#indrachi

As promised, since I’m practicing with Photoshop, I did a basic drawing of Shachi. It’s kind of rough (I really need to practice shading, and I need to redo some of the lineart and finish the fan I was going to put in her hands, but over all I’m pleased with how she turned out! ^_^)

As I had mentioned before, her colouring is similar to that of the Kaguya clan, as is her hair and eyes. Face-shape wise she looks like Mikoto Uchiha, and I tried to show that she’s kind of this lithe, willowy figure, hence a very thin robe (and not as grand as someone, say, Kagyua).

The hair style is based on that found in art of the Yayoi Period in Japan (300 BCE to 300 CE), which I chose because that’s what the Kaguya clan hair looked like. Shachi’s is sort of a hybrid between a man’s hair style (gathered on the side) and a woman’s (hair gathered on top). I arranged it in a bit of a cherry-blossom shape, reminiscent of Kizashi, as a link to Sakura. Unbound, her hair is very, very long, so I’ll have to draw that out some other day :)

The outfit is also (loosely) based on a Yayoi woman’s clothing, but it’s longer and lighter. Colourwise, I was originally going to put her all in white, but that made her seem kind of austere, so I added the pink to soften her a little and, once again, as a link to Sakura.

The front-tied red obi was a stylistic choice on my part. I wanted to show that Shachi comes from a different part of the world than Indra, in terms of her clothing style (I haven’t seen him or any of the other characters wear an obi or anything similar, and not in this style.) Also red is a very significant colour in most Asian cultures.

For the first time in his memory, Indra’s wife glares up at him, pain and fury and something else suffusing her entire form.

“If you were to call down lightning from the skies or set me alight with your strongest flames, I swear on my love and fidelity that they would not touch him,” she vows, the words torn from her throat as if being dragged over crushed glass. “Only a child born of our union could survive such a thing.”

Indra’s eyes fly once more to her swollen belly, forcing himself to remain calm in the face of the lie she tells. His blood boils, but where moments ago it was fuelled by desperation and adrenaline and need for the woman before him, now there is nothing but anger. She has made him lose control of himself once already today. He will remain impartial in this, handing down detached judgement for her crime.

“Do you think because you are with child that I will hold back?” he challenges her, careful to keep his voice toneless.

“Of course not,” she responds softly, a little of the fight ebbing. “I only hope it makes you take pause. Because if you do this, you cannot undo it. You are not so mighty that you can resurrect the dead, my love.”

The anger rears up within him again at the implication that he is fallible, or that he is not utterly sure in his judgement. He clenches his teeth together, refusing to give in to the need to defend his intentions.

She is quick to take advantage of his silence.

“Husband, I hope that one day your heart can be cured,” she tells him, tone soft with sadness. “Only then can new hope be born to your line…only then will you no longer need your sons to fight and die for your legacy. And when you realise I have spoken nothing but the truth to you and how deeply your hatred has scarred you—know that I die still loving you despite the action you take tonight. If it takes the rest of your life, or many lives, I will wait for you. If I had an eternity, I would spend it waiting for you to return from the darkness that has you ensnared.” 

The constant, whispering presence at the back of Indra’s mind is murmuring again, cajoling and beseeching.

She and the child can still be of use. Asura will surely come for them.   

He is sure that his brother will come for his offspring, for he is just as protective of his own as Indra is. But the notion of this child, the mental image of Shachi locked in any kind of intimate embrace with another man, and his hated sibling at that—

Indra deliberates whether to plunge a bolt of lightning through her traitorous heart, or burn her alive as she prompted him to do. The Sharingan activates then, illuminating the dark insides of the shrine, and the anguished expression of the woman before him.

“You don’t have an eternity,” he tells her, raising a hand and levelling his index finger at her face.

It would be unwise to kill her yet.

There is a certain logic to this, but this is the same presence that has always pushed him to act, to become more powerful. For once, doubt creeps in, uncertainty boring a hole in his resolve.

A thought strikes him, then, unexpected given the sweltering, looming power of his anger.

Indra doesn’t want to kill her.

Pain and betrayal overwhelm him, but something tiny, hidden and long-suppressed flares to life within him. It’s like a tiny tongue of flame in the darkness.

He remembers the day they met on that far eastern shore, and the weeks afterward when she nursed him back to health. Images of the day when he could move by his own power, and his attempt to eradicate her for being witness to his weakness. He can still feel the way her throat felt in his hands, the only time he has ever laid a hand on her in anger.

She had all but given up, struggling against his hold on her, except for a last spark of defiance in her eyes. There was a determination in her that he recognised, a will to live and endure that even a lifetime of abuse could not extinguish.

And though in this moment her eyes once more beg him not to kill her or the child inside her, that same defiance shines at him. Coupled with her trembling words from earlier, he knows she has surrendered herself to die by his hand, but will face that end unflinchingly.

“Don’t tell him my death came by your hands,” she breathes, tears trailing across her cheeks. “Don’t tell any of them. If you ignore anything else I have said—please. Tell them I thought of them in my last moments.”

He narrows his eyes at her, and something within him pulls taut in expectation.

“Irritating woman,” he calls her, for want of any other words.

And then, unexpectedly, she takes a small step forward until her brow presses against his outstretched fingers.

“Please make it fast,” she whispers.

But the sudden contact with her skin is like a bolt of electricity, sizzling through his veins and shocking the rational part of him that has been numb since discovering her pregnancy.

Now is not the time to be hasty, the voice warns. The child still has value, though she might not—

Asura’s child.

He has to be sure.

And so he does that one thing he never has before, through years of marriage and beyond. He has never had the desire or need to, because with Shachi he has always intuitively known her every thought and intention. She was the only person in his life he has even been completely sure of until today.

His Sharingan activates, ensnaring her in a genjutsu before she can react.

Shachi’s body goes rigid and her eyes vacant as he traps her within her memories, then uses his ability to slip into her mind.

The world around them becomes utterly devoid of sensation, without ambient noise or surrounding scent. Colours invert, the sky bleeding red and the ground a forbidding black, stretching on for miles around them. With merely a suggestion, he orders her mind to cast her back into the past, to relive the past year when she was away from him.

He seeks something, some undeniable proof that will help him make his final act against her, some evidence that without a doubt she has lied to him about her relationship with Asura.

His stomach clenches and rage suffuses him so thickly he can almost taste it as he sees the facsimiles of his brother and father, of his long-abandoned home and trappings of his childhood. Though her eyes offer him a softer perspective on the place, he refuses to be sidetracked, intent on the inevitable proof.

But the longer he follows her mind back through her memories, the more uneasy he becomes.

Because there is no such proof.

He watches her sitting among his kin, as regally as a queen (and isn’t that what he made her, after all?), chastising them both on his behalf and frowning in contempt at the man that Indra killed on the shore when he rescued her. He observes her sitting with a tiny woman that Indra vaguely remembers returning with Asura, and when she places hands on the woman’s abdomen he realises this must be his brother’s wife. This is a mark against her—ensuring his brother’s fecundity is as treasonous an act as any other—but it’s not the specific evidence he seeks.

He needs to go back further, needs her to show him the exact sin that he has accused her of committing.

