Archive of Our Own

Her vision blurred at the edges from exhaustion. Sakura’s legs trembled from the exercises Kakashi-sensei ordered them every morning–no, afternoon really– his schedule tended to run late. 

Her nose twitched. She didn’t think about the quirks of her sensei. Not when she was about to collapse on her knees. The Kunai slipped from her fingers again. It hit the ground with a small thud as Sakura stood in the desiccated clearing. 

“Nee, Sakura-chan!” Naruto called out with a wide grin, his form moved with an endless, brash movement that made Sasuke grunt irritatedly when he flipped mid-air over a fire-ball. “Your kunai, it fell—”

“I’m aware, Naruto. Focus on your fight–Sasuke-kun will win again,” she said, bending down to pick up the dull weapon. Naruto let out a small yelp when Sasuke had managed to deliver a particularly hard punch to his shoulder. 

Sasuke briefly paused, his gaze sliding to Sakura’s bent form – before his elbow struck Naruto’s stomach. 

“Teme–” Naruto breathed out, “Ought to punch you into the ground for that– Dattebayo!” Sasuke huffed in response, jumping over Naruto’s leg from underneath. 

Sakura’s breath was steadier now as she took in the usual chaos eight feet in front of her. She sat down on the dirt, uncaring, for once, that her dress would require extensive cleaning when she got home. I should take some painkillers, she thought. 

Her nose twitched. She ignored it. Her hands smoothed her dress over her knees, fully knowing her mum would scold her if she saw. 

A quick flicker appeared in her peripheral vision – Kakashi-sensei emerged from thin air, again. He loomed over her still form, as though deliberately stating, You’re not supposed to be here with his presence. 

Sakura kept her eye on the spar, her hands steady over her knees. She didn’t greet him, but waited. She distinctly heard the familiar snap of his book opening, but his gaze seemed locked on her form.

“Maa, Sakura-chan,” he said. A page turned up perfectly – performative, really, she knew. Sakura’s nose twitched slightly, and she had to fight the urge to cover it. The obnoxious shouting of Naruto echoed through the grounds after Sasuke landed another hit – this time, Naruto’s shin, and Sakura knew it would be a blooming purple bruise by morning.

Another flicker. Faster. 

Shisui seemed to hop into existence, a mere five feet away from Sakura. He, as usual, wore a beaming grin. It reminded Sakura of a cheshire cat who got its desired cream. Beside him, Itachi landed with silence, but his presence was heavy in the small clearing.

Sakura slouched inward as if she instinctively needed to hide. Her mouth was a thin line. She could leave early, get a painkiller from the local hospital, and take a warm bath when she got home. This, she knew, would not happen. 

With a blink, Shisui was crouched in front of her. His eyes narrowed at the corners from the force of his grin — Sakura’s hands tightened over her dress, the wrinkles a small comfort. 

Kakashi flipped another page. He had flipped, approximately, three pages in the span of two minutes. 

“Sakura-chan! There you are,” Shisui said, his voice was deep but held an underlying quality to it. Sakura could never tell what, and she found that she didn’t want to. She filed it.

Sakura, with grace, gave a small smile. “Hello, Shisui-san,” she said. “How was your mission? I thought it would take another day or so.” Her fingers rested – not gripped, she noticed – over her dress. 

Shisui didn’t give any indication of noticing it. He rolled on his heels, restless. Sakura knew that the painkiller would be a great excuse. Excuse. 

Excuses never flowed well with Shisui.

Itachi was next to Kakashi, seemingly examining the ongoing spar between the boys. Sakura was aware that it would end very soon, especially with Sasuke eyeing his brother and cousin. And, because of the continuous grunts and yelps from Naruto. One more hit–

“Are you ignoring me? I’m literally seven inches in front of you, Pinky!” Shisui’s voice turned into a slight whine, his eyes wide, as if imitating a sad animal. Sakura’s nose twitched.

There was a small silence. Sakura focused on the lone daisy beside her leg, and deliberately ignored the soft whimper that emitted from Shisui. This is fine, and this will be over soon, she thought.

