Ok, I totally love Sakura and I hate the way she is always being dogged on the show about being weak, so this is my tribute to her!
Disclaimer: I…..sniff….don't own Naruto! ….sobs….
The pink haired kunoichi ran down the sun-beaten forest path, tree limbs and wickedly curved thorns reaching out to cut and bruise her face, arms, legs, anywhere exposed, but she didn't slow down.
She had to keep running, running away from the image that she was trapped in, away from the girl that the entire village of Konoha had labeled her as.
Weak.
She was not weak! She wasn't just some weight that her teammates had to bear, she wasn't the helpless girl that needed saving!
She could do this, all of it, the training and the missions, all alone! And she would. That's why she ran. Away from everyone and everything in Konoha.
Hot tears stung her anger-filled eyes, but a determined hand reached up and roughly wiped them away. Her bare feet slapped the burning ground as she passed through a treeless field in the forest, depriving the girl's battered body of the tree's shade. But she didn't care.
Even as her feet were scorched and blisters formed, even as every muscle in her body screamed for relief, for rest, she ran. Her emerald eyes held a fierce look that was foreign to the young kunoichi, and her body moved with such determination that it seemed that she would never be stopped. Nothing would stop her, no one would stop her.
She grimaced and ran faster as thoughts of her team surfaced in her mind, trying to escape the images flashing in front of her eyes as she dashed haphazardly through the thick underbrush. Trying to outrun the worst moment she had ever experienced with her team.
Flashback
Sakura was walking to training about two hours late, moving sleekly through the crowds that were as much a part of Konoha's bustling streets as the bare ground beneath her feet. As she approached the forest, she saw something off to her left that caught her eye. She shifted her gaze immediately, but only saw the bushes near the forest edge moving slightly.
She shrugged, guessing it was an animal, and continued on her way, her fatal mistake. Even as she began to near team 7's training site for the day, she couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching her. Every once in a while she would look behind her, but not once did she see anything…until…
SNAP.
She froze as she heard a snap to her right, a little behind her, but close, very close. She whirled around again, her emerald eyes searching every inch of the scene behind her, but saw nothing but the forest she had seen for the past fifteen minutes.
Sighing in relief, she turned around to resume walking, but as she did her horrified eyes were greeted with none other than the stone cold eyes that so resembled those she knew so well. Itachi. Before she could think she was reaching for the kunai pouch strapped to her leg, only to find Itachi had grabbed her arm in the movement. She tried again, this time striking out a blow straight to his face.
He stepped back a few feet, but didn't let go of her arm. She tried to run anyway, a fruitless attempt that she knew would fail. He looked up, his face completely undamaged from her punch, but anger in his eyes.
Her scream was burning in her throat, but she couldn't make a sound. She couldn't take her eyes off this vision of terror, his crimson red eyes. He effortlessly threw her into the nearest tree, splintering the wood and sending a huge crack up the trunk. He pulled her half-conscious form up and ruthlessly kicked her.
No words escaped his lips.
Drawing his kunai he pressed it to her cheek, instantly drawing a thin red line. He pulled it back and slashed at her with full force, grazing her stomach and slashing through her shirt as a blur snatched her away and far from reach.
Itachi didn't spare them a glance as he disappeared, leaving nothing behind but spirals of smoke and a small piece of paper.
It floated down on the light breeze into a pale hand.
Onyx eyes scanned it intently.
It read, "You are far too easy to harm, little brother. To fight you now wouldn't be entertaining. You are as weak as your weakest teammate."
Sasuke tore the paper to shreds, his hardened eyes scanning Sakura's battered form for broken bones, serious cuts. Naruto knelt over her, shaking her prone form over and over, yelling at her to wake up.
He knew his brother was right, and it burned inside him. But he knew that if he ever wanted to defeat Itachi without constantly having to save Sakura, he had to do something. And that's exactly what he did.
Sasuke kicked Sakura.
Hard.
