Hey. Welcome back with a brand new chapter of dreaming of you after months and months without an update.
Trust me. I'm very sorry.
Thanks goes out to the people who put this on their alert list even though it was so short last chapter.
So to make up for that I'm bringing you a chapter that's longer than any chapter I've ever written for you guys before.
(Don 't you love me?)
Anyways...
"Talking"
thinking
Disclaimer: I don't own naruto. I do own one of the volumes and a few copies of shonen jump though.
Enjoy!
Chapter One: Yume
Trust.
Trust is the foundation of a relationship.
The base upon which it is built.
And, if there are problems, what keeps it alive.
Sakura Haruno had no trust left to give.
All the times she'd ever trusted she'd been stabbed in the back...
And it'd all begun with a stone bench and drying tears.
Or maybe it had started before that and she'd just never noticed, too busy with Sasuke to notice anything.
Nowadays thoughts of him made her scoff at how foolish she was when she was still a member of team seven.
But those days were over now and there was no going back.
Now she hid her face behind an ANBU mask, she no longer felt comfortable without her uniform.
Things change, people most of all.
And everything revolved around that stupid bench.
The one she was sitting on now.
The one he'd left her on.
She rubbed her arms as a sudden chill entered the air. "What are you doing here?"
The man jumped down from the tree he had been perched in. "Do you have such a problem with me being here, Ugly?"
"Why is it that you can never call me by name?" Sakura snapped. "I do have one you know, it's Sa-ku-ra."
"I know what your name is, Ugly. I just like my nickname for you much better."
She scowled at him. "I swear I should've killed you long before now."
"But if you killed me then who would be your precious Sasuke's replacement? What would team seven be without me?"
BAM!
A chakra laden fist sent him flying into a tree with a satisfying snap. "Ass."
He groaned and stood up, rubbing his back. "You pack quite a punch Ugly."
She rubbed her knuckles and glared at him. "Like I said, what are you doing here, Sai?"
"Hokage-sama wants you and your team for a mission."
"I assume you already got them?"
"Hai."
"Couldn't she have just sent a bird?" she muttered in annoyance, looking one last time at Sai before disappearing in a flurry of petals.
Sai was left staring at the patch of ground where she had just been standing.
He let his gaze wander to the bench she'd been sitting on and his eyes hardened, a surprising show of emotion. "Quite a punch indeed, Sakura."
Tsunade cursed and threw a now-empty sake bottle at the wall. It shattered into a million pieces and the ANBU team in front of her flinched.
The great wooden doors to her office shuddered open and Shizune poked her head in. "Sakura's on her way here Tsunade-Sama."
Tsunade gave a curt nod, dismissing her and turned her chair to face the window. Sakura was a lot like her old sensei. She used the windows, not the doors.
True to Shizune's word, Sakura arrived in less than two minutes, landing nimbly on the windowsill.
"You needed me Tsunade-shishou?" She nodded absently to her team, acknowledging their presence as she slipped into the room.
Tsunade swung her chair back around to face the team once again. "Hai. Thank you all for coming even though you just got back yesterday from a mission. Unfortunately with the constant threat to Konoha by Taka and the Akatsuki as well as the deaths of many good shinobi our forces are stretched extremely thin." The names hung heavy in the air and the Hokage was silent for a few moments. Asuma and Jiraiya would be missed.
She shook her head to clear the dark thoughts and massaged the bridge of her nose. "Anyways...I need you all to retrieve a scroll for me."
Sakura was confused. An entire ANBU squad for just one scroll? A chunin alone could do such a mission normally. "What is so important about this scroll that requires an entire team to be sent to retrieve it?"
Tsunade sighed, clasping her hands in front of her on the desk. "This scroll is rumored to contain the secrets to Orochimaru's curse seal jutsu. As such we cannot allow it to fall into the hands of anyone else."
At the mention of Orochimaru, everyone in the room stiffened, Sakura's eyes visibly narrowed, and the temperature of the room dropped a few degrees. Sasuke had gone to Orochimaru. Sasuke was a topic best never even hinted at around Sakura.
The room was silent for a few moments before Sakura once again spoke up. "That still doesn't explain why an entire team is being sent. You said yourself that our forces are stretched thin."
Tsunade sighed and shook her head. "How do you think we heard about this scroll. Rumors. This rumor has spread and many shinobi would kill to have the secrets contained in that scroll. Many powerful shinobi will be after the team who retrieves that scroll. It will be safe within the village but until it's here it's fair game."
