You Set My Soul On Fire

When Sakura awoke again. She had coughed up blood, and was clearly unable to move. Kankuro was standing above her with a heavily injured Gaara hanging over his shoulder. "Sakura, can you move?" he whispered. Sakura was stone still on the ground. She was able to blink repeatedly as tears formed in her eyes. Temari came up from behind Kankuro and bent over Sakura, "I don't think she can move." she said to Kankuro. "Sakura, I can't heal you completely, but I'm going to give you my best." Temari instructed. "Wait Temari, we're in the middle of retreating. Just carry her to an adult shinobi or something so we can get out of here." Kankuro interrupted.

"Fine... Sakura, this is going to hurt tremendously. But I'll do my best not to move so fast alright." Sakura blinked trying to make a yes through the idea of morose code. Temari nodded, having no idea what Sakura was blinking for, and lifted her body over her shoulder as gently as she could. Then the running and jumping began. Sakura felt it in every fiber. She clenched her teeth tightly from the pain, not realizing blood was dripping from her mouth and nose. Kankuro had been watching her along the way from behind Temari. He kept encouraging her, saying, "Just hold on, Sakura. We're almost there."

Sakura's breathing became raspy when the group stopped. She had no idea what happened to Sasuke and Naruto. Leaving her worried and troubled. Temari scanned the surroundings before stepping out of the cover of trees. She had found Shikamaru hiding near a shed. "Psst." she called to him. Shikamaru glanced over at her and motioned her towards him. "What happened?" he whispered. Expected a detailed explanation, "No time to explain, here, help Sakura. She desperately needs a medical nin quick." Temari ordered. "Hurry, I'll cover for you." he whispered. Before she departed, Shikamaru kisses Temari on the cheek before carrying Sakura in his arms.

"Wait" Gaara gasped. "Gaara your in no condition to do anything right now." Kankuro complained. Gaara lifted his shaky hand from over Kankuro's back, trying to reach for Sakura. "Wait" he breathed. Kankuro slowly shrugged Gaara off his shoulder to aide Gaara's intentions to be near Sakura. He carried Gaara under his arms and walked him to Sakura. "Help me kiss her forehead," he winced. Kankuro nodded in agreement, and like the puppeteer he was, he decided to use chukra strings, to help Gaara move easily. Gaara's body was leaned over Sakura, her eyes were timid and afraid, as he whispered, "I will wait for your choice." Gaara knew that she would have to decide to forgive him or not. As well as choose to be with him or not. Everything was up in the air, two love birds were breaking. So he finished his pondering of Sakura, and kissed her forehead gently.

Sakura blinked and the sand siblings were gone. Shikamaru carried Sakura slowly, for she had winced and flinched when he made a wrong step, or tried to rush her by running. Kakashi eventually caught wind of a heavily injured Sakura, and rushed to find her. When he came around the corner of a market street, he found Shikamaru walking slowly and holding Sakura gently and carefully.

"Here, hand her to me, I'll get her to a medical nin faster." Kakashi held out his arms, ready for Sakura's light weight. "Wait, she's in a lot of pain, if you keep jumbling up your moves you'll hurt her." Shikamaru stated. He was deeply concerned for her. "I'll be gentle" Kakashi reassured. Shikamaru trusted him, and gently handled Sakura carefully to place into Kakashi's arms.

Kakashi was swift and gentle, he moved so fast through the wreckage and the civilians, he was hardly covering ground at this rate, by just going through the streets, so he jumped from roof to roof. Knowing his knees may have a chance of hurting Sakura by being lifted up and down from each jump as well as from running. Kakashi lifted her up to his chest, so there wouldn't be any uncomfortable movements to harm her.