Naruto looked at his fellow teammate incredulously, briefly wondering if he had lost his God-given mind and then quickly deciding he didn't care and would beat him to a pulp anyway.
"YOU IDIOT!" He screamed, lunging at the Uchiha prodigy, "WHAT ARE YOU, ITACHI'S SIDEKICK?"
Sasuke used Naruto's momentum to toss him into the next zip code, leaving him alone with his job.
He had to fix this.
Now.
He kicked the girl's prone form again, this time forcing blood from her mouth, the thick, dark red liquid pooling below her mouth.
He winced.
He hated to do this, but he had to kill Itachi. It was his mission, and it consumed him. He kicked her one last time, deciding that if she didn't wake up this time, he'd find another way.
But, unfortunately, she began to sit up, moaning softly. It took her a minute to gain her bearings, and Sasuke wanted her full attention for what he was about to say, so he waited. After a few moments, she looked up at Sasuke and smiled.
But the smile faded as she saw the hardness and cool look in his eyes.
"You're weak."
His voice rang out through the empty forest, and sliced Sakura's heart like a knife.
"Wh-what? Sasuke-kun, I-"
"Are weak, and your holding me back." He finished.
Sakura's eyes shone with hurt. Sasuke expected her to start crying, or beg him to stop, or something, but she didn't. She just looked at him. And then she looked at the ground before silently struggling to get up.
She felt her bones creak unnaturally as she began to stand, but pretended not to notice, even when blood began to drip off of her face from the cut Itachi made. It was really deep, even Sasuke noticed its depth.
With a twinge, Sakura realized that she would probably carry that for the rest of her life.
But she didn't need to think about it right now, she turned slowly away from the boy she had loved and thought her friend, her only good bye consisting of her murmuring to say goodbye to Naruto and Kakashi for her.
Sasuke watched silently as his now former teammate limped away from him for what he believed was the last time.
End Flashback
By the time the memory had finished, Sakura had run all she could. The tears that she had forbidden to fall now flowed down her face in hot streaks before reaching her chin and falling to the dirt, making small wet spots in the dust.
Sakura watched through bleary eyes as more and more wet spots began to gather around hers. She looked up in confusion; she couldn't have made all of those! But the reason for the new wet spots became clear shortly afterward as the sound of thunder echoed in her ears as it ripped across the sky.
Then, as if some unseen force had sliced open the clouds, the rain poured. Sakura was caught by surprise and yelped as the freezing water splashed against her bruised, sore form.
She scrambled to find shelter, but was afraid to move too much. After all the running she had done today, she doubted her wounds could take much more stress without reopening, and blood loss was definitely the LAST thing she nee-'
Even as Sakura thought these words the cut in her stomach opened, an occurrence Sakura marked with a painful moan. Blood soon stained her legs as the rain washed it down her body and into the tear/rain soaked ground. Disregarding any care for her other wounds, Sakura ripped through the forest until she stumbled upon a small cave, just big enough for two people.
It was located in the side of a steep hill, nearly vertical, so there was very little water inside the cave, and it was almost tall enough for Sakura to stand straight up in. It looked more like a hole in the rock than a cave because it was only four feet into the rock and about five feet wide.
Sakura clambered up into the small haven and immediately pulled out a damp role of cloth with which she bandaged herself, so as to not allow her blood's smell to allure every predator in the woods to her.
Fortunately, the rain continued to pour all night, washing any and every scent from the air. Not only was Sakura safe from animals, but she was sure now that even Kakashi's dogs couldn't track her.
With these thoughts on her mind and a small smile gracing her lips, Sakura lay down on her side, back placed firmly against the back of the small hole.
Her one and only dry blanket consumed her entire body and fanned out a little on the stone floor, keeping her body heat to her.
A kunai held tightly in her left hand completed the picture as the young, bleeding, tired, but content kunoichi fell asleep.
