A/N: I know I just updated yesterday, but I got suddenly just got to writing and couldn't stop. I know this chapter is a little shorter than the other ones, but I hope you enjoy!


Sakura ran her hands through her hair as her body became weak and she began to shake. She had only ever seen that look in his eyes one time, and that was whenever Itachi had come to Konoha. Sakura furrowed her eyebrows as she thought. Even though the hate was so apparent in his face, it didn't seem to be aimed at her, and it didn't show up until she mentioned more blood on his hands.

'Sasuke...'

She sighed as she closed her eyes and remembered the time in the hospital that she hugged him, Sasuke had never been one for close proximity, but that day he hadn't stopped her from the tight embrace. She believed that was only because he'd already known he was going to leave. Sakura had never imagined leaving the village would have entailed this to happen, but Sasuke was a rogue ninja, so she supposed she should have known he could have been at least seen while she was out.

Sakura exhaled and opened up her eyes, standing up and starting to stretch. She had a goal, and she wouldn't let anyone stand in the way of that. Not even Sasuke...


Sasuke stood leaning on a tree, breathing slowly to calm his raging heart rate. Sakura's words had really stuck with him, but something had told him that it wasn't just her words that impacted him, but who they came from.

The old Sakura would never have told him a thing like that. She would have cowered down to him, not poked him on the chest and looked directly into his eyes as he threatened to take her life. She would have fawned all over him, and instead she sat down, ignoring him, so she could meditate. Who was this woman?

"...Another death Uchiha Sasuke is responsible for..."

Sasuke turned around and punched the tree in anger as the words rang over and over in his mind. He knew he was a fuck up, Kami, how he knew. All she did was remind him of that. What was she doing here, anyway? Sasuke jumped up into the tree and ran from branch to branch with clenched fists back to the clearing, he was going to find out just what her intentions were.


Sakura pulled her hair up into a bun and rubbed away the hairs sticking to her sweaty face. It had been hours since Sasuke left, and she was sure that meant he wouldn't come back. She was a little disappointed, but she hadn't really expected anything else. It was just a very weird way to meet back up with someone who used to mean so much to her. 'Used to?' Inner Sakura made a very disapproving face. 'Shut up... He's old news.'

Although she was tired, there was one last thing Sakura wanted to work on before she would let herself rest for the night. She knew this wouldn't take long, but she was willing to spend as much time as she needed to on it. She was happy she'd spent the whole day practicing taijutsu because now she was free to use up her chakra as much as she needed.

Sasuke watched Sakura from up in the treetops, masking his chakra. He'd been doing this for quite sometime but was beginning to get bored as he saw that she had only spent the day training, although he had to admit that she had great stamina now. But it was hard for him to be truly impressed with her, in his eyes, she always had been and always would be the weakest shinobi of Konoha. He watched as she sat in the grass for what seemed like forever, and almost jumped out of the tree and walked away from the clearing, when suddenly he felt an enormous amount of chakra that stopped him in his tracks. His entire body froze and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Slowly, he turned around. Sasuke was shocked as Sakura opened her eyes. It was like nothing he'd ever seen before...

Sakura sat down cross-legged and closed her eyes to concentrate. What she wanted to do wasn't hard but it required a lot of focus and control, but she had to be careful and not overdo herself or it could be dangerous. She squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath. She hadn't done this in a long time, and it made her a little nervous. 'Hansha Chakra no Justu! (reflective chakra jutsu)' she yelled at Inner Sakura. 'Shannaro! It's about time! Kya!' Suddenly, she saw a flash of white through her closed eyes and her body felt a river of new, heavy chakra pulsing through it. Sakura examined the world as she opened her eyes, the whites of her eyes were covered as they were now all pitch black and glowing. She looked around slowly, seeing nothing but black and white, which meant that it had worked. She stood up and noticed the black chakra spiraling around her body and smiled. It had been awhile since she'd gotten to use this, as it was forbidden for her to practice it more than once every couple of months by Tsunade, she'd said it could really hurt Sakura if she trained it any more than that. "Genjitsu ni modori! (Back to reality)" she yelled aloud, and she watched as the color slowly came back into her vision, the chakra around her faded, and her eyes turned their normal beautiful emerald color.

