Chapter 9

She blinked, jaw dropped open. She tried to form words to backtrack, explain, or rationalise the situation, but nothing came to her. Naruto was giving her a wide-eyed stare, one that was filled with shock, confusion, and a small amount of hurt. "Uh...I...umm..." Sakura was panicking and she knew it. But even with the knowledge, she couldn't stop her heart from racing, her breath coming in great, heaving gasps.

"Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked plaintively, still taking in the image that it was indeed Sakura who had a death-grip on his hair.

She snatched her hand back from Naruto, still sucking in deep breathes of air. "I...I think...I'm fainting..."

She felt someone catch her as darkness overtook her vision, but she couldn't make out who it was. Well, at least I can avoid answering for a bit longer. And then she went limp and let the darkness take her away. Afterall, it was so much better than facing the situation she had feared since she became ANBU. Damn you Sasuke. You and your intelligence.

"You can't be serious, Sasuke!" Naruto practically shrieked, eyes going from the broody young man, back to the pink-haired woman currently being held by the Kazekage. "This is Sakura we're talking about!"

The Uchiha sighed and rubbed his temples briefly. "Dobe. Think about it, what female other than the Hokage has the strength to flatten a village with one hit?"

Naruto blinked, deflating visibly. "Sakura-chan."

"And who knows us well enough to find us no matter what? Who, besides Kakashi, can sneak up on us both when we're both on alert?" Sasuke pressed, bringing up instances where the infamous Leopard-san had tracked them down and, quite often, delivered the Hokage's 'wrath' for being late.

"Sakura-chan." Naruto muttered.

Sasuke sighed again. "It really was quite obvious. I should have figured it out sooner. It would also explain all her frequent absences from the village and all the times she was with Ino, yes we couldn't get a hold of her."

Gaara frowned, shifting the young woman in his arms and turning to leave. "Where are you going?" Naruto asked rudely, his protectiveness rising at seeing one of his best friends, and second favorite kunoichi, being taken away.

"It is hot out and she's been stressed out enough I think. I'm taking her to her room." The redhead monotoned, never slowing his step.

Naruto blinked, mouth forming an "O" in understanding. "Well...you'll tell us when she wakes up right?"

"Mm."

The two Konoha ninjas watched the redhead until he disappeared around a building. Naruto let out his breath in a rush, flopping down to the ground. Sasuke kept his eyes on the spot where he'd last seen the two disappear. "You think it wise to leave them alone?" He muttered, a soft growl underlying the question.

"Yeah, Gaara won't hurt her. Remember, she's been here for awhile now. If he had wanted to, he would have done something a lot sooner." Naruto mumbled, tracing lines in the dust and sand littering the ground. "I just...I can't believe she didn't tell us!"

The Uchiha finally dragged his stare away from the spot and looked down at his best friend. "You know how she is. Sakura probably figured it would hurt us that she became ANBU before us, that she didn't wait. She always thinks of others first." Sand crunched underneath sandaled feet as the Uchiha genius started walking towards the Kazekage's tower. "Come on, dobe. I don't like the idea of leaving her alone with him."

With a grunt, the blonde sprang to his feet and caught up to his companion, mind still in turmoil over the events of the day.

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It was cool. And dark. Those were the first two things she registered as her mind slowly rose towards conciousness. Eyes still closed, Sakura snuggled down into what felt like a plush, feather-filled bed. She gasped though when a cool, wet cloth was placed on her forehead. Emerald eyes shot open, staring straight into brilliant jade ones. Gaara raised a finger to his lips in a shushing gesture, motioning with his head for her to look to her right where Naruto and Sasuke were dozing against the wall. Her eyes widened minutely and she nodded in understanding. Heh heh. Those two, I should have known they would demand to be in the room if Gaara was going to be in it. They're so cute when they're being over-protective. Annoying sometimes though.

"What time is it?" She whispered to Gaara, as he replaced the cloth on her head with another cool one.

His eyes slid to her left where a small clock sat. "Six. At night."

"Mmm...six o'clock special...ramen..." Naruto grumbled, tongue flicking out to lick his lips as he dreamed of his favorite time to get ramen. Half-price from six to six-thirty.

Sakura's chest shook as she tried to hold in the giggling fit that the blonde had aroused in her, eyes scrunching shut. Until a hand planted itself firmly between her breasts and she discovered Gaara now looking at her with something akin to concern and...panic? She wasn't sure which emotion gained dominance in those few tense moments it took the young man to realize she was in no danger. Indignation over the hand that had been wedged between her breasts, touched that he was concerned about her, or giddy that he was concerned for her. Even as the Kazekage finally realized she was simply laughing quietly, not seizuring, his hand remained until a tactful throat-clearing from the kunoichi had him snatching it back.

