ZERO / BLEACH / TWIST (here) / REVERSE / DYE / RED
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. -Edgar Allan Poe
++++
She didn’t know how she had expected Madara to react. For some reason, she had expected a little more… fang?
Instead, Madara pulled his glasses off. They fell against his chest, dangling from the chain he wore around his neck. He reached out with both hands. Sakura stepped closer, turning and pulling her hair off her neck so that he could see for himself.
“The fuck is this shit,” Madara muttered. He fumbled to pull his glasses back on.
“It looks like a demon contract, Uncle,” Itachi spoke up. Of course, he would know it when he saw one. Itachi’s work with the Demonology Division had probably put him in close contact with dozens of these.
Contracts manifested in different ways depending on the demon and the nature of the deal that was struck. A deal to kill someone would look different from a deal for musical talent. And contrary to popular belief, deals weren’t only struck for souls. People could offer a few years of their lifespan, money, even a favor to be cashed in later. The only absolute was that when it was time to pay up, the contract would appear somewhere on the body.
“What’s it look like?” Sakura asked.
Sasuke whipped his phone out to snap a picture. He showed it to her.
“…a butterfly?”
It was bright red with black markings running along the edges. But at the bottom of either wing was a large splotch of blue that looked disturbingly like a pair of eyes. The colors were so vivid and the shadows so real that it looked as if the wings were about to flap as the creature took flight. She reached back to run her fingers along it again. There was the gentle tingle of some sort of enchantment. Otherwise it was just skin.
Madara pulled his glasses off again.
“Have you ever seen a butterfly before?” he asked Itachi. Itachi shook his head.
“I can go reference the records at the precinct to see if someone else has. I’ll go do that now before they close,” Itachi muttered, already grabbing his jacket and pulling his arms through the sleeves. Shisui twisted his head to follow his cousin. He looked to Sakura. Then to Itachi again. Sakura offered what she hoped was a reassuring smile as she nodded towards Itachi.
“I’ll go with you,” Shisui announced. He squeezed Sakura’s shoulder once before he hurried after Itachi.
Sasuke’s mouth pulled into a line. He looked like he would also like to go with Itachi. When Sakura nudged his arm, however, he shook his head.
“You shouldn’t be alone. I’ll stick with you until we figure out what the hell is going on,” Sasuke said instead. And even though Sasuke was not an affectionate person, he reached over and took her hand. He even gave it a light squeeze.
Madara let out a long breath. He sounded as exhausted as he looked.
“Alright. Stay put for the day. I’ll put together some protection enchantments for the both of you,” he decided. And then his hand landed on top of Sakura’s head. He gave her hair an affectionate little ruffle.
“Don’t worry. I’ve got you,” Madara then promised.
Guilt flooded Sakura. That she still doubted him. That she was keeping secrets from him. Any idiot could see how much he cared.
This was the man who had stayed up to help her make dioramas out of shoeboxes. He had given her ‘the talk’ and taught her how to drive. If there was anyone in this world she could trust, it should have been him.
But she didn’t.
Because of a few crazy visions that had left her with a bitter taste in her mouth.
Sasuke went to make a few phone calls, leaving Sakura by herself in the kitchen. She made sure no one was around before she climbed the stairs two at a time. She shut the door to her bedroom behind her. Warded it just in case. She could always pretend she was changing if someone knocked.
The rib was still sitting in her drawer when she fished around for it. It felt almost like plastic as she weighed it in her palm.
Sakura had stolen plenty of things from Madara before. Half of the shirts in her closet had once belonged to him. Maybe it felt different because this was something he treasured. Even though he always let her borrow them, there was something in his gaze whenever he pulled the bag out of the drawer. The way he pretended he wasn’t looking, but he still was. Maybe they were just really expensive.
As her fingers closed around the rib bone, she felt the anxiety swirling in her stomach calm a little.
“Everything’s going to be alright,” she tried to assure herself.
Her fingers tingled. When she looked down, she saw that the scrying bone was glowing just a little in her grasp.
She channeled into it.
When she normally cast a set of scrying bones, answers came to her in a chorus of whispers. It was like opening a door into a room where everyone was eager to share the same secrets with her.
When she cast the single scrying bone, it sounded more like a friend whispering a comment to her in the movie theater.
Are you wary of the dreams that linger?
It almost sounded like the voice was chastising her.
“I am being careful,” Sakura protested.
But you’ve given your heart away.
“I haven’t.” Her voice was more firm. She was certain of this one.
The voice from the scrying bone giggled before she said one last thing: Keyless lock.
“Hey. You already said all this stuff. Give me something else,” Sakura demanded.
The rib was silent. But it did hum with energy against her skin. Sakura opened her fingers to stare at the bone. There was a long crack running down it. When she channeled energy to it again, the crack glowed gold.
And to her surprise, she felt the bone cast back at her. A simple, basic spell that even a child could muster. Just the lightest brush of magic against her skin.
But it wasn’t the type of spell it was that amazed her. It was the form of it.
She remembered when she first met Madara. When he had showed her how to channel the energy through her solar plexus, push it up through her fingers until it sparked to life in her hands. Sparks the color of melted butter flowing from her fingers in a gorgeous river. The first barrier he taught her to cast was smooth and seamless. Like a bubble formed from an impossible bolt of satin.
The teachers at the Senju Academy had taught her that magic was free. To let instinct guide her, even as she struggled to summon a simple flame.
Madara had taught her that magic was the flow of energy. With the right breathing techniques and the proper stance, she could push that energy to push and pull. To pour out of or to take from.
The scrying bone, silent as it was, was telling her that magic was neither of those things.
Magic was a web. Interconnected. Tying to itself to strengthen the bonds.
Sakura tried to recreate the feel of the subtle spell that had touched her. It had settled over her like a very thin cloth.
Her temples began to ache as she narrowed her concentration over a single point on her hand. She watched as the magic gathered in a wave. Then it split into threads that wove together in a single sheet. Before she could manipulate it into any shape, it dissolved.
But she had managed it. Even for an instant.
She tilted her head as she considered the implications.
Would this style of casting prove more malleable? Would the effects of such enchantments last longer due to the bonds, or would they decay more quickly? What kinds of spells could this be applied to?
Her mind automatically drifted to Madara. He was the arcanist. Enchantment and magic research was what he lived for. In all the time she had known him, he had never grown upset at her for trying to learn. She could explain that she had borrowed a scrying bone to test a hypothesis. And then they could pore over references in the library to try to find answers to all her questions.
As she rose to her feet to go ask, the rib suddenly flashed hot in her palm. She yelped, nearly dropping it. When she glance down, she saw that the bone had burned her.
Wary. Protect your heart. Pity the child.
The different divined messages jumbled together to form a slightly different message.
“Who is the child?” Sakura asked.
The bone was quiet.
“Is it me?”
Silence answered, so she ventured another guess.
“…Is it… Madara?”
So much pain. Pitiful child, the voice sighed.
Sakura slept that night with the rib tucked back in her drawer. Sasuke slept in one of the guest rooms.
As soon as her eyes closed, she found herself at the entrance to the dream world. The old wooden door loomed huge and purple over her. It seemed taller than usual. The vines and leaves that framed the door stretched and twisted under her gaze. Her hand froze mid-reach. She stared at the keyhole that she had never needed to use.
Pity the child who trusts the keyless lock.
Sakura nudged the door, as she always had. It swung open under her light touch.
The hallway illuminated in soft, purplish light. Inviting. Safe as always.
She closed the door.
Stared at the keyhole that was a little obscured by the vines. When she brushed her fingers across them, the vines receded.
She imagined a key appearing. Dreams were strange that way. Sometimes she could just imagine what she needed and they would materialize. A watering can for wilting flowers. A hat when the sun shined too bright.
A key did not appear.
She tried other solutions.
A lockpick. A bobby pin. None of them appeared in her hand.
When she started to grow frustrated, the door swung open again. As if inviting her to just relax. This was a dream after all. She would have many more chances like this- night after night.
Sakura decided to grill the scrying bones about this another time. Maybe there was some kind of hint they were withholding.
The corridor seemed to expand and lighten once she set foot inside. The rooms of people who had already passed on remained dark. But as she passed Sasuke’s dream, it flared with colors. She continued down the familiar path. Shisui’s and Itachi’s doors pulsed too with soft light. They were a little too far for her to access, but she could feel their minds stirring. It was reassuring to know that they were alright.
Madara’s door was dim when she passed. But the knob was still there- silvery and bright. She brushed her fingers over it as she walked past. He wasn’t sleeping yet. Probably immersed in his research. It was possible that he wouldn’t dream at all that night.
When she slipped into her room, the door swung shut behind her.
It startled her when she immediately plummeted into a nightmare.
Gnashing teeth and wild, red eyes. Clawed fingers raked across her shield in desperation to slash her open.
He was crunchy, but tasty. You look tasty too.
How could she have forgotten?
Or maybe she had just pretended to forget.
The sight of Naruto covered in blood. Mouth leering too wide. Like if he smiled harder, his skull would split right open.
The side of the dream shattered like glass. The visions tumbled together in random shards as Sasuke’s hand punched through. He climbed into her nightmare, his hands filled with fire.
“Why didn’t you call me?” he asked. Yelled at her, actually. That didn’t bother her. She knew he was more concerned than angry.
He fell silent as he scrutinized the crumbling remnants of her nightmare before they swept away in a gust of wind. Sasuke glared at the void around them. And then he pulled the fabric of the darkness apart like curtains to reveal her room in the dream world. The crystals hummed on the shelves as they entered, as if greeting them. On another set of shelves sat all the different fragments of dreams she had collected in her walking. A cork wiggled out of a bottle with a pop. An airy but smug voice slipped out.
I told you to be wary.
Sakura flapped her hand back and forth, dissolving the essence with an irritable, “Yeah, yeah.” She slid to the floor, rubbing her forehead as she tried to gather her thoughts. She felt Sasuke sit down beside her.
“Sasuke.”
“Yeah?”
“What if… what if I told you something completely crazy?”
Sasuke snorted. “More crazy than if you told me you woke up one day with a demon contract growing out of your neck?” he retorted.
She tried to fake a smile. Failed.
“Yeah… something like that.”
Sasuke studied her expression. And then he shrugged. “I’ve heard crazier shit before. What is it?”
Before Sakura had a chance to speak, the room dissolved around them. She blinked up at the ceiling. It took her a second to realize that she could hear the faint sounds of someone’s phone ringing downstairs. Sasuke’s alarm had woken him.
Sakura curled up on her side, clenching and unclenching her hand. The burn mark the rib had left still stung.
Her bedroom door creaked open. Sasuke stood there, his hair sticking up every which way. His eyes barely squinting at her in the morning light.
“What crazy thing?” he questioned.
Sakura sat up. She glanced around. She could feel Madara’s presence in his room across the hall. He was probably still sleeping. Maybe it was the nightmare that was making her feel so paranoid.
“Let’s fine Ino. I want to tell her too,” she said.
Sasuke yawned. “Ok. Might as well find Naruto, too, then.”
“Just Ino,” Sakura insisted.
Ino complained about being woken this early. But she was the first one to arrive at the diner. She waved at them from a table by the window. She was still in her pajamas with a jacket thrown on top. Bits of her golden hair stuck out from under her knit cap as she watched them settle down across from her.
“You both look terrible,” she observed.
“Thanks,” Sasuke retorted.
Ino wrinkled her nose at him.
Sakura waited to let everyone order their food before she finally launched into her explanation.
She started from the very beginning. With the puzzling loop of dreams that seemed to bleed into reality, only to become a dream again. She recounted being able to anticipate what people would say and do, as if she had experience all of this before. She even told them about how she’d seen Gaara’s bloodied corpse on the floor of the library.
Ino paled. She had never been good with blood.
“So, you’re saying the monster… beast… whatever- that attacked you was Naruto?” she inquired.
Sakura shrugged as she pushed a bit of pancake around her plate. It had sopped up all of the syrup, leaving it a sticky, dense mess.
Sasuke hadn’t touched a bite of his food since it arrived. He folded his arms on top of the table.
“Did you tell Ino?”
“Tell me what?”
“That she has a demon contract branded into her body.”
Ino sucked in a sharp breath. “Sakura, when did you-”
Sakura shook her head. “I don’t know. I think I would remember if I did something like that.”
Sasuke tapped his finger against his arm. Like he was deliberating how to word something. He glanced up to meet Sakura’s eyes. And then he seemed to make a decision.
“That description of Naruto… sounds… pretty demonic to me,” he slowly pointed out.
They had all taken a basic demonology and summoning class during their freshman year of university. It was one of the required courses. Summoning spirits and making contracts was a simple and usually safe way to gain a boost in power. As long as the caster followed protocols and made the terms of the contract very clear, even a mischievous spirit couldn’t do much damage.
“But… Naruto’s… isn’t he just a guy?” Ino asked the question they’d all been thinking.
All four of them had met during their freshman year. Naruto sat beside Ino during one of their lectures and asked to borrow a pen every day until she had threatened to stab him with one. Once Ino and Sakura had become friends, it had become natural for the four of them to hang out together. Like Sasuke, Naruto’s strength lay in offensive magic. The two of them had developed somewhat of a friendly rivalry as they dueled together.
The more Sakura considered the idea, the more ridiculous it seemed. Naruto was so kind. He delivered pizza at night and always hooked them up with free slices when they visited him at work. She remembered him comforting her when Itachi and Shisui had gone missing. Those didn’t seem like the actions of a malicious spirit coming to collect on a contract.
But he had also eaten Sasuke’s heart straight out of his chest.
“Okay. Okay. Shit. Okay…” Ino muttered to herself. She folded her hands together under her nose. Her eyes darted back and forth.
“First thing’s first, we should go visit him,” Ino then declared.
“Are you crazy?” Sasuke spat.
“Look. Sakura said all this shit happened on New Year’s Eve. It’s not even December yet. There’s still time,” explained Ino.
“Yeah. Time for him to rip her heart out or whatever.”
“It could have just been a vision from divination gone wrong. It might not be actual foresight,” Ino insisted.
Sakura shuddered as she remembered those long teeth. The joy and cruelty in his cackle as he confessed to killing the people she loved. But also the pang of concern as she wondered what had driven sweet Naruto to do such an awful thing.
And then wondered something else.
“Why do you guys believe me?”
Ino and Sasuke stopped their bickering. They turned to her.
“Why do you believe me? I sound like a crazy person. I feel like a crazy person,” she whispered. Hands clenching in her lap. Sasuke’s face crumpled as tears began to drip from her eyes. Ino’s chair scraped across the floor as she rounded the table. She pulled Sakura into her arms, warm and smelling like perfume.
“Because we love you. And because you’re this upset. Of course we believe you,” Ino murmured.
The waitress awkwardly hovered to the side as she held the check between her thumb and pointer finger. She lingered, eyes flickering around from place to place. In the end, she settled for placing it at the edge of the table before hurrying off to give them some privacy.
Once Sakura had dried her tears and they’d paid the bill, they made their way out of the diner. Ino kept her arm wound around Sakura’s, insisting that it was because she was cold.
After a little more fighting, all three of them agreed to visit Naruto’s studio apartment.
“If he tries to kill us or whatever, we’ll beat the shit out of him. There’s three of us and only one of him!” Ino cheerfully declared. Sasuke and Sakura exchanged a far less enthusiastic look. But when Sakura nodded, Sasuke heaved a sigh and agreed to Ino’s plan.
