Two days before the wedding and Sakura was impatiently waiting for the other boot to drop. Everything was too perfect. Nothing in their lives had ever been this easy for them. Her relationship with Naruto was going great, her and Sasuke were now good friends, and her professional life was on track. She could feel something had to go wrong. Everyone she talked to told her not to go looking for trouble because she would find it in abundance.

Naruto had been busy greeting important guest who were arriving early to do business with the Leaf and had little time to listen to her fears. She was sure his and the Fifth's ANBU members were tired of her pestering them about the busy Hokage's whereabouts. She had to trust her gut and it told her to keep a close eye on him.

She found her way to his office to find only his one assistant there.

"Where is the Hokage?" Sakura asked.

"He said, and I quote, 'can't let those kids have a break just cause I'm getting married,' and left me to deal with this," the poor woman fumed as she gestured to the madness that was the desk.

Sakura suppressed a laugh, typical Naruto. He'd use any excuse to get out of paperwork. He never seemed to learn that there was always more waiting for him when he got back. Sakura decided to leave the woman to her work. As she was exiting the door she was sure she heard the assistant use some swear words that would make even the veteran ninja blush. Reminding herself that Naruto could drive saints to curse she let it go without a second thought.

Once in the lobby she summoned members of the two Hokage units.

"Whose watching Hokage-sama?" she asked the Rabbit and Cat.

"Snake and Silver Dog," Rabbit answered first.

That was a bad sign, if those two were watching him that meant Naruto had been giving the others the slip. Only their teammate and former sensei could keep up with his shenanigans. She knew her future husband wasn't as dumb as he played sometimes.

She trekked down the familiar path to the training grounds without a second thought. Even though now was considered a time of peace, it was still important to keep everyone at the top of their game. Less and less children were being sent to the Academy, so they were working on the quality of the training they were all receiving.

Sakura felt an enormous amount of killing intent move in near her. The wind whipped some cherry blossoms by and there stood a woman wearing a flowery dress and an animal mask from another village.

"The problem with finding heaven on earth is that its too easy for someone to take it away from you," she taunted, removing her mask.

Whenever an ANBU took off their mask, in Sakura's experience, it was always a bad thing. It was an open unspoken promise of death. Sasuke had used it when he hunted down that rouge that had stolen her. Nothing good would come from this woman, even if her face was beautiful. Her eyes were bold and her pink irises shown bright. They were almost the exact shade of Sakura's hair. It gave her an eerie look.

"What do you mean by that?" Sakura questioned, making a slow practiced move to her weapons.

"I mean, a ninja should never fall in love," she grinned pulling a long sword from it's resting place.

Sakura understood, this woman had probably lost the man closest to her and now she was a rouge. A line was sliced through her forehead protector but the heart wrenching part was it wasn't a village symbol, it was the Allied Forces the line was driven through. She had only seen a few of these, but they were always after the Kages, blaming them for things that they had no control over.

"If you're here to kill me, good luck, better than you have tried," Sakura warned feeling the adrenaline move into her system.

"I am only here to distract but if I get the chance I won't hesitate to end your life. Your precious Hokage should be dead soon," she grinned.

The medic cursed under her breath. If Naruto was in danger she needed to be there. Not dealing with second rate fallen ANBU. Before a battle could ensue, three ninja appeared by Sakura's side.

"We've got this, go find Sensei," Haruko ordered standing in front of her boys.

"Are you sure you guys can handle her?" Sakura worried.

Haruko gave a look telling her she was out of her mind to question their abilities. But explaining to the overprotective sensei that she left his students to fight a woman she didn't know anything about didn't sound fun. She would just have to trust them and the training they had from the most powerful man of the Leaf. Rushing off before she could change her mind or the pink eyed witch could stop her, she went to save her man.

Finding him standing proud and tall against a man about half his size, Naruto seemed fine at first glance. She rushed to him, standing in a protective posture, ready to fight the intruder to the death if need be.

"I've got this, go on, get out of here," her man told her.

"I'm not leaving you here," she argued.

"Go, leave now! Check on my students," he ordered.

Reluctantly she moved away from him. She hurried to the trees but once in their shelter she stopped to check on him one more time before she left to help the others.

"I won't let you near her," Naruto's hokage voice boomed.

"Her? Her who? Oh, you mean that little vixen that rouge was after," he gestured to the way the pink haired minx had gone, "I could care less about her, but he would have sold his soul to me to help him kill her. Guess she did something real bad to get under his skin like that. You only hunt a woman down like that if she was a former lover who seriously wronged you," the little man chuckled.

"So, you've come for me?" Naruto laughed humorlessly, slipping down to one knee and clutching his chest.

"That's what I love about poison, it doesn't matter who you are, how good of a ninja you are, or what you believe, it kills you just the same. Its beautiful really," the dark man mused sending three more laced kunai to the downed man's chest to speed up the process.

She had heard enough she was about to go in to the rescue when a small hand stopped her. Haruko was there surveying the area.

