Chapter One

The Strange Stone Circle

It had been six weeks since Tsunade had sent Sakura, Ino and Choji out on a simple, or seemingly simple, reconnaissance mission to the Land of Tea. They were supposed to confirm or deny sightings of the Akatsuki –a well-known terrorist group– that had shot throughout the Sand Ninja's intelligence. It had been shortly before Naruto returned from his initial training, so he wasn't aware of this yet, which Sakura thanked god for, or he'd have insisted to go with them on this silly mission. Normally Tsunade would have sent Sakura, Ino or Choji on their own or with just two but with the sightings apparently being of the Akatsuki? All three went. Ino for her Mind Control jutsu, Choji for his Multi-Size techniques and Sakura for her immense strength and medical knowledge in case they ran into one of the infamous band of rogue ninja.

"I can't believe it was such a waste of time." Grumbled the blond-haired beauty racing beside the pink haired kunoichi only a day after they said their goodbyes from the Wasabi family. Ino had spent some time getting to know Idate a little bit and found he was an interesting fellow, while Choji had learned a bit more about the foods that were in the Tea country. Sakura had learned some interesting new techniques there from watching other ninjas in the medical centers and her crew had learned that the reports had been true. Unfortunately, they also found out that the Akatsuki member had been gone for close to a full week before they arrived and his traces had vanished in a storm that had happened two days ago, leaving everyone frustrated, and finished with this quest.

Leaping from a thick tree-branch to a slimmer one that bent a little under her weight, Sakura called a halt when Ino complained "Are we seriously having to head back home now? We've been running for four hours already just looking for tracks." Looking up at her companions who'd taken a couple of thinner tree branches higher up on adjacent trees, the pink haired young woman sighed before answering "I know Ino, but we had to follow orders. It's nearly noon, do you guys want to keep going or stop for something to eat?" Placing her hand on her hips, she walked up the side of the tree trunk, the concentration needed to do that not taking even an eighth of her attention or chakra.

It had taken her the least amount of time to learn such simple energy control when Kakashi had shown them. Sakura, Naruto and Sasuke had been Genins, or apprentices to normal folks, and her control had gone nowhere but further since she'd been taken under Tsunade's wing. The memory of Tsunade's ideas of 'training' had been to...well, pretty much blow her up whenever the time came for some reason, but Sakura was glad of it now, any training that could help her help her friends when they needed it was a good thing after all, though the pain wasn't something she wished to re-visit.

Now nineteen years old, Sakura was the same height as Ino and a bit taller than Choji who was the first to respond to the option for food "I'm alright Sakura, I think I'm more interested in stopping for a bite to eat before we keep going, how're you doing?" Ino nodded as Sakura shrugged "I'm alright too, though we should probably search the ground again in a bit, just in case we missed something." Choji had gotten bulkier over the couple of years since Naruto had left with the Senin, or Sage, named Jiraiya to train further and harder than he could in his hometown of Konoha. Choji had also grown more mature and his fighting style had gotten much better as well, it was surprising to see how much faster he could move as well.

Sakura didn't like to dwell on the reasons why Sasuke had left, and certainly held no little amount of bitterness towards him, whom she had well and truly loved what seemed like ages ago. The betrayal of him leaving Konoha, especially that one night when he'd knocked her out and left her on the bench, had left a rather deep scar still. Of course, since she hated to lose, Sakura still fought with Ino over him occasionally when she had nothing better to do, but in many ways, she had grown up. She still cared greatly for his well-being of course but...she'd never love him again like she had when she was younger.

Choji nodded his agreement, though he took a moment to pull out a protein bar from his weapons pouch and began to eat, after a minute Ino did the same though Sakura held back her ration. It would take a week to return to Konoha, their home village. Unfortunately, their trip was looking like it would be waylaid by bad weather. It wasn't long, maybe closer to three in the afternoon before Ino pointed out the dark clouds coming up from the South. "Think we'll make it to the checkpoint before that hits, Choji?"

The trio stopped and scanned the clouds just on the edge of a clearing, the young man scanning the sky and checking the wind direction with a spyglass. Frowning, he shook his head "I don't think so girls, that wind is coming up faster than I like, and it looks like there's going to be some nasty crosswinds."

