Hey there. So this is my first attempt at fanfiction in a very long time. I've had this idea bumbling around in my head for ages now, and I'm not sure whether its been explored or even if it will appeal to anyone out there, but I figured I may as well put it out there and see what you lovely people think. Any feedback you have to offer would be very much appreciated.

Before we get right into it I should mention that this story takes place in an alternate universe and while I will be keeping certain things the same, there will be other things that are very different. If you don't appreciate that or it just doesn't suit your tastes, you should leave immediately. Thank you.

Chapter One: Guardian Naruto

"Sakura, please come in and have a seat."

"Good afternoon, Mr. Kakashi."

"How did your day go?"

"It went well, thank you."

"That's good to hear. You seem to be in high spirits."

"Oh – really? Well, I suppose I am."

"Did something good happen?"

"I… I guess you could say that. I mean, I don't know. It's not something that happens to me very ordinarily."

"Hmm. Why do you say that?"

"Well. Um. I don't know how to describe it. It was very strange."

"Strange? How so?"

"I met someone today. While I was on my way to school."

"Oh, I see."

"He was – he was a very unusual person. He approached me, but he wasn't frightening at all. He seemed very young. He told me… that he wanted to protect me."

"Protect you?"

"Yes."

"Did you understand what he meant by that?"

"Not at all. I can't imagine what he was talking about, I thought I may have known him before, from a long time ago, but there are no memories I can come up with that might explain that."

"What happened afterwards?"

"He… went on to say, that he had been with me my entire life. Looking out for me. Again, I didn't understand what he was telling me, but it felt very personal, like he knew things about me that I didn't know. I wasn't scared of him, even though his words were unsettling – I didn't feel like I was in any kind of danger; that he would keep to his word and try to protect me if my life was ever in jeopardy."

"And then what happened? Did he say anything else to you?"

"No. I lost sight of him somehow. I turned away for just a second, and he was gone."

"So you haven't seen him since this morning."

"That's right. I know it sounds crazy, and completely abnormal when I put it into words, but I don't believe this person was any sort of threat. I think he has good intentions."

"Sakura, I understand that you felt unthreatened by this person. But you can't deny that the reality of the situation appears a lot less simplistic than you make it out to be. I'm glad you are able to trust me and share this experience, and because I know quite a lot about your mental history I can help you decipher this event and the feelings which accompanied it. That said, I don't think now is the best time to be discussing this, or similar events, with people who are more likely to take it the wrong way. Do you understand what I mean?"

"…I do, Mr. Kakashi."

"That's great. I think we should talk more on this subject during our next session, if that will be all right with you."

"Yes, that would be fine."

"Good. Now, go enjoy the rest of the afternoon."

"I will - thank you very much."

"Of course."

- - - -

Sakura had always been a smart kid. She knew it, and so did many of her teachers who prided themselves in boasting about her excellent work to her mother and father on days when the parent-teacher conference was being held. She would silently engulf those praises, smiling shyly by her parent's side. She never got tired of being in the spotlight – despite the obvious resentment it drew in from her fellow classmates. It earned her familiar titles such as "Teacher's Pet" and the occasional bullying incident, which had later resulted in the more favored nickname of "Cry Baby."

It wasn't until Ino came along that Sakura began to gain true confidence. They were inseparable through those remaining grade-school years, and still remained tightly bonded as freshmen in high school. Sakura would often wonder who she would have turned out to be had Ino not come up to her smiling on that sunny afternoon in the playground. The blonde haired beauty had immediately grown on her, appealing to the small insecure girl underneath those shaggy pink bangs. Ino always seemed to know when Sakura was feeling uncertain or was attempting to hide something – despite her better judgment she always knew she would cave in under that all-knowing gaze her friend would cast across to her.

