Set during the Fourth Great Ninja War in an AU.

A/N: Hello readers, here is a brand new shiny story from me! This plot has been in my to-do list for awhile now but I haven't had the time to plan everything out in detail before starting on the first chapter. However, I've now come up with a brief skeleton and thus I present to you the beginning of a new adventure! Like the description suggests, yes, it is an AU fic. However, Sasuke and Sakura are still Ninjas. Personally, I don't like reading AU fics for some reason since I prefer them to still have ties towards their ninja identities. So then I thought.. what if they were still ninjas of Konoha, but were in a different world? ; o; Decided it'd be fun to try. Let me know what you think!

As you might know, there's a lot of technological fallacies in the Shinobi world.. so pardon me if anything seems off, I'm just going with my own part of the story ; u; Also contains an OC in the AU.

Disclaimer: This story is written purely based on my interpretations of the SasuSaku pairing and information within the anime, movies, and novels. Please don't read if you don't like what's happening. Rated T for language and slight violence/gore, but nothing more than fluff.

In a timeline reference to my other fics, this story can be thought of as taking place before "Home".

Naruto © Masashi Kishimoto

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Tokyo Tempest

Part I: The Beginning

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No one ever comes out of a storm the same as they walked in.

"I'm going to become Hokage."

His resolve played inside of her head like a broken record. The pink-haired girl sat on the decayed earth in the aftermath of the Fourth Great Ninja War, dazed at the sight of the renegade Uchiha standing before them wearing a merciless, but mixed expression. The three of them had been in utter shock ever since he had made the most unanticipated, most shocking announcement to their ears.

It was all too wrong, too unfamiliar.

They had just fought a damn war together. They defeated Madara, the person who planned to trap the entire world in an inevitable illusion with the Infinite Tsukuyomi. They saved the Shinobi world from being on the brink of destruction. After years of of their bonds being severed, this was the first thing the three of them had collectively achieved together as a team.

So how did it suddenly become like this?

"Naruto, you're now the Jinchūriki of all the tailed beasts. Which means I eventually plan to get rid of the chakra inside of you too." The raven-haired man stood opposing to his old team members on the remains of the battlefield, his Rinnegan ominously juxtaposing his black orb.

" .. In other words, you're going to die. Out of necessity."

Sakura and Naruto eyed their teammate in both caution and pain, while Sasuke continued in assertion.

"If what the Sage said was true, there's no need to use the tailed beasts power inside of you to release the Infinite Tsukuyomi. I can take advantage of all the beasts captured.. Therefore I'll let them live until then."

"You know I won't let you do that, right?" The blonde spoke up in a hushed, but all-serious tone that hinted at great disappointment.

A tense air immediately broke out in the atmosphere, allowing a moment of silence as either of them refused to break their firm gaze.

"Then I guess I'll just have to deal with you first. Let's move this elsewhere," The Uchiha darted towards the silence dismissively, shifting away from his ex-teammates. The three of them eyed his back suspiciously, anticipating his next movement until he turned his head to the side and locked gazes with the blonde through the corner of his eye.

".. You know what I'm talking about, don't you?"

Naruto furrowed his eyebrows at the suggestion of the Uchiha's words, but wasn't quick enough to provide an answer as Sasuke had already began his stride. At this, Sakura bit down on her lip hard, feeling an unrelenting form of anxiety rush over her as she saw how strong, how firm he stood against his resolve.

He's walking away from them again. She knew what the two of her bestest friends in the world were set out to do once they leave this vicinity. Once more, the space between them seemed to be intangible and endless.

She could nearly feel her heart drop down to the pit of her stomach, a feeling she was already rather well acquainted with over the past few years.

"Wait, Sasuke!" The silver-haired man exclaimed, leaning forward as if he could stop his old student with the mere reach of his hand. He quickly retracted upon an excruciating pain radiating throughout his body. The lingering effects of the Sharingan..

"Sensei!" Sakura latched onto her old teacher's back reassuringly as he continued to wince. At this point, she could feel hot tears beginning to well up in her eyes. But that didn't matter. There was only one thing that mattered in this moment.

So, she swallowed the lump in her throat and jolted her head in the direction of the Uchiha.

