesitant look, Sakura set the note aside, glancing over the contents of the scroll. It appeared to be a brief, ominous letter directing business owners to give Sakura whichever services she needed freely, and to direct questions and bills to a mailing address she didn't recognise.
The provided address was followed by a signed unfamiliar name and a neat seal. Sakura ran her fingers over it, noticing the music notes woven into the intricate symmetry; she frowned, understanding, before additionally noticing an ebony-black seal added beneath the flowery one, stamped in rich, still slightly gleaming ink.
Oh. Sakura stared down at the letter. That was the official seal of the main office in Otogakure, the Sound Village.
She got slowly to her feet, her frown deepening. She rolled the scroll back up, her brows twitching as she glanced out at the warm lights of the lanterns lining the night-swept street nearby; she clutched the note hard enough to crinkle it, and she glanced back down at the neat black script, clenching her teeth.
Sakura strode towards the nearby dumpster, pulling a matchbook from her pouch and setting the note afire. She sprinkled the ashes into the shadows of the garbage beyond the dumpster's open maw before turning away, clutching the scroll with indecision.
It was too late to question accepting Orochimaru's help. She knew that well; their contract was written, signed, and sealed. They had discussed a support network for her clones, but she hadn't expected him to act as an angel investor, to fund her efforts using his power and influence as the founder of the Sound village.
Sakura lifted her head, shutting her eyes, trying to ease her automatic suspicion and tension. She tried to reason with her feelings. It makes sense I'm mistrustful of accepting money and influence. It feels like I'm falling deeper into debt…
But it made sense that he would send support for her clones, based on the contract, and based on the fact that Sakura's clones had much less of a chance to survive when sleeping out in the open, living like transients in alleys and trees among stray cats and drifting torn-free flyers. If she wanted her plan to keep Madara on the hunt to succeed, she needed to eat and to sleep in relative safety. Whether she liked it or not, she needed this help.
Sakura let out a breath, still hunched against the wall. She wasn't putting herself into debt with Orochimaru. This was all part of an extensive, complex deal she had carefully detailed and discussed with him. The value he'd garner from the Rinnegan research was an exchange she considered more than fair.
Inhaling the scents of the summer night and holding them in her lungs, Sakura counted all the scents she could identify. Pollen, from blooming poppies somewhere nearby; earth and dirt, tracked in from travelling trader's wagons through the main street. Someone was cooking pork ramen nearby, the savoury broth steaming through the air, and she could hear someone calling for a bartender to refill their sake, the open-air bar sending scents of booze and sweaty customers into the humid evening. She could still detect the odours of disinfectant and latex on her own person from her long shift, as well as the cotton of her clothes, the worn leather of her gloves and sandals.
Sakura exhaled slowly, feeling much calmer and more grounded, her stressed mind coming back down to the earth. She cracked her knuckles and slid the scroll into her pocket, striding out of the alley, making the right turn towards the local inn. She had secured this for herself: no longer would she execute her planning from grungy alleys and frightened shadows in sleepless paranoia. No: she would conspire from a much more comfortable inn room, plotting how next she would flummox and frustrate Madara within her grand plan, possessing a well-rested mind and improved morale. And, perhaps, with a fresh cup of tea, a hot bath, and clean clothes.
She would never get used to staring back into her own face, watching as what felt like her reflection moved and spoke independently from Sakura's own actions.
"Are you listening to me?" The clone Sakura was speaking with had her hood pulled over her face, shadowing her irritated expression. She glanced up and down the crowded street the two of them stood in with visible paranoia. "Of course," Sakura sighed. She accepted the small paper note her clone had handed her, frowning down at it.
"Put it away before someone sees!" the clone hissed.
With a scowl, Sakura did just that, tucking it beneath her qipao collar after automatically rejecting the thought of shoving it into a pocket.
"Get that to the clone waiting in the place I told you. She'll have been waiting for a while now." The clone pulled Sakura into the comfortable shadow of a nearby eave, her green eyes fierce as she searched her face. "It's vital that you don't let that note get into the wrong hands. Get it to the clone, so she can use its information safely. Do not get caught."
"But why not tell her through Katsuyu?"
"It's not safe to say that part of the plan aloud. You know we're never safe anywhere we are. He could always be listening at the wrong time." Sakura's clone gestured towards the horizon cuttingly. "Are you going to go, or what?"
"But, why on a note? We could do a sealed scroll, or—"
"Do you know how expensive those are? And how rare, at least the rigged ones? We have to allocate our funds carefully, not waste it, when a note works just fine."
Sakura folded her arms, her scowl mirroring that of her clone's. "I don't like this plan. I'd rather just tell the clone this 'vital' information directly, or find a safer method to communicate. This—"
"Is all part of the plan." The clone took a step back. "Trust us; trust yourself, and just do this without questioning it. Or do you want Madara to know about where our original is hiding?"
Sakura watched as her clone dashed away without another word, cloak billowing out behind her, dissipating into the crowd.
Patting her chest where she'd tucked the note into her bindings, Sakura turned with a weary exhale, tucking her hood around her head and starting off towards where she needed to go to hand this note off. She did her best to ignore her doubts as she went, a worried tic between her brows deepening as her stride broke into a run the closer she got to the village gates.
Sakura arrived at the abandoned house on uneasy, silent feet, her heart pounding beneath her dark cloak. Rain had begun to fall as she had drawn nearer to the rendezvous location, pattering around her in harsh, pelting sheets.
