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Disclaimer: Masashi Kishimoto owns Naruto, not me.

Chapter Nineteen:

Rendezvous Point

(Sakura POV)

“So, where did you get the weapons?” Suigetsu asked, brandishing his large cleaving sword that probably weighed 2 times more than me.

“The weapon storage room,” I answered for Sasuke, who seemed to be searching for the way out, his blood-red eyes glowing faintly in the dark labyrinth. “Konoha stores the weapons of criminals in a single room in the basement of the jail building for the large criminals.”

The Shark Nin nodded his head, slightly interested as we continued to walk after Sasuke and I freed the rest of Team Hebi. There were no guards standing around the cells (they were on break at this time) and all of the prisoners were asleep, so we were able to slink around in the dark with more space to maneuver. The walls that surrounded us felt narrower to me, my body shivering with anticipation at the thought of finally being free and feeling the outdoor air on my newly gained skin.

From behind me, I heard Karin spit on the ground with distaste. She was glaring at every single criminal behind the bars and muttering something about “nasty, unsanitary monsters”. I resisted the urge to laugh as she continued to link the phrase to the traits of Suigetsu. Those two would probably make a good couple…

“There’s the door,” Sasuke pointed out when we reached a dead-end. He reached out to open it, but my hand snapped out and closed around his wrist. Something told me that the door held some kind of trap – inside or outside – but I didn’t know what. We passed through this door to free Suigetsu, Karin, and Juugo, but something didn’t feel right this time.

“Um… Karin? Could you check for any chakra signatures behind this door?” I asked, feeling the exterior of the door for anything abnormal. So far, the nerves in my hand didn’t detect a thing. Even if there wasn’t a trap, there was a high possibility that the night guards were back from their short break and were now behind the escape route.

To my dismay, she refused with a grunt and a flip to her hair. “I don’t take orders from the likes of you.”

I took a deep breath, trying to let go of the negative energy. This teen was getting on my nerves. Feeling the urge to whack her with my iron fists, I shook my head and told myself ‘no’. Sasuke would definitely not take well to a fainted teammate… but he wouldn’t care about an offended one.

I opened my mouth to shoot a venom-covered comment, but Sasuke beat me to the punch with words of annoyance. “Karin, use your ability. We need to get out of here as quickly as possible.”

Karin’s unwilling frown turned upside-down into a sweet, sickly smile enough to make one melt in fear. It was quite evident that she had a childish crush on Sasuke. “Sure, Sasuke-kun,” she complied and focused her mind.

Though I hated to admit it, she reminded me when I was Genin who was inconsiderate about people’s feelings and only aware of mine. All of those times that I had gushed over Sasuke like no tomorrow… it was just like my situation with Rock Lee, except I was Lee and Sasuke, me.

“Yup, there are three guards outside,” Karin confirmed as she pushed her glasses further up the bridge of her nose. “But the only the handle contains faint traces of chakra that are bendable and connected to a chakra rope which is attached to the interior of an alarm system. If you push the handle down… the chakra will bend the rope and set the alarm off… Plus, the alarm system seems to be powered by that chakra rope.”

“So there’s only one rope…” Sasuke stated, raising his katana. “I’ll cut it with Kusanagi to shut the system down. We’ll then deal with the guards; they’re outnumbered.”

Karin nodded, her hair bouncing around her head. “The best place to cut the rope is the middle of the door.”

From behind me, I saw Suigetsu loosen his sword from the strap on his back and get into a standard fighting position, grunting as he struggled to maintain balance. Juugo stayed put, his muscles twitching from the forces suppression of blood lust, while Karin pulled out a kunai from her cloak.

In front, Sasuke silently jabbed the center of the door with Kusanagi and a flash of blue that quickly dissipated in the air ensued. Seeing that the chakra rope was cut, he shoved the handle open, allowing access to the world outside. Utilizing his inhuman speed, he dashed through the doorway without a word. I followed his lead along with the rest of Team Hebi.

Just as Karin had implied, we were soon showered in a downpour of kunai. Three guards approximately the size of Juugo surrounded us, their eyes widened in alarm at the amount of nuke-nin.

“Don’t kill any of them,” Sasuke warned, eyeing the large Shinobi in front of him. “We don’t want to cause a ruckus.”

We all nodded in agreement. After observing all of their faces, I was relieved that the guards were Shinobi that I didn’t know, since it would be a dirty ordeal. Charging some chakra into my hand, I hit a guard’s leg, breaking it in the process. He grunted in pain and howled as soon as Karin dug her kunai into his other leg. He fell to the ground easily, writhing in pain.

But to underestimate a Konoha Shinobi would be a big mistake. Being a former one myself, I never gave up, no matter how bruised and battered I was – and that ‘code of conduct’ went for the guard as well. In a flash, he completed a full sequence of hand seals, yelled something inaudible, and the next thing we knew was that a large fireball came billowing out of his mouth.

“Jump out of the way!” I shouted at Karin while hopping to the left myself. She pretended not to hear me but jumped straight into the air, a cocky air in her spring. The fireball proceeded to head towards Suigetsu’s way.

Feeling the temperature rise abnormally around him, he morphed into his usual puddle of water and allowed the fire to extinguish in a thicket of trees and plants. The guard that he was fighting let his guard down by ogling at the liquid pool at his sandals, Juugo quickly eliminating him with a bruising punch to the stomach.

I turned to the guard that I was fighting, only to see Karin punching him repeatedly in the face while cursing.

“Uh… I believe he’s unconscious,” I informed her, sweat-dropping at the poor man’s beat-up body.

