The kunai was flying through the air before she could even really register what was happening. She had only returned from her mission about three hours ago. Her reserves were low, and she was still injured, but she wouldn't go down without a flight. Sakura had been sound asleep in her bed when she felt a presence looming over her. Years of shinobi training had her body reacting before she was even semi-awake.

The kunai was blocked and fell to the floor with a thud. Charka gathered in her fists as she went to get out of bed, only to find a weight come crashing into her. The weight pushing her back into the mattress, hands coming to capture her hands in theirs. Refusing to be pinned, she directed her charka to her knee and went to kick, when the person intertwined her legs with theirs, holding them in place.

"Sakura" the voice called out in the darkness; their face so close to hers. Somewhere it clicked in her brain that she knew that voice. Then she saw the red eyes glowing through the anbu mask.

"Itachi?" She asked confused. Why was the Uchiha heir on top of her in the middle of the night? Tsunade wasn't even aware she was back yet. By the time she had returned from her mission, her master had left the towers. Sakura had reported to the watch commander before going home, showering and climbing into bed.

Slowly he let go of her and climbed off. Sakura dispelled the charka she had been collecting and quickly stood to face him. "You're need at the hospital. There has been an attack." Itachi didn't need to explain any further, Sakura was already moving. She slipped on her shoes she kept by the bed and grabbed Itachi's arm. The sudden feelings of being here but not there overtook her, and she squeezed her eyes shut.

When she opened them, they were at the hospital. She turned to Itachi for more information when she saw the state he was in. His vest was covered in blood, a long gash was on his right arm and several strands of hair had come undone from his ponytail. Sakura knew instantly who had been hurt. Shisui Uchiha was Itachi's best friend and mission partner. He was Itachi's important person, everyone in the village knew that. The normal unreadable Uchiha was now an open book and his body language was screaming panic. If the pair had been attacked, it had to have been by someone powerful.

"Give me your solider pills." She demanded, and Itachi was digging out the bottle without hesitation. Sakura took out six pills and swallowed them all at once. Her chakra reserves quickly expanded past capacity. "Where is he?"

"Sakura-san! Thank god" the head nurse called as she rounded the corner. "We already sent for Shizune but I'm afraid we might not have enough time."

Sakura was already on the move. She had pinpointed his charka signature. "Get Uchiha-san to a nurse to have his wounds looked at!" She yelled running down the hall.

It wasn't good. She could feel just how weak his charka signature was, and she was so thankful that the pills had already kicked it. Because the head night nurse wasn't exaggerating when she said they were out of time. Sakura stopped just long enough to scrub her hands and throw on a pair of scrubs over what little clothing she had on before pushing into the surgical room. The two nurses looked up and sucked in a breath of relief seeing her there.

"Report" she commanded, already stepping to the older Uchiha's side, her hands glowing green as she placed them above his chest. She easily took control over the room. Her eyes immediately going to his face. There was blood leaking out both of his eyes. His black curly hair clung to his forehead from his sweat. He was so white, he almost seemed to glow under the lights.

The two doctors that were working on Shisui stepped back and started to help the nurse finish hooking up the machines. "His right lung has been shredded apart. The liver has been cut in half. Several ribs are broken so is his clavicle. He has lost a dangerous amount of blood." One of the doctors starts raddling off the list of injuries. What the hell had happened to him?

The doctor kept listing, but she blocked it out. His broken bones could wait, what could not was the internal damage that had occurred. The deeper her charka went into his body the more worried she got. Shisui's uniform had been cut off and she could see the deep, Sakura didn't even know if she could categorize it was a gash anymore, running down his right side from his shoulder to his hip bone. By some miracle the attack had missed his heart and right kidney. It was if someone had tried to cut his body in half.

"I want seven units of AB+ blood here now." Sakura said causing Yuuki to take off running out the room. She moved her eyes from his face to focus on his chest. She couldn't look at him anymore. She genuinely liked Shisui. He was her second favorite Uchiha after Sasuke's mother. "Has an ultrasound or x-ray been performed?"

"No. We didn't think we had enough time." The older doctor, Akira, said placing his hands over Shisui's liver. "I don't know if we can repair this damage. We were told the attack happened two hours ago."

