Most ninja were not entirely sane. Even genin, with their simple D-ranks and occasional C-ranks, didn't live in the state of mind a civilian would have. After all, they were trained to kill from the moment they entered the academy. Anyone who had been a ninja for longer than a year knew what it was to have those strange nights of blood and clarity, where everything that they did, were, and had done crashed down on them.

Everyone suffered equally, even the people that seemed just fine. For instance, Iruka was only a chuunin. Many people thought he had been spared the horrors of ninja life. However, one of the kind teacher's best kept secrets was that he had been in ANBU for three years, a stint equal to fifteen years as a normal ninja. He had been on Kakashi's team for two rotations, and he had been one of the people they sent in when they needed an advance man. He was bland enough not to stick out in a crowd, and ruthless enough to slit the throats of their targets when he had the chance. On occasion, Kakashi's team would be assigned to watch over the young Kyuubi vessel instead of the normal assassination missions, but nearly all the missions his team did were assassinations.

Iruka and Kakashi had known each other long before they were in ANBU together, though. They would have been in the Academy together, had Kakashi not graduated much earlier than. . .well, everyone. But their parents had known each other, and they had played together in those strange moments where Kakashi had been allowed to play, instead of train. As Iruka grew up, he had admired the other ninja, and once Iruka became an orphan, they had more commonalities than ever. Iruka had been nearly as upset over Obito's death as Kakashi had been, and when Kakashi became ANBU, Iruka followed close behind, despite being "just a chuunin". There were only two ranks in ANBU: member, and captain, and the secretive organization pulled from all ranks, even genin on occasion.

So Kakashi knew that the mental suffering of an accomplished ninja was not reserved for those of a certain rank; far from it. The nights where everything suddenly seemed so clear, and all the blood they had ever spilled seemed to cover their hands - those moments had aged every ninja. Kakashi had been there for the brunette on those horrid nights of grief and madness, the nights when he called out for his mother and father. Iruka had been there for the nights when Kakashi's grief and anger spilled over into being tangible, the nights when Obito and Rin and the Yondaime whispered in his ears and drove him mad. Iruka still had a few scars from the kunai Kakashi threw on such nights, and Kakashi's wrists were banded with thin white scars from where Iruka had tied him with wire to keep him from hurting himself.

However, despite all Kakashi's knowledge on the mental state of shinobi, and all his personal experience. . . Kakashi still wasn't sure what was wrong with Sakura.

He had started wondering about her when he noticed the sudden changes in emotions that constantly afflicted her. One moment, she would be smiling, happy, and gentle; the next, she would be beating in someone's face. For a while, he thought it was just a woman being a woman, or perhaps she had picked up the disposition of her mentor. But then he noticed it wasn't just once a month - and on occasion he would speak to her, and she would answer in a strange way.

The night that startled him most had been when they were out with Kurenai, Gai, and the rest of the "Konoha Eleven" (as they were known), plus Sai. It was in a little bit of downtime, before they had discovered Jiraiya was dead and they were all still moderately happy. Some of them were still sitting around the large, round table, laughing and giggling madly, but they were in a bar, and some of them had gone to the bar for a drink or two. Sakura had been one of the people, and Naruto had been another, which meant somebody was going to drag the drunken, hyperactive ninja home (he fully intended to leave before such was necessary, though).

He stood to go for the bar himself, and saw Sakura sitting on her stool, face half-turned to a shinobi he vaguely recognized. Matsuwa Nobuo, chuunin, part of his brain told him. Kakashi could read the expressions on their faces fairly clearly; Nobuo's face said that he had found an interesting specimen, and Sakura's said she wanted to be left to her sake. Nobuo's expression changed to a wheedling one, and he placed a scarred hand on her lower back. Then Sakura's whole body changed in response. An expression that would look at home in Icha Icha slid onto her face, and her body turned towards the chuunin that was touching her. A few short words, and then she flitted away towards the restrooms with a wink over her shoulder. The whole exchange took ten seconds - and Kakashi was left dumbfounded.

He had never before seen Sakura act sensual in any way, shape, or form, but that was undoubtedly what had happened. He wandered over to the bar and took a seat, his mind working through what he had seen. Nearly half a bottle of sake had drizzled down his throat before he saw her come out of the dark hallway leading to the restrooms, cheeks flushed, lipgloss smudged, and hair messy.

