Shikamaru and I were in the kitchen putting dinner together for when the others arrived. We were covered in flour and other random things thanks to a spontaneous food fight.

"Their faces though!" Shikamaru chuckled as he chopped carrots, "I think we stretch this joke out as long as we can."

"Totally!" I agreed, "You've got egg in your hair." I pointed out and watched as his brown eyes grew wide. This was a side to Shikamaru that not a lot of people knew about, normally he had a 'can't be bothered' attitude that sometimes came of as cold but I knew he loved to joke and mess around. When we first moved in we played pranks on each other quiet often but that had died down now, I knew his favourite movies and books and he knew mine. It was really rather sweet.

"Stick your head under the water, it will get most of it out before it dries." I suggested, just then the doorbell rang and I shouted, "It's open come on in!"

"Sakura-Chan?" Naruto's voice rang through the apartment, "Kaka-Sensei and Teme are with me."

"I'll go greet them." I said in a low voice to Shikamaru who just nodded and carried on chopping carrots, "Hi, oh Naruto you didn't have to!" I exclaimed when I saw the blond clutching a bunch of flowers.

"I thought it would be nice surprise for you. Kaka-Sensei helped pick them out." He said sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck

"Do you want anything to drink?" I addressed them all. As I searched for a vase to put the flowers in.

"Just some water for me please." Kakashi said, his eye crinkling into a smile.

"Same as him please Sakura-chan." Naruto beamed.

"What about you Sasuke?" I had to catch myself before I added 'Kun' onto the end of his name. His eyebrow lifted a tiny bit and took this as a 'the same as those two'

"Okay, three waters coming up." I turned and walked into the kitchen throwing a "Make yourselves comfortable." Over my shoulder.

"Whose here?" Shika asked without turning to look at me. I pulled down three glasses and started fill them with water.

"Take a guess."

"Ah right, hopefully the others won't take long." He lowered his voice, "And the games begin."

I nodded and tightened the small pony-tail I had tied my hair into, "Come and say hi, Shikamaru." I said loud enough for the others to hear ans I walked back into the sitting room.

Kakashi was sat on the comfy chair that I loved to read on and the other two were slouched on couch.

"It's a nice place." Kakashi said nodding his head.

"Thanks we decorated ourselves." Shika said coming up behind me, it was true we spent all our free time painting and putting furniture together. There were elements of Shikamaru's personality in the paintings on the walls and the cool colours on some of the walls. And you could tell that I'd had fun picking out cushions and other bits and pieces, random shocks of colour where scattered about the apartment it went well with the serene tones that Shika had painted the walls.

"Here you go, the others should be here soon." I said plastering a smile onto my face.

"The foods almost done, just a few finishing touches." Shika told me as he leaned against the wall.

"Off the wall. You're covered in flour, you'll leave a mark." I told him.

"And whose fault is that?" there was a playful tone in his voice and I smiled, he was messing with them.

"That would be yours." I retorted bopping him on the nose as I passed him, "Go wash up. I'll finish up."

"If you insist." With nod to my team he was off down the hall and into the bathroom.

"Can we come into the kitchen and talk? It would be nice to catch up." Naruto said standing up. I noticed he was a head taller than me now. I wonder when that happened.

"Of course. Excuse the mess, someone thought it would be a good idea to start a food fight." I said loud enough for my roommate to hear.

"Oi! I can hear you!" Came the faint reply.

"Good!" I shouted back and grinned cheekily at Kakashi who rolled his eye (eyes?). We walked into the kitchen and i started getting to work.

"So what have you been doing since we've been… away?" Kakashi said carefully.

"Not much, working at the hospital, doing a couple of missions here and there." I said raising one shoulder.

"What kind of missions?" Naruto asked eagerly wanting to talk about something.

"Oh, you know. Typical info retrieval, the odd healing mission." I was trying to about telling them about the seduction missions I had been sent on by the council. All female ninjas go through a special training when they come of age (normally at the age of 16). They get taught how to use their body's to retrieve information and to distract a target while a team member carries out the mission. And when the other girls from our group went on the mission to find my team I had been the only one available to train and carry out the seduction missions. Luckily there haven't been many but I still felt a little ashamed of what I had to do.

