Title: One Last Chance
Summary: For the first time in her life, Sakura would not be the weak link. A time-travel fict.
Author: River Flows Backwards
Beta: Don't have one. Anyone willing...?
Important Notes: Thanks to everyone who reviewed! Sorry that this wasn't up sooner. Let's just say that I had many many reasons for taking so long. D:
7,000+ word chapter this time. Dear god... -_-''
X.x.X
He had been watching her for seven days now. Tomorrow would mark her first day as a student of the ninja academy.
Eyes slightly narrowed, he studied the way that she walked, noting the lightness of her step and how, despite the fact that she was walking over gravel in a playground, she was completely silent.
Six year old civilian children shouldn't be able to do that.
He wasn't sure where the interest had come from - he'd only seen her once before after all. A week ago to be precise and the meeting didn't even last five minutes, but something about the way that her jade eyes surveyed her surroundings in a subtle but sufficient way, the way that her eyes had flashed with hatred for him the moment she lay eyes on his form despite him not knowing him, despite the fact that he was helping her and her little friend...
He found her interesting, to say the least.
And now he was shadowing her whenever he had the time and finding out that the girl really was a lot more interesting than he had initially assumed.
'She is a civilian and yet she moves like a ninja,' he observed cooly. 'A high level one at that.'
The girl - Sakura Haruno he reminded himself - stopped playing with the Kyuubi's container suddenly and looked straight towards where he was perched in a tree. He knew that she couldn't see him through the leaves though and so he remained in his place despite that fact that, 'somehow she knows I am here.'
Which led to another conclusion: Sakura Haruno could sense chakra.
Obsidian eyes widened slightly when a small rock raced right past his face, slicing his cheek, and lodged itself into the tree trunk behind him.
"What the hell?" he muttered in disbelief.
He hadn't been expecting that at all.
'And apparently she has very good aim as well. And is strong.' He eyed the place where the rock had been implanted into the trunk. He couldn't see the rock, it was so far in. It was unnatural. 'Very strong.'
Bringing pale fingertips up to where he'd been cut on the cheek, he hummed in interest. He pulled away his hand, fingertips coming back slightly bloody.
"Hn."
Itachi was very interested.
XxXxX
The following morning an unusually hyper Sakura was rolling out of bed with a huge grin on her face.
It was a Monday and precisely 7 o'clock when she ran over to her window and threw open the curtains covering it, smiling widely at the sun before setting about getting dressed for school that day.
Carefully unfolding the clothing from the shopping bags sitting beside her dresser, Sakura lay her outfit out piece by piece.
Her clothes were somewhat similar to her old ones in the sense that she still had on tightly fitting black shorts that ended just above her knees along with a pale pink skirt with slits on each side as well as the front and back for mobility. The skirt was, as before, more because Sakura found it cute than actual necessity. (Hey. She wasn't gonna be a wannabe (pink haired) barbie in this time line but she would dabble at least a little bit into fashion as long as it wasn't over the top.) Along with her shorts and skirt and the only truly differentiating feature of her wardrobe was a simple red tank top with a large white circle on the back that she slipped on last. Her standard black ninja sandals were sitting by the front door at the bottom of the stairs and the pair of black ninja gloves she had bought were tucked away in her skirt pocket.
Sakura was about to walk down stairs when she suddenly remembered something important and ran back to her dresser where all of her new clothes sat in their bags along with a single, silky red ribbon. She smiled softly as she walked back to her mirror and tied the ribbon like a headband around her head, the ends of the ribbon sticking up where they were tied together.
Smoothing her hair and giving herself a winning smile in the mirror along with a wink, Sakura deemed herself ready for her second first day at the ninja academy.
Now, as she had already been to and graduated from that place, she wasn't at all excited because she was starting her training as a ninja - she was already a chunin, near jounin level anyway - but that she would get to see everyone alive again. Her friends and comrades: breathing. Smiling. Children.
And with that, there also came a pang of fear at the prospect of it all. How would she react when she saw all of them? Countless times now, Sakura had run through the scenario in her head: walking into class on that first day, a small smile on her face. Naruto would be right beside her, possibly dragging her along in his excitement. She would follow him, laughing and then she would look around the room and see all of those who were dead when she last saw them. And she would smile some more, and walk up to a certain blond girl with pretty blue eyes and befriend her. One by one, she'd do the same to the rest of the rookie nine but one, and then she'd sit down with Naruto in the front of the room, because that would be the farthest away from his seat. He always sat in the back, after all.
