Blood.

There was blood everywhere - on the floor, on the wall, on her hands and Sasuke's body.

Redness engulfed her entire head. With trembling hands, Sakura brushed the hair off Sasuke's forehead and looked at his face. His eyes were closed. She put a finger under his nose and was relieved to find that he was breathing. As long as he gave any signs of life, Sakura couldn't panic too much.

Gently, with effort, she turned Sasuke onto his back. His hand fell inertly to his side, giving her access to the wound. She pulled up his blouse a bit and looked at the injury. The wound didn't look deep. Someone must have been treating it for a while.

Sakura left Sasuke and ran to the bathroom. In the cabinet she found a bandage and disinfectant. She took them and put them down next to Sasuke, then went into the room and took out painkillers and water. At this point, she could only give him the most necessary care.

She sat down across from him and leaned over, gently slapping his cheek - Sasuke needed to wake up.

"Sasuke." he did not respond "Sasuke. Sasuke, get up, please." still nothing happened. Sakura grabbed his shoulders and tried to lift him, but he was too heavy for her "Sasuke, please."

She couldn't give up now. Sasuke came back to her; came back home. He was counting on her to help him. Therefore, Sakura had no other option. She had to save him.

But her strength was deserting her. The shock and adrenaline were not enough. Sakura couldn't do anything else.

She began to shake. Panic gripped her entire body. She couldn't catch her breath - she was beginning to choke, making the pain in her chest worse. Her heart was palpitating with such speed that Sakura was losing touch with reality. She was afraid she was going to die here and now. She felt like she was in a cage. She wanted to escape from there.

The dryness in her mouth deepened her panic. Tears poured down the drain from her eyes.

Sakura sat and shivered from the cold, until she suddenly felt warmth on her thigh.

"Sa—" a cough came out of his throat "kura."

She regained consciousness. So did Sasuke, who began to rise.

"Wa—wait."

Sakura helped him up and, before he could protest, she disinfected his wound and bandaged it. She tried to do everything carefully, enough so that infection would not set in. She reached for the medicine, but then Sasuke put his hand on her cheek.

"I'm sorry." He rode his finger over the skin under her eye, smearing the blood "I'm sorry..."

"Sasuke, you have to take this—"

He wrapped his arms around her waist, bringing her as close to him as possible. He positioned his head in the hollow of her neck. And he cried - his tears and heavy breathing tied her stomach in a knot. And Sakura cried along with him, until he passed out from exhaustion.

(a few hours ago)

The mission was going smoothly. It had been a long time since Sasuke had found it so easy to accomplish any task. He even felt he was wasting time, just when he could have been with his wife. And he missed Sakura, a fact he could not hide.

Their last moments together were etched in his memory so much that he dreamed about them. She gave him that strange sense of security and love that he had been seeking since childhood. And because of that, he couldn't get away from her now. He would like to be by her side forever. But that could always equate now with the dangers that lurked on them.

Sasuke found himself on the brink, and none of the options seemed right.

"Thinking about her again?" he heard laughter from the side.

He sent a thunderous glance to his companion, which was met with even more laughter from the other.

That's why Sasuke preferred to carry out the mission in solitude - there were no nosy and chatty people around him then. Everyone in Konoha knew that he had a wife, and just as they realized that he didn't choose her himself, so they liked to tease him, thinking that Sasuke wasn't comfortable with the marriage, which had obviously been untrue for a long time; but who were they to make them realize that.

"Focus on the mission." He just told them, without concentrating on them any further.

"We're already on our way back."

"Mission accomplished, Uchiha, don't be so fussy." if the gray-haired man ran closer to him, Sasuke was sure he would have patted him on the shoulder "You'll be home soon."

"Exactly!"

They started another discussion, which Sasuke didn't listen to because he was completely uninterested in it (he knew these men and thought they were excellent at what they did, but he wouldn't be able to spend his private time with them; Naruto was enough for him). They jumped from branch to branch without observing their surroundings, and as if Sasuke didn't have sensitive senses, no one would have felt the changing atmosphere.

"Stop."

