Chapter 1

Two people stood facing each other behind a huge, broken, concrete wall that was a remnant of a training facility that once stood high and mighty before the outbreak of the war. There was rubble everywhere and dust particles had nearly choked the surviving shinobis to death. Thankfully, the fights had settled – for the moment – and what was left was a scene that would certainly disgust the hearts of any brave warrior and induce a burst of tears and a meaningless shrill from any woman and child. There was nothing that anyone could do. If only this was all a dream. Or a nightmare, at the very least. So anyone who has had experienced it could wake up, wake up, and wake up all over again. But there was a solution. Two people stood facing each other. A man and a woman.

"You don't have to do this." The man said.

"I want to be the heroine of this battle." The woman replied.

"Liar. You were never the one to care about taking credit. Not in missions. Not even in the achievements that were clearly yours."

The woman did not answer, but she smiled instead.

"Listen to me, Sakura." The man said again, his voice had grown urgent and stern. Time was running out. And his hold over her was quickly slipping away. But still, the woman to whom the man has called, 'Sakura,' did not reply again. She was busy fumbling through the small, rectangular knapsack strapped around her waist. When a hand resurfaced from the bag, it held out her last kunai, with dry, blood stains beneath its sharp, metal blade.

Sakura gripped her long, light-pink hair in a single bunch. She held it on the top of her head and with a swift, single move, she cut through the strands. The man, whom Sakura has always called, 'Sasuke,' silently watched as the severed light-pink wisps fell off her head and onto the earth like bundles of colored feathers. He wondered why he did not think of stopping her.

Sakura tossed away the hair she had held in a bundle and returned the kunai to its knapsack. "To welcome the new me." She said, as if answering a question that Sasuke found inappropriate in the situation to ask. But as trivial as she wanted herself to sound like, her words infuriated the man before her. He grabbed her arms and slammed her back against the broken wall and kissed her – with strength, with anger, with passion, with love, with confusion. Her lips returned the favor with ecstasy, with joy, with sadness, with regret, with goodbye.

When he broke away gently, he said, "I wanted to be with you. After all of this is finished."

And she held him in her arms, and she said, "I don't regret anything. I met you because of all this."

"Come back to me."

"I will."

He smiled and he bent down on one knee. He held her hands that had scratches and scabs on her fingers and palms from the many Medic missions she had done during the war. He held them and felt like it would be the last time to touch them that way. "Sakura, will you—"

The earth trembled violently. Across the ruins of the building where the man and the woman took shelter from behind, a black insignia appeared in the form of a huge circle, with line spokes that marked themselves from the sides of the shape. And from its center, a figure draped entirely in a cloak materialized from the dusty air.

First, a deep chuckle, then a boisterous, sinister laugh, then a roar of her name demanding her to come out. "Haruno Sakura! Haruno Sakura!" A long, scaly tail emerged from the cloak of the figure and quickly took hold of Haruno Sakura from her hiding. The tail snared around her small body and raised her up in midair with its sinewy strength. The figure from below glanced upward and noticed his prey casting a deathly gaze at him.

"Have you made your decision?" The figure inquired.

"Yes." Sakura replied.

"What is it then?"

Sakura glanced behind her back and to her sides. Sasuke was nowhere to be found.

"Hurry," the tail coiled around her tightly, as if it had a mind of its own. "You're wasting so much of my time. He must not be kept waiting!"

Sakura painfully glanced back to the figure. From the top view, she could clearly see how half of Kabuto's face had been transformed into half of Orochimaru's – a sight more disgusting than the corpses that lay amongst the debris of the battlefield. Half of his face – the right side – was covered in silver scales that glinted green in the sunlight. His right eye had become the needle-like pupil of a snake's, while his left remained the same before he had undergone a physical transformation. His pale blue hair was covered by the hood of his cloak, but the strands that fell over his forehead revealed the side of his head that was overcome by Orochimaru, and the other side that had not yet been taken over.

"Take me," Sakura pleaded angrily, yet desperately at the same time. "Take my life instead. And then leave Konoha for good!"

"Foolish. What makes you think that you are worth a hundred more skilled shinobis? You are nothing but an insignificant ninja, Haruno Sakura. You cannot be of essential puzzle to bring back my lord, Orochimaru. You should've chosen to bring me Uzumaki Naruto instead. You should've—"

A screech of a thousand birds cut the villain off his maniacal declarations. It was the sound of Uchiha Sasuke's jutsu! He then uttered, "Chidori!" which was the cry of a true shinobi warrior who values the life his comrades.

Sasuke's right hand punctured through the figure's left chest. He felt the beating heart of his enemy and crushed it without mercy. Then, the sinewy tail loosened around Sakura's body. Concentrating her chakra to her arms and legs to cushion her fall, she quickly lunged at Kabuto with a strong fist directed at his face for one final blow.