Shikamaru had been right there for me when I came home crying after my first seduction mission, I had felt used and dirty but now I was numb to all that. I had learnt to turn off my emotions when on that type of mission. Shika had also been my first, Tsunade had told me that it would be best if I gave my virginity to someone I trusted before I I went on the first mission, and Shika had been the only one I could think off. Nothing has happened since, were just closer than ever.

"You're not telling us something." Sasuke said, it surprised me that he had spoken. I had expected him to stay quiet al night.

"What would I have to hide?" I asked not looking at them, I could feel their curious stares on my back.

"You're seventeen." Kakashi said, I could hear revelation in his voice. Trust him to figure it out.

"Oh. We missed your birthday!" Naruto shouted, I heard a slap as his hand came into contact with his forehead, "I'm sorry Sakura-chan."

"It's fine Naruto." I turned and smiled him to show him it didn't matter.

"Sakura, tell me the truth. What types of missions have you been on?" Kakashi was serious, his visible was focused on my face.

"What does it matter?" I shrugged not meeting his gaze. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Sasuke and Naruto looking from me to the silver haired man.

"It matters because your seventeen now."

"What does her age have to do with anything?" Sasuke asked raising a dark eyebrow. He's in a talkative mood, I thought.

"It matters because when a konoichi turns sixteen she's taught the basics of seduction." Kakashi's voice was flat.

"Seduction as in…?" Naruto trailed of when he realised what our teacher meant.

"Okay. I've been on a few seduction missions. So what?" I asked, I was being defensive but what gave them the right to question me about the missions I had been sent on when they had been running about playing tag?

"Sakura, you didn't have to accept those missions. There are other people who could have done them." Sasuke said, maybe I was imagining it but I heard something in his voice that sounded very similar to concern.

"On the contrary, Uchiha." Shikamaru's voice spoke from the doorway, "All the girls who were eligible to do those missions were either busy or chasing after you three."

I saw realisation creep onto the boys faces.

"I'm going to get cleaned up before the others get here." I told the quiet room.

"They're already here, we've just heard everything." Shika whispered in my ear as I passed, a hand on my wrist to stop me walking off, "I asked them not to say anything but I think they're feeling guilty they left you to do the seduction missions alone." He placed a kiss on my forehead in a comforting gesture and I smiled weakly at him before pulling away to get a shower.

"I won't be long!" I called as passed the other guests, "Sorry!"

XxXxXxX

After we had eaten, we sat scattered across the living room coming up with a plan of action. Hinata and TenTen had stopped off at the library before coming over and had taken out some books they thought would be helpful.

"This one says that in places full of spiritual energy the 'barrier between worlds' is thinner." Ino said holding up a book with the title "Our World and Others".

"So temples and places like that?" Neji asked looking up from the list he was making.

"Most likely." Shino said, leaning against the wall.

"There's got be hundreds of temples!" Naruto whined, "Any one of them could be the link."

"Do you remember if there are any temples in Earth Land?" Shikamaru asked. He had arm slung over his eyes, we were all getting restless. We wanted to get moving.

"I can't I'm sorry." I sighed.

"You keep asking her if she remembers. Have you been to Earth Land before?" Choji asked from his spot by Ino's feet.

"I'm not getting into it now." I sighed, "I'll tell you soon."

"Okay." Choji said kindly sending me a sweet smile. He had lost his baby fat and was now all muscles. He was easily the tallest out of all of us. Including Kakashi.

Suddenly I remembered something, there was a Cathedral in Magnolia. It was place where celestial mages could find shelter. That meant there had to be some type of spiritual energy around there.

"There is a Cathedral." I said, looking around the room and seeing blank faces, "There's one in magnolia. Pass me the maps." Lee passed me the rough map I had drawn of Earth Land and of our world and marked where Kardia Cathedral was in Magnolia and then I realised that Earth Land had similar Geography to our world.

