Queen of Air and Darkness

xxi. when we wondered with all our souls, what the world was

Sakura opened her eyes to a world without color. It was as though the world had flipped, and she hung in the sky, a sea of white stars on black void below her. Her stomach lurched at the sight of the bottomless void hanging below her, and she fell to her knees momentarily. But she was not falling, merely hanging in place, her feet supported on some invisible path. Above her the nothingness continued, broken only by the dots of stars, swirling against the sky in arcs of clusters and patterns. She let out a sigh of wonder, of curiosity, and her breath was visible against the black backdrop. She let out a sigh of wonder, of curiosity, and her breath was visible against the black backdrop.

It was cold here. This was not the cold of winter, warded off by layers of warm clothes. This was a cold that seemed to seep into her very core, so cold it seemed to burn into her muscles and bones.

It was instinct to reach for her magic to warm herself up—an easy trick and one of the first things Tsunade had taught her. But instead of the familiar flicker of her magic, Sakura felt a nothingness as vast as the darkness between the stars that hung in the sky all around her. She had bargained that power away as her ticket for safe passage to this endless expanse.

She should have been afraid. She should have been devastated to feel her magic, so hard-won at such great cost, utterly gone.

But Sakura turned her gaze to a massive white light, an explosion against the darkness around them. It was to that point that the stars seemed to swirl, tight bands of white pinprick lights starting from that explosion and spreading out until they filled the vastness of space. She did not need magic to know what waited for her there—some deeper instinct, as powerful as death itself drew her to that bright light.

She took a deep steadying breath and began her journey towards that massive supernova in the middle of space.

To where she knew she would find Kakashi.

~~~~~~

Empires could have crumbled in the time that Sakura walked, the seas could have risen, the sands of time could have covered Konoha and everyone she had ever known.

The walk was endless, as vast as the night sky, but Sakura did not tire and she did not waver.

Her eyes were trained ever forward, at that brilliant white light. The path did not change, though it turned, winding right and left like a snake sunning itself beneath the summer's high heat. She followed it, drifting right and left, ever forward through the endless expanse, certain that at its center she would find what she sought.

Until, suddenly, it changed.

In the space of one step and the next, the shape of space turned in on itself, and Sakura's world spun and distorted. Flashes of white overpowered her vision and then expanded.

When the churning stopped, Sakura was in the desert. The black expanse of sky had disappeared, replaced with the grey-green light of a coming storm. Instead of the warm yellow sand of the Sunagakure desert, the sands here were crimson red and marked with black, as though they were rich in iron. The moon hung heavy and full in the sky, risen too early for the daytime light. But still, the colors were muted and dull, as though only a shadow of what they would have been in life.

The only break to the flat horizon was a figure silhouetted against the green light of the sun. Sakura's stomach churned. She knew this was not Kakashi; his afterlife would never be so sterile, so dry.

Sasori of the Red Sands stepped forward, his smile wide like he greeted an old friend. But Sakura did not relax. His eyes flashed with a hidden, churning rage, as though he had waited long to reunite with the one who had brought him to his death.