Naruto was walking over to Ichiraku's for some evening ramen. While he passed team 7's old training area he noticed a figure sitting on the post he was tied to about three years ago, now… it was Sakura. She sat there, sweating and breathing heavily, a frown on her face. Ever since Sasuke disappeared Sakura refused to smile. She always wore a frown or a calm, concentrated look. And not only Naruto had noticed the change in Sakura but the others did too. She had developed a fiery temper, and snapped at anyone, if not threatening to kill them, for saying anything that concerned Sasuke or Orochimaru. Naruto was really worried. Sakura was one of his close, yet extremely violent, friends. He had noticed that very recently Sakura had been acting more and more like Sasuke. All she would ever talk about was killing, and missions, if she talked at all. Now, he thought of it, Naruto hadn't had a proper conversation with Sakura for about five months. They had plenty of chances to talk, they had been on several missions together over the past few months, but had barely said a word to one another. Naruto sensed that Sakura was starting to build an 'I-don't-want-to-talk-leave-me-alone-or-die' barrier around herself, exactly like Sasuke's. What was happening to his teammates?
Soon Naruto realized he was just standing there staring at Sakura, lost in his own thoughts. All of a sudden she was gone from her perch on the post.
"Were you spying on me?!?!" Sakura shouted, reappearing behind Naruto in the blink of an eye.
"AHH!!! N-no… of course not Sakura-chan!" Naruto stuttered, whirling around to face a very pissed pink haired kuniochi.
She squinted at him, trying to see if he was lying. "Whatever." She said giving up and walking past him back over to the training grounds.
"Phew. That was a close one." Naruto sighed to himself. Sakura was standing in front of the post again. She gave it a simple punch, as it blew up sending chunks of wood everywhere. 'She's scarier than before!' Naruto thought. Luckily he wasn't the only one who feared the kuniochi… almost all other Konoha ninja did, other than Tsunade and Ino of course. No one in the village dared to challenge her to a battle, so she asked to be sent out on many missions to get in some practice. A-rank mission practice.
"Yo, Naruto." Said Kakashi calmly, appearing behind Naruto.
"AAHHH!!! Kakashi-sensei! Grr… why is everyone sneaking up on me today?!"
"Oh. Sorry. Anyways, Tsunade wants to see you and Sakura in her office, right now ."
"Me and Sakura? Why?"
"Don't ask me, just following orders." Kakashi replied disappearing into a poof of white smoke and leaves.
"Damn, I hate when he does that… oh… right… Hey, Sakura-chan?!?!"
"What is it Naruto?" Sakura asked, slightly annoyed.
"Tsunade wants to see us, right now! C'mon!"
"So you two finally made it." Tsunade said as Naruto and Sakura entered her office filled with another 9 chunnin and jounin. (There was her, Naruto, Shikamaru, Ino, Rock Lee, TenTen, Neji, Hinata, Kiba, Chouji, and Shino.)
"What is everyone else doing here?" Naruto asked.
"I'm sending you all on a very important mission."
'Yes! This has to be it! The moment I've been training for! Sasuke is so gonna die!' Sakura thought, with an evil smirk across her face causing Naruto and Kiba to back away slightly.
"I've got a hunch that Orochimaru's plan will take place soon. I want you to all make one last attempt of bringing 'the Uchiha' back to Konoha, if you fail Orochimaru's power will be great. Possibly too great for our village to handle. If you do not succeed in this mission Konoha might as well be destroyed now. I'm counting on you guys, don't disappoint me."