Nascence

---

VI: Despair

---

The straps of this freaking thing are digging into my back.

Sakura adjusted the ropelike straps of her knapsack and sighed silently from beneath her mask, watching sand blow off the tips of dunes. Hair blew over her face, along with the gritty feel of desert, and she pushed her hair back. She needed as best visibility as she could get, and no matter how disappointed she was at her job, she'd have to have it done right.

Being on border patrol was not what she'd signed up for when she joined ANBU.

Next to her, Sai slumped a bit down the wall, his arms folded.

Sakura kicked a shower of sand at him, and he turned a masked head towards her. "What was that for?"

"Wanted to make sure you were awake," she answered with a wry smile.

He groaned slightly. "This makes me feel… what is it you call it?"

"Bored?" she suggested.

Sai nodded. "Bored," he repeated, learning the new vocabulary word. "It isn't a very enjoyable feeling."

"No, it's not. But you feel it all the time if you're not busy. Weren't you ever bored in Root?"

"Probably. But I never felt it."

Sakura grunted and turned back to the front solemnly, trying to shake off that particularly disturbing comment. Not feeling. She couldn't even begin to imagine it. Of course, one of the pink-haired kunoichi's weaknesses was that she sometimes felt too much to the point of being oversensitive… but in any case, an absence of emotion felt abnormal to her. It was why she had hated Sai so much at the beginning. He was everything she was not.

But once the ink-user had gotten closer to her, had developed a series of strong bonds between her and Naruto and Kakashi and Yamato, he had opened up, and she had begun to teach him emotion. He was getting to be a good student.

I'll help out Iruka-sensei when we get back. He'd like that. I haven't taught in a while.

A heavy hand on her shoulder jolted her out of her reverie. She turned her head to see Kankurou, purple-lined face grimacing against the wind. "Gaara wants you back in." Sai turned to leave, as well, but Kankurou shook his head. "Just her, for safety reasons. She'll be replaced by Nara; Sakura, you'll go up and join Uzumaki and your captain on guard duty at the training facility. Tell the blonde Gaara wants to see him. Can you find your way?"

Sakura nodded. "Aa. Bye, Sai. Kankurou-san."

Sai lifted a hand in acknowledgement to her goodbye and Kankurou nodded; she leapt down from the gates, landing neatly on the roof of a store. Starting at a run and leaping the cracks between buildings, Sakura kept low. Don't want civilians staring at me or anything. This isn't exactly orthodox. The black-clad woman slid smoothly down the sloped roof of a home and walked the rest of the way to the training facility, pulling her hair into a ponytail. Even though the wind was forced to slow by the buildings inside the Suna gates, it was still bad enough to whip perfectly-brushed hair into a mass of uncorrectable tangles.

As she crested a hill, she smiled: Naruto was waving at her enthusiastically, jumping up and down in a manner most un-ANBU-like, and Neji's scorn was radiating off him in thick waves. She was snickering when she reached them. "Naruto, Gaara wants you," she told the hyperactive blonde.

He mock-pouted. "Aw, just when Sakura-chan gets here." He gave her a brilliant smile that she could see even behind his mask from the way his cheeks moved. Then, he turned to Neji and bowed slightly. "Captain?"

"Dismissed," Neji replied lazily. "Sakura, take his post."

Sakura rolled her eyes at the formalities as Naruto walked off and leaned against the building. "Hai." After pausing for a moment, she flicked her eyes to him. "I heard you pacing last night."

"Hn."

"Captain, lack of sleep will not help you in battle any. Take off your mask."

"Haruno, I'm the captain, I'll be the one giving orders-"

Sakura's voice turned to steel. "Take. Off. The. Mask."

Neji took it off.

Sakura peered at his face from behind her own porcelain mask, scowling at him from about a head and a half under him, their height difference greatly pronounced. "You've got rings under your eyes," she said disapprovingly, tracing them with a gloved hand. "You didn't sleep after that genjutsu attack, did you?"

