Piper: Sorry for the late-ish update, but here's the chapter!

I don't own Naruto.

Chapter 21 - Last Resort

Sakura Haruno

I faded in and out of consciousness, the world nothing but haze around me. Every time I was awake, I could feel a clawing pain all through my arm, into my shoulder. It felt like all the skin had been ripped from the flesh of my arm, but I didn't have enough strength. Just trying my eye lids felt like I was lifting two-hundred pounds, and I could not force myself to do it.

The pain in my arm was the only thing I could feel when I was awake. I couldn't feel wind, or and anything solid. I wandered if that was what dying felt like, feeling nothing but the pain of your cause of death. I hoped not, because I didn't want to die just yet. There were many things I still wanted to do, things I wanted to achieve. I didn't want to leave the Akatsuki behind, even though I didn't exactly know who would truly miss me or not. And, deep down, a little part of me wanted to see the ones I left in Konoha again, just once more before I died.

Suddenly, I woke once more. I could feel hands, old and wise, gentle against my skin. They floated over my injured arm, and relief blossomed like a flower in spring. The sensation was cool, like a light sprinkle of rain on a summer's day. They ran up and down my arm, leaving trails of peace as the paced back and forth. I could almost feel the pain dulling to an ache, covered up by the cool relief. It was refreshing, the feeling was, and I could tell it was the hints of chakra creating the feeling.

Was someone healing me? Was I not dying? So many questions floated through my head now that I was actually conscious, now that I was awake.

I fluttered my eye lids, trying to regain enough strength to open them. It took me a moment, but finally I was able to crack my eyes open to see the world around me. It almost felt like I was seeing things for the first time. As I gazed up, my eyes connected with a creased, smiling face. She was an older woman, with brown hair that was graying. Her eyes were warm, their honey color adding to the friendly nature she seemed to radiate. I could tell that she was wise with her age, the warmth in her eyes accompanied by a look that had seen and been through many things.

"Wh-Who are y-y-you," I whispered, my voice coming out cracked and broken.

She held up a finger, the universal sign for waiting, and she held a cup out to me, filled with a delicious clear liquid. My throat tingled at the sight of the water, and I slowly began to try and sit up so that I could drink. The old woman pressed a hand to my back, her feeble looking hands surprisingly sturdy for someone of her age. Once my sore body was in a sitting position, I took the cup into my hands. I nodded at her gratefully, and swallowed down one-forth of the cup in one go.

Coughing slightly, I used the back of my hand to wipe my mouth. The woman smiled, and took the cup back. She placed in on a stand next to the bed I lay on.

"My name is Misaki, child. They told me that your name is Sakura, correct?" She asked, her eyes smiling along with the rest of her old and creased face.

I nodded slightly, speaking softly, "Yes, that's my name. Where am I, exactly?"

She chuckled slightly, "You are in my home about a mile away from the village, dear. Your friends brought you here, looking for the closest place that would take you in. If you had went any where inside the village you would have been very well caught."

Narrowing my eyes defensively, I asked, "What do you mean?"

"Dear, I am not a stupid old woman," She chided, "Whispers of happenings in the village float this way, even though I am so far out here. Over them time period you have been sleeping here, I have heard to Daichi Sasaki's death, and how he died. It wasn't hard to put two and two together. They said his chest looked like it had been ripped open by an animal, and here you are, a ninja with an arm so ripped and tattered that one wouldn't be able to to tell it was an arm at first glance."

Eyes widened, I snapped my head down to look at my arm. It wasn't in shreds, and the shape of it looked normal. I couldn't see the skin, however, because it was covered in bandages from the tips of my fingers up to my collar bone. It didn't hurt any more, like it had when I had been floating in the abyss. It was now a dull aching, only smarting when I moved it too much.

"Your arm is going to always be scarred, I am sad to say. I had to heal many of the pieces back together, but I can't stop the scarring that will come with it. If it had been a normal situation there wouldn't be any scarring, but this certainly wasn't a normal situation," Misaki spoke softly, as if sad for me about my arm.

I blinked slightly, and looked back up at her, "But the scars won't affect how I fight, will it?"

Misaki blinked, before shaking her head. Strands of her silver dusted hair fell into her face, and she quickly tucked them back before she spoke, "No dear, but scar tissue is more sensitive. It would be wise for you to cover your arm from now on, but the scars shouldn't put to much of a strain on your ninja abilities."

Breathing out a pent up sigh of relief, I slowly looked around, before looking at her, "You are not scared of my friends and I, even though we killed Daichi Sasaki. Why is that?"

Her honey colored eyes sparkled slightly, but when I searched for the tears I thought that I saw, they were gone. She looked out the window, which was open and letting sunlight pour into the room.

