A/N : So, I have to admit I have never, ever written a story with Sakura as my main character. Honestly, I didn't like her at the start. She was clingy, and completely annoying. So much I wished Kakashi would fling her off Team 7 and put someone with more charisma in it. But I admit I like her now. So anyway, enjoy.

Chapter One –Bad to the Bone.

Takashi Aina woke up, stretched and crawled out of bed. Opening her curtains, she looked out at the rain. It was so bad, you couldn't see through it. Her eyebrows knitted together, and her mouth turned down, forming a frown. Her wrinkles crinkled too, so deep they looked like craters on her skin.

Today was already bad for Aina. And it was about three minutes past dawn, yet she knew exactly how the day would go. Breakfast, dress, spend an agonising ten minutes trying to get down the stairs without snapping her hip, and the rest of the day would be watering her plants while wishing someone would stop to chat for a while.

Of course they wouldn't. Aina was turning 94 in three weeks. The best she'd get was a wave on her birthday. When she made it downstairs – ignoring the burning pain in her side – she was greeted by complete darkness. Aina assumed she had locked the curtains last night, though she didn't normally do that. Wondering if it was just old age that had made her forget, she reached for the light switch.

Though you couldn't see through the darkness, Aina's faded green eyes widened to the size of the moon when someone gripped her wrist. Three weeks prior to her 94th birthday, Takahashi Aina died.

"Naruto, you baka! What the Hell do you think you're doing? We're meant to be looking for a missing person, and you're messing around like it's a joke!" Haruno Sakura screamed.

Is her voice naturally that high-pitched and growly?

Uzumaki Naruto winced when her fist connected with his cheek, knowing it would bruise twice as badly tomorrow. Sakura kept walking.

Cruel woman.

They were supposed to wait for Hatake Kakashi – their silver-haired sensei – but he was notorious for being late, so they carried one walking towards the missing person's house. He'd meet them there anyway. Naruto grumbled as he followed the naturally pink-haired girl.

Correction, pink-haired woman. That's what she likes to think she is, anyway.

Sakura pulled out the brief from Lady Tsunade, though she'd memorized it when Tsunade had first given it to her. The basic things like her name, age, birthday, and some other personal things.

"Her name is Takahashi Aina," Sakura murmured, looking at the picture of a faded and ancient woman who didn't even smile for the camera. She was alone. Completely. "No family, or friends."

"If she had none, how did anyone notice she was missing?"

"Tsunade checks on all villagers, Naruto. Small checks that Shizune forces her to make," Sakura snapped back.

Give the kid a break, Sakura.

"Oh."

They reached her house, and Naruto knocked three times. After the third knock, he decided to kick it open. Sakura gasped, and punched him again. "NARUTO!" He was too stunned by the punch to notice Sakura's piercing scream, but when he looked at the body of Takashi Aina, he screamed himself. And normally Naruto didn't scream.

It's that bad, huh? It was pretty dark when I left. But you were the ones to find it.

It had been three weeks later when Uzumaki Naruto and Haruno Sakura had found Aina, and Kami, they wished they hadn't been the ones.