A/N: Your recent review are appreciated!

Chapter 4 coming up!

Sakura sensed chakra as she jumped up from her bed. Someone was outside of the inn and they were close to her room. She quickly grabbed her backpack, throwing it over her shoulders, and crouched under the window pane.

She heard footsteps as they approached the window.

She remained silent as the mystery person outside gazed inside, it was clear that this person was spying.

Were the looking for her? Or was it a mere coincidence that they stopped at her particular window, and just so happened to be a wandering ninja?

She was willing to bet the first option.

She felt a bit of relief that this person did not possess an enormous amount of chakra, but she was puzzled on the fact that it somewhat felt…familiar.

After a few moments, the ninja moved on from her window and Sakura let out a sigh of relief. She realized she may have stayed here too long and it was time to move elsewhere. She quickly gathered any loose belongings in the room and exited.

Once she was outside, she began running in the opposite direction of the inn, silently praying that the mystery person had not seen her leaving.

She was sure she had gotten away without detection when she reached the forest nearby. She jumped into the nearest tree and began sprinting along the branches several feet above the ground.

At this point, she was just going to stall time the next week until she heard Pain's answer to her request. If she was admitted to their ranks, she would have a place she could live in secret along with the rest of the members. Until she was provided with such a place, she would have to be careful that the Konoha ninja would stay off of her trail.

She decided she would find a safe place in the forest to rest for the night, but her thoughts were suddenly halted when she detected the same chakra flow from before, about five yards behind her.

The one from the window was following her now.

So they were looking for her, just as she suspected. Focusing chakra to her feet, her speed excelled. It was dark outside, possibly close to eleven or twelve o'clock, and she would have no advantage if it came to a fight in this forest. Her only choice was to try and outrun this mystery ninja.

However, the option of outrunning was becoming difficult, when she heard the ninja behind her also excelling their speed to keep up with her.

Knowing that she could not emit anymore chakra without the possibility of it draining her, she knew she could not go any faster than she was already going. If they continued on like this, the ninja would eventually catch up to her.

So, there was no choice but to defend herself, since running was quickly becoming an option that she did not have.

She quickly made a sharp turn to the right, straining her eyesight to see a lit opening in the forest trees. It was safe to assume that beyond that opening, there was a area that was well lit from the moon, giving her an advantage if she could get there before her pursuer. She would wait until the ninja revealed themselves from the forest, and attack without mercy.

Then once the ninja was down, she would run and escape before they had a chance to catch back up with her.

Nodding to herself, she gave herself just a little more chakra for an extra boost, and began heading for the opening. After a brief moment of cutting speed and blurred surroundings, she made it to the lit opening and jumped from the trees.

As she expected, she landed in a wide open field with tall grass that swayed against her legs. The full moon above her lit the field, giving her full view of her surroundings. She smiled to herself. This was the perfect place for a fight.

Quickly reaching down to grab a kunai, she decided she would charge up as much chakra as she could muster without going overboard, and she would thrust the chakra filled kunai at her pursuer the second they appeared from the trees.

If it hit them, it would cause a great deal of damage, but even if it did not hit them, it would serve as a distraction. This would give her another advantage of ganging up on them while they were trying to collect themselves.

She charged up her chakra in her right hand and turned on her heels towards the forest, ready to throw her blade at anything that revealed itself from the dark nights woods.

But she was too late. This pursuer had already caught up to her and was already standing at the edge of the woods.

Rather than rushing into battle, Sakura's mouth dropped open at the sight in front of her. She knew that chakra had felt familiar, and now seeing the person standing in front of her, she realized that the chakra belonged to them…to her.

"Are you going to throw that at me?" The kunoichi's face was facing the ground. "Did you think you were going to ambush me?"

Sakura closed her eyes slowly, letting the chakra in her right hand fade. She then opened her eyes, meeting the eyes of the pursuer in front of her.

"Ino…" Sakura whispered in the nights windy air, "You shouldn't have come."

Itachi panted quietly as he landed on his feet, observing the damage he had thrusted upon the straw dummy in front of him. He was satisfied when the smoke cleared from his recent fireball jutsu; only ashes of the dummy remained.

He had just endured a five hour training session on the Akatsuki compound training ground without rest or water. Usually, this was of no accomplishment to the Uchiha prodigy, but he was pleased with himself in his current state. His sharingan had been giving him trouble earlier in the day.

He knew overusing his eye would lead to his current troubles eventually, but it still irritated him nonetheless.

