Pt.3

Prompt: Cure

The weather while returning to the mainland was harsh, almost as it was foretelling the future outcome of her mission. Sakura wasn't deterred, she knew Itachi was fighting, with every fiber of his being.

She transported him to one of her hideouts, that only Shizune knew of, they agreed that Tsunade shouldn't know, given her status of Hokage for their own safety.

Also she had designed it with more advanced tools so hooking him up to stasis was easy and he would be fine. She had more time and would be successful.

"Just wait a little bit longer Itachi… I'll be back before you know I was gone" she said out loud to his resting spot.

Returning to the Hidden leaf, she reported straight to Tsunade.

"Kakashi & Naruto already told me you had Itachi in your care, and that his status as a leaf spy is compromised?" Tsunade asked.

"It is Shishou, but he is secure and out of reach." she reported.

"Alright, what happened? It's been a month since you disappeared?" she asked.

After assuring that the office was completely secure from eavesdroppers. Sakura spoke.

"He caught me in a genjutsu and I thought I was done for, but instead he revealed the truth behind the Uchiha massacre and who was really behind it, and what he had done to protect Sasuke. Course before he could fight Sasuke, I intervened and forced the memories into Sasuke, hoping to stop their fight… before he could react to what I had given him, the masked member from Akatsuki kidnapped him and they were gone so fast… Itachi asked for my help, because he was already dying from an unknown disease. I made the decision to help him and took him off mainland to a base, where I diagnosed him with a rare autoimmune disease to which there is no current cure." Sakura explained while passing along a more detailed scroll with her findings.

Tsunade opened the scroll and began to analyze it. Moments passed before she passed it to Shizune to inspect as well.

"He was beginning to deteriorate and I told him of one option to prolong his life, while I came up with a treatment… he agreed, understanding what I had to do. I placed him in a medically induced coma" She finished her debrief.

"*Sigh* Although I wished you had brought him back to the village, I understand why you didn't. Sasuke is still out there hunting him, correct?" she inquired.

"Most likely, though I don't know if my transfer of information had swayed his need for wrongful revenge, as I'm not sure what actually happened," Sakura reiterated somberly.

"Alright, take the rest of today off and rest and start on it tomorrow" she commanded, dismissing her.

Sakura bowed and left the office before going to find Naruto.

Predictable as always, Naruto was eating lunch at Ichiraku's, Sakura had no problem finding him, what she wasn't expecting was Sasuke appearing, wrapped in one of Akatsuki's cloaks.

"Naruto…" growled Sasuke menacingly.

Naruto abandoned his ramen and jumped in front of Sakura, who narrowed her eyes… why was he after Naruto all of a sudden, instead of confronting her over Itachi's location?

Civilians around them began to flee the area as Naruto and Sasuke began to attack each other in the middle of the street, Sakura assisted them in getting out as soon as possible, for she wasn't sure how big this fight would get, not too soon afterward, Chunin and some ANBU appeared as backup.

Sasuke manifested a Chidori, in sync with Naruto's Rasengan and a scene from the past began to play out once more, this time with no interference from their sensei…

Sakura knew instantly what Sasuke was trying to do, he was trying to get her to stop them again, and when he injured her, he was going to force her to tell him about Itachi….

Sakura didn't move to stop them like before, and allowed them to clash with their respective jutsu, if anything she signalled the others to aid Naruto and she climbed to the roofs and headed to the Hokage tower, Sasuke would be super foolish if he tried to follow her, for more Jonin and ANBU would attack the closer he got to her in that direction.

Sasuke quickly noticed that Sakura was not intervening like he hoped she would, but also acknowledged her intelligence once more, she was smart and figured him out that she had already gone. Fighting Naruto and staying here was a waste of time, he dodged Naruto's attack and attempted to flee.

Course Naruto was hot on his tail , along with the others.

Sakura burst into the Hokage's office and warned them that Uchiha Sasuke was fighting Naruto but was probably going to flee the village, since his real target was her.

Tsunade ordered a lockdown and an ANBU squad to pursue him, Brought back alive.

