A/N: Hey, y'all! This is my new HidanxSakura story that's been tumbling around in my head since high school! It has been around 5 years since I've updated or posted ANYTHING here, so please bear with me! I'm not exactly sure where I would put this on the timeline of the anime and manga, but let's just say it is before the Fourth Shinobi War (though the characters will be around 19-20, so it just hasn't happened yet). For fun times, the majority of the Akatsuki is alive, save for Itachi and Sasori. I really hope y'all like it! Let me know what you think ^_^

Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters (apart from the OCs that will be pretty obvious).

ENJOY!

What Doesn't Kill You

Prologue

2 Months Prior

The past month has been brutal. It grows harder and harder for Haruno Sakura to even stand, but today it is especially difficult. She clutches the side of the chair between her fingers as her knuckles turn white from the grip. It is disgustingly white about the knuckles since her skin has already become a ghastly shade of alabaster. Her hand trembles as she makes a fist around the chair, but at least she is able to make a fist. She is surprised that her hand still has that much strength in it, but that thought is pushed to the back of her mind as she realizes that her knees will buckle beneath her at any moment.

Before she is able to topple to the ground—or better yet, pass out—strong arms cradle her shoulders and hoist her from the chair. Worried blue eyes gaze down at her and she smiles to reassure them, but to no avail. As Sakura grows weaker, his eyes lose all hope. She wonders why she even tries to smile at him anymore.

"Thanks, Naru," she whispers. He is not looking her in the eye anymore, keeping a firm grasp on her arm to steady her. He only looks down now, stares at the horrifying protruding bump below her breasts. Sakura's free arm reaches out to cover it self-consciously—but one cannot hide or deny what has already been seen.

His eyes do not darken like the others' do when their gazes settle on her stomach; rather, unbeknownst to him, they brighten. It is her face and sickly body that makes him uneasy. Nevertheless, Naruto is rarely away from her side. Ino was right. Naruto would be the perfect father in her absence.

Her hand reaches out to touch his cheek and force him to look away from her stomach. "Naruto," she prods.

Whatever daze he was previously in, he snaps out of, and looks at her as if he has just woken from a long dream. "The council loves the cure. They've decided to officially allocate it into the system."

A breath of relief flows from the pinkette and a true smile slips softly against her lips. "Good," she whispers. "Now no one will have to live like me." He is at least able to smile at that, but it only lasts as long as it takes him to realize that the "like me" means Sakura's unfortunate and untimely end.

Sakura looks down at her stomach—the hand that at first was intended to hide her stomach now caressing it as she is reminded that this baby is a gift, not a curse. She smiles sadly. "Not even you."

9 Months Prior

"What do you mean you want to keep him?"

The look on Ino's face is truly one of fury and resentment. Sakura cannot remember a time when Ino's burning gaze has ever been aimed at her so pointedly, that her loose grip on control has been ever so apparent. Wondering if she should follow protocol and detain Ino before she loses all sense that the "horrible excuse for life" within Sakura is actually still a part of her friend, Sakura crosses her arms stubbornly and mirrors the look on the blonde's face—to a more subtle extent, naturally.

"Exactly that," Sakura says. "I mean to keep him. I'm not giving him up, Ino."

A look of pity flashes through Ino's cerulean watch before anger wins out again. "Sakura, if you don't abort him now, you will die," she says with finality and tact.

Apparently, trying to scare the Haruno is the only way to get through to her, or so they thought when they first considered bringing Sasuke in to talk to her with his canny negligence towards others' feelings.

Next, they brought in Naruto, trying their best to guilt Sakura into aborting the child, followed by Tsunade and Shizune who listed off the dire consequences of her choice, medically. Of course, this was truly a last resort decision since Sakura's prowess in the medical field had already led her to such conclusions at conception of the child.

And now, here Ino stands, trying her best to scream and yell Sakura into changing her mind from her fatal decision. They know Sakura's mind won't change at this point. But it is worth the try.

"I'm going to die anyway, Ino. It's all a matter of when," says Sakura serenely, and Ino makes it a point that Sakura sees her rolling her eyes.

"I think I speak for everyone when I say I'd choose you dying later rather than sooner."

"Well, too bad it's not your choice, then." Her words are icier than she had meant for them to be, but it matters little. She watches as Ino's face begins to twist and contort into something that resembles indignation and hurt, but it is only for a few seconds.

"You're a selfish bitch."

