do not have the ownerships of naruto or any related material

Phobia

by Riverhaze

Chapter Twelve

Even though she promised she wouldn't, Sakura looked back once she clawed herself out of the river.

The boat they had stolen was barrelling toward the drop off, the bandits on board did not seem to notice or care as they chased after Youko's darting figure. Sakura watched as the blue haired kunoichi jumped on to the mast, lobbing kunai and shuriken seemingly at random.

"Ahahahahaha!" Youko's cackling laughter was the last thing Sakura heard before the boat pitched over the waterfall, echoing all across the valley as if nature itself was laughing along too. Struggling to get to her feet, Sakura threw off the heavy wet cloak and ran toward the cliff's edge. Peering down below the near hundred foot drop, Sakura could see nothing past the mist that crept upwards.

She turned around and walked back towards the Village.

The ward was in chaos. Everywhere you looked there was a medical ninja or doctor running around like a chicken with its head cut off, shouting this and that, none of it made any sense to the Uchiha who sat stoic in the waiting room chair. As usual, he seemed to be unnaturally calm for the situation he was in.

For some reason, this just dug right into Naruto's skin.

"I told you everything I told the Uchiha over there!" Youko wailed to a group of stern looking police in one corner.

"Hey, teme. I just got Tsunade's message." Naruto sighed deep down in his lungs, flopping down in to the chair next to Sasuke. "Hinata wanted to come see cause she is still here but the doctors told her it wouldn't be a good idea. Do you know what's going on?" He asked, wishing there was someone more chatty with information around.

"She collapsed and started convulsing about an hour ago now. That's all I know."

There was a loud bang when Tsunade threw open the door to the operating room, her hair was sticking up on end as if she had been tugging at it relentlessly. Ripping off a plastic face mask and glaring in a way that would freeze lesser men in their tracks, she stomped her way over to Sasuke and Naruto. The room hushed as the former Hokage put her hands on her hips and her façade crumbled. Exhaustion tugged at the bags under her eyes, wrinkles folded were there weren't any before.

"I wish I had good news, but I do not. We stabilized her, but it took a tremendous amount of chakra. And we aren't even sure if she is cured."

"Cured? What are you talking about?" Naruto got to his feet, but he already knew. The whole room knew.

"The disease. She contracted it somehow, some way, and it mutated within her. None of our vaccines will work." Naruto took several steps back, like someone had just pushed him. There was even a brief flicker of emotion across Sasuke's face that was quickly restrained.

"You-you're going to save her though, right?" The Hokage asked in a small voice. All the power in the world, the prestige and honor, would not come in handy now. One of his friends, a beloved comrade, was dying in the next room and there was nothing he or anyone could do about it. A thought flickered through his head, a seed for a malicious plant, that it was his fault-

"We are going to try out damnedest, Naruto. Ino and several other medics are already plucking away at Sakura's notes, what we need will be there."

"Lady Tsunade, come quickly!" One of the nurses fell out of the operating room, yelling in a panic.

"I've got to go." Tsunade quickly dismissed herself and ran back into the room, the door swinging shut behind her. You could just glimpse Sakura's tiny frame laid out on the bed, shaking violently as a team of medics struggled to restrain her. There wasn't a sound as Sasuke got to his feet, in fact, Naruto did not even notice his absence until he was halfway to the door.

"Were are you going, teme?" Naruto called after him, rushing to keep up. He couldn't be left alone in there for everyone to stare at him like Sakura was already dead.

"I'm going to go talk to Ryou."

"The painter?" He quickened his pace, deciding he had allot of questions to ask Sasuke. But one question lingered on everyone's mind, one that could not be answered. Sakura had saved all of their lives when she discovered the cure, but who would be there to save her's?

It started with a knock at her door.

Sakura made her way to the front, wondering who was there to visit at such a late hour. Maybe it was Ino fresh from a night shift at the hospital, or Naruto looking for company from night terrors that plagued his dreams. It had not been easy since the War ended, their problems did not just go 'poof' over night. Instead they had been replaces with psychological scars that would take decades to heal.

