She had made them think she was dead for 3 years. They had just given up hope when she returned to their lives. The glue for Team 7 had returned… but she was no longer the Sakura they had grown to love. She harboured evil feelings they never knew she had and now she was letting them all out. She had joined their hated enemy to gain strength. To no longer be the same weak Sakura. Her mission was sworn to fail the minute she found out Naruto had the Kyuubi inside him. NaruSaku
Living Once Dead
Prologue
Deep blue eyes looked to the sky as the sun just began to peek over the horizon, bringing light to the whole of Konoha. But not even this pretty picture could lighten the feelings he felt on this fateful day. The anniversary of his first and only love's disappearance. He watched as the sun rose high in the sky. He stayed that way for hours, just watching. Thinking about her and what happened. Her voice, her hair, her eyes, her everything. All of it. Gone. She left him in the world. A world without her wasn't worth living in. She was his everything even if she didn't return his love. He didn't care. Just seeing her made his whole world seem brighter, and now she was gone. And she had left him. 3 years ago precisely. 3 hard years of training to keep his mind of her had made him only one step away from becoming Hokage and the captain of his very own ANBU team.
He remembered it like it was yesterday; coming home from his two year stay away from Konoha. He had come home expecting her to there waiting for him. To greet him at least. 2 years was a long time. It was then he was greeted with a distraught Ino and upset Tsunade. At the age of 16 he had just found out that his only love had been missing for a year. 3 years had past since then and the hole in his heart had only slightly healed. At least enough for him to stop drinking away his sorrows and sleeping with any girl who sashayed their way over to him in the bar.
He was now 19 years of age and he still hadn't forgotten her smile. Her hair. Her eyes. Her everything. And he doubted he would ever, but at least now he could get through a whole day without yelling at his friends, without crying over his loss, without wishing he were dead, without blaming himself for leaving her all alone.
"It's not good to dwell on the past you know," a voice behind the man made him turn around and face reality. The shoulder length spiky black hair and onyx eyes made him realise he was staring at his best friend. The one person who still sparred with him even though he usually tried to inflict as much damage as he could on his opponent, comrade or not. The one person who stayed with him through his screaming and then crying fits. The one person who understood what he was going through, who really understood. Uchiha Sasuke.
It was two and a half years ago that the traitor Uchiha had been dragged back to Konoha by a team of retrievers. He had not come quietly, but after killing his brother he had nothing else to do. The one thought of his true home had given him hope. Hope for a different future, one not filled with revenge, but one filled with friends, filled with love, filled with family. It had only taken him half a year to track him down and bring him home, the thought of his loss had made him keep his promise he had made to her those many years ago. If he could give her nothing else, he would give her this. The promise of a lifetime fulfilled. Whether she were here to see it or not he would continue fighting until he could finally be able to let himself feel like something, anything, he had done right for her.
It was on this day 3 years ago his heart had been broken, and it was on this day 3 years later that he had finally come to terms with the fact that his true love was dead. It was on this day, the anniversary of Haruno Sakura's disappearance that Uzumaki Naruto's past came back to haunt him.