Naruto had clearly been asleep after a late shift at the pizzeria. Or maybe at one of his other part-time jobs. He was barely awake when he opened the door to his place and stumbled off. He scratched his stomach as he gave them a questioning look.
“How are you feeling?” Sasuke abruptly asked.
“Uh… confused?” Naruto answered.
“No, like, physically. Have you had any weird symptoms or feelings lately?” Ino tried to clarify.
Naruto rubbed a knuckle across his eyes. “Not really. Hey, have you been crying, Sakura?”
“I’m fine,” she sniffed, slapping a hasty smile on her face. Naruto gave her a look that said he didn’t believe her. But before he could ask something else, Ino grabbed his elbow and shook his arm.
“Focus! I’m being seriously. Are you sure you haven’t felt… off?”
Naruto stared at Ino now. And then something flashed across his face.
“Actually, my head’s kind of been hurting sometimes. And I’ve been falling asleep earlier than usual. Guess I’ve just been tired,” he confessed.
Ino and Sakura exchanged a look.
Ino dug the pockets of her jacket. And then her pajama pants. She looked around the place before she pointed to the pendant Naruto always wore. She grasped it, jerking Naruto forward a little.
“I’m gonna cast a tracking charm on this. Just to make sure you’re ok,” Ino explained.
Naruto didn’t protest, but he began to look worried now. He looked at Sakura again.
“Wait, what’s going on? Did something happen?” he wondered. Ino was busy casting her spell. She threw Sasuke a look that told him to say something.
“Sakura… divined… that something bad might happen to you. We just wanted to make sure you weren’t hurt or whatever…” Sasuke let his lie trail off. It wasn’t completely false. It also wasn’t really the truth.
“Oh… well. Shit. Thanks, I guess. And you guys are good?” Naruto mumbled, blinking a little. He looked more awake now.
“Yeah. We’re fine,” Sasuke said just a little too quickly.
They stayed for a little while longer, chatting with Naruto and catching up. With each passing second, Sakura felt more and more like she was trying to digest rocks. When she squeezed Sasuke’s elbow, he nodded.
“Well, we’ve got to head to the shop. I’ve got an appointment coming up soon,” Sasuke announced. They hugged. Naruto squeezed her close and whispered that he was there for her if she ever wanted to talk. It was all she could do not to vomit on his shoulder.
Leaving Naruto to catch up on his sleep, the three of them walked to the subway station. Ino promised to keep in touch and to do some research on her part. Her job at city hall gave her access to at least some of the archives there. She hugged Sakura one more time before she headed through the turnstiles towards to the right line.
Sasuke and Sakura waited until she had rounded the corner before they spoke.
“So, not going to the shop?” Sasuke guessed.
“I… I need to get some answers today,” she said.
“Can I come with you?”
She shook her head.
Sasuke let out a soft snort. “Figures.”
His palm glowed with spectral heat as he offered it to her. She grasped it. The heat flowed into her, traveling up her arm. Warming but not hot. It was a simple linking spell. One that would wear off in a few hours.
“I’ll come to the shop later,” she promised. Sasuke nodded before he headed down the steps with his hands in his pockets.
Gaara picked up the phone after three rings.
“Sorry, did I wake you?”
“No. I was just on my way back from the store.”
“Good. Um… can I come visit? I could use some company.”
There was a pause. And then a startled laugh. Bright and breathy. Like he couldn’t believe what he had just heard.
“Of course. Walk slowly. I need to clean up a little.”
As she hung up, Sakura tried to stop her other hand from shaking.
She needed to get the truth from him today. A horrible screech filled her ears as a train barreled into the station. She watched as people swarmed forward, waiting for the doors to slide open.
She stared. Decided to wait for the next train. There was no need to rush. As she brushed her hair away from her face, she felt the back of her neck tingle. When she pressed her palm to the mark, she could feel it radiating warmth. She didn’t touch it again. Praying that ignoring it would somehow make it go away.
ZERO / BLEACH / TWIST (here) / REVERSE / DYE / RED
Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world. — Oscar Wilde
++++
The bells were ringing. Ringing. Clanging so noisily in the tower.
She dreaded hearing those bells because it meant the beginning of another long day.
But as Sakura blinked awake, she realized what an odd thought that was.
The only clocktower in the city was an ancient thing with huge neon green hands that could be seen from almost any window. If you waved your hand in front of your face, the numbers on the clock blurred to reveal the weather and the times for the sunrise and sunset. Wave again to see the times for moonrise and moonset. It was a clever little spell that activated for each person the moment they set foot within city limits.
There were no bells.
So just what had she imagined hearing?
As she lay there, a memory came to her.
“It’s illusion magic,” Sakura had guessed one night as she sat at the kitchen table. This was years ago. She knew from the way Sasuke’s hair had gotten too long. The one time he was convinced that super long hair looked good on him. (He was definitely copying Itachi, but no one dared to point that out to him.)
“It’s conjuration. It’s making something appear,” Sasuke countered, swirling his spoon around in the remnants of his cereal milk. A few soggy bits of wheat drifted around with the motion.
They both looked to Madara, who just smiled. He gestured to Itachi sitting across from him. Shisui was away on one of his trips at the time.
“What’s the answer, Itachi?” Madara asked.
When both Sasuke and Sakura looked to him, Itachi chuckled.
“Transmutation,” he replied.
“What?”
“How?”
“The clock tower runs on electricity. The spell converts the energy from the electricity into light and heat.”
Sasuke wrinkled his nose. “How is that any different from regular electricity?”
Itachi raised his eyebrows. “Good question. No cogs. Just a few wires and some spells. The tower’s mostly hollow.”
It was Sakura’s turn to wrinkle her nose. “That’s…. Complicated for no reason,” she mused. And as her eyes fell on someone who loved to enchant things in complicated ways for no reason, her face lit up.
“Did you come up with that?” asked Sakura.
The corner of Madara’s mouth curled up in a feline smirk.
“Took Shisui ages to figure that out. Smart,” he replied before he took a sip from his mug.
There were lots of strange things about the city that traced their roots back to Madara. The streetlights powered by fire magic. The expansion charm on city buses that allowed more people to fit on each vehicle than seemed possible.
And in the present, she realized.
“There used to be a bell. Not anymore,” she said out loud.
She didn’t know why that mattered. But it felt important to say in the moment.
By the time she rolled out of bed, Madara was already shuffling around downstairs. She could hear the sink running. The refrigerator door opening and closing.
Gaara had texted her good morning.
He had been this attentive in her dreams too.
She texted him back. And then she tossed her phone aside to stretch her arms over her head.
“I’m borrowing your scrying bones!” she yelled as she crossed the hall. Madara grunted something that sounded affirmative.
The bones felt cool to the touch as she scooped them out of the pouch. She scattered them across the rug in her room. When she channeled magic into them, she could feel the bones begin to hum. The cracks began to light up gold, the whispers beginning to creep into her ears.
Beware of the dreams that linger.
Do not give your heart away.
It wasn’t unusual for scrying bones to give multiple pieces of information. It was unusual for those pieces to be so cryptic, however.
She ran her hand over the bones one more time. Her fingertips tingled.
Pity the child who trusts the keyless lock.
When she frowned, the scrying bones repeated the warning.
Pity the child who trusts the keyless lock.
Extremely cryptic. Bordering on unhelpful.
She sat on the rug, staring at the bones for a while.
But then another text arrived from Gaara, distracting her. She swept the bones back into the soft pouch. They almost seemed to cling to her- like they were reluctant to part from her. She peered down at the bones. And then she reached inside to pluck one of the bones from the pile. A rib. Less noticeable if it was missing since there were 23 others rattling around inside. She slipped it into the drop drawer of her dresser before she returned the pouch to Madara’s nightstand.
Madara yelled from downstairs asking if they were out of marmalade.
A laugh bubbled up her throat as she almost yelled back that he didn’t even like marmalade.
She stopped herself.
No, Madara loved marmalade. He ate it with all of his toast when possible. Where had that bizarre and obviously wrong thought come from then? Sakura blinked, shaking her head as she made her way downstairs to help him dig through the pantry.
++++
She didn’t see much of Madara in the next few weeks. She wasn’t avoiding him on purpose. But some small part of her was relieved for an excuse not to have to see him so often. She kept imagining his blood spilling over her, too warm, whenever he squeezed her in a hug or patted her on the back. It made it hard for her to meet his eyes for too long. And if at all possible, she wanted to avoid him catching on that something was up.
She regretted telling him everything. The magic circle still buzzing purple. A body sprawled across the runes. And Madara looking too calm, as if the blood wasn’t spreading until it wet the bottoms of his shoes.
She was glad she decided to keep quiet this time. Shisui wouldn’t disappear into thin air. Itachi and Sasuke were still alive.
And Gaara was easy to talk to. That was why she had liked him in the first place.
He liked calling more than texting. He tended to stay up late like her. They went to see a movie. Another time, they walked in the park.
November turned to December. Snow began to flutter down onto the city. As the white flakes dotted the asphalt, Sakura leaned against the counter in Gaara’s tiny studio apartment. One of the tiles on the floor was cracked, like someone had dropped something from the counter. She ran her heel over the circular indent in the ceramic.
“It’s hot,” Gaara warned.
Sakura turned her gaze back to him. He poured from the electric kettle. There were two mismatched mugs filled with instant coffee. Steam curled into the air as he filled both the cups.
“Sorry. I haven’t had a chance to get groceries in a while,” Gaara said, pushing one of the cups towards her. Sakura summoned a spoon from thin air and used it to mix her drink first, then his. She dropped the spoon into the sink, but it never clattered. Just dissolved into smoke. She smiled at him as she lifted the mug with both hands.
“That’s alright. I’m not picky about my caffeine,” she assured him. She took a careful sip of the coffee before she glanced around.
Gaara’s apartment looked… bare, somehow. There were shoes and clothes. A few decorations were scattered around. There was even a poster up on the wall of some vintage movie. But despite those little things, it felt a little cold.
“It’s really coming down now,” Gaara observed.
Sakura followed his line of sight to the window over the sink. The streetlights were beginning to blink on. There were still people running around outside as the storm began to pick up.
“I’ll call you a cab?” Gaara offered. He patted his pants until he found his phone in his back pocket.
“Can I sleep on the couch?”
Gaara’s hands slipped. He dropped his phone. It fell face-down on the tile.
Sakura laughed a little. “Sorry. I made you uncomfortable. I’ll go before it gets bad.” She pushed her mug away. It was still steaming as she grabbed her phone and keys off the counter.
In a way, she was glad. In her visions, she had never crossed that line with him either. She had been so consumed with her research. And his awkward little blushes and stutters had made her think that it would be better to take things slow. It had felt like they had all the time in the world.
As she reached for her coat where she had draped it over the back of the sofa, Sakura felt Gaara close his hand around her forearm.
“There’s no food in my fridge. We should order dinner before they stop delivering,” he said, quietly.
You’re garbage, Sakura thought to herself later. She lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling. Gaara slept on the sofa. His back was to her. There was a blanket draped over him, but he couldn’t have been too comfortable. But she knew why he endured it.
Knew it from the way his eyes lit up when she walked into a room. Or how he agreed too quickly to each of her comments.
It was cruel to exploit his little puppy love like this. She knew there were other ways to go about this. But what her recent experiences- visions- whatever- had taught her was that honesty might not be the best option.
Sakura shifted a little. Gaara’s breathing was steady. She slipped out of bed, shivering when her feet touched the floor.
A quick spell summoned a dim light to her fingertips. She glanced around the apartment. There didn’t seem to be much to snoop through. There were some books and papers on his coffee table, though they had been pushed to the side to make room for their paper containers of noodles and steaming dumplings. Sakura plucked one of the papers out of the mess to squint at it. It looked like an invoice for some clothes he had ordered online. She set it back down where she had found it.
When Gaara woke in the morning, it was to Sakura shaking his shoulder. He squinted, twisting around to look at her.
“Hey. I need to get going. Just wanted to say thank you for letting me crash here,” she whispered. She spoke quickly, before he could fully wake up and get his bearings about him.
He grunted something. Cleared his throat. Tried to speak again. “Yeah. No problem. Uh. Do you want breakfast or something?” Gaara sat up, swaying a little. He rubbed the side of his neck, wincing at the stiffness he probably felt there.
Sakura pulled on her coat. She flipped her hair over the collar.
“I’m running a little late. Next time,” she replied.
He looked disappointed. She felt a twinge of regret again. So she leaned over and kissed him on the lips. She had only done so a handful of times. Mostly because it filled her with the same guilt that welled up now. He might have called her name as she headed out the door. She pretended not to hear him.
He had some kind of connection to Madara. There was no other reason for him to end up dead in her house. Twice.
The most obvious solution was to ask Madara outright. He never avoided her questions. But another part of her remembered Madara’s hand coated in blood. As if it had stabbed directly through someone. Even if all her other visions were true and that wasn’t, she didn’t exactly feel comfortable asking him just yet.
Instead, she pretended to be working on her thesis and headed to the Senju Institute.
She dropped by the Department of Abjuration to check her mailbox. Nothing too interesting. She chatted with the secretaries for a minute, laughing and smiling in all the right places before she headed to the library.
Sakura scoured the database. There were hundreds of papers written by Madara. And even more papers that referenced or credited him. Not a single one also included Gaara’s name somewhere in the study. That was frustrating. She managed to find a few books that caught her interest and brought them back to her small office in the Department of Abjuration.
She was unsurprised when there was a knock on the open door a few hours later. Sakura looked up from her book, slipping her thumb between the pages to mark her spot.
“Headmaster.”
“Dry as always. You sound more and more like him with every day.”
She set her magnifying glass aside with a scowl.
“See? He does that too,” Hashirama added with a chuckle. He lingered in the doorway, looking around her narrow office that she shared with another grad student. When his eyes fell on the newest books on her desk, his expression changed.
“Thinking about changing your thesis?”
Divination: An Exploration of Foresight
Through the Eyes of Fate
Advanced Divination and Enchantment of Visions
There were a few others, but the spines were obscured under other papers and scraps ripped from her notebook.
When it was clear that she wasn’t going to rise to his bait, Hashirama sighed. The headmaster was forever trying to rope her into a conversation. Madara assured her that it was fine to ignore him. So she often did.
“Fine. I wanted to let you know that those spell books you requested last month are finally here,” he informed her. And then he followed her pointing finger. On the opposite end of her desk from the divination books were the texts on dreams she had specially ordered from another university several cities away.
“Oh… you already got them?”
She had known exactly where those books would be waiting for her. On the silver cart in the library. Labelled with her name and her department.
“I saw them when I visited the library this morning. Seemed like a waste not to grab them too,” Sakura replied.
Hashirama nodded. Then his expression brightened as he clasped his hands together. “How goes the research?”
The last time he had asked, she had demonstrated. Just a little something to show off.
She was tired today. Sakura just shrugged. “Slowly. But it goes,” she said as vaguely as possible.
Hashirama just laughed, waving his hand. “Alright. I get the hint. I’ll get out of your hair,” he conceded.
“Thank you,” Sakura replied. She reopened her book, about to return to her reading. But she stopped herself.
“Headmaster,” she found herself calling out. The man braced his hands against the doorway, still smiling. He arched an eyebrow at her.
When she lifted her chin, Sakura looked him straight in the eye. Whatever expression she had on her face made Hashirama drop his smile altogether.
“What happened to the bell in the clocktower?”
