Author's Note: Again, thanks for your support. This will be mostly from Sakura's POV, I hope you find it enjoyable. A lot happens in this chapter! Pay attention to the details ;)

"Sakura, please,"

Tsubasa
by Ailu-chan

"It doesn't work that way."

.Part Ten.

It felt like she was dreaming, but deep down Sakura knew she wasn't dreaming at all. She imagined Sasuke had intended her to pass out, not to be like this – this was too cruel, even for him. She would've loved to have passed out.

Much to her despair, she hadn't. She had heard him, felt him sigh on her face as he caught her in his arms when her body stopped responding. She had landed softly, like a feather touching the ground. She willed her eyes to open, her mouth to scream, but it just wouldn't happen.

Sasuke had carried her to the same bench she'd been sitting on a few moments before. At first, he made her lie down – her back against the cold stone. He'd been particularly careful when settling her head down, as if he didn't want it to bump on the hard surface. Sakura felt it as his hands deliberately stroked down her hair, and all of a sudden his touch was gone.

Desperation rose in her guts, as she couldn't feel him anymore, and her eyes wouldn't open, and she wanted to reach out with her arms but she couldn't – and then she felt him again. He was putting an arm under her back, and for a second she was almost sure he would pull her in an embrace; so disappointment rushed over her when she realized he was just settling her on her side, probably so that passersby would think she was asleep and not dead, as she'd looked like before.

How considerate, she had thought. Her blood burned with rage, numbing the heartache for a while. She couldn't believe he was doing this. If anybody walked by her, they'd think she was a- then his touch was gone again, and she was left to listen to his steps as he walked away. The sound of his slow, meditative steps on the dirt road blurred any other thoughts from her mind. She believed this would be something she'd never forget: the desolation, the hopelessness of listening to a loved one walking away from you. His steps sounded thoughtful, and with each one Sakura tried to distinguish if he was walking definitely away, or if he'd reconsidered and one of the sounds was actually a step back. And of course, she was only considering the listening of it all because she couldn't open her eyes, or move, or beg for him to stay.

It was the closest to agony Sakura had ever been.

She wished she knew how much time it had been since his steps were already too far away for her to listen to. She knew she should have been crying, but surprisingly no tears came down her cheeks. He'd also taken that away from her. After a while of screaming and sobbing and wailing in her thoughts, the darkness around her took her in; and she figured she must have drifted off at some point, due to hunger (she hadn't eaten in what it seemed forever) and exhaustion.

In the middle of the night – and she guessed it was sometime around the middle of the night because she was freezing and she could feel it was dark – she could open her eyes. She had to blink a couple of times for her sight to adjust, just like you do when you wake up in the morning; with the exception that she didn't feel rested. Her sight confirmed her guess, everything was dark around her, and she saw the chilly breeze blowing off some leaves off the ground. She could see her forearm and she saw the goose bumps appear on her skin.

Now that her eyes were responding, all the tears came out at once. It wasn't a desperate sob, but more like a slow and steady flow. Her body didn't let her shake and tremble like she would have if she'd been sobbing – instead, she was breathing evenly and blinking the tears away.

A part of her hadn't wanted to open her eyes. In the darkness, she could imagine everything was a dream – imagine she was still in her room, and she just had to wake up and Sasuke and the rest would be in the kitchen when she came downstairs.

It's not a dream, idiot, a voice inside her told her. He's gone. He didn't need you anymore and he left you on a bench on the street.

There was nothing Sakura wanted more than to understand why. Why this was happening to her, why he'd left her there -couldn't he have carried her to her house? It wasn't like he was slow or anything-, why he wouldn't say anything when she'd told him she loved him. Why she had to be there that afternoon on the road to meet him.

"I wish I had never met you!" She'd yelled at him, with all her anger rushing through her veins, wishing him to be struck by lightning right there and then. She really did wish she'd never met him. Her heart wouldn't be broken if it weren't for him. She wondered where he was at that moment. Was he thinking about her? Was he feeling guilty? She damn sure wished he did.

No. Stop thinking about this. You've got to get up and go home.