"Sasuke-sensei came and sent me to help you," she informed the medic.

"Good, let's show him why you don't mess with the Hokage of the Leaf," the green eyed beauty said.

Naruto was having a hard time breathing. His eyes could stay focused for a minute but then it got painful. He watched as the small frame of a man dodged something. There was a flurry of pink mane that made him think of his long time love. He had sent her away to be safe and she came back. He wanted to scream out in protest and get her away from the danger but his voice came out no more than a horse whisper.

As he watched in horror, strong arms wrapped around him from behind. Bloodied ninja weapons were pulled from their fleshy sheaths. Thinking his end was near he refused to beg for his life or doing anything else that would damage his pride. He held his head high even as something came up to his neck. He heard the noise of an injection but he couldn't feel anything. What happened next surprised him, a kiss on the cheek. It wasn't uncommon for the enemy to kiss him, bad girls loved him. But when another blur of pink went flying past him to join the fray, he decided the poison was messing with his brain.

The poison master had launched himself into the air and was ready to rain poison tipped kunai at the girl before him but a second woman came from behind and slammed her chakra infused fist into his spinal column. Every bone shattered into tiny bits turning his spinal cord to mush. He was dead before he hit the ground.

The Hokage saw the hit, his vision had cleared thanks to the antidote he was given roughly by one of the Sakuras he saw before him. They gave each other a high five. One of them had a devilish grin that he had only seen on one girl and it was not his Sakura who sported it.

"You don't use shadow clones," he muttered, still trying to clear his head.

"You're right, I don't," the woman smiled.

"But my sensei taught me the importance of a good transformation," the girl smiled as she turned back into Haruko with a puff of smoke, "we make a great team."

"We do! Maybe we'll have to convince the Hokage to put us on a special team," the older woman joked, the student nodded in agreement with excited enthusiasm.

Nartuo cleared the cobwebs in his mind, he was angry now. His efforts to keep her safe had been wasted by her failure to comply to his wishes.

"I told you to leave," he growled getting to his feet.

The shift in the mood could be felt in the air. The girls' smug looks left their faces and a glare crossed Sakura's.

"I did, but then I came back," Sakura defended.

"Bringing my student back with you. Putting her in great danger as well," he snapped.

"We are ninja of the Leaf, it is our duty to protect our Hokage, you're important to this village," his lover ranted moving closer to face off with him. She left the words unsaid about how important he was to her.

His mask of anger cracked and some pain etched itself on to his face. He hated her reason for protecting him. If she was going to put her life on the line, she should do it for a better reason than his position.

"As the Hokage I gave you a direct order to leave, and you intentionally disobeyed me. So don't pull that bull," he was interrupted by a slap across the face. It rang out across the quiet training grounds. She hadn't put a lot of power behind the assault, it was just to grab his attention.

"If it had been anyone else to come to your aid, Kakashi, Sasuke, or the Fifth, anyone but me, you wouldn't have sent them away, yet you pushed me away from danger at great risk to yourself. It was a stupid move," she snarled defending herself.

"Haruko, leave. Go find the rest of your team," the man ordered in a calm tone, even though his blood was about to boil.

"I think one of you is going to need a witness in a moment," the girl countered worried for the other female ninja mostly.

"He won't hurt me, go check on your boys," the woman encouraged waving her on.

"The kids don't like it when the parents fight," the wild child grumbled as she stomped off.

Sakura had to smother a chuckle, because she was in the middle of a stare down with a bundle of blond fury. After the girl reluctantly left, Naruto moved in closer to Sakura but she didn't flinch.

"You know I have the power to demote your ass for disobeying a direct order," he warned, thinking about knocking her down a peg.

"Fine, demote me, send me back to the academy if you're feeling completely vengeful. Hell, if you really want make it so I'm no longer a ninja of the Leaf just to satisfy yourself. I don't care, because the next time this comes up and someone is trying to take your life, I'm going to do the same damn thing. I'm going to protect you because in two days your ass is mine till death do us part and I am going to make that a very, very long time," she spoke clearly moving in closer to show she refused to back down to him.

"All I was trying to do was protect you, so don't get your panties in a twist cause you would do the same thing in my position," he lashed back.

"Don't think for one second you have any effect on my panties," she shot him a dark glare.

Now she was just being argumentative. So he grabbed her shoulders and kissed her fast and hard. She was dazed by his bold move. That idiot had the power to make her weak in the knees with one simple move. She cursed her lack of willpower and succumb to her desire to kiss the domineering man back. He pushed her back against a near by tree.

He broke the heated kiss to pant, "I know for a fact that I have a huge effect on your panties."

Feeling him pressed up against her she knew she had a big influence on him too. Her dirty smirk told him as much. Sensing others coming their way, he released her and scratched the back of his head.

"I'm never going to win an argument with you, am I?" he questioned.

"Not if I have anything to say about it," the rosette grinned.