'Gomen.' He mouthed, turning his face to the side to hide the light dusting of red on his cheeks. Of course, that embarrassment disappeared real fast at the sound of a masculine cough. "Just what were you thinking you were doing?"

Sasuke leaned against the wall, arms crossed and dark eyes boring holes into the young Kazekage. He kicked his still-sleeping companion, rousing the blonde into a fit of whining and cursing. "I know you weren't copping a feel."

Gaara leveled an emotionless look his way. "I hardly need an excuse so unrefined to, as you put it, cop a feel." His flicked a glance to the woman on the bed. "Besides, I do believe I'm more than entitled to a little payback after all the times I've been felt up."

Eyes bugged out as the Konoha boys flicked between staring at Gaara, and then Sakura. "Nani?!" Naruto burst out.

Their shock increased tenfold though when she reached out to smack the redhead on the shoulder. "That is for healing purposes only. Don't go giving them wild dream and imaginations. They hardly need it."

"I'm assuming this has something to do with a mission." Sasuke asked, pausing a brief moment before adding, "Leopard-san."

Sakura flinched as if he had physically hit her. Teeth sank into her lower lip and she looked resolutely at the covers on the bed. "I was going to tell you, really I was. I jsut didn't know how. I mean, we've always done everything together. Or the times when we didn't, it was usually you two progressing ahead of me. And with current situations being as they are, I know why you two are still at Chuunin. But...well the oppurtunity presented itself to me to advance and I wanted it so badly." Hot trails burned on her cheeks where tears were tracing down them. "I just...I really wanted to tell you but I didn't know how or how you'd take the news."

Fingers lifted her chin up. "You know, the only thing we're upset about is not being able to take you out for a drink in celebration." Naruto said simply, using his other hand to brush the tears off her face. "And perhaps for all the times you've dented our skulls." He added with a quirky grin.

"And ripped off our ears." Sasuke muttered.

"And blackened our eyes." Naruto chirped.

"Not too mention the time in Mist..." Sasuke added in.

"Alright alright, I get it! I was too rough." Sakura grinned, grabbing the blonde in a hug. "I'm just, really sorry I didn't tell you."

"You know, we're not boogeymen. Well...maybe the dobe over there is, but I'm not at least. You can always tell me anything." Cerulean eyes squinted to slits. "Unless of course its something along the lines of you marrying Sasuke or something. Because then I'd have to beat up my best friend."

"Ditto. As if you could though."

Moving slowly and carefully, Gaara inched towards the door. The scene being played out between the three friends wasn't for him to intrude upon. Not too mention, he didn't like the anger that rose up in him when Sakura grabbed Naruto in a hug. Or when they talked about her marrying one of the two. They're not worthy of someone like her. He growled in his mind, hand sliding up the wall to the handle of the door to the room. It clicked loudly as he turned it though, drawing the threesome's attention.

"Deer in the headlights." Sakura commented to the Kazekage's expression.

"Kakashi-sensei caught in the woman's locker room." Naruto chirped.

Both looked expectantly to the quiet Sharingan user. "Teme being told there was an all-you-can-eat ramen stand."

"Nani?! Are you serious?!"

"Moron."

Sakura shushed them, still watching the redhead. "Hey guys, can we talk tomorrow. I'm kind of worn-out and I still need to perform one final medical duty for the evening." The two mumbled their goodbyes, fixing a warning look on Gaara as they filed out. He returned it with his characteristic, emotionless mask.

A soft thumping noise drew his attention and he turned to see the woman patting the bed next to her. "Well, as I said, time to attend to business."

Business she says. More like torture. He scoffed to himself, gingerly settling himself on the bed as far from her as he could. At least, that was his intentions. Sakura, obviously, had other things in mind for him. He didn't think she could move so quickly, but one minute she was leaning against the pillows at the head of the bed while he perched precariously at the foot of the bed, the next she was sitting behind him with her legs to either side. Hands ran up his back to slide into his hair. "Think you can move over a bit. My ass is half-way off this thing." She grumbled, shifting with him as he obliged her. "I don't suppose I can talk you into resting for the night." He grumbled, trying to ignore how much he liked it when her hands ran through the blood-red strands.

