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Hello! The plot of this story just popped in my mind along with my other story entitled Sadist's Little Monster. That was an OkiKagu fic so if you're a Gintama fan and you ship the pairing, feel free to read the story! Thank you :P
The first five chapters of this story were just telling how Sakura had lived these past few years when she thought Sasuke and Naruto were dead. So do not expect a lot of it. The real plot will happen in Chapter 6 or so. Just read, okay? Thank you!
WARNING: M for Foul language, and OCCness of the characters.
DISCLAIMER: I OWN nothing, except the plot and the grammar plus spelling errors.
"Talking"
'Inner Sakura'
Flashback
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Chapter I: Home
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She leaped from branch to branch with an incredible speed. She knew her enemies were just running behind her. She had no time for these shits!
Charging more chakra to her feet and legs, she professionally avoided all the trees that blocked her path toward an uncertain destination. She stopped for a second as she leaped to the right, trying to lose her enemies' tracks. She knew it wouldn't work but at least it could buy her some time to plan for an escape.
She changed direction again, not daring to check if her enemies were following her or not. All she needed to do was to escape and to go home.
She stopped abruptly to dodge a kunai aimed at her. She cursed quite loud when she saw an explosive tag attached to it. Out of reflex and chakra, she covered her upper body with her arms and jumped away from the explosive weapon as far as she could manage.
The explosion caught her and she received first degree burn on her arms. She cursed again while distributing healing chakra toward her injured body parts to stop the swelling and to lessen the pain. She skillfully landed on the ground and dodged all the kunai that headed toward her direction with grace despite her injuries. She back flipped two times to avoid the shuriken but missed a kunai that stabbed her in the thigh.
"Shit!" She hastily spun around to deflect her opponent's kick straight to her stomach, which has a deep slash due to her previous battle against these rogue ninjas. She healed the wound already but she could just stop the bleeding, the tissues were still damaged and if not attended right away, it may get infected, which was not good.
But she was too slow to defect the attack. Mentally thinking for an alternative solution, she lowered her body so the kick won't direct to her injured limbs. She cried in pain when the kick hit her in the ribs and found herself thrown on the hard surface of a tree. Damn, she broke two ribs.
Cursing and groaning in pain, she forced herself to stand, using the tree's trunk as support. She glared at the three ninjas several meters away from her. They were rogue nins from Iwa, she noted.
'Maybe you left a track, that's why they can find you easily.'
Shaking her head to concentrate, she healed her injured body enough for her to engage in a battle while not injuring herself more. While doing so, she discreetly observed her opponents. Their faces were hidden behind their masks but she could care less about the matter. All she needed to do was to beat all the day lights out of their body.
'Shannaro!'
Once the pain subsided, she put her fighting stance and readied herself to battle. She had no choice anyway.
"You got some spunk there, eh, missy?" One of the rogue ninjas remarked as he twirled a kunai around his index finger. She called him Mr. Cocky.
She didn't answer, merely plotting how to escape using the small amount of chakra in her system. She might be five or so miles away from Konoha. Not too far away but she needed enough chakra to travel.
"Maybe we can take you and make you our new medic," the other one said. Mr. Skinny, she described. "In exchange to the one you killed, of course." She glared at them, disgusted at such offer.
'Tell them to go to hell and fuck with their bastard medic.'
"Right, loyal to the village though, sorry." She deadpanned.
The last one gritted his teeth. She called him Mr. Temperamental but that's too long so she ended up calling him Mr. Shorty.
"It's not my fault the guy has to die," she said blankly, counting the ways she could knock these bastards in less than a minute if she recovered enough chakra to do so.
"The fuck?!" Mr. Shorty exclaimed. "It's your fault that Usudo-san has to die, you bitch!"
"Look," she sounded tired all of the sudden. "I know it's my fault but not entirely." She smiled inwardly when she found out that she had recovered enough chakra to beat these assholes. "I'm on a mission. I had just finished it and I am deadbeat tired. I wanna go home so…" She trailed off, looking unconcerned.
"So what? Do you expect us to let you do what-fucking-ever you want and decide to put everything to an end then kiss each other good bye as we separate in our different happy ways?! Ha!"
"That actually sounds good…" She agreed, pissing Mr. Shorty more, much to her amusement.
"If you wanna go home," Mr. Skinny stated, "that can be instantly arranged. Just die and we're going to send your corpse back to Konoha." He crouched down to emphasize his point, signaling that the battle was on.
