Have an early update to make up for the last two being mostly canon stuff. There's a little canon in this one, but it's mostly either different versions of canon or completely original!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or anything associated with it. All rights to Naruto belong to Masashi Kishimoto and the other proper entities.

Summary: Sakura had been by his side since he lost his family, following him around since they were seven years old, trying to ease his loneliness in whatever way she could. He didn't even know why he allowed it. He just silently allowed her to claim the seat next to him at the beginning of every term.

Rating: M

Genre: Friendship/Romance

Pairings: SasuSaku / eventual light NaruHina

Rays of Spring Sunshine

Chapter Twelve

Moving the boys was hard, but Sakura managed it. Dragging Sasuke along the branch and down the trunk, using chakra to both keep her grip on the unconscious boy and keep her feet on the tree, she looked up at Naruto, still hanging where she'd pinned him. She hesitated, crouched by Sasuke's prone form on the forest floor as he twitched and groaned in and out of consciousness. She didn't think he was entirely aware.

Pragmatism won out. She would have to find a place that was hidden enough for her to keep the boys out of view, and they couldn't stay where they were. Locking her arms under his once again, Sakura dragged Sasuke along the ground, praying that Naruto would be okay while he was out of her sight. She couldn't go very far; now that the adrenaline was wearing off, her arms and legs were beginning to feel like rubber, her entire body trembling as she made her way through the underbrush.

She tucked Sasuke behind a snarl of exposed tree roots, hoping the shadows kept him invisible to anyone passing above. As quickly as she could, she stumbled her way back to where Naruto was still unconscious. She nearly dropped him as she was getting him down, but she managed to make it back to the forest floor. She cast one last look around, debating retrieving all the scattered weapons, but decided against it. She couldn't leave the boys alone, not in a forest full of enemies and wild creatures. When they woke up they could come back and collect their gear.

Naruto was lighter than Sasuke, so the trip back to the roots was easier this time. Once he was spread out next to their friend, she spent a few minutes disguising the tracks she'd made by dragging them along the ground. Traps were never her forte, that was Sasuke's skill, but she did what she could with what she had.

It was a long night. She nearly fell asleep a few times, but she absolutely had to protect them. At some point, Sasuke started trembling in his sleep; placing a hand on his forehead, she gasped at the fever he'd developed. Whatever Orochimaru had done to him was making him sick. She used a set of bandages and some of their precious drinking water to make a cold compress to lay across his brow, and kept checking the both of them periodically. Naruto seemed okay, just knocked out, but she couldn't get him to wake, even with the smelling salts in her pack.

She jumped at every little sound, fighting sleep the whole night. It wasn't until sunrise that anything happened.

When Sasuke was released from his nightmares, the first thing he noticed was that he felt good. Really good. He climbed to his feet, eyes bleeding red with the sharingan. He could see the excess of chakra swirling around his body.

And then he saw Sakura.

Rage flooded him at the sight of her, battered and bruised, face swelling, hair shorn off above the shoulders and face and body bleeding-but his voice was deceptively soft when he demanded "Sakura. Who did this to you?"

"Sasuke…kun?" She stared at him in… fear? Maybe she was right to be afraid; the way he felt right now, he'd rip apart whoever it was that dared to hurt his friend.

"Who hurt you?!" He demanded.

"I did!" A voice called from across the clearing.

Sasuke's head snapped around and his eyes narrowed at the stupid man. He ignored everyone else—the stupid guy with the bushy eyebrows, Team Ten, and the other two Oto-nin—and focused all of his attention at the offender.

He was going to kill him.

"Sasuke-kun… those marks on your body…"

"Don't worry about me, Sakura." He stepped forward. "I'm fine. Better than fine. That guy… he really did give me a gift."

"Huh?" Sakura's voice was laced with confusion and concern, tinged with a little fear.

"I get it now." He murmured, though by the way she was staring, she could probably hear him. "What I live for. I've got to avenge them. Even if it means making deals with demons, I need to gain more power." Then, at a normal volume, "So, you say it was you who hurt her?"

