A/N: Sooo, somehow I keep doing this thing to where I have a finished chapter, think I've published it, start on the next chapter and realize sometime later that I never posted the chapter. Sorry about that guys. This one took a while to write. I just kept stalling every time I tried to write it. I'd get two paragraphs and just be "meh" about writing more. So I made myself write some paragraphs here and there, and a few times I started getting into a rhythm, but mostly, this was written bit by tortuous bit. So, I'm sorry if it's kind of jumbled and choppy. I fixed as much in editing as I could.

Chapter Started: 6/16/16

Chapter Finished: 2/9/17

Edited: 7/10/17

Previously:

He pressed his face against her neck, tears slipping onto her skin. He sobbed, his mind desperately trying to shut out the truth that it knew all too well. He gently shook her, begging, pleading with her to wake up. He wouldn't care if she never loved him, if she never thought of him the way that he thought of her. He wouldn't care. All he wanted was for her to wake up, to hit him, to say something.

"Sakura?"

But there was no response. Nothing.

Silence.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

He was desperate to hear her voice again, anything, but he let his head fall to her chest, tears wetting the sweaty material of her shirt.

Thump, thump.

Naruto stopped, everything in his world stilling as he trained his new hearing on that tiny glimmer of hope. "Come on," he muttered, throat coarse from crying, but the despondent note in his voice was accompanied by one of utmost determination. "Come on," he said again, trying to will that little thing to make that little noise again.

Thump, thump.

He was almost beside himself. "Come on!" he screamed, once again putting his ear near Sakura's chest. Her heart thumped again, louder and faster this time. Fingers gripped her dirty shirt in his hand, and he couldn't help the trickle of relief flowing through his system. He lay there, listening to her heart pounding directly below his ear – almost as if it were loudly declaring its will to live.

There was nothing to explain how he felt – until that vital muscle gave a betraying thump, like it was stumbling, hurrying on and then stumbling again, as if its energy were almost gone and it would soon give up. Naruto shook his head, terrified of the new and stronger despair clutching at his heart.

"No," he protested. "No. Don't you lie to me. Don't you dare lie to me! Not after screaming at me that you were alive!" Panic crawled up his throat like a spider with claws. He had to do something – anything!

He wasn't a medic ninja. He had no idea what they did, how they formulated their chakra to heal. Naruto froze. That was it – chakra! Sakura's heart was beating on pure will alone; there was no chakra in her system to help it pump. Any moment now it would stutter and die.

Transfer yours.

The thought came unbidden, on the edges of his mind and he tried to grasp it. Kyuubi?

Nothing. Nothing but silence. It felt quiet, too empty to have his head back to himself, but Naruto pushed the thoughts out of his mind. He needed to focus. His hands shook as he swiped them through his sweaty hair. Transfer chakra how? He didn't know the first thing about that.

In a flash it came to him – a memory, though he knew it wasn't one of his own. It had to be Kyuubi's; Naruto had never done anything like this before. But he saw the signals performed as if he'd been looking at his own hands, felt the flow of chakra as if he'd formed it himself.

No time now. Her heart was failing! It stuttered, and suddenly he realized Sakura wasn't breathing. No, no, no! Fingers flipping through signs faster than he ever had before, Naruto cried out, snapping his hands directly onto her sternum. The chakra rushed through him easily.

Air puffed through her mouth as her chest caved from his hands. Naruto whimpered. Every second that ticked by without a breath from her was torture. Suddenly, he fell forward, just barely able to catch himself before his face hit the ground. What was going on?

Before, he'd been sending his chakra away from his body and transferring it to hers. Now, it wasn't going willingly. Sakura's body was literally sucking the life out of his. What jutsu was this?

Suddenly, Sakura's body arched off of the ground, her eyes and mouth flying wide open as she inhaled harshly. Her eyes searched his frantically, her limbs seizing stiffly. Naruto tried to move, tried to go touch her, but his muscles wouldn't obey. This was worse than Akemi's machine. It was like Sakura was stripping him of his essence.

Then she started screaming.

The sound ripped through his eardrums and his chest as if it had physically peeled off skin. Her voice was pure agony and terror. Someone was shouting his name, but it was muffled, and he couldn't tear his eyes away from her. What was happening?

