Chapter 1.: Haruno Sakura

The young pink-haired girl woke up to the warm rays of the sun, which welcomed one of the first spring days. Reluctantly, she placed her feet on the cold floor and reached over to the bedside table to feel the documents waiting for her to study.

She opened the folder and started flipping through it. She first looked at the photograph, which depicted a young man with dark raven hair and deep onyx eyes. She flipped through a few pages before slamming the folder shut and tossing it back onto the nightstand in frustration.

'This must be a bad dream,' she thought, and ran a hand through her hair, then placed it on her forehead before gently massaging her temples. 'It just has to.'

The pinkette cursed under her breath before resigning that she wouldn't escape it. She knew that her past would catch up with her; one small, childish mistake that reappeared after many years showed that although she had sunk into the dust deep in the back of her mind, fate had other plans for her. Someone up there didn't like her, maybe hated her, but Sakura was convinced that wasn't entirely true; instead, she favored the third possibility, which sounded like someone was making fun of her and having a brilliant time with it.

She grunted in annoyance and reached for the folder again. As much as she didn't like it, she had to do it, and as much as she hated it, no matter how hard she tried to get out of it, there was no going back. Yes, her mother was still her mother who wouldn't force her to do anything, but on the other hand, she still represented a deity she had to obey.

Opening the file of the boy who represented her task, she was determined to complete it as soon as possible and evaporate unnoticed.

"Teach him to love," her mother said.

"It's not that simple," Sakura argued.

"It is, dear, it is," the goddess of love giggled. "It's as easy as learning to breathe."

A reluctant growl escaped Sakura's mouth. Her eyes fell on the file again, trying to find anything characteristic of the person, just her task – nothing else – that would interest him or how she could see him.

"Breathing is human nature, Mom," the pink-haired objected with a frown.

"Honey," she smiled. "It's like opening a locked door. You need the right key."

"Or kick them out," the pink-haired snarled.

However, her mother only smiled softly. "Or knock them out," she repeated. "But then they need to be fixed." She lovingly tucked a stray strand behind her ear. "Trust me, it's easier with the right key."

"But I don't have the right key," she protested in frustration, throwing her hands firmly crossed over her chest into the open space.

"You are the key."

The pinkette looked again at the photo of the black-haired boy, now a man, and gazed nostalgically into his deep, dark eyes. He's grown, she thought, but immediately shook her head to get the thought out of her mind. She couldn't feel like that. She just couldn't.

If anyone found out what she had done, that little misstep she had made when she was little, it would destroy her reputation, honor, and position. The worst part of it all was that she couldn't tell anyone. Not even her mother, who raised her and made her the woman she is today.

She always wanted to be like her mother. Tsunade was a beautiful woman with full shapes, femininity, tenderness, grace, and proper strength. Despite the nonchalance with which she presented herself, few dared to oppose her unless they wanted her to bring down an entire wall or building with one blow, if it came to that. The pink-haired girl grimaced bitterly at one of these memories.

She knew he would never be like her. She knew it. But she could at least try.

"Uchiha…" she gasped. "Sasuke?"

Tsunade nodded curtly and sternly. "Is there any problem?"

"He's the problem!" she snapped before stopping herself. "Anyone else, please!"

"No, Sakura," she refused sternly, frowning. "It must be him."

She flipped through the white pages again as if something would miraculously appear on them. Something that would give her the answers she needed. But that didn't happen because the pages unfortunately remained the same. They stayed empty anyway.

His file contained nothing except his photograph; those two dark eyes pierced her. It was difficult for her to find out who he was from the few blank template pages, what he liked, what he didn't like, what attracted him, and what repelled him. And that inexorably and uncompromisingly complicated her task. Because how the hell is she supposed to make someone like her; how is she supposed to make someone love her when she barely knows anything about him, except that she knows he - maybe? – likes lemon ice cream?

