12:23 pm, June 17th –ten days before the present time.
Village Hidden in the Leaves, Konoha.
Kakashi Hatake's P.O.V.
Kakashi jumped down from the near by tea house's roof, "sorry I'm late; I was held up with some important paperwork-"
"You always say that Kakashi-sensei! I'm starting to think that you weren't even doing paperwork at all…" Naruto exclaimed. Kakashi scanned the three of them before deciding to give them their instructions. Sasuke was looking dismally out to the east, Naruto was staring intently at him, waiting for him to speak, and Sakura, well, she was looking slightly pissed off, towards Naruto, but her body language was expressing extreme displeasure towards Sasuke. Kakashi decided that there might have been a small argument, nothing to be worried about, and told the team their instructions.
Team 7 were to participate in a ninja tournament in an Academy outside of Konoha. Their job was to be ambassadors of The Village Hidden in the Leaves and to express their skills to other clans and villages in friendly matches. Other ninja teams from Konoha would be participating too; he just didn't tell them that. Naruto seemed really exited; I remember how he was with the Chuunin exams. Sasuke seemed interested, but not enough to bring him out of his slump. Sakura… didn't particularly like the news; she didn't like the Chuunin exams either. Sakura only participated because Naruto and Sasuke would be devastated if she hadn't. Sakura hated the fact that all the Hokages and Kazekages of all the other villages loved hosting tournaments- as if they liked to showcase their ninja's abilities. Sakura had always believed that being a ninja, and having the abilities of one was to be used for the purposes of missions and defending the village only, not to show off to other villages and reveal all your weaknesses.
"We'll meet at the North Gate in fifteen minuets, go and get your bags packed, with you know… underpants… and stuff like that, we'll be gone for a week, minimum!"
"A week!?" Naruto turned around while we were walking off in our separate directions. "A week-long tournament??? How many people are going?!"
"Only a few…" Kakashi winked as he poofed away.
"Argh! Why does he always do that??? It's really annoying! He's such a wuss, he's trying to avoid conversation about the tournament-"
"Naruto… give it a rest and shut up for once. We don't need your whining as we walk to the tournament." Sasuke drawled, before he dramatically turned around and walked off.
"Hmph! He's accusing me of whining!? Sheesh, he should get a lo-"
"Naruto, I'm going to go get my stuff, we better hurry, we have wasted a lot of time already. See you at the gate…" Sakura walked away, down towards the south. Her house was right on the edge of the village, near the forest. Naruto shouted down the road to Sakura, "Hey! Sakura! Do you want me to walk you home?" Sakura stopped dead in her tracks; she smiled to herself before turning around and shouting back: "No, that's fine, I can walk myself" before smiling and returning to walk home.
Naruto thought to himself 'why is she being so nice to me? She would usually turn around and punch me into next week…' he shivered at the thought. 'I wonder if that fight with Sasuke had anything to do with it. He was being a total jerk…' Naruto had started walking again, he was quite near his home by now, and had stopped at his door. He remembered the fight between Sakura and Sasuke.
'Sakura… why do you always pine for me like a total loser… you're so annoying, you're almost as bad as Naruto- no, wait, you're worse than Naruto. Get your own life, and stop interfering with mine.' Sakura looked like she was on the verge of tears, but… angry tears?
'You're such a total jerk, you know that? I'm trying to help you, I feel sorry for what happened to your clan, and I want to let you know that there is always someone there for you. That you're not alone, that there are still people that love and care about you. But, no! You just have to push all your friends away because you're such a cold bastard. I wish you could be more like you were before!' Sakura looked surprised, and clapped her hand to her mouth. Sasuke looked confused, then really angry.
"You have no idea what I was like before that all happened! It's not your place to say, either! Please, just leave me alone and get on with your own life!"
"Oh, don't worry, I will! I'm sick and tired of my kindness being shrugged off." Sakura then turned away from Sasuke, her arms folded, looking into the distance, tears welling up in her eyes. "Look what you've done now! Sasuke, you're such a jerk! Why can't you just-"
"Naruto… please, just leave it." Sakura's quivering voice made them both feel slightly guilty.
Naruto sighed as he opened his front door and stepped inside.
***
Sakura stopped outside her house; she looked both ways before walking on, past her house and towards the forest. 'This fake house business is really getting tedious, there's nothing in that one, it's completely empty. I can't have anyone finding possessions from my past in that house.' She carried on walking through the forest. She got to a very large oak tree, and stopped in front of it. There was one large tree branch forking out of the trunk towards Sakura, at shoulder height. She jumped on top of it, and it began to lower. It was much like a drawbridge into the tree. There were ropes connecting it to the inside, and rocks weighing it back down, it would take a person like Choji to lean on it and discover then entrance, it was quite safe, and an ingenious design, but, you've got Kakashi-sensei to thank for that one.
Sakura slid down the branch and inside the tree. The diameter of the tree would have had to have been about two meters wide, just big enough to fit a growing young girl and her Sensei in it with lots of room afterwards. There were more rope and pulley systems inside, but this time a wench fixed to the base of the tree, in which Sakura pulled and pushed to hoist the platform up the inside of the tree. The design was primitive, yet ingenious. Sakura had got to the top; she was inside the canopy of the trees, after lifting the cover of the tunnel through the tree, of course. There were four other trees in the forest that did the same thing, all at right-angles to each other. They were the four corners to her house. The area of her house was around 49 meters squared, this meant that each of the "corner trees" were seven meters apart; approximately, of course.
