Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
Chapter II: Gone
"Aaaah, finally food!" Naruto cried out and finally reached the hill where Sakura had been hours before.
"I can't believe we had to search the entire town for just a single meal!" Tsunade groaned. "If you hadn't been so stubborn about your damned ramen…"
"You can't live without ramen," Naruto protested. "Where's Sakura-chan? Sakura-chaaaan! Sakura-cha –"
He stopped abruptly when he saw something stuck to the ground with a kunai. A paper? Suddenly feeling anxiety rising in his chest, he picked up the note and read it.
Gomen nasai,
But I've to leave for a while. Do not search for me. I'll only be gone for a short time.
Sayounara,
Sakura
"What?!" Naruto almost shrieked. "But…"
"Shut up," Tsunade hissed as she grasped the letter, having read it too. "There might still be enemies around."
"Enemies?" Naruto blinked in surprise. "What're you talking about, Tsunade no obaa-san?"
A vein popped on Tsunade's forehead. "Don't call me obaa-san!" she bellowed.
"Okay, okay…," Naruto muttered as he rubbed his sore left ear (Tsunade was standing next to his left ear). "You just told me to shut up, and now you're making noise yourself!"
"Anyway…," Tsunade continued impatiently, "You do realize that Sakura has not written this, don't you? She'd not just leave this suddenly, and everything is… odd. This is not like her."
"Yeah. That's true…" Naruto clenched his fists. "Whoever hurt Sakura-chan, I won't forgive him…"
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
"What the hell are you talking about?" Sasuke snapped. "Just get to the point, dammit!"
Sasuke was not having a good day. Firstly, Orochimaru had hired a couple of assassins to 'train' him by trying to kill him in the morning – which had, of course, just stolen the very few hours Sasuke had had to sleep, and he had been very exhausted after the previous night, even though Sasuke never complained – and his hair just didn't get right… it got all flat and weird, which was a bad sign; and his training hadn't gone well because of his obsession about his hair, and now Orochimaru had told him to come and skip his training.
"Sasuke, Sasuke," Orochimaru chuckled with that evil grin of his. "You have no patience. But alright, I'll get to the point. I have a… so to say, test for you."
"A test," Sasuke repeated, furrowing his eyebrows. "You always do."
"Yes, but this is a special one…" A wicked sparkle appeared in one of his golden eyes. "… concerning your… ah, friends."
Sasuke stiffened and his frown deepened. "They're not my friends," he said coldly. "They've not been that for two and a half years."
"Really. So you wouldn't mind if one of your friends was put before you and had to be your servant for two months, having forgotten everything about you, their past, their present, their everything, their self… and all the time, you know they're just on the verge of death?"
"What do you mean?" Sasuke said tensely, not answering the question.
"What I mean is…" Orochimaru's lips cracked into an evil smile. "… that you have to take care of your little friend Sakura in two months, and she has forgotten all about you, and if she can manage to recover her memories in these two months, she'll have the wish she made when she was forced to participate in the certain kinjutsu that I think you know –" Sasuke uttered a hardly audible growl. "- and if she doesn't, she'll die."
"And how," Sasuke managed to say with deadly calmness, "would that be a test for me?"
"I just want to see how much you still care for your little friends, Sasuke. If you want revenge, then you can't have them. If you want to have them, then you can't have your revenge."
"I don't care about my friends," Sasuke snarled. "I just care about killing Itachi." And with these words, he walked out of the room, but Orochimaru was still sneering.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
She opened her eyes. Everything was unclear; it was like the entire room was covered in a thick layer of fog. Suddenly, a pair of turquoise eyes met her emerald ones.
"Wh… who are you?" she asked, startled, sitting up in the… bed? She looked around. She was in a room of some sort, supposedly a bedroom – it was dark and tiny, and her back ached after lying on the hard bed. The person next to her was a young man with turquoise eyes and long, pale blonde hair, and he was wearing some sort of uniform that seemed familiar…
"I am Hazumi," he said with a gentle smile. "I'm glad you've woken up, Sayuri."
