Author's notes: Am I late? Hmm, oh well. I'm reading the latest manga chapters at the moment, and right now, I'm a bit annoyed with Masashi Kishimoto, and I think you'll strongly agree with me if you read them. Danzou is a prick, and I hate cliff-hangers, grr. I won't spoil it from there for you guys, and I'll stop babbling while I still have a chance. Okay, so we're nearing the juicy chapters if you get what I mean ;), yet, I'm anxious to know what you would think of it, but oh well, that chapter is yet to come, haha. Anyway, thanks for everyone for reviewing, I'm loving the attention and the awesome comments, but seriously, if you want to critisise, go for it, but it's only the positive ones that will matter to me :D.

Sakura: closer to our fate, huh?

Kakashi: (reading Icha Icha) seems so

Sakura: pff, you don't seem to have much interest in this chapter, why is that?

Kakashi: what makes you say I don't have any interest in this chapter?

Sakura: because you seem like you'd rather read your gay and utterly rubbish porn books

Kakashi: hey! They're not gay, nor are they rubbish; Jiraiya has very good taste in writing

Sakura: ew...aren't you a little disturbed by the fact that an old man writes those??? Oh wait! Never mind, I see now old men read them too ;D

Kakashi: that's not funny, and I'm not old

Sakura: your hair says differently (prods at Kakashi's hair)

Kakashi: stop that (wipes hand away) it's silver if you really want to know, and I was born with that hair; it's what seperates my clan from everyone else.

Sakura: yeah right, I'm sure you just have terrible pigmentation problems with your hair (grins)

Kakashi: whatever! Lets just let the visitors read the chapter

Sakura: Okay then...ENJOY everyone XD

CHAPTER ELEVEN: SEEKING THE TRUTH

After a good half hour of drabbling about the mission Kakashi was given, the four Kunoichi were discussing the good and the bad about all male Shinobi of Konoha. It was fascinating to see how each reacted to each name. The moment Kakashi was mentioned as part of the subject, Sakura couldn't help but blush, and as soon as Ino got carried away with the details and started talking about his assets, Sakura wanted to change the subject instantly. She personally had seen his face, and almost every inch of his body, just the only areas Ino was discussing now were the bits she hadn't seen.

But Hinata remained rather quiet about it only because she was already dating Naruto, "so how's it going with you and Naruto?" Tenten asked, threading her fingers through her dark brown hair; Sakura mentally thanked her dearly for changing the subject on her behalf.

"It's going along great at the moment," the Hyuuga girl replied sweetly, smiling softly as a blush formed across her already heated cheeks.

The other girls smiled and sighed as they relaxed in the natural springs, "man, this weather sure has been strange today," Ino said out of the blue after five minutes of utter silence. Tenten, Hinata and Sakura all hummed in unison; all too lazy to speak now that their muscles were completely relaxed in the water.

The rest of the day went along like any other day for Sakura. After her lunch break at the hot springs, she felt a lot better and her body felt refreshed and cleansed. Just as the end of the day had arrived for her at the hospital and she was in the middle of mending a broken ankle of a eleven year old boy, her mind had brought her up to the conclusion to thank Kakashi for the idea.

Once Sakura had finished her healing, she patted the boy's knee to let him know she was done and he could let go of the bench. The boy seemed embarrassed because he was screaming for a while and hung onto the bed to ease the pain, which actually did nothing to help him in any way, "okay, your ankle is all better, but I warn you, next time you climb high trees, make sure your sensei is there to supervise," she gave the brown haired child a stern look before dismissing him.

The boy blinked once before leaving the room; he hadn't mentioned how he broke his ankle, so he was a little shocked as to how Sakura knew. After the pink haired medic packed up her things at her office, she grabbed her coat and left the room, striding down the hallway and toward the exit of the building. Signing out quickly, Sakura waved to the nurse behind the counter and left the hospital.

Strangely, it hadn't rained all day today, which was probably a sign that it was going to bucket down later on, but either way, Sakura didn't mind. She smiled as she made her way home, happy that she was back working at the hospital and got to catch up with her friends on her relaxing lunch break at the hot springs. Just then, a thought plagued her once more. It was her decision of whether or not she was in love with Kakashi, and the one thing she had most trouble with lately was following what her heart said. The last time she followed her heart was with none other than the last remaining, Uchiha Sasuke himself. Sakura was completely focused on earning the raven haired boy's love, that she didn't really know what was going on around her. And right at the very end, Sasuke had crushed her heart into pieces and Sakura was left depressed over her loss, but she managed to get over it and let him be.

