Chapter Text
“I won’t apologise. Not for what I knew we had to do.” Sakura repeated, voice reduced into a bitter rasp.
There would be no more of that from her. Not after everything. Days had blended into weeks and months and eventually an eternity of fighting for a way out of Kaguya’s grasp, Sakura pulling her boys forth with a heady, dangerous mix of adrenaline and spite and anger shooting through her veins.
That the running kept her feeling alive as the world ended around her was something she would never admit out loud.
“Manipulating the Uchiha to remove the head and heir to instate your own usurper, you mean. A whole clan under your control.” Tobirama stated, watching her with calculating eyes. “It is not an apology we are after, Sakura-san, but rather an explanation. It would benefit you to explain before I am forced to resort to… other methods.”
“Tobirama,” Hashirama shook his head in exasperation, though his easy smile had long flattened into a severe frown.
“He is right. Sakura-chan. The ramifications of your plan succeeding would throw the current political balance into chaos, even after you achieve your goal of stopping your ah, alien threat.”
“I had accounted for that.”
Sakura had been the Godaime’s apprentice. It was not a position in which she could afford to be some shortsighted moron, or a simple paper-pusher who catered to Tsunade’s every whim.
No, Tsunade had challenged her, sought out plans and questions and calculations from Sakura’s overactive brain that would protect the village against the hungry, waiting beasts gnawing at its roots. Timelines and contingencies that were made to protect Hashirama’s legacy when Tsunade eventually threw down the hat.
Even here, in this foreign past with the deceptively harmless blue skies and achingly familiar lush forests of Fire, there was no such thing as rest for the monster that Konoha had made out of her. Always keeping an eye out for anything, everything, anyone who could ruin her perfect plan.
“Did you? Could you truly presume your world to be the same as ours, that such calculations remain consistent?” Tobirama hummed, a challenge in his otherwise dismissive tone.
Of course not. Consider all factors, make a plan, and account for variables she could not control for the best possible outcome. Her merchant parents had taught her that long before any shinobi did.
Again, Sakura wasn’t stupid.
“I did what I could and I’ll adapt to what I cannot. It would have worked!” She snapped back, Tobirama’s challenge sparking onto the last bit of anger fueling her. “Heads change all the time. Why are you so resistant to the removal of Madara of all people?”
Sasuke was not what she would consider clan head material, but he would have Sakura.
With their plan in place, the Uchiha would agree to peace with the Senju sans the threat that Madara posed both as the Senju’s greatest adversary and future world-ender. It would have been nothing but beneficial to the men currently objecting to Madara’s assassination.
“You wouldn’t understand, Sakura-chan. Madara is importan--”
Important? More than Sasuke? More than the world and the impending doom that Sakura had warned them about?
It must be the last of the adrenaline finally burning out, leaving her a hollow shell, or maybe Sakura had always been foolish to believe she could stand toe-to-toe with giants.
She didn’t care.
Cutting Senju Hashirama off felt like a turning point, Sakura finally giving up on that idol-worship and childish want for acknowledgement which had caused her slip up in the first place.
Because all she saw before her were no legends, just hypocrites, the likes of which Konoha had moulded her into.
“I’m sorry, but what exactly is it that you’re objecting to, my methods, or murdering your ‘important’ enemy who is about to kill one of my boys?”
Madara was the most insane man he’d ever met.
And that was saying something in Sasuke’s opinion, considering the quality of company who attached themselves to Sasuke’s side like limpets.
Even by Uchiha standards, Sasuke knew the man wasn’t the pinnacle of stability, but the stories they told about the Uchiha’s infamous leader usually tied the crazy to Madara’s evil, Kyuubi-napping, world-burning ways.
He even had first hand experience in the old world with Madara’s resurrected, rinnegan-ified corpse to back it up.
Unfortunately, nobody had thought to warn him about the theorycrafting that Sakura at her worst could only dream of.
This felt like a cruel and unusual punishment, especially after having to listen to Madara reciting an entire elaborate pacification ritual from memory in an attempt to exorcise Sasuke from his own body.
“Hn. Not a seal to be found. Perhaps, a verbal oath? Did you trick my brother on his travels into letting you puppet his body, foul spirit, until you have fulfilled your pitiful attempt at vengeance upon my person? Or did you tie yourself to a cursed memento that he acquired? I knew that trader and his goods were too suspect to let him pass through.”
Madara continued to natter under his breath, wrapping Sasuke’s stolen mantle back around Sasuke’s top after a thoroughly mortifying physical examination.
