OH MY GOD! GOMENASAI! I am sooooo sorry for the amount of time it has taken for me to update this story. It's because of Tafe and Skyrim and the new Naruto Generations game, and now it's clinical placement, and all this other shit going on. Anyway, ranting over. I said in the last chapter that I wouldn't be updating this story until I had finished the Beka Cooper fanfiction...It didn't happen. You know how it is when it comes to writers block, and when you get sucked into a new game. BUT NOW, I have begun writing again, and this time...IT'S THE SEQUEL TO THIS STORY! HOORAY! So now I can finally close this story and continue with chapter three of the new story.
I hope you like this chapter, it's basically the epilogue, but it's like 3,000 words.
Copyright to my good friend on facebook, Masashi Kishimoto.
Chapter 7: Long Awaited Mission.
'' = Speech
"" = Thoughts
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'Very good, Sakura. You have successfully completed your mission in the Land of Wind, and I hear that the Kazekage was impressed with how much your skill level has increased since he last saw you.'
Three months after that incident Sakura was standing in front of her shishou, delivering her report from her recent mission and, in return receiving praise for her efforts.
'It was nothing really Shishou.' After hearing the same kind of praise from her since she had returned from her ordeal, Sakura hadn't thought that her missions were worth as much. "Maybe I should take the Anbu exam. It will be a nice change if I can pass it."
Returning her attention to what her Shishou was telling her, Sakura heard that Sasuke still hadn't been seen since she had been with him at the hideout. The Hokage being the only one privy to the events that had happened to Sakura, had a look of sorrow on her face after telling her only student the sad news.
'I'm sorry Sakura, but we haven't been able to find Uchiha Sasuke.' Putting on a facade of sadness, Sakura faced her teacher, Hokage, and her friend.
'We'll continue looking for him. I haven't given up!' Changing her facade from sorrow to determination. 'I still believe that we can convince him to come home.' She hadn't told the Hokage what Sasuke had told her; that they would see each other again...
'I won't ask you to come with me. But I would like to see you again. I'll send you a message about the time and place to meet, until then...'
It made Sakura's heart ache that she felt she couldn't tell her Shishou Sasukes plans.
'Very well. We will continue the search for Uchiha Sasuke! Haruno Sakura!'
'Hai, Shishou?'
'Team Seven has my explicit order to search for Uchiha Sasuke. No matter how long it takes or where he may lead you, you are to track him down and bring him back to Konohagakure, under restraints if that's what it takes!' Practically yelling at her student, Tsunade stood up from behind her desk and turned to look out of her office window. 'Go and inform Team Seven, and Hatake Kakashi, of my decision. You are to resume the search for your lost comrade as soon as the team is able!'
'Hai,' disappearing in a cloud of smoke, Sakura made her way back to her apartment, she wanted a shower before she saw any of the males on her team.
After a twenty minute shower/bath, Sakura was ready to give her team the orders that had been passed to her. Finding Uzumaki Naruto, the only other student from the original Team Seven would be easier than finding their sensei, Hatake Kakashi, considering that there was always a loud ruckus at the Ichiraku Ramen shop.
"I hope Naruto isn't as loud as he always is." Sakura was a little hesitant to go into the ramen shop, she didn't particularly want Naruto to yell his hello's in her face.
Grudgingly gathering her courage to face the unbelievably hyper ninja, "Seriously, is he on an ever-lasting sugar high?" Sakura walked into the shop. What she thought she would find behind the curtain hangings was totally different to what she found; oh, Naruto was still there, just as she had predicted. What she hadn't anticipated was Naruto to be in a heated lip-lock with none other than Hyuuga Hinata. Naruto, being Naruto and therefore full of energy, was towering above, what looked to be Hinata; falling closer to fainting more than anything. Her face was so red that Sakura thought that the Hyuuga heiress would suffer from a febrile temperature. Seeing that there was no one else in the shop, Sakura decided that she wanted some lunch before she actually told her teammate anything.
