AN: Let's just start the story.

A constant sound of fingernails against tabletop cut through the silence of the darkened room. A turn of paper, a crackle of flame and the palpable anger that choked the air.

"A dart." A voice spoke up from the shadows, a bandaged finger tracing the edge of the oil lamp. "A dart was all it took?"

The form kneeling in front of the table shivered under the gaze laced with rage. "M-my lord, I-" He swallowed the thick saliva that threatened to choke him, "We checked the body. There was a puncture wound."

The fingers stopped drumming and the silence was deafening. A sweat drop slid down the man's face, just about have accepted his death when a door to the back slid open. "Calm down uncle, he's just the messenger. Don't kill him."

"My prince." The messenger bowed, touching his head to the ground. The prince waved him off, leaning against the doorframe that led beyond the compound into a place unknown to the other residents. "How are you faring, uncle?"

Danzo clutched bottle of sake in a vice like grip, his force threatening to break the ceramic. "How do you think I'm faring?" his teeth scraped like nails on slate board, "That bitch Senju tried to kill me. After everything I've done, she tried to kill me!" When his anger shot through his skull, the sake bottle did not survive the contact with the wall on the other side of the room, barely missing the messenger by inches.

Danzo heaved in anger in his seat. He didn't even reach the congregation when his carriage toppled over from the rocky terrain. The road they had to take was already high risk for landslides in winter, but deemed safe enough for the summertime. But protection from natural calamities does not keep one safe from the hate of men. He didn't see what happened to the driver, but he found himself thrown from the road and sent careening down the side of the mountain.

It was sheer dumb luck that he managed to snag himself on a bushy boulder and later found by the guards trailing them.

The first prince sighed behind him, closing the door behind him and promptly cutting off the low whimpering of pain that was emitting from the shadows beyond the door. "I got the report from my men. Sakura survived."

"Again?" Danzo asked in frustration, reaching for another bottle of sake but the prince got it before him, holding it away from his reach. "Give it back you brat! I'm not in a mood to deal with this nonsense."

The prince shook his head with a sigh, "You are still recovering, alcohol is advised against."

"You are not my physician, I'm not listening to you." He took the bottle back, taking a long swig of agitation. "What about the plague?"

"It has been resolved. The king has his men patrolling the waterways, it's getting harder to get a hold of them."

The grip tightened around the bottle again, the flame of the lamp crackling again. "Send a message to Oto, we are changing the target." The messenger stood up, but Danzo halted him with a raised hand. He reached for a scroll under his desk, throwing it over for the messenger to catch. "Get this to Jirou."

The prince blinked at his uncle. "What was that?"

Danzo turned around on his cushion, looking out of the window in front of him in the dead of the night. The sake sloshed in his bottle, and every ache and sore and wound in his body was a reminder of his failure. He hated the bandaged limbs and the looks he got from the people in the compound.

"An eye for an eye." The messenger disappeared from behind him, leaving through the open window.

The door Sakura was staring at was the one she should have been at two days ago, but trying to avoid the physician while living in the same compound could only go so long. The design of a rosemary stem stared at her as she lifted her fist to rap it against the wood.

"Enter."

She drew in a breath before sliding it to the side and the frenzied scene inside was familiar. There was a figure hunched behind the desk to the side of the room, silver hair twisted up and away from the pale face and eyes down to the long scroll rolling down the side of the table.

Sakura stayed silent, waiting for him to look up, but when the minutes passed without any movement from him, she cleared her throat, loudly. Kimimaro looked up from the scroll with a start, seemingly a little disoriented as if he didn't expect anyone to be there.

"Oh, it's you." His voice was a little startled and breathless as he hastily rolled up the scroll. "I didn't see you there."

'You let me in.' She wanted to deadpan but only nodded lightly. "You seem a little busy, should I come in later?" By later she would've meant never, and she would infinitely prefer that over having to sit on that uncomfortable cot for the next hour and talk to a stranger like they were old friends.

Her hope of freedom plummeted to the ground when Kimimaro hastily waved his hands. "No no, it's alright, you're alright. Please have a seat."

Sakura nodded before stiffly sitting down on the cot, watching him patting down his hair and adjusting the haori over his robe. He slid a bamboo stool in front of the cot, looking at her expectantly. "How have you been, lady Sakura?"

She pursed her lips, "Well." Kimimaro nodded, waving his hand in encouragement for her to say more. "And?"

"I've been doing good."

A sigh of disappointment left Kimimaro's lips as he straightened up. "You're not going to make this easy, are you. Have you been taking your medicines?" at her nod, he held out his palm. "May I have the vial back?"

Sakura reached inside her satchel to fish out the empty glass jar and the pouch of pills. She won't say a peep about washing away the white powder in the stream or throwing away the pills in the forest. After the attack the first night, she could not bring herself to drink the sleep powder at all.