"Hey Forehead!" an obnoxious voice bellowed from across the streets.

'Aww man…' Sakura groaned inwardly before forcing a smile at her blonde haired friend.

Ino ran across the street and caught up with Sakura, who didn't really want to talk to her, especially when she had a few other things to deal with right now, such as her current decision making about her love life.

Sakura sighed when Ino decided to walk alongside her to her house and she had a look in her eyes that meant trouble and information wanted from her pink haired friend, "so," she started promptly, "how long?" simple question enough, but it was a little out of the blue for Sakura.

"How long what?" Sakura was stalling and Ino knew it.

The flower girl rolled her pale coloured eyes and said, "don't play dumb Sakura, you know what I'm talking about," she gave her long-term friend a firm stare, which made Sakura give up in the end, knowing Ino could complain for a long time until it went her way.

She sighed in defeat, "so how long have you had feelings for him?" Ino prodded, letting her know that she demanded to know. The pink haired Kunoichi raised a hand to let her know she was going to reply and thought about it for a moment. How long had she harboured feelings for him? She couldn't tell from the top of her head, but she knew it had been for a while.

"A while I guess," was all Sakura could say. She didn't know how else to answer.

Ino scoffed, "you don't know how long you've been crushing on him for?" she exclaimed loudly as though she wanted everyone to hear about the conversation she and Sakura were currently having.

"Pipe down Ino, and no, I don't know, or at least I'm not one hundred percent sure how long," Sakura glared at her blonde haired friend, making sure she'd get the idea and leave her alone about it, but she didn't seem very convinced. Sakura thought deep about how long she had actually been crushing on Kakashi; she guessed it had been for a long time because she noticed the two Jounins had been stated as equals when they hadn't seen much of each other when Naruto was training with Jiraiya. No longer did Sakura see Kakashi as her sensei, but as an equal comrade and friend.

There was a time when Naruto and Sasuke were talking about Kakashi when he was still training them, and they were mentioning Kakashi's muscles and how well toned he was, and all Sakura could do was gape at the two boys and listen to their banter about whose body was better in muscle; Kakashi being the winner in that department. Sakura confirmed their assumptions recently when she caught a good look at Kakashi's body, though not all of it, but from what Sakura had seen of it so far, she was practically drooling at the mere sight. That last morning she was at his house and they had decided to sleep in the same bed together, Sakura and noticed that diagonal scar running over his chest; she remembered that from years ago when he got himself slashed by Zabuza in the land of Waves. She could clearly remember when she was the one who had to bandage up his chest, with the exception of a firm blush gracing her cheeks, but she wasn't able to catch a full glimpse of his torso because of the injury and the blood all over him.

"But from when you can remember, how long?" Ino pressed on, pulling Sakura out of her stupor.

She gave a light shrug, "since Naruto came back after his two and a half year training with Jiraiya, I think," Ino rose a brow and gave her pink haired friend a thoughtful stare.

They just rounded the corner to Sakura's street, "but Sakura, if I may ask, why Kakashi?" Ino asked, raising an eyebrow and slightly concerned that Sakura was practically crushing on her former sensei. She realised however that she didn't mind at all actually; she was just a little jealous that Sakura got all the hot men and she was stuck with a neighbour just down the hall from her apartment.

Sakura shrugged, having pulled her mind out of memory lane, "I don't know; Kakashi's a nice guy, and he was always looking after me when I needed it, I suppose it's because of a few certain qualities that he fits with," she said offhandedly, watching Ino's expression change a little at the statement.

The medic glanced over at Ino, who was giving her the stare that only meant she didn't like what she heard, "that's it?" she quipped, "no comments about how good he is in bed, or dodgy fantasies of you waking up in the middle of the night sweating from a horny dream?" she snapped.

"Ino!" Sakura seethed, glaring at her blonde haired friend at all costs to get her to shut up.

"What, I'm just saying, haven't you even considered those possibilities?"