Suddenly, the wind focused, like the eye of a hurricane, and not one second later it exploded, sending both him and Sakura flying apart. He hit the ground hard, but didn't feel it. Adrenaline pumped viciously through his veins, his heart pounding and his lungs cramping as if they had been afraid their life force would have been stolen. His muscles spasmed as he tried to stand.

Kyuubi's chakra flooded through his limbs, and it still felt like fire. But it was no longer unbearable. The coils had already been seared from their fusion. They pulsed, forcing his body to produce more chakra. But his eyes were on the body too far away, and once again, she wasn't moving. At least not that he could tell.

"Naruto! Naruto, stop!"

He understood the pressure on his shoulders, but he could not feel it. He heard the voice, but he could not heed it. His throat was raw, his mouth dry, and only now did he realize that he'd been screaming, too. Everything in his body protested movement, but he didn't care. He shoved his body past its limits and crawled.

"Stop it, Naruto! You can't!"

Now he recognized the voice. Before it was a muddy mess of syllables, but slowly, painfully, he turned his head.

Kiba's face was drawn, his body stiff with pain. His mouth was open, pulling in air difficultly. Kiba didn't have a demon inside of him, nor the chakra that came with it to help flush the poison from his system. It was still there, imprisoning his muscles, but Kiba was here, trying to help. Akamaru was nowhere to be seen. Naruto knew how much that dog was a part of Kiba, and the ninja had left him behind.

Respect blossomed in Naruto's chest. Not that he hadn't respected Kiba before, but Kiba and his team had gone above and beyond being their back-up. He didn't think they were even supposed to fight. And yet, despite all of that, he couldn't heed Kiba's warning. He couldn't.

"I need to get to her," he croaked. "Please, Kiba. Help me."

For a few long, insufferable moments Kiba hesitated, then nodded. He placed his arms underneath Naruto's armpits, and heaved. He could tell Kiba's strength was nearly tapped – it took too much for him to lift Naruto. But the dog ninja gritted his teeth and placed one of Naruto's arms over his shoulders. Naruto's legs wobbled, and he tried to tell them to stand steady.

It took one long tortuous minute for Kiba to nearly drag Naruto to Sakura's limp body. He paused, his heart sinking until she suddenly sucked in a large breath of air. In a move that belied his pain, Naruto dislodged his arm from Kiba's grasp and nearly fell next to her. Already he could feel Kyuubi's chakra healing him, his strength slowly returning, but his focus was entirely on the kunoichi in front of him.

"Sakura?"

She panted heavily, her eyes slowly fluttering open. She panicked, her eyes widening and roving the space around her. Why couldn't she move her limbs? Naruto crawled the last remaining foot to her.

"Sakura! Sakura, it's okay. We're right here. It's just me and Kiba." He reached out, wanting so badly to touch her, but afraid if he touched her again something would happen like the last time. He couldn't feel Kyuubi near the surface, but he hadn't before, either. Slowly, he retracted his hand.

For minutes, she just stared at him. Everything from panic to sorrow to anger passed through her eyes, but overshadowing it all was a blankness that worried him. She was just there, panting and staring at him but he doubted she actually saw him.

He swallowed. "Sakura?" he asked quietly.

She blinked, and her eyes sharpened. She launched herself onto her feet, but only managed to stand for half a second before she collapsed again. Kiba hurried over to her as best as he could. Pain shot through Naruto's heart at seeing her pain, and he wished he had more strength to help her. She looked lost, her whole hands white from how hard she clenched them into fists.

"What is going on?" she whispered.

"Sakura…"

"No. No… I…" She looked around frantically, eyeing the carnage around her. Naruto hadn't noticed it before, but as he followed her eyes, he saw the torn trees, the chakra slowly dissipating from the air and Akemi's lifeless body some yards behind them.

When her eyes caught sight of Akemi, they stayed there, slowly widening with horror. "Did I… Did I kill her?" she said, her voice just barely audible. Had Kiba not had a dog's sense of hearing, Naruto doubted the other ninja would have heard her.

Naruto winced. "Yes."