And this was the exact position she found herself in as the two of them walked home from school across a bustling city sidewalk, the blaring traffic of the rush hour sifting through the warm humid air. Sakura was puffing out her red cheeks at the interrogation she was being forced to commit to, wishing the sun wasn't so hot on her head and that there was a healthy supply of popsicles in the refrigerator at home.

"I'm telling you, it will be a lot easier if you just come right out and say it while you still have the chance." Ino was saying, a very convincing tone evident in her voice that made Sakura wonder just how much she was enjoying her friend's discomfort.

The pink haired girl huffed indignantly. "Like I said, it's got nothing to do with whatever you're imagining. Besides, I doubt I should have even told Kakashi at this point – I know he's going to ask me about it again at my next session."

"Exactly." Ino grinned reassuringly. "Because he's just as interested as I am. I bet it could mean a major breakthrough in your entire healing process!"

Sakura eyed the girl next to her and shook her head in mild exasperation. The two came to a cross walk and stopped with a small group of businessmen while they waited for the traffic light to change.

"Look, it's not even a big deal," She sighed. "I bumped into some guy on the street this morning, and he basically told me he was my savior from another dimension, and that he has been following me around my entire life as a guardian angel or something. If anything, that sounds like I deserve to be in the loony bin more than all the other mental problems I have combined."

Ino looked at her with contemplative eyes. Her smile was gone as she spoke. "Maybe you're looking at this the wrong way. This obviously has some sort of hidden meaning to you – whether it was something your head made up, or not. Just don't dismiss it so easily as another one of your hallucinations."

Sakura's own light emerald eyes met hers for a moment, but she couldn't think of the right way to word her feelings. As the traffic light blared, they walked swiftly across the street and continued onto the sidewalk into the suburbs of Leaf City.

- - - -

By the time she got home, her feet felt like they were on fire from the strenuous journey back to the apartment, and the unexpected early summer heat didn't help matters much at all. The girl kicked off her loafers at the door and led her socked feet into the kitchen, where she immediately swung open the freezer door and let out a breath of relief at the whish of abrupt cold air that struck her warm face. Sakura sighed happily and grabbed the nearest popsicle, then she closed the fridge door and padded back into the lounging room. Her mother worked late during the afternoons on weekdays, and by the time she got home it would already be late into the evening. Despite the loneliness Sakura might sometimes feel on occasion when she came back to an empty apartment, it was a welcomed relief on this particular day.

As she sat down into the sleek leather of the large sofa, the cushions feeling cool against the exposed skin of her legs, the young woman's mind finally began to unravel from the past day's events and conversations she had endured. The person she had met on the street that morning had been on her mind all day, cascading strange and unfinished feelings and thoughts that she couldn't entirely translate into common sense through her head. She had tried to explain it to her therapist and somewhat-trusted acquaintance Kakashi – he had listened with a thoughtful presence in the set of surreal and wistful eyes he so commonly adorned with everyone, but there was a sense of ominous consideration in his gaze as Sakura had done her best to describe the person she had briefly interacted with.

Even then her words felt tongue-tied at the challenge of reassessing them, and the memory had still been fresh in her mind. But as she brought the strawberry flavored Popsicle up to her lips, and closed her eyes somewhat experimentally, Sakura tried to imagine the noticeable details that created that person – his wild, spiky blond hair, those undecipherable blue eyes, the way his words felt grainy with a bestial presence ominous in the backdrop of his tone. What was the meaning behind those strange words, which he had spoken to her with an utmost assurance that everything was what it was, even though it had seemed like gibberish to Sakura at the time?

He would always be there to rescue her. What could that possibly mean? Did Sakura know him from perhaps a long time ago? She was certain that she would remember such a person, particularly if he was referring to an accident of some sort that he had somehow protected her from. But as she panned through her memories she could find nothing even remotely resembling such an experience. Besides, the way he had said it made it seem so personal, as though he had truly known her throughout her entire life. Sakura had no idea such a devoted aura could exist within a person, nonetheless one centering upon herself.

