~2~ Ninjas? Ya Right.
“And, this is your place,” Naruto opened the door to reveal a nice apartment for me to live in. It was right next door to his own.
Stepping inside, I found a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom, a bedroom, and a study. Perfect. It was not too big, but not too small. It was ideal. Walking into the kitchen, I opened the fridge, but found it bare.
“Guess I need to get some food, huh?” I smiled, closing the door and took a seat at the small table.
“That’s the first time I’ve heard you talk without me or anyone else having to drag out a conversation all day,” Naruto informed me, joining me at the table.
“Sorry, but I had nothing to say.” I shrugged as I placed my hands behind my head and leaned back.
We sat in silence for a few minutes, but I didn’t mind. I liked the silence, it was pleasant. No one was yelling at me. I could just sit and relax and peace.
“Is it scary?” Naruto interrupted, breaking the silence.
“Is what scary?” I asked, not following his train of thought. Though with Naruto, it seemed his brain was wired differently than everyone else’s, so it didn’t surprise me that I didn’t understand.
“Not being able to remember anything? Not being able to remember who you are, or where you came from? Don’t you ever wonder where your parents are, or who raised you?”
“Well, I try not to think about it.” I shrugged. “But, to answer your question, yes it scares me; I think about it all the time. I am constantly wondering if my parents are out there looking for me, or if they just gave up, thinking I was dead. But, like I said. I try not to think about it.”
“Oh, right. Sorry.” Naruto rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. That was another thing about Naruto. He didn’t seem to think before he opened his mouth, something that was sure to get him into a lot of trouble. But I didn’t mind. He was just trying to help.
A knock on the door prohibited the awkward moment that was sure to have followed. I frowned. Who would be at my place? No one could really know where I was; I had just gotten here myself.
Crossing the room, I opened the door to reveal a dark-haired young girl, who had two buns on top of her head, about Naruto’s age. Dressed in khakis, she peered up at me. She was shorter than me by a good couple of inches.
“Ino, hey! What are you doing here?” Naruto asked as he came up behind me to see who it was.
“Oh, well, Kakashi-sensei sent me to find you two. He scheduled a practice today, and since I was out running, he asked if I would go get you two,” Ino answered. “I’m Ino. I’m not on his team; I’m in another.
“Sakura. And, you’re on a team of… ninja, right?” I was still skeptical that there was such a thing as ninja. I mean, come on. It sounded like something out of a bad movie.
“Right,” Ino gave me a curious look. “Anyway, Kakashi wants you both to come, so you better not keep him and Sasuke waiting.” I noticed she got a twinkle in her eyes when she mentioned Sasuke’s name. Ugh, love- or what Sakura considered love. It was just infatuation.
I followed Ino and Naruto through the city to an academy. The city itself was beautiful, and everyone was so friendly. They waved at me and stopped me to ask who I was, how I was adjusting here. I answered the best I could, though I hated talking about me to them. For some reason, I wanted to keep information about myself to myself. I didn’t want anyone to use something against me.
We bypassed the school (which was freaking huge!) and walked to the training field behind it. It was quite impressive, I will admit. With many obstacles set up and a track that ran around it, it was ideal for training.
“Okay, well, I better go train with my own team. I’ll talk to you guys later,” Ino told me before running back the way we had come.
Following Naruto over to Kakashi and Sasuke, I listened as Kakashi told them they would be training together to try and defeat himself. I was to sit and watch. Fun, I thought. Not! Great. This was just how I wanted to spend my day, watching a bunch of people play ninja.
I sat and watched for maybe ten minutes, but I was too bored to get into it. They were throwing stars and knives at each other and doing weird things with their hands. Naruto made clones of himself, and Sasuke tried to act all cool while he attacked with fire that he blew from his mouth.
Okay, so ninjas were real, but that didn’t mean I had to find interest in it, or think that I myself was one. No, I was content with being a normal, everyday, amnesiac. Something inside me told me that being a ninja was over.
Sighing, I stood up and stretched, turning my back on the others to look out across the training field. I loved looking at nature. It made me feel so peaceful and at ease. Though, I found I felt more comfortable when I was in the shadows of trees instead of being out in the open where the sun’s warm rays could find me.
The next moment happened so fast, I didn’t have time to think. I sensed something coming at me from behind. I turned so fast, I hadn’t realized I had moved until it was all over. I grabbed the throwing stars out of the air and chucked them back at my attacker with ease, pinning Naruto to a tree.
I frowned. What had I just done? Glancing at the others, I noticed they all had the same shocked expression I must have had. Naruto was gaping at me, Sasuke’s eyebrows were raised, and Kakashi was staring at me with his only visible eye.
“Wait. What just happened? What did you do?” Naruto stammered as he struggled to get down, ripping his jacket.
“I don’t know. I didn’t even think about it. It just happened. I didn’t mean to,” I shook my head, afraid of how they would think of me. The way they were looking at me made me feel like an outcast, like I was the freak.
“It’s okay, Sakura. Come on; we need to go talk to the Hokage,” Kakashi told me as he ushered me to follow him. “You aren’t in any trouble,” he assured me when I hesitated.
I followed unwillingly with the others behind me.
At the Hokage’s office, Kakashi explained everything that had happened to him. The Hokage just nodded and listened. He didn’t say anything. His staring at me unsettled me, and I felt intimidated.
“Sakura, this is quite a feat. I think we need to run a few tests on you to see just how skilled you really are. By doing this, we could get closer to finding out who you really are. We are still searching for your name in some other village surrounding us. So far nothing has come up, but we will find something, don’t worry,” he assured me.
I didn’t like the word tests. For some reason it made me uneasy and scared. I didn’t want to be some laboratory rat. I shook my head. “No, I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to be your lab rat. I’m not some person you can test on.”
