A/N: Contains spoilers up to manga 410.
The Hokage's tower was Konoha's highest building. And the one which most frequently needed repairs. The "WARNING! Falling objects!" sign next to it was left from the last renovation and it was left for a reason – more often than not did objects fly from that building, and that lazy spring afternoon was no exception.
"Look mommy! A flying chair!" a little boy pointed as his mother grabbed him and ran for dear life.
"Not good… The Hokage is angry…"
If the Fifth could hear those words, she would have burst in a "You're damn right I am!" However, she was too busy trying not to tear her own office apart.
"What did you say, Haruno?!"
The pink-haired girl sitting in the chair in front of her desk calmly sighed. I should have known she'd react like this…
"Tsunade-shishou, I request that you…"
"Hold on, I'm not done yet!" With that the Fifth Hokage punched a human-sized hole into the wall. Her breath was coming out unsteadily. She pressed her fingers to her temples in desperate attempts to calm herself down.
"Alright. I am now. Now what did you say?"
Sakura swallowed.
"Tsunade-shishou, I request… I request that I be allowed to begin a solo mission for the retrieval of… Sasuke Uchiha."
Tsunade's eyes betrayed nothing, only her brows furrowed even more after Sakura's repeated request. She continued to glare at her apprentice for a few long moments. Then sighed as her shoulders slumped in surrender.
"I knew you would come to me with that one day. And I suppose I should have been prepared for it, ne?"
Sakura's eyes continued to study the awfully interesting patterns on the floor.
"But some things we can never be ready for. I could easily deny you, crush your attempts and that will be that. But what kind of Hokage would I be if I make Konoha's children miserable? Every time Naruto came banging on my door with that same request you are making, I shot him down. After that first time I allowed him… it was just no use. Three years later, I thought that he would be strong enough, that he would be ready… I sent you, too, didn't I?"
Tsunade smiled sadly.
"You don't know how I felt after Tenz… after Yamato told me you all came back alive on Orochimaru's whim… I knew I had made a mistake letting you go. That mistake nearly cost me your lives."
"If getting Sasuke back means putting our lives on the line, we will gladly do so, shishou. You know that."
"I know. And that only makes it harder. But nothing is harder than seeing you and Naruto, Sakura. Do you know that I watch you? Do you know that everyone does? Do you know what they see? They see two dead people, Sakura! You eat, you sleep, you train your butts off, you go on missions, you joke and you fight, and you laugh, but you're dead! For three years you have been outside of Konoha! Your bodies are here, but your souls and spirits have not come back since then!"
Sakura's gaze shifted sideways. Everything her master was saying to her was true. Oh, how she wanted it to be wrong, but there was no use denying the truth. Not anymore.
"I want you two back, Sakura. So I will not stop you this time. I will let you go on this mission. But I'll be damned if I let you go alone! You will take…"
"I will not take anyone else with me, shishou! No one can know I'm going! If I am to die on this mission, then… then let it be only me! I refuse to let anyone suffer because of me."
Tsunade looked at her like she was mad. But then understanding flashed across her face.
"Oh, Sakura-chan… I should be cursed and damned if I let you go breaking your head alone, but who am I to stop you? I can stop you, of course, because I'm the Hokage, but who am I to do that? You'll just run off, permission or not."
Sakura's eyes widened. She hadn't thought that Tsunade would actually let her on a solo retrieval mission, but she had just did. She just couldn't bring herself to say it straightforward.
"Thank you so much, Tsunade-shishou…"
The Hokage waved her arm, stopping the girl.
"Hold on a bit! I haven't quite given you the "yes" yet! Before I do, you must promise that you won't let anyone know where you're going! Or that you're going alone! If the council finds out about this, they'll have my head! They'll be trouble enough even if you agree to form a team. Therefore, this mission will not be listed anywhere. Nobody can find out about it, not until it is complete…"
"Hai, Tsunade-shishou! That was exactly what I was going to ask! I promise that no one will find out about this mission! I will not tell anyone about it, but you mustn't either! Not to anyone! Especially Naruto…"
Sakura looked at her master with desperation.
"Tsunade-shishou, if he finds out what I'm doing when he comes back from his training…! It will break him, Tsunade-shishou! You know how much he wanted the same thing you're allowing me to do! He would be furious with me for not taking him… for denying him a chance to try again… he most probably wouldn't want to hear my name for the rest of his life. I don't want to lose him, too, Tsunade-shishou!"
