Sakura was on her knees being held steady by Sasuke. She had just had her leg broken by the last missing ninja they had been assigned to dispose of. She had been winning the fight against the dozen of missing ninja they were up against, but with only a few left, she had become cocky and lowered her guard. Something she cursed herself for when he snuck up behind her and swiftly kicked her leg out from under her as she finished off the two in front of her. The crack that came from the bone in her leg breaking was a sickening sound. Sasuke had quickly come to her rescue and sliced the foe's throat with his katana.
"I had him, you know." She said through gritted teeth as she attempted to stand. Her leg, protesting against the movement, quickly buckled beneath her, causing her knees to slam painfully into the ground and her to release a gasp of pain. She would have landed face first into the dirt had Sasuke not caught her.
"Hmph." He grunted as he held her steady. She tried to escape from his grasp, but he held firm, like iron.
"Let me go! I'm fine!" She snapped angrily at him. 'Great,' she thought 'Now he thinks I'm as weak as ever.' He gave her a look that said he didn't by a word she was saying.
"Then stand up," he said narrowing his eyes, yet keeping his voice level and cool as always. He eased his grip on her as she tried to stand. You could see the pain in her eyes, but the pink haired kunoichi was too stubborn to stop. She stood up, but immediately regretted her decision to do so when a 'crack!' came from her leg, assuring her that she had just caused the break to become even worse, and fell straight back into Sasuke's arms. "Exactly." He stated, holding her against him.
The effort it had taken to stand by herself on her broken leg had all but winded Sakura. As she tried to form the familiar orb of green chakra around her hand to heal her leg, she noticed the gash on Sasuke's arm. She healed it quickly, and then went on to heal her leg. She was able to heal it for only a moment before the orb of chakra disappeared from around her hand. She tried to concentrate the chakra back around her hand, but all she could manage was a faint glow around her palm. She let out a frustrated groan as she panted, forgetting about the onyx eyed ninja holding her.
"You should take better care of yourself." Sasuke said after watching her heal him, yet not having enough chakra to even half heal herself. She gave him a pointed look, which was made severely less intimidating by the exhaustion evident on her pale face.
He scooped her up bridal style and began leaping through the trees back to where they had set up camp, and left a healing Naruto at this morning. Sakura had struggled at first, trying to escape his grasp, but was quickly stilled as Sasuke tightened his hold on her. She was about to protest but decided against it when he glared at her. She was too exhausted to argue anyways, being chakra deprived would do that to you.
"Sakura-Chan!" Naruto bellowed as Sasuke landed in the middle of their camp carrying a half asleep Sakura. It had taken all she had to not fall asleep on the way there, but with Naruto yelling like he was, she didn't think it was going to be too much of a problem anymore. "What happened?" he directed at Sasuke as he hobbled over to them from his sitting place near the edge of their camp.
"I'm fine, Naruto." She said sleepily, rubbing her eyes and trying to become fully alert and awake.
"One of the ninjas broke her leg and she, of course, had used too much chakra fighting them to heal herself." He told Naruto, staring down at the pink haired girl he had grown fond of over the years. How he had yearned to see her, let alone be this close, while he had been with Orochimaru. He would never admit that to anyone though, not even the dobe. He looked down at her, only to find Sakura glaring up at him; he glared right back, even harder. He saw her wince and immediately got an earful of why.
"Let go, teme! You're hurting, Sakura-Chan!" Naruto yelled at Sasuke. Sasuke realized that he had started tightening his grip on Sakura as he thought back on those dark memories, and quickly released her, accidently dropping her in the process.
Sakura let out a yelp as she hit the ground after a certain Uchiha had dropped her. Naruto dove to try and catch her but was too slow in his weakened state, and ended up falling on top of her instead.
"Get off of me, you idiot!" Sakura yelled at him, all traces of exhaustion leaving her voice.
"S-sorry, Sakura-Chan!" Naruto said as he scrambled to get off of her. He laughed a little as he rubbed the back of his spiky blonde head, a nervous habit he just couldn't break.
Sasuke watched the whole ordeal with a scowl on his face. "Idiots." He let out with a slow exhale. He immediately regretted it though as he saw the hurt in Sakura's eyes, even if she didn't change the angry expression on her face. 'Damn it!' Sasuke thought. He always lost his calm, cool, and collected manner whenever she was around. "Hurry up and roll out Sakura's sleeping bag, so I can lay her down on it, dobe." He almost barked at Naruto.