Sakura bite her tongue. Two hours he had been suffering. If it had been anyone else, Sakura highly doubted they would have made it to the hospital. But Shisui was tough. She wasn't going to let him die on her table after he fought so hard to get here. "Focus on the liver Akira. Aoi I want the blood transfusion ready to go the minute she is back. Dai injected 6 mg of morphine and I want the De-fib on standby." They moved quickly to their positions. Sakura turned her focus to his lung. It had been shredded apart so bad; it was barely hanging on to the trachea.

The tissue was already dying from the lack of blood supply. She wasn't sure if it could be saved. If it couldn't this would end Shisui's shinobi career. Sakura hadn't even had a moment to check his eyes, she could only hope they could wait long enough until he wasn't at risk from bleeding to death.

"Here" the nurse yells as she enters the room with the bags of blood. Aoi immediately has it hooked up. But that creates another problem. The minute his body has blood again it begins filling areas it shouldn't. Blood was quickly filling his left lung.

"BP and HR are dropping" Dai says just as the machine starts beeping loudly.

"Hand me an endotracheal tube, we need to intubate." The charka is her hands growing greener, brighter, as she tried to pump more healing charka into him.

"We can't intubate if there is already blood in his lungs. The blood will just go through the tube and no oxygen will pass." Akira informed; his stress clear in his tone.

"I'll remove the blood as we push the tube down. If he loses any more oxygen there will be no turning back." She shot back already forming a medical scalpel in her left hand, her right hand still fighting to repair the damage.

"What you are planning to do has never been done before. He is too far gone." Akira said moving to stop the nurse from handing Sakura the tube.

"Either get with the program or get the fuck out of my operating room" Sakura snapped never once taking her eyes off Shisui. When she was meet with silence, she knew he wasn't leaving. Akira had always been to cautious. If she did this and messed up it would kill him, but if she did nothing he would die anyways, drowning from his own blood. There was no point to sit back and do nothing. "As soon as I cut into his lung, Aoi I want you to insert the tube. Dai I am going to need a contain to put the blood. Akai keep reattacking his liver. Yuuki I need you to keep an eye on the monitors and have the De-fib ready to go. Does everyone understand?"

"Hais" was everyone's response and everyone moved to get into position.

Wasting no time Sakura quickly cut into his left lung. Blood immediately begins to pool around her fingers. But she is ready. Sakura is already preforming the same jutsu she had on Kankuro when Sasori had poisoned him. Dai steps closer to her, holding the container as close as he can. The blood slowly begins draining from Shisui's lungs, and Sakura guides it to the bowl. "BP is rising" Yukki informs.

Sakura spares a second glance to see Aoi slide the tube into Shisui mouth. The tube slides through his trachea with no problems, and he moves to secure it into place. She was just about to take a breath of relief when the machine starts beeping again. "Something happened. Both are dropping again." Yukki said eyes glued on the machine.

Damn it! His body is under too much stress. His heart is going to stop. "Aoi continue with the oxygen. Akira how much longer do you need for his liver?" She asked finishing repairing the damage to the left lung and switching her full attention to his right. If she didn't repair the primary bronchi just right, the lung would be lost.

"I need more time." He answered shortly. "Haruno he is about to go into cardiac arrest. The damage to his body is to severe. He was dead before he was put on the table, his body just didn't know yet."

Sakura went to shout at him. To order him to get the fuck out and get a doctor who was willing to fight for their patient. To remind him just how extraordinary this shinobi beneath their hands was. To yell that she just wasn't willing to give up, when Shisui's heart stopped. "Fuck" she muttered as she fought to think of a plan. She couldn't stop the healing on his lung, but his heart also needed attention immediately. They couldn't shock him if there were still hands on the body. If they did whoever was touching him would get the electric current sent through them as well and risk their heart being stopped. Fuck it, I've done worse in the field.

Her right hand remained above his damaged lung while her left hand moved above his heart. Splitting her charka like this was very difficult. Only a small percentage of medics ever reached this level, and normally it was only for a short period of time. But she hadn't grown up with Naruto for nothing, she no longer believed in the word impossible. "Yukki I want you to set the De-fib to five."

