Sakura felt herself pulled into the genjutsu the moment it happened. She assumed that Itachi did this on purpose in an effort to keep her from freaking out. And well, it didn't help that much. Her breath was short and labored and she screwed her eyes shut against the nausea brewing in her stomach. She had given him permission for this, and she knew how annoyed he was that she still feared his Sharingan. So she steeled herself and prepared for whatever he was going to show her.

When she opened her eyes she was not exactly prepared for the sight before her. Though she knew that Itachi would never have showed her anything traumatizing, she had been resolved to see something dark – some piece of his past that would help her to understand him better.

But what she saw instead was Sasuke – merely a toddler now, with an adorable set of cat ears perched on his messy coal hair. He was bouncing up and down excitedly while an equally adorable child Itachi (also sporting cat ears) shushed him.

"Be quiet," little Itachi said. "Or you'll scare him away."

Sakura bit back a squeal of delight.

Itachi put a finger to his lips and pointed to a large feral cat hiding just underneath a massive oak tree. It was nestled in a pile of fallen leaves and snoozing away, oblivious to the two boys sneaking up on it.

Sakura realized that this must have been one of Itachi's memories. They were in the forests outside Konoha, recognizable to Sakura even in the genjutsu. She watched attentively as Itachi pulled a small book out of his pocket and handed it to Sasuke.

"Don't wake him up," he whispered to Sasuke. "Or he'll run away."

Sasuke eagerly took the book from Itachi's grasp and opened it to a blank page. Itachi reached into his pocket again and pulled out a pad of ink, which Sasuke snatched before Itachi handed it over.

With an encouraging smile, Itachi pushed Sasuke forward toward the cat. Sasuke tossed a nervous look back over his shoulder before he toddled closer to the cat as quietly as a child of his age could. Even Sakura held her breath as she watched.

When he was close enough, Sasuke bent down and lifted the cat's front paw delicately and pressed it into the inkpad. He then jerked the cat's leg too roughly toward the blank page, causing the cat to screech and leap away before Sasuke could capture his paw print. Sasuke groaned as he watched the cat scurry up the oak tree and cling to the high branches, horrified.

"You were too rough, Sasuke," Itachi chided, approaching him from behind. "You have to be gentle so you don't scare him."

Sasuke turned to look at his big brother with adorably concerned eyes. "What do we do now?" he asked.

"We have to wait until he falls asleep again."

"But I've seen you get paw prints from cats that are awake," Sasuke argued. "Much bigger cats."

"Yes," Itachi said agreeably. "But this particular cat will have to be asleep. He does not like humans, so we have to sneak up on him."

Sasuke groaned again. Itachi smiled and petted his head affectionately. "It's okay, Sasuke," he said. "You will get him next time."

Sasuke grinned up at his older brother and latched himself to his leg.

And then Sakura felt that pull again, the sucking feeling in her chest that indicated she was being pulled out of the genjutsu. The sun on the Uchiha training grounds hit her again and she squinted until she could adjust. Itachi was beside her, his hands hovering over her, maybe to catch her in case she teetered after the effects of the genjutsu.

But she remained firmly on her feet and turned to give Itachi an idiotic grin.

"You were so cute!" she squealed, unable to contain the sheer delight she felt at having witnessed the precious memory.

Itachi rolled his eyes, but he was grinning and clearly pleased that she had enjoyed herself. "It was a game I made up for Sasuke," he said. "To keep him occupied while I was busy. I gave him a book to collect paw prints in."

She squealed again.

"I just wanted to share one of my more pleasant memories with you," he explained. "You got me thinking the other day when you asked me about when I was the happiest. Sometimes it seems like you think my entire life has been one dark tragedy after the next, but I had lots of happy moments, too."

Sakura's grin disappeared. "I don't think that at all, Itachi," she said. "I don't… I don't pity you, if that's what you think."

He reached up and cupped her cheek in his hand. "I know you don't," he said. "I just wanted to share that with you."

Consoled, but still a little skeptical, Sakura stepped into his embrace, wrapping her arms around his waist. "Thank you," she said. "I guess you win."

"Hmm?"

"The spar," she clarified. "You could have done anything to me in that genjutsu. I shouldn't have let myself get caught in it."

He pulled back away from her to look at her face. "You could have poisoned that senbon and killed me," he argued.

