They had split into two teams, boys vs girls. Everyone else had been hit by the ninjas, leaving only them behind. What kind of ninja would ever miss throwing a ball at a civilian? It was like target practice and that kind of situation, in which the whole of Konoha 11 had managed to hit everyone leaving only them in the court. Well, almost everyone except Sakura. She had easily evaded and dodged all of the balls the boys had thrown, managing to hit a few of her own until it came down to Naruto, Sasuke, Shikamaru, Neji, Lee and Kiba. Chouji received a wicked hit from Ino and thus left the game. "Guess we'll be facing off with you guys then, as always," Ino said as she tossed a ball up and down in her hand. "Yeah and we're gonna win, dattebayo!" Naruto said with a thumbs up. Ino smirked in an all too familiar manner. "Troublesome," Shikamaru muttered as he cast a quick genjutsu over the court prompting every other student except them to fall into a deep slumber. Well, and Sakura as usual. Genjutsu never seemed to work on her. Kurenai had first tried to put her under a low-level genjutsu when she was fourteen. It didn't even work on her. They had tried to use some advanced genjutsu but it didn't seem to work on her. If she got caught under one, she would break out of it in less than a minute.

Shikamaru had thought that perhaps she was a ninja somehow in their past lives but after interrogating the girl in a typical Nara manner, he came to the conclusion that she was just like every other human in Konoha, a civilian. He had asked Sasuke and Hinata to use their doujutsu to check her chakra levels. They were of a civilian, very very low, just enough to keep her alive. She had never shown any reaction to the little powers they showed like their enhanced physical strength, ability to use weapons, sleeping in trees, crazy acrobatics or weird physical features like Kiba's triangle marks, Hinata, Neji and Ino's pupiless eyes, Naruto's whiskers, Lee's awesome taijutsu, his unnatural intelligence, Kurenai's red eyes, Kakashi's masked face and so on. One time, she caught him using his Shadow technique at Ino's house. He had caught her with his shadows, restricting any movement and asked Sasuke to use his Sharingan to wipe out her memory.

He was relieved when she showed no signs of remember what had happened the previous day. Whether or not she had caught one of them using ninjutsu or chakra-consuming techniques, he didn't know. As long she did not acknowledge their craziness, he was fine with that. He glanced around to make sure that everyone was fast asleep. 'Good,' he thought. "Be sure not to destroy the court!" Gai shouted from the bleachers. The two teams had a face off. Boys vs girls, who was going to make the first move? Naruto's hands twitched as he held the ball, eager to haul it into Ino's face but a glare from Sasuke stopped him. After a moment or so of silence, Shikamaru left out a long sigh and the battle began. Ino threw her ball first, aiming at Naruto who dodged and threw his own. It was a battle of balls as each one of them threw the balls with all their might. Even Shikamaru was participating, making sure to at least hit Ino before retiring. "Stand still you prick!" TenTen shouted as she threw a ball at Neji as though she was throwing a kunai at an enemy ninja. Neji dodged her balls one by one before activating the Eight Palm Trigrams Technique, quickly deflecting all of her balls and sending some back to her. The experience of a lifetime enabled the brunette to dodge each one of his balls as she had been his teammate. "Your strength never fails to impress me my youthful cherry blossom!" Lee praised Sakura who was hitting balls at him at an astounding speed. "Your-"

BAM!

She hit him square in the face which caused Shikamaru and Kiba to lose their guards and snicker, earning hits from Hinata and Ino. "Go forehead-girl!" Ino said as she threw a ball at Sasuke. "Yeah yeah, pig," Sakura said with a smile as she threw another ball at Neji. 'This match is taking too long. Time to wrap this up,' she thought as she threw a ball into with air. Naruto watched as Sakura jumped into the air. "Sha-"


"-nnaro!" The earth quacked and yielded under the force of the blow, massive chucks of earth uprooting and bulging out causing all of his clones to disappear in loud poofs. His only thought, as he stared at the wreckage in shock, was 'I'm never ever talking back to-'


"Sakura! You killed him!"