Naruto gingerly walked over near the fire and grabbed Sakura's sleeping bag to roll out before it. Sasuke followed him, once again having cradled Sakura in his arms. Once Naruto had rolled out her sleeping bag, Sasuke gently set her down on it. "Dobe," Sasuke said. "We need to pack up and get back to the village as soon as possible." It was just after noon and they should be able to make it back to Konoha before night fell.
"Hai, teme." Naruto said as he started haphazardly gathering all of their things, though minimal, into their collective bags. As he did this, Sasuke started performing hand signs to summon one of his snake ninken. Once the snake appeared before him, Sasuke gave him no time to speak and immediately ordered him to report to Tsunade-Sama that they had killed all thirteen of the missing ninjas, the ANBU could dispose of the bodies, and that they were coming back straight away. The snake vanished with a puff of smoke after letting out a low hiss and bowing to its master in compliance.
"Teme!" Naruto bellowed at the raven haired ninja. "If you're done playing with your snake, you wanna help me finish packing?"
"Shut up, dobe." Was all he responded with, but started helping to pack up everything anyways.
'Stay awake, Sakura!' she admonished to herself as the boys were packing. "You have to stay awake! Sasuke-Kun already thinks you're weak from being attacked so easily, and then not being able to heal yourself! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!' Sakura kept saying these things to herself as the boys finished packing, willing herself to stay awake.
Finally finished packing, Naruto stepped over to Sakura. "You ready, Sakura-Chan?" He asked excitedly to the kunoichi as he stiffly bent to pick her up. Sakura was about to reply when she was interrupted by a certain Uchiha.
"I got her, dobe." He told Naruto, lightly pushing him aside and picking up the exhausted pink haired ninja in front of him. "You're still recovering from the last mission." He didn't even understand why the blonde had even come on the mission. Even though he healed faster than anyone because of the nine-tailed demon he hosted inside of him, he still hadn't recovered from the extensive wounds he had received from his last solo-mission. He had crossed through the Konoha gates barely standing. His chakra had been depleted, combined with a dislocated shoulder, broken ribs, several stitch worthy gashes covering his body, and an assortment of scratches and bruises.
That had been two days ago. Tsunade and Sakura had tried to heal him, but they hadn't had enough chakra to heal him completely, even with their extensive amounts of chakra. The day after that, Team Seven had been assigned to kill thirteen high-ranking missing ninja of the village hidden in the mist. With Kakashi Sensei being on an escort mission for Shizune and Sai on a top secret ANBU mission, only Sasuke and Sakura had been left to carry it out. Naruto, not wanting to make Team Seven smaller than it was, announced that he was going no matter what. After hours of whining, shouting, and complaining, Lady Tsunade had agreed to let the dobe go, if he would shut up and Sakura would agree to continue his healing during the mission. Being the kind hearted person she was, she had agreed.
Naruto had been more of an annoyance than a help on the mission. He still talked like himself, but you could tell that he was hurting by the way he moved. He had fought with Sasuke's decision to stay at the camp while he and Sakura took care of the missing ninja, but Sakura had immediately shut him up with a chakra powered punch. Sasuke smirked as he recalled the memory. Annoying as he was, Sasuke enjoyed the blonde's company and even Sakura thought of him as a brother.
She had healed Naruto some more before they had left though, but said she was "careful" not to use too much of her chakra. She clearly had used too much, and that was why she had become so easily chakra depleted by fighting the missing ninjas and healing Sasuke's injury. She never knew when to stop and take care of herself, did she? 'But that's okay,' Sasuke thought to himself. He would take care of her. He would never admit it to anyone, but he cared deeply for the kunoichi.
He lifted her off of the ground with ease and Naruto quickly rolled back up the sleeping bag and strapped it to the top of her backpack. He insisted on carrying all of their bags since Sasuke had his hands full with carrying Sakura, and she clearly wasn't capable of carrying her own, and the fact that he had felt completely useless the whole mission. Sasuke wouldn't tell him, but he was grateful that he had. And with that, they were off, jumping through the trees as fast as their chakra powered feet would carry them while staying mindful of an injured Sakura and a healing Naruto.