Her arm wouldn't move, though. She could imagine the sore limbs when she could move them. As the time passed by, she slowly regained control of her body – starting with her fingers, which she'd started to be able to move one at a time. When she was able to move her hand, the lights of dawn flashed across the horizon, in between the houses and forests that surrounded the village.

She sighed, or at least tried, and it came as a long breathing out. Whatever paralyzing trick he'd played on her would take a while to fade away. Based on what she knew, she figured she'd be able to stand up and properly walk in about six or seven more hours.

Unless… Would it be possible for her to reactivate her muscles using chakra? She breathed in and out, slowly, and she focused on what Suigetsu and Sasuke had explained to her once – how the chakra was your physical and mental energy molded into one and how it flowed across the chakra pathway system in your body. She'd objected then that she didn't have that much physical energy, and they'd told her everything came with practice.

Suigetsu had drawn an example of the chakra pathway system, she recalled, and Sasuke had snorted and said he had it completely wrong. "What do you know about chakra networks, anyway?" Suigetsu had glared.

"You forget who I am," he'd answered arrogantly. "I see chakra networks every day." A smirk was playing on his lips and a flash of red went through his eyes. She'd blinked, and it was gone.

Sakura didn't remember exactly what the chakra pathway system had looked like, but she knew it wasn't very different from the anatomic circulatory system in a normal person's body – except that the central pool of chakra wasn't exactly on the heart, but rather in the middle of the abdomen. She tried to visualize the pool of chakra inside her, and with every breath she took in she tried to make it grow. As she exhaled, she tried to move it towards her limbs; hoping that maybe a higher chakra concentration there would help speed up the awakening of her muscles.

After she dropped sterile bandages on the floor for the second time, Takashi stared down at her – annoyance and worry in his eyes – and sent her home, with explicit instructions of taking the next day off.

During the past few days, she'd been trying to spend as much time as possible in the hospital. She only realized it now, as she was walking home alone – it wasn't that she wanted to be in the hospital, she just didn't want to be home. The hospital just happened to be the perfect alibi to get out and do something productive. Helping the elders sit onto wheelchairs, checking IVs, and helping clean newborns. That was her personal favorite.

She closed her house's door behind her, leaned onto it and sighed heavily. Everything was silent. She appreciated the tranquility and quiet of her house after fourteen hours in the only hospital in a fifty miles radius but Kami, she missed them.

After the first two days, she'd learnt that thinking of them (Suigetsu, Juugo, Karin and Sasuke) helped a little, because if she let her thoughts wander and linger on Sasuke alone, the pain became too much for her to take. Of course, she only understood that after two sleepless nights, and crying, and feeling her heart swell and ache and break.

Sighing, she dropped her bag on the couch and walked to the kitchen, determined to get some water and collapse on her bed afterwards.

It was getting dark already, and she couldn't help but remember that it was at this hour; almost a week ago, that she'd been left alone. She pursed her lips as she poured some water on a glass, and started sipping on it as she leaned on the counter, staring out the window as she always did.

She blinked, and she saw something move behind the trees on her garden. It startled her, and the glass slipped from her hands, shattering on the kitchen floor. Could it be Sasuke? Her heart fluttered, and she looked down to see the mess she'd done, as she stepped outside. She inspected the garden but nothing was moving anymore. Don't be stupid. He must be miles away by now. As the disappointment weighed down on her chest, she stepped back in and stared hopelessly at the shattered glass.

She took some paper towels and started putting the glass shards on it, picking them up one by one, as carefully as possible. She'd have to sweep after that, she had a tendency of forgetting things like this and she didn't want to come downstairs barefoot the following day and- "Damn."

One of the shards stung her hand, on the side, between her index finger and thumb. She winced as she saw the wound open and blood quickly finding its way out. Muttering curses under her breath, she went over the sink and washed the blood out. It became painful quite quickly, and the bleeding didn't seem to stop. Struggling to remain calm, she started to breathe evenly, imagining the chakra network once more, and tried to focus her chakra on the opposite hand.