Sayuri? What is he talking about? The name is familiar. But I can't be Sayuri, because I am… She gasped. She couldn't remember her own name! Or anything about her at all.
"Don't panic, Sayuri," Hazumi told her and squeezed her hand lightly. "I know it's hard, and you've forgotten everything. But can't you remember me?"
He looked sadly at her, but Sayuri couldn't even remember his face. (A/N: Yes, I'm going to call her Sayuri from now on if it's from "her" point of view. If it's mainly focusing on Sasuke or somebody else, she'll be called Sakura.) "No… I'm sorry, Hazumi-kun. Who are you? And who am I? And where…"
"Shh," Hazumi hushed her. "Calm, now, and I'll tell you everything." Falling in silence, Sayuri stared at him intently, waiting for him to continue. "Your name is Sayuri, Tsukino Sayuri, and you're fifteen years old. You live here –" He made a gesture at the room. "- and you're Sasuke-sama's servant. Or apprentice, whatever you should call it."
"Sasuke… sama…?" Sayuri repeated silently. I recognize that. Very clearly…
"Yes. He's the same age as you," Hazumi added. "And me… I'm your fiancé." He grinned smugly.
"Oh!" Sayuri flushed. "I'm… I'm sorry I didn't recognize you at first."
"No, no. It's all the Konoha ninjas' fault. Don't blame yourself."
"Konoha? I recognize that name. Is that a village?"
"Yes; it's one of the greatest ninja villages in the Fire country, and they're looking for you and Sasuke-sama, because you fled from there long time ago, because of their unfair treatment of you. Now they want to kill you both."
"But why?" she demanded to know. "What have we done?"
"Nothing, you've been falsely accused for a crime you haven't committed! Yes, I know, the Konoha ninjas are horrid. Orochimaru-sama is looking forward to destroying the village."
"So am I," Sayuri said angrily, "they can't do this to us!"
"Good." Hazumi's smile widened. "You remember a bit now?"
"Well… no. Just… just the things you told me. I can't really remember them, but you're not lying to me, are you?"
"Of course I'm not! I'm your fiancé," Hazumi said with pretended shock. "I wouldn't lie to you."
Sayuri smiled back. "I'm glad."
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
"Oi."
Sakura looked up at him. It all seemed to be in slow motion; her first slightly surprised and questioning face expression, then her eyes widening, and her voice saying silently: "Sasuke –"
"-sama," Hazumi filled in for her, then giving Sasuke a sly and somewhat triumphant gaze. "Good afternoon, Sasuke-sama."
Sasuke uttered a hardly audible growl, but the look in his eyes became even colder, if possible. He had never liked Hazumi, and he liked him even lesser now. His eyes wandered to Sakura again. Orochimaru's voice echoed in his mind… 'and she has forgotten all about you…'
"Sakura," he began, but Hazumi interrupted him with a little chuckle.
"Always saying wrong, doesn't he, Sayuri, don't you remember? He always mixes you up with his… ah, first love, we should call it."
Sasuke had to stop himself from twitching out of irritation. "I've no first love, you idiot," he snarled.
"Oh, how sweet. He gets mad," Hazumi laughed, but soon found himself pinned to the wall with Sasuke's hand enclosed around his throat.
"You don't want to die just yet, right?" Sasuke snapped, annoyed.
"Sasuke-sama! Please stop!" Sakura pleaded him. Feeling a twitch of irritation arise inside him, he let go of Hazumi with a displeased grunt. The suffix '-sama' added to his name didn't make it better. As long as he could remember, Sakura had called him 'Sasuke-kun' – the fact that she couldn't remember who he was – or even who she herself was – and on top of it all, called him 'Sasuke-sama' almost made him want to snap that little idiot Hazumi into pieces.
Wait. Wasn't this exactly what Orochimaru wanted? This is a test, Sasuke. You've to make it. Forget about it. Just let her die.