Sakura shakes her head at her friend's close-minded nature and walks out of the room. The room is suffocating and filled with the harsh and close-minded opinions of her friends, and said opinions do well at exhausting her. She doesn't care if Ino still has more to say, because no one will be able to change her mind. The pinkette notices that Ino has not even tried to follow because she knows that her efforts are fruitless, too. Everyone knows, but they use denial to cope with it in place of acceptance.

Her illness has left her quarantined to the top floor of the hospital, where only the most infected are allowed roaming privileges. The walls are a stark white and there are no pictures anywhere. The few windows in the commons area that let in the daytime light only make the walls look whiter, and Sakura wonders why they even put the teasing little windows there in the first place. They only depress the patients more. Most of them will never be able to feel the daylight sun ever again. She is one of the lucky ones—she is able to see it, able to walk to the commons area, when in reality, most of the patients are kept in their rooms. But does that make her lucky, or unlucky—that the sunlight is able to tempt her?

She used to be allowed out when they were testing her back when she returned from her mission. She had already diagnosed her disease as something akin to AIDS, but it was stronger and even more malignant. It has not even been two months since she returned, and she has noticed a drop in her chakra reserves from 100 percent, to about 70, with no exertion, whether it be from exercise or meditation. Fifteen percentages less, and she will be at the same level as most healthy civilians—thirty less and she will not be able to leave her bed without a wheel chair. Fifty less, and she'll be dead. Her captor knew what he was doing.

It is taking every last piece of will she has left to have this baby. She has encased it in enough chakra to ensure a healthy growth and birth, sacrificing a few months of her own life in return. Her hand reaches down to her belly as she takes a seat in one of the soft chairs in the commons. The room is empty save for one doctor who smiles at her with pity as he makes his way through. Sakura smiles back emptily, for the most part ignoring him when he says 'good morning', before looking back down to her stomach.

She loves her baby more than anything, and she hasn't even met him yet. While she understands her friends' hate for him, she realizes that they do not understand the thin line between hating that she was put in this situation, and hating the product of it.

Sakura finds it hard to swing a word like 'hate' around without even knowing a person, but her friends find it very simple. She rarely uses the word 'hate' herself; a ninja does not need it to kill. For a long time she only used hate for mostly abstract things: she hates weakness, and she hates the lack of hope in people's eyes during war. She hates loveless beings, and she hates sour snacks. She hates rain and missing her friends and the screeching noise a chalkboard makes when one scratches it.

She hates him.

No, it is not the fact that he beat her until she was seeing things and brutally raped her and is ultimately the cause of her death.

It is the fact that he has impregnated her with a child that already has lost the respect of his soon-to-be peers. It is the fact that his actions breed so much hate and ugliness throughout the village and subject her to a sad sight. It is the fact that she could not kill him, before he got to all of them.

It is the sound of wood splintering that brings her from her dark reverie. The poor chair she has been sitting in made the unavoidable mistake of having wooden arms. She turns her palm to her face, checking to see if she broke the skin; an ugly situation that would end in the destruction of this chair by focused men in thick, protective suits.

Tests have proven her illness to be contagious and contractible through the mixture of blood. Ergo, she cannot bleed anywhere near others.

Ino looks tired and worn when she comes face to face with Sakura again, and Sakura notices that the blonde could be mistaken for someone, who like herself, is quarantined to this floor.

She crosses her arms angrily and stares down at Sakura as if she is a child that has done something wrong, and her petite fingers hold steady to her mesh sleeves. Sakura suddenly wishes she had a reason to wear anything other than sweats on a daily basis.

"If you're going to have the child, you should at least give it to Naruto," she says as if their conversation had never ended in the first place. Her blue eyes want to be wild, but she has trained herself to be less temperamental in the last five minutes.

Sakura's face drops. Ino has mentioned her fears, and it is weird and even more frightening hearing it actually come from someone else's mouth. "Ino…I can't do that."

"Why not? If anyone understands what that baby's going to go through, it's Naruto," she reasons. "Besides, you and Naruto have been dating for years now. I'm surprised he hasn't asked your hand in marriage yet. It wouldn't make sense giving that child up to someone else."

"But, Naruto, Ino? Since when can that boy even take care of himself?" Naruto is a kid. Strong, powerful, and accomplished, but a kid nonetheless. Asking Naruto to take care of her newborn child in her absence seems so selfish to Sakura. Naruto is only twenty. He has the rest of his life to live, and who is she to burden him with a child at this point in his life?

