A/N: Okay so this is something I've been working on for two years now. I would write a bit and go on with my other stories, and I kinda forgot this existed, but yeah I finally got it finished (bless). Btw, all this takes place when Sasuke comes back to Konoha, like three years after the war and a few weeks after the end of Sasuke Shinden (when he decides to come back to Konoha). Please don't hate me, I had this random idea one day and it's totally not canon but ;-; Review pliss.

P.S. This will probably have two parts. I will upload the second part soon.

Liberosis - (n) the desire to care less about things.

It was a long time before she realized it. And when she did, it was too late.

.

His eyes ran wildly, in all directions, while his feet slid across the plain field. Shuriken kept flying at his sides, dangerously close to his body. Fingers touching the soft grass—full of water and insects and nature—he stood up abruptly. There was no time for his muscles to relax, though, for her eyes met his and his gaze hardened. He tensed up again.

Her stance was simple; her feet slightly apart and her arms at her sides, fists raised. He, in turn, was standing up straight; not a sign of a threat and not a scent of danger.

Nevertheless, it was safe to say that he was being cautious. He knew that with just the wrong footing he would be a pile of dead meat from her perfect chakra control. Yet he stood in all his unabashed glory, amidst a million rays of light, and all she wanted to do was gape—or scoff, but this was Sasuke and she knew he had always been extremely arrogant in his own way. Yet there she stood too, fists ready to attack and feet ready to jump in the air.

Not a single sound was heard across the field, but the beating of two drumming hearts and the sounds of birds waking up in the morning.

She didn't dare notice the sun had come up a long time ago—after all, they'd been training for hours, ever before the sun came up in the east.

Perspiring, tired, and drained, she dashed forward. His eyes followed her every movement.

Kunai clashed with Chokutō and the nth battle began. In spite of his weapon holding the bigger physical size, Sakura's strength served to be greater than his sword; the force of her hold proved to be a sudden blast of power and he stepped away in a swift movement, landing on a nearby tree branch to watch his opponent carefully after almost tumbling to the floor not even five minutes into this new match of sparring. His eyes turned a scarlet red, and he watched and observed and took notice of the simplest things and the more complex: Sakura's breathing pattern, the speed of her chakra pathways, the gleam in her eyes as she looked at him. She was running on pure adrenaline and determination at the moment.

"Did I drain the energy out of you already, Sasuke-kun?" He stiffened, tensing at the unasked mockery tone in her voice; she was smiling, proud as if. He'd been perched on the branch for quite a few seconds already, though, and so he moved down to the grass and looked at her from across the small clearing, a little scowl present.

Naruto beamed with excitement, loudly exclaiming his bets on Sakura and criticising Sasuke from time to time. Kakashi sighed, probably questioning his decisions for watching the fight between his former students when he had a bunch of paperwork to complete back at the tower, but staying all the same.

Sakura smiled at him, and he moved forward at an incredibly fast speed—she could barely see him coming, and one look into his eyes while dodging the attack told her that he wasn't using his Sharingan, contrary to when he was observing her from the tree branch. Using it would have been unfair to her in any case.

His fist came close to her face before she dodged it; the inertia of his sudden movement meeting no target bringing him right next to her.

Thinking he might keep moving forward, drift apart and jump away before the next attack, she quickly prepared herself to counterattack by the rear and appear behind him. She thought about taking a step to the left, rounding on him and appearing right behind him.

But he didn't move away after his attempt to punch her.

Her eyes widened as his body turned to her instead, still very close, and moved his sword along her forearm; she managed to dodge, barely suppressing the little blood that came out from beneath her short sleeve at the small cut. Her eyes narrowed.

Expecting the next attack this time, she wasn't surprised when his body turned around her persona again to swing his weapon at her with a twist of his sole right hand, a swing so expert in its essence that she barely has to repress her astonishment. She evaded the blade by putting her own kunai against the sharpness of it, well polished and taken care of by its owner—knowing him, on a daily basis.

And then they dropped their weapons simultaneously, no words needed in order to understand.

The next hour or two was a battle of arms and legs and muscles and hands and strength, and Sakura didn't register how much time it had passed before she actually could relax and find oxygen for her heaving lungs. Her breathing was harsh and forced out of her body and inside back again with very little time to waste. It was only three seconds—three short seconds of them being apart and not fighting hand-to-hand without a parting, for the first time after an hour, or two, or three—and she had to gasp when her legs gave out and were suspended in the air without a notice. The rough bark of a tree met her back in a hiss.