Putting her hand over the wound, she felt it burn a little, and then she could see her chakra glowing a faint green. She smiled. This wasn't the first time she was doing this, she'd been trying it over and over at the hospital – when she took blood samples, as she put a small cotton ball after it; when a child had scraped his knee – but it was the first time she saw it. So this was what it looked like. She wondered if this was what medic nins did to heal people. It clearly involved chakra and healing, so she couldn't imagine anything else.

"Guys you have to take a look at-" she bit her tongue. A twist in her heart reminded her nobody would answer her.

A tremor, like an earthquake, woke her up. She jumped off her bed, her heart pounding on her chest in disquieting alarm. There were no earthquakes in the village, not even mild tremors – those were for places with mountains rather than small hills. Sakura stood up hurriedly but then froze, not sure how she should proceed. Should she run outside or keep calm inside? Which would be safer? She had never felt something so terrifying before, the feeling of the earth moving below your feet and the rumble-

She heard an explosion outside. Its thunder shook her into motion, and so she quickly put on her boots and ran outside. It had deafened her a little, for she only heard the screams a few seconds after she got to the streets. She stared at the night sky, dazed – it wasn't dark anymore, she could see tongues of fire leaping into the sky, turning it orange and yellow and red. It wasn't too far; she guessed the explosion had been a mile away, maybe two.

Many of her neighbors were outside too, staring at the sky just like her. She wondered what could have caused such an explosion. There was only one power station in the village, but she remembered that it wasn't in that direction – quite the opposite, actually.

After thirty seconds of useless staring, she remembered the hospital. The wounded and burnt would be taken there, and they'd need all the help they could get. Takashi had sent her home, but she couldn't just go back to sleep now. She might as well make herself useful.

She started walking at a fast pace, but then it developed into a run as she heard two more explosions. What the hell is going on? When she finally arrived at the hospital, she burst the doors open and rushed inside, looking wildly around for someone to take orders from.

Everything was crazy. Nurses were running around, doctors were shouting orders and the injured constantly passed by her, some limping, some on stretchers. Others were lucky enough not to have been severely injured and were told to wait on the hall. Still, the sight was quite tragic.

"Sakura!" She turned around and saw Takashi calling for her, opening the gates of the emergency room with his back, his hands in the air, as they were probably sanitized. She quickly made her way towards him, ready to start helping. "Here, please put some ointment on the burn as I get the bandages ready."

"Right. Let me wash my hands first," she said evenly, as she disinfected her hands in the sink of the emergency room.

She smiled down to the thirty-year-old man sitting on one of the hospital chairs in the hall. He had a pretty bad burn on most of his left arm. It was a second-degree burn, she quickly assessed, so he'd need some painkillers before the adrenaline of the explosion started to fade off. "From one to ten, how much pain do you feel?" she asked professionally, having finished cleaning and putting the ointment on the burn.

"Seven," the man winced. He gestured to scratch the burn, so Sakura had to catch his wrist before he could touch it.

"You don't want an infection here," she said severely. "Please wait until we put the bandages."

Sakura approached Takashi. "I suggest putting him on tramadol." She washed the ointment off her hands. "What happened?"

Takashi looked at her in the eye, and another explosion resounded, making the windows tremble. Sakura flinched. "We're under attack," he whispered, his face unreadable.

"What?" Her heart skipped a beat. The last time the village was attacked- "What do you mean under attack?"

Takashi stared at her. "As in, somebody is attacking us and throwing bombs or something at us, obviously," he said matter-of-factly. "Rescue teams have been spread to try and get as many people in the hospital as possible. This is going to get crazy crowded in a few minutes."

That made a lot of sense. Sakura knew that hospitals had immunity, and attacking one was considered a crime of war. "Who's doing this? Why?"

"I was actually hoping you could tell me," said Takashi, frowning. "One of the injured said shinobi were responsible for this." He spat the word as it was poison. Takashi had never talked like this to her before, and she felt like the pieces of her heart were breaking all over again.

Sakura glared at him, her defensive walls building up around her all over again. You should have never put them down, a voice said sadly in her head. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Takashi shrugged, pretending to do it casually but instead it came awkward and tense. "A while ago, a ninja was sighted by a neighbor asking questions about you, in front of your house." Sakura froze. "And now this," he added.

