CHAPTER 9

"Hi, Sasuke."

When Sasuke opened the door to let Sakura in, he was skeptical as to whether she could even keep herself from passing out soon.

It was eleven o'clock at night. Sakura hadn't planned on coming so late, but she had had to perform emergency surgery at seven, and hadn't gotten out until now. She had managed to remember to tell a nurse to send a message to Sasuke saying that she would be a bit later than she thought.

The surgery wasn't necessarily a difficult one, but it had been time-consuming – which also meant chakra-consuming. However, Sakura didn't want to bail on her first session with Sasuke, since she had been the one to ask for it and didn't want to set precedence for canceling. Therefore, throughout the surgery, Sakura was extra-careful about conserving enough chakra to work on Sasuke's eyes.

Despite her lack of energy and chakra, Sakura was in a fairly good mood. The surgery had gone well, and she actually had finished all that she needed to do for the day. After working on Sasuke's eyes, she would be free to go home. Well, maybe not her home – she mentally went over which of her boys would be home. Sai had been away on a mission this whole time, and wasn't due back for a few more days; that left Naruto and Kakashi. Sakura decided to visit Naruto after leaving Sasuke's, since Kakashi had an annoyingly good sense of smell. He might be able to tell that she had been at Sasuke's, and that might lead to questions, and she was still set on keeping him in the dark about her quest to study – and heal – the Sharingan.

Sasuke let Sakura into his apartment, and he took the same seat on the couch as he had done yesterday. However, Sakura didn't sit across from him this time; she sat down next to him on the same couch as him. She would need to be close to him to observe his eyes, after all.

"I need to feel how much damage has been done before I go ahead with studying your eyes in the Sharingan state, Sasuke." Sakura began. "So just relax while I put some of my chakra into your nerves."

Sakura put her hands up to his temple, and soon, Sasuke felt a foreign chakra flow into his head. It wasn't unpleasant – in fact, it was almost refreshing.

Sasuke looked at Sakura. Her eyes were closed as she examined his nerves through chakra. He hadn't really seen her at this close a range since years ago, when, as genins, they were forced into various activities and missions together. Seeing her this close, Sasuke could now see that, though her skin was as ivory as ever, Sakura now had a few scars on her face. They must have been old, for they had almost faded. But since she had fair complexion to begin with and was even paler now – probably due to a lack of sleep – the faded scars seemed more prominent than they should be. Sasuke briefly wondered where she got her scars, especially the rather long one that stretch from just below her right cheekbone to just under her jaw.

Suddenly, Sakura opened her eyes, and when her green eyes saw Sasuke's black ones staring right at her, she seemed startled for a second. But she regained her composure in a split of a second, and merely smiled as she asked him to change his eyes to the Sharingan state.


Sakura hadn't expected to find Sasuke's eyes on her when she opened her eyes. Actually, she had been so absorbed in exploring the damages done to his nerves around his eyes that she hadn't really thought of the fact that Sasuke needed something to look at to occupy himself as she was doing her thing.

I probably look like hell right now, she thought ruefully to herself. But then she immediately censured the thought – after all, Sasuke couldn't care less whether she looked good or bad.

She snapped her focus back to the problem at hand. Just as she had suspected, Sasuke's nerves around his eyes were deteriorating fast. Upon discovering this, she wondered to herself if he had ever turned off his Sharingan during his years away from Konoha. His eyes seemed to be worse off than Kakashi's, and the silver-haired man had been using the Sharingan for years longer than Sasuke had.

When Sasuke changed his eyes to the Sharingan state upon her request, she found herself staring into them for longer than necessary. It was more mesmerizing than she had thought it would be. She was used to seeing Kakashi's Sharingan, which had its own beauty to it, but something about seeing Sasuke's naturally onyx eyes turn to the blood red had such an alluring quality to it that she couldn't help but stare at it for a few seconds.

When Sasuke raised his one of his eyebrows, Sakura snapped out of the trance. "Sorry, it's just… incredible, the Sharingan." She said, feeling rather lame. She hurriedly put her hands back on his temple, and closed her eyes – she would definitely work better if she didn't get sucked into the beauty of those red eyes. She let her chakra flow through, and got back to work.


She didn't know how much time had passed. Aside from asking Sasuke to turn his Sharingan off and on every few minutes, Sakura had been completely immersed in her work. Every once in a while, she paused to scribble notes down in her notepad and frowned to herself. This might take long time, she thought to herself.

The way Sasuke had been using his Sharingan troubled Sakura. She could tell that he hadn't been using it the way he should have been using them – he had pushed its use so far that it seemed as if the eyes were rebelling against his nerves. After tonight, she knew that she was racing against time to heal his eyes. Though he wouldn't be using the Sharingan for a while, since it was unlikely that Tsunade would send him on dangerous missions any time soon, Sakura was worried: his eyes were in bad shape.

"Well?" Sasuke asked after a while. Sakura looked up from her notes, and realized that she had stopped writing on her notepad several minutes and just been staring into it since then.

Sakura didn't particularly relish the idea of telling an Uchiha that he had been misusing the Sharingan – but she didn't really have any other choice. She had to make him realize the magnitude of the problem.

