The Last Ones Standing

Chapter 1

Sakura woke up. The sun was shining unobstructed right into her eyes, and it hurt. The light made her pupils constrict to the point of pain, blinding her and adding more discomfort to the pulsating ache that was already reigning in her head.

Before she even tried to sit up, Sakura, taught by experience, took ten deep breaths allowing her consciousness to get re-accustomed with the body it was supposed to move. Then she propped herself on her elbows and slowly sat up. Still squinting, she looked around. Rubble, debris and corpses littered the ground around her.

Right, the battle against Madara and the Juubi – that's what happened. At first, they've lost when Tsukuyomi was cast. And then they won. Sorts of. Because Madara fell at the hands of his own minion and some never-heard-of entity appeared in his place. And against her they didn't win… She dragged them through several alien dimensions, killed Obito, until, in last ditch effort the re-formed Team 7 threw everything at her. Sakura delivered the punch, the punch the goddess did not expect, and the boys were supposed to seal her.

She recalled it so vividly, them approaching her, with the seals on their palms shining, in perfect synch, just centimeters away from connecting, from reaching their target… When goddess's hair shot sideways and tangled them. In a blinding and deafening blast of energy the goddess disappeared. And Sakura's boys along with her. The explosion threw Sakura first up and then a good kilometer away.

And now there she was – splayed on the ground like a broken doll, with severe concussion and several broken bones. And probably ruptured spleen. Nothing that her seal couldn't take care of. Glimmering magenta tendrils were already crawling down Sakura's cheeks.

Sakura propped herself with her hand and slowly stood up. The seal just finished mending her legs. She had been blown away far away from the battlefield. Where were the boys? Did they manage to seal that thrice-damned bitch? If not, where should she head for to help them?

Sakura bit her thumb. "Katsuyu-sama! Do you sense Sasuke and Naruto? Where is the rabbit goddess?!"

Katsuyu undulated her antennas. "They aren't here."

"What is your radius at the moment? We need to search wider now."

The slug turned her head to her. "It is large, Sakura-chan. And their current chakras shine like beacons – I can sense them from hundreds of kilometers away. If not thousands."

"What are trying to tell me, Katsuyu-sama?"

"They are not here. Not in this dimension. The rabbit goddess teleported herself and your teammates along. None of them returned."

Sakura rubbed her forehead. That was bad. She didn't have any dimension-travelling jutsu in her arsenal. And they were somewhere – fighting, struggling, maybe needing a third combatant to act as a decoy, maybe to deliver a surprise blow. Maybe to heal them! What if they needed her?! Sakura wrung her hands into her hair. All those years they never did. But last hours proved that she was as essential as the two of them. She dragged half-dead Obito across the dimensions, she punched the goddess when the bitch didn't expect it. Sasuke and Naruto – reincarnations of Asura and Indra, reincarnations of Kaguya's sons – the goddess had fought against them already. She must have learned. And Sakura was a wild card, a factor that the goddess didn't account for. Sakura could tip the balance.

Only that now she couldn't… Sakura plopped on the ground and bit at her fingernail. What was she supposed to do? "Katsuyu-sama! Let's search for the survivors! Is anyone left alive?!"

"All the combatants have been caught in the cocoons. I sense their chakra, but…"

Sakura looked around – next to her two cocoons hung from a relatively thin branch of the monster-tree. Or was it a root? Or whatever this thing had… The trapped bodies dangled like giant, overripe fruit, tightly tangled with this peculiar white, fleshy wood. Sakura reigned in her revulsion. According to the Sage of Six Paths Sasuke and Naruto carried now the power to undo the Tsukuyomi jutsu. They will handle it once they return. She should focus of saving those accessible to her.

"Anyone outside cocoons?"

Katsuyu retracted her antenna. Sakura knew that it meant that the slug was concentrating – the multitude of her parts were spread in radius of many kilometers. Reconnecting with them was a challenge even for the Great Slug.

"One. South from here. But he's dying."

"Exact location?!"

"South, south east, some five kilometers from here. Under a large rock."

Sakura dashed forward. "Keep searching!" she shouted from behind her shoulder, already running down the stone face.

She found him under a rock cliff. His arm was trapped under a large stone that must have fallen upon the impact. She moved it away - the only thing she could do to ease his suffering.

The calcified area on Kakashi-sensei's side had reached his ribs. Sakura could pinpoint the moment when his breathing got rough - the moment when his lungs started to petrify. A shred of Kaguya's bone-bullets had hit his right hip, so the petrification was progressing from the side opposite to the heart. That mean it will still take a moment. Sakura absentmindly wondered if it hurt, or if it only felt numb. Because if it did hurt, then she probably should break his neck.

