Chapter 1: Chapter 1

It all started with a stray kunai and a simple offer…

A pink haired girl stood shivering in the wind. She sighed.

The villages beloved Hokage had just been killed by the infamous Orochimaru. Despite the clearing of the clouds which had been hogging the sky for so long the rain was still pouring, pounding against the ground! The wind was brisk like she'd never experienced before, and she found that the little bit of clothing she normally wore was not exactly the warmest attire.

Her whole world was in a wreck. What should have been Team 7's, as well as the rest of the Konoha Genins time to shine in the Chunnin Exam unfolded into a terrible disaster leaving the whole villages loss in their patriarchal figure. It didn't help that her 'precious' Sasuke-kun wouldn't train with her. She'd have to train by herself which she really hated doing because when you train by yourself it is absolutely boring, however there was absolutely no way she'd train with the annoying alternative…her blond haired friend Naruto.

So here was Sakura, very likely to get sick from walking under an umbrella that was pretty much useless considering the rain was somehow blowing underneath it.

"Chu!" 'oh and there goes the sneezing' she thought bitterly continuing towards her destination.

'Kuso! This is totally not cool! Who does Orochimaru think he is hurting my Sasuke and killing my Hokage! Oohhh the next time we meet I'm gonna serve him something special CHAAA!'

While her inner self was powerful, it didn't take long for her to berate herself. 'Who do I think I am…. That guy is a legendary Sannin…I couldn't even touch him if I made a thousand cranes and wished for it…I'm such a weakling…' sniffling she walked into the training area and leaned her umbrella next to a tree. She assmbled the

" Kage Bunshin no Jutsu."

Immediately there were five perfect replicas of the pink haired girl. As they began to attack each other 'Gotta get stronger' was the mantra which ran through her head like a broken record.

One of her clones took out a kunai with a snarl on her face. She twirled it on her finger before leaping forward, and launching it at her. A flashback of Sakuras first encounter with Orochimaru when he used that intimidating, and terribly frightening genjutsu on her and Sasuke. This distraction was just enough to cause a delay in her movement leading to a nice cut across her cheek.

"Kuso" Sakura became a blur of pink and red zigzagging in order to avoide any other kunais being launched at her. Sliding to the right and squatting her legs Sakura ducked a kick- punched left then rammed right into the clone she assumed had cut her. She twirled out her own kunai and began to parry until her kunai went sailing into the air. That didn't matter though, because she grabbed her clones' wrist and bent it awkwardly so it dropped its weapon.

'CHAAAAA WHAT NOW HUH?!' she chided mentally before sweep kicking gracefully-gracefully until she 'decided' to slip in the mud onto her backside. There were multiple 'poof's as she released her Jutsu, too preoccupied on her sore back and bottom to hold up the clones any longer.

Sakuras emerald eyes dulled significantly and her tears began to well up. All of her frustration, anger, sadness- everything large and small that had piled up was about to break past the flood gates. The rain was everywhere which would probably get her sick and her Hokage, like a grandfather was gone, her mom was being a butt lately, and Sasuke- Sasuke STILL wasn't noticing her as anything but a weak team mate and was hurting but wouldn't trust or listen to her or Naruto or anyone and Naruto was still being Naruto and-

The rain stopped.

A familiarly unenthusiastic "troublesome" was groaned from above. Even though she really would rather sit there in the mud and sand to bawl her eyes out at how horrible everything was lately she had to look up.

"Sh-shikamaru?" she stammered shakily at first. However, there was no way her pride would allow her to let him see her being so weak. His eyes got a hint of pity in them and she swore internally, 'well if that's not a bitch'.

"Sakura... what are you doing on your ass in the rain?" he asked putting out his hand. Sakura stared at it like a foreign object when she heard him sigh, "Your supposed to grab it so I can help you up you know."

"Maybe I don't want YOUR help." The kunoichi snarled before even thinking. Hearing this the boy narrowed his eyes and seemed about to retort something back but caught himself, rolled his eyes and muttered something else under his breath instead.

"How troublesome?!", the rosette screeched, "You think everything's just dandy with everyone don't you, y-you, you lazy ass?!" at this Shikamaru stared up through his transparent umbrella and said something that while unexpected, was completely typical of him and shouldn't have thrown her off nearly as much as it did. "Today hasn't been a very good cloud watching day."

Despite its simplicity this comment seemed to melt away everything- all the negative feelings.

Embarrassed by her outburst Sakura found herself staring at the wet ground. She shyly whispered a small sorry causing her brown eyed friend to sigh. Looking up, the green eyed girl once again saw him holding out his hand. This time she grasped it firmly and he silently pulled her up. She didn't expect him to be so strong so she stumbled into him a little bit. Hands against his chest and forehead to his shoulder she straitened up from her slouch and found herself nose to nose with the shadow user. "Go-gomen!"

Sakura jumped backwards to hide her blush. Never had she been so close to a guy's face before. Despite being that close to the Nara boy, she found that it wasn't as awkward as she expected. Still, she needed to put some space between herself and him.

"Ah… Shikamaru", she'd regained her composure in record time, "what were you doing here anyways?"

He stared at her and sweat dropped. "How troublesome… one of your kunais decided to puncture my calf…." Sakura stepped back and gasped, looking down to see that, indeed… there was a kunai sticking out of his calf…

"Oh my gosh! I am so sorry! I would heal you if I could…but I'm pretty useless…." She looked down as tears welled into her eyes. Just when Shikamaru had a look upon his face like he was about to say something to make her feel better she snapped her head up at him with her eyes tightly shut, a grin plastered on her face "Let's go to the Hospital."

He couldn't have known she was so close to crying she was sure. He nodded and Sakura opened her eyes just as he turned to start walking away.

That was the first time that Nara Shikamaru had ever seriously considered Haruna Sakura to be anything more than a troublesome girl, and the feeling was mutual from her. Often the two would engage in Shoji…. The Nara boy always won however Miss Cherry blossom came close to beating him on a few occasions.

Sakura began to pick up his habit of watching the clouds. She found it to be very calming and often the two could enjoy silence or a nice conversation while watching the fluffy objects. Every time they passed each other at random there was something exchanged, be it "I saw the clouds earlier and they floated quickly" or "the clouds weren't so great today", a kind, somewhat shy smile is often exchanged here and there.

Thank you for reading, reviews would be nice. Constructive Critism is always welcomed as well. I hopefully edited out most of the grammar issues and made it easier to read. so if you spot anything wrong with this, feel free to let me know =D I believe the only discrepancy in the chapter is Sakuras use of the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. Let's just say that since this is my story and Sakura has great chakra control and Naruto loves her deeply, that somewhere down the line he taught her this cloning technique. For the sake of my story ;]

-ElishiaNoBaka