“Sakura, you are so–”

“Shisui-san, you never did answer my question earlier. How was your mission?” She smiled, but she was aware that the corners were tighter than her usual one. 

Shisui’s mouth snapped shut. His eyes turned still, actually, his whole body went rigid. Sakura felt the urge to apologize for something. Her nose twitched and a warmth dribbled over her lips. Her hand instinctively touched it.

Red. Her hand was engulfed in it and the metallic smell of iron enveloped her senses – why was there blood? She was fully aware that she was bleeding. She wasn’t aware of why. 

“Sakura,” Kakashi’s voice was sharp. Sakura didn’t know how to respond. This is a nosebleed, her mind stated. Yet… usually, they weren’t so–

She couldn’t breathe. 

Hands were on her face. Rough and calloused and large and too tight. “Sakura. Sakura, Sakura, Sakura–” Shisui’s face. His face–It looked wrong, as though everything shifted to the left of it until it turned into another thing. 

Sakura quickly looked to the trees. Her heart, she could hear it beating rapidly, in her chest sounded as if it would burst in her ears. It must be the blood. The blood that was blocking her airway. She managed out a shallow exhale. 

She heard Shisui say a word – couldn’t hear what – and then her face was tilted down. The movement made her neck register something that she knew was going to be regret later. 

Then, another pair of hands, smaller, abruptly slammed over her back, hitting it hard enough to hurt. She felt herself grip her dress shirt tightly, as if it’d make her breath come back.

“Sakura-chan, hold on–” 

Naruto. Naruto, of course, was the one who was hitting her like a pillow-case needed to be ruffled. There was a quick movement and then the hitting stopped. 

A warm and heavy palm rested on the back of her spine. She had stopped choking, but the blood was too much. Her head pulsed something heavy, something that wasn’t the headache from before. Sasuke muttered, “This has to be of someone’s doing–”

Kakashi tilted his head. It was the first movement in the last forty seconds and Sakura didn’t hear another word from Sasuke, which caused a small pang that she entirely ignored. She needed to leave, she thought, her lips a thin line. 

Shisui’s hands were still too tight. He was, to be clear, holding her down in a way that made her want to fight and flee. Her nose twitched, somehow, underneath the fountain of blood.

“You can let go now,” Sakura said, her voice a bit muffled from Shisui’s strong grip that etched from her hair to her jaw. She filed it under: Shisui’s attributes.

 “She’s going to be fine, Shisui.”

Itachi’s voice was clear and mellowed. Sakura didn’t know Itachi well, but she, as a careful observer, heard the edge in his statement. Shisui loosened his hands. Slightly. Enough that Sakura felt that her head was not going to be popped – which was a blessing, rare, but still.

In the corner of her vision, she thought she saw red eyes. She blinked. She saw true; the Sharingan was activated in Itachi’s onyx ones, and they were bright and entirely too transparent and too…

Sakura focused her gaze on the daisy. The daisy that seemed to be blissful in its ignorance of the chaos that erupted nearby. Sakura wished she was a flower, which screamed unreasonable and childish, but it made a small spark light up inside. 

Maybe in another life, a small smile crept on her face

“Why are you smiling?”

Shisui looked at her with an intensity that made Sakura’s skin prickle. The fact that he had been silent – and Kakashi, she noticed – during this proved to only strengthen her defences, as if she were wood against the burning embers enveloping it.  

Which was a weird analogy. 

This only made it seem more fitting, she thought, with a sense of pride. 

The smile faded away and her lips returned to a line. Shisui was right, she shouldn’’t be smiling now, especially considering her predicament. 

“... Will Sakura-chan be okay?” Naruto’s voice was almost quiet. Almost. Sakura stored this away with a conflictedness that she did not examine, as she usually did, concerning the blonde. 

Kakashi’s eyes were tight at the corners. His usual smile, half of it hidden beneath the black mask, and his eyes were very slight to the point of nearly closed. This was meant to be a comforting gesture, Sakura knew, and it seemed to work for Naruto and even less for Sasuke, who had turned to see if Kakashi would say anything useful. 

