Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Italics= Thoughts/Flashback

First Person POV- Sakura

Where is it?

Younger Sakura, Kakashi-sensei, Naruto, Sasuke, and I went directly to the place that I had woken up when I came to this strange world. When we arrived at the spot, the scroll was nowhere to be found. We had searched for an hour and no positive results came up.

"Ah! I can't take it anymore!" Naruto complained. "Where is that scroll?"

"Ah…," younger Sakura said. "At this rate, we will never find it. I don't think it's here anymore."

"Sakura's probably right," Kakashi-sensei agreed. "We should probably report this to the third hokage. By the way, I forgot to mention this before, but this needs to be a secret. We don't want any more problems than we have. However, the third hokage needs to know. He can be trusted to keep it a secret from the villagers."

"That's right," I agreed.

"True," younger me replied.

"Hn," Sasuke said.

"Especially you Naruto," Kakashi-sensei mentioned.

"Hey! I know already," Naruto nodded his head. "I got it Kakashi-sensei."

"We better go now before it gets dark. It's about 4pm right now. Not much time before night. Only a couple of hours left," Kakashi-sensei continued.

All five of us walked toward the office that I had just exit about 2 or 3 hours ago.

Where is that scroll?

Flashback

First Person POV- Ino (13)

"Ugh! Sakura! Stay away from my Sasuke!" I yelled.

"Yours? Puh-lease! Like he will ever like such a pig like you," Sakura replied.

"You know what! You think he will like you? Who will ever like such a big fore headed girl! Uh, NOT SASUKE! Or anyone else, as a matter of fact," I smirked.

"Just get out of my way! Sasuke is waiting for me. Hehehee…"

"Psh! Like he'll ever wait for you."

"Shut up and move!"

"Make me."

"Hey look it's Sasuke! Sasuke!"

I turned around to the direction she was pointing at. "Where?"

"Huh? Where is he Sakura?"I turned back around to see that see that she was gone. "Sakura! You're going to pay for this!"

I decided to walk towards the restaurant where my team was meeting for lunch, but, before that, I need to go back home to fix my appearance. Running after Sakura made me look like I haven't brushed my hair in days. Don't wanna look like that if I ever bump into my Sasuke. Hehehee… I was just passing the gates of Konoha when I spoted something in the distance.

What is that?

I went just beyond the gates and toward the direction of the mysterious object to find a scroll.

What's this doing here? Someone probably lost it. I'll take it to my dad to let him examine it and turn it in to the owner when I get home.

At My House

"Dad!" I shouted. "Are you home?"

I heard footsteps coming down the stairs.

"Dad"

"What is it?" Dad replied.

"I found this scroll just beyond the gates of Konoha. Don't know who this belongs to."

"Ok, let me see. I'll turn it in to the third hokage."

I handed it to him and walked towards my room.

Time for lunch.

End of Flashback

First Person POV- Sakura

We had finally reached the third hokage's office and are now standing in front of the door.

*Knock Knock*

"Come in," the hokage answered.

Kakashi-sensei gestured for us to go in as he opened the door for us. "Ladies first"

The third hokage glanced up at his paper work once again and spotted me.

"You…," he said shocked.

"It's ok," Kakashi-sensei calmed. "She's a friend."

He lowered his position, but still had a guarded face.

"What was your reason for coming here?" the third hokage asked.

"We have an urgent problem and are in need of your help," Kakashi-sensei started.

"Sakura here," he said gesturing to me. "Is from the future. This may sound unbelievable, but I can promise you that what I am about to tell you here is not a lie. In the future, she was ordered to pick up a scroll and open it, if necessary, to check its contents. It first had a snake-like symbol, but changed when opened fully to a clock-like figure. She blacked out when looking at the clock-like figure and suddenly ended up in past—which is, now, the present for us."

"Do you have evidence?" the third hokage asked.

"Yes, however, I need your help on finding it. It is the scroll that sent her here."

"How does it look like?"

Kakashi-sensei looked at me and used his eyes to gesture me to answer.

"The scroll is in a golden silk wrapping," I answered.

"Do you mean this?" the hokage held up the scroll that sent me here.

