Hidden Flames

-xpressions

She heaved out her last breath and forced out all the rest of the spinning sensation she felt. She stood up as straight as she could and studied the area, still feeling most of the eyes on her form. She frowned slightly, eyeing the area. And then, she saw it.

There were burn marks, they were almost everywhere.

Everywhere she had stepped anyways.

Her eyes widened as she took a step back, gears clicking together in her mind. She continued to randomly gaze at a large black burn spot on the earth in front of her, leaved charred and dirt upturned. She turned hastily to her blonde haired friend, who was now standing beside her, observing her. Their gazes met, and Ino broke away.

"Ino." Sakura said with forced calamity, her voice threatening to crack with desperation in every word she uttered out. She continued to hold gaze with her blonde friend who was looking away. "Ino, what happened to me?"

Ino closed her eyes and sighed lightly, trying to find words to explain the events. She stood there for a few moments, formulating words in her mind. Pairs of green, blue, and brown eyes were cast in her direction.

"Well you see…" Ino began, trying to follow up with carefully calculated speech. "Those three sound ninjas had just beaten Lee," Lee, who had fixed his gaze on Sakura for the past couple of minutes looked away in shame and closed his eyes, quietly listening.

"And the black haired girl was tugging on Sakura's hair." She continued narrating to the small group. "She was spewing out some nasty insults to you forehead girl, but you didn't seem to be listening." She threw a weak smile over to Sakura before continuing.

"Then, all of a sudden your body was glowing with bright green chakra. It was amazing. The glow started out small, but after a few seconds it started to expand. It was almost as if it were alive. It grew and grew, you had a massive energy force surrounding you-"

"It looked as if you were on fire." Chouji all of a sudden broke in to add, nodding. Shikamaru followed suit and said, "Not to mention your chakra levels were extremely high Sakura. It was terrifying." He added matter-of-factly.

Ino cleared her throat and attention was diverted back to her, so she continued. "Anyway, that sound bitch got scared and ran back to her little team." Ino said, smirking. "And then you got up. You looked like you were going to destroy them. It even scared me forehead girl."

Shikamaru made a clicking sound of disbelief and Ino threw him a glare before continuing. "But you didn't, you went over to help Lee. Then one of the sound ninjas threw kunais at you, and you punched him though that tree."

She pointed to an old tree with a huge burned hole in the center of it and everyone followed her finger to the point, and all eyes were locked on that tree. Sakura stared at the tree in disbelief. She did that?

As in her, Sakura? Sakura looked down at her hands, and they were slightly charred, but strangely they didn't hurt.

Naruto chose this time to stop being quiet. "Nani?! She punched that hole in that tree?!" He shouted, pointing at the huge gaping hole in the tree. "No way! And what about these freaking burn marks?! Sakura did these too?" He glanced over to Ino who nodded quietly, shocked at his outburst.

He shook his head childishly. "No! Sakura-chan is not a monster! She wouldn't do this!" His voice lowered slightly as he turned to Sakura. "You wouldn't…would you?"

Sakura looked up from her hands, aware of the audience watching the charade Naruto had created and looked at him. "Yes…" She began. "I did this Naruto." She finished with confidence. She was proud. "Down to the last burn hole."

Naruto stared at her incredulously for a moment. Sakura was aware of what she'd said. She turned to everyone else. "I don't know where this chakra came from," She started. "But believe this. I am going to become the most powerful koinochi I can be. I am going to learn how to control it. I am going to make this power my own. Because I am sick of being weak." She spat out the last word.

"I am going to be strong." She finished. A vein then appeared on her head as she turned to the white eyed guy beside her, who had been staring at her since she woke up. "And damnitt dude, stop staring at me!" She shouted at him.

Neji's eyes widened for a slight second before his mouth turned up into a smirk. No one had ever shouted at him before. And this girl, he just couldn't take his eyes off her. She was so…powerful, and yet so beauti-…no. He is Hyuuga Neji. He did not like this girl. It was not his destiny to fall in love with her, it would interfere with his path as a ninja.

Sakura was annoyed as hell. "Damnitt, I said, STOP STARING AT ME!" She shouted again and started to throw a quick punch at him, reinforced with chakra once again, when she stopped. Neji snapped out of his trance as Tenten ran over, claiming he had almost been killed. His eyes shifted once again to the pretty…uh…strong pink-haired girl who was studying her hand in amazement. Neji wanted to battle her. He just had to fight her.

Sakura's hand was on fire. She would have usually started screaming, or put it out, but it wasn't exactly on fire, it was just emitting large waves of violent green chakra. The waves of chakra however were starting to fade slowly. Sakura studied it as the chakra slowly started to recede. So this chakra was fueled by her emotions…

Naruto ran over to stare at her hand, as did Ino. While both blondes were fussing over her hand and bombarding her with questions, Sasuke sat in the background, clutching his neck in agony, grinding his teeth together to stop himself from screaming out in pain. His neck was in pain, had been ever since that damn snake had bit him.