"Sasuke-kun!" Her voice rang with all her strength into the distance, the raven-haired man taking his time before slowly coming to a descending stop in his path.

She cursed her own assertiveness for a mere second before deciding that out of all chances, if her voice were to be heard, the three of them might have a chance at another future. With that in mind, there really wasn't anything else that her pride couldn't take another beating for.

"I know deep inside that there really isn't anything I can do." She started with a voice as composed as she could muster, "Even though I love you, even though I care about you so much, Sasuke, and yet.."

She could feel all eyes on her as she delivered her most daring, most embarrassing outburst yet.

".. Yet I can't even exchange blows with you or get close to you at all. I can only beg, whine, and cry like this again. I know it's pitiful."

He contemplated on ignoring what seemed like 100th confession he'd heard from the girl he knew would go to great lengths of incomprehensible stupidity for him. But instead, he let an unwanted memory rise to the surface. One that despite all popular belief, he desperately tried to smother away for the past few years.

"I'm begging you, Sasuke-kun. Please don't leave!"

He knew she was crying. If he turned around right this instant, he'd see her tear-stained face that was probably worried and scared at the same time.

"I'll even help you get your revenge, I'll do whatever it takes to make it happen, I swear!" Sakura's voice began to crack, "So stay here, please. And if you can't.."

.. Despite so, he wasn't going to let anything get in between him and his decision. He couldn't.

"-then take me with you."

She and Naruto were the two people he'd come to cherish the most. He was grateful for having people like that. He really was. For the first time in his life since the massacre, he'd come to know the true feeling of friendship and bonds. And for Sakura.. she was the one who showered him with unconditional love, something he hadn't let himself feel for a long time.

And it was going to stay that way. Though he'd remember it forever.

"You haven't changed at all." He said, turning himself around for a brief second and flashing her an ominous smirk.

"You're still as annoying as ever."

"Don't leave me! If you go, I'll scream and-"

As soon as he heard the pink-haired girl began to run for him, he disappeared in an instant and reappeared again, this time behind his teammate.

"Sakura." The avenger called out cooly,

"Thanks for everything."

"-But, Sasuke-kun!"

The old memory dissipated with the sound of the pink-haired girl's strong voice piercing through the distance.

"If there's even a little corner of your heart that still thinks about me, that still thinks about team 7 and our comrades the way it used to, then please don't leave again." She tried her hardest not to let herself break near the end, to be as firm and assertive as she could, but it got more and more difficult as she felt a love so overwhelming it managed to take over her composure almost immediately. "If we stick together, I know it's possible that our bonds can be like old times again."

If there was one thing he knew for sure aside from the strength of his resolve, it was that Sakura would hold onto her feelings strongly, selfishly no matter who or what circumstances tried to take it away. He had something like that before, once upon a time in his own family.

This was something he knew, but would never understand.

Like before, she was the one person that somehow still had the utterly annoying ability to get under his thick skin. Who could easily claim to love him after endless mistrust and betrayal. Again, this was yet another thing he would never come to understand. He didn't need to.

The pink-haired girl watched, tear-stained with a rapid heartbeat as the Uchiha shifted his gaze around once more and displayed a somber-like smile.

"You're such an annoyance."

Sakura widened her viridian orbs in surprise, but not fast enough to speak with her half-opened mouth as a pang of chakra immediately spiked within the Uchiha, sending him darting towards the pink-haired girl in a flash.

However, the next moment felt like it was in a matter of milliseconds.

Just as he was about to reach her with a blow in the chest, a giant wavelength tore in the air between the two of them, strong and agile enough to push the raven-haired man into the air and away from his target. He landed smoothly on his feet, dragging the dirt in front of him with his fingers in effort to skid to a stop.

"H-Hey.." Naruto stuttered, eyes darting in one direction and then the next in panic. "What's happening here!?"

The ground is shaking. Sakura observed, putting aside the fact that Sasuke had just tried to kill her and placed a hand on the unstable earth as the shattering began to get stronger and stronger. An iridescent light began to envelop the sky above, swirling and subsequently changing into a subtle golden glow that only began to turn brighter and brighter. It was as if the heavens were changing form, a high pressure in the air that could easily be felt against the skins of the four below.