His look of confusion seemed genuine enough.
“There’s never been any bell. The tower’s always been hollow,” he told her. And then he tilted his head a little. “Perhaps you’re remembering another city. Or… “ The smile returned to Hashirama’s face. “Dreams can get confusing. Sometimes I think I’ve already done my laundry and wake up to find that it was only a dream.” He laughed a little.
Sakura forced a smile onto her lips.
An unpleasant sensation prickled down her spine. Dread, she realized a heartbeat later.
Something was wrong.
Hashirama’s smile sharpened.
“You should be careful not to let your dreams linger when you’re awake, Sakura,” he then warned her.
Sakura kept the bizarre conversation to herself when she left the campus not too long after. Goosebumps had erupted up and down her arms when the headmaster had uttered that final statement. It wasn’t quite identical. But it was similar enough to the scrying bones’ message.
In the world of divination, there were very few rules. One of the most important was that coincidence was the excuse of a lazy diviner. Or an incompetent one. Hashirama considered her- his eyes unreadable.
Sakura mulled over the bizarre conversation as she walked into the dream shop just before noon.
Shisui scrutinized her from the counter. His eyes narrowed. He turned to say something to Itachi. She ignored the both of them as she tossed her coat aside and headed into the break room to pour a cup of coffee.
Her cousins blocked her when she tried to step out of the break room.
“I’ll pour hot coffee on you,” she warned them.
“You’d never waste coffee like that,” Shisui called her bluff immediately.
“Try me,” she growled, trying to move past them. Shisui folded his arms across his chest.
Itachi didn’t look nearly so stern. “You’ve been acting strange lately. We just wanted to make sure you’re alright,” he said. It was weird how his voice suddenly made the corners of her eyes sting.
Shisui’s face softened. “Yeah. Like, even if you can’t talk to Uncle, we’re here,” he chimed in. And then he offered an arm to her. Sakura used the hand that wasn’t holding the coffee to hug him. He squeezed her just the right amount. Hugs from Shisui were the best.
“Except money. I’m broke. Can’t let you borrow anything,” Shisui then amended, squeezing her a little closer. Sakura laughed, slapping at his back a few times. As she twisted in his arm to hit him again, she felt Itachi grab her shoulder. Hard.
“Ow!” Sakura complained.
At the same time, Shisui protested. “What the heck, man? You don’t even like hugging. Wait your turn.”
Itachi swept Sakura’s hair off the back of her neck. He stared. It was bizarre enough that Shisui released her to get a look at whatever it was too.
“Oh. When did you get a tattoo?” Shisui wondered.
“A what?” Sakura retorted. She squirmed when Itachi ran his thumb over the back of her neck. It felt… odd. Tingly, maybe?
“This… isn’t a tattoo,” mused Itachi. He was gentler this time as he put his hand on Sakura’s shoulder again. She turned to face him. She put her palm over the place he had just touched.
“It’s a contract,” he then clarified. His eyes searched hers as he asked: “Sakura, have you made a deal with someone or… something?”
Sakura shook her head.
Itachi hissed out a long sigh. He ran a hand through his hair. His gaze wandered around as he thought. Shisui, however, seemed to come to a decision much faster. He cupped a hand around his mouth.
“Sasuke!” he shouted.
There was a long pause. And then a door slammed somewhere upstairs. Footsteps clomped down until Sasuke’s face appeared at the top of the staircase. He was scowling.
“I’m finishing up with a client,” Sasuke hissed.
“Don’t care. Wrap it up. We’re closing for the day,” Shisui decided.
“To do what?” Sasuke demanded.
“To figure out why the fuck Sakura has a demon contract on the back of her neck. Now hurry up, smartass,” Shisui snapped in response.
Sasuke paled. His stare lingered on Sakura for another moment before he ran back upstairs.
ZERO (here) / BLEACH / TWIST / REVERSE / DYE / RED
Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it. - Haruki Murakami
+++
“You’re doing it wrong, you know.”
Those were the first words Madara had ever spoken to her. Arms crossed across his chest, over his half-buttoned shirt. Staring down at her with those arrogant eyes glinting bright red.
“Then show me how to do it,” she retorted. Unaware of how dangerous those words were.
A harsh wind swept through. Sakura squinted her eyes shut against the hair that blew into her face. When she opened them, the man stood just in front of her. Grinning with too-sharp teeth as he leaned over her. Those luminous eyes widened as he took in the golden light sputtering between her palms.
“What are you? 12? Don’t even know how to do basic channeling?” he asked, eyes darting back up to her face.
“8,” Sakura corrected him.
“Ah. Shit. Seriously?” His expression shifted. The furrow in his brows deepening as he squinted down at the magic twinkling and then dwindling in her hands. Thumb on his chin, he leaned in a little closer to the sparks.
“Are you channeling through your solar plexus or your heart?” he demanded.
Sakura made a face. “My what?”
He sighed.
“Take a deep breath, through your nose. Like this.” And he demonstrated. Inhaling through his nostrils. He exhaled long and fast through his mouth. “When you breathe out, feel your abdomen move. Right here.” He touched his stomach.
Sakura watched him do it once more before she tried it herself. Breathing in deep through her nose. Exhaling through her lips.
“Now try channeling your magic through that part of your stomach you just felt,” he instructed.
Her eyes closed as she followed the steps. She gathered her breath, willing her strength into her palms as she exhaled. The golden sparks appeared again, but this time, they spilled from her palms, down her arms. They showered her clothes and the ground with bright lights before winking out of existence.
“I did it!” Sakura exclaimed. And when she lifted her chin to thank him, the man was gone.
++++
The world overflowed with magic. It clung to blades of grass and wafted off the smoke rising from chimneys. It lingered in the alleyways, mingling with the smells of food from all around the world. A melting pot of pastelitos, General Tso’s and doner kebab all in one.
Anyone who couldn’t perform magic bought it. And the more complex the magic, the more valuable it was. Simple levitation charms and giggle potions could be purchased in the same vending machines that sold soda. People walked out of salons with hair that changed color in the sunlight. Sleepy janitors on the night shift could twist a finger and let the mop work by itself as they took a quick nap.
The city of Konoha was as old as it was busy. It wasn’t where Sakura had been born, but it was where she was now.
She lived in one of the dorms at the Senju Institute. Many of the students there were children of non-magical parents and trained them to wield their powers. This program was, in essence, an orphanage, but no one liked to say that out loud.
There were many things to be grateful for. The Senju Institute fed her and kept a roof over her head. None of the teachers or fellow students were ever unkind to her. But a label seemed to hang over her head everywhere she went.
This girl can’t wield magic.
No matter how much she studied, how much she practiced, she couldn’t understand the lessons from the instructors. Who told her, “Follow your instincts” and “feel the energy”. Which meant absolutely nothing to her. Besides that odd encounter in the library, Sakura had never managed to properly channel magic before. And as her classmates learned to conjure light and summon orbs of water, Sakura found herself falling farther and farther behind.
Tutoring sessions with the teachers did nothing. So while Sakura struggled with the application, she threw herself into reading up on the theory. Because maybe there would be an answer in one of those big, dusty books in the library about what made her defective.
If anyone wanted to know how to do magic, Sakura could recite it without a thought. The irony was comical, in some ways. Although, Sakura didn’t find it very funny at all.
++++
“You can’t just show up whenever you want,” Tobirama griped, not for the first time, as he watched Madara peruse the shelves of the school library.
“Relax. Your brother said it was okay. Isn’t he in charge?” Madara said.
“Yeah. But I’m also in charge. And I hate you,” retorted Tobirama. Madara snorted. And then he found his eyes drifting past the shelf. Past the balustrade. Downstairs, he glimpsed a little girl sitting alone at one of the long tables. Her nose buried in a huge textbook.
“That girl,” Madara mused. And Tobirama turned to follow his gaze. He let out a heavy sigh.
“Ah. Sakura? Good kid. I feel bad for her,” he replied.
“Bad? Why?” Madara’s eyebrows rose.
Tobirama paused. He peeked over at the girl to make sure she hadn’t heard them before he leaned in a little closer.
“She seems to have the spark, but she can’t channel magic. Her pathways must be dead or blocked,” Tobirama whispered, hand covering his mouth. Madara’s mouth twisted, eyebrows rising.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
It was Tobirama’s turn to look surprised as he watched Madara cup his hands around his mouth.
“Hey! Kid!”
The girl’s head jerked up. Her eyes widened.
“You still remember this?” Madara asked. He held out his palm. Gold sparks flooded his palm, overflowing. Spilling over the railing. Down to the floor below. The girl nodded. She held up both her hands. She squeezed her eyes shut, biting her lower lip.
“Feel where your breath is. Push the magic through there,” he reminded her.
Slowly, flecks of gold gathered at the tips of her fingers.
“Exhale. Push through your stomach.”
Gold welled up in her hands. And then it began spilling endlessly, bouncing across the tile.
Madara turned to Tobirama with a smirk. “You know, Tobirama, sometimes telling people to just feel magic doesn’t work,” he rubbed it in. But Tobirama didn’t even see the expression as he hurried down the stairs to examine the magic. Sakura looked from Tobirama, up to Madara. Her face gold as the light from her magic bathed her expression.
Madara raised his eyebrows at her as he descended the stairs.
“Hey. Try this,” he urged. And then he closed his fingers around the sparks. They spurted between his fingers before they began to lump together. Burning red hot, thrumming with energy. When he opened his hand, a smooth black stone glistened in his palm.
Tobirama sighed. “Come on, Madara. Even senior level students struggle with transmutation.”
The girl’s forehead wrinkled. She grabbed Madara’s hand, jerking it down to eye level. She scowled at the shimmering rock.
“How do I do that?” she demanded.
“Make the sparks. Breathe,” instructed Madara, snatching the orb away.
She took a step back. Sucking in a deep breath through her nose, she summoned the golden sparks to her hands once more.
“Now. Kid. The magic is moving quickly because all the molecules are moving fast,” Madara explained. He pointed at the sparks. She stared. “They’re all vibrating. Bumping into each other. All because it’s so hot.”
“It doesn’t feel hot,” she protested.
Tobirama sighed again, shaking his head.
Madara shot him a dirty look before he looked down at Sakura again. “Well, you’re not wrong, kid. I’ll get into that stuff later. For now, just believe me. It’s hot for the magic, alright?”
The girl continued to frown, but she slowly nodded.
“Then make the magic stop moving so fast,” he explained.
She blinked a few times. Then lifted her chin to look up at him. “So... tell the magic to cool down?”
He thought for a moment. And then Madara smirked. Hand on his hip, he nodded.
“Yeah, kid.”
She stared directly into the sparks. She sucked in another breath. And then she began to close her fingers, just as Madara had. As she moved her hands, she whispered to the sparks: “Cool.... it’s time to be cool. It’s not hot anymore. It’s nice and cool. Slow…”
Tobirama’s eyes bulged as the sparks slowly darkened. The magic began to swirl together in her palms, rippling back and forth with each of her breaths. Then, slowly, it gathered into a solid shape in her cupped hands.
“Show me what you got, kid,” Madara instructed.
As the girl opened her hands, the object between her fingers slipped out. Madara’s hand flicked. It rose in the air, sparkling as it rotated. It was a crystal with a pointed tip. Purple, green, and blue swirled together in layers, gleaming as light bounced off the surface.
“Huh. Fluorite. Good quality too,” he commented. When he flexed his fingers, the crystal began to spin in the opposite direction. But when he glanced at the girl, he saw that her eyes glittered even more brightly than the crystal she had created.
“I did that?” she whispered.
“Yeah. Impressive for your first try,” Madara replied. With a flick of his wrist, he sent the crystal flying over to her. She held both her hands out. It fell into her waiting grasp.
Smug, Madara turned toward Tobirama.
“See? Kid can do magic just fine. Pretty gifted, honestly,” he rubbed it in. Relishing the way Tobirama glared at him.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Tobirama ground out.
“Can you teach me from now on? You’re a good teacher,” Sakura spoke up. Still clutching the crystal she had created.
Tobirama and Madara both looked down at her. Her eyes gleamed. Rubbing his chin, Madara considered this.
“Tell you what, kid. I’ll do you one better.” Madara grinned.
“Madara, no,” Tobirama was already protesting.
“You ever had your own room before, kid?” asked Madara, hand on his hip.
It had taken some persuading. As a student of the Senju Institute, Sakura was technically in the care of the school itself. Plus, Hashirama, its headmaster, wasn’t keen on the idea of just… giving a student away.
Madara, however, was not above playing dirty. When he began rattling off a list of all the ways both brothers owed him, Hashirama finally caved.
Madara would take custody of Sakura. He would instruct her on the fundamentals of magic. When Sakura was old enough, and had developed enough of her skills, she would resume her studies at the institute.
As Madara watched her pack up her things, he looked around the narrow room she shared with one other girl. Her roommate had some photos taped over her desk. There were a few posters on her side of the room. A picture frame sat on her nightstand. All Sakura had were her books, along with a blue vase filled with fake flowers. The books she scooped up into her arms and dropped into her suitcase. She didn’t move to take the vase.
“Ready to go?” he asked as she set the suitcase on the ground. The things inside rattled around. Half-hollow. Half-filled.
Sakura nodded.
Madara’s home sat halfway across the city from the Senju Institute. The inside of his car was old-fashioned, but it was clean. The worn leather seats gleamed. He drove with the windows down, his hair whipping back in the wind.
“So… what do you do?” she asked.
Madara pushed his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. His lips twisted to one side.
“I dabble. Been going by ‘arcanist’ for a while now,” he replied. When Sakura continued to stare, he laughed a little, teeth glinting. “I research magic and how to put it inside things. I also come up with spells to use magic differently.”
“Do I have to call you ‘dad’?” she then asked.
Madara wrinkled his nose. He waved a hand, as if shooing the title away from him.
“Nah. I’m Madara. You can call me that. Or ‘teacher’. Whatever. Just don’t say ‘old man’,” he answered.
Madara’s home didn’t look like much from the outside. But inside, it was filled with books, spell ingredients, and whatever other clutter he had gathered over the years. Candles bobbed in the foyer. Shoes floated into a closet as soon as they were off the feet. The welcome mat shifted colors whenever someone stepped over it.
It was also much too big.
Sakura’s jaw dropped the first time she stepped inside. She backtracked onto the front steps. Stared up at the narrow apartment. Then stepped inside again, staring at how tall the ceilings were.
“Extension magic,” Madara chuckled as he watched her dumbfounded expression.
The next few days were a blur of learning the house’s layout and trying to absorb all the information Madara threw at her.
“There’s no real schedule. Eat when you like. We can do your lessons in the afternoon, so you can sleep in,” he said as he poured himself a glass of wine.
“What about school?” she asked.
“I am your school. There’s nothing at those ridiculous schools that I can’t teach you better at home,” Madara scoffed.
“What about math? Or reading and writing?”
Madara heaved a sigh.
“Kid. I got it,” he assured her.
Despite his attitude, Madara was a proper teacher. He waited for her to understand before he asked her to do. Whenever she asked for him to explain again, he did so. The technicality of Madara’s casting made a lot of sense to Sakura.
“Not like that. Spread your fingers. You need to leave space for the magic to gather,” he explained as he nudged her hands. He stood with his feet shoulders width apart. As Sakura adjusted, he pointed down at his feet. She inched her feet closer together until he nodded.