The white haired man inspected the glass jar before setting it away with a nod of satisfaction. "If I remember correctly, you are two days overdue for you visit." He looked at her with critical eyes, "What happened?"

Sakura shrugged as nonchalantly as possible, hiding her hands under the sleeves of her haori. "I've been busy with my work, forgot."

Kimimaro looked at her like he didn't believe her, but he nodded nonetheless. "Alright." He toyed with the jar in his hands before sliding it away on the table to the side before looking at her with renewed eyes, sharp like a snake's. "Are you ready to talk now?"

Sakura wanted to shake her head and walk out of the room, but instead she just silently looked out of the window at the distant mountains. Kimimaro took her silence with a frown and a disapproving tug of his lips. "Not yet huh."

Sakura avoided his sharp eyes and looked at hands on her lap before she looked up. "Can I go now?"

Kimimaro looked like he wanted to protest but nodded. But before she could get up, he held up a finger. "Wait a moment." Following the motions, he went back to his wide table and filled up the jar and the pouch with the powder and pills. "Take this. You know what to do."

Sakura weighed the pouch in her hand before putting it back in her bag. "And another thing, I have some work for you to do before our next meeting."

Sakura blinked as he fetched out a small notebook from his desk with a dark green cover and pages bound by thread. "This is a journal, I want you to write your thoughts in it."

"My thoughts?" She raised an eyebrow, weighing the notebook in her hands and flipping the blank ivory pages. Kimimaro nodded along, folding his hands across his chest.

"When you have nightmares, I want you to write it down in the morning with whatever you remember from the dreams. When you remember something from the past, when you dream, when you feel too overwhelmed. Light an incense, open your windows and write it down." He looked in her eyes when he spoke and Sakura didn't look away. The way he acted so frazzled any time she came in his office could give anyone the idea of him being nothing more than a bumbling fool, but his eyes told a different story. They were the eyes of someone who has seen more ghosts than a shaman.

"And then what?" Sakura tilted her head to the side, "I bring it here for you to read because I won't talk to you about them?"

Surprisingly, he shook his head. "No. It's for you to keep. You just need to get your thoughts out of your head, doesn't mean it has to be with me."

Sakura was once again sent out of the room, this time with a blank notebook and the portion of pills for the next ten days. "We'll meet ten days later." The physician looked back with a more serious look in his eyes, "Do not avoid this."

Sakura sighed as she continued walking toward the stable, tapping her fingertips on the side on her thigh in boredom, or maybe agitation. She felt agitated, for some reason. It could be because of the assassination attempts, which she wrote about in her letter to the queen back home but she has yet to receive an answer.

"Come to think of it," She mumbled to herself, looking up at the clear sky devoid of a single cloud, "It has been awfully long since I last heard from her, or Shizune." They are probably busy dealing with the termites hollowing the kingdom inside out.

Sakura rounded the fence and the page boy ran inside the stable at the first sight of her. He normally has Kouro ready by the time she is past the tree by the stable door, but this time she reached the door and her dear companion was nowhere to be seen. 'That's strange.' But she did hear discontent neighing from inside the walls.

With a curious raise of her eyebrows, she peered from around the side of the stable door, and came upon an… interesting scene.

The page boy looked about ready to throw himself off of the roof as he tugged on the reins of Kouro but not even moving an inch as Kouro remained stone still inside his compartment, face turned away from the door and toward the next compartment with a gray horse.

"Oh?"

Kouro looked too pleased with himself as he kept neighing merrily at the gray mare next to him. 'Looks like he found himself a new friend.' Sakura looked at the mare's legs and the space between them and her lips tilted into a smirk, 'Or perhaps, a sweetheart.'

She decided to cut the page some slack when the poor boy was redder than a tomato in his face. "Boy," She noticed while calling for him that she didn't even know his name, "Let me handle him."

"Y-Yes, ma'am." The boy scurried away, and Sakura grabbed a hold of the reins. "Kouro."

At once, his attention snapped away from his friend to her and Sakura combed a hand through his mane. "Let's go boy." Kouro's resounding neigh was of discontentment and she smiled at his disappointed face. "You can talk to her later." She looked at the mare next to her with long dark gray mane and smooth fur, she looked friendly enough. "You're a pretty one, aren't you."

Sakura traced the regular path seated on Kouro's back, but instead of stopping at the market district or turning away to the lakeside, they ventured deeper into the town until they passed by a wooden arch and the surroundings changed from the busy buildings with hanging boards, to the proper and sleek houses of the residential area.

This was only the third time she has come through the gates of the district, one for the personal treatment of the more serious patients, one for visiting the botanical garden on the end of the distract, and the now for going to the same place.

