Fire: This is me again, and here's my trusty co-writer!

Kakashi: Fine… Don't clap for me…

Fire: (sweats) Um…where's Sakura?

Kakashi: (smiling innocently) I have no idea…

Fire: That's supposed to be a bad thing.

Kakashi: Here's a review. (hands Fire a window)

Fire: (reads the window) …

Kakashi: (smiling) …

Fire: Uh…this isn't a review.

Kakashi: I know. I just wanted you to stop asking me questions.

Fire: Fine. (closes the review window) I'll stop asking questions.

Kakashi: Good. Now, here's a real review. (hands Fire a window from the Big Bag of Reviews)

Fire: Yay! A real review! (turns to the audience) Thanks for your support.

Kakashi: I'm going to go sulk in the corner.

Fire: Are you thinking about Obito again!

Kakashi: Bye…

Fire: Well, I know this story is very Sakura centric. I'm focussing on her emotions toward Sasuke at the moment, but don't worry, Sasuke and Naruto will be back before you know it.

Kakashi: (mumbling in the corner) Obito… Rin…

Fire: Uh…you should ignore him and read the story now. And review!

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Addition to the first Disclaimer: Nothing has changed except that I own the Big Bag of Reviews. Don't steal it otherwise Kakashi won't be able to find my reviews. He keeps them all in there!

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Warning: If Sakura seems OOC at any point in the story, please go to Wait for Me: Aku no Yami to find out what happened during the month between leaving Konoha and arriving in Oto.

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Chapter 2: Ambition of the Sakura

There was an urgent knocking on the door to the Hokage office, and Tsunade wasn't too happy about being pulled away from another important document. She has had less and less time to nap like she used to. All this strange and important information that came at the disruption of Akatsuki, with the deaths of two of their most important members... All this strange and important information that came at the disruption of her village, with the deaths of two of their most important shinobi... "Come in!" She couldn't help but be a little irritated. 'This had better be important.' She was in no mood for distractions today.

"Godaime!" Kakashi rushed into the office. In fact, he was a little surprised that she wasn't sleeping on the job, but then, he couldn't expect her to laze around all the time. She was supposed to be the Hokage after all, and she had important things to do. "I have..." He tried to catch his breath. He had run all the way here when he realized it. "...I have...important news!" He hadn't even thought that he could just shunshin here. That would have been faster, and easier on his lungs.

"Does this have anything to do with your report?" Tsunade asked, not too concerned with what he was saying. Impatience saturated her voice. She wasn't in the mood to listen to mindless talk at the moment. "You did say that there was more information to come..."

"It– It's Sakura!" He caught the blond woman's attention right away. "Sakura was there!" He wasn't sure before, but he was sure now. The voice in his head...the voice of that cloaked figure...that was definitely Sakura's voice!

"There? Where?" Tsunade was slow to accept that he could have seen Sakura anywhere. She has been missing for almost a month now. She had said that she didn't want to be a shinobi anymore...that was what Kakashi had said she had said. In respect to Sakura's wishes, the blond woman had actually left off searching for the nukenin. She knew that it wasn't correct procedure, but she couldn't just pull the pink-haired girl back so easily, especially if Sakura didn't want to be a shinobi anymore. Could the grey-haired jounin had heard wrong?

"With...Orochimaru! She was at Otogakure!" He could barely spit it out. Oto... That wasn't somewhere that a kunoichi of Sakura's disposition and stature should be!

"No. Impossible!" Tsunade rejected the idea right away. That wasn't possible! Sakura had left them...had left Konoha to become a regular person. She didn't want to be a shinobi. She didn't want to be a kunoichi. That was what she had said, and that was what Tsunade had to believe! "She's too smart to go to someone like Orochimaru." Even if she knew that Sakura was too strong to quit being a shinobi so easily... The Sakura that she knew would never just give up.

But if she did go to him...why? Why would she go to someone like Orochimaru? There was no way that her fears could be so...accurate.

'If worse comes to worst, Orochimaru is the only one who could give her what she wanted.' Wasn't that it? That was what she had thought when she first read Kakashi's report.

"Kakashi, put together a reconnaissance team. We need more information." This was just a hunch, built on the suspicion and memory of a jounin who was too emotionally involved in this situation. She couldn't trust that he had remembered correctly. "Have them report to me as soon as possible." And she might just be basing this mission entirely on what she feared. But she couldn't just leave it alone. She couldn't just allow Sakura to do something so horribly wrong. Even a blind shinobi on the brink of death shouldn't want to join Orochimaru so willingly. "Dismissed!"

Kakashi didn't leave though. He stood in front of Tsunade's desk, a determined expression on his face. "Hokage-sama..."

