Sasuke thrashed under the covers, sweat beading on his forehead, yelling as he sat bolt upright in bed. His chest heaved as he sucked in lungfuls of air, throwing the covers away as he tried to get his bearings. Wholly disoriented, Sasuke lowered his throbbing head into his hands, rubbing his eyes as if to shake his visions of Madara away. Madara had taunted him in his nightmares, mocking and cruel, and Sasuke gave a whole body shudder. He reached behind him and viciously tore the dark shirt off his sweaty back, yanking it over his head, throwing it into the darkness. He reached out, his hand shaking, and knocked the glass of water off the bedside table by accident. He cursed furiously, fingernails digging deep into his palms. And then the door flew open, and Sasuke was suddenly blinded by the bright light flooding in from the hallway.
"Sasuke?" Sakura asked, a bit breathless, and she strode slowly into the room, cautious, taking her time. Sasuke sneered, refusing to acknowledge her, but Sakura didn't say anything else. Sasuke watched uncaringly as Sakura surveyed the shattered glass on the floor, water running into the tiles, and his sweat-soaked shirt puddled in the corner of the room. "I'll get you some water," Sakura said, not mentioning the broken cup, exiting the room, giving Sasuke time to think.
When Sakura came back, the glass was cleaned up, thrown into the dustbin, although Sasuke hadn't put his shirt on. He sat perched on the edge of the bed, and Sakura was distracted by the myriad of scars lancing down his ribcage. His bones poked through his skin, and Sakura could count individual ribs. She tore her eyes away before Sasuke noticed, and handed him a cup of water, setting the pitcher down on the bedside table. Sasuke trembled still, his hands shaking, and he watched Sakura like a wounded animal, ready to lunge at her lest she decide to comment on it, or offer help. Sakura did none of those things, however, and she pretended she didn't even notice.
"Are you hungry?" Sakura asked instead, but Sasuke just snarled at her.
"What makes you think I want your help?" Sasuke snapped, but Sakura didn't recoil like he thought she would.
"I don't think you want it," Sakura said calmly, staring at Sasuke unflinchingly.
"You're useless to me," Sasuke spat, but Sakura only reached out and took the glass from his barely shaking hands, setting it gently on the table, ignoring his stinging reply. Sasuke was hurt and vicious, but Sakura refused to take it personally—she would try, anyway. He was just like any other drug-addled addict.
"I am your doctor, and I could have you strapped to this bed. I could throw you in a mental institution, and I could even place you in a medically induced coma. None of it is ethical, but nobody will disagree with me. You can say anything you want to me, but I will not be stopping your treatment. If you physically refuse medication or treatment, I will strap you down and confine you to this room until you are back to normal. I will put an IV-drip in your arm and I will place a feeding tube in your stomach, and attach you to a catheter so you never have to get up. I will do it if you refuse to be treated," Sakura murmured, deadly serious, and it was no empty threat. Sakura left the room then, without pause, handing him a little cup of pills. They contained methadone and advil for his headache, and Sasuke stared at them mutinously.
"I will kill you," Sasuke said as Sakura was almost of the room, his tone bleak and utterly cruel. Sakura didn't bother replying, shutting the door on her way out, warding it up with seals once again. She took a deep, slow breath, trying to ignore the sudden ice in her heart. Sasuke meant those words, and she knew it. Sakura also knew that, once he was at back at his peak, there was nothing she could do to stop him from killing her. Sakura was a great kunoichi, but she simply couldn't compete with Sasuke—there was nothing shameful about it, for it was the truth. Yet, despite his chilling words, Sakura still felt a touch apathetic. Drug patients threatened to kill her all the time for taking away their supply, and for strapping them down to their beds when they refused treatment, and several had attempted to take away her life. It was nothing new, except it was. This was personal, and it made it different somehow. Sakura was letting Sasuke get to her, and she knew it. She shook her head, reminding herself that without her, Sasuke would have died. He would have lost his eyesight, and his bloodline limit. He would have been toast if not for her, and although Sakura was proud of herself for it, and relieved, it didn't make her happy. The war was over, all enemies gone, but Sasuke wasn't done fighting. For him, the war had just begun.