But she didn't want to. He was always there. She couldn't imagine the world in which their sensei simply wasn't there. Now the war was over but everything was so… alien, so suspended – he, the one who was supposed to be the responsible adult, their tutor, their leader – he was the one she didn't want to lose. Now even more than ever. He was a promise that the things will be alright.

"Sakura…"

"Yes?" she smiled and wiped a strand of hair that was plastered to his forehead. The way he was sweating suggested that it did, indeed hurt.

"Did they manage?"

Sakura halted. Should she lie to the dying? No, he would hate that. "They disappeared with the goddess."

Kakashi squinted his eyes in a familiar grimace. "Don't worry, all will be alright. They will be just fine." For the shortest of moments, she believed him. As she believed him back in the genin times, when he assured her that everything will be alright with Sasuke.

He must have read that on her face, she was always like an open book, especially to her sensei. "I have a present I can finally give to my favourite student. The wayward one doesn't need it anymore..." he started to chuckle and immediately stopped. His lungs weren't cooperating anymore. "And if I am to be honest with myself, I have to admit that had he needed it, he would have received this gift. I know I invested a lot of attention into him, and I neglected you. And I'm sorry. But finally, this will be for you."

"What are you talking about, Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura didn't like the turn of this conversation. Not the slightest. But it didn't matter what she liked or not. The dying ones were allowed to their goodbyes, whatever they were.

"My eyes. Take my eyes."

Of course. Uchiha's eyes. It's always about Uchiha eyes. Over and over again. Sakura pursed her lips. But he had a point - Sharingan should never go to waste. Such a valuable and rare asset… Someone will be getting new eyes once it's all over.

"You don't understand, do you? This time, those are for you… Take it, seal it away and keep quiet about it." Kakashi sent her a mischievous smile. "You will need in a decade or two."

"Why? What are you talking about?"

"Sakura-chan, maybe I've never showed it, but my faith in you has never faltered. And I believe that after all is done," he made a sweeping gesture at the tree and cocoons, "you will get what you've always wanted. You will be with Sasuke. Just as you've always dreamt. And once your children are born… Well, then this little gift from your old sensei will come very handy when fixing Sharingan in their eyes..."

Sakura could only gape in disbelief. The never-allowed-to-the-surface image of black-haired children in her arms bled under her eyelids. Could that really happen? It was always only a self-indulgent daydream for her.

"Extract them now, when I'm still alive," pressed Kakashi. "You've seen what happened to Obito – the moment he died, the petrification sped up and his body crumbled to dust."

"Right." Sakura steeled herself. "Right." No matter for whom, these eyes should be saved. "I'll make it quick."

"You should. I don't think I can hold on much longer."

From her medical supply scroll she summoned a sterile container and some bandages. The container was much too large and the bandage wouldn't be needed, she realized. Shaking her head, she applied a numbing justu to his facial nerves, and a couple of swift moves of chakra scalpel later both his eyeballs were in the container. Sakura closed Kakashi's eyelids. Her palms left bloody patches on his face.

"It will be alright Sakura. Think ahead, about the future you have."

Sakura nodded, feeling tears streaming down her cheeks. His body shuddered on her lap as the calcification reached his chest.

"Sakura-chan…" It was Katsuyu's gentle voice that broke Sakura out of the stupor long hours later. She opened her fists that were still clenching ashes Kakashi-sensei's body had turned into. "Sakura-chan… There is another one."

"Where?" Sakura rubbed her eyes forcefully against her sleeve. Heal. Save lives. That's what she was supposed to do. In the end of a day, one life was worth exactly the same as another. She couldn't help Kakashi-sensei. But she can help another. Wailing in self-pity won't save anyone… "Where?"

"Far. Just by the tree. But…"

Sakura turned her head. On the horizon, white silhouette was pointing to the sky. Protruding from the surface of mother-earth too high, too isolated. Foreign. Alien. Something that shouldn't be there.

"But, Sakura-chan… It is.."

"We'll talk later! I need to hurry!"

The sun was already past the zenith and in its light, she could see exactly the desolation of the battlefield. Earth uprooted by Doton techniques, blackened areas where the lighting and fire jutsus had hit. Puddles of water, putrid by now, in the depressions of the terrain. And the bodies. Splayed or twisted in paroxysms, with pain immortalized on their faces. They were starting to stink but, fortunately, the flies haven't found them yet.

Everything dead. Everything.

Some couple of kilometers away from the tree, so close that when if she wanted to look at it, Sakura needed to bend her neck in an uncomfortable manner, another Katsuyu part waited for her.

"Where is the survivor?" demanded Sakura.

"Over there." Katsuyu pointed with her antennas to the left. "But Sakura-chan. Be careful when you approach him."

"Why?" Sakura jerked her head.

"It is Uchiha Madara. And he's conscious."

Sakura almost tripped halting half-step. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. "I won't let my guard down," she replied in a carefully controlled way.

