Disclaimer:I do not own Naruto.
Question:Am I the only one that can't stand Karin?...It was bad enough when Sakura and Ino were Sasuke crazy...yuck!
The smoke was everywhere, blown by a hot wind that gusted in no particular direction. She was running frantically, not pausing to take note of the carnage around her. There was only one thing that dominated her mind now, her most precious person.
Blood soaked up through her shoes. The ground slippery beneath her feet. She had no chakra left to improve her footing, or to speed her search.
Her senses were failing her. Her hearing was poor, muted from the roar of the last eighteen hours of battle. No point in calling out, she wouldn't hear the reply.
She didn't even try to smell, knowing that she would detect nothing more than smoke and blood.
Her vision was slipping from her, with her chakra depleted the new eyes could barely function.
The only thing left to her was the ability to feel the life forces around her.
A distant explosion rocked the earth beneath her feet, and she stumbled. Falling flat on her face. A string of curses slipped from her, and she spat out blood that was not her own.
She grunted and pushed herself up, her battered body trembled with exhaustion. She tried not to contemplate all the injuries she had received. Though she knew from her medical training the count included three shattered ribs, a punctured lung, and a ruptured spleen.
Damn it.
Another explosion, closer this time. She didn't completely fall again, but she no longer had the energy to compensate for the lack of stable ground. Instead she dropped to her knees.
The sounds of combustion were getting louder and louder. She was starting to feel the shock waves ripple through the air around her. Small debris nicked her limbs and body.
If she didn't move soon she would be blown to kingdom come.
I would know…she thought wryly…I helped Deidara make those bombs.
She silently screamed out to their resident explosives expert to stop. Please. Just long enough for her to find the strength to move.
Apparently Deidara couldn't hear her.
The heat from the blasts caressed her. It began as a flicker of warmth, but was steadily gaining heat.
For an instant all was quiet, and then, from somewhere high over her head, she heard the battle cry.
"ART IS A BANG, YEAH!"
Her death sentence.
The waves were blazing hot now, and she could feel her skin burning.
A part of her, told her to move, just to spare the mad bomber the guilt, seeing as she couldn't exactly bring her self to be angry with her him, even if he was about to accidentally kill her. You couldn't see anything in this smoke.
She closed her eyes and waited for the darkness to come.
Haruno Sakura woke from her dream in a cold sweat. She momentarily wondered why she wasn't in a million pieces, her eyes flicked around wildly, searching for the danger.
There was none.
She was not on the battlefield, she was in her hotel room.
When they had stopped there in the early evening she had liked the clean white walls, and the pretty white and red blossom patterned bed coverings. The small window had merely meant the light wouldn't wake her too early.
But now...here in the dark...the pleasant little room made her want to scream. She shoved herself into a half sitting position, propping up on one slim forearm. She spared a careless glance up at the clock, it read 3:12 am.
Her stomach churned, the taste of blood and earth lingered upon her lips. She swallowed hard, forcing the rising bile back down.
In her restless sleep her legs had gotten tangled up in crisp white sheets. She kicked them off viciously, letting the wrinkled cotton material fall to the pale wooden floor.
She swung her body, sitting all the way up, so her legs hung over the edge of the bed. The balls of her feet skimmed the cold floor boards.
Suddenly an overwhelming feeling of being trapped washed through her, accompanied by a furious desire for fresh air. Unbidden her hands ached to tear through a wall, and bring her closer to the open sky. The moon peaked down through the tiny window, taunting her.
She closed her eyes and willed her rising sense of claustrophobia to recede. The konoichi drew slow, deep breaths through her mouth.
Silently, she stood, and padded into the little bathroom. Her over sized dark t-shirt and underpants were soaked in sweat, and clung to her form uncomfortably.
She stood before the sink, staring at her reflection in the large mirror placed above it.
Her bright pink hair just barely hung to her shoulders, horrific tangles caused the rose colored strands to stick up, making her look slightly deranged. Her fair skin was shiny with perspiration, she would have to wash that off before it aggravated her pores and caused a rash. Her vibrant green eyes were wide and haunted, deep circles shadowed them. She looked like she had seen a ghost.
