I bent down and inspected the flower. I was in the northern part of Fire and it was starting to get chilly. Luckily, I had packed a jacket with me otherwise I would've been SOL.

The flower was indeed the one I was looking for. I pulled a storage scroll out of one of the jacket's pockets and unrolled it. I quickly harvested the flowers, leaving a few to reproduce more flowers. I sealed the flowers in the scroll and quickly rolled it back up and put it back in its pocket.

"You're Haruno Sakura, aren't you?" A voice asked from behind me.

I turned. A man was standing in the shade of the trees. I couldn't make out his features but a feeling of uneasiness swept through me.

"Who's asking?" I replied.

"You have all of her characteristics: the gaudy pink hair, knowledge of rare plants, the Konoha symbol."

"Then she must be me right?" I asked.

I could feel his eyes studying me. "You're going to have to come with us now, Haruno-san." He said after a few moments. "You can make this easy on yourself and we won't even have to knock you out."

"Who are you?" I asked.

"That is for me to know, and you to find out." He said cryptically. Then blackness enveloped me. I wasn't exactly unconscious but I couldn't move my body at all. I couldn't see anything. I suspected I was caught in some kind of genjutsu. I tried breaking it, but it was no use.

"Be careful with her. The master doesn't want her damaged." The man said. I felt strong arms hoist me up and then I was thrown over someone's shoulder. This someone had to be very large. The ground felt very far away and his shoulders were very broad.

I bounced along on this brute's shoulder for quite a while. The men didn't speak, but by the sound of their footsteps there had to be at least ten.

It got steadily colder as time went on and soon my body couldn't help but shiver in an attempt to keep me warm.

We traveled for maybe another hour before I heard the scrape of a metal door against rock and warmth enveloped me. My limbs tingled painfully as warmth seeped back into them.

I lost track of where the men took me. We took so many turns it was impossible to remember. It felt like they took detours just to confuse me.

Then the brute was lowering me onto a chair and the darkness was removed from around me. I found my hands and legs had been tied to the chair with simple rope. Who did these people think I was? Some genin? I didn't train for hours every day to be trapped by rope. I was tempted to rip through them right that instant, but decided to bide my time.

"Hello, Haruno Sakura. I've been waiting to meet you for a very long time." A man said. He was leaning against a table with his arms crossed over his chest. He was much taller than I was and had shaggy blonde hair that often fell into his dark eyes.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"Three years ago, you and that blasted team of yours raided my home and killed my parents. I believe it was that damn Uchiha who dealt the killing blow. They were about to kill me too, but you asked that I be spared. You shouldn't have done that. Now I'm going to kill you to send a message to your village. You don't destroy things precious to me and get away with it."

I struggled to remember that particular mission. Team Kakashi had been dispatched to investigate a potential human trafficking port. At first glance, we thought Tsunade had been mistaken as it seemed to be a simple family on a simple farm, but when we investigated the barn we found hundreds of naked girls in chains. They had begged us to help them and it had broken my heart to leave them there for the few hours until dark. We had made a plan and as he'd said Sasuke had killed the parents. I was the one charged with helping the girls. They seemed to be afraid of the boys and in those moments I wished another girl had been with me. We'd eventually gotten them all to safety but it had taken a while.

He straightened from the table and came close to me. He knelt down in front of my chair and looked up into my eyes. "I see you remember. You were right in thinking that I had no idea what my parents were doing but those girls deserved it! They were little sluts who ran away from home. My parents were all I had and your team took them away from me and now I'm going to take you away from yours." He said angrily.

He stepped back and took a few deep breaths to calm himself. "You see, I've been running various illegal businesses from this hideout, hoping your team would come to break it all up, but they never did. When I caught wind of your little solo mission I knew it would be the perfect opportunity to spirit you away."

This must have been the rogue ninja base Tsunade had sent Itachi and I to destroy… only we never had because Itachi and I had our falling out.

The man pulled a sharp dagger out of a sheath by his side. "Now, it's time for you to die. Don't worry we'll send your body back to Konoha so you can be buried with the rest of your fallen comrades."

As he approached I gathered chakra in my hands and feet. He was leaning down to slit my throat when I ripped out of the bonds. I turned the dagger around a stabbed him with it in his side. He fell to his knees. I put my hand on the top of his head and he was immediately knocked out.

Working quickly I pulled out one of my empty storage scrolls and deposited his body into it. Luckily they had been too stupid to take away my supplies. Not that I had very many weapons anyway, but still I'd need everything to fight my way out of here.

I pressed my ear against the door. I channeled chakra to strengthen my hearing and heard someone breathing on the side. I backed up a step or two and then kicked down the door. The door flew down the hallway. The hallway was lined with lights at equal intervals with doors between them.

