Chapter 2: The past returns

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

"You're done already?" Katin piped up, watching Sakura walk into the thick bushes. "Well, are you?" He asked again nervously, when she didn't answer a minute later.

"Yes." Sakura sighed as she crossed the clearing calmly, sitting down with her back to a tree facing Katin. "Now all we have to do is wait." She closed her eyes with another sigh. She needed to regain as much of her chakra as possible, even just a little, in case for another attack. Even she had to admit it was highly unlikely, but there seemed to be a looming premonition somewhere in her mind.

"Hey, aren't you supposed to be watching me?" A small voice whined.

She opened an eye quizzically, looking somewhat like Kakashi. She smiled kindly at his panicked expression. "Don't worry. I've laid traps around here only Konoha ninja should be able to deactivate." Or at least, I hope. She added mentally. No need to let him know that. The kid will have a heart attack.

There was a brief silence.

"Is ANBU your highest rank?" He asked suddenly.

"Uh, sort of. There's always the Hokage, but yeah, I guess." Sakura replied with her eyes still closed. "Why?"

The furious boy slumped down. "What a useless bunch." He muttered darkly. "Can't even save my father. Lets a useless, lazy girl keep guard of me…"

Sakura's eyes flew open, and she was across the clearing in an instant. She shoved Katin behind a bush.

"What are you—" He started to yell, before Sakura covered his mouth with her hand.

"Ninja coming." She whispered absently, frowning. "Be quiet." His or her chakra is immense, which means they're probably not the medic team. Damn. More trouble.

"Isn't that good?" He started, until a look of comprehension dawned on his face. "Oh. Never mind."

She looked at him straight in the eye as she grabbed his shoulders. "You have to trust us Leaf Village ninjas. We would give our lives to protect you until the end. Listen." She hurried on intently, "No matter what they do or I do, don't come out of hiding. In the worst case scenario, hide this in your shirt, and use it if you have to." She handed him a cold, sharp object in the dim undergrowth.

"But what if they find me, and I can't use the sword thing?" Katin squeaked, sweat beading on his forehead.

Sakura smiled grimly. "I will put my life on the line to protect you, don't worry. I'm going to be away briefly to distract him. Or her. The medic team will be here soon anyways. In the worst case, just run. There's a cave around the eastern side of the forest."

"It sounds like you face death situations every day." The small boy whispered, then gulped. "All right. I won't move."

Sakura patted his head in a motherly way, and smiled absently. "I hope you see your father soon." She added kindly before disappearing into the thicker forest.

A few minutes later, a figure dropped into the clearing without activating any traps. He was wearing an old fashioned white robe with a tube-like belt and darker pants.

He stood emotionlessly in the clearing for a while, before suddenly turning and aiming a shuriken high towards a tree branch behind him, where Sakura caught it neatly with two fingers. She had plopped herself behind a thick conifer tree directly opposite Katin's hideout.

The figure turned slightly to glance at the two ANBU bodies briefly, but did not rotate fully around to face the kunoichi.

Sakura thought there was something familiar about the stranger, but didn't ponder on it as she jumped down neatly from her hiding spot unto the grass.

She started to crouch and brace the kunai in front of her protectively, but then a shocked gasp came from her lips as she nearly dropped the weapon. The stranger turned around. Her breath came out in ragged gasps as she glimpsed the familiar face. "Sa…" She started. "Sas…ke…kun…" She choked out, nearly gagging like Naruto.

Her face was a mask of complete surprise, every possible emotion going through her mind. Is this really Sasuke? She must been dreaming.

"Sakura." He said emotionlessly, his hand not leaving the grip of his katana.

She didn't like the way his voice seemed to radiate with coldness and the way he said her name like he was just introduced to her. With a startled shock, she realized this could be a death battle with Sasuke, their lost teammate, the one she had been worrying non-stop about by day and having nightmares about by night. Tears threatened to overflow in her deep green eyes.