The pink-haired girl let out a gasp and darted her attention below her feet, widening her eyes in surprise as her legs struggled to move out of their firm position against the dirt.

"What is going o-"

Suddenly, in one swift motion, the earth below pulled her into its embrace, splitting the rock and dirt apart as she attempted to grab onto the air above her in mercy, but grunted when she only began to dive deeper into the nothingness below.

"SAKURA-CHAN!"

Naruto's voice was the last thing she heard, bellowing down into the endless ravine as she slowly disappeared out of sight.

Upon regaining consciousness, her body felt sore in all areas of movement, especially when she attempted to sit up from the reclined position she was in on the stone-hard ground beneath her.

Wait. What stone ground? The last thing she could remember was that there was a sudden change in the atmosphere at the battleground, right after she had delivered the most cringeworthy confession she had ever managed to spit out and once again got hopelessly rejected from.

"Hey! The hell is up with you, woman!?"

"Maybe she's homeless?"

"Don't look at her, sweetie."

Before Sakura could even open her eyes, she heard a hustle of voices and murmurs looming over her, disappearing as fast as they came every few seconds. Her temples were throbbing in an uneven pace, and it took her awhile before she actually lifted her head up from its downwards position.

It wasn't until she had actually opened her eyes, slowly, that she realized she had been laying among a sea of people walking out and about in a busy intersection.

She blinked once, twice, thrice wide-eyed after scanning the new and unfamiliar environment around her. She noticed out of the corner of her gaze people, children and adults alike, still staring at her as they made their way around to avoid her. But that wasn't what was keeping her attention at the moment. It was as if thousands of stimuli were trying to break into her senses all at once. Colors flashed in every direction she looked, most of which were planted on high buildings made of either cement or glass. When she attempted to read some of the signs and what seemed like moving advertisements plastered on the walls, she recognized that the Japanese was a little different from what she knew.

Never in her life had she seen anything like this before. Just a few seconds ago, she was in the middle of the battlefield with Naruto, Kakashi, and Sasuke. So where exactly was this strange pl-

"Ah!" In a quick movement, the pink-haired girl rolled off to her side and took advantage of the momentum to stand herself up with her knees and then onto her feet. She stumbled for a few seconds before completely regaining her balance, eyeing the strange robot-like machinery that sped past her but nearly squashed her to death.

"Get out of the way, you freak!" An elderly man inhabiting the unknown machine bellowed out to her as it subsequently disappeared out of her sight among a bunch of similar machinery.

"What the hell?" Sakura murmured to herself, silently cursing the man's rudeness. She could care less that she was receiving more suspicious stares as she panted for her breath with furrowed eyebrows in deep seriousness. Her position was rather predatory with her legs spread apart in a defensive stance amidst the groups of confused humans that ridiculed her in silence.

No matter which direction she looked, all she could see were heads, hundreds of them roaming past her, some of in which tried to aggressively push her out of their way. Most were deep in conversation while others were fixated on smaller gadget-like items in their hands. The humans wore strange clothing, mainly comprised of the brighter colors on the spectrum, though some seemed like they were wearing practically nothing at all.

When she tried to peer up ahead, the roads seemed endless. On the other side of the humans, a giant row of the same machinery that almost killed her were lined up, two of in which the humans inside of it were screaming and cursing at eachother while the ones from behind bellowed out a loud honking noise.

"This must be a Genjutsu." Sakura pondered to herself, several possibilities running through her mind as to what on earth she could be doing here.

"Comin through!"

She let out a little gasp in surprise as a person on a loud two-wheeled machinery zoomed past her face, causing her body to jolt back in surprise. As she stumbled behind her toes, another grunt escaped her mouth when she felt her back pound against something firm.

"Sorry! That was my b-" She twisted her gaze around her shoulder, but froze mid-sentence when her eyes met with a familiar pair that she had known for almost her entire life.

The obsidian orbs stared back at her, eyebrows furrowed in seriousness and caution as the two of them stood back-to-back gazing at eachother in further anticipation.

"Sasuke-kun!?" Sakura yelped in surprise, feeling like the hundreds of people walking around her were now simply background images compared to the ex-comrade in front of her.

The Uchiha failed to respond, but instead gritted his teeth and narrowed his eyes at this new revelation.

