Chapter Five: “Caged in Sand, Forgotten Tears”

Chapter Text

Chapter Five: “Caged in Sand, Forgotten Tears”
“They Called Me a Monster,
So I Became One.”
—Who Remembers the Unwanted?—
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Sakura once more sat on the velvet chair and she immediately jumped off — only to be caught by a pair of arms. 

“Now where would you be running of to, Sakura?” Itachi gazed down at her gently with that soft smile, but his hands held her like steel. “It’s been a while since we had a chance to properly talk.”

“Y-Yes, right you are, Itachi.” Sakura laughed awkwardly. “What shall we —“ 

Itachi pressed his lips to hers and stuck his tongue in a hungry dance. His fingers ran through her long hair before he cradled the back of her neck and kissed her deeper. Just before Sasori could tear him apart, the warrior released her and licked his lips. “It’s great to see you again, Sakura dear.”

A heavy blush stained her cheeks as her lips still tingled from his touch. “H-Hello to you, too, Itachi.” Well, that wasn’t the reaction she expected. I wonder if the popular ladies of court dealt with this everyday? No wonder they dared to play around with the King and Princes. Who knew men outside court were more sensual.

Sakura obliviously felt everybody had more experience than her in this field and once they exited this dream world, these handsome men will go on with their lives. After all, she may be a noble lady, but she wasn’t Godmother Ella — now she was a real beauty with that blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes full of strength and kindness. And besides, this was only a dream world…While she was here, she wanted to believed she was truly loved even if for the moment. So she smiled up at Itachi, “I enjoyed your greeting.”

“Hn. Shall I greet you like this every morning?” He grinned devilishly.

Sakura only winked back, getting into a flirting mood she hadn’t really explored before. But then she sighed and said, “Actually, I have something to tell you.” She stood up from her seat and the four men surrounded her. She frowned, but let it slide as she did trick them the last couple of times…”I won’t run away, but you need to listen. So if you don’t mind, please have a seat. I’ll let you know what I know about this place. If you have any questions, you may ask me after, but I can’t guarantee I know the answers.”

Kakashi ran his hand through his hair and sat down first, propping his foot over his knee so he crossed his leg in a wide manner, and said, “About time, princess. Aren’t you snobs going to sit down? I want to listen to the woman.”

Sakura raised a brow. Of all the men here, Kakashi was the last person she expected to say that. He seemed so…rough. It was a nice surprise. “Thank you, Kakashi.”

And so, after everyone settled, Sakura explained the situation in hopes that no one blocked her path. She managed to escape the last couple times, but now there were four men to play around with and she didn’t have the energy to keep thinking up strategies. It was fun to mess around though…But time is of the essence! Hence, it was time to be direct. “…And that’s how I ended up here. So if we are to stay in this castle until the twelve nights are up, I have to continue to complete the missions. I do not know what happens after the dreams, but I’m sure my godmother will explain things to you. I honestly have no idea why you’re here after the dreams end, but here we are. If I fail to complete the dreams, I fear this may be the last we see of each other.”

Sakura bowed. “While I’m sure you are eager to go back to your daily lives, I hope you can lend me your help in this matter, although I do not have much to offer you. But do not fear, I was told after the twelve nights are up and we return to our places, not a single second will pass.” After her speech, the men stayed silent and Sakura wondered if they would be fed up with staying in the castle after all. 

Suddenly Kakashi broke the silence with an angry glare, “Why do you sound like you’re burdening us with your problems? Do you really not understand anything?” He stood up and grasped her wrist, the black and red eyes burning with a simmering heat. “Sakura, do you honestly not know why we are here?”

“U-Um…” Sakura squeaked. Why was he angry? Back in court, the lords and ladies would have trysts and it was all very open — the lords played around while the ladies played coy. It was the only freedom the younger nobles had as their marriages were already set against their wills in the first place. Since she had only met these men in a dream world and they knew that, she assumed they were all in accord. After all, who would fight over her? Maybe trysts had some code of manner she messed up? Whatever the case, there was no way she’d reveal she wasn’t as experienced as she pretended to be. So she came up with a plausible answer, “Because…we are under a spell and you can’t return home?” 