Tap, tap, tap.

Whoever it was, was now banging impatiently at her door. Keeping a kunai ready, Sakura slowly eased up to the door and with the tips of her fingers, pushed it open.

"Finally! I was starting to think you fell asleep on me!" Ino barged right in, dressed like she about to hit up the dance clubs down town. Shikamaru came slouching his way inside followed by Choji carrying a bright yellow cake that was surprisingly in tact. It looked like Choji was using all of his will power not to take a bite out of it.

"Uhh, what?" Sakura scratched the back of her head. Ino let out a shriek at the sight of Sakura's appearance, days old pyjama's and a messy bun. A few minutes later, Sakura found herself in her room with Ino ass deep in her closet, still wondering what was going on.

"Here, put this on, it will have to do. Do something with your hair and face too, everyone is going to be here soon." Ino threw a micro sized black dress at Sakura that she had worn once as a child when it went down past her knees.

"What do you mean everyone? Ino, what's going on?" Sakura snapped, tossing the article of clothing on her bed.

"Your birthday party slash end of the war slash Tsunade's retirement party? I can't believe you forgot! I told you about this weeks ago." Ino huffed and rolled her eyes too, she gave Sakura a look like she was on the verge of a serious hissy fit.

"Oh, shit. I did. We've been so busy at the hospital and with reconstruction I just completely forgot. Sorry, I'll be down in a bit." Sakura responded quickly, defusing the atom bomb that was about to go off. Ino literally bounced away, her heels clicking on the floor after her.

Sakura squeezed into the dress, jumping and rolling all over the place to get it to fit right. With her ribs a little crushed and chest shoved up and out, Sakura decided she preferred the comfort of her t-shirt. She left her hair to fall straight down her back and put on a little eye liner, she already felt scandalized as it was in the 'dress'. Pausing to frown at herself in the mirror for a few minutes, Sakura carefully eased out of her room.

She could hear the commotion from the party upstairs, evidently she had taken longer than she thought to get ready. It sounded like more than half of the shinobi in Konoha were in her house, which was probably the case knowing Ino. Sakura paused at the top of the steps, she could still run back to her room and hide for the night. Better yet, she could pull an Uchiha and disappear through the window, catch a late night show at the movies, take a little night time stroll through the park.

Turning around to do just that, a loud and familiar voice caught her from the bottom of the stairs.

"Sakura-chan! Where do you think you're going all by yourself looking so pretty!?" Naruto blared at the top of his lungs. Immediately a crowd of guests assembled next to him, shouting a mix of catcalls and babyish 'awws' at Sakura as Naruto took the stairs one at a time towards her.

"No, no, c'mon Naruto-!" Sakura took a few steps back but the grin on Naruto's face told her she wasn't escaping that easy. He grabbed her by the waist and carried her downstairs as the crowd erupted into drunken cheers.

Ino was about to shove her head through the wall. She had been skimming through Sakura's notes for hours and could find nothing substantial, nothing Ino already did not know thanks to sitting in on her lectures for months.

So she decided to go hunting through Taro's notes, but of course, Sakura had locked them away and no one knew were. Ino was currently standing in Sakura's apartment, which took up two stories so obviously she was getting paid well meanwhile she was getting barely enough to-

'Wait, stop it you're here for a reason!' Ino scolded herself as she looked around, trying to decide were Sakura would hide something. She tore through her apartment, room by room and checking for any chakra tags or hidden cupboards. She found a few random things, like a guard uniform from the land of Earth and a bag of candy that expired two years ago.

Frustrated, Ino went to the fridge and decided she would have a snack break. Now she was mildly concerned, Sakura's fridge was empty except for a half empty jug of orange juice and some grapes. Sighing, she yanked the freezer open roughly and a chunky black folder wrapped in several layers of plastic fell down from the empty ice box.

