title: What Doesn't Kill You
pairing: unlikely eventual SasuSaku and lots of botherly love
dedication: To the Sasuke, may he find it in himself to return to Team 7 so that we can return to the good old days of silly bickerings and innocence or something like that... Also, to the AU!Sakura in Shippuden episode Road to Sakura. I feel so BAD for her! No parents and then when she saw the parents in the Canon world... I cried for her! And also, because she totally boosted up Sakura's declining popularity. Hopefully, Naruto fans will start to like Sakura a bit better now.
notes: For those who wanted a more serious story, I'm sorry. This is meant to be comedy because I cannot, even for my life or my three sisters', portray Sasuke as he is now in the manga. Plus, I tear up at every Itachi-Sasuke-brother scene now.
notes 2: For those waiting for updates on my other stories, I'm really sorry, but working on piles of summerwork has my brain making smaller chapters and funnier stories that it desperately needs to survive these boring textbook pages I have to read.

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What Doesn't Kill You

"So, what's the plan?"

But Sakura's bubbly question was only met in silence.

"YOU GUYS DON'T HAVE A PLAN?" Sakura was now panicking. These last two Uchiha brothers were supposed to be geniuses, for Heaven's sakes! If they didn't have a plan then . . . what did they have? "Exactly how do you expect to get to the Elders? Charge up to them and demand that they apologize to you?"

When Itachi opened his mouth to speak, Sakura facepalmed and held up a hand to stop him.

"On second thought, don't answer that. Please."

"Actually, I was going to say that we were waiting for you to give us some crucial information that we currently do not have," Itachi explained.

"Ooh, never mind what I said then," Sakura said, her mood soaring back up. Maybe she wasn't surrounded by idiots, after all. "What do you need to know?"

"Well, for starters, tell us where the Elders are located." Sasuke outright demanded.

"You know, I'm willingly giving you knowledge here, Sasuke," Sakura drawled, forcing herself not to add the -kun to his name. "The least you could do is not act like I'm a unwilling prisoner and ask nicely."

"She has a point, Otoutou," Itachi pointed out, trying to get these two ex-teammates-now-allies onto better terms, because he'd be damned if he had to be stuck with two brooding teenagers who were out to get each other necks.

"Fine," Sasuke spat out. "Can you tell us where the F***ing Elders are?"

Inner Sakura only shrugged and told Sakura that, "Hey, he tried."

Regular Sakura replied to her with a "Yeah, and I'm starting to think it was the best he could do, anyway." And so Sakura told Sasuke and Itachi what they wanted to know.

"So the Elders have a squad of Konoha ANBU protecting them, huh?" Itachi said, repeating the information so that he could get a better picture of things. "And they'll be close to the Hokage so that they'll be able to give her advice for the war, right?"

"Yep," Sakura nodded her head. "But that's only if you can get past the hordes of Shinobi Alliance warriors, the seals protecting the camps, the Kage's bodyguards, and the Kage themselves, but even after all that, you might end up fighting Homura and Koharu, and that may not even be easy, considering that they were the third Hokage's teammates way back when."

"Tch, that'll be the easy part," Sasuke snorted.

Sakura was getting very queasy when she saw the simple nod the two brothers gave to each other. "Why do I have the feeling that I'm not going to like this plan of yours?"