Author's Note: Things get intense from here on out, so don't hold your breath! And SasuSaku is coming, I PROMISE! xx

Naruto's words of truth sliced through the air and stabbed Sasuke's heart and mind; the speaker's voice making the pain far more intense than any wound demanded to be felt by a shonobi who was to be attacked by an enemy. They sank into his body and paralyzed every cell, muscle, and limb until everything was shocked to malfunctioning.

"..even if it means killing her."

The true reality of his words sunk deep into his mind, and slowly his body began to fight the paralysis. He inwardly screamed at his muscles to move, to react.

He looked at Naruto's face, which was contorted in emotional pain and frustration. His teeth were gritted together tightly, as if there were an animal fighting to escape his mouth and slip through his lips. His fists were clenched tightly, shaking from the extreme force he was putting into it.

"So upsetting. I didn't think you would make it that easy, Sasuke-kun."

Her mocking words teased his mind, his limbs becoming looser. The electricity began to drain rapidly, and he found his mobility once more.

"Good-bye, Sasuke-kun."

His arm shot out and grabbed the collar of Naruto's jacket, gripping it tightly as if it were to slip away suddenly, and leave for good. Naruto gasped suddenly, but his eyes remained sullen and his face stiff. He felt his familiar power surge to his eyes, and allowed them to bleed into crimson.

"And you…just went along with this plan?!" he yelled, shaking Naruto violently.

"Of-course not!" Naruto yelled back evenly, flecks of red beginning to flash in his blue eyes, his chakra sparking violently. "If you honestly think that I would agree to something like that, then you must be out of your mind!"

Sasuke didn't loosen his grip, his anger bubbling up violently in his chest. "What happened?"

"I told you-" Naruto began before getting cut off.

Sasuke was done waiting, he finally released Naruto and pushed him back, sending him flying into a tree. His back slammed against the bark sharply, and he let out a sound of pain. He began to slide down the tree, but caught himself before he touched the ground. Shakily, he placed one hand up on the tree to support himself and the other was placed on his leg; his entire body shaking and his back rising and falling rapidly.

"What happened?" Sasuke repeated harshly. "How did her eyes change into that dark green again?"

"It..just happened." Naruto replied, rising up to his normal height slowly to stare Sasuke down with his cold eyes. "It's like I told you. She asked me to promise her…then she started to act strange."

Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "Strange how? Tell me again."

"She would stop talking all of a sudden, like she had something stuck in her throat or something. Her face…looked terrified. She kept grabbing her head a lot..and the next thing I knew she came at me with some jutsu and.." Naruto said, his voice becoming lost, then surging forward once more.

"She did this against her will! We need to find her!"

The two shinobi were silent after the outburst, neither of them willing to fully process the extremely dangerous situation they were in.

Sasuke's mind was slowly becoming numb, unable to absorb the information given to him even after a second time. Nothing was working out well on this mission, even that would be an understatement.

Just one unbalancing factor, just one missing teammate was enough to throw the two of them out of their right senses. From the beginning, they had always been together; every single mission; whether it was something as simple as picking weeds from an old lady's garden or serving as bodyguards to an important figure. They had always balanced the team perfectly.

Naruto, who complained about every little discomfort and overdid himself in every exercise and fight to shine through the others. Sasuke, a prodigy who excelled in everything he did and was constantly praised on deaf ears for it; though he wanted nothing more than to avenge his clan for the deaths of his entire family. Kakashi, their reliable and sometimes difficult sensei who vowed to protect them. Sasuke gritted his teeth as he thought of their last comrade.

Sakura, the girl who constantly chased after Sasuke and sought to get him to like her; the girl who had yet to find any talent in her career as a kunoichi; the girl who protected him and Naruto in the forest of death by cutting of her hair when the enemy had her in their hands, allowing herself to get beaten up badly for the safety of the two of them. She tried to protect him from Gaara during the chunin exams, when his body was unresponsive and lying vulnerable on the tree branch; shielding him with her body before she was thrown aside to be crushed against a tree under a giant sand claw. She was the one to beg Sasuke not to leave the village, to confess her love to him and promise him a lifetime of happiness if he stayed. Time had eventually turned her into the changed girl who became stronger.

And now she was the girl in danger; who left him and Naruto behind from a force against her will; just as revenge had dragged him away from the village years ago. History would not repeat itself, not as long as he was controlling it.