“Now. Let’s try again. Remember, you need to break the bonds and remake them,” Madara reminded her. He waited for her to nod before he took a deep, slow breath. Sakura copied him, feeling the heat gather in her fingertips.
Madara never made her feel like she had when she had stayed at the Senju Institute. Deficient. Slow. Somehow less than the others who ran around with their hands shooting sparks in every direction.
The Senju school of magic focused on drawing upon emotions and imagination. And while their magic was strong, it was also volatile and ran the risk of turning destructive.
The Uchiha family’s knowledge of magic emphasized understanding the science of magic. What created it? How could it be channeled optimally? They were the ones who had discovered that wooden wands and staves are actually a poor conductor of magic. The discovery had led to the development of new casting tools that had filled up the family’s accounts faster than the banks knew how to handle.
As Sakura spent more time with Madara, the more she realized that magic wasn’t just about the spells. It was woven into the very fabric of reality. It changed the structure of objects and bent light. All she had to do was tug on a few strings to set things into motion.
“Water and fire are kind of alike, actually,” Madara said. He held his hand out, palm up. His palm seemed to glow for a moment before a flame flickered to life just above it.
And with just a little more effort, he changed the fire into water. The droplets danced together before he crushed them in his palm.
“Why?” Sakura asked.
“It’s all about the energy of the matter. If you change the energy, you can change the state of things.”
Sakura touched her hand to her chin. “More energy is hotter,” she recalled him saying.
Madara nodded.
“But more energy can also be gas,” she went on.
Madara’s eyes crinkled a little, but he said nothing.
Sakura’s forehead wrinkled as she peered up at him. “Am I a water affinity?”
Madara nodded.
“And you’re fire?”
Madara nodded again.
“Can someone be good at both?”
Madara thought for a moment. “Your natural affinity is what you’ll be good at with little effort. It would be more challenging, but it’s possible to do both well,” he decided.
Sakura tilted her head
“What about earth?” she asked.
Madara laughed. He leaned back in his chair. “You must’ve driven those teachers crazy with all these questions.”
Sakura didn’t smile. She looked down at her feet. “They got mad when I kept asking…” she confessed.
Madara’s laugh cut off. He examined her expression. And then he ruffled her hair. “Aw, kid, don’t look like that. You can ask me as much as you like. Just as long as I’m not trying to sleep,” he assured her. And then he paused.
“I mean... sometimes when I’m... ah whatever. Ask away, kid,” Madara concluded. Watching the dimples form in her cheeks as she gave him a shy smile in return.
++++
“Nice work today. Your basics are really coming together,” Madara commended her over dinner one day.
Sakura smiled around her bite of chicken. She was doing that more and more now.
“Next, we should take you to an appraiser. Your folks wouldn’t have brought you to Konoha if you didn’t have an affinity for dream magic,” Madara went on. He slathered a biscuit with too much butter, gesturing with his knife as he spoke.
Sakura’s smile faded a little.
“They did it once. At the Institute,” she admitted.
“And?” Madara prompted, cheeks stuffed with food. “What’s the verdict, kid?”
Konoha was famous for the art of dream magic. Unlike elemental magic, which most people could learn to use with the right training, dream magic couldn’t be learned. It was innate. Dreams, shadows, thoughts- those were all things that ran in the blood.
Someone had once thought to call those would could handle dreams dream casters. It was a silly name, but it had stuck. A low level dream caster could bottle a dream that already existed and sell it for profit. A more skilled dream caster could amend parts of a dream, or even piece one together from scratch.
Sakura nudged a piece of broccoli on her plate.
“They never said.”
They had taken one look at the paper and sent her back to her room. The subject had never come up again.
“Those fuckers,” Madara sighed. His eyes widened. At the same time, Sakura’s head jerked up.
They stared at each other.
“Was that a bad word?” she asked.
Madara’s eyes darted to the ceiling. Then back to her. “Uh… yes. You shouldn’t say it.”
“Even though you just said it?”
“….Yeah.”
“….Okay.”
The test was simple.
Madara sent her to bed early that night. Reading the expression on her face, he mussed her hair.
“Don’t worry, kid. It’s not hard,” he assured her.
Despite all the questions swirling around in her head, Sakura managed to fall asleep. And as she found herself dreaming of a park on a sunny day, she spotted a familiar figure sitting on one of the benches. Madara lowered his round sunglasses with a smirk.
“Well. Only dream casters can meet in dreams. Gotta make room for that in your lessons, I guess,” Madara mused, rubbing his chin.
When Sakura woke in the morning, she shuffled into the kitchen bleary-eyed. Madara stood flipping pancakes at the stove. Well, more accurately, he stood drinking coffee while a spatula flipped pancakes on its own. Madara turned his pointer finger in a circle. A glass flew out of the cupboard. The refrigerator door opened so a carton of orange juice would move to join the cup.
“You ever get any training in dream magic before, kid?” Madara asked her.
Sakura shook her head as she watched the glass fill with juice. When she held both her hands out, the cup lowered down into her waiting grasp.
“Good. Means I don’t have to undo any garbage they put into your head at that school,” Madara muttered.
Nightmares were a common issue for dream casters. Especially in children. Who had an excess of magic with no way to use up the energy. The surplus magic seeped into their dreams. Twisting things into horrors that only a child could imagine.
Madara taught her not to fear.
“You shape the dreams. They cannot shape you,” he told her.
Each dream caster had a way of envisioning dreams. And a way to bend them to their will.
Madara saw dreams as swirling black mists. When he casted, he sank into the endless field of mist, feet settling onto the soft black powder that coated the ground. He pulled the mists into shapes, sculpting them into people and objects. He could even sweep bigger sections into the skies and the ground. And when he channeled his magic, burning red for just a moment up his fingers, he filled the mist with color and texture.
Sakura copied him, at first.
But even as she learned, Sakura loved watching him bend her dreams. Twisting the nightmare shapes into harmless stuffed animals and pieces of furniture. He conjured ice cream out of thin air. He could even make stars appear in the sky where there had been none. It all felt so natural. And it was so easy to do it once she had seen him do it a few times.
“Is it normal for us to have bad dreams?” she asked one night as he lit the incense in her room. The fragrance filled the air. Madara paused. And then he looked over his shoulder at her.
“In the beginning, yeah. Maybe it’s the cost of walking through everyone else’s dreams,” he sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. He lit the last stick of incense before he took a seat next to her bed. “But you’ll stop having them. Or you’ll learn how to make them good again.”
Her room was right across the hall from his. He had heard her wake up crying the first few nights in the house. So it had become part of the routine for him to check on her. He never said why. He didn’t really have to. And she didn’t thank him for it. Somehow she got the feeling that it would embarrass him.
“I wish I didn’t have bad dreams,” she muttered, pulling the covers up to her chin.
Madara smirked. “Same, kid. Good night.”
He mussed her hair before he got to his feet.
++++
“Alright. So.” Madara took a deep breath before he started.
“This is my little brother Izuna. That’s my nephew Fugaku. And those are his two kids Itachi and Sasuke. This is Obito, I think he’s a nephew. Or maybe he’s a cousin. Cousin’s cousin? Eh, whatever.”
He pointed to each face in the photograph as he rattled off the name.
“That’s too many people,” Sakura said. Cheek in his hand, Madara nodded.
“Family’s too damn big. Anyway, I’m the head, so you can be as rude or as nice as you want. No one’s gonna say shit to yo-” Madara broke off as he caught himself swearing again. Sakura scrutinized his expression.
“I’m not supposed to say that word?” she guessed.
Madara sighed, rubbing his hand over his face. “Yeah.”
“Okay.”
And then she turned her attention back to the album.
“So… they’re my family too, now?” Her voice was suddenly tiny. Not like her at all.
Madara stared at her profile.
“Yeah, kid. You’re not alone anymore,” he answered. He rested his hand on top of her head. It was heavy, but she didn’t complain or shake him off.
It wasn’t difficult to get to know the other members of the Uchiha family. They came to visit often. So much so that Madara grumbled and threatened to kick them out each time they showed their faces.
But Madara’s too-big house started to make sense. All the spare bedrooms were perfect for when someone wanted to spend the night.
Shisui liked to crash on the sofa when he fought with his family. Itachi used one of the guest rooms when he wanted to study dream magic with Madara. And Sasuke was there the most often. When he needed a quiet place. When he just needed space from his parents. Because “they care about me, but they’re…a lot.”
None of them batted an eye when Madara introduced Sakura as their cousin. Shisui took to ruffling her hair the same way he did to Sasuke. Itachi reminded her about elbows on the table and offered to help her with her homework. Sasuke was just relieved to have someone his age around now. After years of Itachi and Shisui ganging up on him for being “the baby”.
The titles for how they were related to Madara were tangled and complicated. They called him “Uncle”, and Madara called them her cousins. And that was good enough for her too.
Sakura liked it when her cousins slept in the house. The proximity made it easier for her to visit them in their dreams.
In the early years, when her magic was still a tiny little sapling, she could only visit a dream that was very nearby. And that was almost always by accident. She would stumble into a place that wasn’t hers, baffled by the weight and shapes of things.
It happened the most with Madara, since he was usually nearby. And if he was irritated by her intruding on his dreams, he never let it show in his face.
But as time went on, she began to wield her magic with more ease. And rather than falling thoughtlessly into dreams, she could imagine the shape of the entrance to the dream world. It was a worn wooden door, painted deep purple. There were vines crawling up the edges, spreading towards the keyhole. Which made no sense, because it always opened without a key at her touch.
Madara taught her about the portal that would take her to the Uchiha family’s dreams. It was a long corridor filled with ornate doors. Each one a different color and shape. And when she hesitated, Madara tugged her hand to pull her forward.
“Your door is here too,” he had assured her.
And Sakura blinked. “Mine?”
She memorized the shapes and colors of the doors she knew. Itachi, Shisui, Sasuke, Madara’s, and finally hers. The jeweled handles turning soundlessly under her fingers.
It turned out that even dream casters in the same family envisioned dreams differently.
Shisui dreamt of space. Each of his dreams was a different planet, swirling with cosmic dust. Nightmares were filled with storm clouds. Quiet dreams were barren moons that spun on in silence.
On the nights when he worked, sometimes Shisui let her tag along as he cast together people and places into one planet. Crushing them between his palms as they rotated faster and faster. Until light shone between his fingers. And when he pulled his hands apart, a planet or a moon spun in place. A dream that he would then pluck out of space and file away for later.
Itachi saw dreams as a vast ocean. When he casted, he plunged into a deep ocean. He settled onto the soft sand at the bottom of the sea. Corals bloomed and seaweed waved in time to the current. And he pulled the fish and all the shells together, weaving them into a beautiful dream that could lull the most anxious heart to sleep.
It was strange being where Itachi cast his dreams. Silence. Bubbles rising with each exhale, even as she breathed without a problem.
Sasuke’s was unusual, even among his eccentric family. He dreamt of a vast warehouse of boxes and jars. Sakura trailed after him as he wandered the aisles, grabbing things off the dusty shelves. Sometimes she even carried some of the things for him, listening to him mutter and sigh as he tried to find just the right ingredient. And then Sasuke dumped all these things into the giant vat in the middle of his dream space.
It was fitting. Given how Sasuke liked formulas and order. Sakura sat to the side, watching as he brewed up a beautiful dream, more clinical and more calculated than those of his cousin or his older brother. But beautiful nonetheless.
With all of these influences around her, it wasn’t difficult for Sakura to discover how to cast dreams her own way. She experimented with different styles until she found one that just sang in her palms.
When she entered her room in the dream world, she imagined fragments of dreams as colors and sounds. A little like Sasuke’s, these fragments lived in glass jars that lined the walls of the room. But when she popped the cork, sound spilled out of each one. Someone’s laugh. The honk of a car horn. People singing “happy birthday” off-key.
When these fragments swirled together into a tapestry of colors and sounds. Thrumming warm between her fingers until they gathered together into a solid shape in her hands. At first, she made them take the shapes of smooth stones. But over time, she learned to turn them into crystals instead. Just like the fluorite Madara had first taught her how to make. The stronger dreams became more jagged crystals. While the softer ones became rounded gems that sat warm and curved in her palm.
And just as she liked to visit her family in their dreams, they liked to visit her too. Itachi, in particular, loved to sit on a cushion in the corner, his chin in his hand.
“It’s elegant.”
Sakura turned to him, her hands still squeezed together. A snippet of laughter slipped through between her fingers.
“What?”
“The way you weave dreams. It’s elegant. Just like Uncle’s,” Itachi clarified. He held his hand out. Sakura dropped the dream into his palm. It was a rose quartz, shiny and smooth.
++++
Part of Madara’s deal with the Senju Institute was that Sakura was required to participate in the same exams as other students. So, once a year, Madara drove her to the school. He parked his car in the lot and waited while she took the exams.
Some of the other students recognized her. They whispered, nudging each other with elbows. Some snickered as they waited for a good show as she failed to conjure anything. Like always.
Instead, she recited incantations forwards and backwards. Her hands glowed as she filled the room with a rippling aurora. She conjured balls of light and turned them into water. The muttering and smirking stopped right away.
It seemed silly now. And she could hear Madara’s voice in her head. Imagine him slouching in a chair in the corner, acting like he wasn’t paying attention even as he advised her to straighten her posture.
Breathe deep, kid. Magic starts with the breath.
Feel the heat gather in your stomach and pull it into your hands.
Water comes from your head. Imagine it spilling down your neck and arms. That’s the magic pathway you need to use.
The sputtering instructors tried to speak with her after. But Madara leaned on his horn. Everyone rushed to the windows to cast a glimpse of Madara poking his head out the car, one hand cupped around his mouth.
“Let’s go! Takeout’s getting cold, kid!” he called.
“Coming!” Sakura yelled back out the window before she hurried down the stairs.
And as Sakura got into the car, Madara always paused to glare up at the school. “Anyone give you any trouble?”
“No. It was fine,” Sakura always answered.
“Good,” Madara grunted as he backed out of his spot.
++++
At some point, Sakura couldn’t remember when, she stopped calling Madara by his name. Maybe it was around the same time, he stopped calling her “kid” or “squirt”.
It was odd, because that seemed like something important. So she should’ve remembered it.
But maybe it was because it had happened so quietly. So naturally.
One day, she looked at Madara’s back as he stood in the middle of the massive library inside their house.
“Papa.”
“Yeah?”
He didn’t laugh. As if that was what she had always called him.
“Can we go over that transmutation spell again? I’m still kind of lost.”
“Sure,” he replied, already descending the ladder with several books floating down after him.
++++
Before either of them knew it, years had passed. Sakura enrolled in the Senju Institute as a college student. She majored in Abjuration with a minor in Divination. When she graduated with full honors, Madara had barely batted an eye.
“Didn’t expect anything less from you,” he assured her as he took them out to dinner to celebrate. They clinked wine glasses together.
Four months later, she was back for her Masters in Magical Research. She commuted from home, like she had during undergrad.
“You know, you’re always welcome back here,” the headmaster liked to mention whenever they bumped into each other. Which was a little too often for it to feel like coincidence.
“No thanks,” she replied, barely looking up from her textbook, “I like where I am.”
She tucked her hair behind her ear, smiling as she pretended not to notice how the headmaster’s eyes narrowed.
“Tell that old man to go fuck himself,” Madara scoffed when she brought it up over dinner.
“Papa. Language,” she chided. She flicked her wrist. The pepper shaker glided across the table, into her hand.
“That is the right language for him,” Madara snorted.