She shivered under swathes of damp woollen fabric, incrementally more nervous as she made her way through overgrown weeds and grass. She swatted away the poking stalks of a prickly bush, her nose wrinkling as she caught the scents of a nearby bog through the cold scents of the rain.
Navigating over broken flagstones onto a mostly-overgrown dirt path, Sakura glanced up at the abandoned house she was nearing, noticing the way the rain dripped from moss that swept down the sides of the patchy roof in heavy blankets of living greenery. The house itself was small enough to be considered a shack, and a long-abandoned one at that. Its walls were beginning to cave in, its dark interior mouldering and wild where nature was consuming it slowly. Silence held this place down beyond the whispers of the rain; there wasn't a soul living nearby for miles, this rural homestead lifeless for years.
Sakura pressed a hand over her heart as she slowed her pace, drawing close to the wall of the house as she followed the dirt path towards the back. The edge of the folded note poked her from where it was protected beneath her tight chest-bindings, still dry, while the rest of her was damp and chilly with the rain.
She willed her heart to slow its hyper beat. This was an easy exchange. She would hand off the note to her clone and abscond while the clone made her use of the information, undoubtedly involved in it. Sakura was more than ready to leave already. The scents of this swampy wilderness filled her nose and mouth with odours of decomposition and petrichor.
A slight sound had Sakura halting in her tracks where she at the corner of the wall – a human sound, so subtle, but enough for her to recognise it as the cut-off exclamation of her own voice from a short distance away. Holding still, Sakura could hear the sounds of a struggle, and she swept out with her fists clenched and eyes ablaze.
Black Zetsu's flat eyes narrowed upon Sakura, her clone seized in his grip where he held her back against the mossy wall of the abandoned house. He had an ebony hand clamped over her mouth, the other digging into her neck, trickles of blood seeping from beneath his fingers. He stepped further back beneath the shadow of the mossy eave, yellow stare unwavering from Sakura as she clenched her fists.
"Give me the information you came with," he growled, "or enjoy the sensations of a gruesome death twice over."
The clone he held hostage blinked rapidly at Sakura, shaking her head a little before he regripped her cruelly. Sakura stepped towards Black Zetsu with a snarl. "Never."
Adjusting his hold upon the hostage clone, he made a gravelly laugh. "Fine, then."
Sakura gasped as Black Zetsu broke the clone's neck in a brutal twist of his hands. Her head fell limply back before she disappeared in a cloud of rain-tipped steam.
She stumbled backwards as the terrible pain of her clone's death thundered through her head in a copy of her memories, hands clasping over her head. She pushed the awful pain from her mind, blinking the rain away from her eyes and returning a simmering glare back to Black Zetsu as he wiped off his hands with an unnatural grin. "I am not Madara," he was saying as he made his way towards Sakura, "I won't waste time with chat before following through with my threats."
"He has some decency, unlike you," she spat, leaping backwards when he shot towards her. Spiralling through the trees in a graceful leap, she avoided his strikes, zig-zagging through branches with her rain-slick cloak fluttering around her shoulders. Black Zetsu dodged the shower of shuriken blades she threw his way, slinking down against the side of a tree and pulling forwards in an inky blur in pursuit as she made her way deeper into the forest.
Sakura kicked up her speed with a grimace, breaking into a sprint and leaving Black Zetsu behind. It wasn't worth the fight. Though she had no doubt that her original could take him down, she wasn't here for combat. She needed to get this note far away from him, or better yet destroy it before he could reach it.
She bit down into her scowl as she darted between trees, sensing that he wasn't chasing her anymore and picking up her speed in response. That bastard. She wouldn't forget that clone's death easily.
Where was the closest village? Sakura spun through the map in her head, picking a new direction based on what she knew, hoping she could make it back into civilization and escape completely before Black Zetsu managed to call for his extremely dangerous backup.
Damn him… She passed a hand over her hood, wrenching it further down over her face as she ran. It was bad that he'd murdered her clone, and not just because he did so painfully for her. That one had been one of the last in this area, and she knew for a fact that her original did not have the chakra to replace her right now. That clone was supposed to help her carry out a mission next week; she was supposed to be involved in the move the note Sakura carried discussed, where her original was transitioning between safehouse locations.
Sakura raced through the forest, kicking up needles and dirt as she went, black cloak flowing out behind her. She couldn't let this information get out. Everything would be over if Madara found out that her original was not only moving locations, but wasn't far away from here, either.
Her skin prickled just enough that Sakura jackknifed away from where she had been going. She heard an impact against a nearby tree and darted between pines, dipping and diving to avoid who she knew was hot on her trail. She hissed a curse as she narrowly dodged the flash of white in her peripheral vision, rolling forward and sprinting towards the algae-thick bog she spotted, her pulse spiking and blood racing with an addictive rush of adrenaline.
"Give up," Madara called out as Sakura raced through mud into the swamp, his mocking voice ringing down from the dripping tree canopy. "I always catch you."
Sakura soared out into the swamp, feet deep in sludge and kicking up clods of wet earth that flew around her cloak the deeper into the muck she ran. She twisted around as Madara thundered down towards her from above like a hawk surging towards his prey, hands outstretched and teeth bared in a grin.
Madara slammed her down into thick, boggy sludge that exploded around them in a spray of green and brown.
His wild white hair billowed around his shoulders, tainted at the edges where his mane slid across the surface of the swamp water surrounding them. Sakura breathed raggedly, her face just above the fetid water; it soaked her from head to toe, sinking through her clothes. She could feel the note growing heavy with water, the ink beginning to bleed away.
She watched the spark of confusion cross Madara's expression from her grin of victory. "Too late," Sakura mocked, fingers unconsciously twitching over her chest where the vital information was getting lost in the muck.
