Chapter TWELVE

The fake identity of the Kazekage had been revealed. Tsunade herself was the one who had looked at Sakura when she had been brought to the hospital by a close to hysterical Gaara, his worried looking siblings, and a shocked Sasuke and Naruto.

She had been carried away, but Gaara refused to leave her. After a while of threats and glares, he was allowed to stay. His siblings refused to leave him and Sasuke, Naruto and a recently returned Ami decided to stay as well.

Tsunade inspected the wound, hands glowing green. "What...her bone structure..."

"That's Sakura's specialty." Temari supplied. "She can harden her bones at will."

Tsunade nodded, adapting professionally to the situation. "What happened?"

Sasuke told her of how his Chidori had pierced through the girl. Tsunade nodded again, then frowned. "The broken shards of the bones need to be taken out." She said. "Now, if you want to stay here, you have to quiet. If not, I'll kick you guys out, Hokage's son or not." She then glanced at the Suna siblings. "Or the Kazekage's children."

The emergency treatment had been completed. Gaara refused to leave for Suna without Sakura, and with Sasori's supportive glare backing him up, no one dared to disagree. It helped that Uchiha Itachi and Sasori had been all buddy buddy since the invasion. Apparently, they had fought each other and had come to a wordless understanding. Minato had agreed to house the Suna siblings along with Sasori.

Gaara had been staying in Sakura's hospital room ever since her emergency treatment. Sleep wasn't a necessity for him, but his siblings, Sasori and sometimes Naruto and Sasuke had to bring him food because he refused to leave.

Ami had been clinging around him ever since she had found out of his position as the Kazekage's son. Naruto had told the Suna shinobi about how Ami was like that with everyone, including Sasuke and his position as the Uchiha heir, then Naruto with his Hokage father.

Gaara simply shook her off in annoyance.

A week after the invasion, Sakura finally opened her eyes.

Gaara, who had been staring blankly out the window, was alerted to her awakening by the shuffle of the blankets. He quickly sat up and pushed her back onto the bed.

Sakura stared up at him. "Gaara-sama?"

"Rest...you need to rest." Gaara murmured. "Just...rest."

And he vanished in a whirl of sand.

Sasuke and Naruto made their way through the corridor, arguing about whether or not ramen was healthy. The opened the door to find Sakura sitting up, looking blankly at the opposite wall.

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto exclaimed. "You're awake!"

"Where's Gaara?" Sasuke asked, glancing around.

Sakura glanced down at her hands. "I'm sorry, but I do not know. Gaara-sama teleported away moments after I woke up." She glances up. "Am I still in Konoha?" She asked. "What happened to the..."

"You collapsed after the fight. Tsunade-sama looked after you. The Kazekage was revealed to be an impostor. Orochimaru killed the Kazekage and took his place in an attempt to kill the Hokage." Sasuke said.

"What will happen to the shinobi of Suna?"

"Most of them already returned to Suna. The only ones still in Konoha are you, Gaara, Temari, Kankuro, Sasori, and a few Jounin." Naruto answered.

Sakura nodded.

"You should rest." Naruto said.

Sakura nodded, and seemed to hesitate before opening her mouth. "Have I done something to upset Gaara-sama?"

Naruto grinned, but shook his head. "A lot of things changed for him. He just needs some time to adjust." He paused. "He was really worried about you."

The two left soon after, but the warm feeling within Sakura's chest lingered there for a long time.

"Sakura?"

Sakura looked up at her name and saw Temari tiptoe into her room, smiling gently.

Sakura dipped her head. "Temari-sama."

"How are you feeling?"

Sakura blinked. "I'm fine, thank you."

There was a sound at the window, and both girls looked up. Sand slipped in through the gaps and unlocked the window. Gaara floated in, arms crossed, face blank. "Temari."

Said girl nodded. "Hey, Gaara."

"I would like to speak to Sakura. Would you..."

Temari's smile brightened. "Yeah, sure. Of course. Bye Sakura!"

She turned and left, leaving the two of them alone.

Sakura sat there, watching the emotions swim over Gaara's face.

"How...are you?"

Sakura dipped her head. "I'm almost completely healed." She murmured. "Thank you for your concern."

Gaara nodded. "When are you..."

"The nurse told me that I am allowed to leave after my check up at noon." Gaara glanced at the clock, noting that is was eleven thirty. He nodded. "Then we're leaving tomorrow."

Sakura dipped her head again and Gaara was about to head out again when he remembered something. He steeled himself and turned around. "I...I'll come back for you once your check up is done." He said. "We're going to go eat something." He left quickly using his sand.

Gaara teleported back into the room the moment he was sure the nurse was gone. Sakura nodded at him like she had known he was there. She probably did.

"Can you go now?"

Sakura nodded. She slipped out of her bed, and had Gaara not been watching her so intensely, he wouldn't have noticed the faintest of the winces. Nothing showed on her face, though, and Gaara made a note to himself to watch out for that. "Come on."

He teleported the two of them onto the roof of one of the buildings by the main street. "What do you want to have?"

Sakura blinked a few times. "Whatever you want to eat, Gaara-sama."

Gaara frowned. "No. What do you want to eat?"

Sakura quickly averted her gaze. "I..."

"How about we walk around?" Gaara glanced around the streets below.

So...just closing up bits and pieces...

Nearly over...

Darque: So, a few days ago, there was this heavy rain in the place we live in. The river overflowed and flooded all the gardens and stuff. Raven and I were at the shopping mall, when there was a black out due to the rain. The automatic doors wouldn't open due to no electricity.

Raven: When it was like 8 pm and it was apparent that the rain wasn't going to stop anytime soon, the shopping mall people let us out and we all had to run home. Darque stopped over at my house cause it was closer. We had no WiFi for a few days apart from my emergency supply of pocket WiFi, which we had to use carefully in case we ran out before the light came back.

Darque: One of our friends had an outside pond with fishes and stuff and it overflowed. When the rain stopped, he found out that all the fishes had escaped. :D Luckily, neither of our houses flooded...It was an interesting experience.

Raven: Yeah...Interesting...

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