Picking what she wanted to have from the menu, Sakura made her order as quietly as possible, so she could give Naruto a bit of a scare. When her bowel of barbeque pork ramen was set in front of her, she smiled and nodded her thanks, then picked up her chopsticks and split them.
'Itadakimasu.'
Then she heard a small gasp of shock, and she knew that Hinata had finally noticed her. Naruto, dense as a brick Naruto, looked at Hinata with a questioning expression, as if he was asking what was wrong. 'I-I have t-to go. I'll s-s-see y-you later, Naruto-kun.' Making her escape, Hinata looked back at Sakura with an apology in her eyes and a dark tinge on her cheeks.
'So, when did you and Hinata-chan start dating, Naruto?' Not bothering to hide her smirk, Sakura turned to see that Naruto had a smirk of his own planted on his face.
'About a month ago Sakura-chan. We've been trying to keep a low profile, you know with her being the heiress of the Hyuuga clan and all. Plus Neji would kick my ass three times over for not following standard protocol and asking her father first,' letting out a big sigh, he finished off his bowel of ramen, now cold because he seemed to have found someone tastier, and grimaced. 'Sometimes it's hard for me to control how I feel about her. I just want to give everything to her, do everything to her. She doesn't even know what's she's doing to me.'
Slowly eating her ramen, so as not to choke on any while she listened to Naruto's confession, Sakura had to think for a bit before she could answer her friend. 'Have you ever considered that she may not be ready for what you want to do to her? She is a girl, who hasn't to the best of my knowledge, had any experience in this, and she may be scared.' Turning to look at Naruto, she saw that he was watching her with a calculating look, one that she didn't see often when he wasn't training. She hadn't realized that her voice had fallen to barely above a whisper and her face had gone a deathly pale. 'Or, she could be waiting for you to make the first move.' Quickly finishing her ramen and paying for it, Sakura prepared to leave. 'Come on Naruto, we need to go see Kakashi-sensei, Captain Yamato and Sai. The Godaime has given us a mission.'
Not one to pass up a mission, unless it was dog walking or pet retrieval, Naruto jumped out of his seat and was by Sakura's side before she could even take three paces out the shop.
'So what's this new mission about? Is it anything interesting?' Linking his hands behind his head Naruto turned to watch his teammate.
'It's going to be a long mission. And that's all I'm going to give you until we meet up with the others.' Laughing at Naruto's annoyed face, Sakura ran down the street to look for the rest of their team, with Naruto stumbling to catch up.
Walking past one of the villages many libraries, Sakura and Naruto were discussing their favorite types of missions; missions that have the most outrageous conditions and wouldn't seem likely, and how much ryo they would get if they had actually completed those missions.
'Do we have to have Sai with us for this mission? I mean seriously, he's a pain in the ass, he doesn't fool anyone with that fake smile of his and I swear he annoys me just to amuse himself.' Naruto was once again complaining about Sai and his habits of pissing Naruto off for fun. Sai was like Sasuke in that sense; keeping himself distant, uncaring, but when it came to training, he had a face full of determination to master the new skill, and annoyance when Naruto did just as well if not better at that same technique. Sai would keep to himself and his drawings and when he was spoken to he would answer as politely as he could, while still insulting them in some hidden way.
'Yes Naruto, we do have to have Sai for this mission. Team Seven would be incomplete if he wasn't with us on this mission.' Growling in a low tone as she tried to keep control of her temper, Sakura was forced to restrain herself from clobbering him into next week.
'Speak of the devil,' Naruto whispered in a hushed voice. Sakura could only scowl at him and look over at the shinobi that caused as much trouble on their team as Naruto did.
Sai had his nose in a book and hadn't yet seen them, though he could sense that they were there, walked up to them and stopped right in front of them before he closed his book.
