DUTY, Part 1.
Summary: She wanted to help her friends. He needed to prove himself. They found each other. GaaSaku.
First comes DUTY, then HONOUR, then LOVE. That was the way of the hidden ninja. That was how all ninja villages operated and treated their shinobi. It was what they were taught to do.
In her early years, Sakura hadn't given much thought to duty. She decided to enrol in the ninja academy because of all the amazing stories her retired parents had told her about being ninja. She decided to stay in the academy because the cute raven-haired boy that all the girls were fawning over was staying. And she decided to take the graduation exam because if she didn't, some other girl might end up on Sasuke-kun's team instead of her. Besides, she wasn't all that bad at her studies. And despite being so distracted by the Uchiha that she missed the fact that he didn't like to be pawed, Sakura Haruno managed to graduate with flying colours.
That was the proudest moment of her young life.
Team Kakashi was formed and they went on missions together. She started to learn about loyalty and teamwork from their sensei, even between squealing Sasuke's name and beating Naruto for standing too close to her, but there was a far more elusive lesson she'd yet to learn.
One she didn't see coming.
Still, Sakura took a hold of the things her parents had impressed upon her, had been drilled into her as an academy student, and then reinforced through the missions she took as a genin. Kakashi-sensei added friendship, teamwork, and loyalty onto the list, increasing the number, and she threw herself into epitomising them all.
Only her love life seemed to be unsure and indefinable.
On her sweet sixteenth birthday, she had a quasi-first kiss with some random guy Ino had thrown her way and her first hangover thanks to the newly appointed Hokage, Lady Tsunade. That was when she decided to train under Tsunade – Team Seven had a twelve month sabbatical anyway, what with Naruto heading off with Jiraiya, and Sasuke and Kakashi training in the desert.
Everything was going kind of abysmally in the love department until her seventeenth birthday.
Until the day that Sasuke Uchiha decided to give her a go. She hadn't pawed at him for a long time and through her growth and determination as a kunoichi he'd started to see her as an equal. And Sakura got to live out her dream of dating Sasuke and giving him her virginity.
But.
While it started out uncomfortable, the sex had reached a level beyond amazing, but that was as far as it went. Whatever romantic bond she'd assumed they'd forge together, didn't forge. It refused to coalesce. They still shared a bed for over a year however, only stopping on that fateful day her period was late, and she went through an agonising few minutes where her blood ran cold and her life flashed before her eyes. As soon as the little lines on her pregnancy test turned blue, she felt exhausted and emotionally drained.
Not pregnant.
Thank Kami.
And yet she couldn't silence that niggling, annoying voice in the back of her head that this was a sign.
It sounded like a cliché but the hopeful relationship, that became nothing more than an empty fling and a pregnancy scare, knocked her senses about and Sakura decided to focus on her career and forget about her love life.
At least until I find someone that would've made me happy to share a pink line with.
She had nothing against the other women her age "living it up", as it were – hell, she envied them – but it wasn't for her. Not anymore. She was done with flights of fancy.
Fast forward several more years (and tonnes of Sakura avoiding Sasuke, and vice versa), and Naruto was named the seventh Hokage.
That was the cue for Team Kakashi to officially disband, though they'd not been on a mission together in years – only in pairs or with others. Never all four of them at the same time. Never Sasuke and Sakura on the same team. Ever. It was better this way.
She heard from Naruto that Sasuke was still running with other Rookie Nine teams – apparently, they were a little scattered, too, what with Kurenai-sensei falling pregnant and her wedding preparations with Asuma-sensei. And, after a few hiccups, Kakashi was forced by Naruto to take on a new genin team.
Sakura accused Naruto of copying the Third Hokage in his what-to-do-with-Kakashi problem solving. Naruto called it "Sandaime technique copy ninjutsu!" and that was the end of discussion.
After much deliberation, Sakura continued her medical training by taking on more responsibility at the hospital, but she still felt like something was missing from her life. Her career. It wasn't until she was having lunch with Kakashi one day that a light bulb appeared over her head. An old comrade of her sensei, calling himself Yamato, interrupted them in what the pinkette later realised was a common event, to try pressuring the copy ninja into re-joining ANBU.
"Orders are orders," Kakashi told him behind a mask of suave and faux professionalism, but Sakura wasn't fooled. He loved his new genin team – almost as much as he loved his old one.
"More, Sakura-chan. I keep telling you, I love them more."
Had she really said that out loud?