“You wouldn’t be a lab rat. We are just trying to find out who you are. Isn’t that what you want? Besides, we’ll do it out in the open and stop whenever you want.”
I conceded, if only to learn who I was. That was the most important thing to me at the moment. Nothing else mattered. I wanted to know what had happened to me, who had done it to me, and why. I would stop at nothing until I found out.
---3rd POV---
The Hokage watched from his balcony as the best ninja in the village worked with Sakura. Kakashi stood at my side. “You know,” he said. “At the hospital the other day, she said something about not wanting to be some experimental rat. Do you think that’s what Orochimaru was doing to her? Experimenting on her?”
“Most likely,” the Hokage nodded. “She probably was supposed to be his protégé, which was why he was experimenting on her- to make her powerful and strong, just like him. But, somehow she escaped and they hunted her down and beat her. They probably would have killed her, except they heard you and your team coming. Fearing exposure, they left her for dead and ran.”
Kakashi nodded. “What are the tests showing? It’s been a week already.”
“Well, so far, she knows how to do every jutsu we throw at her, even the upper level ones. She knows chidori, the Rasengan, most of Neji’s clan’s techniques. Orochimaru wasn’t fooling around when he trained her. She knows how to do all the basics, mediums, and hard jutsus like a master. Now, we are opening some of the scrolls to see if she knows any forbidden jutsus.”
Kakashi glanced down at Sakura, who was sitting on the grass and looking over the scrolls the other ninja were showing her. Nodding in understanding, she performed the requi -signs and was performing the forbid jutsus like she had been doing it her whole life.
“Do you know what this means?” Kakashi asked. “If Orochimaru finds out she’s alive, he’ll be coming back for her. She could be immensely helpful to the village.”
“I know that, but we won’t be using her as a weapon. We will allow her to chose what path she wants to take. We will let her decide. Tomorrow, we will be bringing in our toughest ninja and assigning Sakura the task of defeating them all. We will see how well she performs.”
_-_-_
The next morning, the Hokage found himself watching as his finest Shinobi took to the ring, the very ring in which the third stage of the Chunins would be performed. He took his seat in the box office and watched as Sakura took on the dozen Shinobi he himself had picked out for this specific task.
The Hokage was astounded as he watched Sakura take them all out with a combination of Taijutsu and Genjutsu. The Hokage signaled the coordinator to stop the match and blind-fold Sakura and see how well she did.
She did phenomenal. She took the rest of the Shinobi out like it was child’s play. The Hokage pondered over this child. She was no older than fifteen, yet she was far beyond ANBU level. She reminded him of the Akatski’s skills.
What did Orochimaru want with her? What was his plan? Would Sakura be a threat to the village? And, did she deserve to know that she had been Orochimaru’s pawn?
---Normal POV---
I walked back to my apartment after I was told I was done with the testing. After a week and a half of sleeping with monitors connected to my head and arms, training, and studying (to see how much I could retain and already knew) I was exhausted and eager to sleep in my own bed where I could finally relax.
Slamming my door shut, I crawled into bed and lay there, waiting for sleep to take me. But, before I could slip into dream land, a knock on the door interrupted me. Groaning, I told whoever it was to come in and that I was in my room.
Naruto appeared in the doorway and crossed the room to sit on the floor in front of me. “Hey, Sakura! How does it feel to finally be back home?” he asked.
“Well, to tell you the truth, Naruto. It doesn’t feel like home because I only got to sleep in it once,” I snapped a little harsher than I intended. The light in Naruto’s eyes faltered. “I’m sorry Naruto. It’s been a long week. I’m just tired and irritable is all. Nothing a good night’s sleep can’t fix.”
“Don’t worry about it. I understand. I just came by to welcome you back. All my friends really want to meet you, so I came to see if you wanted to go out for some Ramen to meet them. We could go later, at like 8, that way you have time for a few good hours of sleep,” Naruto suggested.
I nodded. “Sure. I’d like to meet your friends.” I didn’t really want to go out, but Naruto had been so kind to me, I didn’t want to disappoint him. “I’ll be ready to go out then.”
“Great.” He just sat there.
“See you later, Naruto.” When he still didn’t get the hint, I pulled the covers up over my head and turned my back to him and fell asleep after hearing the door close after Naruto left.
I awoke to Naruto gently nudging me awake. “Do you still want to go, or would you rather sleep?” he asked.
Sleep. “I’m up, so I’ll come,” I answered instead. “Just give me a few minutes to change.
A few minutes later, Naruto was escorting me to the ramen shop he was telling me so much about. He must have really loved ramen; he went there to eat at least twice a day.
Entering the small shop, Naruto pointed out his friends, who were sitting around a big table. He introduced me to each of them. “Sakura, that’s Sasuke and Ino, as you know, Neji, Tenten, Hinata, Kiba, Shikamaru, Lee, Shino, and Choji.”
I gave a small wave as I sat down next to Naruto and Kiba. “Hello.”
“So, you’re the amnesiac?” Shino asked bluntly. I admired that in him.
“Yep,” I nodded.
“So, I hear that you can perform forbidden jutsu,” Kiba said conversationally.
“Yep,” I repeated.
“And, I heard you beat a dozen of the Hokage’s best men blind folded,” Neji added.
“Yep.”
“And, you still don’t know how you can do all of this? You can’t remember anything?” asked Neji asked.
“Uh huh.”
“I bet it was fluke,” Choji chimed in. “You couldn’t beat us. We are the best in the village. Besides, it would be good practice before the Chunins.”
“Ya,” everyone else chimed in.
I groaned. So, they didn’t want to meet me. They wanted to see how good I was and find out if they could beat me. I should have known.
