Dislaimer: I dont own Naruto and any other characters except Suzuki.

Small note before reading: As I think you all know, this is my first fic. It has occured to me just now that some of you may not understand some Japanese terms. So... here's some terms and translations that I've used in this chapter:

Haraheta- I'm hungry

Itadakimasu- a phrase used by japanese before they eat

Baka- idiot

Urusai- shut up

Kuso- darn it

Yatta- Yehey

Chapter 5: Mission Briefing!

Team 7 was sitting on a table of a restaurant just beside the inn where they slept in last night. They were waiting for their breakfast that they have just ordered a while ago.

"Haraheta!" whined Naruto.

Sakura cracked her knuckles, it probably meant that she was getting inpatient and Naruto should shut up.

"Sakura, it's still early. That's no way to start a morning." Kakashi tried to cool Sakura down.

"What did I do?" Sakura said innocently. "Is knuckle cracking now illegal?"

"Haha, very funny,"

"I wasn't joking." Sakura said in a very dangerous tone.

"Oh, well…I…" Kakashi-sensei didn't know what to say. He knew very well how Sakura is when she gets pissed off.

"Just kidding!" Sakura suddenly smiled brightly.

Kakashi, along with Naruto and Sasuke, sweatdropped with relief.

"Here are your orders!" said the waitress as she putted the tray on the table and distributed their food. "Enjoy!" with that, she walked away.

"Itadakimasu!"

Team 7 ate their food quickly and left the village as soon as they finished.

On their way back…

"Heh! That Suzuki guy sure was a pain in the butt." Naruto said as he scratched his nose with his finger. "I sure hope we never get to see him again."

"If you ask me, I would rather go out with him than with you."

Naruto's jaw dropped. "You're so mean Sakura-chan!" He cried anime style.

"If he wasn't such a playboy, then I would have asked him out on a date myself."

"What's this? Sakura is planning to go out with a boy that is not Sasuke? She really has matured a lot. Or…has she given up? Nah!" Kakashi shrugged the thought off immediately.

"No way! What does he have that I don't have?" asked Naruto, pouting.

"Let's see," Sakura made a face as if she was thinking very hard. "Good looks, good fashion sense, good choice of words and last but not least…cool and smooth moves." She saw Naruto's face fell and quickly added, "Don't worry, I like just the way you are. If you would have acted anything like that it'll probably give me the chills all over my spine."

"Thank you,' Naruto grinned. But after a few seconds of thinking, his face fell and whined, "heeeeeey, was that suppose to be a compliment or an insult?"

"Ahehehe," Sakura did a 'V' sign with her two fingers that meant 'peace'. "But honestly," she paused for a while then slightly blushed, "don't you think his smile was quite hot?"

The 3 shinobis sweatdropped. "What's wrong with her today? She seemed to be changing her moods every so often." They just couldn't understand their female teammate today.

"But you just rejected him yesterday, didn't you?" asked Naruto.

"I did."

"Then-"

"I said he had a hot smile, you didn't hear me say anything about me liking that guy, did you?"

"Yatta!" Naruto smiled brightly. "I'm so relieved to hear that you don't like him."

"Don't get too hyper about that," Kakashi advised him. "When we get back, we still have to go to Hokage-sama's office. And we might still be assigned on a mission as soon as we get there. Save you stamina for later."

Their journey home wasn't exactly peaceful because Naruto and Sasuke argued a lot. Kakashi watched them argue and was slightly amused with their childish argument. Then Sakura? She was in her own little world, preoccupied with certain things.

"I need to be stronger, not for Sasuke-kun, but for myself." Sakura thought. "Everyone thinks that I'm still as weaklike I used to be. I need to prove to them that I'm not the crybaby that I used to be. I've also been concentrating on Medical jutsu lately that I've neglected Genjutsu and Taijutsu. But how am I going to train? I-"

"Sakura," Sasuke called her with his calm voice.

She snapped back to reality. "Yes, Sasuke-kun?"

"Shouldn't I be the one asking you that?"

"Huh? What do you mean?" Sakura asked in a curious tone.

"You were staring at me blankly. I thought you were going to say something."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, Sasuke-teme." Naruto pointed his finger right in front of Sasuke's face. "Why on earth would my Sakura be staring at you?"

"How should I know, Naruto no baka?"

"What did you call me?"

"Didn't you hear me? I called you BAKA."

