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Sakura could recall the exact moment when her worldview shifted and finding her soulmate became the centre of her universe.
She remembered finding out when she was very young. She’d overheard Ino whispering about it to Shikamaru and Choiji— Did you know those weird dreams we keep having are what our soulmates see? —and Sakura’d been instantly intrigued.
“What do you dream of?” She’d asked Ino, curious and unsure.
Ino, in a very characteristic fit, had thrown her hands up and sighed, “Making poisons. All. The. Time. My mother says that makes my soulmate a poison expert. And a lot older than me. Why, what do you dream of?”
Sakura’s dreams didn’t make sense for a really long time. She dreamt of fire and war and hands that trembled at night but viciously wielded jutsu and weapons alike during the day.
She’d lied to Ino then. Sakura wasn’t sure what compelled her to—how could she dream of a war that was long past? What if that meant her destined was born out of time and their story was to be of the tragic love that could never be?
Now, decades later, Sakura understood one thing. She was never going to meet her soulmate. Because he was long dead.
Chasing Sasuke had been ... comforting. In her youth, she could pretend he was her destined.
Sasuke, wrecked as he was, damaged as he was, broken and scarred, reminded her so much of those trembling hands she saw every night, and the arching fires that blazed through her dreams. He was the phantom of the lover she was supposed to have.
Sakura grew bitter. She couldn’t help it. She tried to hide it. Some people found love without meeting their destined, but how was it that hers was locked in the past?
It all culminated in a startling conclusion one late evening, as she idly skimmed through ancient scrolls. Time-travel. Time travel would be the only way to reach her destined. Perhaps that was her legacy, her true calling—to break the laws of physics and gravity to be with the man whose soul fabric was made from her essence.
If only Sakura had known what she was signing up for.
Shodaime’s time was a long, lasting nightmare. Sakura stumbled into the world of legends wholly unprepared for what was about to meet her, wholly unprepared for what she would have to leave behind if she returned to her world.
Tobirama-sama’s wit and Hashirama-sama’s kindness would be enough to leave anyone confused and flustered. It was the raging inferno of anger burning under Madara Uchiha’s skin that pulled her in.
He always stood proud and tall, threatening without lifting a single finger. His glance felt like it could shred her apart at will. Couldn’t it?—she wondered about those damning eyes and what they were capable of.
He gazed at her sometimes, hard ebony eyes and the secret glimmer of a mind at work. Being the subject of his scrutiny would make her heart race and her knees weak.
But this man couldn’t possibly be her soulmate.
This man’s presence was so large it felt like the world would cave under his feet.
Her destined trembled at night, cried sometimes, was a wreck that made her ache to just hold him close and take the pain away.
Madara could probably shake the earth’s foundation and those hands wouldn’t let out a single pitying tremor.
If he saw the world through her eyes, surely he wouldn’t leave the distance of the seas between them. He’d never spoken to her even, not outside those meetings Tobirama held to discuss her predicament.
He thought her an idiot to launch herself a century into the past looking for a faceless, nameless man.
Maybe she was.
Maybe she was the biggest idiot to walk this earth, but the longing that unfurled in her chest every night was crippling—her destined was lonely, he had no one. He slept alone and ate alone and walked alone. He bore a weight she could feel even from light-years away.
She wanted to reach into the past and carve him out of the traitorous time that tried to break him.
“What do you know about him?” Hashirama asked her during one of their private sittings with Tobirama and Madara, the leaders of New Konohagakure.
She was tempted to lie again, much like she had to Ino once upon a time.
Sakura stared sightlessly at her lap and tried to disclose just enough, but not too much, no—he was hers to protect, she couldn’t give him away, not here, not ever.
“He eats tomatoes in the middle of the night ...” she began, hesitantly, softly, “Makes smiling faces out of the onions in his soup. He never kills spiders, he takes them out ... Sometimes he pets stray cats and his scars still bleed after years.”
She didn’t dare look up as she mumbled one last confession. “And if I don’t find him I think I’ll die.”
