So it's SasuSaku month. How did I not realize T_T Well, it's not like I was going to do a prompt a day anyway, nope, nope, nope~ So here is a general SasuSaku oneshot because that way at least I can say I did something. Enjoy~

Warning: This is not edited. Also, this story is a little … weird? I've been wanting to write a Sakura/Kaguya story for a while, even before she was introduced as a physical being, and the latest story chapters have given me the opportunity. I'd like for things to turn out this way, but *shrugs*

Disclaimer: I am but a mere fanfiction writer and thus claim no rights to Kishimoto's characters :D

Vessel

A SasuSaku Oneshot

The moment Sakura processed their plan and Kaguya's counterattack, she leapt from her position with as much power as she could coax from her chakra deprived body. She'd internally calculated the distance and was happy, at least once since their arrival in the alternate dimensions, that her projection was spot on. There was no way in hell she'd ever let either of her boys take a hit, even if it was for the better sake of the world. In the half second it took to suddenly separate from the others and to gather the distance using her strength and harpoon between the boys, Sakura only had one thought in her mind. She wished she could have been better.

There was a moment when all she could see was Kaguya's perfect, demonic face, open in pure confusion. The pinkette was sure, never in her darkest hours, that a kunoichi of no standing would suddenly engulf her vision and embrace her in a hug. The whitish eyes, bright and so much like her Hyuuga friend's, burned into her with curious intention as Sakura's intrusion forced Sasuke and Naruto's body sideways while their energies swirled into a mass around herself and the origin of all chakra. She noted the horrified look gracing Naruto's features as he flew sideways, certain that her taking his place as sacrifice never occurred to him, and wished that she could have the perspective to see if Sasuke was similarly shocked. If he even cared in the least.

Whatever natural energies made up the Sage of Six Paths' power, the pinkette could not distinguish them, but they were not painful or dark. There was a warmth caressing her body as she demurely observed the god in her arms, wondering why she had not been crushed or throw to the wayside. A hypnotic hold captured the female member of team seven's attention, vivid jade eyes locked with milky cream, and out of nowhere a hand was suddenly brushing back the bloom-colored bangs grazing her forehead. A gesture so motherly and soft, the girl almosted pulled away in fear of the woman watching her tranquilly. Then fingers, equally delicate yet powerful, rested on her seal and Sakura felt herself freeze.

"You are an interesting child. Where did you learn this?" the lips moved minutely and the medic ninja felt puffs of breath come out with her words.

"M-my master," the girl stuttered involuntarily, not fully over her apprehension at being in this being'spresence. She was a murderer and a monster. She was the creature Madara and black Zetsu sought to bring to life and what was desperately sealed by elders she had never even heard of. And yet, she was warm. Surrounded by waves of pulsing energy, Sakura could blame that as the source, but the radiating presence of this deity in her hug was the actual cause of the heat filling her with safety. "Senju Tsunade." Kaguya gave a curt nod, most likely informed about the Senju from black Zetsu's intel.

"And you are …" the question hung, and Sakura, strangely comforted in this circumstance of the enemy's encircled arms, felt obligated to reply.

"Haruno Sakura. Medical kunoichi of Konohagure and the Shinobi Alliance." Despite being in such a situation, the pinkette's formalities came out flatly and this seemed to amuse the god, from what the slight quirk of her petite lips suggested.

"Haruno Sakura." Again there were fingers running through her bangs. "An interesting child." And then a finger was on her cheek where a cut bled down to her chin. The stickiness of the blood did not appear to bother Kaguya as her nail grazed it and collected the liquid. She seemed fascinated by the substance. "I would have liked to have a daughter like you."