She was quick to place the paddles above his left chest, and under his right chest. "Clear" she yells, and everyone removes their hands but Sakura. "Haru-"

"Do it!" She orders and Yukki doesn't hesitate. The pads make contact with his skin, a sudden jolt of electricity flows though him but nothing changes. "Again" she orders, ignoring the fact her arms are tingling from the current. The nurse touches down again, and it gets the same results. "Put it to ten." Everyone in the rooms stops in their tracks, eyeing her. "Now is not the time to argue. Just do it." The pads touch down once more and Sakura has to bite her tongue to keep a scream from ripping through her. She knows beneath her long sleeve there are now burns.

But she can't find it in herself to care. Especially not when four seconds later the machine starts to beep a constant steady beat when his heart starts again. Aoi quickly placed his hands over Sakura's left hand, and they switched very carefully. With Aoi focusing on the heart, she once again could turn her attention back to his lung. Yukki and Dai began to treat the cuts, bruises and broken bones in his legs.

Forty minutes later Akira steps back, having completed healing the liver. He turns to Sakura to apologize but she didn't even let him get the first word out. "Get out of my operating room. You will go and ensure Itachi Uchiha has been completely healed. If he is not healed by the time I leave this room, I expect your resignation on my desk by tonight." The older doctor said nothing as he walked out of the room, slamming the door as he left.

The remaining members of her team worked in silence for several hours. By some miracle Sakura and her team had been able to repair the damage, but just barely. Shisui had several months of recovery ahead of him. Only when she was confident his heart and lungs were healed as good as they could be, and she double checked his liver, did she move to his eyes. Her first charka scan didn't show any head injure, and she hoped he had just overused his sharingan again. Sakura took a step back and evaluated how much charka she had left. About one fifth of what she had started with, hopefully more than enough for what needed to be done. But just to be sure she opened the cabinet to the right of her and pulled out two more solider pills.

She would pay for her stupidness later, but for now she could deal with it. Shisui was too important to not make sure he was healed as good as he could be.

Dai and Aoi begin setting and healing as many broken bones as they could. Sakura can tell their charka was becoming low, and while she was willing to risk the negatives the pills had to offer, she wasn't willing to do the same with her members. "Yukki, go and give whatever family has gathered an update. Only inform that he is no longer in critical condition at the moment but is still unconscious. If Mikoto Uchiha is in the group inform her, her oldest needs to take it easy and have something to eat." The nurse quickly disappeared to do as told.

She knew Itachi was probably pacing back in forth in the hallway or in the waiting room. Sakura hadn't been able to get a good look at him, but he was injured. If Shisui had been this injured there was no telling what Itachi might have wrong with him. Itachi's only concern at the moment would be Shisui, but she didn't know if she could handle healing both of them in one day. If Mikoto was there, she would make sure her son would at least sit down and allow his body to recover.

Sakura positioned herself next to his head and placed her hands gently over his closed eyes. She tried to make her charka as least disruptive as possible as she sent it as far back as she could. The sharingan was a very sensitive blood limit. Another series of cruses almost came through her lips as she got her results back. It was almost as if someone had ran a kunai over his eyes, but a gut feeling told her that wasn't the case. Shisui was one of the fastest ninjas in the village, he was known throughout the great nations as The Body Flicker. No way did he allow someone to swipe at his face. The Uchihas had always been to prideful over their eyes, and while Shisui wasn't as bad in that regard, he still valued his eyes more than he should.

"You're just not going to give me a break today, are you?" She asked him, knowing she wouldn't get a response back. His corneas had been physical cut, and luckily absorbed most of the damage to the eye. What worried Sakura was the chakra burning done to his optic nerve. Several of the retinal blood vessels had been cut. This was going to take more time than she thought. "Dai do me a favor and get me a chair."

"You alright? Do you need a break?" He asked worried. He moved quickly, grabbing a chair and moving to her before she could answer.

"I'm okay, this is just going to take some time." She reassured, flashing the two men in the room a smile. It felt nice to be off her feet. She closed her eyes once again and got to work.

It had been four hours since they had been given an update. A nurse had come out only to inform them that he was no longer critical, told his mother she needed to keep an eye on him and then disappeared again. Shizune-san had appeared about half an hour after the update and procced to disappear into the OR and she hadn't returned. Neither had Sakura.

"Dear god please let him be okay" Shisui's mother, Sanae, cried holding onto Mikoto for dear life. Their family had begun to gather round seven in the morning. Next to his mother, his father sat there watching the nursing staff walk around the hallway. He refused to make eye contact with his oldest son. Fugaku had become furious when Itachi wouldn't tell him the details of his mission because it had been anbu.