When she did look up it was to the unearthed expression of Madara Uchiha. He stared at her, thunderstruck, more emotions splashed on his face than she’d ever been privy to before and she knew then, she knew it was him.
It didn’t make any sense at all.
Before he could open his mouth, Sakura found herself rising on shaky knees.
Their eyes met for a single heartbeat, enough to still the air in her lungs, enough to make her chest ache.
Tobirama began to voice his confusion and the moment shattered. Sakura turned on her heel and dashed out of that room with a hasty apology on her lips and tears stinging her eyes.
How could it be—how could her destined be the monster parents scared their children with?
Her gentle, scarred man with his tremulous hands and lonely shadows ... it was inconceivable.
Yet it hurt, it hurt to run away from him.
He chased her.
Of course he chased her.
All those years, watching small hands grow into battle-weary fists that bled … all those years crying with her, falling apart with her … the green light that he’d come to associate with home and hope … of course it was her, of course it was.
He didn’t have a shadow of a doubt anymore. From the moment he’d laid his eyes on her he felt it— knew it. Those scarred knuckles and delicate wrists and cracked palms.
He chased her out of that room not caring who knew it was him, leaving rage and pain behind to dissipate, letting desperation and hope take their place. He didn’t care if Tobirama choked on it, let Hashirama untangle them from the web of misery he’d tangled himself in.
He didn’t care if they knew that he loved tomatoes and pet stray cats and wasn’t the monster in the dark Tobirama thought him to be, and neither was he the unbreakable man Hashirama hailed him to be.
He caught up to her by the garden, where she sunk to her knees like a puppet whose strings were cut.
“No,” she whispered when he took a step closer. “Don’t.”
... If his soulmate rejected him too he didn’t know what he’d do with himself.
“Please,” he said instead and didn’t even know what he was begging for.
“You’re him,” she laughed a little brokenly. “You’re my destined, you’re him aren’t you?”
“I’m sorry,” was all he could offer her. He was sorry she ended up with him. He was sorry it wasn’t who she wanted it to be. He wanted her happy then, with a sudden and all-encompassing need, even if it broke him: “This doesn’t have to mean anything.”
Sakura’s laugh devolved to soft sobs, “How could you say that?”
“How could you want someone like me?” He countered, taking an aborted step forward. The ache to move closer was staggering.
“Because it’s all I’ve ever known,” she shook her head, wiping at her face. “All my life, you’re all I’ve ever known. I c-couldn’t … I couldn’t live knowing you existed only in my dreams ... I couldn’t spend the rest of my life escaping into a sleep so that I could be with you a little longer …”
Madara's knees touched the ground as he sank down to her level. He didn’t dare touch her. “So you jumped through space and time to find me … and now you have,” he told her softly, as gently as he knew how. “Does it make you want to run away?”
Her sobs were answering enough.
His heart felt like coal in his chest.
He started to get up—it was too much, seeing her like this, the weight of this monumental rejection.
Her hand snagged the edge of his shirt just as he turned to leave. “No,” she begged, “I’m sorry, please, I love you, please don’t go.”
And it toppled him back down to his knees again.
She placed him under a damning spell and she wasn’t even trying.
She loved him despite who he was.
At first, he didn’t dare stand close to her for fear of whatever fragile thing they had cracked.
Sakura hated herself for scaring him away. Hated herself for making him think she wasn’t his to have and love.
The worst part was she didn’t know how to fix it.
So she smiled at him twice as kind, sat beside him twice as close, and when no one was looking, reached between them and took his scarred hand in hers.
He’d look at her then, with that same unearthed expression that made her want to weep.
“This is okay,” she’d reassure him and squeeze his hand. “We can do this.”
Steadily, he let himself sink into her—steadily, he grew to trust her and the strengthening thing between them.
Day by the day, they spent the daylight together, until parting grew painful, until Sakura wondered if she’d ever be able to return to her world, until she found herself burrowing into his arms in the dead of the night.
“Is this okay?” she whispered to him, head on his bicep.
His breath tickled her skin as he exhaled softly and draped his arm around her waist. “This is okay.”