The blonde woke up with a start. He was lying on the cold floor and he felt his face throbbing painfully. He looked around to the entire group huddled around him with concerned looks. "Are you okay?" Sakura asked him as she brought down her face to him. Naruto turned a shade of red which rivaled that of Hinata. He was yet to get over his crush on Sakura. "I-I'm fine," he squeaked, hoping his voice did not betray the swirl of emotions he was feeling. She helped him get up and continued to inspect him for any injuries. "What happened?" Kiba asked. "You went all spacey before Sakura ball-smacked your face. Although you had already blacked out by the time the ball hit you," the brunette said with a grin at the last part. "I just remembered something and..." he trailed. He cast a look at Shikamaru who understood what he was trying to say. He had remembered something from their past. They were all going to meet later that night so Naruto could update others during that time. "Sorry Naruto, I guess I got carried away," the pinkette said with an apologetic smile. "No worries Sakura, I'm a-okay, dattebayo!" he said reassuringly as he grinned. "And that closes off our gym lesson!" Gai shouted from the bleachers with a million watt smile and a thumbs up.


School had ended a while ago and it was still a few hours before Sasuke had to go home. His parents knew that he usually arrived at least after 11pm. He had meetings with his group till that time. He had discovered that he had been reincarnated as this modern Tokyo kid when he was 12, along with the rest of his generation. He had been getting weird flashbacks of himself doing things he never knew were real like jumping from tree to tree without falling, facing half-human-half-monsters, having lightning in his hand, having red eyes, killing his beloved aniki (though he'd never admit it). The final stream had been when he remembered his fight with Naruto when they were 13 and the final one when they were 18. All of his memories, well most of them anyway except those after the Fourth Shinobi war and a few bits and pieces, came back and he knew that he had been reincarnation some centuries into the future. He was glad to know that he had retained most of his powers, as in powers that his twelve-year old body could handle. He was more than happy to discover that he didn't have the Curse seal's powers. The next day when he saw Naruto at the classroom during their middle school summer school, the two of them had stared at each other, not knowing what to say. But one thing he knew what that the blonde had also remembered. It was good to know that he wasn't the only with memories from a dangerous past life of blood, chakra and war. A few months later, he had reunited with most of the people he knew, more of the ones he had paid little attention to anyway.

The only one he had acquainted with in this life who hadn't shown signs of remembering was Sakura. He guessed that she was just a civilian of this timeline. Naruto had introduced them to Jiraiya and Kakashi who later introduced them to Asuma, Kurenai and Gai who had remembered way early before them and finally the Sandaime Hokage. The Yondaime had passed away still, on the day of Naruto's birth in a car accident along with his wife who had recently gave birth to his blonde best friend. They were running away from Orochimaru and had been setup thus losing their lives in the process. He grew up in the care of Kakashi and so he wasn't all that lonely. The day he had discovered that his brother had slaughtered their entire clan in their previous timeline through a dream, his parents heard him screaming his lungs out. The both of them and Itachi had rushed to his room and when he saw, he had broken down into tears. They weren't alive in their previous timeline, he had never gotten the privilege to live with his blood relatives at thirteen. He had bawled on his mother's shoulder and moved to pull both his father and brother into tight embrace. He was forever grateful for the second chance that Kami had given him to be with his family.

There were many other experiences he had had, some he was yet to discover and some he did not want to revisit. They had meetings every night since he was 15. Jiraiya had informed them that their enemies had also recovered their memories. The enemies being Danzo and Orochimaru among others. The Sand siblings had also contacted them to notify that they also recovered their memories. Naruto had been over the moon because Gaara had not forgotten their precious memories from before.

Memories, memories, memories...