She laughed. Wouldn't that have been something? The mighty Uchiha slain by a mere senbon. "That's not a very fitting way for you to go, Itachi-kun," she said with a giggle.

"Oh?" he asked. "And what would be a fitting way for me to go?"

"Have you thought about letting Sasuke kill you?"

He raised an eyebrow, prompting another burst of giggles from her.

"Hey, do you still have those cat ears?"

Itachi shook his head with exasperation.

.

Sakura didn't realize how much she enjoyed doing absolutely nothing. It was another rare day off and while she might have come up with an excuse to spend it with Itachi, she didn't have to. He was more than willing to do absolutely nothing with her, much to her relief.

They lay sprawled out on Itachi's couch, her head in his lap while he read a book. She absently flicked chakra senbon up into the air, letting them fall back down onto her so she could reabsorb them. It was akin to doing absolutely nothing, which she felt perfectly pleased about. It felt great to be doing nothing but relaxing.

In fact, they had been sitting there for at least an hour already when her stomach grumbled loudly.

"Itachi-kun…"

He shook his head emphatically before she could even ask the question. "No," he said. "You make lunch this time."

Pouting, she rolled over onto her elbows and gave him her best puppy dog eyes.

"That won't work on me."

"Please?" she tried again, this time with a delicate flutter of her lashes.

"Is this what it's going to be like?" he asked, a faint smirk on his lips. "Will I have to cook all your meals and take care of you? Are you going to flutter your lashes to always get your way?"

She pressed a kiss to his forearm where it came close to her face. "You'll just have to learn what has the same effect on me, Itachi-kun," she said. "Then you can have your way sometimes, too."

"I already know what works on you, hime," he said, grasping her upper arm and twisting them so that he hovered on top of her. He trailed his fingertips lightly up the length of her body and let them rest on the side of her neck. He bent down close to her, grazing the tip of his nose against her cheek. "How about you make some lunch for us, hime?" he murmured low in her ear, his breath ghosting over its shell. She shivered automatically and she didn't need to see his face to know that he was delighting in it.

"Hmm," she responded, pushing at his chest gently. "Fine, you win. But we both know your cooking is better, so I hope you're prepared to eat some mediocre food."

She stood brusquely to accommodate his request, knowing well and good that she was going to cook subpar food on purpose. With an amused grin, he yanked her back to the couch, pulling her into his lap.

"I don't know when you got so good at seduction," she said, pressing her face into his neck. "But I'm not complaining."

"This isn't seduction," he answered, his hand molding to the back of her head, holding her in place. "This is manipulation. And I've always been very good at that."

She was about to respond with some witty retort when the front door burst open. Both Sasuke and Naruto shuffled inside, each carrying a pack on his back, Naruto holding another in his hand.

"Eww, gross," Sasuke said when he caught sight of Itachi and Sakura on the couch.

"Sakura, we've got to go," Naruto said, ignoring Sasuke. "Team 8 called for backup. They found Kabuto."

Sakura immediately rushed to her feet, snatching her pack from Naruto's hand.

"Kabuto?" Itachi asked, also rising to his feet.

"Sasuke didn't tell you?" Sakura asked, though she was mentally kicking herself for not telling him either. "We have a mission. We're tracking down Kabuto."

"The tracking part's done," Naruto said impatiently. "Team 8 needs us now."

"Alright, alright," Sakura said as she pulled on her shoes. "Let's go."

She flung her pack onto her back and turned to look at Itachi. He looked hurt, and she couldn't blame him. She should have told him sooner about the mission.

"I'll come with you," he said.

"Absolutely not, Itachi," Sakura insisted. "Kabuto's disease is highly infectious and really dangerous. I'm sure between the six of us we can handle it."

He did not look pleased at all by this and Sakura felt another pang of guilt sharp in her gut. "I'm sorry, Itachi," she said, placating him with a gentle hand on his arm. "We'll be back soon. Don't worry."

He didn't argue like she had when she had been in his position before. He merely nodded and pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Okay," he conceded. "Be safe."

She gave him one last peck on the lips before she was gone.

.

Team 8 had sent word that they had engaged Kabuto in combat and were a mere ten miles north of Konoha. That was much too close for Tsunade's liking, Sakura figured, and taking care of Kabuto had become priority number one.

With what research she had done, Sakura was certain that Kabuto planned to unleash his infection on Konoha (and maybe even the shinobi world at large) fairly soon. But she also knew that a smart and capable medic nin like Kabuto would not have created a disease he would become infected by.