"As I said before, I'm captain," Neji said quietly. "My responsibility is the safety of my team."

"No," his companion interjected, "your responsibility is the completion of the mission."

"Which can't be done without the safety of my team."

Sakura stared at him for a moment before slowly handing his mask back.

He took it equally gradually and tied it on his face, never taking his eyes from hers.

She sighed. "Just please don't do it again."

Neji was silent for a series of long moments before he sighed. "How do you do that?" he snapped at her.

Sakura was taken aback. "What d'you mean?"

"Just bounce back from things like last night. You were nearly killed!" Fighting to keep his voice under control, Neji breathed deep and repeated. "You were nearly killed."

The female ANBU stepped back a bit, fingering the hilt of her katana rather nervously. "I've done it a lot, that's all," she answered softly. "Bouncing back. It doesn't take as much if you do it normally. Besides," she continued, "it took you a while to get over your injuries from Kidoumaru, ne?"

He hesitated. "I suppose so."

"And you're still afraid of spiders."

Neji shot her a glare that did not go unnoticed. "You mention that day in the hospital to anyone, Sakura, and I swear--"

"When did you stop calling me Haruno?" she interrupted.

He froze. "I didn't."

"You call me 'Sakura' now. Not 'Haruno' or 'woman' or whatever you used to call me." She grinned under her mask, enjoying the flush that was surely rising to his cheeks beneath that white mask.

Neji's mouth was open wide for a long time before he actually spoke. "What are you implying?"

"Just that we're better acquainted now, of course," she answered evenly. "We're friends, ne?"

Neji shook his head with a small smile. "Hn."

Sakura enjoyed the comfortable silence that stretched between them after such a careless chat. She hitched herself over the edge of the wall surrounding the door and sat on it, dangling her feet over it. "Why are we guarding this place?" she asked quietly.

Neji glanced at her. "This was the place the last two murders happened," he answered after a moment. "The victims were killed inside this training facility while they were sparring."

Sakura was still. "Oh. Neji?"

"Hn."

"I feel strange."

He glanced at her curiously and in concern-- last time she'd said something like that, she'd fainted. "What do you mean?"

"I mean…" She searched for the words, racking her brain. "I feel like something horrible is going to happen."

Neji sighed, a bit irritated. "Sakura, I'm getting a bit tired of your 'feelings'. You told me you felt something horrible was going to happen at the beginning of this mission."

She didn't look at him. "But today… it's so concentrated. Like it's going to happen really soon."

Her captain shot her a withering glance that didn't go unnoticed, even under a mask. "I already told you a mission is not based on emotion. It's based on what you have to do and how you're going to do it."

He thought for certain that she'd flare up as she usually did, shouting profanities or hitting him as she did Naruto. But instead she turned a masked gaze to him that seemed to reflect deep sadness. "Gomen. I won't say any more."

Damn it all, he thought to himself angrily, guilt is not an option here. I did what I need to do as captain and told her to act accordingly. There's nothing wrong with that. But a hot, unpleasant feeling was sinking to his stomach like molten rock.

She did this to him. She made him feel-- she made him feel! Enraged, Neji almost shouted at her. How could she make him feel genuine emotion, something he had put off as worthless the moment his father died? How dare she?

But, then again, along with the rage came something else altogether. Something that scared him. Something more mysterious than the photo of glimmering red and something more gruesome than the murdered chuunin.

And the worst part was that he didn't want it to stop.

---

Fatigue had no meaning anymore.

Lee's leg muscles ached, his heart felt like it was going to pound out of his chest, and with every breath he took there was a sharp pain in his lungs. But Gai-sensei had taught him long ago to ignore pain and to ignore exhaustion and to keep pushing until you just gave out.

And he had a message to deliver.

But, Kami, how to deliver it?

He had been taijutsu sparring with TenTen at Suna's message tower when a Konoha messenger bird had landed next to them. Breathless, he had paused the spar while TenTen took the scroll from the bird. "Strange," she had said, "it's to us. 'Konoha ANBU Squad Four'." She had opened it, read it, and gasped, her face blanching. Her eyes had welled with tears, and she had handed him the scroll.