Satisfied, Sakura nodded. "Then I suppose we must keep it safe at all costs. We should leave to prepare. We'll meet at the gates at dawn. Until then?"
Her team nodded their heads each turning to walk from the room. She moved to follow but was called back by Tsunade.
"Sakura."
"Hai, Tsunade-shishou?"
"If it comes down to it...I don't give a damn about that scroll. My apprentice comes back alive."
Sakura was silent for a few moments before nodding. "Hai." She turned to leave but was once again stopped.
"Sakura. I mean it. If you have to choose between you coming back or the scroll coming back you pick you. We can always retrieve the scroll later."
A small smile curved Sakura's lips. "Hai."
As she pushed open the doors and walked out into the hall Tsunade watched with worried eyes for, after all, they both knew that, if it came to down to it, she'd pick the scroll.
Sakura slowly meandered her way through the back roads of Konoha. The streets were empty by this hour and the air hung heavy in silence, as if the world were holding its breath. She sighed, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her black shinobi pants. "You can come out now Kakashi-sensei."
There was a small 'tk' sound as he landed softly on the pavement behind her, falling into step at her side. "Yo. How long did it take you to realize I was there?"
"Well you've been following me for about six blocks as far as I could tell."
"Ooo. You're getting better." His one visible eye crinkled at the edge, the only sign that he was smiling. " But actually, I've been following you for eight."
She turned to face him, a smile breaking through her emotionless mask. "Ne, Kakashi-sensei, hasn't anyone ever told you it's bad to lie?"
He pause, his eye crinkling again. "What makes you think I'm lying?"
"Well, it's just that, you've actually been following me for only 7 blocks."
He reached out and ruffled her hair like she was a child again. "Right you are. Very good, Sakura."
She started walking again, her mask sliding back into place. "So did you just get back from a mission?"
He nodded, matching her pace. "What about you?"
"I got back yesterday."
"When's your next mission?"
"I leave tomorrow at dawn."
"Already? You barely got a full days rest. You're still in your uniform."
"Our forces are stretched thin. You know that."
"But that doesn't mean your team couldn't wait at least one more day for this mission."
"Some things, Kakashi-sensei, cannot be put off until tomorrow."
He sighed, pulling out a copy of Icha Icha. "I know."
And that was the end of their conversation. They walked together in silence for some time until their paths split. Each of them tossed a lazy wave over their shoulder as they went their separate ways, because ,after all, no matter how close you may be to someone, everyone has to take a different path eventually.
Sakura returned to awareness with the sound of an awful beeping.
Her alarm clock was going off.
She rolled over and fixed the problem with a fist.
That alarm clock would never ring again. How could it? After all, it was in pieces.
She groaned, slipping from bed with stiff muscles. She'd been up late last night pouring over the information for the mission today.
According to their information the scroll was being kept in a small village on the edge of Fire's border with Sound that meant about two and a half days travel for her and her team.
Supposedly only a few high-level shinobi were guarding the scroll but Sakura was still suspicious. Why would Tsunade send a whole team of ANBU if it looked as though only two could handle it? Even if there were high-level shinobi who would be after it after it was retrieved it still didn't make sense.
She looked out her window to ascertain how much time she had left until dawn. Figuring she only had a few minutes she grabbed her pack and disappeared in a flurry of petals.
Kei groaned, elbowing Akito in the side. "If we weren't supposed to meet until dawn why were we here a half an hour early?"
Akito shot him a glare. "Because if by some chance Sakura-sama arrived before us then we would be considered late, remember what happened when Shinto was late?"
Each of them shuddered but Kei pressed on. "But Sakura-sama's like Kakashi-sensei. She's always late."
Akito sighed. "Yes, yes 'caught on the road of life' or 'helped deliver a baby' and all that although, for all we know, the latter could be true."
"Could be, but most likely isn't." This was a new voice, belonging to yet another man.
"Eh? Shinto! You're early, that's a first." Kei blinked at him for a few moments before receiving a haughty retort.
"But I'm still here before her."
"Don't be so sure. Don't you children know it's rude to gossip?" The three snapped to attention at the sound of a female voice, turning to face the gates and Sakura, who was now leaning against them. "If I was an enemy you all would be dead. Learn from your mistake, you must be aware at all times."
