Fear puddled in Sakura's stomach as they looked over the edge of the gulley where just a little while before she'd been having a minor tantrum.
There was blood on the ground and she immediately recognized the two older shinobi as Kurenai and Asuma. How had they been attacked like this? Sakura wondered absently who had hurt them so badly as she scanned the area.
Gai was down there, too , his body a blur as he whipped and kicked at the strange man with a sword. Sakura shuddered as she noticed the man's skin was not at all the color that a living human being should have. Jiraiya chose that moment to appear, his cloak fluttering about him as his chakra surged. Had the situation not been so dire, Sakura might have thought it was impressive and cool.
The strange man with a sword laughed and Sakura cringed, her eyebrows tenting together to house her anxiety.
There was another body on the ground that she didn't recognize; she couldn't see the man's upper half. Asuma was beginning to stir, trying to pick himself up off the ground.
Lee catapulted himself over the railing and began to flit back and forth between the trees as he lowered himself to the ground. Neji didn't move, staring on with an unreadable expression as he gripped the guardrail. His Byakugan had activated in his duress, but he was frozen in place.
Sakura followed Lee, cramping her chakra down into nothing as she moved. She prayed that Kurenai was still alive. Her heart thudded in her chest as she crept, moving closer and closer to the messy scene.
As she rushed secretively into the fray, she sensed that Jiraiya was there, his chakra buzzing around him in threatening waves that caused his clothing to billow. He'd begun to weave hand signs together and the terrain was changing quickly as marshes sprung up all around.
Kurenai stiffened when Sakura touched her side, her red eyes opening as wide as they were able. Sakura pressed a finger to her own lips, smiling nervously down at her.
There was a large gash in the her side and blood pooled beneath her in the grass. Sakura measured the odds of her being able to use healing chakra and knew that it would be close to zero percent. She yanked the bandages out of her pouch and pushed them against the woman's side and pressed down.
Kurenai groaned in pain and Asuma gasped, looking over to them. Sakura surmised that he was just now realizing what had happened to the woman.
"Let me do it." He commanded, his chest heaving with the exertion of moving closer to her side. "Go check on Kakashi."
"Kakashi?" Sakura asked stupidly, the blood draining from her face. Asuma pointed with his eyes to the body that was on the ground, the upper half hidden in the undergrowth.
Wordlessly, she moved toward his fallen form. He was too still. Deathly still.
She glanced over to where Jiraiya had closed in on the large man with the sword. The one in the hat stood by, watching the fight with his hand at the tanto on his side. The two of them wore matching robes, black with red clouds. The cloaks themselves weren't very intimidating, but the men were. The man in the hat was closer to her, only a few hundred feet away.
She set her hands on Kakashi's shoulder, jostling him slightly. He didn't move. She held her hand on his stomach, feeling it rise and fall weakly with each breath.
His whole body felt tense, despite his apparent unconscious state. It didn't look like there was anything wrong with him, he was just out cold. She breathed out a sigh of relief and without realizing it, also relaxed her hold on her chakra. Her chakra-presence pinged back to life full-force.
She glanced back to the battle, noticing that the man with the hat had stopped in his tracks. He turned to look at her, his red eyes glowing across the clearing.
In a moment he was in front of her, his dark hair fluttering around his face. She paled, her mind reeling. She studied the red of his eyes and the deep tear troughs under them. She knew exactly who this was.
He tilted his head to the side, considering. Sweat trickled down the back of her neck, cutting between her shoulder blades. "It's you... You're his teammate."
The man picked up a lock of her hair between his forefinger and his thumb. He twisted it, inspecting for some unknown factor. What he was looking for, she did not know.
"S-Sasuke-kun?" She asked stupidly, too scared to even think straight. The other man was yelling now, the kind of shout a man makes to encourage himself in the face of fear. Her knees were so weak; how much longer could she stand?
He let go of her hair and brushed a hand against her face as if to make sure she was real. His strange Sharingan eyes bore into hers and it felt like the rest of the world was falling away.
"Itachi!" The other man roared. Itachi turned, lazily, amusement playing across his lips as he watched Jiraiya send a veritable tornado of swampy green water at his partner.
"Why did you do it?" She implored, her curiosity crying out louder than any self-preservation she could muster. He met her gaze with the most peculiar expression. "How could you—"
Her vision went black and she heard the 'thunk' of her body hitting the ground more than she felt it. Then she knew nothing anymore, nothing other than the blackness of her own eyelids.
