"Why do you wish to fight me?" asked Madara. "We both seek the same goal."
So, it was this dream again, Sakura thought to herself in a flash of lucidity.
In the dream, she stood on one side of the Valley of the End below a scarlet moon, her white cloak embroidered with the words Sixth Hokage fluttering in the wind. On the opposite cliff stood Madara in his bright red Warring States Era armour, his Uchiwa Gunbai in hand.
"I fight to protect my comrades," Sakura replied. "I fight to protect the Hidden Leaf!"
In real life, Sakura and Madara had never exchanged more than a few words during that battle, nor had they ever held any philosophical debate about war and peace. To him, she had never been much more than a slightly more interesting ant to step on before resuming his dance with Hashirama, so he had never engaged her in anything more than the equivalent of a test.
"Is that what you tell yourself to sleep at night?" Madara said mockingly. "You should know better than anyone who stands to profit the most from your violence... you've invited them to dine at your table, this evening."
Hang on, this was new. What was that fellow up to this time?
"Tell me, Hokage," Madara said smoothly. "If your home is invaded, would it be considered justice to expel the intruders?"
That went without saying.
"Now tell me, inheritor of Hashirama's will," Madara went on. "If you were to invade your neighbour and build a home on their land, would it still be considered justice to expel your neighbours when they returned to take back what is rightfully theirs?"
Sakura knew exactly where Madara was going with this; he was referring to the protectorate of the Land of Grass.
Kusagakure's sole reward for intervening in the conflict between the Five Great Nations had been utter annihilation. Over the past two years, Naruto had succeeded in driving back most of the country's Iwa-nin occupiers, but to the country's inhabitants, the distinction between protector and invader might as well have been non-existent.
At the end of the day, they were still being ruled and exploited by foreigners.
"What would you have me do? Leave the inhabitants of the Land of Grass at the mercy of the Tsuchikage?" Sakura snapped. "I am far greater and more benevolent than Ōnoki could ever hope to be; they ought to be grateful that I stepped in for their sake."
Madara's eyes widened in shock as the scarlet moon descended behind Sakura, casting her shadow against his side of the cliffside. Despite them being apparent to him, she appeared oblivious to the fact that her shadow had grown a pair of curved horns from its head.
"And yet, despite your best intentions and efforts, we are no closer to peace in our time," Madara said after a brief pause. "War is inextricable from humanity. For as long as there are two people left on this star, they will find something to bicker about."
Sakura inwardly sniggered. Always the same song and dance, with that fellow…
"You already have the eyes of the Sage of Six Paths, so you know what you must do; kill Obito, retrieve the One-Tail, complete the Ten-Tails and ascend to godhood," Madara said hurriedly. "Plant the God Tree, and finish what I started: shine the guiding light of the Infinite Tsukuyomi upon the moon, and bring about eternal peace. Think about it, you would no longer have to see me in your nightmares... and with such power at your fingertips, you would no longer need fear me."
"Ha! As if I would do that!" Sakura scoffed. "The Ten-Tails and the □□□□ are a trap! That's where the Ultimate One of the □□□□ used to be □□□□! I'm not interested in □□□□, and besides, even if the dream could bring about true peace, we sleepers would simply become sheep before the slaughter when the second wave of the □□□□ clan descend in twelve years!"
Madara frowned. Why couldn't he make out some of the words she was saying?
"I'm not a little girl any more; I'm not afraid of you any longer," Sakura said ferociously. "So, bring it on, Madara. Come and have a go, if you think you're hard enough."
Satisfied with today's progress, Madara sank back into Sakura's unconscious mind and returned to her shadow. The foolish girl believed it to be on her side, but there existed no Kotoamatsukami powerful enough to override its filial love for its mother!
…
Sakura woke up with her face buried in her cleavage; she had fallen asleep in her office. She groggily extirpated her head from the two moons resting on her desk and wiped the dribble from the side of her mouth. The fleeting memories of her dream were already fading fast, but she could still vaguely remember that Black Zetsu had visited her.
About a year and a half ago, she had found Black Zetsu skulking within her shadow.
