Doubt and suspicion !

From the first time he had laid eyes on this woman when he was on the verge of death, Madara Uchiha had been asking himself questions. And the more time he spent by her side, the more the questions he had took up space in his mind. Doubt : that was what had been plaguing him for a while.

As a shinobi, he was used to this world of deception and information gathering towards others. It was even indispensable : to know the other in order to be able to classify him as either an ally or an enemy. And from the moment that the slightest doubt was planted in someone's mind, it could be dangerous. For another feeling then surfaced : suspicion. Stronger than a simple doubt, suspicion led to mistrust.

And Madara was currently in this situation, he had doubts and at the same time suspicion towards Sakura Haruno.

For a normal person, the situation Madara was in would have been very simple. He had lost a fight, he had been rescued and healed by another shinobi, full stop, and that would be that. But Madara Uchiha wasn't just anyone, he was a very intelligent and logical person. So when something didn't make sense, he did everything in his power to make it rational and irrefutable.

Since meeting Sakura Haruno, there were so many illogical things in his brain, so many pieces that he couldn't place correctly. He was missing elements, too many elements. So he tried to analyse, to make patterns in his head, he thought of plots, of totally abracadabratic theories, but without success. For the moment, he had no sufficiently solid leads to form a precise idea of the young woman, thus returning to the same questions of the beginning : Who ? Why ? And for what purpose ?

Why would someone like her save a shinobi like him ? Sure, she had told him she wanted to bring peace... but then why had she had that look of visceral hatred for him when she had appeared out of nowhere to finally save him from certain death ?

She had justified her desire for peace because the Uchiha clan had always tried to hurt him. Assuming this was true... there was still a problem with this reason. Madara, as clan leader, knew all the members of his lineage. And yet, he had never heard of a Sasuke Uchiha ! So, just by that fact alone, the relentlessly logical shinobi wondered : was she lying to him ? Or had a member of his clan pretended to be dead in the past ? Moreover, the young woman's knowledge of the Sharingan gave weight to this other theory. One had to be close to an Uchiha to know what she knew about the clan's dojutsu, assuming that she knew more than she had deigned to show and reveal to him so far.

This series of reflections and analyses led the man to establish this first double question :

1°) Had a member of his clan deserted and fathered this Sasuke Uchiha or was Sakura lying to him about the existence of this Uchiha ?

Then Madara couldn't help but turn his thoughts to this first point : the origin of her skills. Who ? Who in all the elemental nations could have such skills and no one knew about it ? No one in the entire ninja world had ever mentioned Iryô Ninjutsu, no one had ever mentioned a woman with legendary strength who could break through cliffs. He had also never heard of a doctor by the name of Tsunade who from what Sakura had said seemed better than her. Such a woman would have been the talk of the town. And even if she was a woman, her abilities could not have remained hidden ; it would have come to light and one thing led to another and a nobleman or even a Daimyô would have hired her services. And by extension, the shinobi world would have known about it and would certainly not have let such potential go free.

But according to Sakura, her mother Tsunade was a very discreet person, capable of being forgotten like a shinobi. Another troubling point was that the only person he knew by the name of Tsunade was Hashirama's offspring, and it couldn't be the Senju's offspring because she was still far too young. Nevertheless, even if he hadn't heard of Sakura's mother, to have such knowledge one had to experiment, practice... or else...

Madara came to think that Sakura's mother might have come from another, previously unknown continent ? A hypothesis that could explain the material inventions in Sakura's house. This led the Uchiha to ask the second question :

2°) Where did Tsunade Haruno come from and why had no one ever heard of her ?

Still immersed in his analysis of the few elements in his possession, the Uchiha was doubtful. One other thing didn't add up : her sensei. From what little he had seen of her, Sakura Haruno was a dangerous person. She had been very well trained in the manipulation of the shinobi arts. During their training he had made this observation : she was a person based mainly on dodging, which was understandable after reading her book. And just as the jeweler knew how to shape a rough diamond to make it valuable, it took a quality teacher to train a quality ninja. So why had he never heard of this Kakashi ! Furthermore, this one seemed to be friends with Sakura's parents, so could it be that they had been childhood friends ? Or if he considered the hypothesis that they came from another continent, perhaps they came from the same place. These questions led to the third question :

3°) Who was Kakashi and where did he come from ?

