Note: If there are some factual inaccuracies with the canon, please don't butcher me for them. This is a fanfiction.

Sasuke traipsed through a shadowed hallway that had only one dangling lamp from the ceiling. It was the hallway to the prison he'd kept her inside of; one of the many hallways he'd always pulled Sakura through when she was still here.

His footsteps were heavy and sluggish, as if they were being dragged through mud. His back was hunched in overt sadness. He reached the door to her prison and turned the metallic lock to release the seal, causing the door to push open automatically.

He trudged into her empty room; his eyes trained onto the unmade bed. His hand moved to cradle the chained ankle lock he'd always used on her. Then his hands travelled up to the crumpled blankets, his lithe fingers gently tracing the linen fabric, as if he was caressing its previous owner.

Before he knew it, he was crying.

Sasuke's fingers trembled as he held the cloth to his face, pressing her scent deep into his senses. Anything to feel her presence again.

Anything.

Anything.

"We're too late, Sasuke, they've already sent her back. I'm sorry." Jugo's voice repeated itself inside his mind, again and again.

He'd failed again.

Suddenly, Sasuke turned around and vomited onto the ground. Violent tremors raked his form as he threw up onto the steel floor.

It was two weeks after Sakura's 'death' did Konoha receive news of what was happening.

The Kages were being assassinated. Ohnoki was the first one killed. His body was found dead across the Iwagakure's main battlefield. It was clear that the third Tsuchikage had been in a duel, and he'd lost.

There was no overt evidence to tie him to the crime but everyone knew this was done by the hands of Sasuke Uchiha.

Stenna Veal, the Fifth and newest Raikage, fell too. She died two weeks afer Ohnoki's death, her body found slaughtered into chunks (though still identifiable) across Kumogakure's metropolitan center.

Naturally, the remaining Kage's upped their present guards after that, making it impossible for any foreigners to even bypass the Village's borders.

And it was true, which was why Sasuke disappeared for one month after Stenna's death.

It was the calm before the storm, because exactly one month later, a hoard of undead shinobi came attacking all five villages, just like the Fourth Great Shinobi War.

There was no Madara or Ten-Tails but the force was still formidable, and more powerful than Kabuto's reanimations.

The shinobi Sasuke brought back were not just paper clones of the original. They were all Myael jutsus, which as a result also brought the forces of nature against the villages.

By some method, Sasuke was able to control the hurricanes and tornadoes that were a direct result of the hordes of undead shinobi he'd brought back. He wanted the world to suffer the way he had, by taking away everything he held dear.

Previous Kages, dead champions, all the strongest Shinobi, save for Madara and Tobi, were all called back and upon Sasuke's command, brought back to fight the village's, albeit against their own will. Sasuke had implemented Kabuto's mind control techniques over them.

The war would have been even matched, if not for the forces of nature Sasuke commanded. Before every combat, he would push forth either a whirlwind or hurricane towards his enemies, decimating their battle formations before sending the reanimated towards them.

Everyone called it the Fifth Great Shinobi War.

Naruto wanted to meet Sasuke in combat but his attentions were drawn and divested in stopping three previous Kages from demolishing Konohagakure. The battle, like all battles against every village now, had raged seeming without an end for four months now.

It'd been half a year since Sasuke had lost Sakura, but the loss still felt fresh as ever.

Presently, it was nighttime and Sasuke was camped out in the middle of his militant forces, surrounded by millions of sleeping undead Shinobi.

Cold and alone.

But he didn't care.

He would make everyone pay.

Because they deserved it.

He would never stop until every single person in the world was grieving for a loved one.

Throughout his entire life, he'd always experienced loss while everyone around him was surrounded by the warm embrace of family and friends. He'd almost been able to put down his penchant for vengeance once…almost….

After the Fourth war…after he'd worked so hard with everyone to defeat Ten Tails.

They'd betrayed him.

And…

Sasuke shook his head as he lied resting on the leather tarp of his tent, pushing away his memories of that awful time.