She turned on the faucet, taking a cup the hotel had provided her with from the little counter and filling it to the brim with cold water. She raised the glass to her lips and downed the liquid in two big gulps.
The water in her throat felt so good that she leaned over the sink and vigorously splashed her face and neck. The calming affect was immediate. Now in her right mind, she was ferverently glad that she had not acted upon her impulse to knock the wall down. She didn't not need an angry hotel manager demanding monetary compensation for property damages.
Come to think of it, Sakura didn't quite know what to do with herself. She didn't have a prayer of going back to sleep, but she couldn't very well wake her exhausted team. They would never let her hear the end of it. Worse yet, she could just imagine the teasing she would be subject to if they found out it was because she had a silly nightmare.
But it had felt so real, the images weren't what disturbed her, war was part of the shinobi lifestyle. She had known that since her genin days. She didn't agree per-say, but she coped just fine thank you very much.
What frightened Sakura where the emotions. A ghost of the desperation she had experienced was still making her feel uneasy.
Desperation to save...someone...A beloved and cherished someone.
A someone her waking mind could not identify. No matter how hard she tried.
She grunted in frustration, giving her reflection a good hard glare before lumbering over to the shower. She still hadn't bothered to turn on any source of light, but that made little difference in her ability to navigate the room. All academy children were taught to adjust their vision to the dark. Most full fledged shinobi only ever turned on the lights out of habit.
She poked her head around the cheap plastic shower curtain and turned the knob to start the hot water.
She stripped off her soiled night clothes and threw them carelessly into the far corner of the room. Remembering the tangles, she also quickly racked her fingers through her hair, smoothing out the larger knots.
Once she was satisfied...sort of...with her hair she pulled the shiny, plastic off to the side and stepped in to the shower. The flow of the hot water was a little strong for her taste, if they ended up spending another night here she would have to ask the manager if he could turn the water pressure down.
She took the little glass bottle of complementary shampoo and began lathering it through her hair. Singing quietly to herself.
The dream had kept her distracted, but now that she was thinking clearly the sadness and embarrassment were creeping up on her.
She found it deeply disturbing that Naruto had seen through her so easily, but that wasn't the worst part.
What made her eyes sting with barely repressed tears was his harsh rejection of her, it was like Sasuke all over again.
...Sasuke... He attacked the summit...Oh god...
Tears stung her eyes, and her shoulders shook.
If there was any hope for him before it was gone now, no one ever got away with a stunt like that, reason or no reason. She was sure he must have known that. When they were team seven, Sasuke had known more about the shinobi laws than herself and Naruto combined.
His behaviour was erratic. His plans hair brained. His "sacred mission" could change on a dime.
And as a medic nin she could draw only one conclusion...
...Uchiha Sasuke had lost it...
After all that trauma and loss, somewhere between ruining Naruto and her's lives and being an international terrorist, the boy had gone completely, up the wall crazy. A danger to himself and everyone around him.
Sakura sighed, and her ever sharped mind turned to the information that Kakashi had forbidden Naruto from telling her. She had passed it off as insignificant at the time...but now...come to think of it...why hadn't Sasuke just come home. Itachi was dead and his mission was, in theory, over.
Perhaps Sasuke could not let his hatred go, even though his brother was gone. It would make complete sense if he had developed some sort of phsycological attachment to vengeance. The last Uchiha must not know another way of existing, her ex-teammate needed something to hate.
She started in on her body, picking up the bar of soap and scrubbing furiously.
Yet again her she felt anger toward the elder of the siblings. His face flashed through her mind, fair skin, sharp clear features, huge red eyes, dark circles that almost hurt to look at, hair a couple of shades lighter than his younger brothers.
It turned her stomach to think it, but he had been so...pretty. That was part of what made him, and the Uchiha clan as a whole, dangerous. Their appearances were deceptive, they didn't look like killing machines,they looked like lost angels.
