CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

HEALING AND REALIZATIONS

"What happened," the pink haired girl demanded, voice calm though on the inside she was anything but. After a complete rundown of the situation, she ordered her sensei to keep his hand steady as she placed chakra covered hands on either side of his hand. She assessed the internal damage, cursing when she discovered the punctured lung.

"I don't know," he replied, fighting to remain calm, though it didn't show on his face. It wouldn't do any good for him to panic. "When I got here she was already..." He ran his free hand through his hair, coating it red in the process. "Why didn't anyone else... Why wasn't anyone else around? She could have died!"

"Itachi and Sasuke were down here, but she kicked them out; telling them not to disturb her while she was working," Hana replied. "She told us that she couldn't have any distractions, and that she would come back up to the loft when she was finished."

"Hana, she's going into v-fib," Sakura called out to the Inuzuka when she felt the older girl's heart begin to beat erratically. Hana rushed over and placed both of her hands over Kim's chest, steadily pumping her chakra towards her heart, sending small electrical pulses towards the organ.

The two girls worked on in silence. Kakashi held the injured girl in his arms, refusing to let her go, though no one dared to ask him to. Hana monitored her heat, while Sakura worked on healing the wounds. Slowly, ever so slowly, she managed to draw out the blood that had made its way in to Kim's lung and closed the laceration. From there she began repairing the damage caused by the puncture. Finally she managed to get the bleeding under control.

At some point, she had sent Konan back up to the loft to retrieve some much needed materials. Sakura opted to close the wound with stitches rather than using chakra to heal it completely.

"Sakura," Hana called out slightly panicked. "She's lost to much blood. Her heart can't take much more. If this keeps up she could go into cardiac arrest." She began to manually pump Kim's heart in order to keep her heart beat up. "I don't understand," she gasped between chest compressions. "She's perfectly healthy... why's her heart so weak."

At that Nagato had to restrain the Uchiha brothers from rushing forward. They struggled and fought him, trying to break free of his hold. It was only when Sakura snapped at them, stating they would be of no help, and get in her way which would make matters worse. She then turned back to her job.

Sakura did a quick scan over Kim's body, and found that Hana was right. The girl had lost about thirty-nine percent of her blood, approximately four pints, and she only just had managed to get the bleeding under control. If she bled any more then Sakura risked the chance of losing her. Sakura needed to perform a blood transfusion, and fast.

The pink haired girl ran into a few problems. She knew that she could perform the transfusion with little to no problems, but where would she get the blood. Ren was still in jail, but she didn't know his blood type and she needed a match. She would have asked Kakashi since his blood type was O, the universal blood type, but the man had just recently been on antibiotics for strep throat. What she needed was Ren or a blood type match, and that was not the only problem. The donor would have to be willing to donate about twice the normal amount which would be risky for the donor.

"I going to need to perform an emergency blood transfusion," Sakura stated. "The problem is; Ren isn't here, and there's no way that he would get here in time. I need to do it now, or as soon as possible. We don't have much time to waste. Hana can only keep her heartbeat going for so long, and the longer we wait... the risk for her going into cardiac arrest is too high, even more so with the extensive blood loss. Not to mention if her heart does stop and we don't revive her in time, she could go into multiple organ failure."

In the meantime, while she tried to work out the issue of the transfusion, Sakura set to the task of setting Kim's broken arm and placing it in a temporary splint. With her arm taken care of, Sakura began to work on the small gash hidden on the back of Kim's head.

"I could donate. Don't they say that type O is the universal blood type," Kakashi offered. His grip tightening around the girl.

"Can't," she said. "You you're still taking antibiotics for your throat infection. Not only that, but that person would need to donate at least twice the usual amount," she stated, whipping at the sweat that gathered at her brow.

"What's her blood type," Hana wondered. The brunette had finished healing the broken arm and had returned to monitoring the her friend's heart. Kim's pulse was weak, but steady.

"AB," Sakura recalled.

"I'll do it," the Uchiha brothers offered at the exact same time, both stepping forward and out of Nagato's hold.

"We're both type AB," Itachi explained. "And we're brothers."

"This is perfect," Sakura gasped, the tension in her shoulders dissipating just the slightest amount. "This way I won't have to take so much from one person. Since I don't have the proper tools, I'm going to have to figure something out. Maybe I could do something similar to my poison extracting technique." She stopped for a second, mentally going over the procedure. "Konan I need you to prepare me a saline solution. Sasuke-kun, Itachi! I need you two to get ready for the extraction, though I must warn you it might be painful. Remove your shirts and get close," Sakura instructed.

Konan got to work right away, following Sakura's instructions. Opening the proper scrolls, she pulled out the needed supplies and began prepping the saline solution. Itachi quickly complied, and did as he was told. Sasuke hesitated for a bit. When his brother nudged him, he followed her directions. The two brothers took seats within arm's reach of the pink haired girl. Meanwhile, Hana and Kakashi worked to cut away and remove Kim's shirt leaving her in her blood soaked bra.

