Note: Gomen-nasai for being so late on my deadline. I had one hell of a week studying for next week's finals. This chapter will be longer than all the others I've posted so far (Yay!) and will be a bit Sakura centered. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: It would be nice if I owned Naruto, but sadly I only own a copy of books 1-13 (Waah!).

Chapter 6: Midnight

A fire crackled in the pitch black of night. Flames dimly illuminated the various trees of the forest. A full moon was in the sky, casting light shadows on Team 7 and the Elric Brothers. Sakura sighed and turned her head to look at the little camp. Naruto was peacefully snoring in his sleeping bag, drooling and mumbling something about ramen. Small fits of steam escaped from his wounds, evidence of the Kyuubi fox healing them. Sasuke, meanwhile, was sitting on a log wrapping a strip of bandage on his wrist.

Sasuke-kun probably hates me for what I did, she thought, looking down on the ground as she recalled the events of several hours ago…

Jei's body collapsed, Kusanagi clattering on the floor. Blood seeping from his mask dripped down his face. He opened his eyes and saw not Naruto, nor Sasuke, nor the Elric brothers, but Sakura charging him. She wasn't sure what drove her to do so, but something told her that she should aid in the battle; this was that time. She threw her kunai at the battered shinobi. Sakura smirked at her handiwork… but became worried when she saw Jei smirk back. The kunai knives made a thunking noise as it hit the tree where the mist-nin was just a split second before. She looked around, searching desperately to find him.

"Over here, girl," Jei said. Sakura turned around and saw the mist-nin's sword coming down at her. She shut her eyes, waiting for the inevitable. She felt a hard shove to her side. The sickening sound of steel meeting flesh sounded clearly in her mind's eye. What happened? Did she get hit? She opened her eyes again and saw what made her gasp in fright. Sasuke, while moving her out of the way, was struck in his left wrist, pushing Kusanagi out of the way. Blood flowed freely from his newly made slash. Al lunged once again, when his target disappeared with a gust of wind.

As he disappeared, he said with an evil tone, "We will meet again, and next time I will kill one of you. But perhaps I'll start with the girl. Heh heh." He was gone.

"Damn that bastard Jei," Naruto growled.

"Yeah, I know," Edward said, clapping his hands together. He put his left hand to his wrist and, with a flash of light, returned it to its original state. "Our goal was so close, and then it just slipped away. Damn it." He finished the sentence with a grimace as he walked to retrieve Al's head.

Sakura looked to her crush and asked, "Sasuke-kun, daijobou?" Her emerald eyes grew full of worry as she motioned for him to give her his wrist to look at. Sasuke ripped his arm away from her. "Sasuke-kun?"

"Stupid, you let him get away," he said coldly. Sakura became rooted to the spot. A single tear threatened to fall from her eyes. She tried to choke it back as the raven haired walked away from her.

"Hey, you okay?" Sakura suddenly snapped from her thoughts as she turned to faced Edward.

"Anything wrong?" he repeated. She was a bit shocked at his statement. From the moment they had met, she thought he was just an annoying brat that swore a lot, kind of like how Naruto was. Yet here he was asking her with the utmost respect if anything was troubling her. As she looked into those lighting yellow eyes, she compared him with Sasuke, who always had a cold shoulder around her.

"I-it's nothing, Edward," she lied. Oh great, now I'm starting to stutter like Hinata, she thought. It was then that her eyes traveled down to Ed's steel arm amidst all the blood-wet bandages on his bare chest.

"So, what happened?" she said, pointing to the auto-mail prosthetic.

Edward's glint of gold in his eyes turned dull after that sentence. He sighed, finally starting. "We were trying to resurrect our mother years ago." As he continued, he opened and closed his artificial hand over and over, listening to the small creaking sound of every joint. "We had it all figured out. Everything seemed perfect. But… it wasn't perfect. It was far from perfect; it failed. My left leg was taken… and my brother's whole body was disintegrated."

"…and your arm?"

Ed smiled grimly. "I had to sacrifice my arm for any small part of him that was left, and all I got was his soul. We knew we were trying to play God. But we still took that risk to see our beautiful and kind mother, and now look at us. I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised. This is, after all, what happens when you commit the greatest sin."

Nothing but silence followed. Sakura was speechless, trying to comprehend the gravity of the situation. Before she could even twitch her lips to say something, Ed added, "You seem to like that Sasuke guy over there, right?" Sakura's face turned a pink scarlet. This seemed a rather random question to ask, let alone embarrassing. Maybe if she didn't say anything (There goes that "Hinata" disposition again, she thought)… no, he'd already figured it out anyways.

"Yeah, I do… but… Sasuke-kun never liked me back. He's always so cold an indifferent to me; it feels as though I'll never be able to love him truly. I don't know why, but I still do have feelings for him despite his emptiness. In fact, the only one who's shown me any sincerity, after all these years… were Naruto… and you." She wished now that she never said that last part. Her increased blush was evidence of that. In reply, Edward's face now started to turn bright pink, too. They both looked down to the ground, before staring into each other's eyes again. Edward leaned. Their faces were inches away. Her heart was pounding. This was it; the make-out point. Her lips were about to-

"Hey Ed, I got some more fish we could fry for—" Al stopped in his tracks, shocked as to what was about to happen. His brother and Sakura was about to kiss! If he had his normal body, he'd start to grin devilishly.

"So, big brother," he cooed, playing at the word "big". "Since when did you want a girlfriend of all people? Edward snapped, his face a deep shade of red.

"SHE'S NOT MY GIRLFRIEND! We were just talking like regular friends, right, Sakura!"

"Then why were you leaning? You know you wanted to kiss her," Al said, rubbing in the fact even more.

"I WASN'T GONNA KISS HER! AND SHE'S NOT MY GIRLFRIEND!" At that particular moment, Edward was having so much emotional stress that his wounds reopened. He fell to the ground mumbling, "Hi, mom. Why are you at that bright tunnel at the end?" Al instantly became over worried about the situation. Sakura agreed to herself to never speak of this to anyone again as she put her medic-nin training to use to close up Edward's wounds. Eventually, she too became tired and fell asleep.