…
With a little bit of effort, the door closed tightly against the draw of the wind.
Just past the quaint sandy housing complex, a small group of young boys whooped and hollered after a stray dog. It bounded through the dusty road and past the vendors preparing their day's wares. Somewhere down the block, nimble hands were plucking a Koto. The young woman smiled as she moved her icy fingers from the doorknob to the pockets of her faded red coat.
She stepped out into the road a few feet behind the group of boys- who had managed to capture the stray mutt and were busy lavishing it with head pats and back rubs- and gave a warm greeting to the shopkeepers as she passed by.
As she edged closer to the center of town, her eye was drawn to the windows of different houses as they flickered to life against the paleness of the yellow and purple morning sky. She couldn't help but smile as she imagined all the different people who were about to start their day.
Small children, wrapped in the gentle embrace of dreams.
Academy students, with the prospects of their future so close they can taste the sweetness of what-might-be on the tip of their tongues.
Whole families, tangled and bundled together beneath thick blankets to ward of the nightmares.
Lovers, intertwined in vulnerability- with wistful murmurs made as promises and kisses made as contracts.
But she also thought of the forgotten ones, the ones who woke alone and void of hope, wondering just what the point was to it all.
Her mind's eye wandered to the crimson red flow from a kunai meant for her; friendly eyes saying, "I'd take it again."
The steam that rolls off the surface of morning tea made by the steady hands of a loving mother.
The grin of pride when her sensei recognizes how far she has come, and how far she will go.
Promises kept, and new promises made.
The gentle dance of fingers on a forehead- the closing of one door and the opening of another.
Friendship. Family. Trust. Love.
The way the sun never fails to rise at dawn.
A great smile spread across her lips with the passing of each memory- each snapshot of a time gone by.
She couldn't help but pray intently that the lonely ones, the forgotten ones, would find some semblance of relief in whatever the new day held for them.
Friendship. Family. Trust. Love.
Yes, she prayed, any of those things. Let them have any one of those things…
"Oi, Sakura," a familiar voice startled her out of her thoughts.
After what felt like a mere second lost in her own mind, Sakura found herself near the village center, in front of the fluorescent yellow Yamanaka flower shop.
Ino was bent over a small display of red and white mums with a tin watering can in her hand and a giddy smile on her face.
"Oh, Ino!"
"Sorry if I startled you," the young woman laughed as she flicked her long blonde ponytail over her shoulder, "whatever you were thinking about must have been somethin' given that look on your face!"
Sakura giggled and closed her eyes as heat rose to her cheeks. She could only imagine what sort of embarrassing expression she might have been wearing.
"I guess I just have a lot on my mind this morning. I can't believe I made it all the way to this part of the village without even realizing it," she clutched her left shoulder sheepishly.
Ino gave a melodic laugh and put down her watering can.
"You'd have reached Amegakure by the time you snapped out of it if it wasn't for me," she quipped.
"Then my hair and I thank you immensely," Sakura laughed, imagining herself caught in the downpour at the village where it always rains.
Ino smiled contentedly before her eyes went wide, "Oh! I just remembered I'm supposed to meet Hinata and Ten-Ten for breakfast. Come with us, won't you? We haven't had girl time in so long."
Sakura gazed up the road she had planned to take as another icy gust sifted through the side streets. She clutched the snowy white lining of her coat's fur collar and pulled it over her frostbitten lips.
After a brief moment of musing, Sakura turned back to her friend and raised her eyebrows mischievously.
"Okay I'll join you guys. On one condition."
Ino smirked at her artful suggestion, "And what might that be?"
"You have to help me take this little bit of paperwork to Kakashi-sensei."
"Will you ever start referring to him as Lord Sixth? Technically he's not your sensei anymore, give him his fancy title," Ino jeered with a dismissive wave of her hand.
Sakura snorted, "He was my sensei before he became Hokage, so he's stuck with his old boring title. Oh, and Ino? One more thing about the condition."
"Hn?"
"It's a race."
With that, Sakura took off down the road, her pink sandals crunching against the rock and grit beneath them.
"BILLBOARD BROW, YOU CHEATER," Ino yelled, stripping the raggedy apron over her purple parka before breaking into a sprint.
