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The First Time
Chapter 13: Love of My Life
"So just take my hand,
you know that I will never leave your side
You're the love of my life,
you know that I will never leave your side"
Time flew past Sakura as she delved into her intensive research on the Akatsuki ring. From dawn until dusk, Sakura and her team of fellow researchers and medic-nin worked endlessly to deconstruct the ring.
Late fall turned into a harsh winter that beat an unusual amount of snow onto the relatively temperate country. Sakura spent her days pouring over old scrolls in the library and multiple research departments throughout Konoha. She took extensive notes on the various seals on the rings, trying to find the earliest known meanings of the calligraphy on the band. Often, she would have to shanghai Kakashi (until he was sent on a mission about two weeks after she began her research) or another skilled shinobi who had vast experience in seals. She would figuratively imprison her victims for hours at a time, trying to verbally beat the meaning of each little notch, nick, and cranny of each and every seal from whomever she had captured for the day to help her with her research.
The harsh winter lightened, the snow stopped coming, but it was replaced with sleet and bitter winds of late winter/early spring. Scrolls were sent out to various allied villages with runner shinobi as Sakura attempted to contact some of the other village's seal experts. Although they had not yet found anything concrete on the seals, Sakura could feel it – they were getting close, especially now that they had finally broken down the metal and stone to their molecular levels.
Unfortunately, now, she was at a bit of a road block and needed some extra help from someone who had worked with the ring, which left her in her current predicament.
Winter was almost over, and the sun was slowly warming the hard, cold ground. There was a bitter chill to the air since a dense cloud hung over the village and the sleet/rain had been coming down in waves for days now, and Sakura pulled her thick cloak around herself as she limped down a small back road in one of the older sections of the village.
The address that Tsunade had scribbled onto a ripped piece of paper the evening before was far from the bustling main streets of the market, hospital, and Hokage Tower. Houses were a little run down in this part of Konoha, but it was just an older, less traveled portion of the village. The families were old blood – some of them having been in Konoha during its founding days – civilian, and well-to-do blue collared folk, and Sakura couldn't recall ever having visited this particular small neighborhood in the past.
The road was dirt and very tight, not even allowing for more than three people to walk across the road without knocking into the fronts of small, family-owned shops and houses. An old man with an ox-drawn cart was ambling down the road towards the market, so Sakura stepped to the side, pressing herself against a wall of a small house so he could move past. Exchanging polite nods, Sakura watched as he walked down the road and other civilians did the same thing.
Her cane got stuck in the mud slightly as she continued on her way down the little road, yanking it out of the suctioning mud with each step she took. When it seemed like she was running out of road and getting into small forested area with a small pond, she found the matching address that was fixed to a small wooden home. It was painted light green and the shutters were a few shades darker. There were two little boxes out front that would hold potted plants when the weather finally began to warm.
Letting herself through the small gate that separated the backset house, Sakura walked into the grass of the yard and around a little brick path that was still under construction. Her sandals and cane still stuck a bit into the wet grass, but she was able to make her way up to the house with relative ease until she could duck her head under a little overhang that sheltered the front door.
Steeling herself, Sakura took a deep breath to calm her already rising nerves and simpering temper before rapping her knuckles on the door four times. After a moment of silence, a shuffling came from behind the green painted wooden door. Clicks from the locks shifting made Sakura's heart stutter in mounting anxiety.
"Hello?" a soft, kind voice came from the door that had just opened. A dusty pink bandana was pulling back black hair that barely fell to petite shoulders. Dark brown eyes, the color of thick milk chocolate, were shining in confusion at the new face standing at her front door. "How can I help you?"
This must me Ito Megumi-san, Sakura thought. The woman was shorter than Sakura and very petite, but she had a small, genuine smile and kind, soft eyes.
"Oh, right," Sakura stuttered, rubbing the back of her head nervously with one hand while the other held her cane. "My name is Haruno Sakura, and I'm doing research at the lab working on the Akatsuki. I was wondering if Hoshigaki-san was here. I needed to ask him a few questions."
