[OP: "This Will End"--The Oh Hellos]

Sakura wiggled her fingers. "Yay, I can move again," she sighed.

Karin pulled her sleeve down. "I think I gave you enough for you to be able to fight, too...a little."

"With that," Sakura said, "you could do that seal jutsu much better than I could." She seemed a bit miffed about the idea but also impressed. "You should learn it."

"Maybe," Karin said. "How does it work?"

"Discuss that later," Sasuke cut in. "Karin, where will we find the others?"

Karin gave him an annoyed look of all things. "Okay, Bossy Person... They're all more to the center of the Village now. But Shine said not to join them till they start moving again, so we should find the others... Maybe we should just meet up with the ones who went after Suigetsu instead. That's probably the less guarded place."

"I want to help Tsunade before it's too late," Sakura objected. "Wait...who went where? I don't understand."

"The heroes went to the medical center," Naruto said. "Because they're immune."

"Right...of course they are," Sakura said. "But I have a way to cure the plague potentially without it being so...strenuous. Something we were talking about..." Looking at Ami. "But I need to test it... So I guess it makes the most sense to go there, if Tsunade was brought there..."

"Then let's send that message," Karin said. "And if I can get out of this tunnel, that would be great. I'm tired of masking my chakra of those goons...but at least we did one thing--now they have no hostages."

"Yes, part one of our mission is accomplished," Hinata said.

Sakura looked a little bothered. "You all came to find me so they wouldn't have leverage?"

"Yeah." Naruto didn't seem to understand the problem. "They were going to make us wait outside the Village or leave, or else they'd do something to you guys, so it's good we got you before they found out we'd broken their agreement."

"Oh," Sakura said.

No one noticed her mood shift.

"Let's hurry," Hinata said. "Can we go above ground now?"

"Now it hardly matters," Ami said. "We need to hurry more than we need to hide, if you can cure the poison. Anyone we meet will probably just let us go unless they're Kasasagi's elite b-----ds."

"Mother!" Eichi was shocked at her language.

"I'm sorry," Ami said. "Cover your ears next time, son."

"By the way, who is this?" Karin asked.

"Later," Sakura said. "She's with us for now. Let's just go."

They went for the next exit of the tunnel, hoping that no one would see them leave it this way.

Sasuke was tempted to brood to himself again but then thought he'd better be more focused if they ran into the bandits, and he didn't have time to think about his own growing doubts about his powers.

Going to the only other thing that came to mind, he recalled that Sakura had seemed rather put out earlier. At least that was a distraction.

"Shine would have sent us after you either way," he said.

Sakura didn't register what he'd said at first and gave him a strange look. "Huh?"

"Not just to avoid being blackmailed." Sasuke assumed this was why he felt the need to explain. "She was going to send us after you anyway. She wouldn't have left anyone to the bandits."

"I...can't imagine why you're telling me that," Sakura said, suspiciously. "But it makes her sound more guilty if you of all people have to defend her. I get it, no one likes me in Team Zoe. I knew I wasn't a priority to them. This just makes it official."

"That's stupid," Sasuke said. "That's not how they are."

"And you know how they are?" Sakura said. "You know them so well now? Please." She crossed her arms. "Did Shine make you come get me just to punish you for running off before?"

"No," Sasuke said. But then he wondered if it was true. "I don't think so, anyway... She thought I should be as far away from the poison as possible."

"That worked out well for her," Sakura muttered. "Let's just hope I didn't pass it to you when I grabbed your arm. I didn't notice that I was bleeding all over the place then..."

"No one would care anyway," Sasuke muttered darkly to himself.

"What's that?" Sakura said.

"Nothing."

"Were you really going to kill them?" Sakura changed the subject to a worse one.

"Who?"

"Those bandits back there..."

Sasuke almost told her to frick off but then decided this was better than focusing on his doubts still. Not that her going right back there was exactly a good distraction...

"I didn't really know what was happening. The...piercing sound made me stop seeing it," he explained.

"You seem to lose control a lot now," Sakura said, with either concern or with trepidation, he couldn't tell. "What happened? Ever since you joined this team it's been different."

Sasuke frowned to himself, but then he saw that it was the truth, now. "I never had that good control before that. I lost myself in anger many times when I used the Sharingan. I just never minded it then because I didn't care who I killed. Only now that I have to not kill my teammates is it a problem."

"For once."

Silence.

Sakura shook herself. Why did she keep doing that?

But instead of getting angry at her, Sasuke was getting lost in his own thoughts about it, but in a different direction.