They stopped abruptly, almost falling from the tree. One of his companions asked him a silent question, but Sasuke turned on his sharingan, ignoring it. Something was wrong here. There was a silence in the forest, the likes of which he had rarely ever experienced. A silence that could only herald one thing, since even the animals had gone quiet; and they were never quiet.

He scanned the area with his eyes, but saw nothing suspicious. He was already about to cancel his alarm when unexpectedly a kunai flew past him, injuring his cheek and slamming into a tree.

"Oh shit—"

"We're splitting up!" he interrupted his companion and rushed in the direction from which the weapon flew.

Sasuke suspected that it was not at all about the scroll they had with them, but him.

Disappearing behind the trees, he lost sight of his companions and ended up in the dark side of the forest. The trees hid the sun because they were so densely spaced. Sasuke tried to scan the area with his sharingan, however something interfered with his ability. He lost control.

Trying to spot a person, he didn't focus on anything else and didn't notice someone sneaking right past him. He only felt a sudden blow on his back and flew forward, catching his balance quickly so as not to let his opponent knock him down.

"We finally meet face to face, Uchiha." A venomous and distorted voice reached his ears.

Sasuke turned around and encountered a frail man with a white mask on his head.

"It's hard to talk about a face-to-face meeting when you're hiding." He scoffed at the man's words and motioned at him with a prepared kunai.

"It's for security reasons." the man laughed derisively.

Aiming perfectly at his stomach, Sasuke didn't hesitate for a moment and struck, but then his hand went up, pushed back by this stranger, and before he had a chance to prepare for the next blow, he was already flying backwards, pushed back by the kind of force he had never faced. Who was this man?

Sasuke rose, but was pressed to the ground in a second. He felt his ribs break under the pressure.

Leaving him no other option, Sasuke gathered his chakra and released it through his entire body. The man moved away at the last moment, as if sensing what he was planning.

Seizing the opportunity, Sasuke got up and moved to hand-to-hand combat. It was going really well, until his opponent showed what he was capable of. It ran through Sasuke's mind that this individual knew him too well. He anticipated almost every move he made. But that would be impossible. No...

"You are so weak. How will you save her?"

His heart beat harder. Not Sakura.

"Stop it!"

He pulled out two shurikens and threw them, but hit none.

"How will you save her, Uchiha?!" the man approached him in a flash, pinning him to a tree "How?" his strength was incredible; Sasuke could do nothing. Nothing. "You can't do it! She will die because of you!"

"One more time—"

"You can say goodbye to her now!"

He pulled out a kunai and stabbed it into Sasuke's abdomen, then vanished into thin air.

The last thing Sasuke remembered was Sakura's face and the darkness.

His head rested on her shoulder. For the first few seconds, Sakura couldn't feel or hear his breathing, so she checked him, and when it appeared that his breathing had simply calmed down, Sakura pushed him away, wiping the tears from under his eyelids. This was the second time she had seen him cry, and she never wanted to experience that again. His pain was also her pain. His suffering had gone on too long, she wanted to prevent it. And there was nothing she could do.

She put the medicines aside and checked the bandage, which had begun to leak, and trying not to panic, she grabbed the cabinet. She opened it, still holding Sasuke with one hand and looking for the phone with the other. Her husband always left it there.

Various papers, pens and other things clattered around inside. Sakura couldn't stretch out more to see where the phone was, which made her anxious. What if it wasn't here? Then she would have to go get hers and dial Sasuke's mother, which would only prolong the wait for help. And Sasuke needed it now.

Slowly losing hope, she finally stumbled upon what she was looking for. She took out Sasuke's cell phone and went into his contacts, looking for one. She finally found the one signed - Doctor Tsunade. Sakura had heard a month ago from Mikoto that her former colleague, who is a top medic, the one Sakura had already heard about, had returned to Konoha for a few months and had given her son's number, in case she wanted to contact her about pregnancy problems. Sakura didn't think they would ever need the number.

She clicked it, waiting for the call. Doctor Tsunade answered after a few beeps.

"Uchiha, to what do I owe your call?" a weary and deep female voice spoke up on the other side of the receiver.

"Ms. Tsunade..." Sakura felt a sudden lump in her throat.