"Like me?" For a moment, Sakura had no idea what was happening, why this person was saying such things to her. It couldn't even be processed that she was floating her in an abyss of sunlight and moonlight with this god who was evil enough to destroy the world she so cherished. A world filled with homes and families, friends and loves. A particular love …

"Strong. Brave. But kind. Gentle of heart. Capable of love." As the words tumbled from her mouth, Sakura felt a swell of pride at adjectives she never associated with herself. Was she truly the things a monster called her, though? Could she trust the words of a demon? "But I was given boys. Boys who loved not their mother." This, the green eyed girl understood, was the feeling of a dejected mother. Something that she could never understand, but felt sympathy for all the same. Sakura could never imagine not loving her own mother, despite her shortcomings. In the deepest recesses of her heart, the kunoichi knew if her mother was evil and dark, even then she would love her no less and would try to quell the situation without hurting her. But did the Sage of Six Paths and his brother not do the same?

"Do you know what is happening?" the chiming voice interrupted the medical ninja's thoughts, Byakugan eyes lazily glancing left and right. There was no need of the facade of movement with her all-seeing vision, but Kaguya seemed to not care either way. "Of course you do. You would not have saved them if you hadn't." Her tone was not patronizing, merely all knowing. And Sakura certainly did understand what her actions could result in when she threw herself onto the incapacitated Kaguya to substitute Naruto's place as sacrifice. It was better for her to be sacrificed than either Naruto or Sasuke.

"Am I going to die?" she asked morosely, wondering why she wasn't already dead at this moment. Kaguya's smooth hand continued to brush through her strands of vivid pink as she returned her gaze to the smaller girl in her arms. Why didn't the pinkette find it odd to be cradled in the grasp of the demon of all chakras, when on the battlefield her heart would not leave her throat?

"Perhaps. I know not if a living vessel can contain my soul. I was sealed in fragments before." Studying the mother was not a difficult task when this close. Her hair was an unearthly bleached white, as if left out in the sun so all the color bled out of its flowing strands. And her features were porcelain, carved like ivory and dewy as she'd seen on the models in the magazine covers Ino used to bring over. Her horns, though, were the second most defining feature after her three eyes, woven and scarred like bone, but polished with a shine nonetheless. If she had not been so dangerous, Sakura would have envied her beauty. "Would it matter if you survived, child?"

The question caught the teenager off guard. She had no assurance of survival, but did it matter to her if she did? Of course it would be nice to see everyone's faces again, alive and not hidden behind the shadows of war. At the same time, Sakura was not a stupid girl. She'd be the vessel of a monster. If the kunoichi could survive being torn to shreds from the inside out by her captive and not let her escape, what kind of life would she lead? Would she cower away from people so as to protect them? Or would they shun her, as she awfully remembers them doing to her best friend in their youth?

"I—" Her words caught in her throat. Would it make a difference? If the pinkette were to die to save the world as a sacrifice was meant to, should she not happily take the bargain? Her precious mother and father would be safe, free from the zombie tyranny draining their life energy and able to live their lives together in fullness. Her friends, all of her friends would survive. The exuberant Ino and the shy Hinata, the dedicated Lee and the spitfire Tenten. The obnoxious Kiba and his faithful companion Akamaru, intelligent Shikamaru and sweet Choji. The wise Kakashi and the gifted Tsunade, knuckleheaded Naruto and quiet Sasuke … Sasuke …

Why did she always return to him? The Uchiha was forever trapped in her memories as the only person she would love, even if he did not love her. Despite everything she'd gone through because of him, for him, nothing could tear away her feelings of dedication and enamorment. But he wasn't her salvation because he did not feel for her the way did about him. Sasuke was, at most, an ally to her cause and that is all he ever intended it to be. Was there something from her return that would drastically change those feelings?

"I don't know," she finally confirmed, head tilted down to stare at the flowing robes Kaguya was swathed in. "I always thought I had a purpose, something like this that'd I'd survive and come home to. But, I don't know if home is what I want anymore." Kaguya, in all her otherworldliness, still managed a very human nod.

"You want something you can't have, don't you?" Again, the tone was conversational, not antagonistic. There seemed to be something beyond what Sakura had initially thought the ancient god to be. "I know the desire for affection. I craved it until the very moment I was being sealed in you. As I am in you now, I still feel it."

