Chapter 1

„N-Naruto what are you doing?! Stop it!" Sakura shouted while she jumped back to dodge several dozen kunai flying in her direction. Unfortunately she wasn't fast enough so one of them hit her left leg and she stumbled backwards. The soft grass under her feet was soon drained in crimson blood. "Guys, please tell me why are you attacking me? What did I do wrong to make you so mad?" whispered Sakura desperately. Naruto went past Kiba and Hinata who watched her with a determined expression on her normally so peaceful face.

"Sakura I'm sorry but it's the only way to bring Sasuke back." the fair boy said without showing any emotion in his voice.

"What are you talking about? Why would attacking me bring Sasuke back?" the seventeen year old girl demanded to know. She was horrified because it wasn't the Naruto she used to know. He came back from another journey with the old hermit about a week ago and since that time he hadn't talked to her at all. And then, about half an hour ago he met her while she was on her way from the hospital back to her apartment. He wanted to talk to her and she was totally happy because she thought that she would finally get the chance to know why his last behaviour was so strange.

While they walked through Konoha he didn't gave her one of his trademark smiles nor did he say a word. When they reached the training fields the kuubi boy stopped and turned around to face her. The full moon above them drained everything in a metallic image and his normally so tanned and cheerful face seemed so old and sad that she shortly wondered if this was really the boy she spent her whole ninja life with. Then suddenly she heard a familiar sound coming from her right direction and she reacted immediately thanks to her well-trained ninja reflexes.

As soon as she looked in the direction where she had been only moments before, her face went completely pale. There, sticking in the soft ground, where the special shurikens she had given TenTen to her eighteens birthday. "Wha-What…." she whispered softly. " Sakura! " At the sound of the well known voice of Ino Sakura lifted her glance from the dangerous weapons to look out for her best friend. There, standing next to Hinata and Kiba, Ino watched her with a look of disgust in her ice-blue eyes. "What are you guys doing here?" Sakura asked with shock clearly evident in her voice and written all over her face. "You don't get it, do you?" Naruto asked, while he raised his arm to get ready for another attack.

So this is the story leading to her momentary predicament. She still didn't know why nearly all of her friends went suddenly crazy and threw kunai at her. While she was asking herself thousands of questions Kiba, Akamaru, Hinata, Naruto, Shino, TenTen, Ino, Lee, Shikamaru and even her former teacher Kakashi had formed a circle around her. The girl with soft pink hair tried to stand as straight as possible with the still bleeding wound bothering her body.

She slowly reached for her weapon pouch fastened to her left tight only inches over her blood covered skin. She noticed that all of them went immediately tense by the cautious movement of her dainty hand. The newly gained kunai pressed to the front of her shirt gave her a feeling of safety even though it was deceptive. She damn well knew that she couldn't win against all of them although she gained the rank of a Jonin only a few months ago. "Okay now tell me why you are doing this to me.", Sakura demanded to know. After a few moments of silence the silver haired jonin formally known as the teacher of team 7 sighed and started to speak.

"Look Sakura, when Naruto travelled with Jiraja they met Uchiha Itachi and they made a deal. In exchange of a skilled medic who can heal his damaged eyes he will attack Orochimaru's hideout and set Sasuke free so that he can go back to Konoha. Unfortunately you are the only one capable of healing him except for Tsunade but we can't trade her of course."

Everything went completely silent for Sakura. So this was it. All of her so called friends would exchange her without thinking twice to the next best psychological screwed up clan killer.

She dropped to the ground and let her long hair fall over her face to hide her facial expression. "Oh come on girl you always said you would do everything for your Sasuke-kun. Now you have she chance to set him free so stop crying!" Ino shouted with contempt in her voice.

Sakura's shoulders started to shake heavily and Lee stepped forward" I'm sorry to do this to you my lovely flower but it is the best for Konoha and for all of us so please stop crying."

They heard a strange muffled sound coming from the fallen girl and assumed that it was a hardly suppressed sob. But then it started to grow louder and louder until they could clearly hear that it was laughter arousing from the timid girl sitting in the middle of their circle.

Sakura struggled to keep her true feelings under her acted façade. "Oh really? Yeah, of course I understand." she managed to say between hardly contained laughing while she started to get up again. "The Uchiha kid is much more valuable then the small little weak Sakura. Oh yeah you can't imagine how much I understand that. I have always been completely worthless and will always be. So why not treat me like a piece of meat to get back the genius with the unique ability, the sharingan?! That's what you are trying to say right?!" Now she couldn't hold back a sob any longer but she wouldn't allow herself to start crying in front of these people!