"Who's there?"

Sakura really didn't know why she was so unexpectedly unable to say anything. It was as if talking about Sasuke's condition was too difficult for her.

"Uchiha Sakura, Sasuke's wife. I need your help."

"What happened?" Tsunade became serious, and Sakura began to breathe harder, "Calm down, tell me what happened."

"Sasuke, my husband, he... He came back all bloody with a wound on his stomach. I bandaged it and wanted to give him painkillers, but he..." all this overwhelmed her. New tears appeared in the corners of her eyes "I think he fainted. I don't know. Please, can you come?"

A silence rang out that even rang in Sakura's ears. She was afraid of refusal, afraid of being left alone, afraid that Sasuke would die.

She couldn't lose him. No.

She loved him too much. He meant too much to her.

"I'll be right there. Take care of him. He needs to breathe."

Tsunade hung up, and Sakura brushed Sasuke's hair away from his forehead, bringing his inert body closer to her heart.

.

She did not have to wait long. After six minutes, the door to the house opened with a clatter and a woman, who didn't look her age one bit, entered through it. Sakura looked at her, judging if it was her, but Tsunade walked up to her and took Sasuke in her arms as if he weighed nothing and put him on the couch, immediately attending to his wound. Sakura had no more prejudices.

"You don't have to worry about anything else, I'll take care of it." She assured, putting the bandage aside and bringing her hands to the red skin, "And now you can calmly tell me what happened." Sakura didn't know if she was even able to utter a single word "And what's that stink?"

As if on cue, tears flew from her eyes anew; she felt as if they would never end - she had just finished crying and was starting again.

With shaking hands, she wiped her wet cheeks. She couldn't calm her breathing. She was trembling on the floor because she couldn't get up and walk to the couch. She was a total mess.

A white package landed in her lap at the very moment she thought she would pass out on her own.

"This is for sedation. Take it."

Sakura thanked the woman quietly, chatting under her breath. She took two pills and sipped them with water from a glass on the table. They didn't work right away, as she was aware, so Tsunade took care of Sasuke, giving Sakura time to sort out her thoughts and her nerves.

Watching the woman work, Sakura regretted not having grown up in a shinobi family, where she might have been able to help her husband now.

"Are you feeling better now?"

"Yes."

She finally got up from the floor and walked over to the couch, settling behind Sasuke's head so she could stroke his hair gently.

"Then tell me what happened. With details."

Delving into not-so-distant memories, Sakura began:

"I went home normally, knowing that Sasuke was on a mission and wouldn't be back until tomorrow." She shuddered at the thought that there was a possibility he might never return "Nothing seemed suspicious, but after a while I discovered... I discovered my dead cat." Her gaze wandered to that spot, but she quickly turned her head away, not wanting to encounter the same horrible sight with her gaze. Tsunade nodded, understanding her panic and that unfavorable smell, "And a second later Sasuke came back, all bloody. He didn't manage to say anything to me."

"Has a similar thing ever happened before?"

"No." she lied, finding that going into detail about certain things was inappropriate; this time she knew Sasuke hadn't done it on purpose "He assured me that he always came back whole and healthy."

"Do you know who could have done this?"

"No."

"Do you think it was just a complication during the mission?"

"Yes..." she hesitated "No. Not really. It's hard to explain. And why do you need to know?"

"I am in good relations with the Hokage, and your family is very important to the village and-"

"No, please don't tell him anything!" her outburst was met with surprise from the woman "Let's leave that to his father to do. He is the head of the clan."

"In that case, should I inform his parents? You don't seem to be able to-"

"No, I can handle it." Tsunade's insistence on the subject was slowly beginning to irritate her; Sakura didn't think the woman would be so inquisitive "I'll explain everything to them. Just tell me, will he be okay?" she changed the subject.

Tsunade moved her hands away from Sasuke's body.

"Your husband will be like a newborn tomorrow. This Uchiha is fearless. I've known him since he was a little boy, you have nothing to be afraid of." She took out a transparent net from her bag "Here you have a cold compress, as if he gets a fever, and painkillers to give him tomorrow morning when he wakes up. If you need anything, we are on call."