She didn't understand first, midly dazzled and taken aback, but then she focused her eyes beyond Sasuke. Her brain grasped the situation as soon as she glanced at Kakashi and he had the same expression as on that day—that day during the war, that day that marked her and marked him and marked Team Seven, only that it was mostly her that got marked.

She knew she should fight back; after all, this was a sparring session and she'd been sure she was going to win. But then again this seemed oddly familiar and she couldn't understand why she felt so helpless.

As soon as she looked back at Sasuke's own piercing, unforgiving eyes, her mind screamed at her in ways that were not coherent at all. She kicked, and she almost thrashed in a panicked state because suddenly she couldn't breathe and what was he thinking? She looked into his eyes and saw the chirping of a cry of a hundred, million, billion birds in his hands like a morbid, old picture in her brain. The same hands that once held blood and crushed bones.

Only that he only had one hand left now, and he was using it to wrap around the flesh of her neck against the broad bark of an old tree. Only that her mind had been playing tricks on her and there was no chirping at all. Only that her feet were no longer hanging but instead on solid ground (when had he let go, anyway?).

She coughed, one time or ten, she couldn't really think or process.

The buzzing in her ears increased tenfold and she gasped for air like a fool—she couldn't really help it, there was no air.

She numbly felt Kakashi at her side, awkwardly trying to help her breathe with a few, soft pats on the back. She numbly heard Naruto yelling obscenities in the background toward his friend, like a lunatic. What she did feel was the guilt in her gut when she raised her head to look at the scene: Naruto yelling, Sasuke retreating like a scared animal, and his eyes falling over hers for a brief moment, the emotions in them consuming them both before he was out of sight.

.

Sakura didn't see Sasuke for a long time. Her nights became longer and her days became shorter with work to keep her busy but with thoughts at night to keep her awake for long hours.

It took her only a week to know he had left to another country, continuing his journey around the world. Naruto had told her—as soon as she arrived at his front door demanding answers—that he'd left without much of a notice but a short letter saying that he had to leave for a few weeks.

Weeks turned into months and months turned into a number: seven.

By the time he returned to the village, it was winter. Naruto had married in the early summer and the celebration had been big and incredibly spectacular; she was happy for Hinata and for her best friend, who had been living together since. By the time he returned to the village, they were twenty.

She greeted him a day after, no remorse and no mention of the last incident; just pleasantries and small talk. Sakura spent the rest of the day with him.

If he ever wanted to say sorry, he never took the chance.

.

They were walking in plain November, like many other nights after the war ended.

Sakura was with her hands in the pockets of her comfy, dark pink jacket after a long shift at the hospital; Sasuke opted for hiding his sole arm in the warm confines of his dark cloak, face partly covered by, to the extent of which they could be, tidy bangs.

The streets were quiet, as there was no one—but them—around to disturb the peace. It was a peace both of them craved every night, after the war and all the blood and the yelling of passed persons—it was a peace they both deserved.

Silent, with their lips clamped shut, the only sound heard was the one coming from their measured steps. Ninja steps, as low and stealthy as they already were, resonated against the walls of near houses around them.

When they reached her apartment, she smiled, and he nodded once. And the silence stretched on for nights.

.

Naruto smacked his best friend before she could say anything in the raven-haired man's defence. So she closed her mouth again and observed the, primarily, amusing show before her.

"Sasuke, you bastard!"

"Idiot."

And all hell broke loose. Naruto tried to land a punch on his face, but Sasuke was too fast, dodging and swinging his leg under the blonde's legs in favour of tripping him, the latter jumping a few meters back and coming right back at him again.

Sakura watched as her patience ran low at each punch and kick, brows close to knitting together when she realized they were only using raw taijutsu. She was this close to intervening—in the end, she would always be the one to heal them, so she might as well stop them before they can harm themselves further.

When she opened her mouth and took a step forward, though, her eyes landed on Sasuke's breathing. Her keen hearing tried to pick up on anything—everything. Shallow. Too shallow.

Sasuke had always been particularly good at keeping his breathing in check; always calm, always controlled, always quiet.

Then she noticed other things amongst Naruto's attempts to punch him, like a domino effect, the signs slowly crumbling in line after her own eyes.

The trembling.

Sasuke's body shook slightly, and then more visibly as the seconds passed; she could see the changes with clarity under the shade of a nearby tree. Naruto got too close; his hand raised in the air. Sakura's eyes widened.