Yusuke Urameshi walked casually into his first period class as if he had no care in the world. He strolled down the rows of students to the back row to sit beside a tall orange-headed boy who appeared to be completely consumed in figuring out what half of two was.
No one looked up as he passed them, though class had begun forty minutes earlier. Not even the teacher bothered with him as he put his feet up on his desk and promptly fell asleep.
The only time he stirred was twenty minutes later, when a sudden feeling of being watched struck him. He reluctantly opened his almond eyes and looked blearily around his classroom.
No one.
Class had ended apparently. Just as casually as he had walked in, he got up and started out, but stopped short as something caught his eye.
A blue something.
He walked over to the window and looked out, to find the smiling face of the grim reaper looking back at him.
Now normally someone looking at the bright-blue haired deity floating just outside their third story window would scream, but Yusuke yawned.
"What?" He asked flatly, sleep muddling his voice.
The cheerful ambiance that seemed to follow Botan everywhere seemed to waver, only for a second, but Yusuke caught it.
He eyed her suspiciously….'What the he-' Her voice brought him back to reality.
"You have a mission Yusuke…" She trailed off.
"Alright, what demon needs his butt kicked?" He asked, resuming his bored tone.
"No, Yusuke. This is a matter of much graver importance. Now come on, we have to leave immediately." With these words she forcefully dragged him out of the window and flew off into the sky.
At Koenma's Palace
"Hn."
Koenma turned his worry-ringed eyes briefly from his mountain of papers to glare at the fire apparition before quickly turning back to a certain book that he was intent on reading. Kurama and Hiei were standing in the huge space that was Koenma's office, watching the prince work uncharacteristically hard on some problem that seemed to be gnawing at his mind.
Kurama coughed politely, receiving the blunt force of Koenma's glare, if only for a second, before his tired eyes snapped back to what they were doing. It was absolutely silent in the room.
'Hn, fox, what are we doing here?' Hiei asked mentally. Kurama smiled; even telepathically, Hiei managed to sound uncaring.
' We are here to complete our duty to Koenma.' He answered back, using Hiei's telepathic link.
Hiei lifted an eyebrow.
'Think of it this way, once this mission, whatever it may be, is complete you will be free again.' Kurama elaborated.
Hiei smirked. This mission was going to be completed; he would make sure of it.
Just then, the silence in the room was broken by a loud young man in a green jump suit that came barreling through the double doors with the deity of death hot on his trails, telling him to shut up.
"Ok, toddler, what do you want? I have some valuable butt-kicking that I can do in ningen-kai, so why am I here!" Yusuke yelled, ignoring Botan's protests entirely.
Kurama and Hiei quickly looked at Koenma, both thinking something along the lines of 'it's about freaken time!'
Botan looked worriedly over at Koenma, who simply sighed. He rubbed his temples for a while before waving his hand. The three boys were completely clueless as to what this could mean, and looked around as they heard Botan move.
She quickly went to a side door and opened it, allowing Ayame to enter the room. In her hands was a manila folder. She passed it on to Botan, and then quickly took her leave, throwing a concerned look over at the group as she closed the door behind her.
Botan set the folder down in front of the three, and said in a low whisper, "I'm so sorry…"
Yusuke was now completely freaked. After glancing at his teammates, who signaled him to go on and open it, he slowly approached the desk.
He looked down at the seemingly ordinary, harmless folder, and brushed his fingers over it before opening it. What he saw made him freeze, a strange sound escaping his lips. He stumbled back away from the monstrosity shown in the picture.
It was Kuwabarra, or what was left of him. He had been cut to shreds, and everything was stained by it. The grass, his clothes, the trees…wait.
Yusuke stepped back up to the horrible sight, fighting down the tears.
Trees? In Tokyo? Something wasn't right.
He looked up to see Kurama with pain clearly written on his face, and then over to Hiei, who was looking down with shadows covering his face from view.
This hadn't happened in Tokyo, had it? Koenma noticed the look on Yusuke's face, and quickly motioned for Botan to remove the folder, which she did with the utmost haste.
