She stored the photograph in a securely sealed tin box and dug a hole for it at night, like a criminal.

Team 7. The old days. She had been the only one not to give up hope for this long, but it was time to get real.

Sasuke had left them long ago. But Naruto and Kakashi told her to have faith, back then, and so she did. Then, after the war, they lost Kakashi. But she still had Naruto at the time, stubborn Naruto, and so she stubbornly held on to her faith. But when even Naruto left and did no longer come back, she had to admit defeat.

To be fair, she had her separate life and work and she was not at all lonely. Thy left their holes in her life, like the work of moths in a curtain, but she got used to it that way and, nowadays, she hardly even missed them. At times, she remembered a sweet moment in time and a cold feeling grabbed at her chest, but it had too little to do with her current life as to affect her the way it had used to. So, for a while, all has been nothing but well.

And now, all of a sudden, both of them showed up in her office, one with his usual goofy wide smile, the other, carelessly teasing the first. As if one hadn't given up quite a while ago. As if the other hadn't been the first to abandon them. It came only natural when she, too, finally let go, she told herself.

"What's it with the two of you?" she asked as she found herself dragged out of her office and out into the street.

"Is it late for a walk to Kakashi-sensei's place, you reckon?" Naruto asked, his arms crossed behind his head. It made their thickness even more prominent and she caught sight of the seemingly longer hair kept up tight at the back of his head, as well.

"It is bloody late, yes!" Sakura spat back, but it didn't look like Naruto understood what she meant by that. Sasuke, however, threw her a short, quick glance, like he did understand it. But she could not figure what he made out of that. Nothing new. What could she ever figure out of his behaviour ever, anyway?

"Your hair is longer," he said then, out of nowhere.

"Ne, Sakura-chan, I thought you said you'd never let it grow again," Naruto pointed out, too.

"When did I even say that?" she mumbled, exasperated. This was ridiculous. Out of all the explanations that were supposed to be given, those questioned were her hairstyle choices. Was the three ones' relationship at such a dead end that only small talk could avoid the quiet? And was it so desperate that Sasuke...-kun would be the one to resort to small talk?

"Well, you kept it short after the Chunnin exam and it seemed you wouldn't change it too soon," Naruto talked again.

She kept the nasty 'It's not that too soon at all' comment to herself and said instead, "Well, you kept it short for most of your life, too, and look at that," she pointed to the blond bun.

"With me it's just negligence," he shrugged.

"She shot him a curious look. His usual spiky, wild hair had never look so neat, actually.

"Yeah," Sasuke answered her unspoken question, "he's like that now. Has a nice place with lovely curtains and fresh flowers. I'm ashamed to be seen with him." And Naruto pouted.

The moment made her smile right then. For the time being, she forgot it all. She forgot the absence. And the tears. And the betrayal. And the loneliness-...

"Godamnit, Sasuke, that last bit was so unnecessary, like, anyways, it was only seen by you and..." he trailled off, his eyebrows knotting into a frown, before instantly, smoothening again. "Anyway... have you seen Kakashi-sensei lately, Sakura-chan?"

...-And, as soon as it came, it was gone. Or better said, as soon as it went, it all came to her again. The secrets. Being left out by them. Ignored. Always. ...how it came she knew nothing about a 'nice place with lovely curtains and fresh flowers'.

But the question tricked her into not asking more in the matter, because she was suddenly reminded they were dragging her to their old sensei's door and it was nearly the middle of the night. "Is there a good reason why you'd come with a sudden urge to see your former sensei, late at night?"

"Yeah","No" the boys answered at the same time, the negative reply coming from Sasuke, of course.

"Teme, we can tell her now. She's going to hear it once we get there, anyway," Naruto, the affirmative answerer, argued.

"Can't say I agree with that, either - you were the one insisting she should come as well," Sasuke shrugged, looking ahead.

She felt the rage rising inside of her and Naruto, too, seemed to tense at her side.

"Just explain it to me quickly, Naruto," she told him, glaring at Sasuke instead.

"Don't be such an idiot and talk about it here, Naruto," Sasuke spat the next moment.