"It might not be the most practical option right now, Sakura, but Naruto has done more growing up in the past couple months than you will ever know," says the blonde softly, shaking her head back and forth solemnly. Sakura knows she is talking about what Naruto has been through since she was rescued from her captor. One cannot imagine the anger and fear one feels when raped without having it done to them, but seeing Naruto act out in such an aggressive and rage-filled manner hurt Sakura even more than the raping itself. Sakura would be raped by the same sick man a hundred times more if she didn't have to see Naruto like that ever again.

His eyes had been so dark, no longer the hopeful cerulean that she has come to know. His body was scalding to the touch; it has to be very dangerous to be that warm. It reminds Sakura of the time she had first seen the nine-tailed fox in Naruto; reminds her of feeling helpless and scared as Naruto tried to destroy everything in his path, even her.

The way Naruto looked when she entered the village in Kakashi's arms frightened her. She had thought he would go off like he did before and this time he would succeed in killing everyone. Sakura cannot bear to see Naruto like that ever again.

"He won't say no to you. He'll do it, Sakura," assures Ino.

Sakura sighs before massaging the bridge of her nose. "That's the problem, Ino, it's not fair."

How can Sakura ask him to do such a thing? To take care of a child that is hers but not his. To love a child that is the son of her murderer, the man that raped her. It wouldn't be right.

Ino looks desperately as if she is trying to hold something in now. Her hands are clenched at her side and her lips quivering. "Not fair…" she says as if mentally she is someplace far away. Her voice is strained when she talks and Sakura fears that she is witnessing a ticking time bomb readying to explode. "Not fair?" she repeats, her voice low. "And you being raped and beaten is?"

Ino looks breathless, tired, and broken, and Sakura finds herself worried for her friend's predicament. Of course, that, Ino would argue, is the problem. Sakura's curse is to put others' needs first. She never plays the victim, even when she needs to just sit back and be it for once.

Sakura closes her eyes, remembering first that she is shinobi. "I take full blame. I am the one that decided to take on such a mountainous task in the first place, when I should've fully understood I was not at that level yet." It was a ten to one battle, and she had put herself in the situation. There is no way she can't take the blame.

And there is the pity look again. But this time, it seems so well-placed plastered on her distraught friend's face. This pity, Sakura can handle. Ino has listened to all the dirty details, all the cries to save Sakura, all the troubles. She stands by Sakura and stays strong and has not cried once yet.

Ino's pity is interlaced with a thick layer of fear and sadness that Sakura has yet to see in her friend in the past few months. Everything has been so controlled, locked in the usually emotional girl's tough hide. Sakura is at the very least relieved that her closest friend has come back to her.

"Full blame?" she chokes, and it takes the girl's everything to keep her voice from shaking, to keep the tears from falling down her sun-kissed face. She takes a moment to recollect herself before stepping closer and staring Sakura right in the eyes.

Ino smells of the outdoors and Sakura is reminded again that Ino will never truly understand her predicament. "I was not—"

"You were not strong enough?" finishes Ino, raising her eyebrow dangerously, as if she is testing Sakura, just daring her to say another word. "God, Sakura, give it a fucking rest! You blame yourself for being brutally raped? You do something for all of Konoha, save innocent people, kill over half of their league singlehandedly, and it's still not enough for you."

Sakura is at a loss for words, but her gaze is still steady, and she prides herself in not being as emotional as she once was. She would not be able to survive under such circumstances, after all.

"You're a hero, Sakura. And you can't doubt your strength anymore; you are stronger than any kunoichi I know," continues her friend, glaring at her with determination. "Naruto will understand. He sees everything in you and that baby," she says, gesturing to her friend's stomach with those eyes. The same eyes that everyone gives her stomach when they realize something's living in there that will kill her eventually.

Everyone but Naruto.

Sakura falters as she recognizes that Ino is probably right. This is Ino's chance to swoop in as she notices that her pink-haired friend no longer has her guard up. Her blue gaze softens.

"You know no one can take care of that baby like Naruto can," she says sweetly, grabbing her friend's drooping shoulders. "He's the only one that will understand him."

Sakura no longer knew what to say. Ino had won.

And so Naruto would have him.

A/N: Welp! There's the prologue! Pretty short, but I promise the next chapter will be a lot longer! Please remember to REVIEW and let me know what you think!