What he saw that night made him wonder, made him look for strange things, and he saw many things that were odd over the weeks that followed. He saw the odd moments where she would blink and she would change the way she was occasionally disoriented and confused when she shouldn't be, and the way she was only the girl he knew on occasion. It had taken him a long time to come to the conclusion he had come to, one that was a very simple idea, and something that he had decided to investigate as best as he could.

His conclusion: something was wrong with Sakura, and as he watched her, he became more and more determined to figure out what it was. It might just be what most called "blood sickness" taking hold in some way other than it usually did, but he doubted it. When blood sickness set in, there was usually death. . .and a lot of it. It was a common opinion among most shinobi that the madness was what caused Itachi to slaughter his whole family, and what made Orochimaru. . .well, Orochimaru. There had been a couple cases where it set in and took effect in a different method, such as Anko. She was much more sane now than she had been once upon a time, but her insanity had manifested in two ways: when she wasn't killing, she was having sex, and vice versa. He really hoped that Sakura wasn't going that way.

His current position was not very advantageous to figuring her out, though. Being stuck in a hospital was far from comfortable in the first place, and being unable to leave the room made it infinitely worse. He had visitors, and he had his Icha Icha, but the room got so boring after the first ten minutes. For a little while, there had been another ninja in the room with him, but the other man had long ago been healed and left. He, however, had been in this accursed room for over a month. 33 days, 7 hours, and 26 minutes, to be exact; Kakashi had been ready to leave before he checked in.

He really didn't like hospitals.

The door to his room flew open, and the pink-haired subject of his previous thoughts strode in, clipboard in hand and beaming at him. "Guess what, Kakashi-sensei!"

"Maa, you're going to keep me here for the rest of my life, aren't you?" His eyelid drooped in sorrow at the thought; never leaving the hospital would be horrid.

"Pff, no. I think you'd drive every single person here insane before the year was out." Sakura laughed, laying down her clipboard and fishing in the pocket of her doctor's coat for something. "No, you'll be leaving the hospital today, unless we find something wrong with you." At that, he snapped upright in his bed, eye gleaming happily. "I'm surprised we managed to keep you here this long." She finally found what she was looking for and fished it out - one of those horrid triangle hammers that the nurses like to beat his knees with when they weren't trying to give him sponge baths.

"It. . .might have something to do with white-eyed med-nin paralyzing me to stop me from leaving." His other eye snapped open and he assessed her movements quickly before closing it again. She was definitely heading for his knees with that thing, and he couldn't help but sigh. He might not be able to walk out of the hospital.

"Oh, maybe. Tsunade-sama wouldn't have to descend to such methods if you would just stay put, though. . ." Sakura pulled back the covers that hid Kakashi's legs and scowled at the blue book peeking out from under his leg. "Legs over the edge of the bed, sensei. I need to check your reflexes to make sure the effects of the senbon in your spine have worn off." The silver-haired man begrudgingly swung his legs over so that they dangled from the side of the bed, just barely touching the floor. Sakura's scowl deepened; he wasn't sitting up properly, but it would have to do.

Kakashi's leg shot up like a rocket when she tapped his knee with the hammer, and he actually winced. "Ah, Sakura-chan, do you have to be so rough? I thought you were supposed to be helping me get better. . ."

"I am. You're just a very irritating patient." A trickle of green chakra flickered out and soothed his knee before she tapped the other knee as well, though she was considerably more gentle this time. "Alright, your reflexes seem to be okay. Just a quick checkup on everything else and you get to leave." She moved closer to him and let the green healing chakra envelop her hands. The room was silent as she checked various things: the condition of his eye (slightly more inflamed than normal), the shape his heart was in (the tiny rip in the left aorta had long been healed, but she still worried), and whether or not he'd accidentally popped a rib out of place again (he was worse than Naruto about doing that). It didn't take very long for her to make sure everything was where it should be - maybe five minutes. "You're free to go! There are clothes stashed under the bed, and I went by your apartment yesterday and re-stocked your refrigerator. Oh, and -"

BANG! The door burst open and Ino appeared in the frame of the doorway. "Forehead! We've got big fucking trouble in the ER!" Sakura snapped to attention, twisted about, and made to leave the room.