Instead he finds her sitting in conclave with his father, wrapped in blankets and listening unsmiling and thoughtful as his father tells stories. And then a vision of her lying sick and bedridden, fighting on death’s door as Asura’s wife tends to her.

He spares a moment to puzzle over her fevered dreams—a dark haired boy walking away from a sobbing girl whose hair resembles a cascade of cherry blossoms, and a hard-eyed man with wild hair cupping the chin of a woman with skin like porcelain—before moving on.

Beyond his genjutsu, he hears Shachi panting with effort as her mind is forced to relive all of this within seconds, is aware of the dark presence gleefully musing that she doesn’t need her mind to bring to child to bear if he lets her live.

Indra shakes all this off, returning his attention to Shachi’s memories.

They watch Asura and his wife together, embracing in a casual, affectionate manner Indra feels uncomfortable witnesses. He notes Shachi’s naked pain as she watches this, and he thinks perhaps this is the proof he needs, that soon he will find what he seeks—

But farther back, she simply spends nights staring up at the moon, her form growing smaller as he brings them closer to the day she was taken.

Instinctive fury threatens his hold on the image as he sees her bound and gagged in the hold of a ship, and then again as the man from the shore knocks her unconscious in the ruined forest. Then they are indoors, the hut around them is familiar, as is the woman seated before Shachi.

Dewadasi, he recalls. The midwife. But this doesn’t make sense, this is before…

Quietly, Shachi reveals what she suspects—what six pregnancies have made her familiar with. The older woman is nodding, asking her questions, wanting to know when she knew for sure—

The world seems to solidify, then, but they are still in the illusion. Indra sees them both them—himself and Shachi, entwined and rocking slowly into one another. She clutches frantically at his shoulders, whispering his name over and over, legs wrapped around him. His face is buried in her neck as she cries out, and soon his entire frame shudders and goes still.

When he pulls away from her, flushed and sated, the look that he graces her with is one Indra did not even know he was capable of forming. His eyes are soft, the barest trace of a smile ghosting upon his lips, and something warm in his eyes that he’s forgotten the name of.

But the clarity of this moment, of her memory, as if she has thought of it so many times over and over so as to recall it with perfect detail, leaves no room for argument.

The child is mine.

There’s no doubt. She is telling the truth.

Indra is so shocked, it is as if someone has punched him. He is thrown from the illusion so abruptly that he staggers backward, falling to one knee. Shachi cries out in surprise and pain as well, crumpling to her knees. She manages to protect her stomach, but her entire body continues to tremble from the mental assault he just put her under.

You fool, you could have killed her!

And not just in this moment.

An harsh, sickly sense of horror creeps up on him, the reality of what he was so ready to do washing over him.

He would have killed her. If he had acted a few seconds earlier—!

Knees knocking, he staggers to his feet and tries to back away.

“Indra?” she murmurs, watching him with wide, worried eyes. And it makes no sense, but at the same time he would expect no different, because she is the only person in existence who would worry for him after what he has just done.

What he has done for his entire life.

In the past, Indra has only ever trusted what his eyes could show, has never listened to anyone else because he knew best. Neither his father nor his brother could ever show him their truth, because their abilities meant nothing next to his.

But right now, there is no artifice or illusion, and he has witnessed the truth for himself. Even if his wife possessed any genjutsu abilities, his own surpass anyone’s on the planet, and they have clearly just showed him that he made a mistake.

The whispering presence, the voice that has always been correct about everything…is wrong. It has always felt omnipresent and omniscient, but here it is wrong. It, too, believed Shachi’s child to belong to Asura.

And if it was wrong this time…what about all the other times he thought he saw so clearly?

Indra thinks back on every battle he has ever taken part in, every time he stood in challenge against his father’s teachings. He can remember Asura now, the boy and man beyond the image painted by years of seething hatred. He remembers the faces of those closest to him who he murdered that he might become more powerful, and for…for what?

Wasn’t all of this in need of protecting the people who are precious to him?

Instead, he cast off his kin, has remained distant from his own children, tried to kill their mother…

I am a monster, he realises with a dead certainty.

It is as if a blindfold has been taken from him, and for the first time since he was a child, he sees clearly. He falls to his knees, staggered in realisation and crippled in uncertainty.

Can I ever make up for this?

Suddenly, there is a hand on his chin, forcing his face upward. Shachi stares down at him, once more on her feet, her hair flying loose around her cheeks.

“Indra?” she asks again, and slides her fingers further to cup his cheek.

Her hand is a warm comfort he does not deserve, and reflexively, he scuttles away.

“No…” he rasps. “Don’t…you must stay away from me…I almost—”

“But you didn’t.”

He eyes her stomach, imagines the pulse of the unborn child’s chakra on the edges of his consciousness, warm and safe and alive no thanks to him.

“How can you even look at me after I…”

Almost killed you, almost killed him, violated your mind, kept you at arms length, treated our union as no more than a business transaction, turned our children into soldiers—

His stomach rebels, then, and he hurtles away from her, stumbling forward onto his hands. His entire body heaves at the harsh truths that surround him, the veracity he can finally understand, and he vomits up the contents of his stomach until his throat burns and blood joins bile on the ground.

Her hands are on his shoulders again, steadying him, and he wishes she wouldn’t touch him. He doesn’t deserve her touch, doesn’t deserve her attention at all— He tries to gather his strength to him, to pull his chakra together to disappear, but it is as if all of it is trapped behind a veil of sorts. He is utterly unable to focus.

Perhaps this is why he can’t stop her from gently drawing him away from the mess, bringing him out the door of the shrine that was intended to be both sanctuary and a tomb today. The cool forest air fills his lungs, offering him some minor respite, but doesn’t quell his need to escape.

Shachi is having none of this, however, forcing them both to the ground. She kneels before him, features pulled into sympathy.

“You are not a simple man, my love,” she tells him with soft certainty “To love you is to love the storm itself, and I knew that from the day you asked me to be your wife that it might end in my death. Whether in childbirth or a casualty of battle, I didn’t know, but I made that choice.”

“I should have left you behind,” he tells her through gritted teeth. “You could have married a…a good man. You would have been safer. Happier.”

“I doubt I would be either of those things,” she tells him seriously. “Indra…it cannot be said that you are good…but you’re not so damned as you or anyone else might think.” She tries to offer him a smile. “You dream of a better world, a world where loved ones are protected and where there is no need to experience loss. Perhaps war isn’t the way to go about it…but I’ve learned that the hearts of men can change. They learn. Perhaps…perhaps there is a better way?”

“I know no other way,” he whispers.

“You are the most capable man I know, and the world bends to your will,” she says with a shake of her head. “You will find that way. You will make the world safe for our children, and their children, and their children’s children.”

He can only stare at her, unable to form a proper response to this.

How can this woman...be?

“It might not be the way you have done things,” she goes on, as if unaware of his inner turmoil, “It might not even be the way of your father or brother. But you have the ability to find it. And if your heart remains clear of the darkness, think how much easier it will be to see that path?”

Indra shakes his head, trying to pull away once more. “I don’t deserve…”

“Maybe you don’t know,” she interrupts. “But one day you might. And because of the possibility of that one day, that someday…I forgive you.”