And then there came the silence. The cruel silence of realization of distance. If any or all of them felt for just a little while like a part of an old team, the mirage had just vanished. Quickly and certainly, as it was obvious it would. Because each of them were failed and failed the other ones, as well, in a way of another. And it is hard to just act normally around those you were betrayed by and whom you wronged, as well. Actually, it becomes hard to act normally around anyone, when you've been betrayed by anyone and when you wronged anyone. Because you are suspicious, but not the innocent yourself. You ask for trust and offer none. Each of the members of team 7 needed to feel trusted again in order to open up. But neither of them were ready to trust or be trustworthy.

"Konoha is in danger," Sasuke mumbled in a low pace. In the absence of an omnipresent silence, it would have been inaudible.

And that was all. No more details to support his statement or assert its importance. A weak attempt, but there it was.

Naruto added nothing more. And Sakura asked nothing more. They understood it. The culpability lying in all of them. How hard it would be if they tried to mend it. And that they would most likely not try.

Nausea hit her the moment she opened her eyes. It was really dark inside, though that said nothing about the time of day. The Uzumaki safe was massive and structured on many different levels, all of it buried underground from deep to deeper and large to larger. There was not a single fissure for light to come in and, as passing back and forth among the scrolls, she wondered where the air she breathed could come from. But, of course, the place was surely surrounded by seals like enchants, filtering the place, not for her sake or anyone else's, but of that of the paper, parchment the written treasures were laid on across many, many generations there had been.

The lamp she had brought it had long since extinguished. And so she moved her hands around, quite frantically, to call it so. For such a good sensor based mainly on touch that she had become, it probably would have looked pathetic in the light of day.

It had been the tiredness, she concluded later. It had been neglect caused by ill being, by a crowded mind, by a lack in eating and drinking water. But the reality was, she knew it well, she had nearly died that one time.

Her hands moved and moved, running through the scrolls lying around, all of this before giving her head the time to examine the situation, to try and remember a clue about where the lamp had been laying when she last remembered it and where it might have been just then.

Two things happened then. And it might have led to much more, had her senses not been awakened by the obvious danger.

There was a slashing sound and the slashing pain that came with it, along with the never welcome sensation of warm blood dripping. A quick, more cautious move followed the realisation of the former, aiming the protection of the scrolls from the blood splatter. And she knew the moment it happened what she had done triggered something more, as her sense of hearing reached its fullest once again, and the sound of an unravelling scroll echoed in the lone tunnel.

"Ugh!"

Pain drove like lightning up the arm of her slashed open hand. It was a striking pain. And whatever was going on, it numbed her arm. And, even though the numbing of the arm meant slowly numbing the damned pain as well, she knew it was nothing to be happy about. Whatever was going on, there could be no nice after effects.

She did the first thing that came to her mind, even though it wouldn't normally make much sense. She lifted the sharp blade that had started it all and cut whatever was the connection between her arm and the scroll. Doing it right and without further harm was pretty easy. She had long since gotten used to handling things in the dark.

She ripped a long sheet of her own shirt and wrapped it around her bleeding hand. Finally focused, she managed to get hold of the lamp and lit in, all in less than 5 seconds. She was all awakened, but the nauseous feeling was only getting stronger now. Even more, the striking pain was receding, but stayed, and now she could actually locate it - up her vein.

Finally, she took a look at the scroll. It was one she took by her, but hadn't yet the chance to inspect and understand. Blood that could not come from simply dripping off a cutting wound was still there. And less. Less. And lesser. The scroll absorbed it. And, thinking back on it, she realized, the connection between the scroll and her hand had been her own blood. It had gotten hold of her blood, flying in between like a string, and it had pulled it down. Down her veins and into the scroll, hence the location of the pain.

This was a seal that demanded a sacrifice. A blood sacrifice. Of the very user of the scroll. And she wondered, would it had gotten in the possession of all of her blood, eventually, in order to activate. And, also, what could it offer in return, for such a costful price?

Probably too dangerous to try and find that out...

A/N: It's been so long since this was updated. But I never really gave up on it. This is my most mature ongoing project, so far. And I really want to conclude it. Get to the conclusions of the serious character analysis I started once with this mere fanfiction.