All three gulped and nodded stiffly, each thinking of how glad they were that she was on their side. God have mercy on their enemies, because she would not.
They were resting.
Well, most of them were.
Sakura was awake.
She'd volunteered to take the first watch and really had no intention of waking any of them up for them to replace her.
After all they were at an inn, there were only two possible entrances to their room and Sakura was confident that she would be able to handle anyone who came through either one of them.
She sighed and hugged herself. She'd become cold although the air didn't carry the least bit of chill. She'd been cold for years now. It was no longer physical, the cold had seeped through her flesh and buried itself deep within her heart. Ever since they'd left her behind, just like everyone else had.
The only people who hadn't given up on her were Tsunade and Kakashi. Even her parents had given up on her, stopped pestering her to visit whenever they saw her at the market or in the flower shop.
She'd even lost sight of herself for a time. It'd gotten so bad she'd stopped eating, didn't show up for her hospital shifts or training, didn't even answer her phone or the door. It had been Kakashi who'd found her collapsed on her bedroom floor.
She still remembered his face as he'd been shaking her, even with his mask and forehead protector, she could see the pure terror on his face, thinking he was losing someone important yet again.
Tsunade and Kakashi hadn't left her alone since then, ever since she'd woken up in the hospital they'd been watching her, making sure she ate, going so far as to invite themselves over for dinner at least once a week. Kakashi had actually taken her out to eat and paid quite a few times.
Even knowing how worried they were she just couldn't bring herself to care. So she'd put on a mask to cover exactly how heartless and truly broken she'd become.
Nowadays she wondered if that emotionless mask really was a mask. She was pretty sure that she wasn't the only one.
She turned to look at the bed and smiled as Akito blinked wearily at her. "Sakura-sama you really had no intention to wake anyone up, did you?"
Her smile became slightly wistful and she turned, walking to the window. "No. No I didn't."
He rolled from the bed and to his feet walking over next to her and slinging an arm around her shoulders. "Well that's okay Sakura-sama. I'll stay up with you."
She turned giving him a condescending look. "You need your rest."
"And so do you. But we'll both be able to function without it."
Sakura shook her head. "Point made, now shut up and guard the door."
He grinned at her before moving to do as he was told and she couldn't help but to shoot him a small smile, after all she was grateful for his company.
Sakura blinked against a spray of blood as she jammed her kunai into the shoulder of the shinobi who was attacking her. He wore a sound forehead protector and would be useful for information so she didn't kill him. Instead she used her green glowing hands to hit a few pressure points and send him into unconsciousness.
She turned finding that her teammates had taken care of the other two shinobi, although not in the way she had. You only needed one survivor to get information.
"So which one of you volunteers to go carry him back to Konoha?" Sakura hoisted the unconscious man up by his collar, shaking her head against their protests. "Ah, Shinto thanks for offering." He'd been the one who'd groaned the loudest. It was almost funny the face he'd made when she'd tossed the man over to him like he weighed nothing.
Shinto had been knocked off his feet, but nonetheless he'd picked himself and the man up and turned back for Konoha, following orders.
Sakura turned and surveyed the area. "The village should be just ahead. It's probably abandoned since we crossed the sound border a few miles back. Remember what I said back in Konoha. You must always be aware of your surroundings. One little slip could mean you're dead."
The two men nodded and each of them split up, heading a different way toward the village.
Sakura fingered a senbon needle, observing the village carefully from a treetop perch. There were seven chakra signatures, two were obviously Akito and Kei, but the other five had to be the scroll's guardians.
Their chakra levels weren't really that special, barely even matching up to Akito or Kei and nowhere near hers. Now she was confused, if these were the scroll's guardians then why were they so low level?
She pulled out the mission scroll and looked again at the passage about the scroll's guardians. A few high level ninja? Not so much.
Putting it back into her back she came to the conclusion that the scroll actually wasn't guarded, then those other five chakra signatures had to be people after the scroll.
They'd split up by now and she smirked. Two were coming her way and they deserved her warmest welcome.
Akito heard the first explosion from where Sakura had gone and knew she'd met up with some ninja. He caught a piece of rubble before it hit his head and jumped down from his own perch on a rooftop, wielding a katana.
One of the ninja below was killed instantly. Like Sakura-sama said, even one moment of distraction could mean you were dead.
