Title: Sakura's Home
Author: Winter Ashby (rosweldrmr)
Disclaimer: Naruto © Masashi Kishimoto-sama. I don't own anything about Naruto, this is just for fun and if I did own Naruto I wouldn't have to right this, because I would have a team of very talented people turning this into a saga right now...
Rating: K+ Warning: this not only has spoilers until Manga 270ish, but it's kind of required for you to know what's going on. I use a lot of the Gaara mission, just made it AUish.
Summary: Sakura was kicked out of Konoha five years ago but now has been asked to return… She will meet old friends and be faced with the consequences of her actions. Future AU Sakura centric. No pairings, and you need to be up to date in the manga and series.
Authors Notes: Well, this isn't getting the attention that I was hoping for, but I'm going to keep writing it because I like it. This chapter relies much on the manga so you should have read up to at lease the 280's to understand what's happening. I took the basic idea from the manga, but obviously I've made some changes to suit my plot. Let me know what you think.

Chapter 6 – Truth

"You what!?" she bellowed with all the air she has in her lungs, and she was suddenly and quite accidentally brought back to the days when team seven was first formed. Naruto always had a way of getting under her skin. The pupils disappeared from her eyes and her hair stood on end. Tears streamed down her face in thick rivers.

"Ah, Sakura-chan, don't cry!" his own reaction resembled hers; his voice was loud and high pitched. He waved his hands in the air, trying to calm her down. "I'm fine now, see?"

"Moron, how the hell did you die!? What were you doing, how could be that stupid?!" she mirrored his flailing arms and added in a strange dance where her legs moved back and forth so fast it almost looked like she was floating.

"Hu?" he stopped his waving stood still. His sudden change halted hers as well and they stood, silent for a moment as she considered all the possible causes and consequences of his admission.

"Akatsuki." her face turned pale as the word slipped from her lips. She knew then, the reason his chakra was so different – it was the same reason she didn't even recognize him or feel the nine-tails inside him anymore. "They released your seal? So it was true, I've read about it but I never knew how much truth there was in it. Once the demon is released the Jinchuuriki will die. But that doesn't explain how you…" she trailed off, trying desperately to piece together his resurrection.

"There was an old lady from sand, Chiyo-sama." He began slowly, but already she could tell the depths of pain this must be causing him. Naruto almost never called elders by such a respectful honorific; he still called the fifth old lady Tsunade. "We were on a mission to save the Kazekage of the sand…Gaara."

This didn't come as a surprise to her, even if she was in the hidden village of Stone when he was given that position, the stories of the boy with the demon inside him – a monster, reached far. People were scared of a boy with that much power taking over a country. There were rumors that he'd killed all the elders and taken the position, but she knew better than that. She saw the man that came back after the mission to rescue Sasuke. He saved Lee, even if it was just an order; there was something so different in him, ever since his match with Naruto.

About a year after that, she was traveling though sand when he confronted her in the desert. It was a strange encounter that she would probably never forget. He was still the same powerful, emotionless shinobi that she'd heard horror stories about during the chuunin exam. But he had come to tell her to leave his village. Since the chuunin exam, sand and leaf became allies. And her presence in sand was seen as a threat, and with leaf's permission he asked her to leave sand and not return.

He could have killed her, but instead he urged her to forget about her jutsu and return home. It was so strange for Gaara of the desert to give her a speech about the importance of precious people. He knew about her crime, and her goal – so he simply told her that she could be forgiven in time just as he had. The fact that she had something in common with Gaara made her stomach turn, but he was right. She was a murder, just like him.

He expressed his wishes to maintain the peace with leaf and protect his people. It was at that moment that she was certain he wasn't a monster; he just possessed one inside of him. She left, without a fight and full of a new found respect for the ninja of the sand. But she didn't know that Akatsuki had taken him. "Does that mean that Gaara…" she didn't finish, waiting desperately for his denial.

"No, we reached him just before… so Chiyo-sama was able to use only a partial soul transfer to save him." She felt a sudden wave of relief. Naruto looked past her to Shino and Shikamaru. She'd almost forgotten they were there. She didn't know why, but it seemed like he didn't want to continue in front of them. Apparently they understood what his hesitation meant, because a few moments later they were left alone.

"Naruto…" she stood, dazed by what he was telling her. "…a soul transfer isn't a healing technique." She knew all to well, because no matter how hard she tried to revive her victim in that field that horrible day, it was impossible. She would have traded her life for the one she took without a second thought. But she'd only heard of one woman capable of such a jutsu, Tsunade-shishou told her about a woman she'd fought against during the Third Great Ninja Wars.

"I know." He looked sad. It didn't fit him; it looked so unnatural for there to be a serious expression on his boyish face. Apparently he'd matured quite a bit in the time she'd been away. She knew that the events that lead to her expulsion from Konoha had weighed heavily on him. But she looked at him now, and saw no anger left for the person she'd taken.

"How did you… what happened?" she couldn't take not knowing anymore. She felt like she was stumbling through snow, trying to drag it out of him. He was murdered, and the demon inside him was removed. Her logical brain knew this because she knew what Akatsuki was after. But all this didn't add up. Because if the demon was removed, then he should have died, so how could have he been revived? She didn't know why, but she a sinking feeling in her stomach that she didn't really want him to finish the story because she wasn't going to like the ending.

"Itachi used his genjutsu tsukiyomi on me. I remember a strange swirling sky, and pain. The fox was ripping out of me. I couldn't control it…" He took a small breath. Sakura said nothing, but tried to breathe evenly and keep her stinging eyes fixated on his mournful expression. She knew what he had seen, because it was similar to what she had. "I killed everyone. After that, everything is blank." Then he got the same, strange look; the look of shame. "Gaara told me later what happened." He was still holding back, and it was beginning to scare her. "Chiyo-sama didn't have enough chakra to revive me, so…" his voice quivered and his hands gripped at his sides.

"Naruto, who…" her voice was so soft she wasn't even sure that he'd heard her. He kept his face down and his whole body still shook. Whether it was with anger, or tears she couldn't be sure.

"Sasuke."