The doors up and down the hallway opened and people rushed at me. I had to be careful with my strength, as we appeared to be underground. I didn't want the tunnels to collapse on top of me. I suddenly felt angry that I was in this situation. If Itachi hadn't been a total ass, I wouldn't have been in this situation, yet here I was. I let my anger rush over my and prepared myself for the oncoming rush of enemies.

The first man reached me. I grabbed the punch he'd been throwing and slammed him against the wall. I grabbed the knife off his belt and slashed at the next guy, catching his chest. He pulled out his own knife. I merely ducked beneath his next swing and stabbed him in the heart. I pulled the knife out and slowly battled my way down the hallway.

Soon, I was covered in blood and the hallway was littered with bodies. I heard a groan somewhere behind me. I followed the noise to a man whom I'd stabbed in the side. He would bleed out in a matter of minutes.

"How do I get out of here?" I asked, kneeling down.

"Go fuck yourself." He replied.

I pushed my fingers into his wound and he screamed. "Do you have a proper response now?" I asked.

"Take every right and you'll eventually find your way out." He replied weakly. His skin was almost paper white and I knew he was about to die.

"Thank you." I said as I stood up and walked away.

I took the next few rights and could only hope he'd been telling the truth. I didn't come across anyone else for a while. Then an alarm went off. I was surprised it had taken them this long to discover the hallway of death. These people were amateurs. Itachi and I could have taken them out in a matter of minutes.

I only had half my chakra left so I would have to be careful fighting the rest of these idiots. Even idiots could get lucky and land a hit.

I heard the pounding of feet and orders being shouted and I knew the enemies were almost on me. I looked around for somewhere to hide and decided on a little niche between the lights. Boots stomped past and when the last guy was passing me I slashed the tendon in his knee. He screamed and fell to the ground. I quickly broke his neck.

I managed to take down three more before those at the front caught on that something was very wrong. The hallway was narrow just like all the others so they could only come at me one at a time.

I worked my way through them. I was on the leader when I heard the whistle of a knife. I wasn't able to move out of the way fast enough and it sliced through my side.

I picked it up and used it to kill the leader then I went down the hall and broke every last one of their necks to make sure they were dead.

My side was throbbing and it was soon covered in blood. I used as little chakra as possible to stitch the skin back together to prevent more blood loss. That didn't help the damage on the inside though.

I finally reached a wide room with huge doors. It was colder here than it had been in the rest of the base. This must be the exit. I headed for the doors.

There was a quiet noise behind me. I turned around. Standing there was a giant of a man. This must have been the one who carried me here. He held a massive sword in his hand. He took a menacing step forward.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." I warned.

He let out a battle yell and charged at me. For such a big man he was surprisingly agile. He managed to dodge my blows.

We exchanged more blows with neither of us getting the upper hand. We clashed and then sprung away from each other. We were breathing hard. My chakra was extremely low and I knew I'd have to defeat him soon if I wanted to get out of here alive.

I brought my hands together to form the signs of a genjutsu Sasuke had helped me master for my birthday. I had just enough chakra to perform it.

The man froze and I knew what he was seeing. Beautiful Sakura trees surrounded him. Petals were falling softly to the ground, only when they met skin they would burn like acid.

Right on cue, he started screaming. He started scratching at his skin opening huge cuts. Blood streamed from his arms.

I couldn't watch it any longer. I walked behind him, jumped up and broke his neck with a twist of my hands. I jumped out of the way of his body. It fell with a loud thud and then was still, forever.

I looked around. The base was completely still. I was alone; not another single being was alive. The anger that had swept through me earlier was completely gone.

Dizziness swept over me. That would be the chakra exhaustion rearing its ugly head.

I fell to my knees, my body unable to support my weight. Black spots filled my vision and I could tell I was going to black out soon.

I reached into my vest and pulled out the scroll Naruto had given me for my eighteenth birthday.

It spilled open and I ran my blood-covered hand over the symbols. Then the darkness completely covered my vision. I thought I heard someone yell my name, but it might've just been my imagination.

"-supposed to know they were targeting her, Naruto?" Tsunade's voice filtered angrily through my head.

I opened my eyes slightly and saw the two of them standing at the foot of my bed. I felt pressure on my hand and looked over to see crimson eyes staring at me worriedly. I was unable to identify which Uchiha it was as my eyes started to slip closed once more.

"She's awake!" I heard him exclaim right before I fell back into the abyss.

My dreams were filled with horrifying images of dead friends and crimson eyes staring evilly. The final vision was of myself sitting on a throne of dead bodies.

My eyes flashed open and I took in a deep breath of air. It wasn't real. They were just bad dreams.

"You know you had everyone really worried." A voice said.