Madara glared down at her before wrenching her legs up around his sides, his grip digging into her thighs. Sakura gasped, scrabbling at his shoulders, struggling to gain purchase on mud-slick fabric and soaked limbs. "What are you—!"
Hands in her pockets; Sakura tilted her head back with a shudder as he rifled through her person in a hasty, furious, rough search. Fingers at her throat — Sakura struggled when Madara tugged at her collar, breaking it open, revealing both her pale neck and collarbone as well as a corner of the drenched note poking out from the bindings across her chest.
Sakura shoved hard at Madara as he pushed more of her qipao and cloak out of the way, his focus honing in upon the page corner. She flailed beneath his invading hands, flustered, but his gloved fingers had caught upon the papered edge already, glancing over the bindings and prying the note free.
Madara swatted away Sakura's furious grip with his other hand while she kicked at him, bucking through the mud and shoving hard enough that she managed to push him to the side.
She drenched them both in swampy sludge when she flipped them, bearing down upon Madara and leaping for his hands to snatch the note away.
"It's ruined anyway," she growled down at him, blood racing, her hands pressing down hard on his shoulders as he held his hands away from hers. She glanced down to see with some latent satisfaction that Madara's once-pristine black and white robes had stained into a heavy brownish vomit shade beneath the swamp water. His white mane had turned brown, having become a spiky splash soaked in thick mud, making Sakura bite into her lip with a muted smile — but Madara was paying her no attention, narrowed eyes scanning the note.
"You're right; it's ruined." He held it up to the light. The written characters were unreadable and smeared, mud and rain dripping from the drooping paper.
Sakura tried to knock it from Madara's hand regardless of its state. He pulled her to the side with an arm, shoving her out of reach of the note; a thoughtful expression crossed his mud-splattered features.
"It's over. You've lost," Sakura hissed.
Releasing the crumbling wet notecard into Sakura's reaching hands, Madara sat up over her, sliding her back down into the mud with a wet plop. She blinked oddly up at him as he eyed her with unusual dubiousness. "Don't be so certain. Now… hold still."
She should be combative, suspicious perhaps, but Sakura was giggling, pressing muddied hands over her mouth as if to mute her laughter at the sight of him above her.
Madara looked like a drenched, disgruntled cat. Spiky hair stuck out in every direction, thoroughly saturated with dripping puce-coloured algae and gritty brown-black dirt. Slimy spring-green sludge outlined his pale features in vivid contrast, his robes drenched and dark with reeking stink.
Any previous guise of power and intimidation had gone in Sakura's mind, leaving a scowling and muddied Madara smelling of decomposing plant matter, and Sakura couldn't help herself, giggling and coughing up mud herself where he'd pinned her back down in the sludge.
"This is not funny," he growled. He slammed her back down into mud, making her squeak, his wild mane arcing over their heads in a spray of guck. Sakura shoved back, wet brown droplets flying between them and dripping down their faces, the mud and sludge squelching around their struggling figures.
She inhaled through her teeth as Madara kneed her down to free his arms and retain control. He bent over her with a grimace, catching her striking arms and shoving them aside so he could access her loose collar again. He pinched at the slimy qipao and peeled it aside, revealing again her slick neck and collarbone, baring more skin.
"Madara!" Sakura protested with a ragged inhale, red flushing her exposed skin. She struggled against him in a panic, mud and loosened swamp-algae flying around them both, her toes curling in her boots — but she couldn't get a good grip with the soles of her boots upon him, his body slick from head to toe with slippery sludge.
Madara scowled at her, shaking muck from his vision. "Calm down. I told you to hold still…"
Sakura continued to flail like a fish out of water as his wet gloved fingers caught on the edge of her tight chest-bindings. "What the hell!" she was hissing as he tugged at them carefully, kneeing her harder. "Madara! I thought you would never—!"
Madara glanced at the curve of pale cleavage he'd revealed, scanning the inky, slightly smudged words printed in reverse along the top of Sakura's breast like a tattoo where the wet notecard had left its mark. As soon as he'd read it, he released her, sitting back.
Sakura shoved her qipao back over her chest, breathing hard. He looked away from her as she reclasped it. "Not in a place like this, I wouldn't," he hummed, making her ears turn hot.
She splashed mud at him in a spray of sludge. Seeing the brown-green freckle Madara's exasperated scowl, Sakura let out a half-annoyed, half-amused huff, folding her arms and leaning next to him in the mud. "Don't take me as submissive," she said as casually as she could manage, "I'll break your face twice over if you ever try something like that again."
"Do not blame me for where you decided to hide it." Madara held Sakura's stare with a look that had her shifting where she crouched, her cheeks beginning to sting as his mouth slanted in a smirk, his gaze slipping across her soaked figure. "Hn. No wonder I didn't find my eye in your pockets, before."
"Why do you think I was so desperate to stop your search that first time?" Sakura huffed. She looked away, swiping mud away from her red cheekbones.
"Is my eye even viable anymore?" came his question, and she frowned down at her mud-caked clothes and brown-slicked hands. "Why would I tell you?"
"You were honest with me before." Madara leaned back in the sludge, his stare burrowing into Sakura as she avoided looking at him. "So try again. Elaborate upon the contents of your… imprinted note; when exactly is your original self due at this purported safehouse? Is she carrying my Rinnegan currently?"
"You know that I won't tell you." Sakura turned from him, raking her hands through her drenched hair. "It's useless to ask."