"Woah!" An energetic voice caught Itachi's attention from behind, "You blasted the thing down with one jutsu! You're almost living up to your full potential now, Itachi-Senpai!"

Of course it was Tobi.

Itachi stood tall, not facing the rather irritating shinobi.

"I do not have time for your games," Itachi calmly warned him. He was in no mood to deal with Tobi's taunting.

"Oh, no, Tobi is not here to play games!" Tobi held up his hands as if he were 'coming in peace', "Tobi has a message from Pain-Senpai!"

This caught Itachi's attention.

He turned to the orange masked ninja and calmly asked, "Have they returned?"

"Nope," Tobi remarked, "Don't have a clue where they are."

"Then what message do you have that could concern me?" He turned away from Tobi, "I do not have time to be wasted while I am in the middle of my training."

"Pain-Senpai communicated with me through my ring," Tobi held up his hand that the Akatsuki ring rested on, "And he said that he ran into someone who you might be interested in."

This slightly shocked Itachi. Who could Pain possibly believe Itachi would have any interest in? The people he cared about in this world was extremely minimal.

"Who?" Itachi questioned as he turned to face him once more.

Tobi's voice was amused, "A Konoha ninja who was friends with your brother!"

Itachi's eyes narrowed. "What is the name of this ninja?"

"Come with Tobi and he will tell you everything that Pain told him."

Itachi, although hesitant, exited the training compound with him; The smoke of the dummies ashes continued to fill the air.

Ino stood a few feet away from Sakura, her expression was solemn. Up until this point, although odd of her to wish, she hoped that it was all a misunderstanding and Sakura had forcedly been taken from the leaf village. At least in that scenario, they would be able to find her and take her back home.

But as Sakura stood alone in front of her, it as clear that she had truly left of her own free will.

"Ino…" Sakura spoke first after the awkward length of silence, "How did you find me?"

"Kiba picked up your scent," Ino responded, a crack in her voice. "You covered your tracks well, though…he could only pick up the general direction of your location. We split up to cover more ground."

"Kiba is with you?"

Ino nodded, "Kiba and Hinata," she averted her eyes, "Tsunade wanted to just send team eight, but I personally volunteered to go…"

Sakura's eyes fell to the grassy ground below her, "I see…"

"Why are you doing this?" Ino plainly asked, her voice was on edge. "How could you do this to us? We're your friends. Surely you know how we feel, it's the same way you felt the night Sasuke left…why would you purposely put that same feeling on us?"

"You wouldn't understand," Sakura replied emotionlessly. "You have no clue."

Ino took a step forward, "Then tell me."

Sakura simply shook her head.

"We can go back," Ino mustered up a fake smile, "It's not too late to go back, Sakura."

Sakura snorted sarcastically at her comment, "Its far too late for you to try and save me, Ino."

Ino's smile vanished and her expression twisted into a mixture of hurt and frustration, "Why are you leaving your family?!" she yelled, her fists clenching at her sides. "Are we not friends? Best friends, even? Does none of that matter to you? I was always mean to you...we were rivals for Sasuke...but...you are my best friend!"

"We were best friends...that has nothing to do with this..." Sakura replied flatly, "This has everything to do with the fact that i am weak...i've always been weak...and thats the reason Sasuke is dead..." Sakura tried to hide the hurt in her tone from Ino, "I left to get strong...i can't watch another friend die. I'm secluding myself from that life."

It took a moment for Ino to register everything Sakura had said told her, she replied with, "You aren't weak, Sakura...you can train with us. We can get you stronger...Tsunade can-"

"I have always been weak!" Sakura interrupted her violently, "I tried to live by the right rules. Do my homework, practice jutsus and get stronger...i tried the good road and it lead me to weakness...its my fault Sasuke is dead! I was too weak to save him and relied on others to do it for me...thats what lead me here. I refuse to live in others shadows again!"

Ino shook her head, "Sakura...I know how you are hurting, but-"

Sakura's eyebrows lowered in annoyance, "You have no clue what is feels like! You don't know what it is to lose someone like we lost Sasuke!" She screamed angrily back at Ino.

Ino looked flabbergasted at Sakura's words, "I have no idea? He was my friend too!"

"You didn't know him like Naruto and I did," Sakura retorted, "He was nothing but distant for you."

Ino clenched her teeth, "How can you say that?" She took another step forward, "I loved him!"

Sakura let out a dark and sarcastic chuckle, "Love?" She laughed again, "You only felt lust for him. What I had for him was love!" she placed her hand over her shirt, directly where her heart lay internally, "My heart broke the day we were told he died!"