"Sorry, sensei! Bye!" The last wave of pink hair disappeared through the door that slammed shut after her. He could hear her shouting through the walls and it made the corner of his lips twitch up as he stood up, wobbled a bit, and got dressed. He fled through the window without the least bit of remorse at leaving That Horrible Place behind. He started to head toward his apartment, but quickly changed direction when his stomach growled and reminded him that breakfast had been barely edible.

. . .

.

. . .

At a small ramen stand not terribly far from the hospital, the next Hokage slurped hungrily at the bowl set in front of him, noodles flying wild as he devoured them. He loved ramen, it was amazing, he could eat it seven times a -

"Eep!" Naruto's guzzling was cut off by a squeak from beside him. He turned, noodles hanging from his half-full mouth, to see what was making funny noises in the middle of Ichiraku. Hinata stood to his left, her eyes squeezed shut and an errant noodle stuck to her cheek. The blonde blinked and swallowed the rest of his mouthful in one long slurp.

"Hey, Hinata-chan! What's up?"

"U-um, I-I. . .was g-going to eat l-lunch. . ." The shy girl stuttered, eyes downcast and cheeks flushed with color.

"Oh. Well, Ichiraku's is the best place for that!" Naruto paused for a second to think before he spoke again. "But you know that already, cause you're here! Yay for ramen!" With that, he spun around on his seat and continued gobbling up what remained of his fourth bowl.

Hinata glanced down the street and hesitated for a moment before climbing onto a stool a space away from Naruto. Ayame leaned over the counter and dangled a menu in front of her, accompanied by a tiny smirk and glance at Naruto. Hinata's blush grew darker at the insinuation in the young woman's eyes. "M-may I have a b-bowl of pork ramen, p-please?" Ayame wiggled her eyebrows and turned away to make Hinata's lunch, leaving the shy Hyuuga to stew in her thoughts. I'm. . .I'm so c-close to N-Naruto-kun. . .I can almost smell him. . .

"Oi, Hinata-chaaan. . ." Naruto's voice broke through her reverie, and she snapped to attention. The color that had faded while she thought returned to her cheeks as she looked at the blonde jinchuuriki. "You've got ramen on your face."

"A-ah! I forgot! T-thank you, N-Naruto-kun!" Hinata pulled the noodle off her cheek quickly and tossed it to the ground outside the stall before dashing another glance at Naruto. He was staring at her, eyebrows furrowed, and her eyes grew wide. D-did I do something w-wrong?

"You needa wipe off the ramen juice, Hinata-chan." Naruto leaned across the seat separating them, licked his thumb, and proceeded to rub her cheek with it. Hinata sucked in a breath and nearly hyper-ventilated. Naruto was touching her - his tongue - "I think that's all of it." He withdrew his hand and leaned closer, sniffing her cheek carefully. "Yup, that's all of it!" White eyes, renowned for how much they could see, rolled back in the head of their owner as she passed out, her head hitting the counter and all color fleeing from her face. "Eh? Hinata? Are you dead?"

"Naruto. . ." A familiar, gravelly voice drawled from outside the stall. Kakashi pushed past the flaps that guarded the entrance and stood looking down at the unconscious girl for a minute. "Did you touch her?"

"Eh, I helped get some ramen broth off her face, and then. . ." The future Hokage flapped one hand in the direction of the Hyuuga heir. "Hinata's so weird. . ." Naruto's ex-sensei sighed and sat down between the two, his one eye indolent and half-lidded. He gave Ayame an order for miso ramen and a request for a cool cloth to help wake Hinata up before he turned to Naruto with a piercing glare.

Naruto shivered and dropped his bowl to the counter, eyes crystallizing into an icy blue instead of their normal warm sky color as he turned to face his old teacher. "What is it, Kakashi? You only give me that look when someone is in trouble." Silence lingered in the air for a moment before Naruto spoke again. "Did Sasuke escape?"

