Prologue
Konoha 11 was seen walking towards the village entrance in completion of their previous mission.
Izumo and Kotetsu were on guard watch and were prepared for their peaceful morning to be disturbed by how loud the team would become once arriving home as usual. It would always be as if it were some sort of routine…
Naruto, Kiba and Choji would already be talking and drooling over how much ramen they planned to eat while Shikamaru walked alongside the Jonin, Kakashi and Yamato quietly, trying to get out of something troublesome like treating them which all three have been once tricked into doing in the past. Lee would probably be running on his hands or trying to make a simple walk difficult trying to fit training in which consequently resulted in Tenten yelling at him. Neji, Hinata and Shino were notably the quietest in the team as Neji and Shino preferred solitude and Hinata, well only wishes to be joining Naruto in whatever his plans were that afternoon. That leaves Ino and Sakura who time to time would be seen throughout everyone either making plans to eat with Naruto's group or just alongside each other.
Yes, that's basically how it went, but this morning something was slightly off.
The team arrived dead silent, their faces looking drained and filled with dread? Remorse? Or was it just anger that looked plain obvious in Shikamaru and Yamato's faces. Whatever it was only lead Izumo and Kotetsu to look at each other as if they knew it was obviously a failure of a mission or they were just tired. The latter made more sense as it was an S-Rank mission they were surprised they were disappointed that they were so quiet, shouldn't they be happy that it's nice and quiet?
"Well, welcome back! I need to make my morning report to Lady Tsunade already, so I'll let her know you've all arrived safely." Kotetsu said in hopes of waking them up fully
Kakashi placed a hand on his shoulder and nodded before adding, "Thanks but we need to head up there anyways there's something important she must know from our mission".
Kotetsu nodded as the group made way to the Hokage noticing that, that one thing that was off wasn't the fact that that Naruto wasn't complaining about being hungry, or that Lee actually seemed tired it was that someone was missing…
A shinobi must always put the mission first.
A shinobi must never show tears.
A shinobi must never show any weakness.
As Hokage, Tsunade broke four shinobi rules in 5 minutes, 5 minutes is all it took.
"How do you 'lose' a comrade?!" she tried redirecting her anger to her desk which resulted it to completely collapse sending paperwork and pieces of wood everywhere. She knew yelling at the team would get nowhere as they were feeling the same as she, it was her fault to send them out on this mission which was far too dangerous. Fists balled and head bowed she cursed under her breath as she was fighting herself, Shizune stepped in front of her holding Tsunade's pig TonTon apologizing for Tsunade's sudden behavior. Although Shizune wanted to do the same exact thing exactly as she could have talked her out of assigning them this mission, it seemed everyone wanted to shoulder the burden of their missing or fallen comrade.
Yamato stepped forward and bowed in forgiveness, "Forgive me Tsunade-sama it was my fault and I-"
"I should have retreated the whole team back to safety knowing we had a slim chance, as a team captain I apologize for not watching her" Kakashi added in stepping forward slowly as well.
"Kakashi don't act as if she couldn't hold her own and she was helpless like as if she was just an escort. My disciples are stronger than that, it's what she wanted to prove she wanted to prove that her training with me was not a wasted effort."
"I didn't mean to offend her I just know there was more in my capability."
"You're all dismissed." Tsunade whispered facing her window.
And with that Konoha 11 left alongside Yamato and Kakashi speechless, leaving the report of what happened on what was left of her desk.
Sakura opened her eyes, surprised that she even could. She had no doubt her comrades had come to save her from the ambush and she was now sitting at-
'Where am I?' Sakura thought
Realizing how much pain she was in as she struggled to get up she noticed she was in a very unfamiliar place. Was she taken hostage? Is she a hindrance to her team's mission? She groaned in pain as she tried to stand, losing balance watching the ground approach her face as she fell she winced. Only she didn't hit the ground like she thought and was lowered slowly instead of a harsh impact, her eyes widened as she looked back to see not a person but strings of chakra attached to her like a puppet. Memories flooded her now aching head while contemplating what was going on, she remembered Granny Chiyo controlling her this way which only lead to fear in realization that she was someone else's puppet now. She reached into her pouch looking for a kunai or something to cut her free although it was empty, she reached back instead to see if she could break free, once she lifted her arms up she screamed and cursed in pain almost passing out from how intense it was. 'They must know I'm trying to break free and they're preventing me' her inner self thought. But no, as a medic ninja she knew that wasn't it. She had a severely broken arm and was well aware of her other injuries she's sustained. She heard footsteps coming towards her, A whole team ready to finish her. Taking in her surroundings as she had been too distracted to do earlier she noticed she was in a cave particularly dark, trying not panic she closed her eyes and started to think.
