Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Naruto is the property of Masashi Kishimoto. There is no financial gain made from this nor will any be sought. This is for entertainment purposes only.

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Chapter 1: Damp Earth

It smelled of damp earth. It smelled of blood, and sweat, and tears—it smelled of new beginnings and reestablished ties and Sakura didn't think she'd ever inhaled anything quite so…fragrant. Not in all of her life.

Her hands bloomed rehabilitation. Pink brows dipped low as flesh mended, capillaries healed, and the arteries that had been severed into mangled clumps cauterized.

The smell of blood had never been nauseating to her. Sakura was a medic, after all. She had performed autopsies on cadavers and surgery on the living. Sasuke and Naruto had been stuck in the in-between for a while, teetering around limbo as their detached arms seeped red fluid. There truly was a line between "almost dead" and "almost alive", and the boys had been crossing sides rapidly.

"Thanks, Sakura-chan!" Naruto says now. His voice is guttural, seeping from the back of his throat as if it was dry and he'd been talking too much. Knowing him, he had been. Baka, don't keep talking.

"Sakura, I…"

This is Sasuke.

Sasuke who defected, Sasuke who hated, Sasuke who threatened and had raised hand to her. She hasn't heard this sound in a very long time—it sounds brittle and husky and as much as Sakura wants to hear what he has to say, she has other important things to take care of. He's too distracting, too devastatingly beautiful.

"Don't. I need to concentrate."

Sasuke feels pure oxygen on his bones. His skin vibrates with adrenalin, his heart is hammering against the inside of his chest excruciatingly and none of it matters because he's so very sorry. He's never felt so unacceptable in all of his life.

Sakura's chakra heals him and he watches. It feels like mint and it draws away all of the physical hurt. He wonders if this woman could alleviate the ache in his soul if she reached just a little bit deeper. Her dusty rose strands curtain her face well, hiding the lavender diamond that's centered on her forehead. His eyes lower. He needs to rid himself of this hurt—it's a pain only he can ease.

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" She asks. Though her words are steady, her body is not. She trembles with anger or with sadness or…some other emotion Sasuke has never cared to see etched on her face. Perhaps that's why she kept it hidden. "…for what?"

The wind blows gently around them, and time stands motionless. Where should he begin? He could spend days counting off his misdeeds, starting with the night he abandoned her on that cold, stone bench. But, Sasuke knows that he hasn't done anything right in a long time, and he's sorry for all of it. Although she refused to meet his face, he stares directly into hers.

Naruto and Sakura are saviors, and he's just a slain enemy. He has lost. "…for everything that I've done."

This time she does not sound like an irritated doctor. Sniffles pepper the air, hick, hick, hick and Sasuke is comforted by them. She's the only one that has shed her tears for him. They will be the last.

"You'd better damn well be…Shaanaroo." Naruto and Sasuke smile at her, but she cannot see, because saltine tears flow from her eyelids like waterfalls of mixed emotion. "You are so much trouble," she weeps. "Baka…"

Kakashi watches.

He's always watches—like a scarecrow in a cornfield as a grackle swoops in. His three cornstalks are back, now—damaged and tattered, bruised and swollen, but they're alive. Habitually he covers his left eye, letting his eyebrows rise and his lashes crinkle with joy because it's over. Because…

"They've finally returned."

Sakura watches as her boys—her men—stand. It should be impossible, what with all of the ruptured organs and fatal trauma. But they rise nevertheless and join hands in unity. They set their people free.

Not far off, her friends and peers are awakening. They unravel from their cocoons and their happy nightmares and rejoice in the daylight, because Sasuke and Naruto have done it. Because we've won; the sun had never looked so bright with the promise of a new day.

The men start to fall back and Sakura catches them. In this moment, as they lean on her for support, she wonders if being behind was really such a bad place after all. She is their backup and Sakura knows that this will always be her place forever and for always. "You both need a hospital. Stop moving around so much."

"We don't need that, Sakura-chan; you're a walking clinic aren't ya? You healed every injured ninja across the five nations! Don't put me in that awful place…"

Kurama rises from the rubble of boulders, having been released by Sasuke. After greeting his placeholder in the strange way they do—not with a bow of respect, but by a brush of knuckles—he sweeps out his massive head and looks to the horizon. "It's better to be in a hospital than a morgue, Naruto."

