Chapter one

10 years ago

A six year old Sakura was running around with her only friend – Ino – while her mother was talking to Ino's mother. "Ino?" the young pink haired girl had an idea. "Yes Sakura?" little Ino had stopped running and was now paying full attention to her friend. "I got an idea," she stated happily. Ino looked really interested, which made the little girl happy.

"We can try to climb on the roof of the playhouse!" Sakura was elated. Ino didn't look very enthusiastic anymore. "Isn't that very dangerous?" Ino didn't like the idea anymore. "We could fall and get hurt!" she said, but Sakura was determined to climb the playhouse so she did.

She climbed the small stair and walked to one of the four poles which held the roof of the playhouse. She set her hands on the beam on which the pole stood and took a deep breath. She could do this. She pushed herself up and lifter her knee and then the other. She now sat on her knees on the beam. Ino stood in front of her and Sakura looked down, waving at her. "Look out!" Ino was worried that her best friend would fall and hurt herself. She didn't want that. But Sakura looked absolutely in her element. She lifted herself to her feet so she stood on the beam and leaned on the pole.

Sakura turned a bit so she was facing the pole and then jumped. "Sakura!" Ino was scared. Her friend just jumped and she would- she would fall! But she didn't, much to Ino's surprise. Sakura had seized the roof and lifted her legs so she could push her whole body on the roof and she did it with little trouble.

Mebuki, who was talking to the mother of Sakura's best friend, looked up when she heard her daughter yell, "Okaa-san! Look! Look!", but what she saw didn't make her happy. Her daughter had climbed on the playhouse and was now sitting on the roof. Flashbacks of her husband, who had done that with her when they were teenagers on a romantic date and wanted to watch the sun set, came rushing back and she ran to the playhouse where her daughter was sitting on, faster than she had expected.

Heh. Maybe she still had it in her, but that didn't matter. If her daughter was anything like her husband had been she wouldn't let it be just climbing a playhouse – she would climb way more when she would be older. Not even out of breath, Mebuki stood in front of her daughter. "Sakura! Come down here! Right now!" She didn't want her to get hurt. "But okaa-san!" her daughter protested.

Sakura didn't like it. Her mother should be proud that she had climbed the playhouse but her mother wasn't proud. "Sakura! I said come down!" She pouted but climbed down anyway. She knew that when her mother was mad she should listen, otherwise she would get even more mad.

Mebuki took Sakura by her arm and said a quick goodbye to Ino and her mother. Mebuki didn't like seeing her daughter like that but she had to. She didn't want her daughter to be upset with her or even mad but she didn't want her daughter to develop advanced climbing technics like her husband had done on a very young age.

Otherwise she would end up like her Father. Dead.

Present day

Waking up was not one of Sakura's favourite things to do after a subway stride competition but she had to. And if that wasn't hard enough itself she had to act if she was awake – if she didn't people would ask questions and they would be able to guess where she had been because it wasn't exactly uncommon to go to the competitions– to watch. It was, however, less common for people like her to participate in the subway stride competitions. The only thing is that both aren't accepted – once someone hears about what you do at night and doesn't know you in a friendly way they will report it to the police or their parents for sure.

So at day she was a normal girl – normal grades, normal looks ( if you didn't count her hair) and normal friends (who didn't really have normal lives at night). She dressed herself in the uniform and walked to the kitchen, only to find it empty. Her mother was probably already gone to her work so she would have to eat alone. Again.

Her bond with her mother had never been really tight but it felt like she never spoke to her mother anymore. She had to go to work early and always came back late – Sakura would have finished her homework by then and would be asleep because she had to get up that night to get to the race, so she practically never saw her mother anymore. The only time they would see each other was in the weekend and then her mother would be asleep for most of the time to get the sleep she didn't get on the day she had to work.

Sakura arrived a bit late at school, but she always did. She was never really late, she just always arrived at the same time her teacher – which was five minutes after the last bell rang – and he would never write it down because he couldn't say anything about her when he never arrived on time himself. Hatake-sensei was a very laidback teacher anyway. And he liked her so they never had trouble with each other.

She saw Naruto in the back and waved at him. She opened her books and turned to him. "You look like you didn't sleep a minute," she said. "Sakura-chan! Good morning!" he totally ignored her comment. Sakura sighed and smiled while she shook her head. "Good morning to you too, Naruto. But did you sleep?" He really did have sleeping problems. He scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "I was so excited about you winning the competition that I couldn't sleep and I still had to start that paper so I started writing it," he answered.

Sakura shook her head again. "Naruto, you do know that the deadline is soon?" He nodded. "It's a five page paper," she continued, "and it has to be finished Monday." He looked like she had shot him. "But Sakura-chan! I thought the deadline was in two weeks." He was lying. Sakura knew that he knew that the deadline was on Monday but now he would try to get her feel guilty so she would help him. Heh, she thought, not this time.

"Naruto, you know the deadline is on Monday," came a voice from behind her. They turned around to see Hatake-sensei. "Good morning to you too, sensei," she greeted. "Aa. Good morning Sakura. You look pretty fit after tonight," his voice was noticeable softer when he said the second sentence. Sakura was a bit confused. She didn't know that her sensei knew about their nightlife. "Aa, Sakura-chan," Naruto started, his voice as soft as possible for him, "Sensei here was a strider once too, ANBU level," he said. Sakura's eyes widened. ANBU level was the highest level in the subway stride competitions.

"Naruto, you know that that was a long time ago. I don't do subway stride competitions anymore," he replied, his voice was strained. Sakura noticed it, though it was a bit hard to notice, and she began to think. He might have had some bad experiences with subway striding. He started speaking again, even softer now. "There is a competition in Suna next Wednesday," he started, "You will have six nights to prepare. Are you going, Naruto?" Naruto brightened up at the mentioning of the competition in Suna. Sakura sighed. She hadn't heard of it earlier and she had much work to do the next days so she probably wouldn't be able to attend.

"I'm going, believe it! And Sakura-chan is coming too!"

She is?

So we finally got a pit of Sakura's past (^.^)

You will get a "flashback" (if you can call it that, it's more like a part of the past) at almost every chapter's beginning.

Who's excited for the Suna competition?

Please Follow, Favourite and Comment