Previously:
"They're here," Neji said quietly.
Naruto jumped up, grinning. "Yes!" he hissed in a very loud whisper. Sasuke had enough time to smack him on the head before the police burst in.
The leader of the group spoke.
"Hatake Kakashi-"
"You found this camp by accident," said Kakashi, and Sakura thought that he sounded amused. "Why don't you just pretend you didn't and go on your way?"
"You are under arrest for the kidnapping of-"
"Under arrest, my butt!" yelled Naruto. "He didn't kidnap her! Even ask her, she's here of her own volition-"
"Wow, dobe, that was three syllables in one word, I'm impressed," Sasuke muttered to Naruto.
"Uzumaki Naruto." The leader turned. "You're under arrest, too. Same crimes."
"You can't have him," said Sasuke, next to Naruto facing the man.
"Oh, really?"
This was when the leader passed out. Sasuke let him fall to the ground, shrugging and stepping aside from where he had suddenly appeared from behind him.
More police came. Sakura counted twenty of them and she was certain more were coming. Kakashi had said this was a small group?
"Haruno Sakura, hide now. If they find out you're here too we'll be in even more trouble."
"Wait, then who's Kakashi-san under arrest for kidnapping?"
Gaara looked at her as though she was stupid. Which she wasn't, and he had no right to do.
"Tenten, of course. " Oh, right, Tenten was the daughter of somebody rich who was no doubt spending all sorts of money to find her. "Now, go before they figure out who you are. I doubt they've figured out you're with us yet, and let's not make that too easy for them. I'm sure your disappearance hasn't gone unnoticed."
Sakura certainly hoped not, and she was about to say so, but then the fighting began because Kakashi would not come quietly, thank you very much, so she ran to a tree just outside the camp and made her way up, turning around to watch the fighting.
And holy cow, they were good at what they did. In blue bursts of chakra, Neji knocked out (he couldn't be killing them, Tenten had said they didn't kill people, which was comforting considering the large number of people collapsing) everyone who crossed his path. Kakashi had out his orange book and wasn't even looking up from it to deflect weapons or punches thrown at him. Sasuke and Naruto seemed to be dancing around each other, kicking and punching and dodging and flipping, simultaneously defending themselves and the other. They had a small pile of unconscious people which was growing by the minute. Tenten was throwing weapons left and right, although she wasn't under attack like the rest of the people due to the fact that she was their quarry.
And Gaara-
Gaara was merely sitting. Sand from the ground around him and from the ground around all the other ninja rose up at various times to deflect kunai that were otherwise probably tricky to dodge or hard to see. It also tripped more than a few ninjas, and Sakura noticed that what she could see of Gaara looked vaguely bored. She couldn't help but watch him. It was almost beautiful, the way the sand moved like water through the air-
"Aha- A beautiful flower of Youth blossoming in a tree!"
Sakura turned around, nearly falling out of the tree.
"Say, what is your name?"
A boy with a bowl cut and really big eyebrows who looked sort of familiar was there grinning at her.
"Uh, I probably shouldn't tell you," she said, confused.
He nodded.
"Right! Since it is only polite, I shall introduce myself first! I am Prince Rock Lee, heir to the throne of this kingdom, on a mission of great Personal Importance! Pray tell, does the lady down there go by the name of Tenten?"
The Prince? Looking for Tenten? Just who were these people?
"I don't think I should tell you that, either..."
She felt as stupid as she sounded. Mental note- next time, be ready to fight or else hide like an idiot.
"I see. Of course you can't."
He sort of stood there, smiling at her, with his big bulgy eyes and goofy haircut.
"Um..." she said, to break the silence. "Aren't you going to take me prisoner or something?"
"I cannot take such a lovely Blossom of Youth as yourself and lock her away in a dungeon." He seemed to contemplate something for a moment. "You are such a Beautiful Blossom of Youth, you cannot have joined these people voluntarily. I have an offer to make you. Will you come with me and be my Youthful Queen? I will protect you with my life!"
Sakura hadn't heard that many pickup lines in her life, but that was probably the worst one. Ever.
But the thought occurred to her that she might be allowed to see her family again.