More to the point, while listening to Yamato remind Kakashi of all the so-called fun they had in the black ops, Sakura decided to take a chance.
"What attributes does a shinobi have to have to be qualified for ANBU?" She asked the wood master.
Kakashi side eyed her curiously as Yamato answered her question, but she ignored him. She had trained under Lady Tsunade, was as good as if not better than her Sannin teacher; Sakura had exceeded all expectations and then some.
She hadn't felt this excited in a long time.
She was going to do this.
She was going to try out for the ANBU.
...GaaSaku...
Unfortunately for her, Sasuke seemed to be thinking the same thing.
Several months after she'd joined ANBU and ran a number of missions with her new team, her Hokage finally deigned to inform her that Sasuke was a part of the black ops too.
"I didn't tell you, Sakura-chan, because... you know. Your history."
She had no idea when Sasuke had joined ANBU, but from what little she could subtly wrangle out of Naruto, she knew at least that Fugaku Uchiha had pressured him into it. His older brother Itachi had also been pressganged into it at one time, and Sakura wondered (since she knew from Sasuke, years ago, that Itachi hadn't wanted to do it), how her raven-haired, former teammate felt about that.
It's not like I can ask him or anything.
They didn't speak anymore.
Naruto wouldn't tell her who had passed the trial first, or who had the better score. He didn't want to get in the middle of anything.
Like I'd pick a fight with him over that.
Well there had been that one time at Ichiraku where he'd ordered the last of the pork ramen to annoy Naruto and she'd almost had a meltdown over it. And at the barbeque restaurant during a Rookie Nine reunion, she'd almost killed him with his side of Omusubi. And then there was...
Okay, so when it came to Sasuke, she could get a little crazy these days. But she'd gotten better.
Sakura acquiesced to Naruto's unofficial command that she and Sasuke never go on the same ANBU team.
However, she made a silent vow to fix their friendship in the slow, away-from-work way.
But that was a vow that she ultimately couldn't keep.
...GaaSaku...
The shit hit the fan six months into Naruto's stint as Hokage.
It started out okay, though, with the blonde bringing the other kages to the summit table – a move no Kage had done since the first's time. He was determined to end the fighting between them and bring peace to the shinobi world. It sounded like a lot of fanfare, but Sakura had seen his stubbornness do a lot of amazing things when so many had written him off.
But after weeks of stalled talks, it was finally decided that – in the interest of fairness – the five Kage would rotate between the great nations to hold their peace talks. These initial talks had been done in the land of Iron, but the samurai would only put up with their ninja visitors for so long. Politics and growing tensions with smaller nations forced the Kage toward the rotating idea.
Sakura wasn't there personally, but she'd heard from Shikamaru (who'd accompanied Naruto, along with a bodyguard from ANBU) that the schedule proved to be a screaming match over whose village should be host first; it was ultimately decided to visit based on geographical location – the best route had them starting in Iwagakure, moving to Sunagakure, Konohagakure, Kumogakure, and then finally, Kirigakure.
When Naruto returned to Konoha with the news that he would need Tsunade to fill in for him temporarily for an indeterminant amount of time, the buxom blonde almost had a heart attack. She had to sober up. And fast.
"Don't worry, granny, when this is all over, the sake will still be there."
Sakura went over the list of possible candidates for Naruto's entourage and frowned at them. All seasoned shinobi, but none who knew him as long or well as herself.
Or Sasuke.
She wanted desperately to be there, to witness Naruto bringing this dream into reality.
She had a Kage and friend to protect.
And Sasuke, damn him, had been thinking the same thing. Again.
After a few uncomfortable silences between them, they decided to put their differences aside and join Naruto's ANBU protection detail. The nations were coming together for the first time in decades – though many would not be willing to admit it just yet due to their stubbornness over his age, Naruto Uzumaki was the driving force in that – and a labour intensive, indeterminate number of months of tense negotiations were ahead of them.
It also meant a lot of travel between the nations.
For the sake of the village, they had to make this work.
She would call a truce with Sasuke.
She would follow her friends to the ends of the earth.
She would do her duty.
No bijuu. No Madara. No Kaguya. No Uchiha clan massacre.
No promises on the word count. This first chapter came out this long. Future chapters may not be so long but I'll definitely keep them over the 1K mark.
Gaara isn't too far away. This is a Sakura-centric fic though, so it's mostly from her perspective.
Please review/fav/alert. Reviews are love. :D