He had read it silently, eyes widening even more than usual. He, too, had felt tears burn from the backs of his dark eyes-- his hands had shook terribly, and he'd dropped the scroll. The sound it had made seemed to echo throughout the entire tower.

TenTen had looked up at him, a hand to her mouth in awe and horror and shock. "We have to tell them," she'd said.

Lee had nodded dully, hardly noticing what he was doing, hardly noticing his next words. "Go find our teammates at the border and Naruto-kun at the Kazekage's office… I shall inform Neji and Sakura-san."

TenTen had closed her eyes, tears sprinkling her eyelashes, but had nodded tiredly. "Aa."

And now he was running his fastest, salty liquid falling to the ground right after every footstep he took.

The training center came into his view, and his tears nearly doubled at the horrible normalcy of it. Sakura was sitting carelessly on the wall that was the building's border, and Neji was slumped against the wall. Both seemed relatively happy, carefree…

Why, oh why, was he the one that had to ruin it all?

At his approach, the two shinobi came to attention: Sakura leapt off the wall and stood next to Neji, who had stood straight and taken a step forward, ready to spring into action at a single word.

Before they had a chance to open their mouths (Lee knew he would completely break down if they did), he told them.

"Hokage-sama's died."

---

Sakura's world fell away.

At Lee's one sentence, she crumbled: she felt herself take a step back in shock as Neji took one forward. She felt her own gloved hand tear the ANBU mask from her face, fingers scrabbling with the tie and finally breaking it in two, pulling down the milky-white porcelain to reveal wobbling mouth and widened eyes and pale face. She felt herself internally collapse into nothingness, a part of her just folding into itself and settling like lead at the pit of her stomach.

She felt air building up in her lungs, but no sound came out… she wanted so badly to scream till her heart burst, but only a croaking sigh came out. She was breathing too fast, she knew-- medic's sense told her that if she didn't stop hyperventilating she would faint once more. But she could care less. Her mind whirled, her world turned upside-down and backside-front by two words.

She knew it was silly, but memories crowded her mind: seeing Tsunade for the first time, all proud and feminist and strong. Asking the Hokage to be her tutor and being accepted as an apprentice. Training with her, marveling in the strength that found itself lodged in her fist. Hugging her for the very first time, laughing at her for the first time. Having her cut her hair again after it had grown out. Becoming chuunin, seeing her satisfaction; becoming jounin, seeing her pride; becoming ANBU, seeing her love. The day she'd accidentally called Tsunade 'mother'. The last day she'd seen her Tsunade-shishou: realizing for once that she was old. Waving to her cheerfully as they left on the most dangerous mission she'd ever been on. The fleeting nightmare that her mentor, her mother, would die soon.

And now that nightmare was real.

Her shaking fingers found Neji's sleeve, and she grasped onto it as if it was a lifeline; she felt his stiff denial residing in the hard muscles of his arm.

But he melted at her touch almost at once, mouth closing and warm arms encircling her smaller body. She felt her hands search his chest until they reached right below his shoulders; she grasped at him, not caring if she was hurting him, only wanting him to feel the agonizing emptiness that was spreading from head to toe. She buried her face in his chest and let out a wail to break a heart… to lament the death of a mother.

---

"You are now Rokudaime Hokage of Konohakagure, the Village Hidden in the Leaves."

Rokudaime Hokage.

His dream.

Naruto stared blankly at the elder that announced this to him the moment the ANBU squadron reentered Konoha. The Kazekage had given them his permission at once and had asked for Naruto to put an extra flower on her grave from him. And now he would be setting two flowers on the grave of his own Tsunade-baa-chan as Hokage. The old woman, one of the crotchety elders that nobody really liked, was clearly not happy with Tsunade's decision as naming the Nine-Tailed Fox's container as her successor, as her face was creased in a disapproving frown that fairly radiated horror. Nonetheless, the woman bowed slightly to him. "Hokage-sama."