He turned around the corner to bump into a familiar pinkette who was still clad in their uniform. Of all the people to meet on a day like this... "Oh Sasuke. I didn't see you," Sakura said with a smile as she tucked her hair behind her ear. 'Bleh, fangirl,' he thought with a bitter taste in his mouth. The old tuck-your-hair-behind-ear-to-look wasn't going to work on him. He didn't hate her, no. He despised her fangirl tendencies. Well, her seven-to-thirteen years old fangirl tendencies she had dropped when she became 14. But she showed that she still had a crush on him on occasions like when he went through Ino's conversations with the pinkette (he never told the blonde that he used his Sharingan to go through her memories and was sure as hell that she wouldn't appreciate that), blushing whenever talking to him, making him bentos for lunch, offering him her seat when there were no chairs in class, writing a love letter to him when she was fifteen, asking him (more like forcing him) for dates when he was in a cranky mood (those luncheons, as he had called them, did make him feel better), helping him with his homework when he had spent the entire night training or fighting off Root or Sound ninja and so on. He had a soft spot for the girl because she went out of her way to help him, sacrificing a lot of her precious time and feelings for him, putting her dream aside to become a doctor so that she could do his homework, making those damn good rice balls which were better than his mom's (he would never tell kaa-chan or Sakura that), making him smile with her quirks like being a messy ice cream eater or accidentally bending the metals bars on the school balcony (that was just scary) and, and...

There were many other things she had done for him, some he would never tell Naruto like doing his laundry for him when he was too tired to do so (only Itachi knew that but he doubted his aniki could keep his mouth shut whenever it came to teasing him with Naruto or their mother), sneaking tomatoes in his lunch box when his mother had refused to give him some (she thought he didn't know but he did, he was an Uchiha after all). Up to this day, he doesn't know how she was able to do all those stuff without him ever informing or telling her. It's like she knew him inside out, as though they had lived together at one point in life. But still! He hated fangirlism and he would not tolerate that.

"Are you going somewhere?" she asked innocently. "Hn," he replied. "I'll take that as a clan meeting then," she said. He raised an eyebrow at that. "Ino told me that you guys have a clan meeting in the evening," she confirmed his thoughts. She was quiet for awhile before turning up to look at him. "Are the clan meetings intense, like in the movies where you glare at each other or pull rank on each other?" she asked with barely concealed excitement. Her reply was silence. "You're not going to answer that, right?" she asked. His flat stare told her so. Sakura sighed before handing him the plastic bag she was holding. He raised an eyebrow at the gesture. "It's rice balls and miso soup with a lot of tomatoes in a bento. I made it for you," she chirped. He raised his eyebrow higher and she groaned out loud. "Could you at least use words for once?" she said with a pout. "Hn," he all but said. Rolling her eyes, she gestured for him to take it. "I'm not hung-"

grumble...

'Damn you,' he cursed at his betraying stomach. "You haven't eaten since morning. Mikoto-san will be worried if you end up collapsing on her doorstep just because you were too stubborn to take a meal. Now c'mon, take it," she encouraged him. Receiving nothing but a glare in return, she took his left hand (how does she know I'm left handed?), opened his palm and put the handles of the plastic bag in his hand and closed his hand around it. The gesture made him feel weird in his stomach. 'Must be the hunger,' he thought. "You don't have to do this for me," he said as he attempted to hand the plastic bag back to her but she pushed his hand back with far more strength than expected of her body. "I'm doing this for you because I care about you Sasuke. As a friend, not a fangirl," she said the last part bitterly. He expected the words 'as a friend, not a fangirl' to bring him see sense of peace but all he felt was hollowness at those words. 'Must be the hunger,' he said to himself. Rolling his eyes, he muttered a barely audible thanks before continuing his journey towards the loudmouth's house.

She stared at his retreating figure with a sad look. "Oh Sasuke, if only you knew," she whispered. It was like all those years ago, when he walked away from her, Team 7 and Konoha.


