Chapter 1/Prologue

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. . . Yet Ψ( ｀▽´ )Ψ

The moon was out as I quickly jumped through the treetops, making sure to be as quiet as possible. My cat Anbu mask covered my face as I jumped from tree to tree, my chakra masked and making my way back to my home, my village, Konoha.

I, Haruno Sakura, am an Anbu now at the age of nineteen, along with a few others from Konoha 11. Chouji, Shikamaru, Ino, TenTen and Hinata are Jounin, which makes me, Naruto, Neji, Kiba, Shino and Lee Anbu. Shikamaru could have taken the Anbu exam if only he wasn't such a lazy ass. As for the others, well, they said being Jounin was enough for them. Neji and Lee became Anbu first, while me, Naruto, Kiba and Shino after them, actually, it's exactly six months since we became Anbu now.

As I landed on the ground silently, I looked up at the large gates of Konoha. Ah, it's good to be home. I darted through the gates; the ninja's at the gates merely saw a pink blur, aka my pink hair. They knew who the pink blur was, I mean, who else has pink apart from me? I'm frickin' unique!

I made my way towards the Hokage Tower to give Tsunade-Sama my report for the mission. I've surpassed her now, well, as a medic anyway, and she has been helping me develop my byakugou seal, creating new techniques which only I am capable of. I'm not so 'useless' now am I? *smirks*

As I walked towards her office, I nodded towards the guards outside before knocking on the Hokages door and letting myself in, not expecting an answer from her. She's probably slacking off. Again. True enough, there she was, her face on her desk, snoring.

I banged the door shut loudly to make my presence known. I quickly ducked, only just managing from getting a sake bottle smashed into my face.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT?!" The drowsy Hokage shouted, her voice slurred and her eyes unfocused.

"Um, mission report?" I said-kind-of-asked.

"Ugh just give me the written report, I'm busy." She said, resting her head on her folded arms on the table, going back to sleep.

"I can't believe Konoha is still standing with you here. . ." I muttered jokingly, as I put the written report on her desk and quickly making my way out of her office, before a certain Hokage castrates me.

"I HEARD THAT!"

I stealthily ran on the rooftops, making my way towards my apartment. I suddenly realised how disheveled I look from my mission; I had blood stains on my clothes, and a weeks' worth of grime on me. Gross. The minute I arrived at my apartment, I took a refreshing shower, washing away any signs of blood from my solo mission, and then got dressed into my pajamas, which consists of a red tank top and black shorts and with my wet hair falling down my back. Yes, I grew my hair out again; this time, it's down to my hips, keeping my middle parting.

My everyday ninja attire has changed as well, I now wear a long sleeved red mesh top with the Haruno clan symbol at the back, red shorts, and black fishnet elbow protectors, keeping the knee length ninja boots. On Anbu missions, I wear the usual Anbu outfit, but instead of trousers, I wear shorts as I can move around more freely.

Yawning, I went over to my room getting ready for bed, I haven't had a proper night's sleep during my mission so I'm exhausted. I turned the lights off and snuggled deeper into the bed, enjoying the warmth, then drifted off to dreamland.

I woke up with the morning sun shining through the window, straight to my face. I groaned and turned my head to bury my face into my pillow. My eyes widened as I heard someone knocking the door and a familiar voice ringing throughout the apartment.

"SAKURA-CHAN WAKE UP! WE HAVE TO GO TO THE HOKAGE TOWER!"

There was a loud bang, then hurried footsteps getting closer and closer. I sat up in my bed rubbing my eyes, until someone smashed open my bedroom door revealing a young good-looking man with blond hair, blue eyes and a wide grin on his whiskered face. He dashed over to me, hugging my tightly, burying his head into my chest. Wait. . . Chest?!

"NARUTO! GET OFF ME!"

I punched him in the face, making him smash into the wall with a loud bang.

"Itai! That hurt Sakura-chan!"

"You deserved it." I said, glaring at him. "And can you get out? I need to get changed."

"Can I watch instead?"

My eyes narrowed. I grabbed him by the collar, opened the window and threw him outside. After closing the window I went and got changed like nothing happened.

After changing into my Anbu uniform and ate some breakfast, I went outside and took off towards the Tower. Straight away, Naruto came and joined me on the rooftops, our mask covering our face.

A minute later, another Anbu member joined us, his long brown hair blowing in the wind, nodded his head towards us. Me and Naruto greeted him and carried on towards the tower in silence.

Once we arrived, we went straight to Tsunade-sama's office. After we were let in, she told us that we had to wait for the others to come, then she'll tell us about our mission. No less than five minutes, there was a knock on the door and in came two Anbu members and a very large dog.

"Now that you have all arrived, I will now tell you your mission, but first, take your masks off, I hate not knowing if you're listening or not." Tsunade told us, watching as we took our masks off.

