Sakura looked across the body riddled battle field, forgotten kunai, tools, swords and scrolls littering the ground around her feet. Her legs felt heavy with tiredness and her lungs burned breathing in the heavily smoked area, her long pink hair whipped behind her in a high ponytail. It was a scene she was eerily familiar with from the Great Shinobi War. She had hoped that after the war the world would settle into a quite peace. However as much as she had wished it so, that was not the case. A short lived 10-year span of peace had crumbled easily between Hidden Leaf and Hidden Mist countries.

Sakura regained her focus as a kunai whizzed by her scratching her upper arm. Sakura instantly reached into her small medical pouch on her hip and pulled out a pressured vial and her needle. Quickly she loaded the spring needle and vial and injected herself with antidots incase the kunai had been poisoned.

Sakura placed the used needle and empty vial back into her medical pouch and moved forward, she was following the front line just a few miles in front of her. Her role was especially important being a doctor and support wave behind the front line. She had refused to take her own student with her on the battle field although her student was a capable fighter and medic, her student was still very young woman, about the same as Sakura had been when she became Tsunade's student. However capable, she left strict orders for her at the infirmary camp behind ally lines where Sakura knew she would be safe.

Body by body, person by person Sakura made her way horizontally across the open field. Some people lay dying, others severely wounded, most were dead. She was ahead of her group and as such she started to tag people with different colored tags. Black-dead, white-dying no chance of survival, red-intense medical attention required, small chance of survival, yellow-moderate medical attention required, survival probable, and green-minimal medical attention required, survival chances great.

Sakura tagged another person with a white tag and they gripped her arm tightly when she took in his face, he had the look of a scared rabbit. "Please for the love of god save me! I don't want to die here," the man cried out. He was missing his left leg from just below the knee and had several body mass wounds that were bleeding profusely, it would only be a few more minutes before he lost conciseness and then bleed out.

"You are not going to die, the medical evac is right behind me and will be here soon to pick you up. Just hang in there ok," Sakura said with a reassuring smile. She wetted down a cloth and cleaned off some dirt, blood and sweat from the man's face and neck to put him at ease.

The hardest part of being a medic, especially in a time of war, was the façade she had to play. She had patted the man softly on his shoulder and stood to get to the next person. The people she could help without spending too much time in one place she would, people she tagged with yellow or green tags she assisted with light medical attention to keep them stable long enough for medical evac to arrive. Sakura glanced down at her watch and felt relief wash over her, it was about time for her to rendezvous with the other lead medical nins on the field, she was running low on tags and supplies. Sakura looked down at herself and grimaced. A ghastly scene greeted her, her ninja jacket was splashed with blood her gloved covered hands were also soaked with the red liquid. Night would soon be falling and hopefully the fighting would slow enough for her to exchange her gloves.

Sakura attended to a few more people tagging two with green and one with red. She then made her way made her way south to meet up with medical evac and the rest of the team. Once they meet at the rendezvous they waited for incoming ninjas to start filtering in for medical assistance. Night quickly fell and waves of people started coming in from the battle field. Not surprising Naruto was the last person to return to camp. He was always the last one to return and each night Sakura was glad to see him, though Naruto proved extremely difficult to kill, there could always be a chance.

"Sakura," Naruto let out in a worried tone taking in the sight of the blood covered kunoichi. He himself had some blood on him, he was wearing typical jounin styled battle wear.

"I'm fine, not mine. Patients," Sakura said softly as the two wrapped their arms around each other. Naruto had become Sakura's older brother in a sense.

"That's good," Naruto whispered squeezing Sakura for a couple of moments and then releasing her from his hold. They gave each other a smile and walked back camp together. Once there Sakura went down by the stream to wash off the day's tiring work.

It was there, in the darkness of the night by the stream, the only light being fireflies sparkling in the woods, where Sakura succumbed to the horrors of the day and let out a wobbly sigh thick with emotions. She ripped off her jacket and gloves started to wash them in a fury in the cold water. Sakura felt a presence behind her and instantly stood pulling a kunai from her side pouch on her leg. She lowered her guard as she realized it was Sasuke there.

"You ok," she asked looking him down and up to find anything inured. Sasuke was also wearing Jounin apparel with the left sleeve pinned to just above the elbow.

"Hn. You," he asked stepping closer to her also giving her a once over.

Sakura nodded slowly and then shook her head her brows furrowing together. "I-it's… hard," she choked out as she placed a hand over her mouth and squatted down and hugged her knees with one arm.

Sasuke stood next to her mute turning his back towards her so that she could compose herself in private while simultaneously keeping watch for her. It was known that she was the main reason why war had broken out. She had become known world-wide for her beauty and medical skill that powerful men wanted her for themselves to make their own lands stronger. She had refused a very arrogant and powerful lord who was able to persuade enough other lords to petition their Kage to try to take Sakura by force, however Sakura being capable was not so easily taken and in the process, had killed a few of the Mist ninja's who were sent to take her. Which sparked a war.

Sakura rubbed her face with her hands and then stood, she turned to Sasuke and grabbed a hold of his cape with one hand and put her forehead against his back. "Thank you," she whispered after having composed herself. Sakura was taking the war especially hard, as she knew that it was her fault that everyone was suffering.

