Author's Note: Yes, I still am alive. Between school and working full time, the updates might come fewer and further between.
I've got a new beta for my stories! Thank you Tarantulaguy (aka: my good friend Mary), for betaing for me. She wasn't able to do this chapter because of technological issues, but she will be my beta from now on, so once again, it may take longer for chapters to come out, but they will be of better quality.
Here is also to wishing that Mary gets well soon! She's super sick right now so send her some love!
The song that inspired this story, The Gambler by fun., is an amazing song. I just added in those components to the entire story, and if you listen to the song, you will see a lot of similarities between this plot and the song. It was one of this story's inspirations and it's a beautiful song.
Thank you for taking the time to read this story! Please review. They make me happy!
The First Time
Chapter 10: Never Stops
"And just like him she never stops, never takes the day for granted
Works for everything that's handed to her, never once complains."
It was like pressurepressurepressurepressure.
And then crackcrackcrackcrackcrack.
The furrowed brow, the thin, pursed lips, the click of her shoes as her leg jittered nervously spoke volumes of her anxiety. It was on a rare occasion that he would see the Godaime Hokage so perturbed, but Itachi couldn't help but feel the same way. Hatake Kakashi stood just behind her desk, leaning in his usual nonchalant way against the window, but there was clearly something wrong with him as well. His lone black eye was creased, his shoulders stiff, while his fingers twitched sporadically next to his hips. Itachi didn't think that he had ever seen the copy-cat ninja so nervous.
Another anomaly – the group of ninjas standing next to him – looked just as uneasy. There was an air of anxiety that surrounded Hyuuga Neji, Nara Shikamaru, and Yamanaka Ino, who were all staring straight ahead, purposefully avoiding eye contact with the ANBU captain. It was as if they all knew something that he didn't. A perfectly shaped eyebrow arched in a question. The Hokage sighed.
"We received a distress call from one of Uzumaki Naruto's toads this morning. The Akatsuki member Hoshigaki Kisame attacked their group during their mission, leaving the mission's captain unconscious and severely injured. You four, along with Hatake and Shizune will find and extract their group after a medical assessment. You will leave the village as soon as possible."
It was as if he had been hit in the head with a brick a few times and then drowned in a nearby river. A chill washed over him that didn't outwardly show, but the Hokage gave him a knowing look when his breathing became slightly shallower.
"Do we know why they were attacked?" Shikamaru asked, laying a sidelong glance towards Itachi before shifting his eyes back towards the Hokage.
Tsunade sighed. "Yes. According to Gamakichi, Sakura was specifically attacked by Hoshigaki while he used a water clone jutsu to replicate the other members of the team so they had to fight themselves. It is the same jutsu that Team Gai faced during their attack on Suna and the Kazekage. Naruto told Gamakichi that the Akatsuki kept demanding that Sakura give him 'the ring,' and that Sakura denied having such a ring or any knowledge of it."
Her feminine fingers ran themselves down her head to rest at her temple, massaging small circles into her head.
Once again, Itachi felt a wave of silent horror wash over him. Did Kisame think that Sakura had Orochimaru's ring because of his relationship with her? Why would he think that?
"What ring?" Neji grunted.
"I suppose we should air this out now because you all deserve to know what you're walking into, but then we must leave," Kakashi began. His voice was tight, curt with repressed emotions. "After the Akatsuki's capture and extraction of Shukaku from Gaara, Sakura, as you know, was the one who killed the Akatsuki member Akasuna no Sasori."
There was a slight pause to his voice when everybody nodded their understanding. Such a subject was common knowledge. Sakura had come home, largely praised as a hero for her efforts since she was the youngest to take down such a powerful opponent in some time.
"In killing him, Sakura retrieved Sasori's Akatsuki ring. She could tell that it meant quite a bit to the organization from how the ring was structured. When she tried to give the ring to Gaara after he awoke, he told her to hold on to it. He said that people would be looking for it in Suna, and to keep both Konoha and Suna safe, he insisted that she keep it. The only ones to know about this was the Hokage, Sakura, and I. However, not even me nor the Godaime knew where she hid the ring. Only she knows that to ensure its safety," Kakashi finished quietly.
Tsunade nodded her head, trying to recount if the former ANBU had left anything out. There was a stunned silence that lingered on everyone's faces – even Itachi's. So this entire time, she had Sasori's ring while he housed Orochimaru's? This was certainly an ironic twist of fate. But then the thoughts of worry rose into his mind suddenly, filtering out any sort of other thoughts. Sakura was injured. They needed to get to her – right now.
