AHHHHHHH! A newchapter! This time I am so very sorry in saying... that this will be my last chapter in a while... Buuuttttt... That means I'll be updating at my usual pace! HA! Did you think I was going on hiatus..? Well, I'm noooottttttt! :P I love you guys for staying with my story even though my updating STINKS! I think the last time I updated was... half a year ago or something! Ah, oh well, I will try to update sooner, my writer's block is gone. YAY! On with Chappie number ThReE!

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"Lady Tsunade! Lady Tsunade!" an out of breath chunin scrambled and skidded through the mazelike halls of the hokage tower.

He burst into her room. She looked up at him, ready to pummel him for bursting in on her "work"- a half empty bottle of sake was held in her hand. That soon faded to concerned as she saw the look on his face.

"What is it?" she demanded.

"An urgent message from the hospital staff! Earlier this morning two severely injured young ninja were brought in and sent straight to the emergency room. We need you, now!"

Tsunade's heart skipped a beat. Two young ninja? Naruto was the only one reckless enough to beout training late at night. But why the emergency room? And who was the other ninja with him? Surely there was a fight involved. She ran countless situations through her head as she leapt across rooftops to the hospital at breakneck speed.

"Descriptions of the patients?" she prompted the messenger.

"Well one of the patients was blonde, wearing a violently orange jumpsuit..."

So it was Naruto. I wonder what happened? It wasn't Orochimaru or anything was it? Sasuke, maybe? That would explain the other ninja... She shuddered a the thought and almost missed what he said next.

"...wearing a pink dress."

A pink dress? Sakura! Tsunade picked up her pace (if possible) and jumped through the open window that was in the hallway connected with the emergency room. Sure enough, there were Naruto and Sakura inside.

The hokage almost sighed with relief when she saw them, not dead. Then she noticed what was going on around them. A nurse or two was on them at all times, checking heart rates and making sure they were both still breathing. At least three IVs were connected to each of them at one time and Naruto was wearing an oxygen mask. His skin was a bright, peeling red.

The pig-tailed blonde rushed inside, immediately setting to work, checking all vital signs, interrogating nurses about when they came in, and inspecting the damage done to both of them.

Though occupied, the hokage couldn't help but wonder wonder what happened to them... Rough training? Enemy ninja? Something else?

According to the nurses, the two had been brought in around five o'clock a.m. by an elderly couple who had been taking a morning stroll around the training grounds and seen them in Team 7's training field. They thought to yell for help. Medical ninja had arrived and taken them straight to the hospital.

Tsunade took Naruto's temperature. 109*F. (*= degrees) She was about to check Sakura's when she abruptly paused. 108*F? That only happened when he- Tsunade froze. Now she knew exactly what had happened.

The highly famed medical protégé scanned Sakura's medical chart. Two broken ribs, a broken leg, an extremely deep cut running down the length of her shin, angry burns and blisters cover most of her body, and plenty of bruises. All of the injuries pointed to one thing. Kyuubi.

Shadows. Pain. Fire. This was all Naruto was aware of. He floated on this bed of flames for seconds, hours, days, years. Who knew? Who cared? The pain would never let up, he knew. He slowly became aware of some of his senses. He drifted upward, trying to fight the darkness. Every part of his body willed him downward. It didn't hurt so much. The first and most painful sense he became aware of was touch. The only thing he could he could feel was fire. It raged through his body. When would it subside, he wondered idly.

He sooner or later became aware of something else. There were voices around him. Who were they? What did they want? What were they doing to him? Was Sakura- chan out there?

Sakura. The name brought memories back. The party. His whiskers. His revelation. The training field. Fire. Kyuubi. The memories lodged like a shard of ice in his heart. What had he done?

He felt himself fading from the painful present. Even as he tried to grasp onto this painful consciousness, slowly he slid into the smooth, deep abyss called unconsciousness.

Tsunade immediately set to work. Without Yamato to supervise Naruto's training- what was he doing out there?- Naruto must've lost control, somehow, and unleashed ti upon Sakura. Usually Sakura detested Naruto's all- night training sessions. What was she dong out there with him? Tsunade cleared this thought process and set to work before before any Jiraiya- like thoughts came to mind. She will just ask if he wakes up.