The second ninja was smarter than his dead companion and had jumped to the side to avoid the weapon. He blocked the second swing but was unable to avoid the swift punch to the abdomen Akito delivered.
While he was still reeling from that, Akito sent an elbow into his adams apple and slit the man's throat while he was choking.
He leaned down and wiped the blood off his blade on the first dead ninja as the second explosion sounded from over where Sakura was, he scanned the area swiftly and, satisfied that there were no more ninja began to head toward the scroll's location according to map.
Kei twisted quickly to avoid the shuriken thrown at him and lifted his kunai to block yet another. This was getting tiresome, he'd been dodging weapons for the last three minutes. Didn't this person ever run out of ammo?
He leapt from the roof and flipped to the ground in front of the person, slamming a palm into their chest. They choked for a minute, giving him wide eyes. He smiled cruelly as they fell, a small stream of blood trickling down their chin.
"Chishio Tetsu" It was his Kekkai Genkai. His family wasn't originally from Konoha, quite a few generations back they'd moved from stone. They'd been a shinobi family there and he was the only one since then who'd discovered their kekkai genkai.
He'd ruptured one of their lungs with their own blood, speeding up the flow and forming a sharp iron spike within their blood stream, sending it up to their brain. It'd been a quick and painful death, but then again those shuriken had annoyed him to no end.
He pushed off the ground, jumping back onto the rooftop and running towards their destination, sensing Akito doing the same.
"How do you think Shinji and Taka are doing?" The voice floated to Sakura on the wind.
"Shut you moron! You're almost as bad as Aya. Do you want to alert anyone of our presence?"
"Oh come on captain, this village's abandoned. There's no one here."
"Listen you idiot we aren't the only people after that scroll, so shut up."
"But-" He never got to finish, the ground at his feet exploding in front of him and making him jump back.
A few nearby houses crumbled under the force of the shaking, the captain was shouting, and he couldn't see. Then there was a flash of pink and he threw up a kunai, blocking one of the girl's fans. It was the other one that took him out.
The captain turned just in time to see his partner fall. Eh the idiot was too naive anyway.
He threw a kunai, jumping above the rubble and dust to land on a tree branch, squinting into the clouds of dirt for his opponent.
The second explosion was followed by the sound of the tree splintering beneath him.
Sakura landed on the ground next to her two teammates, shaking the dust from her clothes and hair.
"Did you have fun Sakura-sama?" Akito asked dryly.
She grinned mischievously. "Yeah. One of them just wouldn't stop talking, it covered my approach wonderfully. What about you two?"
"One of mine fell on the first blow, the other one was easy. It was rather disappointing."
"Pft. Mine kept throwing shuriken at me, I swear he had an infinite supply. It was terrible." Kie whined.
His two teammates shared a glance before they burst out laughing.
"What? Why are you laughing? Shut up!" His face was turning red, making them laugh harder.
Finally, Sakura straightened, wiping her eyes. "Well..." she coughed to disguise another laugh. "Let's go get that scroll huh?"
She kicked in the door to the house in front of them, scanning the room before stepping in.
The room was sparse with only a small table in the middle of the room. The scroll was positioned exactly in the center of the table.
Sakura blinked for a few moments, stepping forward to pick it up and open it. She read the first two lines out loud. "The History of The Dream Walkers. Also known as Yuurei."
She stared at the scroll for a few moments, going over those lines again. "What the hell?"
And then the world went dark.
"Sakura-chan? What are you doing here? Wait a minute. Where is here?"
"Hn. Shut up dobe, you're too noisy."
Sakura blinked, seeing Naruto standing over her with a worried look. She sat up and looked around seeing Sasuke leaning against a wall.
"Okay. What the hell am I doing here? I was just on a mission. Oh I get it. I must have passed out. This is just another stupid Nightmare."
Well. That's the end of this chapter.
Was this an evil cliffhanger?
And I'm sorry about all the page breakss, I'll try to have less next chapter.
A small crash course in Japanese:
Yume Dream
Chishio Blood
Tetsu Iron
Hai yes
I'm pretty sure that's all that's really important.
Anyways...
Please read and review I'd love you forever if you did.
Witty Comment of the Day: Has anyone honestly tried to count how many licks it takes to get to the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop? I can say I am one of those losers who did. I got in like 350-ish licks before I gave up because I was bored. Well that's ADD for-hey look a bird!
-God's Broken Dreamer