The bones in her right leg split into millions of tiny pieces right before her eyes as the water compressed it to the point of implosion. At first, she felt nothing, and then the blinding, mind-numbing, suffocating pain took over. She didn't even realize that she was screaming until her lungs felt like they were going to explode from the compression of her hoarse, long, shrill cry. It teetered out, and then there was silence for a moment before she heard the panicked voices of her teammates as they fought with clones of themselves.
She had just enough time to see Naruto reaching for her body when the pain finally overtook her completely, sending her into the blissful world of unconsciousness.
"I'm putting Nara in charge of this mission," Tsunade said suddenly. There was a round of protests between Neji, Itachi, and Kakashi, but were squashed before they could voice a single word. All three of them were used to being in charge of their own teams, and while they would do whatever the Hokage said, all of them felt that they were the appropriate leader of this mission. Tsunade's hand flying into the air as a warning stopped their protests prior to a single word being said.
"Kakashi is their old sensei, Neji and Ino are both close friends with Naruto and Sakura, Ino used to date Sai, Shizune is Sakura's senpai on the medic on this mission, and do I really need to explain Itachi's conflict of interest to anyone between Sasuke and Sakura?" she bit off. Everyone's eyes were downcast to the floor, their resolve and objections dying in their throats simultaneously. "Shikamaru, while friends with Team Seven, will be the best at keeping himself level headed. Now get out of here and get my apprentice back to me. Alive. Or I will demote you all to chunin so fast your heads will spin."
Shikamaru lit a cigarette right in the Hokage's office. "What a drag."
The other shinobi left, Itachi staying put for a moment to face Tsunade. There were classified issues they must discuss. A single blonde eyebrow rose in his direction, and if she hadn't been so blatantly worried, Itachi was sure she would have been amused.
"You two were made for each other, ne?" she said quietly, half-jokingly.
"Why wasn't I informed of this?" he grit out. The fear that was consuming him, settling on his chest like an anvil, was biting at his heels and made him want to run for her – to her. He didn't have time for her joking because Sakura needed help.
"The same reason I never told her, or anyone else for that matter, about Orochimaru's ring," Tsunade explained. When his clipped words had escaped her mouth, her honey eyes ignited with the challenge, daring him to go against her word. Itachi could only nod curtly, concisely at the woman and swoop out the door, making a beeline for his home where all of his supplies were. All they had to do now was find her.
Itachi rushed back to the house that he, Shisui, and Sasuke shared just outside of the Uchiha compound. He was working in his shinobi state of mind now. There were no emotions, no thoughts. Just like Sakura when she would treat a patient, he had a different persona that took over when he was preparing and executing the mission.
He carefully blocked out everything that was winding within him, like a coil waiting to burst, but the pressure was beginning to be too much. He could not lose it now. Right now, Sakura and Sasuke needed him, and he needed to stay calm. ANBU captain Uchiha Itachi did not lose face with the promise of his comrade's death. Over the course of his shinobi career, he had seen many of his comrades fall.
But somewhere, in the back of his mind, he knew that this was so much different. This was so much more than that.
There was a whisper. While he had seen many comrades fall in front of his very own eyes, none of them had ever been Sakura.
Taking a few deep breaths, he pulled his clothes systematically over his head, picked up his pack, and flew out of the door and towards the gates of the village where he was sure the rest of his team would be waiting for him.
"Shit, shit, shit," she heard. Sasuke's voice was panicked. When was Sasuke ever panicked? The thought was almost funny. "DOBE, DO YOU HAVE CHARKA LEFT?"
"Enough!" Naruto replied hastily. His broad, calloused fingers were setting her head down on something soft – her backpack – and cleaning the wet, pink locks out of her face. Just when his soothingly warm hands left her, she let out a cough, sputtering water from her aching lungs over her face and onto the ground. However, that was nothing compared to the shear, mind-numbing, splintering pain that was washing through her from her leg. It radiated upwards until it felt as if her entire body was on fire from the destroyed appendage.
It was completely numb and the worst pain possible all at the same time.
"Sakura-chan?!" Naruto cried. "Teme, do something! You're the only one besides her who knows how to heal!"