Ino blinked back a tear as she digested everything that Sakura had just said. Of course, she was right. She did not know Sasuke like Sakura did. She was hurt when Tsunade revealed that Sasuke had died, but she truly did not know the extent of pain that Sakura felt.

"You can't do this just because of Sasuke," Ino responded, "You can't abandon your entire life because of someone who wanted nothing to do with you!"

Rage filled Sakura because of Ino's words, and without hesitation, she reached into her kunai holster, pulling a blade out that firmly had a paper bomb attached to it. She ran at the blond kunoichi with full force, and with chakra focused in her arm, chucked the kunai at Ino without remorse or guilt.

Ino, of course, easily dodged the kunai and was suddenly hidden in a cloud of black smoke when the kunai hit the ground and the paper bomb went off.

Sakura jumped back a few feet, knowing that Ino had dodged it and would very likely spring at her in any given moment.

But to her surprise, Ino did not attack, but simply walked out of the black smoke like nothing had occurred. Sakura's eyes narrowed at the blond Konoha ninja, trying to analyze what her attack would be.

Rather, Ino simply met her gaze, a single tear sliding down her cheek as she said, "Don't make me fight you, Sakura."

"Turn around and walk away, Ino," Sakura replied harshly, "Pretend you didn't see me."

"You know I can't do that," Ino shook her head as she responded.

"Then we have no choice," Sakura crouched down as she withdrew two kunai from her holster, placing one in each hand. "Tonight, the better kunoichi will win."

Ino did not respond for a few moments. She then wiped her tear away with her wrist, and reached behind her waist to untie her headband. She brought the headband up to her forehead and tied it behind her head tightly. This indicated that she wanted to fight on equal terms as a leaf shinobi.

Sakura accepted her challenge, reaching into her bag and pulling her own headband out, repeating what Ino had just done. This was the first time she had worn her headband since she left the leaf village. There was not a better occasion than this to wear it.

Memories flashed quickly through Sakura and Ino's minds of when they fought in the Chunin preliminaries. They had always told each other they would have a rematch one day; neither one of them thought that would be on this particular occasion.

Ino simply smirked as she withdrew two kunai just as Sakura had done, put one in each hand, and said, "Let the best ninja win."

At her words, they both ran at each other.

The two girls ran at each other with the intent to kill, just like they had learned in their training.

If you do not come at me with the intent to kill, you will never defeat me.

The statement from both Kakashi and Asuma was drilled into their heads. Both ninjas only had victory in their minds, but only one would win.

Sakura aimed a chakra filled punch at Ino's face, which was easily dodged, as she expected it to be. Ino was not just some genin that would easily be taken out.

Ino crouched onto the ground, swiping her leg under Sakura's feet with the intention to drop her to the ground. Immediately seeing her move, Sakura jumped over her leg and managed to land a kick of her own into Ino's side, a grunt escaped the blonds lips. She had packed much chakra into her kick, so she knew it would have an affect on Ino.

Ino, holding onto the hip where she was kicked, jumped back from Sakura a few feet. Sakura landed on one knee, staring at Ino as green chakra immediately formed in the palm of her hand. She placed her hand over her side and within a few moments, was recovered from Sakura's blow.

Sakura had not forgotten that Ino was also capable of performing medical ninjutsu, but she also knew she was not anywhere close to Sakura's level. Sakura also knew that Ino did not have the chakra control that she possessed, and would not be able to do an extended amount of medical jutsu to recover herself.

Sakura smirked.

"What are you smirking about?" Ino bit angrily.

"You don't know everything about medical ninjutsu that I know," She responded amusingly.

Ino clenched her teeth, "So?"

"So," Sakura remarked, "You won't be able to heal every punch I throw at you. You won't win."

Ino smiled in return, which slightly caught Sakura off guard. "We'll see," she replied as she began running towards Sakura again.

Within an instant, Ino was in front of Sakura. She grabbed onto her shoulders and drove her knee into Sakura's stomach, thinking she had gotten her in the gut, but cursed when she saw that a large tree limb was used in Sakura's place. She had performed the substitution, and Ino should have known it wouldn't have been that easy.

She turned around to see Sakura forming a handsign, which was unknown to her. She was not aware that Sakura had any particular jutsu like herself, but she realized that she also had not fought Sakura in at least three years. She could have easily had time to create her own.

"Pink Blossom Jutsu!" Sakura called out as she withdrew a scroll from the side of her backpack, and threw it open. Kunai instantly began hurling at Ino, at least a dozen or so, with paperbombs attached to each end.