The underground compound was huge—and that was an understatement. There were two large kitchens, two dining rooms, several living spaces, a training room, tons of bedrooms, and a full-blown library. Sakura was currently camped out in the library, nibbling on a snack and sipping tea as she pored through heavy medical texts, wrapped up in cases she had sent over from the hospital. She wasn't able to cover Ino's shift, and she couldn't work any of her own—so she'd just work from home. She struggled over a particularly difficult case, looking up medical disorders in the books, trying to match the patient's symptoms. She was in the middle of reading through a particularly lengthy and painful disorder when she was interrupted by Naruto, who was sporting a black eye and a bloody nose.
"You didn't," Sakura sighed, craning her neck upward to look at her bloodied teammate. "You know Sasuke's not in any such state," Sakura scolded, prodding gently at Naruto's nose, swatting away his hands as they flew toward his injury. She pulled out napkins from under her mug of tea and patted delicately at Naruto's nose, wiping away some blood so she could see what was going on. It was definitely broken, and Sakura pondered a bit as she lightly touched his black eye.
"Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked, muffled, his voice tinged with pain. Sakura frowned at her idiotic teammate, wiping her now bloodstained hands on the napkin.
"I wonder if I should just let that heal naturally," Sakura mused, glaring at Naruto, whose eyes widened to the size of dinner plates.
"No, Sakura-chan!" Naruto protested, flustered, and Sakura could barely make out his sentences. She let him panic for a solid minute before taking mercy, sighing as she mended the bone back together, narrowing her eyes at Naruto as the bone fused together, healing it back to its original state.
"What happened?" Sakura demanded once Naruto's black eye and nose were healed, yanking him into the chair across from her. "If you two fight again before he's better, I will not heal you next time," Sakura warned, and Naruto gulped. Sakura didn't joke around with that kind of stuff, and he knew it.
"Sasuke… Sasuke said we should have let him die," Naruto said somberly, placing his palms flat on the glossy wooden table. Sakura reached out across the table at that, placing her hands atop Naruto's, taking in a sudden breath. Naruto's eyes burned with unshed tears, and he looked helplessly at Sakura. What kind of person wanted to die?
"I think he has nothing and no one left to blame but himself, and he's still angry, but there's no one left to fight. Sasuke's broken, Naruto. Akatsuki used him for personal gains, Zetsu used him for whatever plot he was hatching, and Madara pretended like he was helping Sasuke, when really, all he wanted was to use him as a sacrifice and as a weapon. I'm not sure he'll ever be the same again," Sakura mused, offering her teammate a sad smile. "He told me he was going to kill me last night," Sakura added in afterthought, and she squeezed Naruto's hands as they tensed beneath hers.
"I wish I knew how to fix him," Naruto murmured, and he brought a hand up to his face to wipe away runaway tears, and Sakura said nothing, stroking the back of his hands, and she desperately wished she knew how too.
Naruto left after he collected himself, back to his boisterous self, bouncing out the library door with a very loud whoop, and Sakura wished she could be so buoyant. She immersed herself back into her medical texts, although she couldn't concentrate. Sasuke, wanting to die? Sakura couldn't shake the troubling thought from her mind. Her worried green eyes read the same paragraph for the fifth time until she finally slammed the book closed, loosing her ponytail free. Sakura's hair cascaded around her shoulders and she ran her hands through it, gently massaging her scalp, setting her cheek down against the hard plastic cover of the book.
Sasuke could see, his eyes were safe, he was slowly being weaned off the medication Orochimaru had poisoned him with, and all his enemies were dead, but he still wasn't happy. Sakura thought of his strangled yells as she'd frantically undone the seals to his bedroom, bursting in through the door as he'd shouted. She'd felt so helpless then. The only enemies Sasuke had left were the ones inside his head.
"Sakura," Sasuke spat through gritted teeth, and Hinata quickly fled the room, activating her byakugan as she searched the compound for Konoha's best medical kunoichi. Hinata flew through the hallways, locating Sakura, promptly informing her of the situation. Sakura took off like a shot, and she skidded into Sasuke's room to find him hunched over the bed, head clutched in his hands.