Megumi's eyes immediately lit up in familiarity and comprehension. "Ah, yes! Haruno-san! My escorts from Koueki no Kuni talked about you constantly. They said you were on their team before you were injured. Naruto-kun is quite fond of you."
Megumi ushered her inside her warm abode and lead the kunoichi into the house and through a small entryway before offering to take her traveling cloak and hanging it in a closet. Sakura was then led into a small, comfortably furnished living room. Megumi motioned for Sakura to sit on a worn but plush looking green couch. As Megumi went into the attached kitchen to prepare tea, she yelled, "Kisame, Haruno Sakura is here to see you!"
There was a long silence before Kisame gruffly, almost tentatively, yelled back, "She doesn't have any weapons, does she?"
Megumi-san quirked an eyebrow at Sakura, who just shrugged in response. She wasn't going to be the one to explain it to her. The petite woman just shook her head while a small, private smile spread across her thin lips. "Don't worry Ceviche-kun, I'll protect you."
"Oi, don't call me that!" Kisame almost whined from behind a close door that was attached to a small visible hallway from the living room. The door swung open to reveal the large blue former Akatsuki as he pulled a regular black shirt over his head and onto his large, imposing body. Dark blue hair was slightly damp and ruffled, as if he had taken a shower and then collapsed into bed.
Sakura was internally proud of her ability to keep a scowl from forming, but she was unable to muster anything close to a polite smile.
"Hoshigaki-san," she greeted rather blandly.
"Haruno-san," he said with a nod. Kisame shifted uncomfortably, like he wasn't in his own house, but finally settled on sitting in a matching green armchair across from the couch Sakura was on. The silence that followed was contentious as Sakura observed Kisame and he looked anywhere that wasn't her.
Megumi came out of the kitchen moments later with a tray of umeboshi rice balls and tea, diffusing some of the palpable tension. She set the tray down gracefully with practiced ease.
"Is green tea alright, Haruno-san? Ceviche-kun here hasn't gone to the market yet this week," Megumi chastised likely. Kisame sent her a fake baleful look, but smiled soon after. There was a softness in him that Sakura could have never fathomed or believed if she wasn't witnessing herself right now.
"Green tea is perfect, Ito-san," Sakura replied carefully while taking the tea that was offered to her. Megumi smiled after serving the tea and stretched a little.
"I'm off to the clinic, now. My shift begins soon," Megumi said to both of them. She leaned over and pecked a rather disgruntled Kisame on top of his blue head.
"You work at the civilians' clinic, Ito-san?" Sakura asked curiously; the civilian clinics had been set up during Tsunade's first few years as Hokage. This way, the hospital could treat more major injuries and not worry about sprained bones and the flu. Megumi nodded and a wistful smile came over her petite features.
"I was one of the few healers in my old village, and Hokage-sama arranged a job for me at one of the clinics. She said they are always understaffed," Megumi replied before turning and heading into the back room. Shortly thereafter, she emerged wearing a blue nurse's dress and a medic's smock over it. Kisame's fiancé wished them a good day and walked out into the hardening sleet-rain while pulling a thick cloak over her petite frame.
Sakura sipped her hot green tea in silence since she was still chilled from her earlier trek through the cold rain. Kisame wasn't drinking his tea; he instead spent his time rubbing the hem of his black cotton shirt through his fingertips. Finally, after taking a few minutes to warm her bones, Sakura set down her empty tea cup onto the tray.
"I've been researching your Akatsuki ring," Sakura stated suddenly, but her voice was quiet. However, her sudden speech seemed to make Kisame uneasy. He nodded, though, and waited for her to continue. "The gem is red beryl. It's only found in Lightning Country. The metal, though, is a very rare metal that is a combination of titanium, platinum, and silver that has only ever been discovered in Rain Country."
Kisame had never bothered to know any of this before and didn't see how it affected him now, but rather than upset the rather temperamental kunoichi in front of him, he simply nodded. Sakura stopped her explanation for a moment and reached down into her knapsack that she had set next to her feet at the base of the couch. Pulling out one of the many scrolls of notes that she had taken over the past several months; she unfurled the long scroll and set it out on the coffee table, using her empty tea cup to keep the edges down.