Fourteen years had passed since she had come to live in that house. Her room still sat across the hall from Madara’s, all the way up on the top floor. In all that time, Madara had never once nagged her about staying up late at night. He didn’t complain about how she used all the hot water in the house whenever she showered.
The closest they had ever come to fighting was when he had insisted upon hanging her diploma and her graduation portrait in the foyer. She thought it was embarrassing. Especially since Madara loved to brag about it anytime someone visited. He refused to let anyone inside until they made some sort of positive comment about the diploma. It made Sakura groan and put her head in her hands.
“You hate it that much?” Madara had teased at first.
Lifting her head, Sakura wrinkled her nose. She couldn’t really say ‘yes’, though.
++++
“And this is where it all starts.”
++++
It was early in the morning on a Friday.
Magic trembled in the air. Like a raindrop clinging to the underside of a gutter. Wobbling. Waiting until the moment that gravity would drag it down.
Madara rolled onto his side, his ears ringing and his ribs sore. He started when he heard someone exhale beside him. He didn’t remember bringing anyone home last night. He wondered what time it was.
“Papa. I need to borrow your scrying bones.”
He let out a sigh of relief at the sound of Sakura’s voice. Pulling the covers over his shoulders, he turned over again.
“Don’t you have your own?” he groaned. He felt persistent pokes to his lower back.
“Yours work better,” she insisted.
Madara didn’t respond. But after a long time, he heaved another sigh. He raised his pointer finger and flicked it through the air. The bottom drawer of his nightstand opened. A black velvet pouch floated up, landing in her hands.
“Thank you, Papa. I love you,” she said in a sing-song voice. She kissed the back of his head through the comforter before she pranced off. Humming as she rattled the dry bones together in the pouch.
“What’re you trying to scry anyway?” he asked, squinting as he pulled the comforter away from his face.
“I wanna know what I should wear on my date today,” Sakura yelled back from the other room.
“Oh,” Madara said. He snuggled back down in the comforter. Letting out a yawn, he closed his eyes again. Relaxing in the warmth of his blankets in the ear-
“Wait. Date?” Madara repeated, eyes snapping open again. The comforter tangled around his legs as he launched himself out of the bed. He scrambled to his feet, kicking the sheets aside as he hurried out of his room. Listening to the rattle of the scrying bones knocking together as she cast them to the ground.
“With who?” Madara asked. The door to her bedroom was wide open.
“A guy. We were in the same chem class last year,” she answered. She stared at the bones she had scattered across the rug. She nudged a couple of them with her pointer finger. Madara scowled.
“Hey. Don’t force the bones,” he reminded her.
Sakura’s lower lip jutted out.
“If you want a certain answer, you shouldn’t be consulting the bones in the first place,” he then scolded her.
Sakura pouted even harder as she turned around to stare at him. Madara flinched a little. He wasn’t proud to admit that he had succumb to those pleading eyes on several occasions.
“This is important to me, Papa. Don’t be mean,” she insisted.
Madara exhaled noisily, rubbing his hand through his hair. And then he flapped his hand at her. “Alright, alright. Keep at it,” he told her, crossing his arms across his chest. A proud smile crept across his lips as he watched the bones begin to glow a soft shade of gold.
Divination had always come easily to her.
Wisps rose from the blackened cracks in the bones. Sakura leaned in to listen to the whispers.
Eyes widening, she turned her head to look at her bed. There were a few different sets of outfits laid out on her comforter.
“Really? The red one?” she mused.
The bones hissed something else before the mist dissipated. Sakura stared down at them for a moment.
Beware of the dreams that linger, they had whispered.
“What?”
Sakura looked up to find Madara still in the doorway. He yawned as he stretched his arms over his head.
“You’ve got an eye booger, Papa,” she pointed out.
Madara rubbed his left eye.
“No. The other one.”
He rubbed the other eye.
Sakura scooped the bones up and dropped them into the silky pouch. She tied the string. Madara held his hand out. Sakura tossed the bag up into the air. It drifted to Madara, landing in his waiting palm.
“Do you have time for breakfast before your date?” he asked.
“Yeah. It’s not until tonight. Can you make pancakes?” she requested, staring up at him. Madara grumbled, scratching his stomach. Sakura pulled on the bottom of his shirt as he shuffled past her.
“Go wash your face,” he sighed as he walked out of her room. With a flick of his wrist, he sent the bag of scrying bones flying back into their spot in his room. Bleary-eyed, Madara made his way down the stairs towards the kitchen.
They had breakfast a little while later. Sakura laughed when Madara almost poured maple syrup into his coffee. Madara snorted into his food when Sakura read one of her texts out loud. Sakura snorted too as he began choking on his food. They were both in tears and wheezing by the time they had cleared their plates.
After they did the dishes, Sakura glanced down at her watch.
“I’m gonna go to the shop first. I won’t stay out late,” she promised. She gathered her hair in one hand and pulled it off her neck as she searched for her phone. Madara froze. Sakura looked back when she felt his stare.
“What?”
Madara blinked hard. And then he smiled.
“Your phone’s in your hand, kiddo,” he pointed out.
Sakura looked down. She laughed. Madara did too as he went to pour himself another cup of coffee.
++++
The Uchiha family’s dream shop sat in a quiet street not far from Madara’s house. It was close enough that she could walk, although Madara insisted that she ask him or one of her cousins for a ride at night.
It was a little cramped. And they could more than afford to move into a larger space. But there was something charming about that crooked shop. About the way they had to scoot past each other on the narrow stairs.
The sign above the door was in the shape of a paper fan. The white and red paint was peeling. Shisui and Sasuke nagged Madara about upgrading to a neon sign every once in a while, but Madara had ignored them for years. And would, undoubtedly, continue to ignore them for as long as possible.
The store was already open when she arrived. Sakura felt a faint hum in the air as she rested her hand on the doorknob. Bells chimed as Sakura stepped into the shop. The dreams sat on the shelves that lined the walls. They glowed white for a moment when she stepped inside. Then they faded back to their natural colors. Dreams about adventures were green. The ones about love swirled pink and light purple.
These dreams had been collected from other people. Friends, acquaintances. Sometimes just strangers who slept beautifully. Sakura dove into their dreams and took a part of it home with her. Gathering the threads of the dream matter in her hands like glistening threads as she walked. As long as she was careful, when she woke, those threads were still in her hands. She could slip them into jars with a hint of enchantment to stabilize them.
It was one of the first things Madara had taught her outside of basic magic. This was the cheapest form of dream magic. After all, dreaming someone else’s dream wasn’t perfect. Details didn’t always line up. Names and faces wouldn’t make sense. But for most people and their budgets, this was enough.
“Hey,” Shisui greeted her, leaning against the counter and the register. Sakura waved at him as she shut the door behind her. She ducked beneath the mobile of colored ribbons and bells that hung from the rafters.
“Is it just us?” asked Sakura, pulling her scarf off. She tossed it into the air behind her. Along with her coat. An enchantment caught them and pulled them onto the coat rack in the corner. The spell even straightened out her coat so that it wouldn’t wrinkle.
Shisui tapped a pen against the counter. He tossed it and then stretched his arms over his head. “Nah.” He interrupted himself with a big yawn. “Itachi’s upstairs with a client right now.” He blinked a few times, obviously exhausted.
Shisui rubbed his eyes with his palms. “Sasuke’s doing something at the lab. He’ll be by later to lock up.”
“On the third floor?”
“Yep.”
Sakura craned her head to look up as she thought.
The customers who weren’t satisfied with buying prepackaged dreams were where they made the big money. Some wanted the dreams that were tailored to their specifications. Others had nightmares that they needed a dream caster to untangle. Both services required the dream caster and the client to be asleep at the same time. The therapy rooms upstairs provided the quiet space these clients needed.
Sakura made a note to stay extra quiet as she moved around the shop.
Shisui watched the counter, checking on sales and appointments. Sakura kept busy organizing dreams and taking inventory of what they needed to harvest.
This was how most days at the shop went. They swapped out roles as their clients came in for appointments. Sakura’s gentle touch with both clients and dreams made her popular with children. Women almost always requested Itachi or Sasuke. Shisui was the most popular among their older clientele.
Madara himself didn’t come to the shop much these days. He always joked: “Why would I? When I have you kids to make all the money for me?”. They only pulled him from his research when there was something the four of them couldn’t figure out on their own.
On the nights that Sakura stayed late, there was almost always someone who would walk her home. Or Madara would drop everything to be there once she texted him. Hand on the back of the passenger seat. Grinning with those sharp canines that she had once found a little intimidating (how silly).
“Hey kiddo. Ready to go home?” was his corny greeting each night.
That night, Madara didn’t pick her up. She still messaged him to let him know that she had left the shop, Sasuke would be closing up, and not to wait up for her.
Izuna brought jerk chicken. I’ll pack leftovers for your lunch tomorrow, Madara replied.
Sakura sent him a series of purple hearts in response.
The date went well. Gaara had sat next to her for an entire semester. They had spoken a few times. Once, he had asked for a pencil. So it had surprised her when he had asked for her number, face turning so red he looked ready to explode.
Dinner was at a tiny Turkish restaurant. They sat at one of the counters by the window, a little squished as they bit into spicy lamb and crispy falafel.
“What are you doing now that we’re out of school?” she asked. She took a slurp of soda through her straw as she looked over at him. She laughed when she saw him struggling to swallow his food to answer. She handed him a napkin.
“Eat. It’s okay,” she giggled.
Gaara blushed again as he wiped his mouth. The thin paper stuck to the oil on his fingers.
“I’m… working at city hall. For public works,” he finally managed to say.
Sakura tilted her head to one side. “I’m not really sure what public works is in charge of,” she confessed.
Something lit up in his eyes. He sat up a little straighter as he began explaining. “There are divisions within public works. But basically it’s in charge of taking care of public buildings and facilities in the city. I work for the division that oversees the parks. I go out to visit them and check that they’re safe. Sometimes I survey people to ask what they think we can do to improve things.”
Sakura smiled a little. She leaned on her hand as she listened to him. And when he had finished, he glanced over at her. Suddenly small and quiet again.
“You really like your work, huh?” she commented.
He flushed bright red, all the way to his ears. But he nodded.
“That sounds really cool. What are you working on lately?” Sakura asked.
They stayed until the manager of the restaurant apologized and said it was time to close. As they stood on the sidewalk, Sakura puffed out a breath. It was getting cold at night. Her hands in her pockets, she cast a sidelong glance at Gaara. He was looking down at his phone.
“I’ll call you a cab,” he offered.
Sakura thought it over. And then she nodded.
“Sorry. I’d give you a ride if I had a car,” he added as he pressed some icons.
Sakura snorted. “I don’t have a car either. Can’t judge.”
He chuckled too.
And then as they stood waiting, Sakura heard him shuffle his feet.
“Uh… so… can I see you again?” he asked.
Sakura rocked back on her heels. She took a deep breath of the cool air. When she looked up at him, she was smiling again. “You’re cute. You have good manners. You have a job that you’re passionate about. I don’t see why not,” she answered.
His eyes widened. Sakura burst out laughing at the look on his face.
When the black car pulled up, Gaara opened the door for her. He waited for her to get into the back seat before he closed the door. And then he hesitated, fingers resting on the handle.
“Can you text me to let me know you got home okay?” he requested.
Sakura leaned out the open window. She reached out to tap him once on the nose. “Sounds good to me. Good night,” came her reply. As she rolled up the window, his fingers slipped off the door.
Sakura listed out her address to the driver before she leaned back in her seat. She caught the driver glancing at her in the rearview mirror.
“Good date?” he asked.
“Yeah,” answered Sakura with a smile.
Even though she had told Madara not to wait up, he was sitting at the kitchen table when she got home. She tossed her coat in the air. One of Madara’s spells caught it and draped it over a hanger. Just like the one that gathered her discarded shoes and slipped them into an empty spot on the shelf. She climbed the steps, rubbing her hands through her hair.
“Hi, Papa,” she greeted him as she walked into the kitchen. He raised his eyebrows and nodded before he returned his attention to his book. Sakura scrubbed her hands clean in the sink. The smell of the fruity soap filled the room. She rubbed her hands on a kitchen towel before she took a seat next to Madara at the round table.
“How’d it go?” questioned Madara. He slipped a bookmark between the pages before he shut the cover.
“Pretty good. He seems nice,” Sakura said right away. Madara pulled his glasses down, hooking them into the front of his shirt.
“Are you going to see him again?” He tried to keep his tone casual, but Sakura wasn’t fooled. Tongue between her teeth, she grinned at him.
“Aw, Papa. Are you gonna feel lonely if I get a boyfriend again?” she teased.
Madara looked disgusted by the very idea. “No. I’m looking forward to some peace and quiet again,” he retorted. Sakura snickered. And a smile touched Madara’s lips as he got out of his seat.
“I’m going to have some coffee before bed. You want some?” he asked.
“I wanna try the one Uncle Izuna brought last time,” Sakura called after him before she slumped over the table.
The kitchen always smelled like coffee. Madara probably drank more coffee than he did regular water. It was no wonder that his sleep schedule was all sorts of messed up. Coffee in the morning. Decaf at night- even though that didn’t seem to help. The kettle let out a whistle when it was ready. Madara poured the water through the filter into her favorite cup. The white one with red flowers.
“How was the shop today?” inquired Madara when he returned. Sakura inhaled the fragrant steam.
“How was the shop today?” inquired Madara when he returned. Sakura inhaled the sweet-smelling steam.
“A little quiet. I need to get more childhood dreams. I’m starting to run low,” she mused. She reached over to pick up his book. It was old. The green cover was peeling at the edges.
“What’s this?” she wondered.
“I’m looking at tracing magic in ancient artifacts. Kind of dry,” he huffed.
“You writing a new research paper?”
“Yeah.”
“Why don’t you pick a topic you like more, Papa?” wondered Sakura.
Madara rolled his eyes. “It’s a request from someone I owe a favor to,” he responded.
Sakura wrinkled her nose.
Madara sighed. “Exactly.”
They chatted for a little while longer before Sakura began to yawn. She rubbed her wrist across her eyes. “I have to head to school in the morning to pick up some materials. I’m gonna go to bed,” she announced, getting out of her chair. She gathered both their empty cups to place in the sink.
“Night,” Madara greeted her.
“Good night, Papa,” she replied. Sakura gathered her purse and her phone. She squeezed Madara’s shoulder as she walked past.
++++
As the weeks went by, Sakura found herself quite busy. Whenever she wasn’t at the shop, she was busy working on her thesis. Sometimes Naruto and Ino wheedled her into taking a break. They got cheap pizza and sat eating on the curb. Or sometimes her cousins barged in with Vietnamese food and soda, completely ignoring how Madara glared at them as they stormed inside.
“I didn’t invite you,” he scolded.
“Nice to see you too, Uncle,” Sasuke called over his shoulder as he climbed the stairs up to Sakura’s room.
Sakura met Gaara a few more times. He really was very sweet. He always seemed embarrassed whenever he caught himself talking too much about his work. But it was nice hearing someone so excited about something. They went to see a movie. Another time, they just walked in the park, getting lost among the winding paths and trees.
“I really want to focus on finishing my thesis right now. I hope you don’t feel like I’m leading you on or anything,” she had explained once.
“That’s alright. I don’t mind waiting,” Gaara replied. And then he walked into a tree branch, making Sakura burst into giggles.
