Author's notes: Yo! Well this is my first attempt at a fanfic so be nice yeah? It's only a prologue so it's kinda short but it will get longer in subsequent chapters. Apologies for bad English and grammer if there are any. My English isn't very good
Prologue

To say that Haruno Sakura was tired would be a terrible understatement. The pink-haired kunoichi could hardly stand, let alone walk. There would be nothing more that she would like to do than collapse on the ground and sleep. Screw danger. No one messes with her when she's exhausted. Yet she couldn't. Walking up ahead with seemingly endless amounts of energy was Naruto, who after more than a day's worth of tracking was still bubbly and excited. And then there was Kakashi-sensei. There was not a single sign of exhaustion on his face, his eyes never leaving the small orange book in his hand. The last thing Sakura wanted was for her team to coddle her and treat her like an invalid. She had gone past that stage a long time ago. She didn't want to start again.

She should have been excited about their mission like Naruto. And he did have a good reason to be excited too. This particular mission was the last part of their jounin exam. It was relatively easy – Assess and stop some disturbances taking place in the south of Suna. It was nothing big, except for taking out some rogue ninjas. And now they were heading home. Kakashi, who was by chance their examiner, had told them that they had passed and were now unofficially rookie jounin. There was to be a ceremony in the Hokage's office when they got back.

They were the last of the remaining rookie eight (not counting Sasuke) to become jounin. The reason was simple: Naruto had to pass his chunin exam first and Sakura wanted to build up her strength. After that, they basically waited for each other to be ready and took the exams together. It was no secret that Sakura and Naruto had become inseparably close. To Naruto, she was the closest thing to a sister and to Sakura, he was like her mischievous fox brother. At the age of 17, they both had come a long way from their early days as rookie genin. The biggest difference was that Sasuke wasn't there with them.

Sasuke. His name brought a bitter smile to Sakura's face. Her feelings were for the dark-haired avenger was slowly dissolving to dust. Two years ago, he had been due to be a container for Orochimaru. Sakura didn't know what had happened to them. They had mysteriously disappeared without a trace. Even the sound nins were gone. Not a single sound genin had turned up for the Chunin exam for two years nor were there any sign of activity. Whether Sasuke was alive or not she did not know. They had grieved for Sasuke two years ago. It was easier to treat him as dead. They wouldn't forgive him if he came back now. The Akatsuki were strangely quiet as well. Tsunade had been expecting them to try to kidnap Naruto but they had disappeared as quietly as the sound nins. Of course, life was peaceful after that but a sense of wariness still hung in the air. The lesson was clear: anything can happen anytime. Yet Sakura couldn't help but take advantage of the peacefulness. She wanted it to go on forever.

It was then when Kakashi finally stopped a protesting Naruto and told set up camp there. Sakura was extremely grateful. She would have collapsed if they had continued any further.

OoOoOoOoO

Not far from their camping site, two ninjas clad in long black cloaks were observing the scene below them from a tree. The red clouds on their cloaks were fairly obvious and the taller of the two has a large sword on his back. If anyone would have seen them, they would have looked like predators taking their time and observing their prey. Their intentions were obviously less than innocent.

"Is that her?"

"Ah."

"Doesn't seem like much, does she, Itachi-san?"

"Don't underestimate your enemies, Kisame."

"Yeah yeah. When do we make a move?"

"We wait till the kyuubi and Hatake Kakashi to fall asleep. Then we will take her."

Kisame grinned.

"The kunoichi won't know what hit her."

Well, how was it? Lame? Boring? Whatever it is, I would like to have some constructive criticism and advice and I might edit this chapter. So see the little blue button at the bottom? Clickity-click!