Lost soul, wounded heart

by:

Mistress of the Shadows

Beta:

High Summoner Sakura

The last fight brought excitement, a thirst for blood. Everyone was on the tips of the toes, leaning over the bar, filling up with anticipation. Even the Jounins and the ANBUs leaned their head a bit to the side, grasping as much of the fight as they can.

Everyone but for her: Haruno Sakura.

She sat in the corner of the wall, wallowing herself in deep, dark sadistic thoughts. Her face was neutral, never shifting at the sight of blood, never flinching from the sound of heavy bodies hitting the floor. Her short pink hair was tangled, dirty; her dull emerald eyes were staring into the blank space, never faltering from a specific place on the wall.

The Chunin exam was her purpose in life. Through this test, she will be able to prove everyone that she isn't the weak dependent female they believe she is. They disparaged her, giving her fake stories of her improvement.

There were only so many kicks a dog could take before it turns vicious.

The fight becomes her tale—

Her life

Yamanaka vs. Haruno

She silently stood up from her sitting place and moved down the stairs robotically. The crowd hushed when she walked across the floor, moving towards her ex-childhood friend. Her battered body moved slowly, looking pitifully but her soul flared with strength.

Ino gazed at Sakura with annoyed eyes. She placed one of her hands on her hips and pointed a finger towards her direction. "Sakura! Just because you got put on Sasuke-kun's team doesn't mean he's going to fall for you!"

Something pulled and tugged at Sakura's heart. A twinge of anger flickered within her. Sasuke was a meager noun, nothing compared to the greatness of friendship.

"I never wanted him," She whispered softly. Sakura's tongue came out and licked her bottom lip, her eyes darkened. Her soul thirsting for blood.

Friend

Friend

Friend

That was what she wanted. A friend to comfort, a friend to rely on whenever she was in pain: that was what she wanted. A friend to laugh with, a friend to cry with, a friend to die with, and a friend to smile with…that was what she wanted.

There was no such thing as a friend.

All she knew were that friends were manipulating, deceiving and hurtful. They caused her pain and turned against her. Now those tricksters' souls will be devoured by the darkness.

"I'm sorry, Ino," Sakura apologized, her eyes flashed a bit of regret. They suddenly hardened, causing Ino to take a step backwards in surprise.

Ino clenched her fists, angry with herself that she had flinched from her former friend's attitude. She gritted her teeth and stabbed a finger at her direction once more. "Stop all your talking! You're supposed to fight me!"

Sakura's knees bent slightly, her body shifting forward as if she was getting ready to attack her friend. "I'm so sorry, Ino," She apologized once more. Deep down inside of her was a guilt that was gnawing at her soul.

"Go!"

Nobody moved. Everybody's eyes were pinpointed to the rosette girl and the sunshine girl.

"I'm so sorry, Ino,"

"Stop apologizing to me!" Ino snarled. She was getting annoyed by Sakura's useless words. "What the hell is your problem?" She drew out a kunai and flicked it at Sakura.

The kunai sliced her porcelain cheek. A scar ran wickedly down her cheekbone, blood trailing down to the edge of her lips. Sakura's pink tongue brushed and it touched the bloody liquid. The side of her mouth curved upwards and her eyes sparked with malice.

Ino had given it to her:

A purpose to fight

A reason to cause pain

Sakura's hands flew into random hand seals and a katana appeared in her hands. "Thank you, Ino," Both of her hands tightened around the handle of the katana. Within a split second, she disappeared.

"What the hell?" Naruto cursed and leaned over the rail when he saw Sakura disappear. "Where did she go?"

A loud clamor went around in the arena once the pink haired girl was gone.

Nobody can sense her or her chakra.

Ino glanced around her wildly once the pink haired demon was gone. She narrowed her ocean green eyes, skillfully inspecting the area with hard eyes. She gripped her kunai in front of her, ready to turn aggressive if necessary.

"Here, little piglet," A soft voice was heard behind Ino. "There's only one thing to do with a runt like you,"

Ino chocked back a gasp and screamed as she saw something crawl up her legs. Sinister black vines wrapped tightly around her body like vice, snaking upwards slowly as if it were taunting her. The vines enveloped around her neck and Ino smirked.

"Stupid, Sakura. These useless tricks are for children," Within a second, Ino disappeared and was replaced with a white rabbit. It jumped away from the vines and sniffed at the ground nervously, obviously quivering with fear.

The vines stood statue still for a moment and then shot out to the rabbit. The crowd winced as blood splattered on the walls. Blood slithered down the ravenous black vines as it demolished the animal, ripping it into pieces.

Sakura grinned maliciously from the shadows. It seems as if her friend had gained some strength from her so called training. She clapped her hands in laughter and giggled.

Ino had two kunais in her hands, desperately seeking around for her ex-friend.

