"I'm scared..."

Not again, whose voice is this, and what do they want from me!?

I opened my eyes, finding myself standing in a familiar golden field, but it was the same as the dreams I had before. The crops around me were shrivelled and wilted. the ground was dry and dead, and the sky was a miserable shade of grey.

"I'm scared… I'm scared…"

I hastily looked around, as this voice continued to echo in my ears.

"She passes all the tests, we must prepare her." A strong masculine voice spoke.

"No!" a female cried "She's too young! I will not let you take her!"

What is going on?!

"Your love is clouding your judgement! This must be done!"

Suddenly, the clouds darkened around me, the crops disappeared and I was surrounded by a battle field. There was so much blood and death, it made me feel sick.

"I'm scared… I'm scared… I'm scared…"

I took a step backwards, only to run into something. Turning around shaking, I saw her again, the woman covered in blood, staring down in fear.

I shot up from my bed, my chest heaving deeply. I scanned, the sun shone through my window, hurting my eyes.

I massaged my temple "it was just a dream, just a dream."

My alarm began to ring, telling me to start getting ready for the day. Sighing, I climbed out of bed and left the bedroom, making my way down to the kitchen. I was surprised not seeing Haruo there, maybe he was still asleep. I quickly poured myself some fruit juice and cooked some toast. once eaten, I went back upstairs to shower and get dressed.

Once ready, I made my way back downstairs, tying on my vambrace as I moved. By now Haruo had woken up, but he wasn't alone.

"Are you ready to go?" asked Sasuke, as he leaned against the kitchen wall. My brother, was sat down by our dinning table, a cup of coffee in his hand and eyes closed. I couldn't help but let a wet drop form on the back of my head.

Even though I had explained everything to Haruo about Sasuke, he was still excessively hostile towards him. No matter how hard I tried, he wasn't willing to forgive Sasuke for what he did to me.

"Yeah" I answered, attempting to defuse the tension, "lets go."

I said goodbye to Haruo, who just nodded, and left the house with Sasuke. Together we walked down the street, I couldn't help but let out a heavy sigh.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"You know, you could have helped me out back there" I told him crossly.

Sasuke made his 'ahem' noise, "he's the one with the problem, not me."

I restrained myself from pulling my hair out. "Urgh that's not the right attitude to have when it comes to my brother!" I snapped "seriously! You two have to learn to get along! Please! At least to it for my sanity!"

Sasuke rolled his eyes "alright, no need to get so dramatic. I'll try and be civil but he's gonna be a two way deal."

Once again I felt a wet drop on the back of my head "what do you think I'm trying do..."

"Sasuke-kun! Tomoko!"

We looked behind us to see Sakura running towards us. Once see caught up, she immediately started fawning over Sasuke, typical Sakura.

But typical Sasuke, just ignored her and brushed her off "come on, we don't want to be late meeting Kakashi."

As he began to walk away, myself and Sakura lingered. only she had her head hung low in disappointment.

"It's like he's completely immune to any form of attraction" she grumbled.

Rolling my eyes I placed my hand on her shoulder "come on, you still have the whole day ahead of you to get his attention."

Eventually, we made it to the bridge were we'd meet our sensei. Sasuke leaned against the banster, with me standing just in front of him, and Sakura stood couple of steps away on Sasuke's right, with her arms crossed.

We remained like that for a while, until Naruto turned up.

"Good morning Sakura-chan! Tomoko-chan!" he greeted heartily. But his gazed turned to the other male of our group, making everything stupidly awkward. You would have thought after nearly dying, they'd put their petty fighting to rest? Well unfortunately, it only seemed to get worse, and me and Sakura were caught in the middle.

We both attempted to smooth things over between them, but it only to made matters worse. So we came to an agreement just to leave them to it.

Both boys gave each other a heated glare, making me and my female teammate very uncomfortable. Eventually the two of them turned away from each other in a huff, making Sakura slouch in frustration.

Slowly I made my way next to her, "this is getting ridiculous" I heard her mumble.

I nodded in agreement "the sooner Kakashi-sensei gets here, the better."

That was wishful thinking, because we all knew our sensei wouldn't show up on time. After an hour waiting, making us more irritated as the minutes went by, he finally arrived.

"Hello everybody" he greeted warmly from the arch of the bridge, "Good morning!"

Both Sakura and Naruto glared at him, whilst me and Sasuke remained where we were.

