A/N: Thanks for the support that everyone has given! I appreciate your comments. I'm not going to even attempt to promise that this is going to end up epic length, but I actually have this one sketched out. Yay me.

I will, however, reiterate that this fic will be written in limited 3rd person, and Sakura will be the only narrator of this story. She's also (at this moment) a thirteen year old who thinks she's mature.

Chapter 1

Everything had gone to flames. Down to hell. To shit, as far as she was concerned. That was why it had taken almost three weeks for the village of Konoha to properly commemorate their fallen Hokage. She wasn't even sure what exactly had happened since no one had explained it to her, but it seemed like Orochimaru had killed him. Or at least, that was the short form of the tale that they were making public.

She stared out at the stiff rows of black that extended maybe a half mile on all sides of her. Even Naruto, who stood to her left, was appropriately somber, having not said a single thing since the ceremony had begun. She had been afraid he would break into loud, breaking sobs and disturb everyone else, but the tears leaked from his eyes in a steady, silent stream, the uncharacteristic silence broken only they collided with the muddy ground. Sasuke-kun was easily the stone-cold version of that silence, though she didn't dare turn to confirm his usual flat expression. His mood had been nothing short of thunderous toward her lately, despite her countless apologies. The only thing that stopped her from breaking down into tears upon each rejection was the knowledge that he had become like this toward everyone, especially those without the force or authority to distract him from his brooding. Kakashi-sensei was the only person she personally knew who had managed to make him speak in complete sentences after the event, and had, for once, showed up on time to an important occasion, though currently he stood closer to the casket near the other jōnin sensei, his silvery white hair a shining beacon in the sea of black.

It was safe to say that everyone, shinobi and civilian alike, had been at least startled by the village's loss. While likely less than a tenth of the village had actually gone to the funeral itself, she had no doubt that there would be a steady stream of visitors to show their appreciation for months afterward. The only question that remained was who was to take over the helm. As a genin, she wasn't privy to much more than the average civilian-possibly less, she supposed, considering that civilians were at least allowed to openly gossip about such affairs. Shinobi were held by a different statute of laws, though she was well-aware that if one's rank was high enough, the village was willing to ignore all but the worst offenses.

What she had been able to hear, however, had admittedly surprised her. They were bringing back one of the legendary Sannin to take the lead. The Senju princess. A woman who made the history books in a world where men wrote them. Not that she thought that anything would change; Konoha was a giant machine, and its cogs ran with or without the almost decorative switch that sat upon the top of it.

Yes, Konoha would be fine. The only thing that really worried at her at the moment was Sasuke-kun, who, while never having been particularly receptive to her advances (she was willing to admit the obvious), had never shut her out like this before. The last time she had even touched him had been during exams, when he had shut down her plea for help on his behalf. She desperately wanted to confront him, let him know that she was still there for him, that whatever had happened during the Gaara confrontation wouldn't change that. Positive reinforcement. She had been told that ages ago, and the philosophy had its uses.

But she couldn't. Not just as a teammate. Teammates just didn't do that sort of thing. Not even teammates like Naruto.

"Hey Forehead."

"Pig." She replied flatly, looking up from her lunch that she had gotten from the hospital cafeteria. She almost regretted doing so though, confronted with easily one of the most beautiful faces of their generation. The girl's sleek blonde ponytail fell perfectly over one of her slim shoulders as she slid her bag off her shoulders. To this day, she still didn't know why Ino had chosen to become friends with someone like her. Pity, maybe. She had been a pathetic child, friendless and clanless and without the personality to overcome those barriers.

The blonde sat down next to the seat in which she had placed her bag, crossing her legs and settling in, her posture the perfect mix of primly straight and casually lounging. Occasionally Sakura wished that she could sit like that, like she owned the place, but it was something that felt distinctly out of her reach, just like Sasuke-kun. Or chūnin. It had been a miracle that she had even managed to tie the girl as it was, even if she hated to admit it.

"So how have things been going?" Ino asked as she took out her own bento.

"Okay, I guess." Sakura sipped at her tea in a way she hoped looked kind of dainty. "Not much to do until everyone recovers."

"I feel that," Ino said before taking the first bite of her meal. She swallowed. "Shika doesn't even have that excuse and he refuses to do anything. Training has been such a pain lately, that lazy bastard." Her face softened the slightest bit. "But at least Choji's completely recovered. He's still got to go in for regular check-ups though."