Kakashi chuckled and glanced at the still unconscious girl at his side. "No, I think things would be considerably more frantic if he had; Hinata wouldn't be the only one fainting. . ." He hummed under his breath, long and low, before finishing his thought. "No, this is about your other teammate."

"Hmm. . .well, it can't be Sai. Nothing's gone wrong with him since Danzou was killed." The chopsticks in Naruto's hand clicked together and began to squeal under his tight grip. "Sakura-chan, then."

The white-haired ninja nodded, all his attention on Naruto, even as he laid the icy cloth across the back of Hinata's neck. "Have you noticed anything strange about her recently?" The blonde boy thought and thought. And then he squirmed, eyes half-melted and shameful.

"Eheh, I haven't actually -" a pause. "Ihaven'tactuallytalkedtoSakura-chansincewebroughtbackSasuke-teme." Kakashi stopped. Blinked. Then his face became intimately acquainted with the inside of his hand as he slapped his hand over his face and rubbed, a weary sigh escaping the darkness of the mask.

Wonderful. Kakashi had taken a risk in asking Naruto for help, but he was fairly certain he needed someone's help. He wasn't sure he could figure out Sakura on his own - he'd barely managed to figure out her favorite food and animal before Team 7 had fallen apart. Now, he had the feeling that whatever secret she was keeping, whatever was wrong with her. . .it was much more pressing than such simple things as food and animals. He had been enough of a failure as a teacher; he owed it to her, and the rest of Team 7, to support them in any way he could. "Never mind, then."

"Mmmh. . ." Hinata moaned, long eyelashes fluttering as her eyes slowly opened. Her vision swam until it stabilized, and then a shock of white hair became visible and blocked what had once been a view of golden blonde hair and skin. "Hatake-san?" The older man turned and smiled before raising one hand in a two-fingered salute.

"Yo." Clinkclink. A bowl of pork ramen touched down on the counter in front of Hinata's eyes, and a bowl of miso ramen in front of Kakashi. "Hyuuga-san, you may wish to be more careful in the future about where you happen to lay your head. There's lots of blonde idiots running around these days." He winked (or did he blink?) at her and turned back to his ramen, muttering a soft itadakimasu before he snapped his chopsticks apart and -

"Oiii, baka-sensei, I'm not dumb! Stop saying weird things about me to Hinata-chan!" Hinata sat up and snuck a glance over Kakashi's back at Naruto, only to meet his eyes in a stare. She froze for a second and. . .thunk. This time, she had narrowly missed falling off her seat and had fallen to the side against the wall. "Ack! Hinata-chan's ramen is going to get cold! Ayame!" Kakashi's bowl was empty, and when Naruto turned to him to ask for help, so was his seat. The resulting angry cry echoed through Konoha.

"KAKASHI-SENSEIIIIII!" Far away from the tiny restaurant, the legendary copy ninja giggled as he sprinted across the rooftops towards his apartment, familiar blue-green book in hand. Ah, some things never change. . . After his moment of glee, his thoughts turned back to Sakura, and ideas went rapid-fire through his brain. None of them proved very useful, though, until he landed on top of the Yamanaka flower shop. As he took off, the scene at the hospital replayed through his head. "Forehead! We've got big fucking trouble in the ER!" Kakashi's eyes narrowed as he finally landed in front of his apartment. Hm, Ino. . .

. . .

.

. . .

Sakura slipped into her apartment, bone tired, sore, and hungry. It had been a long day at the hospital - after releasing Kakashi from his prison, there had been three badly injured chuunin in the ER. Not only did they have several bad injuries each, but poison had been used on two of them and it was quickly sending them into convulsions. She had to manually extract much of the poison, identify it, and apply the antidote before she could help the other medics that were healing the dangerous wounds.

That had drained half of her reserves, and after that it had been a steady stream, of all things, of pregnant women. Two of the twelve women had complications, and she had to do caesarean sections on them both. Three of the babies were premature, and needed special care before being moved to their designated areas. By the time that her shift was over, she had been running on the dregs of her chakra. In addition to all the medical emergencies, the first part of her shift before she released Kakashi had been spent carrying boxes filled with paperwork, antidote, and gauze. She'd barely managed to wolf down an onigiri one of the other nurses handed her in between the babies and the poisoned ninja; if she had eaten a proper lunch, she wouldn't have been so low on chakra.

