Story: Never Forgotten

Author: kellygonzalezk001

Rated: M for violence, swearing and possibly mild future lemons

Pairings: InoxSai, NaruxHina, ItachixIzumi, KakashixSakura, ShisuixSakura

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor do I speak Japanese.

Summary: Team Seven revolves around the bonds of love. They discover how deep their love goes once tested by time and external forces. When the team begins to unravel, they will have to learn to find love outside of their dwindling group. Non-Massacre

Notes: I plan on doing this in hopefully 10-15 chapters, maybe more or less. This is a Non-Massacre AU. The fourth shinobi war has taken place, but the result was only the destruction of the ten tails, Obito Uchiha and Madara Uchiha. Kaguya is not part of this AU. The Akatsuki that survived the war have rejoined and put forth their efforts for world domination again. The remaining Akatsuki members are: Konan, Deidara, Kisame, Zetsu, Suigetsu, and Kabuto. Konan and Zetsu are the current leaders who are actively recruiting new members. Also, I don't plan on focusing too much on action when my intent is to focus on the drama and romance of the relationships. I'll put a warning in chapters with lemons and/or possibly triggering scenes. Enjoy 😊

Chapter 1: Unraveling Bonds

Chapter 1 Summary: Team Kakashi: Sakura, Sasuke, Naruto and Sai are on an infiltration and assassination mission in Snow country. They have a second objective to track and kill any Akatsuki in the area.

The frigid wind wrapped around the team as they settled in amongst the ice and boulders of the mountain. In just a few hours they would be able to infiltrate the palace and complete their mission. Sakura warmed her hands and started moving her chakra to keep warm.

"Sakura stop that, you're supposed to be suppressing your chakra. I can feel you from over here!" Sasuke hissed through the microphone.

"That's easy for you to say Sasuke, you only weigh about 100 pounds more than I do." Sakura hissed back.

'This is getting irritating because we have yet to determine the actual number of guards and their abilities and still here we are, freezing our asses off for the last 3 hours in the middle of this God-forsaken mountain because some people don't know what it means to be a Co-Captain. Fuck you Sasuke.' Sakura thought.

Despite their bickering, Sasuke and Sakura always worked well together as co-captains. Sakura was quite the strategist and diplomat whereas Sasuke was good at making in-the-moment decisions and directing his team during battle. The complemented each other quite well. With Naruto and Sai on the team, they had yet to fail a mission. They also considered themselves very lucky and were slightly arrogant about the fact that none of the members of their team died in the war, and that they had stayed together for the last 5 years. Team Kakashi could also be said to be the closest-knit team in Konoha. They loved each other dearly and would do anything to save each other.

"Ugly, Traitor, you both have enough fat to keep you sufficiently warm." Piped in Sai with a cheerful voice.

"Naruto what's your status?" Sakura ground out, trying to ignore Sai's insult.

"I detect about 50 chakra signatures from the inside with ten of those being jonin level at least. There's about 5 of those jonin level ninja surrounding a weaker yet dark chakra signature from the middle of the palace compound. I'd bet a week's worth of ramen that that's the dictator. The other signatures are low, maybe chuunin level, possibly just some random thugs. Can we please hurry this up and get back where there's warm food?"

"Why is it always ramen with you dobe?" said Sasuke.

"Ramen is simply the food of life, Sasuke-Teme."

"Both of you shut up! We need to strategize, so it's my turn to talk. Okay here's what we'll do, we still need intel on if the Akatsuki sponsored this little party or not. So, Sai have your creatures found anything?" Sakura whispered angrily.

"Why yes, they found some rather incriminating scrolls that we are now in possession of. We will probably have to contact the Hokage soon, before we add to the mission objective."

"Hai. Okay here's the plan. Sasuke and Naruto will take the five ninja that are surrounding the dictator as well as any of the smaller signatures from the inner circle of the palace. Sai and I will take the outside. As per request of the client, please remember to minimize damage to the building. Let's move out." She said with authority.

"Hn" "Hai!" "Hai."