Sakura was very tempted to slap Ino across the face; usually it would be the other way around, where someone would ask that same question because the other person only talked about how great someone is in bed. But this was Ino we're talking about, so Sakura couldn't help but sigh.

Sakura glanced tiresomely at Ino, "look Ino, I appreciate what you're trying to say, but right now I'm really tired, and I'll think about this on my own and come up with my own decision," she smiled sweetly and when she reached her house, she waved goodbye to Ino, who remained silent and walked on, waving in return.

As soon as Sakura was inside her home, she heaved a great sigh and slumped forward, realising her frustration towards her friends. She would get her answers soon enough, but right now, something to eat and lounging in her living room was in need. She made her way into the kitchen and fixed herself a steaming mug of tea and a healthy sandwich to satisfy her hunger.

She took a seat on the couch and silently ate her food, staring at her tea and her mind was phasing out. She quietly thought of a way to tell Kakashi how she felt but…it was just too hard to build up the courage to say something to him, or at least say something of that nature. She liked him, maybe even loved him, but she didn't know how to tell him.

She remembered that morning what Kakashi conveniently had himself on top of her and she saw a look in his eyes; something that made her see him as an even more different person. What he showed was almost needy, as if he wanted to tell her something at the time, but couldn't say it. Great, this was just peachy; both of them had something to say, and neither of them had the balls to say it. But that moment gave Sakura the assumption that she shouldn't be so afraid to tell him, thinking that he knew and he did too.

The medic shook her head and sighed, getting up after finishing off her food and tea and brought it to the counter to clean later and walked into the bedroom. There was still a bit of daylight, so Sakura decided to just hang around in her room and reminisce there.

She sat on her bed, staring at the bag that she still hadn't unpacked ever since she left Kakashi's house. With a tired grunt and a mumble of incoherent words, Sakura got down on her knees and unzipped her bag, pulling out all her things and tossing them in two piles for dirty clothes and clothes she could put away because they were clean. Out came the teddy bear she took with her and gave it a kiss on the forehead and a cuddle before tossing it onto her bed. She carelessly tossed shirts, pants, shorts and skirts onto the growing pile of some much needed washing and barely payed any attention to what went where.

Once her bag was emptied, she tossed it up onto her closet where she stored most of her rarely used things and carried the laundry into the bathroom where the washing machine stood, unused long since she came back home. She started sorting out by dark and light colours for each load. She tossed all the dark in first, making sure there wasn't anything light such as her white socks in amongst the laundry. She stopped, raising an eyebrow when she came across something that would barely fit her because of the sheer size. It was dark navy blue and really baggy, but then it hit her. It was the shirt she had borrowed from Kakashi and she tossed it into her bag by accident. Oops.

A small smile formed its way on her features the longer she stared at that shirt. She hadn't seen Kakashi since she was able to go home, and she started to miss his company. Not only that, but the smell of him was something she suddenly got used to and practically longed for now.

She threw the rest of the necessary clothes into the washing machine and the other light pile in the basket for later. The thought of Kakashi's presence lingered at the back of her mind as she walked back into her room to do a bit of much needed paperwork to pass the time.

After a few boring hours of writing senseless reviews on her patients from dates that passed a month back, Sakura stopped, feeling her eyelids abruptly grow heavy. She set her pen down and lazily stared at the writing on the papers, wondering how she had managed to write so much, but as soon as she caught notice of the time, she gave a simple nod to answer her question.

She reached up to the ceiling with her hands, stretching her now stiffened muscles and inhaled deeply before she felt a sharp pain shoot down into her left leg. Sakura stiffened instantly, gasping at the sudden feeling. She had leg cramp again, and right now, all Sakura wanted to stop the pain was Kakashi's hands to ease it. He had done it before, so he can do it again, but he wasn't here, so Sakura was at a loss.

She desperately reached down and tried soothing the aching muscle with her hands, trying to massage them to relieve the tension like how Kakashi had done back then. It wasn't working as well as she had hoped, but soon the stiffness was gone and she sighed in relief, leaning back on her chair and staring aimlessly at the wall in front of her.