She wasn't sure when the world had begun to form again, but before she knew it she was wandering along through the bush in the woods, absolutely unsure of where she was headed. She didn't remember waking up again, but decided she must have just been out of it when she came to. In the back of her mind, she considered her fallen comrades. Had Jiraiya and Gai carried them to the hospital?
There was nothing to be seen of the earlier fight. The forest looked foggy and eerie now. Somehow a layer of gloom had befallen the area.
The brambles and roots in the ground were large and made walking both annoying and difficult. She stumbled once more, her ninja sandal catching on a particularly knobby root. This was how she found the path again, though it did not lead the way she remembered. She remembered the overlook, where she'd been what felt like only moments before with Neji and Lee.
Eventually, she came across it but there was no path to get up to it. As she stared at the wall, she noticed she couldn't remember why she had come this way. It was the vague, nagging sensation of forgetting something terribly important and being unable to place anything about the forgotten subject other than that it had been forgotten. Her mind was a very organized place, so this was not a familiar feeling for her.
She walked for a while, annoyance and fear coupling together to keep her company as she wandered. Her mind drifted and she considered the different training goals she currently had. It bothered her that she couldn't remember what she'd forgotten.
Eventually she forgot that she'd even forgotten anything and busied her mind with what occupied it most often as of late: training routines. Kakashi would be so disappointed if she didn't have something to report in the next two weeks. The river she'd wandered away from likely had plenty of fish but it would be cruel to subject them to her current learning methods. They probably had big fish families. Did animals grieve?
Sakura began contemplating whether or not it was possible to change the location where she stored her chakra during moments of sneaking around with it compressed. She was considering the specifics of whether the chakra had to be stored at her core or if it could be moved to a different place (and whether or not that would do anything of value or just be an interesting thing to accomplish) when a hand grabbed her by the forearm. The grab startled her and she couldn't contain her gasp.
"Where have you been?" Sasuke barked, his grip too tight to wiggle free from. "Today of all days is not a good day for you to be wandering around like a lost sheep."
'Who knew Sasuke could string together so many sylllables,' Sakura thought to herself, struggling to remember what he was talking about. Had she forgotten something?
"I— Sorry, I got turned around, I guess," she mumbled, her eyes narrowed as she tried to remember what it would have been.
"I understand if you're nervous, they can be a bit… you know." He mumbled. Sakura noticed the tips of his ears and nose reddening a little bit. This was new.
"Wh—who? Are we not going to Naruto's?" She looked around, feeling lost. How had she ended up in this place anyway? She had the distinct feeling she had forgotten something important, and not just what was in front of her.
Sasuke stopped walking so abruptly that Sakura tripped a little bit, falling into him. He held her that way, with his hands wrapped around her wrists, unbothered by the close proximity.
"Did you hit your head in there? We're meeting my parents, Sakura." She'd never seen this particular brand of concern on his face before and it made her uncomfortable. At one point, she'd have killed to see him look at her with that much emotion. Now, she was just… uncomfortable.
Reflexively, she felt around on her head, wincing at the large goose egg she found. Even still, that could have been from any number of training injuries. "That depends on whether this is old or new," she murmured.
Wordlessly, he moved behind her to study her head. "Hn. You're bleeding, Sakura. You must have hit your head pretty hard…"
Sakura looked at her fingers, surprised that sure enough there was blood on her hand. That would explain the confused wandering, but how had she even gotten out here?
"I'm sorry, Sasuke-kun, I didn't mean to—"
"Why are you apologizing for getting hurt?" He scoffed, grabbing her by the hand. "Come on, my mom will patch you up."
Mom. Her heart thudded in her chest and she realized that was what she'd just heard. It had to be a genjutsu. She tried to release herself, furiously whispering "Kai!" Over and over again.
Sasuke sighed, wrapping an arm around her. He was attempting to herd her forward. "It's not a genjutsu, Sakura. Promise."
"But aren't…" She pulled away from him, wrapping her arms around herself. "I thought your parents were dead, Sasuke-kun," she whispered, covering her mouth with a hand as soon as she spoke.
He looked so sad, just then. It was wrong. It felt wrong and foreign and she spiked her chakra rapidly trying to break free of whatever strange genjutsu she was in.
"Sakura, you were attacked on a foreign mission and you… they put you through a particularly nasty genjutsu. We still don't know all the complications from it but every once in a while, you're triggered— either from a hard hit or something stressful and you forget where you are. I didn't realize you were full-blown forgetting it all right now." He took a deep breath, taking her hand again. This time he was gentle in a way that the Sasuke she knew never was. This one talked a lot.