"Sasuke?" Sakura asked, stepping forward, careful to keep her movements slow. Sasuke raised his head and turned to look at Sakura, and his eyes were bloodshot and each increasing blink seemed more painful than the last. Panic fell from Sakura then and she simply sighed, pursing her lips. She stepped closer to Sasuke, standing almost between his legs, as to reach his forehead comfortably. "I told you not to use the sharingan," Sakura said curtly, and she reached out to place her hands on either side of Sasuke's head, running healing chakra through her fingertips, soothing Sasuke's inflamed blood vessels. Sasuke said nothing and sat there stiffly, refusing to acknowledge Sakura's reprimand. Sakura was so close to him that she could count his individual eyelashes, and she tried to ignore his strong jawline and the shape of his cheekbones. It was strangely intimate as Sakura quietly healed Sasuke's strained eyes—they were alone in absolute silence, and Sakura was close to Sasuke that she could've kissed him if she wanted to. "You don't have enough chakra to adequately keep your sharingan activated – thus you strain your blood and chakra vessels. I will not alleviate your pain next time," Sakura added, dropping her hands from Sasuke's head as she stepped back, suddenly aware of the fact that he was also shirtless. He glowered at the reminder that his chakra was sealed away. His skin glistened with the faint sheen of sweat, and Sakura knew he'd been exercising, though she'd told him not to. Sakura decided to go, for Tsunade wanted to meet with her, Kakashi, and Naruto, but as she left the room, she turned around to give Sasuke once last word. "Your inability to listen will kill you one day," Sakura said quietly, hoping to drive the point home, but she knew it wouldn't. Sasuke didn't respect her.
"Hn," Sasuke grunted in response, sounding almost amused, and Sakura was surprised he'd actually given sign he'd heard her. Nonetheless, she turned and left the room, closing the door behind her, teleporting to the Hokage tower. She'd arrived first, predictably, with Naruto popping into the room not long after her. Surprisingly, Kakashi was almost on time, only making them wait an extra 10 minutes. Sakura wondered if it was because the Hokage had been increasingly vicious toward Kakashi each time he showed up late.
"I have decided that you will tell Sasuke our intentions toward the council. He deserves hardly anything at all, but everyone deserves the truth," Tsunade said decisively, leaning back in her chair. The wind gusted in through the open window, ruffling all of their hair, and the silence was electrifying. Naruto broke it first, leaning forward excitedly.
"Everything?" Naruto asked, bouncing on his heels, thrilled at the news. He'd been dying to dish the dirty details to Sasuke ever since they'd gotten to Konoha, but had somehow managed to hold his tongue.
"Everything," Tsunade confirmed, her hard look softening at the obvious happiness on Naruto's face. Naruto knew Sasuke had next to nothing to live for, and he hoped that this news would bring the young Uchiha absolution. Sakura and Kakashi glanced at each other, and then Tsunade. "Dismissed," Tsunade waved her hand, and the three teleported back underground once more.
Once the group of three informed the Konoha Eleven of what Tsunade had authorized, the remnants of Team 7 headed down the warded hallway to deliver the news to Sasuke. Naruto didn't bother knocking, like Sakura had, and threw the door open, barging into Sasuke's room like he owned the place. Sasuke's head jerked up, annoyance dancing across his face at the intrusion, and he scowled at the sight.
"We have information for you," Naruto said, and Sasuke just stared at him impassively.
"Our manhunt for you kicked our carefully laid plans into motion," Kakashi offered, and that caught Sasuke's interest, though he tried his hardest not to show it. Sakura caught the glimmer in his eye before it vanished, however, and she knew they'd hooked him. Sakura was surprised when Kakashi and Naruto turned expectantly toward her; she thought Naruto would want the glory. He was certainly dying to tell the story, but it seemed like he expected Sakura to do it instead.
"You know more about this kind of stuff than we do," Naruto offered in explanation, shrugging his orange-jacketed shoulders lightly, and Sakura smiled a little at that. She hopped up onto the bare desk, planting her hands firmly beside her as she found a firm seat on the flat, expensive wood.
