Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, and everything else related to that. You get it.

"Ugh…"

Sakura's memory went into hyper drive as she wearily tried to open her heavy eyelids. Her mind was hazy, and it terribly ached; she found remembering the past events quite troubling. Sitting up on the bed she was laid on, Sakura found herself in a familiar room. She was in the hospital.

She leaned on the headboard and looked outside the window. The curtains were open, and she could clearly see the dark depressing clouds that reigned in the sky. Moments later, raindrops were falling unto the window pane.

A soft knock sounded on the door.

"Who is it?" Sakura wasn't really paying attention to anything else but what happened before. When they were in the event of chasing after Sasuke, she saw a kunoichi fighting alongside him (A/N: she wasn't Karin). Actually, she saw two women—one dark-haired and spectacled (A/N: now this one is Karin.), the other one, about their age and very lovely.

She brushed the reminiscence off her mind and turned to the door, which now had Naruto closing it.

"Good morning, Sakura-chan," said Naruto. There was something different in his tone; it was heartrending and cheerless, very much unlike the usual one. He also looked quite melancholic as he walked across the room to the window. His eyebrows were crossed, and he looked awfully serious as he stared at the rainfall.

"Sakura-chan," he started again. "How should I put this?"

Sakura gaped at him. She had a hunch the news wasn't going to be a good one.

"Heh… We sure got stuck with a pretty lousy weather." He was forcing a smile, Sakura could see it. Albeit he tried to make what he was going to say sound less upsetting, it was still pretty obvious that he couldn't handle it. "Sakura-chan, what would you do if you weren't able to protect someone you love intimately?"

She saw right through his gibberish. "Just get on with it. What's wrong?"

He spun around and said, "Sasuke's condition is critical. We don't know if he's going to last long."

Sakura let out a pushed laugh, though she felt fear. "You're kidding, right?"

"I'm serious." And he did look like it.

For a moment everything around her stopped. Every single entity paused in its track, and Sakura couldn't feel anything. No. This isn't true. No. No. No. She desperately attempted to chuck out the thought. Unfortunately, though, she couldn't. Her heart started to pound tremendously fast, and her eyes swelled with hot tears. She stared at Naruto, her expression undeniably despairing.

"No… I can use medical jutsu on him!" She whimpered weakly.

Naruto seemed as distressed as Sakura was. "I don't know… Even Tsunade-bii-chan's worn out from all the research she did to heal Sasuke."

Sakura's tears flowed endlessly down her cheeks. At the same time, the rain poured even more, giving out loud thumps on the glass window. She slumped herself unto her bed, and hugged the pillow as tightly as she could. "There must be something we could do!"

Naruto, on the other hand, went to her and tried to give comfort by saying things like, "Don't worry, Sasuke's strong…" and "It'll be all right. I promised you I'll bring him back, didn't I?"

But Sakura was too bothered to listen to anything else back then. Little by little, she drifted into an alternate dimension of seclusion. She carried herself to a place where there was nothing but darkness. For a short time, she felt Naruto's touch. She felt warmth, and then nothing.

A/N: If you don't know who Karin is, she's a member of "Hebi", the team Sasuke made up for his revenge on Itachi. (Naruto Shippuuden, chapters 346-present)

Other stuff I want to say: I don't really know how many chapters this one's going to have... It'll depend. But anyway, I just hope you'll be giving reviews... And reviews... And more reviews... Tell me what's on your mind, so the next updates will be at least more enjoyable. Thanks!

Signing off...

-stEalthy heLLion