It had come as a considerable shock, since she had no notion of when it might have taken root, nor how long it had lain concealed there. Her first instinct had been to destroy it outright; but recalling how the ANBU's efficiency had plummeted by more than half ever since all elements of Root were purged, she instead had it take a good look at her Kotoamatsukami in order to hijack its Zetsu Network.
Just to be safe, since Sakura wasn't certain whether genjutsu would even work on Black Zetsu, she had crafted a two-layered illusion: the first enforced total domination over the creature, and the second subtly convinced it that it had successfully broken free of her genjutsu, yet was still choosing to feign subservience in order to further its goals.
As expected, Black Zetsu's original programming overrode the first layer of the illusion within days, but then, the false thoughts Sakura had implanted began to blend with the real ones so convincingly that, regardless of where Black Zetsu's true loyalties lay, the outcome was the same: she had gained access to the ultimate spy network, with Black Zetsu 'faithfully' serving her while believing itself still in control.
As for Black Zetsu's inevitable betrayal… Sakura already knew it was coming, so she was confident she'd be ready when the time arrived. Now, she only had to convince it that she was slowly turning into Kaguya, lest it start feeding her disinformation at the worst possible time.
Not that she was slowly turning into Kaguya— of course she'd notice if something like that were happening, wouldn't she?
"Ugh, it's so early," Sakura groaned, glancing at her wall clock. 5:52. "Forgot to draw the curtains…"
The morning sun's golden rays filtered through the Hokage's office's bay window. Squinting as she reached for the drapes, Sakura caught a glimpse of the full moon setting to the west. It seemed even bigger than when it had been hanging in the sky, earlier in the night.
"No good, I'm fully awake," Sakura sighed to herself. "So much for going back to sleep… but first, gotta pee, gotta pee..."
Two years ago, the Hokage Residence would already have been a flurry of activity this early in the morning, but in these subjectively peaceful times, it was remarkably quiet. Ever since the Hidden Leaf Village had become isolated from the rest of the world, the number of missions had fallen drastically… not that people truly needed to work any more.
The Hidden Leaf had entered a post-scarcity era, and it was all thanks to Naruto.
All he needed to do was enter KCM and stand, for half an hour each day, in a field; simply by being there, he could vastly shorten maturation periods and boost the yield of any crop. Every harvest was a bumper crop, and rice and all types of grains and vegetables were available in limitless supply. Thanks to Tobirama's advances in bioengineering, every meal contained more than enough meat to satisfy even the hungriest Akimichi.
Unfortunately for Sakura, whose job it was to keep everyone happy and safe, it was humanity's curse to never be content with its lot in life. While people now had all the time in the world to devote to their hobbies, some missed the work they had once performed as shinobi.
The satisfaction of a job well done, the sensation of breaking bones, slashing through flesh, and ending lives, the feeling of being needed and seeing the happy faces of those they had helped… some people simply couldn't sit still, eat, sleep, and have sex without needing to feel like they had earned it first.
"Peace is certainly nice, but when you're holding a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail…" Sakura sighed as she stepped into her private lavatory. "We ninja mould chakra in order to use supernatural powers that ordinary folk can only dream of having… we cannot not use them and still stick out our chests and call ourselves ninja with pride..."
According to Jiraiya, ninja were those who endured, but Sakura's definition was quite different. Experience had taught her that shinobi and kunoichi were nothing more than political tools... and that tools were meant to be used.
"It is because the people believe in the Hokage that they can kill their hearts and carry out their missions without any inner turmoil," Sakura told herself as she hitched up her dress and settled her plump posterior onto the toilet seat. "You may willingly turn yourselves into tools, and you may set foot on the battlefield knowing you will be asked to kill, but it is precisely because you have given me your trust that I will never ask you to do something I would not… that is my way of letting you keep your humanity, despite being tools… my ninja way."
That was why Sakura had gradually increased the pool of shinobi permitted to venture outside over the past two years, and that was why she had invited officials from the Land of Fire into Konohagakure to reforge the ties that had once bound them. The people of the Hidden Leaf Village were stronger than Sakura had given them credit for, and as Hokage, she had no intention of letting them down.
Sakura let out a contented sigh as she squeezed out a trickle of concentrated Sakura extract.
"Kakashi-sensei…" she murmured dejectedly as she shuffled to her feet and flushed the toilet. "I didn't even get to say goodbye…"