"Do you hate me now?" he asked.

He asked that not like it would bother him at all if she did. He was just curious.

Sakura found it unnerving.

Though she wasn't one to think so, really, since she'd told him she must have made him hate her in the past, for far less reason, and Sasuke hadn't batted an eyelash at the time. This was just fair.

"Do you care?" she asked.

"No...it's just different." Sasuke thought he was telling the truth.

Sakura bristled at that and decided not to be easy on him after hearing it.

"Well, I don't really know now," she said. "I probably should, shouldn't I? But I can't get a good handle on what I think now. And you keep changing your tone, too. One day you support the team, the next day you act like you hate the team, so I don't know what you're doing now. I don't even know which I'd hate more, but at least if you picked one, I could make up my mind."

"It's not like I would make it up for your convenience," Sasuke said sourly.  "But if even you are starting to hate me, I must have done something pretty unforgivable."

Sakura got more mad. "Oh yes, because I always am so forgiving, is that it? So it would have to be terrible for me to draw the line?"

That was pretty much it.

"Well, it's not that," Sakura said, goaded now into saying her real thoughts. "I guess I'm just this: Before, we all thought you didn't really mean all that stuff you were doing, that it was just the...curse talking--or just the pain of the past or something. Naruto would probably say that still... We thought it wasn't really you, just...the others...using you."

Hearing this made Sasuke mad. They still thought that?

"So what? I have no agency?" he said harshly.

"I don't even think you'd have used that word 2 years ago," Sakura said. "You talk like them now... It's annoying." She frowned again. "I don't know, maybe we made allowances for you because of all that terrible stuff. But it turns out that you really meant all those things you did, from the sound of it, so now what am I supposed to think?"

"It suppose it seems to you that this is me leaving it behind finally," Sasuke said.

"You haven't left it behind," Sakura said. "You're still angry and hateful. But now you're directing it at all of us because you have no one else to direct it at. And what did we ever do to you? Before at least we thought you tried to give rid of us because we stood in the way of destroying Leaf Village, but even now you're the same way. So you just want to hate us. And that cuts a lot deeper, Sasuke."

That didn't sound like something Sakura would have said before... She was maybe much more honest herself than she used to be.

And it actually kind of hurt.

Not that Sasuke cared if she was upset...but that she was completely right. That was what he was doing, and he really had no reason for it. Sure, they had always grated on his nerves, but they didn't really deserve that kind of contempt. He was just this way because it was the only way he could be.

Thinking this, he was almost calm for a second.

"What if I said that I can't help it?" he said. "And that it's not personal?"

"Then that's worse," Sakura said. "That means that it never mattered to you what we did... But it's the same as this team does...at least, what Miss Likstar does. I wonder why you will accept it from her and not us... She's just that much better."

She still sounded jealous...but more bitter than like she was trying to do anything about it now.

"I'm not accepting anything from her." Sasuke really thought that was true. "I think I made that clear to her. I used her, just the same as all of you."

"Do you ever feel guilt about that?" Sakura was bitter still.

"Do you feel guilty about using people?" Sasuke deflected it back on her. "You do it too."

"Even if I do--and I'm not saying I do--but if you were right, my mistakes didn't lead to the same kinds of things, did they? And I'm not using them now...not really. You know, I actually feel sorry for Shine now. I didn't at first, but I do now."

"And why is that? She knew what she was getting into." Sasuke wondered why he had to defend Shine's agenda here, other than it might make him feel less like a piece of crap.

"Because," Sakura said, "if she actually does care about you, you're just going to rip her apart also." She pressed her lips together in a thin line. "Because that's what you do to anyone who tries to help you. I see it now. I thought they were just special...but they aren't after all, are they? You'll just use them and reject them...so it's not that they aren't going to be like us--it's that it hasn't happened yet. I think I will feel sorry for her when you do that. Not that she's as weak as me... I'm sure she'll get over it sooner...but still, getting her hopes up with all the cooperation, it's just a mean trick."

"I'm not tricking her." Sasuke felt the heat rise to his face for a second... Was Sakura of all people making him feel ashamed?

"Then what are you doing? You just said you're using her."

"But she knows I am. I've told her, so it's not a trick."

Sakura paused for a second. "You know, I don't really like a lot of what they say, and I don't get it, and I probably never will. But one thing they say that does actually make sense is that if you know you do something that's wrong, and you still do it...what could your excuse be? And maybe I don't have the high morals that they do, but, if you know you're doing it to them and you still do it, how can you justify that? And is that it? Did you know you were doing that to us too...? Was it always deliberate? Hurting us?"