"You are quite correct in what you are thinking, Yusuke." Koenma began. "Kuwabarra wasn't killed recently, but actually several hundred years ago."
Eyes went wide.
"Oh, it happened in Japan alright, but not in present-day Japan. He was somehow teleported back in time, and then…well…"
"Who?" Yusuke muttered.
"That's what you're here for. You will go back in time through a portal that Botan will create, and you will find the person…or thing that did this."
The three nodded in acceptance and with pain in their eyes, followed Botan. She walked to the western wall of Koenma's office and whispered something under her breath while raising her right hand in front of her.
Immediately the wall began to glow a light blue, and the four companions fearlessly stepped through….right into rain. Yusuke cursed as the blue light faded and they were left in the wet forest. Yep, trees. Trees everywhere.
He sighed. "How are we going to do this?"
Botan scanned the area with her amethyst eyes before turning to the kitsune-turned-human.
"Kurama? I need you to scan for signs of the blood as Youko, using your senses."
Kurama nodded and transformed immediately and set off. Next she turned to the fire apparition.
"Hiei, you scan the farther places using your speed." At the end of her words, he disappeared in a black smudge.
Yusuke didn't even question her newly-acquired authoritive personality. He just wanted to find that….whatever it was, and kill it.
The two wordlessly sat down on a wet tree root and waited.
When Sakura woke up, she had the feeling she was being watched. The hand holding the kunai tightened instinctively, and she slowly sat up, her other hand slowly reaching down to grab some shuriken.
Her emerald eyes searched the woods outside her make-shift home, and after about two minutes, she caught a flash of silver. Instantly, her kunai flew with deadly accuracy as she stumbled up, pain coursing through every pore of her body.
Youko Kurama barely dodged the sharp projectile, as it imbedded itself into the tree that he had previously been occupying. He looked back toward the cave, fully expecting the strange pink-haired girl to still be there, but there was nothing but a reasonably large pool of blood that was already beginning to dry around the edges, and a dirty old blanket that was half soaked in the sticky red substance.
Immediately, his keen amber eyes began their search, only to find her several meters away, her blood leaving a trail. He frowned. He had never seen a ningen loose that much blood and remain conscious, much less running.
Fast.
There was something wrong here. Such were his thoughts as he examined the razor-sharp kunai that was nearly completely inside the tree. His golden eyes found her once more, and he began his way toward Yusuke and Botan. Her bloody trail could be traced anytime, should she be needed.
With these thoughts he disappeared in a flash of silver.
Sakura ran. The rain continued to pour, crystal tears falling to mingle with her own.
Run.
Run.
She was running again. Why? She couldn't…wait.
Fox.
Silver.
She had woken with a visitor.
Attack.
She ran from him. Just like she ran from them. She had to keep her wound was getting worse.
She could literally see the crimson trail, even through her blurred vision. It was…hopeless. For the first time since she had been attacked by Itachi, Sakura stopped.
Her pink hair swayed from the sudden change in momentum, settling back around her bruised and cut face in wet, blood dried clumps.
Her entire form, from her muddy feet all the way to her porcelain face, shook like mad from blood loss and the strain on her worn body. The warm rain seemed to cradle her as it ran down her small frame.
Emerald eyes pooled, shut tightly to fight the inevitable. Thinking back, that's all Sakura had ever done: fight what couldn't be fought. She had ALWAYS been the weakest, the one holding her teammates back.
She had never been intended to be a ninja, she wasn't strong enough. This had once bothered the young kunoichi, but now Sakura didn't care.
She just didn't care.
She would be strong if it killed her.
Somehow, she had to make a pact with herself that she would be strong…like Naruto had… Sinking to her knees, with only the tall, unmoving trees and storming sky as witnesses, she pulled out a kunai and held it above her head.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she embedded the sharp weapon in her hand, just as the blonde ninja had done so long ago, and her scream sent the birds flying for miles.
