Sacrifice and Surrender

32: Final Tales

The Slug Sage - Lady Sakura Uchiha

Sakura and Madara spent their first year of marriage in a manner that wasn't intended or expected. For eleven of twelve months, they didn't see each other once. They had no problems as a married couple, and both of them wanted a family one day, but children meant putting the things Sakura wanted to accomplish on the back-burner, and she wasn't ready to do so yet, despite the intense disapproval from her new clan elders.

The day Sakura departed from the village to begin her training with Lady Katsuyu was kept a secret from everyone, except Madara. All the preparations were made; Madoka was in charge at the hospital. Shouta would take on some of Sakura's work, but mainly begin research and study the medicinal herbs and about poisons. Hikari was to be given a place on a new guard unit Tobirama was in the process of forming. Tobirama was to make sure none of Sakura's standards at the hospital fell while she was away, and Madara would inform them of the day she left.

She left before dawn, and it was harder than she expected, but at the same time, she was filled with nervous determination. Madara watched her go until she was far from sight, led by Lady Katsuyuu into the forests of the world. They walked and spoke quietly about many things until Sakura started to feel like her mind was foggy. She ignored it at first, but it persisted until she realised she no longer knew where they were. The forest warped and changed around her and she felt the subtle touch of a powerful and intricate genjutsu.

"You must keep walking," Lady Katsuyuu said in her quiet voice.

She found it harder and harder to keep her chakra flow disrupted and not let the genjutsu overtake her, but it pressed in and in on her, making each step feel like she was being weighed down. Still, Sakura persisted through the building mist and forbidding forest around her. She grit her teeth and pushed forward because that was who she was and that was what she knew.

She saw things, people from the past, from her present. They called out for her, in pain, in anguish, in fear and hatred. She saw a terrible battle between Naruto and Sasuke where they both destroyed each other. But she kept walking, tears stinging at her eyes. She realised faintly that it was a test. She was being shown images of things that she was fearful of, that she longed for, that she hated, that she loved. She was being tested on her resolve, and it hurt her so much, but she kept going.

When the mist suddenly parted, and the forest suddenly disappeared around her, Sakura collapsed to her knees, gasping for breath and clutching at her chest. All the oppression of the genjutsu was gone in an instant.

"We have arrived," Lady Katsuyuu told her.

Sakura looked around, saw a forest so unlike anything she'd ever seen before. The trees were bigger than any she'd ever see before, and sunlight filtered through them, casting speckled light across the grassy ground. In the distance, she saw a rock formation, that Lady Katsuyuu informed her was the entrance to her home, and where her true form resided. Sakura made her way there, and took shelter in one of the entrances to the caves, sighing a little when she realised she was about to spend an indefinite amount of time living in a cave.

She missed Madara, and her village, Masturi, Mito, and Asami, but she didn't let it distract her.

The genjutsu forest was a test of her resolve to get there, to start learning senjutsu. But the training was far more difficult than Sakura had imagined. Sakura could hardly imagine how someone as energetic as Naruto had managed to master the stillness needed to absorb nature energy. She wasn't as energetic as him, but she definitely didn't like being still. It was only the thought that she couldn't let a moron like him show her up that kept her from giving up.