She sunk into the pillows on the couch's back, finishing the strawberry Popsicle. All of her thoughts felt disorganized, so she thought it best to leave them as they were for now, and hope that they made clearer sense later on. Yawning tiredly, the pink haired girl rested her head against the cushions, allowing her earlier exhaustion to fully wash over her. As she slipped easily into sleep, the face of that stranger lingered blurrily behind her eyelids.

- - - -

The first thought that sprung to Sakura's mind when she opened her eyes, was what that faint scratching noise was that had interrupted her sleep so abruptly. The apartment was beginning to get dark now that the sun had set, and there was a blue hue surrounding the living room that Sakura had to wait for her eyes to adjust to, before getting up to stretch her arms out lightly.

An obscure shadow caught the edge of her eyesight quickly and she turned toward the glass panel leading out onto the patio, wondering if her eyes were just playing tricks on her. Uncertain, she made her way over to the transparent doorway and opened it slightly to peek her head out, breathing in the brisk night air.

There was nothing on the veranda except for a few potted plants, which were waving their leaves slightly in the breeze. Sakura furrowed an eyebrow, and convincing herself that she was imagining things, turned to head back inside, when a gloved hand abruptly shot out from the darkness and covered her mouth, stifling the shocked scream that tore its way out of the girl's throat, while the other arm wrapped itself around her torso in a steel-like grip.

"Don't make a sound, little one." The unseen figure's voice hissed calmly in her ear, breath hot against the side of her face. "We're going on a bit of a journey."

Without any time to react, Sakura's eyes grew wide as the cloaked man lunged himself off the side of the building, his arms still wrapped tightly around her. Her heart leaped into her throat at the abrupt weightlessness of being in the air, likely falling to their deaths on the dark street below, but the man used his momentum in order to propel himself onto another side of the neighboring apartment building.

"Hold on tight." He gruffly stated before letting go of the girl and using his hands to scale toward the roof of the complex. Luckily Sakura did what was asked and quickly wrapped her arms around the person's neck, her fear of plummeting to the ground over-weighing her resentment toward her kidnapper. They reached the building's top swiftly and the cloaked man discarded her nearby, before walking toward the edge on the opposite side and leaning forward to look out across the horizon.

The girl shivered from the night air against her skin, causing her to realize she hadn't changed out of her school uniform yet, and cold roughness of the roof's concrete flooring was harsh against her legs. Hesitantly, she stood up on her socked feet and wrapped her arms around her as she attempted to build up the courage to assert the black figure.

She was saved from doing so when the person in question turned around abruptly to meet her face to face. Sakura could now see that he adorned an unusual white mask, which appeared to have been made from wood. The animalistic features resembled that of a bird, with a slender beak protruding from the center of the face and narrow slits taking the place of eyes, ultimately concealing any emotion that would have been revealed without the exception. Red lines textured the smooth surface around the cheeks and forehead, the added colour almost seeming to glow with surrealism out of the absolute blackness that made up the rest of him.

"It shouldn't be long." He whispered, seemingly to himself - his voice sounded slightly muffled from his place across the roof top. "Just sit still, and be good."

Despite the slight shaking in her legs, Sakura's blood was hot with adrenaline from the very recent near-death occurrence, and she had to urge herself to remain focused and thinking rationally. It was even more difficult to do so when it was evident that this cloaked man was clearly not a rational person. Sakura could think of absolutely no explanation for what this person just did – with an amazing amount of ease and dexterity nonetheless, as if he had just popped out of a superhero cartoon. She wondered if this man was insane, or if maybe he was some sort of terrorist in concealment. She doubted that learning the truth about either of these aliases would make her feel any better about the situation.

Then it occurred to her with a startling abruptness. She still had her cell phone in her pocket. Would it be possible to call the police without her kidnapper having realized it? It seemed unlikely, due to the lack of comfortable distance between them that it would take for her to pull it off unnoticed. Furthermore, her voice would still carry enough that she could be heard across the roof top.