Her whole body started shaking, but she didn't move, didn't take her eyes off of Akemi. She just stared at the lifeless body, and with his sharpened vision Naruto could see her pupils dilate and return to normal over and over and over.

Slowly, he moved to her, gently touching her shoulder. She flinched, but still did not take her eyes off of Akemi. Kiba painfully stepped towards them, and spoke carefully, his voice low.

"Sakura, Hinata is injured badly. Akamaru, Chisoku and Shikamaru seem okay, but that poison did a number on all of us. We need your help. Hinata can't, of course, because of her arms…"

That seemed to pull her out of her reverie, and her eyes snapped to Kiba. "Hinata? What happened to her arms?"

"A summon that one of the teachers used stepped on her arms… They're pretty crushed."

For a second, Sakura's eyes flashed red, but before Naruto could look closer it was gone. He glanced at Kiba, and the dog ninja returned his apprehensive look. So it wasn't just his imagination. Kiba had seen her eyes flash as well. For a moment, she struggled to stand before looking at him.

Despite the fact that every bone and muscle in his body ached, he leaned down and helped her up. Once on her feet he fiercely hugged her to him, grateful to feel her heart beating against his chest. For a moment, he had worried it never would again. Her hands clutched his jacket, and he could feel their trembling, the shaking of her breath against his ear. Was it pain? Confusion? Fear? Gratefulness to be alive? All of them?

He pulled away, and her eyes were watery with relief and confusion, and her mouth was twisted in pain. Yet even as he moved to let her walk on her own, she refused to remove a hand from his jacket, and he was more than willing to keep his arm around her to make sure she was really there.

Kiba led the way, and their progression was slow. A few times they each stumbled in turn, and eventually, they walked three abreast, leaning on each other as they made their way back to the others.

It felt like eternity until a weak bark alerted them that they were close. Kiba seemed to find new energy; he broke away from them and jerkily trotted forward, calling for his friend. Chisoku hobbled forward, his face showing his relief once he glimpsed the two of them making their way over.

Finally, Sakura fell at Hinata's side, the pale-eyed ninja still unconscious. Carefully, but unable to stop shaking, Sakura ran a hand over Hinata. She looked up at Kiba, her face unreadable.

"What did the summon do?"

Kiba winced. "He had her arms pinned with his hooves."

Just barely, Naruto caught Sakura's eyes flashing back and forth from red to green, but he put it from his mind for now. He watched, not sure what she was doing, but when her familiar green chakra hummed over her hands he relaxed. He could hear the bones in Hinata's arms reforming, and he winced. But what really caught his attention was when one of Sakura's hands pushed back her hair.

Naruto had wondered if it had been part of his imagination, too – like her eyes – but it hadn't. Above her dragon tattoo, in the direct line of its mouth was a streak of blood red. It didn't act right. Blood that pooled from a wound matted the hair. This acted like a part of her hair. When she moved it, so did the chunk of red, and no blood had been transferred to her hand. Just what exactly happened when he'd transferred his chakra to her?

Sweat beaded on her forehead, and he realized it was in effort to control her shaking hands. But they wouldn't still, no matter how hard she tried. If nothing else, they worsened. Despite that, color slowly returned to Hinata's skin. Her breathing eased, and Kiba nearly fell into a sitting position beside her head.

Chisoku hobbled over, and pressed his body into Sakura's right leg. She looked at him, and as she did, a small spark cracked in her chakra. She immediately withdrew her hands, looking at them as if she'd never seen them before. Naruto withheld a gasp. Her palms were bright red, blistering, almost bubbling, and he could just barely feel her chakra bubbling as well.

Calmly, Chisoku touched his nose to her bare shoulder. Panic caused her to scramble back, but almost immediately, her eyes closed and she slipped from her hands to the ground. With a cry, Naruto raced to her, shouting at Chisoku, but the fox remained tiredly calm.

The fox lay down, panting. "It was a simple calming jutsu we summons can perform. Most of the time, it is on each other if it is needed. Her chakra was in danger of becoming out of control. It didn't…feel like her, and after the spark I knew there might be a war."

"War?" Naruto glanced at him as if he were insane before going back to checking her vitals. He breathed a sigh of relief when they were still strong.

