Disclaimer: If you think I own Naruto, you have problems.

A/N: Thank you to the people who have reviewed. For those of you who do not review, shame!

Sakura found herself standing alone in the midst of a foggy night. The mist was so heavy she could barely see the hand in front of her face.

"You failed me Sakura." The voice, it was so familiar. The medic turned around and found herself face to face with a ten-year-old girl. She was so pale, her cheeks sunken in. Her skin had taken on an unnatural purple color. The color of dead flesh.

"Why did you let me die? I didn't want to die." Sakura felt tears pushing against her eyes, but she held them in. She had seen this girl only yesterday.

"I'm sorry I –"

"You failed me Sakura." Sakura spun around, staring into the eyes of her mangled mother.

"Please I'm so sorry but –"

"You failed me Sakura." Dead bodies began rising the earth. Bloody, sick. Thousands of faces surrounded her. Many of them belonged to strangers, people she had never met, others to ones she had loved dearly, some were the faces of enemies she herself had killed, and some were so mangled they were unrecognizable.

"You failed us Sakura." They closed in around her, the stench of rotting flesh filling her nostrils.

"You failed us Sakura. Now you must die." Dead hands tugged and pulled at her. Nails scratched her pulling chunks of flesh from her bones. The pain exploded in her limbs as she cried out into the mist.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

She awoke with a scream, falling off her bed. Lying on the floor, Sakura took a few minutes to recover her breath. They had returned. The Dead.

She looked over at her alarm clock. It was four in the morning. I won't be getting any more sleep tonight. She stood up and made her way to the bathroom. She rested her hands on the sink and stared at herself in the mirror.

That girl, Sayuri. She had been admitted to the hospital only a few weeks ago with a bizarre form of leukemia. She had seen the poor girl only yesterday. Could she really be dead?

Sakura took a shower and got dressed. The day was hours away, and no one save a few ANBU would be awake at this hour. She stepped out into the cold chill of the night. She locked the door behind her before she left. Now that she had found her keys, she could finally do so.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Kakashi made his way through the night. The chill cut deeply into his flesh, but he ignored it. This was something he was used to. Every day he woke himself early for this purpose.

He was going to the stone that commemorated those who had died on missions. Uchiha Obito. That name still lingered with him. It had been so many years since his friend sacrificed himself for Kakashi's sake. So many years, and yet he still hadn't gotten over his death.

The stone came into view, and standing next to it was a figure hidden in shadow. Kakashi paused, not wanting to disturb the lone figure. He couldn't tell who it was, but he could see its hands clasped in front of it, its head lowered in contemplation. After several minutes, it kneeled down and placed something next to the stone, and walked off.

After the figure fully disappeared from view, Kakashi approached the stone. On the ground where the figure was standing lay a single white rose, symbol of purity, under which was a piece of paper with something written on it.

To those I could not save, both friend and foe.

Suddenly, Kakashi felt very silly. For years, he mourned the death of his friend, while so many others have died. And this person, who probably had people very close to them die, felt compassion for even their enemies.

"I think I understand now Obito. You died so that I could live. But ever since your death, I have not lived. I have only grieved for you. Now, I must move on with my life, so that yours would not have been in vain."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sakura sat on a bench outside the hospital next to Ino. It wasn't a very busy day and the two decided to take a break. Sakura found her mind floating off again as she sipped her tea.

She opened the door to Sayuri's room. It was empty. The bed that once held a body was empty. The closet was empty. The air held a certain eerie stillness. Lifelessness. A nurse walked by outside and Sakura decided to ask her about Sayuri.

"Didn't you hear? She died during the night. It turns out whoever diagnosed her Leukemia made a fatal mistake. It was acute leukemia, not chronic. Poor girl, she had so much to live for."

Sakura stared at her feet. Funny how a single word can save you, or kill you. Acute. Sakura took a slower, less aggressive treatment for the girl because she thought it was chronic. Had she known it was acute, she would have blasted the crap out of that God damned cancer.

I have failed another.

Turning her attention to her friend, she realized Ino was crying.

"What's wrong?"