"…how,"

"Yamanaka-san dropped it off today claiming it was missing and that his daughter found it just beyond the gates of Konoha"

I grabbed it out of his hands and examined it.

This is it. I found the scroll. Now I can get home to Sasuke.

"This is it. This is it!"

"Well, now we have that figured out," Kakashi-sensei stated. "All we need to find out is how to get back to your time."

"Hand it over here," commanded the third hokage.

He opened the scroll partly and saw the mysterious snake markings. Then, closed it up.

"Don't want to open it fully or I'll probably be sent to another time. I believe you. I'll give you every help I can provide and make sure to keep it a secret, since we do not want any more problems," he continued.

"I'll keep this for now," the third hokage said, gesturing to the scroll. "I'll figure out how this scroll works and all that. You may go."

"Thank you," I bowed.

As soon as younger Sakura, Kakashi-sensei, Naruto, Sasuke, and I walked out of the building, Naruto exclaimed, "I'm hungry. Let's go to Ichiraku's guys!"

"I'm hungry too," younger me agreed.

"I'll join," I exclaimed.

"Hn," Sasuke replied.

"Well, you guys go on ahead," Kakashi-sensei said. "I have some things to do. I'll see you guys tomorrow on the training grounds at 8am sharp."

"Aw…Why? That's too early! How about at noon? Yeah, we can get lunch at Ichiraku's after we meet," Naruto recommended.

"8am sharp. Bye."

"But Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto whined.

"Stop complaining Naruto. Let's go." Younger me commanded.

"Sakura-chan!"

She sighed at she headed towards the direction of Ichiraku's.

I followed behind as we walked in silence.

"Finally! We're here! I'm starving!" Naruto yelled.

"Quiet down Naruto," my younger self loudly whispered. "You're attracting too much attention."

Naruto sat on the left corner at the very end, Sasuke sat next to him on his right, I sat next to him on his right, and Sakura sat next to me on my right. I knew she wanted to sit next to Sasuke, but I wanted to sit next to him more. A day without Sasuke is torture to me. Even if this is the younger version of him and he doesn't love me, I still feel satisfied with him near me. We took our orders and waited.

"Here you are Naruto," the cook exclaimed, turning to hand the bowl to Naruto.

As clumsy as Naruto is, he reached out for the bowl with lightning speed, due to his hunger, and knock down the cup of water in front of him and into the kitchen, right in front of the cook. The cook slipped on the water and fell to the ground—splashing ramen and hot water everywhere. There was broken glass, noodles, and burning water on the floor.

"Naruto! See what you have done! Such a klutz!" younger Sakura stated.

Sasuke smirked at Naruto's failure. I gasped and quickly went over the counter to check if the cook was alright. He had cuts, burns, and bruises all over his body.

"Here let me help," I offered. I helped him up onto a chair and focused chakra onto my hands which started glowing green. Then, I put my hands on the areas where he got hurt. After a while, all the cuts, bruises and burns disappeared.

"Thank you very much," he replied.

"You're welcome," I smiled.

"You're a medic?" Naruto asked.

I looked up at him with a glare and replied, "Yeah. Next time, be more careful."

"Yes," he cowered.

"That…that means that I'm going to be one too? I'm going to be a medic," younger me figured.

I replied with a smile," Yes, yes you will."

"That's awesome Sakura!" Naruto yelled.

"Anyways," I started. "I'll help clean up the mess."

Younger Sakura said," I'll help too. You better help Naruto!"

Without a word, Naruto started picking up the shattered bowl pieces. Sasuke also joined in.

"Finally. It's all clean!" Naruto exclaimed.

We all sat back down and the cook started making ramen for us again. I noticed that younger Sakura got quiet and spaced out during the middle of our clean up.

"Sakura," I said.

"Huh? Uh...Yeah?" she replied.

"Is something bothering you?"

"Wha…Why no. Why do you ask?"

"Because you have been spacing out since we finished cleaning up."

"Well…If you don't mind me asking…that is…"

"Of course not, why would I? Go ahead." I urged her to go on.

"It's just that…I couldn't help but notice that…ring on your finger. Are you married?"

Thank you for reading chapter 9 of "Strength of Love".

It's a bit longer than the last couple of chapters. Hope you enjoyed it.

Please review. =)