Mom, Dad- She opened her mouth to agree.
And then- A part of her she'd never paid attention to before seemed to come out.
I'm on my way to become a Healer... And even though I don't know what that means yet- I know it's what I'm meant to do! CHA!
When it spoke inside her mind, its voice was loud and tempestuous and forceful, but it had her own voice, and suddenly she knew she could never say yes to Prince Lee's proprosal.
But before she could yell "Heck no!", sand appeared out of nowhere and caught the Prince by his ankles.
He fell backwards out of sight. She only had a second to worry before sand surrounded her, too, although more gently than it had the Prince. Her fall was slower than the Prince's, too, and she watched the green leaves pass by with only a vague sense of worry. Something about the sand was a little comforting, like she could trust it. Also, today totally seemed like a dream, and one never gets badly injured in one's dreams.
"Hello, Prince Lee," said Gaara.
"Subaku no Gaara-san! We finally meet! Come! Fight me!"
"Not today," Gaara said, ignoring him and flicking his wrist so that the sand jumped to pin Lee to a nearby tree.
To Sakura's (and Gaara's) great surprise, Lee jumped out of the way of the sand, dodging it and remaining in the same area.
"I must get my sister back!"
Neji glanced up.
"Your sister isn't coming back," said Neji. Sakura winced. That seemed a little harsh. Then again, Lee seemed undeterred.
"I shall rescue my sister from you madmen!"
He ran towards Neji, fist back and ready to strike.
"Not today you won't." Neji suddenly struck Lee on the neck, and he crumpled to the ground.
Tenten came up and pouted at Neji.
"Neji, be nice to my brother!" she scolded.
Suddenly the whole conversation registered in Sakura's head, and she remembered the story of the Princess who had disappeared some years back. She hadn't cared too much, but her parents had been sort of worried for awhile. The story had died down, with the occasional mention of "Our poor princess" on the streets or wherever.
"He's your brother?"
She gaped at Tenten, who nodded.
"You're the princess?"
Tenten nodded again.
"You gave that up?" She didn't even think about the next statement. "For life with Neji?"
Tenten chuckled, and Neji's expression went from amusement to annoyance.
"Not that I think you're a bad guy-" Sakura tried to fix it, but Tenten just giggled more and Neji just folded his arms.
"Hmph."
Even Gaara looked mildly entertained.
"I gave it up," Tenten said, "for life with Neji and as a ninja, which are the two things that make me more happy than anything else."
"I was a duke," Neji said, sounding as bored as if he was talking about the weather. "We both left behind duty for this. I haven't regretted it once."
That was kind of... romantic, actually. Sakura had a new awe for them.
"Guys, quit chit-chatting!" called Kakashi. "We've got to get out of here. Neji, I thought I told you not to harm the Prince."
Neji shrugged, while Gaara went to go pick up their tent. Naruto and Sasuke looked like they had been ready to go for ages.
Tenten picked up hers and Sakura's tent, while Sakura stood thinking.
I nearly could have become Queen... Sakura had a hard time imagining it. She'd never been anywhere near the Palace- she didn't even know what the current King and Queen looked like, and while she had lived a comfortable life back at home, it could never have been mistaken for luxurious.
"Sakura, let's go!" cried Tenten, snapping her fingers in front of her face. Sakura came back to reality.
"Oh, I bet you don't know how to run," Neji said suddenly. He appeared to have forgiven her for her comments earlier. Except apparently he thought she was stupid.
"I do too know how to run!" she said hotly. Somehow the voice had made her just a little bit more loud on the outside. She didn't stop to think about how she would never have responded that way the day before.
"Not the way that ninjas do." He took off, and instead of running on the ground he bounced around the trees. "That's how you'll need to run if you want to keep up with us."
Oh.
He continued.
"You just sent chakra to your feet so you bounce off. It takes a bit of getting used to, but you're good at chakra control..." He paused, and then smirked. "It seems like the only skill you have."
Okay, maybe he hadn't totally forgiven her. She winced (her ego hurt), and the rest of the ninjas (who hadn't heard his statement seeing as they were taking care of last minute things like the fire), took off.