"That's right!" The Oto-nin crowed. "I beat up your little girlfriend!"

"Zaku!" His teammate, the one with the mask, cried. "Don't!"

"Shut up, Dosu!" Zaku roared, arms out in front of him. "I'll kill this little half-dead brat in half a heartbeat!"

Sasuke was no longer listening beyond the confession that this Zaku guy was the one that had injured Sakura. The Oto-nin attacked with sound waves, but Sasuke was faster. Grabbing both Sakura and Naruto, he sped behind the offender and gently put them down. "Hah!" Zaku sniffed when his attack died down. "See? Blew them all away."

"Did you?"

It was all the warning Sasuke gave before striking Zaku in the back with the force of a battering ram, sending him flying. He was hardly aware of Team Ten making their getaway as he used his hōsenka jutsu to hide his shuriken, slicing Zaku open before speeding behind him and grabbing his wrists. He planted his foot in the man's back and wrenched his arms back.

"You seem proud of these arms." He sneered, voice dripping with malice. Then, he pulled back with such force that both arms snapped; Zaku tumbled forward, scream shrill in the morning air. He dropped to the ground when Sasuke released him, having passed out from the sheer pain.

Sasuke turned to Dosu. "I really," he growled, stepping forward, "hope you're more fun than your friend." He relished in Dosu's single, wide eye.

"Stop!"

A weight crashed into him from behind. Craning his neck around to glare at the offender for interrupting him, he was met with a vision of pink and green.

"Please…" Sakura whispered against his shoulder, seafoam eyes wide and beseeching, "…stop."

The rage drained out of him. He slumped.

Sakura allowed Ino to cut her hair after Naruto woke—more because she could tell the other girl wanted to speak to her rather than out of any actual vanity.

"I can't believe you!" Ino hissed, voice down so as not to be overheard. Sakura could feel the tickle of cut hair skimming down her neck an arms as Ino evened it out as best as she could. "Hugging Sasuke-kun like that…!"

Sakura's face twisted into a scowl. "Is that really all you took from that?" She demanded hotly. "Seriously, Ino? He wasn't himself! He was gonna kill those guys!"

Ino tsked. "Don't think I don't see what you're doing." She muttered. "Trying to get Sasuke-kun to like you by acting all tough like that. Your face looks like discoloured mochi."

Sakura twisted on her knees and slapped the kunai away before rising to my feet. "I think I'll wait until I get back to the village and see a hairdresser." She growled. "I have better things to do than deal with you and your jealousy."

"Me?" Ino cackled. "Jealous? Forehead, you don't know what you're talking about!"

Sakura scowled. "Then you shouldn't have a problem with me hugging my friend." She spat. Ino glared. "Face it, you're jealous because I made friends with him and you didn't. Ever since we were little you've always liked him and it kills you that he pays me more attention." Not that Sakura was happy with that. She'd originally tried to make all three of them friends, but Ino's crush had prevented it. The blonde would hang all over Sasuke any time Sakura brought him around, eventually culminating in Sakura choosing her new friend over her old.

"Sasuke-kun doesn't like you, Ino." She'd said at the time. "And you're making him uncomfortable. I think it's best if the three of us don't hang out anymore."

Ino's pretty face twisted with rage. She flipped her hair over her shoulder, scowling at Sakura. "Whatever you think, Forehead. I'm done here."

Sakura let Ino push past her toward her team, steaming mad and eyes stinging. It wasn't that she hated Ino. But Sasuke had had no one back then, and Ino had had a whole bunch of friends. But Sakura never forgot that it was Ino who had essentially made her the person she'd become; she was the one that had given her the confidence, and the excuse, to begin talking to Sasuke in the first place.

The fact that her once best friend hated her because of a boy, even if that boy had become the best friend Sakura had ever had, and someone she loved more than life itself, stung.

"Are you okay, Sakura-chan?" Naruto trotted up. "The others are all gone—hey, you're bleeding!"

"Huh?" Sakura blinked misty eyes, looking down at her body. There were cuts on her arms and legs from the kunai she'd let Zaku hit her with when she was feinting with kawarimi. "Oh, I'm fine."