Finally reaching the hospital, Kakashi watched Sakura be taken in through the emergency room when he arrived calling for a nurse. Moments later, Naruto showed up on a stretcher unconscious as Sasuke arrived in the hospital. He found Kakashi, and walked over to him. "Did someone find Sakura? I looked everywhere for her." Sasuke asked. "Shikamaru found her...then handed her to me so I could get here faster." Kakashi explained. He was still curious as to how Shikamaru didn't inform him of Sasuke and Naruto's location. "Hmm, to think about it, I'm going to question Shikamaru for a little bit." Kakashi informed.

Sasuke waited in the lobby patiently. His body was exhausted, but his mind was filled with thoughts of power and Sakura being injured. If he had the power to surpass Gaara and Naruto, he would be able to defend Sakura. To protect her from any harm. This was his goal. A doctor came into the lobby calling for Sasuke. "ah, there you are. Kakashi informed me you would be waiting for further information on your friends." The doctor smiled to give hope to Sasuke. But Sasuke's expression was too serious to take things lightly. "Well then, Naruto should be a fine when the nurses bandage him up. He's kicking and screaming to get out of here. So it will be moment for your friend to arrive." Sasuke looked up at the doctor, this was it, this was the moment the doctor would inform of Sakura's situation. The doctor paused to look back at the charts. "I'm afraid I have ill news for your friend Sakura. Whoever attacked her, nearly killed her. She has fractured every vital bone in her body. Meaning, her ribs, thighs, back, neck, arms, and skull. She's under heavy treatment from the medical nins, they have already healed the smaller bones for her to function right. But her chance of surviving is about a 2 out of 10. The poor girl, during the healing she was falling into a coma from the pain and stress she is in."

"Depending on her healing for her body she may or may not wake up. When patients fall into a coma, the average rate of them continuing to sleep in this state after a medical treatment, or condition in their body, it takes them days or even years to wake up. For Sakura's situation, her body is in agony, while her heart is dying. So for her to fall into a coma could mean two things. Her body is weak enough to survive, or her body is preparing to die...In a few hours from now, we will know the answer from one of those choices. Please pray for the girl," The doctor placed his hand on Sasuke's shoulder and gave a soft squeeze for reassurance. Sakura...forgive me. I was weak and not able to help you. I'll never let that happen to you again. Please live...

A month had passed by, from the news of Sakura's situation, nearly every team that graduated with her visited her every other day. The only one who visited her every single morning and night, was Sasuke. He came to her bed in the morning with a fresh cherry blossom flower, while every evening he'd take out the flower, kiss Sakura's forehead, and go home pushing his body to the max. His motivation was to defend her through and through. To be powerful and strong, he would have to give into his own curse.

Sakura had thankfully survive through her healing, but remained in a coma like state for weeks. Her entire room was filled with flowers and chocolates. Ino took care of the flowers every other day, so they would remain fresh for Sakura if she ever awoke. Chouji had baked pies once a week with his mother. This gave him the idea to bring one to Sakura's bedside once a week hoping that, one of those weeks, the pie would have been eaten. Unfortunately after two weeks it wasn't. He didn't give up, and ate the pies that she didn't eat, while making sure to replace the pie he had eaten.

Shikamaru hardly spoke to anyone, and continued to write letters in secret in his room, hoping one of them would get to Temari in Suna. But three times a week, Shikamaru would arrive at Sakura's bedside, and pretend he was playing Japanese chess with her. Of course he always won, but this made him feel like he would be there for Sakura.

Kiba and Hinata visited Sakura with fresh milk chocolate every other day, so that when she awoke she would have a stock of chocolate for the next ten years.

Shino arrived once every two weeks, with a blue butterfly in a jar to set upon her nightstand. He felt that it would make her happy to see a bug that was beautiful, instead of assuming they're all disgusting.

As this persisted, most of the sensei's would arrive after seeing their students excessively visit Sakura, and speak to her with encouragement. Most of their words contained surviving, while Kakashi's was only containing words from his book. He felt the words from the book would bring her awake.