More days than not now found them splayed on his mattress, a tangle of limbs and quiet confessions.
She spoke of a time decades into the future, of a brighter Konoha he couldn’t imagine. He spoke of the pain in his eyes and the curse of hatred that wanted to damn him.
She wanted to know everything about him, what made him smile, what made him cry, why he pretended to be so callous when his heart was a thing that wept and bled in the cover of the darkness.
She had to know, what do you grieve every night?
Her head rested on his chest, his warmth saturating her side. Being close to him like this, settled a part of her that has been stranded for so long.
Sakura drew invisible circles on the scarred skin of his torso as she waited for him to answer. Listened to his heartbeat and deep, steady breathing.
He stroked up and down her arm as they watched the ceiling fan in his room spin; whir … whir … whir …
It nearly willed her to sleep, her eyes growing heavier, eyelashes tentatively caressing his skin.
Madara took in a deep inhale, and exhaled waveringly into the crown of her head, pink strands fluttering.
“The loss of this,” he murmured, curving his palm against her head, heavy and hot.
Her breath caught at the vulnerability of it, the scratchy quietness of his voice in this intimate space.
“Did no one ever love you?” She looked up at him, into those bottomless eyes, so full with ache—he was so beautiful it almost hurt to look at him.
“My brother … but he's no longer here,” He stroked her hair again, still gentle, still fragile.
Sakura wanted to cry. “Do you even know what it feels like?”
Madara’s hand drew hers to the centre of his chest, pressing her palm flat against his skin. His heart beat a broken rhythm. “I imagine … a little like this.”
Sakura shut her eyes and listened to the stumbling beats of his heart.
How could she ever leave this? When she’d come to the past, it was in a last-ditch attempt to search for her destined. She hadn’t really expected to find him.
Sakura drew back in his arms, his hold loosening to allow her to twist around and look at him. “Come with me to the future,” she blurted, before the thought was even fully formed in her head.
He stared at her from beneath the curve of dark lashes, eyes like an infinite stretch of space paving an abyss locked away inside him. “Why?”
“You’ll be happier,” she brushed her fingers along his hairline, “We could live in Konoha, or we could live on an island. Wherever you want. I would introduce you to Tsunade-shishou and Kakashi-sensei and baka-Naruto and Sasuke-kun and Ino-chan.”
His lips lifted up at the corner, “Popular aren’t you?”
Sakura ducked to kiss the smile off his lips. “Shut up.”
“Make me,” he murmured against her smiling mouth.
Sakura leaned away to make a face at him, “Cheesy,” she accused, but reached to stroke his lower lip with the pad of her thumb, “Come to the future with me.”
“What if I can’t?” his finger looped a strand of pink hair and twisted gently. “What if I won’t?”
Sakura bit her lip.
It wasn’t like she could leave her world behind, but Madara was slowly becoming the centre of her universe as they were drawn together by a force larger than the two of them.
“Then I’ll stay,” she uttered and was surprised by just how much she meant it.
Madara’s hand cupped the base of her skull and tugged her down for another kiss—he was growing bolder with these, stroking their tongues together, biting on her lips and swallowing the soft sounds that burst out of her mouth into his.
His thumb brushed the soft skin behind her ear, making her shudder. “I can’t ask that of you,” he whispered against her mouth.
“I asked it of you,” she said when they parted for air.
“You’re braver than me,” he told her, smiling tentatively. It made her want to kiss him again.
“Do you want me to stay?” she asked, pressing her thumb against lips slick with her kiss.
Madara looked at her for a long moment, laden with silence. “I don’t want you to leave.” he finally said. “... You make me happy.”
Sakura’s heart stuttered and she found she couldn’t resist the grin blooming on her face. “You make me happy too,” she whispered, voice a little thick with emotions.
Sakura pressed a soft kiss to his jaw, his chin, let her lips flutter along the corners of his, tasting his warmth. “I couldn’t leave you if I wanted to,” she murmured one last confession that night and their lips mould together again.
In the end, it didn’t really matter where they chose to stay. As long as they had each other, as long as they could be together, it was all that mattered to both of them.