PLEASE READ!
I'll keep it short: I've released two stories at the same time but I will only continue the one who gets the most reviews (or views when they tie). So if you like it, please review.
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It started as an ordinary day. Like usual, she woke at six. Sakura liked routine it made her feel comfortable and organised. Every morning she started with brushing her teeth, combing her hair and dressing herself, in that order. Then she spent a good ten minutes looking at herself in the mirror, staring at her imperfections. A flat boyish figure, a too wide forehead, thin stern lips and limp hair were a few to start off with. After she established that nothing had mysteriously changed overnight she grabbed her ninja gear and went outside. Had she known what was waiting for her, she might have just decided to stay home.
On the way to the bridge they usually met at she imagined what the days would look like. Naruto being annoying and Sasuke ignoring her, it was depressingly predictable. But that was alright, there was plenty of time to make Sasuke notice her, she was seeing him every day which was way better than what Ino got. She smiled as she saw Sasuke already waiting at the bridge, he looked so dreamy leaning against that railing.
"Hey! Sakura-chan! Good morning!" Naruto's painfully loud voice rudely interrupted her thoughts.
"Naruto you idiot! Keep your voice down. Do you want to wake up the whole village." At seven a lot of the working class was already up to start the day but even so, Naruto's volume was staggering that early in the morning.
Deciding she was done with Naruto, she shyly turned to Sasuke.
"Good morning Sasuke-kun." She couldn't keep the hopefulness out of her voice.
He turned his head away from her. "Tsk, annoying."
Sakura felt her mood plummeting but opened her mouth to say something that would prove him wrong, anything. When nothing came to her she closed her mouth and pressed her lips together in a thin unhappy line.
She didn't want to admit it but she sometimes felt disappointed with her assigned team. Seriously, she was on a team with Uchiha Sasuke, number one genin graduate, once in a lifetime prodigy, one would expect her life to be a tad more exciting than what it was, her own romantical pursuits aside. Dog walking and cleaning garbage out of rivers was not what she had imagined, at all, nor did she think being placed under a jounin would mean training under a chronically late, boring old man who seemed to care less about their development. Becoming a ninja was just one disappointment after the other.
Sakura wasn't stupid though, she knew she was never meant to go on high-profile, life threatening missions that required the best of the best to handle. She wasn't talented enough. Her place was behind a desk, taking care of the paperwork for the field-ninja, like her parents. Being on the frontlines was never the plan in the first place. But she did want to play around a bit before she ended up in a dingy office somewhere, she just wanted to have some fun. Maybe save a lord here and there, have the boys fight some bandits, have Sasuke notice her so she could retire, watch her jounin-sensei actually do something incredible for a change.
She sighed and watched the sun climb higher in the sky. All Kakashi-sensei was good for was being incredibly late. It bored her, and made her want to attempt another conversation with Sasuke.
Then Naruto decided to call out to them. "Hey guys, there's a sharkman in the water..." It was the uncertainty in his voice that made Sakura even consider Naruto's deranged words. She turned towards the blond boy who was leaning over the railing to watch the water.
"What are you talking about Naruto?" With a sigh, she took a step forward, but before her foot hit the pavement, water erupted upwards from the river, spilling over the bridge.
Sakura screamed and jumped back from the spray. As the closest to its source Naruto tried to scurry backwards but wasn't fast enough to avoid the blast of water knocking him of his feet and landing him on his back. Two ninja boots were revealed when the waterblast died down and Sakura trailed her eyes up to look at the tallest man she had possibly ever seen.
She wanted to scream again when she saw his appearance but the tension in the air prevented her from doing just that. His skin was a gray blue, his eyes a predator pale yellow, suddenly the term sharkman didn't seem so strange anymore. The most frightening thing about him though was the sword strapped on his back, it radiated a vile aura and she swore it giggled just then.
"Naruto," She hissed, breaking the momentary silence, "Come here."
The orange clad boy was practically lying at the sharkman's feet, a dangerous position to be in. Even Naruto, dense as he was, recognised this and slowly started inching back to Sakura.
An analytical part of her mind told her that Naruto was only alive because the sharkman had allowed it. This was not an enemy they could hope to win against, if he decided it would be best to kill them, they would be dead. But her pride demanded her to believe in her team, that they could take anything thrown their way. And yet even Sasuke usually so confident in his abilities, stayed still as a statue, eyes taking in the situation but unsure how to proceed.
