Okay, it's finally here!

The BIG chapter that explains EVERYTHING!

Oh and I have to apologize to all of my readers out there.

This week…hasn't been that great for me, and I was busy/ lazy at times, so I didn't write this chapter.

But then I realized how many readers I would be letting down if I put this off any longer, so I have wrote it!

Yeah, so like I said, this is the chapter that reveals EVERYTHING!

Be prepared!

Oh, and I'll like to hear a lot of comments about this chapter because I put a lot of thought into this one!

So, let's get going!

Disclaimer- blah, blah, blah, you know the stuff :)

Chapter 4- The Truth

Naruto ran pass the doctors and patients in the hallways and ran out the main entrance of the hospital. He looked over at the little garden next to the hospital, and sure enough, Sakura was there, sitting on a bench and looking down at the flowers.

"Sakura-chan…" Naruto said as he walked over and sat next to her.

"Naruto…you're my best friend, right?" said Sakura, still looking down at the flowers.

"Of course, Sakura-chan! No doubt about it!" said Naruto, smiling encouragingly.

"Then…can you tell me something?" said Sakura, finally lifting her head and looking at Naruto.

"Uh…sure, Sakura-chan," said Naruto, although he felt uneasy about his decision.

"Who was that man in the hospital room?" said Sakura, looking at Naruto's expression to guess at what he was thinking.

"Uh…well…he's Uchiha Sasuke, the guy who killed Orochimaru and Kabuto, remember?" said Naruto, trying to hide his panic from showing Sakura. He was actually very terrified at her question because he didn't know how to answer it.

"I know that, baka. But, I mean, if the mission was a RETRIEVAL mission, that means he was a Konoha shinobi, right?" asked Sakura.

"…Yes, he was. He left 4 years ago to gain power from Orochimaru," said Naruto, telling her a little of the truth.

"And he's close to you, right?" asked Sakura.

"Uh…"

"Naruto, don't try to hide it from me. You told me to save his life and you stayed next to him for the two days he's been unconscious," said Sakura, crossing her arms in annoyance.

"Okay, okay, Sakura-chan. Sasuke…has been my first best friend for as long as I can remember," said Naruto, now trying to look at Sakura's expression. But he was surprised; Sakura's face showed frustration and sadness.

"Oh, I see," said Sakura.

"Sakura-chan, now that I answered your question, you have to answer mine," said Naruto.

"Hai. Go ahead," said Sakura, bracing herself for whatever question Naruto was gonna ask her.

"Why did you run away from Sasuke and me?" said Naruto.

"I-I don't know. You see, when Uchiha-san said my name and when I looked at his face, something struck inside my head. My head started to throb and told me to run first and get explanations later," said Sakura.

"Why?" said Naruto, so frustrated that this was actually happening.

"He seems so familiar to me, yet this is the first time I've ever seen him in person. That's why I asked you all those questions about him, because if he lived here, then I would have seen him a couple of times," said Sakura.

"Actually you've seen him more than just a couple, Sakura-chan," thought Naruto.

"And this is what makes me so frustrated. He seems so familiar, but I don't know him. And the worst part is, when he said my name, it seemed like he was relieved, happy to see me. Like he knew me before," said Sakura, looking down at her hands crossed in her lap, fighting the internal conflict going on in her head, trying to figure it out.

"I actually don't know if you guys know each other, Sakura-chan. But Sasuke is waiting for you to check on him right now, so why don't we go up to him right now. I know it's hard for you, but he's a patient too, and he'd rather be at my house than the hospital," said Naruto.

"Sakura-chan, I'm sorry that I have to lie to you, but it's for the best," thought Naruto, as he got up and helped Sakura up from the bench.

"Yeah, you're right. This is my job. I should be putting the patient before my personal emotions and feelings," said Sakura, as they walked into the hospital together to Sasuke's room.

When they got there, Sakura warily walked over to Sasuke, who still had his hands over his face. Naruto sat on a chair near the door, watching Sakura and Sasuke.