"Hn," was all Sasuke said as he nodded and then turned to face her. He looked into her face before finally raising his hand and poked her forehead where her diamond seal was hiding behind her headband. He let her see a small smile and she herself smiled.

Sakura felt herself at ease being close to Sasuke, nothing had changed in the last 10 years, she still loved him after all this time and though the two shared a mutual affection for each other, they never acted upon it.

Sasuke was constantly gone, Sakura constantly busy being a doctor and even though they rarely saw each other when Sasuke was in the village he would come to her apartment in the middle of the night and leave one white rose on her window sill of her bedroom. Sakura even had a bamboo vase with water in it for him to leave the rose in.

Sakura took in a deep breath and cracked her neck and rolled her shoulders to ease some of the tension in her body. "Alright, I have to get back up there, I'm sure there's people who need my help," she stated as she turned to leave.

Quickly Sasuke's hand snaked out and grabbed her wrist. Sakura turned her emerald eyes to him in shock. Sasuke was not one for displays of affection other than the single white roses and forehead pokes. "Wh-what are you doing," Sakura asked slowly.

"If you are busy taking care of others, who is taking care of you," Sasuke asked flatly. He could see the dark circles under her eyes, and although she had fair skin, her skin almost had a translucent look to it nowadays. She also had lost weight as her pants looked to be bigger on her than normal. It was clear that Sakura was not eating much and working too hard with too little sleep.

"Sasuke, you and Naruto look after me," Sakura stated with a chuckled as she wiggled her wrist free.

"Not as well as we should," Sasuke said taking in a deep breath. "When was the last time you had an evaluation," he inquired knowing that this war was not only taking its physical toll on her, but also it was slowly chipping away at her cheerful demeanor. Sasuke had noticed within a few months of the war starting Sakura stopped smiling around everyone and kept more quiet in group settings. Even with her friends. She mostly talked to Naruto and himself.

"I'm a doctor, I don't need one," Sakura pushed back taking the defense against Sasuke. "When was yours," she fired back. Evaluations were supposed to be done every one to two weeks. And were done by a whole team of phycologists.

"Naruto and I both had ours a few days ago at camp," Sasuke stated as a matter of fact. Sakura pursed her lips and cursed inwardly some.

"I'll get one soon."

"Today."

Tomorrow."

"Tonight," Sasuke said as he raised his voice a little bit. He reached out for her wrist again and Sakura backed away from him. Sasuke knew he had landed himself on her shit list as the look she was giving would kill anyone else but himself and Naruto. "Don't make me get Naruto involved," Sasuke threatened, knowing this would make her give in to his request.

Sakura sighed and snatched her belongings from the ground and made her way back up the hill to camp with Sasuke trailing closely behind her. Sakura tried to think about the last time she had her evaluation. It had to have been a couple of months ago at least, she tried to avoid them at all cost as the last time she had one, they put her on R & R for one week sending far away from battle.

Sasuke made sure to walk her all the way to the evaluation tent, he even stood in line with her to make sure she went in and got one. He knew that they were going to send her away for at least a week but she needed it. She was carrying a burden that most would never know, but Sasuke understood and waited outside the tent with his own orders to go on R & R for one week. He planned to spend that time with Sakura to monitor her and then request to Kakashi to have her removed from the front lines and sent home for her own safety. Though Naruto and himself put in several requests to have her removed, Kakashi denied stating that Sakura was vital to medical operations on the front line and wouldn't be able to do her job efficiently if she were thousands of miles away from what was happening. Sasuke was hoping after she received her R & R orders that Kakashi would listen and send orders for her to return home. It was the only way to get her away from the hell she was experiencing here, she was slowly becoming a different person.

Sakura sat across a middle aged man with brown hair that was slightly starting to gray, he had glasses and did not look up from his note pad. "Name."

"Haruno Sakura."

"Unit Number. Class Number. ID number."

"86-00-456830."

"Ah, a medical doctor," the man had a kind soft voice and he looked up at Sakura with a smile. "I'm surprised to find a doctor in Unit 86, typically you guys are Units 200-300."

"Not an average doctor," Sakura stated flatly looking at her jacket and gloves that were now wet and still covered in blood.

"I know who you are. You're work is amazing," he said as he jotted something down on his notepad. "Tell me how are you feeling?"

"Numb, at least I try. I have…guilt. Loads of it," Sakura admitted.

"What are you thinking right now?"

"Tags, so many black and white tags," Sakura slowly stated trying to hold in her emotions.

"How do these tags make you feel?"

"Sad," Sakura said looking up at the desk lamp that the doctor had beside his notepad.

"What do you want?"

"Peace, I want this war to stop."

What do you not want?"

"I don't want to be sold to the highest paying person. I don't want to leave my village. I don't want to leave Naruto or Sasuke. I don't want any more people to die because of me," Sakura was now crying as the emotions had become too heavy to hold back. Hot tears ran down her cheeks and she tried her best to compose herself. The doctor waited before asking one last question.

"Where do you want to go?"

"Home."