Roughly two weeks after what had been called "The Battle", the emerald eye of a white-haired young woman fluttered open. A hand went to her head and found that her left eye had been covered with a piece of black cloth. She suspected that the bandages had been removed in favour of something that didn't so obviously indicate that she had just lost her eye. No, not lost, she remembered. Given. She tried to sit up and gasped in pain, her arms covering automatically her abdomen as tears of pain came to her only eye.

Oh, Kami, that hurt like a bitch!

Eventually, she managed to sit up against the headboard, using her pillow as a cushion. Panting, she observed the room patiently.

Way too sterile and white to be anything other than a hospital. I doubt that I'm in an enemy base: they'd have put me in chains. Konoha it is, then.

Satisfied with her deduction (and having confirmed it by making sure she wasn't caught in a genjutsu), she scanned her body. It did not take her long to see that she had been clad only in standard hospital pants, her chest being covered in bandages, and that except from her right arm, the same one she had used to ram in that last ninja's chest, her other arm and legs were virtually fine. Of course, she hadn't voluntarily torn her muscles on those parts of her body forcefully, either.

All in all, it could have been worse. Satisfied, she nodded her head and opened the window. It was high time to get out of here. She had just put a foot on the ledge when the door of her room was opened joyfully by a certain Uchiha crybaby who was followed by his team mates. All movement stopped and both parties stared at the other. Finally, the silence was broken by a yell.

"Sakura-san!"

Obito would have jumped at her, no doubt reopening her wounds, had Minato not stopped him by firmly grabbing his collar. The result was a flailing shinobi trying to get his sensei to drop him. Sakura noticed that even Kakashi seemed a lot less tense than he usually was.

"Now, now, Sakura-san, you shouldn't try to escape from your room," admonished Minato. "I believe you've just awoken, ne? Why don't you stay in bed and relax?"

Sakura eyed him shrewdly, making him sweat a bit.

"Are you trying to keep me cooped up in here? Please, I'm a ninja, what do you expect me to do? And what are you trying to keep from me?" she replied flippantly.

"Nothing! Just, you know, you mustn't stress yourself, it could be bad for the baby!" said an embarrassed Minato.

Sakura groaned and passed a hand on her face.

"So this is what it's all about, eh? Kami, I'm pregnant, not injured! Okay, I am injured, but this state isn't permanent. Being pregnant isn't like having an illness. I can still kick ass, if I may remind you."

"Yeah, on that subject…You got a page in the Bingo Books that says you're an S-rank ninja and that enemy ninja who see you should flee on sight. There is a portrait of you, too. Now, you'll have to use a henge to go on undercover missions. Sorry."

Sakura waved aside the news.

"That's no big deal, I already did that. Anyway, I already had a page in the Bingo Book– under an alias, of course– so I'm already used to it. May I remind you that I spent years on the run and still managed to escape any hunter-nin who came my way? I'm a big girl, I can handle myself. Now, anything happened during my sleep? I assume I slept for a while, didn't I?"

"Hai, you did," said Rin. "For about two weeks. You weren't supposed to wake up so soon, either."

Sakura scratched her head absentmindedly and played with the knot on the black cloth covering her left eye.

"Two weeks, huh. Could be worse. So, you didn't answer my question. Anything new during those two weeks?"

"Sensei became the Hokage!" cried Obito.

"Wow, really?" asked Sakura while turning to Minato. "Congratulations. I just wish I'd been there to see it, it must have been grand."

"Really! It was great! Everyone was there and there was food and sake, and it lasted for three days, and…"

Hearing him talk so enthusiastically made Sakura chuckle. It was really cute and it was good to see that he hadn't lost all of his child innocence.

"That's great, Obito-kun. So, Hokage-sama, I suppose that it's now you I must ask for a few days of vacation, ne?"

Minato made a face.

"Argh, don't call me Hokage-sama, it makes me feel old. Just keep calling me Minato-san, please. There'll be enough people calling me Hokage-sama already, I don't need one more."

"Alright, Minato-san. Now, do I get my days off?"

"Sure," he sighed. "You're injured anyway. How many do you want?"

"A week will be enough, I think. I'll try not to extend it longer than that."

"What do you intend to do during that time?" asked Kakashi.

"Well, it's not really a vacation, see, because I have to search for a certain person. This is in relation to the mission I was on before coming here," she finished with a significant look in Minato's direction.

"No way. That's too dangerous in your state. I forbid it," answered the blond Hokage firmly.

The white-haired woman sat on the windowsill with a sigh.

"I really don't want to do it, but if you refuse to give me your consent, I'll have no choice but to become a missing-nin again. You know I'd do it. Now, in which situation would there be more risks for me?"

Minato stared at her for a long time, observing the way her jaw was set and her eyes looked at him seriously. She really had not given him any choice.

"You win. Just don't get yourself killed. There are people waiting here for you."

Sakura nodded.

"I won't, I promise. I can't die yet."

"You'd better not."

The three teenagers looked at the serious adults with a mixture of dread and curiosity.

"What will you do?" asked Kakashi.

"There is a man looking for a way to destroy Konoha. I have to keep him from using the way he's looking for. If I don't…well, let's just say it won't bode well for anyone."

