Note: I know that some of you think that my writing style might be a tiny bit OoC-ish, and that some of the characters really wouldn't do some of the things they did, such as the Sakura Betrayal thing, but, eh. It's my fic, and I technically can write it however I want to, right? But that doesn't mean I will; I'll try to get them a bit more... into their true personalities, though I don't always tend to do things the standard way. Stereotypes are a bit to... stereotypical. Anyway, that's all I have to say for now.

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"So, why was that man–Iruka?–the target?" a light, feminine voice asked, the body it came from leaned back against a white wall, contrasting it with an outfit of complete black.

"It was the only one who loved him or cared for him. He's the one he found dear, so I had the sword have him kill that man. That man which pitied the Kyuubi."

"Pitied, or adored him?"

A smirk came across the male's face, the face that resembled still that of someone who had already passed on years before at the hands of who he believed to be his master. "Maybe both."

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Cerulean eyes stared around uneasily, taking in the scenery that had barely changed over the years. A slight wind blew, winding through the spiked, blonde locks on the man's head. Sitting down, he crossed his legs, which were clothed simple in black, long pants. His boots, keeping his feet hidden, rose halfway to his knee, and were held closed by belt-like straps in random, crossing patterns.

He sighed, crossing his arms atop his knees, closing his eyes, frowning. Around his upper body clung a long-sleeved black shirt, on his left an orange circle was, with a white, inward-forming spiral was present. The shirt buttoned up the front, though there was a part that pulled over it, thus hiding the buttons' existence, and with the shirt being black, it was hard to tell that was the case. Around his neck, dangling over the shirt, a familiar necklace was there; the long stone in the middle with the two, bead-like stones on either side, glistening like glass over water, the same color it had always been. It'd been a present from the Fifth Hokage.

It'd been nearly an hour, and he was wondering if he was late. Or maybe early. For a second, he wondered if he had the time and date right, then shook his head, knowing he'd remembered exactly.

He jumped back, landing on the water, when a kunai flung at him. He'd caught it between his index and middle finger. Staring at it for a second, his mind began to register something; the strange shape of the tip of the weapon. The point was split and the two pricks were curled slightly out.

His mind suddenly recollected the exact weapon. He looked up above him, staring into a thick, huge tree, the branches of the said tree expanding and stretching completely over the width of the river. On one branch, there was a black-haired figure, at least five inches taller than the blonde figure, eyes red with three tear-shaped dots in a familiar formation.

The man jumped down, landing on the water next to the blonde, a hand outstretched to help him stand. Taking it, the shorter male stood, grinning up at the other stupidly.

"Sasuke-kun... You look quite different."

"You still look something like the definition of stupidity." Smirking, the Uchiha closing his eyes, stretching his arms. His shirt was similar to Naruto's, only it was short-sleeved, with bandages wrapped around the top of his left arm, between the shoulder and elbow, and bottom–between the elbow and wrist–of his right. His legs were bandages similarly, though his boots hid most of it. As usual, he was wearing shorts. Most of his outfit was black, as usual. His boots, however, were similar to Naruto's, only instead of belt-like straps, they were leather straps that hooked together by tiny, nearly-unnoticeable silver hooks and loops.

Sasuke's arms were rested down again at his sides when they were fully stretched, though his left reached out expectantly.

Naruto just set the kunai back in the other male's hand, smirking, then frowned. "It's been... nearly four years. We're here, but..."

"Now what?" Sasuke finished for the blonde, staring at him, again, expectantly.

"Now you listen and obey," a voice called. It was that of a female, and was slightly familiar. The two looked over into the nearby clearing, where the sun shone down on the area. In the middle of the clearing, a young woman stood. Her shirt was black, with black, tight shorts and a pink, loose skirt that went down to her knees. Simply black, lace-up boots rode up to her knees, and around each hand was a pink glove with black knuckle spikes on the right and a black diamond on the back of the left. Her pink hair was longer, though with her growth, still looked the same, shoulder-length level, and was. The emerald eyes that were gazing intensely at the two males across from her still held the same glisten in the sunlight.

A low growl escaped Sasuke's lips. "Sakura..."

"W-wait, Sasuke-kun, don't attack... Listen to me."

Sasuke looked at Naruto, who shook his head, then looked back at her. "We won't."

"Please, you have to... Trust me on this!"

"Why should we trust you, huh, Sakura!" Naruto growled, glaring hatefully at her with utmost apathy.

"Naruto-kun..." She frowned, staring down at the boots around her feet, then back up to them with a new-found look of determination. "You have to!"

"We won't." Sasuke repeated what he'd said seconds before.

"Why not?"

"Trash is not something we will trust." he stated simply. He clutched his left hand, which still had a scar from the injury the pink-haired girl had inflicted. Naruto had just done the same, still also having a scar.

