Friday, 20th of October.
"Sakura-san?"
"Fast! I need a surgery room, now!"
"Roo-Room 6 is free. What team do you need?"
"Call Lady Tsunade and Shizune!"
Naruto watched Sakura running through the hospital's hallways. She screamed at a poor receptionist after throwing Sasuke on a mobile bed. Sasuke's health was getting worse by the minute. His breathing had started to become extremely irregular about two hours ago. Naruto could still remember Sakura's scream when she realised that he had stopped breathing. They were flying over the Vast Desert of Solitude and they had no way of going down or anything. He could still picture how the pink haired kunoichi was forcing air into her husband manually, how the tears were soaking Sasuke's shirt and how she was trying to control her shaky hands. He was feeling so powerless.
"The young Uchiha is in a bad state."
Naruto looked at his belly to pay attention to Kurama.
"But he'll be fine." he replied.
"I can feel a weird chakra around him."
"Granny Tsunade will take care of him and so will Sakura. He'll be fine."
"Mh. These Uchihas really are cursed."
"No, he broke the curse."
"I wouldn't be so sure."
Naruto stopped paying attention and focused on Sakura's movements. She was running, him after her. He had no time to feel the stress. All he could feel was the adrenaline pumping through his veins. Suddenly, she stopped, opened a door and pushed the bed inside of it. Naruto, who tried to follow, was stopped by a nurse.
"You can't go inside. It's a surgery room."
"But they are my friends. I need to be here."
"You can look through the window here. Just don't make too much noise."
Naruto listened and walked in. He was torn between staying here until Sasuke was better or go back on mission to save his wife. Him and Sai could go and leave Sakura to what she does best. After a long debate with himself, he settled on staying until the end of the surgery at least.
Bitting his nails, he worriedly watched what was going on inside. He saw Tsunade walking in and he heard Sakura's voice scream before she left the room in tears, banging the door behind her. He frowned his eyebrows and ran out to stop her. He found her crying on the floor.
"Sakura?"
"I am completely useless."
He exhaled trying to find the right thing to say to her. Not finding it, he slid against the wall and landed next to her. He took her hand in his. "You're not useless. Why did you scream?"
"Lady Tsunade kicked me out of there saying that I wasn't qualified to heal him because I am too close to him. The only reason why I became a medic was to heal the ones I was close to."
"You kept him alive. If he was only with me and Sai he would've died. You need to stop being so hard on yourself."
"I don't get something... He is trying his hardest to become a better person, he has become a better person but life always ends up throwing something at him. Every time things are fine he has to deal with something new. I... I just don't get why."
Remembering what Kurama told him, Naruto whispered. "It's like he's cursed..."
"His family being murdered, his brother, the curse mark, Orochimaru... there wasn't a single moment in his life when he didn't have to deal with something horrible."
"He married you."
"Yes and then he gets his chakra problem. We find each other again and now look at where he is. I don't know what's going on with him. It's coming from his leg but it's affecting his entire body. I've seen these symptoms before... I know I have I just... I just can't remember where."
"What are the symptoms?"
"First, he lost the control over his body, then fever, then his lungs were attacked, his brain and when we got here, his heart started acting up... the organs are all affected by something."
"Poison?"
"No, I checked. Hold on a second. Where is the body and the book we brought here?"
"I left them with Sai. He's in front of the hospital."
"Can you bring both to my office? There's something I need to check."
Naruto could feel her determination and that was the reason why he said yes. After nodding at her, he rushed out of the hospital. Sai helped him carry the body inside. They were stopped a couple of times by nurses or doctors but as soon as he mentioned the name of Sakura he was let free. They arrived in her office. Her desk was emptied and she simply pointed at it. Naruto and Sai dropped the body on it.
"And what now?"
"He is the one that Sasuke fought. He is also one of the experiments found on this island. If I can't remember where I saw these symptoms then I will get the informations from that body."
Naruto nodded and sat on a chair followed by his friend. They watched Sakura work on the body for something that felt like a very long time. Naruto could feel Kurama agitated inside of him. He travelled to him. The fox was sitting on his usual spot.
"What do you want?"
"The chakra. It's the same one I felt on the other brat."
"The chakra in the body?"
"It's not human. His chakra is mixed with something else. Something very powerful, even I am affected by it."
"This powerful?"
"I have only felt that once. It was a very long time ago. I was still young back then. It appeared and filled the air everywhere for a while. It disappeared as quickly as it appeared."
"How long ago?"
"Before the sage of the six path separated us."
"When you were the ten tails?"
"When we all were."
"So back in the time of Kaguya?"
"Before she was sealed away, yes."
"I need to tell Sakura."