Ino picked it up and read the name stencilled in faded yellow ink.

Taro.

Kakashi-sensei looked weird in the full Hokage getup. Even he looked uncomfortable in them, as if he knew how ridiculous he looked. Tsunade had darted right toward the mini-bar and ordered what looked like three of every bottle. She had practically shoved several shots down Sakura's throat in her celebratory fever, cheering about 'no more paperwork'.

Sakura remained on the fringes of the celebration, observing for once as Naruto made a loud mouthed fool of himself. It felt nice to be the one staring instead of getting stared at for a change. Ino clunked her way over in her sky high heels, Sakura noticed how Ino had taken to dressing up ever since the War ended only months ago. Now she had the time, an excuse, so she was going all out.

"Have you seen Sai anywhere?" She asked, whipping her ponytail around with the turn of her head.

"No, I think I saw him next to Kakashi-sensei at the start."

"That was Sasuke genius. I'm going to go look for him again in the bathroom, I bet he is sketching the stall or something." Ino huffed as she walked away. Sakura glanced around the room and spotted said Uchiha. He was sitting on the window sill, staring outside at seemingly nothing.

Slowly, as if sensing her gaze, he turned his head. Through the crowd they made eye contact, then the strangest thing happened. He was a child again, twelve years old and crumpled on the floor as the cursed mark's unholy power surged through his body. And there she was, a weak little genin who could barely harm a fly and practically dissolving into tears over the situation.

What, what on earth was going on-?

The world around her shifted, melted away in blocks of color and sounds as reality seemed to loose meaning.

She was trapped in a genjutsu, a powerful one at that. It had been making her relive random moments of her life, for how long she could not say. Sakura motioned through the hand signs, putting all of her energy into breaking this illusion. The vision of the two genin in front of her slowly faded away, the darkness that ebbed her vision started to break away too, as if some one was shining a flash light at the end of a very long tunnel.

Suddenly, her arms and legs went limp and fell to the ground like stone. She couldn't move or hardly breath, as if a weight was crushing down on her from all directions. She could still see but it was as if some one had placed several layers of film across her eyes, everything came back scattered and distorted, blurry beyond comprehension.

"Her hear rate is going up! Why is her heart rate going up?" A panic stricken nurse gawked at the monitor attached to Sakura.

"Hold on, I'm attempting to stabilize her now." Tsunade held her palms firmly over the pinkette's chest as she administered large doses of healing chakra.

"Lady Tsunade, I-I think she is gaining conciousness." The attendant gasped, practically falling out of their seat as the tension rose in the air.

"Just a little bit more...the virus keeps evading me, its like its hiding inside her body." Tsunade gasped as her chakra began to flicker out of her control. Her hands fell to her side as her eyes rolled to the back of her head, fainting right on top of Sakura's body as the door opened and in walked Ino.

It took Sakura less than thirty minutes to run back to the Village. More like a fisherman's watering hole, and now that all of the residents had been slaughtered or disappeared into the swamp for safety, its emptiness now seemed excruciating.

Most of the buildings were still smoking but the rain had put out the blaze. Sakura made a beeline for the former lodge, its mostly metal exterior had held together pretty well. The bandits had been in such a frenzy to catch them that they hadn't even bothered with a proper raid. She snatched up the money she could find and dry loose fitting close.

Still panting with the wet hot bog air in her lungs, Sakura decided if any thing was to be learned from this fiasco, it is to never trust random strangers on the road with a sob story. Especially if they were young and innocent looking with blue hair, she added vehemently.

She found a horse wandering the side of the road a few miles south, the body of the rider a little ways away face down in the mud. Sakura mounted the beast after feeding it an apple and rode as fast as she could away from that wretched place and towards the Fire Country.

edit 8/10/15

sorry for the late update, i got super picky because i did not want naruto in the opening scene but decided i liked the idea of naruto sasuke buddy cop time too much