"Send a summon to Konoha to get help, now!" Sasuke ordered harshly. Sakura's jade eyes cracked open before fluttering shut again. Wincing, she made out Sasuke's sweaty face above her as he ripped through her clothes. "Sai, is the blanket warm enough yet? She's freezing."
Funny, she mused to herself, it's like an inferno in here. She let out another long cough before Sasuke's voice came to her again.
"Sakura, what do I do?" he hissed at her, but it was no use because unconsciousness was pulling her back, goading her into the peaceful world of slumber.
The wind whipped through the trees mercilessly, and he could feel the strong breeze steadily slowing them down since they were fighting against the heave winds. Kakashi was in front of him, his shoulders still tensed with worry. Nara was leading the group, Hyuuga and Yamanaka flanking his sides. Shizune ran in par with Itachi, her attempts at furtive, nervous glances were not unnoticed.
He was a man on a mission – get to his beloved and his younger brother, and get there now.
They were travelling at lightening speeds, and it wouldn't be long until they got there, but at the same time, it would never be quick enough.
"Are you alright, Uchiha-san?" Shizune finally asked. Her voice was quiet but everyone else was so attuned that they heard it. The shinobi in front of them sent quiet glances back at the duo, but quickly turned their heads forward as if they were not listening. Itachi sent the brunette kunoichi next to him a long sidelong glance. This was a woman who was as close to Sakura as anyone. She had spent years both apprenticing with Sakura and teaching her. She was Sakura's senpai, a valued friend, and Itachi knew that she must be as worried as anyone who was on this mission. He would be disrespecting her to lie to her, so Uchiha pride be damned, he told the truth.
"I am worried," he replied shortly. Voice unwavering and stead, Itachi took a moment to internally marvel at his own acting skills. His voice was as cool and as apathetic as ever. Onyx eyes darted forward, concentrating on the trees ahead. When he looked back at the medic, he was surprised to see her face was almost relieved.
"Good," she said quietly, "I'm worried too…"
"Aa."
"Pakkun is leading us westward. Alter course," Shikamaru yelled before darting at a ninety degree angle to the left in the trees. The others followed him in perfect unison.
They ran like that for another hour before the landscape began to change. Instead of lush forests, the team found a group of rocky outcrops and fissures that created large, grassy valleys. The new landscape was a distinct indicator of the north-western section of Fire Country and beginning to make the change into Grass Country.
"They're in one of the caves," Shikamaru announced. Stopping suddenly, he looked to Neji who had fallen in place next to him. Only a small, simple nod of the head was needed from the shadow-nin for Neji to activate his Byakugan. He scanned the area thoroughly for enemies and friends.
"They are in a cave three miles north of here. There are no enemies in the area," he announced. Before he could even deactivate his kekkei genkai, the group was moving in their previous formation at break-neck speeds towards the indicated cave north.
As they turned around a particularly sharp bend, they caught the briefest flash of blonde hair and orange clothes, and a seemingly palpable wave of relief washed over them all. Yes, they were still nervous, incredibly nervous, but they had found them.
"Over here!" called the familiar voice of the hyperactive blonde, and if the group felt any relief for finding the lost team, it quickly vanished when they saw the current state that Naruto was in.
Besides his obvious injuries, which seemed to be somewhat serious, his face was contorted with pure terror and worry. The normally fluorescent jumpsuit that is donned by the blond ninja was dirty and dark with mud. His face was swollen on the entire left side from bruising, and his right arm was contorted into a strange angle.
"Hurry, hurry," he called, waving at them frantically. Sai then stepped from around a rock, and even his usually disturbingly strong poker face was gone. While he wasn't in such a disheveled state as Naruto, there were still some visible wounds on the normally pristine ink-user. If it were possible, the group ran even faster.
"What's the status?" Shikamaru asked the moment they landed in front of the two worried Team Seven members. Without waiting to hear what Naruto had to say, Shizune and Ino ran past them and into the cave towards Sakura. Itachi was torn for a moment as to what to do. Did he stay and hear the mission debriefing as per protocol, or did he run into the cave to see his younger brother and girlfriend?
Luckily, a still fairly stiff Kakashi gave him one look before saying, "Go. We have the area out here under control."
He nodded his head, secretly more grateful to the copy-nin than he would ever admit, but wasted no time running into the cave. What he found made his entire body freeze and lock up because he simply did not know what to do. The sight of his mangled girlfriend and battered brother literally left him both speechless and motionless.