A part of him that was used to Orochimaru’s frequent check-ups had hoped said examination would prove something, anything to Madara. That this wasn’t Izuna’s body, but Sasuke’s own home-grown sack of flesh and blood.
Genetics had a sense of humour.
It seemed that even some birth marks were inheritable, regardless of how distantly removed said ancestor was. It hadn’t helped prove Sasuke’s point about not having stolen more from Uchiha Izuna than just his identity.
“No.”
“No? Then where did you come from? What is your motive?”
“Told you the first part already. And the second. I’m saving all of us.” Sasuke repeated for the nth time in a row, staring blankly up at the red sky above and ignoring the increasingly frustrated man pushing himself into his line of sight.
“Do you intend to leave this body after?”
“No. It’s mine.”
“No? I’ll find a way to drive you out, Sasuke.” Sure thing. He wasn’t even going to try to contest that again. The memory of Madara’s shrill intonation of the exorcism ritual still echoed in his ears.
It hadn’t worked, of course, because this was his body.
Which left them in a stalemate, Madara intent on proving that Sasuke was an evil spirit possessing Izuna while Sasuke, who clearly was not, had no energy or willpower in the Tsukuyomi to prove him wrong and put an end to this torment.
There was some kind of sick irony to this, Sasuke decided.
The Uchiha considered Tsukuyomi a punishment worse than death, torture on a scale that was reserved for only their most treasonous members. Endless torment within one’s mind with no escape, until the body wasted away or their brain simply gave up and shut down.
Sasuke, who had the dubious honour of being subject to said nightmare jutsu from his loving brother multiple times, had thought himself well versed in the terrors Tsukuyomi wrought on one’s psyche.
Madara’s version felt worse than anything Itachi cooked up.
“We can do this all day.” Madara drawled above him, long hair brushing against Sasuke’s skin, soft and threatening like the dozens of snakes Orochimaru had enjoyed putting in his bed.
“An eternity means nothing to me here, not when your mind is under my control. Now tell me how to get rid of you.”
“If you are in control here, then why can’t you just read my mind? Find the answers for yourself?”
Itachi had used Tsukuyomi to torment him with memories, a parade of cruel visions he was helpless to prevent or change looping over and over. A reminder of Sasuke’s powerlessness compared to his prodigy brother.
But over time, Sasuke liked to think that he had become rather desensitised to the violence and horror of that day. Much like a horror film rewatched a thousand times, till the only response to the gore was a mind-numbing but spot-on acknowledgement of when everything would happen.
Madara on the other hand…
“Hah! I’m not stupid, Sasuke. Why should I waste time combing through the muddled memories you’ve corrupted of my brother when the source of the problem is right here?”
The blood, corpses, and awful memories that had naturally formed the mindscape was no more than set-dressing to Madara, who preferred a more hands-on approach to Sasuke’s with a tenacity that could match Naruto’s.
Personal, to match the way Sasuke had ‘spirited away’ the dearest person to Madara’s shrivelled heart.
“Don’t try to escape your reckoning, liar.” Madara hissed, a false calm lacing every syllable like poison. “Your tricks will not work to buy time from facing the consequences. Having me care for you while you sat comfortably in Izuna’s place, did you think I wouldn’t have noticed?”
Well, no.
Sakura had speculated about the co-dependent nature of the two brothers, drawing a line from Izuna’s demise to Madara’s eventual abandonment of the very clan and village he helped lead.
It was with much urgency and too sharp nails that she had stressed the imperative of Sasuke taking Madara out quickly before he noticed his brother was gone.
Which he would. The documents they found painted a picture of Izuna as more than Madara’s spare or his shadow. Izuna had been Madara’s second head, standing beside him to run the clan until his eventual demise.
With his death, he had taken Madara’s soul along with it.
And when Madara had whispered that promise to protect ‘Izuna’ no matter what that first night, Sasuke became all too aware that Sakura’s findings vastly underestimated how vital the two brothers were to each other’s functioning.
The Uchiha were an emotional lot. Sasuke was no better.
(He knew that temptation of care, of feeling like clan and brother and family was a siren’s call that would jeopardise the mission, should he pretend to bask in Izuna’s stolen affection any longer than he should.)
Of course it was a bad idea. But Sakura was highly persuasive. And what other choice did they have?
The Zetsu needed the Uchiha to free Kaguya. If they did nothing, Madara would find it. If someone else had taken Madara’s place--Izuna, perhaps-- then there was no saying Izuna would fall under Zetsu’s thrall.