“Yes and no.” Kakashi leaned closer. “You are not a burden. You are mine. I’m here because you’re here. Do you understand? If what you said about the spell is true, then our souls were going to be driven to madness until you came. With that logic, you, stupid woman, are the one completed our souls. We are here for you.”

“…!” Sakura’s breath got caught in her throat as she finally comprehended his confession. “Kakashi…I’m flattered, but whose to say the spell isn’t affecting your heart? While I pride myself on my looks, I am not foolish to believe all of you would just fall in love with me. And since even you got caught in this fallacy, I am duty bound to help set you straight. I do not know if this is a love spell betwitching you as a result from this world, but I do not want to take advantage of you that way.” She smiled gently up at the menacing man and held his cheek with her palm. “Please forgive my disbelief, but I do not want you to hate me once the spell is over.” 

Sakura had a feeling that the magic in this spell was powerful — and apparently powerful enough to fool twelve men to fall in love with her at this rate. She wasn’t a love goddess so that feat would be impossible without great magic involved. Until the end of the dreams, though, she wanted to continue exploring herself and her future so if they wanted to to join her in this sexual exploration while the dreams ran, she wouldn’t say no. There was enough talk in the hidden nooks of the castle that showcased how men really thought.

…She wasn’t taking advantage of these men, was she?

Before she could ponder ethics in magical experiences further, Kakashi pulled her toward him — only to be separated from her by Itachi. The taller man gave the rogue a look and surprisingly, Kakashi backed down and let him take over the talk. 

…They seemed way too cooperative. 

“If you need to be in the dream by midnight, then let us escort you.” Itachi bowed and held out his hand like a true gentleman. If he hadn’t kissed the daylights out of her, she would have been fooled by his genle smile. “Please, Sakura. Allow us this one pleasure. It has been a while since we talked to you.” 

Sakura gingerly took his hand, but wondered why Itachi said ‘we’ a lot. Did he team up with Kakashi? That rogue? She eyed the silver-haired rogue suspiciously, but the man only grinned at her and stood by her side. “Well, thank you.”

And so, the four men escorted her up the stairs. Somehow Kakashi and Itachi took the front and managed to block Deidara and Sasori to the back of the group. Other than that, Sakura was surprised that they escorted so calmly.

Suddenly the warrior went against the magic-users and kicked them to the wall before jumping into the room with Sakura. Kakashi called out right as he closed the door behind me, “Since you had your fun, I’m sure you won’t mind.”

Deidara cursed, “Fucking swordsman. All assholes.”

Sasori glowered at the door and tried to turn the handle — it didn’t budge. “It seems it’s war. Shall we ally together, Deidara?”

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Sakura crashed into sand as soon as she entered the dream. “Argh!” She groaned as she got to her knees. Talk about an entrance! She could see Itachi and Kakashi in the distance when suddenly sand rose around them and trapped them in it’s embrace. “Itachi! Kakashi!” Their heads were free, but the rest of their bodies were completely encased in a sand cocoon.

She ran towards them, but the sand at her feet slowly tugged her down and she began to sink. What was happening?! She panicked, but remembered there was always somebody in these dreams and she wouldn’t die so easily without a way out during a godmother’s spell. 

Taking a deep breath, she slowed her movements and studied the area. In her panic, she hadn’t noticed the crowds watching her sink and realized this was a colisseum. But how? These were banned in her kingdom for ages…How far did the dream world expand?

Focus, Sakura. She scanned the huge arena and found amongst the sand pit that made up the entire floor of the colisseum, a lone man stood unscathed. With short dark red hair, eyes outlined in black liner and a strange black tattoo on his temple. He seemed like one of the sand tribe people who occassionally sold wares in her castle’s open markets. This was the first time she’s ever seen or heard of them using sand magic.

