Author's Notes: Ermm… kinda late. Hehe. XD But I'm trying to manage. I still haven't quite gotten the hang of writing this new sasuke and team taka thing… and I hope this isn't OOC. Err, if you have any advice/complaint/opinion/constructive criticism, please tell me XD

Anyway, I hope you guys like this… and er… please review XD reviews make me happy!

Also, thank you, Miko-chan, for all your help. You're the best beta ever XD thanks for bearing with me and my fics. lol (huggles). And thanks to all those who reviewed the prologue. I really appreciate them. :)

Disclaimer: Naruto isn't mine.

PURPOSE

"He who has a why to live can bear almost any how."

Friedrich Nietzsche.

For a moment, she thought she was seeing Itachi.

She had clutched a kunai, ready to fling it at her opponent, to defend herself.

But recognition sunk in.

This was her Sasuke-kun.

But, unless her eyes were deceiving her, he was wearing an Akatsuki cloak. And he couldn't have joined the Akatsuki – They were after Naruto, they wanted to destroy Konoha, and they were the enemy.

She ignored the voice in the back of her head that reminded her about how Sasuke almost killed Naruto once and how he was no longer a Konoha ninja…

But this, this couldn't be real.

Sasuke couldn't have joined the Akatsuki, he had no reason to…

Maybe she was just in a genjutsu. Maybe enemies were afoot, maybe…

"Kai.", she whispered, hoping to be released from whatever nightmare she was having.

But the genjutsu would not be dispelled.

"Kai!", she said, her voice growing more desperate.

"Kai, KAI!!"

She flung the kunai on her hand at the illusion, hoping to dispel it, knowing that it wouldn't work.

The figure simply dodged the projectile and disappeared, the embodiment of speed. Sakura whirled around, another kunai in hand, trying to decipher where her opponent would be coming from next, when she felt a gust of wind at her right side and then at her left. She tried to follow his movements, but to no avail. He was faster than she could follow. Fear and pain clouded her mind, and she threw kunai blindly at every direction.

Not even one was thrown back at her.

Realizing this, she paused, her chest heaving up and down laboriously in exhaustion. She couldn't put her guard down, not yet. Maybe he was just waiting for a chance to—

Startled, she whirled to her left, where she had heard the sound of rustling bushes.

Too late.

A kunai was coming towards her, and she was frozen to the spot.

She never did think that she would die by his hands.

Now that it was happening, though, she thought that it was only fitting.

He was hiding behind a tall tree, silently observing her as she stopped going berserk with kunai. It was the first time in a long while that he could appraise her, how she changed, how she didn't change. He clenched his fist, annoyed at himself for standing around, staring at her, when she should've been dead minutes ago. He stilled his breathing and moved from the shadows, a kunai ready in his hand. He would end this, he would—

Some rustling on his left alerted him to another presence. He only had a few seconds to react, however, as he saw a glint of pale blue and a few seconds later, a precisely hurled kunai. His body moving on its own accord, he threw the kunai in his hand at the one that was speeding towards his former teammate, who stood rooted to the spot.

His kunai cancelled the other projectile with a clink.

'Stupidstupidstillweak', the words kept repeating themselves over and over in his head, his hands growing cold at the sight of the near-miss.

When he saw Suigetsu move from his hiding place, blade in hand, heading off to finish the kill, he started seeing red. By all rights, he should've allowed his teammate to do what he couldn't. So why he was suddenly there, shielding the enemy, blocking the large sword of his current ally with his own – he didn't know.

"Step back, Suigetsu" , he said, his voice laced with venom.

The said man grit his teeth, eyes narrowed in suspicion, before smirking knowingly and complying with his leader's order.

"Kill all that we encounter, eh, leader?"

Sasuke gripped his sword's handle tighter, trying to get a hold of his urge to retaliate, when a soft gasp from behind him brought him back to his senses. Right, he still had to take care of Sakura. He had anticipated this – the moment when he'd meet a former teammate in battle.

Only, he had anticipated that it would be Naruto. He had no problem with Naruto. He had fought the guy more often than he had talked to him – battle with Naruto was a sport. It was something he looked forward to. But Sakura was a different matter altogether; he never did quite know where he stood when it came it her, he never did want to know either.

"Go back to the camp", he addressed Suigetsu, who was still standing in front of him, sword clutched loosely in his hands.

"You could've warned us that pretty little pink-haired girls were exempted from the rule", Suigetsu retorted with a sneer.

"Go back to the camp, Suigetsu", Sasuke repeated, firmer and with a threatening edge.

Suigetsu raised his hands in mock surrender before turning back. But not before Sasuke saw the victory in his ally's eyes; it made his stomach churn. He knew in his guts that this was something he'd be sorry for, and the sight of Suigetsu's retreating back did nothing to quell his growing discomfort.

Frustrated, he turned around. He'd deal with her the best way he could.

For now, anyway.

"Sasuke-ku—aah."

He deactivated his sharingan and caught her when she went limp, all the while telling himself not to hold her as if she was made of glass – annoyed that he did so, anyway.

He turned and started trekking back to the camp, one hand supporting Sakura under her knees and the other supporting her upper torso. The whole situation had a nostalgic feel to it. He had to do it when he had to leave Konoha undetected. And it struck him as such a huge irony that he once again had to do it, but this time it was to enter Konoha undetected. And just like before, he kept himself from thinking about how he might've actually liked to carry her like this, had the situation been different.