Kakashi-sensei had put some planks of wood, above the canopy to act like walking boards between each of the trees. The canopy was so dense, it would be impossible to see them from the forest floor, so it was alright to leave them out, but there was a safety mechanism that contracted them to their respective trees if there was a disaster, like a forest fire or, something along those lines. She walked across the walkway, to the tree that faced east. She was going to be late, so she sped up a little. On top of each of the trees that faced east, north and west were little tree houses where Sakura kept all of her belongings from her past life. She kept them because she never wanted to forget.
She reached the east corner, and went inside the house; there in the corner of the room was her black canvas satchel bag, inside it were two summoning scrolls, she decided to leave them in there, just in case, she hunted around the room for a weeks worth of clothes and some keep-sakes to keep her sane whilst locked up with Mr. Ice-cube. She clenched her fist when she thought of Sasuke his words: "You have no idea what I was like before that all happened! It's not your place to say, either!" were ringing in her ears from their earlier fight. She looked down at the picture in her hand, it was of what seemed to be a family, they all had dark brown or black hair. Half the family had dark onyx eyes, but the other half had bright, very light mauve eyes. It was quite a large family photo, with all the secondary family on both sides in it. Both sides of the family looked quite regal, all in formal dress, the ladies in kimonos, and the men in traditional Ninja outfits. She put it back down on a dresser in the room. 'I do know what you were like before the village was destroyed. You were much nicer back then.' Instead she picked up a smaller picture or a little girl laughing in a young woman's arms, the girl looked only about three years old. They both had dark hair and the woman had onyx eyes, like some of the people in the other picture. But the little girl's eyes weren't like presumably, her mothers. The light was shining on them, but, you could faintly make out very large, black, soulful pupils, and a very small rim of striking blue iris around it.
Sakura sighed as she put the picture and a lovely necklace away in the satchel. She opened her underwear draw, and pulled out some hideous, pink frilled knickers out. 'Yuck, only someone like Sakura would wear something as hideous as this… or maybe Ino-pig would…?'
"Nice lingerie… I didn't know you were into that kind of thing." Sakura let out a yelp as she tried to hide the offending undergarments whilst turning around to see who had intruded on her packing. She spun round to be met with no one other then Kakashi-sensei standing in her doorway. "If you don't hurry, you're going to be late, stop dawdling with your frilly knickers and start packing!" Kakashi let out a small chuckle as he was met with the most murderous look on Sakura's face. "I knew I'd find you here-"
"There is such a thing as knocking, you know. Next time, don't creep up on me like that!"
"I didn't creep up on you; you were so engrossed looking at your photo albums, that you didn't notice me in plain sight! Come on, you're going to be late, and that'll make me late, because I need to arrive after you, otherwise it might look a tad suspicious." Sakura sighed, grabbed seven pairs of pants, and other needed items, shoved them in her bag and left, but not before sticking her tongue out at Kakashi-sensei.
Kakashi turned around, and watched her go, smiling to himself, before deciding to waste time while she got to the north gate by snooping around in her east tree house, I mean, she had basically invited him in.
***
Sakura decided to go roof-hopping to the North Gate. It would be quicker then walking, and she needed to get there faster then Kakashi, so she quickly hopped from roof to roof, occasionally scaring some residents as they witnesses a pink blur wiz past their windows. She was getting close to the North Gate; she could see it in the distance. 'Oh shit' she thought as she neared her destination. Naruto hadn't arrived yet, it was just Sasuke standing at the gate. 'Shit, shit, shit!' Sakura slowed down; she jumped off the roof she was standing on and kept a steady walking pace towards the Gate. It seemed as if Sasuke had noticed her walking towards him, because he seemed to become very fidgety, and was determined to avoid her gaze. Sakura walked straight past him, and stopped about half a metre away, not turning around to look at him. Not even saying a word. This made Sasuke even more fidgety. Sakura could sense his discomfort and smiled to herself. She still stood there, not saying a word.
Sasuke looked extremely uncomfortable, his face was going redder every second, and his hands were quivering. He kept on shifting his balance from one foot to the other. 'Why am I feeling so guilty? I don't understand… I shouldn't feel guilty. She needed to be told that. She wasn't being kind. She was acting like all the other fan girls out there. But now I've hurt her feelings… how are we supposed to work together in the tournament if she won't even speak to me?' Sasuke clenched his fists together, looked down at the ground and closed his eyes shut, really tight. He took a deep breath.
In one swift movement Sasuke span around, grabbed Sakura's shoulder, jerked the rest of her body round to face him and blurted out: "I'm sorry for being so harsh earlier I didn't realise you weren't like the rest I thought you didn't really know me like all the others-" He panted shallowly afterwards, as he hadn't taken a single breath throughout the whole ordeal, he hadn't realised he had been holding his breath since before he turned around. Sakura looked at him, and then at his hands, they were holding her upper arms quite tightly in anticipation of her reply. She took a deep breath; she was just about to reply, when trouble came along wearing a bright orange jump suit.