So, after her day, she felt no qualms with collapsing onto the couch and reaching into her mind. Anyone in there?

It took a minute before anyone responded. H-hai, S-Sakura-nee-chan. A-Akane-kun is a-asleep, and Ichigo-nee-chan is in her r-room. D-do you want one of them?

Sakura sent another thought into the back of her mind and waited for a response. No, it's okay, Sayuri-chan. Would you like to come out? I'm really tired, and I don't feel like fixing anything to eat. There's some umeboshi and rice in the fridge to make onigiri, and I think there's some milk in there, too. . . There was no response, but she felt the familiar black haze that signaled either sleep or a loss of memory begin to drift over her, and her eyes flickered shut. . .

After a minute, Sakura's body pushed up off the couch. She stood still for a moment, gnawing on the edge of her thumb, before she shuffled into the kitchen and opened the fridge, arms applying too much force and nearly yanking the door of the refrigerator off. Sayuri squeaked and held still for a moment before she realized there was nobody there to be angry with her for what she had done to the appliance, and then she relaxed marginally and reached inside the metal box for the umeboshi and rice. She set them out on the table, gnawed on her thumb again, and climbed onto the counter to pull out a large plate, despite that the body she was in was tall enough to reach the cabinet without climbing. She slid off the counter and landed on the floor with a loud thump. At the sound, Sayuri froze again and waited. When no chastisement appeared, she picked up the container of salt sitting by the stove and shuffled back to the table.

It didn't take her long to make three large onigiri. One was almost a triangle, another was a lopsided square, and the last was a squashed ball. Nonetheless, Sayuri beamed proudly at her work and got up to find a cup to drink out of. When she opened the refrigerator again, she was gentle enough not to rip the door away, and her efforts were rewarded by a carton of milk sitting inside said door. . .right beside a bottle of strawberry syrup. Sayuri squealed again, this time with excitement, as she gathered up the precious material and made herself a big cup of strawberry milk. Then she sat back down at the table, murmured a quick itadakimasu! and dug into her strange supper, sitting and humming a song through her mouthful of rice, pickled plum, and strawberry milk.

One moment Sayuri was sitting at the table, legs swinging and eyes bright as she devoured the last of her onigiri, and the next the entire posture of Sakura's body changed. Now, the slight body of the Godaime's apprentice curled around the chair she sat in, and the atmosphere in the room thickened with a strange intent. "Ugh, what was Sayu-chan eating?" She swept her tongue around her mouth and scowled, reaching for the cup to wash away the taste of Sayuri's onigiri. "Now, let's see. . .can I get into anything tonight? I don't remember what hours we're supposed to be working this week. . ." She stood and stretched lazily before walking towards the fridge to read the sticky notes left on the surface. There were no new sticky notes, but Sakura's neat kanji covered the magnetic whiteboard stuck to the freezer.

Sayuri - there's ramen in the cupboard, umeboshi and rice in the fridge, and there might be some dango laying around somewhere. The next door neighbor's cat has been hanging out on our balcony, and Orange-kun is under the bed.

Akane - spars this week are Monday at 4, Thursday at 2, and Saturday at 11. Monday and Thursday are with Tsunade-sama, and Saturday's is with Lee, Shikamaru, and Hinata. Be good.

Ichigo - I work 6-4 Sunday, 10-8 Tuesday, 6-4 Wednesday, 10-8 Friday, and 8-6 Sunday. Like I told Akane, be good. I don't like dealing with your hangovers.

all of you, don't break anything (especially you, Akane; that lamp was not cheap), don't drink the strawberry syrup (please, Sayuri) or use it as body paint (seriously, I don't care if it's named after you! that stuff is sticky!), and wash the dishes so Naruto doesn't come in the window and break half of them again.

Ichigo checked the calendar and sighed. Tonight was Tuesday night, which meant that Sakura had to be at the hospital at 6 tomorrow; that meant she couldn't go out and have fun. If it wasn't for the fact they all shared the aftereffects of a tired, chakra-exhausted body, Ichigo would have gone out anyway. Sleep without someone else was such a drag, and so boring. So, the pink-haired woman put away the materials from Sayuri's supper, sashayed into Sakura's room, set the alarm clock, and fell into the bed, entertaining fantasies of dark-haired artists and brunette med-nin. She drifted into sleep quickly as the exhaustion of the body she was in became clear; but that didn't stop her from writhing erotically in her sleep.