Sasuke was cornered just outside of the village, he knew he could escape further, but he just wanted Itachi, plus if he didn't go after the 8 tails in Hidden Cloud he wasn't sure what Obito planned on doing to him, so he surrendered and demanded they brought him Sakura, he wanted to see Itachi, he needed some answers.

Days later, Sakura ignored his calls for her to appear, while he was taken into custody by the integration department.

She was busy creating a treatment for Itachi and well, if anyone could stop Sasuke from his vengeful quest of redemption for the loss of his entire family, it was Itachi.

Using the vials of blood she took from him she set out to see if first she could find what caused the body to attack itself, was it something from his genes or just happened by chance.

His kekkei genkai triggered the body to force rapid amounts of chakra around his eyes which were damaged over time. Something about the mangekyou attacked the coronas and over time caused blindness….. The body programmed itself to overwhelm over time and it developed an inflammation that would continue to occur, eventually becoming an autoimmune disease that moved on to his chest area and blood vessels.

Sakura went further into looking at Hyuga clan members with eye problems and noticed a similar pattern, a bit different because their eyes weren't quite built the same and had different levels of chakra going through the body.

There were but two of them that were exhibiting almost the same symptoms of Itachi… and she began to wonder why this wasn't more accurately documented as like their ancestors must have had the same disease…

She interviewed the Hyuga member who explained that clan secrets were kept by the main house, the rare time this kind of thing occurred, that member was just relieved from duty as a ninja or died on the battlefield when things got too bad.

After three months of trials, on her volunteers, Sakura had developed a near perfect cure, by forcing the body to adapt to the volume of chakra flow, instead of having it try and defend itself, she would help to adapt and overcome the struggle.

Her theory was in the warring states era, when an Uchiha in particular reached the level of their power of the mangekyou, they didn't live beyond their active years, the gene for unlocking it and living wasn't ever passed down to newer generations and evidently evolution never kept up with it.

Plus she was sure that must be one of the Uchiha's heavily guarded secrets, the dangers of such an advanced jutsu that would eventually tear the body apart, because it never evolved properly.

Next she had to come up with a solution for Itachi's near blindness, and the damages to his lungs already. The serum would stop any further damage from occurring but his body was rejecting his used lungs now… he would need a lung transplant, and eye surgery...but first she would need high authorization for any major surgery on a S-rank criminal…

Tsunade was impressed that Sakura had solved such a convoluted medical issue with such little time and even more limited data.

"I'm impressed with your findings, but is there a benefit for helping Itachi? If he's just going to waste it on fighting Sasuke to the death?" she asked tiredly .

"Before his capture, I would have to agree with you Shishou, it would probably be a waste of organs and time on the staff but since he's been in confinement, can you see a difference since Naruto's been visiting him? Sasuke has given us so much intel on the Akatsuki and the masked man character, Orochimaru's hideout locations and what happened to him after he defeated him single handedly... " Sakura gave her examples of Sasuke changing his options over the last three months.

"Perhaps, but what if this is just a ploy in getting you to finally reveal yourself? And if in time he sees Itachi and doesn't like the truth he is given? I understand you want to believe he has changed Sakura but he is still too much of a wild card to be forgiven for the crimes he has already committed against us and our allies" Tsunade responded hesitating still.

"Would it make a difference if I were to visit him finally? He can't get to Itachi and like he ain't even aware to answer anything, and there's no point in waking him if we can't give him surgery." Sakura argued further.

Sakura decided it was time to stop hiding and face the problem at hand. She worked out between Ino and Ibiki to visit Sasuke that evening under supervision and see how he would react, she would determine if anything had actually changed or not.

Sasuke was finishing dinner when the guard told him he had a visitor, expecting Naruto Sasuke was clearly surprised when Sakura instead appeared from the door.

"Good Evening Sasuke" she greeted him calmly.

"Sakura?" he asked, pondering for a moment if she was merely genjutsu.

"Yeah, I've come to visit, Naruto told me you were doing well these last few months, sorry I haven't been by, I've been quite busy." she told him lightly., knowing he would know she was referring to his brother.

His eyes narrowed before he asked.

"Is Itachi with you?" his voice lowered in anticipation.

"No, Itachi-san is still medically unavailable," she responded.

This prompted Sasuke to sit back and back off.