Naruto's knapsack fell limply to the ground, stirring up dust as his fellow ANBU members, even Neji, turned and bowed to him. "Hokage-sama," they murmured.

No.

Not like this.

Naruto heard a muffled sob behind him and turned; he took Sakura's hand in his and gave her a fierce hug, almost painful in its love. Sakura, still dusty from travel, tears still (or was it once again?) leaking from her eyes, took his head in her hands and kissed his forehead. "I knew she would," she muttered, her tongue thick from tears. "I'm proud of you."

The blonde nodded slightly and turned to the elder woman, bowing in return, tears sparking at the corners of his eyes as they'd done continuously for the entirety of the trip, ever since TenTen had delivered the news. "I-- I would like a funeral to be organized for tonight."

"Tonight? Hokage-sama, that's hardly orthodox-"

"Tonight." Naruto's new taste of power came full force with the glare he shot at the woman, reminding her exactly of whom she was dealing with. "My companions and I have a mission to complete in Suna."

Rokudaime Hokage.

"Hai," she muttered. "Tonight. During which we will announce your new rank."

Naruto nodded numbly. "Aa."

"You will all need to clean up," the woman said stiffly. "Shinobi uniform is not permitted at a-"

"God damn it!" Sakura's shout rang from the gates of Konoha. Izumo and Kotetsu, ever-present at the gates and watching, glanced at each other with poorly-disguised shock. "We've been to a funeral before, you old hag. If you contradict the new Hokage one more time I will see to it that your fancy shoes disappear into rubble created by my fist."

The woman backed off, a bit taken aback. "V-very well. I shall see you all tonight."

TenTen put a hand on Sakura's shoulder as the woman backed away. "Sakura, please. Calm yourself."

Sakura's fists clenched, and for a moment, TenTen thought the kunoichi would hit her. But Sakura let out a trembling breath. "Aa. I just… she got on Tsunade-shishou's nerves a lot. Now I know why."

Shikamaru let out a weak laugh. "Aa, she's troublesome." Swallowing hard, the shadow-user ran a shaking hand through his hair. "I have to get home, I guess. I'll see you all at the funeral." Unsure of whom to address, Shikamaru hesitated in front of Naruto and Neji. "Captain-- Hokage-sama… what time are we-"

Naruto nodded to Neji, and the Hyuuga prodigy exhaled slowly. "We will meet at daybreak tomorrow. Same place. The mission is first and foremost."

With a scattered 'hai', the group split almost at once: Shikamaru and Neji went in the same direction to their respective clan homes, and Lee and TenTen went another way. Sakura and Sai looked at Naruto almost disbelievingly, and the blue-eyed Hokage sat heavily on the ground. "I didn't want it to be like this," he said hoarsely, as if protesting. "I wanted her to be grumbling and shouting and being profane and giving me the Hokage's hat with a 'damn kid, I can't believe I'm doing this'. I didn't want her to die."

"I never knew her that well," Sai said quietly, sitting next to Naruto. "But I feel… hollow. Spent. Like I've run too much or exhausted myself during a mission or a spar. Like chakra depletion, but worse. What is that called?"

Sakura was quiet for a long time after she sat on Naruto's other side, but she took a shaky breath and answered Sai's question.

"There's no name for that, Sai," she replied dully. "It's a couple parts sorrow, a couple parts anger, a coupe parts emptiness. It's what you feel after a death. It's horrible… ne?"

Sai frowned. "If people always have feelings like this every time someone dies, what's the point of feeling at all?"

Neither Naruto nor Sakura had an answer for that.

---

Sakura tugged vaguely at the high collar of her black dress. It seemed too happy for such an occasion, even in a dark color. The hemline was ruffled, pleated. It was a party dress, not a funeral dress.

But it would have to do.

Glancing at herself in the mirror, she pushed back her bangs and inspected her bloodshot eyes. Finally dry, they were puffy and crimson-tinted; ugly. Sighing, Sakura tugged at the strap of her shoes before her brain stumbled onto something she couldn't believe no one had mentioned: how did Tsunade die?

