(A/N) So, please read this, and tell me what you think.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. (sigh) Though I wished I can.
They were standing on a cliff. How they got there, none of them knew.
Sakura's eyes filled with tears. Quickly she looked down, hiding her face from him.
"Sakura-chan...don't leave. Please. For me. For Konoha." Naruto begged his best friend, tears pouring out of his eyes.
"Gomen, Naruto." Sakura managed to murmur as she turned around.
"You have to join them, don't you?" he demanded, voice getting angry, and yet, more hurt poured out.
He looked down. No. She was leaving. Why? She left once. Now she was leaving again.
"Naruto..."
He looked up.
"I promise, ne, Naruto? I promise that I'll come back. And when I come back, I'll tell you everything, and I'll buy you ramen too. Ne, Naruto?" She turned to leave. Turning her face slightly around, she smiled at him. Naruto gasped. This was one of the moments when she was most beautiful. Her face shone in the moonlight, a gust of wind was blowing her shoulder-length pink hair around her face, and her green eyes were bright with tears. Her cheeks were faintly blushing, and her lips had a pale pink tinge. When she spoke, her melodic voice ran out in the silence.
"Arigato…Naruto."
Darkness.
Naruto woke up with sweat pouring down his forehead.
"Just a dream. Only a dream." He murmured to himself.
Sitting up in bed, he looked out his window.
"Demo, why do I feel as if the dream means more than a dream?" he asked himself.
A few minutes after the blonde-haired boy had woken, in a forest miles away from Konoha, two black blurs speckled with red dashed towards the fire village.
"Itachi, the medic-nin we have to get is in Konoha?" the taller shadow asked.
"Hai."
"Why did you choose this mission, anyways? Knowing you, Konoha would be the last place you'd want to go to at this point."
"Leader-sama chose it for us."
The taller man sighed, "I guess there's no arguing with Leader-sama, now, is there?" "Hn."
All of a sudden, the taller man smiled.
"Itachi-san, a strong chakra signature is heading our way." He was met with silence. "Shall we keep on going? Or—"
"We ignore him."
Smile getting more malicious, Kisame said,
"You really don't give a damn about your little brother, do you, Itachi-san?"
Second ANBU captain Haruno Sakura perched herself on a tree branch. Having just come back from a mission and from Tsunade's office, she found herself needing some peace and quiet. Leaning back onto the tree trunk, she closed her eyes, not bothering to take off her ANBU mask.
"Successful mission?" a voice came from behind her. Sakura smiled, she knew who it was. Taking off her ANBU mask, she shook her pink hair as she opened her eyes.
"Hai. It was a successful mission…Neji-kun."
Smirking, Neji took off his ANBU mask and leaned back on the tree trunk just like Sakura did. It was something that they did often. When either one of them had come back from a mission, they would come to this tree, and sit on one side. The other person would arrive shortly after, and sit on the other side. There, they would talk, and each would relieve the other person of the stress of a mission.
"How is Naruto-kun?"
"He has been training quite frequently with Kakashi-sensei and Lee, apart from me myself."
Neji felt Sakura raise an eyebrow. "Oh? Training? I never knew he had that ambition within him."
"He didn't." was his smirking reply. Getting up, he turned to look at Sakura.
"He said, though, that he wanted you to train him as well." With that, he jumped lithely off the tree, beckoning with a hand for Sakura to follow.
Getting up, she sighed as she, too, took off after Neji, with two times as much grace as he had.
As soon as Sakura's feet landed on the ground without making a sound, she was wrapped in warmth.
"Sakura-chan!! You won't be able to imagine how much I missed you, dattebayo!" Naruto shouted happily.
Prying Naruto's fingers off her, Neji spoke steadily, "Sakura-san has calmly accepted to train you, Naruto. The first thing you should do is not to pounce on her, but to thank her and get started."
Laughing at Naruto's pout, Sakura turned to the Hyuuga. "Arigato, Neji-kun."
Smirking, he bowed and disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Turning back to the still irritated Naruto, she smiled a cheerful smile, cocking her head to one side. "Ne, Naruto-kun, let's start."
"It's already started!" said a triumphant voice from behind her.
