“I’m sorry,” Naruto said stiffly. He’d transformed himself too, and the sight of Naruto as a buff twenty-year-old was terribly distracting. But I was still pissed.
“Oh? Does that mean you’ve decided I’m not a delusional mind-raping psychopath after all?” I snapped. “Or just that you’ll overlook it if it gets you a version of Hinata who isn’t a child?”
He sighed. “Look, I was upset, and I wasn’t thinking straight, and I should have listened to you. I’m sorry, ok?” He tried to put a hand on my shoulder, and I flickered a foot to the left to avoid it. “Damn it, Sakura, why are you so upset? You weren’t this mad when I almost scrambled your brain!”
“That didn’t hurt nearly as much,” I muttered. “You don’t trust me.”
“Sakura, you said yourself that you just got your mind run through a blender and had to put it back together alone. How am I supposed to know you got it right? Besides, wasn’t that crazy demon bitch made out of you?”
“Yes, Naruto,” I said tightly. “The Sharingan curse copied off all the darkest parts of my soul and stitched them together to make a whole person, stuffed her head full of demonic propaganda, and plugged her into an infinite source of black chakra that corrupts anything it touches. And what did she do? She tried to find love, punish injustice, and become stronger. Oh, I’m so ashamed.”
He sighed, and went back to watching Hinata.
“We’ve both gotten pretty used to doing things our own way, haven’t we?” I said a few minutes later.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “But… my Sakura is still in there too, right?”
I nodded. “Yes. All three of us are. Well, four if you count my warrior aspect, but you never met her. I tried to pick the best parts of each of us to weave back together when I was healing, and throw out what I could of the nasty bits, but I’m still very much a creature of dichotomies. When I’m happy I can be a lot like girl you remember, but when I’m not… well, I can be a complete bitch. I’m sorry, Naruto, I know you didn’t really mean it. It just hurts. You must know how hard it is to stay sane in these loops, and I’ve had to resist so many temptations. I tried to overcome my old faults, and avoid picking up new ones, and every time life breaks me I just pick myself up and put the pieces back together as best I can. But there’s always this nagging fear that I’ll get it wrong, that I could go crazy and not even know it, and then you… the man I look up to… you as much as tell me I’ve failed…”
There were tears running down my cheeks, but I refused to break down completely in front of him. Minutes passed in silence.
“You haven’t failed, Sakura,” Naruto finally said. “I have. If there’s anyone I should have faith in it’s you. You’ve never let me down, and even when you’re in over your head you always know exactly what you’re doing. I think… I’ve been alone for so long, surrounded by echoes of people that go through the same old motions every day. It’s hard to remember sometimes that you’re real, not just another echo or a figment of my imagination. But you are. You’re as strong as I am in your own way, and the things you can do amaze me.”
“Your dragon form is pretty amazing too,” I pointed out. I leaned against him, and finally admitted to myself that I couldn’t stay mad at him any longer. I needed him too much. That massive aura of his swirled around me, offering a haven of safety against all the dangers and demands of harsh reality, and I was so tired of standing alone.
“So, do you have a magic solution to the fact that there’s two of her now?” He asked hopefully.
“They’re different versions of the same person,” I pointed out wearily. “That means their souls are compatible. Put them in the same body and they can merge if they want to. Then she can object that only half of her sold me her soul, and I can use that as an excuse to let her out of our contract. I think the soul merger would combine their chakra too, so she’d end up even stronger than she is now.”
“You really do have it all under control,” he said in wonder. “Thank you, Sakura. I couldn’t stand to lose either of you, let alone both.”
I relaxed, and let him pull me into his lap. I’d thought a lot about this relationship too, when I’d been meditating on my mountain. The old me had loved him, though I realized now that part of that was because he was the only man I could actually have a relationship with while I was trapped in the loop. The demon had hoped he’d do the same thing to her that she’d done to Hinata, and looked forward to being conquered despite her best efforts. But it was the third Sakura who dominated my heart. She’d been a creature of boundless elemental passion, and Naruto was the center of her world. Her love burned as bright as the sun, as constant as Hinata’s obsession, and I wanted so very much to give in and let that be the sum of my feelings as well.
But I had only Naruto’s word that she’d turned out that way by accident. The idea of Naruto of all people using the loops to experiment with mind-altering jutsu until he learned to turn me into a devoted love-slave was far-fetched, but then again so was the idea of shy little Hinata turning into the hard-edged killer who was practicing on the lake before me. Being alone for too long does strange things to people, and being the village pariah meant Naruto was more alone than any of us.
Then again, he’d been alone for the first twelve years of his life too, and look how that worked out. I might be worrying over nothing. I remembered how wonderful it felt to trust completely. To love with utter devotion. To know as sure as breathing that I’d never be alone. I’d never have that again if I couldn’t make myself take a chance.
So I gathered my courage, and took the plunge.
“Naruto?” I said. “Will you promise me, that if you ever think I’ve gone crazy you’ll just tell me? Explain what you think has gone wrong, and help me test myself, and then listen to me in turn if I disagree?”
“Um, sure.” He gave me a concerned look. “You really worry about that a lot, don’t you?”
I nodded. “In case you hadn’t noticed, two of the four of us are completely around the bend. Three of five if you count both versions of Hinata. I think we can help her, and I think you and I are both ok, but things happen. I’ve had my mind shattered twice now, and that’s not counting all the strange problems with my aspects. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you.”
He wrapped me in his arms and hugged me gently. “I haven’t had it half as bad as you, Sakura. It was kind of lonely sometimes, and getting training was always hard, but none of it was any worse than what I went through growing up. Hell, these last few years have almost been a vacation. You’re the one I’m worried about. You’re… not like I expected.”
I sighed. “I know. You’re not sure if I’m the girl who wanted to be your partner with benefits, or the one who worshipped the ground you walk on. The answer is I’m both. I still have all those feelings inside me, and sitting here in your aura makes me wish to god I could just stop worrying and let myself be swept away again. But I need to actually talk to you first.”
He ran his hand through my hair, and smiled knowingly as I struggled not to react. “Have I ever told you how hot it is that you can actually resist? You do know what’s happening, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes,” I nodded. “It’s obvious if you think about it. Yin and yang chakra attract each other, which is one reason why strong ninja tend to pair up with each other instead of civilians. I’ve become a chakra sensor since we last met, so I feel the pull a lot stronger than most women would. But you’re so powerful that when you stop suppressing your chakra it doesn’t just bleed out into the surroundings a little. Even several feet away it’s so strong it actually interpenetrates my aura instead of flowing around it, and I can’t help but feel the fact that you’re… oh… two thousand, seven hundred and thirty times stronger than I am.” I shivered. Good god, just thinking about how that felt made me want him so much it was hard to restrain myself.