"That's… that's impossible," she breathed, pulling her hand away and brushing her bangs out of her face.
"I can show you," he offered, studying his feet. "If you trust me, I can show you."
His eyes swirled red and she looked at him, torn between letting him catch her eye or running away. He'd never tried to hurt her before, after all. "How?"
"Just a simple genjutsu to bring you back up to speed. Purely visual, just to show you what happened, nothing else, I promise." His brows tented together; he was eager to help her. When had she ever seen him like this? She wanted to be suspicious but it was just so… Sasuke. Even with all the differences.
Shyly, she nodded and looked him in the eye. Genjutsu was so invasive— one couldn't help but feel self-conscious.
Memories of a life she couldn't recall danced at the forefront of her mind. Sasuke had befriended her when they were nine. Ino had done a lot for her and her social confidence before then, but when Sasuke pursued friendship with her, the blonde hadn't had it in her to create a rivalry with Sakura over the dark-haired boy. He wasn't brooding and mysterious this go-around without the tragic death of his family. Moody, sure, but well-adjusted. Apparently without the moodiness, Ino was not interested.
She remembered many afternoons of Sasuke's brother Itachi picking him up from the academy, leading both Sasuke and Naruto back to the Uchiha compound. The Uchiha had been granted the permission to mentor the boy but not to adopt him. Sasuke's mother had been close friends with Naruto's mother.
Memories of being close friends with the two boys flooded her mind, as well as daring adventures with Naruto and Ino as they pranked the Uchiha clan with silly, harmless pranks. Naruto's position with the Uchiha had afforded him some skills to be better accepted by the other clans. This led to the somewhat interesting development of Naruto and Ino turning out to be a nightmare duo of harmless pranks and general indecency. Hinata was a closer friend to her in this youth, shamelessly in love with Sasuke's older brother Itachi. Sometimes Sakura had helped her to spy, laughing with reckless abandon when he caught them.
He was always a gentleman, smiling after the girls when they darted away, laughing like loons.
Sakura had grown strong after years of sparring with Naruto and Sasuke and naturally their team had been paired together due to their natural teamwork. It wasn't until recently that Sasuke had actively confessed his feelings for her and they'd begun to pursue this budding romance. Even watching that made Sakura's stomach churn in discomfort. With everything that had been going on in her real life— or was that life the genjutsu?— she'd disconnected from viewing him in a romantic light at all. What a jarring juxtaposition of desires; she wasn't sure whether to enjoy this 'new' development or not. There were many memories that filtered through the genjutsu and it left Sakura's mind reeling.
Sasuke ended his genjutsu and Sakura let out a low breath, trying to keep her emotions under control. It was a lot to absorb— if not for all the emotional baggage that went with it— for all the sheer facts of life that were so different from what she knew to be true. So many different faces in the Uchiha clan had come through her mind that she felt dizzy with the rush of information.
She leaned her hand against the nearest tree, trying to rectify one life with another. The weight of it felt like too much; she sank to the ground and let out another sigh of unease.
Sasuke plopped down on the ground next to her, too shy to look at her. He wasn't too shy, however, to pick up her hand and just sit with her.
There was a sound in the back of her mind. When she was a child, she'd considered it the voice of reason and she'd thought everyone had one; a second little voice, to keep them company as they navigated life. That second voice was garbled right now, for the first time in her life. She wondered why, but perhaps the voice of reason was just overwhelmed with the new information. Old information? Information.
Sakura resolved to not believe anything, but to just wait and see. If it was a genjutsu she was in right now— despite all of the evidence that it was real— she'd have to wake up some time, right? She'd never heard of one where you didn't wake up eventually. Shizune had said they ended when the chakra supply did.
"What do we do now?" She asked, shucking the feeling of confusion and deciding to play along. Sasuke frowned a bit, his trained eyes able to read through her poor lie.
"Well, we can go announce this to my parents. Also, my mother can clean your headwound."
" I'd like to meet them," she mustered.
"… Err, you have met them, to be clear. We're officially telling them that I am… inclined to marry you… when the time is right."
Any nerves Sakura had about meeting his parents vanished at the talk of marriage. Her face flooded with colour and she pulled her hand free of his. "M-marriage! We've hardly begun to date."
"It's not exactly appropriate for the son of the Uchiha's clan leader to date frivolously," he grunted, looking away in embarrassment. "We've already talked about all of this Sakura. You said you were sure this is what you wanted."
