Chapter One: The Great Escape

.

"Shit, shit, shit!"

The raspy string of curses could be heard throughout the thickets of the forest, followed quickly behind it were the heavy, anxious footfalls of a female, pink-haired shinobi. She raced on through the trees, never ceasing, never stopping, never slowing down, much to the protests of her burning legs and lungs. Her brain and her heart were pounding with a ferocious 'thump, thump, thump', and she knew she was being much too loud at that moment, but she had to get away.

They would catch her if she didn't.

Haruno Sakura, age 23, Elite Jounin and former apprentice to the Godaime Hokage herself, was running through one of the Fire Country forests in the middle of the night, an ANBU squad close on her heels.

Looking back at this moment, she couldn't exactly remember what she had done to get to this point, but if she had to guess she figured that someone had most likely set her up. She knew what the supposed charge was and who had supposedly rat her out, the only problem was this: she didn't do a damn thing!

Her mind repeated over and over again to her that it was Sasuke, it had to be. He had to have been the one to have had set this whole ordeal up. It had all started exactly two years ago when he had returned to Konoha, after succeeding in his hunt to find and kill his brother, Itachi and murdering Orochimaru two years before. This left the Uchiha with nothing to do but return to Konoha and begin the restoration of his clan like he had planned in the very beginning. He returned and received an amazingly light sentence from Tsunade-three months in prison and six months of community services-and after serving it he took the jounin exams-passing them with flying colours of course-and then entering in ANBU. After awhile he began the search for a woman to help him rebuild his clan, with the help of Naruto of course-who at this point was so happy to have his best friend back that he would have done anything to help him.

After a few weeks of dating random civilian women, the ever prestigious Uchiha heir decided that a simple civilian woman would most certainly not do in the order of rebuilding the once great Uchiha clan. He needed a kunoichi and not just any kunoichi would do. He needed an incredibly strong kunoichi with superior chakra control.

He decided that Sakura was perfect for this task.

Unfortunately for that self-righteous jerk, Sakura had long since rid herself of that ridiculous crush of her school-girl years, and had moved on to a fantastic life of a successful medic-nin and esteemed bachlorette-which by the way, she quite enjoyed thank you very much, Mr.I'm-too-good-for-you-because-I-am-an-angsty-turd-with-a-hair-complex, and in the most showy way she could think of, turned him down.

Sasuke was not one for rejection, especially in the middle of a busy road with many people walking and going about their day. Nope, he hadn't liked that much at all.

Needless to say, he was pissed but somehow Sakura didn't believe that pissed was the word for it, maybe furious suited him better, she didn't know. But she did know that everytime he asked, and everytime she denied him, he made her life even more of a living hell.

He started out small, doing trivial things like breaking into her apartment and hiding her medical texts and the like, but as the year progressed onwards and the more she denied his advances more frequently, the more serious the 'punishment' became. Once, right before a major surgery, he had slipped a drug into her coffee that when ingested caused the user to lose complete control of their chakra and make it nearly impossible to use correctly. She wound up pushing in so much chakra into her patients heart during an open heart surgery and caused the organ to literally explode.

She wouldn't come out of her apartment for nearly three days, finally only giving in when Tsunade herself came to her apartment to soothe the worried kunoichi in person, which never happened. Ever.

The next serious occurance was when she and Sasuke were on a mission and he shoved her over the side of a mountain, nearly killing her in the process. He swore up and down that it was an accident, all the while sporting that disturbingly silky smile, when he explained the situation to Tsunade.

He was to revive one of the greatest clans of Konoha, so how could she not believe him?

A whole string of serious incidents followed in the spans of a week after one another, and then one night, exactly three days ago Sasuke followed Sakura home from the hospital and tried to force himself on her in her own home. She fractured his jaw, four ribs, and left quite a many bruises and cuts on him until he got so angry that he left, one last warning in his wake, "Sakura, either you accept the offer to be my wife or I will make sure that you will never touch another man again." To which she promptly landed a swift punch in his face, knocking him off her balcony and out of her life she had hoped.

Yes he was angry, and yes his pride was wounded, but Sakura never would have expected what was coming the two evenings after that.

After a long night at the hospital, Sakura retired to her apartment for a much needed night of rest. She walked into her home and - after deciding that she was going to skip her customary nightly shower - climbed into her bed and fell asleep.

She was having a lovely dream about going to a bed and breakfast with a hunky, dark haired man, when she heard the obnoxious and rather loud banging on her front door. Sakura unhappily untangled herself from the sweet, warm confines of her favorite crimson quilt and as she was pulling on her pants and shirt, yelled incredibly agitatedly that she would be down in a second. After she hastily pulled on her clothes she slid out of her bedroom and began to head down the front staircase to the the living room. That was when the phone rang. Sakura stood there blinking at it for a moment before finally picking up the receiver.

"Hello?" She said, quite uncertainly because honestly the whole door-knocking and phone-ringing bit was very strange at this hour.

"Sakura! Listen to me!" An urgent voice sounded from the other end. It sounded alot like..

"Naruto? Why are you calling me at..three o clock in the morning? This had better not be another one of your 'ramen emergencies' because if it is I-" Sakura began quickly and loudly, but was soon cut off by a nervous Naruto.

" Shh! Look you have to get out of there okay?" Sakura found herself confused. Get out of here..but why?