Naruto's fist collided with his friend's cheek, and Sasuke stumbled to the floor with no difficulty.

"Sasuke-kun!" She would smack Naruto senseless later, she decided, rushing to Sasuke's side and placing a hand on his back. His body was facing down on the dried up dirt of one of the many training grounds—Naruto had taken Sakura with him to Sasuke's apartment no more than thirty minutes ago, demanding his best friend to spar with him or else, for which Sakura had laughed inside.

Sasuke coughed once, twice, thrice. Her heart skipped a beat.

"What the hell, Sasuke!" Naruto stomped a foot on the ground, childishly crossing his arms at Sasuke's form still not moving off the ground. Sasuke stilled. "Get up! I'm still not done with you for missing my wedding!"

As soon as Sasuke made a move to stand and decided to stop halfway through with knees on the ground, Sakura felt for his temperature, and, finding it normal for the circumstances of battle, she frowned even more in concern. Maybe it's his stomach, maybe it hurts. But, as she searched through his body with her soothing chakra, she found nothing out of the ordinary. She bit her lip, and gasped as his back shook with the effort of standing.

She stood up just as his back was straight and he was raised to his full height, battling on whether to help or not. He was still wobbly on his feet. But Sasuke just stared at Naruto with an icy glare—and a slightly swollen cheek that Sakura was itching to heal—looked at Sakura for a fleeting moment, turned away and started walking in the opposite direction.

She immediately ran after him, taking no care and placing a hand on his shoulder before gasping at his abrupt movement. He turned around to face her, and she had to take a second to recompose herself. "Sasuke-kun, let me fix that," she lifted her hand and placed it on his cheek. Sasuke was looking at her with a blank face, the same trademark, usual face he always wore since she can remember.

One moment she flickered her healing chakra on his cheek, and the other he forced her hand down with his—forced, she supposes, was not really true, as there was a certain gentleness, a certain patience in his act. "Sakura."

He looked at her and no words were needed. Sakura could see it in his stubborn eyes; she could almost hear the I'm fine in the air around them.

Sasuke let go of her wrist and turned, once again, away to continue walking.

Sakura didn't have time to react until the next day.

Naruto fumed with anger, moving his hands in the air from side to side even though Sasuke couldn't see him. "Sasuke, you bastard! Come back here!"

Sasuke did never go back to the training grounds; Sakura stared at his back with worry, completely unaware of the unexpected.

.

She awoke to the sound of tranquil villagers on the streets and dark bags under her eyes. With a tired yawn, she sat on her bed and scratched her head—her hair was growing a little past her shoulders already and she needed to cut it immediately, or else she would have to wake up to messy tangles every morning, and she did not want that anymore. After her genin years, Sakura knew that long hair didn't suit her that much, rather it was partly boring and partly a waste of her time and hair products.

With a threading of her fingers through the soft, pink maze she wore on her head, she was greeted with no nodes or bumps interrupting the journey—from the roots until she reached the tips.

She got out of bed.

The lingering light filtering through the window's curtains left the room in a soft hue of warm colors, ones that made her still for a moment to admire the beauty of the place. It was a picture taken from the most sophisticated of cameras, she was sure that could fit the description perfectly.

When she got out of the bathroom and finished dressing in her work clothes, Sakura checked on the time. She still had two hours left before starting her shift at the hospital. Maybe even, if she was sneaky enough, she could start an hour before at most, but that still left her an hour to spare.

With a sigh, she approached the fridge of her apartment, almost groaning when all she could find was a jar full of water and a bottle of sake to the side—courtesy of Tsunade herself. She closed the fridge.

Glancing at her keys, she tucked them in her brown coat, as well as her purse, and left the apartment. She hadn't eaten breakfast yet.

.

It was a surprise when, in the middle of placing the fresh fruit in the numerous bags that she held, she saw a very familiar black fabric in the corner of her peripheral vision.

She woke up this morning with a yawn, and she would've never thought, in a thousand years, that she would end up an hour later encountering Sasuke while shopping for food. The fact that he was looking at all the kinds of tomatoes next to her didn't make the stupor written on her face any easier to hide. She quickly bid her gratitude to the vendor and took a few steps toward him. Not too close, but close enough to hear him above all the people's noises. The flea market was overstocked on a casual Saturday morning, as usual. It wasn't usually filled with so many people during winter, but the weather was rather cozy that morning.

"Sasuke-kun." At the sound of her unexpected voice, she couldn't help but notice how he visibly flinched.