Tsunade looked back to Kakashi, a document slowly crumpling in her hand. She would have been angry if it wasn't for the fact that she knew what he was going through a lot better than he would have thought. Even if he was going to suppress his emotions...she knew that it would still be difficult to forget them. They were the first genin team in a long while that Kakashi had managed to accept. And then, they were just a team. Team Kakashi, wasn't it?

"What is it, Kakashi?"

"I–I want to lead that team." This shakiness was uncharacteristic of Kakashi. Usually, he was so sure of himself. Tsunade's mind caught onto this uneasiness before anything else. Before even the words. This ordeal was pulling long forgotten memories into his mind.

But then, the words registered in her mind. Tsunade blinked for a moment as she tried to make sense of it. 'Team? What team did he mean? The team to infiltrate Otogakure?'

"No," she said simply before turning back to the binder in her hands. "Request denied." He was the best person for the job. She couldn't deny that, but he was too emotionally invested in this. He might get himself killed. Hell, he might get everyone on his team killed!

"If you won't let me go, I'll go anyway." There was no way for her to really stop him. "I need to know." He would just go to Otogakure on his own if that was what it came to. He didn't care. He just needed to know if that was Sakura. He needed to bring her back, where she belonged. A Konoha-nin was born with the will of fire. She couldn't just abandon Konoha that easily.

"You'll know when they return."

"No! I have to see it with my own eyes!" He didn't know what was coming over him. His own eyes... That was true. He had to see that Sakura really did decided to do it. Power... Was that really more important than her own happiness? Than the future she could have still had here in Konoha? As a kunoichi of the Leaf? More important than her family...than the village she grew up in...than the precious people left in her life who cared about her...? He just couldn't believe that someone with the will of fire could abandon all that they stood for!

"You've done enough as it is. I can't allow you to go." She handed a mission to Kakashi. "If you want a mission, we have one that is much more suitable to your abilities."

Kakashi slammed the paper on Tsunade's desk, startling her, and startling him even more. He hadn't thought that he would have to resort to this. "I've seen the cloaked figure. I would know!" It was a desperate ploy by a desperate man.

Tsunade looked up at the jounin, a slight smile on her face. She had already considered that but... 'If I don't let him go, he'll go anyway...?' She pulled the mission she had just given to him back from the edge of the desk. "Looks like I can't stop you, Kakashi." She smoothed it out in her hands before replacing it in the pile of missions to be handed out later. "You'll lead the team. Now, get out of here before I change my mind!" She looked at him with cold eyes. She might just change her mind. The idea of putting him on a mission such as this...one which could very well pit him against not only a former student of his, but also Orochimaru–someone he could never hope to defeat–was a bad idea altogether.

The pale man leaned back in his chair. Jars of miscellaneous items sat on shelves all around them, but the pink-haired girl's gaze was unwavering. There was no interest in anything else in the room other than the man sitting in front of her.

"Sakura...hmm?" Orochimaru could clearly see the resemblance in this girl to Tsunade. "A...Konoha-nin?" He couldn't resist asking. The girl reminded him too much of a certain blond girl who used to follow him around Konoha, of Tsunade. Even as he sat with his imperial air around him, he couldn't help thinking about the blond woman.

"Yes."

The pink-haired girl's answer was unwavering, not a hint of fear or apprehension in her voice. It was...annoying.

"Do you know who I am?" Anger bubbled in his chest. Girls... They were too weak for him to use... He hardly understood why he was even listening to this girl.

"Orochimaru, one of the legendary Sannin of Konohagakure." The reply was short and to the point. "Do you know who I am?" The question defiantly mirrored Orochimaru's own words, and it was irritating him. Her words were too confident. It reminded him too much of that blond woman.

"No, and I don't care. Kabuto, remove her."

But before he could even lay a hand on her, Sakura smacked the spectacled nin away easily with a single blow. Kabuto fell to the ground, his shoulders stunned where she had hit him. His limbs, his torso, all of him couldn't move. He was paralysed...for the moment at least.

"It's only temporary, but if you move, I will make sure you won't get up," Sakura said, her voice cold as she looked down at the grey-haired man. She was a medic-nin with more than fifty books of medical knowledge stored in her brain. She could easily paralyse him with a single hit. The nerve she had hit just now was nothing compared to what she could have done. Tsunade-shishou had taught this technique much more extensively to her.

And it was more than what he deserved. She could never let go of the dense hatred that filled her entire being. This man–she turned back to Orochimaru–and this man here were the two people responsible for taking Sasuke away from her. If it wasn't for them, she wouldn't have to be here. She could just be the happy, cheerful, carefree medic-nin of Konoha.