The reality was simple: the villages had brought this vengeance upon themselves.

They'd forced his obsession to form on Sakura. They'd made him dependent upon her. And when he was finally able to bring her back…

They'd taken her away again.

Sasuke tore out of his tent, desperate for some fresh air to clear his mind of these useless thoughts. There was no point in reliving the past; this was his philosophy. If he ever had a regret, he made the present atone for it.

He trekked to the small creek next to his campsite so that he could splash some water in his face. The droplets were like a salve against his skin, calming and refreshing, like her.

"Sasuke?"

He knew he was hallucinating even before he turned around and came face to face with Sakura Haruno's slender form. Her face was bright, healthier than when he'd last seen her. She was dressed in that iconic red and pink battle ware of hers. Her hair hung long and straight in a river behind her, held back by her metal headband.

He immediately drew his kusunagi towards what he thought was an enemy's apparition. "You can't fool me with that. I'll cut you down just for daring to use her name against me."

He made a move to charge towards her but the girl dodged agilely away, surprising him.

"I'm not a fake Sasuke," Sakura stated simply. Her voice became softer, quieter as she spoke her next words: "Do you really want me to be?"

He growled in fury. "I'm not delusional, I will not lie to myself."

Sakura took a few steps closer to him; Sasuke still had his katana raised ready to strike but his posture was less tense than before.

She moved until her body was lined straight with the blade's apex.

"Illusion jutsus break upon physical injury, correct?" Sakura cited the well-known fact from her memory of the shinobi academy. Her hand came to touch the point of his katana, pressing her palm in until it pierced flesh; blood dribbled down to the moist grass.

For some reason, Sasuke still remained skeptical. He growled impatiently: "There are ways to supersede the common replication jutsu. To create a near flawless but fake clone. Don't take me for a fool. The Kages forbade other people from using it but I'm sure they would gladly and hypocritically use it for themselves."

Sakura's interest was piqued here. "Use what?"

Sasuke scowled. "Don't mess with me."

He moved to strike her again, this time with much faster speed, Sakura only just managed to move out of the way. A lock of her hair got severed from his attack.

She knew it was only a matter of time until he hit her; the man was much more powerful than her. She knew she had to get through to him quick. An idea occurred to her.

Reaching into her red garbs, Sakura pulled out a small dagger.

"Sasuke, I'm real," she stated before running a deep and long cut into her forearm. This caused the man who had been readying to charge at her again, stop dead in his tracks. He could only stare at her.

Her blood dribbled onto the grass and pain seeped into her senses but Sakura held herself steady as she stated: "Remember when you used my parents to stop me from hurting myself?"

In an instant, Sasuke came rushing towards her, grabbing her bleeding arm into both of his palms, stopping the strong flow of blood. "What are you, insane?"

Sakura found herself dazed, either from the blood loss or the fierce grip he had on her forearm. She didn't resist him as he pulled her to the creek, making her kneel so that he could cleanse the wound.

Sakura watched with a sort of sleepy fascination as the man washed and then pulled out from within his pocket a bottle of disinfectant powder, before drizzling a plentiful amount onto her cut. Sakura winced at the pain but didn't move away as he fastened a tight bandage over her, using a length of cloth he'd torn from his shirt.

When the wound was completely dressed, the man turned back to look at her.

His eyes were probative, gauging and still distrustful, but it was only a miniscule fragment now, shadowed by his overwhelming…astonishment.

Sakura kept expecting him to kiss her he didn't. Instead, Sasuke just stared at her, his gaze piercing.

He leaned forward, as if for a kiss but stopped halfway to whisper: "Are you really…back?"

Sakura smiled. "Sasuke, I-"

Her words were cut off by a strong grip to her esophagus, choking her. Sasuke's gaze was once more furious.

"The real Sakura would never willingly come back to me," he stated plainly, his eyes crimson again.

"Your sharingan should...tell you that I'm not fake," Sakura rasped out weakly, not trying to fight his tight –though not yet dangerous- grip.

Sasuke scoffed. "There are jutsus that even my sharingan would be fooled by."