With all the photos of many years ago, Sakura had something to look at. She leaned forward and rested her elbows on the wooden surface and gazed at the difference between her age currently and back when she first became a ninja. All her hard work and efforts had paid off in the end; she had become a grown woman with brute super human strength and a temper to beat. When she was still a Gennin and was still swooning over her crush on Sasuke, there was barely much to look at with her because she was pretty pathetic in strength, but a practical loudmouth almost like Naruto. Now she had matured greatly over the years as a Kunoichi, and become a valuable asset to the village. She was proud to have gotten this far already.

Her eyes panned across the photo-covered wall and took in the sights of her past and cherished childhood. There was a photo of her and Ino, smiling brightly together a while after they had first become friends. Back then, Sakura was a very happy girl. Gullible and naïve, yes, but a happy girl indeed.

Her team photo caught her attention quickly and her gaze softened a little at the sight. Everyone seemed about as normal as you could get from that team. Sasuke: depressed, Naruto: loudmouthed, Sakura: just your average pre-teen girl with obsessions of the opposite sex. And Kakashi…well the first word that always came to mind about him was 'mysterious'. It was true because Kakashi always wore that confounded mask wherever he went, and heck, maybe he even showered with it. But there was just that outer side of Kakashi that gave a mysterious aura radiating off him at the sight. His eyes did nothing about it because there was only one visible and it never expressed a thing on most occasions.

On the photo however, Sakura was able to notice the distress Kakashi was going through during the photo shoot; showing that he wished why he was stuck with a bunch of retards as his students. No, strike that, his only students to have ever passed and survived his training methods.

The photo of her as a baby was in front view now. She looked about the same as every other baby she had ever seen in her life; all except the big green eyes and pink locks, but everything else was standard 'baby'. But she had to admit she was cute at that age; only a couple months old at the time. She hadn't quite taken to realise how much she had changed over the years. She was such a sweet innocent child that grew up wanting to be a dangerous Shinobi. She discovered boys, or better put: discovered Sasuke. Sakura realised in the end that she didn't love him; that it was merely a childhood crush and that the Sasuke she wanted was just a figment of her imagination.

Sasuke never returned any feelings to Sakura whenever she wanted him to. She guessed Sasuke treated her just like every other swooning fangirl out there wanting to see him take his shirt off or even say something cool, which rarely happened anyway.

Though something always got her thinking, and that was her natural hair colour. She was pretty lucky that her favourite colour was red so pink was an exception, but if it hadn't, she would've killed to change the colour to something more suitable to her taste. She hadn't met any other person other than her own mother who had the same hair colour, and why it was pink she didn't know.

The one thing that bothered her about it was that she stood out easily; in fact, all members of Team 7 stood out, not only because of their personality, but their style. Naruto was obnoxious, and his bright yellow hair only added to his attitude. Sasuke was always full of himself, and the blue-black hair colour shaped oddly only made it worse for Sakura to bare, and it made him look like one of those cockatoos with the crest sticking up. His lone-wolf attitude alone did that job perfectly. Then there was Kakashi, one of a few people in Konoha who wore a mask on a daily basis, and his unruly silver hair, spiked in an odd angle made things see more interesting in a strange way for Sakura. When she first met Kakashi, she thought that her sensei was some kind of creepy clown or something because of the way he stood, spoke and his unusual way of being sarcastic with his students. His hair style alone was something of a mystery.

Mystery.

That word always came up when she was around Kakashi; during missions and training, that was the basis of which she concentrated on, although trying to learn at the same time. When he wasn't looking, or she assumed he wasn't looking, she would stare at the angled silver hair whenever she got the chance, pondering over its shape and colour.

She never expected to have Kakashi as her teacher, even though she never knew him prior, but to have one of Konoha's top Shinobi as her teacher was something she couldn't quite find the answer to. She guessed it was probably because Naruto was the dumbest and Sasuke was the smartest and that their potential of being a fully fledged Shinobi was great, not to mention Sasuke's determination to kill his brother, Itachi and restore his clan. And Naruto had the Kyuubi sealed within him, and he had the full determination to become the next Hokage.

And what was Sakura to them? What potential did she have at the time? What was her dream?

But seriously, what was her dream? When they first met up with their new sensei, her dream at the time was to marry Sasuke and have lots of sex and babies. Okay maybe not the latter, but marrying Sasuke was practically her top priority. Now her dream was crushed and shattered into pieces and she was left with nothing, thus it made her feel empty.

