MadaSaku Week 0320 prompt: "Don't you lay a finger on him/her!"

Purified

Chapter 3

Madara put on his dry top and they both settled down to sleep. He didn't have a sleeping bag, so he sat back against a tree and closed his eyes, senses on alert. He was used to taking any rest he could while on watch. It was a leftover habit from a lifetime of wars before Konoha's founding. To him it felt like a distant past, ages ago, even though it had only been a few short years since then.

Sakura slept by the fire, flames casting her in a warm glow. Her curled up body looked much smaller and vulnerable, like a child's, but Madara was well aware that she was far from one. The contours of her body were etched into his memory by the Sharingan. He tried not to think of the titillating view of her wet and scantily clad form. Instead, he thought about the demon and the mysterious mark on her arm, getting more frustrated by every second. She made her excuses but he knew she was hiding something important from him. He had to see that mark!

Madara stood up and noiselessly approached the sleeping woman. He watched her, making sure that her breathing was slow and steady, and her pulse too for a good measure. It was possible to control your breath, heartbeat not so much. She appeared deep into her dreams and unaware of his approach. Good.

Madara knelt at her side and oh so carefully, with a bated breath, pulled her left arm from under the covers. Sakura stirred, then calmed once again. Madara delicately rolled up her sleeve, but he couldn't do it high enough to uncover the taint as the material was too tight on her bicep.

In a bout of impatience, he ripped the fabric and exposed the mark to his eyes. It looked like a bruise, but it was completely black, like charred meat that fell into a campfire. It was in the shape of a clawed hand. The demon had grabbed Sakura there.

A strange feeling came over Madara as he looked at the mark. He couldn't tear his eyes away, he felt keyed up, yet calm. A swarm of angry bees was buzzing under his skin, filling him with the restless energy that needed a release before it overwhelmed him. There was a distant roar in the back of his skull, drowning out his thoughts in the noise.

Without realizing, Madara raised his arm over Sakura. Where did that knife come from? he asked himself with nothing but mild curiosity. He didn't remember taking it out and he couldn't imagine needing it here.

Madara's arm, as if moving on its own will, plunged the knife down towards Sakura's soft neck.

No!

He caught it with his other hand, warm blood trickling down from the deep, stinging cut. It was better than a violent gush of arterial blood from a slashed throat. Madara looked at his arm dumbly, unable to justify what he'd almost done. His blood dripped onto Sakura's face, waking her at last.

"Hmm-what?" she muttered sleepily, but when his ragged, heavy breath blew over her, the green eyes snapped open in full alert. She gasped as she caught sight of the bloody knife hovering above her, then clasped her hand over the mark on her skin as she crawled back like a three-legged crab. "Don't look!" she warned.

Madara growled, the inhuman sound coming out of his throat as a dark film came over his vision. He had to see that mark, how dare she cover it?! His head was pounding with rage and he pounced onto her.

They wrestled on the ground. He barely noticed her panicked struggles, his only aim to see that mark again. It was the most important thing in the world. Nothing else mattered more than this.

He grunted when she kneed him in the gut with a well-placed kick and scrambled to her feet, but it gave her only a few seconds. Madara lunged after the running woman. She was shouting something to him, but he didn't listen. He couldn't hear it when the roar in his head was drowning out everything else, pulsing in a mad crescendo.

Sakura burst out of the trees and ran towards the waterfall on top of the water. Clutching at her blemished arm and panting she turned around to face her pursuer who slowed down to a walk as well. His face was obstructed in the shadow but the Sharingan was swirling in a red kaleidoscope. The woman centered herself, moving her chakra and Yin energy back, undoing the barrier she held up all this time.

"You want him? Then take him! He's right there!" she shouted to the demon she knew was there. "What are you waiting for?!" she goaded.

The black handprint on her arm bubbled like a boiling tar then the substance burst up in a thin elongated spike. The mass spilled out of it onto the water and coalesced into a man-shaped figure, but there was nothing human about it. It was an imitation as if formed in clay by a very inept sculptor who only heard what a person is supposed to look like, but never saw one. Two golden coin-like eyes shone with malice as the thing smirked with a mouth full of sharp teeth.

Then it spoke. "Finally realized you were going to lose this, woman?" The voice was as deep as the depths of hell this creature crawled out of. It spoke strangely, slow, as if it was only learning how a voice should work.

From the moment the demon had come out of the mark, which must have been a sort of a seal as it had disappeared from Sakura's arm after, the fog in Madara's head cleared some, allowing him to think again. But it wasn't enough to restore full control over himself. The thrall the demon had over him, forged through years and months of intense study of the cursed tablet, was still too strong for him to break free. He could only watch.

"Are you going to beg for mercy?" it mocked the woman.

Sakura's stance oozed defiance as she squared against the demon. "No," she said, reaching into her pockets. "I just needed to lure you out."

Lightning fast, she pulled out a pouch and threw salt at the demon. It screeched in anger and pain, the body twisting unnaturally. Sakura used the time to perform a series of hand seals. Madara saw what technique she was attempting to use and felt impressed. She could do more with her small chakra reserves than he expected.