"Uchiha-san, gomen-nasai (sorry) for my little outburst before. I wasn't feeling very good," said Sakura as she activated her chakra hands to check Sasuke's health and condition.

"Sakura…why do you call me Uchiha-san?" said Sasuke, taking his hands off from his face and looking into the emerald eyes of Sakura.

"First of all, please don't call me Sakura. This is a hospital, and I would prefer if you call me Haruno-san or Dr. Haruno. Secondly, I call you Uchiha-san because you are my patient, and I am giving you that respect. There's nothing else that I would call you, Uchiha-san," said Sakura, as she looked away from Sasuke's cold, hard eyes and looked at her hands working over his body.

"Sak- I mean- Haruno-san, I-"

"I have finished checking your condition, and it seems like you're doing fine. All you have to do is go home and rest for a while to return to your normal condition. You should not train excessively at all, but I'm sure Hokage-sama told you that. I have another patient waiting for me, so I must go right now. Good bye, Uchiha-san, and see you next time Naruto," said Sakura as she hurriedly walked out of the room and closed the door.

"Sas-"

"You don't have to explain anything to me, Dobe. I understand what's going on perfectly," said Sasuke as he slowly got up from the hospital bed and took out his clothes from the closet.

"Wait, you understand everything? How?" said Naruto as Sasuke walked into the bathroom, changed and came back out to pack his things to leave.

"How could I not? It's obvious," said Sasuke as he turned his back towards Naruto and pack his things into his bag.

"Teme, are you sure we're talking about the same thing?" asked Naruto as he got up from his chair and walked over to help Sasuke.

"We're talking about Sakura, aren't we?" said Sasuke annoyingly.

"Yeah, but-"

"No buts. I know what's going on, and stop trying to hide it," said Sasuke, as he finished and put the bag over his shoulder.

"Teme, what are you talking about?!" said Naruto as he turned Sasuke around by his shoulders.

"Look, Dobe, I'm not stupid. It's obvious that Sakura absolutely loathes me and wants nothing to do with me," said Sasuke annoyingly and madly.

From frustration to understanding, Naruto started to crack up laughing like crazy. He literally fell and rolled on the floor laughing like heck.

"What's so funny, Dobe? I'm being serious," said Sasuke.

"Okay, okay, I'm done," said Naruto as he got up.

"Well, the funny part was that you jumped to conclusions way too easily. The relieving part is that Sakura-chan doesn't hate you at all. And the serious part is…" said Naruto.

"Is…" said Sasuke.

"…Is that this is something so much more serious than just loathing or hating. But I don't have time to explain that to you right now. It's almost time for my Hokage training. So I'll escort you to my house, go to Hokage training, and tell you after if you're still awake," said Naruto as he walked out of the room with Sasuke.

"I only have one room, so you can use my bed and I'll use the couch. Once the Uchiha Compound is done, you can go there," said Naruto as he opened the door to his apartment for Sasuke.

"Hn."

"There's cup ramen in the cupboard, a pot on the stove so that you can heat the water, so you can eat when you get hungry. I'll be back around 8 or 9, so go to sleep and rest," said Naruto.

"Hn."

"See ya later, Teme," said Naruto with a wave and left.

Sasuke walked into Naruto's bedroom, which was messy as crap. After a groan of annoyance, Sasuke cleaned up the room, took his belongings out from his bag, and laid down on the bed. His thoughts immediately went to Sakura.

"So she doesn't hate me…" thought Sasuke, even though he didn't know it, he was relieved by that fact.

"But Dobe said that it was something serious than that. What could it be?" thought Sasuke.

"Hmm...It's something serious than just hating… Maybe she hated you so much that she actually doesn't remember who you are, because she's been trying to erase you from her memories and succeeded," said his inner.

"That's a retarded assumption. And why do you have to be so pessimistic?" thought Sasuke.

"Because this whole thing with Sakura is horrible! You messed up from the beginning, and now you're gonna have to suffer the consequences," said the inner.