So she has created a jutsu similar to Tenten's weaponry and sealed it in a scroll. Ino thought to herself as she jumped into the air to dodge the flow of kunai thrown in her direction.

She dodged the kunai without a scratch, which annoyed Sakura.

If i can get her distracted, Ino thought as she began running towards Sakura, I can get her with my mind transfer and end this quickly.

The pink haired ninja braced for impact as Ino ran up to her, immediately throwing punches. Sakura blocked and dodged each punch, but was unprepared to protect herself against Ino's right knee which soon lodged itself into Sakura's stomach.

Gasping at the sudden impact, Sakura hurled over clutching her stomach. Ino slammed her elbow into the back of Sakura's neck, and kicked her hard enough to send her flying a few feet back.

Sakura laid on the ground, her hands holding her burning stomach and her stinging neck. She emitted green chakra to her palms and immediately began healing the impacted areas quickly, at least to he point where she could muster up the strength to stand up to her feet.

Once she stood up, she saw the blond kunoichi charging her once more.

Sakura, rather than running at her this time, threw two kunai from her holster toward her. Ino dodged such a simple attack, but hitting her with them was not Sakura's goal.

As Ino was busy dodging the two flying blades, Sakura excelled her speed with her chakra and run under Ino as she was airborne.

Now on the other side of her, Sakura threw a kunai with a paper bomb attached into Ino's back. An explosion similar to earlier went off, surrounding both kunoichi in a thick back smoke.

Sakura jumped back out of the smoke, landing on her feet a few feet or so from the explosion. She had seen the kunai go into Ino's back. She had gotten her.

As the smoke cleared, Sakura saw the shadow of a large lump lying on the ground, which she assumed was Ino's body.

But once the smoke completely vanished, she was surprised to see that it was not Ino's body lying on the ground, but a thick brown log.

Substitution! Sakura cursed in her mind, but before she could scan the area for the now missing blond, she felt a force land on her from above and drive her into the ground.

Ino had made an above attack and was now pinning Sakura's arms to the ground with her knees.

She struck Sakura's face with her fist. Warm, salty blood immediately began filling Sakura's mouth.

"You are coming home!" Ino screamed as she struck her again.

Sakura struggled under her, trying to free her arms, but she could not get herself free from under Ino's body weight. As Ino struck her face for a third time, she felt her head begin to swim.

Having no other option, she gathered the iron tasting blood into one corner of her mouth, and as Ino was about to punch her again, she spit the blood into Ino's eyes.

Screaming because of the stinging sensation that flooded her vision, Sakura was able to take the advantage and roll out from under Ino. She jumped up, and before Ino had a chance to wipe the hot substance out of her eyes, Sakura packed another chakra filled kick into her back. Ino was sent flying across the field into a thick tree trunk, causing the tree to fall completely at its broken trunk.

Sakura spit the remaining blood out of her mouth onto the ground and immediately emitted green healing chakra to her already swollen face and eyes.

Ino sat inside the demolished tree rubble, hunched over and blood oozing down from her head throughout her light blond hair. It was apparent that the impact with the tree had cut Ino's head open, which in return would disorient her from further fighting since she had received a very serious concussion.

Once Sakura's face was healed to the point where it was tolerable, she began walking towards her former best friend.

She approached the blond shinobi, standing above her. Ino did not look up. She seemed to have passed out from the blood loss. Sakura sighed as she knelt down in front of her.

She whispered against the wind, "I told you that you shouldn't have come."

Just as Sakura was about to stand up and limp away from the battle, Ino's head suddenly shot up. Without time to react, Ino lunged at Sakura with a kunai in her hand, swinging it at Sakura's face.

Her aim was off, and she managed to cut Sakura's headband without injuring her.

From the lunge, Ino fell at Sakura's feet. Sakura stepped back a couple inches, wary that Ino may try to jump at her again.

But she didn't.

Instead, Ino laid on her stomach, lifting her head off of the ground and looking up at Sakura with one pale blue eye open, the other was matted shut from Sakura's thick blood.

"S..Sakura…" Ino panted as blood trickled down her lip, "If…you leave now….don't ever…come back…" she coughed more red liquid onto the grass below her, her blond hair was matted with blood from her head wound.

Sakura reached up to untie her headband and swiftly removed it. She brought it up to her face to observe. A thick slash had been delivered through the hidden leaf symbol.

She threw the headband in front of Ino's face and turned around.

"I don't intend to," Sakura replied as she slowly began limping away from the one she once called her best friend.