Chapter 1- Simply Hell

It could've been two. Or maybe it was three. It really didn't matter. All he wanted to do was high-tail it out of there. It was too hot of a day to be serving guard duty of any kind. On top of that, he seriously doubted there was actually anything to guard. Konoha had been relatively peaceful lately.

He concluded that maybe the peace had brought on a sense of need to the villagers. He was certain of it for he was one of the recipients of its side effects. For the life of him, he wanted to see some goddamn drama, because he was so goddamn bored.

Shooting a glance at his partner, who, at the moment, exhibited an equally bored expression, Kotetsu suddenly conjured up a brilliant idea.

"Ey… Izumo. Seems like nobody's going to be coming in today. Why don't be ditch our posts and go grab some sake?"

Kotetsu's partner seemed to be contemplating a response. Just as he was about to acquiesce to what seemingly was the most brilliant ploy of the century, he paused in mid-parley as something or someone caught his eye.

Kotetsu, on the other hand, was patiently waiting for his partner's reply.

"I think you spoke too soon…" Izumo trailed off with a disbelieving tone.

Following Izumo's eyes, Kotetsu's jaw dropped in mid-air. Surely, it was somebody; four "somebodies" to be exact. Judging from a distance, he was sure he caught a flash of pink from behind the mask of one of the ANBUs.. And there was only one ANBU he knew that possessed such an exotic feature.

Izumo groaned in despair. So much for sake.

Her eyebrow twitched at the defecating silence pervading throughout the atmosphere. Scanning the room with skepticism, her eyes rested on a boy that looked like he was going to urinate in his Anbu uniform.

"You," Tsunade demanded, "tell me what happened."

The boy squirmed under her scrutiny, avoiding her gaze with utmost determination.

A low, threatening growl escaped from the back of her throat. The boy cowered beneath her gaze, seemingly too terrified to form a coherent response.

"Useless men…" the blonde Hokage muttered. Her gaze immediately reverted towards a shorter figure whose body language conveyed a sense of indifference towards her threatening demeanor. Casually, Tsunade addressed the feminine figure, "So… Sakura… why don't you inform me on how you received that pretty little gash on your left arm…."

"I'm telling you Sakura, I did not want any casualties on this mission," the blonde reprimanded as she roughly scraped shrapnel out of the kunoichi's wound.

"I don't think a little scrape can be considered a casualty…." Sakura casually replied.

"There's fucking shrapnel embedded in the wound! I don't care if the mission was a success. Wait… scratch that… I do care. But you're a fucking medic for god's sake."

Shrugging her shoulders indifferently, she stated, "I was trying to block an attack."

Sighing, the blonde shook her head in defeat and continued to patch up the Anbu captain's gash.

Sakura sighed in resignation. She'd been explicitly ordered to stay in the hospital for the next week or so. The Hokage's demeanor displayed a sense of defeat for the pinked-haired captain's well-being. Sakura honestly didn't see what the big deal was. It was just a gash; albeit it was a gash lined with shrapnel, but she'd seen much worse on the job.

Staring at the boring, pale wall in defeat, she hung her head in desperation. She was going to be stuck in this hellhole for another six days… It was certain that she possessed a larger chance of dying in the hospital out of boredom than on a mission.

It was during that moment that her tormentor stuck her pretty blonde head in to check up on her apprentice. Sakura just wanted to leap off the Hokage Monument.

"So how are you feeling?" Tsunade routinely asked. Sakura rolled her eyes, fully aware of the exhaustingly boring standard patient procedures.

"Just dandy," she responded dryly.

Glancing up from the clipboard that was comfortably situated in her arms, a sudden sense of amusement briefly crossed her gaze. "I see you're getting used to your surroundings… considering how you're usually the one that asks these questions."

"I now understand the level of harassment."

Tsunade's eyes narrowed in amusement. "So," she quipped casually, "I see you're not taking it that well…"

Exasperatedly, Sakura bit out, "Is it really necessary to keep me here? It was just one gash!"

Chuckling, the Hokage shook her head in mock sympathy. "No, it isn't. But I'm certain you didn't even begin to access the dangerous situation you could've put yourself in. You were open to multiple infections; not to mention some drastic permanent scarring from the shrapnel embedded in your wound. As a medic, I assumed you should've known better."

