MISSION

Chapter 5

Flashback

His eyes opened and he found himself hooked to machines, and needles. His instincts told him to rip them out, but he first needed to know where he was.

He looked around and discovered this was a hospital room, and there was another partition in the middle of the room concealing another bed. There seemed to be people in the room, was he in the lead hospital.

Whispers carried through the room, but he couldn't tell any voices apart. It was too quiet. He reached to grab out the needle with his arm, but it seemed he had forgotten something quite important.

He decided to bite the needle in his arm in order to take it out, and got up. Fighting the dizziness Sasuke stood up.

"What's that noise?" he heard someone say.

Sasuke was having a hard time standing, he couldn't keep his balance. His vision started going blurry, and the last thing he saw was a figure rushing towards him before he collapsed.

-
He opened his eyes again to find a certain kunoichi hovering above him.

"Sasuke, welcome back," she said with a warm smile.

"Yeah welcome back teme" Naruto slowly peaked from behind Sakura.

Sasuke gathered all his strength, and sat up. Sakura supported him up, as she did Naruto.

"What happened to me?" His raspy voice said.

"Sorry Sasuke, but I had to put both of you into a medically induced coma after the fight so you could heal fully. I took you guys off the drugs earlier today, it must not have properly worn off when you had woken up. It caused you to collapse." she explained.

Sasuke watched his single hand, and observed the hospital gown he was in. His mind went where Sakuras had, the last time he was like this he had challenged Naruto.

"How long?" he asked.

"6 days." Naruto replied.

"Listen Sasuke, we need to talk" Said Sakura before she sat down on one of the chairs.

"Well it wasn't unexpected. I did cause a rebellion against the leaf, it is natural they see me fit for punishment." He accepted.

"But don't you worry teme, they said your punishment was not severe. Whatever that means."
The blonde reassured his friend.

"I just wanted to let you know before I inform Tsunade-sama that you are awake. They will most likely take you away for questioning right away. Matter of fact, there might be Anbu outside the hospital waiting for the call."

"I didn't want it to be a surprise" she explained.

"One more thing, Tsunade-sama and I have made prosthetic arms out of the Hashirama-sama cells. I was hoping you would accept the prosthetic. In time it will be as if it is your own arm. As good as new." she added.

His eyes held a sparkle of surprise. Sakura couldn't figure out what he would say.

"I can't take it, even if I wanted to." he sighed.

"Wha-What? Why can't you? It's perfectly healthy, and chances of declining are low."

"That's not what he's saying Sakura-chan" The blonde finally broke his silence.

"He feels too guilty to accept it."

"Listen teme, whether or not you were a danger to the leaf it does not matter now. It all subsided the moment you chose to protect all of us. As for the missing arm, I've lost one too. If there's anything we should have learnt from our fight is that in this game there are no winners, so you take your wins wherever you can. Take the goddamn arm." he finished with an angry scowl.

It seemed what Naruto had said registered to him. Sasuke only nodded.

A pang of relief washed over both Sakura, and Naruto. Their friend for the first time had stopped fighting.

It was clear all of this had been calculated by Sakura, he knew it all along.

Sasuke looked her in the eye with an expression of calm and said. "Thank you, Sakura"

She didn't hear those words often, the last time those words were uttered to her was when she had begged him not to leave the hidden leaf.

A shyness crept up on her but she just smiled at him and nodded.

Present

They had been called into Kakashis office again, by them there was Sasuke, Saskura, Naruto, Haru, and Ino. An odd combination atlas. This awkward interaction only piled on because like always Kakashi Hatake was late.

Sakura, Ino, and Haru made small talk as Sasuke stared at the pinkette. Naruto stood quietly beside Sasuke and watched him watch Sakura. He could tell Sasuke was conflicted, he just didn't know about what. Afterall Naruto had always been a little dense when it came to the matter of the heart.

The hokage entered his own office, and found himself stared at by a bunch of angry adults. It wasn't long ago when they were just kids he thought to himself.

"Hello everyone, you all have been called in for an urgent S ranked mission."

Everyone nodded in unison.

"You all have been chosen out of the category as the best fitting for this mission. All of you will have different jobs in this mission, and it should be highly discreet."

"Sasuke has come back from his journey, as we all know. Along with that, he has brought very valuable intel. He has figured out where Kaguyas castle is."

He could see everyone's eyes narrowing on his face. After all this was big news, they had been hoping to end Kaguyas bloodline for good, so she couldn't spawn again.

"Naruto, and Sakura both know about Kaguyas dimensions. In fact, they were in each of them."

Naruto scratched his head, and opened his mouth to speak. The blank expression on his face was a giveaway enough.

"Hold on Naruto, I'm getting to the point." Everyone smiled at the remark, except for Sasuke who had already known all this information. He was busy staring at Sakura. He could see the other slightly holding onto her.

