A/N: OMG! You guys! I love you! You review! Hugs to you all! I know you hate me, and you have every right to because I haven't updated in forever... but there was a good reason! I had all four of my wisdom teeth taken out at once and the pain was insane. ((If you're getting your's taken out, DO! It is SO worth it! No more headaches! Such a relief!)) Please forgive me for not updating before hand. I made it up with the ending. And I have a surprise for my beloved readers! But you gotta read this chapter first! I hope you approve of the ending to this story... It's been so much fun writing... Anywho! Before I let anything slip... READ AND REVIEW!

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Sakura dodged another killing swipe from Sasuke, how he kept fighting with the same pace as he started and not break a sweat, Sakura had to wonder. Was Sasuke still alive? He fought as if he had no soul, not caring if he slaughtered her on the spot. Her heart was being torn in two, the man she had fallen in love with at first sight, had spent most of her life pursuing, was going to kill her. A kunai flew from her side, heading straight for her neck, falling back, it hit her mask, cracking it. Now she was pissed. Her mask fell to the floor as she kicked Sasuke and went for Sazona, who was once more cutting himself.

"Sakura!" Neji's voice screamed from the grass.

Sakura spun around to see Sasuke glowing hand heading straight for her. She had no time to escape, no time to move, not a chance. Bracing herself for impact, she winced and bit her lower lip. When no hit came, Sakura opened one of her eyes and gasped. "C-Captain?"

Shikamaru turned his head to the side to look at Sakura. "Go help Neji." Turning his attention back to Sasuke, he took a step to the side, and Sasuke did the same. He had Sasuke in his shadow.

"Thank you." Sakura breathed between tears as she rushed over to Neji and collapsed beside him. Panting, she pushed herself up to her knees and began concentrating chakra to her hand.

Neji's hand shot up and grabbed Sakura's wrist. "Sakura… no. You need to-"

"Orders are orders. I am a medic nin, and part of his squad." Turning her head to the side, she watched Shikamaru fight the two S-class nins with two other ANBU members. Sakura smiled at her team and then turned her attention back at Neji, "Besides, I can't leave you bleeding here. I need you to live."

Neji slowly let go of her wrist and let her heal him. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on healing his body. Sakura's chakra swirled within him, mixing with his and healing every tear, cut, and bruise. Every burn, every ache, every hurt, began to warm up and heal. Neji let out a small sigh as he relaxed under her touch. His eyes slowly peeled open as he felt Sakura's chakra slowly disappear, he wished it wouldn't, it held such power over him, and yet made him feel safe. When he felt her hand slowly peel off his sweating skin, his hand lashed out and placed her hand back onto his arm.

Sakura let a smile escape her lips as she began to grow weary. Neji was all set and was in no more danger. That's all she wanted. Placing her forehead on his arm, she sighed. Her eyes flew open as she quickly stood up and turned to Shikamaru. "Captain! Don't let his blood touch you!" As soon as this escaped her lips and Shikamaru and the others looked down at themselves, Sazona laughed and quickly formed hand signs, causing his blood that was all over to explode. Unfortunately for Shikamaru and Sakura's teammates, they had Sazona's blood all over them.

Sakura took a step to go help her team and froze when she saw Sasuke rushing at her from the cloud of dust flying everywhere. Her vision blurred as she felt weak. As she began to fall forward, someone caught her and stood her up. Looking up, she saw Neji wincing as his grip tightened on her shoulders.

"Sakura. Everything is going to be okay. I'm going to protect you." Neji looked down at her, his eyes watering as pain overwhelmed him. Sasuke was now twisting his weapon in his back.

Sakura felt a hot tear travel down her cheek as she smiled. As the tear fell from her chin, she fainted in Neji's arms.

Shikamaru rushed out of the dust cloud to assist Neji, reaching forward, he grabbed Sasuke, and twisted his neck, snapping it instantly. Sasuke turned into a log before them and Shikamaru was faced with a weapon in Neji's back and an unconscious Sakura. "This is going to hurt." Shikamaru informed Neji as he placed his hands on the weapon, after receiving a curt nod from Neji, he slowly pulled it out of his back, crimson blood oozed from the deep puncture. Quickly placing his hand on Neji's back, Shikamaru quickly healed the wound and went back to fight with his team.