Tsunade knew that Naruto would probably react even worse than that. She understood Sakura completely.
"You have my word, Sakura. Naruto will not find out about this mission."
Sakura sighed with relief, her eyes wide.
"Oh thank you, Tsunade-shishou!"
"But answer me this: if you succeed in bringing the Uchiha back, and God knows how much I hope you do, what will you tell Naruto then? Will the success of your mission change his reaction when he finds out about it?"
Sakura had thought about this option long and hard. Many nights she would lie awake and wonder what Naruto would say if she showed up at Konoha's gates with Sasuke. What would he think of her if she came back with Sasuke? When he found out she had succeeded in what he'd spent five years of his life fighting for, taking from him the chance to finally do so on his own?
"Naruto will understand, Tsunade-shishou. He will hate me at first, I know he will… But if I bring Sasuke-kun back, if I succeed, he will understand." But God help me if I fail…
Tsunade knew her apprentice was right. Naruto would be angry if he found out Sakura wanted to go on such a mission alone, without him, but he would be furious when he found out that she, the Hokage, who had denied him that more than once, had let her. She would not tell Naruto, not for anything. At least not until…and if Sakura returned safely with the Uchiha.
But she was seeing something new in her apprentice's eyes. A cold, quiet determination. It had been two years since she had allowed Kakashi to form an 8-man squad for that same mission she was going on now alone, and had failed. That third failure had had a very strong impact on Sakura. She had not been the same since then.
She never admitted it, but Tsunade knew she was blaming herself for the fact that they had failed again. She had then developed a frantic desire to be useful.
When she trained, she wouldn't stop for hours, often collapsing on the training ground and spending the night there. When she was being tutored under her master, she absorbed everything like a sponge. When she helped out at the hospital, she fought for every single patient tooth and nail, taking 24-hour shifts more often than not, and a few times she had drained her charka completely, close to the verge of death.
"You've changed, Sakura." Tsunade said absently.
Sakura's stoic expression softened.
"Is it for the better?"
"I honestly don't know. Look, I know that you feel responsible for the failures of the previous missions, but you are not!"
"How can you be so sure, Tsunade-shishou?" Sakura asked bitterly. "I've had so many chances! And I've wasted them all! Because of my weakness, because I could never do anything to help! I've never been able to do anything… I wasn't strong enough to bring him back then, and I know I'm not strong enough to do so now, but what else can I do? I can at least try…"
Her eyes drifted to the azure sky outside the broken window.
"What if he thinks we have forgotten him, shishou? He always thought he was alone… What if he wants to come back, but he thinks we'll turn our backs to him?" she knew that she was lying to herself, but she wanted to believe so badly…
"I have to find him, shishou! I need to. I know how little the chance is for me to succeed, but I have to go. Even if it's just to see him again. To tell him he is not alone… that he never was. That I have always been there for him, and that I always will be… That if he comes back, he can be happy, that Naruto and I can be happy as well. Is it so wrong for me to want my friends to be happy, shishou?" Sakura looked at the Hokage with pleading, sad eyes.
"You have my permission, Sakura. You have my permission to go on a top-secret, S-rank solo retrieval mission that is very likely to be your last, but you have it." The Hokage had turned away from her, afraid that if she told her face to face, she wouldn't be able to let her apprentice go.
"Now go, before I change my mind and chain you here."
Sakura stood up and bowed to her shishou's turned back.
"Arigatou, Hokage-sama." She said quietly and turned to leave the office.
She stopped at the door.
"What will you tell Naruto or my parents if they come asking for me?"
Tsunade allowed herself a moment to think.
"I'll tell them I sent you to Sunagakure on medical research. For an indefinite period of time."
"Hai." Sakura nodded. She turned to leave.
"No one is to know about this mission. Please give my love to Naruto and my parents, shishou."
The moment Sakura exited the office Tsunade's eyes got moist for no reason.
"Please come back alive, Sakura-chan…" she whispered.
On the other side of the door, Sakura heard.
"I will, shishou."
Sakura's eyes fluttered open. Yeah, right…
Every night she had that same dream, that memory of the day she left Konoha in search of her comrade. She had quietly promised her master she would not lose her life, but now… that too seemed like a distant memory.