But evil always ceases to accept defeat. And the demon ninja Kabuto, whose half body is housed by the infamous Orochimaru, is no exception. With the faltering strength he had left, his massive snake tail ensnared Sasuke in a strong grip and tossed the unsuspecting shinobi into the air. Sasuke landed far enough to the other side of the battlefield so Kabuto could take his sweet time taking revenge at Sakura who was in the mean time, distracted by the enemy's counterattack that had sent her beloved comrade to a flying distance. Kabuto grabbed her tightly by the neck, raised her in midair, and began performing seals with his other hand – ox, snake, tiger, bird and horse. Sakura's legs kicked back and forth as her arms struggled to free herself from his hold. But it was no use. She realized that her chakra had already been depleted from the countless battles that she and her comrades had encountered since the night before. She could not fight, but the will to do so was still burning alive in her heart. But what could she do? Her enemy was cutting off the supply of oxygen that traveled from her lungs to her throat. Her enemy was squeezing the life out of her by a mere hand.

"I… might die… for now," said her enemy who was also struggling to keep himself barely alive, but was certain that he would rise back from his grave. His heart had been crushed by the Uchiha, but perhaps it was the magic which was his Master Orochimaru's that could make him stand up and speak for a few more minutes before his untimely death approached.

"But," he went on. "I cannot simply leave this world… without… a parting gift." Kabuto smiled a devil's smile and he slapped a hand over his victim's face. A black script-like insignia that crawled all over her skin appeared for a few seconds before vanishing into thin air. Sakura was struggling no more. And Kabuto, before disappearing defeated into a cloud of smoke, threw her body on the ground like a child who tosses away a rag doll on the floor after growing tired of playing with it.

Reinforcements arrived late. Teams Eight, Nine and Ten were led by Uzumaki Naruto. His blonde, spiky hair swayed back in the wind as he jumped quickly from tree branch to tree branch in a desperate attempt to help his own comrades fight against their enemy, Kabuto. But when he arrived first at the scene in the forest clearing, Naruto realized that he could not save everyone all the time.

Team Eight, which was composed of Hyuuga Neji, Rock Lee and Tenten, immediately spotted Sasuke's body about three kilometers from where Sakura's body was found. All thanks to Neji's byakugan. Meanwhile, his cousin, Hyuuga Hinata of Team Ten, who shared the same bloodline limit of the byakugan, rushed to Sakura's side together with Yamanaka Ino, a medical ninja of Team Nine. The remaining shinobis of Teams Eight, Nine and Ten – Akimichi Chouji, Nara Shikamaru, Inuzuka Kiba and Aburamae Shino – used each of their specialty jutsus to track down any clues that may lead them to where their enemy might have escaped to. But it was too late for any pursuit, announced Kiba and his huge canine companion, their partnership of man-beast tracking jutsu had failed to capture the putrid scent of their target's whereabouts. This information was much confirmed by Shino and his legion of chakra-sensing bugs. Kabuto's dark chakra, along with Orochimaru's, has gone off radius and was possibly a thousand miles away or has completely disappeared. Uzumaki Naruto, upon hearing this unfortunate report, felt utter defeat along with everyone else in the reinforcement team because of a failed opportunity to exact vengeance for bringing chaos into their peaceful village and harming the lives of a hundred and more. But this leader was reminded by the wise Shikamaru that they had to at least console themselves with the fact that Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura were still alive, though both were in critical condition. Naruto hurried first to Sasuke's location, which was nearest to where he was standing, to affirm Shikamaru's statement. After all, seeing is believing.

Uchiha Sasuke was knocked out cold by the impact of his body being thrown into the air and straight to the ground, as reported by Neji. His byakugan also saw through Sasuke's arteries and capillaries and had diagnosed that Sasuke's chakra were very low possibly from the constant use of his bloodline limit, Sharingan, and his ultimate technique, Chidori. But thankfully, despite the other physical injuries such as a broken left arm and a dislocated right ankle, Sasuke would be able to carry himself through this. It was Haruno Sakura who could not be more unfortunate.

As a medical ninja, Sakura knew how to heal herself without even thinking much about it. It was an involuntary process that her body had become accustomed to through years and years of medical training. Being an expertise in taking care of her own self even in battle, Ino had concluded of Sakura that it was not the minor injuries like the cuts and bruises they should worry about – rather, it was Sakura's mental condition that the blonde medic could not even bring herself to declare to everyone else, especially Naruto. Because she herself could not understand Sakura's inner condition. Hinata activated her byakugan again and made a more careful examination of Sakura's chakra flow. This time, she found something that was really wrong.

"Kabuto put a seal in her," Hinata softly spoke, afraid of the truth of her own conclusion. Afraid of how it affect Naruto.

"Let's bring her quickly to Granny Tsunade!" Without any further delay, Naruto scooped the unconscious Sakura from the ground and carried her in his arms. She would know what to do, he thought. She was Sakura's medical ninja mentor. Naruto wanted to carry Sasuke on his back while he carried Sakura in his arms. But the others told him that they would do it for his sake, for he simply cannot arrive at Tsunade's tent in time to save the medic nin if he were to carry another weight besides his and Sakura's. He should not blame himself too much for what he could not do, the reinforcement team thought, even if they were his teammates. Things like this happen every once in a while. One cannot always be a hero without knowing what true failure is.

~X~

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Author's Note: Review? I would be very much appreciative of any comments and suggestions that can make this story better. Please tell me what you think. Thank you! （ ＾▽＾）