Hyuuga Neji…
Sabaku no Gaara…
Uchiha Sasuke…
'Three months…it's been three months since I last saw him…Gaara-Kun…' she thought to herself as she stood by the main gates of Konoha.
"Are you Miss Haruno?" she saw a person wearing the usual uniform of a shinobi walk up to her.
"Yes?" she turned and looked at him, he was wearing a forehead protector of the Hidden Village of Mist.
"Here is a letter for you." He bowed as he handed her the letter.
"Thank you." She took it and the shinobi left in a puff of smoke. She opened it slowly and read out the letter in her head.
Hey Sakura
How's it going? I'll be back to visit sometime in the week. Hope you didn't miss me too much! Chiyako misses you too but she's doing fine here with me, I'll be bringing her with me though.
The village is looking pretty good and it's almost back to normal! Just a few more repairs and we're done. But don't worry too much about us. Chiyako is undergoing practice to becoming a ninja like you. That's what she told me anyways.
She says she doesn't like the other two people she's with but she said that once she becomes a Chounin, she won't have to care about them anymore! Can you believe that!
So anyways, I hope to see you soon and Chiyako is screaming at me right now…She says she misses you, plenty of times already and she can't wait to see you again.
I'll see you soon!
From Haru and Chiyako.
She could almost hear them in her head as she read the letter, she couldn't help but smile. When she was about to walk off, someone called out her name.
"SAKURA-NEE-CHAN!" her eyes widened when she heard that voice, she turned around and she saw Chiyako running up to her with arms held out as if to hug her.
"CHIYAKO-CHAN!" she smiled as she ran up to her as well.
"Hey! Don't forget me too!" she looked up and saw Haru behind her.
"HARU! I just got your letter! Look!" Sakura held up the letter for him to see.
"Ah, that was suppose to get here yesterday or something." He laughed as he scratched his head.
"It's great to see you again." She smiled at him but she felt something tug at her dress.
"What about me?" Chiyako pouted up her lips at her.
"And I miss you too." She smiled as she cocked her head to her who returned it with a grin of her own.
"So, what have you been since I was gone?" Haru spoke as he looked at Chiyako.
"Oh, nothing's changed since the last few letters I wrote." She gazed at the little girl beside her while Haru's smile disappeared from his face.
Flashback
"Haru-San! I have a message for you." A shinobi of the Mist spoke as he ran up to the said person.
"Oibita-San, nice to see you!" Haru waved and ran up to meet him halfway.
"Here you go, so who's this mystery person you've been writing to?"he spoke as he handed the scroll over to Haru.
"A friend of mine that lives in Konoha." Haru smiled.
"Well, I'll leave you to your reading then." He waved and disappeared in a cloud of smoke.
"Haru-ni-chan! Is that from Sakura-nee-chan?" Chiyako yelled out as she ran up to him.
"Yea." He smiled as he unrolled the scroll and began to read it in his head.
Haru,
I'm having difficulty here, it's been almost three months and you're not back yet, it's been almost three months and Gaara's not back yet. You said you would come back in a month but I guess something's just can't be planned now can they?
It's getting harder, without you here I find it hard to concentrate for anything. I can't do missions without getting seriously injured and now I'm on leave because Tsunade-Sama thinks I can't handle it.
It's been too long, too long without you or Gaara. It's getting harder, please come back. I need you.
Sakura.
Haru's smile disappeared as he read the letter and Chiyako began to grow worried.
"What's wrong Haru-ni-chan? Is something wrong with Sakura-nee-chan?" she tugged onto his shorts. He put on a smile for Chiyako and spoke as merrily as he could without sounding too fake.
"Guess what! We're going to Konoha to visit Sakura!" he smiled at her as her face changed from concern to happiness.
"REALLY? I CAN'T WAIT, I'LL GO PACK NOW!" she yelled out as she ran off to the house she and Haru were staying in. As soon as she was gone, he re-read the letter and couldn't help but grow more and more worried for the pink haired shinobi. He walked off home to write a letter to Sakura and pack for the journey to Konoha.
End flashback…
"Why don't we go get something to eat?" she spoke as she ran her fingers through Chiyako's hair.
"Ok! I want ramen!" she smiled as she ran off into the village.