Radiant laughter disseminated from behind a curtain of blush pink hair blown back in Sakura's face as she turned to catch a glimpse of her friend.
She returned her focus to the road ahead of her and took a sharp right down an alleyway, which sat in the shadow of the buildings built up around it. She jogged past the derelict fence on either side of her toward the end of the side path. She leapt up to grab two posts of faded and chipped wood, which dug into her palms and left tiny splinters in the tips of her fingers, as she easily swung herself over the fence and into the other side of the lane.
Her feet met the ground with a readiness and she took the length of this footpath in a sprint.
The bright sea green eyes of the kunoichi became afire with excitement at seeing the stone figures of Hokage Rock outlining the circular ruby roof of the Hokage Residency. The dark brown wood of the ostentatious grand doorway was only a few feet away.
She had beaten Ino.
But as her heart pulsated and mind flitted about with competitive energy, Sakura failed to notice the swell of people flocking to the northern part of the village. She took a step forward just as Ino tore through the masses of people.
"SAKURA," she bellowed, shoving two men out of her way with a spurious apology.
"You're too late, Ino Pig," Sakura giggled teasingly, "I already won."
Ino's voice seemed to go weightless with urgency, "Sakura listen to me. We need to go now."
Sakura could feel the chaos within her friend's pearlescent stormy eyes and knew that something had happened.
"Ino. Who's hurt?"
"Nobody yet, if we hurry," the fiery blonde said, grabbing her arm and taking off in a run toward the conflux of people hurrying toward Konoha's main gate.
"Ino," Sakura grimaced at the force constricting her wrist, "I don't understand! What's happening?"
"When I was chasing after you Sai stopped me and asked where you were. When I asked him why, he said…well…you'll see in a minute. And then he rushed off to tell the others. God…Sakura. Brace yourself, I don't know what we're going to find when we get to the main gate…"
Sakura felt her stomach drop and a new kind of adrenaline take over the flow of nervousness in her chest. Her wild eyes searched the horizon for any kind of sign or clue, but they were only met with an overwhelming crowd a few yards ahead.
Ino said nobody is dead…yet, she calculated quickly to herself, but obviously someone is in danger. Who? And why? Could this be a hostage situation? Or was someone attacked?
The steady murmur of the crowd began to rise toward them, but it was drowned out by the frenzy of Sakura's fears.
Of all the people she loved, which of them was she about to find with their lives hanging precariously in the balance?
"Ino! Sakura," two voices beckoned from a spot just behind the mob.
Ten-Ten and Hinata frantically waved their arms above their heads to catch the pair's attention.
"Hinata, Ten-Ten! What's the situation now," the blonde kunoichi enjoined, bringing her and Sakura to a stop before their friends.
Hinata stood behind Ten-Ten, a look of great anxiety hidden behind windblown strands of long black hair. Her foggy violet eyes met Sakura's with a sort of solemn acknowledgement.
Sakura shivered. She heard Ten-Ten's voice echoing in the back of her mind, but it became overshadowed by several loud intrusive voices she could barely make out.
"SHUT UP! DON'T COME ANY-"
An uproar from the crowd silenced the terrified voice for a few moments before it rose again in a greater octave of defensiveness.
"GET ON YOUR KNEES, NOW!"
"GET ON YOUR KNEES," a second voice chimed in.
Sakura felt her body move toward the crowd- slowly or quickly she couldn't tell- and she felt like she was suddenly underwater as the light around her started reflecting in strange ways.
She moved her lips to form apologies as she squeezed in through the sea of people, but she couldn't hear the sound of her own voice.
As she pushed through to the front, she came face to face with the backs of five Anbu, their katanas drawn carefully at an enemy she could not see.
She could barely hear a calm voice trying to speak over the terrified Anbu to no avail, but she couldn't determine who was speaking.
Sakura lowered herself down until she was lying in the dirt, staring between a guard's feet. There was one person standing defiantly across from the squad of Anbu, but she couldn't see their face. She noticed that they were wearing tattered black sandals and what appeared to be a long, brown cloak.