"Sasuke found Kaguyas castle, inside her ice dimension. Some of you will be sent there along with Sasuke to gather intel, and eliminate any possible threats. The rest of you will be support, or in case something goes wrong, you will be the ones to return." Kakashi finished.

Everyone had a certain worry on their faces. Every mission since the war has been pretty tame. It had been a while since they had to deal with an Otsutsuki.

Naruto opened his mouth to speak.
"Uh Sensei, shouldn't we bring Hinata along as well? Since she has the byakugan and all."

"Her presence won't be necessary for this mission, plus I've already got another mission planned out for her."

It was cute seeing Naruto trying to bring Hinata along Sakura thought. As she stared through the window, she could feel someone's eyes on her. Of course she knew exactly who it was, but these days it didn't make quite the difference.

"When do you want me to take them?" Sasuke finally spoke.

"Tonight." The masked man replied.

They all hummed in agreement. Missions during the night had some pretty clear rules, they would meet an hour after sun down, and continue from there.

Flashback

Sasuke had been taken into questioning. They seemed to have found he had no ill intentions towards the leaf anymore. They informed him he had been given a 6 month sentence for his crimes. He said nothing and nodded.

Sakura thought 6 months was a stretch, but slowly came to terms with it. She begged to Tsunade make some arrangements for him to get his arm before he was taken into custody.

*3 days before custody

"Hey Sasuke" Sakura cheerily said to the man in the hospital gown. He looked up at her and said nothing but a head nod acknowledging her.

"Are you ready for the surgery? We will take you into the OR in 30 minutes." she said.

"Yeah, I have a question about that actually." the black haired man said.

Sakura fixed the room slightly as she made a noise indicating she was listening.

"Since I'll be in prison, how will I take care of my arm?" she heard him say.

The thought had occurred to Sakura, but she figured she just needed to visit Sasuke as often as she could to keep tabs on his arm, and request monthly check ups for a proper one.

"Don't worry about that, I've got it figured out. We'll just have to schedule you visits with a physician in the leaf, which will most likely be me so don't be surprised. I will also be coming to check out things for myself weekly for any complications." the girl replied as she took out the dried flowers she had brought in a few days ago.

"Ok" is what came out of his mouth.

Sasuke was thinking about how all of this would affect his life. The thought of someone coming to visit him wasn't all that bad.

He watched the girl, no woman who stood before him taking care of the room and he felt a warm sensation. It reminded him of how it was when his mother was alive and would take care of him when he was sick.

He saw a lot of his mother in her. Was this the time to think about all this? He questioned. Sasuke had always known about Sakuras feelings towards him, he just could not figure out why someone such as her would think so highly of him

Sakura picked up a stethoscope and started walking in his general direction. He felt a sense of panic he had never felt before. It was mostly internal, but he didn't know how to calm it down. It got worse as she neared.

"I'm just going to check your heart rate before we take you into surgery." the pinkette smiled.

She put the buds in her ears and put her hand on his chest.

The thumping of his chest had risen. Sakura found that a little odd, but nothing major they should be worried about.

Sasuke had been holding his breath and he hadn't even noticed. It was oddly thrilling.

"You seem fine, but your heart rate has escalated a little. It's nothing to worry about though.

Sasuke blushed unwittingly at the remark. He knew exactly why his heart was beating so fast. Sakura hadn't noticed his odd behaviour.

"Ok Sasuke you're all ready to go" She said as she smiled.

Present

Sakura was the first to arrive at the gate. Haru was second. They got to chatting, and giggling between conversations.

When Sakura first met Haru she had found him very charming. He was quiet but his values were very clear. He also approached Sakura first.

She always liked that he would drop his serious side around her and would give her his full attention when it mattered. She never felt little around him.

"Yeah and then you fell from the tree" Sakura suppressed a giggle.

"Give me a break, there was an Onbaa chasing me I couldn't have seen it coming" Haru defended himself.

Ino walked up in the distance. She waved to both of them, and they waved back.

Haru neared Sakuras ear and whispered "Do not mention the Onbaa '' Sakura burst out from laughter.

"Don't worry, don't worry" She said, patting his arm.

"What are you two laughing about?" Ino said with her eyebrow raised.

"Oh nothing pig, how is Sai?" Sakura replied.

"He's great, he just left on a mission with his group on Anbu. That man is always so busy." the blonde ranted.

They smiled and made small talk until Sasuke, and Naruto arrived last.

"Alright, are we all ready to go?" Naruto enthusiastically asked.

Everyone nodded and they skipped trees until they found a remote place where no one could disrupt them.

Hiiii! Sorry for updating so late. I finished all my overdue assignments but was kind of unmotivated. Still finished it tho!

Also was recovering from the guy I like having a gf. Pray for me lol.