The man raised his hand and clenched his fist and suddenly the sand rose around her as the crowd cheered. Sakura swore as she instinctively called upon deep inside her and summoned a light barrier around just as the sand collided with it’s screens. FWISH!

The man’s eyes widened before they narrowed and an insidious aura formed around him and he pointed and moved his hands in simple motions. Sand shot for her. He moved his hand and a wave of sand formed a large cone of sand that charged to pierce her shields. Itachi and Kakashi yelled her name as the sand lashed at her barrier harder and fiercer. 

Sakura yelled out, “Hey! Why are you doing this?! We’re not enemies!”

“You are my opponent!” He sneered and moved his arms wildly as more sand tried to pierce at her, but her barrier held. “DIE!!!” Like a beast whose been trapped in its cage for years, he completely lost control to his rage and those tattoos glowed orange. Suddenly a visible energy wrapped around him as a orange beast made of pure energy enveloped the lone man. It grew in size until it was a quarter of the field and towered over her as it reached the skies. 

Sakura’s jaw dropped. “Don’t tell me I have to fight that thing.” Shit. I have nothing to lose! She focused deep inside her and felt out her magic as she did in Sasori’s dungeon. More and more power surrounded her as she let her magic grow higher and higher until she was floating in the air, a glowing goddess in sparkling magic. Itachi and Kakashi were shocked at the sight of the lady’s power and their thoughts ran as they stared in appreciation, awe…and growing desire.

Once again, the man’s eyes widened and he asked, “State your name, opponent. You are a worthy contendor.”

“I am Sakura. And what is yours?”

“I am called Gaara of the Sand. The devil of the sand tribes cast here for the sin of being born.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I came here by the will of my godmother to meet you. If you will, we can leave this place together.”

“Don’t talk foolishly. You think I would believe such nonsense? There is no escape from these walls! This is the Grand Colisseum of which no one can escape its spelled bounds and all are slaves. If you will not tell me of your origins, so be it. Let us continue our fight to the death!” He chaged at her and a giant paw slashed down at her.

Sakura dodged and raised her arm. “I guess I’ll have to fight to get you to listen, huh? Fine! But I WILL take you away from here, Gaara!” That had to be the reason she was sent here. It was obvious — his soul was stuck in this colisseum so the lesson must be to free him! “I’ll force you to listen!” Magic shot out of her hand and the paw clashed against her burst of magic. 

Gaara drew his hand back and hissed. “You are strong.”

“Thank you. It’s a surprise to me, too.”

“Stop talking in riddles!!” Enraged, Gaara roared and the beast echoed his roar so the whole arena shook at his voice. Tornadoes of sand spun all over the field and surrounded her. Sakura peeked down at her men and saw they were still tucked away safely despite the chaos.

Huh. For a beserk angry man, he either didn’t randomly kill those not in an official duel with him out of honor or he was waiting to kill her first. In any case, they were too safe when the entire field was a battlefield of tornadoes. He had many opportunities to make it tough on me by targeting them. Maybe…he didn’t really want to kill.

Suddenly the tornadoes rose higher and higher until they towered over her and fell onto her as a mountain sand that sought to engulf her. 

“SAKURAAAA!!!” 

Sakura was completely encased in the floating mountain of sand. She almost suffocated under the sand prison. In a desperate bid, she channeled all her power from within and let the magic completely burst out of her.

BOOOOOM!!!

The explosive magic disperesed the sand prison into a mere cloud and Gaara was struck down by the whiplash as he crashed to the ground.

Sakura found herself floating to the ground through her own power and was amazed. She had never used her magic on this scale before. When she landed, she walked up to the fallen man and saw him barely stagger to his feet, his eyes still lost to his power. The crowds cheered and a dark anger filled her. She channeled her power again and this time blasted away with the man while pulling Itachi and Kakashi’s sand cocoons up to follow behind her. In an instant, the group disappeared from the colisseum to the shock of the crowd.