Sakura shook her head of any negative thoughts clouding her mind and judgment and looked on. She gazed at many more pictures of herself and many others, smiling at the sweet memories. There was one she clearly remembered when she was fifteen, and long after Sasuke had left. This was shortly after Kakashi was released from the hospital after using the Mangekyou against Deidara and overused the Sharingan as usual. Naruto, Kakashi and herself came across a public photo booth and Sakura insisted on taking a few shots. Naruto happily complied, but Kakashi wasn't too keen on getting photos taken of himself. After five minutes of pouting and begging, with the help of Naruto's tugging and pulling on the older man's sleeve, Kakashi sighed in defeat and accepted the offer.

The pink haired medic giggled at the memory when she stared at the four photos attached to one another in sequence. The first one was with Naruto and Sakura along, smiling cheerfully at the camera with the blonde flashing the piece sign. The next one was with Kakashi, who had his book out in front of the camera, which annoyed Naruto somewhat. He gave the older man a good yell and Kakashi eventually put his book away. The photo shot was a cheerful one that one; Kakashi smiled properly for a change, and on the last shot, Sakura grabbed both boys on either side of her and held them close for a group hug as the shot was taken. She was very happy afterwards, but no one wanted to take the pictures home, so Sakura decided to take them. She had them pinned up on that wall ever since.

Her thoughts about the past and the good old days were interrupted when she realised how late it was. Sakura sighed, stretching one last time and got up off her chair. She'd have to figure out when to tell Kakashi how she felt, if she felt anything about him at all. Kakashi practically took advantage of her on the day she was going home, yet she didn't protest against his actions. In fact, she didn't mind it at all, she was just a little shocked by the fact that it was Kakashi doing those things to her. Certainly that had some effect on her. Hell, he had a huge effect on her, no matter how much she wanted to deny it, he affected her so much, and she only realised that recently.

Sakura settled under her blankets after changing into her pink pyjamas. She sighed to herself as her eyelids grew heavier by the second and stared at the ceiling as she allowed sleep to overcome her, but just before she drifted off to a sound dream, she made up her mind.

'I will tell him the next time I see him…'

The light peered its way through the window of the bedroom and played on Sakura's eyes. It was a groggy moan that woke her up that morning. She had a feeling at the pit of her stomach that today would be a good day; not because of her assumptions last night, but it was just the atmosphere that that filled the room, creating a happy vibe around her that lifted her spirits a little.

As Sakura prepared herself for the day's events and made a light breakfast, she thought about what she had said to herself before falling asleep. The statement was taunting her, she knew that much, but that was only because she was just anxious about telling him, and she was also scared he would reject her.

'No! I won't let that get me down,' she mentally reassured herself, in hopes of keeping herself determined throughout the day in case she did bump into Kakashi in the village.

This way, she'd be prepared for it.

She had a rough shift today, but thankfully she still had an hour left and she had the rest of the day off. When she came into work that day, Sakura found a white rose positioned on her desk with a crumpled note on top. She realised it was from Lee, saying how happy he was to see Sakura was well again. Knowing Lee, he probably heard the news from Ino or someone else; most likely Gai if otherwise. The rose had cheered her up somewhat, and thought it as a sweet gift from the young green clad Jounin.

Three people came in as soon as she arrived at the hospital; they were civilians involved in a mission somehow just outside the village and something went wrong and they got themselves injured pretty bad. The first one she was checking over was actually concussed, so she couldn't do much, but mend his broken arm and jaw. The next one had several gashes on his arms and a badly broken leg: broken at the ankle, practically shattered just above the knee and a cracked hip. The third wasn't as badly injured as the others; he had a cracked jaw, a few gashes here and there and a hairline fracture.

Her last hour was spent signing paperwork for said people she had to fix up, and she always found the paperwork the most dreadful part of the job, not to mention the more boring.

