A/N: I've decided to turn this into a full series so I can play around with some post-Part II ideas. It will remain a story through Sakura's point of view, but focus on all three of the main characters. Flashbacks will be used to explain any of the background of the last three years.
Chapter Two – Sakura's Promise
Sakura slept soundly on the inn room's bed, feeling more safe and warm than she ever had felt before. She felt a sense of accomplishment, as a hard goal that had followed her day and night had finally been completed. It was the most restful sleep she felt in six years, not even Sasuke's return to Konoha three years ago brought her this peace, as his return was overshadowed by Kakashi's death and Naruto's leaving.
And now Naruto would be returning.
She drifted out of her deep sleep, into a temporary state of half-sleep while she made herself more comfortable in between dreams. Her sleepy mind was blissfully ignorant of the warm body that she pressed her womanly curves against, until a little voice in her head started screaming at the unfamiliar feeling.
"AH!" Her mismatched eyes snapped open to see her lying against Naruto. The screaming part of her wanted to blame him for her own actions, but the rational part of her told her he was still laying flat where she and Sasuke had laid him earlier.
She blushed furiously and moved away from him, as far as she could without falling off the bed, despite her reluctance to move away from the safety and warmth she felt before.
"How did I get here?"
Sakura looked around the room, realizing it was well into the middle of the night and only slim beams of moonlight lit the dark room. The last thing she remembered was healing Naruto until her body surrendered to chakra exhaustion. Her perfect chakra control and medical techniques could only spare her for so long before she suffered from using the Sharingan just like Kakashi-sensei.
She looked around and found Sasuke sleeping on a futon on the floor. After she passed out, he must have left her on the bed with Naruto, but at the moment with her heart pounding, she wasn't sure if she preferred the bed or the futon.
Yet, in the end, she was just happy knowing it was a peaceful night and she was sharing the room with the two most important young men in her life.
The dull ache in her left eye only seemed to reflect the pain she felt in her heart. She tried to rub her eye, only to be blocked by a white eye patch that covered it, a necessity to keep Naruto from noticing Kakashi's Sharingan underneath her short pink hair even though the need to hide its existence was quickly coming to an end.
Naruto's note hadn't left her hand since the moment she received it and now the sloppily written words were dotted with black splotches where her tears had landed on the ink characters, which gave new meaning to each dreaded word.
The note itself told her to meet him at the bench near the back entrance of Konoha, it was the same entrance that Sasuke had used to leave Konoha and it was the same bench that Sasuke had laid her on after her tearful begging for him to take her with him.
She knew begging wouldn't work this time either.
"Sakura-chan," said Naruto, but there was no cheerfulness in the -chan for once. She turned and looked at him. He wore his usual black and orange outfit with his long black forehead protector still tied around his forehead. The backpack strapped to his back made him look as if he were merely leaving Konoha on a mission, except for the tortured expression on his face with unbearable sadness in his blue eyes.
"N-Naruto," she whispered.
"Tsunade-baachan said there is nothing she can do. The extraction burnt up my inner coil system and she can't heal it. I can't mold chakra. I can't even use it to climb trees or walk on water anymore and I wouldn't even use be able to open the Celestial Gates like Fuzzy Eyebrows. How could anyone recognize such a useless ninja!"
"Naruto!"
Sakura couldn't bare it anymore. She leapt to her feet and wrapped her arms around Naruto and hugged him tight as if he would fall apart of she let him go.
"We'll find a way to heal you!" she told him. "Me and Tsunade-shishou, we'll work on it day and night until we find a way, just don't leave!"
"When? A month, a year, or maybe ten years? I can't stay here knowing everyone's advancing but me. I can't stay here seeing the villagers still looking at me like there's a demon still inside of me when I all feel is hollow inside!"
Sakura cried, for Naruto, for her unrevealed love, and for heart aching sympathy that she felt Naruto's feelings, and her tears left dark spots where they fell on his shoulders.
Then she noticed, Naruto hadn't cried at all. He hadn't cried over Kakashi's death. He hadn't cried over the freedom of no longer being tied to Kyuubi. He wasn't even crying now as his dream was being taken away.
She remembered Naruto's words to Inari long ago: "So it's better to pretend to be some sort of tragic hero and cry all the time…you seem like a real idiot crying all the time! You crybaby!"
Sakura stopped suddenly and pulled away from Naruto, eerily calm despite her sobs a moment ago. Her expression changed suddenly as she looked at Naruto, who watched her with concern for her sudden change in behavior.
"I'm sick of crying!" she told him as she whipped away the last of her tears. A sad smile was on her lips as she remembered every time Naruto inspired her to do better. "I'm not a tragic heroine. I'll be strong, like you…"
Naruto smiled sadly and nodded in response, understanding her feelings, "I think I'll miss you the most Sakura-chan."
"I'll…miss you too," she told him, but the words seemed weak in comparison to what she felt. It was so ironic that she fell in love with another boy, only to loose him again, leaving her by the very same bench. She could admit her feelings to him now, but she knew doing so now would only be an immature attempt to make him stay, the act of little girl who was inconsiderate of the feelings of the boy she loved. Naruto might stay if she told him, since he loved her once, but she knew he would never be truly happy surrounded by ninja who were reaching the potential that he could never achieve.