"This? You're seriously suggesting I have something to do with this?" She gaped at him, unbelieving. He avoided looking at her in the eye, and she flushed red with anger. "To hell with you," Sakura blurted out, and stormed off to help someone else.

About ten minutes after she argued with Takashi, the explosions became more frequent, and she could hear one every one or two minutes. Fifteen minutes later, people were crowding the main hall and the stretchers and beds weren't enough in the emergency room. She'd been helping another doctor with a child that had been found underneath the rubble of his house by his neighbors.

His parents had died instantly in one of the explosions, according to his neighbor. The boy couldn't be more than ten years old. Sakura couldn't help but to look at herself in a time mirror. His right leg had been crushed by debris and was broken. The doctor had said he might be able to walk again, but he'd probably limp. Half of his face and all of his left arm and chest was burnt. As she was tending to the burns, she couldn't help being thankful of the fact that he was unconscious since he'd been brought in. She had been assigned to him, as he was stable; and she'd be responsible of breaking the news if he were to wake up.

After she finished bandaging the burns, she examined the crushed leg. It felt cold and had no pulse. She took a stethoscope and pressed it gently over his heart. She felt relieved after the first beating, but she quickly heard the signs of arrhythmia. Panicking, she whirled around and shouted for a doctor's assistance.

A female doctor she had seen a couple of times before rushed into the curtains. Sakura spoke quickly to brief the doctor of the patient's situation. "The burns are second degree; his leg was crushed and broken. He was rescued under the debris by his neighbors."

The doctor nodded. "Urine is brown. This is crush syndrome," she said, looking at the urine bag on the side of the bed. Sakura stood on guard, expecting orders. "There's not much that we can do, the dead muscle is poisoning him."

Sakura exploded. "He's arrhythmic! What do you mean there's not much we can do? Just give him some-" The machines around the boy started beeping, indicating the boy's heart wasn't pumping blood as it should. "Cardiac arrest," Sakura whispered, and moved towards the defibrillator.

The doctor took it silently. Sakura cleared the boy's chest, and nodded. The doctor, Ms. Hayashi, as it read on her nametag; discharged the defibrillator on the boy once, twice. Three times after that.

Time seemed to slow down around Sakura. She couldn't believe the boy's heart was just giving up, like that. Sheer horror ran through her as she started to realize this would be the first death she'll ever witness. She eyed Ms. Hayashi in desperation, hoping to find some sympathy or distress in her factions, but she was entirely blank. As if she were doing this because of protocol and not to save the boy's life. She wanted to slap her.

"Two minutes already. Time of death, four fourteen." Sakura stared at the doctor. "You're supposed to write that down."

Sakura felt as if she was going to faint. Like a zombie, she took the boy's patient file folder and scribbled the number down. She put the folder back on the table and stared at the boy, absently. The voice of the doctor shook her. "Do you know who his parents are? I'll have to break the sad news." She did sound sad now.

"They died, I've been told."

"I see," she said, leaning on the wall. "I'm sorry. Is this your first?" Sakura looked at her, not knowing what she was talking about. "Your first loss at work, I mean. I can see it in your eyes. It never gets easy, but it becomes more tolerable, with time." The doctor sighed. "We need this bed. It's a massacre outside. Stupid shinobi meddling with civilians," she said casually, and didn't see Sakura flinch. "Please take him to the morgue and bring back the bed."

Sakura froze, and forced herself to nod. She knew perfectly where the morgue was, but she'd never been inside, let alone carried a body with her.

The way to the elevator was a blur in her mind. She found herself pressing the button to go to the morgue, underground, but couldn't remember how she'd gotten there. As the elevator's doors closed her in, she wondered if it was wise to take the elevator at all – given the explosions and fires all around the village. She wondered what the situation was outside. It'd been a while since she last heard an explosion, but maybe it was because of the boy's episode – it seemed to blur everything else around her.