Once the questions about the young woman's origins were clear in his mind, Madara wondered again, and the subject that had caught his attention was the frontal seal of Mito Uzumaki. Sakura had told him that the Uzumaki weren't the only ones who mastered the art of Fûinjutsu. But Madara still remembered how proud Mito had been when she had completed the design of her frontal seal. She hadn't wanted to tell him what the effects were, but knowing Mito's reputation for Fûinjutsu, it could only be great. So how could Sakura Haruno have such a seal of Fûinjutsu ? Especially since it seemed more powerful than Mito's. No, it didn't seem, it was much more powerful. He had used his Sharingan to memorize the image of her seal. Had Sakura been inspired by Mito's seal ? Or the other way around ? Sakura had told him that she had traveled a lot, she could have left some work about the Fûinjutsu seal on one of her trips and Mito would have found it and been inspired to create his own.

Looking through Sakura's library, he found numerous Fûinjutsu manuals, attesting that she had really taught herself the discipline and above all proving that she had not lied to him about this detail. So she was an autodidact ? Madara was very impressed. For that meant that she was probably a virtuoso in this field, just as Mito was too.

But if the creation of the Fûinjutsu seal was the result of stolen knowledge, regardless of whether it was practiced by one or the other, another question jumped out at Madara : Kage Bunshin ! How could Sakura even know of the existence of this Jutsu created by Tobirama Senju ? He was reputed to be one of the most secretive people in regards to the creation of his Jutsu ! And Madara was definite. There was no way to be mistaken : the condensation of chakra, the release of the flows, the cloud of smoke, everything matched. Sakura had used the Kage Bunshin technique. This led to the fourth question :

4°) Was Sakura from Konoha No Sato and was she secretly affiliated with the Senju ?

This theory of Senju affiliation was slightly reinforced by his suspicion of her political knowledge. She was acting like a leader while being subtle. Normally a woman was not supposed to have this ease with words to stand up to politicians, let alone a Daimyô and a clan leader. Only princesses in the style of Mito Uzumaki were trained in this way, as they were destined to sit alongside very influential people.

Yet Sakura claimed to come from a backwater, but her words, her gestures, her vocabulary, her way of speaking, her handling of words and subtleties : all these little details were worthy of seasoned politicians, even clan leaders or a Kage. She must have been in the business to know so much and to be so comfortable.

Madara came to this conclusion ; she had too much experience in this field to be just a normal citizen and even more so than just a first rate shinobi. So, assuming the young woman came from Konoha, would she be as good as the elite ninja ? As young and as high ranking ?

All of these elements, assembled into the beginnings of a tangible logic and because of or thanks to his paranoia, Madara immediately came to this thought : that Sakura was manipulating him.

Manipulation was an almost commonplace phenomenon : everyone manipulated everyone else. What remained was to find out why Sakura was manipulating him. To bring peace ? A likely hypothesis. But what else ? What other reason could push the young woman to use this stratagem with him ? He had this deep intuition that she was manipulating him, but he couldn't quite figure out the reason. And the more the Uchiha thought about it, the more things came to his mind : did he really want to dig deeper and find out the young woman's objectives ? And if he continued along this path, what would he discover ? These last questions formed the ultimate suspicion in Madara's mind, so much so that he frowned slightly as his mind formulated this :

5°) Is Sakura Haruno manipulating me ? If so, is she doing it ?

He was missing a lot of elements, there were too many unanswered questions, but little by little he was getting information. Madara was confident. Patience was one of his qualities, for it allowed him to analyze the data he would continue to collect on the young woman. And when the time came, he would finally know EVERYTHING he needed to know about her. It was only a matter of time...

Give it time !

Day 178

It had been almost six months since Madara had been treated and he was almost completely recovered. Sakura's training combined with her daily care had done wonders. The only thing he didn't have anymore was his right eye, destroyed by the Izanagi.

Speaking of his right eye, Madara was currently lying on the floor, his head resting in the middle of Sakura's legs, who was positioned cross-legged. She had put a pillow over her legs making the position more comfortable for her patient. A book was open at her side and she had tied her hair back so that her face was clear.

— "Are you sure you can do this ?" Madara asked in a not so reassuring tone before receiving a septic look from Sakura.

—" Are you really having doubts after all the things I did to your body ? Need I remind you that I performed open heart surgery, made you walk again and regenerated the chakra system in your left arm ? Then yes, I'm sure I can do that," Sakura retorted, she didn't like people doubting her abilities.

— "Don't blame me for having doubts when it comes to restoring Dôjutsu," Madara defended himself.

— "It's... complicated to explain," Sakura said as she took one last look at her book on ocular anatomy.