"You-"

"URUSAI!" Sakura yelled as she punched the tree that was coincidentally beside her. The poor tree trunk was smashed into tiny tree chunks. And her 2 teammates quickly quieted down after seeing this. Kakashi simply observed what his students were doing.

The rest of the trip was quiet, probably because of Sakura. Not even the noisiest ninja in Konoha, Naruto, has spoken a word after Sakura shutted them up.

At last, they have finally arrived at the gates of Konoha. Naruto was dying to go for another mission so he practically dragged Sasuke and Sakura to the tower while Kakashi was being dragged by one of Naruto's Kage Bunshins. When they arrived at the tower, Naruto dismissed his Kage Bunshin and Tsunade-sama sitting on his desk with her chin on her hand.

"How was the mission?" Tsunade asked Kakashi.

"It went along fine, Hokage-sama." Answered Kakashi in a polite manner.

"There are no more missions for you today," Tsunade said it in a lazy manner.

"No way!" Naruto and Sakura whined together.

"Oh, well," Sakura put both her hands on her back and said. "I don't think I have anything to do here, so…. I'll probably drop by in the hospital and-"

"Have you forgotten?" asked Tsunade. "I've given you a week off so that you can rest. I think you've overdone yourself the other night. Though I'm really proud of you, Sakura. You were able to do 8 continuous operations successfully. "

"That must've been the reason why Sakura was a bit off yesterday morning, must've been exhausted." Thought Sasuke.

"Oh, right." Sakura replied.

"Ne, Sakura-chan." Naruto asked her casually. "Since your not busy this afternoon, how about a date?"

"Nah, but thanks anyway," Sakura simply smiled at Naruto sweetly. Team 7 was about to leave but then Tsunade stopped them.

"Wait," Tsunade called them. She saw all of them walking back and quickly said. "No, I was referring to Sakura." Her face turned serious and motioned the other guys to go. "I need to talk to Sakura about something." But Naruto's face was full of curiosity and Tsunade simply sighed. "Alright, I guess all of you can stay and listen."

"What is it all about, Tsunade-shishou? It seems like a serious matter."

"I have a mission for you, Sakura," said Tsunade as she shoved her hands on her drawer, probably looking for something. "This is an S-ranked solo missio-".

"WHAT THE FUCK!" Naruto yelled. "An S-ranked solo mission for Sakura? What is it all about?"

Sasuke elbowed Naruto's stomach. Then he muttered. "Shut up and stop interrupting."

Tsunade cleared her throat and continued. "As I was saying before I was interrupted, I have a solo mission for Sakura." She took out a blue scroll from her drawer. She unscrolled it and showed it to her listeners. "As you can see, this scroll contains peace treaty. Your mission, Sakura, is to deliver it."

"Where?" Sasuke asked. He seemed very keen to know every detail about her mission.

"To the Earth, Wind, Thunder, Water and other countries that you may encounter on your way."

"What do you mean by that, Tsunade-baachan?"

"Your mission not a simple delivery mission, you're mission is also to enhance our alliances towards our allied country and create other alliances as you explored the world."

"Exactly how long is this mission going to take?" Kakashi asked her.

"About a year or so." Tsunade said firmly. "It really depends on how the mission goes."

"A year!" whined Naruto.

"Are you sure it's alright to put Sakura on an S-rank mission?" Kakashi said. "It's not that I was underestimating her, but these kinds of missions should be left to ANBU members don't you think? She's not even a Jounin yet."

"Unfortunately, we are now quite short of ANBUS." Tsunade smiled. "But don't worry. This mission is perfectly safe."

"Then why is it S-ranked?" Sasuke asked.

"It's because this mission is top secret."

"But why is it that Sakura gets this mission?" Sasuke continued to question her.

"Actually, Shizune made a suggestion of drawing slots." Tsunade explained. "So we included all the chuunins and jounins. Coincidentally, I picked Sakura's name… so … she gets to go on the mission. Anyway, what do you think about the mission? You can decline it if you want to, Sakura."

All their attentions were turned to the pink-haired kunoichi. Sakura remained quiet.

Since the mission briefing started, she was lost in her thoughts, "A mission for me? Nevertheless, a solo mission? An S-ranked one too! One year? That's too long… I don't want to be gone for that long… Should I accept it?"

"I… well… uhm…"

"You don't have to decide now," Tsunade looked straight into Sakura's eyes. "I'll give you one week to decide, would that be enough time?"

"W-well… I… g-guess so…"

"But-"

"Be quiet, Naruto. I am not asking for you opinion. Sakura, I will be waiting for your decision. That's all. You may all leave now."