"Yes," Chisoku nodded. "Within her." He sighed at Naruto's puzzled look. "Something happened. The chakra I felt isn't her own. When that happens… It's like an organ that may have the same blood properties as the one to which it is being donated, but that doesn't mean the body will accept it. If she had stayed conscious… Her body needs to relax, to fight the war within itself without interference from her mind."

Naruto wasn't sure he understood, but he could see her palms were already calming. The blisters had lessened, though they were taking longer to absorb back into her skin. Whatever Chisoku had done, it seemed to be helping.

The three of them looked at each other, Akamaru shakily walking over to Kiba and giving him a lick on his cheek. Kiba sighed.

"Akamaru is right, guys. We need to get everyone back to the Ame hospital, and quickly. Akamaru can carry Hinata. I can carry Naito. Naruto, can you carry Sakura and Shikamaru?"

He nodded. "I can do better." Two shadow clones materialized, but it was clear that it had been difficult for him to summon them. He talked to each one in turn. "You get Shikamaru. You get Naito's teammate."

Carefully, he gathered Sakura in his arms, and they began the long trek back.

-000-

They stood in front of Eiji, haggard, tired and on the brink of collapse. Sakura and Naito's teammate were still unconscious, but they had to discuss things with him before they could leave. And all of them wanted to go home.

Eiji sighed. "So, Akemi's family is dead?"

Naruto nodded. "Daichi as well."

"I am sorry about that." Eiji shook his head. "He tried to tell me that there was something potentially strange about Akan – ah, Akemi – but I refused to listen to him." The Amekage sighed heavily. "So, you believe Akemi wanted the bijuu?"

"Yes," Shikamaru murmured. "I don't have any facts but Naruto confirms that Akemi wanted the Kyuubi. I believe that since she was just one person, she intended to use the precise chakra of medical ninjas to aid her in separating Kyuubi from Naruto."

Eiji nodded. "I see. Would that have been possible?"

Shikamaru shrugged. "Akatsuki proved us wrong on many occasions, so I think it fair to say that we don't know. Fortunately, no ninja will be able to remove Kyuubi now."

"Please, as long as Naruto is a Jinchuuriki ninja will hunt him – "

"They'll have to kill me first."

Eiji stopped short.

"And then be immensely disappointed, because if I die, Kyuubi dies with me." At Eiji's still speechless expression, Naruto shrugged. "Kyuubi and I are no longer separate entities. He's a part of me now. When I die, so will he. There will be no more nine tails."

"Oh. Oh. Well." Eiji cleared his throat.

For the next fifteen minutes, he and Shikamaru and Kiba filled Eiji in on everything that had happened, and by the time they were done, they almost weren't standing on their feet. But Naruto had one last question.

"Eiji. What about Kaori?"

For the first time all evening, Eiji smiled. "She's very sweet, isn't she? But I think she deserves what you and Miss Haruno can give her. So please, take her with you. Care for her. Give her a life better than she would've had with her brother."

"We'd like that," Naruto smiled. Slowly, gathering up those who still hadn't woken, the ninja exited Eiji's office.

-000-

Sound was the first thing Sakura could recognize. Even the low voices sounded like clanging bells to her eardrums, and pain exploded in her head. She felt it pulse behind her eyes as she tried to lift her lids, but it was as if the pain made them unresponsive. Her body felt sluggish and pained, and slowly awareness crept in.

Her entire body was tingling, and not the pleasant kind of tingling, either. If she were to put a name to it, it felt like that one time when she'd been little, playing by herself when she'd unfortunately planted herself near a large anthill. The ants had been furious, crawling all over her and she remembered that their bites felt horrible… The ants…

Ants were crawling over her skin.

With a scream she launched herself up, not really seeing what was going on as she forced her eyes to blink through the blur. She scratched at her arms and her body, nearly sobbing as she tried to get them off but she couldn't feel anything but her skin. Hands closed over shoulders, and in her panic she tried to throw herself back, but the hands didn't let go.

"Sakura!" A voice shouted, and when her vision finally cleared, she realized that it was Naruto in front of her. She opened her mouth to say something, but while her headache had lessened in her panic, it came pounding back as memories slowly returned.

