The next chapter is here! Enjoy.

"You're seriously going along with this Kakashi?"

Zabuza eyed him in disbelief, before turning his back on him and walking towards Kaiza. Kakashi-sensei appeared in front of him and held a kunai out.

"I've already disabled your arms Zabuza, I have no problem stopping your heart either."

The two locked eyes.

"This is the end then."

Zabuza stepped back with those words, away from Kaiza and kicked the ground, causing a stray kunai to flip up into the air. He caught it in his mouth and faced Team Seven.

"The end of our agreement that is, Kakashi." Though his words were muffled, the group heard his intentions loud and clear.

"Hey Sakura-chan, Kakashi-sensei. What's going on?" Naruto asked as he made his way closer.

"Quiet Naruto, I will explain later." She had other things to do, like making sure her Sensei didn't murder a bunch of innocent people.

"Naruto, can you go bring Kaiza over here? The guy with the scar on his chin. Don't kill the others though, they are under a genjutsu."

"I still don't know what's going on Sakura-chan, but you can count on me!" With a salute Naruto created his clones and headed off to retrieve Kaiza.

Zabuza tried to intercept Naruto but Kakashi-sensei cut him off and the two jonin waged battle once more. Pakkun ran back to assist his summoner and Sakura knew that it wouldn't be long for them to come out victorious. Using the slowly decreasing free time she had, Sakura headed back to check on her patient.

She summoned her green chakra and ran a scan over Uchiha, his bodily functions were starting to pick up again, so it wouldn't be long before he woke. That was one less thing to worry about, though Sakura had to deal with the other headache next to her before Naruto came back.

"Tazuna, like I said earlier, Kaiza is under a genjutsu. Don't be alarmed if he says things to you that are out of character, so please stay back until I say so, ok?"

"Just save him, please."

"I will."

"Here he is Sakura-chan!" Naruto came running over, Kaiza held over his head.

"Unhand me, I'll kill you all!" Kaiza struggled in Naruto's grasp but to no avail.

Once Naruto put him down Sakura grabbed him by the arm and threaded her chakra into his system, flaring her chakra. Despite the flare he continued to flail around spewing swears and promises of death.

It didn't work, why?

Sakura threaded her chakra up into his brain and whistled. What she saw was a complicated mess, the amount of foreign chakra embedded in Kaiza's brain was insane. The worst part, was how twisted it was with the other genjutsu layers and Kaiza's own chakra.

Flaring her chakra in his system wasn't going to cut it, she would have to unravel and flare one layer at a time. It would be a tough job. Not impossible for her considering she had done something similar, albeit on a smaller scale, a few times at the hospital.

Sakura went to work.

"Ugh."

Sakura was halfway done when she heard the noise and looked towards the source. Uchiha was waking, and though Sakura wanted to celebrate, she couldn't loose concentration now.

"Sasuke-teme? You're alive!" Naruto shouted and Sakura nearly lost her hold on the layer she was working on.

"Naruto! I'm trying to focus here, no yelling please." Her chakra was getting low, she couldn't make any mistakes, otherwise she could flare the chakra left in her body breaking her genjutsu. Sakura feared the Burning backlash would be worse than the last time, and there was a chance not even Inner would be able to get through to her in that state.

"Ah, sorry Sakura-chan."

Five minutes later she finished, and the results were instantaneous.

"Ergh, my head... Sakura? He didn't let you go? Where's Inari? Where is my son?"

Sakura put a hand on his shoulder, preventing him from spiraling.

"Inari is fine Kaiza, he is at home with Tsunami. It's been a few days since we last saw you."

"Why am I on a bridge? Wait, when did they start making a bridge?"

Before Sakura could respond Tazuna threw himself on Kaiza.

"Kaiza, I'm so glad your safe."

"Me too, Dad, me too."

Though Sakura was kinda pissed Tazuna moved before she gave the ok, she let it go considering the circumstances. Sakura turned her back on the pair and headed over to Uchiha to check on him. He was sitting up which was a good sign.

"Uchiha, how are you feeling?"

