Hey guys!! Deepest apologies for taking so long to update so everyone gets cookies *gives you awesomely amazing cookies* The good news is that I made fresh. Lax and I've been so busy with it that I haven't had time to update but seasons over and now I just have regents so I should be able to much more. Thanks for all the great reviews, love all you guys!!
P.S. for StrawberryBlossom-Chan: thx for the review and the reason he believed Karin instead is I needed a reason and I hate Karin so I just went with it lol plus more will be explained.... probably in later chapters.
Sakura jumped through the trees swift and skillfully as she hurried away from Konoha. She needed to get away as fast as she could before someone informed on her that she was gone. As she thought about where she should go, she went through a mental inventory of the bag she had brought that was softly thumping on her shoulders.
'Okay, so I brought one pair of civilian clothes to blend in..... food pills for a week...... extra shurikens and kunai.... the katana I got from my parents strapped onto my back..... two double blade daggers attached to my thighs... and some of my pictures I managed to grab.' She went over quickly.
'Think you grabbed enough?' Inner Sakura asked, with an actual serious tone in her voice.
'Probably but I have some money stocked up in my other places for whenever I need to buy something I'll use.'
You see, Sakura actually got paid very well for all the missions she went on. Although she offered to not take the reward money from Tsunade, she had insisted on it. So Sakura took the money and invested it into vacation houses of sorts. She barely ever went to them though, but kept them fully stocked of clothes and instant ramen, a taste she had acquired from hanging out so much with Naruto.
When Sakura had thought about that, a pained look came across her face. Naruto..... she remembered that one time especially....
It was right after Sakura had gotten back from her first assassination mission. Her silky short pink hair was now soaked with thick crimson blood. It had never insanely bothered her before by killing a 'bad guy', but when she had to do it alone without her teammates, coping with it was dreadful.
She walked shakily into the gates, trembling as she went. She slowly made her was to the tower, and as she did Naruto had spotted her.
"Sakura-chan! How'd you're mission go?!" He shouted as he ran towards her. As he got closer, he noticed the distant look in her eyes and how she was quivering so much.
"Sakura? Are you okay?" Naruto asked to which he got a head nod as she kept walking when she suddenly stopped and he saw her start to sway. He rushed over just in time to catch her as she passed out, quickly putting his arms around her shoulders and under her knees, he carrying her to his apartment.
Sakura awoke on a soft bed with a frog quilt, sitting up quickly she noticed she was in Naruto's apartment and she heard the shower running. Then she took more notice to what she was wear, or lack of. She was in just a shirt with her panties and bindings still on, and the shirt smelt like Naruto and was big on her, so she assumed it was his. She also noticed her hair was wet, and unlike the cold blood that had clotted her hair together before, it was washed and warm still.
The shower had stopped when she was thinking about these things, and Naruto came out with shorts and a shirt on, his hair still damp.
"Oh, Sakura-chan! Are you feeling any better now?" Naruto asked. Before she could answer, her stomach growled loudly.
"Of course you're hungry, duh, my bad Sakura-chan." Naruto murmured as he ransacked his kitchen in search of food. All he could come up with was some instant ramen he pulled out of his cupboard and smiled sheepishly as he heated up water.
He came back and handed her the cup, and sat there eating with her, not pressuring her to talk but softly encouraging her to tell him what had happened.
And that's how she got addicted to instant ramen, from the many times something happened to one of them, they would automatically get ramen or sit at one of their places and eat it until they had gotten everything out.
Those were the times with Naruto she had to forget about, before she gave up on everything she could do because she wanted things to go back to the way things were.
Sakura wasn't paying much attention to where she was going and missed a tree branch, coming down hard as her stomach hit one with a lot of force. She fell the rest of the way to the ground, spitting up some blood when she finally sat up. She wiped it away and probed her stomach with healing chakra to fix any internal bleeding.
Sakura stood up while using a few... choice words... and then suddenly went still.
She heard the tiniest of rustling, only a skilled hunter-nin would be able to hear, and sent out a blast of chakra to find any signatures. What she noticed surprised her, 2 Akatsuki were in the area, and that's what scared her. She was in a deserted forest, where almost nothing was located and it was hard to track anyone through, hence the reason she used it.