With Sasuke taking their place and Naruto and Sakura by his side, they knew what to look out for.
Team Seven would not be tricked. This world could be saved.
They had to run the world. Madara could not be trusted.
The lump in his throat that only grew bigger as he was forced to listen to Madara attempt to save his brother from Sasuke was but a temporary annoyance from his cold, surely.
Ten steps away from him, Madara was still ranting, an odd waver in his tone nagging uneasily at Sasuke’s senses.
“Take advantage of my care? My affection?”
“I do wonder if I do as you say, force your memories of the past few days into the foreground, what would we see, hm?”
“You, I assume, laughing inside at Uchiha Madara fussing over his brother, at the great and terrible head of the Uchiha clan having a heart after he destroyed your village? None the wiser to your deception?”
“Feeding you, clothing you, caring for you now that you’ve burdened Izuna’s body with a sickness, like a fool?!”
Fuck, Sasuke realised with dawning horror.
Madara was hurt.
The hidden envy in his gut too was growing, aimed at someone he had only seen in-person for but a moment before he embarked on this grand scheme to kill Madara.
“Do you have brothers, Sasuke?”
“Huh?”
Itachi was smiling at him from not far away, reaching out with two fingers and empty eyes--
“I was the middle, and Izuna was the youngest. Neither of us expected to lead, but perhaps support the clan in other ways.”
“I--My brother was the heir.” And then he killed the rest of the clan, became a traitor and a spy, and died, all to protect Sasuke in his own sick, twisted way.
“A younger sibling, then. Cared for you, did he?” Madara crooned. “Perhaps he would understand what you seemingly did not.”
But he did understand, and that was the problem. Sasuke understood perfectly. Had recognised that desperation, that obsessiveness and care for Izuna from Madara, felt it as intensely as any other Uchiha. It tasted as sweet as all the power he had acquired on his quest to find that man.
“When I became heir, when Izuna became my only sibling. My only family left, so I made a promise.”
From the start, Sasuke dreamed of revenge and to restore his clan.
Wanted for a family. Everything that he was owed and that was taken from him by Konoha and his brother.
“I’ll do anything to protect Izuna, even if it kills me.”
Itachi had given his life, his future and eyes up to Sasuke.
Would Madara have done the same as Itachi? He wondered.
That thought was dismissed in the same breath.
Madara and Izuna walked side-by-side regardless of their age difference, two halves of a whole. Sasuke had only ever followed in Itachi’s footsteps.
Perhaps it would have been different, had Madara been in Itachi’s place. Madara would have told his brother the truth instead of sheltering him from waking up to reality.
Perhaps they would have found an impossible solution, and saved the clan, instead of leaving Sasuke stumbling in the dark while everyone made his decisions for him.
Or maybe Madara would do the same as Itachi, because Sasuke was not Izuna, not someone Madara would care enough about to value the opinion of and never leave behind in a compound filled with death.
Watching Madara now rage on behalf of Izuna stung.
“I killed your family, you say?” Madara’s hands were back, calluses rubbing against the soft skin of Sasuke’s cheek while he glared balefully into Sasuke’s tired eyes.
And even if they could talk it out, like the tiny, Naruto-sounding voice in the back of his head pleaded, there was no way Sasuke will ever be accepted as family from the Uchiha of this time again.
He knew the sickness had left him shivering and feverish in the real world, but all Sasuke felt was the chilling cold.
“There are many men wishing for my head in exchange for what I’ve done to their families and people. I don’t care one bit for them. But you? You have done the most egregious thing one could possibly think of, taking Izuna from me. And still you deny me my vengeance simply by remaining in this body I cannot hurt.”
“How dare you, Uchiha Sasuke.”
The world twisted in response to Madara’s apoplectic yell, crashing down upon them and reforming all to do it again. Visions of the last few days flashed past, the accompanying deluge of confusing feelings punching him in the heart with merciless rage.
“Give me back my brother.”
Finally, something that his brother was not the best at, Sasuke thought, deliriously bittersweet and lost in his memories.
Mental torment of the guilty kind.
“The Uchiha are at war with our clan, yes, but they are a known variable. You and your friends are not. And you have not proven yourself exactly trustworthy, Sakura-san, if you won’t even trust your own friends.”
It was so easy for Tobirama to say that, wasn’t it? She didn’t have a choice. What Naruto didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, nor would Madara’s death hurt Konoha’s founders save for the fact they had his murder’s architect right here in their grasp.