"You are so inconsistent." Madara got to his feet, Sakura scowling as he nudged her with a boot; she rose as well, and he caught her sleeve, tugging her towards him before she could try to leave. She swallowed as mud-slick fingers turned her face; she met Madara's eye, and he read the flush across her cheeks with interest, absorbing the look she wore before she shoved away from him with a scowl anew.
He released her, folding his arms. "This is what I speak of. You once faced death with ease, with pleasure, even. Now… here you are; red with fear."
Confusion twitched upon Sakura's face. Her gaze slid back to him, searching, her ears perked as she paid more attention to his words. "If you will not answer my previous queries, satisfy my curiosity with this one at least, before you disappear like a coward." Madara took a step towards Sakura with a grasping gesture. "What — has changed?"
Sakura's face went blank as she took in his words. Fear? Is that what he thought it was, all this time?
She looked anywhere but at Madara, shaking her head. "You're mistaken. Fear isn't," she swallowed, clearing her throat, "that's… not it." Her hands withdrew to her chest, her ears turning pink. Sakura's pulse raced as she stared down at her feet with inexplicable shame, her ears beginning to sting.
Fear certainly wasn't what flustered her, Sakura knew to her bones. She had pondered this before. She couldn't remember the last time that she'd been afraid of Madara himself, not since early in the war, and Sakura no longer cared why, having stopped questioning her lack of fear and appreciating it instead. She reddened in Madara's presence for many reasons, some of which cycled past her mind's eye in mocking loops now. Every time the depths of his tone rumbled through her – each glancing touch, each moment of forced proximity, had her red as a rose. Adrenaline mixed with misguided attraction was her first scapegoat, but uncertainty followed that label the longer she left it slapped on, feeling far too vague an explanation for something more complicated.
This was something she'd assumed Madara had already noticed long ago with his uncanny instincts, able to see through her damnably expressive face. But all this time – he'd thought she was feeling fear, instead?
Was he the naive one? Sakura stared out at the swamp, biting back an absurd laugh. How funny that the purported genius Uchiha Madara, the legendary shinobi with the incredible battle-IQ, hadn't guessed that she was drawn to him rather than frightened away. Perhaps it was that he assumed better of her, or hadn't fought someone idiotic enough to feel such a way; perhaps it was that attraction had nothing to do with war and violence, which was all he'd ever known.
Sakura flushed redder as she recognised that she should have let Madara continue to believe she feared him instead, and she started to already regret being honest in her answer as she ruminated upon it, feeling his stare burning into her face where she stood before him.
Uneasy in his silence, Sakura's head jerked up. She saw Madara's pupils dilate as he blinked at her.
Sakura pulled back, absorbing his mildly perturbed, somewhat surprised expression. He had recognised her honesty, and she watched the machinations churning behind his eyes with her words that's not it click into a new conclusion she couldn't quite read.
"What?" Unnerved, Sakura hugged herself tightly, insecure with the uncomfortable knowledge that she must look just as much like a grouchy wet cat as Madara did. Her clothes were soaked through, slick with mud and dripping with slimy algae; she probably looked like a fright, a swamp creature standing on two legs. She shoved at the smears on her cheeks, running her fingers through her soaked hair, before sighing. No matter how much preening she might try, she wasn't going to look any better.
Sakura stiffened as Madara's shadow crossed her. She kept her eyes on his mud-slick robes, avoiding his eye as he stood over her with a nasty smile.
"What a fascinating little revelation."
She flinched from his mocking purr, her ears hot with shame.
"In all of my years," Madara went on, the rain dripping from his tall frame and falling in rivulets down Sakura's shadowed features, "I have never met someone brave and stupid enough to admit such a thing to me; least of all a foolish young woman such as yourself." He leaned in with a leering grin that Sakura scowled at, meeting his stare as his deep rumble continued to purr through her ears. "How very reckless of you."
Sakura's eyes widened in a startled, flustered expression before she waved her hands at him in a halting, embarrassed gesture. "Hold on. I haven't admitted anything to you. I haven't actually done anything about this either. And I don't plan to! Just—" She shoved at Madara's chest, shaking the rain from her eyes. "Forget whatever assumptions you're making. They're all wrong."
He caught her arms, pulling her closer, his grin widening; Sakura glared up at him, her features pinched. "Do not fear," Madara rumbled with a flash about his mismatched eyes, "I might be interested in playing such a game with you, depending upon the stakes."
"What!" She stiffened before shoving free of him, shaking her head vigorously. "I don't believe you. You're just mocking me again. I don't know what you're plotting, but stop it right now." Sakura glanced away, folding her arms, her face falling into a deep frown. "I might not know you well, but I know enough to understand that you're nothing but a merciless, heartless man with no interest in anything but himself." She glared out at the swamp, avoiding Madara's burrowing stare as she spoke. "You'll never catch anything of me but my clones, no matter what you think you've learned. I don't care what you might get out of me for reactions, or how much you hate me and this endless chase; I'm going to keep you on the hunt forever." Her fists clenched as she looked back to Madara with a fire behind her eyes.
Madara blinked, raising a brow. "Now it is you making assumptions. I do not… hate you," he said, mildly.
Sakura's mouth popped open as she stared at him.
Madara's eyes narrowed as he flicked a string of algae from his bony forehead visor. "Do not get ahead of yourself, clone." Gloved fingers pushed dripping hair from his face; his expression was stony and imperious. "No matter what charades we might entertain, this little discovery of your suspect fearlessness does not mean I will be merciful to you. In fact, I will make sure that you suffer appropriately once I use this leaked information of yours and hunt down your original."
