Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto dammit!
AN: So it's time to get back into the writing groove. So we need to pass these slow and lame chapters for the more juicy ones. So on with the show!
Suna,
Sunagakure Hospital
He padded down the corridor slowly, much in contrast to panicked state not ten minutes ago. The first thing he saw outside his room when he had run out of it earlier was a desk with a Suna medic behind it. He initially ran up to the desk and demanded the whereabouts of his comrade. His voice was filled with worry and desperation and his facial features conveyed the same emotions. Needless to say he was infuriated when the woman started to chuckle during his state of distress.
Being the kind of man he is, his initial thoughts were to yell at the woman for her actions. Before he had a chance to shout some choice words at her though, she simply gave him a room number. After he got over the initial shock he had bowed his head, as he was very embarrassed, and apologized.
She simply waved him off and told him to go ahead. He smiled and thanked the medic, which took Naruto to where he was presently.
As he arrived at the end of the corridor he turned the handle on the door on his right. He walked in slowly and realized that the person he was searching for was sitting up in her bed looking at him.
He stood in place for a little while, relief filling his whole body because of the fact he was seeing her with his own two eyes.
She smiled at him, and warmth filled his being. Something only a few could do with gestures such as a smile.
"Hello Naruto-kun," she said softly while smiling at him.
Naruto sighed and closed the door. He then walked up to the bed casually and sat down. He then put his arms around her body as though it was routine for his body to react this way. He buried his nose in the crook of her neck and breathed out while squeezing her fairly tightly as though reminding himself that they really did save her and she was really in his arms.
"I'm sorry, Hinata-chan."
She smiled wider and hugged him back.
Suna,
Sunagakure Hospital,
Surgical Ward
Sakura let herself be dragged around by Ino until they came to the room where they all were the night she treated Ino and her team.
She felt Ino release her hand but she was more concerned about her patient.
She looked around the room and realized all the beds were empty.
Her eyes wandered the room in confusion, not really understanding what was going on. She spun around to ask her blonde friend about the whereabouts of Kiba, but when she did she caught the mischievous twinkle in Ino's eye and her sick grin……and that's when she realized something was up.
Sakura closed her eyes and groaned audibly.
"What happened to Kiba?" she asked.
Ino smiled. "I discharged him earlier."
Sakura saw this is a great escape plan. Her eyes narrowed and her face twisted in anger………….at least she hoped it looked like anger.
"Dammit Ino! If you knew that then you shouldn't have wasted my time!"
She started stomping past her fellow Kunoichi and making her way for the door but her arm was grabbed and she was spun around in a circle.
It looked like two kids playing ring a round.
Ino stopped and beamed at Sakura.
"I was initially coming to keep you company while you waited for Naruto to wake up. But then when I saw your tomato face when I entered the room I KNEW something was up. Not to mention the way you couldn't look at him for at least a couple minutes."
At the last part of the sentence, Ino slowed her speech down for dramatic effect and grinned at Sakura with that shit eating grin that only Naruto and Ino could do.
Sakura glared at the blonde.
"Inoooo…" she growled.
Ino paid no heed to the intimidation tactic and promptly sat Sakura down on one of the cots and placed herself next to her best friend.
"And those eyes you gave each other before we left the room….."
She drew in breath and looked up to the ceiling with a dreamy grin like if it was raining chocolate.
She looked back to Sakura.
"I swear it was like watching a tragic romance movie…. So intense!"
Sakura looked away while keeping her frown in place.
Ino kept staring at her for a while, but soon the grin dropped from her face and was replaced by a small smile when she realized Sakura's cheeks were now pink.
The pink haired Kunoichi was obviously embarrassed at being caught and she looked as though she was getting angry at Ino's teasing.
Ino sighed and put one hand under Sakura's chin and turned it towards her. Sakura looked at Ino and found that her face wasn't a mocking or joking one, but a soft and friendly one.
"How long?"
It was a question that bypassed the first question. The first question was asking if Sakura loved Naruto. But Ino skipped that altogether, and Sakura merely shook her head. She didn't even try to deny it because when Ino knew………..she just knew. Sakura knew she was busted.
"……………….since I was fifteen…………"
Ino's hand retracted from her friend's face as if she was electrocuted and her eyes went large.
She stared at the pink haired girl while shaking her head in disbelief, and Sakura merely bowed her head in shame.
"Sakura! How could you not tell him for FIVE YEARS?!"
Sakura growled and clenched her teeth. She jumped off the cot and walked away from Ino, feeling the blonde's shocked gaze still on her back.
She put her hands on her hips, and looked up into the air, trying to breathe out some frustration.