"He'll be alright, they have the best medics in the village working on him." Mikoto tried to reassure her sister in law. Her older brother, Soichiro, was just standing in the corner, his eyes unfocused.

"Shisui has been in surgery for over seven hours." She cried harder. Mikoto didn't know what to say so she just rubbed small comforting circles in her back. iSh

Itachi was seated next to Sasuke. His mother had bought a change of clothes for him, and he was all too happy to shed the uniform that was soaked in his cousin's blood. He fought the urge to place his head in his hands. Shisui had taken the devastating blow that had been meant for him. Itachi didn't know if he could live with himself, if Shisui died because he had been too weak to protect himself. He was definitely thankful that he ignored the head's nurse order and went and retrieved Sakura. It had taken hours for Shizune to get here, if he had waited, he had no doubt Shisui would have died.

"Sakura is with him. I promise he will be fine auntie." Sasuke tried to reassure. Getting pulled out of bed by a jounin messenger in the early morning had been terrible. For a split second he feared it had been his brother who was in critical condition, and he felt as if the whole world stopped for a moment.

"You seem very confident in your former teammate." Fugaku commented. He hadn't seen much of his youngest son's pink haired teammate since their first chunin exams, and he hadn't been overly impressed then.

"There have been rumors spreading that she is close to surpassing the Hokage in the medical field" Sasuke said jumping to her defense. Their relationship was…complicated to say the least, but he knew firsthand how hard she worked to get to where she was now. He wasn't going to let anyone belittle the accomplishments she had achieved.

"While that's sweet of you to say, I still have a way to go before I get there." Her voice filled the private waiting room, and instantly everyone was on their feet.

Itachi lost the ability to form any words. How had she sneaked up on six sharingan users? How had he not sensed her? Then Itachi really looked at her and noticed several things he had not when he pulled her out of bed. For starters she had a black eye and her lip was busted open. Her right cheekbone was bruised. Another dark bruise could be found on her inner thigh. He could the beginning of a cut on her throat that disappeared into the collar of her shirt. Then Itachi noticed what she was wearing. It was true he had pulled her out of bed, but she hadn't even asked to change. Standing before them she wore an extremely short pair of black spandex shorts and tight jounin long sleeve. Even with his bad eyesight he could tell she wasn't wearing a bra. It was easy to see the curves of her breasts. A slight glance at Sasuke, and Itachi knew he noticed to.

"Shisui is stable. He has a long road ahead of him, but I expect him to make a full recovery." She said before anyone could even question. Sanae was hugging her the second she was done talking, and only because Itachi had been watching her closely did he notice Sakura's muscles tighten ever so slightly in response. She lifted her hands and returned the hug. When she did, he saw bandages sticking out from underneath. After a moment his aunt stepped back and joined her husband's side.

"Can we see him?" Fugaku asked. His face still set in stone, even though he was clearly wrong to have doubt Sasuke's fate in her.

"Yes, he is in room 104. I don't want you to be alarmed, but he is on a ventilator and his eyes are wrapped." Sakura warned. "His lungs were damaged, and he overused his blood limit. It's just precautionary measures, it will help his body heal faster if it is not working so hard."

They didn't need to be told twice and were already filing out of the room. Mikoto had given Sakura a quick hugged and promised to cook her a meal in her honor before she regrouped with the rest of the adults turning down the hall.

"What the hell happened to you?" Sasuke hissed the moment his mother was no longer in site. His left hand reaching up and gently cupping her right check. While his eyes soften slightly seeing the state she was in, his eyes struggling to stay above her chin. He hadn't seen Sakura in this state of undress in a long time. She had filled out nicely, even he would admit to that, he was only a man after all.

"I returned last night from a mission. I didn't have the charka or energy to heal it." She said sticking her tongue out at him. "You know I like to keep at least one third of my reserves at all time just in case. Besides I was going to heal it in the morning. How was I supposed to know I was going to get called in on an emergency surgery?" She asked, her head turning toward Itachi, Sasuke's hand dropping back to his side. "How are you feeling Uchiha-san?" She asked rubbing her eyes. She looked so tired all of a sudden, like she had finally dropped her guard.

"Fine." He paused. "Thank you for saving him."