"Ever since Root and Danzo were exposed, we've been planning a coup on the Council," Sakura admitted, taking pause to wet her mouth. "The Council is corrupt, as you know, and they want you silenced. They don't want anyone else to know about the Uchiha Massacre." Fury flickered dimly in Sasuke's eyes, glowing like banked fires at the mention of the massacre, but Sakura pressed on through his silence. If he was surprised to find out that Sakura and Kakashi knew the secret behind Itachi's massacre, he didn't show it. "The Council set a bounty on your head originally, but we managed to talk them into withdrawing the warrant for your death, until they gave out a mission to capture an enemy ninja who knew of your whereabouts. They were doing this behind our backs—they wanted to assassinate you so that the world would never know the truth. When we all first found out the truth about the massacre, the Council placed a binding jutsu on us. Naruto, Kakashi, Tsunade and I were the only ones who knew the truth, and we couldn't tell it to anyone else because of the jutsu. However, Tsunade-shishou and I figured out a way to break the jutsu if the Council violated their terms of agreement… it was a forbidden jutsu, declared forbidden by the Council. When the Council tried to capture the enemy ninja for their own by using a grunt, this activated the seal Tsunade-shishou and I placed on the document containing the jutsu placed upon our tongues. Unluckily for the Council, the random grunt that got assigned the retrieval mission for the enemy ninja was me. I took that ninja to Tsunade-shishou instead of the Council, and with the jutsu broken, we were free to tell the rest of Konoha Eleven the truth. Finding you was a race against the Council… and they panicked and set a bounty on your physical head. Every single ninja in every nation on Earth is racing to find you and kill you. We're going to overthrow the Council, Sasuke. That's why only the Konoha Eleven and their teachers are your guard—only Tsuande-shishou's most trusted ninja are here. We don't exactly know who's corrupt and who's not, so we have to be careful. We want to give you a part in this coup, if you'll take it. They've wronged all of us, but they've wronged you the most." Sakura swallowed, almost afraid of Sasuke's reaction. He stared at her, and Sakura saw a million emotions flicker through his eyes as he thought.
"I want their heads," Sasuke finally said, and his voice was glacier cold.
"Only if their trials warrant their deaths," Sakura argued, and although Sasuke's glare was piercing, she didn't back down. "If they are to die, it will be decided by the law." Sakura was unrelenting, and she met Sasuke's hateful sneer evenly. "It's what your brother would have wanted." At that Sakura struck a nerve, and Sasuke's face twisted into something terrible. In a flash, Sakura was slammed against the wall, his grip on her throat bruising, choking, and Sakura gave a strangled cough, involuntarily blinking wetly as tears immediately sprung to her eyes at the impact and loss of oxygen. Sasuke could crush Sakura's windpipe if he wanted to, so Naruto and Kakashi stood frozen, ready to leap forward if Sasuke should falter at any second. Sakura struggled to breathe, and she gasped for air.
"Don't you ever talk about my brother," Sasuke growled, his sharingan spinning red, scarlet irises bleeding black and red as he struggled to keep the chakra flow going. Sakura did not falter, and she managed to speak.
"Think about it," Sakura coughed out, her face draining of color, wheezing in what little air she could. "Itachi didn't want more corruption," Sakura forced out, and at that, Sasuke dropped her, a hand-shaped bruise forming on Sakura's pale throat. She collapsed to her knees from the lack of oxygen, gasping, struggling to regain her breath. Sasuke stared at his hand, though he showed no remorse. "If you kill them without a trial, it will be lawless. Your brother wouldn't've wanted this," Sakura said as she rose unsteadily to her feet, holding onto the wall for support, trying to ignore the excruciating pain from her neck, her voice rasping. She pressed a small hand to her throat, healing, and the blooming bruise faded as she did so, massaging her neck tenderly, standing firmly on the ground, no longer relying on the wall to hold her up. "I only want to honor your brother, just like you do, remember that," Sakura murmured, and she left the room in sweeping strides, turning her back on Sasuke for the umpteenth time. Naruto looked torn between going after Sasuke himself and running after Sakura, but he remembered Sakura's words from the last time he and Sasuke had fought, and he left, too. Only Kakashi remained, and he fixed Sasuke with a deadly, quiet stare.
