It was much later that night and the sky was pitch black with the only light coming from the stars in the sky and quarter moon's light shining back on the landscape below. On the roof of one of Jiraiya's houses in this area was the new, fully animated Sakura. She was still up looking and watching her hands which black sand then began to seep through her palm forming a sphere.
The pink hair puppet then just watched with a curious look on her face as the black sand moved according to her will, shaping itself into whatever she was thinking at the moment. The various it shape it took were people, objects, and things some of which she had never seen before in her life but guessed that she might have in the whole year that was missing from her memory. Two figures she made got two completely different reactions out of her. One was of elderly old woman that rather short but had feeling that she was very skilled and respected her. The other was of guy probably only a fewer years older then herself which looked seem to her as they were puppet but instead a seal craved on their chest their was scroll with veins sticking out from the where it was. The feeling that she got from this guy was nothing but anger and crushing the figure she made in her hands
'I wonder if I now have some of the memories of the Third Kazekage. This sand originally belonged to him,' Sakura thought as she watched the sand disappear in the same way that it had appeared. She only knew of the Third Kazekage's ability through Naruto telling her about it.
She then started examining her hand again and with no effort at all her hand began to glowing a dull green and she waved her hand back and forth, watching charka follow a few seconds after her hand.
A sigh escaped her lips though she wondered just how was it was that she was still able to even talk. Sure she knew that this wooden body of hers was being animated thanks her charka residing within it and Naruto's making her own move around like normal persons, but how that allowed her to talk was still a mystery to her.
"I will have to ask Naruto about that tomorrow, amongst other things," Sakura said, voicing her thoughts out loud.
"Ask me about what, Sakura?" Naruto asked as he appeared right in front of her face.
"Naruto!" Sakura yelled as her tail, which was lying lifelessly behind her, suddenly came to life and drove itself in Naruto's left shoulder without warning.
"Naruto! I am so sorry! I did not mean to do that! It was an accident! I still haven't gotten use to have a tail so I guess it was just a reaction. Here, let me heal it for you," Sakura said as she removed her tail and placed her hands over the wound as they began to glow a dull green once again.
Naruto then lightly took her hand off his shoulders and shook his head to telling her that she did not need to do that.
Sakura then watched as the wound began to heal itself until all that was left was nothing more then the hole in his clothes that her tail had caused by jamming itself in his shoulder.
"But how? I stabbed you pretty deep with my tail and why didn't my medical jutsu work on you?" Sakura asked. She learned medical ninjutsu heal Naruto when he got injured and not just stand there watching as others did it like when she was twelve.
"I heal even faster then before and I guess that you can only heal yourself now. I felt nothing when you tried to apply your charka to heal me," Naruto told her.
"Great, not only did that bastard violate my body by doing this to me, but he made so I can not even be a medical nin to any but myself anymore and its not even healing anymore as more like repairing!" Sakura growled and she punched that roof, causing hole the size of her hand to appear when she pulled her hand out.
"Ouch! What the hell was that? The roof just fell on me!" Ryo yelled. He had happened to be unlucky enough to be sitting in the place directly under the hole. "Hey! What the hell are you doing up there punching holes in the roof?" he yelled up to her.
"Sorry, I…" Sakura began before Naruto stopped her.
"Sakura's just angry over what happened to her. That's all. She has a right to be," Naruto explained.
"Naruto, what are you two still doing up anyway?" Sakura asked since it was pretty late at night and he had fainted from giving her too much charka early today.
"I am not completely human anymore and Ryo was never human to begin with, so we do not need to sleep as much as I used to," he told her.
"You look a lot different compared to the last time I saw you, but that doesn't mean that you no longer human. I am the one that's no longer human! I am just an animated puppet!" Sakura yelled. How could Naruto think he was no longer human just because of a few changes in his appearances?
"Sakura, did you forget what I told you earlier tonight?" Naruto asked
Sakura thought about it for awhile and then nodded as she could recall her own abilities and how to control the Iron Sand somehow but memories of Naruto telling her what had happened to her last memory was a blur.
"So how long has it been since you've known?" Sakura asked, curious as to just how much time had past between now and the last thing she remembered.
Sighing, Naruto began to explain everything to her once again, hoping that the memory loss Sakura was suffering was not a recurring condition.
"Gaara died? But how? He is Gaara," she asked. She held Gaara in the same regards as Naruto and Sasuke in the fact that they were some of the strongest people she knew and found it hard to believe that Gaara had died.