Instead, he was silent for a few moments, and he was, deliberately, looking away from Sakura. He vaguely looked uncomfortable, she thought. “Sakura will be fine,” Sasuke said, giving her a quick glance that spoke too many words Sakura, herself, couldn’t fathom.

“She needs to go to the hospital.” Itachi, again, stated in his mellowed voice. Sakura found it soothing and utterly terrifying. Why did she have to bleed with such vigor in front of Him? Her mind seemed to think this without her consent.

Shisui’s grip moved to her shoulders. His palms were large and she, as a twelve year old, was small. She ignored the lack of heat to her cheeks– wait, lack of heat. 

“I think, that…” she spoke unconsciously, “That I absolutely need to go for a check-up.”

Silence seemed to loom over the sunny clearing, which, to her chagrin was still blusteringly hot in the way her dress felt damp. Great. Her mom–

“A check-up,” and this voice, the one that was not heard for the entirety of six minutes, sounded flat. Shisui was looking at her with the wrong face. His eyes were ink, depths of endless bottomless pits, and seemed to be wide but narrowed– Sakura didn’t know how that was possible – and his mouth was very thin. He looked…

Sakura let out a breathless exhale, given the lack of oxygen she remembered from the blood, which had finally stopped. It stopped. Sakura blinked, once. Twice. And she would’ve rubbed her eyes, but that would’ve been unnecessary and very unsanitary.

Shisui didn’t look reassured. His stance was still, almost frozen in place. But his eyes became a fraction lighter when he noticed that the blood had stopped. He was holding Sakura, and then Sakura abruptly felt smothered when he, without warning, hugged her.

The smell of firewood and an expensive cologne that was entirely too much of MAN tickled her nose underneath the heavy metallic that had long invaded her senses.  

Sakura huffed, her breath was cut off short. “It’s.. too tight, Shisui-san–”

“Don’t.” 

“I’m sorry,” and Shisui’s form lightened from its stern position, though, it was still coiled, as if he was ready for an ambush. They were in the middle of Konoha’s sacred village. And Sakura was cold. Her body seemed to have stopped producing the required temperature in the heat of eighty-nine degrees in the peak of Summer – her heartbeat, she was aware, was pounding.

She was trembling and she forced her teeth to not chatter. Typically, it was more common to be suffering from a heat-stroke in this heat, but she was a different story…

 “It’s cold.” 

Sakura distinctly felt Shisui’s hold tighten, which was bad for her airway and ribs, that she knew were fragile – this is not so great, she thought. She is freezing. Her teeth started to click, clack, click without her permission. Her hands trembled and seemed to favored gripping Shisui’s black compressed shirt. 

And the worse part was that it was seen. Visible. Transparent in the way Sakura disciplined herself to not do all of these past four months, from the moment her friendship with Ino ended on a bad note; her mind stuttered as that reminder appeared with no warning. 

“Cold? It’s not cold– it’s freakin’ hot!” Naruto shouted, his voice cracked nearing the end. Sakura could see his feet bouncing on the ground, as if releasing the energy his body always had. Sasuke – she, for the first time, wished she would flush like before – he was pacing. 

Pacing. 

She blinked as if the simple image of Sasuke Uchiha, the boy who did not move without hesitation and an engraved moodiness in such making numerous difficult decisions, was pacing. And, his face looked like a piece was untangling, and she found that she was glad he wasn’t talking.

Sasuke was not a talker. He did not speak now. Sakura could’ve smiled if her teeth weren’t chattering as rapidly as they were. “She needs the hospital. Now.” Itachi’s voice was even, but the tension in it seemed to have increased.

In a span of two seconds, Sakura was lifted into Shisui’s arms. Her feet dangled over the curve of his forearm and a hand moved to her back and one underneath a thigh. 

“Let me walk.”

“Maa, Sakura-chan, we both know you can barely stand,” and Kakashi faintly gestured with his book at the trembling force her legs had taken. He was right, she begrudgingly accepted. She could not stand.

