Warning Contains: Language and blood.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto

Hello Lovelies,

I'm a bit nervous to present this new idea to you! The level of anxiety I'm feeling makes me wonder how I posted any of my other stories. Maybe it's because I've been off the proverbial horse for a while now. But I hope like the others that this is well received.

As you may have noticed, there is no cover art for this story. I'd thought I would leave that to you. So if you don't mind making some art for this story and sharing it with me? Maybe some where down the road a chapter will speak to you and it might inspire something amazing. I for one can't draw to save my life (of photoshop) so it would be much appreciated if y'all could help a gal out. :) If I have several submissions I decided that the readers of this story can choose from them. I've never done this before so we'll be learning and experimenting together. Thanks in advance. :)

Anyways, I hope you really enjoy reading this story as much as I enjoy writing it. So please read, review, and enjoy. Until next time folks!

~L.H.

Chapter One: Fallen from then Sky

She cursed her luck.

This was very typical of what her life was about now. Trouble. Trouble seemed to follow her around like a ghost that she could not shake, no matter how hard she tried. And something was not right. She could feel it in the air. She could practically taste it in the air. Trouble and lots of it was going to insert itself into her life.

It was partially her fault, she realized. A normal person would head away from the blinding light that had caught her attention. A normal person would have simply turned a blind eye and feigned ignorance. Because after all, ignorance is bliss and bliss sounded really good right about now, her life needed a little bit of bliss. Just a little, she did not think she was being greedy or unreasonable with the want.

A normal person would have simply shrugged their shoulders and been on their merry way. But she was not a normal person. It would be more accurate to depict her as the exact opposite of a normal person. Even in a room full of ninjas, she was the least normal one. Her childhood was abnormal for a shinobi. Her normalcy was an abnormality by shinobi standards.

So that explained why she was pushing herself for Kami knows what. Her boots snapped the myriad of thin twigs underfoot with each step. She lengthened her strides. Her lungs burned, her ankles protested, a thin layer of sweat coated her forehead. She had this coming. This was what she got for neglecting her training and not eating correctly.

It had been a stressful few last months. She was still getting used to her new job, her new title, her new life, and her new responsibilities. Being named Head Medic was nothing like she would have imagined. There was more paperwork and less lifesaving that she was expecting. The paperwork, it was endless. She could not remember the last time she had set foot in her parent's house. But she figured that she could not completely blame the job for that. There was something else involved. There was always something else at play. Sometimes life just really sucked.

Things had started to pile up on her but that was no excuse. She was a kunoichi. Fitness and health should always come first. There were no excused for how far she had regressed in terms of stamina and endurance. It was embarrassing. But thankfully she was the only one around to witness the pathetic display. This was the humbling that she had coming long ago. Maybe she would now think twice before declining the sparing sessions the boys always invited her to.

She had been avoiding them. It had gotten so bad that she was sure they forgot what her face even looked like. She was avoiding them like she was avoiding a lot of things lately. It was just in her nature. It was just who she had grown up to be. She ran. She ran instead of facing things. She ran the second things got hard when it came to her personal life. For all the figurative running she was doing, Sakura was slightly disappointed that literally running was posing such a challenge to her.

She bit the corner of her mouth. There was a stitch in her side but she did not have the time to stop. She needed to move. Her jade eyes took in the dreary, overcast sky. The weather was horrid. It was going to rain and it was just in her cards. The whole month of October had been nice up until this day, her first day off in over two years. It was also no coincidence that today was his birthday and she had already been running late.

She could not be a no-show. Not today. He needed them all there. She had to be there for him today of all days. Naruto did not expect much from her yet she still managed to disappoint him. She had promised herself that today would be different. This year would be different. She would finally get around to making it up to him. She would finally make herself more available to her team. This was the year that she finally put them first again.

It was off to a rocky start. She was supposed to be at the bar over a half hour ago. But she figured she could not help her tardiness. She blew a strand from her forehead. She had a bad feeling about this. She had a really bad feeling about this. Surely she could not have been the only one to the blinding beam of light that had erupted somewhere deep on the outskirts of Konoha? Surely someone else should have noticed? Someone was coming, right?

Sakura bit back a curse as she stumbled. She caught herself before she landed face first in the dirt. She was quick to recover. She really did need to start making time for the bi-weekly training sessions her boys held. That would be the first thing she did when she got to her office. She would put it at the top of the list. This was getting pretty damn ridiculous. She could almost hear the laughter that must be filling the tiny watering hole that her friends loved to go to. She could practically picture the large pout that would be on his face when she finally did make it to wish him happy birthday. But she knew he would never hold it against her.

He was good like that but that did not keep the guilt from settling in her stomach. She pushed her legs to the spot where the source of light, maybe it was a bolt of lightning, had fallen. It was a hunch. Maybe it would be nothing. Maybe she was just being paranoid. But she could have sworn that she saw something-or rather someone- falling from the sky.