"Can you do something for me Sakura?" he asked as he reached up and unknotted the bandana of his forehead protector and pulled it off, setting a mess of blond hair free. He handed it too her and she quickly embraced it as if it had suddenly become something very precious to her. "Give that to Tsunade-baachan and this too…"
Naruto unzipped his jacket to reveal the necklace that hanged around his neck. Sakura's eyes threatened to tear up again as she watched him pull it off and hand it to her.
"This is the First's necklace. It belongs to the next Hokage…which isn't me anymore."
"N-Naruto." Sakura reluctantly took the necklace dangling from his hand. She knew the story behind the necklace, about how Naruto won it from her teacher on a bet she was sure she wouldn't lose. To Tsunade, it was more than who would be the next Hokage, it was a symbol of her love and faith that she had in the individual who wore it.
Sakura knew what she had to do.
"What are you doing!" he asked in as she put the necklace around her neck. "Don't tell me you've decided to become the next Hokage?"
Sakura almost giggled at the thought of the idea.
"No, I'm keeping it so I can safeguard your dream till you come back."
"But I won't be coming back," he argued.
"Yes, you will. I'm going find a way to heal you one day so you can be a ninja again and become Hokage," she told him. She smiled happily, each word sounding more right than the last. Sakura made the "nice guy" pose by making a thumb up.
"It's a promise of a lifetime!"
Sakura kept her promise.
It hadn't been an easy thing to do, to accomplish what even her teacher, a master of medical jutsu, hadn't been able to do, but Sakura spent three years training, researching, and working hard for her goal, which she had finally achieved.
Kakashi's Sharingan became unbelievably valuable in this case. While she read every medical book or scroll she could get her hands on, she used her Sharingan to copy every medical jutsu she could watch. The combination allowed her abilities to grow at an uncanny pace, but it wasn't until she found a forgotten page in a medical book that she found the key to healing Naruto…the Hyuuga clan.
Despite every book she read, there was precious little about the inner coil system. If it weren't for that little forgotten page, she wouldn't have learned that the Hyuuga censored all information regarding the inner coil system in Konoha. Their obsession to keep the inner workings of the Byakugan secret extended beyond the use of cursed seals. Out of fear, they hid even medical information, afraid that someone could duplicate or even discover a weakness in the Gentle Fist style.
That information brought her to Hinata, the only Hyuuga who would tell Sakura what she needed to know and to do that, she broke many clan laws by bringing the hidden books to Sakura and showing Hyuuga techniques in front of a Sharingan user. In return, Sakura owed a debt she didn't think she would ever be able to repay.
Yet, it was worth it, to finally heal Naruto and give him back his dreams.
With her eyes closed and still half-asleep, she slipped her hand underneath her kimono and found the First's necklace that she still kept around her neck. She knew she would feel awkward without it after wearing it for three years, but she still intended to give it back to Naruto when the time was right.
CRASH!
Sakura shoot up suddenly at the sound of something being smashed outside. She looked across the bed and noticed immediately that it was empty.
"Sasuke! Naruto's gone—"
However, Sasuke's futon was empty as well.
"Where are they?"
CRASH!
The last sound was slightly different from the last, but Sakura quickly put two and two together and figured out the source of the noise outside.
"Those bastards!" she yelled as she jumped out of bed and straightened out her kimono. Her sense of peace from earlier was already gone, "They can't help themselves, can they! Only one day together and they are already fighting! Naruto's only been healed for less than a day, he can't possibly compete against Sasuke-kun!"
She ran outside, it wasn't hard to find the source of the noise as the two had caused it was still fighting. In the back of the inn, where a bunch of boxes and barrels had been stacked around a square area, Naruto and Sasuke fought in their makeshift ring.
By the time she arrived, someone had flown into a box apparently filled with flour, as the substance went flying into the air like smoke.
"Naruto!" she yelled as she ran toward the broken boxes, but the figure covered in white flour wasn't Naruto. "Sasuke?"
Sakura turned around and saw Naruto, unharmed and in a taijutsu stance. His eyes were serious and locked on Sasuke.
Sasuke stood up while trying to dust off the white flour from his black outfit, but failing completely. He then whipped off a trail of blood from his chin, ignoring Sakura as he looked back to Naruto, but his voice was calm when he spoke, "That was the Leaf Strong Whirlwind attack. It's a move from the Strong Fist Style."
"Yeah," he answered softly.
"You didn't know that taijutsu style the last time we fought, in fact I would guess you didn't know it when you left Konoha."
Naruto chuckled, "A lot of things have changed about me."
Next Chapter – Naruto's Fist
Author's Note: A little bit of a cliffhanger. I've got the next chapter partially written, actually it was originally part of this chapter, but I decided it all flowed better in smaller parts.
This chapter really gives some more detail to the events of the first chapter. It covers Naruto leaving, Sakura's promise, and a little bit more about how Sakura learned to heal Naruto.
Next chapter, Naruto and Sasuke have a taijutsu only fight, while Sasuke and Sakura learn that Naruto has learned taijutsu in the last three years, but the question is, who taught him and why?
Version 1.0
1.0: Original