Suddenly, scrolls appeared out of thin air. Four of them were balanced in the corner of the arena, hovering above the floor. The scrolls unraveled themselves and the four main parts of the Earth was written inside of the manuscripts: water, fire, ground and plants.

Ino narrowed her eyes one more degree, the knuckles of her hands turning white from the grip. She gasped when she saw each scroll engulfed in fire.

Her eyes widened in realization. Each fiery scroll formed into human sized puppets:

A wooden Naruto

A watery Sasuke

A leafy Kakashi

Sakura giggled innocently, cocking her head to the right slightly. "Like them? I made them myself. They contain every knowledge the original bodies have and they're fully functional," Her hands flew into hand seals and the puppets smoothed out until they looked exactly like the originals. "They're not just puppets, they have their own minds and their only purpose of existence is to serve me,"

Ino gasped as she saw her ex-best friend step out of the shadows. The pinkette was enveloped in a pair of enormous hands.

She smiled evilly and once again, her hands went into hand seals. Suddenly, a cloud of smoke appeared next to Sakura. The people at the top floor leaned over the railings, holding their breath in expectations.

The smog dissipated and there standing next to Sakura was a doppelganger, dressed in black.

Her emerald eyes bore into ocean blue eyes and she snorted. She turned to the original Sakura, narrowing her eyes at the pink haired girl. "Your timing is so useless. Why are you summoning me to beat some anorexic pig?"

Ino glared at the copy of Sakura and stabbed a finger in her direction. "Hey! I'm not anorexic!" She took in a deep breath and gave out a retarded battle cry, aiming a punch at the real Sakura.

She stood there, watching Ino coming at her. She didn't flinch or anything, she just simply moved her head to the right to dodge it and she had gabbed her arm and twisted it behind her back, Ino gave an agonizing cry,

"You think this little excuse for a clone will fool us Runt?" She had said before plunging it into 'Ino's' neck and a small poof of smoke came soon after, Sakura couldn't move the Sakura in black fell to the ground, the other Sakura made no move to help her, instead picked up the kanta and walked to her and placed her hands on it and it turned into an Ino puppet, she then had walked to the real Ino in the center of the arena and as the puppet had gotten up and raised it's hands.

"I Haruno Sakura conceive!!!" she shouted to the proctor with a smirk.

"I can't let you do that Yamanaka-san." The man had said after a few coughs.

"AND WHY NOT!! AND HOW DID YOU KNOW I'M NOT SAKURA?!?!"

"Because the real Sakura is over there." He had said pointing to the real Sakura who had the kanta on her back secured with a vine strap, vines had come up to a human form again and crawled back down showing the Sakura in black again and she threw paper seals at her they latched themselves on to the puppets head, torso, arms and legs.

"I wonder what the beauty queen would do with out her long-ass hair?" Wondered the Sakura in black.

"Or if every one knew her secret?", before pulling out a pair of Kanta's, one had gotten it to her pony tail and cut it off as short as possible, and that was past the band that had kept in place, that was enough for Ino to try to get out of the puppet body "KAI!!" she shouted with her hands intertwined in the tiger seal, nothing happened…the paper seals!!!

The one in red had plunged her kunai into her arm and pulled it down to her wrist and had turned to Ino and said "you can quit in that body, get back your own body and lose or you can try to win and fight as one of us destroy your body and you have a slim change of winning and getting back a completely useless body…it's you're choice, not ours." They had laughed together and had picked up Ino's body by its now short hair and threw it to the Kakashi puppet and it had it's Lighting blade ready and had hit the lifeless body on the mark and his hand went through it's stomach completely and his arm was covered in blood, Azuma was screaming at Sakura to stop.

"Azuma-san, this is a fight to the death, and besides it's Ino's own fault if she didn't quit in time for her body to be completely destroyed, it's like watching you're self be killed in the most gruesome way." The original Sakura had said with a devilish smile.

"KAKASHI!!!!! STOP THAT SHE-DEVIL BEFORE SHE KILLS MY STUDENT!!!" He had screamed and shouted to the perverted teacher who had long-since dropped his book in shock at the magnitude of insanity coming from his innocent student.

"I-i can't she's over the level of hokage…I taught her nothing to prevent this…" He had whispered to himself.

"You taught her nothing!?!?!? Maybe this is why she's taking all her pent up anger out on Ino!!!!" Kurenai had screamed at Kakashi before punching him in the face, Kakashi made no movement to block or dodge it but the punch never hit its mark.

"Please Kurenai-san, the only way I can live to serve Haruno-sama is for my flesh part that she had made me to be like is to remain without injury." Said The Kakashi puppet without a hint of emotion, his hand was up and had Kurenai's fist in it, the only way you could tell one Kakashi from the other would be the blood on the puppet Kakashi.