The scroll was covered in even Japanese kanji: the seals that Sakura had copied from the band of the ring. Next to each of the large seal kanji were Sakura's extensive notes, speculations, and thoughts about what the seals could possibly mean and how they were used in relation to the Akatsuki.
Kisame stared in mild awe at the elaborate research the Konoha kunoichi had done. As his eyes scanned the page, he was impressed at how thoughtful she had been in her research. Kisame had never known exactly how his ring worked, but from what he could tell, Sakura had almost figured it out.
"How can I help?" he finally asked her, sitting back in his chair and looking at the woman.
"I've hit a road block. I've figured out some of the ancient calligraphy on the rings, but the remaining kanji seals are nearly impossible to figure out since they are so old. What I need to know is exactly how you transfer your chakra into the ring and how you communicated to one and other. I also need to know how you were able to control the dead body of another and henge it to look like you since the jutsu used chakra in the rings to transfer it such far distances," Sakura explained slowly.
"If I know this, I can probably use the different jutsu to work backwards and figure out the probable meaning of the different kanji. Then, hopefully, we will be able to discover a weakness or a way to jam the rings; then we will be able to plan and mount an attack on the Akatsuki," Sakura finished. She had pulled a small cloth out of her pocket and unwrapped it, revealing Kisame's ring, now completely reassembled.
Kisame's jaw was hanging rather slack on his mouth. She could do all that? She made is sound like such a simple process, but he knew that this was all incredibly complicated and required extensive intelligence and logic.
Kisame nodded and began explaining the different jutsu to Sakura. For her part, Sakura took diligent notes in a notebook and listened to Kisame with rapt attention. His hands went through several seals slowly while the former Akatsuki explained how it molded each jutsu. They were no longer enemies, for that short while; Kisame wasn't the man who had crippled her, but he was an ally – a man who had all the answers she was seeking.
Kisame was going through the hand seals for the final jutsu Sakura had asked to learn about, the body transfer jutsu, when they heard the door unlock and a laughing Megumi walked into the small entryway. Sakura blinked a few times and bothered to look at the clock that was hanging on the wall for the first time.
"Oh," she said. "We've been sitting here for five hours."
Kisame looked just as surprised, but the kunoichi was right. The two had been there since nine o'clock in the morning, and it was now just before two. Megumi seemed just as surprised when she walked from the foyer into the living room, pulling her wet cloak off and draping it over a wooden chair near the door.
"Oh, you are still here," she said with a smile. "I had insisted to Itachi-san that you must be gone by now since Kisame is such a horrible host. I would have thought he would have run you out of the house by now."
"Itachi?" Sakura echoed in confusion. A distinct feeling came over Sakura for a moment – the trickling of a realization that she had forgotten something. Then the front door clicked close and her lover's tall frame appeared behind Megumi.
"Sakura," he greeted. "We were supposed to meet for lunch…an hour ago."
Blinking several times, Sakura stared owlishly at her boyfriend before jumping out of her seat. Pain shot up her leg from her sudden movement, and Sakura cried out before toppling over. It was surprisingly Kisame who caught her from knocking over the coffee table, his large hands holding her forearms firmly.
"I'm sorry," Sakura sighed to Kisame before straightening herself and repeating the apology to the raven-haired man who had come to retrieve her. "I'm sorry, Itachi. Kisame-san and I were very caught up in our work, but we should go now. It's getting late in the afternoon."
Itachi watched his girlfriend intently, waiting for her to get her notes packed up and retrieve her cane. Megumi had brought over Sakura's cloak, and Itachi stretched his arms out to throw it over Sakura's shoulders and fix the silver clasp at the bottom of your neck. The two couples parted, and Sakura left Kisame's house feeling less weighted than she had going in, but she was exhausted. All the information she had absorbed over the last several hours was whirling in her head like a tornado – jumbled and chaotic. She would have to sleep on it, wait for it to settle before she could start sifting through the information for what was important.