"Why are the streets here so empty…" Even while in the height of the plague, the streets were never this empty. But it certainly made her road to the garden faster.

The botanical garden was owned by a sweet couple in their late sixties, a retired patrol officer and a retired seamstress, people who have too much money, too much land, and too much free time in their hands. A nice greenhouse in the back of their plot of land that was larger than it should have been, but that also meant it had one of the biggest and most beautiful ginkgo trees she has ever seen.

She tied Kouro's reins to a nearby tree, letting him rest under the shade and left a big bundle of wheat stalk by his head for some snacking. "I'll be back soon." The response was a content neigh.

The door to the house was only partially closed, perhaps the couple weren't worried about someone suspicious wandering in. But Sakura didn't enter through that, instead taking the door at the side of the boundary wall that led straight to the backyard. Calling it a backyard would be an insult to the massive expanse that was the greenhouse, but the plot was connected to the house so that is what it was.

The glass door creaked open as Sakura walked in, keeping her footsteps muted on stone walk road that veined through the botanical garden, raking a path for people to walk through amongst the flora that looked like it could belong to a fantasy land.

"Ooh, they got new plants…" Sakura bent down toward one of the cluster of shrubs with spiny leaves and purple bell like flowers. There wasn't a plate for their name yet but they looked quite tropical. 'Wonder how tropical flowers are going to stay in the mountains.'

The rest of the garden looked pretty empty as she saw no other soul around herself. There was a banyan tree in the center of the garden and Sakura made her way to that, looking around for new plants or plants she might not have seen previously.

"The last time I came here, I went around the east of the garden." Sakura tapped her finger on her chin, looking at the high reaching glass ceiling in thought, "I might go around the west today."

Filtered sunlight warmed the stones under her heels as the shorter shrubs and plants transitioned into taller trees as she went deeper inside the garden, nearing the banyan tree that completely shaded the half a mile around the center. Sakura neared the benched near the banyan tree with a release of breath when she heard the sounds of scratching from somewhere.

'Is someone else here too?' She raised an eyebrow, rounding the thick trunk of the tree and blinked when she saw who was sitting at the bench on the opposite side.

Blank black eyes blinked up at the new arrival and Sakura had to hold in her grimace at the familiar pasty skin and inky hair. "Prince Sai, how nice…" She hesitated whether to continue, trailing her eyes over his pretty unassuming civilian clothing and the ivory sketchbook in his hand. At a glance, he could even pass of as a son to a merchant instead of the prince. "to see you here."

"Oh, it's you." Sai deadpanned before looking down again. "Why are you here?"

Sakura narrowed her eyes at his crass behavior, huffing a quiet breath. "I could ask you the same."

Sai looked up with a raised eyebrow before shaking his sketchbook at her like she was stupid. "Nothing of your understanding." Temper flared under Sakura's skin but she decidedly ignored his rude remarks not for the first time. But she couldn't stop her own response from escaping past her lips.

"Do you have to actively work on being so rude or are you just so immature by nature?"

Sai looked mildly caught off guard but then scoffed. She had no idea how he managed to even scoff without a single expression on his face. "Trust me when I say this, you're not special. Don't take it personally." He waved the stick of graphite in his hand lightly, raising his eyebrows in question, "But really, immature?"

Sakura shrugged, starting to walk around him to head the other way. "If the shoe fits." She glanced down at the paper between his fingers and paused in her path.

Ink stained against white parchment in the shape of the scene in front of them, rows of plants and trees that lined the stone walk, the shadows accentuated by the black filled spaces and the light highlighted against the hatching of graphite.

Sakura blinked when the parchment was slid away abruptly and she glanced up to see dark eyes looking at her accusatorily. She held up her hands in surrender, backing away from the prince but didn't leave at once. Maybe he didn't notice her stare or didn't care anymore but she continued to watch his skilled hands deftly outline a distant bamboo cluster, shading the leaves darkly against the light. His hands truly seemed blessed.

"Do you want something else?"

Sakura glanced at the prince to find his eyes fixated on his reference but he was talking to her. "No, nothing." Sakura turned around but then something struck her mind. She almost opened her mouth to voice her question, but stopped at the last moment. It was pretty obvious that he was the prince that the nobles say 'muddied the imperial blood', but perhaps confirming it through him wouldn't be the best route if she doesn't want him to hate her more than he already does.

" If you have something to say, say it."

"Is the king your father?" She asked regardless, since he did tell her to ask him if she had something to ask. Sai didn't even seem partially phased nor did his strokes falter.

"Yes."

"Is the queen your mother?"

"…No."

That was all she needed to know, but before she could say anything else or simply walk away, another set of footsteps against stone drew away their attention. They looked up in unison when a shadow rounded the tall trees, dressed like a dark shadow come to life.

"Prince Sasuke?"