Wobbling a bit on heels, the pink-haired woman called from her room. "I'm going to see Shizune-chan," she said loudly. "I'll meet you there."

With mumbled goodbyes in her ears, Sakura took off her shoes and held them tight as she launched herself over the window, onto the roofs of buildings until she reached Shizune's apartment. She slid from the roof and knocked on the door, trying not to cry yet again.

The black-haired kunoichi opened the door with a tired smile and immediately engulfed Sakura in an embrace. "Hey," she whispered. "How are you feeling?"

"Like shit," Sakura mumbled into her shoulder, returning the hug. "You?"

Shizune pulled back and led her inside. "A little worse, I think." Her eyes, too, were red and swollen from crying.

"Shizune-chan," Sakura started, examining her home, "what did Tsunade-shishou die from?"

Shizune looked up. "There… there was a criminal outside the gates," she answered, stuttering slightly at the directness of the question. She sat heavily on a futon. "She fought him, and he injured her severely. She had to use… well…" Shizune sighed, as if trying to hold herself together. "She died from overuse of Creation: Rebirth."

Sakura fingered a small photograph of Tsunade and Shizune at a gambling table together, most likely before Tsunade became Hokage, and smiled slightly. "Why did she fight the criminal? Don't lesser jounin usually handle that?"

"He asked for her, personally, or he'd destroy the village," her companion said with a wry smile. "She commanded that no one follow or help her, but she wrote something very quickly on a scroll and told me to send it to Suna, addressed to your ANBU group, as fast as it could possibly go."

Sakura frowned and turned to her. "So she knew she would die?" she whispered. "Why didn't she just let someone else-" she choked and coughed, trying to compose herself before the tears came rushing out again. "Why didn't she just let someone else handle it? Why risk her life when she, too, was targeted by the Suna criminal?"

Shizune's smile twisted into a grimace. "This is Tsunade-sama we're talking about, Sakura. She wouldn't stand down so easily, ne?" The woman shook her head. "And that was a tough man, whoever he was… dangerously, horrifyingly tough. The thing she fought was actually a kage bunshin."

Sakura was silent for a moment, trying to digest this, her mouth agape. "A kage bunshin? She was defeated by this man's kage bunshin? He must be… worse than S-class!"

Shizune nodded sadly. "Aa. And he disappeared before we could even pick up a chakra trail. When we got there, she had used Creation: Rebirth to heal herself, but she was fading from it. She told me to name Naruto-kun as her successor and to save her best stores of sake for you."

Sakura sat next to her. "And she knew he was coming for her."

"Somehow."

To her horror, Sakura felt the backs of her eyes burn, signifying a storm of tears. She breathed through her mouth, trying to compose herself, trying to relax. "I can't believe it."

Shizune turned her head away. "Kakashi is coming to pick me up, Sakura. Would you like to walk with us?"

Sakura shook her head numbly. "No, I wouldn't," she stated bluntly, standing. She was angry with Shizune suddenly, so terribly angry. How dare she not get to Tsunade's aid in time? How dare she not ignore her request and run out there immediately to assist the Hokage? How dare she tell me this? How can this all be happening to me?

"Sakura, I understand-"

Sakura slammed the door behind her.

She walked barefoot down the empty streets of the city; everyone was probably going to the funeral, in the other direction. She looked up, and the first thing that caught her eye was Hokage's Tower: Tsunade's past residence, Naruto's current one. And right behind that was the monument. Tsunade's head jutted out in a fierce, almost bird-of-prey-like protective gaze, eyebrows creased in a frown, mouth turned in a determined, sturdy feature.

Sakura wished it would rain like it did during the Sandaime Hokage's funeral, but the sun was setting beautifully and the birds were chirping their last. The weather was perfect. It seemed a mockery.

She turned and made her way to the mournful procession turning east.

---

The moment Naruto entered the procession, he walked straight towards her.