"Thank you. Thank you so much."

Sakura bowed to her, giving a big thank you. She didn't know how else she could repay the doctor.

"I'm glad you called me." She put her hand on her head "Uchiha loves to avoid hospitals, and his family wouldn't want him to die because of his own stupidity."

Before she left, she walked over to the dead cat and took it with her so Sakura wouldn't see it again. But she knew one thing - that Tsunade saw the note that was next to it and didn't comment on it, but also took it with her.

.

Sakura wasn't sure when she fell asleep. Whether it was right after Tsunade left, or maybe some time later. The only thing she remembered was that she closed her eyes and unexpectedly drifted off, and a second later she woke up in the same place - on the floor leaning against the couch.

Her back and neck ached, but she couldn't complain. She stretched and turned to check Sasuke's temperature, but then she noticed a black figure in the corner of the hallway and her heart stopped for a moment.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you, Sakura."

The voice was so familiar.

"Itachi." She stood up, smiling with relief "You're back."

"Yes, but I don't have good news. And I guess you do too."

Itachi walked over to his brother, looking down at him. He just sighed loudly and gave Sakura a temperature check on him. When she felt that his forehead was too hot, she put cooling compresses on it.

"Did you find out?"

"No. I came to share a disturbing matter. I didn't think my brother looked like this."

"If you want to talk to Sasuke, you'd better come in a few days. He won't be able to say anything today."

Sakura didn't feel right about pushing Itachi away, but her heart told her that seeing a younger brother in such a state for an older one was nothing nice and she would spare him that, especially since Sasuke really wasn't up to anything right now.

"This is an important topic, so I can't postpone it." He said, putting his hands in his pockets; his tense posture said he was unwell "I trust you, Sakura, so I'll tell you, and then you'll tell my brother."

He waited for her answer.

"Okay."

Itachi nodded and leaned against the wall.

"I returned from a mission yesterday and was immediately informed by Izumi that they had reportedly found a body in the Naka River." Sakura shuddered "She heard it by accident, she doesn't even know from whom. She was just walking down the street in our clan's area and it caught her ear." Itachi lowered his gaze to the floor "But before they could pull that body out, it was gone. In fact, it sort of melted away. And there wouldn't have been anything so scary about it if it weren't for one thing - I came back from the mission alone. Shisui is missing."

"Shisui... What?"

"I don't know myself."

Itachi's words came to her slowly, indistinct and distorted. Her head didn't want to comprehend it, even though it already did the first time. Sakura felt as if life was laughing at her, putting her to the test.

She rose in a surge of emotion and approached Itachi in two steps, grabbing him firmly by the forearm.

"What— What are we going to do now?" she didn't let him get a word in edgewise, continuing, "Do you think this was Shisui's body? That he's dead?"

"I don't know that, Sakura, really." He shook his head, grabbing her hand in a reassuring gesture "Shisui and I stopped at a motel a few hours from Konoha. It was late, so we figured we'd get some rest before heading home. Nothing out of the ordinary. We went to bed, and in the morning I woke up alone. No sign of Shisui. Literally. It was as if he had let himself be taken away just like that."

The whole short story made no sense to her. Itachi and Sasuke's cousin didn't seem like the kind of person who suddenly disappears. Nor did he seem like a person who would let himself be taken away without a fight.

"But this is—"

"Impossible? I know."

Sakura waited for him to say more, but Itachi fell silent. She let him go, moving away. If Itachi couldn't think of anything, that meant it was bad, very bad.

"Do you think... it won't end with Shisui?"

He looked over her shoulder.

"It's not over."

She knew perfectly well to whom he was referring, and as if on cue, Sasuke coughed and muttered something under his breath. Sakura's heart leapt to her throat.

"Sasuke!"

She quickly walked over to him and crouched in front of the couch, brushing his hair off his forehead, while checking his body temperature again, which, fortunately, had normalized. So she took off the cold pack and kissed him.

"Sakura." he choked out. They looked at each other as if they were seeing each other for the first time. Sasuke put his hand on her cheek "Are you all right?"

"Yes, yes." He smiled with relief "Why are you worried about me, look at you better. Oh, Sasuke-kun..."