November turned to December. And suddenly it started to snow all over the city. As the white flakes covered the asphalt, Sakura browsed the library inside their house. It seemed impossible that such a huge room existed in the building. Of course it was. But Madara’s magic played around with the dimensions of the room to make it happen. It was an odd combination of light and heat that Sakura still struggled to pull off after all her years of practice.
Sakura pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose. The silver wire frames had once been Madara’s, which, like many of his possessions, she had claimed as her own.
“What?” she called, leaning back on the ladder to peer at him. With a flick of his finger, Madara pulled the ladder down the wall of shelves, closer to him.
“I asked have you seen Shisui?” And he punctuated the end of the sentence with a sigh.
“Yesterday. At the shop. Why?”
“His parents say they haven’t seen him since yesterday. Can’t get in touch with him either.”
“Maybe his phone’s just dead, Papa,” Sakura suggested. She pulled another book off the shelf, leafing through it.
Whenever he wasn’t working at the dream shop, Shisui was usually doing magical research of his own. In particular, he was interested in how the position of celestial bodies affected spells. It wasn’t unusual for him to disappear with his telescope and his spectrometer for a night or two.
“That’s what I thought at first. But it’s been a full day and no one’s seen him,” answered Madara. He leaned against the rungs, his hands under his chin.
In front of him was a shelf full of manuals on torture and human anatomy. Those were from some of his darker days as a younger man. His eyes flickered over to Sakura before he slowly waved his hands. The spines sparkled before they blurred. The letters of the titles swirled around, rearranging themselves into different words. Then he shot Sakura another look.
She was still looking through the shelf higher up. She hadn’t noticed anything.
“Either way, his parents are worried. Keep an eye out for him,” Madara insisted.
Sakura considered this. “Have you asked Itachi? He always knows what Shisui’s up to.”
Madara shook his head. “Says he has no idea either.”
There was a pause. Sakura pushed her glasses up again, lips twisting to one side. She pointed to a few books, which slid out of place from the shelves. They hovered in the air around her.
“I’ll ask my friends and see if they’ve seen him around,” she finally agreed. Madara smiled up at her.
“Great.”
That same night, only much later, Sakura’s shadow fell across the threshold of Madara’s room. She knocked on the open door. Which was a little silly, given that he could see her. But it was an old habit.
“Papa?”
“Hm?”
“I’ve got a headache again.”
Madara pulled his glasses off. Sighing, he put the glasses, along with his pen in the book to mark his place.
“It’s because you overdo it,” he scolded, even as he reached his hand out for her.
Pressing his fingertips to her temples, Madara channeled energy through the thin skin.
“Take a deep breath.”
He pulled the magic, which had twisted and bunched up in all the wrong ways.
“Inhale.”
He tugged. The threads of energy shattered. Like a jar of marbles overturned. The little shining pieces scattering in every direction. Gold fluttered from her temples, fluttering off in little glittering pieces.
Sakura’s eyes opened in time to catch the list glimmers of magic dissolving into the air.
“Am I channeling wrong? I keep getting them a lot lately,” she wondered. Rubbing the heel of her hand against her temple.
“No. It’s a common issue, actually. When you walk dreams, the residue magic follows you. It’s just buildup. Regular clarification like this is all you need,” Madara assured her. Sakura frowned a little harder.
“Have they found Shisui yet?”
Madara leaned his elbow on his headboard. He heaved a sigh. “Not yet.”
“It’s not like him to just run off. I hope he’s alright,” Sakura mused, frowning too. Sakura looked up when she felt Madara pat her knee.
“Things’ll be fine. They always are,” he said.
Sakura searched his eyes for a moment. And then a smile pulled at her mouth. She nodded, sighing. “You’re right.”
++++
A week later, and Shisui was still missing. Along with Itachi, who had never missed a day of work before.
“Still no word?” asked Ino.
“Nope. Nothing,” Sakura replied.
“Have they called the police?” Naruto wondered, leaning his elbow on the front counter of the dream shop.
“Yeah. They even went to his apartment. Nothing. Passport’s still there. None of his stuff is missing. It’s just... poof,” Sakura listed, shaking her head a little.
It really wasn’t like her cousins to disappear without a word. The police claimed that they were searching, but both Sakura and Madara agreed that it obviously wasn’t enough.
“I’m sorry, Sakura. That sucks,” Naruto said. Leaning against her, he put his arm around her shoulder. Ino took Sakura’s hand and patted it a few times.
“Thanks,” was all she could think to say as her friends did their best to comfort her.
And while Sakura really was grateful, she felt worse for Sasuke. He hadn’t slept in days as he took to the streets in search of his older brother. She tried to go with him whenever she had time. And she called him on the nights she couldn’t, just to ask how things had gone.
Sakura even considered planting a dream in Sasuke’s room. Just to force him to get some rest. But she knew he wouldn’t like that. And he was so sharp that he might even spot it before it had a chance to take hold of him.
“You doing okay?” Ino questioned.
Sakura blinked. She smiled. “More than everyone else, I think. I’m trying to be positive.”
Naruto’s forehead wrinkled. “Aw, Sakura, I love you and your big heart,” he sighed, squeezing her a little tighter. Ino wrapped her arms around Sakura’s other side.
“Things will work out,” Ino reassured her.
++++
That night, Sakura walked into her house to silence. It was New Year’s Eve. She had promised to be home early so they could watch the countdown together.
“Papa? You didn’t pick up so I just walked home,” she called as she stepped out of her boots. She leaned a hand against the wall for balance. Paused. Waited for Madara’s voice drifting down the stairs to her.
Nothing.
“Papa?” she tried again.
Something about the quiet made her uneasy. She walked up the stairs, looking for a glimpse of silvery wings. There was usually a spirit around that she could talk to. But even the usual hum of magic that buzzed around the kitchen had gone silent.
The back of her neck itched. Sakura scratched at it as she wandered through the house. Nothing in the living room. Or in the laundry room.
She climbed the stairs. Madara’s study was empty. So was the second floor bathroom, where she sometimes found him sitting with a cup of coffee and chatting with the water spirits.
The third floor was silent too. But something about the air felt off as she climbed the last steps. And there was an odd smell. Metal. Metal and something that made her head begin to pound.
The floorboards creaked under her feet. She peered into her room first. Her bed was still unmade. One of her drawers sat open with her laptop resting on top. The string lights that framed her window winked at her. Everything was just as she had left it that morning.
Part of her must have known what she would find. She found herself dragging her feet. Blinking too much as she forced herself to cross the hall. To knock on the door that was ajar. Pretending that the huge pool of dark red wasn’t spreading across the white wood.
She could hear herself screaming. She couldn’t make herself stop. Tears filling and blurring her vision. She screamed and screamed until she could feel her ears ringing with the sound.
++++
“Hey! Sakura!”
Her eyes flew open. She could see a dark shape hovering over her. She flinched away until she recognized the glasses hanging from the front of his shirt.
“It’s just a bad dream,” Madara said. He snapped his fingers. An orb of soft light flickered into existence. Just enough for her to see that this was her bedroom. She could also make out his look of exhaustion as he sat on the edge of her bed.
“You okay?”
Sakura shook her head. She sniffed. Rubbed her face. Her palms came away wet with tears. Madara clicked his tongue. She felt him lean over her to pluck a couple tissues from the box on her nightstand. He pushed them into her hands. She sat there staring at them.
“You haven’t had a nightmare like that in a while. Must’ve shook you up pretty bad,” he sighed. And then his hand landed on top of her head. He patted her hair a few times. Still a little clumsy, even after all these years.
Sakura didn’t say anything. She stared down at her hands.
Madara patted her head again before he asked, “Wanna talk about it?”
Sakura shook her head again.
He sighed. “Okay. Let me go make some pancakes. It’s almost time to get up anyway,” he decided. He squeezed her shoulder before he got up. She could hear his bare feet shuffling against the floor as he walked. And then thumped their way down the steps.
Sakura sat in a daze for another minute. It took her a few tries to get her mind to focus on anything. She blew her nose, wadded the tissues up into a ball, and threw them in the trash. Out of habit, she disconnected her phone from the charger and lifted the screen up to eye level.
Friday, Nov 3.
A notification popped up on the screen to remind her that she had a date tonight.
Sakura dropped her phone. It bounced once on the mattress. She cast another wary look around her bedroom. And then she was scrambling off her bed, stumbling into Madara’s room. She yanked the bottom drawer open. Underneath a worn journal sat his bag of scrying bones. Sakura poured them out onto the rug right there.
“Hey, what are you doing?” Madara’s voice came from the doorway.
Sakura tried to push her tangled hair out of her face. She gave a hiss of frustration before she yanked it into a bunch on the side of her head and held it in place. She took a long breath before she could gather her frazzled thoughts enough to channel magic into the dry bones.
The black fissures in the bones began to glow. Voices hissed out through the brittle marrow.
Beware of the dreams that linger, they whispered again.
Sakura squeezed her eyes shut. She channeled a little more magic.
The whispers chanted the phrase over and over again: Beware of the dreams that linger.
And as the voices began to fade, they left her with one more warning.
Do not give your heart away.
“You know, you could’ve just asked to borrow them.”
Sakura’s head whipped around. Madara stood there, arms folded over his chest. He tilted his head a little as he looked her over.
“Go wash your face,” he said, jerking his head in the direction of the bathroom.
Sakura turned back to the bones. They sat limp and cold on the rug. She scratched the back of her neck, heaving a sigh.
“Okay,” she answered before she scooped the bones up into her hand and dumped them back in the pouch.
ZERO / BLEACH (here) / TWIST / REVERSE / DYE / RED
++++
The only way to take sorrow out of death is to take love out of life.
-Russell M. Nelson
++++
Sakura stood at the kitchen sink. Soapy water dripped from her hands as she stared out the window.
“What’s wrong?”
When she turned, Madara was in the doorway, his phone in his hand. His glasses perched on top of his head. He was staring at her. And then he squinted.
“Did you get any sleep last night?”
“A little,” she mumbled. Which was kind of true. She didn’t want to see the dream world with Shisui’s darkened door. Didn’t want to know if Itachi’s door had gone dark too. So she napped in short intervals. An alarm would go off in time to wake her before she could slip into a full dream. It was an exhausting process, but it was better than not sleeping at all.
Madara clucked his tongue at her.
“Move. I’ll do it,” he ordered. Rolling his sleeves up to his elbow, he took her place at the sink to finish washing the dishes. Sakura leaned her hip against the counter, staring out the window again.
“The shield’s holding just fine, kid. You have to stop worrying,” Madara assured her, even though she hadn’t said anything.
She could see the way the light refracted through the shield. It even shimmered a little when the rays of light angled through it perfectly. She knew that Madara was right. The wards around the house were strong. They even topped off the spell each night before bed. That didn’t make her feel much better though.
Sasuke stumbled down the stairs a little while later. Rubbing a hand through his unruly hair, he squinted at the sunlight streaming in through the window.
“Why are you washing those by hand?” he mumbled. He yawned, stretching his arms above his head.
Madara looked down at the soapy water. And then over at Sakura, whose hands were still covered in bubbles. He shrugged.
“Why not?” was all he said as he continued washing.
++++
Ino called a few days before the new year.
“Are you doing okay?”
Sakura looked down at her feet as she took in the question.
“Well…no. Not so great, Ino,” Sakura confessed.
She heard Ino sigh. “Sorry. That was a dumb question. Of course you’re not okay.”
Sakura smiled a little. “That’s okay. Thanks for asking anyway.”
They chatted about a few things. Ino updated her on some of the gossip she had missed. Not that either of them thought that any of those silly little things mattered. But it was nice to pretend, even for just a few minutes, that they did.
There was a long moment. And then Ino sighed.
“I miss you,” she said.
“Yeah. Miss you too,” replied Sakura.
“So I was thinking… I know you’re not cool with meeting outside. How about I come over instead?”
Sakura glanced up at the ceiling. She could see the faint shimmer of the shield charm that encompassed the house. If it was just for a moment, and with Madara’s help, she could thin the barrier just enough to let someone pass through.
“I’ll bring something yummy,” Ino added, trying to keep her voice light.
Sakura wasn’t sure when her mouth moved whether she wanted to smile or to cry. Hand pressed to her cheek, she nodded. Not that Ino could see.
“Yeah. Let’s do that, Ino.”
“Really? Okay!” There was thumping and rustling. Ino had probably rolled off her bed to begin packing already.
Madara was right behind Sakura when Ino arrived a few days later. His hand pressed to her shoulder. In a comforting way.
“Breathe,” he reminded her.
So she did.
The edge of the barrier peeled back just enough for Ino to slip in across the threshold. Then it snapped back in place. Sakura ran her hands along the edges, just to make sure there were no leaks. Madara flicked a handful of sparks at it. They bounced back, scattering like thrown confetti.
“Airtight. Nice work,” Madara commended, squeezing her shoulder. He lifted a hand in greeting to Ino before he made his way up the stairs towards his room.
Ino threw her arms around Sakura’s neck.
“Oh my gosh. How are you?” she squealed, pulling Sakura close. Rocking her back and forth.
“I tried to get in touch with Naruto to ask if he wanted to come. He never answered my texts,” Ino complained.
“Weird. He always answers his texts,” Sakura replied.
“I know, right? I’ll hunt him down later. He’s probably marathoning The Lord of the Rings again or something,” sighed Ino. Laughing, Sakura hugged her a little tighter. It was so nice to see Ino. It almost felt like things were going to be alright.
Ino brought an insane amount of takeout. The smell of cilantro and spice filled the house as they reheated the curry puffs and pad thai. They poured wine and chattered nonstop as they plated the food. Even Sasuke cracked a smile or two. For a little while, they could eat and drink and pretend that everything was normal again.
Madara shooed them out of the kitchen before anyone could lift a finger to do dishes. So they retreated to Sakura’s room to choose a movie. They cracked open another bottle of wine. Sakura rolled her eyes as Sasuke opened a bag of chips. And he rolled his eyes when she dug her hand into the bag a second later.
They dozed off not too long after the movie started.
Sakura woke, her cheek pressed to her shoulder. Sasuke’s foot was on top of her shin. His mouth hung open as he slept. Ino was passed out too, her head resting on the arm of the sofa.
Wiping the line of drool from the corner of her mouth, Sakura glanced around the room. The screen was stuck at the end of the credits, flashing suggestions for the next movie they could watch. Sakura patted around until her fingers closed around the hard rectangle of her phone.
She squinted.
It was just a little after 10. She sat in a daze, staring around the darkened room. As she looked down at her phone again, the numbers started to blur into each other.
And then it hit her.
Why she had jerked awake in the first place.
What night it was.
It all flooded back to her.
Madara pale and motionless on the floor of his bedroom. Blood painting the floorboards. The scream that ripped from her mouth as she tried to make sense of it all.
She stepped on Sasuke’s ankle as she rushed to her feet.
“Ow! What the hell!” she heard Sasuke complain. And Ino muttered something too as she roused. Sakura didn’t have time to explain to them as she scrambled out into the hallway.
“Papa,” she called. Her hand hovered near the knob. Waited for his voice to respond. She gripped it, twisting and pushing the door open.
The inside of Madara’s bedroom was dark. Everything was in its proper place. She had snuck in here countless times to rummage through his closet. She had stolen nearly all of his old band t-shirts that way. And so she was familiar with the way he made his bed. The way he angled his blinds a certain way to keep the sun out in the morning.