"So if I cut Kakashi-sensei you would feel it?" Asked Naruto preparing a kunai.

"Not necessarily, he would feel the pain but I would have blood from where ever you have cut him, but if you kill him, I die too." The puppet said smoothly, letting go of Kurenai's fist and was about to jump back into battle before a hand stopped him, he glanced over his shoulder, it was his flesh part.

"Why do you serve her? She's only a genin." He said solemnly.

"Because, she is the one that had made my soul and put in this puppet, in mortal terms, I guess she would be my mother. And besides she gave me all of you're thought's and every thing, that included what you thought of her when she was forced to say that speech when you met her." He jumped back down and continued watching.

"What dose it mean by that?" Kakashi muttered to himself, the Hokage spoke up.

"He means exactly that, she was forced to say that during you're introductions Kakashi, in reality she is a cold-blooded killer, well at least that Sakura-"

"What do you mean that Sakura?" Asked Naruto, in pure shock that his long time crush was a killer.

"The one in black, i guess you could call her the bad half of Sakura, she can call out the good half for healing proposes but she never does, she only brings out that one, the other half I'm guessing is locked away, yin and yang…I guess you can call them demons." That had Gaara and Naruto's attention even more.

"They specialize in body and mind torture, you see what is happening to Ino here Sakura has given her an impossible choice; lose and get her own body back battered but healable, or continue to fight and have a slim change of winning and staying in the puppet's body forever. Sakura could kill Ino without a second thought." He explained to the large group of horrified ninja.

"You see that bracelet on her right wrist? That's a chakra suppressor, is suppresses her chakra to a genin level. It must have been destroyed when she gave off a huge amount of chakra at the beginning. I thought the counsel had banned those bracelets after Naruto was born…they give to much strain on the body they had almost put one on you Naruto." He said and sighed

"She was once my apprentice and successor to the hokage title, after her family had basically killed her she said forget it and wasn't seen or heard in the leaf village…until about a year ago, I assigned her to a genin team so maybe, just maybe she'd consider staying permanently and becoming the godamie." As those words uttered from the Hokage's mouth Naruto's heart crumbled, Kiba felt sick to his stomach.

"Yin, I'll take it from here i wanna feel her head crush within my grip" They heard Sakura say to the other Sakura was now clarified as Yin.

"Aww man!!! Sakura!!! I wanted to you know how I wanted to feel her tiny brain in my hand…being crushed like a grape…" Yin had said with a huge thirst for blood in her words.

"Yea …you're scaring even me."

"Oh…good timing then?"

"Yup!!" Sakura had smiled at her evil half, and she smiled back, all evil must have a good side, just as all good must have an evil side.

"Mai hoka ha-fu... heigou motte mai kon, omoi, ken Dou,nitsukawashii Ni. (My other half's…merge with my soul, mind, and body, becoming one.)" Sakura chanted six times, Yin had taken in a big breath preparing for the pain that was bound to happen, Yin had black energy all around her, she seemed calm until she gasped and fell to the ground. Naruto almost jumped up to save her…until he saw what condition Ino was in, she was screaming her head off, still in the wooden puppet body, she was going insane screaming to her self why god was doing this to her, how Sakura was always the better kunochi, how she was worthless and weak, how she wanted to go home and hug her mommy and daddy, she said she wanted someone to tell her they loved her. Naruto looked back at Yin, she looked so much like Sakura…he would always love Sakura, no matter how gruesome she fought, no matter how many people's life's she ended, Yin was in great pain, her body was evaporating quickly, the last second she said.

"Naruto!! I know you're a friend!! Don't leave her because of this!!" and her body became relaxed and eventually all the black mist had absorbed into Sakura's body, on her wrist the Chakra bracelet had broken off her skin and was replaced with a black chain with the bad half of the Yin and Yang symbol.

"Ah, she was sucking up all my chakra." Sakura moaned in a relaxed manner, she stretched and the looked to Ino who had frozen under her warm gaze.

"Ino-san…" she started walking over to her old friends body, Ino's eyes widened, she was going to kill her body!!!

This thought ran through Ino's mind hundreds of times she blacked out.

"HARUNO SAKURA WINS!!!" The proctor yelled and a flurry of coughs cam not-too-soon after, Sakura ignored him and continued walking toward her former friend's body.

"Sakura!! You can stop now!! You won!!" The genin had screamed, Gaara was interested and was wondering what she was going to do to that Ino girl, Sakura had gotten Ino's body and laid it down properly, she put her hands on her forehead her hands glowed a brilliant greenish blue color, Chouji was scared about what would happen to his short-time crush, the glowing sensation could be felt from those not even under it, every one felt safe, secure…happy…

The glowing light was going from her forehead and traveling all through out her body, mending wounds Sakura had, when the light was covering Ino from head to toe, the glowing quickly retreated back into Sakura's hand. She looked over the body twice, happy with what she saw, there were still scars and such but Ino could cover them with make-up and they would totally disappear.