Sasuke didn't look surprised at all to see her there, but he did look displeased to see the other company. "Oh, you're here too."

Sai looked at him blankly, "At least I'm the one who is supposed to be here." He sighed shortly through his nose, snapping his sketchbook shut. "Shouldn't you be back at the compound riding Itachi's coattails."

Sasuke glared at the other prince and Sakura continued to silently look between the two princes, entirely uncomfortable with being stuck in their spat.

"That's rich coming from you." Sasuke glowered, folding his arms and deciding to ignore him in favor of looking at Sakura. Sakura raised her eyebrows when the moment his eyes laid upon the pinkette, he quickly diverted them to look at a nearby bush. He cleared his throat and opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it when he glanced at her sideways.

His glare snapped at the other prince at the low snickering rising from the other side, but when no words came from him again, Sai murmured under his breath.

"Pathetic."

"You're pathetic." Sasuke snapped with a deep scowl before deciding to cough up whatever he's been trying to, though he still refused to meet the doctor's eyes. "I'm going on a hunting trip, would you like to join me?" At Sakura's surprised blink, he hastened to add, "You've never been to our hunting lands, I thought it would be to your interest." Try as he might to look the other way and hide his face, he couldn't hide how his ears burned red.

"Uhh…" Sakura's unsurety lasted for about ten seconds before she cleared her throat, providing her answer in a much more dignified voice. "I would be honored. Thank you, my prince."

Sasuke 'hn'ed noncommittally before turning around completely and stiffly walking toward the other exit. "Let us go then."

Sakura looked back once where Sai was standing but found him walking away the other direction, not seemingly inclined to leave with a goodbye. She silently followed after Sasuke. He didn't say anything further to her until they were out of the same glass doors she came through and she saw his black steed tied to the tree on the opposite side of the road.

"How far are the hunting grounds?"

Sasuke looks like he hasn't even heard her question the first time, his eyes downward and face pulled deep in thoughts. So she asks again, "How far are the hunting grounds?"

"Huh?" Sasuke jerked out of his thoughts when her voice pitched louder, "What?" Before she could repeat herself, again, his brain seemed to have caught up to him. "Oh, no too far from here." He clears his throat again, folding his arms and holding his head higher as if he just remembered that he's supposed to be playing the part of a cocky prince. "We'll travel by our horses, we'll reach there in fifteen minutes."

"Oh, alright." Sakura didn't converse further as she untied the reins of Kouro, softly raking her fingers through his manes. The bundle of wheat stalk was nowhere to be found. "Looks like you had a little snack there." If Kouro was a human, his little neigh would've sounded sheepish.

"Are you ready?"

Sakura mounted onto Kouro's back, nodding at the prince before they went trotting back up the same way they came in through before the same emptiness of the district roads drew her attention again. "Prince Sasuke, may I ask you something?" His grunt was all she was going to get as a signal, "Are the residential streets always this empty?"

She didn't see Sasuke's face, but he frowned to himself, trailing his eyes over every alley and divider lanes they passed. "Actually…no. I don't know why they're empty."

The more Sakura wandered around the residential block, the more her confusion grew. It was like a barren land, hardly a soul in sight. Even the windows were closed. 'It wasn't like this before…' it has to be a week at most when the roads started emp1tying up.

They took a different route than before, curving down the dirt road right outside the residential block gate and heading out of the liveliest parts of the kingdom and the surroundings once again changed to dirt and rocks and foliage. Kuroshima does seem like a place with more forest than homes.

Sakura followed behind Sasuke at a leisurely trot, bored out of her mind with nothing else to do except look at the trees that look the same as every other and talking to Sasuke would like talking to a log of wood.

She stared in front of her when she found nothing interesting to catch her attention, her uninterested eyes trailing over the dark training shirt with trimmings of gold and a bold Uchiha insignia proudly stamped onto the back. She looked at the back of his head with the short black hair spiked up choppy locks, like a cat that has been provoked too far.

He stood proudly and spoke haughtily, yet in his words was a sense of immaturity that never faded. He tried to make himself seem wiser, but his quick to anger temper and tactless indecisiveness betrayed his true age.

Sasuke could have been no more than a year younger than her, but they seemed so far apart. Perhaps it was him, perhaps it was her. She would never truly know.

Sasuke seemed to have sensed his stare at the back of his head when he unsurely glanced back, seeing her eyes affixed right on him and turned around so quickly he could've hurt his neck, his ears burning up again.

'Weird kid.' Sakura shrugged before sighing quietly again. Soon they were past the thickest trees and by a plain grassland that stretched on for miles.

"This is generally where we hunt for boars and wild chickens. Currently we will have to travel bit further since there aren't any new game meat herds here. We will be racing straight ahead." Sasuke provided helpfully, adjusting himself on his saddle and when he looked at her, she could almost see a look of challenge on his face. "Think you can keep us with me?"