"It's… pretty bad." Sakura sighed. "I can tell from the nerves around your eyes that you've been using the Sharingan wrecklessly for the past god knows how many years." Seven years, I bet, Sakura thought to herself. It had been seven years since he had left to be trained under Orochimaru. For seven long years, Sasuke probably used his Sharingan constantly; she knew that he knew, even in his state of hunger for more power, that Orochimaru was not to be trusted. Sasuke wouldn't have let down his guards around him – or anyone else since Orochimaru's death.

He had lived around enemies for the past seven years, and his eyes probably hadn't rested for much – if any – of those years.

Sakura fought the urge of sadness that waved over her as she thought this. It would be the height of stupidity to give into her emotions right now. She would not – could not – show herself to be weak in front of him now that he was letting her study his eyes. He might change his mind if he thought that she was still the silly girl he had known in their genin days. So she plowed through with her explanation of the examination of his eyes.

"You won't be going on missions that require the use of your eyes for a while, I'd imagine. That's really the best thing for your eyes right now – rest. In the meantime, I'm going to try and see what I can do to reverse the damage that's been done, but I have no idea how long that's going to take. The Sharingan is… complicated." Sakura said this last sentence almost as if she was talking to herself. "But if you ever use the Sharingan – though, as I said, I really don't see why you'd need to, for the time being – please come see me in the hospital. I can try to alleviate the tension that using the Sharingan is causing your eye, and at least that way, your eyes won't worsen as fast as it would otherwise."

Sakura knew that Sasuke wasn't thrilled about any of the things she had just outlined to him, but breathed a sigh of relief when he gave a small nod to indicate that he would do what she asked. She gave him a smile and got up. In doing so, she happened to glance at the clock – it was now half past one in the morning. Naruto would probably be asleep when she got to his apartment.

"Have you seen Naruto today?" Sakura asked Sasuke. She was sure that he had; Sakura knew that Naruto made it a point to spend as much time as he could with Sasuke, since, if left alone, Sasuke would never seek out anyone's company voluntarily.

"Hn." Sasuke gave a grunt that Sakura took as an affirmative. She almost laughed at the disgruntled look Sasuke wore – she could only imagine how much Naruto aggravated and annoyed Sasuke all day.

But there was also something in Sasuke's expression that let her know that he didn't really mind Naruto annoying him, and for that, Sakura was happy.

As she moved toward Sasuke's door, she felt a wave of tiredness hit her. Stifling a yawn, Sakura gave a final smile and wave to Sasuke and left for Naruto's.


Sakura let herself in Naruto's apartment with the spare key, which he had entrusted to her years ago.

"Sakura-chan?"

Sakura was surprised to hear Naruto calling her name from his room. Naruto usually was not a late sleeper.

"What are you doing still up?" Sakura approached his bed, where the blond was laying down.

Naruto yawned. "I was out in the training grounds a few hours ago and ran into Hinata… then she started talking to me, and I guess we lost track of time. I got home a few minutes ago." Naruto looked at Sakura, then frowned. "Sakura-chan, you look really tired. Tsunade-baachan said she was worried about you… she said you've been working almost non-stop at the hospital!"

Sakura smiled at him, hoping to reassure him. "I'm fine, Naruto. I just have a lot of stuff to catch up on from when I was in Suna, but I won't be working so much when I get done with that." She didn't add that she didn't know when exactly she would ever be done with the never-ending mountain of paperwork. Instead, she decided to tease her friend a little. "So, late night chat with Hinata, huh? How was that?"

"It was alright, I guess… she just asked me a lot of questions. She sure is curious," Naruto replied, a little confused. Sakura wanted to laugh and sigh at the same time at him. When would he ever wake up and realize that Hinata was in love with him?

Sakura sat down next to the bed and let her head and arms rest on the side of it. She was about to ask him about his conversation with Hinata some more, but he interrupted her.

"But back to you, Sakura-chan… I've barely seen you these past few days! You never leave the hospital. Even Sasuke-teme's worried about you."

Sakura's head snapped up. "What?" She said, almost laughing. "He would never say that out loud."

Naruto grinned. "I know, but I can tell. We're all worried Sakura-chan… so try to get out of work every once in a while and hang out with us, okay?"

Sakura smiled at her friend. "You really don't need to worry – I'm fine. But I promise, as soon as I can take some time off, I'll spend the day with you all."

Sakura could feel her eyes getting heavy. Despite what she told Naruto, she was tired… Before long, she was out cold, and so was Naruto. They fell asleep like that, with Sakura resting on the bed and sitting on the floor, and Naruto on the edge of the bed with his head close to Sakura's.

The last thought before Sakura passed out completely was that she was inexplicably glad that Sasuke had worried about her.

Maybe there was hope yet for Team 7.


A/N: As always, thanks to everyone who is still reading this story! But please, if you're reading this and haven't left a review, do it! (Even if you've already left a review, please keep leaving me revies :D) This story has been getting a steady stream of 200-300 visitors and views per chapter, which is so awesome, yet I only have a little over 10 reviews D: I want to hear your feedback!