"Konan bring me one of the bowls, and get ready to hand me the next one when I need it." Turning to face the brothers she asked," Are you guys ready? Who's going first?" Itachi scooted closer, and laid down. "This is hurt so Sasuke, Nagato please try to keep him as still as possible. Sensei, I'm going to need you to do the same with Kim. Konan, please keep a hold on her legs. She might be unconscious, but I'm sure her body will still react. I don't want to risk her pulling her stitches. Hana?"

"I know," the Inuzuka reassured the pink medic with a nod. Her hands placed over Kim's chest, monitoring the girl's heart.

With a deep breath, Sakura placed one of her hands over the solution, and concentrated her chakra. When the solution formed a bubble around her hand she brought it up and made her way to the two brothers. Placing her empty hand on one side of Itachi's abdomen, she pushed the solution into the opposite side. She looked to him silently asking him if he was ready; he nodded his head in the affirmative. She took another deep breath, and slowly started to lift her other hand. When her hand came up, causing Itachi's body to spasm, so did a pint and a half of blood. It was a little more than she was planning to take, but it would do.

Moving to kneel over to Kim's body, she slowly pushed the solution directly into her chest, pulling her other hand up along with the clear saline solution. The pink haired girl placed the solution back into its bowl as Hana quickly got to work assisting Kim's heart in circulating the new blood. She nodded over to Sakura, silently saying that she could proceed.

Sasuke took his brother's place on the ground. Itachi, even though he was still a bit dizzy, held down his younger brother's shoulders. Nagato held out the second bowl of the solution. Sakura followed the same motions as before. Sasuke swore that he saw her smirk at him as she extracted his blood. Once she had successfully completed the transfusion, she sat back exhausted. They watched on as Hana continued to circulate the new blood.

When the Inuzuka nodded her head confirming that Kim's heartbeat was stable, everyone let out a sigh of relief. Sakura had to wipe away a few stray tears. She sat back up, and started focusing on healing any broken bones. Kakashi stopped her.

"Wait till you've regained enough chakra before you start healing her bones. It wouldn't do to have you passing out from chakra depletion," Kakashi stated. "The same goes for you, Hana." The two girls nodded.

"Sensei can you carry her up to her room," Sakura asked. "We need to get her cleaned up." Kakashi nodded, lifting the girl up gently. He cradled her in his arms, and made his way up to the loft with Hana following after him.

Sakura stayed sitting down, as Itachi and Nagato made their way back inside. She laid down on her back while taking a deep breath, and then letting it out slowly. Throwing her arms out to the sides, she sighed in exhaustion.

Sasuke couldn't take his eyes off of her. One thing he knew for sure, she was not the same Sakura that he had left behind.

Walking over to her he nudged her leg with his foot. She opened her eyes to see Sasuke standing over her with a hand outstretched towards her. Grabbing hold of his hand, he pulled her up to her feet. She blushed lightly when she stumbled into his chest. Putting her hands on his chest for balance, she met his eyes, getting lost in them. When she realized that she was slowly leaning into his embrace, she sprung back like she had been shocked. His eyes widened at her sudden movement.

"Sorry," she muttered, her hands fidgeting at her sides. "I didn't mean... I mean... uh... We should be heading back inside now." She slowly made her way back to the loft.

Sasuke stayed where he was for a moment lost in a memory, before making his way after her.

"I have a plan," Kim said jumping on Sasuke, who was sitting on the couch watching TV.

"A plan for what," he questioned, never once looking away from the screen despite the fact that his sister was practically sitting in his lap.

"To get you and Sakura together," she replied in a 'duh' sort of tone.

"Do I really want to know?"

"Yes, you do." She looked at him expectantly.

"Fine, go on."

"Be her friend. Show her the part of you that cares, the part of you that you're constantly trying to cover up with that cold attitude of yours. Although, from what Hinata has told me she's always loved you, despite you're cold attitude and all that avenger nonsense. Prove to her that you're better than Alex. If you just show her you care she'll love you in no time, 'cause I know I do."

"I know I consider you my sister, but how can you say you love me. You don't even know that much about me."

"Though that may be true... Um... I can't really explain it. I love you because you're my baby brother, and I would do anything for you. Love isn't something you can explain, it's just something that you feel. I know you love her even if you won't admit it to yourself, I can see it in your eyes when you look at her. Just like when Hinata looks at Naruto."

"Have you ever been in love before? The romantic kind?"

"I can't say that I have. Maybe someday."

A little more than half an hour later, Itachi and Sasuke found themselves sitting in the living room while Nagato had gotten back to making lunch. After a long shower to wash away the blood, Kakashi laid on his bed staring up at the underside of the top bunk. Sakura and Hana had fallen asleep in their room as Konan worked on getting Kim cleaned up and into fresh pajamas. They had put Kim in her room to recover.

The ebony haired girl had yet to regain consciousness.