Sakura straightened up, eyes narrowing at the prideful smirk on the prince's face. "Is that a challenge, my prince?" Even still, there was no stopping the tremor of thrill down her spine. If there was one thing Sakura loved more than her peace, it was a challenge.

"It's only a challenge if you're threatened." He gripped the reins to his horse, "so, can you?"

Her lips tilted in a smirk. "Why don't you see for yourself." It only took a second for them to pull on their reins and break into a heedless run through the grasses.

The wind felt amazing brushing her face and blowing through her hair, but nothing felt better than closing in on the gap between the prince's horse and Kouro. She kept her gaze forward and still felt the long glance from Sasuke when she galloped right beside him.

They brushed past the long blades of grass until they were much deeper into the grassland and near a thicket of tall trees. Sasuke trotted down to a stop and Sakura followed him, dismounting Kouro's back and tying his reins to the tree. "What now?"

"Well, now," Sasuke pulled on something hanging to the side of the saddle, and a second later, Sakura realized it was a bow and a quiver full of arrows. He held it up for her to see, a smirk on his face. "We hunt."

Sakura was hidden well between the branches high up in a thick tree, cheek resting in her palm as she looked in front of her, to the other tree where the prince sat perched like a hawk with his bow. 'How long does it take again?' "Why are we hunting again?"

Sasuke raised an eyebrow at her, "Why not? It's thrilling."

A grimace pulled up on her face as she slid down further on the branch. "I would rather you eat the hunt than just let it die wastefully, for the thrill of it." Though Sakura loved eating meat, she has never been particularly fond of killing it herself. When travelling with her team, she would rather let the other medics take the job of hunting and skinning their game, but situations arise and she had to kill them herself when it can't be helped.

But if it could be helped, she would much rather avoid it.

"Why? You don't like hunting?"

"Not particularly fond of it." Sakura sighed, laying down on the branch on her side with her head propped on her arm. She could've been wrong but she heard Sasuke chuckling from the other side. Her eyes trailed over the other trees, following the birds that would hop onto one branch and then take off the next second. Suddenly she heard Sasuke grunting.

"Meat incoming."

Sakura looked down at the grassland and saw a small figure rustling through the blades. 'A boar?' A pretty small boar at that, seemingly malnourished. "Is it really even-" She started to question the worth of the kill when she was quickly shushed by Sasuke. He held up his bow, lining an arrow on the string and pointed it straight at the moving body.

She held her breath as Sasuke pulled harder on the string and in a second, let it go. Only for the arrow to strike inches away from the body. The boar screeched shrill, scrambling away through the blades.

"Damn it!" Sakura sighed as Sasuke cursed under his breath. The prince breathed out through his mouth, slinging his bow over his shoulder. "Just when I though we could get a game."

Sakura hummed before leaning back against the tree trunk, looking over bushes that lined the thicket and her eyes drew to a further distance when she saw a shadows from the corner of her eyes. Sakura looked up beyond the trees. "Sasuke…" The prince looked up at her and she nodded toward where she was looking, "Is that a moose?"

Sasuke blinked it surprise too, "It is. We have a lot of moose around our kingdom, but they generally don't wander into the grasslands. Hunting them in treks is too much of a pain."

"Have you ever had moose meat?" Sakura asked quietly, sliding down from the branch she was sitting at and silently descended the tree. Sasuke looked like he was saying something but she gestured him to quiet down before stepping on a nub on the tree Sasuke was sitting at.

"What are you doing?"

Sakura ignored his panicked whisper, grabbing onto a lower branch to haul her up until she slid up on the branch Sasuke was perched on. "Move move." She let him huff and puff all he wanted before steadying herself on the branch. "So have you eaten moose before?"

Sasuke huffed before craning his head up toward the canopy. "Once, it was great. But after that, we've never been able to hunt a moose through the rocky trails."

Sakura hummed low before grabbing the bow from Sasuke, shushing his indignant hissing to test the springiness of the string. She drew one arrow from the quiver strapped to Sasuke's back, lining it on the string and pulling it back. She turned to her side and fired the first arrow, totally off course from the moose.

"That is definitely not the way the moose is standing." Sasuke scoffed from beside her. She rolled her eyes, drawing another arrow from the quiver.

"Thank you so much, genius. Who knows what I would've done without your input." Her voice dripped with sarcasm as she lined the arrow again, but pointed it straight at the moose. One only needs one trial arrow to get a hand of a new bow.

She wasn't particularly the most well-trained with a bow, having to preference to deal with matters with blades, she only knows the basic training with a bow. But if the target is still, she could manage well enough. And the moose was currently, pretty still.

"You know how to use a bow?"