But that was just how it went in her head.
Her smile melted into a frown.
"Sakura!" a voice called then, and the time traveler whipped her head towards the door to her room which she sensed her mother coming towards. "Time to wake up!"
The door swung open to reveal a radiant Haruno Yume, her typical red apron tied around her waist as the smell of breakfast floated through the air now that the wooden barrier the was Sakura's door was removed. The woman walked over to her daughter then, smile widening ever so slightly and picked a giggling Sakura up.
"Well, don't you look cute?" Yume asked rhetorically, giving Sakura a once over and an approving nod. "And you're already up and ready, too! That's perfect, because breakfast is all ready and Daddy is sitting at the table."
Still in her mothers arms, Sakura was carried down the stairs and into the kitchen and set down on the cool tile floor, only to immediately be picked up again by her father again and swung around. Sakura giggled madly as her father bent forward slightly to give her a kiss on the cheek and an adoring smile.
"There's my little flower," he greeted happily.
Sakura wrapped her little arms around his neck and gave his cheek a quick kiss in return.
"Morning Daddy!"
She beamed at him and laughed as her father swung her around again, only to plop her down in her seat at the kitchen table.
"So, Mama, what's for breakfast?" Sakura asked brightly and her mother answered by setting down a plate of steaming food in front of her.
A plate stacked high with her absolute favorite breakfast food on the entire earth.
"Pancakes!" she shrieked with joy, and didn't care one bit how childish she must have looked at the moment. (Forget the fact that she's physically six.) Adult in the inside or not, these were pancakes. With chocolate chips inside of them. Don't judge.
Sakura happily set about eating her breakfast as her chuckling mother served herself and her father their own stack of pancakes and began eating breakfast.
"So..." Haruno Daiki said slowly, cutting his food into bite-sized pieces. "Today's the big day, eh? You're finally starting the ninja academy?"
"Mmhm!" Sakura affirmed around her fork. "It's going to be really great."
"Good, good. And you're sure you want to do this?"
Sakura rolled her eyes at this question. Her parents had been so surprised and reluctant to let her join the day she told them that she was going to be a ninja. Her father was still trying to convince her to not do it, but wouldn't force his will on her because "you have to start making your own choice sometime, I suppose."
"I'm sure," she answered dryly and took another bite of her food, humming with delight as the sweet chocolate chips melted in her mouth.
Sakura loved chocolate chip pancakes so, so much...
"School will begin at eight thirty by the way. But you already know that. Naruto and I want to get there really early and checkout the place though," 'And see if its just how I remember it being before it was all destroyed,' "so that we know where everything is and stuff."
Her fathers smile became slightly icy.
"He's going to meet you there?"
There was a certain amount of venom in her fathers voice that made Sakura scowl slightly.
"Not at all," she said lightly, a happy - false - smile on her face. "Naruto will be here in a few minutes to walk to the academy with me, actually."
Sakura didn't miss the way that her mother froze and her father paused in his eating.
"That's... nice, sweetie," her father said slowly.
Sakura clenched her fists, a full out scowl twisting her features.
It was a well known fact that the majority of Konoha's population didn't like Naruto. The few who did either were ninja or old man Ichiraku from the ramen stand as well as Ayame. This of course meant that Sakura's civilian parents didn't like Naruto either. It became very apparent the first time that she had introduced him to her parents and they had simply glared at him before trying to tell Sakura that she was never to speak to him again. Obviously it didn't work, and they had to accept the fact that no, Sakura would not obey this this time.
And Naruto, dense though he may be, was apparently acutely aware of the hostility that surrounded him. She had learned the day of the incident in the market. Once they had gotten away from the place she had throttled out the reason that he was being so calm and accepting of their malice from him and all that she had gotten was a small, broken smile and the words, "They've always hated me. Ever since I can remember. I dunno why... but... it's always been like this. I'm used to it, Sakura-chan."
After that his small smile had become bigger and realer and he announced that he would be Hokage one day so then they'd just have to stop hating him then, and then he started going off about ramen, though Sakura still had no idea how he'd jumped from the topic of being Hokage to food like that. She just dismissed it as his being himself.
There was a tentative knock on the Haruno's front door just then and Sakura blinked, startled from her thoughts, and sensed Naruto standing outside of her house. Her scowl became a grin.
"Naruto's here!"