"Numb. My. Leg," she ordered quietly through pain-gritted teeth, her voice no more than a strained whisper, the next time she was forced awake. There was a soothing wave of warmth over her leg before the pain began to subside, not all the way but enough, and was replaced with a light tingling sensation. Sasuke's face was in her line of vision again, and Sakura was suddenly grateful that he had asked to learn the basics of healing. It may just keep her alive.
"Wrap a tourniquet around my upper thigh," she continued with a little more gusto, her strength slowly coming back now that her mind was off the pain in her right leg. "He shattered my bones. If one of the fragments nicks an artery, I could bleed out. Or it could travel through my bloodstream and pierce my heart or cause other internal damage."
Sasuke's black bangs fell in his face when he nodded at her. There was suddenly another pressure on her upper thigh, Sasuke's belt, wrapping around her leg tightly. Sakura let out another long cough and braced herself on the floor, preparing herself for what she must do next.
"Take me through what happened, Uchiha-kun," Shizune ordered, but she wasn't looking at the bruised and scarred younger Uchiha who was sitting down against the far wall of the cave closest to Sakura. His chest was heaving from the exertion and adrenaline. Leaning his head against the wall, he sat with one leg propped up, his other underneath it, while resting his bloody arm over his knee.
Shizune was the picture of concentration over Sakura's legs while Ino seemed to be examining her torso and head. However, it was clear that it was her lower region that was the area that took the most damage.
Her entire leg was purple, from beyond her shorts where Itachi couldn't see, all the way down to her slim, tiny foot where her shinobi sandal had been cut from her body. Never before had he seen such extensive bruising over any part of the human body before. The only places on her slender leg that weren't purple were red from blood slowly seeping from various wounds along her legs and entire body.
"We were ambushed by an Akatsuki member who was able to make exact replicas of Naruto, Sai, and I. While we were forced to battle ourselves, the Akatsuki member attacked Sakura. We couldn't…" Sasuke's voice choked and he coughed, sputtering for air. Ino shot him a look for a moment before jumping up from Sakura and running towards the injured Uchiha.
"Your rib is cracked and it punctured a lung. Hold still," Ino commanded quietly. She placed her hands over Sasuke's chest after forcing him to lie down on the ground. Inserting her green healing chakra into him, she winced as she counted his various injuries. Slowly, Sasuke's coughing began to teeter out and Ino helped him sit up. In a quiet voice, one that Itachi had never heard from the rambunctious blonde, she explained, "I only healed your life-threatening wounds. I need to go back to Sakura now."
Sasuke merely nodded. That's when he bothered to look up for the first time and catch Itachi's eye. The two brothers were motionless as their obsidian gazes connected before Sasuke broke the contact, shame filling his eyes while he looked down.
"We couldn't stop him," Sasuke finally said. His brow contorted as his mouth grimaced in anger. For a moment, Itachi thought that his cold-hearted little brother just may cry, but no tears fell. "We couldn't get to her in time."
Finally, in light of Sasuke's struggle, Itachi was able to find his voice. He was inwardly prideful that he was able to hold it firm. It was only through years of perfecting the perfectly stoic mask that Itachi was able to keep himself calm at this moment. "Nobody blames you for this, Otouto," Itachi remarked hardly. "Sakura will not blame you for this."
Their eyes both travelled to the lifeless rosette lying on the floor. Her face was red from the heat, and Ino was muttering in quiet voices with Shizune. Itachi heard the word fever several times before Ino began running her glowing hands around Sakura's upper body. Shizune, though, looked much more distraught after several minutes of examining Sakura's leg.
"Before she passed out," Sasuke said in a gruff voice, "She said she'd never be a ninja again. She said the damage was too much…"
Itachi turned his full attention to the two medics in the cave. He asked more harshly than he intended, "Is that true?"
A few tears were gliding down Shizune's face now, and that seemed to be all the answer that Itachi needed. The soft sob that escaped Ino's mouth after she too ran her hands along Sakura's leg sealed the answer to the question that Itachi had asked.
Sweeping out of the cave in a few large strides, he didn't answer any of the questions that arose from the men standing at the mouth of the cave. Instead, he used the Shunshin no Jutsu to transport himself several miles south of where Sakura was located.
To the place where he could sense the dwindling chakra of one Hoshigaki Kisame.
"Help me sit up," she commanded hoarsely. The moment that Sasuke hesitated, Sakura barked, "Now!"