"I'm surprised you two got along so well," Itachi murmured quietly as he led her down the street, supporting her arm so she wouldn't have to trudge through the mud once again and get her cane stuck into the softening earth. Sakura took a deep breath and nodded, rubbing her head affectionately against his shoulder.
"I feel more at peace now," she responded just as quietly. "I think waiting a while to talk to him was good. The emotions aren't so raw now. I don't blame him anymore."
Itachi shifted to rub her check with the back of his knuckles quickly. The two emerged from the small neighborhood and turned onto a busier Konoha street before settling in a small teashop that Itachi had been to on occasion. Their steaming lunches were served shortly along with a large pot of green tea. Sipping their tea and sitting together in a content silence, the rainy day dragged on as the two sat together, soaking in the other's presence and enjoying their time off of work.
X
The time was early; the soft gray light filtered through the drawn shutters. Itachi's mouth traced the curve of her neck lightly as Sakura was roused from her contented sleep. Immediately turning in the soft sheets to meet his lips with her own, Sakura began to lazily move her lips against her lover's. It wouldn't be long until she would have to get up and head to the SWPD before spending her afternoon in the research lab.
But as Itachi moved to shift over her, careful not to jar her sensitive leg, Sakura decided the day could wait to start for her to spend more time with her attentive beau. Trying to ignore the impending responsibilities of day, Sakura began responding to Itachi's kisses more fervently. His long raven hair fell as a curtain around them, shielding out even the smallest bit of light and intertwining with her pink locks that were pooled on the pillow.
After the two had sated their need for the other's bodies, Itachi lay next to a giggling Sakura who was rubbing her face into her lover's shoulder like a contended kitten. Itachi's arm was around her, his fingers toying with the bottom of her pink hair.
"What are your plans for the day?" Sakura asked Itachi quietly, still trying to keep their peaceful atmosphere present.
Since Kisame had come to Konoha, Itachi had mostly been grounded to the village. He and a large team of strategists were planning the Akatsuki attack in detail. Tsunade also did not want to send all of her powerful ninja away from the village at a time like this. It was possible that the Akatsuki knew of Kisame's betrayal, even though he and Itachi had worked diligently to fake his death, and Tsunade did not wish to risk an attack on the village with her strongest shinobi out on random missions.
As far as Sakura could tell, Kakashi was the only S-ranked ninja currently out on an extended mission. Sakura did not know where her surrogate father was, or what he was doing for that matter, and that made her nervous. The fact that Tsunade refused to tell her was nothing new; however, Sakura was uneasy having one of her precious family members away from her protection and the protection of the village's walls in such a contentious time. Burying her worry for her perverted sensei into her work, friends, and boyfriend, Sakura had spent the past many months trying to do her part to stop the Akatsuki instead of worrying for Kakashi.
Itachi's warm breath on her ear as she spoke made her shiver as goose flesh rippled across her arms.
"I have a clan meeting at 10 and then a meeting with Hokage-sama after lunch. You?" he murmured just as quietly in his scratchy morning voice that Sakura loved so much.
"SWPD and then lab," Sakura replied with a pout that sounded in her voice. "And then Naruto is coming for dinner. I'm making curry. You and Shisui will be here?"
"Aa," Itachi conceded; a family dinner, indeed. "Have there been any more discoveries with the Akatsuki rings?"
Sakura lifted off of Itachi and swung her legs carefully over the bed, ignoring the all-familiar jolt of pain when she did so, and began pulling on her clothes.
"Hmm," Sakura hummed noncommittedly as an affirmation. "It seems that the rings work a lot like my Byakugou no In, except the Akatsuki members don't have to have precise chakra control to utilize it. Chakra is automatically drained little by little from the Akatsuki member and stored in the ring. This is how the members of the Akatsuki are able to use such large jutsu as they do. All of the seals on the ring compliment a certain jutsu that the Akatsuki does, like the bijuu sealing jutsu. There is also a seal we believe is meant for communication…"
Itachi turned to his girlfriend suddenly when she stopped talking and her shimmering green eyes went blank. "Sakura?"
"Byakugou no In," Sakura repeated, her blank look still in place; Itachi could almost see the cogs in her mind begin to turn.