Jumping off her chair (but not before grabbing that last bite of her pancakes) she ran to the door. Standing on her toes and hopping slightly, pale hands latched onto the shiny bronze doorknob and turned it. The door swung open then to reveal a smiling Naruto on her front doorstep.
His hands were in his pockets - bright orange shorts, she noticed, along with an old looking black t-shirt with the Uzamaki swirl on it - and he scuffed his feet sheepishly. The simple black ninja sandals he wore were dirty looking and worn.
"Ready to go?" He asked loudly.
Sakura looked back into her house where she saw her mother and father talking quietly to themselves in the hallway, muttering and shooting dark looks in Naruto's direction.
She made a split decision.
"No, not quite yet. I still need ten minutes or so to put together my things, so how about you come in until then?" she asked sweetly.
Her mothers eyes widened in alarm.
Sakura suppressed a smirk.
Still on the doorstep, Naruto blinked slowly.
"But you told me yesterday that you were already-"
"Just. Come. In!" she ordered, grabbing his wrist and dragging him through the doorway. "Mom, Dad? Naruto is coming in for a while until I get my stuff together!"
"Now, sweetie just a second," Daiki began, stepping in her path as she began to ascend the stairs. "I don't want that-"
"It's only for a few minutes, daddy," Sakura explained with a childish pout.
"I know that sweetie, but that boy is-"
"My friend."
"I know Sakura. What I mean is that he's not the kind of person your mother and I want inside of our house, understand?"
Sakura really didn't.
"No. I don't. He hasn't done a thing wrong to you or anyone else and if there's anything bad about him it's that he eats way too much ramen to be healthy. But even that's not too bad and I'm working on fixing that!"
"Sakura..."
"Daddy..." Sakura echoed pathetically.
Daiki Haruno sighed loudly.
"Ten minutes tops," he conceded and Sakura did a mental dance.
"Cool! Naruto, c'mon!" she ordered, grabbing his wrist and dragging him up the stairs with her.
"Wait!" called Yume as they ran. "Don't let him inside you're room-!"
Sakura, at the top of the stairs, looked back, stuck out her tongue, and slammed the door shut behind them. Hearing an enraged huff from her mother on the other side of the door, Sakura began to cackle with glee.
"Um... Sakura-chan...?" he asked slowly. "Are you, uh, okay?"
She turned to him and grinned like a Cheshire cat, Green eyes flashing. Naruto took a step back.
"What do you mean?" she asked sweetly.
"You're umm... cackling and stuff. Like an evil person, so..."
She blinked.
"Oops," she said with a soft laugh - a normal one this time - and began walking towards her bed. "I'm just happy, I guess."
Naruto followed her and they both say on the edge of the mattress.
"You've had your things packed since last week. Why did you lie and say that you still had a few things to do before you had to go?" he asked after a moment.
Sakura thought of how to respond and was silent.
"I guess..." she said slowly, "because I wanted tothem."
"Spite them?"
"Yeah. Because they don't like you or want you here and it just makes me so angry that I wanted to bring you up here to piss them off, honestly."
Naruto smiled slightly and laughed.
"It's okay, Sakura-chan. No one really likes me 'cept for you, the Old Man, and Ayame-nee-chan and Old man Ichiraku, so I don't mind that much. You don't have to do anything special for someone like me."
Sakura glared at his tone.
"What's that supposed to mean? Some one like you? You make it sound like you're a bad person or something."
Why didn't he seem to understand? Why is it that he didn't seem to mind that he was treated the way that he was wherever it is that he went?
Her Naruto would have yelled at them that one day he'd show them. He wouldn't have just taken it.
But once again Sakura had to remind herself that her Naruto was not the same as the on sitting beside her. She'd been having to do a lot of that lately. Reminding herself, that is.
"I just mean..." he looked up at the ceiling as he spoke, "that I'm not a good person."
Sakura sputtered.
"W-what? That's totally-"
"True?"
"Not true! Naruto you're a wonderful person!"
This time his laugh was hollow. He looked away from the ceiling now and directly as her, spearing her with his sapphire gaze.
"No I'm not." His voice was absolute. "Because if I was, no one would hate me, now would they? No one would look at me and glare or tell their kids to never get near me. They wouldn't keep me out of their houses, or refuse to let me buys things, or- or... throw apples at my head!"
Sakura flinched at the last one because of the reminder of the event and because of his desperately sad voice.