She made an 'uh-uh' noise before lightly brushing her chakra into his head. "I needed a break from them. I can't face them fully yet, I still feel really bad." She 'hmm'ed' as her awareness spread over his mind, finding all the little tears and rips. She healed a couple of them, wincing when a low hiss of pain escaped the young man. And then she chanced across one that made her pause. It was fairly big, likely two or three inches long. Only, the location of it, was right where memories were stored. Even a light brush with her chakra, no healing, told her as much when an image of a young boy with a knife held over his wrist popped up.

"What. Was that?" Gaara growled, eyes gone wide as the image of himself at six years of age came unbidden.

"Remember how I told you about the side effects that may occur. Well, that was one of them. I can stop if you want, but there's another rip in that area of your brain." She said regretfully.

For once, Gaara chewed on his lower lip briefly. "Just do it and get it done with." He turned, fixing icy green eyes on her. "You will never speak of what you may see. And you will never show me pity." He vitually snarled. "If you do, I will kill you."

She nodded tensely, waiting till he was back in his original postion before begining. Pain exploded in his skull, blinding him momentarily with the ferocity of it as the woman sank into the unknown world of Gaara's past. Sakura gasped, trying desperately to hold onto her own reality while healing the moaning boy under her hands. But image after image whipped in front of her eyes, causing them to widen, the pupils to contract to near nothingness. Tears flowed down her cheeks as she saw murderous assassins attempting to kill a lonely child. That same child trying so hard to end his own life and misery. Children that ran away when he tried to help. The same children that whispered behind his back of what a monster he was and that they wished he would die. Adults that would say the same things. Then the image of a blonde man that first brought such a rush of love and happiness that for a moment, the woman held hope that not all of his past had been so brutal. Until the scene of that same man appeared, attempting to kill Gaara.

"Yashamaru..." Sakura heard distantly from Gaara. She didn't see the silvery lines that traced wet paths down his cheeks. The same tear tracks that were marking her own.

She tried to pull out, unable to take anymore as miserable scene after miserable scene played-out. She felt the pain of the burn of poisons, blades that were never quite fast enough to reach her...no his heart. The Konoha kunoichi couldn't believe how many cruel and twisted methods a person could come up with to try and kill someone, but they were all here. All locked into his mind. And then the tables turned. It wasn't his past she saw anymore. It was her own. She felt more then heard the man under her hands gasp.

Stones flew past their vision, the sharp cutting pain as they struck unprotected flesh. Children jeering and chanting at her as they continued to throw the projectiles. "No." She whispered, remembering that particular day, wincing in anticipation. Anticipation as the final hit came, from a boy a coupel years older then she had been then, as he threw a rock that knocked her out and would leave a three-inch gash just above her eye. A scene of her and Ino argueing, her parents argueing. She was shaking, she knew she was, but couldn't stop it. Gaara could only watch through the red haze of agony at a woman who had grown up with a difficult past. Not nearly so cruel as his own perhaps, though there were many forms of cruelty. He watched as she was socially out-casted from the other children over something so trivial as a large forehead. Though he personally didn't think she had anything of the sort. Even though no one attempted to kill her, he could feel both the physical and emotional pain the other children inflicted upon her.

"Sakura!!" The bellow her in her mind reverberated, doubling his pain. Even with his eyes closed though he watched as a bear of a man advanced on the girl who would become one of the greatest medics. She couldn't have been no more then seven in this memory. The pure ferocity though in the man's eyes had Gaara's lips curling back in a silent snarl and instinctively he sent out a lash of sand to keep him back. A vase in the room shattered to dust and the memory continued.

"Daddy...please no..." The little girl whimpered.

"No!" Sakura shrieked, using pure will force to rip herself out of the stranged connection between her and Gaara. She would not relive those memories. She would never let him see them.

The fell back away from each other, panting. Wide jade eyes turned to meet her emerald ones and already the woman could see the questions in them. She had never seen the redhead so open, his emotions so out on his sleeve, but she couldn't take advantage of it. "Don't pity me." She whispered, before clapping hands together and disappearing in a swirl of sakura petals.

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AN: Yay! Another short and rushed chapter that took me a year to make. Honestly, I had half written several months ago and I figured I can't keep you all waiting on my stories, so I kinda hurried through this one. I'll try to keep writing and for those of you who are reading my others, Dog Days is 75 percent done on the next chapter, Blood and Chocolate is about 50 percent, and Opposite Souls is inthe vicinity of 30-35 percent