Her pride was still smarting twenty minutes later, even after she had mastered the ninja run and was running just as fast as Neji. Right next to him, in fact.
"So, Sakura, you don't happen to know any taijutsu?"
She shook her head.
He sighed.
"Tenten's family was always good at taijutsu, she can work on that with you. Hey, Tenten!"
Tenten glanced up.
"Would you mind showing Sakura some basic taijutsu later?"
Tenten smiled.
"'Course not! I'd be happy to."
Sakura smiled back.
"Now, as for Healing techniques..." Neji said slowly. "I'm teaching you ninjutsu, but as far as Healing goes the only one of us who's ever known a Healer is Gaara, and so he's the closest we've got to someone who knows how it works."
"Really? You've met a Healer before? And you know enough about the training to teach me?" Sakura asked him curiously.
He nodded. "I know more about the training of a Healer than the average person or even the average ninja might, at least."
Sakura didn't find it wise to press him about it.
"Practice the seals, Sakura," Neji said idly. "We're traveling a long way, you've got plenty of time. I told you, two days and I won't feel sorry for you if you don't have it memorized. Actually, let's work on some ninjutsu right now."
Along the way, she learned the Henge jutsu from Neji and the Kage Bunshin jutsu from Naruto, who randomly filled the forest with a thousand Narutos all yelling, "LOOK, SAKURA-CHAN!"
Sasuke told him to shut up and they all disappeared.
"Right, sorry."
"Stealth, Naruto, is what ninjas do," added Kakashi. "Learn it."
Naruto just grinned and sped on past him.
"Dobe," muttered Sasuke. "What does he think he's doing?" He sped up to chase after Naruto, and after a moment Kakashi sighed and glanced back at Neji, Gaara, Tenten, and Sakura.
"At this rate, we'll lose them if we don't speed up. Can you handle it, Sakura?"
"Of course," she said sweetly. Though she could feel the voice... making a faint, grumbly noise... like it was a cat hissing in the back of her head.
"Good," said Kakashi, and they all started to run past her. She managed to speed up, too, and soon grew to enjoy the feeling of running at top speed through the forest.
After awhile, he spoke.
"Here."
And he stopped so fast Sakura nearly crashed into him.
Nearly. Kakashi noticed, but didn't say anything about it and for that she was grateful. Instead, he called out, "Guys, let Sakura and Neji go train. You can get the tents up by yourselves, Gaara, Tenten. But if for any reason they need help I expect- Sasuke, Naruto, listen- I expect that you guys help them. Got it? I'll get the fire started and we'll continue like normal from there."
Sakura wished she could have gone to set up the tent. Her next half an hour was spent forcing out every bit of her chakra for clones and Henging. She Henged into Tenten. She Henged into Neji. She Henged into Naruto. She Henged into Kakashi. She Henged into Gaara. And she Henged into Sasuke. A blushing, tomato-red Sasuke, but nonetheless a perfect copy of Sasuke. If anything could be so perfect as the real thing.
Neji nodded his approval.
"You have excellent chakra control for a beginner," he noted again. "Like I said before."
She smiled in forced gratitude but felt an odd stirring inside, like... like something else was there, too. Silly. Impossible. But she thought of the voice from before. Would it make an appearance?
"Let's go eat dinner," he said, sounding bored.
They went back to the camp only to find that dinner wasn't quite ready yet as Sasuke and Naruto hadn't come back with fish yet.
Tenten was prodding the fire idly with a stick and Gaara was staring at it like it alone knew the answers to the Questions of the Universe. Kakashi was sitting and reading the same orange book as before.
"How was training?" asked Tenten cheerfully.
Neji went immediately over to her and took her hand.
"Good," he said.
Exhausted and not particularly sure she agreed with Neji, Sakura sank down onto one of the logs they had put in a circle around the fire. She sat down next to Gaara, who glanced at her briefly and then went back to staring at the fire and ignoring everyone else's presence.
"What's taking them so long?" He groaned a moment later. Maybe he wasn't ignoring them so much after all.