When she had found this as a child, she had always felt uneasy about it. It's not everyday you hear someone tell you they have a split personality, so she kept it to herself for a long time, not feeling comfortable telling people. When Ino had gotten into her mind during the chuunin exams, she didn't know Inner Sakura would take over, but she did. She'd made Ino promise not to tell anyone once they had become friends again, but after Tsunade had become her shishou, Sakura was tired of hiding it and decided to have her use some of her chakra to examine Sakura's mind.

Tsunade came into the small room and greeted Sakura as she lay on a cot waiting on her. The Hokage had been awake all night reading and studying all about the Haruno clan in preparation for what Sakura wanted her to see. She was a little disappointed, because she had only found one thing like what her apprentice had said she'd experienced, but there was no way it was possible.

After setting her things to the side, Tsunade took off her Hokage cloak and took a seat next to Sakura. "This isn't going to hurt, but it will feel slightly uncomfortable and intrusive. Don't worry, that's only natural," she warned. She closed her eyes and put her hands on Sakura's temple, letting her chakra gently flow into Sakura's brain to try and get a closer look into her mind. Her eyes shot open the instant the chakra touched Sakura's brain.

"Tamashī no mohō (soul imitation)..." Tsunade whispered out loud. There was no way... This couldn't be possible! This hadn't been in the Haruno bloodline for hundreds of years, and even then, it had only been in the Haruno men. Tsunade had never seen anything like this before, and from what she had read, this could not only be extremely dangerous for any of Sakura's opponents, but also for Sakura herself.

Tsunade sat Sakura up and looked deep into her eyes. "Sakura, I'm glad you brought this to me whenever you did. I want to start training this with you,but you need to know some very important things before we begin," Tsunade said. Sakura noticed that her face looked nervous, her eyes were wide. She could tell that the Godaime's mind was in a completely different place.

"First off, Sakura," Tsunade started. "What you have is known as tamashī no mohō. Your personality isn't just a separate part of your brain... It's a completely different soul." Sakura's jade orbs widened in confusion. "I don't understand, shishou. What does that mean?" Sakura inquired.

"It means that you have two separate chakra sources. It's kind of how Naruto has the nine-tailed fox. Only, yours isn't a demon... It's a bloodline trait, like the Hyuga clan's Byakugan. The only thing that's confusing me is I don't know how you obtained this trait. It hasn't been in the Haruno bloodline for hundreds of years, and it was only apparent in the males of the clan." Tsunade paused to let Sakura soak everything in as she saw her dumbfounded look. This was nothing that she, as a teacher to this young kunoichi, needed to be taking lightly. Sakura had no idea of the kind of power and strength she held. And here she was, the weakest link of team 7, but little did anyone know, she had just as much strength and power as the rest of the team...she was just too worried about things that didn't matter. It was time for Tsunade to knock some sense into her. She couldn't let Sakura waste this amazing chakra.

"Listen to me, Sakura. This is not something to take lightly, this is a very powerful bloodline trait to posses. There are different levels to it, and we are only going to train you to tap into the first level. Anything farther than that could kill you. Promise me one thing," the Godaime looked very intently into the eyes of the cherry blossom-haired young woman.

"Yes, Tsunade-sama?" Sakura asked, confused and nervous. Hearing that she could die from her own bloodline trait wasn't exactly anything less than intimidating.

"You must never open up all levels of this trait unless it is a live or die situation to save your village or those you love."

Sakura's ears perked as she heard the snap! of her trap going off. She sighed to herself as she looked over and found a very unhappy Sasuke hanging upside down with a rope around one of his ankles.

"I guess your stealth isn't as good at seeing traps as it is when you're spying on people," Sakura said as she smirked at him, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

"Get me down," Sasuke said dryly.

"Why were you spying on me?" Sakura asked, raising an eyebrow as Sasuke's furrowed slightly. He was getting annoyed and it amused her.

Sasuke just stared at Sakura and finally used his own strength to pull himself up, cut the rope around his leg and flip around to land on his feet. He watched as Sakura walked inside the old wooden house, turning on the lights. She hadn't yet had the time to inspect the house, so she walked through the rooms of the house. There was a small kitchen area, a bathroom, two small bedrooms and a little living and dining area. Sakura came out and stood on the front porch of the house, seeing Sasuke staring as her in a quizzical manner. It was almost impossible to ignore him, but she tried as she sat down at the edge of the porch, letting her feet hang off.

Man, if Sasuke hadn't gotten even more beautiful than before... Sakura looked away from him and down to her lap to hide the redness on her cheeks. She needed to stop thinking like this. "Sasuke?" She called as she looked up to him. "Would you like some food?"