“I’m a shinobi. We lie and trick and kill all the time to see our goals through. Necessary evils. You should know.” Her eyes were trained onto the Senju before her, shinobi before they knew peace.
She refused to look at Naruto.
Her sunshine boy who had never killed, who didn’t know how to tell a lie, and had all the power and kindness in the world within him so he would never need to.
Could remain an anomaly that left Sakura with a vague sense of envy and an overwhelming drive to protect him from turning out like the rest of their wretched flock.
Naruto, who was still protesting that they could work it out, declaring to the Senju and Uzumaki Mito’s faces that he’ll protect Sakura from them if needed and then help the Uchiha, believe it.
Sakura didn’t deserve Naruto.
“It’s okay Naruto.” She sighed. “Look, Senju-sama.”
“People die. Boo-fucking-hoo. Madara could not accept that Izuna did, and helped end our world for it. Maybe you don’t care because you are all dead by the time my generation comes around, but he comes back. He’s dangerous. He has to go.”
“I’ll stop him,” Hashirama said. “He is my equal, and with the knowledge you have given us, I can steer him down the right path.”
“And when you die? Or Izuna does? You can’t dictate what happens then.”
“Neither can you,” Tobirama pointed out. “For all we know, your meddling in our world’s time can bring forth unwanted consequences.”
“It’s precisely because I saw what Madara helped bring about in my time that I refuse to let it happen now. Zetsu latches on to him, he starts all this.” She hissed. “You weren’t there, you cannot judge me for what I decide to do to save me and mine in here.”
Laughing, she shook her head. “But really, why are you mad? Isn’t this good? The Uchiha in this time fought the Senju, Madara’s our common enemy. I don’t get why you are so upset about this!”
“The pink one is right,” Kurama rumbled, towering over them like an amused god. “We should just kill all of you. But do finish this drama first, this is the best entertainment I’ve gotten in centuries!”
Sakura wondered how upset Naruto would be if she broke free right now and punched Kurama.
Maybe punch all of them, while she was at it. Cut their losses and run to the Uchiha compound as fast as possible, destroy the tablet and hopefully save Sasuke if he was still alive and kicking.
But the roots held firm, creepers having wound their way around her fingers to stop any handsign, faint natural chakra emanating from the wood in a way that made her hair stand on end.
“You said that the Senju and Uchiha came to an accord,” Hashirama pointed out, galiantly ignoring the giant fox’s toothy smile. “This implies that peace, no matter how distant of a dream may seem, is possible. That you grew up knowing more to a shinobi’s life than cannon fodder.”
“If there is any chance in our lifetimes of peace with Madara and his people, then I’ll have to stop you, no matter your intent, Sakura-chan.”
“My plan would have allowed that. We could have made peace too, I accounted for that,” Sakura argued. “Sasuke was of the mainline in our time, he can run the clan towards peace too. We’ll help.”
“No,” Hashirama said gently. “You may not understand, and maybe it is different in your world. Madara is an old friend of mine. We shared the same dream, and if we can achieve it together, I wish for him to see the fruits it bears, no matter what.”
“Anija…” Tobirama warned.
“It will not last,” Sakura howled, all her frustration and desperation leaving her in one giant breath. “He leaves, he brings about Kaguya, the fucking world ends again. You don’t understand. The world. Ends. I can’t let that happen a second time, not again!”
Hashirama was the god of shinobi, but even he will eventually pass into the annals of time, his legacy a village of child murderers and stolen cell-lines that led to even more death than the peace he wrought help save.
Sakura was nobody compared to him, but she had looked at death and ran from it. If she could help it, she would not meet its eyes again for a long time.
There was the snapping noise of a closing fan, the sound of unhurried footsteps walking closer before a pale, clean hand reached out to sweep grimy pink hair from Sakura’s vision, tucking the loose strands behind her ear while Sakura herself panted like a spent racehorse.
She forced herself deadly still, burying the urge to lean into its warmth while her eyes still screamed bloody murder at her captors.
This mess was all her fault. Why did she think she could rely on others for help?
“Then we will not let it happen again.” Mito said.
The Uchiha gate patrol team had seen plenty of shenanigans in their life.
It was expected really, with the clan’s tendency towards the dramatic, made doubly so by the whims and passions of their head family.
Still, this was new.
Uchiha Kouchi blinked as Uchiha Izuna skid to a stop before the gate, flashing familiarly patterned mangekyo at him with a maniacal grin that eerily reminded him of Madara-sama.