She couldn't think of any reason the Akatsuki would want anything to do with her, but if they wanted her, she couldn't accept because that would be the ultimate betrayal to Konoha, even if it didn't matter anymore, she wouldn't be involved if it cost the people she once cared about anything.
She quickly did a jutsu she hadn't thought of using before and teleported herself the rest of the way out of the forest, about 200,000 miles, to the edge where she could easily get to her nearest apartment before Akatsuki found her.
She hated using that justu, because it's one of the forbidden jutsu's she had learned from Tsunade, and because it takes years of training and still depletes almost all of ones chakra. It also leaves an explosion of chakra that she knows the Akatsuki would pick up on, but then it leaves the trail cold. Sakura took out a few soldier pills and quickly chomped them down. She made her way into the town, going straight for her apartment.
Itachi looked idly at Kisame as they followed the kunoichi through the woods. For a former ANBU and hunter-nin, she was pretty dense to not notice them. She had a good pace going though; he had to admit, for it was truly hard to keep up with her. He noticed, however, that she was slowing down, as if she was loosing her focus onto something else.
'Hmm, whatever, easier for us then if she's not concentrating.' Itachi thought.
They were tracking her down for 2 reasons, one of then related with Akatsuki affairs, the other for his own interest.
He wanted to see the girl that consumed and had the power to change the actions of his little brother.
All of a sudden, she fell and hit a tree branch, then looked like she was unconscious as she fell further to the ground. He felt a sudden urge to jump and catch her before she hit the ground, but pushed it away as feeling sympathy for the girl if she died..... wait that wasn't right.... Uchiha Itachi doesn't feel sympathy.
Trying to get a moment of weakness out of his mind he watched as she spit up blood, getting worried if she was actually okay. As soon as he thought that, he wanted to kill himself. Was he getting worried about girl he had only read about? He knew the consequences of getting attached to things; they only end up in misery and sorrow.
He focused on remaining stoic as the girl rose to continue on her way. Kisame was about to follow when his cloak brushed against some leaves. They figured she wouldn't notice but froze where they were when they saw her stand up rigidly. She then did a sweep which they felt and couldn't tell if she knew they were there, since it takes a highly skilled ninja to detect their signatures.
She suddenly, and without warning did rapid hand signs, and suddenly disappeared from site. It left a huge cloud of her chakra behind, and he realized what she did.
"This kunoichi is more skilled then we thought, Kisame." Itachi stated as he recognized the forbidden transportation jutsu she used.
Sakura opened the door to her apartment and the room was flooded with light. This was probably the last time she would see this place, because eventually Konoha would find all her places she privately rented, and Akatsuki was on her tail and would no doubt, trace her here.
She walked across the wooden floor and threw her bag onto her couch. She disposed of the clothes she was wearing, took her hair down from the small ponytail she had put it up in, and changed into a black cami with dark green arm warmers. There was a dark green hood attached to the cami and she put on a black mini-skirt that frayed longer in the back with dark green boots that reached up to her thigh. She grabbed the extra money and weapons she could find, along with anything else she would need, and locked the door. She headed for the window and since it was on the 4th story, she jumped to a neighboring roof top while pulling the hood over her hair and went to the edge of the town.
Sakura was a way away from the town and decided she'd set up camp next to a river. She set up next to large tree and started a small fire going. Then she went towards the river and striped down until she was in her underwear while folding her clothes and dove in, enjoying the fresh water until it started to get really dark when she finally decided to catch some fish. She got out and walked back with her clothes in her hand because she figured no one would see her.
Sakura cooked the fish and some roots and plants she had found, and finished them off. She went through her bag, reaching for the photo's she had. She pulled them out and looked them over slowly, remembering each moment they were taken.
There was one that was taken when Naruto had finally made Jonin, with all of Rookie 9 there, minus Sasuke and plus Sai of coarse. There were a few of just the girls and the special moments. Sakura then turned it to one of Tsunade and Naruto and her, and she sat there shaking.
'I can't believe they did this to me.... I thought they actually cared for me.' Sakura thought as she sat there as tears started to fall down her porcelain cheeks. She took all the pictures and threw them into the fire, except for the last picture she held in her hands, that she would never want to lose.
She laid down on the ground and fell into a fitful sleep, dreading tomorrow.
Itachi sat there, on a tree branch near by Sakura's camp, watching how weak this kunoichi was. She was leaving herself vulnerable to attack, when she was swimming and sitting by the fire.
