A/N: Well, here's my newest story... This was inspired by one of my reviewers during, "To Turn Back Time" who had said that they wish they would be able to see Konoha if the Uchiha Massacre never happened... So, here it is!

"It's a large gray building," the haggard old lady said. "The windows are smashed in and the paint is peeling, but that goes for the rest of the town, really."

The pink-haired shinobi nodded in understanding. "What exactly am I looking for? It's kind of hard to find something that I don't know of."

"A book." The words escaped the elder's chapped lips in almost a whisper, as if it was a secret.

"A book?" asked the shinobi, raising an incredulous brow. "I thought you said this was a B-rank or higher?"

"Well, it's not any ordinary book," the elder explained. "It's special."

"Okay," replied the shinobi with a hint of skepticism, "Do you know where the book is in the building?"

"Once you get inside the building, turn to your right," the old lady told her. "There'll be a door leading to a stairwell. Go up the stairs until you get to the third floor. The book is on that floor."

The kunoichi nodded and took her leave into the village that was once Sound.

The village seemed like a war-zone; all the buildings either destroyed or vandalized beyond the point one could barely tell what color the building had been, the streets littered with potholes two feet or deeper. She would have thought she was in a ghost town if it weren't for the very faint signatures of chakra she came upon every once in a while.

When she came upon the several-story building that the old lady had described, she looked at it with an air of disgust. The building had a huge chunk taken out of it, as if somebody had tried to bomb it (which was probably the case) and the rest of the building seemed fairly intact, besides the very offensive pictures in spray paint and a few choice curse words.

She headed toward the building and entered it with no hesitation. As soon as she took a step inside, she was hit with the putrid smell of mud, dust, mildew, and the unmistakable aroma of decaying bodies.

She placed a hand over her mouth in a feeble attempt to filter out the suffocating odour and walked to the stairwell as she'd been instructed. She tensed feeling the creaking of the stair as she first placed her foot on it. It caused the rats that seemed to be hiding under the stairs to stir and she shuddered.

Filthy rodents...

She pushed away any disgust he had from the building and the rodents and ascended the stairs as quickly as she could so as not to break one of them. Once she got to the third floor, she had to strain her eyes to see her hand in front of her face.

She inspected the floor, seeing no trace of a book (no trace of anything, actually) until she felt her sandaled foot kick something and the sound of that something sliding across the floor. She got to her hands and knees, fully aware that she was getting filthy, and used her hands to find whatever it was she'd kicked.

When her hand touched something, she inspected it with her fingers, finding what felt like paper.

Looks like I found what I came for...

She got back to her feet and found her way to the door, the book in hand. She ran down the stairs, ignoring the loud complaints they made as she descended them. She rushed out the door and placed her hands on her knees as she gasped for breath, relishing the sweet, wonderful smell of fresh, unused oxygen.

She looked at the book in her hand with a sort of puzzlement. What was so important about it? It was just a black leather-back book, all aged and weather-beaten, yellowed pages inside, most of them covered with words of a foreign language. Couldn't she have just as easily replaced the book at a book store? It was only a book and would probably cost half of what a B-ranked mission went for nowadays.

Shrugging off her curiosity, she dusted off her dusty palms and knees and headed back to the gates where her client was waiting.

When she handed the book to the old lady, she flipped through the pages with a sort of gratification in her aged eyes. "You've done admirably," the old lady told her with a warm smile, taking her eyes from the book. "And now, in return, I will bestow upon you a gift."

"Oh, you don't have t—"

"But I will," she interjected. "I am but a humble servant to you now and I will give you three wishes."

The kunoichi was taken aback by the absurdity of what she'd just said. "A wish?" she asked, raising a brow, "You mean like a Genie sort of thing?"

"Oh, no," the old woman corrected. "See, I was granted this power long ago, by this book. I write in it what I want and it will come true."

"Uh-huh," the shinobi replied dryly.

"I will write three of your wishes in this book for you and they will come true," the shinobi finalized. "However, there are some rules to this book."

"And, what are they?" asked the shinobi, trying to humour the old lady.

"Well, once a wish is written in this book, it will come true within five minutes, but once the wish comes true, a wish cannot be written in the book for another two weeks."

"So, you're planning on lending this book to me for a month and a half?"

"No, I will come before you as soon as you speak my name: Kumiko," corrected the elder.

"Okay," the shinobi said with a nod. "I guess I'll call you when I have a wish then."

The old lady nodded. "You would probably like to head back to your home village, but, first... may I know the name of my master?"

"Sakura," answered the kunoichi. "Haruno Sakura."

A/N: Yes, it's short, but I'm going to try and make the next chapters longer! n.n I hope you like it! X3