Sakura still couldn't leave the village.

The situation had become worse now because of what had happened with the villagers. Her cottage had burned down and she had nowhere to stay. For the time being, she had taken to living in the forest like a wild child, Sasuke by her side.

He wasn't without questions, though.

He leaned against a log, sighing in an annoyed manner. "Why is it that we can't leave now?"

Sakura took a break from gathering water from the nearby lake into a bucket and glanced back at him. "Because there is something that prevents me from leaving here."

"And what is that something?" he wanted to know.

"I told you," Sakura said, standing up, her fingers steady on the handle of the pail, "there's no time for explanations. I'll tell you everything later but, for now, I need to concentrate on what I'm doing. I don't know what the villagers will do next."

"I think whatever you had done sufficiently scared them, " Sasuke said, because he didn't come early enough to see the window fly up out of the villager's hand, like an invisible hand had pushed it up. "And if not..." his face seemed to darken, "well, they'll get what's coming to them."

"You sound very scary," Sakura commented honestly.

"Good to know," Sasuke replied laconically. "I was losing faith in how frightening I am."

"One look at you and those villagers will run away screaming," she agreed. She was serious about that and was quite confused when Sasuke's lips twitched upward, like they usually did when he was amused-the closest thing to a smile she had ever seen him with. "What?"

"Nothing," he responded and got up, probably tired of having to look up at her. He towered over her standing. "I'm gonna go get some firewood."

Sakura stared at him blankly. "Why?"

"Because," he said, the lip twitch appearing again, "we need to build a fire, Sakura. You know, for warmth? Unless you have other suggestions?"

When she understood the implications of his words, she put the pail down hastily and turned away from him. "No," she said quietly. "Go get firewood. I'll get all the things I need."

It had been nearly a day since the events at her cottage. Sasuke had returned around midnight and they had kept close to her burning house, while the others ran away. Sakura hadn't cried, but she had felt despair at the thought of her home vanishing from existence. Just as her mother had vanished all those years ago.

But the flames had served as warmth for the remainder of the night. They seemed to be unending; even after Sasuke and Sakura had poured water on them, the smoke and the heat lingered.

However, Sakura had a job to do if she wanted to leave the village behind. Before, she had lived in relative peace; there was no need for her to desire to leave. She felt trapped at times, yes, but determination hardly welled up inside her to escape.

Now, the determination was there and, oh, it was burning.

There was a trick she had learned somewhere, from one of her many books, to break such a powerful incantation. It was very dangerous and required her to be even stronger than the witch who had cast said incantation. But Sakura would do it, she thought grimly. She would do it and she would depart from this cage of hers.

The first thing she needed was the lake water, which she had already collected, when Sasuke was asking her questions. The second thing she needed was a water willow; lucky for her, it grew around the forest. And the last, material thing she needed was the exact incantation that had been spoken by Tsunade.

Unfortunately, that was the one thing Sakura did not have. She had searched for years and never found it. And searching through her books was futile now; they had all been destroyed in the fire.

But Sakura remembered every story her mother had told her. She wasn't sure if it would help but she WAS sure that it wasn't her mom's plan to keep her in a village that abhorred her. Tsunade had to have had some ulterior motive, some plan, some REASON for what she had done.

So Sakura trusted and searched her memory. She searched and searched and searched until the sun had gone down again and Sasuke had returned with an arm full of wood.

She wasn't to be distracted though; her eyes were closed and her mind was somewhere else. She barely noticed the change in time and her companion coming back. Sasuke didn't bother her either. He just silently set the wood on fire and rubbed his hands over it, for once, patient in his wait for her.

She didn't open her eyes until two hours of dark had passed. When she did, her mind was sharp as ever, as was the grin she displayed when she faced Sasuke.

"You're smiling," he acknowledged, looking up from the fire and brushing a couple of strands of hair away from his eyes. "We can leave." It wasn't a question, but a hopeful tone rang through the sentence which made Sakura giggled.

He scowled in response. "Stop laughing," he commanded.

Sakura only continued giggling. "I've got it, Sasuke." She was giddy with her newfound knowledge. "I've got it."

Sasuke eyes went to the fire again. "Whatever."

Sakura still didn't have time to explain anything to Sasuke. She hurried him to another side of the lake, one that people rarely came upon, and started to set up the materials, while he made another fire, slightly put out by the fact that he had to stomp out the other one which he had just made.

Luckily enough, all Sakura was concerned with was the fact that the ritual had to be performed on a full moon, which it just so happened to be.