"Sasuke-kun, Naruto-kun..."

"Don't think you can speak to us so familiarly." Naruto yelled, glaring at her hatefully. The young woman was surprised to see hate so apparent in his eyes, especially towards her; she remembered the blonde used to have had a slight liking for her. It'd changed in the many years they'd been apart, she could tell. She shook her head, clenching her fists.

"Listen to me! I-"

"We're not interested," Naruto whispered. Both the two males turned, staring away, towards the lake downstream.

"You two won't be hunted any more by the ANBU! You guys were taken out of the bingo-book..."

Naruto stopped, as did Sasuke, but only after watching his friend do so first.

Sakura hid a smirk behind her smiling face as she saw them stop. "Will you now listen?"

"Talk," Sasuke ordered, his glare still a bit hateful towards the girl that he'd once actually slightly trusted to some extent, as a teammate.

"Two years ago, Tsunade was researching the sword, that weird one, and... well... A year later, she was found dead. The day before, she ordered the both of you off the bingo-book, because of one of her findings. None of us could figure out how she'd died, but her order was still legitimate. For pretty much a year now, Konoha has been without a Hokage... Your names came up as possible candidates, actually..." She shifted uneasily, staring to the ground, then back to them. "And I was told to track you two down. I didn't know where to find either of you, but I'd overhead something you two had said years ago about meeting up here... So I decided, when I remembered that, that I'd do just that..."

Sasuke looked over at Naruto, who was staring at Sakura with an interested look.

She looked him straight in the eyes. "Naruto, Sasuke... I'd like you two to come back with me to Konoha to discuss this. There was no one else, who's name came up, that would accept it, so we were desperate..."

"Desperate." Sasuke repeated, closing his eyes, his voice saying it coldly. "Meaning that Naruto was the last person you'd ask, so he is the last person you're asking."

"That's not..."

"It seems like it," Naruto whispered, staring at Sasuke, who nodded, then looked back at the woman.

"But..." She sighed heavily, frowning deeply. "Why not?"

Sasuke was staring again at Naruto, waiting for him to answer, which the blonde did without a seconds hesitation.

"I have no desire to become Hokage..."

Both Sakura and Sasuke actually shocked stares, but Sasuke's just turned into a smirk as he turned to face his ex-teammate. "You have your answer right there. Now, leave."

She sighed, closing her eyes, smiling a frail smile. "I expected... that it wouldn't work out so easily... Nothing ever does, right?" She looked up at him, a dull look in her eyes, before closing them again. Her right leg bent upward, and she reached into her boot, sliding a single kunai from the boot. "I had hoped it'd be that easy... You two have suffered, and, believe me if you want or don't I won't care, but it does hurt me... I hate to see you two in more pain... But..."

"How many lies will you stuff inside our brains, Sakura, before you believe we've had enough? How many lies does someone like you have inside their head to give to others? How many?" Naruto slowly asked, staring down at her from next to Sasuke. He repeated, "How many?"

She just raised the kunai to between her eyes, opening them into slivers, which was barely open, staring at them sadly. "Too many," she breathed, one of the two fingers holding the kunai moving. When it no longer applied pressure to the weapon, nine more slid down from behind the original one, now a chain of ten rattling against each other.

Sasuke stared hatefully at her, then just looked nearby over to Naruto. Exchanging uncaring stares, both gazed back at the younger female.

"Sakura, you're..."

"The worst kind of trash; I know." She continued staring at them through the sliver-sized gap between her two eyelid halves. "I know that, I know... I do know..."

"Then why?" Sasuke asked, suddenly, glaring at her. His left hand started gathering energy, glowing a white color.

Sakura had been charging her right hand with chakra, and when she saw Sasuke's Chidori ready to attack at his side, she jumped up, launching herself by kicking off a high tree branch, at the blonde next to the older male.

Naruto growled, jumping a foot back, closing his right hand around a small sparkle of light-blue energy, that grew larger and larger into an orb that he could barely clench. Just as Sakura landed in front of him, Sasuke threw himself at her, his fist connecting with her stomach, sending her back into a tree.

Sakura, breaking the tree in half on impact, grabbed one of the branches that was collapsing on her and pulled herself up on it, jumping down, only to have herself pushed down from behind by Naruto's charged Rasengan, leaving a fair-sized crater around her. Her fingers, as she slowly pulled herself up, each touched two of the kunai, pressing down against all ten.

Naruto landed from the air onto the ground on the edge of the crater, another charge of the light-blue spiraling energy collected under the pressure of his right hand. Sasuke stood on her other side, his large, out-ward collection of a very similar light-blue energy held in his left hand.

The pink-haired girl again kicked off, this time from the ground, jumping forward into the dense jungle a few hundred yards, then pulling herself up into the branches as she continued.