As if on cue, the chakra that Sakura always used to cover the rhombus shaped purple seal on her forehead dissipated and Itachi got a good look at the Seal of the Hundred for the first time. He always knew that Sakura possessed this seal and could use it to save her life or the life of others if she needed to; she had told him once long ago that she kept the seal covered out of habit because it could cause enemy shinobi to recognize her on missions; however, he did not understand what it had to do with their current conversation.
"What about your seal, Sakura?" Itachi prodded. Sakura blinked and life shot back to her jade eyes in a moment. A large smile began to crawl onto her face.
"The seal…" Sakura was trailing off again deep in thought. Itachi strode over to her half-clothed form and took her shoulders in a firm grasp. Seeming to come back to reality, Sakura smiled at him wide and dazzling again.
"I think I know how to fix my leg."
X
"It's genius."
"I know!"
"It will be painful."
"I know."
"You've done well, Sakura. This should work," Tsunade complimented again. She and Sakura had been babbling in medical jargon for the past half hour. It was still early in the morning and the sun was just now full in the sky. Naruto and Sasuke had been summoned by a very confused and eager Shisui while Itachi carried Sakura off to the Hokage's office in a hurry of Sakura's babbling and Itachi's silent but eager agreeance.
Sakura smiled. Everyone else was simply confused.
"Wait… How does this work?" Naruto finally spoke for the rather confused lot of men who were not medical ninja in the room.
Sakura was about to babble happily again when Tsunade held her hand up.
"Sakura's Seal of A Hundred could have cured her leg long ago, but she is not allowed to use that jutsu on herself as it is very dangerous. Despite what others believe, it is essentially impossible to be immortal. Each human body is allowed a certain number of cell divisions before the cells can no longer separate, therefore, eventually, everything stops working. It's all a matter of timing for the individual. The Seal of a Hundred, if used on one's own body, would cause the user's cells to divide over and over, thus shortening the life of the user. Sakura is only allowed to use the jutsu on herself if she is in mortal danger," Tsunade explained as clearly as she could.
"So when Sakura was injured, she knew she could not use the seal to heal her leg, as it would have had to divide the cells in her leg so many times that her life span could have shortened as much as twenty years."
There was a rather deathly silence to the room at the weight of the Hokage's words, but Sakura's shimmering smile was quick to put everyone at ease. It was the injured kunoichi who continued.
"Right, but that time over a year ago when Tsunade-shishou blocked off my chakra passage ways and I couldn't get my chakra through?" There was a nod of assent from everybody except for Shisui, who had not been there but had been filled in by Itachi later.
"Well, here's my plan. I am going to move the chakra in my Yin seal on my forehead into a seal on my foot. Then, shishou can block my chakra paths from my leg and I can release the yin seal and it'll heal my leg! My lifespan won't be affected except for the lifespan of my leg. My leg will eventually die completely, probably in another forty-fifty years max. But I'll be able to be a kunoichi again! Then again, I'll be wheelchair bound after my leg goes, but it's not much worse than I am right now."
Sakura was babbling again, her mind moving a mile a minute. Itachi, on the other hand, was absorbing all the information she was saying.
"It will be painful?" he repeated the Hokage's earlier statement. Sakura shrugged but Tsunade nodded rather gravely. "And it sounds temporary. Your leg will become crippled again later?"
"Mending nerves is possibly one of the most painful procedures done and takes the longest. It will probably be two full weeks for the yin seal to completely heal Sakura's leg, and more than a week of that will be spent in severe pain," Tsunade cautioned seriously. "We can sedate her for some of it, but she will need to be mostly conscious for the majority of the time."
"I'm prepared for that," Sakura said surely. "And yes, this is technically temporary, but I will be able to be a kunoichi again. I will be able to join ANBU. I will be able to live the life I worked so hard for the past five years. The function in my leg probably won't even start declining until I'm older than fifty!"
Despite this, Itachi wasn't so sure. He felt like Sakura was downplaying the effect that this could have on her, physically and emotionally. What if it didn't work? What if this did end up shortening her lifespan?