Sakura didn't say anything, only putting down her tea bottle to shove another bite of her half-finished meal into her mouth. Perhaps Sasuke-kun's brooding was beginning to catch.

"What's wrong? You seem almost morose." The lightness to her tone faded to worry almost immediately, and Sakura felt the slightest bit guilty.

"It's not that Pig.. I'm just a little worried. Both of them still haven't been released." She had been visiting Sasuke-kun everyday, regardless of whether he had allowed her to see him.

"Is Sasuke-kun okay?" Ino asked in some tone that Sakura couldn't quite decipher.

"That's the thing Ino," the blonde perked up, "I.." she dropped her voice to a whisper, "don't think he's doing well."

Ino just shrugged. "Tsunade-sama is in charge of his case, isn't she?"

"It's not that.." Sakura trailed off, feeling like she was eight all over again, her ability to express herself completely stripped. She looked down at her hands, to the nails she finally managed to stop chewing. When she looked up again, Ino was still looking at her in between bites of food. It would have been uncomfortable, if something inside her hadn't warmed at the side, her vocal chords slowly unfreezing.

"He's angry all the time." The visible effort it took Ino to not roll her eyes was visible, and Sakura felt herself smile just a little. "Not like that. It's different. He's angry at everyone. Kakashi-sensei, Naruto... me."

She could barely bring herself to look into Ino's eyes, picking up her tea as a barrier.

"You know.. it's just a rumor, but I heard that.." Ino's eyes were serious.

"It's not like I'm going to tell anyone, Pig," she said lightly as she took a sip, trying to assure the blonde that she was fine. Which she was. It wasn't like she had anyone to tell anyway. She highly doubted that her aunt was interested in the daily ongings of shinobi life.

Ino didn't look particularly convinced, but the importance of what she had to say had apparently overruled her worry of Sakura's emotional stability. Which, she thought absently, was pretty significant considering how the girl had walked on eggshells around her after exams. Believing that you'd found out your best friend had an inner personality that she refused to let out tended to have that effect. But the girl hadn't reported her to the psychiatric ward, so Sakura was pretty sure she was in the clear. That would have torn their already shaky friendship to shreds before they had a chance to repair it-especially since Sakura wasn't crazy.

"That mark that he got from Orochimaru, it's a seal." Ino inhaled shakily, "A cursed seal."

"A seal," Sakura repeated, putting down her bottle of tea. But that shouldn't have had any effect on his personality... seals could only limit, not change things.

The blank look on her face must have spoken volumes, because Ino elaborated. "Cursed seals can manipulate minds, Sakura. With temptations, feelings. It's like a chakra virus."

Sakura went pale. That she understood. The idea of something that had become so intrinsic to her becoming foreign and speaking to her... if it had been her, she might have gone insane.

"D-does everyone know?" She had to ask. She had to know whether she was just that one idiot that went to the hospital every day because she didn't know better.

"No, I don't think so." Ino looked thoughtful. "I picked it up from one of Dad's conversations with a new jutsu I was learning." Then she frowned. "He probably knows that eavesdropped on him, but he hasn't said anything about it, so I think he knew I wasn't going to tell anyone. 'Cept maybe you."

"Thanks for telling me, then," Sakura managed shakily. She took a deep breath before picking up her tea again.

"I wouldn't worry too much about it. From what I hear, a bunch of the jōnin are working on it. Just be there for him. Positive reinforcement, right?" Ino smiled gently, before reaching for her own drink.

Yes. Positive reinforcement. So Ino had been the one that had tell her about that. Look forward, not backward. There was nothing she could have done against Orochimaru, except get killed. There was nothing she could do about the seal either... or was there? She hadn't even known seals could do that. Then again, she hadn't known lightning was an element until she had read through her Academy textbooks, so she was probably missing quite a bit of information. She also didn't have a clan to tell her these kinds of obvious things, or to guide her to fix the gaps in her knowledge. And fixing it herself was too daunting.

But at least now, she had a teacher. Kind of. It wasn't like he had anything to do either, with both of his other pupils still in the hospital, so she almost didn't feel bad about bothering him. Even though she knew she would end up on the receiving end of one of those sighs that made her wonder why he had bothered to become a jōnin sensei in the first place.

"Forehead?" Ino waved a hand in front of her face.