But as he saw Sakura rush over to Hazumi to see if he was wounded and saw Hazumi's smirk, causing another tinge of annoy, he really wondered if he was going to be able to make it.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Meanwhile, Tsunade and Naruto were discussing who could've attacked Sakura, and why – and if he or she, or even them, were so strong that Sakura couldn't beat them despite her monstrous strength. Until…
"Get away!" Tsunade suddenly shouted and pushed Naruto as a rain of kunais showered down on them. Naruto, who had been fortunately hit not very hard, still tumbled off a certain distance and got up at once, yelling:
"What the hell are you doing, Tsunade-obaa… san…" Noticing the kunai rain, he looked up, jumping out of the way for a ninja dressed in a white, seemingly comfortable yukata who just landed on the ground. Right afterwards, two other similar ninjas appeared on the field, sneering.
Tsunade, who had of course dodged the kunais, looked at them furiously. "You! You were the ones to kidnap my apprentice?"
"No, we didn't have the honor to do that," one of the girls giggled – because all three ninjas were girls – and then went back to her weirdly gleeful sneer. "No, we've the honor of getting rid of you."
"Hn! Well, you could try," Tsunade snorted back with a smirk that looked almost exactly like Sakura's. "I'm one of the legendary sennin, you know." (A/N: Like teacher, like pupil. XD Or whatever.)
"We know," another girl said with a bit huskier voice than the first. "That's why we've strict orders from Orochimaru-sama to only getting rid of this little brat." She nodded in Naruto's direction.
"Orochimaru…?!" Tsunade and Naruto snarled in chorus.
To be continued! XD Yes, I am very evil. I love cliffhangers. X3 I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and keep reviewing, please!
Also... be aware I've very little knowledge of official jutsus. XD I also love inventing my own. So if you hate invented jutsus, I recommend you don't read any future battles, because all Orochimaru's henchmen have invented jutsus... and existing ones. And sorry if it seems like I'm godmodding a bit with the characters, but hey, it's not like it's unfair anyway, because all characters have their own powers. o.O I'm just tired of CERTAIN enemies that have oh-so-secret powers in the manga/anime that we never get to know about, and the normal villains in the fillers are just soooo weak and sooo boring while the characters are totally kicking the normal villains' asses. Until we get to see Orochimaru's or AL's powers, how about seeing some powerful villains for a change?
A third thing... this is the only fic I don't have any sneak previews. XD That is because this is one of the most complicated ones. So sorry, you'll have to be left with a cliffhanger. XD;
Reviews Corner
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Thank you...
A Broken Cherry Blossom
frienz4ever
iamNOTafangirl3221
petite.ina
Yukirufan06
Defender of the Light (Trust me, this fanfic will be not rushed at ALL. XD; In fact, I'm kind of worrying about that it'll be too... slow. x.x)
Crazy Gal42
Aria's star
SasukeLover001
Confuzzled239
Ur2tRoUbLeSoMe90 (Well, I focus the most on This Is Not My First Time, but once in a while I get Writer's Block on that one and then new ideas pop in my head for other fanfics. XD And then when I get Writer's Block on those fanfics, ideas for This Is Not My First Time appear again. X3)
pilar-ayesha (I'll try XD; Working on the 27th chapter atm, it's really difficult to write because I lack ideas x.x; The 25th was more of a mix of too many ideas/not knowing how to describe difficulty, but the 27th... well, to have it become an interesting chapter, I need to think more. o.o; )
Highflyincherries
Goddess of Horses (Mwahahah... that's for me to know and you to find out. XD)
LunarRose73 (I mostly don't ditch stories... just abandon them for some while to work on others. :3 If you're tired of waiting on my updates, how about reading my other stories too and see if you like them:D Or try my favorite stories. If you like dramatic fics and don't have anything against too long ones, I totally recommend Homebound. :))
Arigatou gozaimasu, everyone! X3 Keep on reviewing!