"Sakura," he acknowledged. Then, he turned away and kept on inspecting the vegetables on the stand in front of him. "I didn't expect to find you here so early. Have you put your hands on anything yet?"

There were no signs on his face that would give away that he knew of her slip of words.

When she realised her mistake, she quickly stammered. "Oh! I mean, I meant hand, not hands. How crazy of me, to forget things so easily, I clearly didn't realise that you still don't–"

"Tomatoes."

"Uh?"

He lifted his sole arm to reveal a bag full of what appeared to be the sinful red comestible. Sakura smiled a little. "Oh, of course," she sighed, clutching onto her several bags harder.

As she looked from the bag up at him, she found that his dark eyes were already set on hers, making her avert her gaze rather quickly.

She looked at the stand in front of them and looked back at Sasuke with a curious face, pointing at the green vegetables he'd been looking at a while ago with her hand. "You like spinach?"

The face he gave her didn't answer her question. It was plain and stoic, and she wanted to dig deeply into his soul just to see all of his emotions pour out on her at once—because as it went, she never knew what he was feeling.

She noticed Sasuke leaving the bag at his feet to pick out the spinach he wanted, a small frown on his face and the early sun beaming softly on their backs. She bent slightly to pick up his bag full of tomatoes and, by the time she straightened out again to look at what he was doing, he was already paying for the spinach. For a moment, she thought his only hand was shaking, but the illusion was gone as soon as she blinked once.

He grabbed the new bag of spinach from the old vendor standing behind the stand and she strained her eyes in order to look with better clarity and definition. Sasuke was pulling the bag from where the vendor was giving it with incredible force, as if it caused him a tremendous amount of effort to lift the brown bag in the first place.

Sakura almost gasped, but held the urge inside when Sasuke looked at her with something she dared to think was a glare. She couldn't react in time.

"I do like spinach. I don't only like tomatoes, Sakura."

She almost blushed, embarrassed.

"It's the only vegetable I've seen you eat, though."

Something flashed across his eyes, and he gave her an amused click of his tongue. "Tomatoes are vegetables, Sakura."

"Actually, they are fruits. They contain seeds, you see."

Sasuke shifted his weight from one leg to the other, also shifting his eyes to the villagers buying more food at other stands, before meeting her eyes again.

And with that, she smiled at him, still in front of the stand at the flea market, and tried not to think about the effort it took him to lift a plain, weightless bag of spinach. She didn't even try to look at his hand now, with fear of what she would see.

Sasuke was standing there, looking at her as if he was expecting something to happen. It took her a moment to take notice that she was still holding his other bag full of tomatoes. With a gasp, she gave him the paper bag with a little hurry. And tried to cut the meeting short.

"Well, I need to get to the hospital soon, so I'll leave you to the hunt." Laughing at her own excuse of a joke without a hint of honesty, she rushed out of the crowded streets full of different food and people, with her own bags in hand, and she only stopped when she could finally breathe again.

.

"Sakura-chan!"

It happened again sooner than she had expected, exactly two days later—not that she was expecting it to happen again, anyway.

She had had a long shift at the hospital and was incredibly tired when Naruto barged into her office with an annoyed Sasuke trailing behind. It was almost nine and the streets were devoid of people, except for the random young couples on dates under the moonlight. Inside the hospital there had been barely any sounds, today had been a rather quiet day for all the doctors; although Sakura had had to fill many stacks of paperwork anyway. She had looked around and decided that she had filled enough for one day, though.

Naruto had planted his hands on her desk as if he owned it, looking at her with a gleam in his clear blue eyes.

"Let's go, come on! You've been here since you woke up!"

She had looked at him with a little smile present. "Go where Naruto?"

He had snorted. "Ichiraku's, where else?"

Sakura had squinted her eyes up at him, looking past him and noticing only Sasuke in the room with them. "Where's your wife, you moron? Don't tell me you just left her at home."

Naruto's face drains of any color before the skin comes back to life in an angry red. "Hey! I wouldn't do that to Hinata, Sakura-chan!" He exclaims, not meeting her amused eyes and crossing his arms over his chest. "Plus, she's at Hanabi's. Told me it was an important clan meeting."

So now she was, indeed, at Ichiraku's with her two boys, sitting on the far right; Naruto was in the middle, and Sasuke was on the left.

They ordered what they wanted to eat with a familiarity that reminded her of when they were mere kids coming back from their first missions. They made small talk until the food was given to them, right in front of them, and they started eating after Naruto slurped down his first bowl of ramen with hungry eyes.