. . .

.

. . .

"Sakura-chan!" A voice echoed in her ears, and she turned from where she was staring into the stream to look at the owner of the voice.

"You guys are so slow!" She yelled out, enjoying the sight of her two boys running towards her, one with a wide grin splitting his face, and the other with a tiny smile. "You're here before Kakashi-sensei though, so it's okay!"

"Aww, Sakura-chan! Sasuke-teme is the one that made us late, messing around with tomatoes in his bento." Naruto pouted at her as he slid to a stop, blue eyes shimmering in the sunlight.

"Hn. If you hadn't eaten all my onigiri yesterday, I wouldn't have needed to make more, idiot." Sasuke offered a half-grin as he, too, came to a stop beside Sakura.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, dattebayo." Naruto grumbled, eyeing the dark-haired boy leaning on the railing.

Sakura laughed at them and smiled. "It's not that important, guys. Like I said, baka-sensei is late like always, so -"

"If he's not here by lunch, I'm leaving." Sasuke looked over at the trees where Kakashi liked to hide and narrowed his eyes. "I may have a bento, but if we're not practicing, I want yakiniku."

"Oooh, that does sound good, Sasuke-kun. We should go -" suddenly, Sakura's voice diverged. One voice said "as a team!", and another said "out on a date!"

Sasuke's voice multiplied, and Naruto's voices chimed in too.

"Team time-"

"don't go-"

"me too, Sakura-"

"Ramen is -"

Kakashi's voice then joined in the cacophony and Sakura's dream world began to shatter. Tiny shards of the idyllic picture broke away and fell to her feet. The blue of the sky, the gentle rush of the water, the soft smiles on everyone's faces. . .all fell apart and dropped into darkness. Now, she was surrounded in a world of dark red and gray.

Sakura looked around frantically and screamed out for her now-missing teammates. "NARUTO! SASUKE! KAKASHI!" Her voice echoed back to her, the only human sound in the abyss that surrounded her. She could hear the creaking groan of rocks and the low rumble of thunder, and the darkness seemed to press in on all sides.

Lightning flashed, and then the lightning began to sing. Chichichi - Sakura rushed forward towards the sound, pushing vainly at the darkness that engulfed her and tried to hold her back. It slid along her legs and broke her skin when she tugged her arm away, leaving trails of blood that were strangely colorless in her nightmare dimension. And suddenly, a picture appeared in front of her.

Sasuke stood there in front of her with lightning in his hands, and murder in his flower-wheel shaped eyes. She sobbed and reached out for him, but a groan from the ground he stood on stopped her. Half-afraid to look, but too scared not to, she turned her eyes to the ground. After a minute, she heard the most awful screeching noise. Then she realized that noise was her.

Naruto was laying on the ground, a hole torn through his chest and blood staining him. His eyes were glassy, but not entirely empty, and he looked up at his old teammate with a wry smile. "G-guess I'm not dead last after all. . ." His words were interrupted by a fit of hacking that bloodied his lips and left him gasping for breath. "Never thought. . .I'd be first to go. . .Sasuke-teme. . ." Naruto's eyes fluttered wildly for a moment, but he managed to refocus his gaze on Sasuke for a few more seconds. "Gomen, S-Sakura-chan. . ."

Sakura collapsed and sobbed and screamed. She had no idea if time existed here, but she laid on the ground for what seemed like a long time before footsteps approached her. When she looked up, Sasuke stood over her, sword in hand. "How could you, Sakura?"

Confused, she sat up and croaked out a few words. "How could I what?"

"How could you be so selfish?" She blinked and Sasuke disappeared. Naruto's body rolled over and began to pull itself towards her. She screamed and tried to push herself backwards as he came closer, face bloody and eyes empty.