Sakura walked a step tentatively towards him, mostly relying on instinct than consciousness. She felt as if she was floating on a cloud. "Why… are you here?" She whispered, not trusting her entire voice. Suddenly, she was overwhelmed with the notion to cry, but also to hug him. Then, both emotions were overwhelmed by a slow trickle of anger.

"Where's the boy?" He asked calmly, as if he never knew her. "We need him."

Sakura raised her eyebrows. "You…" Her voice was thick. She cleared her throat. "Why do you need him? You have his father, don't you?"

The smallest of a frown appeared on Sasuke's marble face. "No, you must be mistaken. We just want the boy, and we have never touched his father."

Resisting the urge to laugh hysterically at this surreal situation, Sakura shook her head. "The…someone saw a black haired ninja with Sharigan and a white haired ninja abducted the child's father…" She frowned, since it was evident now Sasuke never remembered being here before.

"Lying wastes my time." Sasuke's cold voice cut through the thick atmosphere. "If you are going to lie, you might as well die." His grip on his katana tightened. "I'm going to ask you one more time, Sakura: where is the boy?"

Sakura narrowed her eyes. This was no happy reunion. He would not hesitate to kill her if she stood in the way, no matter how much she cared for him. That she would probably sacrifice her life willingly for him. She had to grasp the truth now, because she could not hand over the boy and betray her duty. She had two choices: fight, or wait for the medic nins to arrive and stall for time.

"If you want him, you'll have to go through me." She said finally. "Unlike you, I can't abandon my duty to the village and to the boy." She added softly as she held the kunai in two fingers and tightened the dark glove against her hand.

Sasuke looked at her coldly. "Forgetting the past is sometimes healthier for the future." He said.

"The past." She smiled sadly. "Without the past, there is no future."

"Forget the damn past, and grasp the present, Sakura. Go." He hissed.

"No, though I could say the same for you about Itachi." She paused, unsure of voicing her thoughts. Finally, she asked softly, "Are you really going to kill me?"

"Only if you stand in my way."

"You can't go another way, can you?" Sakura looked at him bitterly. "Still bent on revenge on Itachi?"

"I can't ignore my path as an avenger." Sasuke said through gritted teeth, his grip now turning his knuckles white.

"And I can't ignore my path as a dutiful ninja of the Hidden Leaf." Sakura countered. "But you can walk another path." She looked at him, her eyes full of pity and pleading. "You can still walk away. You never had to do anything. You never had to leave Konoha or kill Itachi. Don't you get it? Do you know how many people are suffering because of you?" She whispered as her grip slacked on her kunai. It fell to the forest floor. Her knees felt weak, her legs numb.

Sasuke remained silent for a moment, his eyes suddenly flickering red. "I never asked these people to suffer for me. It's their own problem." He said apathetically. "I have my own goals, and they will not involve Konoha ever again."

The two nins, facing each other, stood in silence. A stray wind blew by, fluttering numerous leaves from trees. The kunoichi's pink hair fluttered in the breeze as she thought of the number of things she wanted to say, but knew she could not. The tears she held back stung her eyes as she thought of Naruto and his promise, various of Rookie 9 who willingly participated in the Sasuke retrieval mission and almost gotten killed, and her own time spent endlessly on training to improve. To prove she was not weak.

Sakura closed her eyes painfully, and reopened them a minute later. "I can't give you the boy. You will have to fight me." She declared softly, and looked up again through determined green eyes. "I'm going to stop you this time."

The black haired nin smirked. "I've given you a chance to live, which you ignored for a worthless mission. I'm not going to let you stop me, because I have broken all the bonds with Konoha I ever had. If you are still going to stand in my way, I'm really going to have to kill you."

"Then kill me!" Sakura screamed as she charged, whipping a new kunai from her pouch, tears flowing out of her eyes. The liquid crystals shone in the air for a brief minute as the wind carried them away from her face. "Take me away from this agony!"

In a flash, her hands were held against her back, the second kunai fell, useless, as Sasuke hit a pressure point on her wrist.

She could feel him smirk behind her back. "I told you I'm not going to let you stop me…" He paused. "After all this time, you're still weak, Sakura. It is nearly a pity I have to finish you so soon." She felt him draw out the katana, its sharp blade hissing as it slid out of its sheath.