"Sasuke-kun, what're you doing here?" The pink-haired girl attempted her words again, now shifting her entire body around to face the Uchiha who has yet to move from his position.

He didn't respond, again, but instead his eyes grew darker as he spat out his next words.

"I thought I told you that you were annoying."

Sakura widened her eyes, immediately raising an arm up in another defensive stance as the Uchiha swung his body around and darted his palm forward in the space between them, setting another deathly aim at her chest.

"Hehe, Mama Mama! This strange onii-chan knows how to do the Hadouken too!"

Sasuke and Sakura stared at eachother wide-eyed in horrific surprise, frozen in their current stances for the next few seconds as a young mother whispered angrily at her child to stop staring and keep walking.

He just tried to attack me again! Sakura hissed to her inner self, But, the technique didn't even work! What the hell is going on?

"Bro,"

The raven-haired man blinked once out of his shocked trance to look at a group of teenagers standing beside him. The one who spoke was a boy around his age, but a bit taller in height and with spiked orange hair.

"You guys attending the AnimeJapan convention?" The boy shuffled himself forward, hooking an arm casually around the shoulders of the Uchiha and giving him a look of admiration up and down. "Just wanted to say your costumes are awesome! How'd you get the whole beat-up-from-the-war kinda look?"

In a split second, a long demeaning glare shot from the Uchiha's eyes towards the stranger, sending his arm flying right off as he took a step back and gulped nervously. "Okay, then." Within seconds, the boy had disappeared into the crowd along with the rest of the group.

"Sasuke-kun," The pink-haired girl whispered assertively for the third time, lowly so that nobody around them would accidentally overhear. "Do you have any idea where this is?"

She was almost sure she was going to be ignored again. But instead, the raven-haired man closed his eyes in annoyance and gave a tiny sigh in defeat. "I don't know."

Fantastic. Never in a million years would she imagine that out of all people, she'd be trapped with Sasuke in a place neither of them knew ever existed on the face of this earth. She hadn't seen anyone else she recognized since she mysteriously landed here.

Oh, god. And she knew he tried to hurt her again, twice just now. How awkward is that. But judging from that single attempt, it seemed like their powers didn't work in a place like this. Never mind that, the people here seemed rather... too ordinary.

... Was this a universe co-existing completely independent of the Shinobi world?

"I don't know how we ended up here, but we're definitely not anywhere near Konoha or any of the villages. It looks like the people here don't recognize us as apart of this place, either. They've been looking at us suspiciously for awhile now."

The pink-haired girl watched the Uchiha speak as he finally began to contribute more to their cause. She subsequently darted her gaze around them with only the slightest tilt of her head to be careful, taking note of the street-passers who sent them strange looks, some of in which were laughing at them explicitly.

It was true. She hadn't failed to notice that earlier herself, obviously, being delivered smacked onto the ground and all.

But if that was the case, it made even more sense that that they had to stick together if they wanted to figure out how to leave this place together. For the time being, it didn't matter how the two of them even got here in the first place.

"It'd be best to stay together for now." Sakura exclaimed, feeling slightly nervous as she suggested it. "It'd be bad if we got separated and something unfortunate happens."

She searched his face for a response, for anything that represented a look of approval, but it remained as expressionless as ever. It wasn't until he closed his eyes dismissively and turned to walk in the opposite direction that she frowned and began to follow his footsteps.

"Where are you going?"

"I don't have any obligation to do that." Sasuke said cooly, his back still turned.

At this, Sakura felt her own annoyance beginning to rise. What could he possibly gain from being stubborn at a time like this? The two of them managed to snake their way through the crowds easily, as if they were deliberately parting for them. "You're saying you're just going to find a way out of this by yourself, then?"

She watched as the Uchiha paused in his tracks, forcing her to stop hers as well just a few footsteps behind. She was surprised when he deliberately shifted himself around this time to face her, his foot in a slight pivot to turn himself back at any moment. His expression was cold and serious.

"I'm saying I don't have any intention to stay with you. Not even in a world like this."

Sakura didn't bother to follow him any further, but instead remained lost in amidst of the crowd as the Uchiha tore his gaze away from her without the slightest bit of hesitation and vanished among the sea of people.