"Oh, it's . . . it's just Shikamaru. I-I d-don't know why, but we've b-been fighting a lot. I-I don't know if I can take much more of this. S-Some I feel like, h-he might be cheating on me." With that, Ino burst into a new wave of sobs. Sakura put a comforting arm around her shoulders and tried to find the right words to say.

"He'd have to be crazy to do something like that. Look, if he does anything to hurt you I'll beet the crap out of him, ok?" Ino giggled through her tears.

"O-ok."

"If you feel you can't trust him, leave him for Pete's sake!"

"B-but I love him!"

"Then don't leave him. By the way, why do you think he's cheating on you?"

"Whenever Temari c-comes to . . . to have negotiations with the Hokage, Shikamaru d-disappears for hours at a time."

"Well then, next time she comes, we'll have to gang up on her. How's that?"

"Sounds good. Thanks Sakura"

A few moments went by in awkward silence. Ino stared into her reflection in her tea.

"What if he is cheating on me? What should I do?"

"Any man who would cheat on his partner doesn't even deserve to get raped in prison. If he his, dump his unworthy ass."

"But I can't."

"Why?"

"You wouldn't understand!" Ino snapped back. "You've never been in love!"

Sakura stared back into her cup. She was right. She dated Kiba for a couple weeks, but that ended poorly. After that, she had been so busy at the hospital and on missions that she hadn't had enough time for such things as love.

"I'm sorry Sakura, I didn't mean it, it's just that –"

"It's ok. I guess that's just one of the perils of being the apprentice of Tsunade-sama with her reputation and all . . ." The two giggled a little. The clouds moved slowly by, leaves swaying in the sweet wind. It was a lovely day to be outside.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

A voice echoed in the loudspeakers.

"Tsunade-sama, Sakura-sama, you're need in OR 13 STAT!"

Sakura dropped her tea on the floor and took off running, Ino following closely behind. They dashed up several staircases, leaping three steps at a time. Finding OR 13, they burst through the doors. Tsunade was already there.

"What's going on?" Ino looked down at the patient on the table and almost fainted.

"SHIKAMARU!"

"Tsunade-sama, what's going on?" The Hokage stood next to the patient, blood splattered across her face, her hands glowing green, a serious look on her face.

"He was wounded in battle. His aorta was hit, and he's bleeding like crazy. I can't get the bleeding to stop!" Sweat trickle down the Sannin's face. She tried a series of different techniques, but to know avail.

After a while the glow around Tsunade's hands disappeared.

"I'm sorry Ino, there's nothing we can do."

Not another one. She couldn't let another one die. Not again.

Sakura took a look at the dying body. She had an idea, but it was risky. She performed several hand seals and pressed her now glowing hand to his chest.

The heart monitor line flattened out. She stopped his heart. Shikamaru was now clinically dead. With his heart stopped, his blood loss decreased substantially. She could now work on him, but this was tricky, and she only had so long to do it. If stayed in this state to long, he could never be resuscitated.

But healing the dead was far more difficult than healing the living. The human body has a system for healing wounds. The trick to medical ninjutsu was to encourage and direct this healing system, and let the body do the rest. However, the dead cannot heal themselves. Sakura had to use her chakra to force the cells to replicate. She had to feed the dead cells life.

Time ticked slowly by. Every second felt like an eternity for Ino as she watched Sakura try to save a hopeless cause.

Fifteen minutes passed. Hopefully it was not too late. Sakura charged the defibulator, rubbing the metal pads together.

"Clear!"

Shikamaru's dead body jumped several inches into the air. Nothing.

"Clear!"

A second time. Nothing. Sakura tried one more time.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

He took a breath, his heart beating. Life. Shikamaru's eyes fluttered open and glanced around the room in a trance.

"Ino?" Ino's eyes watered, tears spilling over eyelids. She rushed to his side, wrapping him in her embrace and cried into his shoulder.

"Oh Shikamaru I thought I lost you!"