After flying through the skies, Sakura found a small oasis in the desert. She made sure no one was within the area before landing on the sand. As soon as they landed, the sand fell from Itachi and Kakashi and the two instantly ran toward her only to stop short as she raised her hand. She gave them a sharp look and they stood away to let her work. Then she cradled Gaara’s head sent some of her magic into him in a bid to heal his head and also calm the beast within.

Soon, his eyes fluttered open and he gazed up at the beauty. “Y-You…”

“Shh.” She smiled down. “You’re free now. We’re far away from the colisseum. You’re safe now, Gaara.”

“Free? But why? I almost killed you…” Gaara gazed up at her in confusion as he slowly gained his wits back. 

“And I almost killed you. We were plunged in an arena of death, so please, tell me you don’t want to revert back to fighting each other.” The colisseum was known to be a cruel and vicious place where slaves were pitted against each other to the deaths, so while she could fight him, she couldn’t hate him. It disgusted her that the evil still existed.

“…No. I do not want to kill you.” Gaara didn’t know what these feelings were. He just…felt sad he almost killed her in his blindness. She…”I can’t believe you’d spare me. No one spares me.”

“Like I said before, I was sent to help you. And also because you looked like you didn’t want to kill without honor or my friends here would have been suffocated already.” Sakura waved to Kakashi and Itachi. “Come and join us. You don’t have to be in that evil place any longer.”

Gaara struggled to fathom his sudden freedom, but once he gave Sakura a deeper look, he was entranced. For the first time, someone wasn’t afraid of what he could do and who he was. And she was beautiful. “I feel like you are a dream and I’ll wake up in my cage again.” Unbidden tears started to water his eyes, but he blinked them back. “You are called Sakura, yes? Then I owe you my life.” The tattered warrior struggeld to his knees and found his balance before kneeling before her. 

The sand warrior solemnly proclaimed, “You have my vow — I will protect you with my life with this life-debt.” He thumped his bare chest with his fist. “As witnessed by the all-seeing eye of Shukaku.”

“Well, Sakura, now that you’re done with him, pay attention to us.” Itachi walked up to the sitting pair and stooped down to Sakura’s side, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I’ve never seen such power before. I knew you were an angel, but I didn’t realize you were a fighting one.” His eyes bore into hers with desire.

Kakashi came to her other side and wrapped his arm around her waist, tugging her close to him. “You’ve certainly packed a punch since our last run in with trouble. These dreams are more than saving my rivals, huh? Then I approve. The stronger you are, the safer you can be.” Then he leaned in and whispered, “And you can show me that strength in bed, Sakura.” He smirked.

Sakura blushed at the sudden attacks and soon Itachi finally tasted her lips as Kakashi sunk his teeth into her neck, taking in her scent that eluded him the past few days. Their hands roamed over her body as Sakura became used to their ministrations. 

“Come here, boy.” Kakashi gave a knowing look to Sakura before waving Gaara over. His angel was really quite a greedy little succubus. One minute she was an innocent little princess then the next she was a little devil who played with his mind and he found himself liking it. It was never a dull moment with her. “The lady calls you.”

The gladiator gulped at the sight of his newfound heroine lost to her lust. His heart thumped. He had never been near the fairer sex during his time in the battlefield and even before when he lived in a small village, ostracized by those who feared the mortal child of a sand demon. He couldn’t grasp the depth of his feelings, but he knew he wanted her. And a demonic urge came over him as his eyes flashed.

The desert itself seemed to roil as Gaara lost control of himself for a moment. With shaking hands, he crawled closer to Sakura and he touched her cheek like he was worshipping a goddess.

Kakashi and Itachi gave the two a bit of space and let the young man closer. By now, they had grown accustomed to vying for Sakura with others and realized the only chance at retaining the goddess was through compromise. So they formed an unspoken code of respect for her and acknowledged Gaara as one of the men who will join their league. 