— "Try as you might, it's not like I'm the last of the idiots," Madara encouraged, he was far from being a mindless idiot.

— "What do you want to know ? How do I regenerate an eye ? Or a Dôjutsu ?" The young woman asked as she stared at Madara's able pupil.

— "I already know you're able to restore... by what miracle I don't know, but how do you recreate a non-existent Dôjutsu ?" Madara questioned, for after all, Sakura had told him that his Sharingan was simply gone.

— "Ahhh... I see what your fear is. You're afraid that if I'm able to restore the Sharingan to you, what's to stop me from doing it to anyone ?" The young woman concluded, and it was quite understandable.

After a slight nod from the clan leader Sakura continued.

—" So, I'll go into pure theory Madara-san and I'll ask you not to ask me any questions about the origin of this knowledge."

— "I'll do my best," Madara agreed reluctantly.

— "In studying the human body, chakra and Fûinjutsu, I realized one thing : everything is connected," Sakura began as she searched for a way to explain the principle of DNA without clearly telling him what it was. "Let's take the example of a woman who gets pregnant. Apart from living her life, eating a lot more, having constraints during most of her pregnancy and hormones completely out of whack, what does this woman do to conceive the child ? Absolutely nothing."

— "But then again..."

— "It is the human body that conceives the child, not the woman herself. Her body does it by itself, just as your heart beats without you having to command it, you also breathe unconsciously. Because the body does it by itself," Sakura continued, once again loving to share her knowledge.

— "Why is that ?" Madara asked, not seeing any connection at the moment.

— "That's right Madara-san," Sakura said with a smile, "you asked the right question : why ? Because the human body is designed in the same way as a formula of Fûinjutsu. Every living thing is a formula of design that makes a cat a cat, a tree a tree. And in the case of the Uchiha clan, you have in your formula of Fûinjutsu, a part that allows you to have the Sharingan and it is this part that I will just have to restore."

The clan leader was once again stunned by what he was hearing. This woman's intelligence was truly frightening and so was her knowledge.

— "And to reassure you, I never said anything about creation, I am using your formula as a medium to restore itself. I am unable to make the Sharingan for a third party," Sakura reassured her as she saw the dark-haired man let out a slight sigh of contentment, "but... transplantation is feasible."

— "What is transplantation ?"

— "Taking a diseased organ and replacing it with a healthy one. Basically, if I wanted to I could take out your blind eye and put one of mine in its place and you'd be able to see perfectly," Sakura said, remembering Madara ripping out Kakashi's eye and transplanting it into himself in an instant. It made her think that during his eighty year stay in a cave, Madara must have studied a lot.

— "The same thing can be done in reverse," she added slowly.

— "I'd like you to make me a promise, Sakura-san," Madara asked intently.

— "I'm listening," the young woman said without really accepting.

— "Don't reveal this information to anyone."

— "There are unfortunately many things I know that the world is not ready to hear. Don't worry about it, I'm discussing it with you because the opportunity is there and you're a concerned person," Sakura concluded before gently placing both her hands near her patient's right eye. "Let me concentrate now."

She concentrated her Iryô Ninjutsu and prepared to activate her new technique on Madara's pupil. She had already repaired the retina as well as the chakra flow within the organ. Now she had to repair everything that was destroyed : the pupil, the iris, the lens and the hyaloid membrane. All these elements that allowed his to see, but also to have the Sharingan. So that Madara would not feel any pain during the regeneration, she decided to stop the flow of nerve impulses between the optic nerve and the brain during her procedure, without causing any damage to the optic nerve.

Then she closed her eyes and remained like that for many minutes, which turned into an hour in total silence. Madara took the opportunity to look at her and appreciate her facial features. He loved to see that face so much in concentration. And in his silent contemplation, a question appeared in his mind : what did he feel for this woman ?

Until he met Sakura, he had never been in contact and relationship with a person of the female sex for long. But since he had met the pink-haired woman, he had had time to get to know her, or at least to learn to do so. He had discovered a woman with many facets and skills that reminded him a little of himself. However, they were two opposites : when he was intransigent, she was more conciliatory. When he was cold and impassive towards others, she was gentle and compassionate towards the human race. When he wished to use brute force to subdue the world, she wished to take a more subtle approach to bring the world to see as she did.

