Sakura was in the kitchen working on breakfast when the door to the apartment burst open to a girl yelling, "Hokage-sama! What do you want for breakfast?" Sakura noticed it was the girl from the office, "oh, I see he already had breakfast," she grinned stalking up to the island counter and leaning over it, her eyes wiggled in a suggestive manner.

Sukura couldn't help but blush, "you're here pretty early," she tried to change the subject quickly.

"Trying to catch my sensei naked, you know he looks great without clothes," the girl stated bluntly with little emotion.

"What!" Sakura yelled, flustered by the small girl.

"Easy Ninja! So why were you AWOL all this time?" Haruko pride, picking at some food on the counter.

"I had a fight with my teammates," she answered quietly.

"You ran away for years because you had a disagreement with your teammates? Really? If I ran away every time I fought with my boys, I'd never be here," she sassed.

"You and Naruto are close?" she waited for the girl to nod and continued, "I left because I wanted him to chase me. Looking back, I know how foolish I was being but I was young. Its not a good excuse, but its the only one I got. I wanted him to hunt me down with half the determination he had in bringing Sasuke back. But he didn't, I knew it was a gamble and I lost. So, I found places I was needed, I let myself be distracted by everything," the woman revealed.

"What made you come back?" the girl asked.

"Even after all the years I spent away, of me trying to forget or move on, no man was ever half as good as the perfection that is Naruto. And I'm not talking about his body as good as it is," she shook a spatula at the girl, "but I'm talking about the way he fought for the village and stuck to his ninja way. All of him together is impossible to compete with. A normal man is never going to make me feel the way he does, so I gave up on men and focused on my medic skills. I learned a lot out there. But I never learned how to heal a broken heart," she explained.

"You're a sap," Haruko commented in disbelief of the older woman.

"I know but, honestly I missed home and my behavior toward the people here who loved me wasn't acceptable. Not coming home was me acting out like a spoiled child just because I didn't get what I wanted, so I put my big girl panties on and came home," she told the girl.

"Hey acting out got you a hunk of a sex god boy toy to help you take those panties off," she winked.

"Knock it off Haruko!" Naruto scolded coming out of the bathroom with only his pants on and a towel over his shoulder drying his hair. Droplets of of water still gleaming on his sculpted chest. He had heard part of the conversation. His student calling him a sex god or a boy toy he was sure was not acceptable.

"I swear, women have been trying to get in your pants for years, she's here for two minutes and you put out. You're such a slut," Haruko mocked, her words bringing the blood to Sakura's cheeks in full force. Naruto looked bored by her antics.

"Haruko, keep it up and I'll have you on D rank missions till your grandchildren are ninja," he warned.

"Why can't you be normal and just threaten to spank me?" she quipped. He shot her another warning look.

"Breakfast is ready," Sakura announced trying to break up the tension that she could almost cut with a kunai. Naruto sat down at the table. She set a plate in front of him and he pinched her ass as she walked away. He laughed at the cute little squeak she made.

"Hand slipped," he defended.

"Are you his assistant or student?" Sakura asked, ignoring Naruto's slip and working on another plate of food.

"Both but I like to think I'm more of a Hokage wrangler than assistant, this one is hard to keep focused. By the way, I'm sorry I missed the peep show," Haruko grinned at the older woman.

Sakura wasn't sure how his assistant kept him focused when she was the picture of unfocused energy.

"How did you hear about that?" Sakura demanded, more pink staining her cheeks.

"Hokage-sama isn't my only sensei, we have different elemental chakra," the teenager explained.

"So you've been gossiping with Sasuke again, like old hags," Naruto snorted.

"At least he knows how to take a joke," Haruko muttered to herself.

"You're very lucky to have so many great teachers," Sakura smiled, seeing if she could move the conversation to something less embarrassing than her love life, all her last attempts had failed but she was holding onto hope.

"Yeah, they're all pretty talented ninja," she paused for a moment, "Sensei, they are at it again," Haruko groaned looking in the direction of the training fields.

"I'm done stopping them," he stated, scooping food into his mouth.

"One of them is going to end up seriously hurt or dead," she countered her voice border-lined on rage.

"Then why is their medic here, harassing me when she should be with her team?" he pondered. Haruko was ready to punch him in the face.

"You know why!" she spat out.

"Just cause you don't approve of their training doesn't mean they shouldn't train to get stronger. He needs to toughen up. You've protected him for too long, its detrimental to the team, they see that and train without you," he lectured.

"I love my teammates, of course I want to protect them," she defended. Despite being the youngest on the team she felt like she was the big sister.

"You have two choices here, you can go and stop them or go help them," he decided, he knew her well enough that doing nothing was not a choice for her.

"Fine," she growled and took off with a look on her face that startled Naruto.

"Get dressed," he ordered Sakura as he rushed to finish getting the rest of his garments on.

They rushed to the grounds where his team, team 4, trained. He saw his two male students on the ground and his female student standing over them looking very angry. He pulled Sakura along but he decided to not interrupt and see how they handled things themselves. They were getting older and needed to work things out on their own.

"I'm going to train him and there is nothing you can do. He needs to get stronger," the sandy blond growled at Haruko.