"When I was a young girl, I wanted to be a ninja just like many kids of the village. However, our academy classes had many more girls then boys. So, I was on a squad with two girls, one being myself, and one boy and a male Jounin. The girl and I became good friends very fast, and her name had been Aiko Sasaki."

My eyes widened slightly as I realized why she was okay with being around Daichi's murderers, "He killed her when he killed his clan, didn't he?" I asked softly, already knowing the answer.

She nodded, her mouth pursed, "I knew it was him from the start that had killed the clan, but when I tried to hold it against him the weasel used the money of his dead family to dig his way out of trouble. I have no problem with you, dead, because you gave my friend peace. Revenge is never the answer, but... Sometimes, it does ones heart good to have things resolved, whether through violence or not."

Well, I had to admit that I had never heard that quote before. I bit back a slight giggle that threatened to bubble its way up my throat, and asked her another question, "And my friends, where are they?"

Masaki looked at me, and pointed a hand over her shoulder at the door, "They are in the living room, enjoying some of the soup that I made for supper."

At that exact moment, my stomach growled loudly. I blushed slightly, and Misaki threw her head back in shaky laughter. She slowly wobbled out of the room, leaving me alone and confused for a few moments. I waited and when she came back in a tall, blue man was following her along with a shorter, black haired male. My face lit up in a bright smile at the familiar face of my team, and Kisame grinned back at me.

"Hey there, killer," He laughed, his shaking frame almost shaking the room along with his body, "How're you feeling?"

I shrugged slightly, "Better, a lot better then I was."

He nodded, before grinning, "The old woman says you need some food, and has given me direct orders not to let you walk."

My eyebrows drew in confusion, and I looked around Kisame to look at Misaki. She was smirking slightly, something that looked a bit odd on her creased face. There was a slightly evil glint her eyes, and she made a point of drawing her eyes back and forth between Kisame, Itachi, and I. I got the point, blushing slightly, and I quickly shook my head.

"Uh, nah, I can walk, really, it's just my arm-"

"Too late," Kisame laughed, and scooped me into his arms along with the bed sheet I had been wrapped up in.

I was kind of shy to meet Itachi's eyes as Kisame carried me past. I had killed Daichi, yes, but I had also fatally injured myself and that had put the mission at risk. I didn't know if he was annoyed with me or not. I surely didn't want him, or Kisame, to be. I didn't quite know about Kisame, but he didn't seem to be angry with me, so I let it go for him.

Next thing I knew, I was sitting on a couch in between Kisame and Itachi with a bowl of warm soup in my lap. I ate mine in silence, watching as Misaki smiled at us from across the room. She clearly thought that there was something was going on between either Kisame and I, Itachi and I, or all three of us. And like a normal elderly lady, she was more then happy to see young love. You would think that she would know, from being a ninja in her younger days, that just because a male and female are team mates it doesn't mean that they're together.

I sighed slightly, almost wishing I was unconscious once more.

We spent two more days at Misaki's small house, waiting until I had enough chakra to start traveling. When I was strong enough we started traveling back for the base. I felt more guilty the longer it took us, because I felt as though it my fault we were taking so long. I was still avoiding Itachi, and even talking with Kisame was poisoned by my guilt.

I had gotten my first glimpse of my arm when Misaki had to change my bandages. It was gruesome. It looked like my skin had been cut into uneven, jagged pieces, and then glued back on. It made me disgusted, and my self confidence dropped every time I looked upon my bandaged arm. I didn't know how to deal with it, really. I wasn't going to cry over the fact that I had screwed up, it was my own fault that my arm was how it was now. I guess I just felt embarrassed of it, ashamed of it, because now I had a constant reminder of how I always found a way to screw up.

"You've been pretty quiet for a while, Kid, something on your mind?" Kisame asked, looking at me over his shoulder as we darted through the tree tops.

I snapped my head up and shook it, "No, no I'm fine."

It took us a few days to get back to the base, and I was a nervous wreck by the time I had gotten there. I didn't want anyone to see my arm, even though Kisame or Itachi must've sent a quick message about why we were going to be back late. I didn't want them see my failure, the marks so clear and vivid.

We made our way into the base, and towards Pein's office. It was only of pure luck that we didn't run into any of the other Akatsuki on the way there. I could sense their chakra in the living room, and felt their own chakra reach out. Tobi's had spiked excited when it came in contact with my own, another part of his facade as the hyper-active ninja.

When we got to Pein's office door, Kisame raised his hand, and knocked loudly. Itachi and I looked at him slightly, but he didn't seem to care about the volume of his knocks.

"Enter," Pein's voice came from behind, muffled slightly from the wooden barrier between us all.