And Sakura noticed. And it happened again.

While Naruto was busy talking to Teuchi, she leant forward in her seat to ask something to Naruto, which completely left her mind when she noticed Sasuke. The image left her wide-eyed and gaping.

He was trying to grasp his chopsticks correctly, but the same odd twist was adorning his fingers. His face was scrunched up in concentration, disbelieve and frustration marking his features as he tried to open the chopsticks to start eating. But, try as he might, he just couldn't do so much as split them. They eventually fell to the counter with a loud sound.

Naruto turned from his conversation with Teuchi and regarded him for two seconds, before smacking Sasuke in the back playfully. "What's wrong, bastard? Can't even hold your chopsticks?"

Sakura knew it was meant to be taken as a joke. She knew he was messing around. Sasuke should have smacked Naruto back and called him by a stupid name and they would have gone on with their lives.

But that didn't happen.

Sasuke suddenly put a few bills on the counter, got off his seat slowly, and left with heavy steps.

Naruto started yelling after his brooding figure disappearing into the darkness of the streets, and Sakura started berating Naruto and getting him to forget about it and to keep eating in peace.

And this time she didn't erase the memory of what she had seen; the image of his struggle for something so simple was left imprinted in her brain.

.

She had been given a mission to retrieve a scroll from the Land of Waves with Sai as her escort—not that she needed an escort, but it was a B-ranked mission, and she didn't mind Sai's company anyway.

She returned a week later, as scheduled, for there hadn't been any altercations during their mission. She went to the Hokage tower, delivered the scroll and her report, as well as Sai's, and left to her house for a quick shower.

It was a surprise when, as soon as she got to her apartment door, a certain raven-haired man was waiting for her. Well, she didn't know about that, but he had been leaning against her door. Her door, no one else's.

So she went up the stairs leading straight to her door, not bothering to jump from the ground. After the mission, she didn't trust her levels of chakra that much; after all, she had barely eaten and/or slept, too focused on getting and bringing the important scroll safely.

Sasuke looked at her and straightened up, shoving his only hand in the confines of the pocket of his trousers—and Sakura had to frown at that because she had an idea about what that might be about. The image of his deformed fingers played out in her mind before she pushed that away and reached him.

"Hello, Sasuke-kun," she said, grabbing her travel bag a little tighter. "How long have you been waiting here? I just came back."

"I know," he muttered.

Something snapped in Sakura, and she worked fast to unlock the door to her apartment in order to hide her blush. The fact that the love of her life had heard of her arrival, gone to her apartment, and waited for her for x amount of minutes made her blush increase tenfold.

"Right, well, I'm gonna shower, do you mind?" She said, closing the door behind them and taking steps toward her bathroom, inside her room.

Sasuke only shook his head, standing in the middle of the living room. Sakura looked at him when she knew her face was at a normal temperature again.

"Okay. When I'm done, I'll cook us something."

"I can cook while you take a shower."

Sakura nodded, smiled, and left to the bathroom.

That evening, when they were both sitting in front of each other and the food was being devoured, Sakura subtly looked for anomalies in him.

Sasuke was as normal as he could ever be throughout the whole thing.

.

Sakura wanted to check something. She wanted to check Sasuke, course her chakra into his system in order to see what the problem was. She wanted to believe she was wrong and that he was as healthy as usual, but she knew she shouldn't fool herself.

First, during training. Next, at the market. Then, at Ichiraku's Ramen Shop.

She wanted to see for herself with her expert healing hands.

And so she called for him. She sent the Jonin she had previously been giving a physical to toward Sasuke's small apartment, with the clear message of going to the hospital and looking for her.

She stood in the centre of one of the rooms designed for conducting routine physicals and check-ups. She stood there for barely ten minutes before she felt Sasuke's signature chakra walking down the hallway right outside the room.

The man opened the door silently, so as to not alert her, even though she was facing the door and saw him as soon as he stepped inside.

"Sasuke-kun," she breathed, clasping her hands together in front of her chest, smiling up at him. "Good morning!"

Sasuke nodded once, muttering her name under his breath and closing the door behind him. He cleared his throat.

"What did you need me for?"

Sakura's face flushed with a light pink hue against her wishes, thinking over his words and inwardly cursing herself for her imaginative mindset. Sasuke didn't see the tone of her face, or he didn't care, for he remained put in front of the closed door of the room, looking at her behind long bangs that hid the lilac of one eye.