"Can you keep quiet." Sakura whispered under her breath and she pulled the string tighter, straightening the arrow on her finger and closed one eye. The moose ducked down by the bushes, leisurely chewing on the leaves. Her hands faltered slightly as she took in its peaceful face, unaware of the danger that lied ahead.

The surroundings were silent to her, the chirpings faded and the only thing she felt was her heartbeat and the silent footsteps of the moose. It looked around itself, before ducking down again and Sakura felt the same twinge in her chest. But that was the way of life, one must die for the other to live.

Before she could think too much about it, she pulled on the string and let it fly.

A second later, only a thud resounded through the forest. Sakura released a breath as Sasuke's stunned whisper arose. "Wait… you actually did it?"

"Yes, I did." Sakura let down the bow down, shaking her clammy hands until they felt firm enough. "But how are we going to get it to the compound?"

"Don't worry about it. I'll call some of my men to get it." Sasuke started descending from the tree, cautiously approaching the fallen body to check its life. He looked back when she didn't follow, raising his eyebrow up at the figure on the tree. "Aren't you going to come down?"

Sakura shook her head, sliding her leg to the side and facing away from the moose. "You go check, I'll just… sit here for a bit."

A confused look passed his face but he heeded. Sakura sighed with her eyes closed, leaning against the trunk. She distantly heard Sasuke happily chirruping at the rare meat and felt her mouth pull at the corners. To think just a few weeks ago he was avoiding her like a plague and they were fighting like children. And now he's hanging around her like they are old acquaintances.

She watched a hawk shoot around her and looked back to see it landing on Sasuke's arm before it took off again. 'So he's sending them a message to get us. Huh.'

She watched the prince walk forward before leaning against the tree trunk she was hanging off of, basking in the dim sunlight and cool breeze just under her.

Itachi could feel the muscles in his face twitching even as he forced himself to keep a straight face and bear the nonsense taking place in front of him. It was some kind of map laid on the table, the map of their country's land he realized, and the patrol officer was talking about the placements of the recent attacks on the borders.

But the problem was, he couldn't see anything.

He sat a few feet away from the map that was held down at the center of the table, and couldn't make out a single words or symbol until he hovered over it, which he was not about to do. He was legally blind to anything happening in front of him, and it was beginning to become a problem.

It started out several months ago, when the mountains in the distance started blurring at the edges. It was already bad enough not being able to recognize someone's face until they were close to him, but his condition has only continued to worsen since.

"-and we don't know who is instigating these attacks but they are always committed by the same groups of people." The officer continued to lay down his observations, pointing at the border of Kirigakure. "We have reasons to believe that these are the barbarians from higher north, but the community elders are denying us any meeting with them."

Itachi's hands itched to rub at his eyes but he just closed them tight for a few seconds, but the images didn't get any clearer after he opened them back up.

"Itachi, what is your opinion?"

Itachi blinked at the voice of his father drifted from the head of the table. "I believe one of us should personally stake at the border to await the next attack."

The officer scrunched his nose slightly. "There are only a handful of us to stake at all the borders, and how exactly do you think we can wait out for the next attack? It might be tomorrow, it might be the next month."

A sigh rose from beside him. "Begrudge as I might," Shisui leaned back in his seat, arms crossed behind his head, "Officer Santo has a point. Patrolling without result can only go for so long."

Itachi tapped a knuckle to his chin, his eyes flitting between the circle on the borders and the number of dots around them. "Then we'll have to figure out the next expected attack."

There was a string of silence through the room before a quiet sigh from Shisui broke it. "Don't tell me you're now psychic too."

Itachi shot him a deadpanned look. "What I'm saying is that there is definitely a pattern between these attacks. Every time there has been an attack, there has always been a merchant traveling past the border."

The occupants in the room stewed over the information, and it was Kakashi who responded next. "Not always true. The attack three months ago that took place on the border of Shirokawa included our own local vendors, and most of the attacks on the border of Itagakure never included any third party. These are incredibly unpredictable patterns."

The room fell silent once again before Fugaku stood up from his seat with the rest following soon. "We will resume our discussion in a few days. The meeting is adjourned."

The occupants of the room poured out and Itachi was the last to leave, content to stand and look at the map for a while longer. He was starting to space out staring at the parchment when a loud smack on his back almost made him stumble.

Shisui's grin seemed brighter than usual. "Did Doctor Haruno finally tell you off?" The question made Shisui's grin to be replaced by a pout as he followed after his younger cousin out of the room.

"Can't you just be happy that I am happy?"

Itachi ignored his cousin's sulking as he reached inside his shirt pocket and drew out a small folded parchment. "These are the names of the patrol guards from the last three attacks. Go and get their full report from the descriptions to the casualties."

