Chapter 1 (Sakura's Point of View)

It was one of those rare, cloudy days in Konoha when I woke up and, for once, it matched my mood. To make things worse, I had nothing to do to get my mind off today. Today. Today was one of the worst days of the whole year. Even worse than one of my first training sessions with Lady Tsunade, and those were terrible. The day Sasuke left me. I sighed, and ran my fingers through my long pink hair. Getting up, I stripped and took a shower. I got dressed in my usual cream-colored skirt with short, black leggings and red no-sleeves top. Walking into the next room and woke up Teria and Kail. The twins got dressed sleepily and followed me to Naruto and Hinata's house.

Naruto and Hinata had married only a few years ago. Except for me, everyone in our year was either engaged or married. Hinata usually watched the kids when they didn't have class at the ninja academy and I had a mission. I know what you're thinking. No, Teria and Kail are not my children. They are members of my clan. We are the last members of the Haruno clan. I dropped the twins off, and then went to the Hokage Tower to see if I could be of any help there. A little ways from their house, I ran into Naruto.

"Hey Sakura-Chan!" He said in his usual cheery voice, although you could tell that today it was forced. He was also trying to keep his mind off the pain. Naruto had been the third member of Team 7, along with Sasuke and me. We had been genin together until Sasuke went to Orochimaru for power. Sometimes, I forget that Naruto is also hurting the way I am. It was easy to see he was suffering.

Poor Naruto, I thought. He'd suffered enough. Shunned by the villagers, he had grown up all alone. Naruto was a Jinchuriki, a human who had a tailed beast sealed inside of them in order to control it.

It was easy to see that, even though Sasuke had left eight years ago, Naruto still regretted that he couldn't bring him back. The pained look in his eyes made me angry with the Uchiha. He had hurt everyone we knew without a second thought about it. Containing my anger, I forced a smile and greeted my friend as whole-heartedly as possible. "Want to go get some ramen with me?" Naruto asked.

"No. I have things to do with Lady Tsunade. And who eats ramen for breakfast anyways?" I attempted a joke, trying to lighten the mood, but failed miserably. So, trying to escape, I started walking past him only to turn back to him and truthfully say, "Thank you." As I walked up the path toward the heart of Konoha, I sat down on the stone bench that I knew only too well. It was as like it was every year. As I sat there, it was as though I was watching a movie.

I could see and hear everything so perfectly. My desperate voice and his cool, calm, controlled one. Those frustrating tears that would always give me away. I cried no more after that night. I swore to myself that I would never shed a tear again. My inner demon was taunting me, telling me that Sasuke left because of me and that I was no better than that night and I told it to shut up. To my surprise, it did.

After a few minutes of brooding, I forced myself to get up and go to the Hokage Tower. When I arrived, I found that there was nothing for me to do so

I went to the Forest of Death to train, but I knew that there was nothing that could take my mind off him. Sasuke's older brother had killed his entire clan, and Sasuke was so obsessed with revenge that he didn't care if Orochimaru just wanted to use his body for his transfer ninjutsu. He just wanted the power Orochimaru had said he would give Sasuke.

After a few hours of being met by packs of giant lions while trying, and failing, to get Sasuke out of my head, I was met by an anbu. "Miss Sakura!" He said. "Lady Tsunade needs to speak with you immediately!"

"Why didn't she talk to me while I was there?" I asked, a little annoyed that my training had been interrupted. I could feel my inner demon squirm, trying to find a way to use my emotions to take control. It knew that I was on a thin line of patience today.

"She just received word only a few minutes ago. She needs you to go on a mission tonight." Said the anbu, bowing his head.

"Fine." I sighed and gathered my tools. I guess you're wondering what this inner demon is. I suppose I should explain. It is a trait unique to only the Haruno clan. Members of the clan are blessed with expert chakra control, but we also have a curse. We have a demon that lives inside of us. They prey upon hate, rage, fear, and sadness. If we let our feelings consume us then the demons can control our bodies in anyway they chose. If you're lucky, the demon never comes out. I used to think of my 'inner Sakura' as my alter ego, which she is kind of. My demon has taken over twice so far. The first time I lost it was during one of my training sessions with Lady Tsunade. Fortunately, she knew about the curse and what to do.

I walked along the halls of the Hokage Tower, knocked at my master's door, and entered the office. I squinted in the setting sun so a brown-haired woman closed the blinds over the huge windows. A little pig was following at her feet. I smiled at Tonton. I always thought he was the strangest thing to use for a tracker. Tonton oinked and the woman picked him up.