They began to enter into the underground tunnel system that led out to the other side of the mountain. Ironically, it was also the way the coup began here in snow country. By all accounts the dictator took control of the meager military forces, bolstered with thugs and missing-nin, entered the tunnels and slaughtered most of the imperial family before securing the throne for himself. Masking their chakra, they found a split to the tunnel, just as their informant had told them. One end of the tunnel ended in the outer grounds inside the falconry, the other ended in a hidden wall of the inner palace. Using hand signals Sasuke motioned for them to move out.

Sasuke and Naruto ended up exactly where the informant said they would. Using sage mode, Naruto was able to pinpoint the chakra signatures of the guards and was able to time their routines for the last five minutes. Sasuke and Naruto made quick and silent work of each of the lower level guards, lining the bodies up in the room that they entered from. After taking out each of the 30 inner guards, they rounded a corner to the throne room. Sasuke nodded at Naruto who then flaired Kurama's chakra to lure out the jonin guards. When three of the five guards came into the grand hallway to investigate, Sasuke slipped past them into the throne room, using chakra to crawl on the ceiling.

Naruto wished he could go into tailed beast mode because it would cut the work in half. But due to the "client's preferences" he had to minimize damage to the building. He didn't want a repeat of their last S-Rank mission where the client almost didn't pay because he and Sakura destroyed the entire monument that they were supposed to rid of bandits. That earned them a yelling from baa-chan. His head throb in remembrance of the lumps she left on him.

Naruto, instead, sighed and sized up his opponents. The three guards encircled him. He was able to pull off a surprise attack with his clones and took out the first guard while engaging the other two. He knocked out the second guard with a hefty punch and threw a small rasenshuriken at the final guard, while praying to Kami it didn't break anything. After all three were incapacitated, Naruto debated on whether or not he should bother hiding the bodies this time. Being the lazy ninja that he was, he decided he'd rather than tie them in chakra bonds and let Sasuke and Sakura figure out what to do with them.

Naruto ran into the throne room just in time to see Sasuke finish off the dictator. Naruto pulled out the storage scroll and tossed it at Sasuke who made quick work of storing the body as evidence. Meanwhile Naruto was checking if any of the guards were left alive. Sasuke hated taking lives, and as such, all the hearts were still beating. He went about the task of putting chakra bonds on all of them.

"Eh, Teme, what'd you want to do with all the captives? There's like 30 of them."

"Check the bingo book, Dobe. Obviously, that's the first thing you do after incapacitating a missing-nin."

"Oh shit, yeah I guess you're right. Well look at this one guy, he looks like this Sato guy in the bingo book, an A-class nin. Summoning Jutsu!" Naruto bit his thumb and pressed it to the floor.

Gamakichi popped out and looked down at Naruto. "What'd you want, brat?"

"Eh Gama, I was just wondering if you could uh….take our prisoner back to Konoha for us by chance, please? I'll get you a whole bunch of junk food the next time I visit!"

"Okay fine." Naruto put the missing nin on Gamakichi's back and he went away with a puff.

"Ay Sasuke, you think Tsunade-Baa-chan will pay us extra for catching an A-rank missing-nin?" Naruto asked hopefully.

"Hn. I'm not getting my hopes up."

Meanwhile in the outside courtyard Sai and Sakura were finishing off the last of the jonin guards who was a katon user. As Sakura fought him, she wondered why the hell would a katon user come to Snow country of all places. She finally rendered him unconscious and surveyed the damage that they had done to the outer palace. She sighed, 'I guess there's nothing to do about it now.' There were numerous craters and damaged walls. She just hoped that the other two were successful in keeping the palace in one piece.

"Come on Sai, let's go see what those two are up to."

They both ran into the warm inner palace and felt slightly jealous that their teammates were able to fight in such luxurious comfort. When they found Sasuke and Naruto they were in the middle of contacting the client and asking what they wanted to do with the incapacitated guards.

"The client wants the guards in holding cells. They will be arriving in 6 hours." Sasuke stated tersely.

"Ugh! That means we have to move ALL of them, doesn't it?" Sakura whined.