"Such as the second Myael jutsu?" Her words brought the Uchiha's eyes to their maximum width. Sakura used his shock of the moment to break free of his choke hold. "I know my parents are really dead, Sasuke."

She interrupted him before he could attack her. "I know you used the second Myael jutsu to create lookalikes of them. To threaten me with them."

The second Myael, as Itachi had explained, allowed the user to alter one living organism's appearance to look like another's, permanently.

The look inside Sasuke's eyes had once again gained that murderous fury, but he stayed calm for now, addressing her with bitter scorn: "Are you here to threaten me with your life again unless I end the war?"

To his surprise, Sakura shook her head. "The war will end with or without me. Itachi's been working these past six months to create an all-encompassing Myael sealing ritual. Every undead shinobi on the planet will vanish as soon as he finishes the ritual. You won't be able to call upon them again."

Sasuke had to take a moment to absorb everything she'd said. His brother was back. His brother was going to undo everything he'd worked so hard for. Somehow Sakura had been in contact with Itachi within these last six months.

He wasn't going to be outdone.

"We'll see about that." Sasuke said while moving to grab Sakura's wrist and force her into a locked position against a tree behind her (probably intending to force his brother's whereabouts out of the girl) but Sakura dodged him, moving with chakra speed.

She appeared standing behind him as he turned around. Sasuke scoffed, standing as well. "Got your chakra back, I see. You're still no match for me."

He charged at her, kunai fixed straight at her. Sakura stopped it with a chakra infused palm, becoming locked with Sasuke's equally inflamed jutsu.

The man had no intention of really hurting her; just some incentive to get her to reveal Itachi's location.

"If you didn't come back to stop the war," Sasuke continued, up close with his kunai pressed against Sakura's chakra infused glove hand. "Then why did you knowingly come back here? You should have known that I would never let you go again."

"I did," Sakura agreed while she moved her free hand to suddenly punch him straight across the chin. Sasuke was thrown off of her but caught himself before he hit the ground.

"I came back for answers, Sasuke," she answered him while charging forward, swinging her fists at him once more but this time he caught it with his hand and swung it backwards, trapping it behind her back, while he came to press his front side against her back as well.

"Have you forgotten the last time you tried to fight me, Sakura?" he asked tauntingly into her ear, his voice a whisper and purposely seductive.

Sakura swung her foot backwards, aiming for Sasuke's stomach. The man took impact but recovered almost immediately.

"Even with your chakra, you still belong to me," Sasuke stated before turning his eyes blood red.

Sakura didn't verbally answer, instead she slammed her fists together -causing an air shock wave to erupt downwards at an angle to the Earth. The ground split from her power, like a tidal wave enlarging and increasing in height until it hit Sasuke square in the chest.

The man was propelled backwards through the air, until he landed some thirty feet away. The distance made no difference because in the matter of seconds, he was flying at her, his chidori lightning chakra infused straight into a sphere in his palm.

Sakura prepared herself for impact by raising her arms defensively in front of her but he never came into contact. In fact, he disappeared right when he was just five feet from her.

Sakura straightened to her full height, looking around. When she turned on her heel, to the right, Sakura suddenly felt herself immobilized.

Sparks flew out all over her body, meeting and touching the base of her feet, even where her shoes touched the ground.

"I've polarized your body to the ground, you can't move." Sasuke's voice stated from somewhere above her. The man rematerialized himself in front of her, his grin smirking.

Before she knew it, he had shoved her to the ground, his body landing on top of her. In that moment, a tiny crystal sewn into the back of Sakura's belt, on her back, was crushed. It happened too fast and too quietly for Sasuke to notice.

"Did you honestly think you could defeat me?" he asked with a smirk as he pushed his entire weight onto her body.

"No," Sakura stated while shifting her arm a little, as the polarity effect had been cancelled by the emergency crystal Itachi had given her. She'd kept it on her back because she'd predicted that Sasuke would eventually force her into this position.

She surreptitiously took something out from her back shirt pocket. "I just wanted to get your guard down."