For others, it was easy. To show them happiness, hope is not lost, they still have a chance for love, and life does not mean just wandering around the world until they take their last breath and set off on the endless journey of liberation. But love? To make someone love, to make someone fall in love, was almost impossible. And Sakura knew it. She knew from the beginning that this task she was entrusted with was a fiasco.

"Shit," she whispered, collapsing back into the soft mattress of the bed, clutching the folder of the boy she hoped she'd never see again to her chest.

He was one of many creating the problem. The problem wasn't just that she knew next to nothing about him. The worst part was that she couldn't be sure of anything.

Missions had the assumption that whoever the military, as Tsunade called them, was working with had to be human. Sakura didn't think it was bad - everyone was human at heart, which she understood long ago. Even a wizard who can conjure up anything in the world may not have been completely happy because he could not conjure happiness through colored lights. Even a vampire whose feelings are dulled by long centuries of immortality didn't have to be happy because even if he fell in love, he didn't have to have the god's blessing for the person to be of his race, which was not allowed, just like it was with werewolves.

The pinkette smiled bitterly at the memory of her werewolf friend, his hazel eyes shining with happiness like never before as he fell in love with the young vampire, but their love couldn't exist, couldn't survive in this world because it was simply unacceptable. It could not exist, even if love was something they were taught about the essence and meaning of being, because specifically created rules did not allow it.

She thought it was nonsense. Everyone could talk for hours about love, limitlessness, and unconditionality, but some spheres were forbidden.

However, how could she have assumed that Sasuke is also an ordinary person who wanders around the world unhappily, looking for the meaning of life, and the universe laughs at him when he puts logs under his feet with a smirk on his face? She couldn't know that, so she had to respect her rules, the assumption that at heart he was just an ordinary person with feelings, dreams, hope... but did he have hope for love? Sakura didn't know that.

She sighed sadly.

The alarm rang again, and she realized it was time to get up and face the first day. However, she only knew how ordinary people dressed from books and occasional glimpses into the human world. In the clouds, it abounded only with silk, loose bohemian dresses, or sumptuous robes. However, she assumed that the blander she was, the sooner she would catch his attention, so she opted for a pair of blue jeans and a black blouse, though she was still unsure of her overly formal choice. Her gaze slid to her shoes, her eyes glinting with excitement at the sight of a pair of black pumps, but she immediately dismissed the idea of wearing them as she wanted to stick to her plan to be non-eccentric.

She looked nostalgically in the mirror and grimaced bitterly at her apparition. She looked dull like an ordinary human girl just getting ready for school. No outlandish long and sparkly earrings, richly decorated long dress woven with gold thread, and those shoes pushed madly on her feet, used to being bare feet. The only quirk she couldn't get rid of was her pink hair, strands of which peeked restlessly out of a bun.

Should she repaint them in a less eccentric and attention-grabbing color? Or should she invent a funny story for them, which would amuse those around her while providing enough information so they don't dwell on it further?

One ordinary human life contained and raised so many questions, and Sakura didn't know how to answer them because she didn't have enough experience. She decided that she either needed to find a person in this world, preferably a woman, who would help her in this, or better said, from whom she could learn and observe how to behave, how to dress, what to laugh at, and shake her head in disgust, while she wouldn't get emotionally attached to her, even though it was more difficult for the pinkette than anything else, or she would have to spend time on human behavior books.

However, these were secondary problems that were far from the level of the biggest one. Finding him wouldn't be a problem, but how would she contact him without making him suspect she was doing it for some purpose?

She had to make it simple, so simple that it would seem like the most ordinary and common cliché in the world, like bumping into him in the school hallway, her books falling out of her hands, falling to the ground, her frantically reaching for them to she collected them and he tries to help her, and so their hands touch for the first time, their eyes meet in one not too long but intense look that is etched in his mind…

Or she'll walk into a room full of people, giving him a confident but somewhat uncertain look to make him feel like he's her refuge, anchor point, and safety net in all the chaos.