Sakura could not process what the other's statement referred to. How can a being before her, gently floating and grasped between her arms, be inside her at the same moment?

"You're in me now? But I thought—"

"We are locked away within the sealing jutsu. In your body. I am no longer of the world." The explanation was an attempt at reassurance, much how a parent explains confusion to a child. Sakura was feeling more and more childlike with each and every thought that past through her. Was the kunoichi losing her mind?

"But this doesn't look like the world as I know it," she flustered.

"Because you're inside. If you die or not depends on whether you can free yourself from the seal." Clear, milk colored eyes favorably observed the confusion coursing through Sakura. "I cannot help you overcome it child," she continued, enthralled and perhaps in need of the presence within her grasp. The kunoichi couldn't be sure, but felt the relief run through her regardless. She was being told, however indirectly, that her survival was based on her own strength, just as Tsunade had always taught her. Just as she always expected it to.

"But you're encouraging me." The words seemed to make Kaguya's gaze soften as she held the girl's cheek. "To fight."

"I so very much would have liked to have a daughter like you," she repeated from her prior statement. "So very much." For the second time, the pinkette witnessed as tears rolled down the god's ivory cheeks, a sorrowful expression marring her beauty. She didn't want this person, because in fact that is what she had always been despite the evil that claimed her, to suffer anymore. At least, if she was inside her body, Sakura could show her the shinobi world that contained hope and—

"—kura!" The medical ninja nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of her name, resounding around the two females like an echo in a canyon. She minutely gripped the demon woman's shoulders tighter, fear coursing through her like memories from childhood.

"Ah, it's him, isn't it? The dark haired boy." As if it had a mind of its own, the sun bleached hair came to cocoon around the petite pink haired girl's body with her grasp. Sakura was like a babe swathed in a blanket, nestled into the crook of Kaguya's neck, feeling calm and sleepy.

"Sasuke-kun? What do you mean?" she asked regardless, half lidded eyes returning to lock on the byakugan once more. What did Sasuke have to do with that haunting shriek moments before?

"That is whom you desire. Homura's lineage." It felt as if Mebuki, Sakura's own mother, was swaying her within the hold. That was how recognizable the aura of this demon was to the green eyed girl. As she listened to the other speak, her eyes almost mistook the woman for her mother; white hair turned blonde and pale eyes bled into forest green. "Homura was always difficult. But I suppose you know that already, don't you child?"

"—akur—" The broken up call of her name was terrifying her in its intensity. She unconsciously leaned into the slowly fading warmth pooled around Kaguya. Why was the other becoming colder? Why was the mother of all chakra dissipating through her fingers like a ghost? The white haired demon took to mimicking her earlier actions of running her long nailed fingers through the girl's petal locks.

"I don't want to go back to that pain. It's too difficult," Sakura almost cried. Slowly the flowing strands were pulling away, section by section and revealing their interlocked state once more.

"If you wish it, you may use my power to hold him at bay. I will give it to you, Haruno Sakura. Sweet, interesting child." It was like the different energies that had bubbled them from the outside were now pressing in between the two. "But you won't like that." Cool dark and warm light power wove in between Sakura's grip and Kaguya's hair was like a tethered rope behind her; she was drifting ever so slightly backwards with the pull. "Pushing away what you want most only hurts you."

"—ra! Saku—" Her fingers were freed of the robe and it was as if an elastic band had been released; suddenly the distance between the god and the girl was greater than an ocean and Sakura helplessly reached out to the figure closing her Byakugan gaze serenely. Waves of energy moved like chains to encircle Kaguya, and then formed a seal around her form. She looked like Snow White resting in her glass casket from the childhood stories the green eyed girl had read when she was small.

"But it hurts so much. I can't …" she whispered brittly, finally giving in to the tugging and allowing the vision before her to disappear.