Before Sasuke knew it she had stuck a special kanji written parchment onto his forehead. On the parchment were the kanji names of herself and Sasuke. It was designed by Itachi and contained an infused memory jutsu that would draw out certain memories of the people listed on the parchment.

The effect was instantaneous: Sasuke's agonized scream could be heard even ten miles from where the two of them were.

A gray circle of energy erupted from Sasuke's forehead and engulfed the two of them, sucking them into the events of before:

The Fourth Great Shinobi War had just ended with Black Zetsu and Kaguya having been sealed away. Sasuke and Naruto were both exhausted from having worked out all their strengths to fight Kaguya. The two men's arms were interlaced as one supported the other, both of them walking from the battlefield back to Konoha's borders.

A smile of camaraderie reflected between both of them. Before they made it past even three steps from the war torn, empty battlefield, a pink haired female silhouette came running up to embrace both of them.

Naruto immediately returned the hug but Sasuke stayed apathetic and unmoving, not that Sakura really noticed. She was just so glad both of them were alright.

Coming up from behind them, were the Five Kages and some of the residents of Konoha that had survived the war. Tsunade and Gaara both looked relieved, the prior more overtly so.

Sakura helped both men to step forwards but when Naruto's foot took one more step on the grass, his entire body lurched forward.

Sakura's eyes widened in horror. "Naruto!" she cried while dropping to her knees and checking the man's pulse. Tsunade quickly followed suit, checking his other pulse line at his throat. To both of their relief, the boy was just unconscious.

Gaara was already by their sides. "Is Naruto alright?"

Tsunade smiled reassuringly. "Don't worry, he's just exhausted and a little dehydrated. He'll need to be admitted and will probably stay unconscious for the next couple of days, but other than that he'll be fine."

While this was occurring, Sasuke who had been temporarily forgotten about just stood motionless watching as they tended to his rival. Truth be told he didn't want anything to happen to the boy too, they still hadn't finished their final fight together.

With his back turned, Sasuke didn't realize until too late that a straight chakra infused palm was coming straight for his back neck, hitting his pulse point. Immediately upon impact all the remaining strength, that was meager in supply, drained from him and Sasuke Uchiha collapsed onto the ground too, like his rival.

Sakura screamed, her eyes widened as she looked up towards the underhanded man that had attacked Sasuke behind his back: Raikage, A, a tall dark skinned, burly looking man with blond hair.

"What are you doing?" Sakura screamed while running to stand in between A and Sasuke's form.

"Move or I'll arrest you too," A threatened authoritatively, staring down at her from at least seven feet tall of a height, but Sakura refused to back down.

"Arrest him? Under what grounds?" Sakura shouted vehemently. Behind her, she could hear Gaara and Tsunade's footsteps that were coming to stand up right behind her.

"Acts of terrorism, assassination of an official Kage while they were in office, attack against international borders and a slew of several other crimes against the Five Villages," Raikage listed the events quickly and without falter. "As well as attacking my brother."

Sakura bit her lip. Danzo. He was talking about when Sasuke attacked the Five Kage council, murdered Danzo with Tobi, and from that point on became an international criminal.

"Now move!" A shouted while shoving her out of the way. Sakura stumbled and would have fallen if not for a pair of strong arms that caught her from behind. She looked up and saw Gaara's form.

She smiled in gratitude before turning back around to once again address A but Tsunade got there first.

"He has shown that he shows remorse and has changed his ways. If it wasn't for him, we'd all be-" Tsunade started but got interrupted, not by A but rather Ohnoki, who had come up to float right next to the Raikage's head.

"He may have just been trying to save this world from destruction for his own reasons, whether or not his actions constitutes ground enough for an exoneration is a matter for every Kage to decide."

Tsunade pursed her lips. They were right and she knew it. They moved to take ahold of Sasuke's unconscious form but Tsunade stated she would do it. As she scooped up Sasuke's form, she gave Sakura a reassuring smile, as if to tell her that everything would be alright.