Despite the circumstances and the fact her eyes and nose were crimson from sobbing, Hinata felt her heart flutter madly as it usually did when he had that determined, saddened look on his face. He grasped her hands in his and kissed her sweetly on the lips for the first time. Before, out of respect and fear of her father, it had only been kisses on the cheek or forehead… but this was full of promise. He looked at her solemnly. "Hinata, marry me. Your family can't deny my now, I'm Hokage." He smiled slightly at her, eyes pained and loving. "What d'you say?"

She nodded, eyes misting over as she knew they would. Happiness and pain stretched inside her like a balloon, leaving room for no other thought but whirling contradiction. "Yes, of course," she answered softly. Next to her, she felt rather than saw Kiba and Shino and Hanabi smile at each other, like "about time".

And then Naruto gave a whoop, picked her up, swung her around. She squealed, but he let go of her, kissed her soundly until she felt she'd faint, and then ran up to a podium, clutching the sides of it in front of the pure white coffin that held the Godaime Hokage's body.

He cleared his throat, bowing his blonde head for a moment before lifting it with a beaming smile.

"Tsunade-baa-chan… I mean, the Godaime Hokage… she was a hell of a woman. She was gentle as a mother, fierce as a lover, fair as a ruler, and scary as shit when she was beating me up for calling her a granny."

A wave of reluctant chuckles rippled throughout the crowd in front of him.

Naruto smiled slightly, remembering, tears starting at the bottom of his eyes, and shook his head, leaning on the podium. "She recognized dreams, she did: I'm Hokage, aren't I? The Kyuubi container, somebody the village hated and feared… she respected me, and she's made my lifetime what I wanted it to be. She recognized talent, too… a kunoichi everyone thought worthless was brought up into the ass-kicking, unusual-hair-colored woman we all know and slightly cower at the mention of today."

More chuckles, and Sakura gave him a weak smile from her place in the front row.

"But most of all, ladies and gentlemen," Naruto continued, smiling even broader, "she was a woman who enjoyed life… and knew how to take the most from it. And so I doubt she'd want us to sit her, grieving about her. Because of that, I have a fiancée that I didn't have the courage to propose to before this. Because of that, I'm going to have Sakura-chan break into her hoards of stashed sake. And because of that, this won't be a funeral. This will be the party she never got to have as Hokage, ne? So let's make it a great one."

A smattering of applause started off, then escalated into rousing cheers and half-sobs, the crowd in front of him alight with tears and laughter. Naruto placed two roses on the Hokage's coffin.

Next, Sakura came up, giving him a hug and putting her rose on top of the wood; then Jiraiya, Shizune, Shikamaru, Sai, Hinata… the whole crowd, pushing against each other to pay their respects to the new Hokage and send good wishes to the old.

It was like this, with Naruto and Hinata beaming, people laughing and sharing memories, and the sun setting in the west horizon, Sakura left the funeral.

---

Neji had followed her. He wasn't really sure why, and he didn't really care why, either. He felt he had to, somehow, or at least that it would be right.

She was in the Hokage's office, soon to be Naruto's, which was slightly predictable. It was also hers, after all. He watched as she trailed her fingers over Tsunade's desk, chaotically still and waiting for another Hokage. Sakura's foot clinked against something, and she looked down, pulling a hidden stash of sake from a cupboard built into the desk. She laughed suddenly, and, back to Neji, said: "You can come out now."

Ashamed, the mahogany-haired jounin crept from his hiding place. "Sakura-san?"

"There's a note on this," she said, sounding slightly surprised. She pulled a scrap of paper from the sake container. "From Tsunade-shishou."

He frowned.

"Addressed to me."

Sakura leaned against the desk, sake clenched in her fist, note in front of her face. And she smiled, suddenly, a sad little smile that broke a heart as much as her scream from earlier had done. "She knew she didn't have long," she said quietly.

"What?"

