For Luvsanime2, who wanted to know what Sakura was thinking during the fight against Itachi and Kisame in Teamwork 3. I needed to get myself back into her mindset so that worked out pretty well. (this chapter is stuck like a motherfucker, I can't give an estimate of when it'll come out. It's really irritating. :sulks: )

The sword doesn't get all the way through but she fancies she can feel it anyway, fancies that she knows exactly where it'll come out of Sasuke's lower thorax (through his right lung and liver) and into her chest (right through her fourth and fifth ribs and into her heart) from the way the impact travels through his body, pressed against hers. Her nose is mashed against his collarbone and he's heavier on her than he has ever been in sparring or in bed.

She can see part of Itachi's face over Sasuke's shoulder, one ruby-red eye, black wisps of hair. So familiar and so alien and she can't breathe with how much she hates him, with how much she hates Sasuke for doing this to her, for dying on top of her like this'll make Itachi kill her any less and not be a total waste (she would rather be dead, she would rather be dead, she cannot deal with this.)

Somewhere Naruto screams like a beast (he is losing them both oh god Naruto no) and wild chakra lashes at her and it burns, it burns, and the whole world flips them around. She cannot tell which way is down, she grabs onto Sasuke, she wants to fall back down with him.

Something grabs them in mid-air; she sees torn rocks and turned earth two feet down from her nose (her hands are covered in warm and wet.) She understands nothing.

"Holds on," rasps a voice she doesn't recognize, and a hand finds her shoulder and yanks her back and she screams, fear and fury both, and she throws her elbow back and almost drives Gaara's nose right into his brain. If Sasuke's limp body didn't throw off her aim she might have killed him; he's too exhausted to dodge and his sand armor is too thin, cracked all over.

She shudders and twists fit to break her spine to wrap an arm around Gaara's neck; the other won't let Sasuke go. (The badly fixed bone reminds her it exists; she grits her teeth).

"There. Can't go higher."

She remembers to breathe. She glances down. "Can you dodge at all?"

"No."

She's going to have to parry, if she can (she can't, god, she can't.) Naruto alone down there oh god, but she can't go to him, she can't help, she can only be bait. She doesn't even have anything left to even try fixing Sasuke, all those organs in there that she has no clue what to do with.

Sasuke is still clamped onto her. She can't fight like this. (she can't fight at all she wants to go home where is Kakashi-sensei where are her parents she's too far out of her league, she just wants to curl up and pretend this isn't happening, she wants to let Gaara deal with it he's the freaking Kage isn't he, she wants...) She wants not to have to fight again.

She can't let any of them die here. She starts trying to disentangle herself from Sasuke's arms and their warmth and strength and their not-worth-it protection.