Sakura recoiled, barely managing to avoid falling out of her chair. "Yeah Pig?"

"I'm serious. Don't obsess about it."

Sakura frowned. "I'm not obsessing over it."

"You obsess over everything that involves Sasuke-kun."

"That would be you, Pig."

Ino raised her darkened blonde eyebrows. "And who was the one that refused to share?"

"He's not an object," Sakura bit out, uncomfortable.

"Look, I'm not saying that you can't handle it," Ino made a pause here, which Sakura thought pretty much derailed the meaning of the sentence, "but sometimes you just have to trust."

"I trust." She did trust authority figures. Compared to Sasuke-kun and Naruto she might have well been Miss Teacher's Pet.

"No, you don't. The worst part is that you don't even admit it."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"See?"

"I'm perfectly sane." Sakura crossed her arms.

"I never said you weren't." Ino looked wary.

"The look you gave me after the Exams begged to differ," Sakura said dryly.

There was a pause. "I just wasn't expecting the voice, okay?" Ino said, sighing.

"What voice."

Ino looked borderline concerned. "The one that was screaming profanities when I tried to possess you."

"There was no voice." Sakura said flatly. She was pretty sure she would have noticed whether there was another presence inside her head.

Ino sighed again, and Sakura gritted her teeth. "Fine, there was no voice."

She thinks I'm fucking crazy! Her mind spat out. And she most definitely was not crazy. There wasn't another person in her head, guiding her decisions. There wasn't even a voice to discuss her actions with. She was insanely balanced. She hadn't declared her desire to be a murderer or Hōkage or anything like that either. She was normal. Well, ignoring her current status as a shinobi, she was.

"I. Am. Fine." She managed to bite out. "But thank you for your concern Ino."

Ino sighed a third time, but didn't respond verbally, instead distracting herself with her food.

I can't believe her! Does she think that she knows everything just because her clan deals with minds? If anything, it was creepier that the girl's most powerful jutsu basically involved subjugating someone's mind. Yeah, with that sense of normal..

She finished the rest of her meal quickly, ignoring Ino's gaze which was surely on her. After she set down her chopsticks, she was ready to gather her stuff and leave when Ino's voice stopped her.

"I mean it, Sakura. Positive reinforcement."

She could have cried tears of frustration about how kind Ino was making herself seem, when really, the blonde was the bitch in this scenario. Real friends didn't accuse one another of being insane.

But she held herself too high to bother squabbling about that again. Instead she said, "I'll always be by his side." Without you needing to remind me, was the implication, and based on the look on the blonde's face, she had definitely picked it up. But the look in her aqua eyes was neither hard nor judging, just open and indecipherable, which made Sakura look away on reflex. She walked away heavily, not bothering with the light prim, steps that she usually attempted.

She found him outside of his bed, looking outside the window.

"It's sealed shut," she said unnecessarily.

He grunted, but didn't move from his position. She took his lack of outright rejection of her presence as a positive sign, and moved to stand behind him before losing the courage and sitting on the bed. From this angle, she could see the mark clearly, three black extended dots that marred his otherwise perfect-looking skin.

"Does it hurt?" She couldn't help but ask, even though she knew her chances of getting an answer were slim.

"Hn," he replied. She shrugged off her automatic frustration with his responses, instead attempting to figure out what he had meant. The muscles of his back still looked loose under his remaining bandages, so she was pretty sure that he wasn't in any sort of pain. So that had been a 'no' then.

"Have they, umm, figured out how to get rid of it?" she asked even more hesitantly, her voice barely above a whisper.

"I don't care." His vehemence surprised her, and she couldn't help but shiver.

Well I do, she wanted to say, but the words would never leave her mouth. Instead she asked, "How are you doing?" She cringed almost immediately after the words came out. He would never respond to that.

He didn't say anything, still staring out the window at something.

"What are you looking at?" She managed to raise the volume level of her voice to normal speaking range.

"Hn," he said. She would take that as a good sign.

"I, uh, just wanted to let you know that I'm here for you. And I care." She rushed the words out, blushing as they saturated the air.

He didn't say anything immediately, but he did turn to look at her. She would have counted it as a victory for not the hard look in his eyes and the set of his mouth.

"You don't really care."

She hadn't heard his voice in so long that it took a few seconds to register. "Of course I do," she said brightly. Positive, positive. "I l-"

"Shut up."