Sakura opened her mouth, and then closed it at a lack of a dignified response.

"But… you do have an option." Sakura raised an elegant pink brow.

"Well? Go on…"

"Now, now… it's not going to be that easy… The condition is that you must accept without understanding its terms."

An undignified amount of skepticism filled Sakura. "And it would get me out of this hospital… and not into another one?" There was unsolicited hope within the bowels of her voice.

"Of course…"

"Well then, by all means, I accept," she replied curtly.

The blonde smiled mischievously. "I'll see you tomorrow at noon. You're released as of now."

Maybe she should've taken careful consideration in the presence of a shrewd old woman. After all, this was a woman well into her sixties with the mask of a twenty year old. However, as attractive as that prospect was, Sakura wasn't sure if she could stay another six days in this hellhole. Either way… she had to get out, and either way… she was completely certain that she was screwed.

The hollow clacking of her shoes only served to intensify the growing anticipation that was spreading throughout her limbs. What the hell was that old woman up to this time? Sakura was sure her Shisou was senile. Whatever the case, as long as she was out of the hospital, she would subject herself to the abuse.

She often wondered what her blonde Shisou did in her free time. Did she set up large poster-sized charts across the wall of her office to diabolically plan her next source of entertainment? Sakura groaned in misery. Maybe staying a couple of extra days in the hospital wasn't such a bad idea. She wondered why she was so opposed to the idea in the first place.

The clock struck noon as Sakura hesitantly knocked on the Hokage's office door. From within, she could make out faint sounds of the mischievous blonde scrambling around to hide her sake. "What a silly woman…" Sakura thought.

Stepping into the office, the pungent smell of alcohol caused a temporary relapse on Sakura's nerves. She was sure all this alcohol couldn't have been good for her Shisou's liver.

Bowing her head respectfully, she addressed the hokage, "Tsunade-shisou."

The twinkle of mischief within the busty woman's eyes did not dissipate, as if she were expecting impending doom. Sakura eyed her warily. The woman had something up her sleeve. "Sakura, I'm assuming you're nervous?"

The pink-haired kunoichi nodded her head submissively. Her stance radiated a mixture of polite respect and outrage at her Shisou's take on the whole situation. "Shisou, I'm sure you're enjoying my extreme discomfort but I would really appreciate it if you could inform me on what the trade-off to your conditions are."

Nodding, she replied, "You see…I know that once you're out of the hospital, there's probably no way in hell you're going to stay in this village longer than two days. Of course… you never stopped to think how much I terribly missed my dear student…" Sakura narrowed her eyes. There was way too much sincerity in that sentence. However, she was not convinced.

"So my punishment is to stay in Konoha?" Sakura asked, confused.

"Of course not! As much as I would miss you, I can't keep such a qualified shinobi locked up! That would be wrong of me…"

Was she patronizing her? Sakura motioned for her to continue.

"You're going to go on a completely standard Anbu assignment. Except… this time… you're NOT going to be the captain…"

Sakura just didn't see the catch. How was this a punishment? It's not as if she HAD to be captain. It was just her job. "Um, so may I ask who is leading this mission?"

The mischievous smile on the blonde's face returned. "You'll find out soon enough. He was supposed to be here at twelve, but he has the tendency to be late…."

The pink-haired kunoichi's eyes widened with trepidation. The woman had to be fucking kidding…….

Sakura hadn't seen Kakashi in almost five years. It was during those five years though that she'd established a name and a place for herself in Konoha's Black Ops. To Sakura, leaving Team 7 had been the best decision of her life. Naruto had wanted to assemble the entire team since Sasuke's retrieval from sound. Of course, Sakura had wanted that too…. But it had never registered within her mind what the reformation of Team 7 meant.

It wasn't until their first training session as a newly reestablished team that she began to realize that everything was the same. By the same, that meant that she'd always be the weak female frolicking with the boys…

Naruto and Sasuke had completely disregarded her! And of course, Kakashi just lazily spread against the tree reading his stupid orange porn. When Sakura protested against this, Naruto simply eyed her wearily.

By the time that he decided that maybe he shouldn't have started out by going easy on her, she'd broken his jaw, dislocated his shoulder, and successfully put him in a death grip. It took Sasuke, Kakashi, and Tsunade to stop her from throwing him over the Hokage Monument.

