Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or its characters or anything belonging to Naruto. Those belong to Masashi Kishimoto. (The only ones I own are the ones I make up in this story.)
Summary: Beginning takes place during timeskip Sakura was awaiting her friends' return home, but when he does not show up when he said he would, she begins to worry. So Sakura goes out on an epic journey to find her beloved friend, hoping that it is not too late to tell him the truth about her true feelings toward him. NaruSaku
A/N: Sorry for the summary, it is a little confusing…. Pretty much the first (or first few) chapter(s) take place during the timeskip, and the summary begins after the timeskip is over. Also right now, Naruto has been gone for about 3 months (just to give you an idea of how much time has passed) I will probably change my summary sooner or later, once my story develops a little. Oh and sorry no romance yet, but i will get there eventually...
'Thoughts/Flashbacks''InnerSakura/Kyuubi'
"Jutsu Name"
"Normal Speech""And goodbye Konoha!" was the last words he said before leaving with that…that…that man!' Haruno Sakura thought walking towards the Hokage's office for her training session. 'I swear if he becomes anything like that lecherous sensei of his I'll just…'
"HELP THIEF!" yelled the owner of the local dango shop.
'Huh?' Sakura thought while looking up. 'Oh Shit!'
Currently the thief was running towards the village gates. He was running like any regular man would, so Sakura thought it would be pretty easy to take him down.
'Meh, it'll be a warm-up for my training session with Tsunade-shishou later' Sakura said to herself trying to give this chase at least a slight bit of enthusiasm.
She quickly caught up to the man right at the gates and stopped right in front of him. "Alright there, just give the money back and you won't have to get hurt,' Sakura warned the man. The man started moving his hand holding the money towards Sakura. "That's right, there's no need for this to get troubles… URK!" Sakura yelped falling onto her back.
' 'The hell just happened!' Sakura wondered.
When she looked up, she saw the man grinning at her. 'It was him!' she thought. 'But… how in the world did I get hit by a common thief! and I didn't even see the punch!'
Sakura got up, wiping some blood off of her lip. 'No point in healing my lip, kicking this guy's ass is top priority right now for making a fool out of me!'
'Shannaro! That's right! This guy's ass is dying to be pummeled by us!' Inner Sakura roared!
Putting on her gloves, Sakura smirked. "That was a cheap shot you did right now, but you won't get another one!" she yelled charging at the man.
'Alright concentrate Sakura, this is just like training with Tsunade-shishou,' Sakura told herself thinking back in her first intense training session with the Godaime Hokage…
1 Week Earlier…
"Alright Sakura now that you've gotten the hang out of most of the basic medical ninjutsus, it's time we start on the other part of your training" Tsunade, the Godaime Hokage, said to her current apprentice.
'Other part?' Sakura pondered. "Um…Tsunade-shishou?" Sakura asked her teacher.
"What is it Sakura?" Tsunade replied.
"Other part? I thought that the only thing to becoming a medic-nin was learning medical ninjutsu"
"Nope! All Medic-nins go through 2 parts of training: Medical-Ninjutsu training, and basic battle skills." Tsunade explained.
"But shishou, I already went through basic battle skills at the academy, and I've been in numerous fights (well maybe not been in the fights, but she doesn't really need to know that…)" Sakura said.
"I know Sakura…but you've never actually been in those fights, have you?"
'Shit!' Sakura cursed. "H-h-how did you kn-n-n-know?"
Tsunade grinned evilly. "You just told me"
Sakura sweat-dropped. 'Shannaro! I'll beat her ass to the ground!'
"Anyway! I know that you have basic battle skills, but I'm not going to be teaching you those" Tsunade said to her student. "I'll be teaching you some highly advanced Taijutsu!"
"Taijutsu? It isn't anything like Lee's Taijutsu, is it?" Sakura asked half-scared at the thought of how much training would be doing, and half-excited at how much stronger she'll get.
"Nope!" Tsunade beamed. "Here let me show you…"
And with that Tsunade lifted her right leg and brought it down onto the ground, shattering it all within a 30-foot radius. Sakura's eyes pretty much flew out of her eye sockets when seeing what the Godaime just did.
"And that was only a fraction of what I can really do, if I actually tried you might've been hurt from the gravel popping out of the ground." Tsunade said to Sakura.
"Y-y-y-y-your going to be teaching me that!" Sakura asked with every amount of hope her voice could let on.