Sakura swallowed a lump that had formed in her throat. Gaara stepped out from behind her and for a second she met his gaze too.

There was something there she couldn't recognize but he gave her a reassuring look in the end too. "Don't worry, we'll make sure he's okay."

And with that Gaara left to join his other Kage colleagues. It was clear an emergency Kage council was going to be called.

Sasuke was kept chained and imprisoned in chakra binding restraints beneath Konoha, in their criminal prisons, the ones reserved for their most dangerous convicts.

Sakura wasn't even allowed to visit him. She wanted Naruto to help her plead with the guards, or even just to offer his consoling support but the blond boy was still unconscious.

The Kage council took the twenty-four hours immediately after the war to deliberate. Sakura waited at the border of Konoha the entire day, sitting on the bench she'd been found on the morning after Sasuke's initial departure.

She waited.

And waited.

Finally, right before night fell, Kakashi came to find her and tell her of their decision.

What he told her was devastating: they could spare Sasuke a death penalty but not a living one.

They were going to cripple Sasuke of all his chakra and use of all his joints, forever ending his life as a Shinobi and essentially condemning him to live as a cripple. The reason for this extreme punishment was in two parts: because they wanted to eliminate the possibility of him ever becoming a terrorist again and they were afraid that even without use of his chakra, he would find a way to come back (like when Orochimaru summoned jutsus using Kabuto's chakra).

Kakashi explained that it had taken both Gaara's and Tsunade's influence just to take the death penalty off the table because the remaining, majority Kages either despised Sasuke or saw him as a viable threat in the future.

Sakura couldn't accept this. She refused to. She tried to run, to protest against the Kage's council but Kakashi held her back, telling her it was no use. The decision was final.

That night, Sakura sat at her family's table but didn't touch a morsel of her dinner plate. Her father asked her what was wrong but Sakura just shook her head. In a second, she started crying.

Her parents were about to further console her but it was at that time did the bell to their front door sound.

"Hang on, I'll get it," her father said before getting up.

It was Gaara. Sakura's parents graciously invited the Kazekage in, never having a guest as famous as him visiting them.

He asked if he could speak to Sakura; her parents told her she wasn't feeling well but Sakura interjected through her quiet sobbing: "Its okay…I want to talk to him."

Sakura brought him to the backyard behind her home, a flat fresh cut lawn with one simple swing.

As soon as they were alone, Sakura broke down sobbing into his arms. Normally, she would go to Naruto for something like this but the boy was still unconscious and unable to help and since Gaara was here….

To her surprise, the usually stoic red haired man slowly returned her embrace.

"You…you promised…" Sakura cried accusatorily but not really angrily, just distraught and completely forlorn. Lightly her fists beat against his chest as he held her. "You said he would be okay…"

Gaara stiffened in her hold but didn't push her away. He never fought back as she hit him and just stayed silent as she sobbed.

She wasn't sure how long they stayed like that, time seemed to stay still as he consoled her. Neither of them knew what to say because Sakura's thoughts were genuinely all drowned out by thoughts of another man and Gaara because he knew all she could think about was that other man.

They only separated when Sakura's father came to check up on them.

Sakura couldn't sleep at all that night, stuck inside her own thoughts. Gaara had told her that Sasuke's punishment was scheduled for two days from now, midnight. He was to be imprisoned until then.

She hoped that Naruto would wake up before then and hopefully with him, they could plan a mission to rescue Sasuke.

She didn't care if she became a convict too, so long as she could save Sasuke.

Unfortunately, Naruto Uzumaki still stayed unconscious throughout all of the second day after the war. It was the night before, twenty four hours until Sasuke's sentence was to be rendered did Sakura decide to go for it.

If Naruto couldn't help her then she was going to do this all by herself. She couldn't just stand by and let Sasuke become a cripple.

That night, she donned on one of the simple black unitards issued to her by Tsunade after the Akatsuki appeared; it was designed to keep her identity a secret and looked virtually identical to a million other unitards issued to shinobi across the world.