Outside the tower, the members of team 7 were walking quietly, trying not to talk about the "mission" when suddenly…

"SASUKE-KUN!"

Ino and the rest of team 8 were walking towards them.

Ino ran quickly towards them and hugged Sasuke. "Hello BIG FOREHEAD."

"Hi Ino-pig, Shikamaru, Chouji and Asuma-sensei."

"Yo!"

"How troublesome."

"Hn."

"Hello."

"Yeah."

"Let's get some barbeque already. I'm getting pretty hungry."

"Geez, Chouji." Ino pulled one of Chouji's ears and said. "Is food the only thing you care about? Let's have a little chat with Team 7 for a while."

"You mean Sasuke." Sakura said in a boring tone.

"Whatever," Shikamaru rolled his eyes as he glanced at Ino. "Make your little chat short so that I can go home earlier." Then he face Sakura. "Same place same time tomorrow?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Hey! What's that all about?" Naruto's eyes narrowed as he looked at Sakura and Shikamaru.

"What's what?" Shikamaru said in his usual lazy tone.

"Kuso, Shikamaru! You're a traitor. Don't tell me you're going out with my Sakura." Naruto said furiously, pointing his finger straight on the lazy shinobi's face.

"Naruto no Baka!" Sakura delivered a strong punch to Naruto, which sent him straight to the floor. "For your information, I am not going out with him. And I am not yours!"

"Yeah," Agreed Shikamaru. "Dating is too tiring. Going out with troublesome girls and stuffs…"

"Did you just say girls are troublesome?" A vein popped out of Ino as she grabbed Shikamaru's collar.

Sakura, who is usually not rough with other boys except for Naruto, had grown quite use to Shikamaru's opinion towards girl since she had spent almost every Saturday with him.

"No," Shikamaru muttered, knowing that he will just earn a punch if he would say "yes". Ino immediately let go of Shikamaru and went straight to Sasuke again.

"Anyway," said Chouji as he opened a bag of potato chips that he took from who-knows-where, "what is the "Same time same place" all about."

"We play Shogi." Shikamaru said plainly.

Everyone, excluding had a confused face. Upon seeing this, Shikamaru said. "It's too troublesome to explain." Everyone, excluding Sakura again, glared at Shikamaru. "Geez, you explain it, Sakura."

Sakura sighed. "Fine. This is what happened a few months ago:

It was a nice Saturday so Sakura decided to take a stroll around Konoha. She simply walked wherever her feet would take her as Sakura admired the lovely blue sky. Her place took her to a nice grass plain, and to her surprise, Shikamaru was lying there with a board of Shogi.

"What are you doing here?" Shikamaru glanced at the pink haired kunoichi.

"Nothing really, was just walking around. How about you?"

"I was suppose to meet up with Asuma-sensei and play some Shogi with him. But he went off on a mission today." Shikamaru explained. "Hey, wanna play with me?"

"Uhm… sure."

But unfortunately, I lost against him. My ego wasn't able to handle the lost so I challenged him on the week after that. And guess what? I lost again. I challenged him over and over again for a few weeks that I finally decided to give-up winning. But it grew a habit over us to meet and play Shogi every Saturday. So… that's the story."

After explanation, there was still a little chat with about how did Naruto, Chouji, Ino, Sasuke, Kakashi and Asuma did not know about this and why did they not tell them. The two teenagers in question simply shrugged and said. "You never asked." After that, Sakura bid goodbye to all of them, saying that she was tired already and that she wanted to go to bed early today.
After changing into her pajamas, Sakura slumped down onto her bed with her eyes wide open. She lied about saying that she wanted to go to bed earlier. She simply wanted to be left alone so that she could think, think about the mission.

"I want to go on the mission."

"So go already! What's stopping you?"

"But if I go, I will have to leave, and I will miss everyone."

"Then don't go."

"But I really want to go."

"Geez, this is getting us no where. Why on earth do you want to go on the mission anyway?"

"I don't know. I just have this feeling deep inside me that's burning to accept the mission. And if I go, I might get the opportunity to improve my genjutsu and taijutsu. And who knows? I might even pick up some new jutsus on the way."

"Then go! It's not like you haven't tasted loneliness before. And you want to improve yourself don't you? This is a great opportunity for you."

"But…"

And it goes on and on until Sakura finally drifted off to dreamland.

END OF THE CHAPTER

Once again I would like to thank my faithful readers and reviewers. Dont forget to read and review this chappie!