Hiei's blood-red eyes immediately shifted to the right as he heard a painful cry from the denser woods.
As he watched, a huge black mass of birds lifted out of that area to resettle elsewhere. Gray clouds swirled overhead, the rain still poured.
The apparition sniffed the air, flinching only the tiniest bit when the strong, vibrant smell of human blood suddenly hit him. He began to wonder briefly why he hadn't noticed it before, when he happened to glance down. The fallen rain water was filtering from the higher, denser woods to the lower ones, but this water wasn't clear.
It was crimson.
He knew that this wasn't the idiot's blood, but his inane curiosity managed to get the better of him. In a flash of black he was gone, and standing behind Botan the next instant.
Botan flinched a little, still getting used to the speed she was constantly surrounded with, when she noticed the red tint on Hiei's boots. Amethyst eyes looked up expectantly. Yusuke noticed as well, and shook the sleeping Youko.
"What did you find, shorty?" Yusuke asked, taking on Kuwabarra's post of torturing Hiei. Hiei glared so hard that it could melt marble, but it didn't faze the spirit detective, so he reported dutifully.
"Blood. A lot, but not the idiots." He said quickly, noticing Yusuke's hope from his first words fading into emptiness at his later words.
"Why did you tell us, then?" Yusuke snapped, a bit annoyed.
"Because I think that whatever hurt him might have hurt…whatever this is. Its more blood than is possible for a living being." Hiei monotoned as if he were talking about the weather.
At these last words, Youko perked up. "I found a young Kunoichi a while ago, she was bleeding fast. Maybe she was a victim too."
Yusuke got up. "Which way?"
Sakura lay in total desperation.
She had managed to drag herself about twenty yards since her little determination action, but it felt as though a million lead weights were on top of her.
She grinned mirthlessly.
It was not going to end like this.
Her bloodied hand reached up for yet another tree branch to pull her forward, but instead grabbed a human hand. Sakura yelped and jerked back, hissing in pain. Instantly there were kunai in her hands and hate in her eyes.
"GET BACK!" She screamed, a small trail of blood running down the side of her mouth.
A strangely dressed man with black hair stood in front of her. He was almost like Lee, dressed in all green, but much more handsome, she had to admit.
Beside him was a strange girl with blue hair and lively amethyst eyes. Her chakra signature was so odd... Suddenly, Sakura's vision got blurry. Her stomach twisted and her head spun, and then there was darkness.
The last words she heard were the girl's voice saying "Oh my, Yusuke, she's still alive!".
Yusuke watched the smaller girl slump to the ground, the sharp knives that she had just been threatening them with landing in the mud along with the rest of her. With a bit of concern in his eyes, he knelt down to where Botan was examining the girl as Hiei and Youko arrived back from scouting.
"No use, there isn't anyone, anything for miles." Youko stated as he looked down at the bloody form.
Botan's face was wet, from rain or tears it was uncertain, but her shaky voice confirmed the latter.
"She's still alive…how is she still alive?" She asked no one in particular as her white energy formed in her hands.
She poured it into the young body, praying for her survival.
The girl was bad off enough to make even Hiei flinch. She had a huge gash in her stomach and a cut on her cheek, as well as many other scratches and cuts, so many that the blood from each combined making it impossible to count them. Her left arm was swollen terribly at the wrist and it was turning an unpleasant mix of green and purple. She had some broken ribs and both ankles were twisted. A deep cut was found on her left palm, and she was suffering severe blood loss.
As Botan listed everything aloud as she found it, it became increasingly obvious that this girl had been somewhere none of them wish to go.
As Botan tried to heal the gash in her head, the girl gasped and tried to sit up, only managing to make herself sick.
"No..nono…" she mumbled, touching her face. "let me keep them….to remember…"
The girl had been conscious for a little while and realized that she was being healed.
"Konoha…"
Okayyyy, how do you like it? Comments? Questions? Requests? Please Review!
Ja ne mina-san!
Kitsunegal-chan