But the affirmation of having her cell phone made Sakura slightly more relieved and confident. It was possible there would be a chance where she was left unauthorized and she would need to take that opportunity right away. Still, there was no telling when that opportunity might come, or even what was in store for her next –

Her thoughts didn't have time to fabricate before a shocking flash of blue convulsed across the roof top. Sakura let out a surprised yelp and brought her hands up to shield her eyes, the light startling what was once the dark surroundings and making her vision blur in confusion.

When she brought her hands down and looked around the building's surface, she quickly realized that there was now a third person standing on the roof.

- - - -

Her feet directed her on their own accord, having walked this same route countless times on her usual trip to the subway station, which took her into a separate section of the city where she attended high school. She hated to work her way through this part of town on early mornings, because the traffic of people was always difficult to maneuver through and she often found herself becoming lost amongst a sea of suited business men and women – all dressed in various shades of black or brown with matching suitcases and ties.

Sakura hurried across the street along with the morning crowd, reaching the other end of the cross-walk and continuing to make her way down the road. Her mind was swimming through various thoughts and she wasn't entirely paying attention to where she was going – it was too late to swivel out of the person's direction in front of her and she knocked straight into his chest, her green eyes widening as she looked up into his own, a string of apologies flowing frantically out of her mouth.

The person, who she quickly realized was a young man who appeared very close to her age, simply smiled down at her – with what she thought was one of the most easy-going and serene expressions she had ever seen on someone so young – and laughed softly at the apologies.

Embarrassed but slightly charmed, Sakura went to move past him and continue on down the busy street, but the stranger gripped her wrist in a light hold and prevented her from walking further. Confused, she turned around slightly in order to question him, but the eyes that met hers caught those words in her throat, rendering the pink haired girl tongue-tied and sending her heart thundering strangely against her chest.

The boy's eyes were radiantly blue against the slight tan of his face. He was dressed in a dark business-esque suit with the undershirt left unbuttoned at the lower base of his collarbone, exposing a slight amount of skin. The outfit seemed to match him, enhancing his unruly blond spikes of hair.

"Listen." He said in a light voice, despite the somewhat rough undertones layering his speech. "When you need some rescuing, I'll get there as soon as I can. Don't worry too much, because you know I'll come to save you, right? Just trust in that." His eyes shifted to the side with a contemplative expression. "Believe it or not, I have been with you your entire life, even if you never noticed." He laughed a little, his sunny disposition never seeming to waver. He didn't seem to mind or take accordance of the people passing by them on the sidewalk. Sakura couldn't turn herself away from the blond in order to see if anyone was giving them strange glances. She didn't think she would care too much at this point either.

After a moment, his grip on her wrist released and she was given one last warm smile. "Don't forget!" He stated cheerfully. Then he turned and disappeared amongst the crowd, leaving Sakura to contemplate the eccentric person she had just interacted with and the perplexing words he had spoken to her.

- - - -

Her eyes weren't playing tricks on her. There was another person on the rooftop – the exact same person she had bumped into that morning on the street.

He stood at the center of the building, his blond hair sticking out in various directions from the cool breeze sifting across the sky, and his back was turned in her direction. The cloaked figure was standing rigid at a fair distance away from the two of them, but his stance demonstrated that of a predator strung to assault at any given moment. The slits of the bird's eyes seemed to overshadow the placid white of the mask as he faced the late arrival.

"Don't get any ideas." He threatened with a tinge of menace. Sakura began to wonder just how much of her past assumptions were true after hearing the tone in that voice alone. He sounded completely capable of going through with any number of unpleasant threats, and likely had witnessed a little blood on his hands in the past. "Leave now, and I won't be forced to dispose of you."

The blond seemed unmoved by the intimidation. "You don't have to do this." He said lowly, yet unwavering. "She isn't the only one. If you hand her over, there is still no guarantee that we will be left unfazed. All this will be doing is destroying any chance we have left of returning to our home."