Naruto's conscience came back into the room. He stood up and approached her. He related everything that Kurama had just said to him. The more he spoke, the more he could see her face decompose. A mix of emotions appeared on it, it started by confusion and ended with fear.
"The meteor..." was all she said before she ran out of the room. Naruto looked at Sai with a confused look.
"What does she mean by the meteor?"
Sai shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know but this thing creeps me out. What is it anyway?"
"An experiment gone wrong... or right. I don't know."
"Wrong for us and right for them?"
"Something like that. I am worried for Sakura... if she's pregnant she shouldn't be going through so much stress. When Hinata was at her first month of pregnancy, I read a book that said that stress could make you loose your baby."
"Well, maybe that's why she thinks that she lost it already."
"Why can't things be simple? I thought that this war was the last one we will ever have to face. Now Black Zetsu is back, then this" he pointed at the creature. "whatever this is and Sasuke. We'll never know peace..."
"That's very unlike you Naruto."
"My wife is gone and my baby with her. We don't know where they could be. My best friend is ill and my other best friend is going through horrible things. How can I become Hokage if I can't help them?"
"You are helping them. Come on, let's go talk to Kakashi to create a new team to go and find Hinata."
"And Sasuke?"
"He has Sakura and he will understand."
Naruto nodded and left the room with Sai.
------------------------------------
"I know what's wrong with him!"
Sakura barged into the room. Tsunade looked at her but instantly moved back to Sasuke without answering her. Sakura wondered what was going on but when she heard the machines beeping she understood. The blood ran from her face and she fell on the floor. "No, no, no... that can't be happening... not him... heart attack... he can't-" she was talking to herself trying to make some space into her thoughts but she was only making them worse.
"Sakura! Get it together!"
"I-" Sakura was trying to regulate her breathing. She felt sick at the thought of Sasuke having a heart attack.
"Focus! What did you find out!"
"The meteor." that was all that she could get out of her mouth. She hoped that it was enough for Tsunade to understand what she had meant.
Suddenly her mind switched off and she found herself sobbing like a child on the floor. She didn't even know what she was crying about but she couldn't stop. The tears were pouring out of her eyes. A banging headache made her feel nauseous. A cramp stronger than the others made her bend her body in half. She was screaming from the pain. It felt like a knife was cutting her insides open. All she heard was Tsunade's voice and then she felt the feeling of a needle poking her skin. Her eyes slowly closed and she fell asleep.
Sakura woke up in a hospital room. Her head was so painful that the light of the room made her want to go back to sleep.
"Someone is finally awake." she moved her half opened lids to the voice and recognized her mentor. "What was whatever you did inside the room?"
"Mh?"
"Sakura, is there something happening that I don't know about?"
Sakura felt the tears coming back. Something? There was more than one thing.
"I am so tired all the time. So tired. I keep crying. Why do I keep crying!" she angrily wiped the tears off her face. "I'm going insane! I have no control over my own emotions anymore!"
"Are you still tired?"
"I am exhausted. I just want to go back to bed. How is Sasuke?"
"You don't need to concern yourself about him right now, let's focus on you."
"How is my husband? I have the right to know!" she knocked the bedside table over.
Tsunade only rose her eyebrows and left the room. Sakura was left alone. She needed to punch something and quick. She tried to stand up but her head was spinning too fast so she sat down on her bed. She punched the head of the bed and felt the material crack under her strength. It wasn't enough. How was Sasuke? Hinata? How was Hinata? Naruto? How was he handling everything? And Sai? Was he finding her pathetic for being so sensitive?
She screamed in her mouth, clenching her teeth. She realized that she had nothing to punch around her other than her bed or the wall so she punched both. She purposely didn't enhance her strength with her chakra but it was still cracking.
Traces of blood were left on the wall after every single punch but she couldn't even feel the pain. She suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder. "Leave me alone Lady Tsuande! If you can't even answer my questions, get out!"
"Sakura." her hand stopped mid air and fell on her lap. She turned around to face the person who spoke.
"You're alive." he nodded. "But how?"
"It took me a day to wake up after the surgery."
"A day?! How long was I asleep for?"
"Three days." she tuned her head to Tsunade.
"What is wrong with me?"
"Husband and wife, huh? How did I not know about this?"
"Sorry..."
"When did it happen?"
"Nearly a month ago..."
"That explains everything."
"Explains what?"
"Nothing. Your interruption during the surgery to tell me about the meteor saved him. You were right, he was affected by that meteor. Also, why did I find the body of that experiment on your office desk?"
"No one knows about this mission, I couldn't really cut it open in a normal room and I had to find what attacked Sasuke." she felt her hand getting better. When she looked down, she saw Sasuke heal her. "Sasuke, it's a small injury, you don't have to heal it."
"I do."
"You taught him medical ninjutsu?"
