Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto characters nor earn a profit from it. They are owned by Masashi Kishimoto. I'm just a bored student who decided to play in his world. And his playground is full of fun toys, so can you blame me.

UnBeta'd

(If anyone is interested to be my beta reader, shoot me a message. It's really hard to read my own work more than once. Oops. That probably doesn't inspire people to want to be my beta. My bad.)

Chapter 1

It was never about sacrifice.

It was never about choosing one thing over another.

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Sakura's green orbs filled with sunlight and intense apprehension as she dove between her two teammates as they lunged at each other.

The eternal clock of time seemed to have got its gears stuck and winded to a slow, painful, screech that doused the world in gray.

Her feet which carried her felt like they were sliding backwards and that she was not making any headway at all.

There was panic in her heart. Her pink hair fluttered like a crow pitching off a pole.

Shock wore her limbs until they felt like the blood in her body had increased in density and pulled her toward the earth.

Her heart felt like an old timer that would not stop going off, the beeps throbbing in her head. She could not perceive her own voice screaming her two teammates to stop; her ears were full of the rush of blood through her veins.

Before she could even begin to worry about what would happen if she did manage to get in between them or what she could do, the ground under her feet ripped open and a large snake wrapped itself around her body.

It was cold as ice and threaded around her clothes as it made its way to her neck to squeeze the life out of her.

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Sakura launched out of her bed drenched in sweat. Her heart was hammering out of her chest. She placed a hand there and tried to will it to slow down.

"It's just a dream." She told herself. She got out of her small bed and went to the kitchen of her apartment to pour herself a glass of cold water.

She eagerly gulped it down, gasping as it hit her throat faster than she could control with her frantic hands.

Water spilled over the edges of her chin, and she could just hear her mother's voice lecturing her about the proper etiquette of a young kunoichi.

The thought made her laugh, which in turn caused her to choke up some of the water she had swallowed.

"Geez, Sakura. Get a hold of yourself. "She berated herself outloud; she could feel a fit of giggles brimming in her belly wanting to escape.

When the sky was painted black like that, with the moonlight peaking out she tended to get a little giddy.

She stood in solitude as natural light splashed her, amidst the creaking silence of her apartment, feeling that familiar light headedness.

It might have been more pronounced because of her dream. She was so determined to prove to herself that she wasn't affected by it that she wore her smile plastered over her face in a fashion that bordered on creepy.

Sakura sighed and leaned back on the kitchen counter. She didn't bother to switch on the light, she had natural light streaming in a pool at her feet.

The cold glass now empty of water rested in her lap, its cold surface jarring to her warmed hands and arms.

Sakura reflected on her dream. It had been a recreation—for the most part—of an incident that had occurred several years ago with her genin teammates, Naruto and Sasuke.

There was no need to analyze anything about it, she knew the distress and dread she felt that day. Her younger teenage self having experienced the sensation of having her heart squeezed painfully after it had dawned on to her that when one was feeling extremely content with life, is when it stirred up sending you hurtling down a tunnel of pain.

She was so young and idealistic back then. She had a dreamy romanticized view, and as a 13 year old girl who was stepping out into an unknown world with her comrades at her side—she could be allowed to be, for a brief while until she grew into good senses.

Her profession—however—would beg to differ. Shinobi existence didn't permit her such a period. It would thrust her into the harsh light, unbidden.

Sakura would never be those kunoichi who at a young age showed extreme genius, who preformed perfectly and were smart in the ways of the world.

She was a late bloomer. She had always been.

She could admit it to herself—and now she could simply admit it aloud, if the occasion called for it.

She hadn't wanted to be a ninja as much as she wanted to go out and see the world. Her parents were civilians and she could have chosen to be like them if she wanted.

But their lives were too boring in her childish eyes and she wanted more excitement. When she started to excel in her written Ninjutsu classes, this made her a unique gem in her family. Her parent's reaction to her top marks at the Academy served to spur her on.

Sakura could admit she liked being the 'wild card' in her family. Her path wasn't easily defined; it would have zigzags and deviations.

Sakura recalled one lazy afternoon when her 12 year old self was washing dishes with her mother. She had been prattling on about some technique in her Ninja concepts course she had mastered before everyone else in her class. Her mother listened with real fascination (but occasionally interjected with some nagging comment or other) Her family's interest and inexperience in Shinobi affairs made her more keen toward it.