"Don't worry ugly, it will help reduce your fat content. Isn't that what most women want to achieve?" Sai asked.

"I don't know what Ino sees in you." She deadpanned back.

Sai gave a genuine smile to that, thinking of his own hot-tempered woman back in Konoha. He wondered what she was doing. 'She's probably still putting together the nursery. I did take longer than expected to paint it, after all. I really hope she's not still irritated about the missed deadlines she gave me when I get back. Maybe we can take a little bit longer on the way back home, it would increase my chances of surviving her wrath…'

"Come on Sai, you have to help heave these bodies too!" Naruto whined at him, pulling him back from his thoughts.

Sakura used her slug summons to contact the Hokage and ask if they should proceed with their secondary objective. The reply was quick and affirmative that they should proceed with caution.

After the four-some finished storing the chakra-bound guards in the cells they made their way back into the warm inner palace to plan their next move. They were all seated in a circle when Sasuke gave Sai a meaningful look. Sai then opened his scroll that had the intelligence on the possible Akatsuki corroboration of the coup.

According to the information that Sai's creatures were able to gather, the Akatsuki had sent one team to Snow country to secure their investment. After failing in the fourth ninja war and losing their leader, they were trying other methods of world domination, this time by taking over small governments in the hopes to make a conglomerate of their newly conquered nations. The team that was sent was Deidara and Kisame Hoshigake. The foursome was acutely aware of both missing-nin's abilities having either fought or heard of someone in Konoha who had fought them.

'Hm, so an explosives expert who flies around would probably be right up Sai's alley, because he's also a long range fighter. Kisame is a close range fighter with a chakra stealing sword so Naruto's sage mode and Kurama's chakra would come in handy for that. In general, electricity can diffuse explosive devices so Sasuke should go with Sai. Well I guess that leaves me sticking with Naruto.' Sakura mused, mulling over her plan until she was ready to share.

"Okay, here's what we're going to do; according to this intel the Akatsuki members are in this nearby village, and they always travel in pairs. There are four of us, and we're all ANBU level which theoretically should be the same level as these guys. So, we're going to split up the partners rather than allow them to work together. Sai and Sasuke you'll take Deidara as he's a long-range fighter and explosives expert. Sasuke, I don't need to tell you that lightening will take out an explosive, do I?" Sakura raised her eyebrow sarcastically while Sasuke glared at her insult upon his intelligence.

'Of course, I know that.' Sasuke thought.

"Great. Naruto and I will take out Kisame because he's a close-range fighter and so are we. I also think that Naruto's sage mode would come in handy for that chakra sword thing. Naruto, you've seen that in action before, right?"

"Yeah I can take care of it this time for sure! Dattebayo!"

"Okay great. Let's rest here for tonight, wait for the client, and then tomorrow we'll move out to the village. Just to double check, no injuries, right?"

Five hours later the client appeared, with their new guard in tow.

"Salutations. This is Emperor Sato of Snow Country long may he live." One of the guards surrounding the client announced. The new Emperor Sato took a seat in the half-demolished throne and gazed upon the small crowd imperiously.

"Sato-sama; we have done as requested and put the prisoners in cells with their chakra bound. I hope you will hold our mission completed on this end, as we have more follow-up to do to rid your borders of the Akatsuki." Sakura said, smiling and giving a slight bow.

"Ah, yes yes child. I thank you and your uhm…comrades, yes. For uhm…avenging my family. Yes. Yes, I will hold your mission complete. Please return my uhm….yes….thanks to your uhm….yes….Hokage." Sato-Sama stated, trying very hard not to show his lisp. "Riko here uhm….will uhm…yes…show you to your rooms, I yes…uhm…insist you stay here and rest tonight."

"We thank you for your hospitality Sato-sama and wish you a long and happy rule." With another bow, the group followed the guard named Riko out of the throne room and into one of the rooms meant for visiting nobility.

"I hope this will do for you. I'm sure after all, you are used to worse conditions." Riko looked down at them, raising his nose in the air and handed them two keys.