"Ugh, whatever. Go back to wherever you came from," said Sasuke as his eyelids started to droop.

Soon enough, Sasuke was sleeping.

Sasuke woke up to a door opening and closing and stood up from the bed and walked out to the living room, where Naruto was getting ramen from the cupboard and heating up water on the stove. When Naruto heard footsteps, he turned around and saw Sasuke walking towards the couch.

"Oh Teme, you're up. Do you want anything?" said Naruto.

"No," said Sasuke, indifferently, looking over at all the stuff in the living room, his eyes finally landing on one thing.

It was the picture of Team 7 when they were young; Kakashi-sensei in the back with a smile on his face and his hands on the heads of Sasuke and Naruto. Sasuke was glaring at Naruto from the left, and Naruto was glaring at Sasuke from the right. Finally, his eyes landed on the person in the middle. Sakura had her hands up to her mouth and was giggling at Sasuke and Naruto.

Sasuke couldn't help but smile a tiny bit, remembering all the great adventures of Team 7 and memories that he could never forget: The three of them getting assigned onto the same team, trying to see Kakashi-sensei's maskless face, the Great Naruto Bridge adventure, the Chunnin Exams, and many more. As Sasuke started to remember the Chunnin Exams and the Curse Mark, Naruto sat in front of him in a chair, with a bowl of hot, steamy ramen.

"Okay, so you want to know the truth of Sakura-chan's behavior, right?" said Naruto, slurping up the noodles hungrily.

"Hn," said Sasuke, trying to look indifferent, although he was very interested and also, wary of the truth.

"Sasuke, you're gonna be pretty blown when you hear this, and you're not gonna like it…I think," said Naruto.

"Dobe, just tell me already," said Sasuke, crossing his arms in annoyance.

"Okay, okay, sheesh. This story starts all the way back a year ago, when we first met you at Orochimaru's hideout, 3 years after you left Konoha," said Naruto, putting his unfinished ramen down and lifting his head back up to look at Sasuke, showing all seriousness on his face.

"After you left with that snake bastard, we couldn't do anything but return home unsuccessfully. But as we were going, we encountered 4 Sound shinobis that were attacking us from the trees. Yamato-taichou, Sai, Sakura-chan, and I fought them off pretty easily, but what we didn't see was another shinobi that was hiding in the trees with his chakra masked. He jumped out from the tree, headed towards Sakura-chan, and rammed a kunai into her shoulder. Sai and I finished him off, and Sakura-chan was in a lot of pain, but she took out the kunai, healed herself, and got up saying that she was fine. But what we didn't know at that time was that she was lying to us. Few hours later, when we were close to Konoha, Sakura-chan fainted on the road, with her shoulder wound getting bigger. I immediately took her to the hospital and brought Tsunade to check her. It turned out that the kunai was poisoned. The poison was mysteriously not going through her bloodsystem, but rather to her head. Tsunade-baa-chan took out all of the poison, but she herself didn't even know what the poison would do to Sakura-chan and told me to wait until she got up," said Naruto.

"S-she was poisoned…by a Sound shinobi…but why?" whispered Sasuke, not understanding what that had to do with her current unusual behavior.

"I'm about to get there," said Naruto.

"3 days later she woke up and I casually talked to her. The weird part was…she didn't know who you were. When I mentioned your name, she was like, "Sasuke? Who's Sasuke?" I asked her a bunch of questions about you, but she didn't remember anything," said Naruto, warily looking at Sasuke's frozen face due to the newfound information.

"S-she didn't remember me? How?" whispered Sasuke.

"I then ran all the way to the Hokage Tower, brought Tsunade-baa-chan to Sakura-chan and had her checked. Tsunade-sama didn't even know what was going on. It wasn't until later when Tsunade-baa-chan returned to her office when we found out what really happened," said Naruto.

"What? What happened?" said Sasuke, now frustrated.