There were too many options; she just had to choose the best.

*.*.*.*.*

She never thought walking on her own two feet would be exhausting, tiring, and... boring. The entire human world seemed too simple, dull, and lifeless to the pink-haired girl, but on the other hand, this was what people adored so much. They loved the stereotype they outwardly reviled, but deep down, they looked forward to nothing more than to return to it. Sakura was sure of it; she had often heard people lament the unfairness of their own lives, but when something drastically changed in it, as they had wished for months and years, something that shifted their center of the universe and forced them to reevaluate their priorities - with that change, they were much more unhappy, unsatisfied, and their dream has suddenly become to return to a worthless, boring, stereotypical life, using the hackneyed phrase 'if only it were the way it was before.'

However, human wretchedness and fickleness did not change the fact that she already knew she hated walking. She loved the wind in her hair, the air that tickled her bare feet, and the only thing bothering her now besides the thought of getting home as quickly as possible were those pesky shoes that bound her freedom and liberty. She wanted to take them off right then and there, start walking barefoot, and feel the ground under her feet, but she assumed that she wouldn't play with the idea of staying inconspicuous and people would start looking at her strangely.

She came to a place that consisted only of a short wooden bench, painted with street graffiti in blue and red, with inscriptions whose meaning could not be identified, and a dilapidated canopy over a piece of wood to protect her and the people around her from the rain until they were waiting for their regular bus. Sakura just hoped the bus would be better than walking.

However, she found out very quickly that it wasn't. The way it was tossing her from side to side was destroying her stability and balance, making her growl in exasperation, but she resisted the urge as she tried to focus her mind instead on finding an empty seat as she saw the people who managed to occupy one from the thrones of a noisy and dusty bus, they did not have the problems she struggled with. However, she was unlucky again because, as we mentioned, someone up there was making fun of her; well, as Sakura liked to say, 'the universe was showing her one big middleman,' but such comments always earned her a stern look from her mother.

"Here's the place!" she heard a voice from a distance to which she paid no attention; she thought that since no one here knew her, no one could talk to her. Plus, who would volunteer to speak to a freak who couldn't stand still, held on to a pole like crazy, and had a pink trigger on her head to top it all off? "Bubblegum! Hello, I'm talking to you!'

The pinkette stopped balancing after this sentence, stopped in place, and looked around, but no one seemed suspicious enough to keep her gaze on them for more than a few seconds.

"Here!" the same voice again. Sakura looked back to where she was sure the sound was coming from until her gaze landed on a young blonde, maybe her age, who was sitting in a seat at the back of the bus, one handheld over his mouth to let his voice go into a more significant away while waving the other frantically above his head. "Are you deaf or what?"

Sakura rolled her eyes, closed them for a moment, counted to five, and sighed in disgust. She had no choice; if she will stay some time here, she needed to form some relationships so that people wouldn't think she was weird because that was one of the secondary goals. She had to fit in. She had to look like every other living thing on earth, and the blond guy seemed like a good start.

The pinkette timidly stepped forward, wobbled a few times with unsteadiness, and only when she was sure she could make it did she take a few quick steps towards the noisy blond guy, who was still waving but this time with both hands above his head, as if she was a ship sailing in the dark and he had rays of light in his hands, with which he guided her in the right direction to go.

'Got it,' she thought and smiled happily as she felt she had finally figured out a formula to maintain stability on the bus that was swaying wildly from side to side, away from the blond boy and the seat next to him that he kept unoccupied for her, she was only a few steps away. She decisively stepped forward with her right foot, giving him a soft smile, placing her other foot in front of the first as the bus decided to slam on its brakes, sending the pink-haired woman off balance.

She clumsily waved her arms like a frightened bird until she lost the last vestiges of stability and began slowly falling backward, causing the blond boy to start from his seat instinctively, but before he could reach her, it would be too late. Sakura was about to scream when her back hit something solid, and another hand grabbed her arm. Stifling a frightened scream in her throat, she tilted her head back, and her eyes widened in surprise.

