naruto does not belong to riverhaze
Phobia
by Riverhaze
Chapter Ten
"So, this is where the great Sakura Haruno is from. Hm." Youko squinted around the balcony, as if something extraordinary was going to appear. Sakura was watching as Ino went to town on her salad, shredding it practically to dust with her knife. Sasuke had strangely ordered an entire plate of fried tomatoes and was dipping them in mayo, so she couldn't really watch him without wanting to wretch. "I think I understand why you left." Youko added with a snarky laugh and plopped down in her seat.
"You still haven't informed me as to why you decided to visit. Last I saw, you were going over the edge of a waterfall fighting off those bandits." Sakura said as she took a bite of her food.
"Ha! You know I can't be killed, Haruno! Never thought you'd settle down again, when I heard a Sakura Haruno was the head of Konoha's hospital I had to come see for myself." Youko chuckled as she took a sip of water, brushed her feathery bangs out of her eyes.
"Yeah, yeah. We all have to make a living somehow. I do not believe for one second that Youko Yamauchi, Master of Lightning on the Mountain, would come to respected civilization just to visit me. What is it? Got a bounty on your head? Accidentally kill someone important?" Sakura teased from her seat, unaware that by now both Ino and Sasuke were listening closely. Ino looked scandalized, Sasuke a little unphased.
"Nah, nah, nothing like that. I just love the Fire Country in Springtime is all." Youko smiled, showing her razor sharp teeth. Sakura couldn't help but feeling a bit unsettled.
Hinata Hyuuga sat eagerly in her seat. Her pearl eyes tuned to a young hyperactive blond. Said person, Naruto Uzumaki, was nearly falling out of his seat.
"I hope Sakura-chan is on my team!" He declared. The young ninja's in training were finally graduating. The pink haired girl snorted.
"I hope not. You're repulsive!" She said and Naruto only winced. Hinata was envious of the girl. She had the attention of Naruto-kun, something Hinata never could capture.
"Team Seven, Sakura Haruno, Naruto Uzumaki-"
"WHAT!?" Sakura groaned while Naruto cheered.
"And Sasuke Uchiha." Iruka finished, narrowing his eyes at the interruption.
"Yay!" Sakura cheered and the Uchiha was as impassive as ever.
"WHAT!?" It was Ino's turn to shout behind the pinkette, along with Naruto and the two turned to stare at one another. Sakura turned around and stuck her tongue out at Ino in victory. Things clicked into place for Hinata then, Sakura only wanted Sasuke to beat her rival Ino.
But it was alright, because Hinata knew then that one day Naruto would love her.
Hinata Hyuuga-Uzumaki was in her garden when something strange happened. She was on her knees, tending to the azalea bushes with a glass of lemonade near by. One of her midwives was outside, helping hang out their laundry and singing old Hyuuga folk songs. It was almost picturesque, so in this picture perfect atmosphere, Hinata did not expect to feel blood run down her legs.
She let out a gasp like someone had punched her in the gut, her midwife came running over, and practically screamed at the bright red plasma on Hinata's hand.
A cloud as black as night covered the sun then and let out a deep rumble.
"What do ya mean she left? Where'd she go!?" Naruto was pacing around the Hokage's office. Tsunade sighed heavily, but for once she did not have a bottle or a glass in front of her.
"She resigned, renounced her duties as a shinobi of Konoha. I do not know where she went, but she did sign in writing that she would not use her abilities or knowledge against the village." She explained. In other words, Sakura had not gone rogue. They could not go after her, there was no retrieval mission.
"You just let her!?" Naruto slammed his fists on the counter, barred his teeth at Tsunade. She got to her feet so quickly she knocked over her chair, and seized Naruto by the throat.
"You think I'm all jazzed up about this, brat? I just lost my best medic and beloved apprentice, no thanks to you!" The Hokage growled, tossing him across the room like a feather.
For almost ten minutes after, Naruto ranted and raved angrily about Tsunade and Sakura. Hinata sat there and patiently listened, but she could understand Sakura's decision. She actually envied her a little, because who doesn't wish they could just leave everything they had ever known for the unknown?
First off, Sakura hadn't gotten any sleep for a few days. She had been given lecture after lecture on Taro's disease, as well as sat through numerous board meetings and appointments. Not to mention she was consistently dogged by Youko, her old travelling companion. You'd understand why she gave the head of accounting a roundhouse kick to the face when he insisted they take the last afflicted patients off life support because they were draining their resources.
Said accountant was lodged into the roof, his legs flailing around wildly.
"SAKURA! YOU CANNOT ROUNDHOUSE KICK YOUR EMPLOYEE'S IN THE FACE!" Tsunade roared. Oh yeah, Tsunade had come out of wherever she had been hiding to bug the hell out of Sakura.
"Well, accountant, what did you learn?" Sakura threw back at him. He mumbled something unintelligible as a few medics started to tug at his legs. Hopefully this act would earn Sakura some respect since most of the doctors where older than her and treated her like a child.
