Her Destiny

Itachi

This chapter does not paint Itachi in a good light, but I do not intend to make him into some sort of villain.  He simply doesn't understand.  This is intended to bring to light the emotional trauma that being a shinobi can cause, and how people deal with it.

Itachi arrived in the village, only to see Kisame speed past him like the hounds of hell were on his heels. Deciding to see what was going on, he followed his old partner.

He arrived in Sakura's office shortly after Kisame, in time to hear, "Two teams. Critical condition. Need help," Kisame gasped out.

Sakura shot up from her desk and shot past him. He continued to follow.

"The only teams that were out were Minato's and Shisui's," she said, looking alarmed.

"They were ambushed by Kumo shinobi. The two just barely managed to make it here with their teams before collapsing. They used all of their chakra."

Sakura cursed.

They burst through the doors of the ER, only to be met by chaos. Medics were racing around, gathering supplies, issuing orders.

Sakura made a bee line for a medic that had seen them run in and immediately grabbed two sets of scrubs. She snatched them from the medic, and ran down the corridor, throwing on the scrubs as she ran, tripping over the legs of the pants as she shoved her legs in.

She burst into an operating theater, taking in the situation as Itachi watched from the window. In a matter of moments, Sakura was barking orders, directing the other medics on what to do.

They were there the whole night, and when Sakura walked out of the OR, she promptly collapsed from chakra exhaustion. Deidara was the one that caught her, having arrived with the others shortly after Sakura had burst through the hospital doors.

"She can't keep doing this, yeah," Deidara said with a tired sigh.

"This is just how she is. I dare you to try and stop her," Kisame said, stumbling out of the OR. Itachi's eyes widened. If Kisame had even exhausted his chakra, then he couldn't even imagine how bad the damage really was.

"Will they all be okay?" Itachi asked.

"They got lucky. Shisui and Minato are fast enough that they were in no real danger, but they tried to protect their genin as much as possible, and received some pretty bad injuries for it. The genin received quite a bit of damage, even with their sensei's help. If Shisui and Minato hadn't used their techniques to get back here, they all would have died. Dammit, this is why Sakura wants medics on every team! This could have been avoided!"

Kisame was really upset about it. It appeared that he had grown close to the others.

"If I didn't know that Sakura would kick our asses, I would hunt those pricks down," Hidan growled, face set in a terrifying scowl.

"Sorry Itachi, it looks like you'll need to come back tomorrow to get the brief," Kisame sighed.

"Shikamaru can do it," Tobirama said.

Hashirama was hovering over Sakura, who was tucked against Deidara's chest, apparently healing the pinkette.

He saw Itachi's curious look and explained. "I can replenish her chakra. She will still need to rest, but it won't take her days to recuperate like it normally would."

Itachi's brows rose, noting the usefulness of the technique.

"Well come on, let's go find the Nara Bitch," Hidan said, waving his hand toward Itachi. He noted that Hidan wore a different uniform than any of the others. His uniform was grey, as compared to the dark reddish purple of the regular uniforms.