Prologue: A Nightmare
A nightmare, the bane of my dreams, had been haunting me, ever since the day I had seen it. Those files, those people, and Tsunade-sama, telling me that she could not do anything about the past, and that the present was quickly running through her fingers, and into the greedy, grasping claws of the elders. She saw the different things in that room, and she could not get them out of her head.
The real reason Uchiha Itachi destroyed the clan, and had to flee. After all, the village can only cover up completed assignments, and, obviously, someone was left alive.
The real reason that the ninjas from the other village tried to kidnap and kill Hinata, then asked for the "eye for an eye" exchange. Why the other twin was actually ordered to willingly walk to his death.
The real reason that Naruto wasn't taken in like so many other orphans, why he was not taken to the orphanage, and why no family, or person was allowed to take him in.
Sakura sat up, and stared at the wall of her apartment, tears beginning to glisten in her eyes as she stared at the plain white painted-over plaster. The worst is that she had sworn never to tell anyone, just like any ANBU captain had. At eighteen, she had finally made Captain, and had been regretting it ever since they had told her she could read from the scrolls in the Hokage's library, when she had found all that information.
The nightmares had started the night she read them. She thought that they would go away. A ninja's greatest attribute is their ability to process and adapt to new information. She should have gotten over it.
But she didn't.
How could she really? Her former crush, yes former, wanted to kill his brother for a lie written in their text books that was corrected in a book owned by the government. The reason her best friend ever was so lonely as a child was because it was ordered, to make him more emotionally strong, and independent, because the demon-fox would make him weak with its need for a pack, and, later on, a mate.
She had had nightmares about him finding out that she knew, and never told him. Or that Sasuke would come back, and then tell her he hated her, because she knew, and he had already killed his onii-san.
But then she would wake up, and Itachi was not dead, and Sasuke had not come back, and Naruto was his normal, happy-go lucky, knuckle head self.
She would cry, then she would get up, and act like nothing had happened. She would say hi to Naruto, go on missions, work at the hospital, meet with Ino for lunch sometimes, or even train with Hinata for an hour or two.
But she couldn't help feeling that it was all a lie. A terrible, terrible lie.
Honestly, she so wanted to walk up to Tsunade and tell her the truth. To tell her she couldn't stand it, that she wanted to leave. But she couldn't. She would get her master's attention, and then the words would catch in her throat, and she would excuse it as nothing.
She couldn't leave as Sasuke had either. Stealing away in the night in that manner had been overly cowardly. She couldn't stand the way he had left, and wouldn't leave the people to pine over her as she, Naruto, and a few others had over Sasuke.
So, she had to tell them. Somehow. Somewhere.
She knew how to.
She could do it.
She looked at the four, neatly written letters on her desk, and the summoning scroll lying next to it. She walked over to the desk, and slid her hand over each, column of neat, precise symbols, her mind reading each letter: Dear Tsunade-sama, Dear Shizune-san, Dear Naruto-kun, and even Dear Sasuke-kun, was stated at the head. The summon she had in mind would find Sasuke, and make sure he read it, and would do the same for Tsunade-sama, Shizune-chan, and Naruto, before returning to it's scroll and lying dormant until she needed it again.
Honestly, how bad would it be, to finally be able to tell them she was going bonkers here? She would give them a good reason, at least to her, and she would keep to her vow to never tell anyone.
She stared out the window, over the sleeping houses, with people all snuggled up in their beds or futons, dreaming about becoming a ninja, or dreaming about their next mission, or even just meeting up with friends tomorrow. They were all safe, because of little, itty-bitty white lies. How could she even attempt to take that away from them? She couldn't.
She had always told herself she wouldn't ever run from her problems. That she would never be anything like Sasuke.
Yet here she was, already biting down on her finger to draw the blood. Sakura thought for a few seconds, then shrugged, she'd be useless with the way her conscience was acting up right now anyway.
The blood smeared across the scroll easily enough as she made her hand signs, and moments after she placed her hands to the floor, there was a light puff of smoke, and a nicely sized large cat popped up.
The cat looked over at her, then blinked twice.
"You woke me up," the cat told her.
"Well, I'm sorry, but this can't wait," Sakura told her. "I need to do this before my courage fails me yet again."
The cat blinked, then bowed her head, providing easy access to the collar around her neck, with several small, circular tubes on it specifically designed to hold messages.
Sakura slipped the letters into the openings, kissing the cat on the forehead.
"Thanks, Hana," she whispered to the cat.
"You'd better stay out of trouble." The cat responded, then she walked off and disappeared, her dark fur blending in with the shadows as soon as she jumped out of the window.
Sakura stood and walked over to her bed, reaching underneath the mattress to grab the rather large pack she had stored there. In it was a moderately warm jacket, two sets of her uniform, and two sets of civilian clothes, and enough food to last her for a three days, which would be all the time it would take for her to reach her destination: the village hidden in the stones.
She figured no one would recognize her there, as she had never been there before, and as Tsunade-sama didn't particularly like them, so there was not much communication between the two villages. Also, since Deidara had originated from that village, it was much less likely the Akatsuki would show up.
Sakura took out a map from the drawer of her night stand and shoved it into the pack as last minutes add in. After all, it would be both logical and illogical for the Akatsuki to have a base there, and they specialized in the unexpected.
Sakura put the keys to her apartment under her pillow, and stacked her ANBU uniform at the foot of the bed. She hoped she would never even see one of those things again, let alone wear one.
As she went to go out the window, she looked back over the simple, small apartment and sighed. Turning, she jumped out of the window and landed on her feet, before taking off through the streets of Konoha, out of the town.
Ten minutes later, she was at her "escape point." After Sasuke and various other ninja had left, security on the gate had gone up. But Sakura didn't need a gate to get out. Being Tsunade-sama's apprentice paid off, as she found out later, in more ways than one.
When Tsunade had been assessing the damage of the attacks, they had found a large crack in the wall surrounding the village, but it wasn't considered a large enough threat to really repair. No one would think to look in the middle of no where for a way into Konoha. It was just absurd.
Sakura looked over her shoulder as she used the crevice to leave her home town behind, feeling like one of the corny people in a drama movie. Then she walked all the way through, and began to run North West, towards the village hidden in the stones, leaving four letters, and a lot of "unanswered" questions in her wake.
Itachi and Kisame glared at the new building they were moving into. It was to be their current base, and Deidara would be meeting with them soon to help show them around town. As foolish as Akatsuki may seem, since they would walk into places where there were targets with their cloaks and hats on, they were not nearly as bad as they seemed.
They were in pure civilian clothes whenever they didn't want to be seen or potentially attacked, just like right now. They would have blended in naturally, if it weren't for Itachi's killer, black-eyed, dead pan glare and his odd affinity for black.
Itachi turned his glare to Kisame, clearly asking what the hell they were doing here. Kisame took the glare in, and sighed.
"Welcome to our new home, Itachi," Kisame said, "The village hidden in the stones."
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