"Sakura! Sakura!" Ino flew by the door, skidded to a stop against the frame and caught her breath. "Come quickly, it's Hinata. She's in labor, but something has gone wrong. She's bleeding."
"Great, just great! Exactly what I need today." Sakura threw her hands up and huffed her way to the maternity ward. Tsunade followed, and the three best medic nin arguably on the entire continent walked into the same room.
Hinata was already under, laying still on the bed with her legs already strapped into the spurs. Nurses were flying around the room already crowded with Hyuuga nin and midwives.
"Alright, if you aren't an employee of this hospital, get the hell out of my operating room!" Sakura stood on top of a stool and bellowed at the top of her lungs. The room went still at once, a few of the pretentious Hyuuga tried to argue with her, so she had to resort to muscling them out her self. Everyone threw on their scrubs and rolled up their sleeves, Sakura's stomach did a little flip when she saw the amount of blood pooling between Hinata's legs.
"So, what's the issue?" Sakura clapped her hands together as she took her seat staring directly into the Hyuuga heiress who-ha, surprised at her strange mood.
"The umbilical cord is slipping through before the baby, which means the fetus has probably breeched too early. Oxygen levels are dropping fast, there is a strong possibility the fetus is already dead. The mother is loosing way to much blood, if we don't act fast, we will loose both of them." Ino explained, checking on Hinata's vitals. Sakura tried to remember the last time she helped birth a child in a traditional setting. There had been that one time, in the Earth Country, when those pilgrims stopped by that pub...
"Oh please, you scared me back there Ino. Nurses, prep for a caesarean birth and get us a bottle of whiskey too. And someone get Naruto! We're about to birth us a baby." Sakura clapped her hands together and exchanged a grin with Tsunade while Ino looked at her wits end.
Hinata watched as Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke wiped out the remains of the Akatsuki. She felt her breath stop in her throat and die there, this would truly mark the end of the war.
Two figures that were standing fell to the ground, the Uchiha and the Uzumaki. Hinata ran over to Naruto with her heart crashing in her chest, the most damaged from his fight with Sasuke. She fell to her knees over him, tears rolling down her cheeks. Sakura, practically unscathed, was bent over Sasuke, desperately trying to heal the Uchiha.
Hinata fumbled through the hand signs, but conjured her own ball of healing green chakra.
"Naruto-kun, please wake up!" She pleaded in a whisper. Another set of hands, shaking with nerves, hovered close to her own. Sakura looked as terrified as Hinata, both of them desperately trying to save the one they loved.
Naruto's eyes flickered, he let out a gasp and lurched back to life. His blue eyes slid into focus and stared up at them in bewilderment.
"Sakura-chan...Hinata..." He took another deep breath and sat up. Sasuke was standing over them, his expression unreadable. Hinata felt like an intruder then, on something these three had been praying for for countless sleepless days and restless nights.
Team Seven was whole once more.
So there was quite allot of blood. Sakura ended up covered with it, all the way down the front of her scrubs. She looked more like a mad doctor than anything, so she gave the Hyuuga's quite a fright when she threw open the door to the operating room and came striding out, trailing blood after her.
Naruto was sitting closest to the door, holding some religious trinket in his hands. Sakura wanted to scoff, it wasn't Kami who saved his child, it had been her. Before she could say anything, drifting out of the room behind her came the small tiny cry of a baby.
That's when Naruto fainted.
"How is she? How is Hinata?" Neji was in her face while Sai tried to wake up Naruto with taunts of 'dickless'.
"She's fine, she lost alot of blood but we managed to sow her right back up. She's asleep right now." Sakura explained, feeling like the doctor of Frankenstein in her macabre get up.
"Sow her up?"
"We had to perform an emergency caesarean birth to save the child."
"This one gots the breath of life in 'em! That baby was born as still as a rock, but one breath from Sakura and it came screaming awake!" Tsunade fell out of the room, the stench of the several shots of whiskey they took on her breath.
"Haruno-san, Godaime Hokage, are you drunk?" Hiashi Hyuuga finally decided to speak up, his opalescent eyes narrowing dangerously.
"Let's go wash up and change, shall we?" Sakura completely ignored him and towed Tsunade back inside the room, throwing the door shut with her foot. She changed out of the ruined scrubs, washing her hands once, twice, a third time, and gulping down a large glass of water.
Turning around, she leaned against the sink and watched as Ino and several of the other nurses crowded around the baby's incubator. Since he was premature, he would need to stay in there for several weeks until he was fully developed. His skin had a strange yellow tint to it, so that likely indicated his liver wasn't fully developed either. Still, she couldn't help but smile when the baby raised a fat little fist and wiggled it at them.
edit 7/29/15
ive noticed these chapters are getting shorter, but i write better and update quicker when they are, that just means the story may be stretched out a little from where it used to be, but it will essentially have the same content/message but a different ending and longer side story with youko and sakura's past during her travels