In Which:

Kakashi contemplates the past- Sakura arrives- Sasuke is greeted- The Konoha group find Naruto's plans.

On Team Seven's little bridge, the once-sensei stared down at the clear, swiftly moving water. Where had he gone wrong? Uchiha Sasuke, his prodigy, had been lured away by promises of power. Uzumaki Naruto had gone as well, most likely to hunt down and kill his teammate. His one remaining student, Sakura, spent maybe ten minutes in his company in the last three days.

And she and Naruto had grown strong without him. Having watched only one of Naruto's training sessions out in the woods, most of what he knew about the blond was from his friends. They talked of lightning covering his entire body, of one-fingered handstands on moving water, of frankly dangerous levels of weights on his legs. They told him that his cheerful little dead-last was as powerful as Jiraiya or Tsunade, that he had won two out of the three sparring matches Naruto and the white-haired pervert had fought.

Sakura he has seen more of. She disappeared into the woods, sometimes for days, then came back with powerful alterations on many techniques. She had revolutionized the way medical jutsus were made and used, formulating a way to heal more quickly and easier without weakening the flesh of a wound. She redesigned even the most powerful attacks, especially genjutsu, to be more effective while using less chakra. She had created, with Lee's help, a taijutsu technique just for medic-nins that was almost seven times more effective than any previously invented.

Both Sakura and Naruto were amazing ninjas, and apparently quick students from what Tsunade had been telling him. And what hand had he had in their development? He had taught them basic chakra control exercises. All his focus had been on Sasuke, and he had missed his chance.

And now he was too late to help any of them.

Sighing morosely, he turned away from the water. Maybe he should head up to the top of the Hokage monument. He remembered Naruto had always gone up there when he needed to think. He could almost hear the boy's voice, strangely sober.

"Just stand at the very edge, sensei, and spread your arms and let the wind blow away all your angry and sad thoughts and then just think. It makes stuff clearer…"

Moving swiftly through the forest, Sakura considered her options. She was maybe a minute's travel from Sound now, and the traps were set thickly throughout the forest. She hadn't let any of them catch her, of course, but there had been some close calls when her mind had wandered. She could sneak into the village, but what was the point? Knowing Naruto, the gate guards had been told to watch for her. But could she really risk it?

Eh, might as well. It was probably smarter than just showing up in Orochimaru's office. So she left the cover of the trees some six feet from the gate and walked calmly towards it. As she neared, Sakura called up to the jonin on guard.

"Hey! I'm Haruno Sakura! My teammate, Naruto, should already be in there! Can you open the gate?"

The jonin glanced at eachother, then one of them chuckled softly. "We'll let you in, girl. Naruto-kun told us you'd be here soon."

She smiled up at the one who had spoken. "So you know Naruto well?"

The jonin, now identified as female, sighed as her fellow guards laughed. "Until about three hours ago, the kid was living with me. He needed a place to stay until the apartment nearest the Uchiha's had opened up and someone had to pay for new clothes and food. I have never seen someone consume that much ramen in all my life."

Sakura blinked. "The ramen bit doesn't surprise me. But Naruto shopping? That must have been hell. He hates shopping!" The jonin jumped off the wall and opened the gate, guiding the pink-haired girl through.

"It wasn't so bad once he realized I wasn't going to make him get things he didn't like. He's got a pretty good wardrobe now, mostly in grey and blue." Sakura gaped at the jonin, who smiled under her mask. "No bright colours whatsoever, and we trashed the atrocious orange jumper he brought with him. He doesn't need it to gain attention here. "

Sakura wince at the reminder of Naruto's treatment back in Konoha, and sighed. Clearly, it was different her. If Naruto was as accepted as she was beginning to suspect, she knew he would never leave Sound, not for anything. A change of subject was in order.

"So where is Naruto now?"

"Naruto-kun is at Uchiha Sasuke's apartment, waiting for the boy to return from a mission. You can join him once we have you registered with Orochimaru-sama."

Naruto stood silently, staring at the plaque on the door in front of him.

Uchiha Sasuke

Chunin

Alpha Division

The name of his teammate, his friend, his rival. The person he had half-expected he would only see on the other side of a battlefield. And it would be only minutes before Naruto saw him again. Sasuke always entered his house back in Konoha through a window, and Naruto thought that was probably the case here too.