Her mother…Her father…The feeling of all of that anger inside of her, taking over her body, forcing her to kill…Oh God, Akemi! She'd killed someone… And then the white light, her parents telling her not now… Being pulled back into her body… And Naruto, always there…always…

Her eyes flitted to his, and she could see the apprehension flood his gaze. His hands fell away, and as everything crashed inside her mind like a tsunami, she felt herself drawing away from him, stepping back, unable to make sense of all these jumbled thoughts in her mind.

She no longer felt her own. With that thought she fled, only partially aware that as Naruto tried to stop her, she flung an arm out, screaming at him to leave her alone. She barely registered that as she shoved him away, he moved much farther than she remembered possible.

It hardly crossed her mind that she raced through the Academy, and it wasn't until she was in the surrounding forest that she realized she'd smashed through a few doors on the way out. She ran until her legs fell beneath her, and only then did she realize it was black as pitch.

She stood, braced herself on a tree, then slid to the ground, hands locking around her knees as she finally let the sobs consume her. She hadn't meant to yell at Naruto like that; everything was just so screwed up. The power flowing through her tenketsu was not her own – it felt foreign, alien, and she clenched her fists, trying to quell the urge to dig into her own body. It was like an itch beneath her skin, a parasite feeding on her that she was desperate to get rid of.

But she couldn't get rid of this. Naruto had placed a mixture of his and Kyuubi's chakra into her body, and everything inside of her was at war. She didn't have nearly enough chakra for her own to rebel and kill her from the inside out, but it was enough to feel as if millions of tiny maggots slithered inside of her.

Her fists pounded the ground harder and harder even though she had no strength left. She didn't want this! She wanted to be herself – every part of her! Her heart writhed, aching in its cage as the denial stabbed at her core. This couldn't be happening! It just couldn't!

She looked up, screaming into the rain that seemed to mirror her despair. She wanted it gone! This wasn't what she had asked for! All she had wanted was Naruto! She had only wanted him, to be able to get him to smile again, to be himself so that it would be like old times again. But she should have known. She should have fucking known!

It would never be like old times. Ever. Life got in the way; things happened that changed the perspective and the lives of everything around it. The heavy sobs didn't even cover what she felt, but her voice was too hoarse to keep screaming anymore. She couldn't get out of this, no matter how much she wanted to.

"I want to go back," she whimpered. "I want to go back." But her cries choked her, the weight of the truth sending her body trembling.

There wasn't any way she could go back. No one could ever go back. It was like the chuunin exams, when Orochimaru had hurt both of her teammates and all she had wished was that her team would be the same as before those damned tests. It was like when Sasuke left, and she had pleaded with Naruto to get him back and all five had come back hovering between life and death. It was like when Naruto left for his trip, and the village was empty in her eyes no matter how many people walked the street because he wasn't there. It was like when Sai was assigned to their team, and she had assumed he would be there for a short time, but they had been forced to get along for much, much longer. It was like that time on the bridge when she saw Naruto possessed by Kyuubi's anger, and all she had wanted was to make it stop and get back to normal. But she had the scars to prove that nothing stayed the same.

So many other incidents flooded her mind, but none helped. At the time, most had been fairly minor, and she had adjusted. She didn't want to adjust to this. This was inside of her, mixing with her own power, and it was something that she couldn't just see and be free of for a while, or be lost in thought on a sunny day. She had to live with this power, with this alien sensation filling her body. She had to train with it, learn to control it.

Pride had never been too big of a factor in her life after Orochimaru – she didn't have much to be proud of. Her ridiculous actions when she was younger and part of Team 7, when Naruto had beaten himself up for her, as had others… Ridiculous things that she hated about herself. But she was proud of her medical career, of being the second most powerful kunoichi and possible successor to Tsunade herself.

With this, she would have to start all over again. She would be back at square one, learning how to revive something all because her chakra was now so different than it had ever been before. She would be just like those genin with little to no control. Dammit, she had come so far! Her weaknesses had been turned to strengths, and she could hold her own in a battle. Now… Now she was nothing again.

The truth of it crashed over her, wave upon wave, and it was all she could do to sit in the rain, tears mixing with the sky's own sorrow. She wished it were simpler. She wished that she was herself, her whole self, because it was so much easier to be herself than to accept this reality that was spreading through her body and urging her chakra to regenerate. It was so much easier to end something exactly like it had started, but reality was so much harsher, so much crueler.