"S-Sakura-chan. . .I tried hard. . ." His voice was deathly, cold, horrid, all the things that Naruto had never been. "Why can't you love me, Sakura-chan?" She covered her face and screamed, her voice breaking. The skin on her arms began to pinch and pull and burn, and she looked up to see -

The Kyuubi. It raged out of control, its nine tails whipping about wildly and catching the woods on fire. She could see Sasuke's corpse at the edge of one of the demon fox's paws, burnt and broken, and what had happened hit her. In trying to stop Sasuke, the Kyuubi had broken loose from the seal that kept it imprisoned inside Naruto. Behind the huge beast, she could see Konoha, utterly demolished in a way that even Pain had not managed to accomplish.

"Sakura. . .it's all your fault. . ." A voice whispered from behind her, and she whipped around to see a different vision. Kakashi laid across Tsunade's body, the socket which once held his Sharingan empty and weeping blood. She could see his face, but she wished she couldn't; the lower half of his jaw was gone and his tongue dangled loosely. Tsunade's body was wrinkled and her hair grey, all the famed beauty that she once had swept away by the darkness. She could see the tell-tale marks that indicated they had been struck down by a demon-possessed Naruto: the strangely inflamed wounds, the odd tint around the gashes and tears in their bodies.

And then, a cacophony rose up from behind them. Sakura pushed herself up to see what the noise was, and wished she hadn't. A trail of corpses carpeted the ground, all familiar faces that she didn't want to see.

Hinata's beautiful eyes were gone and her intestines were spread across her front. Neji was finally rid of his curse seal. . .the top half of his head was been taken off.

Ino was curled up between Shikamaru and Chouji, her eyes rolled back in her head and her face etched with horror. The bottom half of Shikamaru's body was gone, and Chouji's head was missing.

Both Lee and Gai were limbless torsos.

All she could see of Kiba and Akamaru was Kiba's head and Akamaru's leg.

Shino was even worse. The only thing she could recognize were his sunglasses.

Tenten's arms were burnt to a crisp, and. . .

Sakura's thoughts halted as she felt the burning, sick feeling of the Kyuubi's chakra come closer. She looked up to see the huge paw of the demon fox descending -

BZZZT! BZZT! BZZZT! Sakura shot up in her bed, breathing heavily. She was never so glad for the annoyance of alarm clocks as she was when they woke her up from nightmares. Her mind skittered over what the dream had been about, and she barely held back a sob at the image of the bloodied and broken Naruto, at the thought of Sasuke and Kakashi's burnt bodies. . . She pushed the thoughts into the back of her mind; the nightmare was gone into the depths of her consciousness. Five in the morning - later than she liked to wake up for her 6-4 shifts, but it worked.

She hopped out of bed and dashed into the bathroom to rinse off quickly before breakfast. As she stood under the warm water, her thoughts wandered from the odd taste in her mouth to what she wanted for lunch to her teammates. She absent-mindedly reached for her toothbrush to scrub her teeth and wondered about them. She hadn't seen more than a glimpse of Naruto since they brought Sasuke home. She'd been out to lunch once or twice with Sai, and Kakashi had been in the hospital for most of the time since the War. A giggle slipped from her mouth at the memories of how they'd kept him there so long: Hinata, along with one or two other Hyuuga, had tapped a few tenketsu that left him unable to dress or feed himself, and kept him from escaping to the sanctuary of his apartment.

She stepped out of the shower and slipped back into her bedroom to tie her hair up and get dressed, wondering if she might possibly be able to get Sai, Naruto, and Kakashi together for dinner sometime. It would be hard, but worth every bit of the effort -

Her body froze for a second and then began to move again, her movements strangely different. "Ugh, shit. It's early, dammit. Pinkie only gets up early for hospital work and missions, and I'm pretty damn sure that today she'll be at the fuckin' hospital. Shit, I never get to have any fun anymore." Sakura's body ambled out of her bedroom and into the kitchen, top half of her body clad only in a thin yellow bra. Akane made a stop at the refrigerator and rummaged in the refrigerator for something edible before he read the whiteboard. The message in the neat kanji sent him into another storm of curses that was only assuaged by the discovery of a bowl of miso soup and the leftover rice. Rummaging in the cupboards turned up a slightly dusty cup that he blew the dust out of and filled with water.