If he wakes up. She pushed away the negative thought from her mind. She knew Sakura's injuries could be more serious, she was surprised she wasn't already dead. Tsunade set her nurses to work treating Sakura and she turned her attention to Naruto.

Sever burns covered his entire body. His skin only peeled off when he grew a third or fourth tail! She conjured some medical chakra and placed her glowing hands on his forehead. Her chakra, along with the Kyuubi's, helped partially heal Naruto's skin. The redness slowly receded and paled to a rash pink. She almost smiled in relief.

Then she heard it. A steady, high-pitched bee-eep. She whipped around to look at Sakura's heart rate. It was flat-lining. The hokage stood paralyzed with shock- her only student... dead?

Suddenly Sakura arched her back upwards, leaning back into her pillow. She retched and her face turned almost blue with the effort of trying to breathe. The heart monitor started to beep again, rapidly. Sakura made a gurgling noise and choked. She spit out blood. It bubbled out of her mouth and dribbled down her chin.

"It's her ribs! One of the broken ones pierced her lung!" cried out one of the nurses.

That snapped Tsunade out of her stupor. She immediately demanded to look at the X-rays and fired the person who had failed to notice that Sakura's lung was pierced.

"Your 'silly mistake' could cost her her life, you imbecile!" she yelled. With one hand she used her chakra to try to heal Sakura's ribs and pierced lung and with the other she looked at the X-rays to see how the ribs were aligned. One was almost diagonal- the one poking into Sakura' lung.

Tsunade found the rib and began inching it back into place with chakra- covered hands. Sakura screamed in her unconsciousness and spit a bit of blood flew out of her mouth.

When Tsunade reached up to brush away the sweaty hair that clung to her face, she realized that she was crying. It pained her very much to see her student in pain like this. This, she realized, was exactly why she had become a medical ninja, to protect those she loved. And, she also realized, she loved Sakura. Not only was she an excellent pupil, she excelled in most things others weren't able to do without getting impaled. Comforting her. Without the hokage's realization, Sakura had become like a daughter to her.

Tsunade placed the rib in proper position and began to suture into place using a chakra- threaded needle.

When she finished that she began on Sakura's broken leg. It wasn't a very bad break, besides the fact that it was her leg that was broken. The blonde set to work with the needle.

Sakura stopped screaming now. Healing chakra usually had a calming effect on patients.

Tsunade wiped her brow, this ad been going on for hours. She was both physically and mentally exhausted. Sakura would be fine, hopefully now that her lung and leg was fixed. She could stay in her coma-like state for up to a week, though.

Naruto's future was less certain. The Nine-Tails' chakra was being held back by something in his system, and it was hurting him from the inside out. The chakra was not naturally sealed back into his body, but stopped from flowing throughout his body, burning his chakra coils.

Tsunade could not look into his body to check it out, as he was far too weak to handle it. Truthfully, he would never be strong enough to do that until it was over.

After making many careful calculations in her head, she decided it was now or never. She performed an incredibly complicated jutsu and placed her hands on Naruto's bare chest. His jacket and undershirt had both been discarded and they were almost incinerated to nothing, anyways.

Tsunade closed her eyes and saw what her jutsu was making her see through use of her chakra that she was sending through his body. His chakra coils. Sure enough, there was red chakra slowly burning into them. If this wasn't stopped withing 24 hour, she realized, the fiery chakra would break through and rampage throughout his entire body, engulfing him, and, ultimately, killing him.

Suddenly, the famed medical ninja noticed something she recognized. There was a thin, purple glow emanating from the chakra coils. She recognized it from a poison she had created herself. It had coated a select number of senbon, and enabled the user to stop all chakra flow throughout the body of an enemy.

She froze. She had given a certain pink-haired kunoichi a kunai that was of the unique batch. She remembered herself clearly giving instructions for her to only use it on someone she wanted to die.

This was sickeningly ironic. Two of the people Naruto held closest to him would be the death of him.

End of Chappie THREE! (:

Cliffie- Oooh! Not really, though, kinda... :/ Review, please, and warm the heart of a twelve year old girl! Heh, heh... Do not expect an update soon, cause you know you won't get one! Though, you, as much as I wish it would come soon! I'll just wait until some insanely awesome ideas pop into my twisted mind.