"Thank you Riko-san, enjoy your night." Sakura was gritting her teeth and giving him a sickly-sweet smile. Facing the group after the guard left, "Alright, lets just split this up into how we're partnered. Get some sleep and eat something. See you all in the morning, night."

"And bathe." Sasuke said pointedly, looking straight at Naruto.

"Why are you looking at me, Teme?! I bathe regularly, Hinata doesn't like it when I smell."

'I'm going to take the first bath, so long as these two idiots are preoccupied with each other.' At that, Sakura snuck away to take a bath leaving Sai to enter the first room and think about his family. For the third time in his life he was going to have a family. 'How many people get these chances? I think I read a book on statistics about broken families, yet I have two that are still alive.' He took out his sketchbook and began to sketch his second family as he remembered one of their usual Thursday night dinner. He first arranged it so that it showed Kakashi in the center, Sakura perched on his lap, arms around her waist. They were looking deep in each other's eyes. Naruto and Sasuke to the left of them pulling each other's shirts and raising their fists to their faces. On the right of Kakashi and Sakura he drew himself and Yamato. Yamato in the picture was giving a particularly haunting face to both Naruto and Sasuke. Sai smiled. This memory was one of his favorites. It was one of their first Thursday dinners after the war; they were all trying to watch T.V. at Sakura's apartment.

Sasuke finally entered the room, looking scruffy and sporting a fresh black eye. He dropped himself bodily on the futon and closed his eyes. When he fell asleep he dreamt about home.

Half of the Uchiha compound had been destroyed during Pain's attack. Sasuke always thought that his father secretly was grateful for the destruction because then, Konoha would be better able to keep the deal that was made 11 years prior. In his dream he was lounging about in Shisui and Itachi's new apartment. A lot of shinobi were picking roommates these days, he and Sai even shared an apartment before Sai married Ino. Shisui was making dinner, the smell of miso floating thick in the air made his stomach growl. Itachi just rolled his eyes and stared at him looking slightly amused.

"Hey nii-san, why didn't you get an apartment with your girlfriend?"

"Because Sasu-chan when you're a man you get certain urges when sleeping with a beautiful woman and your big brother is afraid of his urges." Shisui yelled making lewd motions with his hips and laughing from the kitchen. A kunai landed on a cabinet about 2 milimeters from Shisui's face, making him laugh even harder.

"Do not talk about Izumi like that, Shisui. Show some respect. I value her modesty and wish to protect her reputation, Sasuke. That is why I don't live with her. I suggest you follow my method of dealing with the fairer sex before utilizing your cousin's crude suggestions."

"Aa."

The next morning Team Kakashi woke up and prepared to head out to face the two Akatsuki members in the village. An hour later after jumping and running through snow drifts and mountains they arrived at the edge of the village and took a break while securing their perimeter.

"Okay, they're over there in that house." Said Naruto, already in sage mode.

"Good, everyone remember the plan? Let's go." Commanded Sakura.

They raced down to the house flaring their chakra to get the partners to come out. That's when Sai started heavily disparaging Deidara's "stupid art form". Naruto and Sakura in the meantime began to engage Kisame with a series of taijutsu moves, carefully avoiding Samehada. Naruto and Sakura began to draw Kisame away from Deidara while Sai's taunts drew Deidara away from Kisame.

"Shannaro!" yelled Sakura hitting the ground with a chakra-enhanced fist. Kisame was thrown slightly off balance and began to create the hidden mist jutsu to obscure the battlefield even more. Naruto came up behind Kisame and kicked his shoulder, attempting to dislodge Samehada from his hand. Kisame turned around quickly and yelled, "Water Style: Shark Bomb Jutsu!". Naruto quickly moved out of the way of the water shark heading towards him. He knew that it was his job to keep Kisame's attention on him, so Sakura could get close enough to throw a senbon at his kill-point. Naruto truly hoped it would work. Naruto went into nine tails mode and threw a tailed beast bomb at Kisame which threw him off balance and destroyed Samehada. Following up, Sakura sucker-punched Kisame's stomach, while throwing a senbon at where his kill point should have been. Kisame looked stunned at the duo's attempts to bring him down. Naruto quickly noticed that Kisame was still standing and sent another beast bomb towards him. Unfortunately, Sakura was too close, still and was caught in the back-blast.