The lights above the bus's open door, which had braked at the stop, began to flash frantically and made an alarming sound for people standing in the restricted zone to move away from the space reserved by the door before it closed.

Onyx eyes pierced jade green, their gazes meeting only briefly before he pushed her entire petite frame to bring her upright.

"I…" the pinkette said, still surprised and disillusioned at the unexpected meeting that wasn't in her plan, her mind racing about what she should say when he caught her so unprepared. "I am sorry,"

The black-haired man nodded almost imperceptibly, walking around her without any interest and taking his place next to the blond guy who had been frantically waving at her before and was now sitting in his seat with his mouth wide open with no sound coming out. Confused, his mouth still hanging open, his gaze bounced from the black-haired man to the pink-haired woman, back and forth until he stopped at his sidekick; a sinister smile spread across his face, and he raised one finger to point at the pinkette.

The black-haired one snorted and slapped the blonde boy on the head before rubbing the affected area as his friend absently looked out the window, his dark eyes not giving her another look.

"Fuck," she sighed to herself, turning on her heel as the bus started moving again, grabbing the pole next to her and pointing her back at the black-haired boy and blonde boy behind her. "I'm fucked."

She didn't dare to look over her shoulder at him the rest of the way. She knew it was stupid of her to do what was expected of her, to come there, right to them, and charm him with anything that would impress him, something that would leave a little spark in him, which would accompany him for the next few days. But she couldn't.

She couldn't turn and look into those onyx eyes, deep and dark, that called her, beckoned her. She couldn't because she knew that her mission would turn against her. She knew - she was fully aware of it - that she must not allow it; the result should have been the opposite. He should have fallen in love, not her; he shouldn't have been able to take his eyes off her, not the other way! And she knew that the moment she looked at him again, she would drown in his eyes, and she couldn't let that happen.

Not this time.

She was an adult, albeit briefly, but had to act accordingly. She couldn't act like a crazed teenager, let her heart skip a beat whenever the thought of him crossed her mind, let her breath catch, let her knees shake, and keep her feet firmly planted on the ground. This was a mission, an assignment. No romance, and most of all, it wasn't about her, her heart, and unfulfilled desires. It was about him.

It was about a dark-haired boy whose words were so few, whose actions were so few that his folder barely contained his name and picture.

The bus pulled up a few more stops, and several young people her age were clutching their bags, satchels, and briefcases in their hands, making their way out; that's when she realized she should be doing the same until she turned, and her gaze met him again. His gaze, those dark eyes, burned through her, fixed on her, watching her every move. At the same time, chaos raged in the crowd of teeming young people pushing their way out of the bus space, the black-haired man nonchalantly sitting in his seat next to the already disgruntled blonde boy with a backpack on his back, looking at her.

Sakura swallowed hard at the lump in her throat and looked away uncertainly, walking towards the open door, trying to get lost in the crowd and find her lost peace. However, she could still feel his gaze as it was so intense as if it was breaking through a barrier formed by humans who separated them.

*.*.*.*

"Sign it here," came the authoritative voice of the headmaster, eyeing her suspiciously. "Here," he pointed a finger at a specific box while the pink-haired girl was uncertainly clutching a blue pen. Biting her bottom lip, she shook her head and quickly signed the document where the director's finger was pointing. "Now get out of here. I've got a lot to do."

The pinkette nodded uncertainly, rose to her feet, and bowed respectfully.

"You children of rich parents," he snapped his tongue in displeasure in a hissing voice. "You think you can have everything."

Sakura opened her mouth, but the headmaster held a hand to cut her off.

"No exceptions next time, not even for you, Miss Haruno," he threatened with a finger, giving the pink-haired woman a stern look. "Regulations are regulations. Now out," he motioned with his chin towards the office exit.

