"Come on, Sakura!" Naruto yelled, watching his friend veer away.
"Naruto, he's around here. That girl's alive--I have to save her!" Sakura yelled back tears rolling down her face.
"But Sasuke-teme! The mission is to get him back! We're so close! Please Sakura!" Naruto cried.
It had been simple. There was a serial killer in the Village Hidden in the Grass, and they had been sent to stop him. Sakura made friend's with a village girl, Amaya, and the girl had been taken by a man named Koji.
He called them all puppets, and had a sadistic way about him. he considered Sakura the perfect puppet, and until he had his puppet the girl would be in his possession. He never made it clear if she would live or die.
Now they were on a separate mission to retrieve Sasuke, and Sakura found his chakra. Koji's. Hidden and disguised.
She had gotten very skilled, and was even able to tell and track chakra like Karin could. Even better, because she was so skilled she could detect masking signatures of a person.
Amaya was safe for now, but she needed to save her.
"Sasuke-kun," Karin started, sensing chakra--immense, in two beings. Then a bunch of other chakras, but they didn't really matter. "There are people coming. I've felt these chakras before. The blonde and his friend. They have the most chakra, but there are more in their group."
Sasuke smiled. So the dobe and Sakura were still out there looking for him. He figured they'd have stopped by now. He hadn't seen Sakura in so long, though. Did she fill-in anymore?
"Sakura! That's not the mission anymore!" Kakashi yelled so loud Sasuke could hear from a mile away.
"I don't care!" she yelled back, even louder. "Koji is a sick bastard and I'm going to stop him. Screw the Uchiha, because there's a life in the balance right now!"
Sasuke's eyes grew wide. She'd never say that about him. Why did she start?
Suddenly there was a figure whipping by them with a doll in a long tan dress. No, that was a girl! Sasuke looked over at Karin.
"He masked it. I didn't even feel it coming," she told him, ashamed.
Then there was a crashing noise and Sakura broke through the clearing. She stopped for a second to re-fix the mask-signature, and she stared at the Uchiha for a second. He couldn't believe how much she could change over the genin days. She looked much prettier with long hair, but not too long. Just an inch or so past her shoulder.
"Amaya? can you hear me?" Sakura yelled, ignoring the Uchiha. "I need you to help me find you! Think about where you are. I'll find you. Don't worry."
Koji laughed. "Too late. She's not able to do any thinking right now," his voice boomed all around.
Sakura grit her teeth. "Damn you Koji! Fight me like the bastard you are, or give her back! She's innocent. She did nothing wrong."
Again, the laughed boomed around the area. Naruto ran up to Sakura and froze feet away. There was Sasuke, staring at her intently. Then Hinata, Ino, Sai, Lee, Neji, TenTen and Kakashi fell in behind him. Sakura merely put her hands together and pushed.
The entire earth in a circle around her grew blue and rippled, throwing Naruto back as Hinata caught him and the others backed into a tree out of the circle.
"I will forget my dreams
Nothing is what it seems
I will effect you
I will protect you
From all the crazy schemes," she started, the blue trickling like streams through the ground around her.
Sasuke looked at her in awe as she kept her eyes closed and her hair blew back. What was this?
"Sasuke-kun, what was her mother's name?" Suigetsu asked, looking at her.
"Um...dunno. Jun, I think. Why?" he replied, staring at her.
"It was Chiharu, you ass," Naruto told him. "She came from the Ryoku clan."
Suigetsu nodded. "So it's what I thought."
"You traded in your wings
For everything freedom brings
You never left me
You never let me
See what this feeling means
"Everything that you feel
Is everything that I feel
So when we dream
We shout..." Sakura sang, feeling the path to Koji twine.
So he knew to move around at least. Didn't matter. Her mother taught her well enough. She could find her.
"We shout...
"You say it's all complex
Passion can pass for less
We never bothered
Telling each other
What we were bound to guess.
"Will anybody care
We could go anywhere
Going through danger
Talking to strangers
Will there be someone there?"
'Yes,' she thought through gritted teeth, right on his tail. 'I'll be there. I'm going to save you, Amaya. I'm not losing another friend.'
"Everything that you feel
Is everything that I feel
So when we dream
We shout...
"We shout...We shout...We shout..." she trailed off, finding him.
In an instant she disappeared, only to reappear high in the trees kicking up into what looked like thin air. But then Koji dropped the genjutsu as he started to fall.
"Keep it up," he warned her, barely holding Amaya. "One more move and the girl drops to her death. So, your mother was the great 'One Thousand Springs' master, huh? She's the one that created it? Chiharu Ryoku's daughter. I didn't know Ryoku blood flows in your veins."
"Don't care. Give me Amaya back. I'm not about to let you harm her," she told him, floating in air. Being Ryoku's prodigy was fun! And no one would ever guess it was her--she had the wrong clan-name.
"If you become my puppet, she can live," he told her, dropping her a bit. Amaya couldn't even tell--her calm hazel eyes were shut and she was unconscious. "I'd take that offer."
Sasuke looked at Sakura. If she was the same genin from childhood, she'd follow the rules. The loss of a life is better than the betrayal or a criminal's escape.
Naruto looked over and Sasuke's group and looked back at his. Silently, they seized Sasuke's men--and wasted girl, as Sasuke called her when she was away from their company--and knocked them out. Naruto stood next to Sasuke, too transfixed on Sakura to remember to knock him out.
"Do you really think I'd betray everything for that offer?" she spat back. She floated down to his level. "Especially when I can bring her back and kill you both?"
Suddenly she flipped back and a green ripple erupted. Then she flipped forward past him and another ripple ignited.
"Night of fire..." she sang after several flips, fire starting to burn where she stepped.