He arrived to find everyone present. They were huddled around the table with various scrolls scattered about. He muttered his greetings before taking his unofficial seat between Naruto and Kakashi. "I take that everyone is present?" Jiraiya asked. Everyone hummed an affirmative. "So we start off with what you've discovered this past week. Any thing new?" the Sannin asked. Naruto raised a hand. "I remembered a training session of sorts. Something or someone had hit the ground and the earth was uprooting and all, like an earthquake. My clones were being destroyed due to the force of it. My last thought was 'I'm never ever talking back to-.' That was all,' he narrated. "You said someone had hit the ground right? That sounds like Tsunade's signature moves," Kakashi said. Jiraiya nodded. "But it wasn't baa-chan. I just know it," the blonde said. "Could it be..." Ino trailed. "Tsunade's apprentice," Shikamaru finished with a sigh. "So I knew Tsunade's apprentice?" Naruto said with barely contained glee. "My guesses are that. Does anyone else have new information?" the white-haired ninja asked. He received silence as a reply.

"Well then, I guess it's my turn. I contacted the Toads to see if they had some information on Tsunade or her apprentice," he explained. "What'd you find?" Sasuke asked. "Got a brief evaluation of the apprentice's skills. Monstrous strength, medical ninja, immunity to genjutsu, good acrobatics, bad temper, intelligence which rivals the Nara. She can fight toe-to-toe with a highly developed Mangekyo Sharingan-" "Woah! Bet she can wipe your face with the floor teme," Naruto cut the Sannin which earned him a smack to the back of his head from said teme and the Sannin.

"As I was saying, she is also said to have gained the Strength of a Hundred Healings by now," he finished. "You mean the purple diamond on Lady Tsunade's forehead?" TenTen asked. "Yes, that," he replied. "Meaning she must have high chakra levels then," Neji said. "I'm guessing so," Jiraiya replied. "So that's means we have to find a girl with a purple diamond on her forehead and high chakra levels?" Naruto asked quizzically. "Don't be some dumb, you baka! You think she'd walk around like that knowing that we're searching for her?" Ino seethed with barely restrained anger. The blonde smiled sheepishly. "So troublesome," Shikamaru groaned. When everyone sent him a questioning glance, he decided to answer them. "She's immune to genjutsu meaning genjutsu is out of question even with the Sharingan. She has monstrous strength meaning you can only lay a finger on her with the guarantee that you can survive a death blow to the gut. She can fight toe-to-toe with the Mangekyo Sharingan, which most of us aren't able to do meaning she's quick on her toes. Being a medical ninja means precise chakra control and dodging, meaning she can dodge any attacks from any angle. She might be any easy target if you can avoid the chakra scalpel which can tear your muscles with drawing blood. Not to mention the 1000 ways a medic knows to kill a person. She's got the brains that most of you lack plus her temper. All in all, she's a drag," the Nara heir finished his evaluation with a sigh. "Good evaluation Shikamaru, your youthful mind never fails to amaze me!" Gai said with his signature pose.

"The only way we can catch her is if we are combined. We can't take her on separately," Asuma said. "Even if we find somehow encounter her, how do we even catch her?" TenTen asked. "We could try using the Mind Transfer Jutsu. I can get into her body long enough for you guys to catch her," Ino suggested. "I guess that might work," Kakashi drawled out as if considering it. "It always works," Ino huffed proudly as she flipped her ponytail which unceremoniously slapped Shikamaru's face. 'Troublesome woman,' he thought.

"I'll see if we can locate her whereabouts. Tsunade might be a drunkard but she's still smart. I'm guessing she'll be sending her apprentice on missions just to humor us, to show that we can't catch her apprentice," Jiraiya said. "I'll tell you whenever I can find information," he said, dismissing everyone.


"Oh, what's in there?" Naruto asked as he grabbed Sasuke's plastic bag, eager to open. He suddenly found his hands empty, back on the floor and staring into the famous Uchiha doujutsu. "That-is-mine," he gritted out through clenched teeth as he dangled the plastic bag dangerously in front of him. Naruto gulped as he nodded fearfully. "Don't forget to read about tomorrow's upcoming Biology pop quiz!" Naruto shouted after the Uchiha who had taken to jumping on the rooftops.


Done with this chapter. Hope you enjoy it. Reviews are much appreciated.

Tozoonana

AfricanFire