WEIGHT OF THE WORLD

By: mahatiel

PROLOGUE

When I was little-all I wanted was for other people to stop picking on me. The other thing I wanted was for my forehead to be smaller. It took a while for the first one to happen, but the second never did. Regretably. Ino Yamanaka was the one who helped me find my self confidence-I truly don't know how she turned out to be such a pig. We became good friends and were almost inseperable.

Then I saw Sasuke Uchiha.

Ino and I were never able to have the same kind of friendship again due to the fact that we both had a crush on him. We became rivals in fact. I'd never tell anyone, but I missed our friendship. Badly.

Everything seemed to go wrong when Sasuke was involved.

When I learned that he was going to become a ninja; I decided that I would do the same to stay near him. If only I had known how hard that would be.

I graduated from the Ninja Academy with flying colors and was enlisted in a three man cell with the adorable Sasuke Uchiha and annoying Naruto Uzumaki. Our sensei ended up being the famous Copy Ninja Kakashi Hatake. Kakashi wore a mask that covered the bottom half of his face and the three of us tried to get him to take it off, to no avail.

I spent two years trailing after my companions-crushing on Sasuke and scolding Naruto. I believed myself to be their equal, but in truth-I knew I would never be as good a ninja as they were. At one point I was forced to cut off my own hair to save their lives. I did this without a single thank you. I saved them even more as time went by. Rescuing Sasuke as he fell over a cliff, holding his hands through his painful seizures, keeping Naruto from plumeting to his death by pinning him to a tree and cutting him loose from some very dangerous thread. Not once did they say thanks and I never asked for one. Still, I felt like a failure.

Then one day-Sasuke left. I tried to keep him from leaving by threatening him and making pitiful promises, but he left anyway. And that was when I knew that even though I had told him I loved him time and again; he had never cared-he hated me all the way down to his core. I never forgave myself. I still haven't.

After two more years filled with training . . . I saw my two old friends again. Both had grown and started to become the men that I had always known they would be. We were stronger, older and all three of us carried a burden that honestly felt like the weight of the world was bearing down on us.

The day I saw Sasuke again-I felt like the old me-the pathetic me. Deep down inside . . . it made me furious! Two years I had hoped I would finally be able to feel better when the three of us were together, but I was wrong. Deadly wrong.

So I decided to ask the Hokage for a mission that would take me far from everyone I knew and this mission had to take a very long time. She was upset with me, seeing as I was almost better than she was when it came to healing and I had a job at the hospital, but I asked for it anyway.

For some reason . . .she gave it to me.

It's been three years since I was home and I am no longer that innocent little girl that everyone knew as Sakura Haruno.

CHAPTER ONE

"Bloodthirsty men hate a man of integrity and seek to kill the upright."

"Tag 'im and bag 'im?"

"Affirmative." A girl at the age of nineteen responded into her mike. She sat upon a cliff looking down at a village that was still burning. Why was it burning? She had lit it on fire herself in order to flush out the bogey that had been hiding in one of the many shacks that the villagers had called a house. Did it phase her that she had burned down over a hundred people's homes to catch a serial killer? Not one bit.

That was her job. She was a hitman for hire. A very good one at that. And she happened to love the slogan that she had picked for herself.

'Anything worth fighting for is worth fighting dirty for.'

Each mission she had came with a new employer . . . and each new employer assigned her a team to work with. She was famous in the Underground, so why did they do this when they knew for a fact that she did not need help? Simple. They didn't trust her. They also didn't trust the fact that she was a woman. Typical really.

With a sigh she wiped the sweat from her brow with a swipe of her hand. If the persperation got into her eyes she wouldn't be able to see clearly. That was not allowed. She watched her newest 'partner' walk towards a shack to her left. The perp had been within when it had caught fire.

His shrieks had confirmed that. It still paid to be careful. Her partner was being cocky. His gait was relaxed as he made his way towards the hut. Once there he used a jutsu that created a water dragon. It angered her to see such a jutsu used simply to put out a fire. It was an offensive jutsu that shouldn't be used for such a trivial action. But what did she care? As long as the job was done-it didn't matter what the man did.

With the fire out, the Cleaner began walking through the charred and smoking remains of what had once been someone's home. His corded arms tossing peices of wood nearly a foot away. The sap was so focused on finding bones that he didn't see the kunai-followed by an arm-erupt from the ground and cut through his interior jugular vein.

Not only did this action nearly sever the man's neck, but it cut off the blood coming from his brain to his face and neck. Thus, canceling out his ability to send out a cry for alarm much less a counterattack. The man fell to his knees, hands groping at his practically disembowled appendage in an attempt to stop the flow of blood. Gasps and gurgling noises spewed from his mouth as he fell into shell shock.

Shell shock was better known as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which was caused after witnessing a terrifying event in which serious physical harm occured or was threatened. Some of the consequences of events such as this were intense fear, absolute helplessness or horror. These three things were common place for this man, but he had always shoved those reactions into the back of his mind to think on when he was deeply stinked in spirits. Or what his partner liked to call liquor.

That said person happened to be laughing quietly upon her perch as the man thrashed upon the ground in his final throws of death. Did the God of Death come to collect him? She really couldn't care. With a chuckle she stood and tied her hair into a low ponytail. She couldn't care less if it became coated in blood, but she did not want it getting in the way of her vision. Her dead partner below had quit moving and his killer was now staring up at her. With a grin she took a step forward:

"Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate."

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mahatiel--

Hope it's not too violent. Review. (Can't believe I'm asking) Hope you like. I like it.