"Our chances are worse off without giving her up. Do you really think they won't come after you for trying to save her? I'm doing this for everyone." The masked figure replied with a hallow drone.

"If that's really what you believe," The blond sighed with a slight slump to his shoulders. He appropriated his stance and became immediately solid, seeming to steel himself for whatever onslaught that might take place. "Then try to defeat me."

"Man. You are annoying." The masked man groaned. He craned his neck to the side in a stretching gesture. "I know you mean well Naruto. But this is way over your head. You couldn't stay in the shadows any longer, could you? No - not when it came to your precious Gate Keeper. I admire your devotion, really. But I have a job to do here. And I can't let any personal history get in the way of that."

"I'm not letting any ties between us persuade me either." The blond – no, Naruto – replied evenly. Sakura couldn't see the expression on his face, but she imagined his features were very tense, judging by the familiarity in his voice. It seemed like he didn't want to go through with any conflict against this person who was somehow from his past. "But it's like I said. I can't let you take this girl back to the White Entity and his gang, so you'll have to go through me before you lay a hand on her again."

The masked man nodded once, slow and contemplative. The eyes beneath the bird disguise seemed to sharpen in contrast with the smoothness of the red textures.

"Troublesome…" He breathed, and by the time Sakura realized what was happening, it was too late for her to prevent it. A cascade of shadows flew out across the sky scraper, growing from the soles of the cloaked man's feet, and for a brief second everything seemed to condense into a vast black emptiness.

Panicking, Sakura grabbed out for anything solid she could hold onto. She couldn't hear anything but the rapid pounding of blood against her eardrums, and her eyes moved about frantically in her head with nothing to set their focus.

When she thought she had been swallowed and left alone, her hand reached out and felt the soft fabric of a sleeve. Her fingers curled into it, and soon she felt a set of arms wrap gentle but firmly around her. A strange weight that she wasn't entirely aware of seemed to lift from her shoulders immediately.

"It's okay. I gotcha." Naruto's voice chimed calmly, and the pink haired girl soon found herself staring up into his tanned face and strangely cheerful smile.

The rooftop they had once stood on was now covered in jagged cracks, all appearing to originate from the corner where the cloaked person had once stood, and rippled across the extent of the surface. Sakura and Naruto were positioned on the balcony of the nearby skyscraper, whereas the apposing figure was nowhere in sight from their location. The pink haired girl felt her cheeks become steadily red from the precariousness of her and the blond's close quarters, her uneasiness only worsening when she realized that the latter of the two had no discomfort over the situation at all, or none that was evident at least.

"W – Wh - What are you doing?" She managed to finally stammer in a faint squeak, removing herself from the arms that had been formally holding her and moving backwards a little across the balcony.

Naruto seemed taken aback by her reaction; his face becoming tinged with a little colour as well from what Sakura could easily imagine was embarrassment. "Uh… Rescuing you? You got caught in a shadow hold. I… I had to pull you out of it before you sank any lower into its confines. I didn't want to scare you or anything."

"Scare me? I think you've accomplished at least that already!" She replied frantically. "I don't know who I should be more afraid of at the moment – the man who kidnapped me from my home and flung me onto several apartment buildings, or you, who admitted to having followed me around since the day I was born, stalking me without me even understanding why or how in the first place!"

The girl seemed overpowered by a fit of convulsive gasps, causing her to stop speaking suddenly and she bent over with her hands on her knees, taking a few large gulps of cold night air. After a moment of regaining her composure, she righted herself again, light perspiration layering her cheeks and forehead.

"Feel any better?" Naruto asked hopefully.

Sakura nodded faintly, her breath evening out from the previous panic attack.

"Good. Because we're not quite out of the woods yet, and I see our company is catching up to us, so hold on tight." The blond approached her quickly with his blue eyes sharply scouting the dark horizon, and swiftly brought her into his arms for a second time, before jumping the platform's railing with easy dexterity and descending onto a nearby building's next balcony several feet across.