Akane sat down at the table to eat, chopsticks in hand and displeased expression plastered across his face. "Itadakimasu." It didn't take him long to finish off the cold miso soup and start in on the rice. Halfway through the container, a tap at the window made him start and spin around, spewing rice across the table and floor. Sai was perched at the window, eyes inquisitive, though his face was still blank. Akane stood up and stalked across the room, green eyes flickering with anger as he shoved the window open and let Sai hop into the room. As soon as the window was open, Akane began to swear at the pale artist. "Fuckin' hell, man, what the hell are you doin' at my window this damn early? Ain't nobody should be awake, and you fuckin' interrupted my fuckin' breakfast, too. Shit, man!"

Sai blinked and tilted his head to the side, eyes shining with slight confusion. "You seem particularly angry this morning, Sakura. Did you finally discover that you are, indeed, a hag?"

"Oh, fuck you, man! Seriously, what the hell are you doing at my damn window at ass-o'clock?" Akane glowered at Sai from under delicate pink eyebrows. "The only reason I'm awake this damn early is because of the fuckin' hospital."

"I am here to deliver a summons from the Hokage. She would like to see you in her office before you go to the hospital." Sai paused. "May I ask why you are not fully clothed?" Akane didn't answer, just turned and made for the table. "I see. What made you decide to show your body to Konoha?"

"Hey, man -" Akane froze. Half a second later, Ichigo whipped around and offered Sai a coy smile.

"Who said I decided to show Konoha my body? Why can't I just be showing. . .you?" With every word, Ichigo came a little closer to the ex-ROOT agent, until she was barely an inch from him. Her eyelashes fluttered and she reached for his shoulders, tugging at his odd jacket and managing to get it halfway down his arms. "Ooh, you have such nice shoulders. . . "

"Thank you, Sakura. I appreciate your willingness to model for me and your appreciation of my shoulders. However, I have other business I need to attend to." And he was gone in a flash of white and black, the curtains at the window flickering in the wind behind him, a vague scent of ink and paper lingering behind him

Ichigo stared at the window for a minute before throwing a hissy fit. "Ugh! That stupid shinobi always manages to get away! I will get that boy into my bed - I refuse to let him get away!" She huffed angrily and went to the bedroom to slip into a shirt. "And he's an artist, too. . .I can't wait to see what he can do with those hands. . ." Halfway to the kitchen, her body froze and slipped into a more relaxed stance.

Sakura glanced down at herself and frowned. "Hmm, not the shirt I would have picked, but oh well. Time for -" she paused at the door into the kitchen and blinked. ". . . breakfast?" She gnawed on her lip for a moment before shrugging and moving to finish off the rest of the rice. She wolfed it down and tried to decide whether or not to pack a bento or go out for lunch. For some reason, the idea of a bento sent shivers down her back today, so she left the kitchen and checked her wallet to make sure she had enough to go somewhere for lunch.

A quick glance at the clock told her that she had twenty minutes before work - plenty of time to change, refill her weapons pouch, and get to the hospital. She did find a more pleasing shirt, and slid a few more kunai, senbon, and shrunken into the tiny pouch before she took off through the window for the hospital.

Tsunade waited for fifty-five minutes for Sakura before throwing her hands in the air and deciding to visit her wayward apprentice at the hospital, but not until Shizune was temporarily satisfied with the paperwork that Naruto and Tsunade had managed to finish. Maybe then she could get some sake to ease the paperwork. . .

. . .

.

. . .

Note: The auto spellcheck tried to change genin to genuine, and also tried to spell Tsunade as stunned; dango as dingo; chidori as chider; senbon as benson; and shuriken as shrunken. also, Kakashi will be about 30 in this, and Sakura 15/16; it takes place just after the fourth ninja war, if that wasn't apparent. random trivia: he color of the Icha Icha books vary; there are three books. Icha Icha Paradise is orange, Icha Icha Violence is maroon, and Icha Icha Tactics is blue-green.

Thank you all for your kind reviews and story alerts! I really appreciate the support, and I would love to hear more from you. I've never actually finished a story before, so it's your job to pester me enough to make me do it! This is also my first time writing the Naruto cast, so please, help me keep them in character! Tell me what you think of the story so far!