"Naruto..."
The six-yearold stared at the floor for a very long time before suddenly standing up, a huge smile on his face as he asked, "So, do you have any cool toys in your room, Sakura-chan?"
Startled at the sudden change in mood, Sakura stood up as well.
"Naruto, you can't just change topics like that. I-"
"Not now Sakura-chan," Naruto muttered.
She closed her eyes slowly and sighed, indulging his wishes and answering his original question.
"Yeah," she told him. "They're in the chest over there."
Naruto quickly ran over to the large, white chest pushed up against the far wall of her room and threw it open. The chest was tall enough to reach right to Naruto's shoulders and Sakura wasn't sure how the boy was going to get into the stuff in there because he was so short, but obviously the challenge did not daunt him. A low gasp soon met her ears as Naruto examined the contents of the chest.
"You have so much stuff!" he exclaimed. "Wow!"
Toys ranging from stuffed animals to bouncy balls and even a small toy piano fell to the floor as Naruto looked through Sakura's things. Sakura watched with a slight wince as more and more of her stuff fell to the floor and she just knew that it would be a pain to clean up later.
The dismembering of her toy box came to a sudden halt and Sakura watched as Naruto came to a stop and stared into what had to be the very bottom of the wooden chest, if the amount of stuff on the floor was anything to go by.
"Naruto...?" she asked slowly, watching as he practically climbed into the chest to reach in and pull out... a stuffed animal fox.
He just stared at it for a moment, taking in its wide amber eyes and smiling face. A white tipped, bushy tale swung loosely from where it was attached in the back.
"Kitsune," he muttered softly, and frowned.
"What?"
"Kitsune - fox. That's what some people call me. The villagers, I mean. I hear them mutter it as I pass by. I don't think that they know that I can hear them, but I can. I hear everything."
He brought up a small hand to the marks on his cheeks.
"I don't mind though," he whispered fiercely. "I love foxes."
Sakura chuckled.
"Yeah, maybe it's because of your cheeks?" she asked, feigning ignorance.
Naruto hummed in acknowledgment of her statement and began turning the red fox around in his hands. After a quick hug to his chest, he looked back at her with hopeful eyes.
"Ne, Sakura-chan," he began. "Do you think that I-"
"Keep it."
Naruto's smile was nearly blinding as he lunged at her for a hug.
"Thank you!"
Sakura giggled at his enthusiasm, the depressing atmosphere from not long ago completely gone.
The two just lay on the bed for a while, laughing until their stomachs hurt even though they weren't too sure why. Whenever one would begin to stop, they'd look at the other and a whole round of laughter would start again.
"Wh-why are we- haha! - laughing?" Sakura asked through her giggles.
Naruto could only manage a weak shrug in response.
A new wave of laughter began.
That's how they were when her parents came to tell the two that the ten minutes were up.
"Sakura," Yume said loudly, opening the door with a scowl already on her face, "your time is-"
She surveyed the scene before her: two six-year-olds helpless with laughter for whatever reason. They both sat up immediately, eyes wide.
Daiki took a curious look at the two over his wife's head.
"Oh!" they both exclaimed at the same time. "Sorry! I didn't realize that-" they shared a look then, finding their accidental unison hilarious and snorted. "Pfft-!"
The laughter continued.
XxXxX
Naruto and Sakura walked out of the Haruno residence that day with smiles on their faces, albeit the time travelers was slightly more malicious than her blond counterparts.
When he had tentatively asked for an explanation, she'd simply told him once again that she was glad to be able to spite them. That the, "looks on their faces when I gave you the fox was simply priceless because they couldn't do anything about it. They were so mad. It was amazing!"
All in all, it was a good start of the day.
Now they were both headed to Konoha's ninja academy for their first day of classes. Sakura had a small pack on her shoulders with paper, pens, and other things that they had been told to buy for class. Naruto had nothing except for the fox which was held loosely in his hands.
"Where's your stuff?" she asked him with a frown, just noticing.
Naruto shrugged, still grinning.
"I didn't have enough money," he replied simply.
"But all of the supplies only costs 1000 ryo since students get everything half off."
Cobalt eyes blinked at this.
"Oh. Well they told me that it cost 2000. And I didn't have that much!" he crossed his arms and frowned. "Why do they always have to do that kind of stuff?"
A low growl ripped form Sakura's throat and she tore the black pack off of her back and shoved it at Naruto.