Missions, time, situations, anything could change a person, and what had happened to Team 7, to her, to Naruto, could never be undone. It didn't matter how much she tried to will herself to a time when this mission was simpler, to when her entire life had been simpler and all she knew were the studies of an Academy, where it consisted of as many tries as you wanted. But reality took away those chances, where the difference between choices could boil down to life or death.

From the time that she, Sasuke, and Naruto had met Kakashi until the start of the chuunin exams, her life had fallen into a wonderful pattern. And suddenly, all of their lives had hung in the balance during those days of the exams, and so much had changed.

They had fought so many battles, won by sheer will and determination when muscles and chakra had seemed to fail. They had faced loss, fear, rejection, apathy, and when it seemed as if something reliable had finally befallen them, it had been stripped away, just as everything comforting had been taken away prior to this mission.

Nobody could go back. It didn't matter how wonderful life had been before opposite forces had made the journey treacherous, and someone had to sacrifice something they held dear. And in the end, they were still separated. No one was the same.

And the weight of the truth hunched her shoulders. She knew she had to face this, that it probably wasn't as bad as she thought. She had to kick her chin up, wipe away the tears and push on. But there were so many fears attached to this new power, fears that she had once buried deep within her that were now surfacing to attack her conscious once more. More than that, though, was the simple fact that she didn't want things to change.

But she should know by now that in the ninja world, wishes like that never came true.

Guilt crept through her chest, and she looked away from the Academy, even though she hadn't been staring at it in the first place. Naruto was there, probably in the room cursing himself for what he had done. But it absolutely wasn't Naruto's fault. It would never be his fault because he saved her life.

She wanted to live. She wanted to be alive. Without him, she would be somewhere else, somewhere unknown, dead to a world in which she desperately wanted to remain. And she realized she was angry at herself for all her shortcomings – including her desire to run away. She hadn't run away in a very long time.

Time passed in a blur as she sat on the ground; how long she was there, she did not know. Rain slowly became the only thing saturating her face – her tears had dried a while ago. Her body refused to move, every part of her numb. Rain was slowly driving out everything else inside of her, all of her hate, her anger, her apathy, her stubbornness, her determination, her will. She was lost in it, left wondering who she was, who she had to be. It was cleansing everything inside of her, awakening her to the reality of her world, to the new lengths she would have to go in order to face the fears and hardship she desperately wanted to avoid.

Blinking slowly, the rain blurring her vision for a moment, she turned her head in the direction of the Academy. Thought was slow, as if the rain were also helping to put her back together, but she still knew what had happened, as if she was looking past a veil into her memories.

None of this was Naruto's fault. Part of her wanted to place blame. But as the rain stripped her of the old, every part of her core brightened, revealing just who she had become. She knew what she needed to do. She had to thank Naruto for her life. She had to tell that stupid, childish, insignificant voice in the back of her mind to shut up. She needed to pull herself together, train, and give her fears a determined "fuck you". She hadn't lived through Sasuke's defection, Naruto's near death and transformation, Tsunade's training, fighting Sasori, and defeating Akemi for nothing. She was tenacious, determined, and she would do this on her own. She would be worthy of her friends. She would be equals with them once again. She would become her best self. She would.

Though her heart sang, her body remained sluggish. She wasn't ready to go. Not just yet. She needed more time. She needed more rain.

-000-

A/N: OH MY GOD IT'S DONE. Sorry that took a while. It's been really slow going trying to get this chapter done. But, thanks for sticking with me guys. After this, I'm envisioning about 3 chapters left – maybe a fourth one if need be to close some more loose ends. And yes, a lemon will be in it! So you haven't waited for nothing lol. But the reason it didn't happen yet is I didn't want to do the cliché romance novel they-have-sex-before-shit-hits-the-fan-and-now-they-must-repair-their-relationship thing. Anyway, next chapter will probably include a lot of flashbacks, but it's just the way my brain is looking at those events – like a movie where people are speaking voiceover and it's showing a different person doing something else type thing. You'll see when it gets published.

Again, thanks for sticking with me!