"There's a temple on the out skirts of Kohona. It's not been used in years, it was partially destroyed when the Kyuubi attacked." Neji said when he realised that Magnolia was in a similar position to the Land of Fire.

Shikamaru leaned over my shoulder to get a better look at the maps.

"That Cathedral is in the same place as the temple. It would be worth investigating." He said, resting his head on my hair.

"We'll investigate this lead tomorrow." Kakashi said stretching, "We should get some rest and meet at the gates at six hundred hours."

"Hai." We agreed.

"See you all tomorrow." Ino said standing up and starching, "Come give us a hug Forehead." I did as she said and hugged her, "Good night!"

"I think we'll follow your lead." Kiba said speaking for everone.

I hugged everyone as they took their leave. Finally it was just Naruto, Kakashi, Sasuke, Shika and I left.

"The Uchiha compound is locked down, they're checking it over for some reason and Naruto gave up his apartment so he could go after Sasuke." Kakashi said, "They were wondering if they could crash here tonight? I would offer for them to stay at mine but I have no room."

"Of course they can stay the night." Shika said.

"Yeah, we have a guest room and one of you can sleep in my room, I'll crash with Shika. It won't be a problem." I said. I realised that Shika was going to use this to his advantage he was going to make it out as if it was no big deal that we shared a bed. And in reality it wasn't. We've been on countless missions that have resulted in us sharing a bed at an inn because there was nowhere else to sleep.

"Great. I'll see you all tomorrow." Kakashi nodded and poofed home.

I turned to the boys, "Naruto you can have the guest room." There's nothing he can break in there, "And you can have my room Sasuke."

"Are you sure this is okay?" Naruto asked his blue eyes heavy with sleep.

"Of course it is." I said pulling him in for a hug, "The bathrooms just down there. There's spare toothbrushes in the cupboard and the guest room is here."

Sasuke cleared his throat, "Which is your room?"

"I'll show you. Follow me." If I didn't know better I would have thought Sasuke was nervous about spending the night in my room.

"Here you go. The sheets are clean and I think theres one of SHikas shirts in the closet that might fit you." I said the last part mostly to myself as I rummaged for the mentioned piece of clothing, "Ah here, and some sweatpants to."

I handed him the clothes and turned to leave when suddenly Sasuke pulled me in for a hug. "Thank you." His voice was quiet and I felt tears well in my eyes.

"Never say that again." I said pulling away and looking into his eyes, "it reminds me of when you left."

He nodded slightly, "Sorry, then, for everything. Goodnight Sakura."

"Good night Sasuke-kun." I said softly as I left the room closing the door behind me.

XxXxXxX

I waited for the door to close behind her before I let out a breath I hadn't known I'd been holding. That girl was driving me crazy, all night she had been throwing kind smiles around and stretching her beautiful laugh out. It was easy to image that I had never made the mistake of leaving.

Sakura had grown. She was no longer in that awkward stage between childhood and teenager, she was taller- not much but she was- her hair was still short and it suited her. It framed her heart-shaped face and matched the shade of lips. Her eyes were the same. I felt like they would never change, I hoped they would stay as big, green, and full of love and kindness forever.

Over the years while training with Orochimaru I had wonder about how she had looked, what she was doing. I often played conversations over I my head (granted she had always been doing the talking) and now I could actually hear the softness of her voice, hear the way she pronounced different words. She was my angel, always has been, I realised.

Running a hand through my hair I decided I'd better get some rest, changing into Nara's clothes why were they even in her closet? I thought back to the argument we had in the kitchen. It killed me to think about her flaunting her body in front of strangers. Criminals no less. My blood boiled at the thought of one of those disgusting pigs using her. I needed to change my train of thoughts.

She had looked so sad just then. Asking me not to say 'Thank you' because it reminded her of the night I left.

"I promise I won't make you cry ever again." I whispered into the dark room before I drifted off to sleep.

(A/N the story will pick up in the next few chapters, I will try and include a fight scene where Sakura uses fire magic as soon as possible :) I hope your enjoy reading this as much as I am enjoying writing it.)