Sakura’s face grew hotter as she realized the other men were working together to let Gaara through. She felt their hot gazes over her and she realized she wasn’t embarrassed. What she felt was…accepted. Sakura had long ago gave up any notion of returning to the life of a prim and proper lady who would only bear children as one would milk a cow. No. She craved a life of freedom and service. The fact that these men welcomed this side of her made her smile. It wasn’t normal, it would certainly have her disinherited, but she didn’t care. 

And so, Sakura pulled Gaara closer and pressed her lips to his. “Let us enjoy our freedom together, Gaara.” She felt the warrior wrap her in his arms and she realized that she barely wore anything in the first place. She was so distracted by escaping than by the battle that she never noticed. Gaara easily pulled off her thin brown dress and marveled at her body. A beastly fire consumed his sanity as he started to ravage her.

“Ahn…!” Sakura moaned as the eager man fondled and licked her all over, his hard hands squeezing her breasts as he rubbed her sides. Just as he was about to lower his pants, Itachi stepped in.

“Slow down or you’ll hurt her. Watch. This is how you treat a woman.” Then like an older comrade teaching his younger peer how to do things for the first time, he moved to spread Sakura’s legs and showed how to get her wet. “Make sure to do this for both of you to receive the maximum pleasure.”

Sakura felt Itachi’s fingers move inside her, teasing her clit and then rubbing within as Gaara watched with an attentive gaze. She blushed at their stares and that’s when Kakashi distracted her by capturing her lips. “Mm!”

His tongue entwined with hers as he explored her mouth and his heterochromia eyes leered down at hers. He played with her lips while something thick pressed against her and she glanced down to see Gaara beginning to enter her. She moaned as his object pressed against her hole and stuffed her slowly as he slid in.

Kakashi watched her expressions with rapture as he gave a wicked smirk then sneered, “You like being watched, don’t you? You little tease!” He let go of her lips then kissed down her neck as he held her upright in his lap while Gaara pressed forward. 

Kakashi bit her neck a bit then held her breasts in his hands, enjoying the way they bounced in his palms like little bunnies. “I’ve missed you, lovelies.”  He twisted her nipples a bit then flicked them with his thumbs. 

Sakura hissed in pleasure at the men as Gaara started to pound into her under Itachi’s watch. She screamed when he hit her deepest spot, “Ahhh!”

“That’s it, make her scream. Driver her absolutely insane with pleasure.” Itachi encouraged the red devil of a man like another devil himself. His dark eyes lit in perverse pleasure as Sakura threw her head back in ecstasy. 

And so, the three had a long evening of rapture as Itachi played devil’s advocate to Gaara and eventually taking over when the gladiator had his fill. Like Kakashi, the sharp man knew the only way to keep Sakura tied to them was to compromise with the other souls in her charge. After all, an angel couldn’t be held by any mere mortals in his opinion. 

One by one, they finally released themselves into Sakura as they relished her soft touch, those clear eyes and that happy smile. The woman who suddenly fell into their lives was the only thing keeping them sane. Each one of them were on death’s cusp as various circumstances led them down darker paths.

Sakura was their light. And now revealed to be a most powerful mage herself. If they didn’t tie her affections to them now, no matter the price, then they might just lose her forever to those skies she fell from. 

“Sakura…” Never leave us.

Soon they fell asleep in each others’ arms and the world flashed as they disappeared in a burst of light.

Then a voice echoed in the skies,

[Dream Five Complete]

[Reward: The Empathy and Insight On When To Still One’s Hand and Show Compassion Towards a Helpless Enemy. Also achieved Higher Harmony With Souls — Link Effect Achieved: Advanced Body Constitution For All in Linked Souls Network Available Once Spell Complete].

And a fairy godmother’s voice rang out in laughter, “Very promising. Gather your guardians, dear one.”

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