The guy with long brown hair turned out to be Neji, and the two that just came in revealed to be Lee and Kiba, so the dog was obviously Akamaru, but we all knew who we were even with the masks on, we can tell by each others' chakra signature. We greeted each other with nods and smiles, well, Lee beamed at me, showing his overly-white teeth and Kiba winked while I stuck my tongue at them. Making Neji roll his pearly eyes at my childish behavior.

"Yosh! I have a mission for you all." Tsunade-sama said. "This is an A-ranked mission and you are to receive a scroll from the Kazekage in Suna. The scroll is no ordinary scroll, so make sure no one gets the scroll off you as there will most likely be ninja after it. There are more information in your mission scroll and you are to leave in two hours. Neji will be the captain of this mission. Am I understood? Good, now all of you go and piss off. . .""

With that said, Neji took the mission scroll from Tsunade-Sama's hand, then all of us 'poofed' away. We had some packing to do.

Two hours later, I was with Neji, Lee and Kiba at the front gates, waiting for Konoha's loudest ninja. Neji was silent, as always, Lee was prancing around in his spandex (yes, he still wears that green thing) blabbering about youth and saying how lucky he was to 'be in the same mission as his beautiful cherry blossom' (aka me), and Kiba had a smug look on his face, watching me cuddle Akamaru because HE'S SO CUTE AND FLUFFY. Ahem, anyway just as I was about to ruffle Akamarus' adorable little head (actually it's big but ya know), Naruto appeared with a poof of smoke, a wide grin plastered on his whiskered face.

"What took you so long?" I asked him, raising my eyebrows questioningly.

"I WAS PACKING RAMEN, SAKURA-CHAN!" Naruto replied, jumping up and down.

We all sweat-dropped at Naruto's hyper-activeness.

It was amazing how he always seemed so happy and hyper; he was even more so especially Sasuke (who's on probation) came back after the war. Yes, that's right, Sasuke, not Sasuke-kun, just Sasuke. I figured that Sasuke would think that I was still one of his fangirls if I called him 'Sasuke-kun' so I stopped that now, I'm actually his friend now, surprisingly, and he thinks of me as an equal, how did I know this? He told me, just like that and then went off somewhere, with a tint of pink on his cheeks. Weird right?

"YOSH! Lets go, team!" Lee cried, doing his ever so famous 'nice guy' pose, his white shiny teeth blinding us.

"I never recalled you being the team captain, Lee." Neji muttered his eye twitching. "Lets go."

We took off, occasionally having some small talk now and again. We don't usually talk while travelling during missions but this is only an A-rank; of course, we're always on guard just in case something happens, we can never be too relaxed on missions. We kept on going until nightfall, not taking a single break; no one can beat our stamina. But we were only human; we were getting quite tired and sweaty. Neji activated his byakugan to search for a place where we can rest and close to a river so we could wash ourselves.

After finding a spot, we went off find some wood to build a fire and some food to eat. I washed myself in a nearby river then walked back to my team, sitting near the campfire to keep myself warm.

"Okay, I'll take first watch, then Lee, got it? Good." Neji said as we went to our sleeping bags, getting ready to go to bed.

Next morning we set off again in our incredible speed, Our masks in place. As you already know, I had a cat mask, Neji had one of an eagle, Naruto had a fox, Kiba had a dog (how typical) and Lee had a monkey.

We traveled in silence this time, probably because it was early in the morning and neither of us were properly awake yet. However, I was actually kind of excited to go to Suna. I hadn't seen Temari in a while, we became friends since I saved Kankuro and we would always have a good laugh whenever we were with each other. I might see Shikamaru as well as he always travel to Suna for some politic stuff. Oh and I forgot Gaara; Gaara and I had grown a friendly relationship since I came over to Suna to teach some medical ninjutsu, we talk to each other a lot, well, that's when we see each other anyway.

After traveling for quite some time, we finally arrived at Suna. We were immediately escorted to the Kazekage to receive the scroll. When we were let into Gaara's office, sitting at the table was our favorite Kazekage, Gaara. Standing next to him was his sister, Temari, who had a grin stretched onto her face, her hair in her usual four spiky ponytails. Both siblings knew full well who was behind the Anbu masks. Next to Temari was Shikamaru, who sent us a lazy smile then went back to looking bored again.

We took off our masks as there is no point wearing them, flashing small smiles at them in greeting; we can talk later, we are on a mission after all.

"You are here to retrieve the scroll?" Gaara said, making it more of a statement than a question.

We nodded. He then opened a draw and withdrew a regular looking scroll; he held it out to Neji who went to take it. But the second his slim fingers touched the scroll, the scroll began to glow a blinding white, there was a flash; then darkness. . .

A/N: New fanfic! Sorry if it's crappy, I'm not that good at writing stories but I gave it try, anyway please R&R, I like to know your opinions and what I should improve on. (＾▽＾) And also, I'm British so I may spell some words differently (realise-realize etc.)