Ok, second chapter

Thank you so much for the reviews! I was so inspired I wrote the whole next chapter in an hour. Keep in mind that this is only the beginning of the story, and all the questions will be answered by the end. After all, what story is good without suspense?

Ok, here's the second chapter! Review!

"I was running. Nothing else seemed real to me at the beginning, only the facts. I was fifteen, my name was Haruno Sakura, and I was running. It was barely night and the forest was dark…"

Blood dripped steadily down Sakura's torn and tattered clothes, covering her rosette hair with red and streaking her pale skin crimson.

The wounds aren't serious, the ninja kept telling herself, leaping over tree branches. Something brushed against her back and she bit back a scream-she couldn't make noise! They aren't serious. You'll be fine; this is a misunderstanding…

Then why are we running?

Sakura ignored the cold question posed by Inner Sakura-it brought up more of the truth then she was ready to take at this point. What point, exactly, was that? she wondered bitterly, swerving to avoid a barrage of kunai. Two struck her in the legs, and she gave a soft cry and pushed herself faster. The point when she was running from her own friends or the point when she had betrayed Konoha?

It wasn't Konoha we meant to betray, Inner Sakura grumbled angrily. You and I both know that. This was all them. Their entire fault.

We knew they would be baying for blood afterward, Sakura reminded her Inner, now forcing herself to face the truth she had avoided. We knew we would have to leave afterward. It was just too…

Tempting, Inner Sakura supplied accurately. And it was worth it. Even with this.

Was it?

Sakura wasn't that strong. She was an average ninja, and a gifted medic, but she wasn't strong like most of her friends. She didn't have Lee's mastery over one ninja art, or Naruto's raw power, or even Neji's brilliance and natural talent. No, Sakura was smart, and she was beautiful, but she wasn't strong. But she had managed to do something none of them had ever managed to do: break into pieces the reputation that had been imposed on her.

Sakura had left Konoha. And she knew everyone there, every one of her friends, would be asking each other the same questions: how and why. Why, why, why?

At this point, it really didn't matter. What did matter was finding a safe place to heal the wounds that slashed her stomach and back and now her legs, leaking blood all over her. What did matter was to run faster then the people behind her. What did matter was to avoid the hordes of Konoha ninja now chasing after her.

Gasping in pain, Sakura sped up and shoved her thoughts to the back of her mind. She had to find a safe place before she died from blood loss-before they caught her.

Three hours later, Sakura hunkered down in a cave, barely more then a reeking hole in the side of a mountain. There was barely room for her to fit-she sat curled into a ball, biting her lip as the raw wounds on her back scrapped against the rough stone. Body tense, she listened to the faint sounds of her pursuers as they ran farther and farther away from her, following her clones. If there was one thing she could do well, it was clones.

She took a deep breath and began to heal her wounds, hands glowing with green medical chakra. She was tired and aching, and only had enough chakra to partially heal herself.

She would scar.

We're already scarred, Inner Sakura pointed out roughly, trying to bring them out of their misery. Get over it. Every ninja is.

Not like this, Sakura told her Inner. Not this bad.

Is that really what's bothering us? That we're gonna be scarred? Inner Sakura snorted, but the sound was sad.

Sakura went back to healing herself. The question didn't need an answer.

When the wounds were as healed as possible, she took a kunai from the pouch at her thigh and untied her forehead protector. She stared at it for a second, at the cool, smooth metal, at the Konoha symbol etched so proudly into the band.

She drew a long, jagged scratch across it, quickly, almost angrily, marking her new status.

Sakura curled into a tighter ball and closed her eyes to start her first night as a missing-nin, bound by no one; loyal to no one but themselves.

"Oh, ew!" Suke exclaimed, breaking them out of the reverie. "Just how badly did you scar, anyway? Are you hideous underneath all those clothes? And you haven't told us why you left in the first place! Who are they?"

Haruna whacked a palm over her face.

"Baka!" Kai slapped Suke, hard, on the back of his head. "Will you let her tell the story, for Kami's sake? And you don't just go around asking hideously deformed people if they're hideously deformed!" The girl stopped and abruptly paled. "N-not that I think you're hideously deformed or anything, Haruno-sama…he…"

"Why?" Haruna asked the gods, looking upward with a pained expression. "Just why? That's all I'm asking. Haven't you done enough to me already? No, I absolutely had to get stuck with the only two teammates in the known world that would actually be stupid enough to insult an S-class missing-nin when they're genin?!"

Sakura, watching all this, just chuckled dryly. "If nothing else, you two are certainly just like your parents," she commented to Kai and Suke. "As to the story, maybe if you allow me to tell it I could actually answer your questions?"

Suke just nodded, red-faced.

"Alright, then; where was I…" Sakura settled back against the rock wall, closing her clear emerald eyes in reflecting. "Oh, right, first night as a missing-nin. I'm going to skip ahead a little, because nothing much happens for a time. This is when things started to get interesting…"

"It was about six months after that first night, not a long time when you're living in a village, but when you're a rogue ninja-especially a new one-six months is a blessing and an education. I'd gotten stealthier then when I'd lived in Konoha, and I was working as an assassin. Most rogue do at first; it racks up cash and a girl's gotta eat on the run. Anyway, I was in the woods near Rain…"

The forest was wet, and dead silent. The trees didn't rustle, the branches didn't shake, and there was pitch darkness under the cover of the trees.