Konohagakure

"Can any of you guess why I have brought you here today?" Her voice almost echoed through the room, the tone reverberating off of the walls and surrounding them like a powerful blanket. She was the Hokage, it was only fit that she was as strong as she way, and that they could feel it. Many people had disliked the fact of a female Hokage, but no one could deny that she held much power within her, despite her age.

A hand shot into the air, and a loud tone burst out, "We're getting a mission to look for Sakura!"

Unnoticeably, a small smile touched her lips, but she quickly covered it. Nodding her head, she turned her honey colored eyes onto the group of familiar friends, and stood up from the chair behind her desk. She walked around the wooden stand and faced the serious group, something that one would only see when they were faced with a hard ship. She was happy that they were able to live happily, and stay serious during their job. It was a quality most ninja lost during the hard times of their lives.

"No, actually," She said, and she could see the similar disappointed reaction among the crowd. She knew that they missed her apprentice just as much as she did. It had come as a shock at first, to see just how many people cared for the girl she considered her daughter.

Tsunade faced them, her face grim. She looked up, and revealed to the crowd, "Orochimaru, is still alive."

There was a collective amount of reaction. Widened eyes, short gasps, accelerated heart beats. All of them knew what this meant, but some still refused to accept it. Only because to them, this revealing contained no logic.

"I killed him," Sasuke stated, looking up from the floor with his cold gaze. His eyes had changed some how, since before he had left for power. At least then, he was more open. Even if he was very open to begin with, he was still much more open then he was now. Now, in fact, he was shut tight. There was no such thing as open any longer.

Tsunade shook her head, "I know, that's what we all believed, but he is alive."

"How do you know this, Lady Tsunade?" Tenten asked curiously, swallowing in a slightly nervous way.

"After hearing of the murdering of the Sasaki clan, I sent ANBU out there to investigate. When they got there, the remaining member of the clan was dead. The ANBU managed to sneak in and get a look at the body and the damage done, and he was a servant of Orochimaru, serving the curse mark."

"That doesn't mean he's alive, Grandma!" Naruto shouted, frustrated.

Tsunade sent him a deathly glare, causing him to shrink back slightly, "Let me finish, Naruto! And don't call me 'Grandma'! As I was saying, when the ANBU got to look at him, they were attacked. They were almost killed by Sound ninja, who revealed that their old master is not dead. They did the most peculiar thing after that..."

"Which is?" Naruto prodded, angry with her pause.

Forcing herself not to punch the fellow blond, Tsunade ran a hand through her hair before speaking out loud, "They took Daichi Sasaki's body with them. Normally this wouldn't be considered too odd, seeing as many ninja bring back the bodies of fallen comrades to be buried in their home village. The thing is, is that we know of Orochimaru's tendencies to experiment. It seems much to odd for Orochimaru to actually care about his deceased warriors, so we can only expect that he is doing some thing with the bodies."

A silence washed over the room, when suddenly there was a pecking at the window. Tsunade looked over, and a heavy frown crossed her features. A eagle, ebony black with the tips of its feathers stained blue. It was an unfamiliar summon, but it had a tied up scroll in its beak. Carefully, she let the creature into the room. It sounded off loudly, startling some of the already alert ninja in the room, expanding its magnificent wings to suddenly dive into the room. It swooped for her desk, dropping the scroll and nearly crashing into the top at the same time. It swerved around, sounded off once more, and burst into a cloud of raining feathers.

Narrowing her eyes, Tsunade strode to her desk and lifted the scroll into her hands. She hesitated, before unrolleding the scroll. It took her a moment to read, many curious eyes watching her reaction carefully. None of them missed the flicker of surprise that danced through her eyes, but she quickly hid it right after.

"Everyone! You are dismissed. Shizune, collect the Council," Tsunade suddenly ordered, snapping out of her still demeanor.

Naruto blinked, before yelling, "Hey, wait, what did it say?"

"Out, Naruto!" Tsnade barked, and literally kicked him from her office.

Sakura Haruno

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I never in my entire life, thought something like this would happen. Then again, there were many things in my life that I never thought would happen and they did. I never thought I would lose my parents and I ended up loosing both, my adopted parents and my real parents. I never expected Konan to be murdered in front of me, but she was. But, honestly, I didn't know how to think at this point. Something like this happening was almost like the apocalypse.

"Pein, are you sure?" I asked him, looked at him with worried eyes.

He sighed, running a hand through his orange locks, "If Orochimaru really is back, this is the only way any of us will be able to defeat him. He escaped the fate of death more then once now, and this is the only option we have left. If they don't accept it, we will have to try and do this on our own, even if they will be against him, too."

If the alliance was accepted then... the Akatsuki and I would be going to Konohagakure, my old home, and the location of my old friends and family.

Piper: Tadaaa... I'm sorry if this sucked...

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