Summary: On a mission, Sakura is given a painful reminder of someone she has thought about every day for the past two and a half years. Meanwhile, Naruto is on his way back to Konoha.(One-sided SakuSasu and NaruSaku)
Genre: Romance / some action-adventure
Disclaimer: I still don't own Naruto, or any of the characters.
AN: This is set at the end of the timeskip, just before Part 2 of the manga. There aren't any spoilers for events that occur in the manga… although in this Sakura does use some of the fruits of her training with Tsunade (so she's a bit better than she is in the anime). There's a couple of little action sequences… I was planning on there being more, but it didn't really work. Hope you enjoy! Preview for Story 5 at the bottom… and there'll be some much more overt pairings than here. Many thanks to ScreaminPsiren for help with ideas (for this and 'Another Girl').
I Need You
Waking up to the sound of his teacher's voice, Naruto squinted into the sunlight. It had rained in the night, and the outside of his sleeping bag was damp, and his hair with it. Mercifully it was a waterproof sleeping bag, so the inside was still warm and dry. Naruto still didn't get why they hadn't stopped at the lodging village just half an hour's walk away, but Jiraiya had been unusually insistent about leaving it. Now though, the clouds had cleared to leave blue skies and sunshine.
"Ero-Sennin?" he said, blinking to let his tired eyes adjust to the brightness of the morning sun. Jiraiya was standing nearby, looking over the landscape, his telescope in one hand. He put one eye to it, scanning the valley below them.
"Get up, Naruto. We should get a move on."
"Where are we going?" Naruto asked.
"We have over a week's journey ahead. We need to move." Jiraiya snapped the telescope closed and leaned down to fiddle with his pack. Naruto sat up, pulling on his jacket over the black t-shirt he had slept in.
"But where are we going, Ero-Sennin!" he asked, more insistently. Jiraiya was gazing out over the valley again, his twinkling eyes unfocused. He looked back at Naruto, smiling slightly.
"Konoha," he said. "We're going home."
Her senses were attuned to everything around her. Ears listened for every sound, every rustling of grass. Even a breath of wind through a still tree could not escape her attention. When the attack came she was ready, jumping expertly sideways and watching as a handful of kunai battered the ground where she had just been standing.
Three attackers landed behind her. She ran forward, ducking and rolling aside as one of her companion's weapons flew towards them. She returned to her feet to watch her teammates engaging the enemy.
She kept her eyes on them, her senses alert, but she did not engage. If she were injured, then there would be no one to help the others. She felt, more than heard, the movement behind her. Perhaps there was a breath of air towards her, or a tiny sound, but whatever it is she sensed the enemy behind her. She felt the build-up of chakra as a technique was formed, but she had no time to get out of the line of fire. She gathered chakra in her hand, jumping up towards the enemy shinobi. Her fist thrust out in front of her and into the chest of the enemy Nin as he formed the last in a sequence of hand seals. He was sent flying backwards into the forest, slamming hard into a tree, the force of the impact damaging the bark.
She looked towards him and her eyes widened as she saw a head of black hair, swept up behind his head in a very familiar style. His head slowly came back to upright, and she saw a trail of blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. He opened his eyes and stared at her with pure black eyes. It was a moment before she could move.
Not him, her mind told her, screaming out to her to tear her eyes away. It's not him. Look away. There are other enemies. She blinked, looking at him again. It wasn't him, of course it wasn't. But there was an undeniable similarity that scared her a little.
"Sakura!" a voice called behind her. Ignoring the boy who was struggling to stand up, she spun around and looked to where she had been called. One of her companions had fallen. She ran to his side, pointing into the trees after the other enemy ninja.
"Another one. In there," she said as she fell to her knees at her comrade's side. In a way she was grateful for something to distract her from the memory that had come unbidden, of the last time she had looked into a similar pair of black eyes. She formed a series of hand seals, and green chakra swelled around her hands.
Jiraiya left Naruto with the packs and disappeared into the lodging village, for reasons that he would not explain to Naruto. The orange clad young ninja was left munching on some snacks the perverted hermit had left with him. According to Jiraiya, there were still two days from Konoha, but Naruto was starting to recognise landmarks. They had been through this lodging village before, on the way out of Konoha, on their way into the hills where Naruto had begun his gruelling training.
Naruto looked at himself now and wondered if he seemed as different to others as he felt inside. The past two and a half years had been exhausting, and yet rewarding as he felt himself growing with each passing day, under the steady tutelage of one of the legendary Sannin. And yet at the end of the day, sometimes, he would find himself lying awake, staring at the stars and wondering how his friends in Konoha were. He thought about Shikamaru, and the other Genin he had graduated from the academy with. He thought about Neji, and fuzzy-eyebrows. But most of all, he thought about Sakura-chan, training with Tsunade-Obaa-chan.