Crouching on a tree branch, clothed in a black cloak that hid bright pink hair and blended seamlessly into the night, Sakura lips tilted up a few inches into a smile.

Silence. Dark.

The attack came from behind.

Sakura spun on the ball of one foot and unleashed a storm of kunai and shruiken at the two dark-clad figures that had appeared behind her. One dropped with a cry as the weapons tore at his body, pouring his lifeblood onto the ground, and Sakura vanished as the other landed on her branch, his katana still in the downward swing of a strike.

Sakura tsked lightly.

Reaching behind her carefully, she extracted two senbon from her pouch with a black-gloved hand. Eyes narrowed, she flicked back her wrist to throw-

-and vanished as a kunai with an explosive tag hit the tree behind her, sending it into a fiery explosion of flames in half a second.

Under the cover of the trees, Sakura cursed. She'd had the angle perfectly! Now she could see the ninja in a tree about five feet behind her, but there was no way she could hit him from her current position and moving would mean giving it away.

There's a boy coming into the forest. No, not a boy-a ninja. Why couldn't we sense him earlier?

Sakura's head snapped up in disbelief at Inner Sakura's words. There was a ninja, his face hidden in a dark cloak similar to hers, on a branch not ten feet away. How could she have missed him?

She knew he saw her. He was right opposite her, lean and broad-shouldered under the cloak. She could feel his chakra now, from here-more honed, more powerful then hers, by far. He was a missing-nin, too, that much was obvious-a village ninja would have attacked by now. But was he going to attack?

Dammit, she didn't have time for this! She had a client!

Sakura turned most of her attention back to the other ninja still looking for her, keeping a wary eye on the unknown visitor. Her target was still in the same position, still impossible to hit-

Sakura's eyes flickered to the unknown missing-nin.

Oh, no. Inner Sakura sensed what she was going to do a second before she did it. Don't you even think about-

Sakura flicked two senbon at the unknown nin.

He deflected them instantly, of course-he'd been watching her the entire time, after all-with a silent twist of a kunai knife. Her senbon shot through the air-

-and right into the neck of her target.

He dropped like a stone.

For a second Sakura sat there in mute astonishment, unable to believe that had actually worked. Then she remembered the other missing-nin.

The one more powerful then her.

Who she'd just attacked.

Damn.

He wasn't attacking. He was still watching her, waiting maybe for the next attack, or for her to start begging. After a brief tussle with herself, Sakura picked neither.

"Thank you," she called out, keeping her voice just audible enough for him to hear. She didn't know what he was here for, after all, and if she ruined whatever plans he had she was sure she'd be royally screwed. "I couldn't hit him from here; I just needed another angle."

"Hmm." The voice that replied was velvet smooth and silky, like chocolate, and it rang with quiet reassurance of what she'd already sensed-he was powerful. "An interesting plan. But you are new to our life, yes?"

Unsure how to answer this, Sakura nodded.

"Hm." The ninja stood. "If I were you, Stranger-san, I would make sure I could sense enemies before they were at your throat." Suddenly he was behind her. "And get quicker," he whispered, and then he was gone.

Sakura stood staring after him for a long moment, trembling in shock or fear; she wasn't sure. After a minute she shook herself and went to finish the job she had come here to do, killing a diplomat from Mist who was-as of now-unprotected.

Only later, as she was cleaning the blood off her weapons, did Sakura think about what the mysterious missing-nin had said. When she realized what he'd meant, she threw her kunai at a tree with a cry of outrage.

"Sense your enemies…before they're at your throat."

Even here, with all she'd improved upon, he considered her weak.

She could move through the forest soundlessly, but it took her less then a second to realize it must be a skill that all missing-nin learned sooner or later; otherwise they'd all get destroyed by hunter-nins eventually. She had the monstrous strength she'd inherited from Tsunade, but she couldn't use it here; it was too recognizable. She was a superb medic, but healing was only good for defense and you couldn't hit an enemy with a chakra scalpel if you couldn't even get close enough to touch them.

So it's true… Sakura was numb. I am still weak.

Back in Konoha, the realization would have made her cry for days. She would have lashed out; she would have cried, she would have demanded to spar with stronger friends who would go easy on her anyway…but she wasn't in Konoha anymore.

So? Inner Sakura prompted. What are we going to do about it?

Sakura took two kunai out from her pouch. Holding one up to her face, she began to hack off her already short hair, until it was just as short as a boy's, merely a mess of silky pink spikes framing her head.

What I've said I was going to do, but never did, Sakura replied calmly, but inside she seared with emotion. Get stronger on my own.

That's when she noticed something silver gleaming on the ground.

A sword?

What did you think? Good? I hope so.

Does anyone want to guess who the mysterious ninja was?