"Why do you feel the need to do this, Arashi?" she asked the black haired boy on the ground. He got up and dusted himself off.

"Because I want to be able to protect what I love. If you get in over your head I want to be able to help, not stand in the back round and watch as my best friends get hurt or killed," he answered, a small fire in his eyes.

"I'm going to train him," the sandy blond repeated, the determination dripping off his words.

"You want to train, Raiden, you want to protect, Arashi? Fine, let's train, you can start by protecting yourselves from me!" she snarled as she popped her knuckles and charged Raiden. She smashed her hand into the log the boy had quickly substituted his body with. It shattered into tiny bits of wood.

Arashi was now in a defensive position, making quick hand signs. The girl stopped in her tracks for a few seconds. Her hands came up and she released herself from the boys mind trap.

"Not bad, but not good enough to save you from me," she sneered and lunged for the boy. Her fist made contact with the boy's shoulder sending him spinning a few feet away from her. His shoulder looked dislocated to Sakura. This girl was strong and had excellent chakra control.

"She trained under Tsunada after you," Naruto answered Sakura's unasked question.

The sandy blond, Raiden, came flying out of a tree, showering her with kunais. She blocked with her own kunais pulled from her back pouch. She then sent them flying at the boy followed by several ninja stars. He substituted again. She clicked her black sandaled heel into the ground and it crumbled and broke apart. The boy wasn't below but it had shook up the boy with the dislocated shoulder keeping him out of the fight for another moment.

The boy Raiden was quick on his feet, she knew that from years of training with him being his teammate. He came at her from behind, slicing her upper arm open. She turned and grabbed the boy with her good arm by the face and slammed him into the ground knocking him unconscious. She looked over at the injured boy with a dead look in her eyes. She then disappeared and when she reappeared she was right behind him.

"Do you feel that?" she breathed to the back of his ear, a shiver ran down his spin, "that feeling you are experiencing right now is what I protect myself and our team from. Its not fear, fear is fine, healthy, normal. What you are feeling right now is terror. It stops you from thinking properly. It makes you worry more for yourself than your friends. Makes you not care if you're strong or weak as long as you live through it," she stuck a kunai to his throat, a small drop of blood dribbled down his neck "give me a reason not to end you right now," she ordered.

Sakura moved to stop her but Naruto pulled her back. He wanted to see what they would do. The murderous intent that oozed out of the girl was strong but he thought she had it under control. Arashi just needed to get the right answer.

"You don't need the guilt," he replied. She loosened her grip on the boy, life coming back to her hazel eyes.

"What would you know," she spat, disgusted with his answer because it hit home.

"I want to make it so no one else has to grow up like we did, knowing that kind of loss. I know I didn't loose as much as you but I still lost just the same. I don't want to feel that ever again," he told her.

She put the kunai away, and fixed the boy's shoulder. Sakura, once released from Naruto, rushed to check Raiden.

"You were a little rough on us, weren't you?" Arashi commented looking over at his passed out friend.

"No, next time I'm not holding back," she snorted.

Raiden came to life at that comment and yelled, "like hell you were holding back!"

"Want me to prove it?" she challenged, she was always ready to prove herself.

Raiden was on his feet ready for a second round. She was done fixing the shoulder of the other boy and got ready. They flew at each other so fast they were merely blurs to the untrained eye. Before they landed back on their feet, Haruko had grabbed his arm after a punch and brought her knee into his gut several times, and elbowed him in the back. Raiden was barely on his feet when he landed. He could tell a couple ribs were broken. Her cold calculating look always unnerved him. Her face was a dead mask, even when she wore an ANBU mask of the most fearsome demon, he was sure this one was more frightening.

Not one to back down, he went for her again, this time she didn't use brute force. She made some hand signs and vanished. He turned around and ready to block a physical attack but she had lighting dancing up her arm. Horror filled the boy's eyes as he was sure he was going to die to the original attack of the copy cat ninja. A flash of orange was in front of him sending her the other way.

"I told you to never use that against a friend," Naruto scolded harshly.

Once she recovered she glared over at the boy and their teacher.

"He thought I wasn't holding back, if they want to protect us and they can't even handle me, what good are they as protection?" she snarled.

"Haruko, come at me, with whatever you want," Sakura yelled at girl. Naruto was dumbstruck by her request. Had she completely missed the fight and the chirping of a thousand birds? He was about to object when the girl took off after his lover, lightning blazing up her arm once more. Panic rose in his throat, there were few who could stand against the girl's attack.

The pink haired ninja dodged the lightning attack going under the girls arm and caught her chest with a punch. Sakura stopped her heart with her medical training. The girl knew she would die if she didn't fix it but her arms wouldn't work. She fell to the ground face first, the lightning attack fading. Sakura nudged her over with her foot.

"There is always someone stronger than you, better than you, but," she bent down and fixed the girl, her heart jumping back to life in her chest," if you have friends to help and protect, then you're stronger than anyone. Some of us have to learn that the hard way," Sakura smiled.

Haruko started crying, Sakura leaned over to hug the girl. The boys stood as still as stone. Not sure what to do. If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, Raiden wouldn't have believed she knew how to cry. Yet, there she was sobbing in a woman's arms he had never seen before.