"Gaara is not immortal, nor is he undefeatable. The group called the Akatsuki managed to beat him and sucked the demon out of him, costing him his life, but thanks to Chiyo and me, we brought him back from the dead at the cost of Chiyo's own life," he explained.
"You're not going to trade your life for mine or take someone else's just to give me mine back, are you?" the pink hair puppet asked as he told her about the original purpose of Chiyo's technique and how she wanted to use on Sasori to restore his human form.
"If it comes to that, Sakura, I will give my life and only my life to return you to normal as it's my fault that you're like this."
'He is not serious, is he?' Sakura thought 'Naruto would not give his life just so I could have a chance to be normal again'. The thought of Naruto dead was something that she just could not…no, she did not want to imagine at all.
"No, you're going to do no such thing! Either you find a way to restore me to normal without giving your life or not all," she told him.
"Okay then, but I can not make any promises," he agreed.
"So how did you get me away for Sasori then if you were by yourself? \Did you beat him on your own?" Sakura asked.
"I could not beat Sasori on my own while he was controlling you like one of his normal human puppet. He made you beat the crap out of me," Naruto told her.
Sakura just stared in shock as she then looked down at her hands.
"I…I…I…" Sakura tried to speak but could not find the words to say. What do you say to someone that you beat to a pulp even though we were not in control of yourself at the moment?
"He was about to have you carry me back when he decide to add insult to injury," Naruto told her.
"What did that bastard make me do?" Sakura asked as she hoped whatever happened to the missing sand nin was painful
"I'd rather not talk about it, but as a result, I released Kyuubi and then he merged with me," her teammate said. Luckily he didn't have the blush appear on his face over the embarrassing thing Sasori made Sakura do.
Things became quiet between the two of them until Sakura finally spoke again. "Are you really merged with the Kyuubi, and if so, how do I know that you're still Naruto?" she asked. She could not believe that he and the demon fox merged together and he absorbed the fox instead of the other way around.
"I am not completely sure about it myself, yet I am still me. However, I also have all of Kyuubi's memories, knowledge, and powers," he told her.
"So does that mean your going to get revenge on Konoha?" Sakura asked. If Naruto had the nine tail's memories, he might want to destroy their home. She would not blame him as he not only would he have his own reason, but Kyuubi's as well.
"No, I do not want revenge on Konoha because of my merger with Kyuubi, but to find a way to make you human again," he said after shaking his head.
"Thanks," Sakura said. She was glad that she had someone like Naruto in her life. He was always there for her.
"There's another thing I've been wondering about this seal on my chest. Could you tell me a little more about it?" Sakura asked.
"The seal allows you stay animated as you are now as long as we are in a five mile radius of each other and is continuously draining me of five percent of my charka. I made it so that the link is almost undetectable by most demons or humans. I wanted to make the range unlimited, but that would take too much charka and would be easy for others to track," he told her.
"So after we are not in five mile radius of each other, I begin to revert to being just normal unanimated human puppet again, right?" Sakura asked and he just nodded his head.
"Naruto, how I am suppose to going to into villages and town looking like this?" she then asked in reference to her human puppet body.
"Sakura, you're forgetting just who am I now," Naruto said his form shifted from his back his old self before he had merged with Kyuubi.
"Naruto, what did you just do?" she asked.
"It's a type of genjutsu similar to Tsunade, yet different. You'd be surprised, Sakura, just how many jutsu we have that just borderline on the jutsu of what demons use," Naruto told her. "Sakura, hold still." He placed a hand on her shoulder. Sakura watched as she saw her wooden shoulder change back to normal flesh. "Now you're under the same genjutsu as me but this is just an illusion. However, it cannot be detected or canceled by normal person or even most ninjas unless they are at Jiraiya's level and have something to repress demonic chakra," He told her.
"Just how do you..." she said but then stopped realized he probably would have just told her Kyuubi's memories.
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I would like to thank:
King Hawke and RANMACAT for reviewing Chapter 24-25
QueenThayet12990 for reviewing Chapter 25
Everstrange1 for adding me as one of their favorite authors, and to their author alert list
Ericting's Stories for adding this story to their C2 archive
redbloodgoddess, Everstrange1, and bleeding-fallen-angel for adding this to their Favorite story list
redbloodgoddess and Everstrange1 for adding this to their Story Alert List.