'Okay now, I can't pinpoint where we are and how far away Naruto and the others are but I might be able to take these guys down if I can just focus…'
She started to calm down and sense the chakra's of the others, her eyes widened with fear as she sensed that there were 4 people approaching her and they had an unbelievable amount of chakra which seemed eerily familiar. There was no way she could… tears rolled down her eyes in fear of what was going to happen to her and only hoping that her team didn't pursue her. She laid her head down on the cold cave floor in defeat, closing her eyes.
Naruto sat at the training grounds with everybody, he remembered the three stumps in the ground and exactly where he was tied up to one. He sighed and leaned against that particular stump and looked to both his sides, empty. He now let himself down and lost two of his team mates, one of which defected and left to avenge his clan.. Sasuke. Now Sakura who was the last he had expected to lose and all the more painful, he liked her since the day he saw her at the academy but that innocent childish crush grew into more without her knowledge and now she could be dead or about to be all because he couldn't protect one more comrade like he promised. He remembered his Sensei's words the same time he was tied up, 'Those who break the rules are scum, and those who abandon their friends are worse than scum'.
"Damn it…" Naruto mumbled
The rest of the group were as quiet around him as he was sure they had memories and regrets about that day as well.
Sai another member of team 7 who was originally Sasuke's replacement but was more to him than that walked up to the group. Sai hadn't had the best knowledge when it came to emotions and how other people felt but he knew that they were undoubtedly upset.
"I'm sensing something's wrong?" He questioned knowing the answer
Everyone nodded or shook their head which initially confused Sai but he had read in a book that it was common to deny something troubling which lead him to remember that…
"Oh yeah where's Sakura? I have a book of hers I borrowed that I'm now finished with, its best I return it now before I forget" Sai chimed in nervously laughing in hopes of lightening the mood.
Ino grabbed Sai's hand and walked him a few meters away from the group who gave looks as if they knew what she was already going to tell him.
"Oh I was hoping someone would let me know what was going on, how did the mission go?" Sai smiled.
Ino avoided eye contact in fear she would tear up, "The mission went fine, completed and successful but-"
"Then why does everyone look depressed? Like if someone had died or something" Sai interrupted.
He saw Ino flinch at his words and knew he had said something wrong, he just didn't know exactly what was wrong with asking why everyone looked so sad he thought about it for a few seconds before adding things up.
"…Unless?" he asked.
Ino had been fighting tears back from what he just said and nodded, "Sakura… the Akatsuki had shown up only it wasn't truly them, Hinata could see about 30% of their chakra was that of an Akatsuki and the rest were normal. We were holding up fine but no one knows exactly what happened to her, everyone was caught up in their own battles and it wasn't until the end that this weird aloe plant guy came out of the ground saying he was glad he atleast got one of us and that was all he needed for now, leading all of them to retreat."
Sai looked down towards his feet trying to think of something to say but all that could pass his lips were "I see…"
Sakura's eyes still closed could feel that she was surrounded but by less atleast two people this time. She hoped they didn't see her tears to consider her as weak.
"Jeez you reopened your wounds, someone get Kakazu so he can sew her up again, Sasori you weren't supposed to let her move!" She heard a familiar voice say.
'Sew me up? Were these people helping me? Sasori? Kakazu? Why did those names sound so familiar…?' She thought before passing out from blood loss, voices slurred around her and her head began to spin.
She then on the ground where she had been left except this time sitting up right against the wall still sitting in her own blood 'Yuck', she thought she was at least hoping they would clean her up a bit and make her comfortable. Why wouldn't they? She reached her arms up to stretch suddenly remembering they were broken and tried to stop, but something else stopped her, 'Oh yeah I'm a puppet'
"You might not want to move, unless you like causing a great deal of pain to yourself." A voice near her spoke out.
"Why do you care?" Sakura tried to find out where the voice was coming from, trying to turn her head to see who it was that helped her not once, from falling on her face and now from hurting her arms again. She followed the strings with her eyes to see the person was directly in front of her, still hidden in the shadow.
"I don't" Footsteps approached her walking out of the shadows, "After all you've killed me many times before, I'm simply following orders".
'Following orders?' she thought, as soon as that thought entered her mind she saw the infamous cloak everyone has knowledge about. Black dark coat with red clouds on it… this was the Akatsuki which meant…
"Tell me you haven't forgotten me right?" A man who looked to be in his 20's with red hair was staring down at her smiling.
"Sasori…" She never expected to encounter him again, she thought he had died fear then ran throughout her but she couldn't get up and run she was forced to stare at her enemy in the eye.
(A/N: All of Akatsuki is alive, I'll upload a second chapter as this is a relatively short story, reviews would be nice! :) tell me what you want to happen. If this gets reviews i'll finish it, if not i won't waste my time. thank you!)