"So you did understand after all, right? Now be a good girl and come with us so we can meet up with Itachi-san. I guess he's already waiting for us." Kakashi said with a voice sounding as if he was talking about the weather.

Sakura slowly started to walk in his direction. She was just too shocked to struggle against the so clearly shown superior force. Something inside of her was broken beyond repair. Her face was blank without any tears falling down her cheeks and she looked at the ground, not able to look in the eyes of her former friends.

"Sakura!!" Said girl turned her head slowly in the direction of a few bushes and her eyes widened when she caught sight of Neji and Sai running out of the woods towards the small group. " Sakura you have to run! They want to trade you to Itachi!" Neji shouted." We will buy you some time so run as fast as you can. We will catch up to you later after we have beaten these guys!" Sai added.

Sakura was speechless. So not everyone wanted her to go. She still had friends who would even go as far as fighting against their own superiors in order to help her. Slowly she looked back at Naruto and Kakashi, her own team members, smirked and whispered "Sensei, do you remember what you taught us on our first day of training? That people who don't care about their friends are even lower than trash? Think about it while I'm gone. Bye!"

The betrayed girl leaped backwards and started to run as fast as possible with her injured leg. She dodged several punches thrown at her from Hinata and answered with shurikens and kunais, equipped with exploding notes. Several loud bangs were heard and smoke filled the training field of the former and now forever destroyed team 7.

She hid her chakra trail so that nobody, not even Akamaru would be able to track her down and vanished into the wood without anyone being able to be detected, except for Neji thanks to his newly activated Byakugan..

Sakura was panting heavily after three hours of leaping through the impermeable forest. She was bleeding from different wounds all over her body because of several falls she had received due to her hectic behaviour.

I can't continue anymore. I've lost way to much blood and I have to heal the wounds if I want to survive until sunrise!She thought desperately.

I have to look for a safe place before I can restSakura stopped in front of a very large and old tree. You wouldn't normally see the hole in the tree trunk but Sakura has been in this area several times before while she was on missions given by her former Hokage Tsunade.

Yeah right the lonely girl thought my former Hokage. She was a missing-nin now. She slowly made her way towards the small cave and started to climb in her new momentary home.

While she began to examine the deepest gash, caused by Naruto, she thought about the different reasons her former friends had to attack her.

Naruto was the easiest one. He just wanted to have his best friend back- It has always been like that. Sasuke and Naruto were best friends, the praised and strongest Genin team together with Kakashi-Sensei. And she, Sakura, the little girl with the big forehead and slightly higher intelligence than normal kids in her age had. She was just normal- neither a genius like Sasuke nor a boy with an unbelievable amount of chakra like Naruto.

But what reason did the other Ninja had to attack her? Kakashi had most likely acted for the same reason Naruto had.

But what's with TenTen? Or Lee? She always thought that he was deeply in love with her.

Oh how naïve she had been. Why hadn't she looked beneath the underneath like her sensei had always told them to do?

She made a grimace when she felt the skin next to her wound shrinking together while she poured chakra inside of it. She melted cells together and ordered new ones to arise to cover her torn flesh.

During the painful procedure she let occasionally whimpers slip past her tightly closed lips,

stubbornly suppressing tears of pain.

As soon as she had healed the worst injuries she took her leaf-headband away from it's place on top of her head and made a deep gash trough the once beloved symbol.

She stayed like that for a long time thinking about her next move when she suddenly remembered something really important. She had totally forgotten to think about Sai and Neji while she was running away as fast as possible.

Sai did say something about catching up with her after they have beaten the other ones.

But would they be strong enough to beat nine jonin-level ninjas? Of course these two were extraordinary strong but they were just humans. Would they even survive this fight? And if not what should she do? They would have died because of her, because she had been to weak to defend herself. And now she was here in safety crouched together inside of a tree trunk selfishly thinking about her own dilemma while her only friends were most likely dead?!

She had to go back, maybe she could still heal them.

She crawled out of her spot of safety, ready to head back again when she suddenly felt a very familiar chakra signature. It was weak but it was clearly evident and she nearly shouted out of pure joy. She ran towards the direction where she sensed the source of Sai's and Neji's chakra. She dodged several branches and jumped over deep holes in order to get there as fast as possible. When she dashed through a few thorn bushes, which partially ripped her clothes she stopped running at the sight of a beautiful clearing. Two figures were laying there obviously unconscious and she cautiously walked in their direction.

As soon as she was sure that it were the bodies of Neji and Sai laying there she started running again. But before she could reach them a dark figure appeared in front of her and she had to stop to prevent herself from crashing into him. As soon as she had gained her balance back and looked upwards she went completely rigid. In front of her stood Uchiha Itachi.