Sasuke was in awe. He saw this before--when Itachi and he were sent away for fire-training. The Ryoku were family-friends. their prodigy was doing it, showing off at a ceremony. The girl was going to be his future wife!
"Night of fire..." she sang again after a few flips. She'd been doing this for years and years. To screw up now would be an impossible chance. But she only did it a handful of times in air.
Suddenly she flipped and put a hand on a green ripple and held it for a second, then she yelled, "Fire!!" and every spot she landed was shooting flames high away. Amaya dropped right from Koji's hand and Sakura caught her.
"Naruto, watch her...Hinata-chan? Can you take care of her? Naruto's gonna do something stupid," Sakura told her, giving the shy twenty-one year old the girl.
Naruto looked at his friend. Sasuke had changed a lot in a decade, but not so much Naruto couldn't tell he still loved Sakura.
She had changed a lot too.
Everyone kept telling her she had to go get her husband. But Sakura didn't have one. Kakashi said once that she was arranged to be married, but she'd stop that as soon as she found out Sasuke loved her.
"She's good, huh?" he asked, smirking.
Sasuke looked at Naruto and smirked back. "Of course--the Uchiha matriarchs have to be great."Kakashi looked up from his porn book. "That's right! The Ryoku and the Uchiha, right?"
'How does Sensei know everything before me?' Naruto thought. "But she's a Haruno by birth! That's not fair."
Sakura rolled her eyes as Koji took as swing and then grabbed onto the branch, heaving himself up to face her.
She took out a katana that barely reached two feet. Most ninja held them at three, while the skilled got to five. However, the tsuka was so decorative--white gold with emerald and jade encrusted in it. At the very end was the emblem of the Ryoku clan with the circle-symbol of the Haruno clan.
"Two clans met over you, and two clans will fall," he told her, bringing out a giant katana like Zabuza's. "Little girls should stick to dolls."
Sakura ignored him. Instead, she rammed the smaller katana right through him and pinned him to a tree before he could strike. Sasuke was shocked at how vicious she got, but then figured it was nothing. She was protecting a girl.
"And pedophiles should stick to playing with themselves," she told him, bringing out a kunai and slitting his throat, blood splattering her face.
"Good job, Sakura," Kakashi told her. "Care to clean it up?"
Sakura put on her gloves and made a fist. "A Thousand Springs!" she yelled, chakra flowing through her arm and bursting out, aimed for the dead body. It was like a cross between Rasengan and Chidori almost. "Chiharu!"
As the wood splintered and cut her body, the katana came tumbling back and she caught it.
Sasuke was shocked. He was supposed to marry Sakura. That's why he pushed her away--he didn't want to be forced to love someone, even if he did love them. But now he knew he'd have to. Would she still love him?
Instead of even looking at him, she rushed over to Amaya as she healed herself. "I think we have an emergency. I think we have an emergency," she started to sing, pushing chakra though Amaya's body. "If you thought I'd leave, then you were wrong, cause I won't stop holding on."
Amaya was starting to stir. her eyes twitched, but didn't open. "So are you listening? So are you watching me?" she sang, making her eyes open.
"Neechan!" she squealed, hugging Sakura. "Arigatou!" the fifteen year old told her as she stood up. "You promised me I'd be safe, and you saved me! can I go home now? I miss Niichan."
Sakura looked confused as Sasuke and Naruto walked towards her.
"But she's the Ryoku prodigy. It's been an agreement that the two prodigies be married," Kakashi told them.
"So...she's engaged to Itachi then," Sasuke said, sighing.
"They wanted that, but...Itachi said that you were the true prodigy. He refused the marriage and that's why they led to the murder. He thought if they were dead and he was a criminal, you had to be engaged."
Sasuke looked at Kakashi. How did he know so much?
"I'm not that old, kid. Itachi and I were friends. I was there when you were all at the Ryoku compound. even then we could see you were in love."
Sasuke snorted. "He's still going to die."
They started to walk towards Sakura, and Naruto was mad. "So you won't come back with us?" he asked.
"Give me a reason not to go after Itachi," he countered.
"Didn't Masaya-san kill your parents?" she asked, making Sasuke stop. Is she trying to help the dobe?
"Yeah...But he did it for me! And I love him. He's family, I can't help it," she replied. "Besides, if I wanted revenge I would have gotten it then. It just takes a while to sink in for an eight-year-old that revenge is worse."
"Why? My friend is a born-avenger," she said, getting up.
"Then your friends an idiot. He'll be all alone again. Whoever he is should know he's not really alone. Even if the only family he has is just a murderer, at least there's someone in the world like him," she replied.
Sasuke felt something. Damn, why was a kid philosophical? They should make a law: no philosophers under the age of thirty, and-or under five feet.
But then Amaya went on. "Ryoku means 'power,' right? true power is knowing that past-actions will stay in the past. You just have to make the best of them for the future. You can't measure power by how strong you are. Only by how happy and content you are."
'Man, that brat better not hang around Sakura a lot when I come back,' Sasuke thought. 'Kids becoming philosophers. What next? Naruto not eating ramen every day?'
Saskura smiled. "Fine. I'll take you home on the way. Sasuke-kun, you coming, Born-Avenger?"
Naruto looked at him. This was it.
He smiled and walked towards her, putting an arm around her waist. "Yeah, I think I am. Sakura Uchiha."
There was a shoulder on his back and he turned to see a smiling Naruto. "Great. So let's celebrate--everyone at my house. I promise, no ramen."
"That's a week now. What happened?" Sakura said, making Sasuke's eyes bulge.
"Hinata doesn't like it very much. And I like whatever she likes! That, and it's bad for you if you eat too much," he replied, getting Hinata from the group. "Isn't that right, Hinata-chan?"
Sasuke couldn't even speak on the way back. He just had to be wrong?