She took off into the pointed direction. Slowly. Minding her steps. Looking where she was placing her feet. Scanning the perimeter.

A moment later it was obvious where she should head for. Three Katsuyu's clone surrounded – with a large radius, overly large radius – a body lying flat on the ground.

Her first instinct was to throw the kunai into the middle of his forehead. Her second – to slowly slit his throat and listen how he would choke to death on his own blood. She repressed both and stood still assessing the situation.

He looked normal - black hair, no horns, no third eye, normal chest pectorals where that freakish face of Shodai used to be. Closed eyes. Katsuyu said he was conscious – then why were his eyes closed? Why wasn't he moving? Was he incapacitated in some way? That would be god-sent.

He turned his head in her direction. "I know you're there."

Sakura tensed. Will he attack? Once she speaks, she will reveal her location to him even more precisely. And will let him identify her. Because maybe he still doesn't know who had approached him. But no attack came.

Should she kill him? Could she even kill him? Or would her attempt only provoke him?

He remained on the ground, hands straight along his sides, no sight of defensive or offensive stance. Maybe something was indeed wrong with him.

Sakura tightened her fist around a kunai. And deliberately relaxed her fingers. She backed of some meters and sat down in the shade of the boulder to keep an eye on him.

After two hours of vigilance an irritating stench reached Sakura's nose. She got up and circled the rock to find decomposing bodies of four Iwa and one Sand nin.

She buried them – her chakra was recovered enough to split the soil into a makeshift grave. It bothered her to bury them nameless in a shared grave, so before pushing them down she checked their pockets, and retrieved all the personal items she could find. Then she arranged the stones into a small mount, tucked their belongings under the last layer of rocks, said a prayer – not particularly suitable for the funeral, but the only one she could remember, and felt marginally better.

Only to be struck with a wave of panic – she had left Madara unsupervised for so long! Sure Katsuyu was there, but… Sakura rushed around the boulder. Madara was lying in the exact same spot, he hadn't moved a centimeter, he hadn't even shifted.

Maybe she should kill him. Keeping him alive was a risk. But was it the optimal course of action? What if he recognizes her intent and attacks her back? Maybe he's not moving because he doesn't see a need to?

Sakura sat down again. She retrieved two soldier pills and ate them. It was hot and even in the shadow, Sakura was sweating. She searched her supply scrolls - she had still four canteens of water. If she's careful they will last two days and then she will need to find a water source.

The inertia was driving her crazy. Katsuyu clones were spread over a huge part of land so if the boys returned, she would know immediately. The slug didn't report any further survivors either. Have everyone been either killed or caught into Tsukuyomi? Sakura shuddered. Except for her it was only four of them – Sasuke, Naruto, Kakashi-sensei, Obito who had escaped the influence of the red moon. The last two were dead. The first two gone… The only one left was her. And Uchiha Madara who miraculously survived being spat out by that rabbit monster.

Sakura looked at him again. Survived the monster, but looked like he wouldn't survive the exposure to elements. His lips were chaffed, half open. There was dried-out blood around his eyesockets. And his skin was starting to burn in the sun.

Sakura shifted – she could now watch and enjoy how the man who caused that all, who was responsible for countless deaths, dies from thirst. Maybe it will be a sufficient retribution.

"I know who you are," said the Uchiha in a nonchalant way. Sakura jerked her head. "You're that female medic."

"How do you know?" she blurted out before she could think better. She just confirmed her identity for him. She wanted to kick herself about it, but looking at the big picture – what did it change…? He was incapacitated, and she was still by the boulder.

"Would like to know it, wouldn't you? Well, I can humour you. I've heard you, you stupid girl."

Her prayer! He'd heard her prayer for the dead! Stupid indeed, stupid - that's what she was. But still, she was here, in shade, with her soldier pills and water canteens, and he was there – lying broken on the ground.

Evening came and after slipping into a summoned bedroll and pushing all thoughts away Sakura managed to fall asleep.

It was still before dawn when the cold woke her up. She climbed the boulder and waited for the sunrise. In meantime she was amusing herself watching Madara. He must have been freezing the entire night. Comes the sun, he will bake. It won't be much longer until he dies of dehydration. It wasn't the most painful death that life had in stock, but it was bad enough.

Came the noon and Sakura's control started to fray again. They weren't back. They were gone, somewhere gods know how far and she couldn't do anything. Where were they? Were they alright? Why weren't they coming back?! How long will she need to wait? How long will she need to do nothing, keep on existing on this barren wasteland completely alone and just wait? And what if they needed her? What if one them was wounded? Low on chakra? Dying?!

And she, she who trained her entire life for the single purpose of keeping them out of the harm's way – was here. Stuck. Unable to get to them. Rendered useless again. Left behind.