Sakura took a couple steps back. She watched as Ino sobbed into Shikamaru's chest while he tried to comfort her the best he could. Sudden exhaustion over took Sakura's body, pain bursting in her limbs from lack of chakra. Her knees buckled inward and she collapsed to the floor.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It was about a month after her father's death. It was painful seeing her mother deteriorate in such a way. She had fallen into deep depression, always crying, rarely eating. and never leaving the house. Her cheeks had sunken in, her skin grown a sickly pale color. She was a far cry from the woman she had once been.

Sakura walked through the streets of the market with a bag of groceries in hand. The sun shown brightly and there was not a cloud in the sky. Suddenly, a scream tore through the placid air of the marketplace.

Sakura pushed her way through the crowd to find a figure outside the herb shop.

"Mom what happened?" She had fallen onto a wooden cart, and a piece of wood lodged itself in her side.

"I jumped Sakura. I-I jumped off the roof." She coughed several times, spewing up blood with each breath.

"I-I didn't want to feel the pain anymore S-Sakura." Cough "I thought i-if I died, th-there would be no pain in death."

"Don't talk Mom, you need to save your strength." Sakura could feel the tears push against the eyes, but she held them in. Already her hands were glowing green, trying to fix her mother's broken body. But she didn't know how to fix an injury like this.

"B-but you know what? Now that I'm dying" cough "I'm scared. I-I don't wanna die any" cough "anymore."

"You're not gonna die, just hang in there."

"Sakura, please, don't let me die . . . " Her heart stopped beating, eyes glazed over, staring at her daughter's face but seeing nothing.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sakura opened her eyes. It took her a couple seconds for here vision to adjust.

"So, you finally woke up." Sakura found herself staring into the smiling face of Tsunade-sama.

"You were out for a couple hours. Strange thing, you never actually became fully unconscious. You just became delirious, mumbling some things I couldn't understand."

Thank God. If I had become unconscious, They would have come back.

"It seems as though the student has surpassed the master. You brought back someone I couldn't. I'm very proud of you Sakura. You truly have a gift for healing, and a compassion I've never seen before. I have nothing more to teach you. Why don't you take the rest of the day off, ok?" Tsunade ruffled her pink hair as she got up and walked towards the door.

"Wait, Tsunade-sama?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

The Hokage smiled to her star pupil as she left the room. Wow, could I REALLY have surpassed one of the Legendary Three Sannin?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sakura smelled the brisk night air on way through the crowd to her nightly meeting with Naruto at the Ichiraku ramen stand.

"Oi, Sakura-chan!" His cheerful voice stood out from the crowd, instantly lifting her spirits.

Naruto was standing next to Ichiraku's (as always) with his arm wrapped around Hinata. They look so cute as a couple!

"Ug Naruto, don't you ever get sick of ramen?" Sakura sighed in frustration.

"No."

"If you don't eat something other than ramen, you'll die of malnutrition. Take it from me, I'm a medic!"

"That's what I always tell him but he never listens!" said Hinata, "Why don't we go for barbeque or something tonight?"

"Sounds good to me!" And with that, the two kunoichi dragged off poor Naruto by the ears towards the barbeque place kicking and screaming.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"No, Oni-chan,, don't show me this!" A small, raven-haired boy, no more then eight years old, pleaded with his big brother, tears streaming down his face.

The black-haired, man before him, dressed in an ANBU uniform, raised a katana above two bloody figures.

"NO!"

The blade went down. Blood. So much blood. His mother and father lay on the floor, dead. Images of his aunt and uncle, relatives, people he had never met, flashed before his eyes. Dead. All of them. Dead. He was alone.

This twisted world faded back into reality, the boy collapsed on the floor.

"Why brother?"

"To see if I could. If you wish to kill me, hate me, and live in an unsightly way, run. Run, and cling to life."

Sasuke jolted upright in bed, cold sweat dripping down his face. Out of the corner of his eye he caught something red. Sharingan?

Shattering glass. A kunai now protruded from what was once a mirror. He had mistaken his own reflection for his brother. Sasuke leapt out of bed and punched the wall with all his might.

"DAMN YOU ITACHI!"

A drop of blood trickled down his fist. His chest heaved, panting as he tried to catch his breath.

"Damn you. Killing you won't be enough anymore."