She reached out with threads of magic to feel for him in the house. They swept down the stairs, flinging to the far corners of the floor below.
Nothing.
“Papa!” Sakura yelled, louder this time. As she left Madara’s room, she bumped into Sasuke in the hall. Ino stood in the doorway of her room, bleary-eyed and rubbing the side of her face.
“Sakura, what’s wrong?” Ino asked. Sakura didn’t answer her as she hurried down the stairs. She reached out with her magic again. But this time it cast in tangled waves, just as disarrayed as her mind as she began to panic.
“This isn’t funny. Stop hiding,” Sakura said out loud as she rushed into the kitchen. Nothing. A cup sat in the sink. She moved on to the next room. And the next.
When she reached the door that led down into the library, she felt a flicker of something familiar. She touched the knob. It zapped her hand away with a sting. Frowning, she reached for it again. It stung her even harder.
She summoned energy to her palm, coating it. She grasped the knob carefully. The barrier held for a second. And then her hand jerked back again as it flooded with a sharp pain.
This wasn’t a spell she remembered Madara teaching her. It was a barrier. But it was also strange. The structure of the magical bonds was something she had never seen before.
As tears of panic began to fill her eyes, Sakura’s fingers moved. She felt her pointer and middle finger reaching out. They hooked around nothing. And when they tugged together, she felt something snap. The stinging disappeared along with the unusual barrier. And when she turned the knob, this time the door to the library opened as it should have.
Sakura descended the spiraling stairs down to the second floor of the library. The smell of old paper and leather should have been comforting. Instead, it was all she could do to stop herself from vomiting as her stomach twisted into knots.
Her bare feet didn’t make much sound as she stepped into the library. Which was why as she moved around the the raised platform, she noticed something odd. Actually, she heard it first. An odd noise that seemed to resonate through the floors, vibrating up through the soles of her feet. It was less of a noise and more of a sensation.
And as she turned, she almost wondered whether she had gone through a portal to some other house. On the first floor were more bookcases, along with a few tables and chairs that they used when they didn’t feel like bringing the books upstairs with them. But all of those tables and chairs had been pushed to the wall, as if with a wave of force magic. And one of the large shelves was shoved to one side, revealing a small room she had never seen before. She could see a cauldron, as well as the twinkle of arcane objects tucked away inside.
Then she found the source of the sound. A magic circle glowed on the floor. The white symbols buzzed with energy. She squinted to try to read them from this awkward angle. This had never been her forte, even in school. She recognized some of the runes at the edge. It looked like this particular circle had something to do with restoration or protection.
Sakura took a few steps forward, ready to call out for Madara.
She froze when more of the magic circle came into view. A dark pool of liquid spread from the opposite edge. A foot. Then a leg. A person sprawled across those glowing white lines.
For a second, her heart leapt into her throat. But when she realized that the hair was red and not black, she couldn’t help but feel a little relieved.
“Wait… Gaara?” she realized as she stared at the unmoving body.
“How did you get in here?”
Sakura jumped as Madara’s voice bounced against the shiny floors and up to her. She found him standing not too far from the body. His right hand looked almost like he had dipped it in a bucket of crimson paint. He stared up at her, just his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath.
“You knew this guy?”
“Did you kill him, Papa?”
They were both asking questions with obvious answers.
“I…” Madara hesitated. He then dragged his left hand through his hair. Glancing down at the body, he nodded. “It had to be done. Don’t be scared. You’re safe now,” he then added.
Sakura tried to swallow, but there was a lump in her throat.
“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” she squeezed out, tears filling her eyes.
Madara lifted his chin again. He held a hand up. “I’ll explain after I clean up. Just… stay there.”
Sakura opened her mouth to protest. But all the hairs on her arms and neck rose. She could feel a crackle of energy rip through part of the shield that encased the house. She knew Madara could feel it too because he swiveled in the direction of the disturbance.
A shape shimmered just outside one of the windows. And then, with a horrible screech, something smashed in through the glass. Teeth bared. Claws slashing. Headed right for her face.
Sakura swept her hand out in front of her. A shield bubbled up to block the claws that would have torn through her. As the snarling creature bashed against the clear shield, Sakura realized that it was a familiar face.
“Naruto!”
Spittle foamed up at the corners of his mouth as he slashed at the shield again. He swung one more time. A crack appeared at the edge of the shield. When he hit it a third time, the shield shattered under the impact. Sakura barely had enough time to throw up another shield. She twisted her head around to look toward Madara.
“Papa!”
He held his hands up, motioning for her to hurry down to him.
Sakura cast another look back at Naruto. He screeched, digging into the smooth surface of the shield with his nails. Blood dribbled from a cut on his shoulder. When he caught her staring, he howled.
She skirted past him and ran down the stairs as fast as she could. She ran right into Madara’s arms.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she breathed.
“Good.”
Sakura twisted in his arms just in time to see Naruto tear through her second shield. Madara raised his left arm, hand steady. He aimed a blast of fire right at Naruto’s head. A spout of fire erupted from his mouth, deflecting the shot.
“Papa, that looks just like Shisui’s,” Sakura whispered. She gripped the arm Madara still had wrapped around her. “Naruto’s a wind type. Why….”
She trailed off. That wasn’t a question she really wanted an answer to. And it wasn’t even like Madara would have had a chance to answer anyway. Naruto leapt from the top of the stairs, his clawed fingers extended.
Sakura conjured up a bigger shield. It manifested as a bubble that wrapped around the both of them. Another jet of fire from Naruto’s mouth ripped through it.
Tendrils of purple fire rose from Madara’s palms. They jabbed out at Naruto, snapping at his hands and his bare feet. As Naruto dodged out of the way, Sakura extended her hand, pointing up toward the door.
“Sasuke. Ino. Help!” Her voice traveled up her shoulder, shooting out from her finger. It seeped up to the doorway, whipping out towards the rest of the house. Her attention jerked back to Naruto when she heard Madara swear.
“Little fucker’s stronger than he looks.”
Madara released her and conjured more of the dark purple fire to both his hands. He fended off Naruto’s attacks just long enough for Sasuke and Ino to show up in the doorway. He swore again when one of Naruto’s claws caught him in the shoulder.
“Papa!”
“I’m fine. I’m fine,” Madara reassured her as blood bubbled up from the tear in his shirt.
Sakura swept another shield around them. She strained to keep the threads of magic woven together as Naruto slashed at it over and over again. His attacks bounced off the glittering surface of the forcefield several times before he let out a shriek of frustration that sent spittle flying from his lips.
“What the fuck!” Ino exclaimed. “Is that Naruto?”
Naruto’s head whipped around at the sound of her voice. A strange grin pulled at his dripping mouth. He seemed to calculate, looking between Sakura and Ino. And then he crawled up the stairs, advancing on Ino instead.
Sakura’s right hand grasped at the air. She threw a shield out to cover Ino a second too late. Ino’s arm swung up, water forming into a whip from her wrist. But that was too late too. Naruto’s sharpened fingers pierced through her chest. Sakura had to fight back the urge to vomit as she watched Ino slump to the floor like rag doll.
“Ino!” she heard Sasuke shout. Electricity crackled at his fingertips. When he swiped at Naruto, more fire poured from Naruto’s grinning mouth. Sasuke jumped back to dodge the heat. He clenched his teeth together.
“That’s… Shisui’s…” he realized too.
Naruto’s grin widened.
A strange voice rumbled up his throat.
“I ate him.”
“What did he say?” Sakura breathed. She felt Madara’s arm tighten around her and she knew she hadn’t misheard.
Sasuke’s face twisted. “Where’s Shisui?” he demanded.
Naruto’s smile stretched even wider. Until his mouth just looked like a cut across his face. His teeth gleamed too bright, reflecting the blue sparks jumping from Sasuke’s hand.
“He was crunchy, but tasty. You look tasty too,” Naruto croaked.
“Sasuke! No!” Sakura called.
It was too late. Sasuke was screaming. Tears dripped down his cheeks as lightning erupted from both his palms. The electricity sparked up his arms as he lunged at Naruto.
Things moved too quickly for her to see clearly. But she didn’t really need to know all the details when Sasuke let out an agonized shriek. Madara suddenly threw his arms around her, pressing her face to his chest.
“Don’t look,” he hissed as she began to hear a grisly tear and snap. Her pulse thundered in her ears as she listening to teeth gnashing together. Or maybe that was the sound of Madara’s heart.
“Papa, is he…?”
“Don’t look,” was all Madara repeated.
Her whole body was shaking.
“Oh shit,” Madara suddenly said. She lifted her chin to stare up at him. And just as she did, something smashed into the side of her shield. She could feel the strands of the barrier twisting and ripping apart. Something scratched at her back. Madara pulled her away from the pain, cursing and muttering spells under his breath.
But she knew it was too late when her shield strained too far. She felt the magical connections snap apart.
“I’m sorry,” she heard Madara whisper.
And then she was ripping and tearing into little pieces. Madara’s arms held her tight as the agony engulfed her until everything went black.
++++
Her eyes flew open. They darted all around, searching for traces of the carnage she had just witnessed. She ran her hands up and down her arms, searching for chunks of missing skin and bone. Her frantic breaths began to slow as she realized that she was whole.
Her covers had pooled around her legs during the night. Her body was cold. She could tell she had been sweating. Sighing, she sat up in bed. As she dragged her hand across her face, her fingers came away wet with tears.
Now that she thought about it, it should have been obvious that she had been dreaming. There was no way there was a secret hidden room in the library. She had just talked to Naruto yesterday. As she took deep breaths to calm herself, she listed all the ways that her nightmare was ridiculous.
Sakura flinched when she heard a soft knock. The door creaked open. Madara’s face appeared, illuminated in a weak light spell that radiated from his shoulder.
“You okay?” he murmured.
She shrugged. She sniffed. Rubbed her face again. Madara clicked his tongue. He shuffled into the room in his slippers. She felt him lean over her to pull a couple of tissues from the box on her nightstand. He pushed them into her hands. She sat there staring at them.
“You haven’t had a nightmare like that in a while. Must’ve shook you up pretty bad,” he sighed. And then his hand landed on top of her head. He patted her hair a few time. Still a little clumsy, even after all these years.
Sakura didn’t say anything. She stared down at her hands.
Madara patted her head again before he asked, “Wanna talk about it?”
Sakura shook her head again. She was about to ask about pancakes when Madara sighed.
“Okay. It’s still early, so try to get some rest,” he said. He squeezed her shoulder.
Sakura sat in a daze for another minute. It took her a few tries to get her mind to focus on anything. She blew her nose, wadded the tissues up into a ball, and threw them in the trash. Out of habit, she disconnected her phone from the charger and lifted the screen up to eye level.
Friday, Nov 3.
A notification popped up on the screen to remind her that she had a date tonight.
But when she saw the time, she blinked.
It was barely 2 in the morning.
And then she sat wondering why she was so baffled by the time.
“You alright?” Madara’s face was tired. He must have stayed up late working again.
Sakura tried to put on a smile. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she assured him.
Madara gave her a look that said he didn’t believe her. He pushed her until she laid her head back on her pillow. He pulled the covers over her stomach, smoothing it out with his palm. He always insisted on her keeping her stomach warm when she slept. It was such a specific thing to nag about.
“We can talk in the morning. Just sleep.” He interrupted himself with a yawn.
Sakura turned onto her side. She pulled her hair away from her neck, letting it fall across the pillow instead.
“I’ll be alright,” she said, her eyes closing.
Madara patted her stomach once through the covers. He grunted as he got to his feet.
She could hear his bare feet shuffling against the floor as he walked. And then thumped their way down the hall into his room.
When she managed to finally fall asleep again, she opened her eyes to complete darkness. She didn’t remember the entrance to the dream world or walking down that familiar corridor with all the doors.
Instead, she felt her body floating. And then warmth and pressure surrounded her. It wasn’t painful- this was a dream after all. But it was an uncomfortable sensation- being squeezed from all sides. She felt around in the darkness until she could find a gap in this strange space. Her fingers hooked onto a small opening. She pried the edges of the opening apart. To her surprise, the edges of the gap turned into fingers that grabbed hers.
“What the hell?”
She recognized that voice.
With a sharp tug, Shisui pulled her hand. She squeezed out of the narrow space. Once she was out, Sakura could see that she had been encased inside a dream he was still in the process of weaving together. Swirls of cosmic dust and gas floated together into a ball. She could even see the crack where she had emerged from. It didn’t matter that it was much too small. This was a dream. Things like physics almost never mattered. When she brushed her fingers over it, the gash smoothed over and disappeared.
Shisui scratched his head. He looked at her. And then twisted around to look at the door to his dream, which was closed.
“Where are you right now?” he questioned.
“Home,” she replied.
Both their eyes narrowed.
“That’s…” Shisui drew the word out.
“Weird,” Sakura finished the thought for him.
They stood there. Thinking.
“We should look this up later. I don’t think you’re supposed to be able to just… like… appear in here from so far away,” Shisui finally declared. Sakura nodded. But then Shisui shrugged.
“But whatever. You wanna help?” He pointed at the half-finished dream.
Sakura turned her attention to the orb. It was a deep purple color. The clouds that swirled across the surface were grey tinged with a hint of pink.
“What is it?” she asked.
“An old man wants to dream about being a superhero.”
Sakura smiled. “That’s cute.” She reached out one hand toward the orb. She didn’t even have to look as Shisui took her other hand, threading his fingers through hers. There was a warm tingle as his magic flowed into her, mingling together with her power. She heard Shisui shiver. But he didn’t complain. The magic of water affinity casters did run a little cold. And it would feel especially cold to someone used to breathing fire and shooting sparks from his fingertips.
“We should make it exciting,” Sakura mused as she laid her free hand on the orb. Shisui did the same. Splashes of color flowed from their palms, seeping into the fledgling planet.
“Don’t go crazy. The dude is 87, Sakura. You make it too scary and that shit lingers,” Shisui warned her.
For an instant, she remembered something. Scrying bones glowing gold across the wood floor.
Beware of the dreams that linger.
Do not give your heart away.
“You okay?”
Sakura lifted her chin. Shisui was scrutinizing her face. She nodded.
“Just… had a bad dream earlier.”
Shisui’s forehead wrinkled. “Ah. Sucks. Sorry.” But as he turned his gaze back to the planet, his expression lightened. “Just a dream though. They’re not real.”
ZERO / BLEACH / TWIST (here) / REVERSE / DYE / RED
I understood why she did it. At that moment I knew why people tagged graffiti on the walls of neat little houses and scratched the paint on new cars and beat up well-tended children. It was only natural to want to destroy something you could never have. -Janet Fitch
++++
Magic trembled in the air. Like the wings of a butterfly first emerging from a cocoon. Delicate. Unsure. It filled Sakura’s lungs as naturally as air did.
She had managed to get a couple hours of sleep after waking up from that jarring nightmare. She wasn’t even sure whether she had actually stumbled into Shisui’s dream until she woke up to a text from him at dawn.
That was weird.
She rubbed her eyes as she squinted at the too-bright words. She typed a response to him before she tossed the phone onto her bed somewhere.
Super weird. Idk what that was.
As she lay on her stomach, covers scrunched against her body, she tried to make sense of her hectic night. She had always learned that dream walking only occurred when people in close physical proximity. With enough years of practice, it was possible to extend that range. But even Madara was only able to visit dreams within a few blocks of his house. Shisui lived halfway across the city. She almost woke Madara to pick his brain, but she felt bad interrupting his sleep two times in one day.