She snorted, yes, that described the two brothers perfectly.
Pretty, sparkly, royally fucked-up, lost angels.
When she was satisfied that every drop of sweat had been scrubbed off she swirled the knob to turn off the water. The piping complied with a metallic groan. She stepped out of the shower, sloshing naked across the wooden floor to the little closet were the towels were kept. Her skin broke out in goosebumps and she shivered.
Sakura flung the little door open and snatched up the biggest towel she could find. It was quickly wrapped around her person.
Uchiha Madara was sulking. Holed up in his current hide out, brooding like a foolish teenager.
He was sitting in one of the common rooms, this one had a wooden floor, several moth eaten couches and a TV. His tall body was folded into a bloody red sofa, his knees tucked up to his chest. His orange mask lay discarded on the decrepit coffee table, his unruly, shoulder length hair shadowed the upper half of his face.
He was currently resisting the urge to break something to ease his frustration.
His plan had gone off without a hitch, save for one thing...
He had followed the boy, watching him meet his comrades. Seeing the conversation he had held with the reining greatest medic in the world. Her attempts to deceive the boy, and he had felt absolute delight as he started in on Itachi's story...only to be stopped by Kakashi.
He sighed heavily...
...The only reason he had told that loud mouthed jinchuriki the truth was because he was sure the boy would spread the news far and wide no matter what...
Instead he had listened to that stupid Jonin and kept his mouth shut like a good little brat.
Pathetic.
His brilliant mind overturned each interaction between the ninja, processing very carefully.
That was when an idea struck him...the girl...he smirked.
Yes the pink haired teenager could be useful. If she was willing to spend the rest of her life lying to save one person imagine what she would do to bring justice to his cause, if only he could persuade her.
What else did he know about her?...
A medic, she was compassionate and liked to help others. Intelligent, she had to be smart if she had defeated Sasori. Determined, she had no Kekei Genkai, no truly miraculous talents, yet she had risen to become a noteworthy ninja.
She could become another Itachi, she had the right personality. The potential was definatley there.
He slipped into the big, yet sparsely furnished room he called his to the closet. Madara carelessly flung open the dark wooden door. His sharp eyes immediately zeroed in on what he was looking for.
The Bingo Book.
"H"..."H" he murmured quietly to himself...rapidly flicking through pages...He passed the Hatake family..."almost"...
There...Haruno Sakura, the page read,
Name:Haruno Sakura, Rank:Chunin, Affiliation:Konohagakure no Sato
Haruno Sakura is the only known shinobi hailing from the small Haruno clan. They have no kekei genkai, although it must be noted that Sakura has excellent chakra control and a photographic memory. Sakura graduated from the academy upon her first attempt, and received the second best marks in her year. She was then assigned a standard three man cell, consisting of Uzumaki Naruto(Uzumaki Naruto Page 761),Uchiha Sasuke(Uchiha Sasuke Page 754),and Hatake Kakashi(Hatake Kakashi Page 233)who led the cell. Sakura learned under Kakashi for approximately eight months, during this time period her skills were alarmingly underdeveloped, in spite of the excellent marks she received on the genin exam, and she seemed to find her team mate Sasuke quite distracting. After her teamates went their separate ways Sakura sought the legendary Sanin Lady Tsunade(Lady Senju Tsunade Page 602)to train her in the healing arts. Sakura took to this training very well, and her previously poor ability improved rapidly. Since then she has participated in some missions that should be far beyond the ability of a chunin. Such as the rescue of the Godaime Kazekage(Subaku Gaara Page 692)from the notorious criminal organization, Akatsuki(Akatsuki Page 813) .
Madara threw the book aside, giving it a casual toss over his shoulder. There was another half page written on her, but he already had all the information he needed.
It was about time he brought Sasuke back anyway.
Love it?...Hate it?...Please let me know...
Author's note:I have seen multiple spellings of some of the words that are from the world of Naruto, please tell me if you know what is considered to be the correct spelling.