With Sakura's continued dumbfounded silence, irritation sparked into anger across Madara's pale, mud-streaked features, his lips pulling back in a distasteful grimace. "I only hate or value those that have made an impression on me. You have done nothing of the sort. I do not feel any which way towards you but what one feels before squishing an insect. Apathy… perhaps pity."
But Sakura was starting to smile a little, and Madara frowned at her as she disappeared in a swirl of swamp-tainted mist.
She pushed her hands into her cheeks in order to hide the smile she just couldn't shed, feeling her teammates' eyes flicking curiously back to her while Kakashi was talking. The four of them sat around a small table, the door guarded by a pair of Anbu shinobi; several more patrolled occasionally outside, their meeting room being only a few doors down from the Hokage's office.
"...which indicates significant growth within their community. The completion of this mission may seem like a trifle, but it's important that it's done properly."
Sakura was staring out the window, watching the fleecy white clouds pass by. Some had sharper edges, reminding her of a certain white mane, and she remembered it drenched in a fecal brown that had her smile burrowing deeper into her cheeks.
He doesn't hate me.
She shut her eyes, entertaining the image of Madara's irate expression and his almost defensive tone, like he'd been embarrassed to admit having no hatred of her. Her smile grew just a little more.
"...Sakura."
Could a man like Madara even be embarrassed? Sakura corrected the word out of her head. He had been ruffled by her reaction, miffed that she'd taken such enjoyment from his irritation like always. She remembered the play of muted, hidden thoughts she'd witnessed dancing across Madara's face, letting them repeat in her thoughts; she lingered upon the silly image of him as a whole when he was drenched in green and brown, painted to match her own half-drowned self.
She focused a little harder on the silliness of their encounter rather than the seriousness behind it, trying to ignore Madara's other words that strode through her head and repeated softly against her ears. I might be interested in playing such a game with you, depending upon the stakes.
Sakura shut her eyes, breathing in a little unsteadily, trying and failing to forget the silky tone he'd used. She was insatiably curious to know what Madara had been talking about, what conclusions he had drawn; she was glad at the same time to not know.
"Sakura, what's going on with you?"
She startled out of her recollections, glancing over to Kakashi with a guilty expression. "Sorry — what did you need, sensei?"
He lifted a silver brow. "Are you all right? You normally pay the most attention out of you three."
Sakura ran a hand through her hair with an uneasy laugh. "Yes, I'm fine." She shoved Madara from her head and cleared her throat, sitting up taller. "Sorry to have gotten distracted."
"Remember we're discussing the mission," Kakashi replied slowly, charcoal eyes narrowing, and Sakura clasped her hands with a hum. "Yes. Right." She nodded sagely; he sighed. "And how it needs to be done properly — you had told us you brought new evidence to light, earlier, from when you had visited the curator's office."
"And borrowed some of his things, yes," Sakura reached into her bag, pulling out a sheaf of letters and setting them in a stack in the center of the table. She nodded with silent permission as Kakashi as well as Sasuke took several of the ones off of the top, glancing through them as she spoke; Naruto was leaning back in his chair, listening with a bored look on his face while Sakura began her explanation. "So, as you know, this guy Saito, the library curator I took these from, is one of the main leaders of the Tsukuyomi Union cult right now. He's this terribly boring older guy who gives the world's dullest speeches. Trust me, I know, I have clones sitting through Union meetings. These letters—" She gestured at them with a half-smile. "Well, give them a read."
Sasuke was scowling at the one in his hands while Kakashi frowned at several he'd laid out side-by-side. He flicked them back towards the center with a disgusted glance. "They're all written by Saito, I see, and with quite the admiration for his intended recipient."
Sasuke flipped over the envelope one had still been in. "Looks like none of them reached him."
"This is mostly true," Sakura agreed. Kakashi was reading over another, a crinkle of revulsion around his eyes as he scanned the text. "'To our most revered, powerful, fearsome and rightful god of shinobi and humankind alike,'" he quoted, "'I beseech you to consider taking your place as the holy Tsukuyomi Union's heart; its leader; its owner. Let us bow at your feet and do your bidding…'"
Sasuke and Naruto wore matching nauseous expressions. Kakashi folded the letter back up, tossing it back on the pile with revulsion like it was more than the words written that were greasy to the touch. Each letter matched the other with the same messy handwriting, the Union's mock-Rinnegan symbol printed at the upper corners of every page. "They're all about the same thing. These are unbearable to read."
"They're about the same quality level as your Icha Icha books," Sasuke commented, causing Kakashi to glower at him while Naruto smirked. "Don't insult Jiraiya like that," Sakura hummed through her own smile. "And don't worry. I didn't just pilfer letters. I also took various Union schedules and maps; and check this out." She tossed a folded card onto the table. It flashed in the light with heavily-embossed text and flowery, Rinnegan-themed artwork.
Kakashi frowned at it, thumbing over the interior before handing it to Sasuke and Naruto, who eyed it with vague interest. "This is very interesting," he said thoughtfully, leaning his head on a hand and watching as Sakura dug around in her bag some more. "A blank prototype invitation, made for an upcoming formal cult event in the fall… we'll need to keep tabs on this." He flipped it over, the Rinnegan symbol printed on the back of the heavy cardstock invitation. "This could be vital to make sure we either prevent that event, or attend it to glean more information, depending on the status of the Union as a growing organisation."
"That's not all." Sakura reached into her bag once more, pulling out a different, singular letter. It was encased in a sleeve of plastic, protected in once-sealed edges like it was an ancient document. She tugged it free carefully without setting it down right away.