Rather than feel relief, he feels as if he has been stabbed.

“You…you can’t…!”

“I can. And I will. And I do,” she insists, reaching to take his hands in hers. Though they tremble and resist, eventually she places them against the swell of her stomach. “You have to be forgiven before you can change. And if it must start somewhere, it will start with me. I am the mother of your children. Your wife. If no one else will stand beside you, I will.”

He doesn’t know how to interpret this, none of it makes sense. Uncertainty has overtaken the rage he felt earlier, mixed with disgust and shame for his actions. He can’t find the words, and make his body move, feels more helpless than he has ever felt.

She speaks lies, the voice in his mind insists. No human is so forgiving after what you have done. She will use this against you, will make you seek forgiveness for the rest of your days—

“Something dark whispers to you, husband,” Shachi tells him, words quiet but sharp. “Let it fade to nothingness—oblivion is where it belongs.”

“I can’t.”

Ignore the bitch, what does she know of these things? I have made you strong, I have made you the most powerful creature in this world. What could a weak female know of such things?

“If you ever want to make up for the things you have done, you have to cast it aside,” Shachi beseeches. “It has no place in the same world that our children will grow up.”

He thinks of six tiny faces, gazing up at him with hope and fear after he told them he would bring their mother back. The idea of their disappointment and pain—the return of the grief that has been etched into their eyes since they all lost Shachi—

It’s as if something within him has suddenly been illuminated.

No!

The darkness in his mind screams at him, but he closes his awareness to it, banishing it from the recess of his heart where it has been entrenched or so long. Though it’s the work of a second, his body sags suddenly, boneless, as if every sinew and muscle that has been holding him together was attached to the presence.

He falls forward, staying upright only because she catches him, holding him against her.

“I will…spend the rest of my life…making up for my actions,” he tells her weakly. The world spins, and in place of the dark entity that has shadowed him forever, for the first time since he was a child he feels a mounting terror in the face of the unknown. His whole life he has been able to predict and imagine the future, and the only times he hasn’t, someone close to him has been hurt or died.

He doesn’t think he would be able to survive that now.

She smiles sadly at him, and then leans her head forward, tentatively pressing her lips against his. It’s soft and chaste, nothing like the desperate press of lips and tongues from earlier, but somehow this means more to him.

“When was the last time you slept?” she asks gently.

“I don’t remember,” he admits. It could have been days…it could have been months. He’s rather sure that he hasn’t had a full night’s rest since the day he lost her.

“Sleep now, then,” she tells him, drawing him downward. “And then we will speak some more. About whatever you wish. And you can bring me to our children. I long to hold them in my arms again.”

“Yes,” he agrees dimly. “And then…”

Asura, he thinks, wincing at the thought of facing them now after everything. Father…

“In time,” she repeats, like she can sense the direction of his thoughts. It would not surprise him. She forces him downward, propping him against her so that his ear is pressed against her belly. Her fingers trail through his hair. “You have enough of a journey ahead of you without your mind creating more obstacles. We will take it one day at a time, together.”

He frowns.

“I have done nothing in my life to deserve you by my side.”

 “You saved me from a life of servitude and ignominy,” she tells him. “You gave me children and happiness and love. And I do not need to hear the words to know that’s what this is. You saved me. Now let me save you.”

Indra can’t think of anything to say to this, and decides not to.

His wife has proven far wiser than he, and perhaps now is the time to start listening to her.

He drifts to sleep like that, ear pressed against her belly and the sensation of her fingers trailing through his hair.

A forgotten warmth begins to settle somewhere beneath his numb disbelief and shame, the memory of a comfort and safety he felt before. Quiet nights spent lying in her embrace, pretending the bonds between them weren’t strengthening with every passing moment together.

What a fool I’ve been…

Suddenly he feels his wife tense.

His eyes shoot open, reflexes bidding him to act, but she tightens her grip on him, forcing him to remain in his place.

“You will leave now, shadow creature, and haunt my husband no longer,” she declares against the night, and though her voice remains barely above a whisper, there is a sharpness to it. “You have lost your hold on him.”

“Perhaps,” a voice like dead leaves answers, sounding amused. “But you have many children. And you will have many descendants. I can be very patient, and even the strongest hearts can yield to fear.”

“Then I will be there.”

The presence makes a scoffing noise, but then it’s overwhelming dark aura dissipates into thin air. 

“We shall see.”

“Yes, we shall.”

And now the presence truly is gone, vanished from anywhere near them. The sense of peace and safety wash over him again.

Shachi gazes down at him, eyes sparking with that same determination he fell in love with all those years ago but could not admit until this moment.

“I mean it,” she tells him. “Even if I have to return from beyond the veil of the Pure Land to protect every child of our line, I will do it.”

Indra feels his facial muscles gentle, and carefully, he reaches up to brush her forehead in affection.

“And I will be by your side,” he vows. “As long as you will have me.”

The future will not be perfect, and he knows despite his wife’s heartfelt words that his sins require penance of some sort. Too many have been hurt or died in the name of his search for power, of the distrust and arrogance that have festered in him for so long.

But he will die trying, if she were to ask it.

Shachi seems to consider for a moment, and then smiles down at him. “Forever?”

“Aa. Forever, then.”

終わり

I hope you enjoyed the story! Comments and constructive criticism are much appreciated, and very motivating—and if you enjoy my writing, want updates or just to chat, I'm on Tumblr and Twitter (KuriQuinn).

Blanket Fic Disclaimer

Indra opens his eyes a moment and an eternity later, and breathes deep.

The instant after death is always disorienting, no matter how many times he’s experienced it. Usually it is followed by a rush of cold around him and lungs gasping for air, and wordless howls as memories of a past life fade into the subconscious of a new brain.

This time, there is none of that, and for an unnamed amount of time the sheer wonder of that discovery is enough.

The air around him smells of everything and nothing all at once. The Konoha springs he always loved, rife with the perfume of cherry-blossoms, and the sea-scented summer nights on his sect’s island sanctuary; the comforting, earthy scent of dew-damp mornings learning ninshu beneath his father’s watchful eye and autumn evenings philosophising with his best friend. Grass tickles idly at his bare skin, and tall trees loom protectively above; somewhere beyond him he hears a brook babbling, murmuring to him of hopes and dreams and promises come to fruition.

Uncertain, Indra pulls himself to his feet, staring in surprise at his hands – not gnarled from age, but young and strong, and whole. He clearly remembers losing his left, and yet not, and some foreign feeling buoys up within him. Some long-carried burden is missing from him now, and he feels light.

Motion draws his eyes, and his attention flies instantly to the rippling lea before him, where flowers and grasses dance in a non-existent breeze. A lone figure approaches, nothing but shadow at first, before coalescing into a woman whose form he would know anywhere.

He isn’t even aware of stepping forward, inexorably drawn to her as if some invisible string of chakra has wrapped around them. As the light filters through the treetops, he sees glimpses of all the other guises she has worn etched into the shadows of her face. But the closer he gets, the more she looks the way she did the first day he ever saw her – wide grey eyes and golden brown skin and lips that always curve upward.