The truth was that it had not always been deliberate. Sasuke was too thoughtless for it to be deliberate. He was selfish, but he was not that kind of person that would have tormented them all on purpose for so long.

But he didn't know himself that well, and Sakura made him wonder if he really was this bad...

He knew he was dark and evil, but it seemed on another level to know that and to still let these people think they could try to help him...

But...

"Are you trying to get me to leave the team again?" he asked.

"No," Sakura said. "I know it won't happen. I just pity them, I guess. Maybe, anyway. But then, they asked for this. I wish I knew why Shine-san did this, if she knew what would happen..."

"It sounds like you think it was a mistake to include me in this team."

Sakura paused. "I don't know... I just think that, whatever anyone does for you, it's never enough. Karin too... You just bite the hand that feeds you no matter what hand it is. I thought before it was not on purpose, but if it was, then...what kind of person does that?"

"Sakura, if you knew I did it--" Sasuke decided not to argue it anymore. "--why did you keep trying?"

"Why?" Sakura said, almost with contempt, though not quite--maybe she was just close to hysterics instead. "I don't know. I can't let stuff go, maybe? Maybe you sounded like you needed help... I guess it helped earlier. Maybe I thought it wasn't all what you wanted...but if I was wrong, then it's...ridiculous for me to keep thinking that way."

Her words had an interesting effect on Sasuke.

True, her opinion didn't really matter to him.

But something about the one person who'd always tried to give him the benefit of the doubt saying that she was probably wrong to do it...well...that felt weird.

As if the last aspect of his humanity that people believed in might have disappeared.

Though, as usual, Sasuke's feelings didn't match his actions. While he felt like this, he'd been acting like a far more decent person than he had in years...whereas, when he had been selfish, he'd imagined that he was in the right.

And while he hated listening to what Sakura thought, he'd imagined that she was the stupid one for chasing after him.

But now he wondered if he was the stupid one for thinking that that was worse than the alternative--which was that they thought he was just scum. Just like Orochimaru.

Is that what he wanted? To be seen as that kind of corrupt psychopath?

Actually it might really have been that he'd been a bit better, and Sakura was still thinking that stuff about him, as if she saw it as inevitable that he'd mess things up again.

It was deeply discouraging.

Shine had said he didn't hate her--he hated himself.

Maybe he didn't hate Sakura either. Maybe he hated himself instead....

Did he like that this was what he'd turned into?

Did he feel proud of it?

No, he hadn't felt that in a long time...but he didn't think he'd been seeing that he loathed himself till this moment.

He really was a terrible person...the lowest of the low... He wasn't grateful for love or for help or for...even indifference. It was just that he had to make everyone that wanted to help him or even ignore him suffer.

Strangely, for the first time, he actually thought to himself to consider that Naruto and Sakura really hadn't deserved what he'd done to them. They had been foolish to chase him, but that was because they thought he was a better kind of person than he was, and that was a compliment more than it was an insult...and now they might no longer think that.

Being truly alone is being alone and having no one ever wanting to find you or to change you...to just see you as nothing. He'd had that before, in Leaf Village, before Team 7... He'd been nothing to them--he'd been just a reminder of what they didn't want to remember.

And now he might become the same for Team 7...and he'd been anxious to throw that bond away...to ruin it...because he'd only wanted to win against Itachi. He'd thought it was enough to do all the things he'd planned...but he couldn't do any of them, and now he'd cut off the only branch of people who would have even cared about his existence to begin with.

Was this what came of his efforts? Again, all he did was a waste of his time?... He'd end up worse off than when he'd started.

Suddenly he was just so tired of it all...

He might have wished he could die, if he was sure that would end this feeling...

But he wasn't. He was just uncertain enough about what the others had said about the afterlife to wonder if he really would find any peace in oblivion... It could just be that death would lead him to more of the same feeling...and it would last forever.

And then was there no escape? Was he already in hell? Was he just waiting to die to make it official?

If you'd asked him if their hell was real, he probably would have not thought so. More like he would have thought that, if there is consciousness after death, and it is just like the one we have in life, but longer, it would be hell for him. He was already in it.

[Sasuke's thoughts here remind me of a quote from The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis:

"'...[D]amnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin... The good man's past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man's past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why...the Blessed will say "We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven," and the Lost, "We were always in Hell." And both will speak truly.'"]

https://youtu.be/iHhQUjztm6E

["March To The Sea"--21 Pilots]

* * *

Gaara and Temari had had no problem at all getting Tsunade free once they had found her, following Karin's directions.