When Naruto reached her she pulled him up and held his hand when she started scuffling away from the threat. She signed to Sasuke in basic academy-code 'headband, rogue, retreat' and hoped he would follow. Relief flooded her when Sasuke also took a step back, that was until the missing nin decided to speak.
"I'm terrible at remembering people. Which one of the brats were we after again, eh Itachi?" His voice was rough, deep and held a mocking tone.
Sakura tore her eyes away from the blue giant to look at who he was talking to. Silent as the grave, another man had made his way behind team seven, blocking their escape. His hitai-ate was a Konoha one, scratched through like that of the other man. She heard Sasuke gasp and for a completely not sane moment she wondered whether the boy also found this new man breathtakingly beautiful. His face, serenely focused on the three genin in front of him, was perfectly symmetric, his skin marble smooth, his hair caught and reflected the sun in such a manner that would have many women jealous and his eyes... his deep red eyes - though not looking directly at her - held such intensity that they seemed capable of burning through people. The moment passed and Sasuke rushed past her with a ferocious battle cry, kunai in hand.
The man sidestepped him and kicked Sasuke in the back so hard that Sakura swore she heard something crack. The younger boy stumbled back to his feet, growling the man's name. This time his mad dash was slower, stunted by injury. Again, his attack was dodged and met with a kick, making Sasuke roll on the ground towards his team. He spat blood and didn't get back up.
"The blond one." The rogue nin's voice was velvety smooth.
Naruto let go of her hand, ignored the nin like only he could and helped Sasuke up. Panic clouded her for a moment, made her unable to think. That man had taken care of Sasuke so easily! 'Focus Sakura' her inner persona made herself known and literally cleared the way for reason through her panic. She looked around her, mind scrambling with an answer, a protocol, anything for this kind of situation.
"Okay kids, we can play this game two different ways. You can either comply with us and we might let you live or you can be difficult and die within the next ten seconds."
Sakura looked at her teammates, hoping against all hope that they would have a plan, that they would save the day. That moment Sasuke just coughed up more blood and Naruto's expression became blank.
"Okay, I'll come with you. Just... leave my team alone." The blond boy sounded uncharacteristically subdued and Sakura knew he meant it. It was then that she knew she had to do something, even if all her so called smart brain could come up with was a plan so basic that she needed a miracle to make it work. It was fight or flight but the fight option was unavailable so they had no choice but to run. Or powerful jutsu, but she didn't have those so instead she made a grab at her pre-prepared kunai. Spinning, she threw two kunai each in opposite directions. The missing nin made a move to block them but they flew past them, missing them both by a few feet.
"What terrible aim." The sharkman said mockingly.
It took the other man a second to turn around and look at the explosive tags attached to them, it took Sakura less to detonate them. They had been strategically placed at the stress points of the bridge so within moments of the blast the bridge began to collapse on itself.
Not sparing a glance at the rogue ninja, Sakura jumped in the water, avoiding most of the rubble falling down, behind her she heard Naruto do the same with Sasuke slung over his shoulder. She made a grab for Naruto's free hand once more, afraid to lose sight of him.
The water around them churned violently when they landed in it, knocking them around. She lost her grip on Naruto's hand in an attempt to steady herself. The cold water splashed in her face blurring her sight. Wiping her face, she looked for Naruto while at the same time trying to distance herself from the wild water until she noticed it became harder to move in the river. Within moments she couldn't move at all and she blanched when she realised she hadn't considered the enemies' jutsu.
"Well well well," The sharkman drawled lazily, not at all concerned with their escape attempt, "aren't you the slippery little fishies." He stood atop the water, which awed Sakura as she had never seen that before.
Sakura wrecked her brain for a solution, her arms were stuck in the cement-like water, that meant no jutsu, and brute force wouldn't help her either seeing as she was a skinny twelve-year-old with only a minimum of physical training under her belt. She cast a glance over her shoulder to look for Naruto. He was closer than she would have thought so she heard him make a loud comment about the water jutsu and her ears picked up on a gloating reply – something about a self-made variation of the water prison jutsu – but she tuned the words out. All her focus was on Naruto, holding Sasuke above water, both his hands free.
