A/N: As a reader, I want to love Sakura as a character so very much but it's hard to see her fail again and again, first as a shinobi then as a friend, while a much weaker character like Hinata is practically shining in every scene she appears. It's almost as if Kishimoto wants us to hate the main heroine of the manga. Actually, almost all the kunoichi in this series are weaker than their male counterparts. Physically weaker I can understand but being downright stupid I cannot comprehend. So apologies for OOC-ness on the part of the kunoichi that appear in this fic, I am way too conscious of the bashing of the fairer sex in reality to do it in fictional universes.

A/N 2: Major exams coming up. Will be gone for a while... but before I go, here is the first of a few flashback chapters. Might throw some light on why Tenten decided to take the mission to Suna with Shikamaru and why he readily offered her a place in the team.

The Promises that Cannot be Kept

Flashback Chapter 1

Snow.

That was all she could see: the vast whiteness of the snowy skies. She couldn't see where the skies ended and the earth began; it was like the world ceased to exist and all that remained was white. The falling snowflakes were enchanting: they spiraled high and swirled low, dancing to a far-away melody in the wind. Tenten felt so, so small in this snowy landscape. The snow cascaded down as though to envelop her, falling around her like starlight. She was but one small speck in this pristine pure snowscape. One black smudge on a rolling canvass of white waiting to be erased. She had never felt this alone.

"Tenten, Tenten!"

Tenten felt someone move her head. She willed her body to respond but she couldn't muster the energy to move. Her body must have started to become one with the snow. It is hard to resist something so magical. The energy seemed to seep out of her through the pores on her skin. The whiteness was bleak and glaring now. Oh, how dearly she wanted to close her eyes and sleep.

"Tenten, stay with me. Tenten do you hear me? Stay with me!" Shikamaru pleaded as he cradled her head in his lap. He took off his thick woolen cloak and covered the kunoichi with it. Her skin was a patchwork of red and white and felt cold to the touch. Damnit. Please don't let me be too late.

"Sakura! Please! Where are you? SAKURA!" the helpless genius cried into the wind.

It wasn't supposed to happen this way. The mission had gone too well. Ino and Sakura had infiltrated the castle easily, blending into the mix of handmaidens in the ooku. They had retrieved the stolen artifacts and rendezvoused with Tenten who annihilated an entire garrison of guards in the courtyard and gatehouse with just senbons laced with sleeping draught, breaking them out of the castle.

What they underestimated was how shrewd the bored and gossipy women in the castle were. They had noticed Ino with Chouji during their surreptitious meetings at night, alerting the staff in the castle. They had fallen into a trap. The kunoichi managed to reach their meeting point near the forests when they were ambushed by a team of ninja.

He recalled the fight with bitterness.

They were outnumbered five to one. Ino had performed her mind-body switch jutsu, leaving Shikamaru with her limp body. The two long-distance jutsu users worked from the back, driving the ninja towards the rampaging meat-tank with kage shibari no jutsu and having her picking them off the stragglers with a rain of weapons. The amount of concentration and chakra needed to fight not just against the enemy but the bleak weather was daunting. Shikamaru saw that Tenten was running low on weapons. They had not anticipated such a large fighting force.

It took one mistake; one of the enemy had managed to break through the front line of Chouji's meattank and Sakura's superstrength to reach the long-distance jutsu users. Shikamaru disengaged his shadow jutsu and was ready to block the man's released shuriken when he realized that the projectiles were not aimed for him but rather his sleeping partner. Using his shadow jutsu, he manouevred Yamanaka's sleeping body out of harm's way but turned his head only to find a set of fuma shuriken headed their way. Clank! Tenten managed to deflect one of the shuriken with her own but without a ready weapon, she found the other buried in her side. Her body had moved to block Ino's.

Shikamaru remembered shouting at Tenten to disengage the enemy but she had smiled at him before jumping straight back into the battle. They drifted apart.

After the battle, he followed the trail of blood to find her in the snow not far from where the main battle had taken place with four shinobi corpses around. She had drawn them away from Shikamaru and Ino in a bid to finish them off.

"Sakura is with Chouji, he's hurt," Ino replied. The blonde had rushed over with a medic kit. She herself was not in good shape; her right leg was limping and a wide gash across her back was still fresh with blood. "Let me take a look at her."

Shikamaru watched as Ino placed three fingers on Tenten's frigid skin. The medic-nin's hands glowed blue as they worked on the wounds in their downed teammate. Tenten had stopped shivering a while ago. Shikamaru knew this was not a good sign.

"Ino. Tell me you can save her."

Ino bit her lip.

"She's not responding to my treatment. Her lung is punctured and the frostbite is pretty severe. She's… She's almost gone, Shika…" Ino managed before the Nara swore.

Tenten's breathing shallowed.

"She's not breathing, Ino."

"Can't you see I'm trying my best?"

Tenten's fingers felt like ice. Even if they could save her life, could she still hold her shurikens after this? Shikamaru scrambled to get the hot water bottle from the kit. He was about to apply heat to the injured kunoichi when he was stopped by a feminine voice.

"Stop, Captain. The hot water bottle won't help frostbite now," Sakura advised as she helped Chouji over to the group.

The pink-haired medic-nin took her place next to Ino. With both hands imbued with healing chakra, Sakura concentrated on Tenten's wounds and frostbitten extremities. She took the fallen kunoichi's temperature, frowned, and continued the treatment.

Finally, Sakura stopped.

"Her core body temperature is too low. She will be dead in an hour," the medic-nin declared, clearly exhausted from the overexertion. "But there is something I can try."

With a frown between her brows, Sakura reached for a scroll in her pouch. She spread it across the snow.

"T-that's not a life-force transferring jutsu is it…" Ino stuttered.

"Sakura-"

"Don't worry Shikamaru. That technique was lost with Chiyo-baasama," Sakura intoned with sadness. "This is something I made myself."

Turning to Shikamaru, Sakura said, "I can't guarantee that it will work. I don't have enough chakra to do this myself."

Shikamaru nodded. He asked the medic-nin to use his. Ino widened her eyes in surprise. She reached out to grab her captain's arm as he reached out for the scroll but one look at his determined eyes made her weaken her grasp.

"This is not a healing jutsu. I am connecting your chakra pathway to hers. Using your life to maintain hers, until we can get her back to a warm area. I don't quite know what the side effects will-"

"Do it."

Shikamaru was tired of the snowy landscape. We are all going home today. Ino and Chouji were low on chakra themselves but Shikamaru who had stayed behind to ensure the safety of Ino and the artifacts still had enough chakra to give. He placed his hands above Sakura's gloved ones. She nodded.