"I thought it would be better. You know... since he's on missions so often."
"That was a good idea."
"How did you heal him?"
"Well, turns out he got a shot of that meteor energy through the bird that bit him. It messed up with his entire body but the effect disappeared over time."
"So the creature has an ability to use the power of the meteor?"
"A very small power compared to its original power but it's efficient. It's powerful enough to incapacitate anyone and kill if there is no medic around. All I had to do was to keep his organs from shutting down until the energy was out of his system. Enough about this, let's talk about you. I took advantage of you being asleep to check your entire body."
"You what?!"
"Sakura you have been acting extremely weird lately. I know that you had a tendency to keep yourself awake for way too long these past two years. The pills you use can be addictive and I wanted to make sure that you weren't abusing them."
"I wasn't!"
"You were. That's exactly why you had your mental breakdown before Sasuke came back. You know what happens to the body when it doesn't get any sleep?"
"Hallucinations, aggressivity, no control over the emotions,-"
"So you do know. How can you be so unconscious?"
"I-"
"You're pregnant Sakura, you could have lost that baby with that!"
"I lost that baby! I started taking them again because I thought that I lost it!"
"What?"
"I realised that I was pregnant but it was after I told Sasuke that our marriage was a mistake. He was gone at this point and I panicked. I thought that I was going to have a baby without a father... I thought that I was gonna have to do the illegal abortion in the country of... anyway. I panicked so much over it than one night I felt a huge pain there and I lost a lot of blood. The bathroom floor was covered in blood. I remember spending the night there looking at it completely numb to it. All I could think was that at least, I didn't have to be ashamed to have a baby without being married or get an abortion that would have killed me but then I started to have horrible nightmares. I wasn't sleeping anymore and I was even scared of going to sleep. I took these pills to keep myself awake."
"Why didn't you come to me?"
"I was ashamed. I didn't know what you were going to say about my marriage and the fact that I got pregnant so quickly after it."
"You can't control when you get pregnant. It takes some people six years to have a baby and the two of you were blessed with one right away. I am happy that you got married but the two of you need to stop acting like children. You made a life long commitment to each other. You can't tell him that you regret getting married and you," she pointed at Sasuke. "you can't leave whenever things are getting difficult. Things will be difficult but you're gonna have to deal with them together."
"Sorry... Lady Tsunade."
"From now on, you stay away from alcohol, bad food, stress and you get some sleep. Your body is going to need to be heard. It's normal to be tired and your emotions are going to be all over the place. Sasuke, you better stay by her side and don't take anything personally."
"I will."
"Wait... does that mean that..." she looked at Sasuke and he nodded at her with a small smile.
"Your baby is fine. I don't know how, but the baby is fine. It's only a tiny little embryo for the moment but it will start growing soon."
"But why the blood, why was I in pain?"
"I don't know why the blood. The pain is completely normal. You were under a lot of pressure when this little embryo was trying to fix itself to where it is going to spend the next nine months. You're lucky it is still here. Be prepared for feeling very tired, it can go away but will come back in the last three months of the pregnancy. Your sense of smell is also heightened and you'll get the morning sickness soon. Being over emotional can be a symptoms, it's completely fine. Congratulations."
"And you knew about it?" she asked Sasuke.
"Tsunade told me yesterday when she asked me why you reacted the way you did when you brought me to the hospital."
"And you told her that we are married?"
"Yes. She asked me if I knew that you were expecting a baby."
Tsunade smiled and left the room leaving Sakura and Sasuke alone.
"A baby... we're going to have a baby..." she said as he sat on the bed and took her hand. "Is it too early? I'm not ready for a child, am I? You even said that you weren't ready for it-"
"Calm down. Like you said to me, we have nine months to prepare."
"Are you not nervous?"
"This time, I am not. She is right, it's a blessing."
"So you want that baby?"
"I want to have a little me." she laughed remembering that it was exactly what she had said to him. She opened her arms and, to her surprise, he lay down to hug her. "I want that baby."
"Are you sure? But what are we going to do? Your mission, Hinata,-"
"Naruto is back on mission to find Hinata. You can come with me on mission if you want. I'll ask Kakashi to send out another team to watch the different places. What we can do is travel through her dimensions. It shouldn't be too dangerous."
"Are you sure?"
"I am sure."
She hugged him and started crying. "I'm gonna be annoying. Be ready."
"Because you think that you aren't already annoying?"
She laughed even louder than before. "A baby. We're going to be parents."
"From now on you will need to wear the Uchiha crest."
"Yes... sorry I didn't up until now."
He kept her in his arm like this until she felt a hand on her belly. "Sakura?"
"Yes?"
"Thank you for this."
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Everything is fine again xx
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Thank you again for your support xx