Strength to Save a Friend

Summary: Sometimes you have to lose something to save it. And sometimes you have to stop being what you are to become your best.

Disclaimer: If any of this belonged to me, I wouldn't be posting stories on the internet.

Chapter One: Fed Up.

"You're still too weak." The words echoed in her head as her kyuubi-containing friend carried her towards the hospital. Too weak. He'd said it weeks ago, but it hung around like guilt. She hadn't been any help at all in that battle with him, and he'd escaped them again. She hadn't even managed to move during the latest Akatsuki battle, thus the gaping hole in her lower abdomen. Gaara had helped force them back this time. Last time, it had been some friendly Waterfall ninja.

Sakura was thoroughly disgusted with herself. Of course, with a sissy name like "Sakura," who wouldn't be a girly, giggly, little pile of uselessness. She was cursed with pink hair, green eyes, and what one could only politely call a womanly figure. Everyone one protected her, and no one, on first meeting her, thought she was any sort of threat. The only ninja of the Rookie Nine in a remotely similar position was Hyuuga Hinata, and she at least had the excuse of oppressive clan politics wrecking her self-esteem and wrecking her ability to grow. Sakura didn't have an excuse like that, as far as she knew.

"Almost there, Sakura-chan," Naruto panted. He'd pulled her out from in front of him during a kunai attack, which was the reason the hole was slightly to the right and not in any vital organs. She'd meant to wall him off from his would-be kidnappers, but he had the same protective urges about her and a lot more strength. Barely scratched, he dropped her with the medical staff and rushed to report in with the Hokage.

Sakura was quickly healed by Shizune, who was on a rare hospital shift to escape the stress of being the Hokage's assistant, and settled into a hospital bed for the night. This being a ninja and civilian hospital, she would be left alone unless she rang for someone. It gave her time to think things through clearly, without having to pull her cheery attitude out so no one else would notice her inner struggles. She was very good at the happy act, and no one (not the all-seeing Kakashi or the shrewd Lady Tsnaude) had ever seen through it.

Not even Sasuke, the biggest and badest prodigy in their year, had ever seen through it. He called her weak, because he thought she really was a giggling bubblehead. He didn't know that she believed his words, but because she truly wasn't. She wouldn't tell them that it hurt her whenever they got injured. She'd never say that his silence and obliviousness to her presence had chipped away at bits of her heart over the years or that his abandonment had ripped it into fine shreds. She didn't mention that every 

improvement Naruto made, cause her to feel queasy with jealousy. She didn't even want to think about what the growing friendship between Naruto and Sai did to her insides.

All her friends and peers were growing up, moving on, and bettering themselves. Even shy, retiring Hinata had developed her own interpretation of the family's traits. They were going out and finding both power and love, and she wasn't. She was no better than she had been at twelve. Yes, she was jounin now, and Tsnuade wanted her to take the ANBU exams in a couple months. Still, anyone could learn to punch and heal with their Chakra. It wasn't anything that would have enemy ninja pausing before they approached or would even knock them down enough to call it a victory.

What was worse, Team Seven was falling apart. The "temporary" leader, Yamato, had kept on with them, because Kakashi-sensei couldn't seem to approach them. He wanted Sasuke back, the one he'd devoted so much time and his own personal jutsu to. She knew that without the missing-nin's presence, the team would never get their best teacher back. Sai wanted the boy back because Naruto did, and Naruto wanted him back because he couldn't live without the only person who'd ever really been his friend. Sakura wanted him back to show him that she wasn't weak.

She was tired of everyone calling her weak, or (if not using words) treating her as such. She wanted to patch up her team. To give Sasuke the family he'd lost back in the form of comrades, to give Naruto the friendship he'd always wanted, and to show Sai what friendship and emotions were. She wanted to give her sensei back the team that had raised his hopes for new bonds. But a weak person couldn't do that.

"Well, then," she told herself, "you need to stop being weak."

"How? Being weak is part of being me. Have you ever seen a strong flower?" Her more negative side argued back.

"No."

"Then we're doomed."

"No, we just have to stop being a flower. That's all."

"That's all," she scoffed at her own inner dialogue. It couldn't be that easy. Could it?