Haruno Sakura had cracked from the injustice of being a woman that day. And from that day on, she decided to leave Team 7 to join Anbu. And of course, Naruto and Sasuke couldn't have possibly let their female teammate surpass them in status. So they decided to join too! Sakura had half a mind to disembowel the boys through their mouths. The injustice seemed to leave a long and unhappy trail through her entire career. The discrimination never seemed to end. From her new Anbu squad members to the missing-nin that she was assigned to track down, but god forbid NOT kill because they were afraid that as a woman, she wouldn't be able to; she experienced sexual discrimination at its worse.

Even when she was promoted to captain, which to her pleasure Naruto and Sasuke did not follow suit, her male subordinates did not take her seriously. Of course, that ended when she proposed a training session. Needless to say, she never had a problem with them again. The point was that she had escaped from an endless cycle of discrimination. Kakashi never made it any easier by ignoring the situation, and she would be damned if she let them step on her again.

Unfortunately, having Kakashi as her squad captain meant that she'd also be having Naruto and Sasuke as her teammates. Oh joy… Well, at least they stuck together… She honestly never wanted to see the Uchiha boy ever again. She couldn't remember when she started to see him as nothing more than scum. It was a realization discovered too late for her own liking.

Life seemed to have a sense of humor of its own, and now here she was, standing before two of the three most important men in her life (excluding her father whom was never that important to begin with anyway), and wishing she'd wall herself into Konoha's hospital. The three students of the Legendary Sannin stood within an arm's length of each other, uncertain if they should be the first to speak. Naruto was cautious, Sasuke seemed as though he expected something, and Sakura just wanted to get the hell out of there.

Here they were once again, waiting for their beloved porn-addicted sensei to arrive for a mission to hell; Sakura simply just couldn't take her eyes off of the ant that was crawling next to her. Naruto was handsome; abnormally handsome for someone she hadn't seen in the last couple of years. Sasuke, on the other hand, was not.

Of course, physically, he was probably the "it" guy, but in Sakura's eyes, it would've been a miracle of she could scour up a modicum of attraction towards the man. It was a repulsion that was unfathomable even to her; and it was at awkward times like this that she wished a giant rock would magically appear out of the nowhere and roll the man over.

Sasuke cleared his throat. The action surprised Sakura as her eyes snapped towards his direction. He was staring at her expectantly, as if he imagined that she would leap onto him with the affection of a thousand suns.

As if.

She rolled her eyes at the man and finally, decided to crush the tension within the atmosphere.

"Can I help you?" she asked sardonically.

Sasuke seemed amused. Naruto, however, seemed unusually sad. No one said anything for awhile.

Naruto spoke this time. "How have you been…Sakura-chan…?" She carefully scrutinized his profile. His voice was quiet and unusually cheerless, as he stared at her with a certain amount of restrained tenderness within the depths of his baby-blue eyes.

Her voice was now caught within her throat, and her brain screeched a distressing cry of guilt.

It was heartbreaking.

"Good," she replied quietly. It had always been hard to hate Naruto. Now, she regretted ever hating him in the first place.

The miserable look within his eyes would forever haunt her.

She turned her head away now, and as if on cue, a poof of smoke appeared beside her. She leered at the man with annoyance. For the last five years, she never had to wait for anyone.

Kakashi stood there expectantly. What the hell was everyone expecting her to do? Did she have something on her face? Annoyed, she cleared her throat forcefully.

The usual crinkle within the masked-man's eye immediately unraveled into a look of trepidation. It seemed as if he, too, was not expecting a cynical, sarcastic Sakura that didn't care about him.

And to be honest with herself; she didn't.

He quickly redirected his gaze towards the boys as if not to display any sense of want towards the pink-haired kunoichi. After all, he never cared about her that much either; and it showed. He always trained the boys first.

"Well… since we're all here," the man stated accompanied with his typical signature eye crinkle, "and you're all briefed on the mission…"—turning unexpectedly to Sakura—"let's hit the road." Sakura was still staring at the ant.

Okayyyy Alright!!!! First Chapter Complete!!!! Anyways, I have written chapters for all my other stories, so they'll be up soon.