These examples of opposites between the two protagonists proved to the Uchiha that Sakura remained a woman like any other : by nature, she favored benevolent and altruistic methods. But the dark-haired man knew that she could act just as differently depending on the circumstances, especially when it came to protecting her loved ones. He had seen it in action : Sakura had not hesitated to kill. Whether it was during the attack on the bandits who wanted to harm the people of the village, or when she eradicated Black Zetsu at the Valley of the End without an ounce of hesitation.

But still, if they were so opposite in their ways, how could they tolerate each other, or even like each other ?

Madara didn't know what love meant : he simply hadn't learned to love. However, as time went on with the young woman, the man had remembered some of his mother's teachings on the subject, and they now made sense to him. It had led him to tell Sakura that she would be his, though she couldn't remember. She was the first woman who matched him, who equalled him, and who had confronted him with sensations he still found hard to understand.

So, despite his doubts and suspicions, Madara asked himself this question : *Is this what loving someone is all about ?*

All his thoughts were interrupted when he felt a pain in his right eye. Then Sakura sighed and opened her eyes as well.

— "Tell me when the pain in your eye goes away," Sakura asked.

— "Why does it only hurt now ?" Madara questioned as he kept his eyelid closed from the pain.

— "Because I've restored the flow of nerve impulses to your optic nerve. It is processing the information it receives and sending it back to the brain, which analyses it. That's why you're in pain now," the young woman explained.

— "The pain is starting to disappear," the Uchiha said after a good minute, still impressed by the young woman's explanation.

— "Once it's completely gone, open it gently."

After another minute, Madara finally opened his right eye and his heart was overwhelmed with emotion. The darkness was gone, the light, though bright, entered his eye again, and a smile came to his lips.

— "From your reaction, it seems that you have regained some of your sight Madara-san," Sakura expressed pleased with herself.

— "Hai, though it's very strange, nothing is clear. I feel like I have a veil like I'm trying to open my eyes in murky water," explained the dark-haired man who remembered this sensation perfectly as he had become almost blind after the excessive use of his Mangekyô Sharingan.

— "Your vision is blurry ?"

— "Hai."

— "Close your left eye and look in my direction," Sakura said and put her Iryô Ninjutsu-laden hand down once more. "And now ?"

— "A little bit better," Madara admitted.

— "Well, it'll be a while before you can see again. Of course you're forbidden to channel chakra into this eye or you'll ruin any progress," the young woman warned.

— "I understand."

Day 180

Autumn was almost over and winter was fast approaching. The crops had been harvested for many weeks in many countries. The trees had lost all their leaves, but no snow had fallen yet.

Madara was currently standing next to a brazier looking out, deep in thought. He was thinking about what to do while waiting for the war and what to do to give them strategic advantages.

— "Sakura-san," Madara announced, turning his gaze to the young woman. She was sitting at her desk, all the papers seemed to have been put away and many kunai had taken their place. The desk was literally covered with weapons, an inkwell and a brush.

— "Yes Madara-san ?" Sakura asked as she traced seals on one of the kunai before sealing it in a small burst of blue chakra.

— "We've already discussed this with the Daimyô and with each other, but I really think we need to act before this war breaks out," Madara announced as he watched one kunai disappear, sealed in another.

— "Why is that ?"

— "Because we need to contact the most vulnerable countries, the weakest. And we need to get the civilians, even the ninjas, to start coming to Heiwa. Or at least, let them hear about it, so they can come by themselves when they're in despair," Madara explained as he saw a new kunai disappear as well, sealed in the same kunai. "Especially with winter approaching, that still gives us some time to act. Very few people are stupid enough to declare a war in winter. It would be counterproductive."

— "Wouldn't it be dangerous to go to vassals ? They'll probably be quick to report to their superiors what we're doing," contra Sakura, who couldn't see any other way than what the man was proposing.

— "I didn't say to reveal my identity, I said to plant the idea in all of them," Madara replied as she watched Sakura set aside the weapon she had sealed five other weapons in.

— "I don't know Madara-san...," the young woman said as she stopped what she was doing.

— "Sakura-san... do you trust me ?" Madara was currently standing in front of her desk with his arms crossed.

— "No, I don't."

— "Good answer, but if you saved me to bring peace on the premise that that was my basic goal, you should trust me on this," the dark-haired man retorted before taking a seat and settling right in front of her. "Just as I trusted you to take care of me, I'd like you to trust me with the war."

Sakura couldn't deny that he was right about that. She had never been a born leader, she had never led a team in her life. Sure, she'd always been on the front lines supporting her comrades, but strategizing for war was something else entirely. Knowing how to give orders in any situation, knowing what to do at the right time, is a complicated thing and Madara had been raised to do just that.