"Eh, you know those two," said Tenten, dismissing it with a wave of the hand that wasn't attached to Neji's. "Probably fell in the lake they were fishing in."
Neji shrugged.
"We're ba-ack!" Naruto's voice sang out. "And we have lots of fish, even though Sasu-chan nearly scared them all away!"
"You mean, dobe, that you nearly scared away all the fish."
"No, I didn't! You did!"
"Only because I had to jump in after you after you fell in, you moron."
The two suddenly appeared in the trees, sopping wet, but Naruto was grinning and Sasuke had the slightest smirk on his face. He also had a basket of dead fish.
Which were all staring at Sakura with dead, cold, fishy eyes.
She didn't feel so hungry any more.
When dinner was over and Sakura had learned how to clean and cook fish without barfing from Tenten, it was bedtime. They retired to their tents, Kakashi announcing that Neji and Gaara were to go on a mission the next day. It was decided that Tenten would work on taijutsu with Sakura for the next two weeks.
When they were in the privacy of their tent, Sakura decided to ask Tenten about her past and get a real answer this time.
"Hey, Tenten?"
"Yeah?"
"How come you didn't tell me you were the Princess?"
"I was going to tell you... just not so soon. Do you mind?"
Sakura shook her head no without really thinking about it. Tenten went on.
"All the boys here, their crimes against the king that you had heard about? Yes, it was kidnapping of the Princess Tenten. Not being ninjas, not being... other things... Just stealing me away, which was false. And kind of silly, really. My dad and my brother don't get why I left. But it is better that way- I could never sit at home and rule a kingdom- I prefer to be outside, fighting crime with my Neji." Tenten smiled. "He's got a bit of an odd story, too. Maybe you'll find it out sometime."
"What's up with his eyes?"
Neji had told Sakura to ask Tenten, and now seemed as good a time as any.
"Oh, that. It's a familial trait. He sees chakra and other things, that's why he activates it to look at yours and see how you're doing and it's why we asked him to teach you about it." Tenten paused again. "Sakura, you aren't too hurt that I didn't tell you the truth, are you? But you see, I couldn't- I didn't know if you were going to run away or anything- but from what I heard from Gaara today, you could have left with the Prince and you didn't. So I trust you, y'know?"
Sakura blinked. How much of that conversation did Gaara know?
"I- I trust you, too," she said, and found the words to ring mostly true.
Tenten smiled.
"Good. I think of how badly this could have gone- I'm so sorry you had to be taken away from your family. You know, sometime you could maybe go visit them, you know. Tell them everything's all right."
Sakura nodded, thinking that visiting her family was a nice idea.
But the part of her from before- the part of her that had been locked away-
Just who do they think I am! I'm not some girly-girl that has to run back home! I'm going to be a Healer, and I am going to be good at it, SHANNARO! And I'm not going to go home until I'm done!
That's a promise!
CHA!
"Sakura- Sakura, are you okay?" She must have blacked out or something, because Tenten was looking at her, worried. "You went all dazed in the middle of our conversation."
"I'm fine," Sakura lied. "Just tired, is all."
"Oh- I'm sorry, I kept you up with all this talk!" Tenten covered her mouth with her hand. "I promise to shut up now, so you can go to sleep, okay? You must be exhausted, having used so much chakra in one day. Goodnight, Sakura."
"Goodnight, Tenten."
And with that, they both rolled over to sleep.
Although Sakura couldn't help but have dreams of herself being split in two.
For the next two weeks during Gaara and Neji's mission, Tenten woke Sakura up early to train and kept her up late. Training with Tenten was exhausting, although by the end of the two weeks Sakura started to notice results. Not that she had gotten super-strong in fourteen days, but that it was getting easier and easier to wake up and go through Tenten's training routine.
"Sakura."
It was dinnertime on the day that Gaara and Neji had returned, and Kakashi had placed himself beside her. This hadn't bothered her at all. She was usually intimidated by people like him. And Kakashi was a bit odd. But Sakura had never felt really nervous around him. He was honest if not talkative, and she felt that if he didn't like her he'd probably have dumped her off in the middle of nowhere awhile ago, despite her future usefulness as a Healer.