Shisui didn’t say anything. In fact, he was fixated on moving forward north. The Hospital. Yet, he was not apparating or beginning the process of roof-hopping. Sakura felt her heart drop when she realized he was going into the civilian shopping district.

Mid-day. The market was packed to the brim with people pushing and shoving to get their desired goods – and he was taking her through it.

 “Shisui-san we should–” 

His hands only shifted her weight as if she were a piece of furniture. Sakura’s involuntary response was a growl. It was not menacing or did it speak anything of danger, but it vibrated in her throat like the cat she saw a day earlier when she tried to pet the thing. 

Mortification flooded and she was sure, that somehow, some blood managed to rush into her face. “Sakura-chan! Did you just…” Naruto’s voice trailed off at the force of Sakura’s glare. 

With a nervous energy, he quickly looked away and pretended to scout the area as if he was on a mission. Sakura ignored the flicker of pride that appeared.

“Naruto, this is not the time for your nonsense,” Sasuke said. Sakura could see the tension in his shoulders and the line of his jaw matched Shisui’s that she forced herself to not stare.

It was in their genes, she reminded herself.  

The boys had positioned themselves in front of Sakura, but left an opening from the middle, like the formation they’ve been practicing since last month every evening. Itachi, she was particularly attuned to his heavy presence, was behind Shisui – he was guarding, like a dog. 

She didn’t think about it. Kakashi shifted his shoulders to brush against Shisui’s every five steps and a page had not turned for four minutes now. Sakura filed it: Shisui’s attributes and strange relationships; Kakashi’s behavioral pattern.

Sakura could see that she was blocked off from all exits.  They were approaching the Market now  – judging by the shocked and horrified gasps from civilians, she knew she looked like she battled the cool-aid pitcher in her fridge. 

Her arms were weaker now. Sakura noted this with a certain calmness, and she should feel a different way, but she is drained. A civilian lady, one that was once a customer at the Haruno Merchant business, went sheet-white, a hand clutched her brown handbag.

“What in the world happened?” Sakura couldn’t see where it came from, but it seemed to ring.

“Kami… please save her!” A raspy voice prayed distantly.

The Market had paused to stare at Sakura; bloodied, her skin a pasty old grey, and was being carried through the public mass. The smell of apples and the mix of fruits were hindered by the smell of iron.

Naruto hissed at one of the roaming hands that aimed towards Sakura. “Naruto,” Kakashi scolded, his eyes were the color of black ice. Naruto huffed exasperatedly, mumbling a quick sorry.

Sasuke glanced back at Sakura. His steps paused for a moment and his eyes widened a fraction. Naruto sensed Sasuke’s movement and let out a small gasp when he turned around.

 “Sakura?”

No response. There was a tense silence. Shisui quickly checked her pulse, shifting her weight onto one arm. His jaw moved. “She’s unconscious.” Naruto’s eyes were glassy and his hands formed into fists. 

For a second, it looked like his eyes shifted to a reddish tint, before the azure settled again.

“Faster. Shisui,” Itachi said, his voice sharp. 

Shisui’s pace quickened to almost a run – he knew that she couldn’t be jostled greatly. His face was very still. “Move.” He voiced at nearby civilians. One look at his expression and their body reacted unconsciously – some fell to the ground in a hurry, while others had simply stepped away. 

The others followed behind; Kakashi and Itachi flanked Shisui without a word. Sasuke and Naruto followed, working to keep pace.

✦❀❀✦

PART TWO: THE GIRL IN THE HOSPITAL

The first thing Sakura had noticed upon waking was the white ceiling that had numerous cracks scattered across it like stars. The second thing was the smell–disinfectants, cleaning products, and something in the middle that screamed wrong.

When she swiped her tongue over her front teeth, the iron lingered. Her breathing was normal. Not shallow. Steady. The way it should be for a twelve-year old.

She thought, “How long have I been under?” A few hours, a day, or…

She stopped thinking about it.

Sakura pushed herself up. Her arms shook when she applied weight, before she managed to get into an half-sitting position that gave access to the rooms exterior.