Sasuke wasn't far behind Naruto. His eyes took in every cut, every scrape, and every swollen inch of her face. "How long were we out?" He demanded.

"Overnight." Sakura rubbed at an eye, not bothering to hide her yawn. "We need to go back and get our weapons. I didn't get a chance to collect them."

Sasuke shouldered past the blonde and grabbed her wrist, tugging her back toward the snarl of roots. "Naruto can go get them." He declared. "C'mere."

"Hey! Why me?"

Sasuke didn't bother to look back. "You're the least injured and I'm better at first aid than you. We'll catch up when we're done."

Naruto's face screwed up into an ugly pout. "Ugh, fine. Which way, Sakura-chan?"

"That way." Sakura pointed. "It's not very far… I had to move you guys one at a time and I didn't want to leave you behind for long. You'll know it when you see the scorch marks."

"Scorch marks, got it!" Naruto nodded and disappeared into the bushes. "Don't take too long!"

Sakura sat when Sasuke told her to, hidden in the shadows of the large tree. He rummaged through his supply pack and unfurled a pack of gauze and bandages. "What happened while we were asleep?" He asked with a grunt, sitting in front of her and beginning to clean her cuts.

"I can do that." She protested, but he shut her up with a glare and repeated the question. She sighed and explained to him that they had been attacked by the Oto-nin and that the others had come to help. He was surprisingly gentle as he cleaned her wounds as best as he was able, and wrapped her arm and leg with clean bandages. She was so exhausted that she couldn't stop the tears welling back up.

"Why are you crying?" Sasuke demanded with alarm.

She sniffled, shoulders shaking. "I'm tired." She said, feeling like a baby even as she said it, tears spilling over her cheeks. "And you guys got hurt and we nearly died. I'm cold and hungry and in pain and I'm not cut out for this, Sasuke-kun."

"You're fine." Sasuke sighed, dabbing a wet cloth at a cut on her forehead. His eyes were intently trained on her wound. "We survived, didn't we?"

She hiccupped. "Only because the others came, and because you woke up when you did."

"And that's all that matters." He said firmly. "There's no use in thinking 'what if'. Trust me." The way he said it made her shudder. She wondered if he often thought of 'what if's about his family. What if they'd never died? What if someone had heard, that night? What if he'd died along with them?

"That doesn't change the fact that I'm a bad kunoichi." Sakura murmured, eyes trained down.

"You're not." Sasuke rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you need work, but you're not bad."

Her stomach fluttered at his words. "Really?" She whispered.

"I mean, your taijutsu sucks and you need to put on more muscle," Sasuke shrugged, digging around in the kit for adhesive bandages, "but that thing you said you did with kawarimi? That was smart."

"Thanks." She murmured as he patted the bandage in place on her forehead.

He grunted and began to undo his training bandages. "Help me with this, then we'll go find the idiot."

She cleaned his cut while Sasuke looked through what was left of their first aid supplies. They were getting dangerously low. "Sasuke-kun, how's your neck?" She asked as she wrapped the stab wound on his leg.

"It's fine."

"Then why do you keep wincing?" She asked, hand rising to pull his high collar to the side.

Sasuke caught her wrist. "It stings a little." He admitted. "But it's nothing I can't handle."

"Sasuke-kun, those marks on your body when you woke up… they came from that mark." She whispered. "That wasn't you. I know it wasn't. That Orochimaru guy, he did something to you. I'm worried."

"Don't be." He released her wrist. "There's nothing we can do about it until we get out of here. And don't tell Naruto about it. I don't want him knowing."

"But why?"

"What's the use?" He demanded, standing. Sakura moved to follow him, swaying a little in her exhaustion. She caught herself on the trunk of the tree and steadied. "There's nothing he can do about it, and telling him will only freak him out unnecessarily."

"But—"

"Sakura, promise me."

She bit her lip. "Okay. I promise."

Let me know what you think, please! I haven't been getting a ton of feedback on the last two chapters, but I'm assuming that's because they were canon-heavy.

At least one more chapter in the forest.