With a long and stressful sigh, Sakura delivered the documents to the head doctor of the department to pass onto the medical records of every patient since Kami knows when. All their information and records were stocked in the spooky basement below; she had only once been down there to retrieve a single file for research and she never thought she'd make it out alive, or mentally stable. It was like walking through a maze of mirrors. The files they had there must've been there for so long, and they had so much of it, and no doubt about several Shinobi these several generations before her own. Most of the documents stored there were for reference to those who frequently visit the hospital, and others were extra information for medic eyes only. That information was classified to only those qualified to read these files. Sakura was one of the few who was allowed to do so.

She still had half an hour left before she would go home, and now she had nothing to do. If she went out and asked for something to do, she'd probably get thrown a nurse job down the ward and she'd be held up for hours on end, and she didn't want to do that, or at least not today anyway.

The medic sat in total boredom at the desk of her office, the only sounds perceptible were the ticking of her clock, her own calm breathing and the mumbles outside the office. She sighed for the nth time in the past five minutes, wishing for time to scoot along a little faster until her shift was over. She leaned forward on the desk, resting her head on her folded arms underneath and closed her eyes to nap the time off.

The nap worked to say the least. Sakura managed to sleep for a good three quarters of an hour before waking up. When she saw the time, she was pulled out of her sleepy stupor and yawned lazily and got up. She was a little more tired than she had thought, so she lost track of time when she only wanted to take a quick nap to pass the time, and for some reason, no one decided to let her know her shift was over.

With an exasperated sigh, Sakura gathered her things and left the hospital, signing out as she did so and went straight home to change. Ever since the accident, her body wasn't as fit as it was then, so she decided some exercising would do her some good.

As soon as she got home, Sakura changed out of her medic uniform and into something a little more flexible, so a skin-tight tank top and some shorts were perfect for the task. Sakura also took her medical pack with her for standard procedure in case she injured herself and needed some treatment done. After donning her training outfit and gear, Sakura took off, jogging towards the training grounds and doing some much-needed training to get her body up and running again.

The training grounds were muddy, which didn't surprise Sakura at all because of the past five weeks of rain. Not only that, but there was also evidence of recent training out on these fields because of the muddy skid marks and a few damaged trees and messy craters in the ground. Sakura could only barely make out where it was actually stable to walk on, so she ditched that part of the fields and moved over to a more secluded place where people rarely went to train because it was so far back. She felt it was a more suitable place to train, so she began with a few light jogs around the area to warm up, and then she did a few stretches and sprinted from one end of the field to the other before mud practically squirted from her footfalls and flicked all up the backs of her legs and some on her face. With a surprised gasp from the abrupt wetness on her now cool skin, she stopped, rolling her eyes and grunting at her now dirty attire

With a light shrug, Sakura carried on with her training; it wasn't like it was going to get any worse. Unfortunately for the pink haired Kunoichi, things were about to get worse. Not five minutes after the first mud incident, she slipped over and landed on her backside, flat on the muddy surface of now brown grass. With a few curses breathed out from her frustration, Sakura got up and smeared as much of it off as she could before continuing.

She then started with some basic chakra control to get her chakra signals flowing through her system properly. Now that every inch of her body had been warmed up, Sakura focused some chakra to her hands and prepared for some super human pounding. She directed her attack right into the ground, weakening it severely as the mud around her was thrown up in the air and cratered the hard earth underneath.

Now practically completely covered in mud, Sakura sighed to herself but resumed training and tried several other chakra involved techniques. She leapt from one tree to another to see how fast she could actually get from one place to the next using chakra. Using her mad ninja skills always came in handy even outside the battlefield, so she always wanted to stay in shape.

Author's notes: This chapter was probably a bit longer than most others, and I must remind you, the next chapter will probably be much shorter than this one. Now lets see...any favoured scenes...not really, just Ino and Sakura having their interesting Kakashi-involved talk. I suppose this chapter is mostly filler, but that only adds to the suspense for the next chapter :D.

Sakura: ooooh, the suspense is killing me already

Kakashi: yeah, I'm actually starting to wonder what's going to happen next

Sakura: yeah, but our author did mention a few things about the next few chapters

Kakashi: just don't spoil it, you know we hate spoilers

Sakura: pff, only you do

Kakashi: and the viewers and readers???

Sakura: oh...right

Kakashi: yeah, better recognise!!!

Sakura: (rolls eyes) anyway, hope you enjoyed this (filler) chapter

Kakashi: and be nice and leave us a review :D