"Yes" Tsunade answered.
"Shannaro! Let's begin right now Tsunade-shishou!" Sakura yelled gleefully.
Tsunade raised an eyebrow. "Shannaro?" she asked.
"Er…never mind that, let's just begin" Sakura said quickly. 'Where the hell did that come from! My inner-self usually says that not me! I'll have to look into that later…'
"Okay…Alright Sakura we'll begin," Tsunade began. "First you need to build up the maximum amount of chakra into the place you will attacking with, for example your fist or your leg. After building up your chakra up into the desired place, quickly release all of it in an instant! Did you get all of that Sakura?"
"I think so shishou…but what do you want me to use first? My fists or Legs?" asked Sakura.
"Start off using your fists, that's that easiest to start off with." Tsunade answered. "Alright Sakura now just give it a try"
Sakura nodded. Clenching her right hand into a fist, Sakura starts to concentrate. 'Okay build up the maximum amount of chakra…'She started bring her fist down in an arc. '…And RELEASE!" As soon as she said release, her fist hit the ground leaving a small cloud of smoke.
"OW!" Sakura yelped shaking her pained hand.
When the smoke finally cleared from the impact, a small crater about a foot in size was left behind.
Tsunade whistled. "Pretty good for your first try Sakura, you should probably heal your hand before it bruises, instead of shaking it…"
Sakura stopped shaking her hand, and started healing it. "It really was good?" Sakura asked the Hokage.
"Yup, considering it was your first try…" Tsunade began to laugh. "Hahahaha. Good thing you have near-perfect chakra control, or else your hand would probably be broken right now… Although that would've been good practice for you, trying to mend broken bones while wounded…"
"Yeah…hahaha…"Sakura laughed dryly. Clenching and unclenching her fist numerous times, Sakura said, "Alright Tsunade-shishou, I'm ready to try again"
"All right Sakura try again, but before you do that here," Tsunade said while tossing over a pair of fingerless-gloves. "Those will help reduce the amount of pain that comes to your hand after the impact by a lot"
Sakura stared at the gloves. She looked up at the Hokage and said, "And you didn't give me these gloves sooner because…?
"Well I needed to see if you could and how fast you could heal your hand. Congratulations! You did both things well," Tsunade said smiling at Sakura "Well get up and try again Sakura!"
Sakura just stared at her teacher 'Sigh… these years of training are going to be really long…" she thought while getting up.
"Oh! And one other thing, Today is an easy day, starting tomorrow training will become a lot tougher." Tsunade told her student.
'I knew she was going to say something like that…' thought Sakura letting her head droop. Letting her thoughts on training get back to her, she finally started to concentrate.
'Ah well, here it goes again' and at that she aimed to punch the ground once again…
"Shannaro!" Sakura yelled as she punched the man in his chest. The thing Sakura would've expected to happen was he flying towards the other direction. Unfortunately for her, it did not… Instead the man just stood there, staring at the fist pressed against his chest.
"Is this all that Konoha's kunoichis can do? If so then I am highly disappointed," The thief said to her.
'What happened? I know I built up the right amount of chakra and…SHIT! I forgot to release it quic-"OOF!"
The man had just punched Sakura right in her gut. "cough, who the hell are you?" Sakura asked the man while coughing up some blood. "No ordinary… thief can take… down a ninja!"
"Lucky for you I am not here to kill here to kill you, or else you'd be dead right now," said the man.
"What the…hell are you…talking about?" Sakura gasped out clutching her stomach.
"Tsk, Tsk, Tsk," A feminine voice said from the top of the gates. "I am highly disappointed in you Sakura…"
"Who's there!" Sakura yelled out.
"It's me Sakura," said Tsunade jumping down from the top of the gates.
"Tsunade-shishou! That man over there! He-"
"Is one of my assistants," The Godaime said finishing Sakura's sentence. "You can release that henge now Kotetsu"
"Phew!" The man now known as Kotetsu said as he released his henge. "It was an honor in helping you train your apprentice, Hokage-sama"
"Training? You mean this was all a set-up just to see how far I've come?" Sakura asked.
"Pretty much" Tsunade answered. "I was just seeing if you could do a chakra-enhanced punch in a battle situation. By the looks of what I saw, it seems you can't"
"I almost had it!" Sakura told her teacher. "I just didn't release my chakra fast enough! If I had Kotetsu-san would've been blown away!"
