An Inch of Gold

32

Author's Note: Updating now because I have a headache and might not have the energy to do it at 9. As usual, unedited until I can get to it.

Also, I'm not saying you should be familiar with my story Samsara for this chapter, but it will offer some perspective/Easter eggs.

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When Sarada wakes, she is floating.

It takes longer than she would like to force her eyes open, and when she does she feels only confusion. The world around her is lit by a dim violet light, but everything beyond it is a black, overwhelming darkness.

Am I...am I dead...?

She remembers a knife and then falling, and then...nothing.

I must have hit the ground. I have to be dead.

Slowly, she sits up, frowning at the water surrounding her, rippling outward. Somehow, it doesn't soak her skin or clothes, almost like it's not really water but someone's abstract concept of it. As she gets to her feet, it falls away from her, leaving no trace of it beyond the sensation of silken sheet sliding away.

The air suddenly feels heavy, and she tenses. Whirling around, she is shocked to see Teisōko standing beside her, also looking utterly unharmed.

No! She should be dead! I felt her die...!

The other girl looks as if she is as confused as Sarada, but it lasts less time.

"You!" she hisses, and lunges, eyes narrowed and palm flat for a blow to the throat.

Sarada braces her feet in the ankle length water, hoping she won't slip, and prepares for the incoming blow. Which is why she is shocked as the other girl is suddenly stumbling into the water behind her with an ungainly splash.

Did she...miss? No, that's not it. She went right through!

"What?" Sarada whispers, staring down at her hands. They seem solid enough to her, but...

"Fighting one another is useless," a cool voice says, echoing within the vast expanse of distant black. "Your minds and souls are beyond your physical bodies."

Sarada whips around to face the owner of the voice, and Teisōko jumps to her feet as well, as if expecting an attack. Neither of them is quiet expecting the sight before them.

A woman and a man stand before them, having appeared out of nowhere. The woman is petite, with grey eyes and dark skin, dressed in pale colours but for a blood red obi tied in the front. Sloe black hair is arranged in a complicated headpiece, and a pink cherry blossom kanzashi that look very similar to one that Sarada's mother has.

Maybe my mind is compensating? Sarada wonders, but when she studies the man, she decides she would never have been able to imagine him.

Beside the woman, he is much taller, and unsmiling beneath dark, wild hair. Somehow, he looms like a shadow even though he wears all white. Six magatama border his robe, reminding her of giant versions of a Sharingan's tomoe. And speaking of a Sharingan...

He has it! And it looks exactly like Papa's!

"Who are you?" Teisōko demands, getting to her feet to face the strangers. Sarada would like to ask the same thing, but something stops her.

There's something...about these two...

The man looks down his nose at Teisōko. "I was, I am, I will be the grasping, devouring shadow of despair."