He'd keep her, for now. He couldn't afford anyone warning the city beforehand. It would be terribly detrimental to his plans. He'd just let her go after he dealt with Konoha and she could go home – if she still had a home to return to, that is. He'd hold back as much as he could, but he couldn't say the same for Madara and the others.

Part of her was wishing for him to come up to her, ask her if she was okay, apologize for what he did earlier, and thank her for all her hard work – but the thought was simply hilarious in its impossibility. And she knew that the only reason she was even thinking about it was that she was dead tired, and she really really needed some compensation for all the back-breaking that she was doing. But knowing Sasuke, she probably wouldn't get it anyway.

Uchiha Sasuke was a jerk, simple as that.

Things like gratitude were alien to him.

And he was never gentle.

And to make things worse, he probably even expected them to lay down their lives for his purpose without a second thought.

She scoffed, hating the fact that they probably would.

Juugo would do it because Sasuke reminded him of Kimimaro. Suigetsu would do it because… well, because he risked his life for anything and everything anyway. And she… she would do it because…

Well, she didn't really know if she'd do it.

She didn't know herself well enough to gauge her own loyalty.

But she did know that she wanted him, and that was mainly why she was here, nursing a bruised ankle and a bruised ego. He was a jerk but she wanted him. He was the most beautiful thing she had ever set her eyes on in her whole life. Not only that, he was also strong and very willful. He had a strong sense of purpose. He had his goals and he'd do anything to get them and he always knew exactly what he wanted and needed to do. It was a trait she admired. And she thought that if she helped him enough, she'd eventually get what she wanted.

She would never go so far as to say that she loved him. That emotion, hell, even the word itself was foreign to those who lived in Oto. Besides, she wasn't a fool. Who could love someone like Sasuke? The guy was a complete nutcase. And that meant a lot, coming from a person who managed a whole prison in Otogakure no Sato.

Oto – that was another reason why she joined the group. With Orochimaru gone, she had nowhere else to go. It was disconcerting. She didn't like to be uprooted from her home, shabby though it was. Sasuke had turned her whole world upside down with his personal vendetta. He had turned everyone else's life upside down with his personal vendetta. He was that selfish.

The sense of normalcy that she had tried so hard to maintain all those years she spent in Oto was gone within minutes. And the sad truth was that she'd gladly go back to her routine life if she could. Orochimaru had given her a home. Besides, life was easier in Oto, much more stable than the one she had left. She couldn't say that she was happy there. But at the very least, she was contented, and she had a sense of purpose.

She was certain, though, that she was much more content there than here, in the woods, with a mission that probably involved enemies that she wouldn't dare touch with a ten-foot pole, especially when she didn't really understand why she had to do so.

But hey, it wasn't like she could return to her old life anyway – she couldn't, Sasuke made sure of that. She wondered if he even knew how many lives he bulldozed as he surged head-first into this whole revenge thing. She wondered if he even cared.

She scoffed once more, hating the fact that she already knew the answer.

Uchiha Sasuke was a jerk… but he was a jerk that she wanted.

Sighing, she poked at the bonfire in front of her with a stick and watched as the embers glowed and finally died. At least, with Taka, she had a purpose… at least.

"Karin, your tent's ready. Why don't you go inside and rest for a bit?"

She glanced up at Juugo who was offering a hand out to her. She suddenly felt very sorry for him. He was a sweet guy, really. And out of all of them, he was the one who least deserved to be embroiled in this whole conflict. A conflict which seemed to be much larger than all of them perceived, and really, she hated not being in the know about it.

She stood up, intending to go into the tent.

"Don't go in yet, or you'll miss the show", Suigetsu said as he emerged from the bushes, his tone holding more amusement than Karin deemed safe. She raised her brows in suspicion but sat down anyway. If Suigetsu was this happy, then whatever he was referring to promised to be rather interesting. Or at the very least, it would prove to be amusing. She needed to have her spirits lifted, anyway.

Suigetsu sauntered over to where she sat and plopped down beside her. He looked up at Juugo and gestured for him to sit down as well, which the latter did.

"What exactly are we waiting for?", she asked, her tone antagonistic, as it always was whenever she spoke to Suigetsu.

"Just wait," was the answer. He didn't even bother to look at her. Indignant, Karin glared at Suigetsu but did as she was told. Mimicking Suigetsu, she rested her elbow on her knee and propped her chin up on her hand and looked towards the thick foliage from where her teammate emerged earlier.

Minutes passed, and she was about to give up and whack Suigetsu on the head for good measure. But she sensed a familiar charka signature coming nearby, along with one that was very faint. She sat up straight, doubly curious about the turn of events. She looked at Suigetsu in confusion but the boy only grinned at her.

Sure enough, Sasuke came from the same direction that Suigetsu did. Only, he wasn't really alone. In his arms, he was carrying a girl, and she saw it, she saw it in his very countenance, it was so painfully obvious that there was no way she could twist it in her mind enough to be able to deny it – he was gentle.

To her side, Suigetsu started guffawing like a madman, which made their leader throw him a withering look. She continued to watch as Sasuke walked towards the fire, still holding the girl as if she would break. Oh, the girl looked fragile, alright. Pink hair and pale skin, she looked as frail as a flower. But she wasn't even injured, as far as Karin could tell. Unconscious, true – but that was probably Sasuke's doing.

And she couldn't help but wonder, was there anything wrong with her? Because she was breaking…

God, she was actually breaking... why wouldn't anybody be gentle with her?

Suigetsu was almost doubled over in laughter now, which also doubled the intensity of Sasuke's glare. Juugo had moved closer to Sasuke, wishing to assist their leader in any way he could. Nobody even noticed her leave the circle.

TBC.