"Take this!" she ordered. "I'll buy some more stuff later. I wanted a red pack anyways... In fact, whenever we need supplies, I'll buy them for you. Those stupid little-!"
She began muttering angrily under her breath and Naruto smiled tightly, accepting the pack and the supplies inside without question. Whenever Sakura got like this, arguing resulted in pain.
"Uh, Thanks, Sakura-chan."
"Your welcome," she said sweetly to him before returning to her angry mutters.
Naruto sighed.
XxXxX
When the two arrived at the academy, they both went silent in awe, though for two completely different reasons. Naruto's being that this was the place where he would train to become a ninja and then become the Hokage and when he was Hokage, everyone would like him and he'd have a real pet fox and he would be able to declare every Friday Ramen Day and-!
Enough of that.
Sakura on the other hand, was in awe because it looked just like she remembered it pre-war, right down to the little swing tied to the tree near by.
Her eyes burned and Sakura had to blink back tears as she tugged on Naruto's worn out shirt.
"Hm?" he asked happily, not taking his eyes from the building before him.
"Let's go in."
"'Kay!"
XxXxX
The two walked through the mostly empty halls quietly. An hour before classes began, the only people in the building were teachers and other staff. Their footsteps echoed softly through the building.
"This is it," Sakura murmured excitedly, stopping before a large sliding door. A metal plate with the number 14 printed on it was bolted to the door.
Both grabbing the edge, they slid the door open and stepped into the room.
Row after row of benches with desks in front of them filled over half the room. A large blackboard was nailed to the front wall and the teachers' podium - Kokoro-sensei, Sakura recalled - sat front and center of it all.
Walking in, the two set down their things - or at least Naruto did as he was the only one who had his stuff - at the front of the room. They began looking around.
"Hey!" Naruto called. "Look at this!" tan fingers pointed to a large poster on one of the walls that depicted each of the hokages. Naruto's eyes were locked on the one with the sunny blond hair and cobalt blue eyes.
'A mini Yondaime,' she thought softly. 'The resemblance is so obvious between the two...'
"Which one is your favorite?" she asked aloud. She already knew the answer though.
"The fourth!" he shouted excitedly. "Because he's the one who saved the entire village from the Kyuubi! He was the bestest-"
"Best," Sakura broke in.
"-Best Hokage of all! When I grow up, I'm gonna be just like him!"
Sakura smiled wryly.
"I think that you can be even better than him," she informed cheerfully.
"You think?"
"I know."
"Awesome! And while I'll be the best Hokage ever, you'll be the best medic-slash-adviser ever, right?"
"Right!"
"Awesome!" Naruto cheered and raised his hand for a hive-five.
Sakura's hand met his and the two grinned at one another.
"Wanna go explore the rest of the school?" she asked him.
"You know it!"
The two dashed out of the room and ran down the halls, laughing. Sakura was in the lead and they stopped by each room, looking on the inside and ooh-ing and ahh-ing over certain things and pointing out and laughing at others. They had just left a room that belonged to third year students when she saw them.
Her first thought at the sight of them was that of distaste and she glared at the smallest figure in the group.
"Hey," Naruto murmured to her excitedly. "Another kid! Are those his parents? Who do you think they are? And why do they all have funny looking fans on their clothes? Isn't that the same symbol the guy from the market had on his clothes? Didn't you say that you hated the people with those symbols? Because-"
"We should leave."
Her voice was soft but firm in her suggestion. Naruto frowned in surprise.
"But why?"
"They-"
"Excuse me," a rough voice asked suddenly and Sakura and Naruto both looked up to see Uchiha Fugaku and Mikoto standing in front of them. The latter shot a small smile towards Naruto who gave a shy wave back. A young Sasuke stood to the side, looking around with curious eyes. "Do you know where class 14, Kokoro Hitachin-sensei's, room is?"
Sakura glared at him.
"Perhaps," she clipped.
Fugaku stared in silence and Mikoto rose a delicate eyebrow.
'Quite the fiery little thing,' The Uchiha matriarch mused with a slight tilt of her head.
"Will you lead us to it, onnanoko-san?" Mikoto asked kindly.
Sakura was silent for some time, arguing with herself in her head that Sasuke's parents had never done anything bad to her, so she shouldn't be rude to them, yet helping them would mean helping him and she really did not want to do that, but-
Mikoto smiled sweetly at her, waiting politely with patience.
She smiled just like her mother did.