Sakura wanted to howl. To scream, to kick and punch and dig her nails through the soil and through her cheeks.

And it all would have been on vain. So she didn't. She sat down in the shade of the boulder, unpacked the content of her pouch and scrutinized her supplies. A small bag of soldier pills - of chakra-enhancing sort. Empty water canteen. Two storage scrolls, holding she didn't exactly remember what. Why weren't they back? Three kunai, ten shuriken, a handful of senbon, some exploding tags. What was holding them back? The bandages she didn't use for Kakashi-sensei. Could that be that they've been… Sakura blinked away the itching in her eyes. Three kunai, ten shuriken… No, they cannot. They will be back. They have to be back. Three kunai…

Her hands shook as she haphazardly pushed the stuff back into the pouch.

She stood up and marched along the boulder. Where were they? At the edge of the shadow she stopped, turned around and walked the opposite direction. After repeating the route four time she realized that the pacing made her even more nervous, so she sat down. Forced herself to think about something else. To think about all the re-construction that will need to take place. Konoha will have to be rebuilt again. Maybe this time they will learn on their mistakes and place broader drainage pipes. The previous ones always got stuck and overflew after every bigger thunderstorm. And she would love to have the hospital to be more in the center. For her own convenience, admittedly, but also for strategic reasons. She pulled out a kunai and started to sketch on the trotted ground.

After two hours and a meticulous plan of new Konoha spread in front of her, Sakura felt stable enough.

Stable enough to consider her most immediate problem – Uchiha Madara lying fifty meters away from her. He still hasn't moved. The sun was scorching hot and he never made a move to shield himself from it. Sakura carefully stepped closer. The way he was breathing wasn't normal. It looked as if he was trying not to breath in into his ribs. Maybe they were broken? His arms were lying at a slightly odd angle from his body – not impossible, but definitely not the way one would place them on a reflex.

He looked much worse than yesterday – his cheeks were hollow, and sun was doing its work on him. Sakura tilted her head – served him right. She watched him more, taking in the pain he must have been feeling. He moved his lips, maybe trying to say something and his lower lip cracked. He pulled it in, sucking at the blood.

Sakura blinked. No. She won't be doing it. She won't be watching a person die slowly in front of her. Even if it was the worst person in the world. There was a limit to her resentfulness and it has been reached. She crossed her fingers into a Kage Bunshin seal. As her clone popped into existence Madara moved his head in her direction. But he did so much slower than yesterday.

"I'm going to bring you water," Sakura announced, handing the canteen to the clone. "If you want it, don't attack the clone."

"Is it poisoned?" His voice was rasped.

"No. Would you prefer that it was?" laughed Sakura, but there was no gaiety in that laughter.

"No. Why?"

The clone knelt next to him and held his head up while lowering the canteen to his lips. "Because it must hurt horribly. Doesn't it?" Whatever restraint the great Uchiha Madara had, it wasn't showing in how greedily he was drinking that water.

"It does. But it doesn't matter." He swallowed and immediately sounded better. He almost managed the tone of familiar arrogance she remembered. She gave him another sip. "I can still enjoy the thought that I brought the end of suffering to the human race." Oh yeah, he regained his attitude alright. Real Sakura's fists clenched. "After death all thought is gone - so I want to enjoy the consciousness of my victory for as long as I can."

"End of suffering? Are you crazy?" She wanted to have her clone kick him. She really, really wanted to kick a lying, helpless, incapacitated man. "Are you proud now?" she spat instead. "You should see it, all is dead. Everything! The corpses are decomposing and there are no flies! Why are there no flies? Where are the flies?! The plants are dead, as if something had sucked life out of them. Everyone is trapped in those cocoons. Is this how you planned it? A total annihilation of life?"

"No. It wasn't my plan. But details don't matter as long as they are dreaming."

"How can you even know if they are?"

She thought he would have shrugged, but apparently, he couldn't. Or maybe he didn't intend to – how could she even know what he wanted…?

Sakura took a long calming inhale. She will keep him alive, even if for the sole purpose of putting him on trial. So that he understands what he did. Yes, that will be a suitable punishment. Not an easy way out through death. That meant she needed to patch him up. Not to mention that it would be interesting to know what's wrong with him. "My clone is going to examine you now," she said tapping into her most professional and unattached tone. The clone indifferently lowered her hands to his chest.

When her clone dissipated loading its experiences into Sakura's brain, she didn't hold in a gasp. All his bones were shattered, spine included. His muscles were basically rendered minced meat. Her snide remarks about his pain suddenly felt very inappropriate. Sakura formed another clone. "I'll start fixing you. I'll start from your backbone."

His spine, and then his muscles' structure. And she will leave it at that. With broken bones in all his limbs he won't be able to move. He won't present any danger. That will be convenient.

AN: Thanks for reading and please let me know what you think about this new story!