Boy, she thought. I don't even know your name. As she opened the morgue doors, pushing them open with the stretcher, Sakura reflected that this boy could have well been her six years ago. She'd just been lucky.

The morgue reeked of cheap disinfectant and the inevitable rot of corpses. She wasn't sure where she was supposed to leave the boy's body. The morgue attendant should have been there, but as it was probably a doctor too, it was very likely it'd been called to assist treating victims upstairs. The entire room was refrigerated, so she figured she could just leave him here, come back up and keep helping the living.

Two seconds after she pressed the elevator button, she heard the blast.

Deafening and horrifying, it left her ears ringing. The room shook around her, and she could feel the walls and the ceiling cracking and fracturing. One of the explosions had hit the hospital. I'm underground, her mind flared desperately, I'm going to be buried alive if I don't get out. The elevator was out of the question, so she ran towards the other door, which led to the stairs.

As she opened the heavy doors, she heard the screams and wails of a hospital on fire. This isn't happening. They can't have targeted a hospital! She thought of all the defenseless crowding the main hall. If they hadn't been burned to death, they'd be crushed in a few minutes. She was fairly sure the hospital would collapse, it wasn't such a modern building and she had heard the foundations squeak and screech. She was about to go upstairs running, but then she looked up and she felt a second blast land upon the hospital.

Tongues of fire came down the stairs, and it was all she could do to get back into the morgue and close the door behind her. Had it been a different situation, she'd have dreaded to lock herself up in a room full of corpses, but there was no way she could walk on fire and survive.

Suigetsu kicked everybody up, panicking.

"It's four in the morning, asshole, your watch isn't-"

"There's a fire, and I felt explosions," Suigetsu said quietly. "They come from Sakura's village direction."

Sasuke instantly got to his feet. He got to the top of one of the trees with a single jump, and saw fire far away. He tensed and came down again.

Karin was picking up her stuff, frowning. "We're too far, by the time we get there-"

"We better hurry, then," Sasuke glared, and everybody went silent.

The bombing had stopped, at last. At one point the earth had shook so hard that the refrigerator with the corpses had burst open – the containers with corpses had fallen to the ground, making her ears ring; but the ones that were empty had flown across the morgue. One of them had hit her on the forehead, and after a while she felt the blood running down her temple and cheek. She did her best not to stare at the bodies scattered around the room.

In the worst part of the bombing, the ceiling had started to crack and she'd been seriously worried that she might be buried alive after all. She looked around and found a corner in which a structural column and a beam connected and she deemed it to be the safest area in case the building collapsed.

She had crouched and covered her head, and waited. She would have cried, but she didn't know the situation outside, and it'd only dehydrate her more. She heard walls crumbling above her, foundations creaking, but no more screams or agony. After five minutes and no more explosions, she decided she needed to come out before the building did collapse. She made her way through the mess that had become of the morgue, muttering an anguished 'sorry´ when she had to step on a corpse to come through.

She slipped and her shoulder hit one of the metallic tables, ripping open her skin in a clean cut across her shoulder blade. She brought her arm to it and almost started to heal it using chakra – but decided against it a second before the green glow came out. If shinobi were responsible for this, using chakra would be most unwise. She should be hiding her chakra, actually. Why hadn't she thought about this before? She carefully folded her vital energy in her stomach, pleading silently that whoever was doing this to the village hadn't noticed her.

She pushed the doors open with her healthy shoulder, as debris was blocking the way. The remains of what had been the walls of the hallway leading to the morgue were all over the stairs, and she had to carefully climb through them. She vowed to be silent and quiet as a snake – she didn't know if the people who'd done this were still out there. She scraped her knees and arms on her way up, wincing and fighting the urge to heal herself.

When she got to the surface, she was met by the first lights of dawn. If the hospital had still been standing, she wouldn't have been able to see it, as walls would block her way. She leant on the remains of the walls that had led to the morgue and took a glimpse of what had been left. Outright destruction surrounded her. If she'd been agitated by the sight of bodies in the morgue, this was utterly sickening and terrifying. The reason why she couldn't hear screams was because there was nobody who could scream any longer – burnt people were lying on the floor of what was once a hospital, and limbs of crushed people poked out underneath crumbled walls.