Which meant that he was likely in possession of an inoculation.

And Sakura needed to find it.

If she had more time, she could probably find a cure for it herself. Now that she knew a little bit about how Kabuto planned to spread the infection, she was certain she could figure it out.

But she didn't have the luxury of time and there wasn't a necessity for it if Kabuto already had one.

"So what's the plan?" Naruto asked as they sped through the trees. They were quickly approaching Kabuto's location. Sakura could feel the pulses and waves of chakra from the ensuing battle up ahead of them.

"I need to find where Kabuto has been doing to research," Sakura said. "I have to get to his inoculations. You two assist Team 8 and I'll sneak into his base and see what I can find."

Sasuke gave her a sharp look. "What if we need your help?"

Sakura nearly laughed. Sasuke had never needed or wanted her help before – well, no that wasn't true. He had kidnapped her for her medical knowledge. He must have been worried about catching the infection.

"Try not to need it."

.

When they arrived at the scene it was pure chaos. Sakura could see why they had called for back up. Apparently, the people Orochimaru had kept prisoner remained loyal to Kabuto even after the sannin's death, so not only did Team 8 have to fend off Kabuto, but they were literally surrounded by hundreds of Sound nin.

"Hinata!"

Naruto jolted forward when he caught sight of the Byakugan user in a messy taijutsu match with seven Sound shinobi. Kiba and Shino were nearby, also embroiled in matches of their own. Sakura scanned the area, looking for Kabuto and found him perched on top of a large boulder, his glasses glinting in the sun. She couldn't see his eyes through the glare on his glasses, but she had the uneasy feeling that he was looking right at her.

Sasuke halted Naruto with a hand on his shoulder.

"Don't rush in," he said. "We need to come up with a plan first."

"Kabuto is on top of that boulder," Sakura said to them. "Can one of you engage him?"

"I can handle Kabuto," Sasuke said with unwavering confidence. "But what do we do about all these Sound shinobi? There are too many of them."

Before Naruto or Sakura could answer, Kabuto leapt toward them, landing in front of the trio with a malicious grin. He made quite a sight standing there with the battle raging behind him.

"Sakura," he said with faux politeness. "I'd like to think you reconsidered my offer, but I doubt you'd have brought along your precious teammates if that were the case."

"You're out of your league, Kabuto," Sasuke said. "I killed your master, remember?"

Kabuto turned to look at Sasuke, his eyes narrow and amused. "Look at you, Sasuke-kun," he said. Sakura saw Sasuke's hands clench into fists. "You're probably right about that – I wouldn't be able to best you in a fight. But I'm not interested in fighting you."

"What are you interested in, Kabuto?" Sakura demanded. "What's your game?"

Kabuto pushed his glasses up farther on the bridge of his nose with dark chuckle. His casual demeanor infuriated Sakura – such a stark contrast to the bloodbath behind him.

Before Kabuto could answer (and it definitely seemed like he was going to), Sasuke lunged at him with a Chidori chirping in his palm.

This wasn't quite what Sakura was hoping for, but she used that distraction to survey the area, looking for Kabuto's base. Sasuke and Kabuto squared off to fight one another, though Sakura caught the disapproving and curious look that Kabuto shot her.

Naruto fled toward Hinata and her team, much to Sakura's relief. They looked like they needed help.

So now all she needed was the inoculation.

It was difficult to focus on her task while she could hear the sounds of battle before her. There were cries of pain, the metal clash of weapons. The medic in her wanted nothing more than to stop what she was doing and help the injured.

But she stayed focused, scanning the trees for any sign of a building or facility where Kabuto could have been doing his research. For a moment she felt panicked because what if they were nowhere near his base?

But then she saw it: a crater in the earth with a reinforced steel door sealing away something underground. She made her way over to it quickly and without bothering to see if it was unlocked smashed it down with a chakra enhanced fist.

She took one last glance back at her team who seemed to be uninjured for now before she headed inside.

.

Kabuto's new base looked remarkably similar to the bunker she had seen before. She had never seen it furnished, though, and she was surprised by the amount of scrolls, books, bottles, medical tools, and loose papers around. It looked very much like Kabuto had been working hard down here.

She also noted that directly across from the room she stood in (which appeared to be Kabuto's laboratory) was a row of empty cells, each with its door wide open. So the Sound shinobi must have been prisoners here.