She crouched down and raised her defense as well, grabbing something from her ninja bag. The three ninjas watched her alarmingly and intently.
She picked three smoke bombs and, upon seeing this stunt, the three rogue nins broke into laughter.
"Smoke bombs? Really?" Mr. Cocky exclaimed, clutching his stomach and laughing.
"I don't expect that Konoha produced such incapable and incompetent ninjas nowadays." Mr. Skinny declared, smirking behind his mask.
"Well, it is always good to return to the basics…" She said blankly, obviously not affected by the insults.
"With that skill, you did not deserve killing Usudo-san. I am starting to doubt you." Mr. Cocky said once again now that he controlled his laughs.
"I'm not here for you to praise my skills in the first place anyway…" She rolled the smoke bombs in her hand as she counted the seconds best to strike.
"Are you aware that we have someone who can detect chakra?" Mr. Skinny asked pointedly. "Planning to fool us with bunshin is not an option anymore, kunoichi." He was obviously unaware of her true plans. Not that she wanted him to be aware of it anyway.
"Oh, I'm fully aware." Now's the best time to strike, she thought. "Oh, well, better to end these shits. At least," she paused, raising her arm which was holding the smoke bombs, "you'll die laughing."
Without warning, she dropped them on the ground and a massive, thick, purple smoke covered the entire clearing. All three ninjas waited and when they felt a slight burst of chakra, they sprung into action, running toward the dark smoke.
They stopped midway when four clones of her spread in all directions. As though expecting this assault, Mr. Shorty, the one who can detect chakra, raised two fingers and muttered something under his breath. In instant, he could feel the real her from afar. The real she was not hard to detect; he could possibly know what a clone is and what the real one is.
"A hundred and twenty-five degree to the west, approximately half a hundred meters and counting." He stated and all men ran toward said direction but then stopped abruptly by Mr. Shorty. "What the fuck? I can detect her in the same measurement to the east!"
"What?!" Mr. Cocky exclaimed, sounding quite impatient and agitated. "Don't fuck and shit, Nadaru. Get your ass working properly!"
"I'm trying, okay?!" Mr. Shorty shouted and redid his technique, getting the same results.
"This will lead us to nothing." Mr. Skinny stepped forward, emitting that 'leader-sort of' aura. "Nadaru, to the east. Kuzomu, the other. I got the rest."
In instant, Mr. Cocky and Mr. Shorty vanished. Mr. Skinny remained on his spot, ignoring the direction of the other clones. He closed his eyes and muttered under his breath before smirking. "Found you." He vanished right away.
She smirked to herself. The plan was all simple. She made four clones with the same replica of her chakra signature then spread them away in all directions. She transformed herself into slug then teleported about half a hundred meters away from them. Upon transforming and masking her chakra, she left and headed toward Konoha. Those fools must've following her clones.
Ah, it is always good to have complete chakra control.
'Damn straight!'
She reached to her bag and grabbed the last soldier pill she has. Praying to Kami that nothing would go fucking wrong, she plopped it in her mouth and chewed the tasteless pill.
The moment her system felt the rush of fresh chakra was the moment she felt someone was following her.
She cursed mentally and increased her pace. Fuck it's like playing Tom and Jerry game again; chasing, escaping and shit.
She decided that running wouldn't help her; she speedily jumped toward a tree and hid behind it.
"We are not playing hide and seek. Come out and let's deal with it."
She cursed mentally when she realized that the culprit was not more than fifty meters away from her.
"I know you're running out of chakra already," she cursed again at him knowing that he knew that he has actually the upper hand in here. "Hence come out and let's settle this."
By the sound of his voice, she realized that he was the skinny one. Oh, great. That guy has some spunk. She has to deal with a fight against someone who can steal chakra, not to mention, fight with this amount of chakra in her system. She needed to reserve for her trek later, that is if she could survive.
Looking up to the scarlet sky, she wondered what on her previous doings gave her this tough luck.
"Alright." She said and walked out behind the tree. "Let's get this over with."
XX
Approximately thirty minutes passed, two bodies of unconscious shinobi lied on the ground. There was another figure of shinobi, likely belonged to a woman, and she was sitting on another shinobi's waist. She had her fingers around his throat and the other one was holding a kunai that was pointed towards his body part where the sun does not usually shine.
"Get off me," he hissed darkly. "And let me kill you." He thrashed under her but she held him so firm, making his actions failed miserably.