Sakura closed her eyes. "I've never imagined you would do this, Sasuke." She had dropped the admiring suffix on his name. "I'm sorry, for you. That you had become this way."

A figure jumped out from the shadows. "Don't kill her!" A loud voice squealed. "If you do…I'll…I'll kill myself!" Katin cried, holding out the kunai.

Sakura frowned as her eyes flashed open. "Get out of here, Katin! I can handle this!" She snapped, truly angry now.

"No, you can't! He's got a sword at your neck, and you're still trying to tell him about philosophy?" The little boy stomped his feet. "You, bastard, let go of Sakura-neechan! Or else!" He shouted, sounding a touch like Naruto. The boy pointed the kunai aggressively at himself. "It's me you want, right? I'll kill myself!"

Sasuke watched this warily, still holding Sakura's wrists captive with one hand and wielding his sword in the other.

The pink haired nin stood still, bewilderment grazing her features at the courageous little boy, before shaking her head sadly. "Katin. If I give my life today, it would be to protect you. Now, you're just making that even pointless." She told him.

Suddenly, in a flash, her hands glowed green. As Sasuke swung his sword to where her neck was a second ago, two deep wounds have already been left on his exposed chest. Sakura back flipped to stand in front of the little brown-haired boy, grinning crookedly. "So it's a good thing I don't plan on dying today." She finished. "Sasuke, I'm not going to hold back, even if I'm sure, that somewhere inside that cold shell, my old teammate is hidden there. Before revenge for his brother took over." Her triumphant smile disappeared.

"I told you Leaf Village ninjas were reliable." She added to Katin without turning.

"Oh." The little boy muttered, putting the kunai carefully back in his shirt.

"Thanks, though." She said with a wider grin. "That was very impressive."

Sasuke, ignoring his deep but non-fatal wounds, was beside her in a flash of speed, swinging his katana with precision at her neck. Sakura's kunai appeared in her hand, as she braced it at her ear against the sharp metal blade. Sasuke hopped back, and Sakura followed immediately, aiming to put as much distance between him and the boy as possible.

His red eyes tracking her movements even before she did them, Sasuke dodged her chakra-filled punches easily. However, she managed to dodge his swings as well. Suddenly, Sakura was left standing alone as her opponent abruptly vanished.

A flood of shurikens abruptly attacked from her left, as Sakura skilfully deflected them all with her kunai. As she was occupied, a kunai flew out from her front. At the last second, she suddenly realized there was another one that was being shadowed by the preceding kunai, making it invisible to the victim until the last minute. That is, except for a glimpse of extra shadow behind the first kunai. Absently remembering this as a technique Sasuke had mastered at a young age, Sakura caught the first one and rapidly used it to deflect the second one.

The clearing was empty and silent once more. Sakura was hardly panting as she stood in the center of a mass of shurikens and one kunai lying on the ground.

Instinctively, she prepared to jump back to check on her young charge. Before she got there, she heard a loud crackling beside her as a trail of lightning stretched out from the trees on her left. Before she had time to think the action through, she had landed a chakra-filled punch on ground, spreading the earth beside her wide open.

The Chidori-based lightning trail dropped uselessly below, as a white figure landed on the other side of the deep trench she had artificially created.

The handsome dark-haired nin crouched defensively, his face hidden. She thought she saw his hands move inside his large sleeves, but didn't recognize the jutsu he performed. He suddenly straightened. As Sasuke's red, swirling eyes glanced up, Sakura glimpsed a subtle glimmer of emotions on his smooth face.

Then, suddenly, his smooth mask slid off and there was fear in his onyx eyes as he stared at the left side of the forest.

Before she could register the emotions, she was overcome with the vision of a white room. It was rectangular shaped, with identical rhombus patterns filling the walls and floors. It was absolutely white and empty. Until a figure nudged her from the side.

"Katin!" She exclaimed in surprise. "What're you doing here?"

The little boy looked confused. "I don't know. One moment I was there…and then…here."