How many of their friends have lost their lives? How many funerals and gravesides will they attend?

Naruto feels a pressure on his shoulder—a hand that belongs to his former sensei—and although only one eye peeks out, it holds emotion that Naruto knows all too well. Rest for now, we've got a long ways to go.

This is how it started; the four of them against the world. They are reunited once more.

Sasuke was a broken child, filled with hatred and revenge. Naruto was lonely and immature—he did not know what it truly meant to be the Hokage. Sakura was unripe and ignorant to the pain of loss, not knowing the importance of strength. Kakashi was cynical and unbelieving.

Naruto did it, though. He saved Sasuke from his worst enemy—himself. He fulfilled his promise of a lifetime, and he made Kakashi believer. These three teenagers with dirty faces and tear-stained cheeks and bloodied clothing would be the next rulers of the land, undoubtedly.

There are footsteps beyond the forest, forcing sound into Team 7's quiet bubble. Sakura pays no mind as she runs her fingers along the inner swell of Sasuke's wrist, checking his pulse. There's so much she needs to do. How is Naruto's eye? Was it damaged? Sasuke's heartrate is low and his skin is too pale. He's lost a lot of blood—they both have.

As Sakura pulls out her blood pills she's ripped away from their proximity. It's a dizzying heave, one that makes her head spin and her stomach lurch. "Wha—"

"Sasuke Uchiha, you are hereby contained for your involvement in the Fourth Great Shinobi War. "

Sakura is suddenly a wildcat, prying their hands off of his raw body like the men were ivy on the side paneling of her apartment. She peels away from her captor. "What are you doing? Get off of him!"

"We're here on behalf of our Lady Hokage. She's asked us to seize him."

Sakura looks up at the three—mere Jōnin whose status was subpar to the godliness that was Naruto and Sasuke now. Did they know the boundaries they were overstepping? Did they know the seriousness of this?

And…

And why would Tsunade consent to such disrespect? She wanted to kick Sasuke while he was down—while he was weakened and injured and practically immobile. How deplorable. It couldn't be.

She opens her mouth to protest, and perhaps degrade and curse, but Sasuke purposely pulls away from her protection. His eyes are inflamed from hits and the repeated use of his kekkei-genkai. In this state, the man is nothing more than the shell of a human who's only able to move because of receding adrenalin and shear willpower.

Sasuke withdrawals, and Sakura advances; this time it is Kakashi's grip that stops her.

"Sakura, do not interfere. They are only acting on orders."

Naruto rants, throwing his numb arm into the air as he belts out obscenities. "These men wouldn't even be here if Sasuke hadn't…"…hadn't have saved us!

But his pause causes other thoughts to enter their heads.

…if Sasuke had not run away…

…if Sasuke had not joined Orochimaru…

Sasuke looks between the three of them with dejection. They were his friends, and they still fought for him. They had brawled for far too long. It was his turn now.

His ebony hair is caught in the breeze and it reveals a purple-rimmed eye.

"I am a rouge ninja." He begins, looking at each of his teammates dead-on. "I've assaulted Kage leaders and attacked their junchuriki. More importantly, I've risked the lives of every one of you—all of my countrymen. I'm at the will of Konoha law."

Sakura watches as Kakashi dips his head low, and to her surprise, Naruto as well. Her fist clenches—she has nowhere to direct her rage but to Sasuke, and it's the last thing he needs or, in her mind, deserves. "How is this fair?"

The collar of his top bunches from her grip. "You were poisoned! You weren't acting on your own free will—you were cursed Sasuke—"

"I was in control of myself."

They group forms around them. It seemed that even Naruto couldn't battle for Sasuke's freedom here—there was much to be done, and much to be said, and very little time to do it. Everyone watches in silence, as though everyone awaited Sakura's approval. They would not get it just yet.

"I refuse. They cannot arrest you here—not like this."

She feels Naruto come up beside her and Sakura's steadfastness chips away. Naruto understood the severity and the complexity of the situation. He did not believe Sasuke belonged in a jail cell, but emotions were stretched thin in this battleground. His palm is calloused as it rubs up her sleeveless arm reassuringly. "Let them,"

When had he become so strong, so absolute? Only moments ago Sakura told herself she would be their backbone, and now she leaned on Naruto for support. How typical that was of the petal-puce woman.