With a dull roar, the waterfall rose, turning into an undulating body of a dragon. "Kami, purify this blight on your world! Send it back into the hole it came from!" Sakura shouted the invocation and sent the dragon at the demon, the jaws wide open to swallow it whole.

There was a splash as the dragon passed over, then it dissipated, the water in the air obscuring the view. After it cleared, the demon was gone, nothing remaining where it stood. Sakura breathed out, bending over to catch her breath. Using that technique was very taxing on her, but it was her trump card. The sacred water dragon destroyed the impurity completely.

On the downside, she found herself drenched again. It made no difference that the water was blessed, it was just as wet and cold as any other water. Sakura shivered when the wind blew over her. Then her head swiveled towards Madara, mouth forming a ready smile to reassure him.

"I got rid of it. Are you alright, Uchiha-sa…" Words got stuck in her throat.

"Did you really think you could destroy me with your puny jutsu and simple salt and water? How naïve of you," the demon mocked her.

Madara's body was wrapped with the black substance. Flexible, but hard like a shell, it encased him whole like a tomb. He tried to shout and rage against it, straining his muscles to get out of the tight grip, but it was impossible. He was trapped and helpless, like a marionette controlled by another's will and it absolutely infuriated him.

With his Eternal Mangekyo, Madara watched. Sakura was spent, she lacked energy to do anything. Still, she didn't run, maybe because she knew the futility of it. Using Madara's body, the demon would catch up to her in an instant. He could see it in his mind as in a slow motion, her fleeing desperately, him swooping down on her and with a lazy swipe taking her head clean off.

But Sakura didn't move. "Let him go," she said.

The demon laughed and walked towards her.

Sakura threw paper seals at him, but she couldn't put enough spiritual energy into them to harm the vile being. He plucked them out of the air and set them aflame. They burned up at once, ashes falling into the water under their feet.

Her delicate features drew taut in fear, her green eyes dimming in resignation as she realized that all hope was lost. The demon rejoiced inwardly, the malicious feeling sinking into Madara's mind like a hot iron.

Her despair lasted only a second. With a huge breath, she gathered herself to stare into the face of death spitefully. She lost this battle but she would be damned before she lost her dignity as well.

"Why are you doing this? What are you going to do with him?" she asked, almost conversationally.

"Stalling for time? That's not going to work with me."

Through their connection, Madara saw the demon's thoughts. Unable to move, he was tormented by the cataclysmic visions of war and destruction, fire and brimstone falling onto earth, a giant tree sprouting out of the ground and blooming a single cursed flower. The branches grew and spread across the world, covering the ground and the sky, their snake-like coils capturing all life. Humans were encased in cocoons, dreaming their worst nightmares as their bodies were sucked out of chakra and slowly disintegrated into a soup, food for the monstrous fruit the tree would bear. And the demon, Black Zetsu, standing above it all, drinking in its triumph, Madara as a useful, obedient tool at its side, and then a sacrifice to bring birth to the one even more powerful and terrible, who was coming to turn this world into her cruel dominion. The Mother of All Demons, The Horned Ten-Tailed Beast, The Tyrant Queen of Hell.

Kaguya.

If Madara was free to move, a scream of terror would have ripped out of his throat upon viewing the end of all things he knew. So this was the true purpose of the Infinite Tsukuyomi? This was the true nature of the plan he thought was his own? Only now he could comprehend the full deception he was subjected to, the horrible manipulation he'd gone through. What he believed to be the path to peace led only to ruin and damnation. Regret and shame at his own hubris twisted his tongue with the bitter taste, but it was too late for self-recrimination. He was firmly in Black Zetsu's clutches, like a fly in a honeytrap, writhing and helpless until the jaws of death closed down on him. The despair choked him in a ruthless grip. Everything he dreamt of and accomplished was now in vain and he could do nothing to prevent its ruin.

Only his eyes were wide open, witnessing the last moments of the woman that came so close to saving it all. Sakura's back was straight, her eyes resolute. She met his gaze head on.

"Uchiha-sa… no, Madara!" she called out, startling him out of his misery. "If you are there, please don't give up! Fight the demon! Only you can stop it now!" she pleaded.

"Foolish woman, he can't hear you-"

"Madara! I believe in you! You have the power to stop it, just use it!" she shouted out.

Her voice was like a sharp ray of sunlight piercing through a thick cover of clouds. It was the brightness that illuminated the dark Madara was lost in, showing him the path out.

"Be silent!" The demon roared, feeling its control over him slipping, and it lunged at Sakura, slashing down with its claws. Instinctively, she closed her eyes, but when nothing happened, she opened them again. The claws were hovering just a touch away from her face, Madara's possessed body stretched out and motionless.

"Madara?" she whispered.

He didn't respond to her. Holding back the demon with his own willpower took all of his concentration. "Don't you… lay a finger…" he spoke, grunting with effort, "…on her! Susanoo!"

