Prologue – Can you understand me?

Ino,

Maybe you're upset. Maybe you're literally freaking out right now. Maybe, you think that I'm absolutely stupid and crazy for not returning to Konoha although I'm not forced to stay here.

I'm sure it sounds like a real bad excuse to you but I'm staying here just because of Naruto. If you're thinking that I'm totally insane, than you are – of course – right but my plan is really not the worst. I think. I'll explain it if you keep reading, okay? I'm planning to save Naruto after they've taken the Kyuubi out of him, which they want to do soon if they are able to cath him. Perhaps this betrayal against Konoha won't be necessary. I hope you know that I, too, hope I won't have to rescue Naruto while they're removing the Kyuubi but if they do so, I will be here. And however, I will stop him from dying.

For Naruto's sake I couldn't care less what will happen to me after all, as long as he is then alive and once more back in Konoha.

Trying to protect him when his greatest burden is taken away after a life of so much pain, sorrow, fear and disrespect from others – this is something I owe him. He has always tried to protect me, to make me notice, understand him. I can't just watch and do nothing while there is an organisation wanting to kill him.

You know, how he is... Loving, caring, smiling all the time and so.. pure in the way he is trusting and believing in people – even when they have done terrible things.

He may not understand why I am doing this and I beg you now, Ino.. Don't tell him that I am only here to be his last chance when everything else did not work. Please, Ino. You are my best friend and I trust you in this matter. Don't spin around after reading this letter and running to Tsunade or Hinata or Shikamaru or Kakashi showing it. Even not to your parents or any other civilist. You have to destroy it and you must not speak of this ever again.

I couldn't live with the mistake of bringing my friends into any kind of danger because of me and my plans.

Please feel special, Ino, that I rely upon you. I can't tell you where I am now, at this very moment, but I'm okay. I hope you're well, too. Hopefully, my efforts will be enough to stay alive until all the fights and wars are over and we can finally meet again. Although we then will be enemies or I will be your prisoner. Please never forget, my thoughts of you will always be like the one you have for a sister.

I somehow managed to sneak out of the base and I am sure, they will notice that I'm gone in the next few minutes. But I'm just giving this to Chou, a hawk who will bring you this letter and with a tiny bit of luck they won't see me entering the base again.

Oh, yeah, I nearly forgot. Can you keep Chou, please? He can't return because Pain-sama or someone else would notice him when he's trying to find his way back to me.

I love you so much. That you mustn't forget.

Can you understand me now? I hope so.

Sakura

Her heart pounded strongly against her chest and she could almost feel her throat go dry. What on earth was Sakura doing? She was betraying her village, staying with Akatsuki... But why? Why? Why? Desperately, Ino chewed on her thumbnail while she absently crushed the paper of the letter in her hand. She never could show this to Tsunade and if Sakura were here, she would definitely rip Ino's head off her shoulders for the simple thought of not following the instructions the rosette gave her.

But Sakura was not here and that fact drove Ino crazy. Her best friend stayed with a bunch of mass murders while she stayed in the nice and safe Konoha. Well protected and with everything she could possibly need.

It would only be a little amount of time, until the elders or the ANBU or Tsunade herself would find out that Sakura was still with Akatsuki. Ino stood up from her bed and went to her chest of drawers. The mirror on top was a present from Sakura and as she took it in her right hand, she sniffed helplessly. Ino had really no idea what to do and she worried also for the life of her friend.

Even if Sakura could safe Naruto, what would happen next?

For the betrayal against Konoha, Tsunade would definitely punish the rosette. The elders would leave the Hokage no choice because Sakura allied herself with the most dangerous group of s-rank-shinobi since the end of the first World War. And that war had been fought more than a hundred years ago.

"Oh, Sakura," Ino whispered against the mirror. "What have you done?" She suddenly became aware of the letter in her left hand again. "Can you understand me?" had Sakura asked. The answer was: No, she couldn't. Naruto was so very important for the Haruno that the blonde Kunoichi had known before. But that she would even betray her own village and team up with the Akatsuki.. Sakura was alone there. Alone in a house – or in whatever these cruel shinobis lived – with mass murders.

Ino shrugged as she only thought of one possible thing that could happen to her friend.