Sakura glanced between her increasingly curious teammates. "Apparently, one of Saito's sycophantic, desperate letters did make it to Madara. This — is his reply. Just so you know, not only did Saito seal this in a sleeve, but I had to crack through a safe within a safe to get to it, in a miniature vault under his desk."
Three sets of eyes widened while Sakura unfolded the parchment carefully, still able to catch the slightest scents of him from the page as she spread it atop the scatter of letters on the table. Sitting back, she let them read the single line, written in jagged, elegant script.
My answer is no.
Sakura wasn't aware of her smile's return as she easily envisioned Madara, scowling and brusque as he wrote. Her teammates were frowning, withdrawing back into their chairs; she took the letter back, sliding it automatically back into its sleeve. She could hear the blunt command Madara had written as the extraordinarily brief letter's signoff in his deep, rumbling voice. Do not write to me anymore.
"Interesting, indeed." Kakashi sighed, scratching the back of his head. "Let's count it as a blessing that Madara regards the Union cult as nothing but an annoyance, at least for now."
"I'm relieved," Naruto chimed in. "Last thing we need is that cult getting in the way."
"They're no threat to us." Sasuke stretched his arms behind his head with a contemptuous look on his face. "Even if they wanted to get in the way, we could wipe them out with ease."
"They're pretty harmless for the moment," Sakura tentatively agreed.
She shuffled the items in her bag before folding her arms with a sigh. "So far, their meetings are all sermons and songs with no real substance. I guess they're pretty disorganised under Saito's leadership."
Kakashi exhaled wearily. "That doesn't change the fact that they're still rapidly gaining new members, all over the nation… which brings me back to my previous point: the mission set for next week might be low-ranked, but it is important."
Sakura sat up taller in her chair. "Ah! That's right!" Her head swivelled over to Naruto. "Naruto, I need your help for that."
"You said you had two clones doing it," Sasuke cut in, his visible eye narrowing on her.
Kakashi hummed, leaning on his hand. "That is what you had told us. Did something change?"
Sakura sat back in her chair with a tired sigh. "Yeah. He killed both of those clones, this morning. Well, him and Black Zetsu."
Sasuke and Kakashi's frowns deepened while Naruto threw a fist into the air, beaming at Sakura. "I'd love to help you with a mission! It's been so long! Why didn't you ask me to help you so much sooner? You know I can spare clones easily. I can't wait!"
Sakura rolled her eyes. "I've been able to handle things just fine on my own so far. It just so happens that the clones of mine in the area were caught at a bad time, and my original can't spare the chakra to replace them right now."
"Why won't you tell us where your original is?"
Sakura met Sasuke's cold stare with a frown. "I'm not allowed to share that information with even Lady Tsunade, let alone you guys, or anyone else. It's for my own safety."
"Why?" He leaned forward, dark eye suspicious. "Don't you trust your own teammates, Sakura?"
She huffed with annoyance, looking away from Sasuke with a scowl. Guilt squeezed her heart as she remembered again the damaged Rinnegan awaiting her healing beneath the bandage he wore over his other eye. "Of course I do," she muttered.
"Anyway, when and where am I meeting you?" Naruto changed the subject back to the mission, nearly bouncing in his seat with his eagerness. "Just a clone," Kakashi corrected him, "don't go as your original selves, either of you, just in case. It's not worth the risk."
"It's the library in Takigakure," Sakura answered Naruto, her fingers tapping along her folded arms. She ignored Sasuke's cold glare as she cleared her throat. "Sasuke, you can help, if you want."
"I'll pass." He rose to his feet, tossing Kakashi a glance. "Seems we've settled things here. I'm heading out."
Kakashi shrugged. Sasuke made a swift exit while Naruto leaned forward, blue eyes bright. "Okay. Where's Takigakure?"
Sakura sighed, pulling out a map, preparing to give him all the details he needed and trying not to linger on Sasuke's perpetual coldness towards her. It was time to focus upon their upcoming mission.
"Shh, now." She knelt, taking the child's hand between her palms; she slid her heavily-tinted glasses up into her hair, green eyes holding big watery brown ones as she smiled into the little girl's worried face. "You're going to be just fine. I promise. Here, watch…"
Green light lit the both of their faces, Sakura's hands glowing around the hand of the child's. The girl's face lit up brighter than Sakura's chakra did, wonder widening her innocent stare. "Woah!"
Sakura bit back a smile. "Does it feel better?" She knew that it did, the girl's broken wrist mended through the cast in a matter of seconds. The little girl nodded vigorously, her long black curls bouncing around her head.
Sakura got to her feet, her attention intent upon her young patient. She helped her back onto the hospital bed, careful of the cast around her leg; she laid her down and tucked her in to the sterile white sheets. Ignoring whomever it was that she sensed waiting in the open doorway, she slid a hand over the child's head while adjusting her glasses back over her eyes. "Now rest. I know it doesn't hurt anymore, but I want to give your bones some more time to fully set before you go home."
"Okay," the little girl agreed, kicking her feet restlessly beneath the covers. Her curious eyes flicked over Sakura up and down. "Why are you dressed so weird? You don't look like the other doctors."
Sakura exhaled with a slight smile, standing tall from where she'd been leaning over the bed. She put her hands on her hips. "We have to wear full hair nets for our patients' safety. The tinted glasses protect my eyes; the rest of my scrubs and doctor's coat are just uniform. Have to be covered up and safe!" And obscured, just in case, came Sakura's unvoiced thought.