"Actually he would've died…" said Tsunade, who was looking at Kotetsu.
He sweat-dropped. "You neglected to mention that fact Hokage-sama… All you said to me when you asked me to help you train your apprentice was that I might get a slight bruise and that's it"
"I was right wasn't I?" said the Fifth. "No harm has come to you so what are you complaining about?"
"N-nothing Hokage-sama…" Kotetsu answered.
"Alright then Kotetsu you are dismissed for the rest of the day," Tsunade ordered Kotetsu.
"Hai Hokage-sama!" and with that Kotetsu disappeared out of sight.
"Well Sakura, are you just going to sit there, and let your stomach bruise up or are you going to heal it?" asked the Godaime.
"Oh shit!" Sakura said while tending to her stomach.
"Um…Tsunade-shishou? Why did you decide to test me so soon after my first lesson?" Sakura had asked her teacher.
"Just to see if we could move onto the next level of your Taijutsu training, but I guess you're not ready yet," Tsunade answered. "That just means you need to train harder!"
Sakura stiffened. 'Dammit…She's going to work the hell out of me today…
"Alright for your warm-up you're to run a marathon around the village for an hour!" Tsunade ordered. "Now hop to it young lady!"
Sakura got up and began to run.
"Oh! Before I forget, when you get back, you're to do 200 push-ups and sit-ups! This will become your warm-up routine everyday from now on!" Tsunade yelled. "Oh and you can thank Gai and Lee-san for this wonderful warm-up routine after training!"
'Note to Self: Slowly Torture Gai-sensei and Lee-san...' Inner Sakura said while thinking of the many ways of what she could do to them.
'Sigh…I wonder how Naruto's training has been going? He's probably learned a lot of new Justus so far…'
"DAMN THAT ERO-SENNIN!" yelled out a certain orange-clad ninja who was currently thrashing through the city streets.
'Hey kit, you should probably calm down a little bit. People are starting stare…' said Kyuubi, The Nine-Tailed Demon Fox.
'Shut up! You don't know how fucking annoying it is to wake up everyday and see ero-sennin missing along with a good chunk of my money missing from gama-chan!'(A/N: um I think that's what he calls his wallet…) said Uzumaki Naruto.
'Actually kit, I do! It's about as annoying as hearing you bitch about it everyday!' roared Kyuubi.
Naruto sweat-dropped. 'Shut up! You'd bitch too if you were in my position!'
'And so would you if you were in mine!'Kyuubi yelled back.
'Shut up…' Naruto said as he finally noticed all the lingering eyes that were upon him.
"Um… Sorry bout that everybody! I was just looking for someone!" Naruto said grinning.
'Smooth kit, real smooth'
"You see…the person I was looking for stole some money from me and I was just…" Naruto stopped talking at the sight of everybody going back to their own business.
'Tch…how rude…' Naruto thought as he started walking off. 'Now! If I were ero-sennin where would I be…'
5 minutes later…
"Dammit! How can't I find him! I've checked every brothel in this city!"
"Heeheeheehee!" said a very familiar voice.
"Sigh…how could I forget to check the bathhouses…" Naruto said as he ran toward the familiar voice. When he got there, he started to look around. 'Hmm if I were peeping, where would I hide…' and at that he saw a blur among the trees. 'Ah ha!'
"ERO-SENNIN YOU PEEPING TOM!" Naruto yelled as loud as he could.
"EEEEK!" screamed every woman as they ran out of the baths and into the cabin.
The Man in the trees face fell. "Dammit! Naruto you idiot! You just ruined a perfect opportunity for me to gather some research!" yelled Jiraiya, The Gama-Sennin and Naruto's current sensei.
"Yeah I know, and now that you're done with your research you can finally teach me something!" replied Naruto grinning.
"Geez… All right fine! Here let's go into the bath first…" Jiraiya told his student.
"Ero-sennin… I said train not gathering 'research'" Naruto said glaring at The Gama-Sennin.
"Idiot! This is for training! You're going to be learning some water jutsus," Jiraiya barked.
"Oh…"said Naruto. "My bad!"
Jiraiya and Naruto started walking toward the hot springs. When they got there, Jiraiya started doing some quick hand seals. "Suiton: Suikodan no Jutsu!" He shouted as the water rose up into to the form of a shark. Naruto looked amazed at the sight of it. Suddenly the shark shot toward Naruto. Naruto was about to move but the shark just stopped in front of him.