"Thank you Shizune." Said a beautiful, blond haired woman sitting at a large desk that had a giant stack of papers on it.

"Master, you summoned me?" I asked, bowing to the sanin. She nodded very gravely. "Oh, no! Not another squad gone!" I exclaimed, my smile dropping immediately. She nodded sadly. "Geez! Those people sure are persistent. What do they gain by making Anbu Black Ops disappear? Do you think they are trying to start a war?" I asked starting to get worried. Lately, squads of elite ninja, the Anbu Black Ops, have been disappearing at the border to the Land of Clouds. One went on a mission and never came back and they sent no word so Lady Tsunade sent out another group and they didn't come back, and so on so forth. This is our sixth team gone.

"I don't know. I wish I did, although I got a little bit of information from the last team. One of the members must have written it just before they were killed. Here." Tsunade showed me the note. 'Four man squad, 3 male, 1 female. Shari-' It read. It didn't escape my notice that there were brown spots on the paper. The color of dried blood.

"What is Shari-?" I wondered out loud, shivering, as my anger and disgust at the sight of the blood had aroused my inner. I could almost feel her breathing down my neck, waiting for my control to slip.

"I don't know. All I can guess is that the Anbu was killed as he was writing this." Lady Tsunade looked as confused as I felt.

"What do you want me to do?" I asked, falling into business mode. This was an important mystery and I wanted to solve it.

"Sakura Haruno, Captain of Anbu Squad 11, I hereby assign you and your squad to collect information on the teams that are dead and the people who killed them. Take three of your strongest members and prepare to leave at midnight. This mission is top secret. Once you find something, anything, out sent it to me via bird or messenger slug. If you find the murderers, capture them, but if you can't do that then at least find out who they are and what they hope to gain. Do you understand?" She was also in full business mode.

"HIA!" I said and she dismissed me. I decided to take two guys and one girl from my squad along. Everyone on my squad was about the same level, except for me, of course. I went to the members' houses and told them what Lady Tsunade told me. They accepted the mission and I told them where to meet me at midnight. Then I headed home.

On my way, I stopped at Yamanaka's Flowers to see Ino, my best friend. As I walked in, I could see Ino talking to Sai, her fiancé. I decided not to interrupt them so I walked over to the flowers. I got a pot of daisies that I would give to Naruto before my mission. I had a feeling that I couldn't explain. It was very weird. I went to the counter to pay for the flowers. Sai had left so there was no one else other than Ino and me. She could see I was troubled.

"What's wrong?" She asked as her eyes filled with pity and concern. That kind of annoyed me. I didn't want nor need anyone's pity, but I held back my feelings like I so often did nowadays.

"It's nothing. I just have a mission, that's all." I lied, trying to laugh it off. I bought my flowers and waved Ino goodbye as she stared after me with a concerned look. As I walked to my home I stopped at Hinata's, asking if she could watch the kids while I was gone, then went to see them. Kail and

Teria were having a shuriken throwing contest, and Kail was winning.

When they saw me coming, they stopped and ran over to me. I hugged them tightly. I stroked Kail's brown hair and Teria's strawberry blond hair. Teria was so sweet; it was hard to believe that she had a demon inside of her. I pulled back and saw Kail's green eyes studying my face. I smiled at the little boy. Kail and Teria had seen things that no nine year olds should have seen. "You have to go away on a mission." Kail said simply. He said it as a statement, not a question.

"Yes. But I'll be back as soon as I can." I said, stroking Teria's hair as her blue eyes started to tear. I pulled them back into a hug that lasted much longer than the last one. Pulling back, I kissed each of their foreheads and said goodbye. I could feel their stares boring into my back as I stood and walked inside.

As I left, I gave Hinata the flowers. When I finally walked into my apartment on the top floor and went straight to the window. I had a first class view of Konoha. Sighing, I took another shower and got out my anbu uniform. I put on the black pants and the white shirt, all the armor, then the black cloak. I went to the bathroom and put brown hair dye in my hair. Pink hair isn't very common, you know. When it was mostly brown with a little pink on the ends, I put up in a bun using a set of chopsticks and slipped on my anbu mask.

After packing food, water, and other necessary things I looked around my apartment and silently shut the door. I walked to the training field outside the village, hesitating at the village gate. Like always, I quietly said goodbye to all my friends. My team was waiting for me at the meet up point. "Let's go." I said. I could hear the three get into their assigned positions behind me.

"Leaving at midnight means that we should arrive at the last known location of the group somewhere between 9:00 PM and 10:00 PM. We will go all the way through the day, so I hope you're not very tired." I shouted back at them.