"But-"

"You're annoying."

She needed to tell him, needed to reinforce the fact that she was there to help him move past this, to go back to normal. "I love you," she said plainly. "But you're not being yourself."

He raised a single eyebrow.

"You were... kinder before," she managed before wincing at her word choice.

For a long moment, she was positive he was going to say nothing, and she would leave the silent room after a few more minutes like she did everyday, but he surprised her. "I was weak before."

"You weren't weak."

He scoffed. "To you, maybe. But to him..."

"Your brother?"

He grunted, which she was pretty sure implied an affirmative. She wasn't great at connecting the dots, but she would assume that he was the guy that Sasuke-kun was bent on killing. She had heard about the Uchiha Massacre. It had been impossible not to, even if she hadn't been enrolled at the Academy when it had happened. And it had been horrifying to hear about, let alone live it. She had asked her aunt about it once, when she had first been put on his team, and all she had taken from it was insanity and gore.

"You'll be strong enough to beat him in the future," she said, hoping that was a safe enough choice of words.

"Future?" Again with the vehemence, she thought, flinching. "I need power now."

She thought for a few moments about another safe answer. "How?"

He only grunted, and Sakura had about given up getting through to him when he muttered, "He's offering."

It took only a few seconds for Sakura to realize that he was talking about the seal. And Orochimaru. She shivered.

"You can't be serious."

Sasuke-kun crossed his arms.

"He's dangerous!"

"They're both dangerous," he said darkly.

"So what, you're going to defect?" The idea was almost laughable.

She was greeted with silence. Silence that spoke so clearly it was impossible to ignore.

"You would abandon us?" She looked hard for his reaction, because she knew, she knew that Sasuke-kun was still somewhere inside. The one that protected her, dealt with Naruto's ramen outings...

He stiffened just the slightest bit, the cords of muscle on his neck becoming minutely tighter. "He attacked Naruto."

She stiffened. Then why isn't he dead? Some dark part of her asked, and she promptly ignored it. "You.. can learn from Kakashi-sensei. He's strong right?" She could feel the desperation in her voice, and she despised it.

Silence. She sat there for a few more minutes before realizing that the conversation had ended.

"I... see you tomorrow Sasuke-kun," she said, before heading to the door.

He didn't respond.

She was panicking.

She didn't know how no one had noticed that there was something wrong. How had Kakashi-sensei not realized? Why had no one told her that Naruto had been attacked? How had she not noticed until now? She could feel a wave of despair coming upon her fast, and it hitched her breathing, the air coming out in desperate, panicked pants.

"Sasuke-kun," she couldn't help but whisper longingly. She wanted him to stay with her, them, and love. Or even just care. She needed him to want to stay with them, to need her as much as she needed him. But since he had said those words (or rather, not said anything at all), all she could dream about was an echo of emptiness, her eyes leaking the tears unconsciously.

After having woken up to a wet pillow, Sakura had decided that she needed to get herself together. She took deep, shaky breaths to calm herself down. She needed to think about her options. What could she do?

Ino's words echoed in her brain despite herself. 'Cursed seals can manipulate minds,' she had said. Maybe, just maybe, it was the seal talking then. Sasuke-kun really didn't know what he was talking about. He would forget about once he went to sleep and woke up again. That must have been it. That was why Kakashi-sensei hadn't found out sooner and stopped this madness.

But Kakashi-sensei wasn't an expert on seals. She wasn't aware of anyone in the village that was. And while the thought of having to do this herself made her want to vomit in nervousness, there was no one else she would trust with Sasuke-kun, who trusted almost no one at all. She had at least done some preliminary research on cursed seals after her conversation with Ino, but the results of that foray had been disappointing at best. According to modern texts on cursed seals (at least those available to genin clearance), the mark's influence would only grow with time. She had at best a few months before the influence would corrupt his mind completely.

So she had about two months to get rid of it, or replace it with something else. Something that didn't whisper evil and abandonment in his ear under the guise of power.

A/N: Whew, well that was interesting. Feel free to guess how this story is going to turn out because I think I hinted pretty strongly at where this is going. It was incredibly hard to write Ino and Sakura's dynamic, but I think I've hit a vein that I like. Please let me know what you think. Ino won't be a main character by any means, but she is fairly important, especially since at this point she's Sakura's only friend (in case you didn't catch that).

We'll see Naruto next chapter.