The Eternal Mangekyo may have been the product of a curse, but its power still belonged only to him. The chakra gathered under his skin and burst forward through all 361 tenketsu in his body, forming a blue impenetrable shield between his skin and the black sludge sticking to him. The Susanoo expanded out violently, dislodging the demon off Madara. It fell away, howling. Madara was screaming as well from the pain this separation caused. His whole body felt like it was on fire.

With a death glare, he seized that worm, that parasite, that pathetic creature that dared to use him and squeezed.

"Why?! He was possessed! I had him completely in my power! How is this possible?!" Black Zetsu cried out in pain and confusion, squirming between the Susanoo fingers crushing it.

"Power is not will, it is the phenomenon of physically making things happen. Luckily, I have both," Madara replied through gritted teeth. "You underestimated my power, Black Zetsu. I won't make the same mistake."

"What?! No! The world of peace, I know how you can get it, just don't-" The demon shouted frantically, struggling like an eel.

Madara gave it a cold smirk, the burning pain over his skin not abating. "Amaterasu!"

The black, infernal flames engulfed the demon, the intense heat evaporating the water under into a white cloud of hot steam. The creature contorted its body, but couldn't get off the fire. With a screech, it burned out, leaving nothing behind. Madara looked at the results of his work with satisfaction, but soon the pain of his own injuries worsened. The Susanoo dissipated and he fell on one knee, panting harshly.

"Uchiha-sama! Are you alright?"

He looked up. Sakura was at his side, her pretty face drawn in anxiety. She was worried over him. He smirked through the pain, lifting his hand to her cheek. That's when he saw the chakra burns covering him. It figured, he'd never before had to erect Susanoo so close to his own skin. Madara shook his head, filing the observation for later.

"U-Uchiha-sama?" she asked uncertainly.

"Madara. That's what you called me," he said in a murmur. Her skin was smooth and cool under his caress. He observed the rouge pluming on her cheeks with a great satisfaction as she averted her eyes.

Sakura took a steadying breath, then looked back at him. "Madara-sama," she said firmly, adding the honorific, as she took his hand away. "I should tend to your injuries. Can you walk?"

"I think so."

Her small hand pulled him up with unexpected strength. He liked it, one of many contradictions this woman was seemingly made of. She put his arm over her shoulder and helped him walk back to their campsite, the moonlight showing them the way. While Madara's thoughts circled around her, the pain wracking his sore body felt more distant. He discreetly inhaled the sweet smell of her damp pink hair.

In the camp, Sakura made him a herbal tea to soothe the pain. Madara sniffed it, recognizing the tell-tale smell of poppy, before swallowing it all in one go. As she gently put ointment on his burns and skillfully wrapped them in bandages, Madara kept thinking. He was surprised when she pulled away.

"I'm done," she said softly. "Let's try to get some rest. I'll use chakra to heal you in the morning."

She turned away, but he grabbed her hand. "Wait," he said in a scratchy voice. "Did you mean what you said?"

"Yes, I'll heal you," she replied with a confused look.

"No, when the demon controlled me. You said you believed in me. Did you mean it? How could you believe in someone you don't know?"

She gave him a smile. "Oh, that's easy. I don't have to know everything about you to know your heart is strong. I felt it last night. Even when you didn't realize, something in you was fighting the demon's influence, that's why it took it so long to possess you. And that's why you were able to throw it off tonight."

A comforting warmth settled in his chest. Madara said nothing and she stepped away. He was given her sleeping bag while she bundled herself in a blanket and slept on a patch of grass nearby.

You're so beautiful, he thought blearily. Come back to Konoha with me. Or I can go with you, wherever you're going next. It doesn't matter where, I was going to leave anyway.

He wasn't aware he said that out loud before she replied. "Go to sleep, Madara-sama. You're saying strange things."

Looking at the pink head of hair turned away from him, Madara drifted off to sleep which was equally a result of his exhaustion and the poppy. And he dreamed of all the good that comes after the bad, the spring after winter, dawn after night, cheer after grief. The hatred was burned out like weeds and the fields were fertile, waiting to give life to a new crop. The seed was already planted and a sapling rapidly burst out of the ground. With water and sun aplenty, the tree grew high, pink flowers blooming all over the slender branches. And he was at peace, because all was good and right with the world in which such a beauty could be created.

Madara woke when the sun was high. Nothing hurt him. He marveled at the healthy, pink skin on his arms. Then he looked for Sakura.

She was nowhere in sight. The fire had been put out, seemingly for many hours. She might have left to get something, but her medicine box was missing too. The medic was gone.

She left him behind again before he could ask her anything. What an annoying habit she had, he thought with a sigh.

Madara stood up and stretched, unbothered. He felt rested and energized. Uchiha Madara was back in peak condition and he was ready to go and chase down the stubborn woman.

If Sakura thought he was just going to turn back to Konoha and forget all about her, she had another thing coming.

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AN: Thanks for reading! There's going to be a short epilogue in a few days, but this is it for the main story. Thank you for your support! Please let me know how you liked this chapter and the story, I wll appreciate it a lot! ;)

Until next time!