She stared directly at Orochimaru. There was not a doubtful drop of her superiority in her mind. She was better than them, not physically but morally she was stronger than them. That was what she had to remember, even as the cheerful girl that housed her body only a month before when Sasuke and Naruto were still alive melted away. Now, there was only the avenger.

And it was that avenger that Orochimaru was interested in.

He leaned forward in his seat. "No. I don't know who you are, and I don't care." Slowly, his interest was returning.

Sakura frowned.

"You seek power, yes?"

Sakura was silent.

"You want me to give you this power?"

Again, silence.

Orochimaru smiled broadly. They were getting back to the topic he knew better than anyone. These kinds of people–even if they were female–were so easy to control. "What are you planning to do with this power?"

Kabuto watched from his place on the ground, a hand pushing the glasses back up onto his face. This girl...she was one of the teammates on Uchiha Sasuke's team. She knew about the power that Orochimaru could bestow, and the consequences of this power...and she still wanted it? He couldn't think of what she would want it for...

But, Sakura knew exactly what she wanted power for. She had a month to think about it, and she had come up with her decision.

With leaden feet, the girl dragged herself across the countryside. It wasn't difficult, wasn't supposed to be difficult, but the slow progress that she had made only served to annoy her. She knew what she had to do...but she was still reluctant to do it.

She lifted her face from her dirt-stained sandals to the path before her. Within her mind, she had come to two conclusions. She has had a month to think about what she was going to do, had thought over everything that had happened. Since the incident with Akatsuki back in July, she hadn't allowed anything to escape her memory.

First of all, she would have to kill Orochimaru. The man had never sat right in her stomach, and she wasn't going to let him go just because Sasuke was gone. No. That just made her hate him more. If it wasn't for him, Sasuke would never have thought that he might be strong enough to defeat his brother. Then Sasuke might have...stayed with her.

Then, she had to destroy Akatsuki. It was a farfetched idea, and she would probably fail, but she had to try, even if she died in the process. It was their fault. It was their fault that Sasuke had to work so hard to defeat Itachi. They made Itachi even stronger, and they made the situation worse. If it wasn't for them, Sasuke could have killed his brother right away and returned to her.

If only...

If only she wasn't so weak...

If only she still had Sasuke and Naruto with her...

"Destruction," she said simply.

And Orochimaru's smile only spread further across his pale face. "Destruction..." That was a pretty shaky subject... "...of what?" ...but this girl had some potential...like that of another kunoichi he had once known. He could definitely control someone like this.

'Destruction of everything that killed my happiness... Destruction of Akatsuki... Destruction of you...Orochimaru.' But, Sakura didn't reply.

End Chapter 2

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Fire's English tidbits for those who care:

This one is more of a writing tidbit. Finish what you start. I know that it sounds a little stupid to be mentioning it, but I mean finish EVERYTHING! That means, even if the story you're working on is horrible and you plan to never post it, you should still finish it. Give it an ending, even if it sucks. That way, you'll get a chance to develop your writing style. You'll get what works for you and what doesn't work. And it's good practice too. Besides, you can always use parts of stories you don't post for future stories, or you can write side stories to it that make more sense, etc. You never know when you'll get inspiration. It might be while you're finishing up one of those useless stories you never plan to post.

Fire's babbling:

Kakashi: O.o Nani?

Fire: (sighing) What is it this time?

Kakashi: Sakura's really joining up with Orochimaru? That's not possible!

Fire: Keep your friends close and your enemies…

Kakashi: Sakura won't be able to kill him!

Fire: …closer.

Kakashi: …

Fire: … (glares at Kakashi) You spoke over me, didn't you?

Kakashi: Uh…yes?

Fire: Don't talk over me! (smacks Kakashi across the face only to reveal a kawarimi) Arrgh!

Kakashi: (looking around furtively before sneaking away) …

Fire: (mumbling under breath) Baka Kakashi… Baka shinobi… (kicks the kawarimi clear across the room) I need a new cowriter. (looks around and grabs Lee) You're helping me now!

Lee: Yes. Of course, I'd be glad to help! (smile and thumb's up)

Fire: Now I can finally fire Kakashi. (smile)

Lee: (slumps) You're going to fire Kakashi-sensei? (tries to sneak away)

Fire: Fine! (grabs Lee by the back of his collar before he could get away) I won't fire him!

Lee: (relieved sigh) Good. (looks at the story) And Sakura-san is going to kill Orochimaru? But how will–

Fire: (snapping) Just read it! I already explained it to Kakashi! (turns back to the audience before Lee can say anything else) Review. Review. And Review again. I need feedback!

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