"I got lost today," Sensei explained "So…"

"YOU'RE LATE!" Both Naruto and Sakura cut in angrily.

I shook my head "seriously sensei, you're excuses are getting worse everyday."

Kakashi jumped down to join us, scratching his head nervously "ah… is that so?"

"Hey, hey, Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto beamed "We, the 7th squad, have been only doing easy missions, right?"

Kakashi held his hands out to try and calm him down from his excitement, but that didn't hold naruto back.

"Isn't there a mission where I can play an active role, and something that's more…" by now he had fire burning in his eyes "Exciting?"

Kakashi had to take a slight step back "Oh I see, I see. I see what you're trying to get at."

Naruto immediately turned around to stare at sasuke once more, with a very intense gaze. Sasuke, didn't seemed fazed by it. It was obvious that Naruto wanted to show his skills off in front of Sasuke… however…

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news here" I piped in "but you're forgetting one little thing."

"huh?" Naruto breathed "what's that?"

I groaned "my brother, he superficially asked the Kokage and Kakashi-sensei to put us on D-rank missions only."

Naruto looked down defeated "Oh yeah…"

That's right, Haruo was hell bent on my safety ever since the last mission. So before we could even consider taking on a C-rank, he would swoop in and take it away from us. He was giving Kakashi a hard time to, saying that he should have known better, blah blah blah!

My brother had always been protective over me. But lately, it was more extreme than usual. So as you can imagine, he isn't the most popular guy with my teammates at the moment.

"Oy Naruto, Tomoko, what are you doing? We have a mission." Kakashi called.

I shook my head to see he, Sakura and Sasuke had already began leaving, and I guess I was caught in my thought's too deep.

"Roger!" Naruto shouted and ran to catch up. I took my time, not really having the energy to run around today.

"You're noisy" Sakura complained and continued walking. I caught up soon enough and followed everyone to our first mission, which was pulling weeds our of a garden.

All four of us went in different corners of the garden and slowly pulled the weeds out, I didn't mind this job so much, it reminded me of our own garden back in Yamakure. Suddenly, I felt a load of Weeds falling on my head, causing me to turn around.

My eyes widened in horror, as Naruto pulled out anything he could find, including the flowers. By now there was a huge pile of grass, weeds and flowers behind him.

Naruto, chuckled in pride.

"Hey you…"

Naruto turned to the side to see the owner looking at him crossly with her hands on her hips.

"Miss, I'm down pulling out all the weeds!" Naruto informed her in a cheery tone. But the woman seemed to be trying to contain her anger.

"Huh? What's wrong?" he asked, not realising what he's done.

"Naruto…" I whispered through my teeth "those weren't weeds."

"Huh?"

"Those are herbs that I've been cultivating!" the woman snapped, she didn't hesitate on the punches.

I turned to the others "shouldn't we help him?"

Kakashi shook his head "he has to suffer the consequences."

Naruto was sporting a decent black eye after that, but it only went bad to worse for him. When we were cleaning litter out of the river, he had managed to get taken away by the current, and had to be saved by Sasuke before he fell down a waterfall.

Yep, he really loved that one.

But the worst by far was the dog walking. Naruto being Naruto, had to go and pick the biggest dog. Not taking into account that it was ten times stronger than him.

"Hey!" he ordered "don't go that way."

But the dog paid no attention and continued to drag him across the field, a trap field.

"Hey!" he stressed "come on!"

Since he refused help from anyone, all the rest of us could do was just watch. Sakura and Sasuke had the two other dogs, who calmly stayed at their side. Kakashi, was reading his book in a tree.

"That idiot" Sasuke stated.

Sakura sighed "that's what happens for choosing the big dog."

I didn't say anything, because I knew they were both right. It didn't take long for him to set off every trap there, making us all stare in amazement… Only Naruto!

After a while, we found him completely fried, and the dog unaffected.

"The dog just doesn't listen to me" he moaned.

I walked towards him slightly and patted my hand on my thigh, "come here boy!" I called with a whistle.

The dog immediately ran over and jumped over me, making my fall on my back.

"Hey!" I said,, but was soon cut off from the dog licking my face. "S-stop that!" I giggled "that tickles!" The dog finally stepped back, but wagged his tail as I sat back up.

"That reminds me" Sakura spoke "how is Kinnosuke doing?"

A long, awkward silence followed, I noticed Sasuke throwing her a very furious glare.