Neji frowned as he scooped up Sakura, Shikamaru's chakra disappeared in his body. Somehow, his heeling did not feel the same as Sakura's. Gently placing her in the tall grass, he wiped the tears from the corner of her eyes and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. He'd win this for her. He'd make sure that when she came too, there would be no more fighting, and she would be safe, and hunted no more. Before his mind wandered too far, he slowly got up and turned around. Neji took one last look at Sakura before rushing off to assist Shikamaru. He had a question to as him once all this fighting was done with.

Shikamaru found Sasuke brutally attacking one of his teammates, his eyes narrowed as he rushed forward his hands flying into different signs, "Kagemane no Jutsu!" His shadows stretched out across the unsettled dirt and quickly captured Sasuke, just as Sasuke knocked the ANBU team member out of his way to fight Shikamaru head on.

Sasuke gritted his teeth as he glared at Shikamaru, his Sharingan spinning like crazy. He silently cursed at himself for not spotting Shikamaru's jutsu earlier, he could have dodged it.

Shikamaru saw Neji help the ANBU member up out of the corner of his eye, "Neji. Take care of Sazona!" After seeing Neji nod and rush off towards Sazona, Shikamaru concentrated on Sasuke. "I have five minutes of play time with you." He smirked as he wiggled his hips back and forth, smiling ever more as Sasuke did the same thing.

Neji jumped around Sazona who was healing himself at a rapid pace. He had to stop him from healing. He had to stop him so he couldn't heal himself or move. Neji smirked making Sazona freeze in front of him.

"What are you smiling at." Sazona demanded.

Neji's smirk turned into a menacing smile as he pointed at Sazona. "Big mistake. Eight Trigrams One-hundred twenty-eight palms!" Neji spun around Sazona at such great speed, hitting his chakra points with each hit.

Sazona dropped to the ground, unable to move. Neji turned around just as Shikamaru screamed. Somehow, Sasuke had managed to break out of Shikamaru's shadow, and was attacking him fiercely. Neji rushed to aid Shikamaru, but was faced with Sasuke himself. Guarding himself, the sound of a sword unsheathing pierced the air.

Sasuke had brought out his weapon. The battle was near an end, and Sasuke had the advantage.

Neji flipped out of Sasuke's reach and watched as Sasuke charged towards him. Pulling his last kunai out of his pouch, he blocked Sasuke's deadly swipe.

Sasuke twisted his arm in such an angle that the kunai was thrown out of Neji's hands. With a smirk, his sword flew into Neji's shoulder.

Shikamaru was up and running towards Sasuke, his short sword drawn. Just as Sasuke went to decapitate Neji, he blocked the sword and knocked it away. Something caught his attention making him gasp, "Sakura!"

Sazona was flying towards Sakura, this was his final attack. He was going to take her out while she was down. Neji was on his feet in a second, sprinting towards Sazona. He had to get to Sakura first.

Peeling open her eyes with great difficulty, Sakura slowly sat up to see Sazona zooming right at her, murder in his shining eyes. The only time she had to move, was to drop her hand from rubbing her head. A hot tear traveled down her cheek as she watched her death come.

Neji screamed as he pushed off the ground and tackled Sazona, every fiber in his body fighting Sazona who was slowly overpowering him. Why didn't he train more? Why was he not strong enough to defeat him! And then it hit him, like a punch square in the face from his former teammate Rock Lee. He was Hyuuga! He was an elite! A smirk played across his face, making Sazona raise an eyebrow at him.

"You're in my trigram." Neji smiled menacingly.

"In your what?"

"You're in my Divine Field" Pushing him up into the air, he kicked him away from Sakura and spun around rapidly, hitting Sazona with his Divine three-hundred sixty one strikes. After watching Sazona fall to the ground limp, Neji smirked and turned around slowly to look at Sakura, feeling utterly exhausted, "Sakura, are you all right?" Slowly, he walked over to her and stood before her, his breath short and fast, his chest rising and falling rapidly. Staring down at her with clouded orbs, he dropped to his knees and grabbed her, holding her tightly against him.

"Neji… I was so afraid…" Sakura felt another tear travel down her cheek as she pressed it against Neji's, "I was so afraid you would have gotten yourself killed…" Smiling, she buried her face into his torn shirt.

Neji coughed a chuckle and looked down at her, "I'm not the one that fainted."

Sakura sat up slowly and glared at him, "Touché. But I'm not the one who had to be healed twice."

"Ooooh, like you didn't want to heal me."

"I'm leaving you for dead next time you get gravely injured."

"HEY! While you two were chatting away, Sasuke ran off…" A voice informed them from behind Neji.