Tsunade had been shut in one of the inns of the Village that the bandits had taken over for their own use.

The bandits who were guarding her were all weaklings, as Temari put it. Tsunade was not considered a threat enough to use really good fighters on.

Temari had routed them all almost single-handedly, and Gaara had then captured them with his sand.

Shikamaru hadn't had to do anything, but he'd looked for Tsunade and found a door that was locked.

"Lady Tsunade?" he called.

A pause.

"Shikamaru?" Tsunade's voice answered...and she sounded tired.

"Yeah, it's me," Shikamaru said. "Hang on, I'll open the door..." He pulled out a kunai to try to rattle it open.

"Don't come in!" Tsunade said.

"Huh?" Shikamaru said.

"I'm not decent."

Shikamaru was puzzled. "They didn't let you dress? We can give you some clothes then."

"I said not to come in!" Harshly.

"Is she in there?" Temari came speeding in, sounding a bit ruffled, but otherwise unharmed.

"Where's Gaara?" he asked.

"Making sure those idiots don't leave," Temari said. "He said he didn't want to break their legs, but he didn't have a better way to keep everyone from escaping and trying to warn the others...so we'll see what they do."

"She's here, but she doesn't want me to come in," Shikamaru said. "Says she's not decent. I don't understand it."

Temari looked at him like he was a moron, and then she kicked the door in.

"Just wait here," she asid with an eye roll.

Dang, she was so terrifying. Shikamaru swallowed a little.

"Temari?" Tsunade sat up on the bed she was on. "I said not to come in."

"Why is it so dark in here?" Temari pulled aside the window blinds. "We have to go. Can you walk--oh my gosh!"

She wasn't the most excitable person but, she had never seen Tsunade Iike this.

Tsunade looked old... She still had the seal on her face, but she was clearly almost out of juice for it...

Of course, she was old, and Temari had heard somewhere that she used Transformation Jutsu to look young, but she hadn't known just how much...

"Don't look at me!" Tsunade seemed oddly insecure at the moment.

Temari got a hold of herself. This was nothing to be worried about.

"It just caught me off guard," she said, more calmly. "But that's fine... That jutsu really took it out of you? You'd better come with us so we can find something that can cure this."

"I can't let the others see me like this," Tsunade said. "I'm too weak on chakra to fix it."

"What's going on?" Shikamaru came in. "Is--? Oh..." He started.

"Stop looking," Temari told him sharply.

"What am I supposed to do?" Shikamaru said. "We can't exactly avoid it."

"You are both so rude." Tsunade looked miffed. "You're perfect for each other."

"What does that mean--?" Shikamaru began, but Temari went on. 

"Tsunade, this is nothing to be worried about," she said. "You can fix it later. No one will care."

"Once people see you old they think of you as old," Tsunade said.

Temari leaned on her fan. "Naruto already calls you 'Granny Tsunade'. What do you have to lose?"

Tsunade blinked at her.

"Plus," Temari said, "no one will recognize you like this. We can just walk through the Village, no problem. You should have thought of that before. I expect more of a Kage."

Tsunade blinked again.

"So get moving," Temari said. "If you die because of your vanity, what kind of legacy is that? Your grandfather would be embarrassed of you."

Shikamaru would never have dared to say that to Tsunade, and he never thought that it would work, but, Tsunade got up resolutely. 

"You're right... I just...hate it...again. It's the worst feeling. You just don't understand yet. When you get to be my age, you will."

"I'd have more sense." Temari was not relenting. "Who cares if you look old as long as you can still kill people who threaten you? I'd never reduce my power by keep up a jutsu like that all the time."

"You don't care about how you look anyway," Tsunade said, grumbling really, as she staggered to the door.

"It's not that," Temari said, though Shikamaru didn't think she would. "It's just that there are things more important than that. Like saving lives. Anyway, being a little weathered-looking in Sand Village is nothing. Some people think it's impressive."

"Sand has always been cruder in its tastes," Tsunade said.

Temari didn't answer that. She just hustled her out.

"Wow," Shikamaru said to her when Tsunade had moved for the stairs.

"What?" Temari said.

"I thought she'd kill you," Shikamaru said. "I've never seen her like this. I get the idea she's touchy about it. Once, when she was in a coma after Pain's attack, Shizune wouldn't let any of us see her because she looked like this, and she said Tsunade would never forgive her if she let us see her. How do you do that?"

