A/N: I have returned! I finally finished the first draft of my book, now I'm moving on to editing it. If any of you would be interested in reading it, let me know, otherwise thank you for reading this story! This chapter was mostly written between 11PM and 1AM, so if there are more mistakes than usual, you know why.

Sakura tried so hard to pretend she was still asleep, she really did. She had never been the type of person who could stay asleep when someone else in the room was talking, and she had been unable to fall back asleep since Kakashi and Sasuke's short exchange earlier that night. She hadn't wanted to make anyone feel bad about keeping her up, so she kept her eyes closed and breathing even, hoping she could go unnoticed. She had almost jumped to her feet when Itachi entered the room, but she barely managed to stubbornly keep up her act. Until now.

She sat up suddenly, drawing a cry of surprise from Naruto and silent stares from the two Uchiha brothers. "What do you mean, 'What's wrong with Sasuke's eyes'?"

Sasuke instantly looked away, refusing to so much as glance in Sakura's direction. Naruto held Sakura's accusing gaze for a few seconds before he too turned away. Itachi was the only one who continued staring at her, and his eyes just made her feel uncomfortable.

Sakura clenched her teeth. "You're hiding something from me, aren't you?"

Neither Sasuke nor Itachi reacted, so Sakura closely watched Naruto's responses. Just now he had frozen, only for half a second, but just long enough to be as clear of an answer as a "yes".

"Why didn't you tell me?" Sakura could feel a kind of sad anger rising in her chest. "We're a team, aren't we?"

Naruto looked like he wanted to say something, but instead his mouth flattened into a tight line and his eyebrows furrowed.

Sakura's eyes fell, and she added quietly, "Teammates should trust each other."

Surprisingly, the next person to speak was Itachi. "It's the mangekyou sharingan." All eyes turned to him, and he continued slowly, "Since you are asking me about it, you already know exactly what's wrong."

Sakura frowned at Itachi. "What does the mangekyou have to do with this?"

Itachi was silent for several seconds before finally answering, "The more you use the mangekyou sharingan, the faster your vision deteriorates."

Naruto's eyes widened, and he looked back and forth between Itachi and Sasuke. "But that's…"

Sakura took a moment to more closely examine Itachi's eyes. They were looking in her direction, but they were unfocused and cloudy. His knowledge came from experience. She held up her hand, two fingers extended. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

Itachi glowered at her, but otherwise neglected to reply.

With an irritated sigh, she lowered her hand. "Is there any way to fix this?"

"There is one."

The air in the room suddenly became very tense as they waited for the rest of the answer.

"Replace Sasuke's eyes with mine."

…...

Itachi was surprised by the intense and varied reactions to his announcement. The medic was very loudly protesting that it made no logical sense to replace one blind person's eyes with another equally blind person's eyes. The Jinchuriki was momentarily excited, but the excitement switched to worry as he realized that then Itachi would no longer have eyes.

Over their loud voices, Itachi still caught Sasuke's quiet, "Why are you telling us this?"

The other two must have heard Sasuke as well because they fell silent, waiting for Itachi's response.

How should he respond? Itachi was, for the second time in as many months, completely at a loss for words. If things had gone according to plan earlier, Sasuke would have already gained Itachi's eyes along with the mangekyou. Instead, Sasuke had somehow managed to obtain the mangekyou without having to lose any of his friends, and he had also somehow found the time to use it to the point that he almost went blind.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," he murmured, half to himself.

The others seemed to understand what he meant, as they continued in uncomfortable silence for several more seconds.

"So what do we do?" The medic spoke up.

Itachi already knew his answer this time, this part of his plan he had no intention of letting go. "Replace Sasuke's eyes with mine." In response to the medic's earlier objections, he said, "The Uchiha clan kept extensive records of the mangekyou sharingan. It will work."

Sasuke seemed like he was about to protest, but before he could. "We'll do it."