A/N: Well, it turns out I'm a lightweight! I had three glasses of wine and then I was down for the count! -.-" And I woke up this morning with a headache, too! TT-TT But, because I am such a nice person, I have decided the brave through the hangover and give you the next chapter! XD
Ooh, and thank you all for the wonderful reviews and the beautiful wishes for a Happy Birthday! They really made me smile! X3
When Sakura awoke, it was to an odd feeling twisting and turning at the back of her mind. It was a familiar, niggling feeling that wasn't quite uncomfortable per se, but was definitely close to it. She was pretty sure that people called them their Hinkey feelings, that suspicion that something wasn't quite right. But still... this feeling somehow went beyond that. She wondered if she was coming down with a head cold.
Before she had a chance to examine the feeling any more, however, her cell phone came to loud, musical life, disturbing the not-so-peaceful silence of the room. She sighed and reached over to silence the loud contraption, placing it to her ear and greeting, "Morning, Shishou."
"How'd you know it was me?" the Godaime asked on the other end of the line, sounding a bit distracted.
"Ring tone set specifically for your number."
"Oh. Well, were you sleeping?"
"Just woke up, actually."
"Good, because your mission begins in an hour."
"Mission," Sakura murmured thoughtfully to herself, trying to remember just what her mission was. When it finally came back to her, her eyes widened and she sat up, exclaiming, "Mission! Itachi?!" She looked to her side to find that the other half of the bed was currently unoccupied.
"I'm afraid he already left," Tsunade informed her as the pink-haired kunoichi tried to decipher what this all meant. "All of the squads have moved out and there are full platoons stationed around both the Fire country and Konoha borders. Itachi, of course, is leading the latter."
"He left?" she asked incredulously, "Without even saying goodbye?"
"I had been under the assumption that he had said his goodbyes to you. But I suppose it would be very difficult and he chose to let you sleep to avoid the pain."
"Well, yeah... that makes sense." But still...
"Why don't you go grab something to eat, take a shower, clean yourself up, and meet me at the infirmary? I have a couple jobs that'll keep you busy and take your mind off of that."
"Alright," Sakura agreed before hanging up. But instead of doing as Tsunade suggested, she sighed and fell back into the bed, closing her eyes. So Itachi had left, huh? He was now out there preparing for war. And he hadn't even said goodbye.
Had she slept through it all? Well, now that she thought about it, she didn't remember making it to bed last night and yet, here she was, in her bed. Actually, she didn't even remember drifiting off to sleep last night. She was pretty sure she'd been wide awake when she spoke to Itachi, but she'd somehow managed to fall asleep without even realizing it. This little bit of information worried her quite a bit, but she didn't dwell on it for much longer. She had to get ready to leave, anyway.
So, she got up, made herself a quick omelette, hopped in the shower and then changed into her medic uniform. Once she was ready to leave, she made sure to fully dismiss both Itachi and her peculiar sleeping patterns from her thoughts so that she could focus on work. She walked out the door and headed to the infirmary.
It didn't take long for her to get to the infirmary and it took even less time to track down Tsunade. All she had to do was look in the blond's office and there she was, her face twisted with concentration and the tip of her tongue sticking out of her mouth as she scratched a lottery ticket. Judging from the pile of already-scratched ones, Sakura guessed it wouldn't be safe to assume that this was the reason she sounded so distracted over the phone.
She sighed and rolled her eyes, asking dryly, "What are you doing, Shishou?"
"Predicting the outcome of this war," the Hokage answered, not looking up from the ticket she was scratching.
Of course.
Then, Tsunade stopped her scratching, set down the coin she had been using and sat up to make her prediction. "Huh... I won. Again."
Sakura froze. That wasn't good. Definitely a bad omen. If, by 'again' she meant that she had won on any of those other tickets, then something bad was definitely afoot.
"But all I seem to have racked up overall is a few bucks and a bunch of free tickets, so it can't be that bad, but still..."
"Something bad will happen," Sakura finished where her shishou had trailed off.
"Well!" Tsunade exclaimed with forced cheerfulness, "Back to work now! No rest for the weary when we have a w—... when there's work to do!" Apparently, saying the word 'war' after this omen had been revealed was a bad idea in Tsunade's eyes. Either that, or she was trying to keep Sakura's mind away from the fact that her lover was fighting in said war. "Come along, Sakura, we've got beds to make!"
Sakura gave a martyred sigh and followed.
There are a total of four platoons out here," Itachi explained as he and his teams ran through the forest, "Five squads to a platoon and ten men to a squad. That's two hundred shinobi on the homefront alone, all spread out in a circle to act as a barrier to the village. There are an extra five hundred shinobi guarding the areas around the Fire country border, again, all in a circle to act as a human barrier.
"That's seven hundred shinobi fighting against eight, making the odds an average of eighty-seven-point-five to one in our favor."
Sasuke nodded his agreement for the concensus.
"And, no matter how tough a front Pein has built up to keep his pride as the leader of the Akatsuki, even he realizes this disadvantage. He will avoid any needless fighting and will try to use my chakra signature to single me out in the fray and get me. Again, because of the large number of our shinobi, that will be difficult. Nonetheless, however, if anybody is able to accomplish such a thing, it's the Akatsuki.
"So, keep on your toes, people, and do exactly as I say. I'm going to get us through this and then we'll all go home to our families as heroes for putting a stop to this terrorism."
All of the shinobi punched a fist in the air and sounded their confidence of victory as they all sped up to get to their posts.
So many shinobi against so few. What could go wrong?
A/N: Yes, what could go wrong? We'll be exploring that issue next chapter, so stay tuned! XD