White and old and underwhelming in its furniture. The lights overheard gave off a light yellow and she noticed, with a relief that settled over her, that she had a window a few steps away from her bed.

She would have to lean forward to grasp a view of the Cherry Blossom tree outside; a few scattered petals laid across the floor. Sakura was glad she didn’t have allergies.

No one was with her. The realization struck her with an odd coldness – she was well aware that they brought her here – Shisui wasn’t here. Naruto’s beaming presence was absent. Sasuke… she shook her head.

The echo of the heart monitor created a nail-biting edge in the room.

Only the sound of the steady rhythm of beep, beep, beep semed to be the only assurance. Her hands trembled over the thin blanket. She clasped her hands together. 

Sakura’s expression was not bare. She had control over that. Sakura was a person who considered the possible outcomes and reasons to every scenario: she had simply made a miscalculation.

It was fine, she reminded herself. Her nose twitched.

The doors burst open. Then came the sound of a booming familiar voice: 

“Sakura-chan! You’re… You’re awake! It’s like you were dead–”

Sasuke smacked Naruto’s head with precision, his dark eyes narrowed, and his shoulders were not straight. It was simply Sasuke’s posture. He was almost slouched. Sakura can see the tension between his brows were gone. Her heart did a little leap.

She ignored it. 

“You dobe…” Sasuke chided, “Watch your words, idiot.” Naruto scowled at him before hopping over to Sakura’s bed. He sat on the edge of it. Not the chair to her left. The edge. 

Sasuke walked over to the window. He leaned on the frame with a forced relaxed posture and crossed his arms. His navy blue turtleneck creased with the movement; his eyes were positioned on Sakura’s form within his peripheral vision.

The coldness seemed to wash away. The warmth from Naruto’s presence was always too much, but Sakura’s hands stopped trembling. “I’m so glad that you’re okay, Sakura-chan.”

This was said with a voice that sounded like Naruto – it was different. Something that sounded similar to grief, Sakura noticed, and her fingers inched towards his jacket.

“Thank you, Naruto,” she said. She allowed a small smile, one filled with warmth and a mix of regret, and she felt Naruto tense through the bed’s fragile structure. His eyes were bright and wide. Sakura thought, “Don’t cry. Not here. Not for me.”

Sasuke did not say anything. He watched for a moment. His expression looked almost soft and his eyes were a shade lighter than before. He looked his age.

“... Kakashi-sensei has been with a few nurses talking,” Sasuke said. “Shisui and Itachi-nee have been… firmly getting information.” 

Sakura understood the hint in Sasuke’s words. The fact that his voice had an edge of hesitance told Sakura that they, presumably, weren’t taking Sakura’s condition well. Naruto winced, his face was rearranged into simple Naruto again, and his smile seemed to be true.

Naruto leaned forward, his head rested on the palms of his hands. They were prodding his jaw with a usual restlessness. He seemed to be thinking. Sakura knew that he was beginning to grasp words that would be too much of something.

Sakura didn’t know what that something would be.

“Shisui-kun has been… frankly–” Naruto paused, and glanced around the room as if checking to see if Shisui was present. “Terrifying.”

“Oh,” Sakura said, her voice a tad bit low. Her eyes widened a fraction in surprise before she forced them to be her usual wide. “Well, I’m sure that they have been civil.

 Right?”

Sasuke and Naruto gave each other a look that communicated a whole conversation about how civil Shisui and Itachi were. Sakura scoffed, her eyes switched from one to the other. “I assumed that certain authorities were trained to handle situations with manners.”

Sasuke’s lip curled up and his shoulders tightened in the way he was holding a laugh. Sakura ignored the small heat that rose across her cheekbones; she turned to see a few Cherry Blossom petals flying inside the room. One landed on her bed, and she rested a dainty finger on it.

Naruto’s shoulders were shaking. Little chuckles and giggles escaped through the palm over his mouth. One, two, three, Sakura counted, and then Naruto exploded with laughter.