'Dickless. Ugly. What are you two doing here?' Placing his fake smile on his face Sai had to take a step back, as both Naruto and Sakura looked as if they were going to murder him.
Regaining her temper so as to not lash out at him, Sakura calmly, if a bit stiffly, explained to Sai about the new mission, but only as much as she has told Naruto. Listening to the information that she was giving him Sai had a neutral expression on his face, so as to not give any of his thoughts away. After she had finished the small amount of details, Sai agreed to help with the mission.
'Alright! Let's hurry up and find Kakashi-sensei and Captain Yamato, I want to know what our new mission is going to be,' yelling his eagerness, this time Naruto ran ahead of the others in search of their team leaders.
Finding their sensei, Hatake Kakashi, was an easy task. They just had to look for the shop that sold Icha-Icha-Paradise, only a select number of shops were authorized to sell them. After looking in the third shop that they thought he would be in, they walked round a corner that would take them to the next one, when they saw Kakashi walk out of dumpling shop with Miturashi Anko on his arm. They were both laughing at what looked to be another one of Kakashi's growing perverted jokes; he only ever told those jokes when he was trying to cover up something, say like an action that he had been caught at. All Sakura and Naruto could do was stare in disbelief at what they were seeing, while Sai had that annoying smile on his face in a horrible attempt at polite interest.
Spotting his students standing by the corner, Kakashi glanced at his laughing captor and turned back to his students, a look of amused help on the parts of his face that were visible. Crossing her arms, Sakura placed a smirk on her face and looked ready the settle down to wait out his attempts of escape. Naruto looked annoyed that he was taking forever to get the Chunnin off his arm, if it were him he probably would have already gotten rid of her, one way or another. Sai still had that look of polite interest and he too stood next to Sakura, as if he had all the time in the world to waste.
Seeing that he wasn't going to get any help from his students, Kakashi turned again to Anko and gave her his most casual look that he could muster at that time.
'Uh, Anko-san. I have to go, my team is waiting for me over there,' and he pointed to the corner that the three ninjas' were apparently waiting patiently for him, everyone except Naruto; he really wanted to know about the mission!
'Huuuh? What team?' Looking back at the corner that Team 7 were meant to be, Kakashi saw that they had conveniently disappeared 'Kakashi- kun. You're not trying to wriggle out of our agreement, are you?'Kakashi had to suppress a slight shudder as Anko gave him a menacing look that told him it wouldn't be that easy to get out of the situation he had gotten himself into.
'Eh hehe, no it's not like. I promise that I'll buy you as many sweet dumplings as you like for a month to make up for the incident.' Not seeing any other way out of it, Kakashi went and bought another four sticks of sweet dumplings for Anko, as a way of convincing her that he was keeping their promise.
Taking the tray of sweet dumplings when they were held out to her, Anko moved to walk past him and just happened to "accidently" rub her left side up against the front of his body. 'I'll find you later, Kakashi-kun.' With a swish of her hips and a whirl of leaves she was gone, sweet dumplings and all.
'You know you guys. You could have helped me out back there, or at least stayed in view.' Slugging behind what seemed to be an annoyed Naruto and a satisfied Sakura, Kakashi looked as if he might die from shame, while Sai walked at his side giving him nothing but his fake smile; no sympathy, no nothing.
'We wanted to see how the master got out of all kinds of sticky situations.'' Throwing her old sensei an amused smirk over her shoulder, Sakura had to stop to try and hold her laughter in. The look that she got in return didn't help her sides to relax, so she let out a loud, hysterical laugh that had people walking past them stare at the group in surprised curiosity. Kakashi did not look impressed with his student having a good laugh at his expense.
'What kind of sticky situations?' Just as Kakashi thought things couldn't get any worse, whoever should join them from a side alley than Yamato, Team Sevens current captain.
'Nothing don't worry about it!' Kakashi said quickly in a loud voice. Yamato looked from his friend to his team; taking in Kakashi's nervous face, Sakura's laughter stricken expression, Naruto's annoyed look, and Sai's usual smile.
