"Yawn."
Sakura looked at the clock to see it was 10:00. She took a quick shower and ate breakfast.
She got out of the house by 11:00.
It was all a normal way to start the day.
The only part of her day that was normal.
-----
She found Ino, Shikamaru, and Chouji outside of the flower shop.
She greeted them as she walked up to them, but they looked at her like she was crazy.
"What's wrong?" She asked.
"Who the hell are you?" Ino spat.
"What, you can't tell it's me?" She asked her and when all three of them looked at her in disbelief she added, "Its me, Sakura."
Ino pulled on her hair and Sakura didn't even flinch.
"That's real hair all right. Even if you dyed it you couldn't have grow it out so long in one night. And your eyes are red, and from what I can tell you don't have color contacts on. And your voice is too different, same with your outfit. There's no way you're Sakura. You're probably just some bitch who sucks at Henge." Ino rudely explained.
"Yeah, Sakura was a lot different than you, you're nothing like her." Chouji added to twist the knife.
Shikamaru walked over to Sakura and did the dispel genjutsu on her. When nothing happened he said, "That proves it you're not her."
Sakura tried explaining about the curse, but when she did Ino just laughed and said, "My family's techniques are mostly for spying, so I've done a lot of research. I've know about all of the cursed clans in Konoha, I've never heard of a Haruno curse."
Sakura then remembered that the only copy of the curse was in her possession, so no one other than the Harunos knew about it.
'Damn' She thought.
Wasn't this the time where she was supposed to feel hurt? Sakura just remained emotionless.
She moved down one of her armbands down to her lower arm and then she pulled out a kunai.
"What the hell are you doing?" Ino asked.
"Checking a theory." Sakura replied blankly.
She cut open a big gash where her armband used to be.
'I was right; there's no pain. Where'd it go? Why doesn't it hurt?'
She licked away the blood that was dripping and then healed herself. It you hadn't seen her two minutes before you never would have known she had got hurt.
As she was putting her armband back in the proper place Ino continued talking, "And Sakura wasn't a medic ninja. There's no way in hell you could be Sakura. Now get lost!"
"No way in hell huh? Well I guess hell can surprise you sometimes." Sakura spoke too low for the others to hear.
She walked away from the group and as she was leaving she shot them the finger.
By then Ino was really pissed. " Where the hell do you get off bitch?"
She flung a kunai at Sakura's head.
With perfect reflexes Sakura turned and caught the kunai in between her fingers, completely unscathed.
"A kunai? Pathetic." Sakura shot it right next to Shikamaru's foot and walked off.
Once Sakura was a mile out of earshot, the threesome started talking.
"What was that?" Ino asked her companions.
"I don't know." Chouji replied.
"Probably just some emo freak trying to pull a bad joke. So just forget it." Shikamaru told them.
"But that reminds me. Sakura's been depressed ever since she heard the result of the Sasuke Retrieval mission. So we should go see her and cheer her up!" Ino suggested.
"What? Aren't you guys rivals?" Shikamaru asked.
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I can leave her on her own so she can sulk. Come on, we can go see her now!" Ino said and without really giving them a chance to answer, she began to drag her teammates along with her to Sakura's house.
'I still don't understand these troublesome women.' Shikamaru thought bitterly.
-----
Sakura found Hinata's team training. She greeted them like she had Ino's team and they reacted like Ino's team had.
"Who are you?" Shino asked the intruder.
"It's me, Sakura."
"S-Sakura?" Hinata said in disbelief.
"Sakura Haruno? The one on Naruto's team?" Kiba asked as he stepped closer to her. " You don't look like her or smell like her. And your voice is different, I think its safe to say you're not Sakura."
Sakura tried explaining about the curse but Shino said about the same thing that Ino had. That he had never heard of it, and because he hadn't it didn't exist.
Sakura rolled her eyes and left.
As she was walking away from Hinata's team she spotted a little kid. She didn't glare at him or anything just gave him the same blank, emotionless look she had been giving everyone that had crossed her path that day. And guess what?
The kid burst into tears.
Sakura eyes widened a bit and she walked quickly away from the kid.
Once Sakura was away from Hinata's team they started talking.
"I think that we should go see Sakura. You know, to cheer her up. I heard that she's been depressed since she heard the results of the Sasuke Retrieval mission." Hinata suggested.
" I guess so. But I'm not sure about me and Shino coming. I mean we don't know her all that well."
"It would be a chance to get to know her, and become closer friends and all."
"We've had enough training today. I don't mind if Kiba comes along too." Shino added.
