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Between Life and Living	By : SmilesforSai Category: Naruto AU/AR > Het - Male/Female Views: 1488 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. I am not profiting anything from the making of this story.

Chapter List
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- 4
Between Life and Living

Chapter Three: Rebirth: Part I
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"Where…Where is that voice coming from?" a hazy fog misted around the unknown atmosphere, until a recognizable area came into view, though it still lingered around the edges of Sakura's obscured vision.

A memory.

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Flashback
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She saw herself first, and then the three of them.
Her pink hair was cropped the same way as its current fashion, fluttering in the afternoon breeze and over her shoulders as she settled herself between her two team mates. Sasuke at her left, impossibly more arrogant and handsome, and Naruto, slightly more mature and noticeably taller at her right. The trio all sat on a barstool at Ichiraku Ramen, the murmur of idle chit-chat filling the streets behind them.
"Ramen's on me," announced the happy shop owner, as his daughter set a bowl in front of each other them. A fox-like grin lit Naruto's face, followed by a small, hearty chuckle before he dug in.
Sakura remembered that smile; she remembered this day.
In this very moment, they were celebrating their official new rank as jonin. From the very beginning of their training since becoming chuunin, Naruto and Sasuke had made it a very prominent point to outdo each other as much as possible, but over the years, they'd become evenly matched. As for Sakura, she had done her part in training hard and staying close enough within her team mates' league. She was pleased with the results of her work, and made sure to never allow anyone to tell her that she was weak. Not even Sasuke could agree with that statement anyone, after the countless number of times he had been knocked on his ass by the kunoichi's lethal, chakra-enhanced punches.
So here they all were, smiles large or small etched onto their faces as they enjoyed their meal on a nice, warm evening. They all remained quiet, aside from the idle banter between Sasuke and Naruto, namely over the usual, frivolous argument.
"Chidori is clearly better than Rasengan," Sasuke insisted, poking a string of noodles into his mouth with his chopsticks. Sakura sighed inwardly as Naruto brought his bowl to his mouth and began to slurp rather loudly while turning daggered eyes on Sasuke who sat next to her; a sound he was all too aware that irked the raven.
The anticipated twitch of the Chidori-user's brow brought a pleased grin to the blonde's lips, and without a word, he continued slurping and then set the bowl down on the table with a contented sigh. "I don't know about that, Sasuke. My chakra nature is wind. So, of course Chidori will never stand a chance,"
"Hn," was the Uchiha's dissatisfied response, and then a small smirk came to his face. "Well, it's useless against all of my fire style jutsu. What do you think of that, idiot?"
Naruto's mouth twisted into a frown at the truth in Sasuke's words. Whenever they would spar with each other, and Sasuke found himself in a rut when using the Chidori, he would whip out the occasional fire jutsu, or as a last resort, the Sharingan. The Sharingan, Naruto claimed, was not fair game, seeing as how well Sasuke had honed his bloodline limit over the past five years. Sakura often became the unofficial referee in these rambunctious training session, calling time when either of them got too overworked. All in all, they were very much evenly matched. It wasn't too frequent that one of them would be left standing at the end of the session, without panting and heaving in exhaustion.
A frown marred seventeen year-old Sakura's features as the small banter progressed into a full-blown argument. Her hand fisted around her wooden chopsticks until they broke into two with an audible snap.
"Enough," she growled, quickly claiming the boys' attention. Ayame, the waitress, silently hesitated before replacing the broken utensils with a new set as Sakura had yet to even touch her food. Sasuke and Naruto leaned over to survey their female team mate's expression, deciding on whether or not it meant they were about to receive a lecture and/or a beating.
It was usually both.
However, instead of violently bludgeoning the blonde and the raven, the pinkette sighed and bent her head.
"All of us have improved…we don't need to compare exactly how much to each other now, do we?" Sakura pulled her new chopsticks apart and set them down before folding her hands on the counter. "We're all jonin as of today. That's a pretty big accomplishment for all of us, don't you think?"
Naruto nodded. "Yeah, you're right Sakura. I…um, didn't mean to argue…"
"It's true," Sasuke agreed, but something in his tone didn't set right with Sakura. She regarded his deep-thoughted expression for a moment, until it melted into his usual look of arrogance. Naruto leaned forward and propped his elbows up, hand resting beneath his chin.
"But that doesn't mean there's no room for improvement…neh, Sasuke?"