She brought out Chakra strings and looped one to Ino's wrist and one to her waist, she then ran it to the puppet Ino's body and strung the chakra string through senbon needles and hit them into the wooden body of Ino and then took off the paper seals, one was left the one on her head.

"Haruno-sama…do you really think this is the best thing to do? If she stays in that puppet body then she would learn not to say she is the best of the best, which is far from the truth." Said the wooden Naruto standing beside 'Sasuke' and 'Kakashi'.

"Yes, I know I shouldn't be doing this, but if I don't I would never be able to live with myself." She said barely above a whisper.

"If that is what you think is best…" Sasuke said with a bow and was engulfed in flames leaving only a scroll with the Uchiha crest on the front.

"Ja ne Haruno-sama." Kakashi before tree roots had claimed him for their own when Kakashi was dragged down into the ground the scroll with the Uchiha crest appeared a new symbol, it was the Anbu tattoo on the right side of it.

"I hope we can be of assistance next time Haruno-sama." Naruto seemed to have dematerialized into water and then the Naruto form dropped and the ground absorbed the water, the swirl symbol on the back of his jump suit had appeared on the scroll left to the Uchiha crest.

Sakura sighed, here comes the painful part. Sakura had peeled the last paper seal off but it had shocked her immediately making the Lighting Blade seem weak. Electricity had ran all through out her body, she didn't scream nor did she wince, the electricity was so powerful it made Sakura glow a red color and bolts would hit random parts of the arena.

Ino's soul had been propelled out of the puppet and followed he chakra strings to her now healed body, she awoke with a gasp and Sakura was still being electrocuted with red bolts, her hair was flailing around and her dress was flying around every where. When the seal was finally off she gave a happy sigh and picked up the Ino puppet and put it on a scroll. It had three symbols already on it with enough space for one more at the end. She threw the scroll in the air and them she threw the puppet in the air in a poof of black smoke the puppet was gone. Sakura had caught the scroll, satisfied that another symbol had appeared.

She walked off.

"Sakura!! Where are you going?!?!" Screamed Naruto trying to make a mad-dash to his friend.

"I'm thinkin' Tanzaku town, you?" she said coolly not looking back, as she walked some thing was different…her clothes had changed when she was being electrocuted, a cloak covered her body, a mask on a belt tied around her waist made of black vines, on the same belt a kanta…the same used to cut Ino's hair, and a sister sword, it's sheath was enough to convince Naruto and the others that it was a beautiful piece of weaponry.

"Haruno Ookami Sakura, stop right there!" The third shouted at Sakura.

"Oh…the middle name, now I know I'm in trouble…too bad I don't care." She said turning her head back to look at her old sensei.

"What are you planning now that you've scared yet another girl to death?" He said in a commanding voice.

"What i always do…move on to another town, make a reputation there, scare a few people, and move on. Tsunade-chan will be happy to see me again, it's almost been four years…" she said thoughtfully thinking of her adoptive parents…Orochimaru, Jiraiya and Tsunade…It's been so long…First I've gotta find Jiy-kun, and then he'll come with me to find Tsu-chan, then Oro-kun…after all it's they're anniversary as a team in two days…and they never miss that."

"Sakura!! You're crazy!! The Team broke up years ago!!" Azuma shouted lifting Ino off from the floor, she was squirming and screaming about how she wanted to go and fight with Haruno-sama.

"To the public eye yes. Behind the curtains no, they never did, never will, the reason, me. " She said looking ahead of her, she was lying through her teeth and no one knew it, As if she'd tell them blindly where she was going, she's not a rookie ninja.

"Hinata." Sakura said and Hinata jumped and looked at Sakura with worry in her moon colored eyes.

"Release the genjutsu….now." Sakura said as if Hinata was nothing but an underling ninja.

"Hai Sakura-chan." Hinata said her voice robotic now, in a flurry of smoke Hinata was wooden now.

"Come…we have work to do…after all, I'm going to put you back into your own body and you'll be human again…it's going to take a while still."

"I wouldn't expect any thing less from the lazy Haruno genius." Hinata smiled.

"Come on then, i don't want the Anbu on my back again. It's too tiring."

"Through you'd be able to kill them in one punch, and I twelve or so." Sakura smiled at her friend and follower.

"Hai let's go before they catch wind of us."

"Hinata!!" Neji shouted with furry in his voice.

They ignored him and poofed away, not to be seen in a long time. The group of ninja stared at the spot the pinkette had stood, wondering what was to become of her, not knowing that they were to see her again in the future.