Sasuke was at her side then, pulling her up into a sitting position and leaning her boneless torso against the wall. Sakura clenched and unclenched her fingers for a moment before laying her hands delicately over her shattered leg that was beginning to turn an unsightly shade of deep purple. Wincing, she pushed some of her last chakra into her hands and glided them slowly, meticulously, across her leg.
But very quickly the glowing chakra stopped and Sakura closed her eyes while silent tears seeped out of her eyes.
"The leg is useless," she finally announced in a distraught, choked voice. It was just too much to handle all at once, and it was as if an anvil had nestled itself onto her chest. Breathing became more difficult as panic overtook her, all while her dreams fell from her heart and out flew out the mouth of that stupid cave all at once.
"What do you mean, useless?" Sasuke demanded, snapping her out of her moment of dark panic. Sakura motioned for him to help her back down, so he quickly acquiesced her request by scooting her butt down and lowering her by the shoulders with careful hands.
"I mean," she reiterated quietly, "That I will never be able to use that leg again. My career as a kunoichi is over."
He didn't bother a soft flare this time. This time, his chakra raged around him, announcing his presence to the Akatsuki member. Kisame was able to barely reply, alerting the enraged Uchiha to his whereabouts. Once again, he didn't bother moving towards the offender himself. Instead, he used the shunshin to teleport himself directly in front of Kisame.
He wished he could say that he pitied the crumpled man before him. Clearly, while he had permanently maimed Sakura, the kunoichi hadn't rolled over and allowed herself to be a punching bag to the shark-nin. His blue skin was paler than usual, and there were many places where his thick skin was darkened into a deep blue and raised from the hits that Sakura had landed.
"Hey there, kid," Kisame greeted gruffly, coughing and sputtering from what Itachi thought to be several cracked ribs. Blood seeped in swallowing pools from the cracks of his thin mouth and landing on his chin and then down further onto his neck. "That pink-haired chick sure did a number on me."
"You attacked her," Itachi replied tightly. Kisame nodded.
"I was ordered to find Sasori's ring. It wasn't in Suna, so I went to the next person involved. It was an order. I didn't touch your brother though. His wounds should have been minor," Kisame replied, seemingly apologetic. Itachi was having none of it.
"Haruno Sakura will never be a kunoichi again," Itachi retorted. His voice never lost its usual apathetic tenor, but it held a deadly lilt that was unmistakable. Clearly, Kisame had done something wrong. He had upset one of the most deadly ninja in the entire five nations.
"I did what was ordered of me," Kisame replied, repeating his earlier reasonings. He was sitting a little straighter now, sensing a threat from the dark-haired ninja above him. Trying to placate his upset partner, he waved his hands slightly in a semi-submissive, semi-defensive fashion. "I left your little brother alone. I only attacked—"
"My girlfriend," Itachi interrupted.
Kisame's eyes widened, his jaw dropping in surprise. Having known Itachi for several years, he could not believe that the young ninja had a girlfriend. The ninja before him was completely goal-oriented. His entire life revolved around his clan duties and protecting his village, and to be honest, the kid could be plain unsociable. The only person who Itachi had ever spoken about with any sort of emotion was his precious little otouto who he would give up his entire life for.
Finally, the missing-nin spoke, disbelief laced in his gruff, raspy voice, "You have a girlfriend?"
Itachi did not look amused. "Look, kid, your girlfriend is a kunoichi. This is the life that she signed up for."
"And if it was Megumi?" Itachi asked coldly. Kisame stiffened at the slight threat that under lied the question.
"Megumi is a nurse on the coast. She is not a shinobi," Kisame replied as easily as he could, but his hackles were beginning to rise at the threat to his secret girlfriend. Finally, he leaned back against the tree after he went through another coughing fit. "So what happens now? You come here to kill me?"
Itachi was silent for a long while before letting out a short sigh of his own. "No," he admitted. "You are still a Konoha informant, and until the Hokage orders it, you are not to be harmed."
Kisame gave him a sheepish, apologetic toothy grin. "I really am sorry, man."
"Hn." Itachi grunted before swinging back around. Focusing his chakra, he located the furthest he could travel back to Sakura before snapping out of his current position and back to the rocky outcrops that housed his bludgeoned girlfriend.
"What do you mean, over?" Sasuke practically yelled at her. Really, his current state of distress would have been funny if she wasn't in so much damn pain because Sasuke never got this upset, but all she could do was shake her head. Tears were running down her eyes now in a stream of unapologetic pools of saline. Shinobi code be damned. She would show her emotions if she wanted to.