"Oh." The little girl turned over, noticing a book on her nightstand and snatching it with her good arm, shoving her face into the pages to look at the bright illustrations. Sakura chuckled to herself, biting back the familiar ache – now wasn't the time to remember how much she hoped to be a mother, someday.
She sighed as she began to turn, addressing whichever doctor or nurse was waiting so patiently at the doorway. "Who needs help next? Please keep in mind, I'm doing my best, but I don't have my normal stores of chakra right now. I can't fix every patient in the hospital; not today, at least." Sakura scribbled on her clipboard. "I have enough to help the rest of the paediatric ward today. Maybe tomorrow I —"
When Sakura turned fully, she saw that the doorway was empty.
She blinked with consternation. She could have sworn that someone was there. She had felt their eyes upon her back while she'd helped the little girl; had sensed their impatience, even, but now they'd gone?
She stepped out into the hallway, looking up and down its length, but no one was around. The hospital seemed entirely normal. The familiar rustling of patients' paper dresses, heart monitors beeping, and distant shoesteps from hurried staff was all within the norm, and Sakura frowned, wondering if she'd just imagined it.
She picked up her clipboard, reading down the rest of the names of the patients in this ward. A warm feeling lingered in her belly from watching the little girl's look of wonder, and she looked forward to helping the rest of the kids awaiting her healing. She might just be a clone in this village on hiding and information duty, but no one had said she couldn't help the local healers, and so she'd expend herself just a little further, considering her upcoming exhaustion to be entirely worth it.
Sakura passed a hand over her smile as she quietly shut the door, the child's peaceful breathing indicating his restful sleep as her healing did its work. She checked off several things on her clipboard, scribbling more notes that she barely registered as her mind drifted again to that moment from earlier, the feeling floating in a gentle haze over her thoughts.
Surely not. She must have been imagining it. It was a busy doctor, a shy intern, or perhaps an impatient nurse who couldn't wait the minute or two for Sakura to finish up and acknowledge their presence.
The ghost of a presence at her back had been brief, yet had hung in her mind like a fog, and she just couldn't shake the instinct that her passing visitor had not been a hospital employee or patient.
Again that persistent beep. Sakura tapped her page on her waist, frowning. Dr. Takanashi again. She sighed, setting down her clipboard at the front desk in the right slot before stretching her arms and cracking her neck. She was originally only going to push herself so far as to finish the children's ward, tonight; if she kept working, she might disappear from the strain. Being a clone, she only had so much chakra.
Shrugging, Sakura adjusted her coat and entered the elevator, hitting the button for the basement. Oh, well. If she was needed, she would answer the call, no matter her weariness. Perhaps it was something as benign and easy as medical advice; a second opinion, considering her expert training from Tsunade and her particular affinity for poisons and procedures that required fine chakra-control.
But Sakura was frowning as the elevator shuddered to a stop, her eyes flicking up to the label she walked beneath as she strode into a dully-lit, shadowy hallway. What use would the morgue have for her medical expertise?
Sakura's heart sunk. Probably a mysterious cause of death, or a brutal case that needed identification. It was never anything good when it came to pages to the morgue.
She stood taller as she walked, the sound of her shoe heels feeling much too loud as her footsteps echoed down into the shadows of the unlit rooms and dark open doorways. Ignoring her unease, Sakura made her way to the main area, standing in a cold, musty room of stainless steel and tiled floors.
Square doors in neat grids lined the walls, each with a knobbed handle and neat labels with the full names of the bodies being refrigerated within. The tiled floor sloped towards the center, where a rusted, somewhat stained drain shone slightly in the dull fluorescent lights. A steel table was against the wall beside a cluttered counter, stacked with organised tubes and jars of various embalming liquids and sharp tools that awaited their next use. The cracked leather stool nearby was empty, the office doorway dark; only the long lines of dull, lifeless lights illuminated the main room Sakura stood within.
Sakura ran a hand through her hair, feeling cold sweat pearling down the back of her neck and spine. Continuing to ignore her increasingly uneasy, paranoid instincts, she strode into the dark office, glancing around it as she hunted for the light switch.
She froze: was that a shadow in the chair behind the desk? Was the doctor sitting there perfectly still in the pitch blackness… silent; watching her?
She slapped along the wall before nearly breaking the switch in her eagerness to turn it on.
Sakura scowled as she saw that it was just a coat hung on the back of the office chair. Letting out an uneasy breath, she reached down and turned off her pager. It must have been a faulty notification.
She turned as she was glaring down at it, only to stop in her tracks, every light in the basement shutting off and leaving Sakura in a musty, chemical-tainted darkness.
"This isn't funny." She was clenching her fists as she stomped back out into the main room. "You stupid interns think pranks are appropriate? I'm going to teach you a lesson on how to mend broken bones, and it'll be your own bones you're learning on."
Silence, but for the low thrumming of many refrigerator units and the creaky whispers of the pipes that ran across the ceiling in tangles of steel. She could smell the embalming fluid, the isopropyl alcohol, the latex gloves in their box on the counter behind her – could taste the ash in the air from the distant incinerators, and she shuddered with horror at the thought.
Sakura stepped forward blindly, hating everything about this situation and more than eager to leave. Where was the elevator? If she could find that hallway, she could feel her way towards it.
One of the ceiling lights buzzed to life, illuminating the wall of jagged blackness that stood before her. Two glowing eyes glared down at her, burning through the dark with mismatched luminescence of their own.
Sakura paused, a startled look on her face, her adrenaline spiking again before slowly calming into a rushing current that warmed her veins like she'd drunk alcohol. The feeling pulled her stomach down as she stared up into Madara's looming face, unable to see anything of him but for the outline of his frame and the glint of his unnatural eyes.