Shisui flinched slightly from behind him before he turned around with feigned nonchalance and tried to weasel away from his cousin. "Man, it sure is a hot day." He whistled under his breath, trying to slink away, "I wonder if the tea stall with have lemona-" he hacked in his throat when the collar to his shirt was snatched back until he was chocking.

Itachi glowered from behind him, shaving the parchment into his palm and shaking him by his collar for good measures. "Do your job. Don't make me have to drag you out."

After a bit more resistance, Shisui left while muttering curses under his breath. Itachi had to pinch the bridge of his nose as he turned away toward the stairs. His first instinct was to go straight to the imperial physician, but then stopped in his track. He looked down at the ground with hazy eyes before he turned his feet and instead of going up the stairs, he travelled through the joint corridor and straight into the guest residency.

Even as he stood in front of the third door to the left, he knew that it was completely inappropriate to just show up at a maiden's chamber, unannounced and uninvited. He hesitated greatly before rapping his knuckled on the door and a few moments later, it slid open.

Half lidded green eyes blinked in surprise. Itachi felt his eyes trail from the top of her head to her feet. "Am I… interrupting something?" he hoped he wasn't, but her mussed up hair and haphazardly thrown robe told something else. He tried to not let his eyes linger on the creamy skin below her collarbone revealed by her loosely tied yukata.

"What?" Sakura looked slightly disoriented as she rubbed her eyes and finally seemed to see him. "Oh, prince Itachi, what a surprise for you to visit me. Please come inside."

If she invited him in, then surely she's alone. With that reassurance, he followed her inside the modest room. It was the first time he has seen her room and he looked over the strewn books and pieces of paper. There was a large trunk in one side of the room and a bed on the other with the sheets rustled.

Sakura cleared her throat from beside him and he caught her tying her robe better around herself and fixing her hair. "Ah, forgive me for the unkempt state of my room. I just didn't have the time to clean. And forgive me for you having to see me such a state."

Her mannerisms always struck him as odd. Perhaps it was the difference in the cultures of their kingdoms, or how they were raised, but acted so differently than the women on his clan and even kingdom.

Sakura Haruno was strange in ways she chose to dress herself, in men's pants and shirt and haori. She rode around on her trusted horse instead of a carriage, chose to spend her time roaming around the forest instead of the compound. She trained alone at night when she thought no one saw her.

What confused him the most was her uncaring attitude toward her current state. Most noblewomen he had encountered wouldn't be caught dead in a less than appropriate state, especially by someone from the imperial family. But as Sakura stood in front of him with a light robe and hair open, she almost had him clutching at his pearls. She lived like a soldier instead of a maiden.

"Please don't apologize. I'm the one who dropped by unannounced." Itachi was uncomfortable enough to fidget slightly in his place, standing almost like a wooden doll as he watched Sakura flitting around the room to clear up the table and lay down the cushion by the side.

Itachi nodded his thanks as he sat down on the cushion with Sakura on the side next to him. "May I bring some tea?"

Itachi shook his head, "I wouldn't stay here long. I..." he hesitated for a moment, looking at the woman before him who he has come to know as the literal savior of his kingdom. He cleared his throat before saying anything. "Lady Sakura, may I ask you a question?"

Sakura looked at him for a moment before nodding. "You are a doctor, who is not currently under my father's employment, am I right?" at her nod, he continued, "And if a patient asks you to keep something confidential, you would respect their wishes. Correct?"

Sakura pursed her lips as she considered his question. "Yes, I would."

Itachi nodded, "Good." He leaned over the table and mulled over his words. Sakura wanted to question him again, but she could practically see the inner turmoil swirling inside the prince. He looked greatly troubled.

"Prince Itachi, is ther-"

"I need your help." Sakura almost didn't hear him the first time but she managed to register his words in her mind. He was looking down at the table, a furrowed pinching at his eyebrows. She wanted to ask him to repeat again, but she stopped herself. It must've already been a great deal of effort for a prince to ask a temporary doctor for help. It spoke of how dire situation must be.

"What do you need my help for, my prince?"

Itachi finally looked up and in his dark eyes, she was haziness, like they weren't focusing too well. He all but confirmed her suspicion.

"It's my eyes." His panic was evident in the whisper, try as he might to hide it. His face was blank, plain, but his voice shook just ever so slightly. "I can't see."

The surprise was evident on Sakura face as she looked closer at him. "You can't see?"

Itachi nodded, sitting stiffly and folding his hands over his lap. "I can't see thing that are at a distance. They all just blur out."

Sakura leaned back from the back, cupping a hand to her chin and mind immediately switched into the part where she is a doctor first. "How long has this been happening?"

"A few months."

Sakura stood up from her seat and slid in front of the prince. Itachi looked a little surprised at her actions but that must've been an understatement to the moment when she grabbed his face and twisted it side to side. She lifted both the eyelids and then pulled at his lower lid to examine his eyes.