"What happened?"

"Tsunade healed you. You'll be fine now."

She seemingly reassured him, but nevertheless felt she was doing it more for herself, lest she start to panic again.

"And what is my brother doing here?"

"Itachi came to tell you something."

Itachi took a chair and set it in front of his younger brother, then began to speak, and when he finished, Sasuke shared his story with him.

The echoes of the conversation with his brother still reverberated in his head. Sasuke spent five days at home, never moving from his bed further than to the toilet, as his wound continued to hurt and he could not strain it. All this time Sakura was beside him, busying herself around the house with a mask hiding her true feelings.

She helped him change his bandages, put on his clothes, applied scar cream and made him meals so he wouldn't have to stand so much at the stove. She did all this with a smile on her lips, but emptiness in her eyes. Sasuke couldn't look at it anymore. He blamed himself for it. In front of her, he shouldn't have said the exact words the man there had said.

Sitting on the couch, he watched her slow movements at the dining room table. She had been cleaning up after dinner for a good fifteen minutes.

"Sakura?"

"Mhm?" she didn't even raise her eyes at him.

"It wasn't your fault, you know that?"

Sasuke noticed how her hand twitched and her lips curved downward.

"Can we not talk about it?"

She quickly picked up the rest of the plates and carried them back to the kitchen. She avoided the subject like a fire.

Sasuke stretched out on the couch and closed his eyes, wanting to go for an afternoon nap, but then he felt the weight of her body on the other side. He opened one eye and spotted Sakura with the remote control in her hand.

"Let's watch something." She communicated and turned on the TV.

Some kind of romantic comedy, which Sasuke hadn't watched before, was playing at the moment, although it was only the background the whole time - Sakura wouldn't stop talking about her day and her plans for tomorrow. She tried throughout to avoid the earlier topic.

Before the movie was over, however, a knock sounded on the door. Sakura went to open it and returned with a letter, which she handed to Sasuke.

He looked at the letter and opened it, knowing it was from his father.

"It's about Shisui, isn't it?" Sasuke nodded "Did they find out anything?"

"No, not a trace of him." He tucked the letter into the envelope "My father wrote that he's stopping the search for now, because those people there have made another move."

"What move?"

"He didn't write that."

Sakura crossed her arms and thought for a moment.

"Doesn't that seem too strange to you?" he looked at her uncomprehendingly "Look, your father, the head of the clan, is holding up the search for one of your most important people, additionally from a close family, because something happened, but he didn't tell you at all what." she sounded serious, as if she was getting to something "Remember how I said that the person responsible for all this must be close with the elders. What if he's also close with your clan?"

"Are you accusing my father of being involved in this?"

Whatever resentments he carried in his heart against his father, they were not so great as to suspect him of betraying his own people.

"No, no... It was stupid, I'm sorry." She sat back down on the couch, with remorse in her eyes. Sasuke stood up "Where are you going?"

"To put the letter back in the drawer. There's no telling when it might come in handy again."

He walked into the study and closed the door behind him, then sat down at the desk and opened the letter once more. He didn't tell Sakura the whole truth - he didn't mention that his father had given a reason for stopping the search because it was too hurtful.

Last night, Mikoto found a tossed piece of paper in the bedroom, and on it was written a list of people to kill. In first place was Sakura.

Sasuke sank his face into his hands, tired and increasingly pinned down. There was nothing else left for him. No matter how much he wished he had his wife by his side, she always remained under fire. She was not safe.

He hid the letter deep in a drawer and closed it with a bang.

He promised not to keep any secrets from her, but he also promised himself that he would protect her, and he was unable to do so. Therefore, he made a decision. He made a decision that would cost them both a lot.

Another broken vow.

Two weeks after the fateful event, Sasuke's wound has healed completely, which made Sakura extremely happy. The sight of him in pain had given her sleepless nights and hard days. Leaving the house had been one of the inconvenient things, and now she stood in the middle of the street with the sun's rays tanning her face, gazing into the glowing eyes of her husband.

"You look good with longer hair."

She took his hand and smiled broadly.

"You think so?"

"Mhm. You should leave them that way."

