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The contractions rolled through her like collapsing stone, deep and shuddering, each one stealing her breath before she could fully catch it. Sakura pressed her palms into the cool cave floor, sweat slicking her skin despite the chill that seeped in from the storm outside. The air smelt of wet earth.
Karin Uzumaki worked quickly beside her, hands steady even as the wind shrieked across the mountain ridge. The storm had come too fast for them to find better shelter, forcing them to duck into this half-open cave with the mouth exposed to the thrashing rain. Water sleeted down the entrance, loud enough to drown out everything except Sakura’s own pulse.
Except him.
Itachi Uchiha stood at the cave mouth like he had been carved there. He was motionless, alert, a single dark silhouette against the slate-gray world. The hem of his cloak snapped in the wind. Every few seconds the faint glow of his Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan flickered red, peering out into the darkening world, watching for what lay beyond this temporary shelter. Always watching.
Sakura sucked in a breath, another contraction tightening low in her abdomen. “Haa—Karin—how far—?”
“You’re progressing fast,” Karin said, pushing sweat-damp pink hair from Sakura’s forehead. “But don’t rush! Breathe. You know how to ease the muscles—good, good—like that.”
Sakura nodded, shaky. Whatever strength she had left, she clung to it. However, the moment another wave clenched through her, her gaze snapped toward the entrance again. Toward him.
He hadn’t turned around once during the entire ordeal, not even when Sakura had cried out the first time. He simply stood, back straight, posture deceptively calm. Yet she knew he was tracking every movement, every sound, every approaching chakra signature for miles. In this world, no one birthed a child without a lookout. Not when the Otsutsuki hunted anything with chakra. Still…knowing that he was the one guarding her eased something inside her chest.
A flash of lightning illuminated the cave, stark and white. For a heartbeat she saw his profile. Wet strands of dark hair plastered to his cheek, jaw set in that unreadable calm he wore like armor. His eyes gleamed scarlet, whorls spinning slowly. Eternal and reliable.
Sakura swallowed, her throat tight. They barely knew each other beyond necessity. Beyond Tsunade’s orders. Beyond the quiet, strange nights sharing a bedroll because there was no privacy in the wilderness and even less time to pretend things were normal. He had never touched her unkindly. Never spoken more than he needed. Never asked for more than she could give.
He simply…was. Present in ways she didn’t always understand, attentive in ways that unsettled her more than they comforted her. And now he was the one standing between her and every threat in this dying world.
Another contraction tore through her, sharp and punishing. Sakura gritted her teeth, laying back against the animal skin hide that had been tossed hastily beneath her. “Fuck, that one hurt.”
Karin snorted. “They’re supposed to. Stop clenching your jaw, you’ll tire yourself out.” She placed firm hands on Sakura’s hips, adjusting her position. “You’re almost fully dilated. Just a little longer.”
The thunder cracked again, louder this time, echoing through the stone cavern. Sakura’s fingers dug into her shirt. She forced herself to breathe, to focus on Karin’s voice, on the warmth of the chakra glowing faintly beneath the woman’s palm…but her gaze kept drifting back to him.
To the broad set of his shoulders. To that unwavering stillness. To the crimson glow that told her, without a single word, that he would kill anything that dared approach her.
And some part of her…some small, exhausted part…found that more reassuring than any medical jutsu she knew. Her breath hitched as another contraction seized her, and this time, a low sound escaped her throat.
Not pain this time, fear. The reality of what was about to change finally washing over her like a tidal wave.
Karin leaned in, brushing Sakura’s hair aside. “It’s happening. The next pushes will get the baby out, okay?”
Sakura barely heard her. Her vision blurred as she looked toward the cave mouth again. “Itachi,” she called before she could stop herself. The sound of her voice held great unease, something she was sure he would pick up on.
He didn’t turn fully. Just a shift of his head, a slight tilt in their direction. Enough to show he had heard her. Enough for her to see the glow of his eyes, softer now, focus flicking from the storm to her trembling form. “I am here,” he said quietly, voice steady despite the thunder.
Something in her loosened. The knot in her chest that held the fear and the loneliness of carrying a child into a dying world.
He didn’t turn away. Not this time. His gaze held hers across the cave, red eyes unwavering, and for the first time since the contractions began, Sakura felt grounded and safe. Protected.
Karin glanced between them, then muttered, “Stay focused, Sakura. We’re bringing this child into the world now.”