"Oh shit! No! No! Sakura-chan! I'm so sorry, are you okay? Sakura-Chan?" Naruto yelled at the unconscious kunoichi. Naruto noticed there were several deep burns on the left side of her body, already turning a bright red with blisters rimming the outsides. He pulled a blanket out of his pack and wrapped her in it, vaguely recalling something about hypothermia.

"Eh….Naruto-kun?" Sakura stuttered, opening her eyes. She quickly scanned her body and started healing the burns. When she was done healing her injuries she started wiping the guilty tears off Naruto's face. "Naruto-kun, I just didn't move away far enough, it's okay. It could've happened to anyone. I'm fine. Look at me, Naruto, I'm perfectly fine, okay? Are you injured anywhere?"

"Nah, Sakura-chan, I'm fine." He sniffed.

"Good, we should go find Sasuke and Sai."

"Sasuke, Sai; what's your status and position. Over." Sakura said into the microphone. Naruto and Sakura heard nothing but static and began to worry.

While Naruto and Sakura were battling Kisame; Deidara, Sasuke and Sai took to the skies. Sai continued his taunts of Deidara while flying away from the little village. Deidara began throwing bombs at the duo and Sai flew faster. He spotted a distant field and began to circle around so that Sasuke could hit Deidara with a chidori sword. Deidara threw a clay bomb at Sai's animated bird. Sai thought that they had dodged it but was sorely mistaken when that clay bomb exploded into thousands of tiny bombs. Sai and Sasuke fell out of the sky and landed on the field in an ungraceful yet mostly uninjured heap. Deidara was about to throw another bomb towards them when Sai moved Sasuke out of the way just in time and covered his partner's body.

When Sasuke looked up he saw that Sai was severely injured and couldn't move. All he could feel was rage. Sasuke started to move with a speed that he didn't even know he possessed and saw red, his conscious emptied and there was just the thought of killing Deidara. The next thing Sasuke realized is that he was on his back, injured, with Deidara cutting open his stitched-up chest revealing a third mouth. Deidara fed the third mouth some clay. Sasuke moved as quickly as he could to Sai's body and used his summoning jutsu to summon Aoda to protect them; whatever Deidara was planning was going to be big. Just then there was a bright light from outside the coils of the giant snake. After the light receded Sasuke was covered in ash clutching Sai to him. Sasuke shook the ash gently off himself and Sai.

"Traitor?" Sai whispered.

"Aa."

"I'm dying."

"….Aa." Tears were building up in Sasuke's eyes, but he refused to let them fall.

"Sasuke." Said looked at him seriously, one of the few times he used Sasuke's given name. Sasuke looked at him in surprise, knowing that this was very important to Sai. "Take care of Ino and our child. I always wanted a family and I've known….one with this team. I love you, all of you. Tell Ino…." Sai's head lolled helplessly in Sasuke's arms, his eyes rolling back.

"God damn it Sai. I promise. I'll take care of them all. Please don't leave us though, if you can avoid it."

Naruto and Sakura were running towards where they saw the large dome of light. They arrived upon a huge crater two miles in diameter with two people huddled in the center.

'Oh no, this is not good. I'm almost out of chakra.' Thought Sakura

"Sakura-chan…I only sense one chakra." Naruto whispered as they ran towards the figures.

Sasuke's eyes were starting to bleed as Sakura moved in on Sai to try and find any response. "Sai! Sai! You must wake up, you must come back! Sai! SAIII!" Sakura started shrieking at him.

There was distant thunder in the background and the clouds were turning a menacing black and gray color.

"How long has he been out Sasuke?"

"Two minutes." Sasuke barely whispered, everything felt numb he couldn't move just stared at the scene before him.

"So you're my replacement?" Sasuke stated, looking straight at Sai.