Sakura crumbled.
"Follow me," she said finally, and Naruto grabbed her hand and jerked her towards him to whisper in her ear before they started walking.
"I thought that you didn't like those guys!" he exclaimed softly.
She batted him away.
"I don't," she said simply.
"Excuse me?" Mikoto asked in confusion beside them, her husband scowling silently beside her.
Sasuke simply watched them interact without a sound. Sakura hoped he would stay that way.
The time traveler waved them off.
"Nothing," she assured them. "Now, I was leading you to class 14?"
"Yes, please."
Without another word they began moving down the hall, Sakura and Naruto leading.
"Is this your first year?" Mikoto asked after a moment.
"Yup!" Naruto answered for the both of them. "Hi! I'm Uzamaki Naruto. Nice to meet you! You're really pretty by the way."
Mikoto giggled softly at his antics and gave a soft "Thank you," apparently uncaring of the fact that Naruto was the container of the Kyuubi. In fact, Sakura noticed, she almost seemed to... like him?
"You're very sweet," she said to him with a smile. "Are you excited to start the Academy?"
"Yeah! I've been waiting for ever!"
"That's nice, Naruto-kun." The boy blushed at the honorific. "I hope that you enjoy yourself very much and that you might become friends with my Sasuke."
Fugaku looked over at her with a slight widening of eyes.
"Mikoto," he muttered, "He's-"
Said person elbowed him roughly in the stomach and the head of the Uchiha's grunted in pain. Mikoto glared at him.
"He's adorable and sweet and you'll just have to get over it because there's nothing wrong with him at all!" she snapped.
Sakura and Naruto both blinked.
Ignoring her husband now, she looked back towards her son and beckoned him forward.
"Say hello, Sasuke," she told him.
The future traitor gave a little smile; very polite and very Uchiha. Very innocent.
So unlike the person he would become.
"Hello," he said with a nod to Naruto Sakura both.
Naruto nodded back and shouted out a hello of his own while Sakura resorted to muttering under her breath.
She stopped abruptly in front of a plain wooden sliding door that opened up to class 14. Stepping into the room, she gave a vague gesture for them to come in.
"We're here," she told them unenthusiastically.
"Thank you," Fugaku said gruffly and Sakura smiled slightly at him.
"You're welcome, Uchiha-san."
Walking to the front of the room and seating themselves in the front, Naruto and Sakura watched as Mikoto and Fugaku said goodbye to their son, the smiling Mikoto bending down to give her son a hug and a kiss before bullying her husband into doing the same. Beaming at the attention, Sasuke saw them off with a huge smile before taking a deep breath and walking into the classroom.
Having run around the school for a good half hour or so, there were twenty five minutes before class officially began and many students were in the room now. Sakura watched a small girl with platinum blond hair and pale blue eyes strut in with a huge smile on her face and seat herself in the middle of the rows of seats. Sakura made plans to talk to Ino later. Just behind her were two boys, one sleeping on his desk and the other eating loudly. So far, those were the only members of the rookie nine that had arrived, but Sakura saw other faces that she recognized scattered around the classroom: all ninjas that would fail in the end.
Sakura smiled at the sight.
"There's so many people," Naruto murmured with excitement. He grinned at her. "Just imagine! One day, I'm gonna be ordering all of them around because I'm gonna be the Hokage!"
She rolled her eyes.
"I know, I know. And I'm going to be your head medic-slash-adviser. This is the nth time I've heard that speech, silly."
"What's 'nth'?'"
"Nth: denoting an unspecified member of a series of numbers or enumerated items."
Naruto just looked at her blankly.
"What's 'enumerated'? Heck, what's 'denoting' mean?"
"Ah, well enumerated-"
"Can I sit here?" someone asked, interrupting Sakura's vocabulary lesson and causing the two to look up.
Sasuke Uchiha stood there, trying his best to look calm, though the fact that he was continuously fidgeting and the way that he kept on looking down at the floor and back up again betrayed his nervousness completely.
He still had a ways to go before he perfected that Uchiha mask the clan was so famous for.
Apparently while Sakura and Naruto had been talking he'd wandered his way over to them and now he wanted to sit with them?
Sakura immediately opened her mouth to say no, but before she could even made a sound Naruto gave a loud and enthusiastic, "Of course you can!"
Sasuke's six-year-old face immediately lit up and Sakura was momentarily struck speechless because he's just looked to happy and relieved and so much like a little boy that was nervous for his first day of class and making new friends that she could do nothing but stare. Only...