The pink-haired woman nodded uncertainly again, clumsily grabbing the bag, clutching it to her chest, and walking towards the door of the headmaster's office, holding the doorknob before turning around again.

"Excuse me…" she said; the headmaster looked at her under thick black-rimmed glasses. "Where am I supposed to go anyway?" she asked, flinching slightly when she saw the annoyed look on the headmaster's face, who had anticipated her absence as he already had the receiver in one hand and the other on the landline dial.

Annoyed, he put the receiver back in its place and looked at the confused pink-haired girl standing by the exit.

"Jiraiya!" the headmaster yelled in an annoyed voice, angry, suddenly causing Sakura to flinch again.

She had to take a step back when the door, the handle of which she was still clutching in her hand, began to open towards her, and a white-haired, middle-aged man entered the room where she had come to sign an application for a university student.

Sakura scrutinized him. Although he looked like an affable middle-aged gentleman, something about him didn't seem right to her. Maybe it was the strange red lines that framed the area around his eyes and the rest of his face or the outlandish clothing that - in Sakura's opinion - was not exactly appropriate for school staff and teachers. He ducked slightly to create space between the door and his body for the petite pinkette, who promptly slipped past him to get out of the unpleasant guy's office as quickly as possible.

She stood still momentarily while the addressed Jiraiya greeted the headmaster, who just nodded in response. He casually pulled out a small orange book from his pants pocket, which he held in one hand; with the other hand, he reached into the pocket of a strange, unusual red jacket from which he took out a pen and began to write his thoughts in the lines of the book. Sakura stared at him blankly.

The white-haired man seemed to sense her gaze, so he looked up from the lines of his book. "Don't worry, I'm no barbarian," he smiled softly, causing small lines to form around his eyes. "This book is mine."

Sakura raised a narrow eyebrow, then nodded and followed him down the hall. A few minutes later, the white-haired man looked at another door and motioned for her to open it and enter. When she complied with his silently expressed request, he followed her in silence as well, not paying attention to the path between the corridors of the faculty because his attention was focused on only one object - the pen in his hand, which was sliding across the pages, until his tongue stuck out with effort, as he tried to think in your head to translate on paper.

"Here," came his stern, masculine voice, and the pink-haired woman stopped mid-walk from turning to him, staring briefly at the door he was standing next to. "Enter."

Sakura nodded, taking a few steps towards the door and grabbing the handle to turn it when his voice caught her attention again.

Jiraiya folded his arms across his broad chest, curiously raising his bushy eyebrows and measuring her from head to toe, to which the pink-haired woman swallowed nervously.

"We do not know each other?"

"I don't think so," the pink-haired woman snapped back immediately, nervously scratching the back of her neck to look normal instead of showing her confusion and fear of being discovered by some creature that had no idea she existed in this city.

"You remind me of someone."

The white-haired man looked at her thoughtfully for a few more moments as if he could tear apart her insides with a piercing gaze and thus find the answer to the unanswered question and hang in the suffocating air between them. Then he shook his head slightly, his massive frame relaxed, the arms crossed over his chest, fell to his body, and he shrugged his shoulders slightly.

"It must be a mistake," he muttered under his breath, still looking at her in disbelief, hoping she'd reveal something mysterious and familiar that was escaping his attention.

"Sure," the pinkette stated, trying to sound confident. "Goodbye, Mr. Jiraiya," she respectfully nodded her goodbye to end this unpleasant and uncomfortable conversation as quickly as possible, reaching for the doorknob again, but this time she finally turned it.

"Bye, Miss Haruno," he murmured. "Welcome to Konoha. And good luck."

Sakura knew she shouldn't draw too much attention to herself, so she mentally slapped herself. Sighing heavily, she also further decided not to give the mysterious and curious Jiraiya another glance not to provide the conversation with another chance to continue. She pulled the light wooden door towards her, revealing a small class of college students sitting one by one at their desks and a single teacher sitting silently behind a large desk, leafing through a strangely familiar orange book.