"Enough talking Kisame-san, let's get this done with." Her head swiped to the other man, briefly forgotten but now steadily advancing. In his hand he held a paper tag with black inked symbols on it. Sakura recognised it as fuinjutsu, the least mentioned ninja-art in the academy, as such she had little to no knowledge about the item except that it spelled trouble.
"Naruto." She mumbled as quietly as possible, regretting that they had practised no code words for certain techniques with each other. Whatever plan she could relate to Naruto her enemies could hear as well, she could only hope his reaction was fast enough. His head inched towards her, gaze strangely hopeful.
"Use kage-bunshin, then kawarimi us out."
To her relief his reaction was immediate, shifting his arms around Sasuke so he could free his hands and make a cross-sing with them. Two dozen Naruto sprung to life in a cloud of smoke and two prepared for a kawarimi while they were still concealed. For a moment she though he would fail as replacing anything other than yourself was way more taxing on your chakra reserves then just using the technique on yourself was – she had studied it but certainly never practised it – but then she felt the tell-tale pull of the kawarimi and within a second she was free of the water and a clone was caught in it.
Before she could so much as release her breath in relief a wall of water crashed into her like a ton of bricks, dispelling all clones and dragging team seven along with its force. She was thrown around in the churning water like a lifeless doll, making her lose all sense of direction.
The horizontal smack on pavement was unexpected and made her cry out the last of her breath, it took her a few seconds of struggling to draw in air with the help of her abused ribs. Naruto gasped beside her, Sasuke a bit further away coughed up pinkish water.
They had been carried away from the bridge into a civilian district, a few people gave them weird looks.
"I-infiltrators…" Sakura wheezed, forcing herself to shout. "We're being infiltrated! There are rogue ninja in the village!" Civilian or not, they lived in a military village and knew what to do. A few ran off, looking for nearby ninja, others started alerting their neighbours so they could evacuate. Naruto got up and offered her a hand, she took it.
"Grab Sasuke, they're after us we need to run." She told him, annoyed that Sasuke-kun wasn't able to help them.
"They are after me, Sakura-chan. I'll lead them away while you run with Sasuke." His tone was serious and the determination was plain to see in his eyes.
Her answer came so quickly, she didn't even have time to consider the tactical value of his offer. "Those who leave behind their comrades are worse than scum. We're not splitting up Naruto, we're stronger as a team." It was drilled into her. Even though she was trembling on her feet and really wanted to run away and scream, leaving the boys to fend for themselves, those words stopped her from doing just that.
The blond boy's eyes teared up but before he could say anything Sakura beat him to it. "We don't have time to stand around." Quickly and none too gently she grabbed his arm and dragged him towards Sasuke. He obligingly picked the Uchiha up.
A plan started forming in her head. It would only be a matter of time before reinforcements would arrive, the just had to evade the rogues until then. She started jogging deeper in the village, Naruto a few steps behind her. She began to convey her strategy to him.
"Let's go t-" Her words were swallowed by a loud explosion, debris rained on her and a building in front of them collapse on the path, effectively blocking them.
"Not so fast, fishies." Sharkman grinned at them from his spot on top of the rubble, seemingly finding them quite amusing.
Sakura immediately started scrambling backwards, only to find the other end of the street blocked by the shorter man. He didn't say a thing, he didn't need to. It was just like when they had cornered them at the bridge, her plans hadn't changed anything at all. Not only her legs were trembling, her arms were shaking uncontrollably as well.
'think, think, think, Sakura!' Her inner voice screamed at her but her mind was blank, she had used all her available tricks, which were to be honest depressingly few, and even those of Naruto. Jumping over the fences of people their yards to reach another street would take too long without a distraction. Her eyes flashed over to Sasuke. If she was in possession of the fireball jutsu she might have been able to come up with more diversions but there was no point in dwelling on that, not right now.
"Sakura?" Naruto's voice was so quiet she barely heard him. When she looked over at him she saw the trust in his eyes. He was waiting, expecting a plan from her. It made her feel so… angry. Why did she have to get them out of here, why was it all up to her? She wanted someone she could depend on, instead her team suddenly decided to depend on her.
It was probably what made her stupidly and impulsively allow her inner persona to shine through. "So much for killing us within ten seconds, huh?" With an astounding amount of feigned nonchalance that one was only able to accomplish when feeling particularly spiteful and frustrated, she checked her nails.
