(11/13/14) Properly edited
This little plot bunny visited me late at night, just as I was drifting off to bed. I get a lot of ideas for fanfictions, but I never act upon them. This time though, I felt like I should type this idea out. Yea, so I'm not too good at explanations, but I think that this will turn out pretty well.
Well then, please read and review. Sakura in this fanfiction will have some abilities that are not canon at all, but then again, it is fiction (from a fan).
Disclaimer: If I were to own Naruto, well then, Kishimoto would be out of a job, wouldn't he?
Chapter 1: To End the Beginning
Darkness. The air pressed in on her, slowing suffocating her from the inside out. She could hear the shallow breaths of another; the man lying next to her. It sounded as if he was beginning to lose air. Panicking, she struggled at her restraints and attempted to get free.
"Keep in down in there you little bitch!"
Her head turned sharply towards the sound of the angered voice. It seemed that she had been taken prisoner shortly after the battle. Berating herself, she tried vainly to remember what had taken place earlier.
A flurry of fists and feet. The crunching noise of trees being overturned. Her fist glowed with her chakra as she smashed through branch after branch, human after human. The only goal in her mind was to get to the fortress 500 yards in front of her. The only goal in mind was him. She knew she had been irrational when she set out on this journey alone, without telling her shishou or her teammates, but this was her journey. This was the only way that she was going to get him back. A few seconds after that thought, she blacked out.
She had been careless. Losing herself in her thoughts for a few fleeting seconds had given her enemy a chance to sneak up from behind and knock her unconscious. Cursing under her breathe, she once again tried to loosen her restraints. She groaned as her hands went limp. No longer did her captors use normal metal cuffs. They were imbued with a chakra suppressing agent so that the shinobi couldn't escape with any form of ninjutsu. She also had no strength left, so there was no way that she could break free from just sheer force.
She bit her tongue as she thought of every imaginable route she could take. She let in a sharp intake of breath as she realized there was no other way. She had known what she would have to do ever since she woke up in this situation, but was still hoping that there would be another solution. Now that there was no hope of any other method, she prepared herself for pain. She would have to break the main bones in both her hands and slip them out, despite the agonizing pain that would shoot through her arms, and heal them with what little chakra she had left as quickly as she could. Without the cuffs, she would be able to use her chakra again. Her heart raced as she prepared both her mind and body for what would come next.
Crunch. Left hand. Crunch. Right hand.
Tears were now running down her face, and a scream of pain threatened to escape from her mouth, but she clamped down on her lips. Blood leaked down her chin as her teeth bit through the soft flesh. If she was discovered now, there would be no hope of survival. She shifted around and managed to slip her hands out, albeit a hefty amount of pain. It was time to begin the healing. She had trained for so many years that it would not take too long for the bones to heal, but the green light that medics emit when healing could not be concealed in the desolate darkness. She knew she would have to fight her way out.
The healing began. A bleak green glow shone from her hands as she heard her bones pop back into place, but she also heard the guards shuffling in the dark.
"Hey! What are you doing in there."
A light clicked on, and her eyes closed painfully. They were not accustomed to the brightness, no matter how dim. She forced her eyes back open and looked around her. She could now see the guards, but that also meant that the guards could see her. They looked frantic as they attempted to unlock the jail cell, fumbling with many keys. She gazed to the left, and her heart almost stopped. It was him. He had been here the entire time and she didn't even have an inkling that it was him. His presence changed her goals almost immediately. Now she would have to get both of them out while fighting her way through the hefty thugs. It didn't matter. Her life didn't matter. She had come for him, and no way in hell would she leave without him.
The cell door creaked open and banged on the side of the wall.
"Hey….the fuck? How'd you get free? Wha…"
She didn't wait for him to finish his bewildered exclamations. Her foot crashed into his jaw as he was sent flying backwards out of the cell. Grabbing the other person, she flung him quickly on her back and ran for the cell door. She was blocked by the other guard. He was snarling and holding an axe menacingly. It seemed that he was quite inexperienced, however, with the weapon that he was swinging around aimlessly. She sent a small amount of chakra into her left fist, avoided the axe, and heaved it into the stomach of the thug. Kicking the body aside, she ran up the stairs with as much power as she had left. Her body was exhausted, but the burst of adrenaline she felt kept her going. She just had to get out of here. Whether she was alive did not matter, as long as the man on her back escaped with his life.