Sakura exhaled shakily, nodding, and reached for the strength she had left. The next contraction didn’t give her time to brace. It hit like a kunai to the spine. Sakura’s breath broke into pieces, her hands clawing at the furs beneath her. She dimly heard Karin’s voice, steady and attempting to guide her, but the world narrowed to pain and instinct and the overwhelming pressure building low in her body.
“Good—good, Sakura, that’s it,” Karin urged, her voice rough but encouraging. “One more. I can see the head."
Lightning cracked again, flooding the cave in white-blue light and Sakura’s eyes flickered to him again. The Mangekyo Sharingan glowed red, the tomoe pattern rotating slowly as he scanned the storm. Water drenched his hair, matted his cloak to his body, but he never wavered. Never shifted his stance. Never once turned fully from the outside world.
Sakura knew that nothing was getting past him, the last of his clan, without a fight. Not when she was bringing his child into this world.
Another contraction ripped through her and she cried out in anguish. Karin’s eyes were focused on the baby as she began to crown. “This is it. Sakura, push!”
The pink-haired kunoichi gathered the last of her strength, gritting her teeth, breath shuddering…and pushed. The pressure split open, sharp and burning. Sakura screamed so loudly, so gutturally, that she felt her throat grow raw as pain splintered through her nerves.
Karin’s voice broke into a breathless laugh. “Head’s out. One more. Just one!” Sakura didn’t think—couldn’t think—she bore down with a strangled sob, the pain cresting and then....relief. A release like a dam breaking.
Sakura fell back onto the furs in a slump, her breathing ragged. And then a piercing cry broke through her momentary repose.
Thin at first, startled, wet with new breath. The most fragile, furious sound Sakura had ever heard. A sound that punched through the storm, through the cave, through the pounding of her own heartbeat.
A baby’s cry. Her baby’s cry.
Karin lifted the tiny, slippery body with practiced hands, wiping her quickly with a cloth they’d boiled hours before. “She—Sakura, she’s a girl. She’s perfect.”
Sakura’s vision blurred instantly, heat filling her eyes. “A…girl?”
Her body trembled, not from pain now, but from something worse. Something deeper.
Awe? Maybe fear. Most definitely love so immediate it nearly drowned her.
A girl. Her daughter. Her and—
Lightning slammed again, reverberating through the ground and stone that sheltered them. It snapped her out of her momentary daze, ripping her back to reality.
Sakura jerked her head toward the entrance. Itachi had turned. Fully, this time. For the first time since her labours had begun, his entire body shifted away from the storm.
He faced them. Rain dripped down his jaw, his eyelashes, his chin. He looked…frozen, somehow. As if the world had stopped along with him.
His gaze moved, almost cautiously, from Sakura’s exhausted form…to the tiny bundle in Karin’s hands with it's wailing cry that echoed against the cave walls. A single tremor passed through his form. Then, with a sharp exhale visible in the damp and cold air, Itachi turned back to the storm.
Not to ignore them, Sakura knew the difference, but because there was danger in staying still. Because the baby’s cry carried like a flare of chakra into the wilderness.
Because that was his role in this. His vow.
To protect. To kill whatever came for them.
Something had changed in him though. Sakura could feel it, could see it. In the subtle tilt of his head, the slight, rigid tension hovering between his shoulder blades. He wasn’t guarding their group anymore. He was guarding her child. Their child. Their sweet little girl.
Karin settled the newborn into Sakura’s trembling arms. Warm and so small. So impossibly tiny Sakura thought the darling might break under the weight of holding her.
“Hey there,” Sakura whispered, voice cracking apart like thin ice. Tears fell freely now, dripping onto the baby’s wrinkled forehead. “Oh gods…hi.”
Her daughter hiccuped, then wailed again. Itachi shifted at the sound, head tilting just enough to show he was listening, tracking, memorizing the pitch and rhythm of the cry like it was a coded message only he needed to understand. Sakura breathed in the baby’s scent, new and sharp and real and whispered, “Itachi…she’s here.”
He didn’t turn, but she saw the faintest incline of his head. A subtle nod. Acknowledgment, acceptance. Though he said nothing, Sakura somehow knew.
He had already marked the child’s heartbeat, her chakra flicker, her cry. He would know her anywhere. Protect her against anything. Stand vigil until his bones turned to ash. Outside, thunder cracked. Inside, Sakura held her daughter close. And Itachi Uchiha stood guard...unmoving, unyielding, and no longer alone.
No longer the last Uchiha.