1 Year later…

It had been a year ago that she had almost died laying in a pool of her blood mixed with Kakashi's. She still didn't know how she had been saved, only that she had been. Hours later, or maybe it was weeks, she woke to an overtly happy face of a medic nin telling her she was alive.

She remembered two things from that night, the Copy Nin staring at her wide eyed calling her name and the cawing of crows. Itachi had gotten her out of there alive, he must have. The mission report had only said that her and the Copy Nin had been found with emergency medical care administered in the field, four miles from their last known location at point B.

The report said she had rescued them. She knew she hadn't. Itachi said he hadn't been there that night. He was lying. She knew, the Copy Nin knew...what was Itachi hiding?

"Is that all you've got!" She snarled at him as he flipped her over slamming her into the ground, landing on top of her

"You always did look good on your back Sakura." He smirked at her as he brought his forearm to her neck choking her, holding her down with his body weight.

"It's been awhile since you've been on top Sasuke, forgive me but you were never very good at it." She twisted under him bringing her leg up over her head and catching him in the throat with her ankle, dragging him off of her with her leg long enough to get a chakra enhanced jab into his side.

He was back on her before she could even sit up, flipping her again twisting her arm up behind her back pressing her face into the floor. "You're off your game, getting sloppy Sakura." He taunts her while twisting her arm up in pain.

Sasuke leans forward over her and whispers in her ear, "What's wrong baby, not getting fucked senseless by my brother affecting your fighting skills?"

She thrashed wildly underneath him and he pulled and twisted her arm viciously till she cried out and conceded their match. He let her go then, crawling off of her carefully. She had a temper and he wouldn't put it past her to stab him even if the match was over.

"Want me to come over tonight, and relieve some of your tension with my cock Sakura?" He called after her as she made her way to the locker rooms.

Sakura didn't even bother taking her gear off, she sat under the hot spray of water till it ran cold.

He was waiting for her with a towel when she finally turned the water off and looked up. She walked past him without stopping. "Go away Itachi."

"Sakura." He followed her into the locker room and watched as she stripped and threw her jounin shirt and pants on.

She grabbed her soaked gear, shoved it in her bag with her mask and walked past him up the stairs and home, ignoring him.

Itachi stood there looking at the door she had just walked through, towel over his arm. He stiffened as a familiar chakra signature filled the room. "Kakashi."

"You think you know her, understand her but you don't." The Copy Nin was leaning up against the doorframe to the bathroom that connected the lockers to the showers.

"And you do?" Itachi looked at him with cold eyes. This wasn't the first time in the last year he had heard such remarks from his old mentor and living legend.

"Oh yes, I do. We are a lot alike. She might take a pacifist to her bed, but you will never be in her heart. However, I hear she doesn't even take you to her bed anymore, not after that night. Looks like your little brother wants her back, but he is as weak as you are...isn't he." Kakashi closed the written porno book in his hand he was pretending to read and walked by Itachi up the stairs and out of the locker rooms.

"Misson, you leave in two days." She threw the scroll at her as she jumped down from the tree above her head.

"Assasination and infiltration Shisou?" Sakura tilted her head back to look at her friend, Hokage and mentor Tsunade Senju.

"It's the only missions you take now a days." A honey eye met green.

"It's the only thing I'm good for." Sakura replied.

"It wasn't your fault, they were dead before you got there." Tsunade told her, like she had been telling her for the last year.

-Flashback-

Sakura's eyes fluttered open to look straight into the eyes of Hawk, only his head wasn't attached to his body. She turned her head because her body wouldn't move and saw Otter on the ground a few feet away, dismembered. The Konoha Nin she had rescued lay gutted, intestines spread over a bush like Christmas lights grotesquely beautiful, the blood shining in the moonlight.

The Copy Nin woke then, saw what she saw, turned his head to her and said, "Are you dead too? Are we dead Sakura?" and passed out again before she could answer.

Was she dead? Was he dead? She didn't feel alive.

-End Flashback-

"Whose fault then Shisou, it was my team, he was leading it but I made the call to go back, my fault." They had had this conversation a thousand times. It was always the same and nothing would change her mind. It was her fault they were dead.

She never had found their murderer. A retrieval team had brought them back along with what was left of the bodies. As soon as she was healed she climbed out her hospital window to search for thier murder. She came back a month later, bleeding, bruised, starving and empty handed.

The Copy Nin had met her at the gate. "It's not your fault, move on and learn to live with the guilt like everyone else."

She had lashed out at him then, barely able to stand, she fell into his arms and woke in a hospital bed under a pissed off eye of her Shisou and Hokage.

"Not my fault...then whose fault is it Shisou...whose?" She stared at the river, water rushing by, the smell of it choking her.

"No ones Sakura." Tsunade put a hand on her shoulder that fell away as Sakura stood up.

A crow landed on a nearby tree. Sakura looked at it for a moment before whipping a senbon at it. It flew up avoiding the needle, it had expected it, and settled back down on it's branch looking at her with eyes as dull and dark as it's owner's.

"The forest is suddenly very crowded Shisou, if you'll excuse me." Sakura bowed to her friend and walked away back to her apartment where a bottle was calling her name.