"Better than I expected, I thought...did you heal me?" He looked up at her, and Sakura frowned.

His face was still pale.

She crouched down in front of him and took his hand, taking that moment to break her genjutsu to conserve her chakra. When no flare appeared she smiled in relief. Maybe it was time to admit that there was some good in being teammates with Uchiha, besides his face of course.

When he tried to pull away she glared at him.

"I need to check you over, so stop moving. Also, don't think you will be leaving my side until we are back at the house and I have you tucked into bed."

He sulked but didn't pull away.

"Tch, I don't need you babying me, I'm not the Dobe."

"No, but you are my patient so I don't care. I will take care of you Uchiha, and you are just going to have to deal with it. Besides..." Sakura spoke with a softer voice. "We thought you were dead for a moment, I need to make sure you're all right."

Uchiha minutely relaxed.

"Hn."

"How is he, Sakura-chan?"

The genin looked up at their Sensei, and Sakura gave her report.

"He has chakra exhaustion and needs rest, there may still be after effects due to his near death state, so it's better he doesn't over do it for the next couple of days. Has Zabuza been taken care of?"

"Ah." Kakashi-sensei turned his head and pointed to the bodies of the two missing-nin next to each other.

"Sensei, can you break the genjutsu on the rest of the villagers?"

Kakashi-sensei ruffled her hair and all that was left in front of her were leaves. She really needed to learn how to do that.

Sakura turned her attention back to her patient.

"Come on Uchiha, lets get you back." Sakura grabbed his arm and hung it over her shoulder.

"Hn."

Sakura scanned around for her last teammate.

"Naruto, Uchiha and I are heading back, he needs rest, let Sensei know too. Can you make sure Tazuna and Kaiza make it back to the house?"

Naruto crossed his hands behind his head and shot her a bright smile.

"Believe it Sakura-chan, I will make sure they get back safe and sound! That's a promise from your future Hokage!"

Sakura sniffed.

"You have a lot to do before I let you become my Hokage, but this will do for a start. If you're not back before sundown you owe me ramen."

"Oh, you're on!"

He turned back towards their client with a focused expression.

Oh, it was too easy sometimes.

Uchiha gave her a side eye.

"I see what you did there."

"Did what?" She looked at him with an innocent smile. Uchiha narrowed his eyes and looked away in a huff.

'Hehe Sakura just leave him alone, he's incapable of handling you while he's injured.'

'Just this once, Inner. Just this once.'

.

Sakura sat at the dinning room table, having a cup of tea. Uchiha, though against his will, was laying in bed resting while the rest of Team Seven was still at the bridge. Tsunami was puttering around in the kitchen and Inari was outside waiting for his dad, and for the first time since she left the village Sakura felt comfortable.

It was peaceful in a way.

When was the last time she felt peace?

The door slid open with a bang as Inari tucked his head in.

"Big Sis! When is my Dad getting back? They are taking forever and I want to see him now!" Inari stomped a foot as his lips pulled into a pout.

Sakura raised an eyebrow and took another sip of tea.

"They will get back, when they get back."

"Well, I want them back now!"

"Hey! You can't talk to Sakura-chan like that you little brat!" Naruto grabbed the boy and dug his fist into his hair messing it up.

Ah, good timing.

"Inari, don't be rude. Sakura doesn't deserve such treatment." Kaiza said as he walked up behind Naruto with Tazuna in tow.

"Sorry Big Sis."

Inari faced towards her and bowed his head, before turning back to hug his father.

"Hmm, come on Naruto, lets stay outside for a bit." Sakura took her tea and went out the door and Naruto followed.

She climbed a tree and sat down.

"Why did we have to go outside Sakura-chan? I just got back." Naruto questioned, as he took a seat at the foot of her tree.

"They should have some privacy for their reunion. We didn't need to be there. It's not every day someone comes back from the dead."

When Naruto didn't respond Sakura looked down and saw him in deep thought, his body quiet for once. She waited a few minutes before speaking.

"What's wrong?"

"Say, you're smart Sakura-chan, did Haku really have to die? Was there anyway he could have lived? He was nice, I thought we could have been friends. He kept the Teme alive too."