Deciding that asking about an explanation now would not be in his best interest with Kakashi, Yamato made a mental note to ask Sakura, or Naruto, about the event that he had missed. 'Alright. I've just come from the Hokage Tower; the Godaime said that we had a mission. She said that Sakura had the details, but...' Looking at Sakura trying to contain her amusement, Yamato concluded that she was in no state to give a detailed version of the mission. 'I think we should go back to the Godaime and get the mission from her.'
'Do you doubt my ability to contain myself, Captain Yamato?' She mimicked the tone that she had heard her Shishou use when she was dealing with particularly troubling clients; low, soft and deadly. The fruits of her effort were rewarding. Naruto was practically using Sai as his human shield, while Kakashi had stopped his moping enough to back away from his dangerous student. Yamato was not so lucky; as soon as he had stated his doubt, Sakura had his shirt in her hands bringing his face down to her level.
'No no! I-it wasn't like that at all. I just...just-'
'He just meant that we should check with the Godaime to see if she found any other information on the mission she told you.'
'I suppose your right Kakashi-sensei. But she told me all the information that they had was given to me. Besides, we would just be wasting time if we go back.'
'Alright, then tell us about the mission! I want to start already!'
'Hai hai, jeez Naruto-baka.' Growling at her friend, Sakura turned to the rest of the team to inform them of the mission. 'This is an indefinite mission. No time limit has been set, and we can use any method to complete it. Tsunade-shishou has allowed Team Seven to resume its search and retrieval of Uchiha Sasuke.'
For a moment nobody said anything. Then...
'YES! Finally we can bring Sasuke back!' Naruto looked as if he could fly with the news of the mission.
'Alright alright, calm down Naruto. The mission isn't going to change if you don't fly. Who's going as team leader Sakura?' Captain Yamato had recovered enough from Sakura's potential beating to point out an important part of the team.
'You both are going to be on the team, it's between you two who's going to be leader. Tsunade-shishou said that she explicitly wants both Kakashi-sensei and Captain Yamato on this team.' Yamato turned to Kakashi and flat out gave him the title of Team Leader. 'I'd prefer to observe this time, see how you lead your infamous team.' Sighing in annoyance, Kakashi pulled out his Icha-Icha Paradise book and looked at his team.
'Alright. Get everything you think you may need for this trip, because we won't be back in Konoha for a long while. Meet just outside the front gate in one hour. Dismissed.' Abruptly turning, walking in the opposite direction before they could interrupt his reading session, Kakashi turned the corner and teleported back to his apartment.
Collecting his ready-made bag, he then teleported again, this time to the memorial grounds. And there he stayed until he was thirty minutes late for the mission to begin.
When they had been dismissed, Sakura had excused herself from the rest of the team to make her way back to her apartment. Not having expected a mission of that length today, Sakura hadn't a bag packed for the trip. No matter, it wouldn't take long to arrange the essentials that she would need. After 15 minutes of packing, checking, and re-checking that she had everything, Sakura made her way to the Konoha gates. As she thought she would be, Sakura was the first one there. With nothing to do but wait for the time to fly, Sakura made her way to the nearest tree and sat in front of its shaded trunk, looking up at the clouds, like Nara Shikamaru often did when he was bored.
"Kami. I hope we find him soon." With that thought, Sakura settled down for the rest of her team to arrive, so they could begin the long awaited mission.
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AND that's it! I really hope that you enjoyed reading this story, and will continue to support me in this miniseries that I have created, and my other stories. I'm thinking of trying my hand at Fairy Tail, even though I have only read the first volume, but I really like the characters. I'm also going to become a beta reader, as soon as I have written five stories, or whatever requirements they want have been met.
If there is anything that you'd like to have in the new story, feel free to give me a private message, or comment on this story. I would really like to have requests, because it makes me think and helps the WB away.
See you again X3
