Sakura rushed to the hospital. She was running as fast as she could and she was trying desperately to beat the ANBU there. Her heart was racing. Not because of the running, but because she was in a complete panic as she made her way through Konoha. She tried to recall the last time she was this upset over hearing the news of a fellow ninja needing emergency treatment. She couldn't.

She managed to beat ANBU only by a few minutes, but that was enough time for her to gather a staff of nurses and fellow medics and prepare the operating room for emergency surgery. ANBU busted into the room and laid the injured ninja on the operating table in front of her. In all her years of training with Tsunade-sama and becoming one of the elite medical ninja of Konoha, she had never seen so much blood. She shed a tear before she went to work.

"You fool…," she whispered under her breath.

Hatake Kakashi had been her sensei since she was 12. Along with Tsunade-sama, he had taught her everything she knows. He was her teacher. He was her leader. He protected her. Along with Naruto and Sasuke, he was one of the most important people in her life. She couldn't bear to see him like this.

She had treated his injuries several times before, but he was never in this dire of a state. He was completely unconscious when ANBU brought him in. It was probably better, she thought to herself. The pain would've been unbearable otherwise.

As she and her staff worked frantically for hours on his injuries, Sasuke and Naruto rushed to the hospital as soon as they caught the news of what had happened to their sensei. As they tore through the corridors of the hospital, they were greeted… more liked blocked… by the imposing figures of Asuma and Genma.

"How is he doing?," blurted Naruto.

"Sakura's working on him now," Asuma replied.

"It's been a couple of hours," Genma added. "We haven't had any news yet."

Asuma and Genma led the frantic Naruto and Sasuke into the waiting room where they were met with a room full of Konoha's best ninjas. Kurenai greeted them with her usual gracious and beautiful smile and offered them hot tea. They sat next to her. Naruto looked visibly distraught and while Sasuke tried not to reveal his emotions, the lone sign of his anxiousness could be caught only by the endless fidgeting of his left leg.

"Kakashi-senpai will be OK," Kurenai said to him reassuredly as she gently placed a hand on his leg to calm him down. The truth was, no one knew whether that was true or not, but Kurenai loved him as a teacher and friend as well and couldn't bring herself to think anything otherwise.

The room was deadly silent and the tension was suffocating everyone in it.

"I remember one time, I was on a mission to the Country of Sound with him and on the way there, we ran into enemy shinobi," Gai blurted out all of a sudden. Everyone in the room turned to look at him. "We were surrounded, but we weren't too worried. We dealt with larger ambushes before. I decided to make a challenge out of it. 'I bet I can kill more than you,' I bragged to him. He ignored me in his usual hip, cool way, but I took the bet seriously. In fact… I got so caught up in keeping tally, I got careless for a second. That's all it took. One of the shinobi that had been in hiding during the fight came at me from behind. I didn't realize his presence in time, but Kakashi… because he always puts his team before himself… had been watching my back as well as his own and jumped in at the last second to kill that shinobi. Unfortunately, the shinobi's kunai managed to stab him in the abdomen as a result. He kept fighting with his injury, but as soon as we had taken care of all the enemy shinobi, I threw him over my shoulder and managed to get him to a local clinic to treat his wound… He won the challenge that day, 23 to 22."

After an extended pause, Naruto said, "He saved us from Zabuza on our first real mission as Genin."

"He tried his best to save me from Orochimaru. He tried to seal my curse and taught me his only original move in the hopes that it would save me from my own self…," Sasuke's voice trailed off. Everyone turned to look at him in surprise. He tended not to ever refer to that period of his life. Ever since his return, he tended not to talk to anyone at all other than his three teammates.

"He was one of the Jounin that jumped in to help me at the Chuunin exam years ago when it looked as though Neji was going to attack me after the match had been called," Hinata said in her soft-spoken voice as she looked around the room at the other Jounin that had been there for her that day as well with a grateful smile.

"He saved us from Kisame and Itachi," Kurenai added.

Asuma nodded in agreement, "And took one hell of a punishment for it."

The atmosphere in the room lightened up dramatically as everyone shared their personal stories of Konoha's favorite scarecrow.

Back in the operating room, Sakura was closing up the last of the major wounds on Kakashi's body. His uniform had been practically ripped to shreds from his fight. She smiled a little on the inside when she thought to herself, but of course, your mask is still fully intact.

Just then the injured shinobi on the table started coughing up blood. Sakura panicked as she wasn't ready for her patient to wake up just yet. He seemed to be having trouble breathing through his mask as well. She reached to pull down his mask, but hesitated when her hand touched his face. I have no idea what you look like, Sensei, she thought to herself. As the head medic at the Konoha hospital, she had full permission to take off the masks of wounded ANBU ninjas if it was required for their surgery. Although she was sure it was not against any rules or laws to take off Kakashi's mask to allow him to breath and check any injuries on his face, she wasn't sure if she had his permission.

"What is wrong with me?," she said and proceeded to gently tear away the mask from his face. After being as gentle as she could be, she raised an eyebrow and narrowed her eyes in a look of confused anger.

"Idiot," she growled as she saw the second mask underneath the first. Again, she tore off the second one just as gently as she had the first.

When the mask came off, she just stood there frozen for a second. He really is handsome, she thought. She always knew he was an attractive man even if she had only ever seen half of his face. But she never really considered just how attractive he really is. She snapped back into reality when she heard one of the nurses sigh.

After more than ten hours of surgery, an exhausted Sakura finally left the operating room to let all the ninja in the waiting room know the condition of their friend. Everyone was relieved.