It had been a speck of color that had followed the white. She had seen it hurl downwards. Head first and that was what had made her push rhyme and reason out the window. Someone needed her. And that took priority above all else. She had taken an oath to heal, to help, to mend. And Sakura did not take the oath lightly. The oath was what she lived her life by. It was her nindo. It was what she prided herself on. What kind of hypocritical person would she be to turn her back on someone now?

Now the initial shock and adrenaline were beginning to wane. Now her brain was kicking it into overdrive trying to justify why it would not be all bad if she just took a second to assess the situation. To figure out and analyze what she definitively saw and what she may have thought she saw. At this moment in time she was beginning to overthink the whole thing to death.

The more she reran it through her head the more she began to doubt herself. People did not fall from the sky. But here she was, chasing it.

It was the medic in her telling her to move faster than her body could handle. It was the medic in her screaming at her that she needed to help who ever had fallen. She was chasing the idea of it. The person had fallen over six thousand feet. They would need her.

'I'm sorry Naruto. You'll have to bit a little longer.' She sent out a silent apology to her best friend. He would understand. Even when her other friends did not he did. He always had her back. He never got tired of defending her. He would always forgive her even if she did not deserve to be forgiven.

Part of her could not help but wonder if she had made the whole thing up as an act of desperation to escape the first get together with her friends since her…she shook her head. She refused to give into 'what-if's'. She had a hunch and she was going to see in through. What was another fifteen minutes? She was so close anyway. It would be a mistake to turn back now.

She pushed herself harder when she saw the clearing. She nearly cried out in relief. She did not know how much longer she could have sustained her frantic pace. She had been running like a mad man was chasing her. The crunching branches and the hollowing winds did not register in her ears. The blood was pounding too loudly in them for her to hear anything other than the beating of her own heart. Sakura came to an abrupt stop. She kicked up dirt and dust as she did so. Her heart froze. "Kami," she muttered in horrified awe. She lifted her head as much as she could.

She could clearly see every branch he hit on his way down. The broken branches left no delusions for her now. This was real. This was very much real. She could see every splinter that had met him with what had to be painful resistance. Her hand came to cover her mouth. Her eyes were wide. Her brain had completely shut off.

He was lying face down, unmoving. He was laying a pool of his own blood. Or rather, it could have been an ocean. He had a gaping hole that allowed her to completely see through him. But that was not what caused her blood to freeze inside her veins. His cloak, his iconic, unforgettable, unmistakable cloak it told her all she needed to know about his identity. 'Kami.'

Just what had she stumbled upon?

She continued to take in his broken form from a distance. Her wide, unbelieving eyes kept blinking but the image before her never changed. Time got away from her. She did not know how long she stood staring at him as if she was made completely of marble. She was a statue incapable of movement, speech. She was incapable of thought.

He moaned. The sound startled her out of her shocked state. Sakura the kunoichi was pushed back and Sakura the medic took over. She knelt over him. From a cursory glance she deducted that he had a broken arm, he had a deep laceration on his temple but what was her major concern was the gaping hole in his back and chest. She could literally put her arm right through him.

She brought her steady hand to his neck. His skin was even colder than her freezing hand. She concentrated on finding his pulse. It was faint but it was there. He was still alive and that she could work with. She knew how to fix people that were living. It was something that she was comfortable with.

Sakura leaned back on her ankles. She needed a plan. She needed to clear her head. Sakura ran her fingers though her hair before securing her shoulder length strands in a high ponytail. She did not distractions. Even the slightest thing could spell the end for her patient. She reached into her small evening wear purse and pulled on her gloves. It was times that this that she was thankful that Tsunade had drilled it into her that she needed to always be prepared. Medical emergencies could happen anywhere and everywhere and Sakura could not afford to be caught off guard and ill prepared.

Her first goal was to stop the bleeding. He had lost a significant amount of blood and is she did not stop more from leaving him then he was as good a gone. She did not have time to turn him over. She had to heal what she could, while she could. She would need help but she recognized that it would have to come later. She began with the first task on her mental checklist. Reducing the blood loss was of the upmost priority.

The medic exhaled sharply through her nose before repositioning herself so that she was hovering over him. Her knees and the hem of her skirt were both being coated in his thick, sticky blood but she did not have the luxury to worry about it. She brought her hands to the center of his back. The flickered green and immediately began to repair the damaged tissue of his body. She salved what she could otherwise, she removed the blackened skin.

Whatever had punctured him, and she had a pretty damn good idea of just what, had almost completely shredded his liver and some of his stomach. Her task went from stopping his blood flow to making sure that his stomach contents did not spill out of the hole and completely corrode his other organs.

"Damn it." She exclaimed in frustration. The longer she worked on him, the longer she tried to heal him, a new problem arose. He was touch and go. But she would be damned if she gave up on him now. She needed help and she needed it now. She needed someone she could trust. The issue was that in order for her to call help she needed something to keep everything where it was.