"When Tsunade-baa-chan returned to her office, a snake slithered from the window onto her desk. She was about to kill it when she noticed the envelope between its jaws. The snake burst into flames and disintegrated as soon as she took the envelope from its mouth. It was a letter…from Orochimaru," said Naruto.

"What?!" said Sasuke, horrified at what was going on behind his back.

"After Tsunade-baa-chan read it, she told me about it, so I know what was on it. It said that Orochimaru had sent the Sound shinobi to come after our team, and gave the leader the poisoned kunai. He was told to mainly focus on stabbing either Sakura-chan or me, since we were your old teammates," said Naruto.

"Why did Orochimaru do this?" questioned Sasuke, cursing off the snake bastard who was destroyed back at Sound.

"Orochimaru wanted one of us, preferably Sakura-chan, to forget about you entirely. And this is just what he did. In his letter, he explained that Kabuto had created a new form a poison: A Memory Erasing Poison. Whatever that person might have been thinking of right as the poison went into their body will be erased from their memories, like it was never there. Orochimaru, from the beginning, knew that Sakura-chan and I had some sort of effect on you. He knew that if one of us lost our memories of you, you would grow colder, and therefore, more thirsty for power. He basically wrote the letter to boast and tease Tsunade for being one step behind him. So when the poison entered Sakura-chan's body, she was thinking about you, since we had just encountered you. So she lost all her memories of and with you…like you were never there. Her behavior back at the hospital wasn't from hatred, it was from confusion. She doesn't know you, yet thinks you are familiar. And it frustrated her even more that you called out to her like you knew her from before," said Naruto.

Sasuke was speechless…he didn't know what to say.

He wished that sick snake bastard Orochimaru was still alive so that he could kill him with even more anger and reason. He hated him to the core. Fortunately, he was dead and would bother no one else anymore.

"So Sasuke, this is my one and only favor to you," said Naruto.

"I want you to help me bring back Sakura-chan's memories," said Naruto.

"But I thought you said they were forever erased," said Sasuke.

"That's what I thought, until today, when she told me that you seemed familiar rather than not knowing who you were at all," said Naruto, determined.

"So I want you to help me. Help Sakura-chan," said Naruto.

Sasuke suddenly felt cold with a new understanding, "Why? She doesn't need me back in her life. I'll make it just that much more miserable. She's fine, even better, without me interrupting her life."

"…What the heck are you saying, Teme?! Do you really not know Sakura-chan that much to say that?!" yelled Naruto angrily.

"All I've ever done for her was making her sad and cry. She doesn't need me back," said Sasuke, suddenly getting up from the couch.

"How stupid can you get?! Do you really think Sakura-chan wouldn't want you back in her life like that? Sure, you gave her a lot of sadness and tears, but that doesn't mean you gave her happiness and smiles too!" yelled Naruto, now completely furious at Sasuke's blindness.

"Hn, whatever. I'm going to sleep," said Sasuke, as he walked into the room.

"Fine! Frickin stupid Teme!" said Naruto as he finished his ramen and tried to go to sleep.

Sasuke, on the otherhand, couldn't sleep at all.

"Sakura doesn't need me back in her life. I made her cry, made her sad, and made her frustrated. I deserve this. It's my fault again that a hindrance has been laid down upon Sakura. She doesn't deserve any of this. I deserve it all. So she's better off without knowing me," thought Sasuke.

"Hmm…but are you sure? If you had lost your memories of Sakura, wouldn't you want them all back too?" said Sasuke's inner.

"That's different. Sakura has always been my refuge, my safe place. All I've ever was for her was hell and misery," thought Sasuke.

"But that's what you think. You're not Sakura. You don't know if that's how she thought about you," said the inner.

"Hn, whatever. You're just like Dobe," thought Sasuke as he fell asleep from a tiring day.

Whooo!! :)

Now please tell me that wasn't exciting!

This is something totally unexpected, right? :)

I hope you guys enjoyed, and remember to review!

Thanks a bunch!

Love, Cilla :)