Preparations

Sakura could feel her breath hitch as she wriggled her hands free and watched as they moved; her breathing sped up as she glanced up at Sasuke to find him still sleeping soundly. At this point, she was unable to contain her excitement and couldn't help but wake him.

"Sasuke" she whispered.

"Sasuke" she tried again with a nudge to his chest this time. Sasuke stirred and his eyes opened before he groggily tried to blink away his sleepiness. "What is it, Sakura?" he answered with his last blink as he looked down into the girl in his arms to find her staring up at him with her bright green eyes- he raised a brow at her when she did nothing more than that.

A large grin broke out on her face before she snaked her arms around his torso and buried her face into his chest. "It's so good to see you again" she said. Her words didn't seem to make sense to his half-conscious mind but when it did, it felt like he'd been smash over the head with a brick.

"Y-You what...?" he whispered with urgency before he attempted to wriggle himself out of her grip only to realize that he was falling off the edge of the bed.

Sakura squeaked as she fell along with him, they both groaned in soreness as they tried to untangle themselves from the quilt. "No wait, let me" Sakura said as she rolled over Sasuke and sat up to disentangle them altogether. Sasuke watched with mild amazement as her eyes sparkled with the life he had so missed.

She was back.

He found himself engulfing the little pinkette in his embrace. A light hearted laugh escaped her lips as she leaned into her lover's embrace. "I have to go and tell Tsunade-sama the great news" however she realized that her body was still restricted by the hold Sasuke has on her.

"No, stay" he protested softly, burying his face in her scented hair and mumbling into her shoulder as he breathed in her scent.

Sakura could feel the weight of his worries when he uttered the two words. She held him softly and remained in that position until a sudden thought ease itself into Sakura's mind. The kunoichi wriggled against his hold "Sasuke" she said with a serious tone and his hold on her loosened immediately.

They pulled away and Sakura placed her hands on his shoulders. "You have to leave the village with Itachi" she said with a sense of urgency in her voice. Sasuke's brows furrowed, somewhat hurt that Sakura was immediately trying to push him away after she had just regained her sight.

"I was promised one week" Sasuke said, raising an eyebrow. Sakura looked down. She was trying to avoid his gaze, there was something she just wasn't telling. Sasuke took her by the chin and tilted her head up so that their eyes met.

"You just got better and now you're pushing me away?" Sasuke said, the hurt in his tone was painfully evident to Sakura.

"No!" Sakura protested immediately. "That's not it at all!" she said, sounding quite helpless. Sasuke could see how her brows furrowed at him and how that made her eyes narrow just a little, she was cross at him.

"I don't want you to leave. I'm not ready to go without you and I want you to stay. I really do…" her voice was ended in a whisper. She leaned her forehead onto Sasuke's chest and breathed out. "I... I love you, Sasuke" her voice was nothing but a hoarse whisper.

Sasuke inhaled sharply at her words as if it hit him physically his arms twitched as he moved them slowly, lingering around her hunched figure as if trying to decide whether to hold her or not.

But before he could close them around her, she placed both hands on her chest and separated herself from him. "But you have to go" she looked up and met his eyes with fierce determination. Sasuke couldn't help but feel rejected at her statement but his eyes narrowed in on something else that's shown in her eyes. She was afraid.

"What's going on?" he asked her, without masking his concern.

"Pein is almost ready and I think we have less than a month to meet his attack" Sakura said, her voice was firm and her eyes never strayed from his. She was serious.

Itachi mentioned that his training would take about a month or maybe more so if he was going to make it back for the invasion then he would have to start as soon as possible.

"We don't know what Pein is capable of so all we can do is reinforce ourselves and hope for the best" Sakura said, shuffled away from him and stood up. She fixed her hospital robe before smiling at him "I'll be okay, Sasuke" she said.

She suddenly found herself wrapped in Sasuke's body that still radiated the comforting warmth of sleep. "I'll hurry back" he mumbled into her shoulder. Sakura blinked twice, her chin held on his shoulder. The initial shocked expression softened as she smiled and hugged him back.

"Have a safe trip" she replied softly.

Sasuke pulled away first to plant a kiss on her lips, Sakura inhaled dreamily against the kiss and she leaned her forehead against his. The broke apart with a sigh and Sasuke nipped her bottom lip before smirking "I'll see you soon"

Sakura smiled and nodded.

She watched as he dressed in swift fluid motions and then he was gone. She was left alone with an open window. Sakura took a deep breath and nodded to herself as if trying to reinforce her determination, she padded over to the window softly and closed it. Naruto and Sasuke weren't the only ones with work to do.

...

News got out that Sakura's sight had returned and that she had been released from the hospital, she received many visits from many of her friends while she was working her shifts in the hospital with a specially high number of visits from Lee, who brought flowers as well as his overwhelming aura of youth to her every time he visited.

To a certain extent, she was happy that he was trying so hard to encourage her after her release but it was starting to look a little excessive and she often thought about what Sasuke's doing. Was he injured? I hope Itachi isn't too hard on him.

...

In fact, right then Sasuke had just been pulled into another Tsukiyomi, courtesy of Itachi.

He stood in the middle of a field of red flowers with black stems, the sky was red and the moon was large right in the middle of the red sea. He cursed and shut his eyes but, every time he did, he ended up in the same scene. A figure appeared in front of him, a figure that looked all too familiar to him.

Her dress was long and white and her pink hair flowed in the wind as she stood with her back facing him. Sakura.

