A knock on the door brought me away from my thoughts as I was getting ready for bed. Cracking open the door of my apartment slightly I was meet with the expressionless face of Sasuke.

"Sasuke? What can I do for you?" I asked opening the door for him.

Quickly walking into my apartment Sasuke silently strolled over to my couch as I locked the door.

"Ok, what's going on?"

Sasuke gave me a glare as I took a seat across from him, "What happened today?"

"You mean with the creepy hooded sandboy?"

"No, I mean with how you acted when the other one appeared."

"Sasuke I have no idea what you are talking about, Konohamaru was in trouble and,"

"Sakura, you just stood there ogling at him when he could have killed you."

"I really don't think that the situation was that intense."

Getting slightly irritated he shot me and ice cold look that seemed to ask me if I was stupid. "Did you not sense how powerful he was?"

"I mean yeah, but there are plenty of powerful ninja in this village."

"You shouldn't participate in the chunin exams."

Hearing that comment caught me so off guard I felt my checks turn slightly pink from surprise. Sasuke stood to leave, but I quickly stood and grabbed his shoulder to stop him. "And why do you say that?"

"You're too weak."

Feeling my blood begin to bubble over I took a step back from Sasuke and clenched my fist, "You have no idea what I can do."

"Well you weren't much help in the mist village, you're just going to get yourself killed."

With that, Sasuke left as quickly as he had come in.

It was no secret that everyone thought I was the weak link between the Uchiha prodigy and the powerful jinchuuriki Naruto, but they had no idea what I could do. No one has even given me a chance to show my talents, it's not my fault I'm stuck between two people who seem to have some divine destiny. I clenched my jaw in frustration, books from the shelves all around me began to topple to the floor. I sighed letting out a breath I didn't even know I was holding. I needed to stay calm, nothing good ever happens when I really let out my anger.

Picking up the books and putting them back in their place reminded me just why no one had seen what I can do. Since I was little I have always had this strange power that my family could never explain, it wasn't a power that most ninja had. I wasn't boiling over with strength and chakra, in fact what I could do didn't involve chakra at all. Because of the strangeness of my ability I was always told to hide it for my own safety, safety from others and myself.

Smiling to myself I remembered how my nisan would talk about how awful my tantrums were as a kid. Any anger or sadness would result in all kinds of chaos from things falling from walls to tornado like winds picking up around me and anything else with in the vicinity.

I decided to go ahead and begin preparing for bed, hopping getting a good night's rest would help me to sooth my irritation, but as I curled up in bed I seemed to only be able to stare at the ceiling in frustration at a situation that seemed to have no solution for now. I don't want to be some great ninja that everyone wants to be, but being pushed around as if there was no need for me didn't feel too hot either.

The next morning I quickly got ready for training. Thoughts of what Sasuke said last night darkened my mood but I pushed his words to the back of my mind. Passing through the streets I felt as if I was being watched, but everyone seemed to be minding their own business. Just as I was about to reach the bridge I was finally met with jade eyes. It was only for a second with in the moving bodies around me, but it wasn't hard to know where I had seen them. I had gazed into those eyes just the day before.

"Hey forehead!"

Jade was replaced with blue as Ino came bouncing towards me. She seemed to be in a very good mood and was dressed in an outfit that most definitely wasn't ninja attire.

"What are you wearing Pig?"

"Well I have a hot lunch date." She said with a smirk.

"Is that so? What about your Sasuke-kun?"

Ino's smirk turned into a dreamy daze at the thought of my teammate. "Sasuke will always be my number one, but you can't blame me for loving the attention that boys throw at me."

"I guess not." I replied with a laugh.

"O but I was wondering if you would like to have dinner with me and Hinata tonight. We figured that it would be nice to have a girl's night before all the Chunin Exam craziness begins."

I hadn't had the chance to see my friend Hinata in a while and the thought of getting to catch up with her and the pig put a smile on my face, "Sure that sounds wonderful."

"Yay! Well I don't want to be late so we will see you tonight," and with at Ino gave me a bone crushing hug and ran off to her date.

I turned to head to the bridge, but not without checking to see if my follower from before was still there, but he seemed to be gone. An involuntary sigh came from my lips as I walked. Why was he following me? Maybe he was just going the same way as me and noticed me but deep down I knew that wasn't the case, or maybe I didn't want that to be the case.

Kakashi arrived late as usual, Naruto pestered him about how a sensei should not be late and that he needed all the time to train to become Hokage, and then we all head out to the training grounds together. I made sure to stay away from Sasuke, but it seemed as if Sasuke was acting as if nothing had happened last night. It was hard to suppress the urge to show Sasuke how wrong he was about me, but I knew that it would do nothing but put me in a sticky situation. Plus Sasuke was my teammate, we needed to work together not against each other.

Training was just like any other day. We worked on chakra control and taijutsu, but any time I would slip up I felt as though Sasuke's eyes were bearing into my soul telling me I wasn't good enough. By the end of the session it almost felt as if I was going to snap and let every frustration strangle Sasuke to death. I found myself zoning out from Kakashi's lesson and focusing more on the betrayed feeling I felt welling up in my stomach.