"You know, get over with it." She commented. Once the rogue nin noticed that he was losing, he lost his cool during their battle. Mr. Skinny kept on rambling about Usudo, about him being his best friend, about losing someone he loved, and about taking revenge of it.
'Ha. I'm so tired hearing that shit.'
"You know nothing about our friendship." He grumbled, coughing hard here and then. "You don't have any idea how it feels like to lose someone you loved."
'Oh, you didn't have any idea, Mr. Lovely Man.'
"He's dead." She stated blankly. "Whatever things you intended to do won't change anything. He's dead. Just accept that fact."
The man kept on thrashing and glaring at her. "I'll give him justice."
The inner she laughed hysterically inside her head. 'Justice my ass.'
"Rogue nukenins like you do not deserve any justice." She said sharply while tightening her grip around the man's throat, making him choke in the process. "You deserve nothing but death."
Finally, the man decided not to fight and just limped on the ground. "Then kill me. What's the use of living if you don't have someone to live with anyway…"
She charged chakra towards her fingertips and traveled her hand from his neck to his temple. She hesitated for a millisecond, which wasn't gone unnoticed by the man under her. "Make it quick, kunoichi."
She didn't move. She was staring at him with soft expression. "Usudo Haizaki is accused and proved to be dangerous. I don't care if you are aware about his vicious actions and doings but if you truly care about him, then you will let him die."
The man didn't answer immediately, maybe trying to understand what she meant. Then he chuckled. "We have different viewpoint about the world."
"Look," she threatened, pushing her fingertips against his temple harder. "The world is not rotating around one person. If he dies, let him. What's the use of avenging if it doesn't change anything? And don't talk about justice. Fucking evil humans do not deserve any about that. So did that Usudo you're talking about."
He chuckled once more. "You talked too much."
"I am saying that people can change." She said sternly. "If they choose to, they can."
"I am not getting you."
"I don't hope you will." She withdrew her other arm which was holding the kunai. "My mission is over. I really want to kill you and you're friends for pissing the hell out of me but," she gave him one last glare, "my mission do not include that."
And before he could react, she knocked the man unconscious, as to what she did to the others.
She stood up and ran a hand onto her hair, feeling all her energy drained out. She has three days before these nins woke up. So she didn't have to worry about them following her again.
She knew that those bastards deserved to die but as far as she knows, those three didn't do anything to harm someone. It was that Usudo who deserved to die.
'Damn straight.'
Besides, people can change. People deserve second chances.
Glancing for the last time toward the nukenins, she began her journey back to Konoha. If she's lucky, she could reach her home at noon.
'Fuck, we have all night to travel.'
XX
Her feet felt numb and sore. Fuck she didn't have to care. She could see the gates over the distance. She needed to keep moving. She grinned.
Ah, home sweet home. After two and a half fucking years at last…
With the last boost of her strength, she flared her chakra, hoping that someone would notice and try to assist her. She realized that any minute from now, she would collapse.
Over the distance, she saw someone running. Not recognizing who that was, all thanks to her blurry vision and dizziness, she put her defense on. A shinobi must not let his guard down.
"Sakura!" The man shouted. She immediately recognized him. Kotetsu.
"Yo, Kotetsu." She smiled as sincere as a tired ninja could manage.
Kotetsu looked up at her then down. He noticed how filthy she was, not to mention, the blood on her clothes and skin. She had an angry looking wound in her stomach and in her thigh. It was shocking that she was able to stand. "You looked pretty… nice."
Sakura glared at him as hard as a tired ninja could manage. "Well, after my recent mission, I encountered three happy and friendly looking nukenins, we had a very idle and surprisingly civil conversation and we decided to have a friendly fight," she said sarcastically. "The result is right in your front."
Kotetsu rolled his eyes. "That isn't what I mean." He walked beside her. "Are you able to walk?"
"That should be obvious right now."
He chuckled then draped an around her waist and they began walking towards the gate.
"It has been years, huh?" She thought aloud, enjoying the breeze of Konoha.
"It has." Kotetsu cursed the absence of Izumo in his mind as they passed the gates.
"Where's Izumo?" Sakura asked, searching for the man in question.
"Going to beat him again for lazing around?" He answered with a smirk.
"You're one to talk." She gave him her own smirk and a pointed look.
"He's on a mission, don't you worry."
"Really?" She sounded quite surprise. Izumo rarely went on missions. He usually guarded the gates, along with Kotetsu.