"We have to go, now." he said with a roughness in his voice that could only be interpreted as an intense anger that fueled him.

"But, where? We don't know where she went!" Naruto exclaimed, worry present in his eyes.

Sasuke looked at Naruto. "Yes we do, we head to our original destination."

A jolt of ice shot through Sasuke the moment he spoke those words, almost paralyzing him completely for one brief second. His eyes widened as he felt the strange yet invigorating energy flow through his body and enter his chakra points. Sasuke processed the energy suspiciously, giving it a description that couldn't be described as anything else but a lightness; a rush of fresh energy that wanted to reach out to him and enwrap him in everything safe and healing. He couldn't quite understand it, but he had the feeling that he'd felt this energy before in something, or someone. His body began to feel energized, eradicating any numbness or foul restrictions that held him from taking action. It was as if someone was reaching out to him, sending their own chakra into his body to let him know that they existed..

Then, it hit him as soon as the feeling began to sharply drag out of his body, as if whatever sent the power to him was no longer able to supply him with vigor, or whomever.

He knew this chakra very well, and its recession convinced him that something bad was happening. His eyes widened in realization.

Sakura?

Fuu's glittering amber eyes teasingly stared down Sakura as she struggled to catch her breath from the reading of her chakra she received. The green glow of the cave mixed with the red on her face, making her face colored with compliments. Her throat was dry, desperately wanting to be quenched with a cold glass of water that would be nowhere in sight.

"Who knew that you'd have a secret of your own?" Fuu teased lightly. "This is better than me being a jinchūriki!"

Sakura shook her head quickly. "No it isn't-I mean-No!" she stuttered rapidly. "I'm not..I mean..I wouldn't be..am not..in love with anyone!"

Fuu watched as Sakura's face turned bright red once more, and Fuu winked at her.

"Sure. Okay."

"I'm being serious!"

Fuu leaned in closer to Sakura, her face full of excited mischief. "So, which one is it?"

Sakura blinked nervously. "Wh-what?"

Fuu nudged Sakura's side coyly. "Is it the blonde one with the bright blue eyes? Or, is it the incredibly handsome one with dark hair and smoldering dark eyes?"

Sakura felt as though she would explode from the amount of love talk that she was receiving. She ran her hand behind her neck, then brought her hand in front of her and found it to be wet. Was she actually sweating?

"The blonde one's the jinchūriki you told me about right? You have to admit he's kinda cute!"

"What, no…I mean, Naruto has a girlfriend-"

Fuu snapped her fingers. "I knew it! Then it IS the other one!"

"No!"

"He's incredibly hot, and I've seen the way you look at him!" she exclaimed excitedly, referring to before the girls met in person, when Fuu was able to see through Sakura's mind once they were linked. "You two are perfect for each other!"

"I'm not in love with him!"

"I'll believe it when I see it."

"Sasuke-kun's my teammate, and a very close friend."

"But you want it to be more, don't you?"

"Stop!" Sakura shrieked loudly, pushing away her dignity for a brief moment.

Fuu laughed. "Okay, okay. I'm done."

Sakura sighed in relief, her face returning to its original color. She leaned back against the wall of the cave and waited for her nerves to settle. But, for some reason, they remained in her body; stubbornly hiding in her stomach causing her heart to palpitate nervously. The back of her neck was still wet with perspiration, which Sakura now categorized as nervous sweating.

Then her thoughts betrayed her, sending images of Sasuke to her immediate attention, refusing to back down and settle back to the depths of her mind.

She saw his face in the clear pool of her mind, bright and beautiful. His skin sparkled like diamonds, but yet too subtle to drown out his black pools that were his eyes.

The past week suddenly flooded through her mind, from the start of their mission to the present. She remembered her small sparring match with Sasuke, and how it ended with him pinning her to a tree after she healed him, standing extremely close to her and yet, she hadn't pushed him away.

Next came her dream, or her nightmare. She remembered waking up in a cold sweat right after she saw an evil clone of herself slaughter Naruto and Sasuke, but not before she heard Sasuke speak her name clearly, as if to greet her instead of saying goodbye.

His insistent worry about her tiring and going off by herself had irked her at the time, but now she felt a hollowed regret form in her heart, realizing that if she had been more alert and received more sleep and sense, she would still be with him and Naruto.