The two behind her didn't hesitate to sprint after her, jumping also in the branches and switching places as they did. They both remembered the strange energy Sakura had once been after, when their two attacks combined; it'd been the reason for the scars on their hands, and why the had to separate in the first place. It'd been so that the attacks couldn't be near each other.

Sakura suddenly stopped, hidden behind a tree she'd jumped off from. Her fingertips pressed harder against the kunais in her hand.

The two males landed in the tree above her, staring down at her. The female already knew they were there, but made no attempts to move. Her lips were curled up, unable to help the smirk.

Naruto jumped down, landing in front of her, kicking upward, but was surprised to find she didn't object, and allowed herself to be kicked into the second clearing of the forest. Sasuke jumped down, running at her, aiming his punch for her head, Naruto doing the same from the other side.

Seeing her chance, the woman grabbed a branch above her, flinging herself onto it as the two males touched their fists, a black energy suddenly mixing in with the two white ones, the energy level so destructive that trees uprooted around them. Their fists pulled away, but the energy did not dissipate. Around Naruto's right arm, and around Sasuke's left, a white energy spiraled around to their shoulders from a small point in their palms, swirling with both black and white tones that refused to mix.

She looked up, grinning widely at the two who stood there, staring at their own arms. "(1)Soyogu, is what it will be called. It is what it is called."

Sasuke looked up, charging at Sakura despite knowing nothing about the strange new jutsu that seemed to have come about from his Chidori and Naruto's Rasengan. He swung at the female, missing, and turned around with his foot in the air, connecting with the side of her head and sending her into a tree. She took a minute to recover, but Naruto was on her before she fully stood up, his fist sent into her stomach, pushing her further into the tree until it cracked, falling backward with her halfway in it.

The blonde's breathing was irregular as he stood on the ground, backing up a few paces. Sasuke, behind him, was glaring at the pink-haired woman he thought he used to know.

"Gah..." she breathed, coughing horribly as a thin stream of scarlet liquid slid down from the crook of her mouth. She brought the back of her hand to her lips, coughing against it and using it to wipe the blood from her face. Her eyes stared back up to the two males. "Soyogu is powerful, after all. Heh..."

"Sakura... We won't hesitate to kill you." Naruto growled, glaring still at her.

"I know... So why are you hesitating now?"

"We're not," Sasuke pointed out, jumping suddenly above her, using Shunshin to get there faster than her eye could catch and grabbing her neck, holding her up into the air. His left hand still resinated with the strange mix of energy, which he used to grab the wrist holding the ten-chain of kunais.

Naruto was behind the woman with the same speed, pressing his fingertips into her back and sending shocks of energy coursing through her body. She let out a loud, pain-filled scream, then squinted her eyes at Sasuke.

"You two will be caught no matter what it takes, and no matter who gets you... The whole village will be after you... You won't have a moment alone..." she breathed, then growled out another pained gasp. "And with the marks of Soyogu, you won't be able to go far away from each other... Now that its burned into your flesh..." She coughed, blood sliding again from her mouth as she moved her right hand in such a way that the kunais were sent through her own wrist, the rest dropping and dangling. "Die... Die correctly... and stop making our village waste itself on your lives..."

Sasuke didn't even raise an eyebrow when he saw tears forming in her eyes, nor when they slid down her face. "Oh, Kami-sama... I'm so sorry..." she whispered, her eyes fully closed. Naruto closed his eyes, shaking his head and regulating his breathing. "I really am trash, aren't I?"

Sasuke stared at her for a second, then released his grip on her, staring at Naruto. "She'll bleed to death here. She's not going anywhere. She's already dead."

Naruto nodded, following Sasuke as he started to walk off, but Sakura somehow managed to lift her arm and grab onto Naruto's pants leg, staring desperately up at him. He glared down at her, then frowned, giving a light sigh and shaking his head, before kicking off her hand and running to catch up with Sasuke. The woman winced, coughing more blood onto the ground, holding one hand over the spot on her stomach that had been tortured the most. Her insides were mesh due to the attacks.

Her lips were up in a smile, a real smile, remembering when she'd actually been friends with those two. She realized how quickly that had ended, and why. It was a simple thing, really. The most simple. Because of one tiny error that had been made years and years and years ago. If that hadn't happened, she'd not have been there, dying, her death by the hands of her friends.

She'd told Tsunade she felt inferior for not being able to help Sasuke when the sword got to him. It wasn't because the sword gotten to him.

It was just her acknowledging her doubt of her strength.

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(1)- Soyogu is Japanese for Flicker, which, if thought about enough, works with the type of attack that the technique actually is. And, alright, this isn't exactly canon, but I wanted to make something up just for this fic. I felt like it. Deal with it... 'Cause it'll be a major part of the next chapter. Maybe. Or I might just make it have barely a minor significance. I'm not sure. Ah, whatever.