She finished her speech with a bright fake smile.

"I have a condition, though," said Minato. "When you come back–and do make sure that you come back– I want you to help at the hospital. We're at war, and any medic-nin will be appreciated. As it is, most of them already idolise you for your work on Obito-kun."

"Great, just what I needed. Fans," replied the kunoichi sarcastically.

"Yeah, well, that's the way of life. Anyway, get dressed, I'm treating you all to ramen at Ichiraku!"

"What, again?" whined Obito. "Sensei, that's, like, the third time this week! Can't we go anywhere else?"

"Ramen is good for the body and mind," retorted Minato primly.

"Says who? I'm the medic here, and I say you've got to eat other foods. Vegetables are good for you, believe it or not. I want an okonomiyaki and some dango. Sake would be good, too," demanded the white-haired woman tartly.

"You're pregnant," pointed out Minato.

"I don't intend to get drunk."

Minato ploughed on, ignoring how his argument had been waved aside so easily.

"Yeah, Jiraiya-sama told me that after three bottles, you weren't even slightly tipsy…"

"Baka. I'll just drink a cup or two, you get to bring the rest of the bottle home with you."

"Ooooh, sensei, Kushina-san will have your head if you do that!" laughed Obito.

"Shut up, brat, she won't," he grumbled.

"Forget it, sensei, you're whipped."

Minato glowered at his student who gulped and had the presence of mind to shut up.

"Obito-kun and I need extra practice. We'll catch you later!"

With that said, Minato took the young boy firmly around the neck and dragged him backward out of the room, the poor Uchiha looking terrified and tears running down his face.

"Soooooo…you guys hungry?" asked Sakura after a moment of silence.

"Sure," shrugged Kakashi.

Thus, half-an-hour later, the trio found themselves at a decent restaurant. Kakashi and Rin had fun watching Sakura spit out her dango sticks so they planted themselves firmly in the ceiling at a right angle.

"Hm…if I had more sticks, I could draw a face or something. Maybe a dragon. That would be cool," mused Sakura.

"Wow, Sakura-san, you're very good at that. How come?"

The older woman pondered how she should answer the question, before deciding to tell the truth as succinctly as she could.

"Well, one of my aliases is a girl who uses solely senbon, or just about."

"Only senbon? Isn't that dangerous?"

"Not really," replied Sakura. "I'm very adept at them, and as a medic-nin, I know exactly where to strike to kill efficiently without a trace more than a dot on the skin. If I hit at certain places, the victim could stop breathing or look like a corpse. In a joint, a senbon needle can stop the nerves from functioning or keep the limbs from moving in fear of getting the needle deeper or causing it to break in the joint, which can be quite painful. If they are poisoned, they can make the victim believe he or she is safe and return to the enemy base. You can then follow the trail. Etc., etc. Some of the most deadly medic-nin I know use mainly senbon."

With a grin, she plopped a senbon in her mouth and let it stick out like a cigarette, occasionally rolling it on the other side of her lips like a certain senbon-sucker of her time.

"Will you show us your henge?" asked Kakashi.

"Curious, aren't you?" she teased. "Sure, it's not like that identity is an enemy of Konoha."

With a few hand signs, her face gained some baby fat, her eyes became wide and innocent, their green closer to jade than her normal emerald color, her body became very slender and her hair bled crimson, tied in a few braids that made her look younger. Her skin became darker and her clothes changed to cream-colored ones, loose pants tied by a darker sash and a long-sleeved shirt under a red camisole. Her tattoos disappeared, only being replaced by an abstract one on her neck. The sand in the bottle hanging on her chest began swirling faster.

Figured you'd like it, Shukaku, she chuckled mentally. Gaara would love to see me attired that way, huh? I suppose that dressed like this, I'm really his Kaze-hime, ne?

"Sakura-san, that's so cute!" gushed Rin. "So when you're dressed like this, you're a whole other person?"

Sakura nodded and plopped a dango in her mouth, chewing it softly before elaborating.

"Hai, the point is to create a story for your alias and to keep to it at all costs. The hard part is fighting under stress and keeping to the style of the alias, not yours. For example, with this identity, I will never use a tanto. Of course, the way I dress is according to who I am, which means that I use ample clothes to hide my senbon in this form and that in my real form, I hide my weapons in my coat and poisons in the heels of my boots."

"So those boots aren't just for show?! Wow…"

The older kunoichi chuckled at the admiring look Rin sported and ruffled her hair with affection.

A month had nearly gone by and it was time for her to let her demonic chakra fill her body. To be frank, she was not looking forward to that moment. She gave Kakashi a small smile.

"I can sense that you've changed, already, Kakashi-kun. In time, you'll be renown throughout the countries."

He blushed under her praise, pink barely visible on his cheeks above his mask.

"You're exaggerating, Sakura-san."

She whistled merrily and took a bite of a dango.

"Who knows?" she shrugged with a small, secretive smile.

***************

okonomiyaki: a japanese omelette that looks a bit like a pancake. You can put whatever you want on top of it.

Another chapter of transition. To be frank, it kind of wrote itself, I did not intend it to go that way at all. Oh well, it's not that bad, rather light-toned, eh? On the next one, I swear it'll be different. Review, please, if you want to know what comes next!