At that her eyes flutter open, and a genuine smile graced her lips. "If you both will excuse me, I still need to file a couple pieces of paperwork before I can go home." They nodded, and she started walking down the hall.

Though she only makes it several yards before she sways, and her hand touches the wall for support. The two brothers close the distance between them instantly. "Sakura?" Sasuke asks concerned, but she says nothing as her other hand is pressed against her eyes. "What's wrong?"

Itachi takes her hand off the wall, grabbing her waist, just as her legs buckle. His sharingan flickers on, and he knows what wrong. Her chakra levels are dangerously low. That's was how she had been able to sneak up on him. He couldn't detect her chakra because she had none left to detect. How had he not noticed that sooner? How hard had she pushed herself in the operating room? He picks her up instantly. "How many solider pills did you take?"

"Eight" came her quiet response.

"What were you thinking?" Sasuke immediately asked jumping her case. "You're supposed to be the smart one in the group. Why did you do that?"

"You try doing an intensive surgery right after a six-day solo mission and then judge me." She snapped back. Her head still buried in her hands. Itachi felt a wave of guilt at that. He hadn't even noticed she was injured when he pulled her out of bed, his concern for Shisui over shadowing everything else. He knew what it felt like to come crashing down from your solider pill high. On top of her other injuries, he had no doubt she was miserable at the moment.

"Sakura?" A female voice called from behind them.

"Oh, thank god" Sakura said, relief all too clear in her voice.

"Sasuke? Itachi? What's going on?" Ino questioned as she came to stand in front of them.

"She's almost out of charka. She just finished an intensive surgery." Sasuke answered.

"Damnit forehead when are you going to learn? Can you take her to her office before Tsunade-sama or Shizune see her? I should be right there; I just need to check in."

"Hn." Sasuke answered already walking in the direction of her office. The halls in the ICU were empty for the most part but the moment they entered into the main part of the hospital it was full. Through after Sasuke pasted by the fifth person and no one said anything he was wondering what was wrong. That was until he turned toward his brother and notice his sharingan was still activated. Sasuke wasn't going to question why Itachi had placed a genjutsu around them. Sakura did just save their cousin; she didn't need to be yelled at by Tsunade.

They reached her office in less than five minutes. The entire time she hadn't said a word, just allowed Itachi to gently place her on the couch in the corner of her room. "You alright?" Itachi asked straightening.

"I'll be fine. Just need food and eight hours of sleep and I'll be good to go." Her eyes opened and locked with his. "Really I'm alright. Go check on Shisui. Both of you." Sasuke handed her a bottle of water from her desk before turning and walking out of the room. Itachi stared at her a few seconds longer before doing the same. Making sure to shut her office door tightly behind them.

But when they made their ways back to hall, he went right, while Sasuke went left. "There is something I need to do. Keep mother company." Was Itachi's only explanation before he disappeared.

Tsunade bite her lip as she reread his report. When the messenger had finally found Shizune at Tsunade's house early this morning he had only said she had been requested for emergency surgery several hours ago and that he had no idea what condition the patient had been in. Shizune had flew out of the house before the messenger had even finished talking. Tsunade was only now finding out why. She felt her anger and frustration raise within her.

"They were both in Fire territory?" She asked looking up from the report. Before her stood Itachi Uchiha, his hair wet, sticking to his long black sleeve t-shirt slightly. While the anbu captain appeared unharmed, she could see the tiredness behind his eyes. Tsunade guessed he hadn't slept much since they had been assigned this mission.

"We crossed paths roughly two hours outside the village to the North." He spoke evenly. "Though we were unable to search to see if they had a base nearby. Once Shisui was injured we had no choice but to flee."

"He is stable?" Tsunade was stunned. From the brief description of Shisui's wounds from Itachi's perspective the kid should be dead.

"Sakura Haruno was able to stabilize him."

Interesting. Was her only thought. She closed her eyes and fought the urge to reach for the bottle in the bottom right drawer. Her old teammates had a nasty habit of making her job much harder than it needed to be. She knew the calm persona the shinobi in front of her was showing was only a facade. He had warned her several years ago that if she didn't do something about that man he would. The only reason he probably wasn't demanding to be sent out this instant was because Shisui was in critical condition.

"The time has come to deal with Orochimaru." Itachi said never once wavering his clam tone. "A team should be sent out to track his past movements. If him and Kabuto were willing to risk exposure so close to the village something is amiss."