"We are thirteen," she hissed. Internally, she remembered a time when she at twelve would have been head-over-heels with the looming 'threat' of marriage to Sasuke Uchiha.
For all that he tried to appear sure of himself, he clearly looked shy now. He wouldn't look at her and his nose and ears had gone pink.
"If you want to call it off—"
"No, it's not that! It's just… It's a lot to take in." She sighed, lifting herself to her feet. "Come on, Sasuke."
She brushed the dirt and pine needles off the seat of her pants and started walking again.
"Wait!"
She turned around, putting her hand on her hip with putupon annoyance. "What now?"
He squirmed ever so subtly under her gaze. "You're going the wrong way."
Sakura scoffed in annoyance and shuffled back towards him, resolutely ignoring the slight amusement dancing over the crest of his lips.
Mikoto was not what she'd expected. She wasn't sure what she'd expected, but it was not the witty, good-humoured woman before her.
Mikoto winked at her as she poured her tea, giggling to herself. "I wondered when Sasuke would finally bring you around for this meeting."
"I hardly know what you mean," Sakura said surreptitiously, taking a careful sip of her tea, casting her eyes to Sasuke as she did so. His lower lip puffed out and he looked away. She wished she could take a picture to bully Real Sasuke with.
Mikoto moved behind Sakura with a bowl of water and a cloth. She carefully picked a small twig from the girl's hair before gently lifting and moving Sakura's hair so she could better see the wound that had caused all the bleeding.
"Little brother has always been fond of you, but of course he'd never told you that," Itachi quipped, taking a polite sip of his own tea. Itachi was leaned against the counter, every bit of him vibrating forth the aura of proud aristocrat, yet bearing none of the smugness she'd anticipated. Sasuke curled his fists on his thighs, shooting his brother a death glare. Sasuke was sitting in a remarkably ordinary wooden chair next to a humble kitchen table.
Fugaku looked amused by the whole thing, as he poured over a report of some kind and pretended to ignore them. There was the slightest tilt to his lips that Sakura could recognize as a practical full-blown laugh from any Uchiha. Sakura's lip quirked and she glanced at her lap, unsure of how to respond.
Every time Itachi had been mentioned to her before, it had been laced with fear and agony. The memories Sasuke had fed her in the genjutsu had been enough to prevent her from jumping and flinching around him, but it was still a large chasm between who she expected and who sat before her. It was also evident from the way Sasuke's parents met that she'd not only met them before but had developed quite a bit of rapport with them.
"We've been hearing about you for years," Mikoto admitted, the smile in her voice evident. "We'd never mentioned anything when you just came over as friends because how embarrassing for such a headstrong young man to be outed by his mother of all people."
Mikoto began to dab at the dried blood on the pinkette's scalp. "No, we couldn't have that."
"But since my dearest son took so terribly long to tell me, I'll have to save you the suffering I endured." Mikoto leaned around so that Sakura could see her smile and Sakura couldn't help but feel dazzled. She wondered how the dour and fussy Fugaku had landed such a lovely woman like Mikoto.
"He came home one day from the park and wouldn't stop raving about the little girl with pink hair. Itachi had already heard it six times by the time Sasuke-chan told me!"
"Mother," Sasuke warned somewhat firmly. "We came to inform you, not to bog Sakura down with all of these…. Elaborate and exaggerated stories."
Itachi hummed under his breath, tilting his head to the side as he considered his brother. "If anything, Mother is being kind to downplay the level of excitement you'd expressed, little brother."
Sakura bit back her smile, trying to remind herself that none of this was even real. She could see the ghost of a smile on Fugaku's lips and she wondered what kind of man he was. She knew Ino's father had fought in the Second Great War, but she'd never heard of Fugaku's exploits to help the village.
There was a knock at the door. It slid open and a young woman appeared, bowing low. She straightened and then turned to the left where there was a rolling table of some kind. She entered the room with a tray full of small bowls of miso soup, making her way around the table like a skilled dancer. It was almost an art and Sakura appreciated the display. Fugaku had moved his report to the side to make room for his food, nodding to the young woman in the process. She was clearly an Uchiha. Sakura wondered how the clan was split and if it was anything like the Hyuuga.
"Thank you, Yahiko-san," Mikoto whispered warmly. She was a gentle woman, Sakura strong and proper (this Sakura only knew because of a casual comment regarding a mission, indicating the woman was a kunoichi) but every bit the visual paragon of a woman in a powerful position within the clan.
"So," Fugaku began, his deep voice calling attention to himself for the first time all evening. "If you and Sasuke do marry, how do you intend to bring honour to this clan?"