In frustration, Sakura jumped to her feet and went to flank the Anbu to the right, easily gliding through the small accumulation of villagers approximal to the front of the crowd. As she pushed forward, she saw a small gap between an old woman and a young girl just ahead and moved in. Her pulse was pounding in her ears as she turned into the tiny space, unsure of what kind of situation she would encounter just beyond the clearing.
Like someone had reached inside of her and stolen the air within her lungs, Sakura was suddenly and utterly unable to breathe.
She saw the guard begin to move his feet and found herself moving in kind, matching his steps with a bewildering intensity. Before she understood what had happened, the guard's katana was only a few inches from her head, held at bay by the small kunai knife in her hands. Light from the sun glinted off the metal of the blade ready to come down on her, and she realized how dangerously close she was. She tightened her grip on the cold metal between her fingers and set her gaze on the Anbu before her.
His mask was cracked and in pieces on the ground, the animal it was intended to resemble broken into unrecognizable shards. Sakura realized just how hard she had defended his blow, for his sword had launched itself backward from her knife into his mask. The man met his eyes, cold and set like stone, with hers, as a tiny drop of blood rolled past the bridge of his nose to his chin.
"I'm ordering you…to move," he snarled through gritted teeth.
He was young, maybe 22, and Sakura was not familiar with his face. She glanced back at the other Anbu officers behind him. All of them had removed their masks and were staring at the scene in utter disbelief. Sakura didn't recognize any of them either.
They're all newbies, she thought to herself, that's why they got stuck with gate duty instead of the typical Anbu-level missions.
"And I'm ordering you to stand down," Sakura demanded, tilting her chin up at him in a gesture of authority.
"Oh are you?" the man laughed heartily as bitterness seeped into his voice, "under whose authority?"
"I am Sakura Haruno; apprentice of The Fifth Hokage, Lady Tsunade- one of the three Legendary Sanin- and former apprentice to The Sixth and current Hokage, Kakashi Hatake. You would do good to remember my name."
The guard gave another boisterous bout of laughter.
"You know," he began, "for someone blessed with such brilliant senseis, you sure aren't very bright are you, sweetheart?"
Sakura narrowed her eyes.
"You don't even know who you're standing in front of," he scoffed, raising is upper lip in a frightening smirk, "do you?"
"Actually," she refuted, turning her head just enough to give a glance to the one standing behind her, "I do. Do you?"
The man's smirk grew even wider, "Former missing nin and apprentice to the most wanted S-Rank ninja in the world, previous Akatsuki affiliate, twice-over traitor to this village, and the one behind the recent murders in Suna and terrorist plot against Konoha."
"Well, well, you guys must really be useless after all," Sakura chuckled, "since nobody bothers keeping you in the loop. The one behind the murders and terrorist propositions was an imposter. A former high ranking member of Root named Kido and his assistant Magire used transformation jutsu and tailed beast cloaks to mimic appearance and chakra signatures in order to frame others for their deeds. They've since been…eliminated…as a problem. Honestly, nobody bothered to tell you this?"
The Anbu officer was stunned, and he turned to sneak a glance at his equally shocked teammates, beads of sweat rolling down his forehead.
"So, perhaps you don't know as much as you thought you did. But if you want to press this further that's fine with me, Anbu. I won't be the one reporting to Lord Sixth that I murdered two of his former apprentices…but you will."
The officer turned his head with a disgruntled sigh and looked back at his teammates, each standing stiff with a spark of terror in their eyes.
"Alright," he mumbled as he turned back to face Sakura, "I'll let this go without any more trouble."
A look of defeat was etched into every inch of his face, and a hot pink hue had freckled his flushed cheeks. Sakura nearly burst out laughing upon putting it all together. This Anbu was trying to prove his skill above the other guards, which was why he took to the tough guy role.
The officer averted his gaze from her and turned narrowed brown eyes to the one hovering behind her back.
"You're free to enter the village. For now. I'll be watching you. One false move and I'll make sure Pinky here doesn't get in the way of my katana next time. Understand, Sasuke Uchiha?"
A small scoff of amusement lingered in the air over Sakura's shoulder as a smooth voice penetrated the silence.
"Perfectly."
…