I swallowed hard, trying to breathe past the growing lump in my throat, barely able to breath, the pain in my chest getting worse by the second. I stared out at the pathway in front of me, my hands shaking.

There, standing in the pale moonlight, looking like some angel sent from heaven, was the bane of my existence. "Angel" I scoffed. That was what everyone called her. An angel they said, a goddess, the Blossom of Konoha, the great apprentice of the wondrous Tsunade-hime. A necessity to her village, a genius medic-nin who would revolutionize the field of medicine, not to mention a 'beauty the likes of which the world has never seen', to quote many young men.

But not to all. To me, as she stood in the lunar glow, her petal pink hair shining lightly and her pale green dress, she was an enemy. A demon straight from the pits of hell, a creature of pure spite, who's only goal in life seemed to be breaking me down into nothing.

We had once been friends: both smart, yet lacking in natural talent or strength, both longing after a man it seemed we could not obtain. That isn't to say we had our differences, we did. Where she was loud and rambunctious, I was quite and shy. While she expressed her albeit obsessive feelings, I hid and watched, staying silent for years. For all our different qualities, we were good friends. Until he came along.

We were all teenagers when he came, around sixteen and seventeen years old for the most part. His name was Gekido. Arashi Gekido. He was handsome, I admit. With long black hair and eyes the color of sapphires, he was quickly as popular with all the women of the town, no matter what their age. Even the men admired him, praising his strength and skill, begging him to teach them something, anything. But he wanted nothing to do with any of the villagers. Except one: a slender, pretty girl with green eyes and hair the color of a spring cherry blossom. A girl who's name was Haruno Sakura.

Gekido 'wanted her' the villagers said. He was going to try and 'win her hand' they thought. But they were wrong. Oh Kami were they wrong…

Gekido won all right, as sure as the sun rises in the morning. But it was not Sakura's heart he won, but her apprenticeship. He did not, however, teach her ninjutsu, jujitsu or any other shinobi art as one would expect. No, it was much worse than that, for he used his status as a wandering shinobi only as an alibi, a cover-up. Underneath the mysterious persona and calm façade, Arashi Gekido was a manipulator of people. A con artist some would call him. He did what he wanted, when he wanted, hurt who he wanted and no one did anything to stop him. They saw him as perfect, incapable of ill actions. Haruno Sakura, with her unusual hair color and bubbly attitude intrigued him, and so he made her his project, spending half a year teaching her his art.

It was just a few days after Sakura's seventeenth birthday that Gekido deemed her a success and took his leave of the Hidden Village of the Leaf. All was calm and peaceful for about a month after Gekido left, and it seemed as if everything was going to stay as it had been before his arrival. But that was not to be. The first incident was during the summer festival, when everyone was busy with the joyous gathering. It was then that Sakura made her move. No one knows quite how she did it, and personally I would rather not know at all, but Haruno Sakura finally claimed the last Konoha Uchiha, Sasuke, as her own. The last anyone saw of her for the rest of the festival was when she exited the town square, heading in the direction of her apartment. With the expressionless Sasuke close in tow.

The days turned to weeks and the weeks melted into months as the winter season grew closer, and all the time Sakura all but kept the youngest Uchiha on a leash. She clearly enjoyed the power of actually catching and keeping in her grasp what evaded her for so long. But like all those who acquire a great power over people, she soon tired of having Sasuke as her boy toy, and so she moved on to another.

As time went on, Sakura began finding great pleasure in not only snagging some helpless man as her plaything, but taking other girls' boyfriends and making them her own. Although she managed to rip apart Shikamaru and Ino, Kiba and TenTen and even Shino and his girlfriend Kimura, couples who seemed to be invincible, I never feared that she would target the man I loved and had finally expressed my feelings to. I told myself that after all, didn't she think of him as just an annoyance? The loudmouthed blonde who irritated her to no end? And I still believed that...well, at least until tonight that is.

My heart sped up as I saw another figure step onto the path. Although he was still cloaked in shadows, I could see the shape of his face, the outline of his broad shoulders and recognize the self-confident air he held about him, and even though I wished with all my heart that I was wrong, I knew in my hear that the man who stepped into the moonlight a second later was none other than my hero, my inspiration, my one true love. Uzumaki Naruto.

My lower lip trembled, though I steeled myself against the tears that longed to escape. I shot my fist out, punching a nearby tree and leaving gouges on my knuckles. I ignored the feeling of blood running down my fingers and rose quietly from where I had been crouching. I took a few steps backwards, eyes still on the couple who were now embracing, then turned and ran. I ran faster then I ever had, pumping chakra into my legs in a constant stream, the thick soles on my boots grabbing the earth, racing towards the large wooden doors that marked Konoha's entrance. I paused before them, but only long enough to motion to the chunin guarding it to let me pass. He did so and I leapt through the gap as soon as it was large enough.

I had no pack, but I didn't need one. I ran all night, finally becoming exhausted a little while before dawn. I had left the border of the Fire country somewhere around midnight and, judging by the amount of mist surrounding me, was in the Water country and nearing the village of the Mist. I was completely out of chakra and could go on no longer. The last thing I though before the darkness consumed me was whether I should had stayed and fought for him…

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