She got out of bed anyway. She grabbed a sweater off the chair in her room that always seemed to accumulate clothes. Pulling her arms through the sleeves, she tiptoed across the cool floor. The door to Madara’s room was ajar. She could see the lump his body made. His back rose and fell with each of his quiet snores.
Sakura hesitated in the doorway of Madara’s bedroom.
He seemed so much smaller than she first remembered when he’d picked her up from the Senju institute all those years ago.
She suddenly recalled that awful nightmare. How he hadn’t hesitated to wrap his body around hers. Holding her tight in the face of death.
And then she paused to think.
Hadn’t there been another nightmare before that one? Or was that all part of the same dream?
She rubbed the heel of her hand against her temple. All her thoughts felt tangled up and it was too early in the morning to try to deal with this mess.
Sakura conjured a shield into her palm. She walked into Madara’s room. When she touched the tip of her finger to his shoulder, the shield slipped from her palm and spread across the bed instead. It was a lightweight charm. It would dissolve into nothingness as soon as Madara rose from the bed. But it was something to protect him- especially from sharp claws and teeth.
She eyed the bottom drawer of his nightstand where he kept the scrying bones she liked so much. He complained every once in a while that she had her own. A really expensive set, actually. They were made from the bones of a well-respected illusionist- harvested with permission, of course.
The more powerful the caster, the more powerful the scrying bones. There was still a black market for acquiring scrying bones through more questionable means. She had the certificate that assured her that these bones had been purchased through legal channels only. It sat in one of her drawers, sandwiched between the other papers that were too important to throw out but not important enough to sort through.
Her scrying bones worked fine.
But something about the set Madara kept in that drawer just… sang to her. Divination had always been one of her strengths. But the first time she had used this particular set of bones, the clarity of the mumurs startled her. Sometimes, it almost felt like it was a person whispering right in her ear.
Sakura took a step away.
The bones weren’t going anywhere. She could always consult them another time. She decided to let Madara sleep some more.
As she dressed, Sakura conjured some paper and a pen. She dictated the words as she pulled on jeans and tied her hair. She told Madara that she was going to run some errands. That she would head to the shop right after. And then… hesitated.
She had her date scheduled that night. She had dreamt about it.
A cute guy with a shy smile. Soft-spoken and fumbling.
And then his white hand, unmoving as he spilled blood across the fine floor of the library.
She had read enough and learned enough to know that there was some link between dreams and divination. Countless magic users and scholars had devoted their lives to untangling the relationship between the two. There were seminars offered at the Senju Institute where experts came to lecture about the link, that basically said, “I don’t know, but there’s something there.”
Avoiding him the last time hadn’t ended up well. Maybe things could change if she tried the opposite.
“Remember that I’m going on a date tonight. We were in the same chem class last year. I’ll text you to check in. Won’t stay out late,” Sakura declared. She watched the pen jot down the words in perfect imitation of her handwriting. It hovered over the paper. Waiting as it sensed her hesitation.
“…Love you,” she added,” watching the pen write out those words too.
Sakura glanced the message over. With a flick of her hand, she sent the paper flying down the stairs. It would land on the kitchen table. Right at the spot where Madara usually sat.
She took the subway to Shisui’s apartment. She passed by a bakery on her way to the station. The smell of something buttery caught her attention. She popped in to buy a couple croissants, still a little warm as the baker levitated them and deposited them into a waxed paper bag. Sakura tucked the bag into her hoodie as she took the stairs down to the tracks.
It didn’t take long for the train to come screeching along the tracks. She got into one of the cars. It was busy. Not much room to sit. So she stood, conjuring a spectral hand to grab on to one of the poles to keep balance. Madara had taught her the trick a long time ago. He looked revolted the first time he’d seen her reaching for one of the straps.
“Humans are filthy,” he had warned her.
And she remembered laughing at his wording.
“We’re human too,” she pointed out. But always eager to learn, she had watched him conjure the translucent hand. And by the time they arrived at their destination, she had managed to make one too.
All these years later, she was still doing it the same way. It was funny how little moments like that stuck. It was as if Madara had shared a little part of himself that then became part of her before she even realized.
An old man sitting directly in front of her nodded off. His chin drooped toward his chest. On his lap sat a canvas tote. It wriggled a little. And then a shiny black nose sniffed its way out. Beside him sat a woman reading a book. She turned the pages with flicks of her finger and a scattering of magic dust as she went.
Standing a little ways away from her were two girls carrying backpacks. They were wearing the uniform of the Senju Institute- which hadn’t changed at all since she had once dormed there. As it turned out, there were plenty of students who commuted to the school. The ones whose parents hadn’t abandoned them, probably.
Sakura couldn’t help but overhear their conversation. They were fussing over the ribbon on the uniform, which was supposed to be tied in a specific way. Most of the teachers didn’t really care as long as it was where it was supposed to be. But there was the occasional hard ass who would make a fuss about the direction of the knot or similar nonsense. One of them struggled to fold the ribbon into the right shapes. The other cursed as she tried to look up directions on her phone.
“Hey,” Sakura called.
Several eyes fell on her. But Sakura waited until the girls turned around to look at her. She gestured toward the ribbon. Waited until the girls nodded.
With a twist of her hand, Sakura levitated the ribbon and tucked it under the collar of the girl’s shirt. She wiggled her fingers in a pattern she had often watched her classmates and roommate practice many years ago. The ribbon tied itself in the perfect shape. Her hand fell to her side.
“There you go.”
“Thanks!” the girl chirruped. She tried to offer Sakura one of her granola bars as thanks but Sakura just smiled and waved the offer away.
As Sakura got off at her stop, she spotted the two girls waving at her. She didn’t have time to return the gesture as the train pulled out of the station and sped off down the tunnel. Onwards to the next place in this big city.
She had been to Shisui’s place a few times before. Enough to remember that the elevators took forever and that it was faster just to walk up the stairs. She knocked on the door, glancing around the empty hall as she waited. When there was no response, Sakura knocked again.
“Coming, coming. Man, what the heck? It’s too early for this,” she heard him grumbling as he fumbled with locks and the knob. When he cracked the door open, he scowled.
“It’s 8.”
“It’s 8:27,” Sakura corrected as she pushed past him, walking right into his apartment.
Rubbing his eyes, Shisui closed the door behind her. He yawned as he swept his hand through the air. The coffee maker gurgled as he conjured water into one compartment. One of the cabinets opened and the bright yellow lid on a squat can popped open. A scoop appeared from thin air to dip into the grounds. Turning his back on this orchestra of coffee-making, Shisui leaned against the counter. He scratched his stubble.
“Okay. What’s going on? You get into some trouble you can’t tell Uncle about?” he asked. He started when Sakura crossed the cramped kitchen to throw her arms around him.
“Woah! What’s up with you?” he demanded. But he hugged her back. Shisui might have been the only Uchiha in history who was a fan of physical affection. She squeezed him a little harder. Laughing, Shisui patted her back. But when she didn’t laugh in return, Shisui’s laugh faded.
“Don’t go anywhere,” she said.
“Huh?”
“Don’t plan any trips for a while, Shi. You can’t go,” she pleaded, looking up at him.
He sighed. Thumped her on the back a couple times. “What’re you talking about? Did you have a nightmare again?”
“You’re planning on observing Venus. It’s a 3 day trip,” Sakura recited. She stared into his eyes hard.
An odd look crossed Shisui’s face.
“I haven’t told anyone about that.”
At first, Shisui smiled. Like he was waiting for her to admit that it was a joke. But as her stare didn’t waver, his smile faded.
“Come on. It’ll be quick. When I get back, we’ll go to that Cuban place you love so much. On me, okay?”
Sakura shuddered. He had said those words to her once before.
He hadn’t kept that promise at all.
“I think I- no. I’m sure. I divined something. If you go on that trip, you’ll die, Shi,” Sakura insisted, grabbing the front of his sleep-rumpled shirt. When Shisui’s moved away from her, she shook him a little.
The expressions on Shisui’s face shifted too fast for her to understand. But he ended up hissing out a breath through his teeth. Shaking his head, he finally met her gaze again.
“Fine. I’ll stay put,” he conceded.
Relief rushed through Sakura. In fact, she was so elated that her knees buckled. Shisui’s eyes widened as he reached out to grab her. They ended up falling to the kitchen floor. Sakura burst into laughter. And after a beat, Shisui did too.
“What’s wrong with you?” Shisui scolded between chuckles.
Once the coffee finished brewing, they had the croissants for breakfast. They sat right there on the floor, leaving the mugs on the linoleum tile beside them.
Shisui scrutinized her as he watched her take a bite.
“You gonna ask Uncle about last night?”
Sakura blinked, brushing crumbs away from her mouth with the back of her wrist. For a second, she had forgotten how she had accidentally barged into Shisui’s dream. It had been forgotten in the chaos of trying to get Shisui to stay.
When she didn’t respond, Shisui sighed.
“Magic is weird.”
“Seriously.”
“You got any plans for today?”
“Yeah. I’m going on a date, I think.”
“Cool. Need a ride to the shop?”
“Please.”
It was a normal day at the dream shop. Itachi stopped in the door when he spotted her standing at the counter with Shisui.
“Why are you so early?” he demanded as he unzipped his coat. He tossed it into the air. An enchantment caught it and deposited it onto the coat rack in the corner.
Shisui tapped a pen against the counter.
“We had breakfast together,” he interrupted himself with a big yawn. He blinked a few times. He had mentioned over an extra cup of coffee that he hadn’t been sleeping so well lately. Even before she had barged in. Sakura made a mental note to brew him a good sleeping draught. Something to help him get some rest uninterrupted by complicated dreams. All she had to do was throw a handful of lavender and chamomile into a cauldron with some other ingredients.
Itachi just nodded. He headed upstairs to get ready for his morning appointment. Shisui scanned through the appointment book, cheek in his hand as he slouched against the counter. Sakura ducked into the back room to check on their supply of potions.
Sakura leaned against the door as she looked around the room. Plenty of bottled dreams swirled around in their glass jars. Some thrummed with a particular resonance; that let her know that those were dreams she had harvested. As he gaze fell on the cabinet to the left, she had a strange feeling. She reached out for the handle.
Hesitated.
She suspected that when she opened the cabinet, there would be four bottles of extra strength soothing potion. Under that would be a single bottle of children’s sleeping draught.
Sakura held her breath as she grasped the handle. When she pulled the door open, she felt some part of her sink toward her gut.
She was right.
Just like she had seen in her strange dream the night before.
Just like how she knew Shisui’s brief trip to see the stars would go terribly wrong.
Just like how some part of her knew that her dream wasn’t really a dream at all.
She jolted when she heard the front door to the shop open and close. Sasuke’s boots creaked across the floor.
Sakura mouthed the words before she heard them.
“You’re late.”
“Yeah, sorry. My train was delayed. Is Sakura here?”
“In the back.”
Sakura slumped against the cabinet as she realized that she had known every word of that short conversation. She scrambled to hide her shock when she heard the door creak open behind her.
“Hey.”
She put a smile on her face as she turned to greet Sasuke. “Hey!”
Sasuke gripped the doorknob as he leaned into the back room. He glanced around.
“Need any help?”
Sakura shook her head, smiling a little harder. “I got it.”
Sasuke gave a slow nod, rolling his tongue against the inside of his cheek.
“Cool. You want coffee?”
Sakura nodded.
Sasuke closed the door without saying anything else.
That night, Sakura messaged Madara to let him know that she had left the shop, Sasuke would be closing up, and not to wait up for her.
Izuna brought jerk chicken. I’ll pack leftovers for your lunch tomorrow, Madara replied.
Sakura sent him a series of purple hearts in response.
The date went just as she had expected. Gaara fumbled and turned red as he talked about his job. His shy looks were just as endearing the second time around. She told him again that his devotion to his job was cool. He looked like she had just told him that he had won the lottery.
As they stood on the sidewalk waiting for her driver to arrive, Sakura stuck her hands in her pockets. She heard him shuffle his feet.
“Uh… so… can I see you again?” he asked.
Sakura looked down at her feet. She was a little afraid to see his face. Afraid she would blurt something out without thinking.
“I’d like that,” she answered.
When the black car pulled up, Gaara opened the door for her. He waited for her to get into the back seat before he closed the door. And then he hesitated, fingers resting on the handle. Sakura opened the window.
“Can you text me to let me know you got home okay?” he requested.
“I will,” she promised. As she rolled up the window, his fingers slipped off the door.
Sakura listed out her address to the driver before she leaned back in her seat. She caught the driver glancing at her in the rearview mirror.
“Good date?” he asked.
“Yeah,” answered Sakura, unsmiling. She could see the driver’s forehead wrinkle in the mirror.
She felt bad. For lots of reasons. But in this particular instance for thinking that Gaara had something to do with her finding Madara covered in blood on New Year’s Eve. Rubbing her temples, Sakura stared down at her lap.
Gaara was connected to the strange flow of her dream. Keeping him far from her hadn’t severed that connection. So it was obviously something else that led to him ending up dead on the floor of her library. Not a lot of this situation made sense, but one thing she was certain of was that figuring out what that connection was had to be important.
Even though she had told Madara not to wait up, he was sitting at the kitchen table when she got home. Not that that surprised her.
She tossed her coat in the air. One of Madara’s spells caught it and draped it over a hanger. Just like the one that gathered her discarded shoes and slipped them into an empty spot on the shelf. She climbed the steps, rubbing her hands through her hair.
“Hi, Papa,” she greeted him as she walked into the kitchen. He raised his eyebrows and nodded before he returned his attention to his book. Sakura scrubbed her hands clean in the sink. The smell of the fruity soap filled the room. She rubbed her hands on a kitchen towel before she took a seat next to Madara at the round table.
“How’d it go?” questioned Madara. He slipped a bookmark between the pages before he shut the cover.
“Pretty good. He seems nice,” Sakura said right away. Madara pulled his glasses down, hooking them into the front of his shirt.
“Are you going to see him again?” He tried to keep his tone casual, but Sakura wasn’t fooled. She tilted her head to one side, as if still considering.
“Yeah, I think so.” She kept her answer vague. And then her eyes fell on the book sitting on the table.
“New research?”
“Yeah. Dry as hell,” he huffed. He tapped his fingers on the cover a few times. It was an old book- bound with a hint of enchantment to hold everything together.
“What’s it about?” She hadn’t thought to ask him about it in her dream.
“Magical prosthetics and casting compatibility,” Madara answered without hesitation. He was never stingy about sharing with her- especially not with knowledge.
“So whether casters can channel magic through prosthetic limbs?” Sakura guessed.
Madara’s mouth twisted. “Sort of. Also whether those prosthetics can be enchanted to respond better to certain types of magic.”
Sakura wrinkled her nose. “Sounds complicated.”
“It is,” Madara agreed. Yawning, he got out of his chair, feet of the chair squeaking against the tile.
“I need coffee. You want some?” he called over his shoulder.
Sakura considered. Then she shook her head.
“No thanks. I think I’m gonna go to bed,” she decided. She gathered her purse and her phone.
Madara, about to reach for a second mug, stopped. He lowered his hand, leaning it against the counter instead.
“Night,” she greeted him, giving his shoulder a quick squeeze as she walked past.
Dawn is mine and Lilly Rutherford Trevelyan is cadashingthruthedaisies 's go follow her if you follow me cause shes the cutest chipmunk on the planet and a giant nerd.