It took her a couple of minutes, but eventually even Ino could see Sakura's shoulders drop in relaxation.
"I just didn't know how far it ran back then."
The blonde quirked an eyebrow at this.
'And I'm supposed to know what the hell that meant?'
She was about to voice her confusion when Sakura turned around.
A half smile, half confused smirk planted on the pink haired girl's face as her eyes looked around the room as if it would give her the words to say to her friend.
She sighed and looked back to Ino.
"I knew I liked him at fifteen……….hell I knew I loved him to SOME extent……..maybe a friend, a teammate, a brother…."
She sighed again.
She sat down on another cot across from Ino while her hands intertwined and she leaned on her elbows which were placed on her thighs.
"It was only when Yamato-taichou basically told me, that he could see that I loved him."
Sakura's hands gripped each other so tightly, that Ino thought that the girl's fingers would break off.
"I started thinking about it more………….and I thought about everything I ever thought about with Sasuke………………………and I realized…….that Sasuke was never who we thought he was. He wasn't there to hold my hand when I was nervous, he wasn't there to hug me when I cried from losing a patient, and he wasn't there to smile at me with pride when I did something incredible…….."
Sakura now looked up to the blonde and had a sad, pleading look on her face as her eyes glistened with unshed tears.
"But every time……………… every SINGLE time……………Naruto WAS there for me……………and by the time I was sixteen I realized……………….. that the dreams I had of what Sasuke was and would do for me……………actually was Naruto all along."
She sniffed a bit as her nose got red.
It made her sad to remember, but Sakura told herself that she wouldn't cry for it.
Ino slowly got off her cot and walked over to Sakura. She sat down slowly and held her friend's hand as the other woman continued to talk.
"So after months of thinking about it, I concluded that I was indeed in love with him…….so I went to sleep that night thinking of how shocked he would be when I finally accepted his date as a 'real' date and not those play dates we went on………sigh………But it never came."
At this point, she turned to Ino and tried a half a smile but it just came out sad and unnatural. She stopped when she saw Ino's soft and near apologetic face look at her.
She sighed again and looked in front of her.
"So I waited for the next day………….and the next day……….and the next day…………..and after a week I was so confused and I tried to think of how long it was since he last asked me out…………and It was then I realized, he had stopped asking me out for a couple months……………….. and I was utterly devastated."
Ino scooted closer to her friend and wrapped an arm around her to encourage her to get it all out.
"I kept thinking to myself, that I waited too long. That I lost him. I threw myself into my work and nothing else, trying to forget about what I felt for him and just to remain focused on our friendship."
Before she could continue, Ino interrupted. "That's when Tsunade-sama had to send you home for a week. When you had worked yourself near long term chakra depletion," the blonde realized after putting the story together.
Sakura nodded while still looking in front of her.
"For four years………………………I've been hiding this from him…………….crying alone in my apartment when someone would say they saw Naruto heading home in the early hours of the morning when I knew he had a date the night before………….not wanting to break up our friendship……………… and never once have I ever seen anything from him showing that he wanted to be more than friends, Ino…………not once……………………………………..until we arrived in Suna."
Ino's face turned into a mixture of confusion and excitement. The way her eyes gleamed and her eyebrows were shot in the air Sakura knew it was a sign for her to continue.
"We've had our moments since we were here. We stared at each other, making googly eyes," Sakura scoffed/chuckled at that.
"And then…………………..we were leaning in, and we were about to kiss when you came in."
Ino's face suddenly went into a grimace as though she just received a really bad wound. "Ah…..sorry forehead………," she said apologetically.
Her face turned up after a while though, and she smiled. "But at least you know now that he's interested," she tried encouraging.
Sakura looked across at her and gave a small smile. But for some reason it wasn't as happy as Ino thought it should be.
"I know……………at the very least I know he likes me………………..but……………….there's something holding me back from telling him……………and I have to find out about it first before I can ask him for a second chance."
Ino again, got confused and started thinking about what Sakura could mean.
So she sat, brow furrowed, and went into deep thinking. After a couple of seconds though, her eyes opened slightly in realization.
"Hinata….." she whispered.
Sakura looked ahead with a bitter smile.
"Hai……………………….one of my best friends, who happens to be in love with my other best friend and the man I love."
Ino rubbed her friend's back lightly. She then shook her head slowly.
"But as one of our best friends Hinata would never be angry at you if you got together with Naruto. She would see it as his choice and once he's happy then she would be too."
Ino thought what she was saying was the simplest thing in the world, but little did she know.