"Hey! You don't even know where it is!" Haru ran after her and Sakura followed.
"He's not back yet?" he spoke as he looked at her from the corner of his eye…She stopped eating and looked at down at her bowl. Chiyako's slurps could be heard.
"I guess not, you wouldn't have been waiting at the gates then." He placed his chopsticks down and turned his head towards her.
"It's been three months, Haru…he said he would be back in one month. He promised."
"You and I know that he promised no such thing, you just did it for him to make yourself feel better."
"But he said he would be back in one month." Her voice grew louder as she clenched her hands.
"He said he would try, it wasn't guaranteed." He couldn't hear her slurps anymore.
"I shouldn't be here, I should be out there searching for him. I should be there to look after him. But I'm here instead." She was almost screaming now, even Chiyako looked intimidated by her.
"Sakura-nee-chan? What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong." She got up from her seat and left some money on the counter for their orders.
"Where are you going?" he grabbed her hand, his voice was soft but threatening.
"I'm going to see the Hokage." She flung his hand away from her and she left without another word.
"Damn…" he whispered out as he performed a few handseals.
"Mizu Bunshin no Jutsu." Another clone of himself appeared and stayed behind with Chiyako while the real one chased after Sakura.
"And just what do you intend to tell Hokage-Sama?" he ran up beside her.
"I'm going after Gaara, I'm sick and tired of waiting. I can't wait any longer." She jumped off onto a roof but Haru followed her.
"You can't go by yourself, you need at least a full platoon to go with you!" he grabbed her arm.
"Whatever then! As long as I get to go find Gaara!" she forcefully pulled back her arm but Haru held on.
"I can't let you make such a stupid decision. Your thoughts are being clouded by your impulses, think Sakura." He glared at her, she felt intimidated by him because he had never given her that look before but her face remained the same.
"Let me go, I have to do this."
"I can't allow you to do this, don't make me hurt you."
"You couldn't hurt me even if you-" she was cut off by a punch into her abdomen.
"Haru…" she whispered out before she fell into unconsciousness.
"Forgive me, Sakura…"
Sakura eventually woke up but it wasn't her room she woke up in. She was lying on a couch in an office of some sort but she couldn't focus properly because her vision was blurred. As she glanced around, she saw scrolls on the table and on the shelves and some documents of the ninjas in the village. She got up and walked up to the desk but stopped when she heard voices.
"Please, let me do this for Sakura." She heard a muffled voice on the other side of the door.
"This doesn't concern you, so why do you bother?" she heard a female voice as she creaked opened the door slightly.
"I care for her, and she really misses him. He should've been back two months ago. At least let us check up on him." She saw Haru plead for the request.
"He could be in trouble and we're just standing here doing nothing."
"I know you don't care much for the sand-nin so why do you persist when my you've already heard my answer?" she saw Tsunade take a seat behind her desk.
"Please, just a three man team is enough. Me, Neji and Sasuke. Heck, I'll go alone if I have to!" he was almost yelling now, growing more and more frustrated.
"Would you sacrifice your own life for the sake of making Sakura happy?" she stared at him.
"Of course, she's the closest thing to a family I have, she's important to me." He looked down at the floor.
"Then you shouldn't have hit her." She smiled slightly.
"I regret doing that, but I rather that I bring back Gaara myself than sending out Sakura without anybody to go with her." He looked at her with such determination in his eyes, she couldn't refuse the next time.
"Fine, you can go, as well as Neji, Sasuke and Naruto. A full platoon will do, will it not?" she smiled at him as his face brightened up.
"Thank you Hokage-Sama." He bowed to her.
"Go get them and come back here for your briefing. And Sakura can come in now." She smiled at the slightly opened door and Sakura gulped. Haru turned around to find a seemingly shocked Sakura standing by the door.
"Sakura…" he didn't know else what to say to her as he just stood there and watched the expressions on her face.
Sorry for the lateness of this…The server was…it had a jam I suppose you could say…something about a traffic of some sort…Anyways, I tried really hard to get in, you have no idea how many times I tried to login in just one day!
Ah! What a torment!
THAT'S RIGHT! SERVERS OVERLOADED! THAT'S THE WORD I'M LOOKING FOR! YEA!
Would you consider that as a writer's block? Or just server overload? I dunno eh!