The heavy lids lifted fractionally and the pink haired medic attempted to clear her head from the throbbing that coursed through her body. It was as if she'd had a hard impact and her brain had been scrambled together along with the rest of her body. Her eyes fell shut again, but this time she felt a pressure squeezing her chest and arms painfully and she reluctantly pried them open again.

"Sakura!" the broken voice near her head surprised her, though her eyelids refused to cooperate past the small, fuzzy opening they created to show her the world beyond. All she could make out from her slit view was large rock rubble quarry and a fading darkness of the sky. There was no strength to turn her head to the voice.

"Sakura-chan," a thick voice also whimpered near her other shoulder, and there was nothing she could do but be squeezed between two saddened voices near her ears. Why were these voices so familiar to her? Where was she? And why did her chest ache as if a bull had lodged its horns into her?

There was a floating memory in her mind's eye; bleached white and a red eye mingled with swirls of energy that reminded her of warm summer days and soothing fall evenings. There was a mother, but not her own, whispering secrets into her thoughts and a clenching of her heart from a feeling she couldn't quite explain. There was a pair of cobalt eyes that filtered into red slits and golden crosses and then pools of obsidian that flickered between red swirls and a purple sclera.

But what did these things mean? Sakura only wanted to shut her eyes fully and let go of the world's pain and fuzziness. But there was something pushing her, no pushing within her, to do no such thing.

"You stupid, annoying girl," rough words breezed warmly against her ear. "Who told you to do that?" the anger dissipated amongst the undertones of despair. Hands she hadn't realized were there raked through her matted, dirty hair and dug into the shirt and vest fabric riding up her back. The hold was warm, filling her slowly, but also making the unsteadiness in her limited gaze also grow.

"Sasuke, Sakura-chan's—" the second, softer echo hovered by her, and she felt the tug of it's presence willing her to remember. It sounded as if the light of the world had burnt out and an neverending night took its place. Why was the voice so lost? And why was it making her strength come forward in small rivulets?

"Shut the hell up Naruto!" the vicious words scraped against her strength, and like a scar, built up her strength some more. This voice too brought about a feeling of anguish, but Sakura understood this was not something normal. But why?

"Sasuke—" Sasuke, she knew this name. He was her … teammate? Yes, the teammate from the past who she'd tried so hard to save. Memories of a boy with dark hair and an even darker past flashed through her mind as the kunoichi's awareness returned.

"I said shut up! Sakura—" Hard, venomous words that alluded to torture. Sasuke was angry, she could tell from the fingers digging into her chilled skin behind clothing.

"She'd dead Sasuke!" Naruto. It suddenly came to her, that it was Naruto shouting. Her blond best friend and all the memories of him in his silliness and strength and power overcame her. "Can't you see?" Like shattered glass, the tone was broken despite the volume. Why was Naruto saying she was dead? She could hear him, though she did not see anything other than rubble and the dawn sky. At that moment, her vision rotated and now the only scenery was the pebbled ground. Was she being lifted? And why couldn't she find the strength to raise her head or speak to them? The pinkette blamed the tiredness engulfing her entire body.

"She," the words were flat now, but laced with discouragement. "She can't …"

"Kaguya was sealed in her, Sasuke," the familiar husky pitch she knew fraily explained. "Look at the Yin seal. She couldn't handle such a burden. She didn't have the power of the Sage like we do." Naruto hiccuped away a sob, and she so desperately wanted to shout to him that he was wrong. The pinkette was here, she heard their words, and that meant she was alive.

"Damn it," Sasuke's dark tone tore through the air, "Damn it all to hell!" Her shoulders were squashed against a firm chest and her head lolled onto a shoulder that was simultaneously bony and muscular. "Why couldn't I just…" The words were incomplete as she closed her eyes again and pondered how to let them know she wasn't dead. Her teammates sounded as if they couldn't process a world without her and it strangely brought about a strength she didn't know could fuel her. They needed her just as much as she knew she needed them.