"You don't need to do anything," she informed Sasuke, with a glance over her shoulder. "I have everything covered."

Sasuke shrugged and continued staring as she put the pail of water in the center, and drowned the water willow in it. There was no sound around them; something else the ritual called for was silence while it was being implemented.

Sakura took a deep breath and clapped her hands together, chanting lowly. It wasn't a mortal language, or any spoken language for that matter; it was a language specifically for the purpose of magic. She made sure to keep her voice soft, trying to avoid any questions that may arise in Sasuke's mind that he'd like answered right away and trying to avoid accidentally enchanting him.

Her eyes were open, so she could see everything clearly; after a moment of chanting, the willow, and the water it was surrounded by, glowed a compelling silver. Unable to help it, and knowing, somehow, that it would cause no harm, she dipped her hand into the pail, swirling the water around.

When the lake began to glimmer in the glow as well, Sakura knew, without a doubt, that it was time to get the difficult part started with.

There was a fundamental element needed to break a spell. It was for the witch breaking the spell to have a greater power than the witch who had cast the spell in the first place.

And, after years of practicing her magic by herself, Sakura was going to find out if she was good enough.

She crooked her neck to see if Sasuke was watching; he was lying against a log, once again, his bare feet enclosed in the warmth of the fire he had started, his eyes closed, but Sakura knew he wasn't sleeping.

If Sasuke was going to find out what she was, who she was, then it might as well be before they left this place together, Sakura decided. And if he didn't approve, then he wasn't the man she thought he was, and he certainly wasn't worth traveling with.

Her breath coming out short, Sakura took her fingers out of the water and pressed them to her sides, ready to begin.

The magic—or rather, her magic, because she had read somewhere that every magic was different—was a fire (ironic because that was the only thing that could normally kill her kind). It didn't start off burning; it started off small and harmless, in the pit of her stomach, not egged on by any outside source. She concentrated on that little fire, trying to get it to rise, rise out of that abyss it was stuck in, get stronger and stronger and burn all the way through her.

She wasn't sure it was working until she could no longer hear anything but the roaring in her ears, until she could no longer see anything but fog in front of her eyes, until she could no longer smell anything but the water willow, until she could no longer feel anything but the growing fire.

When she felt like this, she unfalteringly spoke the spell that she assumed her mother had spoken when she was a child—assumed because she didn't know for sure, but she had to hope that it was right and all this magic that she had cast wouldn't backfire on her and have those devastating consequences that she had never experienced but certainly read about.

It didn't.

So, throwing caution to the wind—which was something incredibly rare for such a responsible person like her—, she spoke the same spell backwards and hoped and hoped and hoped that everything was over, that she could leave that dreaded place and never ever come back.

The fog in front of her eyes grew, the roaring in her ears blew louder, the smell of the willow became so intoxicating, the burning so intense, that she could no longer breathe or think or do anything.

And then it stopped.

The last thing she saw was Sasuke's face above her, his eyes dark—was that panic she saw?—, his lips in one straight line, and his arms reaching for her, before she blacked out.

The second time since they had first met.

"You could have warned me," was the first thing he said, when she opened her eyes.

She was bathed in a warm blaze, and when she moved her head, her peripheral vision caught the fire he had made, still going strong, and she realized that she was lying right next to it. "I could have warned you what?"

"That you were going to faint," he said scowling and then added, "again."

She didn't have the energy to budge anything but her head and her mouth, but if she did, she would have wagged her finger at him when she said, "If you ask me what kind of doctor I am, to let myself faint twice in front of your presence, I swear to god, I will—"

"What kind of doctor are you?" he interrupted, his mouth tight at its edge. "To do what you did, Sakura."

She went with the obvious answer, a term she had never realized so completed her everything, smiling widely as she said it.

"Why, Sasuke, what would I be...but a witch doctor."

notes: I really like writing this story. Maybe it's because it's one of my more reviewed stories and I like the reviews that you guys give because they're absolutely gorgeous. AND SAKURA IS SELF-ACTUALIZING. WHICH IS WEIRD COZ SHE'S, LIKE, OLDER THAN A PERSON SHOULD BE WHEN THEY DO THAT. But just go with my logic, huh?

Just for the record, and I should have mentioned this before, but I keep forgetting, this was inspired by the shoujo manga Hyakunen Renbo. I didn't get any of the storyline from it but some concepts were brought to mind after reading it so smileyface.

And you guys make my day, I really hope you know that.