Chapters 23

The next few days were probably the hardest days of her and everyone else's life. Each and every person's entire focus is evolving around Sasuke's health. Sakura had to hold Sasuke's hands most of the time. Even when he's unconscious he become agitated and thrashes around when he's not holding Sakura's hands. Sakura tried to substitute her hands with another person's, but somehow Sasuke always knows the difference and frowns and mutters incoherent words. To have the Royal Prince calm, everyone begs Sakura to stay with the prince at all times.

Everyone treated Sakura with as much respect as possible. The only reason why the Royal Prince fell sick is because of her. In a way, she's as valuable as the Prince.

Sasuke's condition stagnated. He's not getting worse but he's not getting better either. Everyone is exhausted, and all servants are cleaning up the mjanor over and over to ensure the purest condition for the prince to get well in. All government official visited and brought the rarest medicine and herbs for the prince hoping he would get well soon.

The Emperor visited once, when Sakura was asleep in her quarters, one of the few times that she's able to sleep. When she woke up, she caught the very end of the visit.

Itachi is a man of few words. He doesn't like to repeat himself and most people are able to read his expression or looks. Any tiny gesture he presents isn't without meaning. Every step he take is the correct direction. Today, he brought a rare medicine that was rumored to have saved his own life once before.

Sakura just entered the chambers, and the guards knew better than blocking her way. She rubbed her eyes and snuck at the very back looking at the whole scene. She could only see Itachi's back, as he was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking over his brother. He raised his hand and motioned for the Royal guards to come forward, which they did, and the guards presented a pure jade container the size of a soccer ball. Everyone watched intently as a doctor opened up the container with silk gloves, and took out the medicine within, which was lying on top golden silk threads.

Sakura tried to get a good glimpse of the medicine. She knew that during these times alchemy was prevalent, and all sorts of disgusting stuff went into the procedure of alchemy. The end result is a bunch of different metallic residues. Sakura certainly does not want Sasuke to ingest extra metals.

So when the medicine presented itself, Sakura saw a dark color and was very concerned. She edged closer, pushing away various doctors all ooohing and ahhing in the presence of the amazing magical pill that's rumored to bring a person back from the dead-Sakura saw it, clear as day, that it looked a lot like... chocolate.

It's square and had a brown and glossy cover, but there's only a few gram of it, in small chunks.

Chocolate?! At this day and age?

She was still in awe and her mind was spinning when the doctor and his helpers pried open Sasuke's mouth and they carefully placed it on his tongue, then spoon fed him some water.

The Emperor watched closely in silence, and when Sasuke swallowed the whole thing, Itachi motioned for everyone to leave.

Everyone immediately begin to scatter, so did Sakura. She quickly backed out of the room and stood by the door with the rest of the staff. She was still in shock and thinking about the chocolate. It looked like chocolate but maybe it's some sort of roots that's created to be brown too. If only she could taste it then she'll figure out if it's actually chocolate. Unfortunately she has a feeling that they're the last few pieces in this world.

"Hey what was that medicine?" She asked a doctor standing next to her quietly.

The doctor rubbed his beard and said, "I've only heard of it. It was said to have saved the Emperor's life when he was just a young boy! The doctors in the Royal court have taken a small amount and analyze its content and concluded it to be a concoction of a rare tree root... "

Sakura decided it couldn't be chocolate. Or else it would have to be at least ten years old, and that's a bit nasty.

Then the Emperor walked out, followed by many guards and servants. When he got to the door he said to the doctor next to Sakura, "He's the only brother I have left. Look after him."

The doctor quickly knelt down on all fours as a sign of utmost respect, as did everyone else. Apparently no one is supposed to be standing on equal footing with the Emperor.

Sakura quickly knelt down too. She couldn't get a good look at Itachi because people had their head down. She could see the edge of Itachi's black leather boots lingering in front of her for a couple of seconds before walking off.

This is the Emperor being unusually loquacious.

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Sasuke woke up a couple days later.

Everyone automatically assumed it was the medicine. Sakura personally believes it's just exposing to sunshine and clean air and the lack of food ingested has cleaned out the residue toxins from his body.

Sasuke felt weak at first, but he still insisted on getting various reports from Suna and its situation. He then dwelt into various letter writing and planning of further invasion. There were no such thing as instant messaging, so letters had to be thorough and well planned out before being sent.

When things settled down, Sasuke planned to take a formal trip to the Jade Palace. This isn't like the usual greeting his brother and mother type of trip. For this trip to be official and be documented in historical text books, various animal sacrifices needs to be made, lots of preparation for a feast, and a selection of customs made brand new clothing. Sasuke has always gone a couple times a year, usually during New Years or birthdays.

The difference is that this time, it wasn't anyone's birthday nor was it a holiday, and he's bringing Sakura with him.

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A/N: I'm making good progress with updating.