"Ah, fine. I guess that's what friends are for right?"
Hinata smiled at her teammates. And then they all headed to Sakura's house.
-----
Sakura was thinking of anybody who might recognize her when a familiar voice rang out next to her.
"Ano, miss, have you seen a girl named Sakura recently?" Rock Lee asked her.
Sakura turned to face him.
She sighed. Then she said irritated, "You're looking at her."
"No way!" Lee shouted with no hesitation. " Sakura was so full of youth and was so cheerful! Her eyes were green, (Lee explains all of Sakura's differences as you have heard before from Ino) That's why you can't be her!"
Sakura frowned.
"Fine, believe what you want." She said blankly and with that she walked away.
Later, Lee meets up with TenTen and Neji.
"Ohayo Team!"
"Hey Lee." TenTen and Neji both answered just not at the same time.
"Have either of you seen Sakura anywhere?"
"That Haruno girl? No haven't seen her." Neji said.
"I heard that she locked herself in her house after she heard about the Sasuke Retrieval mission." TenTen informed him.
"Alright then! Let's go visit her and cheer her up! She is so full of youth that it would be a waste to stay depressed!" Lee then grabbed his teammates and dragged them along with him. Neji didn't really want to go, but TenTen kind of wanted to cheer Sakura up too.
-----
"Tsunade-shishou. Are you busy?" Sakura asked as she arrived at the Hokage's office.
" 'Tsunade-shishou'?" Who are you to call me that?" The Hokage asked her.
"Its me Sakura." Sakura told her.
"Sakura? Impossible." Tsunade moved away from her desk and got closer to Sakura. "Don't go impersonating my apprentice if you don't want to get hurt." Tsunade flicked her on her forehead.
"But Tsunade-shis-" Tsunade held up a hand to silence her.
Tsunade performed the dispel genjutsu on her and when nothing happened to her, Tsunade was convinced that Sakura wasn't Sakura. (Okay that sounds really weird)
"Get out now." Tsunade threatened.
Sakura hung her head and rushed out the door.
(With all of Sakura's concerned friends)
"Sakura! Are you home or not? Answer damn it!" Ino nearly screamed as she continued constantly pressing Sakura's doorbell until the poor doorbell couldn't take anymore abuse and it finally broke. Shikamaru and Chouji were backing away from her because she was so scary.
"Oi, everyone!" Kiba greeted Ino's team. "Look Hinata we aren't the only ones concerned about her."
"Huh? What are all these people doing here?" TenTen asked as she, Neji, and Lee reached Sakura's house right after Hinata's team.
"Are all of you here to see Sakura?" Ino asked trying to sound happy but she wasn't able to change her mood that quickly so her words sounded like an angry threat from a guard dog.
Everyone backed up in fear.
"Yeah…" Someone finally answered.
Ino finally calmed down. "Oh, wow. I didn't think that anyone other than Shikamaru, Chouji, and I would come to visit her." she took a break to sigh. "But it seems like she isn't here. I know Sakura, if she was home she would have answered the door by now."
"But I haven't seen her all day! Where could she be?" Lee asked really concerned.
"You know, if no one has seen her for a day, then something could have happened to her. So I think we should look for her." TenTen suggested.
"But first we should go to the Hokage, to see if she's not on a mission." Shikamaru added.
"Shino can you have your bugs check in Sakura's house just to see if she isn't asleep or doesn't want visitors." Kiba added.
Shino nodded.
His bugs got into the house through a slightly opened window.
A few minutes later after Shino's bugs had returned.
"She's not in there."
And with those words all of Sakura's friends raced off to the Hokage's office.
They got there a few minutes after Sakura had left.
"Hokage-sama, did you send Sakura on a mission?"
"Yes, but she came back yesterday morning."
"Well… then we think she's missing because no one has seen her all day and she's not at her house."
"What? Search all of Konoha just to make sure."
And with that they all left to search Konoha.
Sakura had already got to her house by the time they left the Hokage's office so no one ran into her.
They hadn't found her by sometime around midnight so they went back to the Hokage to report the bad news.
She didn't take it very well. She was gonna have to buy a new desk.
She sent out ANBU to the neighboring villages to search for her. She would be hard to miss with her pink hair.
They came back in a week empty handed.
Tsunade was very upset. Sakura was like a daughter to her. But luckily she did have Shizune to comfort her.
And in all the commotion Sakura's friends were too upset about her being missing that no one remembered the Sakura 'imposter'.