"If you lay your hands on Sakura again, I will cut them off. She can reattach them if she needs to." And with that, Kakashi slipped out of the room, leaving Sasuke to think about what the three of them had just revealed to him. He reclined against the pillows, thinking of his brother's last smile, and the relief in his eyes as he died. Sasuke grit his teeth and stared darkly at the ceiling, letting out a shaky breath.
Sakura jolted awake from her bed the same time Naruto did, and they moved in tandem all the way across the compound, rising from their respective beds simultaneously, jumping to their feet with a start. The minute their feet touched the floor, moving as one, a deafening explosion rocked the compound. The kyuubi had roused them both from their slumber, connecting them together, and across the blood bond they called each other's name. Sakura snatched her weapons pouch off the Spartan bedside table and zipped down the hallway, sliding a kunai out of her pouch and taking it between her teeth as she strapped the holster to her thigh. She shook the hair out of her eyes, slipping her gloves on as the ceiling caved in somewhere. Sakura desperately hoped nobody was buried in the rubble, and she swung for Sasuke's room, telling Naruto to round everyone else up.
Sakura hurriedly stripped the seals on Sasuke's door, barging in, finding him standing nonchalantly in the middle of the room, though his muscles were coiled and ready to strike.
"Let's go," she snapped, and Sasuke blinked at her mulishly. Sakura ignored him, trying to run evenly as what Naruto was seeing flashed into her vision simultaneously so she could see what was going on. At one point Naruto's vision slid completely over hers, and Sakura stumbled, earning herself a disgusted scoff from the boy behind her, but she ignored it. Naruto apologized through the link and Sakura kept moving, and stumbled upon a scene of absolute destruction in what used to be the living room. Somehow, the Council's assassins had found them. Naruto arrived on the scene with the rest of the Konoha Eleven in tow, having followed Sakura's route through their link. Enemy ninja descended upon the compound, and a deadly rain of senbon preceded them. Sakura jerked backward, instinctively reaching for Sasuke to pull back with her, and Naruto jumped back the same time she did. Sasuke had already moved, however, and Sakura grasped at empty air. The enemy fell through the earth, and Naruto and Sakura took off together in a deadly spiral, rocketing upwards, slashing and fighting, using the felled ninja plummeting to the rubble below them to aid their ascension, using their falling bodies as momentum.
Sasuke watched them, eyes narrowed, deducing that that kind of connection simply didn't come from prolonged and extensive teamwork—this was on another level. Neji followed shrewdly as well, even as he engaged in the fight, he and Tenten close on Naruto and Sakura's heels. Naruto and Sakura fought in absolute tandem, reacting like a well-oiled machine, slashing left and right, circling each other in a sphere of destruction. And then they split at the same time, just as Sasuke summoned the shreds of chakra filtering sluggishly through his system. Naruto shot up and Sakura plummeted down, and as Sasuke tensed his legs to join the fight, Sakura barreled into him, sending him flying backward. He quickly righted himself, his mouth open in a soundless snarl, but Sakura only shrugged unapologetically at him.
"Sorry," Sakura said, just before she reached out and turned Sasuke's lights out, but she didn't even sound close to being apologetic at all. Sakura swung Sasuke's now limp body over her shoulder, moving, teleporting out of the compound to the Hokage tower. The effort took a considerable toll on her—teleporting two people safely was a lot harder than one, especially since Sasuke couldn't provide any chakra. She couldn't afford to let him join the fight. Knocking him out had been easy. Sasuke had no chakra, and though his eyes were sharp, he couldn't discern the genjutsu she'd passed over her left hand. A senbon tipped in tranquilizer had hid in her left hand as she'd soared toward him with an equally tipped kunai, and while Sasuke easily dodged that, the illusion over Sakura's left hand had hid her throw of the senbon. Without the sharingan, Sasuke was helpless to genjutsu. Sakura almost laughed at the irony of it before throwing herself back into the fray, teleporting back to the compound, ignoring Shizune's protest that her chakra was now too low to fully return to a lengthy battle. How did they find them? Only Konoha's most trusted ninja knew of their location deep in Nara clan land… someone had to be a traitor, but who?