Sakura was on the ground chakra exhausted and staring at the darkness as they began their chant to the ritual to extract the Kyubi out of Naruto. Sakura looked to her side where Kakashi sensei was lying knocked out, possibly under some kind of genjutsu. She cursed herself for always being so useless, but she was so exhausted it would take her at least a day to even get up.

She cringed when Naruto began screaming from the pain of having the Kyubi extracted from his body forcibly.

'No choice then' Sakura reached down with her hand to her pack on her leg and extracted a little vial the Hokage had given her. 'I didn't want to use this, but Naruto had always put his life on the line for me.' She took the cork out and was about to drink it when someone's foot stepped on her hand and forced the vial out of her hand. 'Shit! Who the he…' as she looked up she saw a pair of crimson eyes look down at her. 'Sasuke….'

He disappeared in a blur and a moment later Naruto stopped screaming for a moment. A few seconds later it picked up again and Sakura winced.

Minutes that felt like hours passed. Sakura knew the extraction took a lot of time, but Sakura also knew that Sasuke was in there with at least two members of the Akutsuki, Itachi and Kisame; so how much time did he have?

Suddenly Sakura felt the Kyubi's chakra fill the whole cave and long with that another chakra exploded, it felt familiar and she guessed it was Sasuke's chakra. She felt the two other chakras slowly diminish as minutes passed until there were only two left and then they too subsided.

She heard footsteps come her way and she was relieved and not surprised at all to find it was Naruto and Sasuke.

Soon as Naruto saw that Sakura was on the ground unable to really move he ran to her and bend over her. "Eh, Sakura-chan, are you okay?"

"Hai, Naruto-kun." She croaked out. She then turned her head to Sasuke, "Arigatou Sasuke-kun."

"Hey, Sakura-chan," Naruto said as he helped her up. "Sasuke is coming back with us."

Sakura gave a grateful smile to the Uchiha whose look was cold as he picked up their former sensei.

---2-

Naruto was sitting in the middle of the training field concentrating on chakra control, while Sasuke watched over him from not too far away.

"Naruto-kun!" Sakura disrupted Naruto's concentration and he lost the chakra flow. She ran in closer to him. "What were you doing?" She asked him suspiciously. "And where's Sasuke-kun?"

"Ah! Ohayo Sakura-chan!"

"Naruto!" She demanded an explanation. Sasuke walked up beside her.

"Ah! Sakura-chan, I was just working on chakra control!" he whined to her.

Sakura narrowed her eyes at Naruto and resist the urge to hit him over the head. "Baka! When I said you couldn't train, I meant you couldn't train, AT ALL!"

She then got on her knees next to Naruto taking his wrist in her hand, checking his pulse. "Do you feel any pain?" Naruto stared at her a moment and then looked up at Sasuke who was looking a little angry.

"Uh… not really."

"What do you mean not really?"

"It hurts a little, my stomach, but its no big deal Sakura-chan. I'm okay." Naruto gave a goofy grin, but Sakura just seemed even more concerned.

She lifted his shirt and placed her hand over his stomach, Naruto immediately blushed and looked away from both his teammates.

He could feel Sakura's chakra examining him and then after a few seconds it stopped. Sakura gave a sigh and took her hand away letting his shirt drop back over his stomach.

"Nothing's wrong, but Naruto please! Stay away from training, just for a while." Sakura pleaded with Naruto.

Naruto looked back at his teammates who both looked relieved.

Naruto nodded his head. "Sorry Sakura-chan, I didn't mean to worry you."

---

Naruto and Sasuke were back at Naruto's apartment. Sasuke had taken to staying with the blonde in his small apartment, sleeping on the floor by Naruto's bed at night. Naruto was usually careful not to wake the Uchiha. One time he had gotten up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and in the darkness he had stepped on Sasuke's hand. The irritated Sasuke had allowed Naruto to go the bathroom but as soon as he had got back, the Uchiha used one of his many ninjutsu to bind Naruto to his bed. When Naruto made to complain, Sasuke had flashed his Mangekyo and the Naruto immediately closed his mouth.

Though this night Naruto blatantly called to Sasuke, ignoring the dangers of waking the Uchiha. "Hey, Sasuke." His voice was almost lost as a whisper, though he didn't intend it to.

There was a grunt of acknowledgement from Sasuke.

"You killed your brother." Naruto said.

There was another grunt.

"What's next?" Naruto asked. Naruto didn't expect much of an answer, instead he expected the boy on the floor to be irritated and demand that Naruto shut up so that he could go to sleep. Instead there was silence for a long moment, then Sasuke's voice broke the silence.

"I don't know." The answer came out clear, with no hint of irritation in his voice, suggesting that Sasuke wasn't asleep when Naruto called to him.