Beautiful, he realises, because now he is free to.

As if she can read his thoughts, she smiles at him then. The same smile that made him feel like a child when she first trained it on him the day he taught her to heal - a smile that somehow is the same in every life. He knows now that was the day he realised what she meant to him, however much he tried to fool himself.

His heart feels heavy then, other memories that are not so pleasant returning to him.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her, the words as foreign to him as the voice he hasn’t heard in over a millennium, “for everything.”

“Ridiculous man,” she replies softly, “how many times must we have this conversation?” She raises a hand to caress his cheek. “I forgave you so, so long ago.”

He covers her hand with his own, pressing into it and relishing the soft feel of her skin against his. “You shouldn’t. The things I’ve done…”

“Have been paid for,” she finishes, uncharacteristically firm. She sounds more like one of her other selves. “Many times over.”

He remembers screams, blood in the streets and a shadow in the moonlight. Lifetimes of loss and grief.  And empty smile at an arranged marriage.

“I did love you,” he tells her, the uncertainty and fear of speaking those words aloud gone from this strange place. “Every time.”

She sighs sadly. “I know. It just…it was never the right time. Until it was.”

“I’m sorry it took so long.”

“But wasn’t it worth it in the end?”

He shoots a sharp look at her. “Was it the end?”

“Maybe,” she tells him, with an uncertain little shrug, “Maybe it was just the beginning? It depends on what you want.”

“I want to stay here,” he says immediately, and when she stifles a giggle, he feels a blush overtake his cheeks for the first time in lifetimes. “That is…for a while.”

“However long you want,” she agrees. “Together.”

“Together,” he confirms.

She takes his hand in her infinitely familiar one, and begins to lead him toward the meadow.

“Asura’s eager to see you again,” she tells him with an urchin grin that he tends to associate with seafoam and cherry-blossoms. “You would not believe the argument we had over who would greet you first. Your father talked some sense into him, fortunately.”

“My father...and Asura is here,” Indra repeats dimly, but his voice rises in question.

“Of course – you arrived here first, mind you, but time works differently. We’ve all been waiting for you for so long.” Her eyes soften. “Some much longer than others.”

“I always keep you waiting,” he sighs.

“Not anymore,” she assures him with utter certainty. “No more waiting.”

“No more waiting,” he vows, letting her lead him into the light.

終わり

 I hope Indra doesn’t seem too OOC, it’s just I figure once he finally lets go of all that hatred he’s probably a lot more open about stuff. And, you know, being dead and all he’s probably more light-hearted. At least, that’s how I saw it...hope you enjoyed!

"My most heartfelt belated congratulations on your wedding, my dear Sasuke and Sakura," he says warmly, as if they are old friends seeing each other only after a few days instead of years. "I'm afraid my invitation never did arrive, but I don't hold it against you. Had I known you were in the area, I would have prepared a gift for you."

"This isn't a social call," Sasuke says, not bothering with a preamble. "What do know about past lives?"

Orochimaru chuckles. "So serious, as usual, my dear boy. And what a question…is your past history causing you problems perhaps?" Sasuke and Sakura exchange tense looks. Orochimaru's eyes narrow, catching the by-play, and his eyes light up. "Not my dear apprentice, but his lovely wife. That is something I would not have expected."

The way he looks at Sakura now reminds her of a snake preparing to consume a bird. She refuses to be intimidated by it, and takes a step forward.

"Sasuke might trust you, but let me make this abundantly clear to you," Sakura tells the Sannin, a hard smile on her face. Ten years of rage and resentment over what he did to her husband and to her in the Forest of Death build within her. "If you do one thing that strikes me as a threat, I will destroy you. You might not have a spine to rip out, but I will tear your nervous system out of you tissue by tissue if I have to."

Far from being insulted, Orochimaru appears amused.

"You still have the same fire as Tsunade. Far be it from me to encourage your, er, rather gratuitous imagination," he pretends to cough delicately, and then sighs. "Alas, there isn't much I can help you with. Not unless you happen to know where the remains of your esteemed former incarnation are located. In which case, I could summon her – or him – to you to ask directly." Sakura makes a disgusted face. "Ah, it is as I thought."

"Can a previous incarnation take over a current one?" Sasuke asks, finally voicing what has been worrying them both for weeks.

"Of the three of us, I imagine you would be in the best position to answer that, Sasuke my boy," Orochimaru purrs. "As you're the only one who has had concrete proof of living a previous life."

Sasuke frowns.

"From a strictly scientific standpoint, however, it wouldn't make sense," the older man continues. He gestures vaguely. "There are endless treatises on the subject of the soul, and yet the one thing that almost every one of these scholars would agree with is that it is immortal. Unchanging and immutable – a force that exists in continuity no matter what incarnation you inhabit."

"Then that means she could surface again after all," Sakura says, dismayed.

"Don't be foolish, my dear. Note that I said the soul is immortal. People are not. People are the sum of their experiences, their personalities, their hates and their loves. When a body dies, those things die with it. The woman you were, her existence ended when she perished. It's only the traces of her that you are somehow tapping into."

"Wait…what?"

Orochimaru sighs. "I'm disappointed. You were supposed to be the intelligent one."

Sakura narrows her eyes, balling one hand into a fist beneath her cloak; there's a soft touch against the back of her wrist, and she looks up to see Sasuke discreetly shaking his head.

Fine…he get's one. Just one.

"Allow me to demonstrate," Orochimaru says, either missing the by-play or not caring.

He reaches into his robe, causing both Sasuke and Sakura to tense; noting their posture, he smirks and, in a much slower fashion, draws out a scroll. From the girth and seals, it's obviously a summoning scroll.

"This scroll represents a covenant between the serpents of Ryūchi Cave, and has for over a thousand years," he explains, unrolling the paper and showing the names and the blood marks. "The covenant remains the same down through the generations, immutable – but the owners of these marks are not. They are human, after all." He smirks down at his own mark, like he's enjoying a private little joke. "The names and blood oaths never disappear, and are simply added to. I imagine the soul to be the same way – unchanging, immortal and utterly incapable of true death."

"You're saying our souls have an imprint of every life we have ever lived," Sakura realises.

"I am saying no such thing. It's merely a hypothesis, as there has never been anyone to test the theory on," Orochimaru says, his cold eyes focussing on her with a disturbing intensity. "I would be more than happy to pursue the study further, if you're interested."

"No," Sasuke interrupts. "We're leaving now."

He chuckles again, clearly not expecting anything different.

"By my reckoning, the average human is too dull, or too caught up in their own misery to take much notice of their soul, let alone remember a previous existence. And so I wonder, dear Sakura," Orochimaru muses sweetly, "What could possibly have caused such a change in your disposition that you are suddenly more aware of your soul than normal?"

He stares at her intently, his eyes not even straying to her stomach, but somehow she knows that he knows.

"Will it end with the birth?" she asks, not bothering to beat around the bush. Sasuke startles, jerking his head toward her and considering the intense staring match between his wife and former master, as if trying to decide who he might have to protect in the case of the worst.