“Izuna-sama?”
“Hey Kouchi!” The clan heir chirped, one hand pulling his long ponytail forth and dislodging leaves and twigs with the motion. Kouchi had recalled his sister and cousins holding a funeral for that ponytail the other day.
“Long time to see! Open the gate?”
Kouchi shared a look with his fellow guards, twisting his spear nervously.
“Um, well--What? I didn’t know you’d left the compound.”
The hysterical laugh bursting out from the person imitating their heir was not a promising sign.
“You definitely did, three days ago!”
Yari inched closer to Kouchi, the shaft of their spears clacking against each other to block the gate in a futile gesture. “Ah, you look different, Izuna-sama.”
“Ahh well, it’s a long story, not many places to do post-battle laundry outside the compound you see! These were… not my choice, let me tell you two.”
Other than the return of Izuna’s long locks (gone, but never forgotten, Kouchi’s sister had cried), the imposter was dressed in odd clothes tied together with a comically large purple tie, grey top hanging open in the chilly air instead of the standard Uchiha mantel they all wore.
They shouldn’t trust this poor imitation, Kouchi knew. One of them had to call his bluff, drive him from the gates and make an example of him.
Ensure everyone in Fire knew not to do something as stupid as impersonating their beloved clan hair ever again.
Goddess, this was a good act though.
The smile and the attitude was definitely Izuna, a far cry from the quiet one he knew had returned with them from the battlefield, whose demeanour had swung between shocked and oddly afraid of their clan’s doting aunts to a broody determination to annoy Madara yesterday.
Katsuki had spent most of dinner complaining about never wanting to be a main house guard ever again. Glorified babysitting duty, they swore, clearly Izuna-sama was fine if he was able to hop out of bed and give him the drop at every moment.
Word on the street was that Izuna had been feeling under the weather, but now, Kouchi couldn’t help but wonder…
He could count the number of sensors among the Uchiha on his fingers, but his girlfriend’s little brother had returned crying about Izuna feeling not-right when he came to play with them yesterday. Surely the older sensors would have said something about Izuna if little Nikko had noticed?
“Kouchi, Yari, hey.” The Izuna before him started, smile cracking just the slightest bit. “I would love to chat, but I’m really short on time and there’s an emergency that I need to see Madara about right now, so if you could let me through, please?”
Yari shot him a look of badly disguised panic. Kouchi himself could feel the cold sweat beginning to soak his headband as he debated what to do.
“Um.”
“Let him through,” Hotaka called out, Kouchi’s supervisor finally stepping forth and greeting the Izuna with a friendly nod. “He’s the real deal.”
They opened the gate.
“Thanks Hotaka, you’re looking beautiful as usual. Catch you guys later!”
Was what their clan heir(?!) yelled back as he booked it for the main house, clan crest large and obvious on the foreign grey shirt he wore.
Next to him, Yari blanched, feet shuffling nervously. “Is… should we be concerned? Should we report… that to someone?”
“Nah,” Hotaka drawled. “If he’s headed for the main house, Madara-sama’s got it. Not our problem.”
Kouchi’s head snapped up, eyes drilling into his supervisor, who beamed back with an easy smile. “You knew?!”
Of course she did. Hotaka was one of their best sensors after all.
Madara was too, but neither of them had said anything regarding the imposter in their midst.
“Hotaka … why?” Yari gasped, coming to the same conclusion Kouchi did.
“What’s the big deal?” Hotaka shrugged. “Other one’s an Uchiha too, chakra doesn’t lie. Figured from his signature and looks that we got a mainline bastard on our hands. Cool, eh? Bout time we got some truly juicy drama in the ranks. I knew Tajima-sama couldn’t have been that boring, let me tell you.”
The late clan head was also known for being extremely monogamous and devoted to his wife. Kouchi highly doubted infidelity was on the table.
Yari was shaking. “No way, Tajima-sama loved Kikyo-sama!”
Tajima’s late brothers, though… Tajima had famously executed one of them for a dalliance with the enemy.
How long ago was that, again?
“So you let an unknown in? One day your need for scandals is going to kill us all.” Kouchi groaned. “Madara sama’s going to kill the bastard for impersonating Izuna.”
Hotaka merely grinned, hand coming down to ruffle his hair just the way he hated it.
“Hasn’t yet, has he? Bet you two midnight shifts he won’t. Blood is blood, Kouchi. We’ll be welcoming a new brother to our clan before you know it.”