Sakura rested her head back against the tree, her expression darkening. That ice user kid, huh? Was there a way? They were able to save Kaiza, could they have saved Haku?

"It depends, if it was his choice to die, then no. Otherwise maybe we could have."

"What? But he jumped in front of Kakashi-sensei, of course it was his choice."

"That, is what I'm not sure about." Incidents were everywhere after all.

Sakura stood up, brushed her dress off and hopped down, landing a bit away from Naruto.

"Anyways, there's nothing we can do about it now, all we can do is move forward. We can probably head back in now, it's been enough time."

Naruto jumped up and gave his blinding smile.

"And in the future I will be Hokage, believe it!"

Sakura gave him a tap.

"Let's go in."

"Yeah!"

It wasn't long before Kakashi-sensei arrived back at the house, and Sakura was immediately concerned after laying eyes on him. Sensei, who was already pale to start, looked ghostly and like he was about to fall over.

Maybe she shouldn't have asked him to release the genjutsu on the villagers, if this was the state he was going to end up in.

Sakura rose and hurried over to her Sensei, and supported him to the dinning room to sit down. She did a check and saw that he was chakra exhausted.

Again.

"You need to work on your chakra control Sensei, you can't keep getting chakra exhaustion like this."

"Ah, it's my eye Sakura-chan. It's not mine so when I use it my chakra drains at a greater rate."

"Tch, wait here."

"Believe me, I'm not going anywhere."

Sakura turned and headed into the kitchen, and narrowed her eyes in thought. Sensei shouldn't use it so much if he was just going to waste his chakra. She would have to plan accordingly in the future.

A few minutes later Sakura had a nice cup of tea, made with what's left of the herb she picked up during the start of wave. It wouldn't help his chakra regenerate per say, but at the very least it would ease the fatigue in his body and make his life a little easier.

It's too bad she didn't pick up more, she could of used it herself. At least everyone was back now, and the team could now unwind for the night.

.

Sakura was laying in bed, extremely happy to end one of the longest days of her life. The 'Gato' situation was taken care of, Kaiza was back home safe and sound with his family, and the mission was officially over. Though a part of her wondered at that, was it really over?

Would Itachi come back?

'I don't think you have to worry about him anymore Sakura.'

'Oh? What makes you say that?'

'Intuition, I'm pretty sure his reason for being here is over. Otherwise he would have tried to take Kaiza again while Kakashi disappeared to bury the bodies.'

'I guess, if he was going to make an appearance that would have been the time.'

'Exactly, so stop worrying and relax. You did a great job today, you saved Kaiza! I didn't think that was possible but you did it. There is still hope yet.'

'Thanks Inner, now that 'Gato' has been resolved we have to deal with Kurama. I swore I saw red in Naruto's eyes at dinner when the word 'circle' was brought up in conversation. We should start looking into it when we get back to Konoha.'

'...Yes, we should look into the circle, I wonder what that is.'

'Could be anything, but we will figure it out.'

'Hmm, good night Sakura.'

'Good night Inner.'

Though she said that Sakura couldn't fall asleep, her mind still wired from the earlier fight and Naruto's question. Sakura rolled over and faced the window, staring up at the moon and the stars, hoping that counting them would help ease her busy mind.

Sakura felt herself drift in and out of sleep for hours, and just as she thought she was drifting off for the last time she felt it.

A hand over her mouth.

Sakura's eyes shot open as she stared at the owner of the hand.

The first thing she noticed was the hole in the chest, congealed blood coated the edges along with burn scars, and it was large enough she could see the moon through it. The smell of dirt was overpowering, and Sakura had to hold in a gag, refusing to move in case the sharp point of the cold senbon pointed at her neck went deeper. The long brown hair and glazed eyes were familiar, she had just seen it earlier that day. But that shouldn't be possible. It couldn't be possible, was this really who they battled earlier?

Was this really...

Haku?

"You have been giving me a lot of trouble little girl."

Sakura thought it was over... but is it? Thanks for reading!