"Your disappearance has become sort of famous," Kakashi remarked out of the blue, putting down an empty bowl of food (when had he eaten? She hadn't even seen him remove his mask!).
"People are looking for me?"
He turned a page in his book, his visible eye following the words.
"Of course they are. And they're going to recognize you, too. Your hair's pretty distinctive, if you don't mind me saying." He would have said it even if he had thought she would have minded. Especially if he had, actually. But she didn't mind. "Sakura, I don't usually like to do this, it wastes chakra, but it would be bad for you to be seen in public the way you are, and we are going to be seen in public tomorrow. You've got to be under Henge. I don't really care how you look, just make sure it's nondescript. Got it?"
She nodded.
"Good girl," he said, and stood up, patting her head the way he might have done to a dog or something. "Bye, Sakura. Just remember, nondescript. Ask Tenten for help if you need any." He turned away to walk off to his tent, with his nose still in the book.
Something occurred to her.
"Wait, Kakashi-sensei!"
He turned back, still staring at his book.
"What are we going into town for?"
He blinked and actually looked up at her.
"Oh, I didn't say?"
Sakura shook her head.
"Well, I ought to just tell you guys now. Since Sakura did a pretty fine job of catching your attention and all." Sakura looked around, and indeed, she had caught everyone's attention. Oops.
"Tomorrow we're going into a town near here. Naruto, Sasuke, Neji, Tenten, stay in your usual groups and stock up on supplies and stuff. But Sakura, Gaara... you'll come with me. At least for a little while."
Sakura looked at Gaara almost involuntarily, and looked away almost as soon when she saw that Gaara was looking at her curiously, too.
Kakashi continued. "By a stroke of luck, I happened upon information pertaining to the whereabouts of an old friend of mine. She's expecting us tomorrow, though I can't say she's particularly thrilled about it. Anyway, goodnight, kids. Pack up and be ready in the morning."
Sakura had been hoping he'd give out more information, but he didn't. Instead, when they remained outside for another ten minutes, he reappeared through his tent flap and told them all to get to bed OR ELSE.
Which they did in record time.
STOP:
(AN TIME:) -plays the melody from Can't Touch This-
Yay for Inner Sakura! I originally wasn't sure if she was going to make an appearance (it's awfully hard for me to write her), and then Super-rat asked me if she would, so I thought of a place to put her. And then I thought of a better place in this chapter! So, yay!
I'm trying to make Sakura's character development as much like the manga as I can, but it's kind of tricky since I don't know much about what she was like before she was brainy-naive-straight-A-student except that she was unconfident about herself until Ino helped her and then confident enough that she dropped Ino like a hot potato when she wanted to. No, I didn't really think her ditching Ino over Sasuke was a positive reflection of her character in the least. But I still like Sakura, especially in Part Two.
As far as Inner Sakura goes: I am not sure how separate she is from Outer Sakura. I do not believe that they are so separate that they can converse, as they do in some fanfictions, although I think it's kind of fun when that's the interpretation used. I think that Inner Sakura is just a picture of what really goes on inside Sakura's head when she wants to say something but she has to say something else. But then again, the scene where Ino talks about Sakura having "two minds" (yes I did look that up) makes me wonder.
What do you guys think? Is Inner Sakura really so far apart from Outer Sakura that they will converse? I think they're kind of like... Um. Something squishy with a hard core. Anyway. There's the comparitively wishy-washy Outer, and the hellaciously stubborn Inner, but they make up one whole Sakura. Any suggestions on squishy things with hard cores? To completely my simile? Maybe like a caramel apple.
Or, more like a bullet dipped in caramel.
Oh. An addition to my above statement. Like with Ino's fight, Inner Sakura can occasionally be relied upon to take over. Whole Sakura could be flipped inside out, and end up like one of those candies which has the hard candy coating (of course to be Inner Sakura it would have to be like... having a candy dipped in metal) with the squishy Outer Sakura suppressed on the inside. But they'd still be like one person.
Dx This has gotten to be like a marathon AN, so I'm going to end it and ask you to review! :D Remember, reviewers get cookies!