"Yeah, he kept on pissing Tsunade-sama about no decent work so he ended up with a broken rib and a C-Rank mission scroll on the face."
Sakura laughed at this. Now that's something she missed here in Konoha.
"And Tsunade-sama will be happy than drunken to see her apprentice again."
She grinned at him then stopped walking. "You can go back guarding the gates now. We don't want to deal with rogue nins appearing abruptly."
He gave her a pointed look.
"I can manage to go to the hospital alone." She blankly stated, trying her best to compose herself and her cool, which failed quite miserably as to Kotetsu's observation.
"Yeah, you looked nothing more than a half-dead kunoichi with pink hair." Kotetsu said as a matter of factly. "And what if you collapsed in an alley, who knows who'll go there, right?"
"And why the hell am I going to collapse in an alley?!"
"I am aware that little miss pink hair here doesn't want to collapse in the middle of the village, now does she?"
"Okay, point taken," she paused then fixed him a glare. "But –"
"Stay right here." Kotetsu led her to the nearest bench and she sat reluctantly. "And rest. You need someone to assist you."
"Don't make me wait then," she said dejectedly, knowing that Kotetsu wouldn't let her walk by herself in that state.
"Yeah, yeah." Kotetsu turned to his back and waved a hand as he began walking toward his station. But he paused suddenly at a good distance before glancing over his shoulder. "By the way, Sakura…"
Sakura looked at him curiously, waiting for him to continue.
"Welcome home."
She smiled sincerely in return, watching as Kotetsu made his way back to the gates.
When Kotetsu was gone, she sighed deeply and wondered if things would work out well now that she was home.
She needed time to move on after her losses that's why she demanded for a year-long mission. Now after two years and a half, she didn't know if she had moved on.
Well, at least she was able to control her emotions now. All she needed to do was not to think about them anyway. Plain and simple.
'Plain and simple, ha, beat me.'
She looked around her and found that she was seating on the same bench where Sasuke had knocked her off, the bench where Naruto knocked her off.
She glared at the offending bench momentarily before muttering filthy things under her breath, cursing the Uchiha and the Uzumaki right there and then.
Dismissing and stopping herself to think another unnecessary and nonsense thought, Sakura touched her stomach unconsciously and found out that it was wet. She looked down and saw the blood stains on her hand.
"Fuck." She cursed. She had no healing chakra left in her system to keep herself from bleeding and now that the effect was wearing off, the blood and the pain came out of her body. She gritted her teeth to keep herself from screaming and stood up.
The sudden careless gesture stopped her, tons of unbearable physical pain shot through her body and it took her some moments to keep her breathing even. No need to panic, damn it.
She sat down carefully, thinking of the possible solutions to get out of this predicament.
Tilting her head side to side, she noticed that there were no people around and if she screamed, she doubted Kotetsu would hear her.
She had enough strength to make a run to the nearest hospital no chakra required but if she does that, she might ended up collapsing on her way or worst, dying because of blood loss.
She cursed and ended up with the last solution. Realizing that she had still chakra in her system enough to attract fellow shinobi, she flared said energy and boosted it to its fullest.
She panted heavily and waited for someone to come. Not for long, a figure appeared over a distance. She realized it was a he and he was running to her.
'Thank you, heavens. We are not going to die. Yet.'
"Damn, is that you Sakura?"
'Is there any other kunoichi here with pink hair?'
She didn't answer while trying to recall the guy's name. It was familiar but because of her two and a half year-long mission, she almost forgot the sound of the voices of her fellow shinobi.
She couldn't look at him because her eyelids felt so heavy. She felt him lifting her bridal style and she hissed at the pain.
"We're going to the hospital now." He stated and began walking, carefully clutching the pinkette. "You looked pretty nice."
'Yeah, we heard that like two times.'
Finally, she saw a glimpse of his face. Bored expression. Half-lidded eyes. Black hair in high ponytail. Smirking face.
"Shikamaru?"
"Ah, Sakura is so troublesome."
'Yep, that's definitely the lazy ass genius.'
Shikamaru looked down at her and smiled slightly. "Welcome home."
But before she could say something, Shikamaru quickened his pace and began running toward the hospital, leaving her to mutter several prayers hoping for dear life.
So, end of the first chapter. Just tell me what you think about it, okay? Chapter 2 and 3 were done! I'll upload it if you want me to. Thank you for reading ^^
Read and review!