Last but not least, Naruto would come by and eat ramen in front of Sakura, hoping the smell itself would wake her up. But nothing happened. Sakura remained motionless and asleep. Till one day, Kakashi had taken up a few hours reading aloud to her. That Sakura heard the words, "You set my soul on fire" coming from his book. She had opened her eyes, and spoke, "I felt that..." her voice was raspy and dry for she hadn't spoken or moved in a month. "You did, did you? And what do those words mean to you, Sakura?" Kakashi was happy she was awake and healthy, but he remained serious in his words.

Sakura stared up at the ceiling and answered, "He made me feel that way...when he kissed me, I felt that..." "Ah, I see your talking about Gaara. I will tell you this, when someone makes you feel that way, our mind thinks and assumes it's the best thing in the world to feel. But it's not. Love is all around you right now Sakura. You see the pies Chouji made, the chocolates Kiba and Hinata made, the annoying love letter's Rock has somehow sneaked in here. The new chess set on your left, Shikamaru got you that so you'd wake up and try and beat him at his game. Everyone of your friends, have come here out of their day to make sure the things here were well taken care of. So that if you ever woke up, you'd see the beautiful flowers Ino nurtured, and Shino's blue butterflies in jars all over this room. You would wake up and feel loved. That's what love is. And if Gaara showed you that, then he is worth everything to you." Kakashi lectured. Sakura was in tears from hearing that.

As days passed, Sakura was able to walk around a little bit from her recovery. Her friends were in glee, and spoiled her with affection and care. "Sakura you're looking great." Ino chuckled. She was grooming some of the flowers in her family's flower shop. "Thanks Ino." Sakura smirked. She felt peaceful when she walked around the flowers with Ino. It made her think of who was giving her the cherry blossom flowers in her hospital room. "Ino, has anyone been buying cheery blossoms from you guys regularly?" Sakura questioned. "No actually. Why do you ask?" she questioned. "Because someone was putting them in the hospital room I stayed in." Sakura mentioned. Ino looked surprised and whispered, "Maybe they're from Gaara?" This made Sakura giggle, "They might be!"

Hours of giggling over who it could be, Sakura lost track of time, and saw it was nightfall already. "I need to get home, I'll call if I find another cheery blossom!" she grinned. Sakura waved goodbye and hurried in the direction of her home. As she ran, something had caught her eye, it was Sasuke looking into the forest from a bridge. "Sasuke!" Sakura called out. She stopped going in the direction of her house, and began running towards Sasuke. When she reached him, Sasuke still had his back turned to her. "Where are you going Sasuke?" she questioned.

"I'm leaving, and you don't need to know why." Sasuke claimed. "Can I go with you. I'll be quiet and won't bother you. Please take me with you." she begged. She wanted to help him, to be with him, because she owed a lot to him. "Please..." Sasuke turned to look at her, and said, "You're annoying. But thank you." And with that, Sasuke was gone, and Sakura was left alone again. "He left...he...left me...why is everyone hurting me then leaving me! I give my heart away and all I get in return is a knife cutting every inch of my soul..." Sakura shouted into the wind, she dropped to her knees in tears. "how could you..." she cried.

Sakura remained on her knees in tears, when finally Kakashi arrived by her side, and bent down on his knees next to her. "I've informed the fifth hokage of Sasuke's departure...are you alright Sakura?" he asked kindly. "Do you think I'm alright? I just got my heart broken in two, and all everyone says, is 'thank you'?! For what, for killing me?" Sakura wailed. Her body was shaking from the stress and heartbreak. "Sometimes people make bad choices and easily later on regret those choices. Sakura, the most we can do, is to keep going. To be able to have our souls always remain burning brightly in the dark. So when they are lost, they will come back. This is what adults call 'letting go'"

Author's note: This is the end for now, and of course there will be a sequel for this story. I just didn't want to have the part 2 series mix in with the part 1...but silly me for adding Gaara in a kazekage getup when she's dying. I had to pull that one for everyone. Hope you liked this story, because it is complete. The only question you should be asking yourselves, is whom does Sakura choose to chase after? You'll find out later tonight when I upload the first chapter for the sequel. Hope you liked it! :D