WARNING!!!! SPOILER!!! For those who have NOT read the most recent Naruto mangas online, you might be a bit spoiled for what happens, or a bit lost. Don't worry, just either make up some excuse for what they're doing, or go to naurtofan.com to read the rest of it. In case that little half a URL didn't show, it's narutofan . com. An awesome awesome place. Love. Adore. SPOLER OVER!!!!

I just had to get this out. I kinda like it, but on the other hand, I think it's crap. Weird, huh? I had a large problem with tense in this one. Halfway through, it went to present tense, whereas the first half had been past tense. X.X;;; Frustrating, to say the least.

Anyways, more notes at the bottom, along with some thank yous!

*^^*

I'm leaving.

I'm going to find Gaara. I tried to be the good little girl, beg Sasuke to let me follow like a nice little puppy dog. I tried the tears, the simpering, the dewy fawn eyes.

And I hated every minute of the falseness of it.

Now that everyone but Lee is gone, I think I'll leave too. Gaara has become more and more invasive on my thoughts. I think about him constantly. I wonder if he is alright, if the ugly-yet-beautiful maroon has taken over his delicate sea foam yet. I'm tired of being Sakura. I'm tired of having this perky bright pink hair that anyone could spot out of a crowd.

So tonight, I'm going to leave. ANBU have already brought back the still body of Chouji. Neji is rapidly following him. They say that they're trying to locate the other three, but I think that I want to be gone before then. Whether it's actually from wanting to find Gaara or from not wanting to see my childhood die a brutal death, I can't really say.

I went outside this morning, putting a paper butterfly on Chouji-kun's freshly dug grave and giving the headstone a small kiss. Then I found a nice patch of sand and wrote Gaara a little letter.

'My love, I've been waiting long enough. I'm going to come find you before anyone comes back.'

The last thing I expected was to see the words melt, shift, and feel a small tendril creep it's way up my thigh and under my panties. Gaara had written me back.

'I'll be waiting. I'll leave a little sand with you to guide you to where I am.' Said sand rubbed against a sensitive place, making me squirm and whimper. 'I can't wait to taste you again.'

I gave a small gasp as the sand filled out, becoming longer, harder, thicker. A shallow thrust, then it retreated. 'We'll finish in a few days.'

I gave a slight nod, getting up to my feet. I almost stumbled and fell when the sand shifted, making sure every particle rubbed against me as it stuck to my stomach in a random design.

I swallowed. This was going to be a lot harder than I had first guessed.

Now, to make myself less.pink.

I waited until my parents had left, then walked confidently into the bathroom. I took a pair of scissors in my hand, considering myself in the mirror.

My Hidden Leaf forehead protector had long since been removed. My bright cotton candy floss-for-hair was spilling every which direction, and the ends were long and jagged. It looked like crap, in essence. So, humming a little ditty, I washed my hair thoroughly and combed it straight. I performed a small levitating jutsu to get a mirror to float behind me. Then I picked up the scissors, my new means of life, and got to work.

Thirty minutes later, I had a short bob that hugged my face, curling under my chin and getting shorter in back. I admired myself in my self-made mirror room. It was cute and sexy looking, making my face slim and giving me more depth, but it was still pink.

Now, I COULD have fixed that with a small Henge no Jutsu. Just used a little chakra to tint my hair any which way I wanted. However, once I went to sleep or became unconscious, I would lose it. Bright pink all over again, and the Henge would just use up my chakra anyways.

So I contented myself with performing Henge no Jutsu to make my hair go back to the way it was, and then walked out of the house, humming all the while. I got down to the local convenience store, stopping by Ino's flower shop on the way.

Good. Ino wouldn't be off work until six, and then she had to go straight home.

Perfect.

At the store, I looked at the range of hair dyes. All were permanent, in case a Shinobi should be on a mission and unable to return, the hair color they needed would stay, not blow their cover. Almost every color of the rainbow was there. There was NaurtoBlonde, KakashiGrey, SasukeBlack...even a SakuraPink. The real names of the colors went something like this...Bombshell Blonde, Glistening Grey, Midnight Black, Bubblegum Pink.

I really hated this section.

But my new color for my new life, with Gaara...I should pick a color that represented new life. I wandered over to the lighter end of the spectrum, where Kakashi's color would've most likely been placed, and beyond it.

I picked up a small box that showed a girl a few years older than me, sitting on a stone shrine, bright shining locks flowing down her back and over the shrine. She had round blue eyes that stared at the camera innocently, one finger of one hand resting lightly on her slightly opened mouth. A simple cerulean shift hugged her curves, and her dainty pale feet were bare for the world to see. In short, she looked like something a man would want to rub himself against, only to hear her soft whimpers and feel her small girlish body against his. Absently, I wondered if she was a porn star or not.

But that wasn't important. What was, the color of her hair. That glowing mass was the color of diamonds. White so pure it almost hurt to look at it. I wanted that hair, I knew it. Pure white, pure life. A new life. With Gaara, forever.

I paid for the box up front, the cashier's eyes lingering on the girl's long white legs before snapping up to meet mine, guilty pleasure riddling his face with pink. "Ah...nice choice. V...Virgin Snow isn't very popular, but that's because many people can't wear it well." Again, another peek at that forbidden skin, made even paler by the slight tumble of her hair. Lust-dilated pupils looking at me again. "I'm sure that you'll look wonderful in it, Shinobi-san."

I nodded slightly, taking the cheap paper bag out of his hands. The kind of paper bag you get from liquor stores, or from adult places where the public isn't allowed to see the contents. The girl on the cover, she's beautiful enough to be considered erotic, I suppose. At any rate, the sand clenching against my stomach and slithering sensually down towards my panties reminds me of what Gaara thinks of me.

I'm worthy of being put in one of those paper bags too.

Tonight, I'll go to meet Gaara.

But first, I need to make myself look like Virgin Snow.

*^^*

Alright, that wasn't very bad, was it? Now, for some notes:

The girl on the box, I was actually thinking of Aura from .hack//SIGN at the time. And then I imagined her in a Chobits Chii pose, on the cover of a hair dye box. Weird, ne? And I have decided to make this something of a chapter story, adding on once in a while. Now, Sakura's going out to find Gaara, and in the next chapter, she'll probably still be looking for him.

THANK YOU!!!!

24 reviews on the first chapter???? YOU GUYS ROCK MY WORLD!!!! I have a little system to see if a story is good or not. 10 reviews per chapter=good. 20 reviews per chapter=good enough to keep watch on. LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!

Fanart would be adored, by the way. ^^

SPECIAL THANK YOUS!!!

Nocturnemint: SQUEE!!! You reviewed! Squee squee SQUEE!!! And you updated! DOUBLE SQUEE!! JustAnotherPilotDown: First review! COOKIE FOR YOU!!!! The first person to acknowledge my work, LOVE!

Kasiree: You reviewed TWICE!! And I'm on your favorites list! *-* Love love love! It was actually your second review that kicked my ass into working order. ^^;; Heh heh heh...

Everyone else!!: Don't worry, I didn't forget about you, but it was those three reviewers that made an extreme difference in my writing. ^^ I usually only go on writing spurts when I've been inspired, and Kasiree inspired me.

However, ALL feedback makes me want to write more. Without all 24 reviews (SQUEE!!! *-*) There is no way that Chakra would've continued. At all.

Ever.

If you put me on your favorites list, let me know and you'll get rewarded with a cookie next update!