"Who can tell? If I were to hazard a guess, there seems to be something left unfinished in your previous life," Orochimaru says airily. But his eyes become more intensely focussed on her. "A message is being given to you, my dear, and you are likely not meant to know what it is until the time is right."

For some reason she is reminded of the far-seeing eyes of the Sage of Six Paths, and she can't help the hollow feeling that grows in the pit of her stomach.

眠り

When it happens, it does without her understanding quite how.

In one instant, she is wandering along the sea shore, a rare moment on her own since the journey began. Asura and his men are bartering passage from some of the local fishermen, while she enjoys a rare peaceful spell by the lotus blossoms. Somewhere in the distance she knows Taizo is watching her, but he keeps his distance.

In the next moment, the cloudless day is darkening, a storm rolling in over the water.

Thunder rumbles in the distance, lightning slicing through the clouds, the tempest growing closer and closer with a speed that has her shivering. She is sure that it will engulf them soon.

"My lady, we should find shelter," Taizo says, appearing beside her instantly. "Asura will not forgive me if I allow you to take ill."

"I can manage myself, thank you," she says, pulling away from his proffered hand.

There's a violent, splitting crack several feet away from them, and she wonders if the lightning hasn't perhaps hit a rock –

But when she turns to see for herself, there is Indra.

He stands before them, face bone white, eyes blazing and spinning with their sinister red and black patterns.

Taizo makes the mistake of looking at those whirling tomoe, and suddenly there is blood seeping from his eyes and nose. He crumples forward, and Shachi doesn't have to see the emptiness in his gaze to know he is dead before he hits the ground.

"Indra," she breathes, the whisper lost in the wailing wind that surrounds them.

She has never seen him so furious, where every hair on his head seems to ripple with kinetic energy. A part of her wants to shrink away, hide in the shadows until his terrible wrath has passed, but she has also seen much worse from him.

And she has missed him so much, longed for him too fiercely, to flee now.

Mustering her courage, she takes a tentative step forward.

He whirls around to glare at her, the reaction of a wary lion against an unknown predator, but she keeps her eyes on the ground, bowing low before him in supplication. He has never, in their entire history together, used his Sharingan to invade her mind, but she has still seen him wield it against those who displease him to devastating effect.

"My lord husband," she greets humbly, relishing in the word on her tongue because she hasn't been able to address him in so long. "I –"

She is cut of when she is hauled to a standing position by her shoulders, forced to gaze into his blazing eyes. His pupils dance back and forth, roving over her features, as if he is trying to confirm to himself that what he is seeing is true.

She holds her breath, half in trepidation, half in awe. She hasn't seen him in so long, and he is just as beautiful to her as when she last saw him. A little more gaunt, his eyes harder perhaps, but undoubtedly hers.

"Shachi," he says, a question and a confirmation, but more important than any of that it's her name falling from his lips.

"Indra," she sighs, dropping all formality in her relief.

To her surprise, his eyes fade to black and an emotion she doesn't recognise flickers in his eyes. There's an inexplicable pause – the future shifts like tumbling rocks, the balance of the moment crystalline in its intensity – and something within him seems to break.

Then he moves.

Before she can react, his hands are on both sides of her face, pulling her face towards his. Then his mouth is on hers, pressing against her own lips with a bruising, desperate force.

Shachi gasps in surprise, and he wastes no time deepening the shocking kiss; sensation splinters through her, so deep that even Sakura feels as if a bolt of electricity has passed through her.

It's impossible to breathe, but Shachi doesn't care. For the first time since he appeared in her life, her husband is kissing her and holding on to her as if there is nothing else in existence but her.

He pulls away only when her lungs begin to protest and tears form in her eyes, and when he looks down on her, for an instant she can see the young boy that her brother-in-law and father-in-law remember. And her heart aches, because she wants to know him to.

When Indra draws her close again, it's not to kiss her, but to pick her up, cradling her in his arms.

"Don't move," he orders her, and then there is a sudden tugging sensation in her gut and the sense of moving quickly – far too quickly. The baby kicks at her ribs in protest, but by the time she feels it, they are no longer facing the open sea.

Instead, they are surrounded by a forest dale, a tiny wooden forest sanctuary behind them. She can't even smell the sea air anywhere, or sense Asura's presence.

"Where – ?" she begins to ask, but he is putting her back on her feet and capturing her lips again, and her questions die in her throat.

夢

Sakura wakes with the memory of Indra's lips on hers, and a horrible feeling in her gut.

She feels on edge, like she's balancing over a precipice of something too dark for words. Sasuke asks her if she's alright, but she waves him off.

The rest of the day she is distracted and moody, thinking of Indra and Shachi, her heart yearning for a happy and hopeful reunion, and her brain telling her it's not meant to be.

For two nights, she is unable to sleep, and on the third, Sasuke finally breaks his habitual tendency to wait for her to share her thoughts with him.

"You can't go on like this," he tells her firmly, sitting up beside her; the tiny bed of the waystation is uncomfortable, but a warm alternative to silent winter storm outside, "You need to sleep."

"I know," she replies faintly. "But I…I'm afraid."

"To sleep?"

"To find out what happens next," she admits, tears filling her eyes. "I have a horrible feeling, Sasuke. I don't even know why, it's like…the moment I woke up from, it felt like a turning point. Like everything from that moment is going to go one way or another, and I don't even know what I'm expecting."

"It's Indra," Sasuke says darkly. "It would be prudent to expect the worst." Sakura's shoulders slump, and he adds, "However…Shachi is you. And if I have learned anything knowing you, it is that somehow, you bring out the best in people. Perhaps she will do the same in this instance."

Sakura sniffs, and nods. She glances over at him. "I'm going to try to sleep. Will you…keep an eye out? Just…just in case."

She doesn't know what exactly he could do in the event that something – whatever that could be – happens, but the knowledge that he is there is a comfort.

Sasuke doesn't answer but to pull her closer to him.

眠り

It happens in a whirlwind of movement.

Him backing her into the wooden structure, mouth relentlessly crushing against hers, fingers tugging her hair out of its fastenings. The desperation is something Shachi has never felt from him before. She is surprised and confused, but most of all pleased, and she doesn't dare tell him any of that for fear he'll stop.

Instead, she murmurs unintelligibly into his lips and against his jaw, down the side of his neck.

That she missed him, that she thought of him constantly, are the children alright, why did he disappear, does he understand how much she loves him…?

He brushes it all of with a terse, strangled, "Later," while continuing to divest her of her clothing.

She chooses not to argue, busy doing the same, practically tearing his robes from his body. It's been so long, and still the actions are so familiar. She wants to weep at the feel of his bare shoulders beneath her hands, the scent of his hair and the scrape of his nails against her arms as he unwraps her garments.

When he suddenly freezes, becoming like immovable stone beneath her touch, she can barely hold back the cry of dismay.

"Indra?" she breathes, offering him a querying look from beneath hooded eyelids.

His expression has inexplicably gone hard, and he pulls away from her, eyes drawn downward. She doesn't understand what the problem is until she follows his gaze, staring down at the thin shift that can't disguise the swell of her stomach. She is larger than normal after seven months, but her voluminous robes still kept it hidden until now.