Sakura felt the blood drain out of her face, but relied heavily on her training with Tsunade to slow down and actually think about what to say next instead of just panicking. Shizune's work with her on genjutsu had taught her to pay attention to details and she was grateful for that. She could feel Mikoto's hand on the back of her head, still scrubbing away at the dried blood.
"Well, I have a few ideas," she began slowly. She recalled that there was a Konoha police force. "I'm quite administratively talented, so I was considering reviewing the efficiency of the Police Force; spending, training, personnel. There also haven't been any well-renowned female fighters in the ranks other than Mikoto-sama, so I would not mind to excel in combat and bring honour through that particular arena."
Fugaku didn't say anything. His eyes narrowed ever so slightly as he considered her words, but Sakura didn't back down and rush to accommodate as she usually did. Despite the evidence that this was real, she still couldn't believe it. She wouldn't be a bumbling fool before these people, regardless. She was going to wake up from this genjutsu soon enough.
"You've not considered children?" He asked, fixing her with a pointed look.
"Sir… I am thirteen. We are still children ourselves. I anticipate that after we marry— in a few years when we marry— we'll take some time after that to secure wealth for the clan and to develop careers before we have children. Should the time come for Itachi to assume the seat of clan-head, it would be better for us to be in a position to serve him rather than to have divided attentions."
Sakura looked at her lap, trying to sooth her heartbeat. Children? She was still a child. What kind of question was that! Mikoto's hands were exceedingly gentle as she combed through Sakura's hair.
Fugaku laughed to himself. "How diplomatic of you," he murmured.
"All done, Sakura. That should heal in a few days," Mikoto said warmly, patting her on the shoulder. The older woman stood to her feet. "Time to eat!"
They shifted to the table and Sakura felt a strange sense of comfort that they were not in the formal dining room. That meant they were comfortable with her and not trying to impress her.
"I'd like Mikoto to teach you her Tessen Jutsu, then," Fugaku said, sealing up the report he'd set to the side. He funneled chakra into a mark on the table. "I want your body to be as quick as that brain of yours."
Sakura glanced sideways at Sasuke, who'd sat to her right, and she noticed the slump of his shoulders— relief. She chose not to be offended by what could have been perceived as a slight against her physical capabilities.
"I'd be honoured, Uchiha-sama," she nodded.
"Fugaku is fine," he murmured, not looking up from his soup. Sakura nodded, perturbed by how readily she was being accepted.
There was another knock at the door and a man she'd never seen before entered when Fugaku called for him. He had long silky hair and looked similar in age to Fugaku.
"I need this delivered to the Hokage, please. Tell him I'm looking into the occurrence and I'll follow up on it personally."
Mikoto smiled at her, setting her hand on the table in a comforting gesture. "I've always wanted a daughter to teach this to," she whispered this, like it was their little secret.
Sakura nodded, content for it to stay that way. The stranger departed and Sakura's gut clenched with a latent desire to see her own mother. It was unfortunate that some pains could not be remedied so easily as the one on her head.
There was another knock at the door as more food arrived. Sasuke caught her eye and they shared a little smile as it was brought in. Itachi said nothing, staring at his hand as he pondered. His eyes were red and he looked to be working in something as they moved back and forth, tracing some object unseen to either of them.
It had been an absolute ordeal to get through the meal without stepping in the obvious traps of conversation and opinion.
Sakura must have fared rather well because Fugaku began to smile more and more throughout the meal and seemed to visibly relax at some point. At first they had been the typical Uchiha smiles, but by the end of the evening he had bared his teeth with a few delight-filled laughs at jokes that poked fun at both of his children. Uchiha were very prideful but also very self-aware and so they seemed to take every opportunity to poke a little bit of fun at one another. Never about anything serious, though.
By the end of it, Sakura was sufficiently tired and her head ached something terrible. Sasuke walked her home like the gentleman he seemed to be, his arm casually looped through her own. Sakura was still anticipating that they would head to Naruto's apartment, so after a while when he didn't lead her in the direction she'd assumed, she didn't say anything. Maybe he lived somewhere else than where she thought.
Much to her chagrin, Sasuke walked her back to her childhood home. She wanted to hold back and to pull away from him, but she knew she wouldn't be able to explain that. So instead, they continued up to the front door.
Sakura pushed her chakra into the door handle, unlatching it. She couldn't bear the idea of him knocking and no one answering.