Itachi had no qualms in admitting that Sakura was his life partner. She would probably run for the hills if he told this to her now, not even a year after getting together, but Itachi was not so shy of his emotions. He always faced these things head on, and he knew that he would one day marry the pinkette and make her his. Haruno Sakura would wear an Uchiha fan on her back for the rest of her life if she agreed to his suit; however, the prospect of her lifespan shortening frightened him more than he was willing to admit. That meant less time with her.
Sakura could see the reservation on her lover's face, despite the fact that he looked as impassive to an outsider as ever. With a few limped steps, she took his hand in hers and looked imploringly into his eyes.
"I need to try this," she told him. Naruto and Sasuke looked just as skeptical, but Sakura turned her bubbly look to them as well, pouring all of her hopes and desires into her jade eyes.
"I told you to figure out how to fix your leg. You did that. I'll support you," Sasuke stated blandly. Naruto nodded his head fervently.
"You know we just want you to be happy, Sakura-chan," he conceded with a reserved amount of worry in his voice and eyes. "We will be there for you no matter what!"
Sakura's eyes finally flitted back to Itachi, who was nodding reservedly. The smile that spread over her face was dazzling to say the least.
"When do you start?" Itachi asked. Sakura looked at her mentor and the two seemed to communicate with each other silently.
"Today."
Two hours later, Itachi was watching Sakura carefully as she settled herself into a hospital bed and padded her injured leg up onto a pillow. Tsunade was carefully hooking monitors up to the kunoichi's heart, fingertips, and injecting an IV into her arm in order to monitor her vitals. The two had later explained that the pain may be so severe for Sakura that she could go into cardiac arrest from the stress the pain would put on her body.
Itachi had been ready to call the entire thing off right there, but Sakura had once again quelled her rather anxious boyfriend into submission with her gentle assurances but steadfast resolve. He felt guilty that she was the one about to go through weeks of pain, and she had to calm and comfort him.
So Itachi stood tall and watched her cheerfully prepare herself for weeks of pain. When she beckoned him closer, he complied and clasped his hand in her prompting one.
"I'll be okay," she assured again.
"I know," he said with another nod.
"Alright Sakura, are you ready?" Tsunade asked when she walked back into the room after getting a few more supplies.
Naruto and Sasuke had been ushered out almost an hour previous, having been getting in the way of Sakura's and Tsunade's preparation. Shisui had sensed that Itachi may want to be alone with Sakura when they began the operation, so he had excused himself and promised to return the next morning.
Itachi took a step back when the Hokage walked over to Sakura and pulled her hospital gown up so her entire leg was visible. Although it looked like a healthy normal leg, Itachi knew that underneath lie pain and weakness to Sakura. Taking a seat on the chair across the room from where the two kunoichi were working diligently, Itachi waited for the procedure to begin.
Tsunade's hands were glowing green. "Alright, Sakura, I sealed your chakra pathways to your leg when it was injured since chakra flowing through it would just have agitated the nerves more. I'm going to release that seal. When I do, transfer the chakra from the Yin seal from your forehead into your foot. Then, I will reseal your leg so that no chakra can get in or out of it."
Sakura nodded sagely and prepared herself for the onslaught of pain that was about to course through it. Tsunade's hands made a combination of seals and pressed against Sakura's upper thigh. Gasping at the sudden pain that shot through her leg when chakra began to flow through it freely once again, Sakura jolted in her mentor's steady grasp. Itachi flash stepped to Sakura's side in an instant, but did not move to take her hand, for he knew that she would need them.
"Focus, Sakura," Tsunade ordered.
Sakura nodded and ignoring the slight trickle of tears that came from the shock of pain, she focused her energy in her forehead and molded her hands into a seal. She felt the chakra trickle down her face, painting purple marks across her peachy skin. The chakra danced down her in waves as it moved with the fluid grace of purple snakes down her body. It took a great deal of concentration for Sakura to successfully get the healing energy to her leg, but that concentration was suddenly pulled from her when the chakra tried to enter her damaged leg. The dense amount of strong chakra going through her frayed nerves like fire over burns made more tears spring to her eyes. Regardless, Sakura clenched her eyes and focused even more, even harder, on moving the chakra into her leg. Fire flared like white hot pain behind her scrunched eyelids, but Sakura gritted her teeth and fought with everything she had through it.
