At first, she was in a dreamless sleep. There was blackness and numbness, no thoughts forming in her mind…nothing that would lead anyone to believe they were still alive.

Slowly, ever so slowly, thoughts began to form in fragments. Flashes of memory broke through the darkness.

'Sasuke,' she thought, picturing his face, his expression blank but eyes full of emotion.

'Naruto,' she thought again, seeing the bright smile under blue eyes.

'Ino..Sai…Kakashi-sensei…Tsunade-sama…Hinata…Mom…Shizune…Dad…Lee…,' she said their names and saw their faces.

'Where am I,' she thought next, trying to remember, 'What happened? Am I really…dead?'

She strained against the darkness and numbness, focusing on the faces of her loved ones, her teammates, her teachers, her friends, her parents…

Surely, something of what happened would come back to her.

She was flooded with love suddenly, flashes of moments with Sasuke the last week splashing the darkness with color. She remembered holding his hand, walking with him, talking with him, sharing meals, being held by him, kissing…

She felt like blushing, overwhelmed by the intensity of those memories.

But how? When? Wasn't Sasuke still a missing-nin that joined the Akatsuki and swore vengeance on Konoha?

Pain and violence erupted onto the loving memories, and Sakura screamed inside her mind, nearly crushed by the weight of the memories of the war, the kidnappings, the torture, the final fight, and pushing herself past her final limit.

She felt her body then, pain radiating from every single cell. She blinked, opening her eyes, expecting to see something. Her vision was a field of white now, which was startling after floating in nothing but darkness for so long.

She jerked, fighting to gain control over the pain and find out where she was. Was she under attack again? Were her loved ones under attack?

Her ears began to ring, and she realized she was hearing herself scream. Her whole body started convulsing on its own then, and she thought that perhaps this was it. She would die without confirming that her loved ones were safe.

She could just make out the sound of people shouting over her screaming, and she tried to decipher who they were and what they were saying.

Slowly, maddeningly slowly, the pain lessened, and the convulsing stopped. She was still shaking violently, but she could feel soothing healing chakra probing her system and was thankful for the relief it was bringing. She soon stopped screaming, her cries dimming to a pained whimper. Her vocal cords, overworked and strained, thanked her.

Too soon the healing chakra stopped flowing, and Sakura wanted to ask whoever it was to start again. Her vocal chords soundly refused to listen even as she worked her mouth to form the words.

She started shivering, cold suddenly. She blinked slowly, trying to clear her vision. She saw a shadow leaning over her pull something into the air above her and then lower it down onto her body. She felt warmth coming from it and thought perhaps it was a blanket.

She squeezed her eyes shut as she willed her vision to return to normal and fought to ignore a raging headache that now making itself known in the silence created by the majority of her cells no longer screaming.

She also realized she could clearly hear her teeth chattering in her skull. As she focused on the sound, she began to pick up other sounds. She could hear someone speaking, their tone serious, yet relieved, "She's going to make it."

She creased her brow as she tried to put a face to the voice but failed.

She felt a warm raindrop hit her face and flinched for a moment, surprised when more raindrops fell, but only on her face. What kind of a rainstorm only covered a few inches of the ground below it?

She opened her eyes again, and her breath caught in her throat. It wasn't a rainstorm. The warm raindrops she had felt were tears. Tears falling from Sasuke's face above her, his eyes scrunched closed, and his face crumpled in pain. She blinked, taking in the sight of his bare chest and shoulders, realizing that the 'blanket' on her was his shirt.

In a way that was familiar to them, Sasuke leaned down and wrapped his arms around her neck. The roles were reversed, but the feelings were much the same. One thought the other was dead, the other woke from their death-state, and the first expressed their relief with tears and hugging.

Sakura shakily lifted her free arm, which felt like it weighed a ton, to wrap around Sasuke's neck to comfort him. She closed her eyes and simply enjoyed the closeness. She was alive. He was alive. It was going to be okay.

In the background, she heard Kakashi and Naruto exchanging relieved exclamations. She also heard the voice from earlier, the one who said she was going to make it.

She listened to the voice explain that she was nearly restored but was still in need of ongoing care to recover fully, as well as advising she use no more chakra for a while. She realized it was the Sage of the Six Paths; he had been the one who's chakra she had felt earlier that saved her.

She opened her eyes once more, and let go of Sasuke, signaling to him that she wanted to sit up. He creased his brows as he assessed her with concern in his eyes, hesitant that she should move at all yet. She assured him with a smile that she was okay, nudging him back just enough that she could start sitting up. She let him help her to a sitting position, each wanting him to for the continued physical contact.

"I must bid you all farewell," the Sage said, turning so that he could see all four of them.

Sasuke let his attention leave Sakura for the first time since the Sage had demanded he answer him before he would help her, though he remained by her side, letting her weight rest on him.

"Naruto and Sasuke," he said first, "I entrust the two of you with my legacy of Ninshu. Remember well all the two of you have learned here."

Looking at Kakashi, he then said, "You have been a teacher and protector for them, even when they surpassed you. Continue to do so."

Last he looked at Sakura, "You remind me a great deal of another young women, one who was willing to give her own life for my sons, to keep them from killing each other. You have the good fortune of seeing today what she never did. Keep believing in them and supporting them; don't take this peace for granted."

Sakura nodded her agreement to him in respect, but she didn't need him to tell her to do so; it was a promise she had already made. A promise of a lifetime, to borrow Naruto's own words.

His final words spoken and the last of his energy spent, Hogoromo faded until nothing remained.

The four remained glued to their spots for just a moment, looking at where the shade had been and replaying his words.

Kakashi had been through the wringer. He regained Obito only to lose him. He tried and failed to be the squad leader his team had needed most, and now at the end of things, he had almost nothing to contribute. If Sasuke had moved to attack targets of the five shinobi nations, he knew he would have been useless to stop him.

The fact that the Sage of the Six Paths saw value in his continued support of the two boys had genuinely surprised him.

"What happened," Sakura asked finally, breaking the silence. Her voice was raspy from her aching vocal cords, but she could speak clearly.

Naruto rubbed the back of his head and gave her one of his cheesy grins, "Well, you see, we were all talking, and then you were dying, and well, um…you're okay now. Believe it!"

Sakura raised an eyebrow, suspicious now from the way Naruto was acting, as if he was trying to hide something.

She looked to Kakashi who was studiously ignoring them, face hidden behind his classic orange book. Sakura let her mind drift for just a moment, sure that she remembered that book falling to its fiery doom in the lava dimension. He somehow materialized it into existence anyway.

Her brow furrowed further as she returned to her previous train of thought. Something was definitely up.

She looked finally at Sasuke, who had yet to break physical contact with her. His eyes were hidden behind his bangs, and he was frowning. What could have possibly happened from the time she passed out until now, when they were literally the only people for miles not wrapped like mummies by tree roots?

"Sasuke," she asked quietly, piecing together the snippets of their conversation from earlier and everything that happened since she woke up, "Please tell me."