Their parting had been sad: the breaking of their team, however temporary they intended for it to be. He remembered the determined smile on her face as she told him that next time they would go to get Sasuke back together. He remembered his promise to her. The promise he still intended to keep.
And he missed her. He missed her smile, the encouragement she was so willing to dole out to her team-mates, her acts of courage, even when she knew she had no hope of success. He even found that he missed her scolding him every ten minutes. Much as Jiraiya was a good teacher, he couldn't fill the void left by the splitting up of team 7.
They had each gone to one of the legendary Sannin to train. Naruto was learning ninjutsu from the frog-Sannin. Sakura-chan was learning to be a healer, a medic. Sasuke… even the thought of Sasuke brought memories of their last battle back. He didn't know what Sasuke was learning, and he didn't really want to. Anything that could be taught to him by Orochimaru was not worth learning, in Naruto's opinion.
How strong was she now? Sakura, sweet, kind, beautiful Sakura. Learning to heal, and learning to fight and learning from the most fearsome Kunoichi in the fire country, perhaps in the world.
Naruto sighed deeply and abandoned the food he was eating in favour of reminiscing. Perhaps he was looking back on her with cherry-blossom tinted spectacles, but he didn't care. He had loved her then, and he continued to love her now… even if she would never truly understand that.
And now he was on his way back to her, to see her, to talk to her, to be in her illustrious presence once again. The thought intoxicated him, and in his mind he could see her waving at him, pleased to see him for perhaps the first time in their lives. This time it would be different. This time their meeting would be with fondness on both sides. She would see how much he had grown, and how strong he had become, and this time he would show her that what she meant to him was far more than she had ever realised.
Beloved comrade, trustworthy friend, beautiful girl.
Sakura sat in the library staring at the open pages on a medical journal that Tsunade had recommended to her. She wasn't paying all that much attention, however. She was thinking about the boy in the forest, with Sasuke's hair, Sasuke's black, black eyes.
"Sakura, Arigato…" Her eyes closed on the memory and a tear slid down her cheek.
So much time had passed, but she still looked back on her time with him with great fondness. Despite his constantly shooting her down, she still looked back and viewed the dark and brooding Uchiha with something more than just that childish affection she had once viewed him with.
He was her first crush. In fact, he was most of the girls in the academy's first crush. He was handsome, with a strong face, glossy raven hair, startling eyes… and he was a ninja genius. Top of his class in everything, with abilities that some Genin would have envied. He was smart, he was strong, he was fit.
So many times in those months of looking at him, she had dreamt of what it would be like to kiss him. To feel his arms wrap around her, holding her to him. She had imagined so vividly what it would feel to kiss him, to touch his velvet lips with her own, and stare closely into those ebony eyes.
But now, after working with him for a year that wasn't the reason that Sakura still loved him. Girlish crushes wear off after a while, no matter how good looking the object of affection. After her constant rebuffs, she might have grown tired of him… he wouldn't even have deigned to walk down a street in the same direction as her if it wasn't for the fact that they had been put on the same team.
Now she loved him because of the other things she had seen… the things that he would never admit to. On their very first mission out of the village he had risked his life to save Naruto. He had saved Sakura from Orochimaru in the Forest of Death. He was still dark and brooding, still lost in a world she could not fathom, but she had seen sides to his personality that very few would ever see. When Sasuke had opened up, just slightly, he was something special… even if you neglected all the things that everyone else saw and admired.
He tried to be hard. He tried to be heartless. He tried to not grow attached to people. In the end, he had failed, and he had let Sakura and Naruto earn a brief glimpse into the part of him that actually cared about people. He had grown fond of them… it had been harder for him to leave Konoha than any of the others would ever realise.
Sakura had wanted to help. If she had been as strong then as she was now, then maybe she could have stopped him, or at least helped him… but this was all hindsight, and there would be no chance ever to test that hypothesis.
Two and a half years and she had grown so much. She wondered how much he would have grown in that time, as well. How strong would he be after two and a half years of training with Orochimaru? How many new techniques would he have mastered in that time?
How many times would he have thought of her?
Why did she still feel so strongly for someone that didn't care for her in the same way? Why did she still need him?
"Sakura! Do you have that recipe I asked for?" Sakura looked up from the desk to see Tsunade's intimidating form approaching.
"Hai, Tsunade-sama," she replied, handing Tsunade a little scribbled-on piece of paper. Tsunade looked at it, then back at Sakura.
"Your mind's not on the job, is it?" Sakura looked back up at her master.
"What do you mean?" she replied. Tsunade turned the piece of paper around to show a picture of Sasuke doodled on it. Sakura blushed and rooted amongst the things on the desk for the actual recipe.