"Hn."

And even though she had no idea what that meant, Sakura got up and made her way into the village with Sasuke. The walk there was silent, and instead of eating out, Sakura had decided to buy groceries to take back to the small house since she planned on staying there for awhile. This would have annoyed Sasuke, but Sakura didn't ask him to hold the bags the entire way back.

Once they got to the house, Sasuke sat on the front porch staring outside while Sakura made dinner. He sat silently looking up at the stars, thinking about the words Sakura had said to him. They'd been on his mind all day. That's why he was here, so he could change the person he was, so he could give his life a purpose. But why was she here? Was she on some kind of mission? If so, that meant he had to leave or she would tell Konoha officials about spotting Sasuke, and he didn't want to go back to that Kami-forsaken village.

Sakura sat next to Sasuke and handed him a plate of food and chopsticks and started eating her food. They ate in silence and Sakura took their plates and cleaned them off, putting them away when she was finished, and came back, sitting down next to Sasuke again.

Sasuke looked over to Sakura, noticing something he hadn't before. "You're not wearing your hitai-ate," he said with monotonicity. It was supposed to sound like a question, but Sakura knew he was meant it more in a statement like way. He didn't want a 'yes' or a 'no,' he wanted an explanation.

Sakura looked up to Sasuke and looked into the sky, putting her folded hands in her lap. "My last night in the village, Naruto got mad because I had been training before sunrise and past sundown," Sakura smiled to herself bitterly as she remembered her good friend, and how his face lit up whenever she finally accepted dinner. Sasuke kept his eyes on her, waiting for her to continue.

"I've trained and grown a lot since you left the village. Every morning I wake up before sunrise to train, and I don't go home until after sunset, even past then sometimes. I have gotten much stronger than I used to be, but it's not as much as I would like. So I got a "mission" to leave Konoha and train, and here I am. I am here to train and find myself, and better myself as a shinobi. I no longer want to be the weak one getting in the way. I came here because I wanted to be somewhere nobody could find me so I could learn how to test myself to the limits. I'd been on a mission and passed this place, so when I left Konoha, I knew I could come here and be safe. But, I guess I haven't changed much, because even in trying to better myself I got in your way...and I haven't seen you in years." At this point, Sakura was more of speaking her thoughts and less explaining. Sasuke noticed this as he saw her focus looked as though it was somewhere else but this present moment.

"Hn." He closed his eyes and faced forward. Sasuke knew why she was there now, but he didn't want to say why he was; it wasn't her concern, but he knew she was going to ask anyway.

"I'm here because I've already accomplished my life goals. I'm only here to train so I can become better everyday and stay somewhere where I won't be found." Sakura looked at Sasuke wide-eyed. She hadn't expected him to explain his side of things.

"Your goals?" she inquired.

"I've killed Danzo, Madara, Itachi and Orochimaru."

Inner Sakura palmed her forehead. Of course that's what he meant, how could she have forgotten? That's what drove him away from the village.

They sat outside for a moment in silence, both lost in thought. Sasuke was surprised at how comfortable he felt around Sakura. It'd been years since they'd spoken any words to each other, and even longer since he'd sat next to her. The silence wasn't awkward to him, he welcomed it, actually. It gave him time to think without her intruding into his thoughts and yet gave him the company of someone to share those thoughts with. He'd never thought he'd see Sakura more than anything other than annoying, and it was very weird to him.

"I don't have to stay here," Sasuke heard her say. He raised an eyebrow as she looked at him.

"I don't want to get in your way, Sasuke." She said as she looked down at her hands.

Sasuke scoffed, "Then don't."

Sakura looked up into Sasuke's eyes, into his very emotionless face.

"You seriously don't mind me staying?" She asked as she watched him stand up.

"Don't be annoying," was the last thing she heard him say before he walked in the house, shutting the wooden door behind him.

Sakura had trained herself to forget about Sasuke. Once her parents died, she had more to worry about than being a broken-hearted, lovesick teenager who needed to bring him back to the light. She had cried over him long enough and wasted enough of her life thinking of him that she could have spent training, but she couldn't say she had ever forgiven him for that night, or that she had ever stopped missing him. So it came as a surprise to her whenever she looked up at the stars and couldn't help but smiling a genuine smile, for the first time in a long time, all because of him.


Thank you for reading! Reviews are always more than welcomed. (Of course.) And I hope you liked it!