"I didn't do anything," Temari said, a little embarrassed. "I just told her the truth."

"I guess sometimes being harsh is necessary," Shikamaru admitted. "Not many people would say that to a Sannin."

"Either Shine has rubbed off on me, or I'm naturally reckless." Temari shrugged. "Take your pick."

"Both probably." Shikamaru rubbed his neck. "She's encouraging you to be more the way you already are...but, oh well. Tsunade may not forgive us for seeing her like this later."

"She doesn't even look that bad," Temari said. "She's just being paranoid because she's not used to it."

"Well, that's good. Tell her that," Shikamaru said wryly.

"A time for vanity is not in the middle of an invasion," Temari insisted. "It's ridiculous... I would never."

"I know you would never."

Temari felt offended for some reason. She huffily walked away from him, muttering to herself, "Well, what does caring about looking good do anyway? It won't save your life in battle..."

Shikamaru realized he'd said the wrong thing somehow and wondered where it had happened.

Maybe she was touchy about her looks like Ino was? She didn't seem like the type, but...well, maybe all girls were, a little. He didn't know. His mom was sometimes.

Temari wasn't bad looking though... Shikamaru wasn't that particular about women. He thought anyone who was decently pretty was more than enough for the average guy and didn't understand Ino's insistence that a girl should diet and use makeup and always worry about her face and body.

[Women, right? Well, if we all could look young forever, wouldn't we all want to? Hard to blame Tsunade. And you all should applaud my attention to detail to remember that her using her seal this long would cause this side effect.]

* * *

Gaara made another discovery while he was looking around the inn.

He found Suzushi in a different room.

Suzushi couldn't seem to use his legs at all.

He didn't act very upset about it. He told Gaara in his monotone that he'd been coerced by the bandits to help guard Tsunade, after she'd been locked up, but then he'd caught the sickness and had been left to himself since.

He was very hungry and thirsty, he added, as an afterthought.

Gaara let him have some water and didn't say anything about how strangely he spoke about it.

Tsunade appeared, with her expression daring Gaara to notice anything different about her.

But Gaara was not the type to even pay any attention to it, and he only noticed it in passing and didn't say anything. 

"I found your bodyguard," he said.

"Suzushi?" Tsunade looked at him. "I thought you died..."

"No," Suzushi said. "But I will soon."

He took another drink of water as if that statement was nothing.

"You sure have a weird servant," Temari told Tsunade.

"I suppose he can't help it," Tsunade grumbled. "I'll be just as bad as him soon if we don't hurry. Where can we find the others?"

"Perhaps we should head for the Kage House," Gaara said.

They did do this, but on the way they got a message from Shine telling them not to yet and to wait till she signaled them. She suggested they just head to the medical center and meet the heroes. She had found a way to at least help the sickness.

"She found that in one day?" Tsunade said, sounding a little angry about it. "I still haven't found anything. Other than I suspect the disease affects charka directly."

"You're right," Temari said, looking up from the note. "And the reason you can't fix it seems to be because only someone like one of us could fix it...or someone just as precise. But that's a rare person. It's a cursed kind of jutsu, which is not surprising. You probably could only seal it away."

"Not on everyone," Tsunade said. "They're too far gone."

"Then it's fortunate for you that we have other methods," Temari said. "We'd better hurry. Momo will know what to do with this."

"That girl is by far the most competent one on their core team," Tsunade commented as they switched direction toward the medical center. "I wish she worked for me."

"You couldn't afford her," Temari said wryly. "She's smart, but, Shine is craftier. The two of them carry the team more often than I like to think about."

Shikamaru wondered why she didn't seem to think she herself was also one of those who carried the team... How often did Temari help them get out of their funk?

But why was he thinking this anyway?

And she hadn't said anything about him... That made him feel small.

"While we're doing nothing else, how did Rain Village go?" Tsunade asked. "'Cause I couldn't believe it when your note said that's where you were, but Gaara is no liar."

"It went well," Gaara said. "We may go back there before the end of next year...well, this year now, actually."

"You're kidding," Tsunade said, shocked. "They welcomed you?"

"Much more than this place did." Temari glanced around at it and scowled.

"I really think you do work miracles," Tsunade said.

"Not us, Lady Tsunade. The whole thing was divine timing," Gaara said. "It must have been. They met us just when we left the land of Earth, and they actually got lost for a couple days on their way. Which means if they had found us when they planned to, we'd still have been in Stone, and they would have been driven away before they could even talk to us. I've wondered at it many times since then."