I jumped a little and looked over to see Itachi looking out of the window. I was unsure of what to say. Things felt so awkward between us now. I couldn't see him as my teammate anymore.

"I was worried." He said quietly.

"You don't get to worry about me anymore." I said angrily. He ruined everything. We couldn't even be teammates now.

"Why? Because you're with Shisui?" He made his cousin's name sound like a curse.

"No, because you hurt me. You made me feel like an idiot. Shisui told me that you talked to him about me. Why didn't you tell me how you felt?" I asked, needing to know.

"Because I didn't want to change what we had between us."

"Well it's too late for that now, isn't it?" I asked.

"Why didn't you talk with me about it? We could've worked it out. Why did you have to leave? When they brought you in, you looked… you looked dead. I thought you were dead, Sakura!" Itachi said turning and stalking towards my bed.

I cringed away from him. I'd never seen him like this before. He was always so calm and collected. "I'm sorry." I said in a small voice.

"I don't know what I would've done if you died." He whispered, reaching up and cupping my cheek. He sat on the edge of my bed.

The warmth of his hand seeped into me and I realized I'd missed him. He helped keep me calm and logical, when all I'd been lately was hot headed and reckless and angry.

"Your team checked out the base while you were recovering. There was no one left alive. You killed everyone there singlehandedly." Itachi informed me.

"I thought so." I replied, looking down at my blanket. It didn't feel right to be proud of that amount of slaughter. Maybe my hands were blood-soaked but that didn't mean I took pride in it.

Itachi lifted my chin with his fingers. "I'm proud of you for surviving. Not very many people would be able to survive that kind of onslaught." I felt myself blush and looked away from his eyes.

He cocked his head, listening. Then he leaned in and left a light kiss on my forehead.

When the door opened, he was already gone.

I was discharged later that morning. The nurses fussed over me until Tsunade ordered them to attend to their other patients.

She informed me that the man I had stored in the scroll was now in the Interrogation Department. They hadn't gotten anything out of him yet but Tsunade was positive he would crack soon.

"Now I believe you have some visitors." She said with a smile. She went to the door and opened it. Sasuke, Naruto and Kakashi spilled inside. Well, Naruto did.

"Sakura! You're ok!" Naruto said. He jumped on the bed and pulled me into a hug.

"I'm not helpless anymore, Naruto. I can handle myself." I replied.

"I'm just glad you had my scroll on you. You scared the crap out of me when I saw you!" he scolded. "Although I think it's safe to say that we're all impressed with what you did. Everyone in the village is talking about it. We couldn't even identify some of the bodies!" Naruto continued gleefully.

"Um, thanks." I replied. I was still uncomfortable with the thought of all that death on my hands.

"I knew you could handle yourself, Sakura." Kakashi said, giving me an eye crease.

Sasuke uncharacteristically reached out and squeezed my hand. I smiled at him and though he would probably never admit it out loud I could tell he cared for me in his own way.

The door banged open, hitting the wall as Shisui rushed in. "I heard she was awake?"

The others parted, allowing him to see me.

"Sakura…" he breathed. He stumbled to the bed. He was looking down at me with an unreadable look.

"Naruto, let's go." I heard Kakashi say.

"But why? We just got here." Naruto protested.

"I'll buy you ramen." Kakashi offered.

Then Shisui and I were alone in the hospital room.

"Why did you leave? You didn't even write a note? I thought something had happened to you." He said.

"I had to figure out how I wanted to go forward and I didn't want you to be with me. It's not like I planned to be kidnapped." I replied.

"You could've died. I can't believe you took on all those people by yourself. You should've called for back-up." He told me.

"I handled them perfectly. I was barely even hurt. Do you think I'm not capable enough to protect myself?" I asked, a little hurt.

"No, but you wouldn't have been hurt at all if you had called for back-up." He replied.

"That would've taken too long. I might've been injured while I was distracted trying to call for back up. It wasn't an option."

Shisui leaned away from me. "I just can't believe you would be so reckless with your life."

"I wasn't reckless. I barely got hurt. I'm just in here from chakra exhaustion."

"You could have died, Sakura. What if you had missed someone? What if you didn't have that scroll on you? This village needs you. I… need you." He said, avoiding my eyes.

I didn't have an answer for him. I still felt like he doubted my abilities. Like he thought I needed back up.

I quickly removed all the tubes and needles embedded in my skin and then pulled the covers off my legs. I got out of bed and went to the metal closet in the corner of the room. As I had expected there was a set of scrubs in there. I untied the thin gown and quickly slipped on the scrubs.

"Where are you going?" Shisui asked me.

"Training. You don't think I can defend myself, then fight me." I told him.

I slid open the window and crouched on the sill. "Well?" I asked.

He grimaced but followed me out the window.