I patted the dog on the head before standing up again, "he passed in his sleep two days ago."

"Oh" Sakura gasped "I'm so sorry Tomoko."

Sasuke kept a watchful eye on me, not really expecting what I was gonna do next.

I smiled sadly at her "Thanks, but I'm honestly alright" I paused. "We got to spend some time with him before he passed on, I'm content."

"We?" Sakura repeated, but was interrupted by Sasuke.

"Don't mention him again" he warned, "she may be all smiles, but she's only just started to cope with it. So don't talk about it for now."

Sakura didn't say another word about it after that, which I was thankful for. Sasuke understood my feelings on the subject, hell he even came with me on my last visit. Thanks to him, getting over Kinnosuke became that much easier.

"Come on then!" Kakashi said "Sakura, Sasuke help Naruto walk. Me and Tomoko will take the dogs." As both small dogs were passed to me, I suddenly sensed something up in that tree.

"Huh?" I turned around to see nothing there.

'That was weird.'

"Tomoko come on!"

I whistled for the dogs to walk, but couldn't shake the feeling like I was being watched.

"This is what you get for being reckless" Sakura lectured. We had long dropped the dogs back to their owner, but Naruto still needed help moving.

"Ahem, You're a guy that needs help all the time" Sasuke stated arrogantly.

Naruto wriggled his way out of there grasp and shook with anger, oh boy…

"SASUKE!" he screeched going for him, thankfully, Sakura had the sense to stop him.

"If you're going to go wild, I'm going to finish you off!" she threatened.

"Oy Sasuke!" I hollered "this is getting stupid! Don't just walk away!"

"Hm..." I heard Kakashi muse "the teamwork is out of order lately."

"Yeah!" Naruto agreed childishly "and you're the one who disrupts our teamwork, Sasuke! You always stick your nose into everything!"

I gave him an unamused look, "says the guy who always goes off and tries to do things by himself."

He shot me an annoyed look, "whose side are you on anyway Tomoko!"

"SINCE WHEN DID I HAVE TO CHOOSE A SIDE!?" I demanded, scaring him slightly.

"If you don't want to owe me anything…" Sasuke shot back, finally stopping. He turned around with a serious expression, "become stronger than me."

Naruto gulped slightly, but held his hard stare with Sasuke's. Sakura fisted her hands up nervously, whilst I placed my hand to cover my face.

'Great, now its worse than ever!'

"Now then…" Kakashi spoke, easing the tension. "Shall we call it quits for today? I have to go submit the mission report now."

"I think that's a good idea" I agreed removing my hand.

"Then I'm going home" Sasuke announced and began to walk off.

Sakura let of a breath "Hey! Sasuke-kun, wait!" she called chasing him. Naruto went to try and stop her, but it was a failed attempt. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but I knew what was gonna happen.

"If you have time to mind me" I heard him say, "go practice a technique or two. To be honest, your abilities are lower than Naruto's."

I covered my mouth in astonishment, that was a little harsh, even from Sasuke. By this time he had already left, leaving her to wallow in her pity.

"Ouch, that stung" I whispered.

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto sang "forget about Sasuke, and let's go train together!"

Suddenly, Kakashi disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving us alone.

"Bye then" I said sarcastically. But my attention was caught by… a moving box?

"What in the world?" I questioned. Noticing my confusion, Naruto turned to stare and the badly, camouflaged box. Naruto stared at it suspiciously.

I watched as he took a couple of steps forward, and the box followed. He then began to run up and down the street, the box in tow till finally he stopped to face it.

Glaring at it, he pointed yelling "A square rock with two holes like that does not exist!"

I nearly fell over from disbelief "Of course, it's painfully obvious what it is!"

"I should have expected that!" a voice suddenly exclaimed, muffled from the box, "that the man whom I have high hopes for, and is also my rival!"

Then, out of no where, the box beamed a bright light, blinding us, and then explode into multicoloured smoke. I heard coughing and spluttering, when the smoke cleared, three young kids were crouched on the floor.

"Hey, you used too much gunpowder" the boy in the middle complained. He had spiky brown hair, and was wearing grey trousers, a yellow t-shirt and a long green scarf. His friends, were another boy with darker brown hair, who was wearing black trousers, a navy blue sweater and glasses, and a girl, who was dressed in a pink top and badge shorts, her orange hair was tied up in pigtails.