(With Sakura shortly after she had left the Hokage's office and came home)
Sakura came home to a broken doorbell. She wondered why it was broken but didn't think too much into it and let it go.
She looked in a mirror. Even her face had changed. She didn't look bad. Sort of pretty actually, in a gothic, depressed sort of way.
She laid down on her bed. And she began to reflect on her day.
1 No one recognized her.
2 She hadn't left a good impression on her friends as her new self.
3 The Hokage was mad at her.
4 Kakashi, Naruto, and Sasuke were all gone and weren't coming back anytime soon. (Kakashi is on a long S-ranked mission just to remind you)
5 She was in a bitchy mood.
No. Definitely not a good day.
Life in Konoha would be hell if she stayed here. Then she had an idea.
She decided to leave Konoha and head to Suna. Where she could try and become a sand ninja and start over with a new life.
Since no one in Konoha recognized her then nobody could hunt her down as a missing nin because they had no paperwork or evidence that she was ever a ninja in Konoha.
Except the forehead protector she was wearing around her neck. That she would probably have to get rid of.
It was a spur of the moment decision but Sakura was positive it was for the best. She had no regrets or second thoughts.
She packed the necessities: food, water, soap, (Insert stuff you would consider necessities here).
Then she packed her picture of Team 7, a picture of her and Tsunade.
And the book that explained the curse.
Then she went into her parents' room. She hadn't been in there since they had died.
She just wanted to say goodbye to everything. But then she found a little box on her mom's dresser.
It said on it, 'To Sakura, when she has finally bloomed into a beautiful cherry blossom'
Sakura then thought about it. Ino had told her at the Chuunin exam that she had bloomed into a beautiful flower, but what was she now? A dead black cherry blossom with no chance of ever blooming into anything beautiful, that's what, she was in her mind.
She packed it with her stuff. But she figured she would never be able to open it.
Then she left for Suna. She had been there before on a mission so she knew where it was.
When she walking to the Konoha gate she saw her friends rushing around frantically as if they were looking for something. She wondered what they were looking for.
She passed the spot where she said goodbye to Sasuke. His last words appeared in her head. "Thank you".
She walked past it and went on. It was now her turn to leave.
Before she got to the gate, she used Henge no Jutsu to change her appearance.
The guards asked her where she was going. She lied and said that she was going on a solo mission to the Rain village and they waved her off.
When she thought she was far enough away from the village, she undid the Henge no Jutsu and took off her forehead protector and stuck it in her backpack.
It took her a few days to reach Suna and by the time she was in the desert she was out of water and food. It was as hot as hell but she wasn't sweating at all.
'I feel like a walking corpse.' She thought bitterly.
She passed out in the desert from heat exhaustion, and dehydration.
(An hour or so later with Gaara)
Gaara was with Temari and Kankuro in a pub. They were getting drunk and on his nerves because they each had one arm on the other's shoulder, they were waving their other arm around while moving side-to-side singing the lyrics to the song 'Numa Numa'. God, were they even old enough to drink?
He left the pub and when he was outside he saw that it was around noon so he decided to go for a walk through the desert, which he did quite often.
He saw a bit of pink in the desert.
He was curious so he walked towards it. When he got closer he saw that it was someone's hair, and they were obviously buried in sand.
Gaara figured that they had passed out and the wind had piled sand on top of them.
The only person Gaara had ever met who had pink hair was Naruto's weak girl teammate. Sakura was it?
Naruto was the only one who could ever understand Gaara's pain. Gaara considered them friends. So if it was Naruto's teammate he would have to help her.
He finally reached the buried girl.
"Hey, Sakura was it? Are you okay?" Gaara asked as he was brushing the sand off of her.
Sakura woke up "Huh?"
Gaara was disappointed. The girl didn't really have pink hair just black and pink tipped. This girl looked and sounded nothing like Naruto's teammate.
"What's your name, girl?" Gaara asked coldly.
"Amaya Kaage."
A/N: I made this chapter really long. And 'Amaya Kaage' is Sakura's alias.
Amaya means 'Night Rain'
Kaage means 'Shadow'
Together I guess it means 'Night Rain Shadow'
And her previous name meant 'Cherry Blossom of Spring'
And I learned that Gaara name is a pun on the phrase "I love death" how appropriate.
I'm a fan of both Kankuro and Temari so don't think that I was making fun of them when I made them drunk. I just needed a reason for Gaara to go for a walk and that was all I could think of.
You know, I don't really think this chapter is my best work. If you like the sorry please be patient with me and I promise to make the next chapter better. I got nothing else to say so it ends here except for, please review!