In the matter a few moments, all of her aspirations, training, and dreams of becoming one of the best shinobi in all of the five nations had been stripped of her.
"The nerves are too damaged to be fixed. They could heal the bone and the muscles to perfection, but the extent of this nerve damage is too much for even shishou to fix in ten surgeries," she finally managed to croak out between a few soft sobs. Clutching onto his dark shirt in a moment of desperation, she looked Sasuke dead in the eyes. Confusion swelled within his normally undemonstrative eyes, and they asked a silent question.
What do you want me to do?
When he appeared back outside of the caves, the entire group of shinobi was standing at the mouth with the exception of Ino and Shizune. He sensed their presence still inside with a lifeless Sakura.
"Where did you go?" Naruto demanded loudly, pointing an accusatory finger at Itachi.
"To find Hoshigaki," Itachi replied with an air of finality to his statement. He would not hear any scolding from shinobi who technically ranked beneath him, and certainly none from Konoha's number one knuckleheaded ninja.
"That was stupid," was Shikamaru's input. While taking a drag from a freshly lit cigarette, he asked, the previous issue seemingly forgotten, "Can you summon a crow that could carry Sakura back to Konoha. We are debating the best way to transport her."
Sai added, "The two medics have indicated that while they will attempt a surgery to piece together most of Sakura's leg, they will not be able to do much without the proper equipment. Therefore, jostling her leg too much will cause her great harm."
Everybody stared at the ink-wielding ninja for a moment before Naruto sputtered, "You called her Sakura!"
"This is a serious situation, Dickless. Nick-names would be inappropriate in this situation," Sai replied with a voice that was laced with so much certainty that it seemed as if he were reciting a math equation.
Naruto growled something about the nick-name that Sai seemed to have remembered for him, crossing his arms over his chest, but he, thankfully, did not press the issue. Although Naruto was a prankster and sometimes could be a hot-headed idiot, he also knew when to shut up. A shinobi didn't make it to jounin level without knowing how to do the job, no matter how much of a knucklehead he could be.
Deciding it was time to end this relatively pointless conversation, Itachi merely bit his thumb and ran through the hand seals that would summon one of his largest crows. Pushing his chakra into the scroll that he had pulled out of his pouch, he slammed the scroll onto the ground and as the kanji flew in a mass from the scroll, a large explosion of smoke emanated from the piece of parchment. In the middle of the plume, the outline of an animal more than twice the size of a horse could barely be discerned in the foggy mess.
"Yatagarami," he greeted his summon. The crow four meters in height, easily, and his wing span was twice that.
"Itachi-sama. It has been so long since you have called upon me," the midnight black animal replied. His eyes were darker than night, the small black pupil in the middle of the white orb darting around suspiciously. The cold gaze from the bird was enough to make Naruto shudder and duck his head back into the cave to help transport Sakura if Shizune and Ino were done with their minor operation.
"I need you to transport Haruno Sakura back to Konoha. She was injured during a battle, and the flight needs to be as smooth as possible," Itachi quietly said. The crow's head shot down and then up rapidly only one time.
"Anything for you, Itachi-sama," he agreed. Just then, the two medics and Naruto were carrying Sakura out of the mouth of the cave carefully. They had splinted her leg to it would be more difficult to bump, but they had kept the tourniquet that Sasuke had put on her leg earlier.
Shizune gave one disbelieving glance to the size of the crow before shaking her head and nervously approaching the massive fowl.
"How many people can he hold, Uchiha-san?" Shizune asked as she settled Sakura in a safe position. Itachi studied the crow closely.
"If Sakura is lying down like that, he may be able to hold another two people," he finally replied.
"Okay. Then you and I will ride the crow back. I will need to be with Sakura when we land at the hospital, and I'm not going on this thing without you," Shizune finally declared in the most authoritative voice she could muster. The others instinctively looked back to Shikamaru for confirmation. They may not have agreed with the Hokage's choice of making him captain, but they would obey him.
"Sounds good to me. Ino can heal Naruto, Sasuke, and Sai more before we move out, and you will have a medic with out in case something happens to Sakura on the way back. We should be heading back shortly," Shikamaru determined. He crushed his cigarette beneath his boot and began to make his way away from the rocks. "Kakashi, Neji, and I will set up a perimeter in case shinobi from other countries make their way here. We are very close to the border."