Sakura smiled, this was the response she was hoping for, he clearly wanted to talk to Itachi still but wouldn't demand it from her or go into a rage.

"Now, I came to visit you. It's been so long since we reunited with one another hasn't it?" she asked him.

Some more month's passed and Naruto and Sakura had convinced everyone that Sasuke was on their side, he was allowed outside but still under village arrest.

Kakashi warned the both of them that trust had to be earned, and he would be taken back to the center if he tried anything, he was under 24/7 surveillance.

Naruto kept him company most of the time, for Sakura was busy during the day, with her lab studies and some hospital work.

Sasuke would seek her out during the evenings, one night she was drinking by herself at one bar she kept a secret, she wanted to relax but look over some notes without any interruptions.

He strolled up to her table and sat down, not long afterward a waitress came by and asked for his order.

Sakura flinched and began to take the papers off the table when Sasuke stopped her.

"I wanna know what happened to Itachi?" he demanded.

"Sasuke, I won't give him to you, please lay your hands off my papers" Sakura challenged him, she hoped he would make the right choice or this would be it for him.

He relinquished his hold on her notes, as she swept them quickly into her side satchel and out of sight.

"Those were confidential, I hope your know" she warned him, unimpressed.

"I just thought they might be about Itachi" he answered, sobering up.

"I'm not dumb enough to risk reading anything to do about that out in public, for this very reason" she told him, lifting her drink, taking a shot of it.

"You must fear that I'm still after him?" he bluntly asked, knowing that that's probably what they thought.

"You are after him" she confirmed.

"What's got you so afraid of that?" Sasuke wondered.

"Ok, let's start from when I interfered in your battle, and forced a bunch of memories into you… i never got to see your reaction, because you were kidnapped and taken hostage by the masked man from Akatsuki. Tell me Sasuke, why should I trust you?" Sakura asked while delving into the past of that fateful night.

"I didn't believe it, at first… until Tobi started talking. He knows too much to not be involved. I suspect he had a part in the massacre but I'm not sure why everything happened the way that it did… I already spoke to a few people from those memories and it makes sense now why Itachi did what he did to ensure my survival, but I just wanted to know why he didn't trust me with the truth, given i was only 8 so of course I as super naïve back then, but perhaps it would have made things less complicated now." Sasuke explained to her his feelings now.

"Are you still our enemy?" Sakura dared to ask.

Sasuke didn't answer but instead dug into his meal that arrived.

Sakura watched him, guarded on what she was going to do, he could still be a minor threat to everyone.

It was summer time when Sakura put Itachi under, 6 months had now passed and it was winter, Sasuke had been captured in the Fall, and released only 2 months ago.

He had proven that he didn't have any other alternative motives and didn't do anything to warrant suspicion from him, he even warned them that the Akatsuki would probably show up, looking for him, or even both retrieve him and grab Naruto. He admitted he falsely joined their efforts for the reason of wanting to escape their capture. The 8 tails and Naruto were the remaining Jinchuriki to be harvested in their evil plans.

Tsunade decided to allow him to start joining minor missions to further test him, knowing she may be putting others in danger, so she assigned him back to Team 7 missions only, till she could be more certain.

It was mid morning, and team 7 was waiting on their leader/sensei Kakashi who was late as usual. It was funny because since Sakura got promoted to Chunin, Kakashi stopped being so silly and showed up on time, since they weren't kids anymore.

"Hmph, looks like you guys are going to have to pass the Chunin exam and maybe he will stop treating you like kids" Sakura commented lightly.

Naruto grumbled, remembering when he found out that Sakura had taken the exam without him and the rest of their year were now chunin and jonin.

Sasuke hummed, figuring that one of them would be promoted by now but he was surprised Naruto was still a Genin.

"Still a brat huh ?" He taunted him.

"I was away training for three years," Naruto explained, climbing a nearby tree.

Around noon their sensei arrived and they were off.

The mission? To find rare herbs that helped with complicated eye surgeries for ninja with kekkei genkai.

Yeah, this is definitely going to 4 parts at least. Funny how one small idea can turn into something a bit bigger than planned :) Thank you for the praises, comments, likes, follows and the like.