Gradually, like she was melting down, Sakura relaxed, her shoulders untensing, though her pulse continued to race. Blinking up at Madara, she made a short huff of a laugh, causing his brows to twitch. "You might not be an intern, but the offer still stands, if you want a lesson in broken bones."
"I doubt there is anything you could teach me."
Sakura rolled her eyes at Madara's snide response, shaking her head as she continued to descend from her former anger. Her words tumbled out as her weary mind let down its guard in her tired relief. "Good theatrics. You almost had me there, Grim Reaper." Her smile receded to a slight upturn at the corner of her lips. "That's what they used to call you, right? Do you still have the scythe somewhere? Oh…" Her eyes widened almost mockingly. "Are you still trying to scare me?"
Madara's brows rose in reply. Sakura prodded his chest, smirking. "You're upset I'm not scared of you, still. Maybe you just didn't believe me? I guess you know for sure, now." She reached up, flicking aside an errant lock of his wild hair with an impish grin. "You're not frightening now that I've seen you looking like an angry wet lion."
Madara scowled. "I am not here to banter with you, woman. Merely to end your life… seeing that you are just another of your irritating clones." His hand flashed out, gripping Sakura by the shoulder, and she caught his offending arm by the elbow, tilting her head as she brought devious eyes back to his scowl. "How did you like my newest ruse?" Sakura's expression was smug, her mood continuing to lift as she gradually realised that her latest little plot had paid off, resulting in Madara's ill humour now. He'd seen that she'd thrown him off her trail again, and his renewed frustration had her feeling almost giddy with her fresh victory, the previous deaths of her clones worth the moment she found herself in now.
"Too bad that the note you worked so hard to capture only led you to just another copy of me. I bet you didn't expect me to go so far as to trick my own clones." Sakura bit her lip, proud of herself.
"You lost access to that region. You do not have the chakra to replace those clones; and I am sure," Madara countered, glaring down at Sakura, "that you cannot keep this up for much longer. How will it affect you, I wonder, to lose this clone as well as the other two… all in one day?"
Sakura shook her head. "It doesn't matter. I've successfully fooled you again. Please — keep underestimating me." She leaned into Madara's grip upon her shoulder with a winning smile. "It only gives me so many more chances to irritate you, over and over again."
"I do not buy your confidence." Madara loomed over her a little closer, his wild hair tickling around her face. Sakura stood her ground, registering that the ashen smoke scents she'd caught earlier were of him and not from the incinerators.
His tone rumbled through her, filled with malice. "How have you been coping with your many deaths? Can your original sleep, with the stress she is under? One cannot simply forget multiple deaths… painful ends."
"True; having your neck broken is very painful." Sakura looked away, running a hand over the back of her neck with a scowl. "But —" She looked back to Madara, and he blinked at her as her expression slowly softened, her eyes trailing across his shadowed face searchingly. "But you could have killed me so much sooner, tonight." Swallowing, her fingers dug gently into his arm, her voice hushed. "You had the time, you had the motivation, but you waited. You decided to let me finish helping the rest of my children-patients before you came for me."
In the pause that followed Sakura's words, she watched his face, looking for confirmation. She could barely see Madara's features in the thin fluorescent light; darkness surrounded them, the thin halo of bluish-white flickering behind where he overshadowed her. Ever-imperious, Madara's expression gave nothing away, his eyes narrowing over his scowl.
Sakura squeezed his arm, sensing that her guess was correct. Her chest tightened unexpectedly in response.
She let out an unsteady breath, breathing in warmth and ashen pine scents from his robes. "Can't be scared of you when I've seen that you do, somehow, have a soft side. If the stakes you spoke of mean..." Sakura trailed off, her gaze drifting across the room. Her heart pounded a little harder as it dug into her tightening throat, her emotions binding around each other in a conflicting twist.
Madara's scoff warmed her face in the cool air of the musty room, fingers digging unkindly into her shoulder. Sakura ducked her head, hiding her smile beneath a hand, though its warmth seeped into her tone. "Careful, I'll tell people you aren't the devilish reaper they think you are."
He drew closer, causing Sakura's pulse to hike. Her fleeting glance at Madara's expression let her catch the hint of an upward curve around his mouth in the thin, wavering fluorescent light. "No one will believe you."
"So you did purposely wait," Sakura breathed. A strange, conflicted delight lit her features as she confirmed this. She beamed up at Madara, her hand sliding up his arm as his grip pulled tighter around her slender shoulders, preventing the escape she made no effort to make. She drew breath to speak, but found that she no longer knew what to say, her heart holding down her tongue.
Madara studied her through the darkness, absorbing her fervent expression that evolved with the conflicts behind her searching stare. He kept her steady in his grip where he towered over her. There was something more complex within Sakura's words, burning bright where fear should have lived instead, and he was interested to find out what that could be: perhaps to fan the flame, or perhaps to dampen it.
Sakura gasped raggedly as there was suddenly a hand surging through her ribcage.
She coughed up blood, pain seizing her expression. Madara stepped back, eyes wide, his own hands flexing uncertainly. Sakura was stunned, her fiery green eyes flashing with hurt before she disappeared in a cloud of steam.
Black Zetsu emerged from the wall, flicking her blood from his hand, frowning at where she'd been. "What an annoyance," he growled, "another waste of time."
Madara's snarl echoed throughout the shadowy morgue. "Do not initiate another clone's death without my permission again."
Black Zetsu glared at Madara with flat yellow eyes as he followed him back into the darkness.