Ignoring the implications of that, Sakura began riffling through Kabuto's things. She had expected the strange man to be a bit more meticulous with his note keeping, but to her chagrin, it was difficult to decipher the congruity of his notes. It seemed that everything was jumbled together – not a code, but a mess.

Hoping that Sasuke and Naruto could buy her more time, Sakura went through his notes with methodical care. It seemed that Kabuto had been working on much more than just the infection, but Sakura was unconcerned with the other things. If they were successful in killing Kabuto it wouldn't matter anymore. All that mattered was finding the infection and eradicating it.

So whenever she stumbled across notes, a journal, or a scroll that pertained to the infection, she collected them in her pack. Quickly her pack became full, so she found a basket of herbs and emptied it so that she could use it to carry more notes.

In her search, she came across a notebook that looked particularly interesting. Most of Kabuto's journals were grey or black with unlined pages, but this one was camel colored leather with grids. A quick perusal made it clear that this journal was coded – and Sakura had a feeling she would need it. She tossed it into the basket with the rest of the notes and kept searching.

She couldn't quite say why, but she felt like she was missing a crucial piece of information. She crossed into the prisoner's section of the base and began looking through the pages that lay scattered about on the ground.

"Sakura!"

Sakura's head snapped up at the sound of her name being called and she dropped the page in her hand.

"Sakura!" Naruto bellowed. He sounded too far away and too desperate. "Sakura, where are you?"

"I'm here, Naruto," she said, walking back into the main room. "What's wrong?"

But he didn't need to answer because as soon as she saw him she knew. Slung over his shoulder was a very pale (well, paler than usual) looking Sasuke. He was out cold and hanging limp. Sakura could see beads of sweat along his forehead and a stream of blood coming from the corner of his mouth.

"What happened?" she breathed.

"Kabuto is down," Naruto said as he gently set Sasuke down on a nearby table. "Sasuke killed him. But Team 8 is still fighting those Sound shinobi and I think Kabuto found some way to infect Sasuke."

Sakura had her hands on Sasuke's chest the instant he was on the table, threading her chakra carefully in his system. If he had the infection, that was not good news at all. Sakura was unsure of how to cure it at this point and she sure as hell wasn't going to let Sasuke die on this table.

"Go help Team 8," she instructed. "And if you can, bring me Kabuto's body when you're done."

Naruto hesitated.

"Will he be okay?"

"I'm going to do everything I can, Naruto," she answered tersely. "Now go."

.

Sasuke was in bad condition and rapidly getting worse. A cursory diagnosis led Sakura to believe that he was indeed sick with Kabuto's weaponized disease and that it was different enough from his original one that Sakura had no idea where to begin to process of finding a cure.

She was torn between scouring Kabuto's notes and using her chakra to help Sasuke cope with the infection. It was spreading throughout his respiratory system very quickly, but Sakura managed to keep his lungs clear so that even in his declining state he could still breathe.

She settled for doing a bit of both. With one hand on Sasuke's chest, she used the other to flip through the pages of Kabuto's notebook looking for any type of clue that would lead her to a solution.

There was fluid building up in Sasuke's lungs that Sakura found very concerning. If she didn't know any better, she would say that it was actually chakra. Viscous chakra.

She scribbled something down in one of Kabuto's notebooks, her chicken scratch barely legible even to herself. The disease as she had researched back in Konoha was spread through many different means – the same ones a regular disease might spread through (air, water, physical contact). She couldn't tell which way Sasuke had been affected, but she'd wager based on the fact that he had the unknown fluid in his lungs that he had breathed it in.

The door to the bunker burst open behind her, but she did not turn to look. She could tell that it was Naruto.

"How's he doing, Sakura?"

"It's not looking good right now, Naruto."

She heard shuffling behind her and turned to see Naruto deposit all three members of Team 8 gently onto the ground. "Looks like I have some bad news, then," he said solemnly. She glanced up at his face and saw that his eyes were red. The kyuubi.

He rushed forward and grabbed Sasuke's hand, a grim expression on his face. She watched his eyes fade back into blue and the orange chakra that surrounded him began to fade away.

"Did you take care of the Sound shinobi?"

He nodded. "Yeah, they're all dead."

"Are the three of them all sick, too?" she asked, internally praying that they weren't.

"I think so."