Itachi climbed just above Yatagarami's wings and then pulled Shizune up behind him. After they ensured that Sakura was secured onto the bird, Yatagarami's wings went out to full span and in a few swift motions, they were launching into the air.
"Sasuke, please," she sobbed. The tears were running faster now and she pulled herself up using his shirt as leverage. He seemed to understand now because she could feel his arm tracing up her back in a slow pattern. His breathing was becoming ragged from the stress of the situation.
Sasuke was the best fighter out there, and he could do the Uchiha name proud, but Sakura had always been one of his weak spots. Since they were genin, it was both his and Naruto's job to protect Sakura. They had always relied on her more than they were willing to admit, but when it came down to it, he would die for her faster than Shisui could teleport into a room.
"Okay," he finally replied.
Just as his fingers pressed to the back of her neck, she managed to whisper, "Thank you."
Then his broad fingers lodged themselves in between two vertebrae and there was a minor shot of pain just before he sent her into unconsciousness, putting her out of her misery.
Tsunade was waiting for them when they landed on the roof of Konoha's hospital because Itachi had sent a smaller, faster crow ahead to alert them of their impending arrival. After shooing Itachi away, she and Shizune, along with an entire team of medics, ran into the hospital and straight into an operating room.
That had been three hours ago. Now, Itachi was sitting in a disturbingly familiar waiting room. His mother had the courtesy to rush to the hospital the moment she found out what had happened, and to Itachi's complete shock, so had Fugaku. The three Uchiha were alone in the silent waiting area while medics ran in and out of the room where their beloved Sakura-senpai was the one being operated on in some show of twisted fate.
Every staff member in the entire hospital had been by at least once to see if there was something they could do to help, but most of the time, the Godaime sent them away with some menial task or a verbal lashing about getting in the way. The door to the waiting room cracked open tentatively, and Itachi was surprised, once again, to see the man on the other end. His uncle, Uchiha Kagami, walked into the room.
"I came to visit Shisui when I heard. The entire place is talking about it. Is she okay?" he asked, taking a seat next to his nephew.
"I was told by Shizune-san that she will live, but her leg is irreparably damaged," Itachi finally replied quietly. His voice was tight, controlled, but it was all to hide the inner turmoil that lied just beneath the surface of the stoic Uchiha.
"Let's wait to see what the Hokage has to say, dear," Mikoto replied with a sympathetic pat to his shoulder. "At least she will live, and she still has such a bright future ahead of her as a doctor and as a wife and mother. We need to focus on that."
His mother's words were admittedly soothing, and he involuntarily felt himself relax into her warm hands. Really, Itachi took some pleasure in thinking of Sakura like that. Round with his child while another one was plastered on her hip. She would be beaming, of course, because she would make the best mother. A sense of male satisfaction washed over him for a moment at his futuristic day-dreaming, but it soon flooded out of him when he remembered his current setting. Such thoughts were premature.
It was another hour before the door to Sakura's operating room swung open to reveal a distraught looking Shizune and a very tired Hokage.
Running a hand down her face, Tsunade just shook her head. "I've never seen nerve damage quite like this. It seems that he put so much pressure on her leg with his water technique that the nerves literally imploded in on themselves along with the rest of the leg," Tsunade announced to the room.
"What does that mean, Hokage-sama?" Kagami asked after the room fell into a dead silence and it seemed that nobody wanted to ask that particular question. Another harried sigh left their leader, and Itachi couldn't remember a time that the Hokage looked so downtrodden.
"Medically, there is nothing we can do to regenerate nerve damage like this. At the very least, her career as a kunoichi is over. However, she will now be in pain for the rest of her life, every time that she puts pressure on that leg. In short, she will be lucky if she ever walks again."
With that, the Hokage left the room quietly. There was only one way she knew how to deal with tragic news like this, and that was in a bottle of sake and a horrible few games of poker. The only consolation that Tsunade had was that her precious apprentice and symbolic daughter wasn't dead. However, even though her pink-haired student wasn't dead, her dreams were.
"What do we do now, teme?" Naruto asked, breaking the silence that had shrouded the three men of Team Seven since Sasuke had knocked Sakura out. Sasuke looked towards the mouth of the small cave they were in.