Sakura looked up and slowly stood up, leaving Neji sitting there alone. Walking over to Shikamaru, she wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him tightly. "Thanks captain. We would have been dead without you." Letting go of the blushing Shikamaru, she winked at her two teammates and smiled when they nudged one another and laughed.

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Incident reports were always a drag to write. But with much reluctance, Sakura had finished it. Sighing, she ran a hand through her pink hair. She had finally managed to get all that disgusting hair color out of it, and now it was back to normal.

Picking up the small stack of papers, she knocked them against her desk, making them fall into a neat pile. Nodding, she pulled one last paper and placed it on top. Sakura had to see Shikamaru.

Standing up from her desk, she grabbed the handful of papers and walked into Shikamaru's office. He, as always when she came into his office, was hunched over a huge stack of papers reading away. "Shikamaru?" Sakura asked, making him freeze and look up.

"Yes?" He asked calmly, bringing the glasses away form his tired eyes.

"I finished my paper work." Walking over she placed it onto his desk in front of him.

"You know I am always in a need of more." He scoffed sarcastically as he glared at the other papers. His eye was caught by the top paper Sakura had placed onto his desk. "Sakura?" Picking it up, he looked up at her frowning.

"I um… well… I want to retire…" Sakura smiled weakly, rubbing her arm.

"This wouldn't be happening because of a certain guy would it?"

"No… I just don't think I'm cut out for it. After the last mission." Sakura trailed off and looked away. She hadn't seen or talked to Neji for a few weeks since the mission.

"Whatever. We were going to fire you today anyways, we already found your replacement." Shikamaru ripped the paper in half and tossed it over his shoulder.

"Wah! Who!"

"Go find out for yourself, I believe your replacement is in the training areas…" Waving his hand lazily, he went back to reading more papers.

Sakura fumed as she spun on her heel and stomped out of the building. How dare they replace her so soon! Not even a 'goodbye cake'! That was so rude! SO rude. She rounded the street corner to the training grounds and what she saw made her freeze in her tracks.

Neji, fully clad in ANBU gear, leaning against his favorite tree.

"Wait…" Sakura blinked and then grew very dark. "SHIKAMARU!"

Shikamaru appeared behind her in a puff of smoke, "Hey Sakura, you think he would do? Funny, now you get to do his old job and he gets to do your old job. Isn't that funny?"

Sakura grabbed Shikamaru by the scruff of the neck and brought his face down to hers, "No, it's hilarious…" She growled at him menacingly.

"Sakura? Why aren't you dressed in your uniform? Don't we have a mission?" Neji asked behind her.

Sakura blinked making Shikamaru smile.

"Just joking Sakura, you're not fired… I thought you'd like it if Neji came out on a mission with us a few times. You two make a good team. Besides, I can't replace a brilliant medic nin like you Sakura. No way." Patting her on the head, he formed a few hand signs and disappeared right after informing Neji quickly that there was no mission today.

Neji raised an eyebrow at Sakura who smiled up at him sweetly.

"It seems we have the day off." Neji informed her coolly. A chilly breeze teased their faces whispering the hint of an early winter. Neji held out his hand slowly, "Would you like something to eat?"

Sakura smiled and gently grabbed his hand, her eyes widened as he pulled her into a hug.

"I'm sorry I haven't seen you since the mission. There was business that needed to be taken care of back at my house…" Pulling her away a little bit, he stared down into her sparkling green orbs, "Forgive me?"

Sakura stood on her toes and kissed him in reply. Of course she'd forgive him. He was the one that showed her friendship all those nights she awoke from the horrible nightmares. The ones that crept up on her and sent her into a world of despair and loss. But something in Neji's eyes always snapped her out of it when she awoke to find her shaking her shoulders. Something very comforting. She had found safety in his eyes, strength in his arms, and love in his words. When she pulled away from his lips, she heard him chuckle and stare down at her. "You so owe me dinner." She smirked up at him before wrapping her arms around him and pulling herself closer to him.

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A/N:wipes tear away: Man... I'm going to miss writting this story... which is why... I'm am going to start another one. YES! A second story to this one! However, it's going to have a love triangle! It's going to be a NejixSakuraxShikamaru! Yes! Shikamaru MUST be in on the love triangle... and no... it's not a yaoi... lol. Sorry. I have been too mean to Shikamaru in my other story and he deserves loving! SO! Review, and yes, please! Put any ideas about what you would like to see from me in my next story for this couple! Of course there will be action and romance and... and... Tons of stuff! Push button on lower left hand side of page and review review REVIEW! Love you all tons! Ciao!