Unexpected || MadaSaku ||

Making Matters Clear

A/N PLEASE REREAD "The Meeting Commences" CHAPTER! I EDITED A SMALL DETAIL THAT CONCERNS THIS CHAPTER. 3/14/18

~Madara~

I would be lying to myself if I said I didn't feel betrayed by her secrets. Even if it was all in good reason, she still lied to me and I blindly allowed myself to get close to her. What a fool. But even with the erratic pain that developed through a slight distrust, I still wanted her around. Through the short amount of time I'd gotten to know her, she became someone I found myself unexpectedly caring for—and dare I say, falling for. As dense as I am, it was finally made clearer last night more than ever before. My arms instinctively wrapped around as if the second I'd let go I'd lose her forever— But I couldn't let myself, a man of war and destruction be easily consumed by something so trivial. As an Uchiha, as a leader of a thriving clan, I can't let such distractions in.

I'd finally made up my mind.

Everyone except the rotating guards around the camp should still be sleeping. That leaves me less than 3 hours to get as far away as I can. I'm hoping she'll see that it's for the best. I realize what I said last night, not a moment of it left my mind. But the words that left my mouth made me too weak. I couldn't let myself become soft, especially in a time of such conflict. In truth, it was difficult to leave this way, to run like a man afraid of his own emotions. But as Madara Uchiha, I needed to detach myself from anything that could make me any easy target. The men who fail to succeed had a weakness the enemy could foresee. And no woman is worth losing this war. Love, relationships, bonds, were all luxuries I couldn't afford to have.

~Tsunade~

"Thank you so much for having me over, Mebuki," I thanked, receiving a warm-hearted smile as a response.

"It's no problem. After all you've done for my Sakura, you're a part of this family as I see it," Mebuki expressed, becoming slightly depressed over the mention of her name. "Anyhow, what brings you here? I'm sure it wasn't just to have my mediocre tea."

"Actually, I had something I wanted to ask you," I hesitated with sigh, "What can you tell me about the Haruno Clan or your family? Do you know if they had any relation to the Senju or Uzumaki?"

She practically spit out her drink in disbelief. "What would give you that idea?"

"Well circumstances had led us to believe that Sakura may have a distant relative that connects her to the Senju and Uzumaki," I confided, leaving her expressionless. It confused me for a minute as she fought herself in a silent battle. "What is it?"

"I-I'm not sure how to say any of this... But Sakura isn't mine and Kizashi's daughter—biologically that is," Mebuki shakily set down her tea on the coffee table. Her eyes drowned in salty water, as she spoke, barely coherent. "A close friend of mine, Ena. She was a runaway from a small village nearby, but she grew up in konoha. She was a side branch of one of the major clans, but I wasn't sure which. She never really said."

"I-I thought—" I stuttered but was cut off by her unstable voice.

"That she was ours?" She interjected. "That's how we wanted it. Ena left her, she abandoned her in the middle of the night without so much as a goodbye or even a note. And this was around the time Kizashi and I were trying so hard for a child, but nothing was working. No matter how much we tried—It just seemed as if fate gave her to us."

"And you never heard from Ena again?" I furrowed my eye brows for the answers.

"Not after that night. But truth be told, I didn't want to. We loved Sakura like she was our own. Ena didn't give a second thought about her the night she left," Mebuki wiped the trail of droplets off her cheeks as she spoke.

"Thank you, Mebuki," I muttered, placing my hand over hers. "And just so you know...Sakura will always be your daughter."

~~~

I rummaged through records and dusty files, trying to find the name, Ena, written in small, barely legible letters. But I was starting to think that she was a ghost. This entire search was beginning to feel hopeless. I paused for a brief minute, dropping my head into the palms of my hands. The frustration of it all had taken me over and spit me out, leaving me in a mess of my own emotions.

But then it came to me like a rush of wind igniting a flame. The scroll, the same one I found Sakura in. If Ena was ever a member of our clan, she should be on there. Maybe I never noticed before, but I never knew her name before now.

My body moved as fast as my thoughts, patting my coat pockets in a panicked search. The thin, delicate parchment coming into my line of sight as I maniacally surveyed the room. Thank the gods I didn't lose it, must have fallen out of my coat. I grabbed the scroll and unraveled it on the nearest wobbly table. I leaned over it, reading each name carefully until I saw hers. And there she was, an emerald eyed beauty like her own daughter. Her snowflake white ridden hair didn't resemble my beloved student, but I can only assume her real father had the same mesmerizing pink. The name stopped with her, not revealing the truth of her pregnancy with Sakura. It seemed no one had known about it besides Mebuki and Kizashi, probably a secret she wanted to keep hidden.

"Tsunade, they said you'd be in here," Naruto strode in, his bright presence announcing him as usual.

"I was trying to find out how Sakura was related to the clans," I said, watching him maneuver around boxes of village records and files out of the corner of my eye until he was peeking over my shoulder and staring at the scroll himself.

"Have you found anything?" He asked unsure of what he was looking for.

"Actually, I have," I admitted, rolling the contents of it up once more as if leaving it out for the world to see, corrupted it. "But if it's alright with you, I'd like to hold another meeting. I can tell everyone about it then."

"Of course," Naruto nodded, slightly smirking as he did. "You really love to build up the anticipation, don't you?"

"Just a little," I lightly chuckled, breaking this tense atmosphere that seemed to surround me for the first time since Sakura disappeared. Although Naruto's smile told me otherwise, I could see a pain lingering in his ocean like eyes. "Naruto, what happened the day the Otsutsuki attacked?"

"Sasuke could tell you better than I could, but Sakura—she," Naruto struggled to say. You could see the guilt had taken over him and even just reliving that night has brought him nothing but pain. He blamed himself. "You know how Sakura spent that year in Suna?"

"Yeah of course, she was taking care of things at the children's health clinic, right," I stated almost as a question.

"That was part of it. Gaara was also sure to hand over Chiyo's belongings to her since he knew they had bonded in the short amount of time leading up to her death. It was something he had planned to do for a while since she had no extended family," Naruto further explained.

"well what does that have to do with that night?" I raised my brow at him, more intrigued than ever.

"All I know is that Sakura had one of Chiyo's scrolls in her office. I was packing it up for Sasuke and Sarada after the funeral, and thought it was odd to see something like that just lying around. So I dug around her office a little more and found a journal with notes and drawings that filled almost every page. It seemed like she was studying it," He released a long sigh, and sat down on a stool near the table. "I-I never thought it would be that important or could help us, until now that is."

"What exactly was she studying, Naruto?" I inquired, becoming a bit impatient with all these microscopic details that kept coming to light.

"The same jutsu Chiyo used to save Gaara after his tailed beast was extracted," Naruto said, completely lost in his own thoughts. "It was the same one she used on me."