She cleared her throat and picked up a folder from a nearby table.

"I was giving Naruto his physical the other day when I realised I couldn't remember when you last had one. You must be well aware that they're done once every three to four months, as per every Shinobi requires one so often." She took at deep breath against the intensity of Sasuke's stare. "You haven't had one since the war. And, despite what you may think, you aren't immortal. So, you can sit on the bed now, please."

She scribbled a few words and characteristics on the chart, jotting down Sasuke's basic features on the new paper.

When she looked up, she was expecting to see him sitting on the hospital bed. Instead, he was still rooted to the floor by the door.

"Sasuke-kun," she said, almost chastising him for his stubbornness.

"I don't need a physical, Sakura," he spits back, a seething tone that made her seeth back.

"Yes, you do. Now, you can sit on your own, or I can make you. And trust me, you do not want the entire hospital to hear about your stubbornness," she finished, watching with a glint from her eyes how he abided and sat down.

The physical goes well.

Despite Sakura's previous worries, Sasuke doesn't have anything wrong with him. There's nothing wrong with his flow of chakra, or his chakra altogether, or his system. There's nothing wrong with his physique, either. His eyes seem in perfect condition too.

"Seems like you're good to go, as expected," she whispered from their close proximity, looking up at him and letting her hands stop glowing. She thought, as she took a few steps back, she saw the narrowing of his mistrustful eyes, as if he knew that she thought something had been up with him. Hence the timely physical.

"There's no need to call me in four months again, then," he said.

Sakura huffed against the chart in her hands.

"Routine physicals are called that for a reason, Sasuke-kun," and with a sigh, she turned around. "You can leave now, thank you for coming."

Sakura was already taking her gloves off when she heard Sasuke putting his shirt back on.

And then she heard the laboured breathing coming from the white bed.

She turned to him after repressing the gasp that was prone to come out of her parted, pink lips. She rushed, watching as Sasuke's eyes were unfocused, downcast and void of anything. He was not moving. The only thing she could hear was his pants, his desperate attempt at getting air that wasn't there for him.

She quickly held him by the shoulders, not wasting any more time. She watched as his head snapped to look at her as the cool contact was made, eyes piercing and underlined with fear. Something so tangible that she did gasp this time.

He was fine before; he had been fine up until now. The physical had taken her thirty minutes, long and prolonged. She had known he knew about the prolongation of the check-up. Usually, they were done quickly and professionally. Sakura, instead, had taken way more minutes than required and had poured every emotion into the search.

But she had just been looking for something, some sign that might have led to her suspicions. What she had seen in previous days and weeks was not normal, and it was definitely not part of her imagination. She knew he could tell there had been a change somewhere inside him. She knew too, and that's why she had extended the amount of time inspecting him.

But she had found nothing wrong, absolutely nothing that could hint to an illness of some sorts.

She knew now that she hadn't done the physical as well as she had thought, for Sasuke was still gasping for air before her, looking at her and the floor with something akin to downright panic.

As soon as Sakura moved her chakra into his system once again, Sasuke moved away from her. He moved to the side with weak legs that seemed lifeless to her expert eyes. And, as expected, the sudden movement made him fall to the floor on his bottom, making her eyes widen considerably.

"Sasuke-kun!"

When she sank to her knees next to the suddenly weakened man, she noticed he had broken a sweat. He was hyper ventilating, lifting his hand and looking at it as it twisted slowly to his command, treacherous to his eyes.

She could only guess he was in slight shock after all the things that were transpiring. Sakura watched him with concerned eyes, almost willing for his suffering to go away on her command.

"Stop..." He bit out, fisting his hand as he tried to stand up to no avail.

"Don't move. Hold on," she pushed her chakra inside his body, searching for something else, something she had missed before. Anything.

Whatever she had done before didn't give her the answers the needed.

For a second, she almost gave up; there was literally nothing she could think of that she hadn't checked. She had checked over his digestive system, his bones, his skin, his tongue, his ears, his eyes-

She gasped, pushing her chakra further up his system, something in her eyes hardening. It was determination that which drove her now, now that she knew what she had been missing. It was something that wasn't really checked during normal physicals, and that's why she had overlooked it.

Although, with Sasuke's mysterious illness, Sakura should have known better.

So she pushed and moulded her chakra expertly in order to access the most vulnerable system for a Shinobi of Sasuke's calibre: the nervous system.

Sasuke's body was falling to the floor when she began to decode the mystery. He started spasming a second later, seizure starting.

.