He had already picked the lock and disarmed the traps. As soon as he heard movement from within the apartment, he would enter. He would see his friend again.

Uchida Sasuke sighed in relief as his apartment building came into view. He deactivated his Sharigan, and landed lightly on the wall beside his window, his feet adhering easily to the wall, just like he had been taught by Kaka- no. Now was not the time for painful memories and impossible dreams. He would never return to Konoha, his teammates probably hated him, and he would be expected to kill them if he ever found them.

They were Konoha nins, and he was not. Simple as that.

He opened the window and slid easily into his sparse, impersonal residence. Dropping his pack to the floor, he missed the click of the front door opening. He rubbed a hand tiredly over his face. It had been a long day, a long mission.

"…Sasuke?"

He froze. That voice…Sasuke turned around, saw the blond hair, saw the lunge, knew he was caught, that he wasn't fast enough to escape the blow. He tensed his muscles, waiting for the hit. It never came.

Instead, Naruto's arms pulled him into a warm, gentle hug. The blond's mouth was right beside his ear. "I missed you. We missed you, bastard. We won't leave you."

A second pair of arms wrapped around both boys and pink strands of hair tickled his cheek as Sakura joined the hug. For a moment, he wasn't in Sound; he was in a graveyard in Konoha, his teammates comforting him in a moment of weakness.

He hadn't noticed the tears on his face then, either.

In Tsunade's office, Kakashi and the others read the letter he had found on top of the Hokage monument.

Dear Everyone,

If you've found this, you know that me and Sakura-chan are gone. Don't worry about us, we're safe. We are going after Sasuke-bastard. He can't take care of himself, he's got no common sense, and he honestly needs us more than you guys do. By the time you find this, we'll already be in Sound, so it doesn't hurt to come clean. This is what we did:

We staged a few fights between us to throw suspicion off of Sakura for when I left. Then we decided on staggered schedules of disappearances into the forest so you'd get used to us being gone for days without contact to give us a head start when you started wondering where we were. We both wrote and signed documents ending our careers as Konoha ninjas and Konoha citizens so you couldn't follow us legally. Then we staged another fight, I left, and Sakura is going to deflect suspicion off of her and leg it as soon as people start asking her question.

The documents are hidden in Iruka-sensei's unmarked assignment box.

Tell him I'm sorry I didn't get to say bye and that he should look in the little nook in the plaster for my headband he gave me, the other one has already been left on my bed, but it isn't the important one.

Me and Sakura will try our best to not fight against Konoha, and I have a plan to make the war stop before anything really happens, but obaa-chan won't like it so I won't tell you. Sakura says hi and sorry for the trouble and to tell her parents everything because they won't mind anyways.

Neji, I know you know about the fuzzball. Go ahead and tell people, obaa-chan can fill in all the holes and stuff. Shikamaru, you lazy ass, if you don't get off your ass and ask you-know-who about you-know-what, I'll tell Ino about the peanut butter incident.

Hinata, you'd be really cool if you stopped stuttering. You're way cooler than those idiot clansmen of yours anyways!

Sorry I can't fulfill my promise, baa-chan. This is more important than being Hokage ever was or will be.

Love you and Bye,

Sakura and Naruto.

(Ps. Kakashi-sensei, stop moping and do something useful. There is nothing more pathetic than you when you're pitying yourself! And listen to Iruka-sensei, he's a lot more sensible than you are. –Sakura.)

Ddd

Sakura sighed softly, lifting her head from Sasuke's sholder even as Naruto disentangled himself from the group hug. They had stayed twined together for several minutes, and none of them were enthusiastic about moving, but Naruto and Sakura had a story to tell.

And it was a story Sasuke needed to hear.

So. That was sappy. Ugh. Well, what can you do? It just wanted to be that way, and it foiled all my attempts to make into a chapter of substance.

Next chapter, Sasuke is mean and is promptly pranked, Naruto dances in the rain and the jinchurikki of all nine demons sit up and take notice of a strange disturbance…

Don't you love cliffies? -Heliotropic