At that very moment, that's just what he was.
But that was only in that moment. Because the truth was that he would grow up to be a traitor and a murderer that destroyed Konoha and killed her best friend. Or at least if he grew up.
The medic had plans to dispose of him before that would happen.
'And then I have Itachi to deal with,' she thought to herself.
Sasuke set himself down beside a welcoming Naruto Uzamaki and immediately Sakura yanked him towards her.
"What are you doing?" she hissed at him in a low voice.
"What?" he hissed back. "He wanted to sit here so I let him! Besides, Mikoto-san wanted us to be friends."
"I know that, but I don't want to be friends with that boy!"
"Why not!"
"Because! He's a stuck up little aristocrat that probably thinks everyone is beneath him and that he's the best of the best!"
Naruto scowled.
"How would you know that?"
"I just do! Look at him Naruto-" Sasuke sat there, looking blankly around the room before noticing that they were staring at him. He smiled. Okay. Not a good example. "-He just screams it!"
Azure eyes turned into ice.
"I thought that you were above judging people based on looks, Sakura-chan," he snarled at her. "Was I wrong?"
Sakura blinked, backtracking and realizing what she just said. She smacked herself mentally.
'Stupid, stupid, stupid...!'
"No!" she whispered quickly. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way. Just... I have a really bad feeling about him okay?"
Naruto sat back and eyed her for a moment.
"Well maybe you should give him a chance before deciding to cast him out, ne?"
Sakura scowled at him and looked away.
"Not in this case, no," she muttered darkly.
Naruto stared at his best friend who was acting very strangely today before turning to Sasuke.
"Sorry 'bout her," he apologized on his friends behalf, "She's just grumpy for some reason right now. She'll come around!"
"That's fine," Sasuke said easily and the two boys grinned at one another.
"So," you're gonna be a ninja too?"
Naruto sat down beside Sasuke who snorted at him.
"Well duh. Why else would I be here."
"Good point... Oh, hey! Do you know the Ultra Man series with Infra Man in it?"
"Yeah! I've got all of the comics and the action figures!"
"Even the newest version of Kaiju?"
Sasuke was smug as he replied, "I got it just yesterday."
"Awesome..." Naruto breathed excitedly.
"Want me to bring it tomorrow?" the Uchiha offered.
"Heck yeah!"
"I will then. Want me to bring Infra Man too?"
"You know it!"
"Alright then."
"Man, I don't know why Sakura-chan doesn't like you so much, but you're awesome! Can I call you Sasuke? Or do you want me to call you Uchiha-san or something?"
"If I can call you Naruto, just Sasuke is fine with me."
"Great! So what did you think of..."
The two laughed and launched into an intense talk about some sort of comic series while Sakura sat on the outside, listening and fuming.
Naruto laughed loudly at something that Sasuke said who gave a small smile in return. Sakura thought that he was so much more... lively than the Sasuke of her time line but maybe that was because the Uchiha massacre hadn't happened yet. He was still a little quiet though. Whatever. He was still a traitor.
And why the hell were the two getting along so well? They had never been like that in her time line! The two always fought!
Sakura bit her lip.
Was it because she had befriended Naruto and the two just so happened to meet in a more civil way because of it?
'Dammit!'
Sakura needed to break them apart and fast. Because Sasuke... He was a murdering bastard and Sakura would not let him grow up to kill her friend again.
X.x.X
RFB: Oh my cheese this chapter ended up being sooo long! It's like the words kept on having babies because they simply kept on multiplying! Eh. Oh well... might I say that proof reading this was awful? Because it was. Hopefully there weren't too many mistakes - there's just so many words and I have no Beta *shrugs*
Yeah... more likely than not I spelled stuff wrong (like names) - let me know what! Criticism is quite welcome and encouraged. Flamers... you're okay too I guess, but if you're gonna try and be mean: please use proper spelling/grammar/punctuation. Otherwise I can't take your hate seriously and just end up laughing my face off - oh wait! I do that anyway... Oh, and this time I dare one of you to leave a signed review instead on an anonymous one. Anon flames are wimpy...
And oddly enough one of the things that kept me from updating were the names of those action figures. *blinks* I feel dumb now. :)
Review Because You're Awesome~!
(It's as simple as clicking a button. And on FF . net, we like buttons.)
\/
\/
\/
\/