Sakura felt the urge to cover her ears from the high pitch from Naruto’s windpipe. A few moments passed by in a silence that felt as if a weight had been lifted briefly. “Is there a mirror?” Sakura asked, her gaze fixed on the petal nestled between her fingers.

There was a quick movement. “Here,” Sasuke said. 

The mirror was held in front of her face in Sasuke’s hand. His grip had not loosened. Sakura, deliberately, forced her mouth to be still. 

“Thank you.”

“Hn,” he replied.

“You know I can hold that mirror, teme–” Naruto’s voice had an edge to it that suggested he wasn’t far from being violent.

“You will do no such thing,” Sakura snapped. Her eyes were narrowed and her lower lip was a tad out of place. Naruto froze for a second before looking away sheepishly. She didn’t think about the blush on his face.

The mirror – Sakura held mixed feelings about her looks. Her pink  hair was tangled and slipped down to almost her elbows. It had a  wild quality to it.  Her eyes were red-rimmed, as if she had been crying. She filed it: Things to Not Think About. 

Her skin returned to its usual color. A milk-white with hints of blood, but she saw some of the grey color from before remained. She grimaced. 

Naruto made an involuntary soft sound. He opened his mouth. Closed it. “You… Sakura-chan, you’re very pretty–Dattebayo!” He gave her a thumbs-up, and his smile was a tad-bit smaller than usual. 

She glanced towards Naruto. Her hand clasped over his. Gently. Almost a brush of the fingers. Naruto blinked. His face seemed to be red in the way a tomato was ripe. “Sa-Sakura–”

Sasuke’s foot tapped once. The mirror seemed to have disappeared somewhere in the room, and his arms were crossed once again. His expression expressed a faint exasperation directed at Naruto– as usual, Sakura thought.

Sakura clasped her hands together again. “I’ll buy you ramen,” she stated. “Not today. I’m still feeling a bit out-of-sorts, Naruto.” 

Naruto beamed and laid his head on his palms once more. He looked delighted. That was the word that appeared in Sakura’s mind. She focused her gaze on the flower petal, one that looked a bit pressed into the blanket, and did not think of it.

The door opened with a small sound. It seemed to deadened the room. Sakura looked to the door – it was Kakashi, holding a cup of tea and his eye was closed in that curve of his. It was wrong. 

His tall form crossed the small space in three strides before sitting down, with a small thump, in the chair to Sakura’s left. 

Naruto straightened and his expression seemed to have a piece that was glued together.

Sasuke moved back to the window frame, but he didn’t lean on it. He stood with his arms crossed and his foot still.

 Sakura did a slow blink, cataloging Kakashi’s presence and the boys reactions.

Kakashi handed her the tea – it was almost hot in her fingers, she observed. He must’ve recently gotten it and walked straight here. Suddenly, her mouth felt dry.

She took a sip. It burned her tongue. Sakura ignored it.

“. . . Kakashi-sensei, what did they say–”

“Let me think for a moment, Naruto,” Kakashi said. The voice was low but firm.

 Naruto squirmed, his fingers seemed to tangle and the pads were pressed against each other. Sakura’s lips thinned and she forced herself to not squirm like Naruto. She couldn’t afford such movements. 

Silence loomed over the space between the four of them. After several moments, Kakashi let out a soft groan. Sasuke’s onyx eyes narrowed. 

“Right,” he said. “The doctors are telling – with a certain slowness they all seemed to have–” He waved his hand and his eye looked dark for a second before it lightened slightly. 

“Currently, they are doing exams. On your blood.” Kakashi bit out, his hands seemed to reach for something. His book was not present, Sakura knew. She didn’t look away.

Her body desperately wanted to look away. She forced it down. Sakura held her gaze on Kakashi’s grey-black ones, before clearing her throat. “I presume that the blood… It was from the incident.”

“Incident,” Sasuke scoffed. His gaze seemed to pierce the pillows behind Sakura’s head. Sakura ignored the small comment. Naruto bristled but stayed on the bed. He looks weary, she thought.

Sakura’s hands pressed into the cup. The warmth bled into her skin – grounding and soothing, with a spike of pain – and said: “The blood exams weren’t positive, were they.”