She slipped inside, not minding that he followed after her. The house smelled exactly as it always had. That was sadder than she expected. The lights were still on and everything looked neat. Did… Did she smell tea?
"How was it?" her father asked, popping his head around the doorframe, a towel slung over his shoulder. "Let's talk details! Tell me everything!"
Sakura winced, stepping backward, her hands drawing up in front of her chest as if to protect herself.
"That part went great. Unfortunately, Sakura hit her head earlier and is back to square one with the whole genjutsu thing." Sasuke offered, sighing to himself. He was taking his shoes off.
Kizashi frowned, immediately pulling the towel off of his shoulder. "My poor baby, come here."
Sakura let her father hug her, his strong arms wrapping around her like they always had. He smelled like tea and smoke and some other smell that she'd never been able to pinpoint. Her heart wrenched and she realized some part of her had accepted that she'd never smell it again. That she'd never experience this again.
Yet here she was. At some point, she hugged him back and began to cry. It was forceful and decidedly not cute. She didn't care.
"What's all this?" Mebuki asked from the corner of the room. "That bad?"
"No," Kizashi said, smoothing Sakura's hair. "Head trauma again. There's got to be something that the Yamanaka can do for her. This is breaking my heart."
Mebuki made a sound, some low noise of pain and understanding and moved closer. "I'm so sorry honey. I can't imagine you thinking we'd died. How awful… We'll never leave you, we promise."
When she'd composed herself, the rest of the night went smoothly. Her father cooked as he always did– her mother was a terrible cook. How had she forgotten that? Better yet– why had her mother been the one to teach her to cook?
A days had passed. Mikoto had begun to teach her the Tessen Jutsu and Sakura felt more at peace in her body. Her head still ached every now and again, but she worked with Inoichi and he helped her organize her thoughts. Oddly enough, Itachi had mentioned him to her and explained that the clan-head's help had seen him through an extraordinarily hard time in his youth.
Today, Sakura was picking up new kunai before heading to her meeting with Tsunade. Tuesdays were spent pouring over a text for an hour, a harsh and thorough quiz, and then a practical exam over the material for the next two hours. TenTen wrapped the blades carefully and smiled at her as she handed them over.
"We haven't trained together in a while," Sakura mentioned, suddenly remembering a time when they'd trained together.
TenTen laughed and nodded, tucking a hair behind her ear. Her buns looked just like they always did. "Yeah! We should do that. It's been too long."
"I can't remember the last time, actually," Sakura admitted. That was annoying. It must have shown on her face because TenTen apologized and told her a few times she was free that week. "I think I'll see you Tuesday, then. Just you or the whole team?"
"All of us. You'll be hard pressed to find any Uchiha taking you seriously if you keep getting trounced by Neji. Even if he is a prodigy," TenTen said with a wink. Sakura rolled her eyes in a good humored way, trying to overlook the feeling of doom that was rolling around in her stomach.
Anxiety was rising in her throat like vomit and she needed to get out of there. Something wasn't right but she couldn't put her finger on it.
"I'll see you then!" She said in parting, ducking out of the store as fast as she could. Sakura scurried down the street, hugging the package of knives to her chest.
She was trying to sort out the feeling of a misplaced memory when out of nowhere, Ino appeared next to her. "Where ya headed?"
"To see Tsunade-sama," Sakura said shortly, trying to ignore the blonde while she looked for the memory. "Sorry, I'm in a bit of a hurry—"
"What? Why? I haven't seen you in ages! I skimmed from Dad that you were in his office recently but he wouldn't tell me about what—"
"Ino-Pig, I gotta go!" Sakura said bluntly, jumping onto the roof top as she ran toward the Hokage's office. Ino followed her, fierce determination keeping her on Sakura's trail. The speed of clan kids was no joke.
"Tell me, Sakura!"
Sakura ignored her and kept running til she made it to the Hokage Tower. She looked back and Ino glared at her for a moment before haughtily turning around and flipped her hair. It was long and whipped like a rope. It occurred to Sakura that it should be short but she couldn't remember why.
She slipped into the Hokage Tower and made her way up to the Hokage's office, knocking at the door like she always did. When the Anbu opened the door to let her in, she waltzed in and then froze.
Sarutobi stared at her, a wry smile on his lips. "Can I help you, Miss Haruno?"
Author's Note: DUN DUN DUN. This literally took me six months to figure out how to write. Still not perfectly settled on it, but there's a reason for this, it isn't just for the drama. I'm headed back overseas again which means I might have more time to right again, might not. This one is from Costa Rica, baby.