The other students copied their teacher, also sitting behind their private desks, their gazes entirely focused on their books, or at least they tried to make it look that way. It wasn't until Sakura narrowed her eyes that she noticed that only a few of them were using the textbook for actual study; the others found use as a pillow they decided to use to replenish their missing energy balances, but only one wasn't paying attention to it. His dark eyes looked far into space, unknown from the window on his left hand. They watched as the cherry blossom petals danced in the air as the swirl of air toyed with them; his elbow rested on the table without any significant interest, his hand supporting his bored face while the blond boy sitting next to him had other concerns.

The blond boy, sleeping recently with his eyes closed and sleepy as a sign, was busy covering his index finger with saliva up to the root until his mouth touched his palm. Then he pulled the wet finger out of his moist mouth, opening cavities, trying as quietly and unobserved as possible to reach the ear of his dark-haired classmate sitting on the bench to his left.

"Students!" called the professor's cheery voice as his eyes looked up from the pages of the small book to look at the pink hair, not only to snap his sleeping students out of their trance but to catch the attention of the pinkette itself who was mesmerized by the apparition before her. This was different from how the most prestigious dormitory in Konoha had imagined.

However, the mischievous blond boy didn't keep his cool at his professor's summons; his shrill voice reaching his ears startled him enough to choke back a scream that didn't even manage to escape his mouth as he lost his balance on his tilted chair as he tried to get close the incriminated ear. The blond boy landed squarely on his face with a painful impact, quickly gathering himself back to his feet, lifting his chair back to its original position, and cursing loudly, pointing a finger at the black-haired man looking out the window.

Onyx eyes moved from the dancing petals to the red face of a blonde boy at a slow, lazy pace, the dark gaze first resting on his stomach, at a height he assumed his seated classmate would be interested in, but then his dark pupils gradually rose to meet sky blue eyes. The black-haired man snorted arrogantly and dispassionately looked away from the already angry blond guy, who had jumped up on the chair and was about to deliver the final blow.

"Come on, come on," came the teacher's voice again, to which the blond almost jumped to his attention; his tense body relaxed, his mind lost focus, and the black-haired man's eyes flashed to the legs of the chair the noisy blond was standing on. The pinkette watched the scene of silent war unfolding in front of her with interest. "Don't be shy, just come."

Sakura took unsteady steps toward the silver-haired man. Her body was straight, but her head was tilted slightly as she watched the scene, something the teacher himself seemed to notice as he broke eye contact for a moment. He looked at his students, then turned his attention back to her. "Welcome to Konoha, miss..."

The black-haired man took advantage of the blonde's moment of inattention as he gazed in fascination at the incoming pink haired and kicked the legs of the chair the blond was standing on, causing his friend to fall back to the ground with a scream and rub himself - just like in the morning - a sore spot on his head caused by his black-haired companion - again. The black-haired man snorted arrogantly and turned his face away from him.

From his position, the blond boy looked up at the pinkette again, immediately noticing her straight gaze, the trajectory of which was targeted, focused on one specific point. However, he also noticed that this trajectory was not one-way or one-sided, only from the pink-haired girl because he could return to his originator.

Jet black pupils pierced the young slender body covered in pale skin, the owner's jade eyes, his eyes traded the observation of the color of the cherry blossom petals for a single intense look at the woman's pink hair.

"Sakura," the pinkette announced in a weak voice, still not breaking eye contact with the dark and dark one across the room. "My name is Haruno Sakura."

*.*.*.*.*

I am very sorry for the grammatical errors. I never imagined how difficult it would be to translate this book into English! But despite that, I look forward to your reviews, good or bad.

I appreciate your time reading this chapter. As you can already see, it will be a fic focused on varied fantasy :)

Oh, and of course, the offer is still valid if anyone wants to take on the role of my editor

Kisses,

M.