What the hell was Naruto on about? Slowly she started, "What are you talking about Naruto? Explain."

"The people banging on your door right now, are a trio of ANBU and they are there to arrest you Sakura! You have to get out!" Naruto screeched, quietly into the receiver. Sakura's stomach churned. ANBU was here to arrest her? That didn't make any sense at all.

"Arrest me? Why?" She nearly yelled but turned it down a notch at the last minute, she couldn't draw anymore attention to herself that she already had, especially if what the outraged blonde on the other side of the phone was sayingwas true. This was too serious to be joking about and even if he was a fan of practical jokes, Naruto wouldn't take it quite this far. This would have been the most impractical of practical jokes to date.

"An hour ago there was an incident on the main street, over fifteen civilians were taken out and your things were left all in the area, they said that there was alot of evidence linking you to the crime. I don't believe you did it...did you, Sakura? You didn't kill all those people right?"

Naruto's voice was pleading, as if he was praying, hoping that she would say no.

Sakura felt her dinner from this evening churn up and begin to make it's way back up her throat, "N-no...Naruto, I didn't."

"That's all I needed to hear, Sakura. Now, you have to get out of Konoha because if they catch you they're gonna kill you. Pack up your supplies and head out your bedroom window, I'll help you get past the guards. Hurry Sakura."

A click and the sound of a dead line was heard. Sakura dropped the phone and bolted to grab her bag and hastily fumbled supplies into it. What did this mean? What was going to happen to her now? She didn't kill those civilians! She would never do that! Never! So what made Tsunade-shishou believe that she would.

Evidence, Sakura. They have evidence and here you are, running.

'Well, what other option do I have? They won't listen to me even if I tried!'

Isn't that better than being prosecuted for a crime you didn't commit and then tried and hung? I think so. At least then you can fight your way out of this.

A loud crash was heard as someone kicked the door in. Wow they certainly were angry. But by the time they got up the stairs Sakura was long gone, and past the gates, Naruto on her heels.

After a few moments of running, they stopped and Sakura turned to her blonde counterpart, a sad smile on her pretty features.

"Naruto, you have to go back."

Naruto sighed sadly and propped his hand on his head, "I know...but I needed to make sure you would be okay."

Sakura nodded and took his hand, "I'm okay now, Naruto. Thank you so much, for helping me. You know you're my best friend right?" To this a teary eyed Naruto, grabbed her and clung to her tightly, whispering in her ear.

"I'll find the person that set you up, Sakura-chan. I promise, I'll clear your name and then one day you can come back home. I promise, Sakura. I promise." Sakura felt his tears on her neck, and had to fight the urge to cry herself. Crying would bring nothing good out of this though. Sakura knew it was Sasuke, it had to be, but if she told that to Naruto, well she was sure that he wouldn't believe her. So she kept quiet and after snagging what would possibly be the last hug from him she would receive, she bid a silent goodbye to her best friend and slipped through the forest.

That was last night, and she had managed to escape the ANBU attention for at least one evening, but tonight they had caught up to her and Sakura found herself bolting out of the forest at high speeds, searching desperately for the next large town where she could hopefully blend into the crowd.

The sooner she got out of Fire Country the better, but she knew she was at least three more days from the border and she was incredibly tired. She didn't want to have to fight the ANBU, not because she was sure she would lose, but because if Naruto did in fact clear her name, the knowledge that she took down ANBU operatives wouldn't help her case in the least bit.

Sakura felt her pace slow down and she began to panic a little, she was tired and her chakra was low. She needed somewhere to hide. Now.

Just when she thought her calves were going to explode, she noted a small cave opening behind a large rushing waterfall. That was perfect! Sakura quietly masked her chakra and slipped inside, trying to be as silent as her heavy breathing would allow.

Her breath hitched in her throat as she heard a male voice speaking very closely near the cave, but she couldn't make out who it was or even what they were saying. Sakura thanked the heavens above that they hadn't brought any ninken dogs with them, because if they had, well she would be in big trouble.

A few heart stopping moments passed and she felt the chakra signatures pass by and eventually disappear altogether.

She couldn't believe her luck, and that was almost too easy, but she didn't overanalyze it because as she saw it, she needed all the luck she could get.

She waited a few more minutes before gathering her pack up and slipping from the cave as silently as when she entered. Sakura pulled a map from her pack and searched it over to see where she was exactly, and with a silent thanks to the heavens found she was only two miles from the nearest town. With the rest of her chakra supply she could make that in under two hours, then she could stay at an inn and make some plans for what she was going to do next. And hopefully take a nice, hot shower, or maybe a bath if the inn had one. Maybe she could make it through okay after all.

For now anyway.

.

A/N: Alright to those of you familiar with this story, you might have noticed a few things have changed. For those of you who are not the story about it is simple: I wrote it quite a bit back and had pretty much forgotten about it and my other profile. I know, bad, bad, Echo but whatcha gonna do? I am currently in the process of moving it to this profile. I kept the chapters that I had written already pretty much the same, a few minor tweaks here and there and I know they aren't very long - and I did break them up a bit making them even shorter, le sigh - but I'll be writing the newer chapters with the intent of making them longer. Just a little clarification to anyone who might be confused. Reviews please? You knows I love em.