It was the end of another day. Everything had gone smoothely. The Konoha Village was currently living in peace, not a problem to be found. A recent issue that became a problem was a conflict with the Land of Thunder. One of the executives from the Hidden Cloud Village, and a very important one to make it worse, was killed by a Konoha shinobi. For this reason Tsunade had to go to the Hidden Cloud Village a month ago to come to some sort of agreement. Sakura went with her. At this time the land was at the brink of war, and everyone waited nervously for the return of these two. However, surprisingly enough, negotiations were made in only two days, and everyone in the Konoha Village returned to everyday life as if nothing had happened.

Group 7 was one of these people. Once Sakura was back everyday life was the same monotonous thing as it was before. For this reason it was probably several times more shocking when their habitual life suddenly ended.

As I have said before, it was the end of another day. It wasn't too late though, probably about five, judging from the sunset of the autumn day. A sixteen-year-old Sasuke was standing around as the teacher gave a small recap of the mission they had just completed. Naruto looked extremely impatient, as though he had to leave the site at that moment. Sakura stood silently eyeing her ex-teacher. When Kakashi was done Sasuke turned around to head home, but Sakura quickly grabbed his arm and stopped him.

"Sasuke kun, could I talk to you?" she asked, turning red.

Sasuke was perplexed by the whole act, but turned to her and asked, "what is it?"

"I don't want to talk here, let's go to the benches."

So the two of them headed towards the benches. The place where the two of them were alone for the first time, where he said goodbye to her when he left. The area was full of so many memories.

"Sasuke kun..." Sakura said looking at him.

Sakura continued to have feelings for Sasuke the three years he was gone. Even after Sasuke came back to the village when they were fifteen it seemed like Sakura was happy enough to just have him there, so the distance between the two of them didn't become closer.

Sakura suddenly broke the silence by asking, "what would you do if I suddenly disappeared?"

Sasuke froze and stared at her strangely, obviously perplexed, "huh?"

"I just wanted to know..."

"I'd get on fine, I guess," Sasuke said looking away. "I mean, I've already lost everything once, I'll probably get over it again." But inside he was yelling at himself for not being able to say anything better. Sakura looked at Sasuke as though she were in shock, but then looked at her feet. With a sad voice, she stated slowly but clearly, "I just wanted to say, I still love you."

"What?"

"I'm still in love with you Sasuke kun," she said. She refrained from looking at him. Sasuke was beginning to get fed up with her attitude.

"So what? Are you expecting me to say I want to be in a relationship with you now or something? You know I'm not like Naruto..." once again inner Sasuke yelled at outer Sasuke for saying something so wicked to her.

But at that moment Sasuke stopped talking, or rather, stood there as stiff as a board. Sakura swooped in front of him and slowly planted a kiss on his lips. She sadly looked into his black eyes that were staring back at her green ones in shock.

"I'm sorry," Sakura said shyly. "It's just that, I didn't want to have any regrets." Now looking away again she continued, "Sasuke kun, now the only people you have are Naruto and Kakashi sensei. Please stay with them for me. I don't want you to ever be alone again."

"What? What are you getting at?You sound like you're about to go commit suicide or something?" Sasuke said, sounding frustrated.

Sakura smiled at him sadly, "maybe I am."

At that moment her mouth formed the words, "goodbye," and she disappeared into the light of the setting sun. Sasuke just continued to stare at where Sakura was a second ago in shock. He was trying to make sense of the things that had just happened, but they were all so bizarre that he couldn't put the puzzle pieces together.

"Maybe she just feels lonely today, women get weird when they're lonely sometimes," he muttered to himself as he began to march home. That was it, there was nothing to worry about, Sakura would be there tomorrow and he would ask her what the whole thing was about then.

But the next day, Sakura wouldn't come to the meeting spot. In fact, even Kakashi came and she still wasn't there.

"Kakashi, is Sakura sick?" Sasuke asked the ex-teacher with the erotic book in his hand.

Kakashi was silent, he just stared at his erotic book. Thinking the Jounin was too enveloped in his book to hear him Sasuke repeated the question, "Kakashi where's Sakur..."

"Hmm... I thought the reason she called you out yesterday was to tell you," Kakashi said, falling silent after this phrase.

"Kakashi sensei, Kakashi sensei! What does that mean?" Naruto asked curiously.

"Havn't you guys seen the news today?" the teacher asked them, they could sense a slight angry tone in his voice. When both of them shook their heads Kakashi pulled out the front page of a newspaper. Sasuke and Naruto pounced upon it to see what the article was about.

"Tsunade trips and falls down the stairs," "Konoha team wins another match in sumo," "Marriage negotiation made," none of the articles seemed to envolve them.

"What are you getting at?" Sasuke asked his teacher angrily.

Kakashi pointed to the marriage article that the two of them skimmed through. The first line explained everything: "In order to maintain peace between the Konoha and Cloud Village, an arranged marriage is to take place a week from today between the Raikage and Haruno Sakura of the Konoha Village."

Sasuke and Naruto stared wide-eyed at Kakashi.

"How long did you know?" asked Naruto.

"Ever since she was back," said Kakashi staring down.

Sasuke squeezed his fists, the newspaper crinkled in his hands, "she's sacrificing herself for the village?"

Kakashi nodded and turned his back to them. The two of them just continued staring at their teacher in both anger and confusion. Kakashi ended the conversation by saying, "I'm sorry I have to be the one to break this to you guys, but Sakura isn't coming back."

-To Be Continued-

A/N: Please Review THNX