The hospital no longer existed, and she could only notice a few houses half-standing. A complete silence made her feel deaf after so many explosions, and she went back to lean against the wall; breathing heavily.

What was she supposed to do? Where would she go now? She wondered if her house was left in one piece, or if all her memories and her parents' precious objects had been lost as well. She despaired silently, feeling hopeless.

Then, she heard movement, and was about to get out and help whoever it was that had been spared, until she heard them speaking, and froze.

"I can't believe you attacked a hospital, ne, Senpai…" A childish voice dragged. "It seems kinda cruel, even for you."

Another man sighed. "We're patient, but we never forget. Let's get going."

Never forget? Never forget what? Sakura's mind was racing. These were the people responsible for this catastrophe. If she could get a look at them, maybe she could identify them later for the authorities. She considered sneaking over the wall and taking a glimpse, but she couldn't risk being seen – they'd surely kill her and there'd be nobody to account for what had happened later.

"You could have left a dango shop still standing, though, Senpai… I'm getting hungry already," the childish voice complained. "Anyway, what are you talking about? I thought we were just looking for Sasuke-kun."

Sasuke-kun.

Sakura felt her world crumble around her. So it had something to do with Sasuke. She'd brought them into the village, taken them in; and now the village didn't even exist anymore and it was because of her. She gasped for air, and she would have wailed and cried if her life hadn't depended on it.

There was a silence, and Sakura was afraid that they were talking so low she couldn't hear them. She heard them take a few steps away from her, and if they were moving away, maybe she could peek at them. Very slowly, she peeped out, and saw two men strolling leisurely over the slaughter they had caused, and she wished she had the power to make them suffer. She was thankful they weren't walking towards her, though. One of them was blond, a ponytail wagging at mid-back length. The other one was a bit taller than the first one, with short and spiky black hair.

But most importantly, they were both wearing black cloaks with red clouds. Sakura went back to her spot behind the wall, breathing heavily. Akatsuki. She felt like screaming and running away, sheer terror flooding her veins, and it took all of her self-control to steady herself and not run. After a few seconds, she was biting on her lip so hard she could taste blood.

The men went on with their casual conversation, completely ignoring her. That was a good thing, for once.

"Many years ago, before you joined, Akatsuki had more members," the blond one said, and snorted. "Two of them had been placed here, to take advantage of the strategic location of this stupid village. Turns out, villagers didn't like them very much and they performed a really nice witch hunt. They set half of their own village on fire and killed our fellows."

The other man stayed silent for a moment. "That doesn't sound very nice, no," he said finally.

"Nope. We're looking for the Uchiha brat, yes, but I just thought it might be a nice opportunity to hand over fucking payback." He spat out the word, as if he'd been waiting a long time to say it.

"Don't you think the boss is going to get mad at you? We're supposed to lie low."

"The boss is as mad at this village as I am," he said. "Anyway, the brat's obviously not here. Let's go."

"Hai, senpai!" The other one chirped happily.

Sakura heard a puff and the flap of a bird, but amplified several times. A wild wind messed with her hair, and a shadow went over her – a giant white bird, made of something akin to paper, soared over her. She went down and instinctively covered her hair, suddenly very aware that it was pink and would attract unwanted attention.

She went up on her knees when they were out of earshot, and Sakura screamed. She screamed hopelessly, as if it were her last breath. Tears soon crowded her eyes and went down her cheeks. She stood up and started looking throughout the remains of the hospital, looking for any survivors, even if she knew there weren't any. She was being careless, she knew, but she didn't care anymore – she'd been supposed to die that night and if there was no other survivors to keep her going, her chances were too low to even consider them.

She tripped, and hit her head with the remains of a column. Blinding pain shot through her skull, and then everything went black.

"Hey, you're waking up!" A soft, husky voice said over her. "You're okay now. We got you," The boy smiled. He was towering over her, covering the sun, and she was glad because she could feel that she was sunburnt already.