She waved the note. "It's from her, to me, on the day of her death. Right before the battle." Sakura cleared her throat. "'Sakura, I don't really know how to tell you this, but I suppose that the easiest way to say it is: I am going to die today. I know I will… I'm not quite sure how I know, but it will be in combat with a fearsome enemy. All I can ask of you, my protégé, is that you don't grieve after me too much. I'm leaving you all my sake, after all.

I want you to be careful in Suna. This challenger I'm going to face is the criminal, I can feel it-- and yet I'm so very frustrated I won't be able to tell you who it is. But I can tell you this without even seeing him: he is a great evil. I can only hope that you can contain it.

'Naruto is the Rokudaime Hokage now, I suppose. Brat.

'Sakura, I've always looked upon you as a daughter-- and so now, like any mother, I'm going to command you to continue training; to leave behind all your fears, whether of love or of death; to keep those idiots of yours in line; and to never stop at anything that stands in your path.

'Naruto may be my successor, but you are my descendant. You inherited my strength, my temper, my sake… let all Konoha be warned, ne?

'Good luck in all that you do--

'Beat that bastard's ass in Suna--

'and drink up.

'Tsunade."

Sakura turned away for a moment, shoulders shaking, laughing slightly. "What a woman," she murmured.

Neji walked up to her, tentative, hesitating to touch her. She looked as if she could shatter at any moment. "Will you be alright?"

She was silent for a while before turning to face him, sake in hand. She set it on the desk with a loud crack. "Neji, how can I possibly answer that question?" she asked softly.

He stared at her, waiting for her to continue, wanting-- strangely-- for her to just cry.

But when she looked at him, her eyes were dry; they radiated a fierce mix of determination and sadness. "How can anyone fully be 'alright' when someone close to them dies?" She shook her head. "I knew it would happen, of course… we are all shinobi, after all. And after Asuma…" Sakura sighed. "I just didn't think it would be her. I didn't want to think that she could possibly die."

"She lived a good life. No one can deny that," he soothed.

Sakura nodded. "And yet, I always felt that there was so much more she wanted to do."

He looked into her eyes, deep, for the first time. They weren't simply green, he realized. They had golden rings round the pupils, an orangey glow spreading from them. It was strange, like seeing another part of Haruno Sakura he hadn't seen before. And he spoke. "You'll have to do them for her."

Sakura never broke his gaze. "Aa, I guess I will. Just like her to leave me with so much work."

Neji chuckled gruffly and, on a whim, took her into his arms.

She didn't pull back.

Sakura leaned into the embrace, her arms going around his waist and his likewise. She leaned into the bottom of his shoulder, as high as she could reach, and closed her eyes; he had an anchoring smell, masculinity and peppermint and spice.

Neji held her tightly, stroking the bottom tips of her hair, marveling (enjoying, his inner conscience squeaked traitorously) at the feel of their bodies meshed together. They didn't fit perfectly, not at all-- she was far too short and he too wide against her petite body. But that, he saw suddenly, didn't matter… not a bit.

They pulled back simultaneously, and she smiled. "Thanks. I… ano… I needed that."

He nodded, face a bit flushed, and turned away from her, wanting nothing more than to exit the scene as quickly as possible. "You're sure you'll be alright? For now?"

Sakura smiled sadly at him, her body still warm and tingling from the feel of his solid figure against hers. She felt an electric heat spread from the pit of her stomach to her arms, raising goosebumps.

"For now."

---

Author's Note: I… can't believe I wrote that.

Aww, man… I never was good at character death. And I really loved Tsunade. Oh, well-- it's crucial for the plot, so I guess it had to be done.

ONE MORE THING, and please read this: FOR ALL THE PEOPLE THAT ARE WRITING ME REVIEWS WITH IDEAS OF WHO THE CULPRIT IS, PLEASE STOP. Not stop writing reviews, of course, and your speculation is brilliant, but I'm afraid that the majority of you are not correct, and it gets kind of old to see 'it's sasuke' or 'it's itachi' in every review I receive. I ask for your constructive criticism and praise, and that's all. But thanks very much, anyway.