"Agreed. I will send another team, if something is coming, I want you close to home for it." She put the reports back flat on her desk, singling the end of their conversation. The Uchiha heir was gone from the office before she could even properly dismiss him.

Tsunade couldn't say she was surprised. The second the snake had dared to mark Sasuke, Itachi had been determined to be the one to kill him. It hadn't helped the situation when the younger Uchiha had almost left the village. If it hadn't been for Sakura, who knows what would have happened.

She turned her head and peered out her window in the direction of the hospital. Her apprentice had finished another solo-mission in half the time it had allotted for. After the damage Shisui had sustained she had no doubt Sakura had drained herself of charka again. She had half a mind to storm into the hospital and kick her ass for it, after not learning from the last time. But instead she held her breath and counted to ten before she released it slowly.

The heart of shinobi would never change. Her apprentice was no different. She had chosen to take Sakura under her wing because of her heart and determination. To fault her for that would be a waste of time. Besides the hospital would be swarming with temperament red eye ninja and she was in no mood to deal with them yet. So instead she switched her attention to the little slug she kept on her desk and started her letter, asking for a favor from an old friend.

Awkwardness was not something he had felt since he was small child and his mother had scolded him for throwing a stink bomb at Shisui after he had lost one of their first sparing matches. He wondered why he was feeling it now, as he carefully carried the bags of food throughout the hospital. He wanted to dissect this feeling further, but it would have to wait until he was alone in his bedroom tonight.

Itachi easily found her office and went to announce his presence when he heard two very distinct voices through the door and from the volume it sounded like they were arguing. It made him pause. He knew very little about Sakura Haruno. All he knew was that she had been on his younger brother's genin team and had studied under the Hokage for the last five years. He had heard about her Tsunade like strength and ability to cast and break genjutsu. Yet something inside of him had screamed for him to get her when they had gotten to the hospital. Itachi couldn't even remember the last time he had talked to the pink haired kunoichi, but somehow, he knew instinctually that she would be able to save his cousin. When had he decided to trust her?

"Seriously forehead I was stuck in Shizune's office for over ninety minutes having to listen to Akira complain. He is going to file a formal complaint against you." The voice from the young blonde earlier nearly shrieked.

"Let him. Akira has always been a pussy when it comes to doing critical surgeries. He has no business being in an operating room." Sakura's voice was even.

"Akira claims you made the nurse use the defibrillator while you were still touching Shisui. What were you thinking? You could have been killed!" Itachi's eyes widened slightly at that.

"But I didn't. A couple burns is nothing I can't handle. If I hadn't, he would have died Ino. I wasn't going to stand there and do nothing as I watched him bleed out." Her voice never once raising. Itachi remember several years ago of Sasuke complaining she had always had a nasty temper and the strength to back it up. But he saw no traces of that now.

"What about you?!" She hissed. "These aren't just simples burns on your arms. They're at least second degree. If you hadn't thought to put a protective layer of charka around your organs you would have suffered damage there to. Not to mention the number of solider pills you took. Are you trying to shut down your liver?!"

"I'm sorry. I know better than that. My mission had drained to much of my reserves. If I hadn't taken the pills there would have been no way I could have performed the surgery. Akira and Aoi aren't skilled enough to have been walked through a surgery like that. I had every intention of letting Shizune do most the work, but it took the new messenger hours to find her. I was left with no choice."

"You always have a choice idiot. What's going to happen when the day comes, and you pushed yourself to hard and there is no coming back from it? I thought you learned your lesson with Kakashi last year. It took fourteen treatments for you to be able to use your left hand after you blew your charka pathways healing him." Ino's voice softening towards the end of her lecture. "You look out for everyone else, but who looks out for you?"

Itachi felt like he had just spied on a very personal and private conservation, one he hadn't really had the intention to listen to. He felt the conservation was about to turn even more personal and he contemplated just walking away, but she needed to eat. After what she had put her body through, with just the pills along, he knew the body needed plenty of carbs and protein to start leveling out properly. So instead of walking away he knocked.