— "Well... I'm listening," Sakura finally relented.

Seeing the young woman finally agree, Madara got up to fetch a scroll from the bookcase. He placed it on the desk and took the brush gently from Sakura's hands. He quickly drew a map of the elemental lands from his memories of six months ago.

— "The Uchiha Clan and the Senju Clan stood out from the rest of the world because of our abilities. From these two clans came four game-changing individuals that many fear throughout the world," Madara explained as he added more details to the map under Sakura's watchful eye. "Hashirama and Tobirama on the Senju side, then Izuna and myself on the Uchiha side. The four of us used to shake the world, but with only Tobirama alive in the eyes of the world that is changing."

— "Tobirama isn't the invading type is he ?" Sakura asked, referring to what was in the history books. But she had also learned with time and experience : history is written by the victors.

— "Tobirama's a first class asshole who I'd gladly slit his throat if I had the chance, but he's not a conflict maker," Madara ranted angrily as she remembered him killing his brother. "So we're going to assume that a potential alliance between the other four great countries will be made against the land of fire."

— "Don't you think the land of fire might have an ally in all this ?" Amena gently Sakura who knew who would be against whom in this first war.

— "Besides Uzushio ? I don't see..."

— "The land of water has no strategic advantage in attacking the land of fire, in fact it would be the opposite, it would be in their best interest to form an alliance with Konoha to create trade agreements. Besides, what's to stop the other three big countries from attacking them once the land of fire has fallen," the young woman explained, pointing to the map with her index finger.

— "Your arguments are valid, but it's only a hypothesis. In any case, we can expect clandestine guerrilla raids in all the small countries surrounding the land of fire. Apart from our country and the samurai, who have a neutral status, the others will pay the price," Madara continued, "we'll have to act like the other countries to start recruiting here."

— "What do you mean ?"

— "Make the enemy believe that his target is aware of his actions. This will create doubt and buy us time at the same time. I am sure that small villages are already being targeted by attacks in the greatest secrecy. This is one of the reasons why I want us to act on the ground from now on. But we'll kill two birds with one stone, we'll also loot, create situations to our advantage and cause havoc on all sides," he said clearly.

— "I don't like this..."

— "This is not the time to have scruples Sakura-san, you and I both know the horrors of war and if my method of force didn't work, we have to use other means, and there's nothing like ruining a country from the inside," Madara explained showing one of his unscrupulous sides. Unlike Sakura who wanted to save mankind, Madara was a being devoid of emotion and pity when it came to winning a war. He did what had to be done to accomplish his goals.

The young woman remained silent, allowing the brunet to continue.

— "Remember who I am Sakura-san, if I had to kill a man to save my comrades I would. If I had to kill one woman to save ten I would. If I had to kill a child to stop a disease, I would. If I have to raze an entire country to the ground to bring peace... I will do it without remorse !" Unveiled Madara, and in that moment Sakura thought she saw a piece of the Madara of her time. And it was as she heard him speak that she wondered if she had succeeded in changing him at all or not at all.

— "But I owe you," he added in a calm voice.

— "Which means ?" Sakura asked hopefully the man would change for the better.

— "That I won't lump everyone together. Because you didn't do it with me. Maybe you manipulated me, but in a way you reached out to me and made me understand certain things," Madara explained, and after six months of thinking, his thinking was bound to change. Every self-respecting person evolves through life because of the events they go through.

— "I'll be... more accommodating... but don't forget that it takes men like me to do the dirty work, Sakura-san."

— "I thank you."

— "Finish what you have to do, we'll leave tomorrow," Madara said before standing up and walking back to the window door to look out. He then turned his gaze to his armor lying in the corner with his Gunbai attached to a kama.

— "Sakura-san," Madara called as he saw his armor.

— "Yes," he said.

— "Could you make me a storage seal on my forearm so I can seal my weapons in ? This weapon is too recognizable and I do not wish to part with it," explained the dark-haired man who had a great affection for this instrument of death. It was a family heirloom that was passed down from father to son.

— "Of course, come here," the shinobi replied before Madara came back to her with his sleeve rolled up. She grabbed her brush and ink and set about executing the brunet's request : his storage seal. As she drew, Madara felt a new sense of purpose come over her for some time. He had lost all hope when he discovered that he could no longer walk and fight. Then hope had taken the place of despair thanks to Sakura and her care, and now a new motivation had come to him : the opportunity to succeed in bringing peace.