Naruto was sitting on the ledge, his legs dangling over the side into the cave, his elbows on each of his knees and his face placed dejectedly in his hands. It was not a pose one would normally see Naruto in, and the pure sadness that the normally happy-go-lucky ninja exuded discomfited Sasuke. One of the greatest attributes Naruto had was his stead-fast determination and passion in situations like this. Instead, the blonde just looked ready to cry.
Sai was standing just outside, looking around as his ink mice scouted for any sign of their rescue team or any possible threats. He didn't bother looking into the cave, but Sasuke knew that the man was listening.
After another several minutes of silence, Sasuke took a deep breath in and sighed it out through his nose. "We wait," he announced. "All we can do is wait."
A jade eye, rimmed with light, dusty pink lashes cracked open when the first vestiges of sunlight peeked through the lines between the shutters of her large hospital room. The smell of her current location, along with the sounds of the familiar heart monitor and machinery in the background, told her exactly where she was. She let out an unwilling groan when she tried to move and found herself immobile. Opening her eyes more fully, she found that her entire right leg clad in a cast from the juncture between her hip and thigh down to her toes.
Just like that, the memories of the past few days flooded her, and she cringed at the memory. That also meant that she remembered her diagnosis that she managed to procure just before she had Sasuke knock her unconscious. Then a few tears slipped out of her eyes, but before she could pity herself a little more, a soft voice alerted her to the other person in the room.
"I pass out for a few days and you go and get yourself hurt. C'mon, Cupcake, what were you thinking?"
Sakura couldn't help it; she let out a choked laugh that could have been a cry. Turning towards her new roommate, she found Uchiha Shisui lying in a bed on the other side of the room.
"They thought you'd like waking up to my handsome face instead of some other dumb chick. I'm much more handsome," he quipped. Sakura snorted.
"How are you feeling?" she asked. He arched a thick eyebrow at her.
"You're lying in that bed with a cast a meter long on, and I'm sitting up and having a full on conversation with you, and you're still worried about me?" he asked incredulously. Sakura could only grin at him, despite her condition, and nod her head.
"I'm feeling much better, and I hear that it's all thanks to you," Shisui replied a little more seriously this time. Sakura shifted uncomfortably. The medicine that they gave her for the pain in her leg was beginning to wear off, and suddenly it was beginning to throb and ache something fierce.
"How long have I been out? Have they told you anything about my condition?" she managed to grit out while looking for her IV drip that controlled the morphine to up it. Her hand was waving blindly behind her for the stand that held the medicine bag. Shisui just nodded his head solemnly.
"You got here two days ago. And they wouldn't tell me what, but I know it's not good," he admitted sheepishly. He was looking down in shame, and Sakura knew instantly that he was blaming himself for this. If he hadn't have been hurt, then she would have never been on the mission in the first place. And Shisui, while sometimes completely different than his cousins, was still and Uchiha, which meant he blamed himself for things that weren't his fault.
"Shisui, you didn't do this," Sakura announced sternly. However, the pain was getting worse and she just couldn't find that stupid button. When Shisui tried to protest, she growled, "No, this was not your fault. This would have happened on any mission that had me leaving the village."
Finally, she thought to herself, silently cheering herself on in triumph once her hand had found the machine in question. She pressed the buttons up a few times and the soothing quality of the medicine was instant.
"So, your condition," Shisui finally broke the silence. "Is it that bad?"
Sakura let out a deep sigh, and she couldn't help it when the tears began to stem from the corners of her eyelids again.
"Yeah," she replied softly. "It's bad."
It was like pressurepressurepressurepressure.
And then crackcrackcrackcrackcrack.
Author's Note: So, ah, don't kill me? And please review!
I'd like to take a moment to thank all who have reviewed this story so far. I can't believe the support you all have given me. Really, your reviews are so awesome and wonderful, and it genuinely makes my day to read what you have to say about my writing. So thank you, thank you so much.
Predictions and Responses:
Yatagarami is a crow summon of my own concoction.
I know a lot of you guys were excited for the fight scene between Kisame and Sakura, and although I never intended to put the full scene in, I am going to work it into the story in the next few chapters because so many people were asking for it. It will most likely come in flashbacks and nightmares. This is going to profoundly affect Sakura psychologically.
Someone asked what happened to Shisui's mom because we only meet Kagami in this story. I haven't added her to the story because she was never mentioned in the manga or anime. I went to do research on his parents, and his mother was never mentioned. We can assume that she passed away prior to the start of this story, but I probably won't bring her up in this fiction.