She blinked a couple of times and tried to sit up, but her arms weren't as strong as she thought they were, and she slipped. He caught her before her head hit the ground, chuckling softly. Sakura blinked again, trying to focus her eyes on him, and her gaze was met by a bright smile, and blue eyes. His hair was blonde, and in her daze, she felt like she was staring at the impersonation of the sun – bright, warm and reassuring.

"Oi, Kakashi-sensei! She's alive!" He turned around and yelled, and Sakura wished he hadn't done that, because she was having a headache come from hell. The boy looked at her once more. "Can you speak? What's your name?"

Sakura breathed in, every muscle aching. "Sakura," she said, and her voice came as a tired mumble.

His smile widened, if that was even possible. "Fitting," he said, looking at her hair. "Are you hurt?"

Before she could answer, the man that she assumed was Kakashi came closer and towered over her as well. His hair was gray and messy, his eyes gray as well. No, one of his eyes was-

Sakura gasped and tried to get away in panic, screaming. The blond boy held her firmly in his arms. "Let me go! Let me go!" She cried desperately, but his grip was so strong and she was so weak, she couldn't get away. "What do you want from me?"

"Nothing at all, Sakura-chan. We're just taking you to Konohagakure to fix you up." The boy smiled sadly, and she realized he was feeling pity for her. It made her want to cry. "Nobody here survived, we're going to get you somewhere to stay."

"Wh-why?" she managed to whisper.

"We were patrolling the area and saw the explosions. This is a rescue mission," the man named Kakashi said.

The boy seemed to acknowledge his presence and looked up at him. "See, Kakashi-sensei, I told you she was alive!" He beamed, grinning.

Kakashi frowned, but he didn't seem angry. She could see his lip twitch upwards, even if he was wearing a mask over his mouth. "I told you she was alive. You just got to her first."

"Sakura-chan, is it okay if I carry you? We're heading back to the Hidden Village now. You can go on my back."

Sakura nodded shyly. Before she'd finished her second nod, he already had her on his back. She rested her head on his shoulder, and heard him laugh softly again. He smelled of sunshine and vegetable soup and ramen. A silent tear rolled down her cheek. He smelled of home.

He had started walking away from the place he'd found her, towards more voices. They really were a rescue team, she could distinguish at least four more voices, but she felt too tired to raise her head and look at them. She heard Kakashi's voice issuing orders and telling everybody they were ready to pack up and go.

"What's your name?" She asked him. Her voice still came as a whisper, but it was a bit stronger than before.

The boy looked over his shoulder and grinned again. Did he always do that? Her heart felt warm and fuzzy. "Naruto."

She managed to smile back a little and nodded against his shoulder. "Thank you."

Sasuke's cheeks started to feel sore, and he realized he'd been clenching his teeth since he stepped on the village.

Or what used to be the village.

For about an hour, they'd been looking for Sakura. They'd called her name, Karin had tried to locate her, he'd used his Sharingan and tried to feel her chakra. Nothing at all.

"We couldn't have known," Juugo said, in a futile attempt of making the guilt go away.

Suigetsu looked as if he was going to explode any minute, and he kicked a piece of debris about a hundred feet away. Karin just glared at nothing in particular. Sasuke himself felt like he had failed at something, although he wasn't quite sure what.

"Maybe you can try once more, Karin," Suigetsu said, in an unusually polite voice towards her.

She directed her glare at him. "She's not here," she spat for the eleventh time. "Either she escaped quite far away, or she's hiding her chakra, or she's d-" Everybody glared at her. "What!? This is not our responsibility!"

Suigetsu exploded. "One of us could have stayed. I could have stayed." He turned to Sasuke and glared at him. "I cannot believe you left her unconscious on that bench. This is all our fault! In the end, I was right – you are a heartless bastard, Uchiha Sasuke, you left her here to die-"

Sasuke could understand that he was grief-stricken, but that was it. He shoved his blade in his chest, knowing he'd just turn into water. "Mind your words, Suigetsu," he said carefully. "There's nothing for us to do here. We continue with our mission."

A/N: Reviews are always appreciated. Thank you again for your support. I hope you enjoyed it - I certainly enjoyed writing it.