After running up an incline for five minutes straight, she reached the door. Unceremoniously flinging it open, she was met with a jet stream of water crashing into the side of her face. The figure on her back was knocked off, and she tumbled onto the ground, rolling to a stop quite painfully against a tree. Hissing, she looked up and found herself staring at a group of 20 shinobi. They looked to be jounin or chuunin ranked, and there was no way she could take them on in her state. Looking at the body of the person she had been traveling so hard to save, however, revived her fighting spirit once more.
But her body and mind were not linked, no matter how much she willed them to be. With a gash in her side, a bruise forming slowly on her cheek and legs, lacerations and cuts everywhere, and 5 broken ribs, she was in no condition to take on even 1 person. It didn't help that her chakra was 75 percent depleted and that she could barely stand. Her mind cried out in agony as she assessed her situation.
She was going to die. She had found him but she was now going to die. She had been so close to accomplishing her goal, and it was about to die with her in this field. No, no! She couldn't think that way. She was halfway there. She didn't leave Konoha with the intention of never returning. Her friends and family were still waiting for her to come home. Images of a blond, busty woman, a silver-haired lazy bum, an energetic, chirpy idiot, and a pale, emotionless boy with a sad, painful past flooded through her mind. They were all waiting for her, and she wouldn't let them down.
She stood up slowly and gritted her teeth. Today was not the day that she would die. Today was the beginning of the end. The beginning of a new life with a special person that she had come so far to save, and the end of a life of suffering and grief that this person had caused. She would be the one to begin the end, to end the beginning.
Energy coursed through her body, though she knew not where it came from. A light pink cloud of chakra covered her body, and she looked up menacingly at the shinobi in front of her. She would defeat them for her own happiness and the happiness of others. The figures watching her gasped and flinched when she turned her sharp gaze towards them. Her eyes had turned from a vivid green to a pale, acidic pink. Her eyes were alive with determination and fury. Many of them squirmed in their spots but didn't dare to run away. They would be killed anyways if they defied the orders of their master. She walked slowly towards them, but her every step seemed to bring more and more terror upon the 20 standing in front of her.
"I will not allow you to hurt my friends. Today, you shall DIE!"
The bubble of energy surrounding her shot off in all directions as the shinobi shielded their eyes from the light. When they opened their eyes, they had been sucked into their own nightmare. The roots of the trees surrounding them had been uprooted and were now whipping in the air, crashing down spontaneously and creating huge dents on the ground. The petals of the cherry blossoms and the leaves from the trees were cascading down furiously, moving so quickly that they gave the shinobi small cuts on their arms, faces, and legs.
In the middle of it all, stood the girl. Her long pink hair spilling around her face and shoulders, lashing in the wind. Her face twisted into a grimace of pain and anger. She pushed her arms and hands outward, causing all the roots to suddenly crash down, obliterating half of the shinobi. They had given up on fighting the menacing young girl. Sprinting around and attempting to escape, the rest of the shinobi were running amok trying to find an opening from which to escape from the maelstrom. They would never know what hit them.
"I shed your blood for the sake of saving the blood of others. Your death will provide life for those you will never have a chance to kill. Be happy in this respect."
With those parting words, she flung her arms down, commanding the roots to kill the last of the survivors. As the screams of agony disappeared, so did the wind. The roots settled back down to the ground, though heaped haphazardly, and the leaves and cherry blossoms floated gently downwards. She fell, crumpled in a haze of confusion. What had she just done?
She willed herself to crawl towards the figure of the man she tried to hard to keep safe. Her fingers grazed the side of his neck as she desperately felt for his pulse. It was still there! He was alive he was…
But wait, the pulse was slowly dying down, muted as though someone had put a piece of cotton between her ears.
"NO! You…you must live! You can't do this to me, to us!...Sasuke…"
Just before her eyelids closed, the image of a five petaled sakura blossom faded from her eyes.
"Hey forehead girl!"
"Shut up pig…What the heck are you holding in your hands anyways?"
Ino smirked as she waved the bag in front of Sakura's face. It was small, and couldn't hold much more than 5 kunai.
"Wouldn't you like to know?"
Sakura gave her a crooked smile.
"Don't tell me…you finally convinced her?"
"Yup! I convinced her to teach me how to put on makeup. And mom was so proud of me that she let me have some of it. I brought it over to show you how to put it on."
