AN: in honor of my one year anniversary as an author on fanfiction i've decided to update all my in-progress stories and to put up a few new ones. Hopefully, if i ever get writer's block, i can cure it by writing one of seven other stories.

This one came in last on the poll, but since I didn't even wait a day to start writing the time travel story (thanks to Angellwriter who gave me the idea). I just had to start writing as soon as I read her review, so I decided that I should write the other two options (although I would have eventually) because I didn't actually wait for everybody's opinion.

This story is a flashfic. That means chapters will be short, but no less impactful. And there will be character deaths. You have been warned.

xxxTheLastOneAlivexxx

Sakura hid in the back of the classroom, cloaked in a simple genjutsu. The only one able to see her was the sensei. If the children knew she would be present, a few of them might have been able to sense her.

She was waiting for the sensei to introduce. At the request of the Academy teachers, who went all the way to the Council when she refused them, Sakura agreed to tell the story of the Legendary Team Seven. She had told the story to hundreds of hopeful shinobi over the years. For many it was discouraging, they dropped out to pursue life as a civilian.

For Sakura, that was the only reason she did as ordered. If not for the fact that her story prevented the death of children, she would have continued to refuse.

That did not mean, however, that the story got any easier to tell. If anything, each year it was harder for her to speak, to relive the memories.

Team Seven's story was one of impossible accomplishments and terrible misfortune. Tragedy followed them like Kirigakure's special ANBU hunter-nin's chased after missing-nins. Its presence was ever looming, threatening to take away all that the held dear and precious and destroy them.

"Here with us today is Sakura Uzumaki." The sensei had to wait for the students' shouts and excitement to calm down before he continued. "Yes, I know you've all been looking forward to this, but let's behave. Listen closely and ask questions, because you will have to turn in a report."

The children groaned. Sakura walked to the center of the room and removed her genjutsu, causing them to scream. She talked above their whispers of "how did she do that?"

"My name is Sakura Uzumaki. My story, Team Seven's story, started like any other team, for the first three minutes. Then everything changed. There were crushing expectations on our team, to shine brilliantly or go down in a blazing fire.

"It started when we were first assigned to a team. The broody last Uchiha devoted only to getting the power he needed to kill his brother. The orphaned son, at the time unknown, of the Fourth Hokage, who held the Kyuubi inside him. And a pink haired girl enamored with the lifestyle and a boy that had no idea what it meant to be a shinobi"

The students listened, riveted by the simple beginning of what history labeled the greatest team in the world. Sakura's words drew them in like moths to a flame, even the sensei who had heard the story eight times already with previous classes.

Sakura spun her tale, telling of their sensei that was always late and a chronic liar. Kakashi had refused to train them seriously until they acknowledged that being a shinobi was not a game, an event that did not happen until Team Seven's mission to wave. Their first mission outside the village's walls had proved that being unprepared would get you killed. Sakura had thought Sasuke had died that day.

She told of how the most important part of a team was not your individual strength, but the ability to work together. Teamwork could make or break a team. It nearly broke Team Seven. Sasuke had been arrogant, refusing to work with the dead last and the talentless girl. Naruto had been brash, always trying to get her attention while she was focused on Sasuke, and constantly trying to prove that he was better than the Uchiha.

And she had been useless. She hadn't taken training seriously in the academy, and so she was woefully unprepared for the level of training Kakashi had given them. Her warning struck a chord in the kunoichi. It was well known every team of three had one female on the team. It was also well known that it was usually the female that was the first to perish.

Sakura continued, detailing their disastrous first chuunin exam, their only one as a team, that ended with Konoha's invasion and the murder of the Sandaime Hokage, and ultimately the breaking of Team Seven. Sasuke had succumbed to his mark, choosing to flee the village for Orochimaru. Naruto left to train with the second of the Sannin, after he had brought back Lady Tsunade to be sworn in as the Fifth Hokage, and Sakura took it upon herself to become stronger, under the last of the Sannin, so that she and Naruto could save Sasuke together.

Her story picked up pace, quickly going through the highlights of the next three years, covering both the good, Naruto's return, Sasuke killing Orochimaru, their rescue of the Kazekage, and the bad, Pein's invasion, Danzou's temporary stint as Hokage, Sasuke's official declaration as a missing-nin, to be tracked and killed, all the way up to the war.

"The real story begins with the Fourth Great Shinobi War."