"Yes I am." Sai looked back with a fake smile on his face.

"I was only gone for 3 years guys. Why did you replace me?"

"It was four years Sasuke, and we didn't choose to replace you, it was ordered by the council. Sai is perfectly fine, he has trouble understanding emotions sometimes because he used to be a member of root before….well you know….the Shisui-Danzo incident. Just get to know him Sasuke." Sakura smiled at him, happy at his return from the Daimyo's guard. Sasuke shuddered, he had only been eight when that incident occurred but he still remembered it. He always thought Shisui was invulnerable, but when Danzo attacked him and it took two different squads to kill Danzo; Sasuke began to understand mortality.

One year later:

"Um, Sai."

"Yes, Traitor?"

"Everyone else made the rank of jonin while I was in the guard. I don't want to ask them for help."

"Okay."

"So, is that a yes?"

"No, the word I used was okay. It seems as though you wish to pose a query."

Sasuke sighed, feeling slightly exasperated.

"Iwantyoutohelpmestudyfortheexams."

"Oh that. Yes, I can do that. You are my teammate, Traitor. I have learned from Naruto, that one should do anything to help a teammate."

Sai proved to be a very capable sensei, pounding every aspect of being a jonin into Sasuke's head. He found it to be a much easier task than when he and Sakura helped Naruto study, as Sasuke certainly seemed to have a much higher intelligence level than Dickless. When the time came for the exams, Sasuke passed with flying colors. For one of the first times, Sai felt overjoyed for his teammate. Sasuke thanked him for all his help, which was rare for this Uchiha, as Sai had come to understand. They had begun a very close relationship over the last six months of study. By the time Pain attacked and destroyed the village they considered each other best friends as well as best friends with Sakura and Naruto. When the village was rebuilt they became roommates so that they could plan team activities better.

Sasuke was there when Sai started to date Ino after he was restored from Gengo's brainwashing. He thought it was funny that Sai liked the talkative blonde. He remembered the genuine smile and laugh that Sai had when talking to her. He wasn't surprised when Ino proposed to Sai. He laughed at him for weeks at how inept he could be at social situations. Sai simply said that it is more emasculating to feel that one needs to fit a set of rules placed about one by a society that doesn't care. Sasuke was dumbstruck by this response and subsequently quit laughing at Sai's lack of initiative.

Sakura didn't hesitate, using a small amount of electricity in the palm of her hand she tried to restart Sai's heart. She continued to zap him until she was almost out of chakra. She felt arms go around her shoulders and vaguely heard someone asking her to stop because he was gone. 'No, he's not gone. He can't be gone, I'm bringing him back.'

"Sakura-Chan…..it's been an hour, he's not coming back." She didn't hear Naruto whispering next to her, too engrossed on forcing the soul back into Sai's body.

She started up a chakra scalpel and was suddenly unconscious.

Naruto had hit her in the back of the head to stop her from opening Sai's body. His body. It felt strange thinking of it. Naruto slowly dug through Sakura's backpack to open an empty storage scroll. He carefully summoned Sai into the scroll while Sasuke just stared at the parchment, a strange mix of diluted blood coming from his eyes. The rain began to pour down on them and Naruto knew they needed to get moving. Naruto looked up at Sasuke and noticed that his eyes had a strange pattern in the middle but chose not to say anything. Instead he loaded the scroll back into Sakura's backpack and picked her up. He tapped Sasuke on the shoulder to try and get him to follow him, but he didn't respond. The entire situation seemed so surreal.

"Sasuke, we have to go. If we stay outside, we'll all get sick."

"It doesn't matter. My best friend is dead."

"Sasuke, you have more than one best friend. Sakura and I love you. We're staying together." He added a soft, "Dattebayo." At the end.

"You can't promise that Naruto. It's my fault he's dead. If I had moved faster, he wouldn't have taken that hit."

"We can't debate that right now Sasuke, Sakura was injured earlier in our fight and you're injured too. We have to go back to a village."

Sasuke didn't say anything but stood up and numbly followed Naruto back through the trees and mountains to the nearby village inn.