after their beloved sasuke left, they both felt loss, and pain.
when sasuke left they were both cut deep, they both lost sleep, they both had nightmares, and they both blamed themselves.'i should have loved him more' were sakuras exact thoughts, while narutos were more ' should have seen it coming and had time to stop him, make him feel loved'. and so with this, over the next month or so, the formally happy team 7, or what was left of it, became depressed. their peers tried everything they could to help them out, but nothing worked, at their worst point, even their missions were being jeopardised, and they were only d rank mission, even though neither of them noticed, too wrapped up in their own thoughts. untill finally one day at one of tsunades mission briefings, where once again, neither sakura, nor naruto, who used to be the number one noisy ninja, showed any signs of life when tsunade had decided that enough was enough. and so she said so, well, shouted really, " enough is enough, i've tried respecting your feeling, and so haven't said anything yet, but i have had enough, seeing two promising young ninja such as you two brought so low because of a simple defection annoys me!". she waited sadly for a reaction, any reaction, a naruto reaction, before all this mess, naruto would have been preening at the praise, and wanting her to tell him how great he is, but their was no reaction, she sighs. "i am going to have to take you off the active ninja list." again she sighs."kakashi, you will be returned to your old anbu duties" "hai" he replies sadly, tsunade wasn't their only superior woried about them. but she was no longer looking at him, but at naruto, and this time when she waits for a reaction she gets one, not a naruto level one, but a reaction none the less. "have we been performing unsatisfactorily on missions, granny tsunade?, i mean we have completed them all." came the monotonous reply. "yes, naruto, sakura, you have completed all of your missions, but not satisfactorily, and its more kakashis skill than your efforts that have completed these missions for you, i mean seriously, not being able to catch that damn cat tora (a/n not sure if that is actually the cats name, but i think it is)?.""wait," came the only slightly more alive voice "catching tora, thats a d rank mission, and we haven't been assigned it since we first became team 7" she watches as they both cringe at the memopries of team seven and catching tora. ctually you were assigned it yesterday, and only kakashi caught it, you were to busy falliong out of trees and getting scratched by it"came the reply. "woah, really?"he still didn't sound like he cared. "yes, which brings us back to the point, you two will be taked of active duty for a week, following which we will reevaluate the situation and if you haven't improved at least slightly it will become more permanent, clear?" the thoughts in narutos head warred against eachother, his lifelong dream of becoming hokage, against his recent sorrow, and it all showed on his face, and it looked to tsunade that we was almost about to make an appeal, and start yelling and screaming, she almost smiled, but then the moment was gone and he kept silent but for a simple , monotone "hai", with sakura following his lead.