Her beaten body refused to move, no matter how hard she willed it to. The shackles around her wrists painfully reminded her that she was a captive, and that her life depended on how good she could play defeated.
Her eyes were wide open, yet they saw nothing, only darkness that surrounded her and confused her.
Sakura sucked in a breath harshly as she heard the prolonged noise of a door creaking somewhere.
A beam of light penetrated the darkness, allowing her to see that she was lying on a stone floor.
"Well, well! The cherry blossom's awake, huh? Oh, he'll be glad to have some company…"
The Sound nin started walking towards her, chain in hand, and Sakura couldn't help clenching her eyes shut in fear. When he stopped next to her and hauled her to her feet, she couldn't help hissing in pain – every muscle in her body was voicing its protest.
Sakura opened her eyes and forced herself to look her captor in the eyes.
"My, my, if looks could kill…" he chuckled. He pulled the chain in his hand that was connected to the shackles on Sakura's wrists, hauling her closer to him like a dog. The kunoichi tried to resist and bore her heels in the ground, but he pulled harder, causing her to fall on her knees before him.
Sakura hated it. Forced to kneel before some scum who had beaten her up…
"I'll kill you, bastard!" she said. But what came out was only a tortured sound and a trickle of blood she spat on his shoes.
"Oh, I'm offended!" the Sound nin mocked.
Sakura clenched her teeth in anger. She hated being so helpless, her life at his whim. If she had a hand free, he would be gurgling in pre-death agony right now.
He started pulling her roughly after him. He practically dragged her to the door because her legs did nothing.
"Come on, walk, you little bitch!" he growled quietly. When Sakura didn't comply, he wrenched the chain, painfully twisting her wrists.
She got up on her feet and walked up to him, her head spinning.
"There we go, I knew you'd warm up to me!" the Sound nin teased while grabbing her chin and turning her to face him.
Sakura spat blood in his face, her eyes glaring with hatred.
He licked the blood off, licking his lips afterwards. It reminded her faintly of Orochimaru. Like leader like villagers, she thought. After Orochimaru's death, the Sound village had fallen apart, and only a few scattered remnant groups roamed across the continent, loyal to no one, attacking every ninja they came across.
One such group had ganged up on Sakura when she had come into former Sound territory on rumors that "Falcon" was scavenging through the village ruins, in search of his old summoning scrolls – ever since Manda was gone for good, "Falcon" was left with no last-minute summon in case of emergency.
Sakura had trudged around Sound and found herself against a six-man team. That had not bothered her immensely, as all of them were soon lying on the ground. But just as she was finishing the last of them, a tall, fair-haired Sound nin had come up behind her and hit a point on her neck that knocked her unconscious.
The same Sound nin was now dragging her behind him like a dog across an unlit corridor.
He stopped at a heavy wooden door with one last hard pull on Sakura's chain, his smug expression never leaving his face.
"Seeing as how you don't particularly enjoy my company, let's see if you'll enjoy his. And I'm sure he wouldn't mind a friend Leaf scum in the last few days of his life."
His?
The Sound ninja hauled the pinkette towards himself while unlocking the door. He pushed it open. From what little light there was, the kunoichi saw that this was another jail cell.
"Oi, wretch, you have a new roommate!" he said as his hand locked tightly around Sakura's throat.
"Be nice, and we'll make sure you die quickly." he chuckled in her year.
He then threw her on the floor of the cell and locked the door, laughing.
Sakura choked as she listened to the sound of his footsteps fade away.
When it did, she pushed herself to sit up. Her eyes started to adjust to the darkness and she looked around.
In the cell there was nothing except for a bench, a small, barred window and four bare walls.
Sakura squinted her eyes and gasped quietly when she saw a silhouette on the wooden bench. She then remembered her captor's words about that other person.
She swallowed as her parched throat tightened.
"Who… Who's there?" she managed to bring out.
The silhouette shifted slightly.
Crimson, Sharingan eyes shone in the darkness and fixated on her.
Sakura's eyes went wide and her mouth opened on its own.
"Impossible…how…?" she whispered through quivering lips.
A deep, smooth voice crept through the silence.
"Sakura." he spoke her name quietly.