She wasn't at all surprised when the big blue guy threw back his head and laughed, it was kind of typical for his type of arrogance to do.
"The hunt is the best part of the game." Sakura tensed as his eyes met her, full of predatory hunger.
In the corner of her eyes she saw Naruto nod slightly at her, as if she had just conjured up some great escape plan and he agreed with it. She didn't dare look away from the sharkman to throw him a confused look.
"You know I didn't notice it before," Naruto bellowed obnoxiously towards the silent man, "but you look an awful lot like Sasuke."
Silence followed.
Not giving up Naruto followed his statement with a question. "So, what's the deal with that?"
If Sakura hadn't felt so petrified with fear her eyebrows might have risen to her hairline by now, she would also have whacked Naruto on the head for trying to casually strike up a conversation with enemy ninja. The idiot.
The indeed Sasuke-like man did not entertain Naruto, instead his vivid red gaze moved towards his partner, who in his turn did not look the younger one in the eye, and said coolly. "Stop playing games, we're losing time."
Sharkskin sighed dramatically, hand pressed to his forehead and everything. "Tachi, you always ruin my fun." A hard stare was his answer. Dropping the theatrics, the big man removed his monstrous sword from his back.
"Alri-…ack!" A thin sword impaled sharkman's side and with one great swinging motion he threw the ANBU responsible into a roof a bit further down. More ANBU appeared and before long powerful jutsu where thrown around a leisure, keeping but missing nin busy enough for team seven to slip away.
Naruto and Sakura grabbed for each other's hand after they jumped over a series of fences, trying not to lose one another in the narrow unfamiliar streets they found themselves in.
"It worked, Sakura! You're a genius" Naruto panted.
Her aching side and burning lungs did not motivate her to speak but she was confused enough to ask. "What worked?"
"The stalling!" He declared.
Her mouth went slack. When she had made that frustrated comment he thought she had planned to stall? She was embarrassed at the idea that her blond teammate thought so highly of her.
A dead end saved her from having to reply.
"We could just try to climb the wall?" Naruto suggested. They could but it would cost them previous time.
"It's faster to just turn back." Sakura reasoned.
"Alright."
A groan stopped them in their tracks. "Hey, he's coming to." Naruto exclaimed just as Sasuke stirred on his shoulder. Lowering him to the ground, Naruto shook him gently.
Sasuke gasped, his eyes wide open. "Itachi!" His voice was raspy and he clutched his ribs the moment the name left his lips. Bruised… at the least, Sakura thought.
"Don't worry, we got away. Our shinobi are fighting them off right now." Naruto said happily.
"You got away from him?" Sasuke sounded unbelieving. He was shaken enough to let Naruto help him stand.
"Not quite." He stepped from behind the corner in a calm self-assured way. Sakura suddenly felt the stone wall pressed against her back and wondered when she had backed up from him. This time she looked at Sasuke for a plan but her inner wryly reminded her that Sasuke had attacked on his own before, leaving Sakura and Naruto to fend for themselves.
The older Sasuke's voice held no emotion when he addressed them, not even annoyance. "If you come quietly I'll let your friends live, nine-tailed-fox."
Her eyes flew towards the red eyed man and she startled when she saw the black little dots in his scarlet gaze. 'The sharingan.' Her parents had served in a time where Uchiha's where still plenty and when she asked they would only mention one thing about them. But what was it?
His gaze shifted towards her and she saw the dots spinning.
Think think think! She had a feeling it was important.
The black in his eyes transformed into something else, a new shape. Then it came to her. If you ever find yourself in the unenviable position of facing an Uchiha in combat never look them in the eye!
Sakura sank through her knees as the sky turned red. 'Too late.' Inner Sakura said sorrowfully.
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In case this isn't obvious from the first chapter, this is an Alternate Universe Naruto story. In this fanfic that means that while it's still going down in the Narutoverse, certain events will be different. I'll try to keep the characters as realisticas possible (which means as themselves) but as this story won't completely follow the original naruto story, certain people will do things they haven't done before. Some people use time-travel as a catalyst to these different parts, I'm not, just go with it or don't read it.
Also in my mind, nobody leaves a tsukuyomi undamaged, which explains my summary ratherwell.