The men pull out spell tags and her heart falls into the hollow of her stomach. They're blinding him—he will be exposed to his people under chains and shackles. This was not justified. He was a hero, not a villain. He was…he is…

"He's my patient," She blurts out.

Sasuke cannot see anything now. The fabric that covers his eyes is terrycloth; it's itchy and rough against his raw skin. There's a pressure from the outside that turns his blackened vision into an indigo hue—he's been sealed—he cannot see.

Sakura moves beside him now. He knows it's her, because even in the aftermath of a brutal fight she still smelled unlike any proper ninja—like vanilla and candy. Her footsteps are not silent, and her touch is not fleeting. She holds his bicep.

"He's my patient, and both he and Naruto need immediate medical attention."

There is a back and forth between doctor and warrior until Lady Tsunade herself makes her entrance. The skin around her midsection is pink and new, having been split in half. Her honeyed eyes scan the area with a knowing sweet—she is emitting her dominance.

She does not chide just yet. The Hokage embraces Naruto, pressing him deep into her bosom.

"You're alive, you little brat." Tsunade exhales with relief. As Naruto falls into her vice-like grip, to tired and weak to protest another woman, Kakashi explains the situation. Tsunade looks her student.

Sakura was not the child she had once been three years ago, but her demeanor now negated that. "Who do you think you are, disobeying my direct order?" Her manicured nail points towards her accusingly. "You should be healing your peers, not battling them!"

Sakura knew this, of course. Her booted feet are much more interesting now, because she could not meet her teacher's eyes. In many ways these shoes are like Sasuke. They are scuffed, war-torn, and damaged. Sasuke could be repaired though, and Sakura was the most suited to do it. She took her scolding and waited patiently to speak.

"Both Naruto and Sasuke have lost their dominant arms. I've only just now closed their wounds. I don't know how long they were subject to contamination—infection will soon set it and this is not the proper environment to treat it."

Tsunade scoffs. "Don't you think I know that already?"

"What are you planning then?" Her student replies, looking up so rapidly her hair spreads about. Emerald clashes with cinnamon-sugar irises—master against pupal. "You want to handcuff him, blind him, and display him to our soldiers? He will be proof that we've won the war? He will be proof that we're victorious? Is that it?"

Tsunade, however, did not take kindly to pups that nipped the palm that offered sustenance. "…of course not," Her tired eyes gleam and her painted lips stretch into a smile. "We can't handcuff him if he's only got one arm."

Sakura stamps her foot. This wasn't funny. "Tsunade-sama, I'm being serious. This is appalling and disrespectful and—"

But her teacher is not a masochist. She did not enjoy pain; she did not enjoy seeing her student so riled up. It was true; Sasuke was an enemy that had been defeated. Whatever the reasons were behind his destructive rage, there was no excuse for the countless lives lost and the domino-like collapse of the Shinobi system their ancestors had so diligently erected.

She knew how deeply these ties ran. But her final decision would have to wait until after the tedious arguments with the counsel, and Naruto and Kakashi would have to speak on Sasuke's behalf. That would take days to set up, and there were corpses that needed to be properly buried.

"Sakura, we have wounded here—people who are suffering more than Naruto and Sasuke. We need your help. Kakashi and these ninja," She says, pointing to the two men and one woman that flanked them. "They will accompany your teammates straight to Konoha's hospital. We have bodies to take home."

Sakura looked at Sasuke.

She had always been faithful to her village and her people. She fought battles she didn't believe in, and healed people that did not deserve healing. Her entire life had been by the book: a page-for-page, verbatim play that she acted out and responded to when duty called.

There was always one exception to her resolve, and that exception had always been the onyx-eyed, black-haired Sasuke Uchiha. Sakura had asked him to take her when he abandoned his village. She had begged and pleaded for him. She had gone against the wishes of her teammates and her teacher to take him down, and to save him, too.

This time, deep in her core, Sakura knew it was time for new beginnings. Sasuke was willing to take his punishment because of the actions he orchestrated by his own will, regardless of the curse that manipulated his mindset.

If this was his wish, then so be it.

With one fleeting look at Sasuke and a determined nod to Naruto and Kakashi, Sakura leapt away from her injured family and headed towards the fallen.

Fall in love however you must.

Fall from a kiss, a smile or a brush.

Love is not the absence of pain.

Love is the hope to start again.

-BK