He glared at nothing in particular and tried to ignore the pain, and then gave up on glaring at nothing, because nothing didn't care if Sasuke shot hateful glares towards it, and turned his ebony eyes over to watch Sakura. She stood calmly between Ino and Naruto, shaking and nodding her head occasionally. Her light pink locks fell down past her back and swept across it as she moved her head in answers.

Sasuke was in awe, though he would rather kill himself than admit it. She was powerful. Sasuke was smart. He knew that if there were burn marks on the earth just from the chakra admitting from her body, she had some serious power.

If he wanted to defeat his brother, he'd definitely have to defeat Sakura. Which was a scary thought. Sakura's a girl. And even against his logical side, a very pretty girl at that, especially when she was fighting. He saw the way her eyes lit up when she was going to punch the asshole from the Hyuuga clan, the way she held her beautiful voice when she told them she was going to get stronger, it was addicting to look at.

He absolutely loved it, and couldn't figure out why. He wanted her to get mad at him. He wanted her to fight him. He wanted to fight her. Badly.

And he had seen how the Hyuuga boy had been watching her. It made him really pissed off, but he had absolutely no clue why. He shot a hateful glare towards the white eyed boy anyway, hoping that would ease the urge to kill him. Unfortunately, it did not. Sasuke was already forming short lists of who he needed to fight to get stronger, and who he desperately wanted to fight. And a list for both reasons. Neji was on that one. Right under Sakura.

Lee had seen her, he'd seen it all. He had seen how terrified she had been, how much into despair she fell when she realized who she was up against. He saw how she had fought back tears. He saw how she had relaxed. He saw her power emerge to the first time.

And it was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Her heart. He had seen her heart. It had all of a sudden jumped alive, and it was alit with bright green chakra. He had watched that said chakra flow though the rest of her. But when he saw her heart, first alit, it was amazing.

And that's when he automatically knew Sakura had become strong. And not only that, he knew that the power was hers. He had become strong through determination. Seven hundred laps around Konoha. Training with Gai. He had become strong through hard work.

But what Sakura had done…she had looked deep inside herself, she had ventured to her deepest thoughts and let them go. He knew because he saw them go. He saw them flow with her chakra.

And this, he realized, is why she had earned it. Even Lee himself was too afraid to let his deepest emotions go…no matter how much he wanted to, and this girl had let them go. It was simply a wonder to him. He just had to fight her.

"Does it hurt?" Sakura shook her head. "Did you punch a guy though a tree then?!" Sakura nodded. "How the hell did you do that?" She shrugged.

Naruto and Ino could be really annoying at times. Really, really annoying. Their questions irritated the hell out of her. Especially when they asked how she managed to do it. To that question, or any form they had come up with of it she would just shrug, hoping they'd drop it.

She didn't really know how she did it. Well, in a way she did. One thing she knew, was this chakra power came from her heart. She had felt it arise there, and there was two other key factors.

Number one. Her chakra seemed to be fueled by her emotions. She could practically feel the chakra pools change as her mood did. The chakra inside her now was so strong she could feel it in every inch of her body, swirling in various pools.

She could feel changes though too. When she was sad, her chakra would immediately slow and become sluggish. It would drag through her body creating a terrible feeling throughout her. Like she was sinking. For some reason this feeling reminded her of Sasuke.

When she was happy, her chakra sped up. It whooshed around in the pools faster and bounced through her system. It made her feel alive and happy, and she just wanted to run around in circles. It was an elated feeling. This one reminded her of Naruto.

Then, her favorite so far, was when she was angry. When she was angry her chakra would keep a slow, steady rhythm, but it would pound through her. It swirled powerfully though her body with determination. This one, this one reminded her of herelf. She absolutely loved it. Itmade her feel strong. Brave. Determined.

Number two. Her feelings had left her. It's not like she had realized at the time, but letting all of her emotions out…had literally meant that. Sakura no longer felt a need to rival and be angry at Ino. Naruto bothered her much less. She held less respect for Neji, and greater respect for Lee. She no longer had an infatuation with Sasuke.

And that was just it. She didn't care. She didn't feel the loss of losing these emotions, but these were those of which she had hidden within herself.

Now she had new emotions. These were not biased. They were not judgmental. In fact, she loved them. And this is when she realized, that the code didn't apply to her. The ninja code. It said that a ninja must not hold emotions or let them stand in the way.

Emotions were Sakura's prime source for chakra now.

Damn, all that time spent memorizing the book, wasted.

Sakura sighed as she was pulled back to reality by Ino and Naruto. Ino was waving a hand in front of her face and Naruto was screaming random things like "Wake up Sakura-chan!". Shikamaru was complaining about the noise, while Chouji was complaining about the lack of food. Sasuke was watching their antics with a light smirk on his face. Team Gai had taken off back though the woods.

Sakura brought herself back and pushed Ino gently away. "I'm awake, okay? Just…thinking."

Ino placed a hand on her hip. "About what?"

"The ninja code."

"What about it?"

"I think I'll have to burn my copy when I get back."