Sakura swallowed hard and let her gaze fall to the basket of notes at her feet. Kabuto wouldn't have felt confident utilizing the infection if he hadn't already created a cure for it as well. She would need to find it and use it on herself before she could continue to work on Sasuke or anyone else. If she got sick too they would all be screwed.

"Okay, Naruto, I need you to go see if you can find the inoculations Kabuto made," she said. "I'll have to stay here and monitor everyone to make sure they're able to breathe at all times, but I believe the disease was contracted via the air – at least in Sasuke's case. That means you need to be careful about where you breathe."

Naruto nodded sharply but still looked a little confused.

"Should I send word back to Konoha first?" he asked.

"No!" she shrieked. "Absolutely not. I don't know how contagious this thing is. There's a chance we could infect everyone in the village. We need to stay here until we've figured this all out."

"Okay…" he said, still looking very unsure. "What do these inoculations look like?"

Sakura resisted the urge to sigh. She couldn't really blame him because she hadn't been able to find them either. But things were now at a boiling point and she could feel the stressed beginnings of a panic attack building up in her chest.

She couldn't let anyone die. She just couldn't.

Naruto, sensing her mood, left quickly in search of the inoculations while Sakura continued to monitor her four patients.

Sasuke was by far in the worst condition – possibly because he had been infected for the longest amount of time. Whatever differences were present in this new strain of the infection made its symptoms appear much worse.

After several minutes of silence while Sakura continuously cleared fluid from the lungs of her patients, Naruto burst back into the room.

"Sakura I think I found what you're looking for, but I can't get to it," he explained. "There's a cabinet in this other room and looks like it has a seal on it. There's some kind of inscription, but it looks like a code. I don't know how to open it."

With one hand on Kiba's chest, Sakura bent down and reached into her notes basket. She pulled out the leather journal and tossed it to Naruto.

"There's a code in that journal. Does it look like the same code?" she asked.

He skimmed through the pages, his brow furrowed. He scratched his head and let out a regretful sigh. "I wish Shikamaru were here," he said.

Sakura sighed too. She felt Kiba's breath hitch and she sent another surge of chakra into his lungs.

"Naruto," Sakura said. "How are you not sick, too? Weren't you outside with everyone else? Were the other Sound shinobi not sick either?"

Naruto shrugged. "Some of them were sick," he answered. "But I figured that Kabuto didn't care to vaccinate all of them. Hinata told me he let them all out after they got there. I don't think that he thought he could handle the three of them alone."

Sakura pursed her lips because she wasn't so sure that was true. Kabuto was a very skilled fighter. He could have given the three of them a run for their money.

"But you…" she mumbled, "you aren't sick."

"You aren't sick either," he pointed out.

That was true, she supposed. If physical contact were one way to catch the infection, then touching Sasuke would have been enough to do her in. Somehow, she hadn't shown any symptoms yet. But that didn't mean she wasn't sick.

She sent another thread of chakra into Kiba, specifically looking at his chakra points. Sure enough, much like the last disease, there were clusters of cloyed chakra accumulated where his natural chakra should have been.

A diagnostic run of her own chakra system showed smaller, but still present clusters of the same cloyed chakra. So she was sick.

Was Naruto?

"Come here," she said to him. "Let me check on your chakra system."

She placed her hand on his chest when he approached sent more diagnostic chakra into him. She half expected to find that same sticky chakra in his chakra points as well, but she found none. Instead, she noticed an odd separation of his personal chakra and the kyuubi's chakra. She wondered if that was normal, but she didn't have time to ask.

"Okay, Naruto, listen to me carefully," she said, pulling her hand away. He was immediately alert, his eyes bright with determination. "I'm sick, too. I think I might be developing symptoms more slowly because I'd immunized myself to the previous disease. I'll be able to keep the infection at bay for now, but we need to get those inoculations."

He swallowed, his eyes slightly widening.

"I think you're immune, Naruto," she said. "I think the kyuubi's chakra is preventing the infectious chakra from taking over. You need to go back to Konoha and get Shikamaru so we can figure out how to get into that cabinet."

He glanced down at Sasuke on the table. She could see the worry in his eyes.

"Wear a mask," she said, pulling one out of her pack. "And stay away from anyone you don't have to talk to. Don't go into populated areas. Go straight to Shikamaru and then come straight back."

"Won't he get sick?"

"We have to take that risk," she said. "Hopefully the cure is in that cabinet."

Naruto nodded, but she saw the look of concern on his face before he dashed out of the bunker and was gone.