"Pathetic." Kisame said as they watched her sit there crying as she looked at the pictures.
Itachi squinted his eyes to see her better, because of his sharingan, his vision was becoming incredibly worse every day. He couldn't see her exact features, but he could see her pink hair and black and green wardrobe, as she was looking at the pictures.
She surprised him when she suddenly threw the pictures into the fire and put on a stoic face much like the one he always wears.
"Hmm, maybe not Kisame. Either way we'll take her later tonight." Itachi said.
"Fine by me, as long as Samehada can get a bit out of her rocking bod." Kisame said smirking. Itachi ignored the idiot, like he always did. Kisame was just a horny enlarged fish and had the brain size of one.
'I have no clue how he made it into the Akatsuki.....' Itachi thought to himself while slightly shaking his head. "Go ahead; just don't kill the girl while you're at it."
A few hours later, when Sakura was deep asleep, Kisame dropped to the ground, getting Samehada out. Suddenly Sakura sprang up and took a defensive stance.
"I was wondering when you were going to come out, Hoshigaki Kisame." Sakura said with instantly fierce face. Sakura had fallen asleep, but she sensed someone and could only find Kisame's chakra signature in the area, so she figured it would be easy enough to trick him.
Sakura slid on the gloves she had tucked into her skirt and pulled out a war fan she used with her wind justu's and pulled out a double dagger with her other hand. She had started using these new weapons that Gaara had given to her as a gift, and she took a liking to them. Kisame charged at her with his sword and swung down just as Sakura put up the dagger and struggled with his power so it came down to brute strength. Sakura managed to use her chakra enhanced strength to push up and off of him and pushed him off the ground, so she went under him and kicked him in to the forest where he knocked down about 70 trees.
He bounced up, only taking a little damage to his lower ribs, and started on hand signs, then called out, "Suiton Daibakufu no Jutsu", as a water cyclone started for Sakura.
Sakura shouted out "Daitoppa Kamaitachi", as she blew a stream of wind and used a large amount of her strength to hit the air with her hand fan and have enough pressure to settle the water out and push it the other way. This was one of the jutsu's she had combined to work with her weapons and cut through almost any attack.
"Kokuangyo no Jutsu." Sakura said as she wanted the upper hand, not waiting for Kisame to recover from being slammed into more trees.
The battle field then covered in darkness, leaving Kisame confused and on guard. What Sakura didn't know was that Itachi was watching the whole time and didn't like this turn of events as his partner was blindly beaten as Sakura dodged in and out of his water shield he put up. Itachi activated his Sharingan and could see everything clearly.
Itachi snuck up behind Sakura stealthily and tried to knock her out, but she found his presence and quickly turned around grabbing his hand. She turned around and knew not to look him in the eye, aware he could cast Tsukuyomi on her, but she couldn't help herself.
Sakura stared into Itachi's eyes and was mesmerized by how deep and mysterious they were.
Itachi stared into Sakura's eyes and noticed how emerald green they were to him and shone in a certain way he couldn't name. The darkness was slowly starting to fade and Sakura opened her mouth to say something.
"Are you..... that guy..... from so long ago?" Sakura asked. She was referring to a time on a mission where she could clearly remember eyes holding so much genius and intellect but she couldn't see his face.
She was about to ask another question, to which he would've answered because he, too, remembered her face and felt a connection from a past time to her. But just as she opened her mouth, a searing pain went through her back as Kisame shredded her skin with Samehada.
At the intense pain, Sakura let out a cry and fell to the ground where Itachi knocked her out with a sad look in his eyes. He wiped it away when Kisame stood up from his attack and put his blank expression back on.
"Come on, let's go. We need to get her back to Leader soon." Itachi said bluntly before putting Sakura up on his shoulders.
They started off back to their base, and for what fate should Sakura meet when she got there?
There you go guys, another chapter! I worked for like 3 hours on this one cause I wanted to finish, but I kept getting distracted, so sorry its short =( Anyways, Reviews are nice, plus I NEED IDEA'S!!!! Please email me if u have any requests for either of my stories.
Review please?!?!!?
Oh and for those of you still reading my stories, the first one to guess what's gunna happen next will be announced in my next update! So keep reading and reviewing and it just might be you!!- (that sounded like an infomercial .)
~ xxcherryblossoms32xx