Sakura smiled and enveloped Ino into a gigantic hug. Sakura grabbed her hand and dashed upstairs into her room. For the next hour or so, all that could be heard from the room were giggles and gasps. More than once the sound of running water would be heard, no doubt from the girls cleaning off the makeup so they could try on different colors and styles.
"Mommy! Mommy!"
Haruno Chikaze turned around to see Ino and Sakura with a ridiculous amount of makeup caked onto their faces.
"My! So this is what you two have been up to for the past hour. And you look beautiful. I'll just go grab the camera so I can take a quick picture of you too."
Ino and Sakura jumped on the couch as they waited for Mrs. Haruno to come back with the camera. Sakura looked over at Ino, liking the fact that the moment Ino had gotten makeup, she ran over to Sakura's to show her. Though she called her Forehead girl, Ino really did care about Sakura.
I'll take care of her….always. I don't want anything to happen to my best friend. Ino turned to look at Sakura and blinked in surprise. After a few more seconds, she gazed into Sakura's eyes.
"What...are you doing?"
"Huh that was odd. For a second there I thought your eyes were pink. But it must have been a reflection from your dress or something. Because, if your eyes were pink that would be just absurd! They I really wouldn't be able to associate with you, the all-pink freak."
Ino was smiling and laughing while she said this, and Sakura scowled as she started tickling her.
"Settle down girls. I finally found the camera. Sit on the couch and I'll take the picture. This will make for a good memory later on."
The two girls linked arms and smiled toothily into the camera. They saw a flash and Mrs. Haruno pronounced she got the picture. Sakura always kept that picture in her room next to her bed. The funny thing was, her eyes were slightly pink in that picture. They all thought it was because flash and the red eye effect, but little did they know that Sakura held much more power inside her than she could've ever imagined at the time.
"..kura. Sakura!"
Sakura's eyelids opened and gazed upon the frightened maskless-face of Hatake Kakashi. She smiled, though she knew that she had gone too far to make it. She couldn't feel any part of her body, and she knew that her death would soon come.
"You're not wearing your mask. This is a… pleasant… parting gift."
Kakashi's eyes widened as his lips formed an O of surprise. Sakura's heart had stopped and he had given her CPR in hopes of reviving her.
"Wha…what is that supposed to mean, Sakura. You…you don't really think you're going to die are you?"
Her expression told her everything he needed to know, but he refused to believe it. He would not, could not, lose another teammate. Turning to his left, he heard the sound of a weeping boy. The boy, clad in orange and black, was crouching next to a figure donned in white, black, and purple. Sakura knew why he was crying.
"I'm sorry, Naruto. In the end, I couldn't save him after all. Sasuke died while I was trying to escape, but I wouldn't believe that he had taken his last breath. I pulled him out and was determined to save him, but look at the irony." She gave a small laugh and coughed. "I can't even save myself."
Naruto looked at her with his tear-streaked face.
"NO. SAKURA-CHAN! You can't leave too. I can lose both you and teme in one day…"
Kakashi glared at him.
"We definitely won't allow you to die Sakura, especially if your shishou has anything to do about it."
"It's hopeless Kakashi, just look at me. I'm beyond repair, and I don't want Tsunade-shishou to hurt herself while healing me. I've already accepted what's to come. I'm so happy that I got to see all of you in my last moments. Goodbye, but not forever. I'm sure we'll meet again."
Her hand lingered on Kakashi's face as she took her last breathe. Her eyes closed, and she looked at peace. Kakashi and Naruto looked too shocked for words. A dark figure appeared at Sakura's side. Checking her pulse, he nodded.
"She still has a heartbeat, no matter how faint, and I believe that we will be able to save her if we begin travel immediately. I refuse to let her die today."
Sai lifted Sakura into his arms and sped off without listening to Kakashi's and Naruto's reply. They gaped at his retreating figure but quickly followed. Naruto looked contemplative as they set off at a neck-breaking speed back to Konoha.
"If I didn't know better, I could've sworn that for a second a tear fell out of Sai's eyes…"
So how was that for a first chapter? I typed this out so quickly that I know there are many mistakes (which will be edited later on). I do, however, want to see how many people will want to read this, so your reviews will be greatly appreciated, especially if they are accompanied by suggestions for improvement. No flames please!
:] ~sakuya