It was not a question. 

Kakashi seemed to become still. His hands were steady. His eye narrowed slightly. Sakura instinctively sipped the tea. It was Jasmine. She forced herself to maintain eye-contact. 

He can be frightening–no, he is a frightening and terrifying shinobi with over forty-two confirmed kills–

Sakura gave her usual smile. Soft. Polite. Innocent. Naive. 

Kakashi leaned forward. His face close to hers and Sakura can see the dark circle that seemed to be a permanent settlement underneath his eye. The silence was heavy. 

Naruto, from her peripheral vision, was as straight as bow about to spring a devastating arrow. Sasuke didn’t move. His fingers twitched.

“Sakura-chan,” he said. “You don’t worry your pretty little head about that, okay?” 

This was a statement– command, really – disguised in the form as a question. Sakura felt the hairs on her arm almost vibrate. Her nose twitched slightly. Slightly. She glanced to the destroyed petal in her hands on her lap.

“Look at me.”

Sakura looked up at Kakashi. Her expression was neutral.

“I understand, Kakashi-sensei.”

Kakashi smiled but it still looked wrong. His eyes were briefly closed. She could tell they were never fully closed. He briefly patted her head, his palm warm and heavy. 

Naruto’s throat gave into a whine. “Kakashi-sensei, you can be really scary! I was about to poop my pants–”

“Naruto, shut up. No one wants to know about your turds,” Sasuke reprimanded, grimacing. 

Naruto huffed and began to wrung out his fingers. “You wanna go, teme?” He stood up. “I’ll show you what a turd you’ll be in–”

“Boys,” Kakashi said. He gave them a flat look that communicated a sentence of what was going to happen if they were to fight in the hospital. Naruto gulped and Sasuke shifted his feet, looking away with a small blush.

Sakura breathed a sigh of relief. I’m glad Kakashi-sensei stopped before they could even wreck the room, she thought with a hand around the warm tea.

Kakashi leaned back into the chair with a creak. She blinked and she sipped the tea. A black flicker appeared in the space to her right.

Shisui. She smelled his firewood scent with the smell of pure masculinity and turned to look up at him. His smile was gone. He stood very still and was adjacent to the window. His eyes were tightened at the corners and slight. 

Naruto shrieked and fell off the bed with a thunk. “Ow!”

Shisui didn’t move. He gave no indication of Naruto’s existence. He looked Sakura in the eye and said, very sternly: “Who did you allow to exercise a blood-exhaust jujtsu on you.”

Sakura froze. Shisui loomed over her small form that was still lying on the bed and she felt like crying. She was not going to cry, shannaro.

“What do you mean–” She paused. “What do you mean that I allowed for someone to do this to me?” Her hands displayed a gesture that somehow summarized the situation.

Itachi’s hand appeared on Shisui’s shoulder. “Shisui,” he said and then whispered something that made Shisui’s mouth twist in annoyance. Annoyance. Sakura suddenly held Itachi in a higher position than before.

Kakashi clapped his hands together once. His eye-smile set in place that held a hint of a warning. “Maa, alright,” he stated, “Let’s not hoard our precious genin, hm.”

Shisui eyed him carefully. He saw the warning. He advised it mentally, and then promptly sat beside Sakura on the bed. It was crowded. 

“. . . You’re still going–” His words stopped. He looked at Sakura with a softness that made her heart ache. “I’m going to protect you, Sakura.” Don’t do anything without asking me.

Sasuke scoffed. “We’re going to protect her, you mean.”

“Teme, are you actually–”

“Finish that sentence and you will end up in a room similar to this.”

Naruto only rolled his eyes obnoxiously. He had gotten up from the floor in the past few seconds, and deliberately ignored that he fell. He took his seat on the edge of the bed, but inched close enough to press his arm with Sakura’s.

Sakura appreciated the sentimental gesture. She said nothing about it, but turned to Shisui, who was fiddling with the almost-cold tea he, somehow, stolen in the past ten seconds from her fingers.

“My tea,” she said.