"If Hinata realized that she never had a chance to begin with, then she definitely would be happy for him as well as for me," Sakura started.
"But………………………. Most of Naruto's dates were with Hinata………"
She heard Ino gasp softly. She could just imagine the shock on Ino's face. After all, as far as Sakura knew, Neji and herself were the only outsiders who knew about the meetings. Even though she was sure she would have gotten a laugh out of seeing Ino's stunned facial expressions, she decided to continue her sad tale.
"And she's always by his house Ino……………………..Any time I ask him about it he just tells me not to worry about the details and winks at me."
Ino cringed at hearing the information. "Ouch," she whispered. Sakura sighed.
"I think he may be in love with her………….."
Ino looked away when she heard that. It certainly made it harder to give Sakura encouragement on the issue. After all, if she kept it a secret for four years then told Naruto only to be rejected, then their friendship would be strained which was exactly what the Haruno didn't want in the first place.
She rubbed Sakura's back absentmindedly while she thought. After a couple of minutes of silence though, she turned back to Sakura, and her voice held that tiny glimmer of hope that keeps you going.
"At the end of the day, Sakura, it's still Naruto's choice who he wants to be with. Now I'm not saying you should go behind Hinata's back and have any kind of affair or anything. She's one of our best friends and even I would be very angry with you for doing that. But you should ask Hinata how she feels and tell her how you feel before telling Naruto. You should also tell her all that's happened. Because as one of our closest friends, if she really IS with Naruto and for some reason keeping it from us, then she deserves to know what her boyfriend was doing or almost did with another woman."
Sakura just chuckled darkly. "No Ino. If Hinata says that they are indeed together, and that Naruto loves her, then I won't tell him at all."
Ino jerked back in shock and irritation. Her eyes were wide with shock, confusion and anger fighting to the dominant emotion. But soon enough, the anger won out and took over totally. "Why the hell not?? You've held it in for five years!"
"And she's loved him for ten."
Sakura's retort was short but it was enough to shut Ino up.
"Also," began the apprentice to the Godaime.
"Only a really horrible friend would let someone leave the one they love, for the one they like."
She turned to Ino, and gave the blonde a smile that was so sad, yet sweet, that Ino thought she would cry.
"So how horrible would I be? If I let the man I supposedly LOVE, leave the one HE loves for me?"
Ino was speechless. As she let everything sink in, she said and did nothing but give back a bittersweet smile to Sakura as she saw a single tear roll down the face of the smiling medic.
She continued rubbing the back of Sakura while the latter wiped the solitary tear away.
Ino kept looking at her friend even as Sakura turned to stare ahead once more.
'Forehead, you baka………You're just like him now. You've been suffering for so long. Yet when given the chance you'd still sacrifice yourself and your feelings just for the sake of his happiness.'
As she continued rubbing the back of Sakura, she couldn't help but think her long time friend's saying fit right in with this situation.
'Mendoukse.'
Somewhere nearby
Uchiha Sasuke walked into the large room, but immediately came to a halt when he saw what was inside.
The Akatsuki members, Pein, Konan, Madara, Kisame, as well as team hawk stood by.
But this isn't what made him stop. No.
What made him halt his movements was the sight of the giant statue that they use to collect Bijuu, fully erected in the middle of the room. It had been five years since Sasuke saw it last. Five years since they captured the eight tails. But the memory of the foreboding feeling the statue gave off and the chills it
gave him was still fresh in his mind. Even as an Uchiha, one who was able to control the Bijuu, not even he could dream about controlling the combined power and chakra of the eight demons. It was folly.
"I see you've awoken just in time, Sasuke," Madara spoke while turning around.
Sasuke just stared ahead in his usual indifferent way.
"Why has the statue been summoned? Did you catch Naruto?" asked the younger Uchiha.
He watched carefully as Madara shook his head slowly. He was going to voice another question but then he saw the co founder of Konoha reach into his pocket and take out the necklace of the Shodaime.
Just as before, Madara seemed lost in it.
"Remember I said I would tell you the reason we need this necklace later?"
Sasuke merely nodded, not picking up where the other nin was going with the question.
Again, Madara continued while being entranced in the necklace.
"Well……………..I summoned the statue because I decided I wouldn't tell you……………"
Sasuke frowned.
Madara shot his gaze to Sasuke, with a maniacal look in his eye.
"I'm going to SHOW you……."
AN: And so chapter 8 goes up. Hopefully you guys aren't disappointed. In any case. Look for chapter 9 soon. By the way. The name of the chapter is "The Threat" not only because of the plan of Akatsuki but the threat of NaruSaku goodness. Muahrahr har harhar.