The Uchiha shot a mutual glance in the kyuubi container's direction and gave a curt nod. "Hn…"
"Well, of course…I completely agree, but let's take our time about it, okay?" the pinkette turned and gave both boys a smile, to which they responded in their own manner; Naruto, with one of his face-splitting grins, and Sasuke, with that unrelenting smirk. The three of them resumed their meal, but Sakura found it more of a difficult task with the Sharingan wielder's chakra flaring about just wildly enough for her to notice. What's his problem? the kunoichi shot a questioning look in her orange clad team mate's direction, but his oblivious, happy-go-lucky demeanor clearly told her he hadn't noticed; probably due to the considerable distance between them.
From the outside, it would appear as though nothing was troubling Sasuke Uchiha, as his brooding outwardness was a typicality, along with the scowling look that marred his attractive features.
But Sakura knew; her mistake had been not to ask what it was.
The memory began to cloud until the scenic image of team seven and the sound of resuming, idle conversation faded into the background. Something somber ached within her, as she desperately willed her mind to extend the memory into the rest of the night's events.
More. She wanted more, because this was the only place where those people existed now. "Please come back," she pleaded, but her fragment of bliss was swallowed into the darkness, abandoning her in the sheer idleness of a dreamless obsidian in its wake.
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"Come back, please…" the soft murmur of a weakened voice from the hospital bed caused Kakashi Hatake to lower his Icha Icha novel onto his lap. He regarded the roseate with one wary visible eye. What he saw before him was not the bright-eyed girl he had known and cherished as his only female student for a greater amount of years than he was willing to admit, had gone by. Nor, was she the broken, mangled heap of remnant beauty that he had dashed away into the night, reaching the hospital with an inch of her life.
Sakura was beautiful. In fact, it was a wonder how the copy-nin had managed to stray his attention from her bedside for so long.
Not long after a four-hour surgery had commenced, undisturbed by the Hokage and her assistant, Tsunade had emerged from the ER room, announcing that Sakura was to be moved to a recovery room, and that she could receive her first visitor within the next hour. Kakashi, after hearing word of the girl's surgery proving successful, returned to the hospital with his request of being Sakura's first visitor immediately being granted.
Upon walking down the frigid, sterilized hall, the silver-haired ex ANBU member tried to fathom what sort of physical condition the recovered pinkette was in as of know. Was she bandaged? Unconscious? How was she feeling?
He certainly had a lot of questions to ask her, but he decided they could wait until a later time. Whatever Sakura's current physical condition, her emotional one was much too unstable to withstand a thorough discussion of the night's earlier events. In fact, she was probably so drugged up on pain killers, that she would most likely not wake up until the following day.
With these thoughts and his resolve concluding the course of actions he would take, Kakashi paused at the end of the hallway and opened the door to Sakura's room. What he saw astounded him beyond the ability to speak.
Spilling over the starch white sheets of the hospital cot, were long, silken threads of shimmering coral. The ends, though some lost in the covering, hung down over the edge of the mattress, nearly touching the polished marble floor. Kakashi's single eye roamed over the bed, and widened considerably it happened upon the unconscious patient who was intricately tangled in the sheets and blankets that had been placed over her. Unable to see her face, the masked man stepped inside for a closer look.
Her skin glowed, not an eerie alabaster, as it had during tonight's near-fatal encounter, but instead a more radiant form of its natural, porcelain complexion. Her soft pink lips, like the petals of her namesake, were partly open, breathy rhythmic sighs falling from them as she dreamed away, unperturbed.
Kakashi studied the sleeping woman's beautifully enhanced features, until his gaze fell to rest on a small, violet diamond adoring the center of her forehead. His breath hitched slightly at the familiar-looking shape.
That seal… he realized. Its capabilities were foreign to Kakashi, and though he had the faintest conclusion it went hand in hand with Sakura's current condition, he got the feeling there was a more solemn reason for why it had been put there. The copy nin silently cursed the blonde medic for not elaborating more on the specific details that had ultimately put him into such an unexpected shock. A fleeting thought of marching up to the Hokage's office right now and asking her just what all of this meant came and passed through his mind. There would be none of that.