Keeping her arms wrapped tightly around the boy's neck and trying desperately not to let out any shrill screams, Sakura watched wide-eyed over the blond's shoulder as the two of them practically floated through the air, gaining momentum from the rooftops and railings of different balconies layering the top of the city. She never thought she could experience such weightlessness before – the feeling was entirely natural and yet her rational mind told her that it was altogether much too fantastical and extraordinary to be possible – and here she was, gripping her arms tight around a boy she barely knew. As the moments raced by, Sakura began to desperately hope that this wasn't a wildly imaginative dream she was witnessing after all.

After what felt like only a few minutes of steadily making their way across the buildings, the two came to an abrupt and clumsy stop just as Naruto brought his foot down onto the next roof. A black hand-like substance sprung out from the shadowed depths of the ground and clenched with a sudden density around his heel, sending the pair sprawling unceremoniously into the hard compact surface. Sakura was able to roll onto her side and settle herself on her knees, catching sight of Naruto's stretched figure nearby and managing to make her way toward him.

The shadow had coiled relentlessly around the blond's lower torso and was snaking its way around his arms, successfully holding him into place and preventing any struggle or wriggling from passing through the energetic matter.

Naruto was clearly infuriated by the trap and looked more bestial than ever, but despite his struggling he was unable to release himself.

The cloaked man landed soundlessly onto the rooftop and watched with the pallid face of the bird mask, then without speaking walked swiftly toward the pink haired girl as she hovered feebly by the captured youth's side, reaching a gloved hand out to grasp at her before a shrill, high-pitched quavering sound cut through the atmosphere like a knife. Sakura brought her hands up and pressed them firmly against her ears, her face contorting in shock at the harshness of the noise, possessing a static-like essence and the electrical surge running through her veins at the result made her momentarily wonder if she had lost all natural hearing and coherent thought entirely.

But that didn't seem to be the case, as the masked figure had the same reaction and brought his own hands to the side of his head in startling pain. The wispy shadows clenching against Naruto's limbs shriveled upon the loss of concentration on their creator's part, and descended back into the ground where they sprouted, and the cloaked man staggered backwards a few steps across the roof.

It was after several seconds Sakura realized that the chirping had subsided, and the electrical silver torrent engulfing the air had ceased. When she hesitantly lowered her hands and cracked open her emerald eyes, she was stunned and vastly relieved to see that Naruto was already on his feet, and contained a strange, pulsating orb of blue light in the center of his clenched hands. Without warning, he released the energy at lightning speed toward the still recovering figure of the masked man, resulting in an overwhelming explosion of light and dust that cascaded over the entire platform in a rippling gust of smoke.

When the misty air subsided there was no sign of the masked man, the crumbling remains of the building serving as the only evidence the assault had even taken place.

"We should leave."

Shaking and stricken with disbelief, Sakura allowed herself to be picked up by Naruto, and taken flying once again across the rooftops.

The city rushed by them in a blur. She couldn't separate the incredulity of what had just taken place from the reality of what she had once believed – her thoughts were pleasantly blank for a change. Instead she focused on the smell of the night air, the soothing gentleness of the wind rushing past her face, the sound of Naruto's heartbeat against her ear.

There was a point when Sakura realized her eyelids were beginning to droop, concentrating on all these sensations, but she couldn't recall exactly when that was. Her mind began to feel more muddled and dulled by the sudden wave of exhaustion that had immediately washed over her at that moment.

As more skyscrapers sifted past her vision, the girl began to ask the question before she had really contemplated it, her words sounding just as tired as she felt.

"Really, who are you?"

A laugh bubbled up in the blond's chest, the feeling of it oddly pleasant in her drifting mind.

"Honestly?" He asked, the smile he was wearing clearly evident in his light voice.

"I'm your guardian angel."

To Be Continued…