Tsunade was amazed. "Well...this God of yours certainly is efficient... And so you came back here after all... I never thought all of you would set foot here again."

"Neither did we," Temari said. "But Shine is not one to hold a grudge. I can't say I feel it, but, we must do as the faith teaches."

"'Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you,'" Shikamaru said. "Right?"

"Yes, and do not return evil for evil or insult for insult," Gaara added. "I've long agreed with that, but I've never had such a hard time doing it. Stone Village did less to me than my own people did, often, if you consider how many times they've tried to kill me. But I decided to overlook them doing it because I was a beast to them...but to Stone I was nothing if not generous, I thought. It was my pride. I thought I wasn't getting treated as I deserved, and I forgot that we are never treated as we deserve, for better or worse."

"I never would have done it," Tsunade said. "I've healed my enemy once, but I made them earn it, and it was nothing like this." [But was one of the few times I really liked Tsunade.]

"You don't get much choice if you are in Team Zoe," Shikamaru said. "Shine can really drive home a point. Wally isn't much bitter about things like this. They're so unwilling to hold a grudge, they make us feel pathetic for doing it."

"They did not like me for a while," Tsunade said. "But that's not a grudge to them?"

"I think they just are here for certain people," Temari said. "And no one is perfect...but they wouldn't do anything to you over it. This is the same. Not doing something here was the same as breaking their rules, that's what they thought. I hope the Village doesn't throw rocks at us this time...but even if they do, I know Shine will have some pithy saying and Wally will shrug his shoulders. Some people you can't sway if you use every trick in the book."

"I see why you get along so well, then," Tsunade said.

Temari just smiled.

They reached the Medical Center almost at the same time that the Sakura-rescue team did, as it happened.

"Lady Tsunade!" Sakura cried when she saw her. "You're alive!"

"And Suzushi?" Karin was gaping at him. "How is he still alive?"

"He wasn't as infected as we thought," Shikamaru answered. "I guess he was just forced to work for them."

"Why would you help them?" Naruto demanded of him.

"My orders were to guard Lady Tsunade," Suzushi said. "Doing it for them or for Leaf, what is the difference?"

"Even someone like you should see there's a difference helping bandits from helping Leaf," Hanabi said.

Suzushi shrugged. "It wasn't against my orders."

"And you feel nothing about all the people they were killing?" Karin said.

"Why ask him that?" Sasuke said coldly. "You know he feels nothing. Just like Sai didn't. And he's lucky, if you ask me."

Sasuke seemed to be determined to be a jerk to both Sakura and Karin.

Sakura ignored him.

"Lady Tsunade, we can help you," she said. "You...I'm amazed you're still walking."

"I won't be for long," Tsunade said. "I've run my Mitotic Regeneration nearly constantly so I can restore my chakra, but the longer it's gone, the less I can keep it off, and now it's been nearly a day. Otherwise it gets too painful to even move."

Sakura nodded. "I got infected too, but they already cured it. And I think I know how we might cure it. I have to tell you what I learned...but we need to talk to the medical staff here too. Only, if you're not healed first, it won't do any good. Can you fix her?"

"It should work," Karin said. "If she doesn't mind using my power."

"At this point, I can't be picky," Tsunade said. "I hope you have a lot of chakra left, girl."

"I have plenty," Karin said.

So they went to work.

It took Hinata a lot longer to get the blockage out of Tsunade because she had much more of it, and Hinata began to perspire and look a little gaunt while she worked, but finally she got it all out, and Karin was still able to replenish Tsunade fast enough to balance it out.

But clearly this method was only going to work a certain amount of times. Karin would tap out, and Hinata wouldn't have energy forever either.

Tsunade felt the crystallization had purged from her now though and sighed. "There..." She made some signs, and her skin returned to the smoothness of a younger woman's.

This was weird for the others to watch, and Naruto said, "Wow, Granny Tsunade, that's a really weird trick. Is that why you're not old-looking?"

"Quiet, Naruto," Tsunade said.

Sakura hit Naruto on the top of the head. (Shine wasn't there to stop her, and no one else bothered to notice it.)

"Now," Tsunade said to Sakura, who had told her what she'd thought about the cure while they were working, "we have to test your theory. There's people here to do it on. It shouldn't be too complicated."

Karin was acting antsy. She knew the heroes had come here already.

And to prove it, none of the bandits who'd been around the hospital were still there, as Hanabi could see herself. There were some melting ice and scorch marks around that suggested they'd been fought off or chased off.

"It must have been pretty easy for them," Choji noted, with his amiable, ever present smile.