“I know,” was all she said in return, a deadly look in her eyes. Was she jealous or embarrassed? Either way, I found myself smirking and chuckling in my mind.

“I’M NOT LETTING YOU GET AWAY!” a feminine screech sounded. It definitely wasn’t Karin; the voice was too high-pitched and it came from behind me rather than in front of me.

Clang!

My head whipped around, seeing two blades – one longer and more elegant than the other – meet, small white sparks flying. Sasuke’s katana slashed through the kunai of the female guard. It fell to the ground, forgotten, as the kunoichi ducked to evade a stab aimed for a few millimeters near her heart. She threw a senbon at her target which planted itself on Sasuke’s arm, but then wobbled on her feet, wasting time on a futile attempt to maintain equilibrium before her opponent struck. Her face showed shock as Sasuke raised his foot and shot it forward. In a cloud of dust, her head meshed with the wall and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

“Wow, what a way to beat a girl,” Suigetsu commented and grinned, transforming to his ‘human’ self once more. “That’s not nice.”

Wordlessly, Sasuke tucked his katana into its sheath and started to walk to the bench that held so many important memories for me – also including the meeting point with our helper. Karin spat at the guard that lay in front of her and ran after him. Juugo sighed at her usual behavior and followed the man that was able to control his bloodlust, while matching Suigetsu’s easy pace.

To avoid any commotion about missing nuke-nin, I ran to the fallen Konoha nin and sent my green chakra into their heads, deleting their memories of the encounter. Proud of my work, I wiped the sweat off of my brow and stood from my standing position.

“Hey, Sakura, we’re going!” Suigetsu called out, waving his bluish-green hand at me as a friendly gesture. “And to think you were Sasuke’s whore…”

BAM!

My fist collided with wet water, my nostrils flaring at the offending statement. “You missed,” Suigetsu laughed when a shower of water rained on me.

“You better watch that mouth of yours,” I warned. “That’s going to get you in a lot of trouble, fish man.”

“Fish man? What kind of nickname is that? I mean, you couldn’t even identify the correct species! I know that I’m not exactly Homo sapiens (scientific name for humans), but you’re even worse than Karin –”

BAM!

“I warned you,” I said, disregarding the fact that he merely turned into water… again. As I turned to face the front once more, I thought I saw Sasuke’s eyes narrow… but they disappeared before my mind could grab hold of the image.

The moon was at its highest in the sky, the yellowish tinge of light illuminating the path like a street lamp. The whole team was silent, their anxiousness radiating off of their bodies like ultrasonic waves during the short walk. Even the blatant Suigetsu never bothered to fire off any comments.

We walked for a couple of minutes until I spotted something gray in the distance, rigid and rectangular – the bench. I smiled sheepishly at all of the memories that gushed into my head like a raging waterfall.

Sasuke paused at the moment when he was standing exactly one foot away from the bench. “We’ll wait here, just as the note instructed.”

Karin plopped onto the cold granite exterior of the bench in a resting position, whining, “It’s cold out here. I wonder who this mystery person is…”

‘Most likely Naruto,’ I heard my mind whisper to me. It said something else, but the sound of sandals hitting the ground drowned it out.

“You’re early as usual, Teme…”

Upon hearing the familiar voice, my shoulders tensed as well as my neck muscles when a flash of orange appeared and perched on top of the bench.

“You haven’t changed at all… Naruto,” responded Sasuke, pausing to choose his words carefully.

Naruto’s blue eyes flashed with both happiness and sorrow; he was happy to see his best friend without the damage that he had inflicted upon him, yet he was sad for the fact that he was still wary of him and refused to call him ‘dobe’ and ‘usuratonkachi’.

“Hey… Sakura-chan…” he murmured, directing his attention at me. The tone in his voice sounded so guilty, that my conscience started gnawing me in the inside.

“I guess I owe you an apology and explanation… For starters, I’m really sorry for all of the pain that I caused you. Forgive me,” the blond Kyuubi container apologized, eyes trained on my emerald ones. “As for an explanation -”

“I heard from Tsunade-sama. In my time in that cell, I realized that you had no choice but to be loyal to your village – the elders specifically – and had to follow the orders. At first, I thought that you didn’t care for me anymore, but now I understand,” I butted in, finding it hard to forgive my former teammate. “As for your apology… It’s accepted.”

The grin that followed soon after I finished was as bright as sunshine during noon time – enough to blind and dazzle me. He sprang from the little seat that he had made and pulled me into a bone-crunching hug. “Sakura-chan, thank you!” he laughed, tears forming at the corner of his eyes.

“Oi, Naruto, I never said that I forgive you,” I protested, lungs bursting from lack of oxygen.

I had expected him to falter, only to get hugged tighter against his chest.

“Then… I’m gonna do what ever it takes to gain your forgiveness.”

I was on a temporary writer's block. I had all of the ideas in my head, but the words wouldn't form in my head - which isn't good. In fact, I remember rewriting this chapter more than 5 times... but I'm really proud about the Naruto and Sakura scene, especially the last line. Sasuke's got a rival... maybe two.

Moving from that topic, YAY FOR BATTLE SCENES! If you're lucky... you'll see a MAJOR battlescene in the future XD I'm glad that I can update without having to worry about finals anymore, yet I worry about my stories. You know, after I post a chapter here, I can't bear to read it... I dunno why (LOL). Does anyone else have this problem?

Reviews, either flames, comments, or criticism are greatly appreciated for this amateur author. THANKS FOR READING :) I'll reply to your reviews, I promise!