"Sasuke …" Naruto's voice sounded tired beyond belief. It was the sound of defeat despite a victory and Sakura would not have that.

Reaching into her chakra, which was dangerously low just a moment ago, milk colored eyes passed in the vision behind her lids and a trickle of chakra began to flow through her veins. Kaguya, the girl suddenly thought. As if an affirmation, her energies continued to edge back into her from the seal burning on her forehead and the kunoichi carefully started distributing it throughout her system. First her heart beat a bit louder, then her neck and arms thrummed with the returning energy. Pooling it into her legs and fingertips, it took a few moments until she was aware of her chakra signature steadily growing. Wondering if the grief of the boys surrounding her inhibited their awareness after such a long battle, Sakura decided to garner their attention. Thank you Kaguya, the girl spoke into her conscious and somewhere a flicker of acknowledgement was her reply.

With a little of her former self returned, the pink haired medical ninja gingerly moved her chilled hands crushed against the chest to encircle the waist within her reach. An audible gasp rang out as Sakura's tucked head nuzzled the neck beside her face. There was something pleasing about being in such close proximity to the Uchiha and eliciting a reaction not typical of him. However, what really took her breath away was the subtle shake to the arms holding her and the words she heard said with a disbelieving reverberation.

"Sakura, you're … alive?" The green eyed girl angled her gaze up to the face hesitantly scrutinizing her, black irises depthless and so mismatched with his disheveled features. The missing ninja's midnight hair was streaked with reddish dust while the pristine face was caked with dirt and various lacerations. He looked more battered than she'd ever seen him. But the edge to his features that expressed he was glad enough for her life not disappearing and could care less if his perfect face was not, in fact, perfect at this moment. And that spoke volumes to her.

"Yes. Thank you for worrying about me, Sasuke-kun." She could read everything that passed through his expressive eyes before he was even aware of it, she was sure. The gladness, the disbelief, the hope, the confusion, the worry, the tenderness. It was in the way her shifted her closer to his face, in the tiny gesture of his tightening grip on her body. It was in the way his lips curled around her name as he repeated it to himself.

"Sakura-chan!" Turning her head away from Sasuke's body to the direction Naruto's voice came from, the kunoichi was overwhelmed by the tearing eyes and the excited expression she saw. He looked so ecstatic that she wasn't quite sure what was preventing him from tackling her to the ground as was typical of such an expression.

"Naruto," she hoarsely called, familial love filling her heart watching him. Despite her fears about living through her sealing process, the pink haired kunoichi was content with being a vessel so long as she had her teammates. They were both by her side. And they cared. They cared enough to worry and cry.

"Sakura," Sasuke's baritone interrupted. Her eyes instinctively floated back to her raven haired teammate, and were met with an admonished expression.

"Sasuke-kun?" Sakura questioned back, noticing how his forehead leaned in to press against her own as he spoke.

"Don't ever do anything like that again, okay?" Like silken fabric against her skin, his request blew in along with his warm breath on her nose. The Uchiha never asked for things since he was prone to taking, but in this moment he was giving her the grace of a task only she could control and implement.

Despite wanting to fight with him on principle, his expression was not one for taking a joke at the moment. It was an expression that told the tale of long bygone woe and fear, consumed by hatred and turned into mania before becoming a selfish beacon and a returned friend. It was the story of Uchiha Sasuke who was glad that Haruno Sakura was alive and in his arms, and would need a long retelling when the time was better than now. So instead of fighting and being dismayed, she steadied her still weak hand against his shoulder and pulled her lips to to the side, kissing his cheek chastely. When their eyes connected again, his widened in shock and hers reassuring with love as they'd always been, Sakura knew that everything would be fine in the world. And with them.

"Okay."

==(Fin)==

Yes? No? I kind ship this Sakura/Kaguya lol~ But fear not, SasuSaku is still in my heart forever as number 1~