Sakura made sure that every strand of her hair was hidden beneath her head-covering. Her lime green eyes could be seen but only at a close distance.

She skimmed across the ceilings that lead to Konoha's prison building, taking the least populated route and making sure she never made more noise than a cat. She made it to the reformatory at around 2am, exactly when she planned. It was her hope that the guards would be less populated then but they weren't.

It seemed the Kages had anticipated someone would try to break him out.

No matter. Nothing would stop her.

Leaping into the air above the penitentiary quietly, Sakura splayed a handful of sleeping gas pellets across the entrance, causing a deep cloud of smoke to erupt and incapacitating everyone below her within a twenty feet radius.

Keeping her mask on, that had a filter sewn into the fabric, Sakura plopped down onto the cobblestone pavement as everyone slept.

She moved to grasp the door handle but immediately a surge of other guard shinobis came rushing out from both sides of the building, at least a hundred shinobi now surrounded her.

Sakura spun around as they grouped on all sides. She pulled out two kunai knives ready to fight her way out until suddenly sand encased her on all sides, raised as a shield to absorb the shinobi stars and knives that were now being thrown at her.

In a second, she was raised upwards by a sand pillar, some fifty feet above the ground. Someone grabbed her hand at the apex and she was being pulled through the air. A dozen shinobi chased after her and her rescuer, which she now saw was Gaara.

The sand demon lead her and her assailants far from Konoha until they were in the center of a plain grass field. Then Gaara turned around.

In a flash, sand erupted from the gourd behind him, rushing outwards at unfathomable speed and force. In a second, everyone was knocked unconscious and only Sakura and Gaara were left standing. The man had his back turned to her, making her think he was angry at her for being this reckless.

Sakura's face covering had been knocked off by the strong winds when Gaara rescued her and so her pink hair now splayed across her shoulders. She cradled her hands in the center of her chest as she trembled both from the night's wind and shame that Gaara had had to rescue her.

"Gaara I…" What could she say? That she was sorry? Because she wasn't. And both of them knew that she would repeat this offense again soon. As a Kazekage, Sakura knew he had the duty to report her.

But…he'd rescued her. Her immediate thought was that he too wanted to rescue Sasuke, which brought a surge of elation to her heart.

"I was so stupid!" Sakura stated while jumping up elatedly. "I should have asked for your help in the first place! I'm so glad you're here, Gaara! Now we can both rescue Sasuke."

She intoned, moving to grasp the man's left hand.

For some reason, the man's posture stiffened and his shoulders rose up for a second as he inhaled but then fell when he exhaled again. He didn't answer her.

"Gaara?" Sakura said his name gently. "Is something wrong?"

He still didn't respond. He wouldn't even look at her.

Sakura bit her lip. Was…he unwilling to help but was too polite to say so and was taking his time to think of a nice way to turn her down? She clutched her hand to her chest.

"Gaara, I know this would be hard on you." Sakura bit her bottom lip. "If you don't want to-"

"Right now, Sakura…" Gaara finally spoke as he turned to meet her eyes. He took a couple steps forward until the meager distance between them was eaten up. Sakura's eyes widened to their max when he raised his hand to caress the side of her face.

He finished his statement: "…you can ask me to do anything."

Sakura gasped.

Wh-what was he saying? She seemed paralyzed as her eyes became locked by Gaara's.

"I-I-" Sakura wasn't able to say anymore because the man had captured her lips with his own, cradling the back of her head with his hands.

The kiss wasn't invasive, or passionate because Sakura didn't return it. She couldn't, too paralyzed in shock. Her mind was swimming with a thousand thoughts but not a single one was clear to her.

When the kiss ended and Gaara moved away, his gaze was cast downwards, embarrassed and ashamed of his actions.

"Forgive me, I…just wanted to do that, at least once," the Kazekage stated with his head bowed down. "I'll help you rescue Sasuke."

I originally wanted to make the love triangle more prominent and equally weighted but I think Sasuke just ended up being the main focal point.

What do you guys think of this chapter?