"Sounds like we'll need to find some shelter now before it gets worse." Lips turning down in a scowl at the bad weather approaching, Sakura gestured towards the ground. The other two nodded and the three dropped from the trees to the ground. The darkening skies overhead were beginning to sound like troops of soldiers' feet within twenty minutes of their conversation, dry dirt and sand blowing up in the predicted crosswinds making it difficult to see.

"Shit, we have to get out of this, guys!" Ino shouting from less than five feet away sounded like she was whispering from another room, and the three hurriedly tied some cording around themselves to keep form getting separated. If that wasn't bad enough, the rain that began to fall stung their eyes and face like shards of cold glass. After what felt like four years, they all stepped out of the thick brush into a clearing.

The storm raged on, but not inside of the clearing, and that alone had the group on edge. Straightening up from the half-crouched position she had had to take in order to move against the sudden cross-winds and down-drafts, Sakura shivered. The sudden silence had her senses stretching out in reaction. None of them said anything, though a few short hand signals from Sakura had them moving back-to-back, a short knife cutting the cord tying them all together, so each could move as needed.

After a few minutes, Ino spoke up quietly "Do you guys hear that?" Indeed, a faint buzzing noise from somewhere farther into the clearing had them each moving closer into a more easily defensible position. The area was almost flat, perfectly circular, with a mist that was also odd. It was as though someone has taken the smoke from a dozen smoke bombs and condensed it into a space the size of a town square, but it didn't move, just circled around itself almost like a suspended liquid in the middle of the circle. "What on earth is this place?" Keeping his voice low, Choji looked around at moss-covered stones that edged the mist formation, then jumped as lightning cracked directly overhead. This seemed to be a starting point, as the wind and rain that had been so active outside of the clearing suddenly began to pour into it, nearly bowling everyone over. All at once, the strange mist collapsed in on itself, spreading out across the ground like a normal mist did in heavy rain. Thankfully, the wind remained outside, leaving the rain alone to deluge the clearing. The collapse of the mist revealed a three enormous, moss covered stones, two of which pointed away from the central one at an angle.

As lightning cracked overhead "We have find shelter, fast!" Hollered Choji, his plump form making his way quickly towards the opposite side of the field where what looked like a dilapidated old shack stood, visible now that the mist had all but vanished. Sakura began to follow as well, then stopped as a strange noise caught her attention, a sort of deep bell tone from the central stone as the three were passing it.

"Sakura come on!" Ino shouted, passing by her friend hurriedly, not hearing the odd sound. "Hang on a second, did you hear that?" Almost screaming to be heard as the wind jacked up a notch outside the clearing in a screech of its own, the medical kunoichi frowned. Squinting into the pouring rain, her leaf green eyes widened at the sight of a violet energy ball of some kind began forming in front of the stone, then shut quickly as a blindingly bright flash of lightning shot down from the sky and struck the center stone in the middle of the standing circle.

Sakura didn't see what happened next, but the reports that Choji and Ino gave only six days after the incident occurred were nothing less than amazing. The stone in the center of the circle lit up in an array of white, violet and green that glittered throughout air like stardust for an instant after the lightning had struck. Everything had gone still and silent after that split second, and the medical ninja in Konoha determined it hadn't been due to hearing loss. Apparently, not even the rain had made any noise as it had hit the ground. Ground that had been scorched in what could only be classified as a magic circle. Sakura had been the closest to it, caught just inside of the circle, and had been held aloft for a good five seconds while those odd-looking lights glittered in the air. In the space of a heartbeat however, those strange lights had gathered onto the medical ninja, turning her form into a glowing ball for a moment before the entire thing exploded. Ino and Choji were horrified witnesses to it happening, and the two had managed to hijack a carrier passing carrier pigeon the next morning to take the news ahead of them to the village.

The other adult ninja who accompanied the duo back to the clearing found nothing when they went back to it to search for evidence or clues. Nothing remained of the three stones in the clearing aside from an enormous circle of scorched earth half the size of the clearing. The lightning had scorched symbols and strange looking marks into the ground, obliterating the stones that remained in such a way that none of the villagers could fix it if they tried. Many did attempt it. The only thing that everyone could ascertain was that Sakura hadn't been killed and left in the clearing. She wasn't anywhere to be seen.

Sakura was gone.