"You're with child," he states quietly, as if he doesn't quite believe it.

"Yes," she answers, puzzled by his disquiet and already missing his touch. This shouldn't be an unfamiliar sight to him, but then he has always refrained from being intimate with her during pregnancy. That's probably it, and any other time she could take that, but not right now when they've just been reunited. Maybe she can convince him –

"Whose?"

The word is delivered silently, but its impact is like a blow to the chest. She is so stunned she has to repeat it several times in her head to ensure she heard correctly; when she realises she did, it's almost as if she has been stabbed.

The shock of his query obliterates every trace of her ardour.

"Yours," she replies faintly, because he can't think…he couldn't possibly…?

Oh, no.

"That's impossible," Indra says, voice deceptively calm. "You've been gone."

"I…I discovered I was with child the day I was taken," she explains, her voice going a shade higher in sudden panic. He has taken a step back, his expression drawn. "I had hoped to tell you when you returned, but…"

"Is that so," he challenges, without really asking the question.

"Of course!" she cries, desperate. "Did Dewadasi not tell you? She was the last person I saw that day, surely you would have asked her?"

For a split-second he appears to be contemplating her words, hesitant, as if he truly wants to believe her. There is something – something in the darkness is whispering. It is sly and oily, and makes her skin crawl, but she can't make out the words.

His eyes harden again.

"The forest where you disappeared was destroyed," he tells her stiffly, but something like uncertainty lurks in his eyes. "There were bodies everywhere. Too blackened to identify. It was clear you had been attacked and defended yourself."

She knew she had caused some damage, but she hadn't realised…

"You thought I was dead," she realises then, horror and pain hitting her. "Oh, Indra…"

"If you were not dead, where have you been?" he asks coldly. "Our children have been mourning their mother all these months. I hope there's a good reason for that."

He very carefully doesn't mention his own reaction to her perceived demise.

She opens her mouth to answer, but words fail her.

Be careful. The wrong word here could be disastrous, Sakura cautions.

"It was…it was a grievous misunderstanding," Shachi tells him, but the words ring flat even to her hears.

"Misunderstanding," he repeats, as if he has never heard the word.

"He never…it wasn't his intentions for it to happen, just someone taking his wishes out of context and –"

"Where. Where. You."

Shachi exhales in defeat. "I was taken to the house of your father and brother."

Indra's nostrils flare. "Asura."

"I swear to you, he did not know about it until I arrived there, and he reprimanded those responsible," she says quickly. "He wanted to return me as soon as possible, but then I became ill, and then winter set in and –"

"You defend him so ardently," Indra sneers. "I should have known – the chakra of the man who was with you. It familiar. I've met him before, I think." His fists clench. More to himself than to her, he mutters, "Was my brother not satisfied with my birthright? Is this one more thing he meant to take from me?"

"I – I am not a thing!" she cries, in spite of her mounting fear. "Why would he want me? He has his own wife!"

"A wife who is barren if the rumours are true," he replies coldly. "While you have proven to be the opposite."

Did he really just say that? Did he hear himself say that? It's completely crazy!

He might as well have slapped her. With one sentence, he has reduced their relationship, every intimate moment to nothing but a burden of function.

Pain and disbelief churn within her, but surprisingly, anger is what rises above both of those.

"Don't," she whispers, the sound harsh and punched from her lungs. "Don't pretend. Not with me. All of this time, I've allowed you to feign indifference because you clearly needed to, but don't…don't reduce what my heart feels to no more than the duty of a brood mare."

"It doesn't matter to me what feel. I warned you the day you came with me that your purpose was to provide me with children," he dismisses. "You have served that purpose. Although perhaps your make-believe world of love was so convincing that Asura's spies thought your value to me was greater. I imagine he intended ransom, until he realised you lacked worth."

"Lord Asura would never do that," she insists before she can stop herself, too wrong-footed by his cutting words to think of anything else to say.

"Lord Asura, is it?"

"He's your brother, In – my lord husband! I only meant – his wife was ill," she attempts. "Her womb was closed, but once I helped her –"

"You healed the wife of my enemy?" he demands, low and dangerous.

"It w-was the right thing to do!" she protests. Although her inborn instinct is to fall to her feet, to beg him to forgive her, her time as a healer has made her instinctively protective of her patients – however short-term and however absent.

And Kanna is her friend.

"Was falling on your back for Asura the right thing as well?"

Her eyes widen then, and even Sakura feels blown away by the disbelief.

"Why would I ever do that?" she cries. "When have I ever been unfaithful to you?!"

His eyes rove once more over her stomach, as if that is answer enough, and they briefly gleam red.

Sakura suspects right then that he is going to kill her.

Shachi makes the same connection about a half-second later. This understanding comes with a strange, emotionless clarity, a detached sense of the inevitable. She has faced death by this man's hands before, but this time she knows there will be no reprieve. His cold eyes are telling her just that.

Strangely, she feels no fear for herself; her only thought is of their child, sleeping beneath her heart.

A child that was meant to be a beacon for the future, but who will never get the chance. She thinks back on her father-in-law's words, wonders if he wasn't just speaking of hopes instead of seeing into the future.

And then it becomes clear to her exactly what she has to do.

Not just you, Sakura thinks in angry desperation. She forces herself to concentrate, trying to will her own strength through whatever veil of time and dreams keep her and Shachi from interacting. We'll protect this child with everything we have!

She's done it before, helping Shachi recover while ill, lending Indra chakra to survive. Shachi has fire nature, one of the stronger chakra natures, and from the degree of destruction she is capable of, she can likely survive a lot. Maybe even create a protective barrier around herself. Sakura has regenerative capabilities, and if she can just awaken those here, channel them into her, they can –

What? Save ourselves? Even if I can miraculously transfer my chakra to you, it's not a permanent fix if he wants to kill us.

"No…" Shachi whispers. "You can't truly believe this…please, Indra – if any part of you has ever felt even a shred of warmth toward me, don't let it be marred by this suspicion. Since the moment we met, I have lived only for you. And over the years, our children… I would never let anything jeopardise that."

His jaw works at this, and she can see something like doubt there – reluctance. He doesn't want to kill her, but every action he has ever taken demands it of him.

We have to give him a reason – something to make him pause again, like he did when we mentioned finding out about the baby before being kidnapped!

If there's anything else in the world Indra wouldn't deny caring for, it's his children.

"At least stay your hand until our son is born," Shachi whispers, cradling her belly. She doesn't understand how she knows the child she is carrying is a boy, but it's as certain to her as her own name. "He will be your greatest legacy – the mightiest of our offspring, the one who will inherit your strength and your resolve. He will fan the flames of your will, and beget a powerful clan – an unbroken line that will gain more power with every generation."

Somehow, she sees all of this clearly in her mind, as if it is happening before her. She wonders if the old man passed his foresight to her when they said farewell.

Indra's eyes gleam, and she knows that for all his anger, he is listening to her. He is considering it –

The whispering is back now, louder but still unintelligible; it sounds almost cajoling, like it's trying to reign Indra's rage back.

Zetsu, Sakura realises dimly. Of course – he wouldn't want to lose this opportunity.