Itachi's hand lay gently on her shoulder in what little comfort he could give his girlfriend. He could tell that she was in an intense amount of pain, but there was little he could do. Petite shoulders flinched slightly under his touch, but Sakura's shoulders relaxed a bit after she realized it was him giving her comfort.
When all the chakra was collected into a matching purple seal on the top of her foot, Sakura sighed and leaned back. Tsunade thrust a cool cloth into Itachi's hands and nodded to Sakura's sweating forehead. Itachi dabbed her cheeks lightly before placing the cloth on top of her head. Sakura's hazy eyes opened and she gave him a smile.
Tsunade's hands were glowing green once again and she began the process of sealing Sakura's chakra pathways in her leg again. Once it was done, Tsunade took a step back and gave Sakura a nod. Sakura gave Itachi one last wane smile before her shaky hands formed the Yin seal, and the chakra was released from the seal on her foot and snaked once again in purple rivulets up her leg, but an invisible barrier at the top of her thigh stopped the chakra from spreading further, and the twists of chakra flowed back down in the opposite direction, whirling back down her legs.
However, Itachi could no longer focus on that, for he was too focused on Sakura's sudden violent arch in the bed, wide eyes shot open with shock, and blood curdling scream that sprang from her gaping mouth.
X
Hatake Kakashi was not happy.
He had just spent three months during one of the harshest winters in memory in Lightning Country, where winters were worse than Snow Country, ironically. The mission had not gone well. He had been caught in several battles with mercenaries that were notorious throughout Lightning Country, and that was before he even arrived at Hidden Cloud Village.
The Raikage had been as blunt and difficult to deal with as ever, and Kakashi had spent a full two months dealing with his nonsense all while sleeping in barely heated quarters. What Tsunade was thinking when she sent Kakashi to rendezvous with the Raikage in order to ask his help in the battle against the Akatsuki, Kakashi would never know. But whatever it was, he was not happy about it.
The citizens of Cloud were not polite people by nature, and the harsh winter that dumped more than two meters of snow onto their doorsteps made them even frostier in countenance than the weather outside. A snowy two week trek to the north, two months in a snowy hell with hellish people, and a sleet ridden two week hike south consisted of Kakashi's supposed S-rank mission that was more peace talks and travel negotiations than it was actually acquiring the Kumo ninja for help.
But overall, the mission was a success, even though Kakashi was ambushed by mercenaries once again on his way back. He was back, though. The heavy rain had abated temporarily, allowing him clear view of the village gates.
Letting out a slight sigh of happiness, Kakashi trudged a little faster, ready to be home. Perhaps after a warm bath he would be able to go over to Sakura's and accost her for dinner; she was an excellent cook.
Spirits lifted slightly, Kakashi's slouch became less pronounced and his pace quickened. The figures clad in orange and black greeting him at the gate should have caused him worry. Sasuke and Naruto never greeted him, not unless Sakura dragged them to the gate to greet their teachers with teases, warm smiles, and snacks. But instead, his eye crinkled in happiness and waved a little at his students.
It was Sasuke's distinct frown and Naruto's worried eyes that caused him pause. He broke into a brisk stride and flash-stepped the rest of the way to his students with dread filling his gut.
"It's nothing as bad as you're thinking," Sasuke began, sensing his team leader's worried, before Kakashi could begin grilling his two male teammates. "Sakura found a way to fix her leg, but she is in a lot of pain and in the hospital."
Kakashi did not say a word as he broke off into a run towards the hospital. Naruto and Sasuke followed him.
"Oh yeah," Naruto said behind him. "Sakura-chan has also started sleeping with Itachi-nii."
No, Hatake Kakashi was not happy.
Author's Note: See the first author's note for some important information! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Some real plot development, ne? You guys have been begging for Sakura to get better; well we start now!
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