Without having to look, Sakura blocked the clone with her right arm as she threw him forwards. The clone disappeared as three more came at her from all directions.
Closing her eyes, she activated her senses.
Hear….the three in front of her were using the Rasengan, the three behind her were all aiming kicks at her. The three to her left and right had their fists out.
Sense….she could sense the real Naruto from the left, in the middle.
Smirking, she opened her eyes and took a step back as the real Naruto flew at her, throwing kunais at the other Naruto clones without having to look. The kunais flew straight and pinpointed their targets with deadly accuracy. At the same time, her right knee came up, and caught Naruto in his abdomen. Immediately, the fox-boy doubled over in pain as Sakura quickly knelt down and placed a kunai at his throat.
"Too slow." She said steadily, getting to her feet, removing her kunai from his throat.
Immediately, Naruto spun around and, letting out a shout, tackled her to the ground. The shout went from frustrated to surprise as she disappeared from under him, only to plant a foot on his back, forcing him down, face in the grass.
"Still too slow." She said, face emotionless.
"Ne, Sakura-chan, can you maybe get your foot off me now? I think I've had enough of the grass and dirt." Naruto's muffled voice came from beneath her. Sighing, she lifted her foot and helped her friend up. Brushing dirt off himself, Naruto eyed Sakura with a mysterious yet mischievous look. It didn't go unnoticed.
"Nani?" she asked, not liking the way he was eyeing her.
"Say, Sakura-chan….I never knew you got to be this good. Is that why Neji is starting to hang out with you?" he asked, giving her a wink.
Before Sakura could retort, a fist connected with the blond boy's face. Ignoring Naruto's surprised yelp, Sakura turned to find a slightly annoyed Neji, Tenten, Lee, and Sai standing underneath the trees, in the shade.
"I take it all of you were watching our training?" she said, voice slightly amused.
"You taught dickless a nice lesson, hag." Sai answered with a fake smile.
"I'm glad." Was the only answer.
Neji ignored the worried looks that Tenten and Lee shared with each other. While it didn't seem surprising to him and Sai that Sai wasn't punched by Sakura, it was surprising for the other Konoha twelve members.
After all, it was he and Sai who helped Sakura over all these months, teaching her, training with her, and going on missions with her.
Neji watched as Lee and Naruto started a taijutsu training session as Tenten and Sakura gained on Sai. Gradually, his thoughts wavered.
"Kai!" a voice sounded some meters from where he was training. Curious, Neji found himself cautiously walking towards the noise.
There, in the clearing, was Sakura trying to get out of a genjutsu.
'Trying' was bit of an overstatement.
Neji stood there, watching amusingly for a few minutes before sighing.
Is that girl so weak that she couldn't' get herself out of a genjutsu?
Walking silently up behind her, he flicked his wrist at her neck. Once his fingertips made contact with her bare neck, she opened her eyes.
"I hadn't expected the girl genin of Team 7 to be this weak." He said, smirking.
What she did afterwards shocked him.
Whirling around, hands on hips, she said, "Well then, why don't you train me? If you say I'm weak, then make me stronger!"
"Why should I?"
"Oh!" Neji didn't like the mischievous gleam in her eyes. "And here I thought the Hyuuga prodigy would be strong enough to train anyone into a worthy shinobi. I'm disappointed I was wrong."
That had been a challenge, and he had accepted. After beating her up rather pitifully, he had, because of his cousin's strong friendship with Sakura, agreed to train her.
And that was how they became close friends.
And he was glad that she became his friend.
Sasuke ran through the forest, Sharingan eyes blazing a bright red.
Any time now…..
He urged himself to go faster.
Today….Itachi…
Seeing the first flash of red and black, Sasuke felt fury grip him so tightly, it seemed as if he might break.
Today...you DIE!!
And he leapt.
(A/N) Uh, so, yeah. The first chapter of my second story, named 真相. It's mandarin, for those of you who don't know.It means 'truth'. Ipromise this story will be good.Promise. But that depends on how much time I get to write it. Tell me what you think. Remember, this is only the first chapter, so it might not be as good as expected.
So, uh, yeah. Please read and review!