She pulled off her blouse. The mesh undershirt she was wearing did not protect her from the chilling winds but the adrenaline coursing through her kept her from feeling the cold. Sakura ripped the red, silk fabric into ribbons. Sakura packed the cavity of his wound the best she could with what she had. It was far from the ideal option especially when considering it was not sanitized, but it was his best bet. 'Beggars can't be choosers, Hokage-sama.' She refrained from saying her thoughts out loud in favor of focusing on what she had to do next.

Sakura did not waste any time, seeing that her patient did not have the slightest to spare. The medic ripped off her gloves with her teeth. With one swift motion she bit into her thumb and wiped it across her forearm. She quickly made the seals she needed.

It did not take long for her summon to reach her. She did not even give the human-sized slug a moment to greet her. "I need you to transfer him and me to the hospital. Make sure that no one sees you. Understood?" Her jade eyes flashed with seriousness. Sakura did not give her summon chance t to respond because she was already back to straddling her patient. Patching up his stomach could not wait.

The only thing working for her was Naruto's popularity. Nearly the whole village would be out to celebrate with the war hero and that means that the hospital would be a near ghost town. And that was the best thing that had happened to her all day. Katsuyu would be able to teleport them to a secluded operating room without anyone being the wiser for it.

The blue stripped slug did just as she was told. "Katsuyu, I need you to keep pumping him with chakra as I work, okay?" Again the slug merely nodded its large head. Her beady eyes never left the face of the man's. In the lighting everything was muted and his hair was matted with blood and dirty but both females knew precisely what color his hair was.

"Sakura-chan," Katsuyu began in a concerned tone. Sakura shot her a warning look. The woman carefully flipped him onto his back with the slug's help. The summon dropped the rest of her sentence as set about her work. She was in the process of absorbing them when he moaned again.

Sakura allowed herself to look at his face. His eyes were closed and he looked like he was in a great deal of pain and he was. "Katsuyu-sama, please hurry." The desperation managed to creep into Sakura's voice. The adrenaline had completely receded. The severity of the situation was finally settling on her. She could not let him die. He had come a long way and she could not fail him now.

Katsuyu hummed in agreement. Sakura waited as the world around her was slowly receding. The familiar feeling of Katsuyu's skin covered them. He would be safe with her. Transporting him in her summon was the best and only option. They almost completely engulfed.

Sakura looked at him as he moaned. His eyes were open. She gawked back at him with wide eyes and agape mouth. It was nothing short of a miracle that her hands were still doing their best to keep him stable until she could get more blood into him. "N-naruto." He croaked through raw lips.

It took everything from her to not scream in terror. His eyes, his eyes were as blue as his son's. He had Naruto's eyes. She was not ready for this. She had not prepared herself with this. He should not be conscious. His body should have been in shock. Why was he talking? Why was he moving? Why was he looking at her?!

Her brain stopped working again. She was elbow deep in his guts but all she could think about where how his eyes were the same color as his son's. That just made it too much for her to handle at the moment. She did not even have enough sense to tell him not to speak. She was too captivated by just how bizarre this whole thing was.

She was looking at Namikaze Minato. She was elbows deep in Minato's guts. He was looking at her. It was simply too much for her brain to handle. He was supposed to be dead. He was supposed to have died saving the village. He was supposed to have died for the price of sealing the kyuubi in Naruto.

She looked at him, really looked at him. His face, his face was smooth and youthful. He could not be much older than his son. He could not be much older than her. Panic surged in her as she realized that his eyes were rolling back in his head. Out of instinct she caught the back of his head before it hit the chambers of Katsuyu's body.

She spoke before she could stop herself. She grabbed either side of his head and spoke directly to him. "You can't die on me. You can't die, Yondaime. I won't let you." She barked at him. She was certain that he could not hear her but she needed to hear it. "You can't die on me. Don't you dare die on me!"

Sakura watched with a sinking feeling as the familiar sensation of her summon retreating overcame her. The world around her was stark white. They were in the hospital. Katsuyu had done her part and now it was Sakura's turn to do her job. "You can't die. I can't let you." She repeated under her breath. It became her mantra, her battle cry, her everything.

"You can't die. Not today." She said firmly as she carefully got off of him. Her summon had enough sense to move herself to the operating table before disappearing. It saved Sakura the trouble of having to lift a man who weighed more than her which usually would not be a difficult task for her but he was heavily injured. The less she jarred him the better it would be. She ripped away at the navy blue shirt that was being held together by a thread.

Sakura did not waste any time to attach a bag of blood to his arm. He needed more to go in his bloodstream and less to go out. It was only by sheer luck that she knew what his blood type was. Years ago she had spent an afternoon reading all that she could about the Hokages from the library that Tsunade gave her access too. That place was a gold mine. It even had each of the Hokage's medical records. And thanks to her photographic memory she remembered and that very much could be the thing that saved his life.

Sakura squared her shoulders and set her face in a grim line. It would be a long night. She would miss all of Naruto's birth celebration. But she did not have time to worry about something that she could not control. She had to worry about what she could.

Like for instance, saving the life of the greatest Hokage that ever lived.

Okay, it's been a while. Tell me what y'all are thinking okay? Thank you!