"Sakura, what is going on?" I turned to look at Kakashi who had strolled up to Naruto and me.

Kakashi's voice pulled me from my thoughts. I gave him a quick smile apologizing for spacing out, "it was just hard to sleep last night with the thought of the chunin exams coming up so quickly."

Kakashi gave me a look that said he wasn't convinced. I glanced over at Sasuke, seeing the bored expression on his face made my thoughts from this morning creep back up. I bit my tongue as I felt my anger settle in my throat. Here I was pushing back my anger so that we could be a team, and it didn't seem like Sasuke even cared even the slightest bit that his words might have ruined our relationship as teammates. But then again I don't think he ever thought of me as a teammate, I was just someone in the way of him getting his precious revenge against his brother.

Making up my mind that I had every right to be angry at Sasuke I walked right up to him and gave him a sharp slap across the face.

"What the hell?" Sasuke growled at me.

It felt a rush as a small amount of frustration was released from that slap. "I should have done that last night."

I turned to leave, but was stopped by a very concerned looking Kakashi. "Sakura what has gotten into you?"

"Am I dismissed?" I chose not to look into my sensei's eye. He was like my father figure and I didn't need him trying to pry things out of me, and even though I held great respect for Kakashi a part of me was afraid he might agree with Sasuke. Kakashi has always tried his best to keep me safe on every mission to the point where sometimes I felt as though he had no faith in me either.

"Sakura you just slapped your team mate,"

"Yes and now I would like to leave, please. If you would like to know what is wrong with me why don't you ask the Uchiha, he is the one that caused this mess." It was a lot easier to direct their attention to Sasuke then risk having my own emotions bubbling over from an explanation.

Naruto took this as his que to ask what the Teme did to me, but I quickly told him that I didn't want to talk about it and looked back to Kakashi. The look on his face said he wasn't done with me but that if I left right now he would let it go for the time being. I took this opportunity by grabbing my bag and heading down the side of the stream that helped make one of the borders of our training grounds.

I didn't want to go into the town right now. The noise of the villagers that normally didn't bother me would drive me crazy right now, I felt on edge, so I headed to the end of the village and found a set under a tree right next to the wall that surrounded the leaf. I hated the secrets that I kept from team seven. Was I even apart of the team? None of them really knew who I was, and yet they don't suspect anything to be off about me. Sometimes I could barely think of the person I truly am. In all honestly I didn't really know who I was.

Every now and then I would find somewhere far from the village and think as hard as I could about my past. My memories never went past the age of six. It's almost like a wall was placed the day I met my Nisan. My nisan wasn't really my nisan, but he was the only family I ever had and his friends all took me in and raised me to be who I am today. I just wonder if one day, if I finally break that wall will I know who I am?

I glanced around and spread my chakera out to feel if anyone was around. When I didn't find anyone I turned my attention to the leaves that were sprayed across the ground. Slowly two of them swirled up into the air in a little dance. A small smile found its way onto my lips as I made the vibrant green leafs dance adding more into the mix. This was one of my favorite things to do as a child, making nature dance and sometimes joining the graceful free release. It helped me to believe in a future where one day I had no more secrets holding me down and I could soar up in the warmth of the sun.

"You were right."

The leaves floated to the ground and I found myself face to face with the same green eyes that I had seen in the streets. I froze in my spot. Where did he come from? There was no way he could have been here the whole time. Did he see what I was doing? The red head seemed to be looking into my soul, searching for something.

"I was right?" I asked breaking his concentration on whatever it was that he was doing.

"Not you." came his quick reply.

I glanced around and did a quick sweep of chakra to see who else had come with him, but there didn't seem to be anyone. A low snicker came from the boy, but there didn't seem to be any emotion within it. He seemed to be trying to size me up, like a predator with its prey.

His deep voice brought my eyes back to his as he asked me where I was from.

"I am from here, why would you ask such a stupid question?" The boy scowled at me and get a growl escape from deep in his chest. He moved closer and seemed to sniff the air around me. "Hey how bout you back off and,"

"How did you do that?"

Holding back the irritation from him cutting me off, I stood to head back to the village and decided not to reply.

"You weren't using any chakra. How?"

I kept walking, if I didn't look back maybe I could get out of here without anything weird happening. That thought was ripped away as my interrogator appeared right in front of my path in a swirl of sand.

"Where do you think you have gotten the authority to ask me about where I'm from and what I am doing in my personal time? If anything I should be asking you why you were following me around town today."

He seemed to study me and I begin to feel very uncomfortable under his gaze. All of the emotions that had been swirling in my head today were just about explode. His energy seemed to pry itself under my skin and all I could think about was wanting to get away. I wanted to be home, I wanted to be alone, and I wanted answers that I was never going to get.

I moved to bypass the sand nin that stood in front of me when sand shot up grabbing my ankles. As soon and the grains touched my skin it felt like everything that I held deep down ripped threw me. The sand crumbled and the body that was so close to me was thrown into a tree about 20 feet away. Shock seemed to paralyze Gaara as sand shielded him from the blow of the tree that was behind him.

I didn't know what to do, I didn't know what really happened, but my first instinct was to take off running towards the village.