Another thing I noticed, was all three of them were wearing goggles much like what Naruto wore at the academy. The three finally noticed our baffled gaze and got up on there feet.

"The one who possesses the sex appeal of an adult" the girl publicised dramatically, "and the female ninja from the senior group, Moegi!"

"Sex? Appeal?" I repeated slowly.

The navy blue boy was next, "The one who loves dividing numbers, Udon!"

And finally, the last boy. "This village's number one genius ninja, Konohamaru!"

I let out an 'oh' sound, so this is Konohamaru!

All together, they yelled that they were the Konohamaru Corps. Well, you got to give it to them, at least they had passion.

Naruto clearly wasn't impressed as he leaned his head against his hands. "Just as I thought" he stated boredly "it was the three of you. Why do the three of you have goggles on?"

Konokamaru giggled "we copied the old you."

"Oh?"

"Oh?!" the kid repeated, not happy, "you've been treating us so cold lately!"

"Erm… excuse me?" I spoke to Naruto "what's going on?"

He turned his gaze to me and whispered "they sorta call me their leader, I'm not really sure why?"

"Neither am I" I mumbled.

"Who's that leader?" Konohamaru asked pointing a finger at me, oh god this kid has picked up Naruto's bad habits.

"This is my friend Tomoko, she's on my team" he answered.

"Wow" breathed Moegi "you're really pretty!"

I smiled "why thank you! So are you."

She blushed slightly, this girl was a cutie pie!

"Alright" Naruto intervened "what do you guys want?"

Konohamaru turned to his friends and whispered something about him being cold again. So Moegi stepped forward, "Well, Leader, do you have some free time right now?"

"No" he answered pointing his thumb at his face, "I'm going to train!"

"Wha!? You said that you would play Ninja with us!" Konohamaru complained.

"Playing Ninja?" I chimed with an amused look. Naruto scratched the back of head nervously "it's not as bad as it sounds" he assured me.

"Ahem, what's the point in a ninja playing ninja?"

Wow, I didn't know Sakura was still around. She still had the defeated expression on her face, and was slouched forward. Once she reached us, she gave us a weird expression.

"W-what is it?" Naruto spluttered.

Sakura didn't answer, instead she just continued to glare daggers at him.

"Are you alright Sakura?" I asked, genuinely concerned. I've never seen her this defeated before!

Naruto let out a very uncomfortable laugh, I however was getting really worried.

"Hey" Konohamaru piped in "who is this big girl?" He to stared at her long and hard, before smirking.

"You're better than I thought!" the young boy mused, patting Naruto on the back. The elder boy gazed at him confused, "huh?"

"She's your… right?" he dragged out.

'Oh no, he isn't thinking what i think he is… is he?'

Kohonohamaru held his pinky finger, confirming my theory. And Sakura, wasn't impressed.

"Hey Sakura?" I said slightly higher than normal, "why don't we take a walk yeah?"

But Naruto, only had to make it worse.

"You kids are pretty sharp."

'Naruto, is a dead man.'

Sakura didn't hold back on the punch, she sent him flying backwards, into the fence. I cringed at his crash landing, but he kinda had it coming.

Sakura heaved in and out heavily.

"What did you do!?" Konohamaru demanded. Moegi and Udon went to check on their leader, whilst the third kid continued to square off with my female teammate.

"You ugly girl! ugly!"

Now I was getting really scared "Hey kid, it's not worth it okay…"

"Tomoko is much prettier than you by far! Leader should have her as his girlfriend."

I slapped my hand over my forehead, "why did you have to involve me?"

Sakura of course, was now in a complete rage and showed no mercy towards the kid. Once she was finished, she walked off in a huff.

"Hey! Sakura! Wait up!" I called chasing after her.

"I don't want your pity!" she snapped.

I rolled my eyes slightly "I wasn't going to give you any, lets just walk it off yeah?"

She didn't say anything after that, but she did let me walk along side her.

'Okay, if I can get her away from them, maybe she begin to cool off.'

Oh how wrong I was.

"That ugly-wide-forehead girl…" I heard Konohamaru grumble "is she really a girl?"

This kid really didn't know when to shut up!

Who does that remind you of?

Of course Sakura didn't take that laying down, and her expression was terrifying. Like some evil robot, she turned back around to face them, staring right at her targets. As she charged, the rest of them ran away.

All I could do was watch as they all disappeared from sight.