Despite of the thoughtful and worried face Ino had put on, the hawk Sakura send made a silent shriek as if he planned to calm his new blonde owner down. "What do you want?"said Ino with a sparkle in her light, blue eyes and watched the bird almost suspiciously. The hawk stared back at her with a look in his eyes like he could understand what she just said. Then he shrieked again, only a bit louder than before. The blonde took instinctively a step back. "I'm talking with birds... Nuts. I'm totally nuts now!" Her fist flew in the air and it seemed for a moment like she was hitting an invisible person. "Thanks to you, Sakura! Damn it," she cursed and then threw the letter on the floor.

Chou was obviously not satisfied with her reaction to his shrieks, so he spread his wings and titled his head to his left side. He looked like he wanted to ask: "Why don't you do something?"

Ino decided to rather watch the sun go down behind the great, thick wall around Konoha, then to comment the strange behaviour of her new pet. But in her mind, she knew that the bird was "right". She had to do something. The thought of a lonely Sakura in a dirty, little cell, surrounded by Akatsuki, made her so uneasy and worried that she couldn't even try to think of something else.

Behind her, Chou shrieked again loudly – this time because she paid attention to the view and not to him but even if Ino was willing to care for the hawk, at the moment she was far too distracted.

Actually, there were three solutions for her mess:

Number one; she destroyed the letter, like Sakura said, ignored her worries and tried her best to care for the people in Konoha.

Number two; she showed the letter to Tsunade, watched her friend being put in the bingo book and hunted like the criminal she would be the next time a shinobi from Konoha would meet her.

Or, number three; she abandoned her village, her friends – like Sakura did before – followed the hawk to Akatsuki and joined. Well.. More like, tried to join and would be working with her friend.

Solution number three seemed most attractive to Ino because it was the only way she wouldn't have to fight against her friend one day. It was one thing to fight against your childhood friend but another thing, if you fought against someone who you knew almost better then you knew yourself. On the other hand she would really share the same destiny as Sakura. Being taken into the bingo book, being hunted or arrested someday.

"That way," Ino mumbled "It'll be better.. I could never arrest Pinky.." Ino slowly reached out to the floor and took the letter back in her hand and then put it into her pocket. Faster than she had picked up the letter, she packed a few unimportant and every important thing she could think of into a small backpack and put her kunai, shuriken and senbon into the right places.

"Chou", she cooed gentle and the hawk sailed elegantly through the air. He landed on her shoulder and his claws clung onto the material of her shirt. She proved thoroughly if she had anything she might need and then opened the window.

Ino knew that she wouldn't have any regrets at all – she wasn't the kind of girl that regretted something – but she felt a slight tingle of sadness. Leaving her parents and the few really good friends she had behind made her sigh. But it had to be. They all had each other but Sakura had nobody at the moment and that felt bad. Really bad.

The Yamanaka suppressed her chakra to the slightest possible sign and jumped out of her window, leaving it half open. She landed silently on her feet and glanced at the clock around her wrist. The guard at the south entrance took a nap at six every day and slept until quarter past. She had five minutes left to sneak out of the village unseen and rushed through the bush, without looking back at her now old home.

She could still go back. But she certainly wouldn't.

Over fifty miles away watched the rosette kunoichi, who made her best friend abandon her village only one or two seconds ago, the sky. Or rather what one could see. Big, grey clouds hid the blue colour, cold and icy rain, which gave the country she was in its name, fell down and made the air thick and more cool then it usually would have been.

"Was writing the letter a good idea?" she asked herself and tipped with her fingers a strange rhythm on the wooden window-sill. Her green eyes watched the raindrops fall and with an almost nervous look on her face, she combed through her rosette hair. "I wonder.. what she is doing.."

Sakura Haruno put her hand over her eyes and tried to relax. If she had known at that moment, what Ino was doing, she would probably have jumped out of the window. Without chakra, from the third floor.

But she would hear of it soon enough.

To be continued...

Hello, folks!

This is Kissufication.. :D (Obviously..)

Well.. after this one year I've been at I've finally decided to write my own little Naruto-story.. I'm very proud of it altough it maybe isn't really good. So I thought, I just try.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto (and don't earn money with this story.)

I would love to think what you guys think of the prologue and perhaps, if you like, what you would have done. (If you were Ino/Sakura. :3)

Have a nice day!