"Iwashi told me that one of the enemies you fought looked very much like him," Tsunade said, her expression thoughtful as she examined her young student carefully. Sakura's eyes drifted off into the distance.
"Yes…" she said. Tsunade sat down opposite Sakura and leaned her elbows on the table, resting her head on her hands.
"I've told you before, Sakura… there is nothing we can do for a while. We don't have the forces to spare that we can send after him… and until we do…" Sakura shook her head.
"I know, Tsunade-sama, it's fine… I've been trying to concentrate on growing stronger, so that I can be an asset to the village. Sasuke-kun…" she paused, the ghost of a smile playing on her lips. "I won't forget Sasuke-kun, but I know that we need to wait to get him back." Tsunade smiled.
"Rest assured, I doubt Naruto will have given up on his promise just yet." Sakura smiled, crinkling her eyes up.
When Tsunade was gone, Sakura's expression immediately fell again. She looked back at the doodle on the piece of paper and she sighed.
Naruto wouldn't have given up on his promise. But what about her? Was she strong enough now to face him in the way she hadn't been able to before?
"Stop! Thief!"
Naruto whirled around where he was standing and saw someone running, carrying a bag over his shoulder. Naruto jumped towards him, grabbing the thief by the shoulders and swivelling him around to punch him in the jaw.
Seconds later the victim was standing beside him, thanking him profusely. Naruto smiled and laughed it off, refusing the kind offers of reward.
"It was nothing, really," he said, extricating himself from the growing crowd and easing away, trying to find Jiraiya amongst the crowds of people. You wouldn't think a tall, bulky, loud, white-haired man like Jiraiya would be hard to spot, but he could be so hard to find sometimes. If he was in one of the houses of ill-repute, then Naruto would kill him.
"I told you to wait outside the village!" Jiraiya said, appearing behind Naruto from nowhere.
"I know, I know… but I've been there for hours!" Naruto said, pointing an accusatory finger at his teacher.
"It's all right. I'm done now," Jiraiya said, sounding distracted. "We should get a move on."
"What's the big hurry? We've waited this long! How is…" Naruto stopped at a sharp look from Jiraiya.
"I've heard some disturbing rumours… Akatsuki are on the move. I'd like to be back in Konoha before they try anything." Naruto blanched slightly at the mention of the organization that had him on their hit list, but his only reply was a stiff nod.
"How far are we away from Konoha, anyway?" Naruto asked. The last time he had asked the Perverted Hermit, Jiraiya had said that they were a day away, but that was yesterday.
"Don't you recognise this place, Naruto?" Jiraiya asked, smiling as they walked through yet another lodging village. They had all started to bleed together in Naruto's mind. He looked around, but didn't see anything he recognised.
"No…" he said. Jiraiya smiled.
"This is the village where we first encountered Itachi…"
Naruto's face fell as he remembered the fateful events of that day. He could still summon frighteningly clear images into his head of Sasuke being beaten by his older brother. He shuddered as he remembered those events, and what had followed. That encounter was the catalyst that had led to Sasuke leaving Konoha.
But at the same time, he smiled… they were nearly back in Konoha. They were only a couple of hour's walk from Konoha.
"Naruto! Hurry Up!" Jiraiya was halfway down the street. Naruto jogged to catch up with him.
"So we'll be there very soon?" he asked, suddenly feeling excited. Jiraiya smiled.
"Yes. Very soon."
Sakura used a kunai to deflect Shizune's needles and jumped aside as the older ninja jumped towards her. She dodged a barrage of kunai and ran up a tree trunk as Shizune ran at her again. Sakura jumped down to land behind Shizune and threw a kunai. Shizune used a replacement technique, but Sakura had found her again before she had a chance to attack. Shizune found Sakura's fist flying towards her before she could do anything.
Sakura stopped half an inch away from Shizune's face and smiled.
"I win," she said. Shizune smiled in return, nodding.
"Very good," Tsunade said, moving in from the sidelines. Sakura grinned. She had only recently started being able to get the better of her sparring partner and it still hadn't lost its novelty. She was definitely getting stronger.
Shizune left soon after to return to the Konoha hospital, while Sakura and Tsunade walked back into the village.
"You get better every day," Tsunade said. Sakura quietly glowed under the praise from her teacher and she smiled.
"Thank you, Tsunade-sama," she replied.
Suddenly they heard a familiar voice behind them. It was a voice that Sakura hadn't heard in a long time.
"SAKURA-CHAN!" Her ears pricked up and she turned around.
"Eh? Naruto?" The orange-clad ninja ran up behind her, grinning. Sakura's confused expression grew into a smile as she looked at her team-mate. He had grown.
PREVIEW
Story 5: 'Another Girl': Ino is very confused. Shikamaru keeps disappearing off to the Sand Village, and no one will tell her why. (ShikaTem and one-sided Ino-Shika)