They approached the old lady's store and bent over the vegetables. Sakura began picking out the tomatoes, absorbed in the task so much that she didn't even feel Sasuke staring hard at her. His gaze was focused on her movements and face the entire time, as if he wanted to remember her forever.

"These here are the freshest, picked today." The woman showed them the small tomatoes.

"Mm, how nice they smell." she took put a couple in a net "Thank you."

She picked some more cucumber and turnip and gave them to the woman to count, then paid and they continued on their way, heading slowly to Sasuke's family home.

This morning her husband announced to her that they had a meeting with his father. He didn't say anything else, which stressed her out a bit, but she figured they would probably discuss the recent attack on Sasuke and Shisui's disappearance. Fugaku postponed this until his younger son had fully recovered.

"My mother will certainly be glad to see you." assured Sasuke, but his words sounded strangely... hollow to Sakura.

"I'm even happy too, it's been a long time since I've seen her."

They found themselves in front of Sasuke's house, and just as Sakura was about to knock, her husband caught her face and kissed her tenderly on the lips.

"What's that for?" she laughed.

"For an apology."

"You didn't do anything-" he kissed her once more, silencing her.

Stepping inside, they were greeted by the smell of herbal tea. They took off their shoes and entered the living room, finding Mikoto inside. The woman beamed at the sight of them.

"Hello, sweetheart." She kissed Sakura on the cheek and hugged her son.

"You look good, mom."

"Ah, thank you, darling." she pinched him gently on the cheek.

"I brought fresh vegetables for a salad."

Sakura placed the net on the kitchen table.

"I just happened to be short of them."

"My father is waiting for you at the office." Sasuke's voice reached her ears unexpectedly from the left.

"Just for me?"

"I'll join you later."

"Well, all right."

Sasuke cast a meaningful glance at his mother, then put his hand on Sakura's back and led her to the place. What she didn't see was his sad eyes.

She went inside and found the sight of Fugaku standing in front of the window and looking out. He didn't pay any attention to her at first, deeply focused on his thoughts.

"Sit down, Sakura."

She took a seat, unsure of the tone.

"What did you want to talk to me about."

"I was right." he said only.

She waited for further explanation, but Fugaku was quiet.

"Excuse me?"

"I was right." He sat down across the desk and rested his chin on his joined hands, "You are not fit to be a wife."

Sakura felt her heart; how fast it was beating, how it hurt her.

Fugaku didn't stop.

"Instead of following the rules that my wife and I set together, you were the one who did everything against the rules." he took out some papers and a pen "You lied to us with your problem with getting pregnant. You just didn't want to give us a grandchild."

Cold chills went around her. She could barely feel her body. Her soul was outside her body.

"This-"

"Isn't it true? Child, how do you think I know that?"

"No..."

She almost threw up.

She didn't feel anything anymore.

"Sign the divorce papers."

"Please, listen to me. Please!"

She stood up, and the chair fell, making a bang. Fugaku's piercing eyes did not leave her side. Sakura leaned over the desk, trying to speak to him, but only a growl escaped her throat. It couldn't be true. He wouldn't do it.

No, no, no.

She sank to her knees, unable to stand on her feet any longer. Everything was pulling her down.

"Sakura, sign it."

Sasuke's loud voice echoed off the walls of the room. Mikoto stood in the corner of the corridor, watching the tragedy, almost as if she were in the audience watching the show.

Sakura grabbed the corner of the desk and rose sluggishly. Sasuke towered over her; it was the first time she had seen him so serious.

"No... No!" tears dripped down her cheeks. She grabbed his wrists "I beg you, Sasuke. I can move out for a while, disappear, whatever, but don't make me sign it. Don't say you want to end it." She tried to find those sparks in his eyes that were there just a few minutes ago; answers, but there was nothing there. He stared at her as he had on the first day of their meeting, "Sasuke... I love you, I really do. Very much." His expression continued unchanged; there was no longer any hope "Sasuke?"

"Sign."

So she signed.

welcome back!

the last chapter before the final act, so it's a bit shorter than the rest and contains more questions than answers, but it was needed to wrap it all up nicely soon