He wants to corrupt Indra's line. And even if Shachi were lying, and this child were Asura's, having access to it would mean Zetsu could more easily engineer a Rinnegan and figure out a way to bring Kaguya back.

Sakura knows how that story goes only well; it would be disgustingly ironic if that's what saves Shachi in the end.

"You would use the child to buy yourself time?" Indra asks, contempt lacing his words.

"I don't care about myself," Shachi replies. "I only want him to live. Even if I die today, everything I told you will come true. Except…" She remembers Hagoromo's warning. "Our son and all of his descendants may see with the same eyes as you possess, and yet be blinded by ambition. They will love with the same intensity that I have loved you, but will be doomed to lose that love in pursuit of power."

"Do you mean to curse me now?" Indra asks her coolly. "If so, your words do not worry me. Love is a weakness that exists only in those doomed to expire and be forgotten."

Tears run down her cheeks now.

"I love this child," she whispers, "as I love you. Neither of these truths will ever be forgotten."

"Your words are pretty, but they mean nothing if the child is not mine."

Shachi clenches her fists at the insult.

The Sage was right. There is no hope of her husband escaping his hatred. Not in this lifetime.

And this time, it's Shachi who glares up at her husband, furious and hurting and still desperately hopeful.

"If you were to call down lightning from the skies or set me alight with your strongest flames, I swear on my love and fidelity to you that they would not touch him," she vows over the sensation of her heart breaking. "Only a child born of our union could survive such a thing."

Wait – what? What are you doing! You're practically throwing down the gauntlet!

"Do you think because you are with child that I will hold back?" Indra challenges.

"Of course not," she responds softly. "I only hope it makes you take pause. Because if you do this, you cannot undo it. You are not so mighty that you can resurrect the dead, my love."

And she knows right away she said the wrong thing, because Indra doesn't take well to reminders of his fallibility.

He face looks like the shadow of death itself, and they both know that there is no more time.

Protect the baby – we have to protect the baby!

Shachi frantically sends every bit of chakra she possesses toward her womb, surrounding the infant there with a protective cushion of energy. Her panic radiates across the link to Sakura, who finds herself doing the same – just as she did when she breathed air into Indra's mouth on the beach, or when she saved him from poison. It's a supreme effort of will, but this child must live.

Especially if it's in any way connected to her own.

"Husband, I hope that one day your heart can be cured," Shachi tells him sadly. "Only then can new hope be born to your line…only then will you no longer need your sons to fight and die for your legacy. And when you realise I have spoken nothing but truth to you and how deeply your hatred has scarred you – know that I died still loving you despite the action you take tonight. If it takes the rest of your life, or many lives, I will wait for you. If I had an eternity, I would spend it waiting for you to return from the darkness that has you ensnared."

"You don't have an eternity," he tells her, raising a hand to point at her. His eyes spin into the sinister six-pointed star.

"Don't tell him my death came by your hands," she begs, trying to stir some last flicker of emotion from him. "Don't tell any of them – if you ignore anything else I have, said…please. Tell them I thought of them in my last moments."

He pauses here, the muscles in his face working like he's trying to hold back something.

"Irritating woman," he calls her, offering the tiniest, least perceptible nod of acquiescence. For one brief second, she thinks he might relent.

Then his Sharingan glows.

"Amaterasu."

Black flames engulf her and she screams.

夢

"Sakura! Sakura, wake up now, damn it!"

Someone is shaking her, lightly slapping her cheeks, and when she opens her eyes, the first thing she sees is a glowing red iris. Shrieking, she shoves her assailant away, the force of it causing him to land on his back several yards away.

It doesn't seem to phase him, because he instantly beside her again, Sharingan and Rinnegan both gleaming, determined and panicked.

"Sakura, it's me," he tells her softly, hand raised as if caught between defending himself from her or reaching out to her. "You're alright. You're here with me, and you're awake –"

She's not listening.

Instead, she is sobbing, struggling free from the blankets, clutching at her abdomen and trying to see if there's anything that shouldn't be there. Blood, or amniotic fluid, something to explain the sharp ache in her uterus that woke her.

But there is nothing in the sheets, and the pain is phantom.

"Sakura…"

"You…" she gasps, breath staggering as she comes back to herself. Reality begins to coalesce.

Sasuke, not Indra; Sakura, not Shachi.

"H-he killed her!" she sobs, barely taking in Sasuke's stunned expression. "He…she was trying to convince…she didn't…she never…and she was pregnant! And he…the flames! Black flames!"

And she's heaving and convulsing with pain and grief – emotions that aren't just her own, even if she feels like she is very much alone in her head right now. This time when Sasuke reaches for her, bringing his arms around her back and pulling her close, she doesn't push him away. She leans in, pressing her face into his chest to muffle to sobs.

Sakura doesn't know how long they stay like this, but Sasuke's grip never wavers. As the fear and disbelief finally leave her, she tries to speak again.

"She tried to save him, and she couldn't," she whispers dully.

"It was too late for him."

She pulls away, shooting Sasuke a look of surprise and protest, but his expression remains adamant.

"Yes, Sakura, it was. He was a man grown when he met her, and he'd already given into his hatred, even long before it was a curse."

"But…but you were saved…"

"I'm younger than he was," Sasuke tells her in a gentler tone. "I had you. And I had Naruto, and even Kakashi. You were all trying to save me. Indra never had anyone like that until it was too late."

"He still cared for her, though," Sakura says, desperate. "If he cared for her, why did he kill her? He knew she would never be unfaithful, he had to know it, but he –" She trails off, the details of her dream jumping out at her again. "Zetsu. He was there. I think he was trying to stop him, but –!"

"Tell me what happened."

She is still shaking, shock making her fidgety and nervous, and in contrast Sasuke is utterly still. She reaches for his hand, needing something to ground her while she tells him. And it's as if she is reliving it again as she details Shachi's reunion with her husband, the first kiss that she felt down to her own bone marrow, and then his irrational anger. The heat of the black fire.

By the end of it, she is weeping again, curled up on Sasuke's lap with her head tucked beneath his throat.

"Why would he do that?" she can't help repeating, over and over. "After everything…it makes no sense."

"I think that was a rare moment when even Zetsu's carefully controlled manipulations wouldn't have been able to stop him."

"I don't understand…"

"It was too much for him to take," Sasuke tells her quietly. "He was overwhelmed." Sakura makes a strangled, questioning noise in her throat. "You said yourself – when he saw her, it was as if something within him snapped. He was pleased she was there, more relieved than he would have ever expected. He lost complete control of himself. Probably for the first time in his life."

"Sasuke?" she shifts to get a better look at his face and sees that he is staring into the flames, brows furrowed in thought.

"It was likely the most vulnerable he had ever been," he goes on. "And then, in the height of that vulnerability – at the moment when he finally allowed himself to give in, to entertain the thought of happiness and of trusting someone – he discovered she was pregnant."

"But he didn't even stop to think…"

"Even the average man would have some doubt after seven months of absence," Sasuke tells her. "Indra was paranoid. And it wasn't a simple absence, either, but his wife spending time in the company of the person he hated the most in the world."