A picture of his intensified face when she tried to break out of the jutsu placed on her, the very one that almost resulted in her taking the lives of her teammates.

His comforting words the last night they spent together in the forest.

"You're strong, Sakura."

A strange clenching sensation spread through her stomach at the sound of his voice, comforting and strong.

A single tear fell down her cheek, reddening the whites of her eyes.

Was it possible? Could she be…

"But still..it must be nice to have comrades who you trust, and who trust you."

Sakura blinked her tears away. "Yeah.." was all she managed at that moment, until she realized that Fuu was looking down at her knees, the glimmer gone from her eyes.

A spark of a recent memory ignited in Sakura's mind, taking her back to her floating state, when Fuu was just a voice in her head.

"The three of you..you remind me of how it used to be, the pure happiness I once had."

"Fuu?"

"Hmm?"

"Tell me about them."

Fuu smiled softly, seeming to understand Sakura's question right away without delay. She turned to Sakura, and Sakura noticed the glaze of time spreading itself in Fuu's eyes, taking her back to her blissful past.

"Koichi and Hanako, the two people who truly accepted me; my best friends. They were like family to me, supportive and annoying at times, but nonetheless family material.

"Koichi was the only male on our squad, so he always had the logic that he needed to be just as strong as Hanako and I, maybe even stronger. He would push himself during training, always wanting to surpass us. The others would comment that he was the only male on our squad, and some boys would kid around with him and ask if he ever tried to kiss one of us or sneak a peek at us naked when we were on missions. He always laughed them off, saying how he saw us more as his sisters than love interests; Hanako and I feeling the same towards him; he would always be like a brother to us, annoying and lovable. I won't lie, he was better at ninjutsu, being from the elite Takahashi clan of Takigakure. He possessed a kekkei genkai that allowed him to form ice from the water vapor in the air, and could make them as sharp as kunai. It came in handy on missions, but during training it could be a nightmare! Hanako and I would be picking ice crystals out of our hair for the rest of the night! He always gave me some reason to argue with him, like who threw with the most precision or who could walk on water the longest. I'd give anything to have another argument with him.."

Sakura said nothing, holding her words as she continued to listen.

"I was close with both of them, but I think I can say that I knew Hanako the best. She and I had been best friends since we were born; inseparable ever since we met; so you can imagine our delight when we were placed on the same squad.

"We did everything together, someone even asked us if we were sisters. We had laughed it off at the time, considering we looked nothing alike, and my hair stood out against her golden blonde. I remember after that day, she begged me to dye my hair blonde so we'd match, and that I'd blend in with her clan; The Koizumi clan had a gene that passed down golden hair to each child, and that gene hadn't missed a beat with Hanako. I told her that she was crazy, and that my skin would clash with the gold.

"She excelled in taijutsu mostly, knocking Koichi on his ass whenever she got the chance to, and me too occasionally, if she felt that I was being too overconfident; and most of the time I was. Genjutsu was far from difficult for her too. With just a blink of those green eyes of hers, she could send anyone into the depths of a suffocating ocean or the burning heat of a desert. She was so good at genjutsu that one time I asked her to send me into a blizzard so that I could escape the heatwave that hit Taki.

"She was everything I wanted in a friend and more. She was my best friend."

Sakura's heart sank as she saw tears bud in the corners of Fuu's bloodshot eyes, realizing the pattern in Fuu's speech.

"They aren't..here anymore, are they?" Sakura asked softly, not wanting to say "dead", though she knew that it would be accurate.

A minute passed before Fuu shook her head sadly, closing her eyes tightly, squeezing out unshed tears. "No."

Sakura leaned over and gently placed her hand on Fuu's shaking shoulder. She said nothing, because she knew that her words would comfort, but wouldn't heal. Fuu's teammates, rather Koichi and Hanako, were gone; nothing she could say would patch up the hole left in Fuu's heart. From her speech, Fuu sounded as though their deaths had been long ago, but Sakura couldn't be sure, nor would she ask. But she couldn't help but wonder how they were killed; a mission maybe? And where was their sensei during everything that happened? Or could he or she have been killed as well?

"Treasure the bond you have with the two of them. It's an amazing one." Fuu said suddenly, the tears drying from her eyes, the amber beginning to get their spark back. "I can see it in their eyes, and I know you can too."