"Come in" Sakura's voice came clear as day through the door. Yet when he opened the door, he felt another rare emotion for the second time in two hours, surprise. Itachi had expected to find Sakura either on the couch he had laid her down at or sitting behind her desk. He hadn't expected to walk in on her sitting on top of her desk, her bare back to the door as the blonde kunoichi from earlier stitched together a jagged cut that ran from her left shoulder blade down to her right trapezius. Several large bruises also covered her back, making Itachi wonder what kind of mission she had just come from.

"My apologizes" he said stepping into the office quickly and shutting the door. "You needed to eat." He stated simply but made no move to set the food down. The blonde seemed frozen in place, but Sakura seemed unbothered. She just sat there, her hair draped over her right shoulder, one hand holding her discarded shirt to her bare chest. Even from where he was standing, he could see the white bandages went from her wrists to her elbows.

"How very kind of you Uchiha-san. We were just about done."

"You have maybe two hours before she comes to chew your ass off." Ino informed as she worked on applying a bandage longways over the cut. "If I were you, I would be somewhere very hard to find until she cools off." Ino finished and turned to leave before nodding to Itachi and then slipping out the door.

Sakura stood from the desk and very slowly pulled on the long sleeve. In the process her hair is tossed back and the very distinct black markings on her right shoulder catches his eyes. Once again fully dressed she turns to face him, and he is slightly pleased to see her face has been healed. "While I appreciate the food Uchiha-san, you should be resting or in the room with your cousin. There was no need to check up on me." She smiled as Itachi finally closed the distance between them.

"You're injured." He says as he sets the food on her desk. "Why did Yamanaka not heal you?"

She laughed and waved her hand in the air. "She just started her shift, no need to have her drain her charka in the beginning. They will heal on their own, and what doesn't I can take of tomorrow. How are you feeling Uchiha-san?"

"Itachi" he corrected. When Sakura just raised her eyebrow at him, he continued, "you are Sasuke's teammate, there is no need to be so formal."

"Very well" she laughed as she sat down in her chair. "How are you feeling Itachi?"

"Fine." He answered pulling a chair in front of her desk that had been discarded to the side room, most likely by the blonde medic.

"So, I have to ask. Is the vague responses an Uchiha thing? Or are you and Sasuke a special case?" She asked taking a sip from her water bottle. Some of her earlier tiredness gone. Itachi said nothing as he pulled out the two containers of food and passed one to her. He couldn't recall the last time someone had openly teased him that hadn't been his own family. "I'm going to have to say special, because your cousin is quite playful from what I remember."

"You know Shisui?" He questioned. His cousin had never mentioned the pink medic, and she rarely ever came onto the compound.

"From here and there." Sakura said passing a second water bottle to Itachi.

They fell into a comfortable silence as they ate. Neither one feeling the need to fill the quietness. Both to tried to care how awkward this interaction truly was. Sakura had been Sasuke's teammate for almost six years, yet he could count on one had how many times she had been to dinner at their house. Every time his mother would invite her, she was either struck in the hospital or away on a mission. Sasuke's female team member definitely seemed to have a much busier schedule than the rest of the members of team seven. Yet even with the amount of missions she took, they haven't been on a single mission together.

Looking around her office he could see certificates, certifications and degrees displayed proudly all over the room. If she was anbu, why hadn't she ever been assigned to his team? Surely a medic would be a prefect match for his unit. The tattoo wasn't new, but surely, he would have remembered a new member having pink hair. Itachi made a mental note to check the archives later if the opportunity presented itself.

A long drawn out sigh escaped Sakura as she closed her take out lid. "Thank you, Itachi-san." She smiled for a moment before her eyes harden. "How far out where they?" Itachi fought the urge to narrow his eyes. He had told no one what had happened expect Tsunade. "Majority of Shisui's injuries were caused by a medical scalpel. Do not insult my intelligence. There is only a handful of skilled medics that would dare to take the two of you on."

Still Itachi said nothing, as he to closed his food container. He didn't know really anything about her, yet alone her security clearance level. Sakura seemed to understand, she didn't press any further. Simply stood and collected the boxes before disposing them in the trash.

"Itachi-san if you will excuse me, I still have papers to file. Thank you again for the food." Itachi nodded and before he could even stand, she had disappeared from her office.

Itachi stared at the spot Sakura had just been moments ago for a few seconds before he left her office and made his way to Shisui's hospital room. Thankful his cousin's life had been saved, yet incredibly curious as how someone like Sakura hadn't caught his attention before now.