"His mind went to the darkest possible scenario," Sakura realises faintly.

"And that would have escalated quickly, amplifying every other negative emotion or insecurity he had. Maybe she wasn't kidnapped – maybe she fled. Maybe she betrayed him, in which case he felt he shouldn't be welcoming her, but punishing her."

"So, no matter how many times she told him the truth, he wasn't ever going to listen," Sakura concludes sadly.

"But he did listen," Sasuke points out. "If he hadn't, he would have killed her instantly. Even then, he was wrestling with his own doubts, and it gave her the chance she needed."

"To curse him," Sakura remembers with a shudder.

"To try to save him," Sasuke replies. "If what you said about her last words are any indication, they weren't meant to curse him – they were her hopes that he would be cured of his hatred. And not just him, but their child and all of those descendants. From where I'm standing, that happened."

Sakura pulls away from Sasuke, kneeling under her own power now and frowning at him. "You think the baby lived."

"I know it lived."

Her heart beats hopefully, but her practical mind makes her shake her head.

"It's unlikely. She was only seven or eight months along. Premature babies don't have the highest survival rate now, back then, without the right medical care, and the fact that – " She shudders here, the imagery making her stomach twist, " – Indra would have had to cut it out of Shachi's dead body –"

"The child survived," Sasuke insists. "She – and perhaps you – made sure of that. It wasn't touched by the flames that killed its mother. A mother who, with her dying breaths, vowed their child was going to have a purpose and a destiny."

"'Fan the flames'," Sakura remembers. "The Sage said it too. That there would be more destruction before things got better. That there would be heartache if she wasn't – oh! He knew she was going to die!"

"And he knew that without her in the picture, the child would go on to father a bloodline that would become more and more powerful, and more and more cursed," Sasuke confirms. "The Uchiha."

"That's why the child wasn't included on that Kaguya clan mural. He was different from the others," Sakura understands now. She suddenly has no doubt that the child, the baby Shachi sacrificed herself to save, would have inherited more of his mother than the others. The inherent talent for fire jutsu, the blind devotion to family –

She gasps.

"It wasn't Indra's fault," she murmurs, staring at Sasuke in shock. "I thought it was – when I met him, when I saw how he acted around her and then later the children, I thought that's where it comes from. That unwavering love that can make you…that can make you into a monster. But you were right – he wasn't capable of that, not really. But Shachi – that came from her, didn't it?"

"Back during the war, Tobirama Senju told me that the Uchiha feel more deeply and more passionately than any other bloodline," Sasuke agrees. "They shatter much more completely than others as well, turning to hatred as if a switch has been flipped."

"Shachi's love – Indra's hatred."

They are quiet a long while.

"But that's over now, isn't it?" Sakura finally says. "Indra's curse broke with you. When you and Naruto had your big, epic grudge match. That's not the sort of thing that can just…start up again, right? That's not something that our child will ever have to worry about?"

"I honestly have no idea," Sasuke tells her. "I don't think so. I believe it's like a blade – once it's broken, it has to be entirely re-forged to be of use again." He frowns. "The only thing I don't understand is why you've had these dreams to begin with. If she was trying to warn you or inform you about Indra's curse, and the Uchiha…it's a little late. The curse was broken."

"Unless…" Sakura begins thoughtfully, an idea occurring to her that slowly causes bits and pieces of information to connect in her mind. "Unless it's more than one."

"More than one what?"

"Indra's curse was broken," Sakura reflects. "Shachi's wasn't."

"I don't follow."

"She was waiting for you – him," she says slowly. "Like I was waiting for you, so that I could tell you that I forgive you."

Sasuke is silent a beat, and then meets her gaze with an intensity that was absent moments ago. "And do you?"

Sakura smiles softly. "You already know I do. I told you that a long time ago."

"Not for what I did," Sasuke says quietly, and the way he is watching her now chases the smile from her lips. "For what he did."

"I…"

"For the things he didn't do," Sasuke goes on, a muscle in his jaw working. "For not being the man she deserved him to be. For never saying 'thank you' for everything she gave him, and not letting her save him. For killing her."

And she wonders right then if it's a trick of the firelight upon his face, of if she doesn't see the shadow of Indra there, awaiting her answer.

"You stupid man," she tells him with soft affection, and the words that tumble from her lips feel like there is a double timbre to them. "I forgave you the minute my spirit left my body. You just needed to be ready to accept it."

The kiss that follows is startling in its intensity, setting her nerves and synapses ablaze as if she too had been set on fire. It is desperate at first, an insistent press of lips and threading of fingers into hair – and she's not quite sure who initiated it. It's not exactly forceful, but still driven by more than just hers or Sasuke's need. The surrounding world goes silent – there is no gentle breeze or rustle of leaves, no warmth from the dying embers, no scratch of their blankets – and existence narrows to their shared breath and syncing heartbeats. Something within her breaks with relief, as if a piece of her that has been long broken has finally been fitted back together.

They only separate when neither can breathe, and Sakura rests her forehead against Sasuke's.

"Sakura…?"

His voice is rough, strained from lack of oxygen and bewilderment.

"I'm me," she whispers to him. "She's gone now." She doesn't know how she knows that, but she's positive. She brushes her lips against his once more and then draws back. "And she was right. Even with everything, with resolving your issues with Naruto, trying to find redemption, even this trip – you weren't ready to forgive yourself. Not until this." She tugs at his hand, moulding slackened fingers until they lay across her belly. "Not until this child became real. And that's why I've been having these dreams. Because you didn't believe you had been forgiven – either of you. And you needed me to tell me you were."

Her husband looks as if he isn't sure what to say to this, but Sakura won't allow him to question this. She has never been more sure of anything.

"You said yourself our child is hope," she reminds him. "Remember? And you were right. This is an end of the cycle, a promise that we won't repeat those mistakes. The future of the Uchiha is going to be very different – and you know how I know that?"

Sasuke's expression is expectant, but there is a softness in his eyes instead of apprehension. "How?"

"Because for the first time in centuries, I'm fairly certain the main Uchiha line is going to have a daughter," Sakura informs him with smug certainty.

The stunned face he makes absolutely rivals the one he made when she first told him she was pregnant.

終わり

Wow.

I'm actually done.

I think this is the first long-fic that I've actually completed in this fandom. I feel fairly accomplished right now, especially considering this was supposed to be just a one-shot for SasuSakuFestival!

Final edits will be done whenever I and my beta can get to them. I may flesh out some things or tweak others, but this is pretty much how I intended to end the story from the beginning, so don't expect major changes.

I know some of you want other details, and likely have questions that have remained unanswered. I figured I'd keep things vague so as not to accidentally rewrite certain ninja abilities, and of course, to keep the mystery alive :) Besides, I'm planning to write a long original work based on Indra and Shachi, and I don't want to give away too much. As it is, the glimpses of Indrachi relationship were only ever meant to offer more dimension to the Sasusaku relationship, not act as a gateway to an entire other plot, and I feel they've done that.

A huge, HUGE thank you for all of you awesome readers who took the time not only to read my story, but to leave comments. I wouldn't be as inspired to write this story if it weren't for you guys being so interested!

You're all amazing!

クリ