"No yellowness, no swelling, no redness. The veins aren't bulging, the pupils are not dilated… It doesn't look like there are some underlying illnesses." She mused aloud and fetched a small mirror from the side of her desk. "Can you face the door for me." She motioned toward the engawa door and stood up to slide it open. Sunlight filled the floor next to where they were sitting and Itachi sat straight faced toward the engawa.

Sakura leaned closer and held the mirror under the sunlight, adjusting it slowly until the reflection fell directly on his eyes. Itachi struggled to not close his lids and the light was gone in a moment. Sakura hummed under her breath, stepping back furthest away and holding up a paper.

"Can you read what's written here?"

Itachi narrowed his eyes at the paper but the words only seemed like blurred dots. Perhaps understanding his predicament, Sakura took a step closer. "How about now?" When nothing happened again, she took another step closer, and then two more.

"Ah… I see." Itachi could finally put together the lines that made a sentence. "When the… When the fox strikes. That's what's written."

"That's right." Sakura nodded with a small smile before she sat down in front of him again, "But it took you four steps to make out the words. That's not a really good look."

Concern rose inside the prince but his face only blanked further, like it always does in the face of anxiety, like a second nature. "Does that mean I'll never have my full vision back."

"Woah, stop the cart. It's not as dire as you think." Sakura chuckled under her breath and folded her arms, regarding him with an open expression. She's usually guarded around the people of the royal family, but right now, she's not seeing Itachi as the prince of Kuroshima, but rather a patient that came to her for help. The first etiquette in medicine is to always make your patients trust you over all else, and that starts with building a familiarity.

"There are so many patients with extremely low vision range that continue to function so well that you would never guess they have any troubles. There are many treatments we could do, we could get you some spectacles-"

"No." A sharp rebuttal struck up from Itachi and he furiously shook his head. "No spectacles, no monocles, no glasses."

Sakura blinked in surprise at his sharp defiance but agreed, "Alright then, the only other option we have left is physical therapy and medications. But it would require regular check ups." She pursed her lips slightly in thought, looking him over in consideration, "But considering the severe amount of deterioration, it would take several rounds of checkups. And I'm talking like at least four months of regular therapy for it to get even a little better."

"Is there really no other, faster, option?" Itachi's frown deepened. Sakura was about to shake her head no, when something made her pause.

Sakura chewed on her lips in thought as a page from a textbook she read came to her mind. She almost voiced out her response, but then stopped, the ethical side of her mind conflicting with the side that told her to help the prince.

"Lady Haruno?"

Sakura looked back at the pale face of the prince, hopeful and anxious. "There… is another option. But it's risky." At Itachi's inquiring gaze, she looked toward the stack of textbooks by the side of the table, and one brown book in particular.

"There is a thing called artificial lens, made of this animal cartilage and collagen. You put it on your iris and it works with the refractive index of your eyes to give you a better image. There is also a treatment that goes along with the lens of eye drops and medications." She then hesitated a little in continuing further, "But the problem is, none of these treatments have been implemented yet. They are mostly theoretical and only in the stages of experimentations. It will be taking a huge risk to go with this treatment."

The room engulfed into a silence for a few minutes as Itachi mulled over his decision, fingers nervously tapping on his folded forearm and anxious nerves rolling off his body in waves. Sakura was just considering telling him to forget about the whole thing and they were going with the original plan, when a long sigh filled through the room and Itachi finally lifted his head to look at her with his dark eyes and a small nod of his head.

"Do what you need to do."

"This just arrived, my lord."

A pale hand lifted the rolled parchment with apparent boredom, flicking it open before holding it up to his face. Lackluster eyes trailed over strokes of ink before a sigh filled the room.

"Another new update and nothing has changed." A low voice sighed under a breath before continuing reading the report. The man standing beside the lord looked inside the scroll as well before musing out loud.

"The illness has been dealt with. That's a good news, you can visit now my lord."

The lord hummed under his breath. "I should, but I don't really want to." A frustrated breath escaped through his nose, "Every time I go back, it's the same. It never changes."

"But they're your family."

The lord wanted to roll his eyes, when something on the paper caught his eyes. A name to be exact, and with that name came an image. He sat up straighter in his seat, looking closely at the scroll to make sure his eyes weren't fooling him before he ordered his assistant with new urgency in his voice.

"Inform the maids to start packing my luggage and tell the servants to prepare the produces, we're leaving in a few days."

The assistant raised an eyebrow at the sudden urgency. "Why the sudden change, my lord?"

"Just do it." The lord commanded before sending him away, eyes tracing back the characters that made the name like he just found a long lost treasure.

Sakura Haruno, from Hiraisumi.

AN: Ohhhhh, who's this new mysterious person! Who could it ever be?! *Gasps*

See y'all later.