Sakura hid her astonishment, her shock at how quickly Fuu recovered from sadness. But yet, she told herself that it made sense; Fuu must have had to grow tough skin to get through the pointed stares and judgmental prejudices that she faced as a jinchūriki, just as Naruto had.

Sakura smiled softly. "I can, and that's why I know that they won't just leave us here. If I know them, then I bet they're on their way right now." she said a little too enthusiastically.

Fuu laughed softly. "But you're missing two things. One, they have no idea that I even exist, or that I'm here with you; and not to mention the fact that we don't even know where here is."

Sakura frowned seriously. "So..we aren't in the land of rice patties?"

"That was where I was before I was brought here, but for all I know we could be in the Land of Water, or somewhere else far away." Fuu said.

Shit, Sakura thought, I hadn't considered that.

"Plus, even if we did manage to escape, we wouldn't know where to head to, but I guess that would be the case wherever we are." Fuu said, her face molded into a concentrated mood. "But, I do have an idea."

Sakura turned to Fuu. "And what would that be?"

Fuu smiled mischievously. "Are you familiar with chakra communication?"

Sakura frowned. "No? What is it?"

"It's a special technique that I've been practicing for years now, and it's popular in Taki. Basically, you send out your chakra to someone who's placed their chakra near or inside of you before; chakra you've come into contact with before. It triggers a sort of reaction that allows the person you're contacting to know your location and state of being; like if you're injured or low on chakra. It's proved to be extremely helpful." Fuu said eagerly.

Sakura's eyes widened. "And you think it could work?"

Fuu shrugged. "It's all we got, I mean, I'd have used it by now, but everyone's chakra whom I've been in contact with has..you know.."

Sakura nodded, and swiftly avoided the incoming topic. "Teach me, it's worth a try."

Fuu winked. "Gladly. I warn you though, it requires a great amount of chakra control."

Sakura smiled determinedly. "You've got the right girl."

Sakura watched as Fuu placed her hands in the air in front of her, palms up. She glanced at Sakura, and beckoned her to place her hands on top of hers. Sakura nodded, and slowly began to place her hands on top of Fuu's but pulled back at the last second. "Wait."

Fuu looked at her questioningly.

"How will this work? I mean, who do I contact?"

Fuu blinked as if she were asked the easiest question on earth. "Who released you?"

"What?"

"The jutsu. In order to be released from it someone had to disrupt the flow of chakra. So, who released you?"

Of course.

Sakura placed her hands back on top of Fuu's and closed her eyes. Almost immediately, she felt a rush flow into her body and energize her muscles, sending her into a rush of pure adrenaline.

"You feel that?" she heard Fuu ask, and nodded a second later.

"Calm your chakra flow and picture the person you're trying to contact. More than that, try to feel what his chakra feels to you. Once you've got that, send out your chakra in a giant burst."

Sakura nodded once more, and Sasuke's face formed in her mind, bright and stoic. She enclosed herself further into her chakra, willing its flow to lessen. Slowly, she began to bring back her interpretation of Sasuke's chakra into her senses, strong and steady, without faltering. She began to feel an intense calming sensation as she mentally grabbed another source of chakra, the chakra she'd been searching for.

Please hear me.. she said, knowing that he wouldn't respond with words.

"You two having fun?"

Sakura's heart snapped at the sound of the rough voice, her stomach dropping several altitudes. She felt herself loose her grip on Sasuke's chakra, feeling it snap away from her like a rubber band.

The girls were thrown away from each other by an invisible force, sending both of them slamming their backs into the cave walls. Sakura gasped for air as the metallic taste of blood filled her mouth. Her entire body became icy, and found found herself unable to move.

"What the-"

"Don't!" Fuu yelled to her in Sakura's mind fiercely.

Sakura willed her eyes to open, fighting through the icy pain that shot through her back and paralyzed her. Her lungs froze when she saw him looking down at her.

"It's you…"

YES, IT'S FINALLY HIM! You'll all find out his name, and a little of his main objective. But I added a little twist to his character to intensify the drama just a little bit. But I'm so excited to introduce him, even though he's a major *beep*

And I really liked writing about Koichi and Hanako, Fuu's teammates; because like I said, we don't know anything about her, really. And everyone in the ninja world started on a three man squad, or in this case two women and one man. Their deaths will be explained later on, so be on the lookout for that. See you guys next chapter, and review!