At first her was overjoyed at finally being able to see her, all thoughts about him being trapped in a genjutsu was left forgotten in the back of his mind. He approached her and called out her name.

She turned around, her eyes squinted slightly as she smiled at him.

"Saku-"

A sickening crunching sound resonated in his ears. He stood, rooted to the ground and stared in horror as Sakura had a blade sticking out of her chest. Her eyes became dull and lifeless as her body limped against the sword. Her white dress had been stained red. Sasuke's body began to tremble uncontrollably with both fury and fear. He screamed.

...

Naruto was feeling awfully sore, he had been the summon realm for about a month now and he was starting to wonder if he should really be in here too long, what if the village was under attack? He needed to wrap up his training if he were to return in time to face the Akatsuki.

Then he vaguely remembers the old toad telling him that a week's time in the real world is equivalent to a month's time in Mount Myoboku. Having remembered that, Naruto suddenly felt energetic again. "Jii-chan! Let's continue!" he suddenly shouted to the elderly toad who was busy munching away on his ball of insects, apparently his favorite lunch made by Shima.

"Patience, Naruto. No use wearing yourself out before you can learn anything" the old toad reprimanded wisely. Naruto snorted before muttering something along the lines of 'You just want to eat your gross insect ball' and earned himself a smack on his head by Fukasaku's staff.

"OW!"

…

After killing dozens of poor fishes, Sakura had finally grasped a deeper understanding on her Pure Resurrection Technique. She learned that, normal healing techniques are done by reaching into the patient's body with the healer's chakra and mending the organs by helping the tissues, sort of like a reverse catalyst. To channel such fine chakra in between the tissues would require immense control, therefore perfect chakra control is needed to become a medic. However, her Pure Resurrection Technique puts that into a whole new level, instead of going in between tissue to boost its regeneration rate, Sakura is actually working in the cells.

One by one, she brings back every dead cell in the body to life. Basically she doing the living for the patient until their body has been fully restored and they can function on their own again. However that also means that she cannot perform the technique on a person whose body had already started to decompose.

The chakra needed to revive every cell in the body and push them into functioning is vastly huge and she just didn't possess the capacity of chakra to use the technique more than once a day without suffering from chakra depletion. She then made up her mind that the technique shall only be used as the final resort. However, if she could somehow receive chakra from an external source, mass channeling her technique could become possible. But where is she going to get an external supply of chakra that is compatible to her circulation.

Sakura sighed and wiped her brow before stepping back away from the fish and allowing it to squirm from the table and back into the pool. This will have to do for now, time was running short and she needed to train on her other skills as well. Running her hand through her forehead, she wiped the sweat off her brow in one tired drag.

A sudden threatening sensation pulsed through her and she shivered. She glanced out the window and to the peaceful sight of the village and wondered how long it would last.

Day by day she could feel Pein's chakra growing stronger and every day she woke abruptly, hoping that the village was still here.

She hadn't consulted anyone about her ever growing fear of Pein's arrival and she prompted herself to be optimistic, often mentally berating herself when she caught herself falling prey to depression.

She sighed and looked down at her cup of tea and her lunch. How she wished Sasuke was here. He always knew what to do when she didn't.

It had already been two weeks since her teammate's departure and she was beginning to feel the really awful side of loneliness. As she walked back to the Uchiha manor, her footsteps slowed as she walked through the lively streets of the village in attempts to relish in the feeling of the presence of people.

As she stepped into the manor, she is greeted by the resonating echoes of her footsteps, reminding her that the house is empty. She edged the door of her room to open then stared at her empty queen sized bed in the middle of the room.

She had arranged her books out of insomnia the other day and her test tubes had all been polished and sorted by size, she was now left with a depressingly bare room. Her shoulders slumped slightly as she moved to change out of her work clothes but as she was stripping herself of her clothes, she was suddenly hit with an idea.

Instead of dressing in her own sleep wear, she walked towards Sasuke's room and pushed it open meekly as if there was someone in the room. She was hit with the overwhelming scent of Sasuke, she could feel her cheeks coloring as she tried to remember the feeling of his arms wrapping around her.

She moved slowly towards Sasuke's wardrobe before dressing herself in one of his long sleeved shirts. The sleeves flopped over his hands and she flapped them around as she giggled, she glanced at Sasuke's single bed then her lips broke out in a mischievous grin.

The pink haired kunoichi dove into his bed and snuggled against his pillow, inhaling his cool scent. Sakura squealed inwardly as she relished the feeling of being completely surrounded by Sasuke's scent. This will have to do...

...

Nothing...

There is nothing left.

Nobody suspected a thing when Pein had attacked, Sakura did. But by the time she had come to realize that the village was in danger, she had already been too late to inform her mentor. In fact, just before Tsunade could do anything with her warning, Pein had initiated the attack on the village.

And he started by completely destroying the front gate of Konoha with a summoned beast the size of a Bijuu.

All ANBUs and Jounin were called out to the front lines as the main offense whereas the Chuunin and Genin were asked to evacuate the villagers to the shelter behind the Hokage mountain. Sakura, however was asked to join the frontlines to provide medical attention to the wounded. Tsunade herself had summoned Katsuyu and used the division of the great slug as her extension for her hands in this battle.

Sakura had hoped her teammates would've returned by the time Pein initiated an attack on the village but the deeper she went into battle, she realized that there was a chance her teammates wouldn't make it back in time for the battle.

Her gloved hands tightened. She needed to have more faith in them. They would make it.

They have to.