"Um…Ero-Sennin? Why did yo-" Naruto was cut-off by the shark exploding right in front of him. "OW!"
Jiraiya began to laugh.
"What….. the……fuck….was…..that….for!" Naruto said while rolling on the ground.
"Okay first of all: you should've expected that. Remember a ninja must look underneath the underneath." Jiraiya explained. "And second of all, you deserve that for calling me ero-sennin all the time!"
"Well it's not my fault that you are!" Naruto yelled back as he got up. "Anyway, that's the jutsu I'm going to be learning?"
"Yup! You saw the hand-seals that I did right?" Jiraiya asked. Naruto nodded. "Alright there's really only rule when doing this thing. That rule is to concentrate. Without Concentration the shark will blow up right in front of you."
"Yeah Yeah…" Naruto told his sensei. "Let me just try this jutsu already!"
"Alright fine," Jiraiya said as he pulled out an umbrella.
Quickly, Naruto performed each and every one of the hand-seals Jiraiya had performed earlier. "Suiton: Suikodan no Jutsu!" he yelled out! Just like when Jiraiya performed it, a large shark formed up from the water. But instead of it blowing up when Naruto had wanted it to, the shark blew up right in front of him. "SHIT!" he said as he was rolling on the ground once again.
Jiraiya just laughed as he closed his umbrella. "See? I told you it would blow up in front of you if you didn't concentrate…"
"Dammit! What's the point of me learning water Jutsus anyway? I'll only be able to use them near water anyway!" Naruto yelled.
"You moron. water Jutsus would be the ideal thing for you to learn to fight against that Uchiha brat." Jiraiya replied.
"Um…why…?"
Jiraiya sweat dropped. "Ya know, you can be really dense sometimes…anyway the reason it would be ideal for you to learn is because that Uchiha brat will be using a lot of fire jutsus."
"Oh! Now that I think about it, he did use a lot of fire Jutsus!" Naruto said. "And me using water Jutsus help me against all of his fire Jutsus?"
"Pretty much…there are more elemental jutsus that you can learn to counter fire jutsus but we'll concentrate on water for now…" Jiraiya said. "Anyway, try the jutsu again, and this time actually try and concentrate…"
"Shut up…" Naruto said as he performed the proper-hand-seals. "Suiton: Suikodan no Jutsu!" Once again, the water from the baths rose up into the form of a shark, but instead of exploding right away, it floated in front of him. "Hey! Ero-Sennin look I did it!" Naruto yelled at a now absent Jiraiya. "Huh? Where the hell did he go!"
Jiraiya was currently right by the fence of the women's bath. "HeeHeeHee!"
" Damn that Ero-Sennin..." Said Naruto as he glared at the perverted man. Just then an idea hit Naruto. "Heh heh heh" Naruto then sent his shark towards Jiraiya. "Hey! Ero-Sennin! Look over here!" As soon as Jiraiya turned around the shark exploded.
"GAH!" Jiraiya yelled.
"EEEK!" once again screamed every woman inside the baths.
"Dammit Naruto!" Jiraiya Screamed.
"Serves you right…"
'Nice Job Kit, but I think you should start running now…' Kyuubi said.
'Why?' asked his container.
'Can't you feel the intense killing intent?'
'So that's what that is…' said Naruto. "Shit run!"
'What the hell is that brat talking about?' Jiraiya thought.
"SO YOU'RE THE ONE WHO'S BEEN PEEPING AT US!" screamed just about everyone women that were in the baths.
'Fuck…' Jiraiya said as all the gorgeous women pummeled him to the ground.
A/N: Woohoo! First chapter complete! I tried to make this chapter a little longer, but I felt that it should end right here. Ha sorry if some parts were confusing I have pretty bad grammar skills but i used a beta-reader and i spell checked so it should be fine...Still sorry if it is not Anyway next chapter will be at least twice as long! Well hope you guys liked it, and thank you for reading!
Glossary
Henge: a basic transformation. The user will transform into pretty much anything he/she wants.
Taijutsu: Hand-to-Hand combat. Think martial arts.
Suiton: Suikodan no Jutsu: Means Water Release: Water Shark Missile. Basically when this technique is performed, a large shark pops out of the water, and explodes at the users will.
Jutsu: Means Technique.