Chapter.1

"A messenger hawk just came from, Konoha." Karin said to Sasuke quietly like she was afraid to speak.

Sasuke wasn't busy. He was cleaning his weapons, but this was the second time he had polished them today. He had been trying to pass the time between training and sleep. He looked up to assess her, only slightly annoyed that she had entered his room without permission.

"And?" His tone was cool and level, but his patience was already worn thin.

"It was for you. From Kakashi Hatake. He's been named the 6th Hokage." Karin would not meet his eye, and Sasuke had a feeling there was more.

"I could not care less about what happens in Konoha."

Karin visibly flinched. Whatever she wasn't saying was weighing on her heavily. She was afraid to tell him the rest of the message. Sasuke really could not care less about who Konoha chose to lead it. For all he cared a comet could fall out of the sky, and smash it to dust. But he was also lying to himself, he did care. He cared alot.

"There's more." Karin began again. "That old teammate of yours, with the pink hair-" Karin bit into her lip, stopping abruptly when Sasuke threw the shuriken he was working on down to the table with a clatter.

Sasuke just wanted her to leave him alone. Karin was only going to do that if she spit out whatever it was that was in Kakashi's message. Sasuke didn't know why Kakashi was even sending him a message. Hadn't he made it clear the last they met? Sasuke was not interested in being one of his ninja toadies. Not like his other students. He moved to invade her space at the threshold of his door. He knew he was intimidating when he wasn't even trying, but now he was purposely fixing her with a glare of contempt only an Uchiha could conjure up.

"Sakura?" He let the name roll off his tongue with indifference.

Karin only nodded slowly once. Sasuke rolled his eyes.

"What about her?" He didn't have all day to stand here.

"There weren't alot of details. Just that-" Karin was pausing, trying to best decide how to tell him delicately, Sasuke realized later on.

Sasuke took the moment to conjure her up in his mind. The only female member of team 7. Her soft pink hair had always reminded him of cotton candy. Green hopeful eyes, peered up at him shyly on most every occasion he ever saw her. He then pictured the same eyes starting to cry the night he left Konoha. Now that he thought about it, it strikes him that he's seen her cry alot. In fact the last time he laid eyes on her, she had been in tears. Sasuke shirks away from the morose memories as his mind was accustomed to doing. He then recalled the way she used to walk so languidly, and sure footed in front of him on missions, the Haruno crest on the back of her burgundy dress. Even before she had honed her skills, she had been proud, and held herself like a force to be reckoned with. Sasuke tried his best not to think of team 7, but he had to work exceptionally harder to banish the thoughts of Sakura when they came.

Sasuke's attention was pulled back to the moment with Karin standing there staring up at him. That terrified look in her eyes, that ticked him off. Karin backed away from him carefully, back into the hallway. Out of Sasuke's reach he briefly thought.

"Sakura Haruno is dead. Killed in action."

Karin had been right to move out of his reach, because hearing Sakura and KIA said in the same sentence makes him he see red. Her name and that phrase, they don't belong anywhere near each other. His breath catches, as he begins to digest what it means for Sakura to be dead. He can feel his Sharingan flare as an image of cold, lifeless, dull green eyes comes to him. When he thinks of Sakura's eyes now they are no longer full of hope like before. The hope has been ripped away from them by some faceless figure towering above her body, she stares unseeing across some far away battlefield.

Author's note/ Hello all, please know that this is not a story that follows canonically. I do have things happening that are in that general area of canon, but remember this is a fanfiction if it was the same as the anime and manga it would be pointless to even write. What you need to know is Sasuke left the village, he killed Itachi who was a villain, and after Sasuke is living amongst the sound shinobi in the hideouts. Sasuke decided not to go back to Konoha after he killed Itachi because he thought he severed everything with the people there. Team 7 left Sasuke to his own devices at some point. Not that they gave up on him, just that they knew he didn't want to be in Konoha. Kakashi is the 6th Hokage and running the village. Orochimaru is dead. Sasuke is 18 in this story.