Tsunade, aside from being a very respectable Godaime, was first and foremost a very skilled and knowledgeable medic, much like her pink-haired pupil. To perform any sort of operation, be it jutsu or a complicated medical procedure, had to have been done with after thorough contemplation and with good reason. Kakashi, even as the roseate kunoichi's former sensei, could not voice his argument in the matter, as he'd turned her over to the Sannin for tutelage long ago. This was a matter between teacher and student; he would respectively stand aside this time and observe the outcome of it through the eyes of something he'd become with the last surviving member of team seven; a friend. And he would be there for her, for whatever she needed.
Now, his previous self-conclusion resurfaced, a little shaken, in his thoughts as Sakura began to rouse from her dream-state. Like an angelic beauty rising from a long slumber, her lashes fluttered, lids slowing lifting over orbs of a luxurious jade green. Kakashi tentatively scooted closer to the bedside in his backward faced chair. His looming shadow failed to steal the luminous glow in her eyes as they opened tiredly and came to rest on his unfocused form.
"Sakura?" the copy-nin mused with his signature happy eye crease. The pink beauty elicited a soft huff of amusement at her former sensei's slight elation.
The girl, sprawled on her back, shifted her body around experimentally, quickly making an assessment of what hurt and what did not. She was surprised to find that none of it hurt at all, despite the heavily wrapped bandages around her left wrist. Felling comfortably with her condition, Sakura turned onto her side and hoisted herself up with her right arm. The action was followed by the cascading sweep of lush, pink threads brushing down her back. The ex-kunoichi tilted her head, undoubtedly sure that it was, in fact her own hair, but how it had gotten to such an unimaginable length within a short amount of time was completely beyond her.
Sakura slid her fingers apprehensively through a stray length of her hair, before brushing it over her shoulder where she felt it fall down her back with the rest.
Briefly, the pinkette noted that she was still wearing a hospital gown; great. No walking around the room anytime soon, seeing as these things split right down the backside. Instead, she remained sitting with her legs dangling over the edge of the mattress, her feet planted firmly on the cold marble floor. As her body adjusted to its new elevated position, Sakura began to notice things; different things, starting with the complimentary glow of her skin, which looked much healthier than she last remembered. Her limbs felt stronger, noticeably more slender, though not in the same way that made her appear so sickly like before. Sakura's jade eyes widened considerably at the foundation of curves and flattering swells of her body, those of which she was certain had not been there as of recent. Hell, she even had a bit more cleavage to show off now, though it was still nothing comparable to the bountifulness of her shishou's own chest. Sakura was admittedly grateful for that; if such a thing were to happen to her, she was sure that every man in the village would wind up with a few broken bones and two unsightly black eyes.
The sound of Kakashi clearing his throat made the pinkette sit up straight and meet his eyes…eye. He too, had been studying her with similar amazement, only his own being more formal and well-reserved.
"Kakashi…" Sakura mumbled, testing the strength of her voice. Clear as a bell. "What happened to me?"
"Well, I was hoping you could tell me," was what he wanted to say, but of course, he knew better. Kakashi sighed and drummed his gloved fingers on the surface of the book in his lap. He considered his words thoughtfully, before he spoke them.
"After you were brought to the hospital, your condition was deemed fatal. The Hokage ordered all of the nurses to leave, and she began an operation on you. That is all I know,"
"An 'operation'?" emphasis on operation, as Sakura gaped down at her newly blossomed form. "I think, there's more to this than just a simple operation, don't you think?"
Had there not been a mask shielding the faintest of blushes rising on the man's face, it would have been very obvious. She was asking him what he thought of the outcome of her surgery. Well, well Hatake! Bite your tongue! Wait…what?
The copy nin straightened, his discomfort gratefully remaining unnoticed by the woman sitting on the bed. "Well, I can't give you all of the details, as I was told nothing of what the surgery consisted," he replied, rising from his seat with a book in his hand. "You will have to take up the matter of your current condition with Tsunade, herself,"
Time to leave
Kakashi was making haste to the doorway in a manner he thought was as discreet as possible, until the voice of his student halted him in mid-step. Sakura bent forward with her hands resting on her knees, pink strands falling to curtain her face.
"Kakashi…I…"
The former ANBU simply shook his head once and turned it to look over his shoulder. "Not now, Sakura…" he told her, his voice low and solemn. "We will talk about it when the time comes." With that, he disappeared out of the room and down the cold hall way once again, previous idle thoughts whisking him away gradually until he was deeply immersed into the same memories that he knew were haunting his student to no end.
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Between Life and Living