Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or any of the characters.
A Meeting
Chapter 1
Sakura was traveling alone. Well…almost alone. Her medical training with the Fifth was proceeding quickly, even extending past just healing wounds and moving to attacks. She only hoped that this would help her when she in a battle.
"Speaking of which," she said to herself. Looking over her shoulder she saw her charge for the day. The young boy was trying to hide from her again. She was really sick of him trying to sneak off on her.
She called out over her shoulder, "Come out Konohamaru, I can see you hiding."
"Gah! Stupid witch! How did you see me?" Konohamaru shouted back.
Sakura slowed her pace again. She was no longer fazed by the boy's constant insults, or his attempts to sneak off away from her. She used to lose control and the beat the child terribly. Now, she learned to deal with her anger.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
Konohamaru was in quite a predicament. Though he was used to hiding in trees, even upside down sometimes, he didn't like it when he was tried and being held over a large fire. The first time he saw it, he didn't believe how fast Sakura was able to coax such a large fire in such a short time.
Sakura sat up in the branch, catching up on some reading. She would let him sweat a little more, then let him out. She always did, but she hadn't done this so many times that he had caught on to that yet.
"Please let me down! I'll never call you a witch again! I promise!"
Sakura decided to let him up, his whining was starting to wear off as satisfaction, and just becoming annoying. She started to untie the rope to let him up.
"NO! Don't kill me! Please!"
The rope was now untied, and she was holding it tightly.
"Oh shut up! I'm not going to kill you. Hold on, stop shaking, I'm trying to get you-"
The rope slipped from hand. She could see that the boy was falling. He seemed to be falling in slow motion. It was like it was a dream.
If this is a dream…then he can't really die, thought Sakura. But she knew this wasn't a dream. Konohamaru was really falling. He was really about to die. There wasn't a thing that she could do to stop him.
But he did stop. She drew in a breath, and everything snapped back to normal time. Sakura looked further down, past Konohamaru, and down to what looked like a part of a beach. Her charge was resting above the fire on a bed of sand.
"I didn't think you would be the type to try and kill anyone."
Sakura looked up, didn't see anyone. A sigh.
"Over here."
Sakura turned around. She found herself face to face with Gaara of the Sand.
"AHHHH!"
She awoke on the ground. She could feel several large bruises on her side, a few on her arm; she had obviously had a hard fall from…somewhere. She turned on to her back with a groan. She opened her eyes, and looked into the eyes of someone else. She reached up, as if to ask him for a hand up, then turned and hit in the side of the face.
"Konohamaru! What's your problem!"
"Huh? I don't understand," Konohamaru seemed sincerely confused.
"You pushed me out of that tree after I let you up, didn't you?"
"No! The weird dude came up behind you upside down, and you screamed and you then you fell, and then you weren't moving and I was on this beach thing this whole time and-"
"Shut up!" Sakura interjected. She had a throbbing headache and her side hurt terribly. She could barely make sense of what Konohamaru was talking about anyway. Something about a weird person…upside down? It made no sense. But she did remember eyes…jade eyes. With black all around them. But she knew the only person with eyes like that was…no it couldn't be. He hadn't been around in…more then a year, not since the chuunin exam.
No. It couldn't be him. Could it?