Maybe she was vain and flit about, wanting people to pay more attention. She pronounced things in loud, haughty tones as she showed up the dumb boys in her class.

When Sakura thought back like this she could see that she had embarked on her road as a ninja with superficial desires in her heart, when it should have been a decision reached by careful pondering, weighing of the pros and cons.

Being an only child made her seek attention. There was a goofy blonde kid she decided early on that she couldn't stand—Naruto. And if truth be told, it was because she could relate to him—at least in very shallow way given that he was an orphan and she a spoiled only child—that she distanced herself from him at the academy.

Although she hid it well enough, some of the antics he got up to were amusing and she wished she could behave in such a way. But in the end she decided she was too refined—as her mother always instructed her to be-to ever be one to throw caution to the wind.

Though at times she lived vicariously through him. The prank with the eraser when they first met Kakashi-sensei was one incident in many jokes that Naruto concocted that filled her with glee.

But she always took the self-righteous tone and tried to line her sentiments with a certain raven-haired stoic boy genius.

Sakura's feet were cold. A shiver went through her. She felt a bit outside herself, thinking back on old times, having old feelings flood back.

All the times she was young and foolish rushed through her skull.

It's not as if I've really changed. She thought deprecatingly. In actuality she had changed a lot. She was nineteen years old, and after the end of the Fourth Ninja War, she really had felt a change in herself.

Especially now that she was looking back on all the things she said and did. The person she was now would have thought very differently about all those actions, some might have been done over in the exact same way—after all, she couldn't essentially help who she was—but a great many would have been done in a more tactful, informed manner.

With her feet going numb from the cold of the kitchen floor, she stood upright and made her way to her bedroom, leaving the empty glass on the counter for morning to take care of.

Tomorrow at this time, she would be turning 20. That perhaps accounted for these errant thoughts of her girlhood.

Sakura climbed back into bed. A glance at the clock on her way told it her it was 2:45am.

She couldn't help but flashback to that time on the roof.

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Sakura's face glistened with tears. She felt like something extremely heavy weighed down her heart, and something else ran a sledgehammer though it. Her two good friends were trying to kill each other.

All the happy memories she experience with team 7 came brimming to the front of her mind. They were too painful to behold; the laughter of her teammates, her own beaming face as they journey from village to village carrying out missions, camping out under the stars and quibbling with their sensei's soft cool tones in the background.

She knew she was being childish, but she didn't want anything to change.

Her voice quivered. Can't we go back. I want to go back to before. Please. Please. She wished fervently as she let tears fall from her eyes.

"Kakashi sensei…" She began.

The smooth and rational Jonin had leapt from his position on top of the water tower and with great agility, landed in front of her.

Kakashi thrust his reassuring smile in her direction and spoke the words that she needed most in the world to here at that moment.

"It's all going to be okay. We'll get those two back to their normal selves in no time. Trust me."

It was like free floating in the sky with nothing to grab onto, and suddenly a sturdy rope was thrown in your direction.

She had been more than willing to catch hold of it.

Later, Kakashi had recanted his words, saying that he had told her an irresponsible thing. His logic was that he should never have let her hold hope in her heart for something that wasn't his place to guarantee.

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Haruno Sakura was 24 years old. If someone had asked her how she had imagined she would be at that age, it would be far from how she ended up.

As a child, 20 was the biggest number she could conjure up for an age, anything beyond that seemed extremely old.

Now she was 24, and she felt seventeen, and at times as young as 13. Why did people never tell you that even at that age you'd still feel like a child?

But she realized the truest thing she had learned in all her time then.

It was never a question of sacrificing.

It should never have been about choosing one thing over another.

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Review!

I guess the boring rambling was supposed to be a character study of Sakura—if I had to classify it.

This will be a short story-

Why is it that I find it easy to write stories in which my favorite characters are not the center of it.

Sigh.

Problems of life.

Sakura is easy and fun for me to write about. I guess that must mean I like her. I can write a story from start to finish starring her in one day.

Weeird. I never knew I had so much to say about her. Maybe it's because her character is extremely simple.

I'll let you guys take a guess at the pairing-*Hint* It's not SasuSaku