-Rant Mode-This will be the last time I post about this. My story is NOT NaruSaku. I am sick of people PM'ing and reviewing me telling me it is in the wrong place. This is a NaruSaku friendship fic. There are tons of people who use the catergory filter for friendship fics, and the ones with relationship-pairing directly write NaruSaku in their summaries. When I have a definite pairing in my story with Sakura, if I ever put one in here, I might change it to that character's catergory. Until then, I am not changing it.

The fact that someone said I was, to quote, "uncivilized" and " 'slapping' the face of narusaku fans/readers in such bad regards" is completely and utterly ridiculous. Anyone who fails to see the friendship pairing should not be reading this, to be honest. The people who are trying to criticize me fail to realize a few things.

One, you do not speak for the majority of people. The fact that you think I am undermining a pairing is as I previously stated, ridiculous. I'm sorry that I'm not throwing you a generic pairing which you think fits my plot, but you will have to get over it. I in no way am trying to insult NaruSaku readers, as I read that pairing as well, but this story just doesn't happen to have that element in it.

Second, accusing me of fishing for reviews/hits is not a well thought out argument at all. Why would I want pissed off people sending me reviews about this not being their favorite pairing? How would that accomplish anything at all, or help me become better as a writer? It wouldn't.

And third, this is my story. As petulant as this point may be, I am the one writing this story, and will catergorize it as I please. I am the one who sits down for hours to push out new chapters for this fic. You can do whatever you want with your stories, and I will do what I want with my own. It is that simple.

The fact of the matter is, if you don't want to read this when you realize it is not NaruSaku as a romantic pairing, that is your choice. This is, for the last time, a NaruSaku friendship fic. I have said this from the beginning. If you have any problem with that, please keep it to yourself. I am past the point of disputing the way I post my stories. Any other criticism or compliment is welcome with open arms. /rant.

Now my dear reader, if you are still with me, Welcome to Chapter Uno of Principles. I really shouldn't be starting up another fic, but the Naruto plot rhinos have threatened to impale me if I did not take action.

This fic will be written in first-person. Spoilers on like... episode 18? If you haven't read/watched that far well... you wouldn't understand this anyway. If laziness does not get the best of me, I suspect this could turn into an epic length story. Reviews, comments, thoughts, ideas are all welcome :] .

This is an AU. It is in the Naruto-verse, but there will be some minor changes, which will in turn make much more major twists and turns. It is also on my own time-line, since I don't feel like researching when everything is happening and I don't think the writer of the show gives you a good sense of time. So I made my own. I also made the characters a bit more adult-like. Not to the point of OOC, but come on. These are killers, they are allowed to swear, I promise. They're also teenagers, so there will be some of that teenage-confusion mixed in. But yes... This is your warning now. If you flame me on this I will ignore you.

I have no idea why I made this Sakura based, I don't really like her till post time-skip, and even then its a grudging respect.

I do not have a definite pairing so far. It will NOT be SasuSaku or NaruSaku. The pairings of this story may include het/yuri/yaoi pairings. I am not promising anything, but if you are close-minded, do not bother reading this. I'm putting up a single disclaimer for all chapters.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Summary: AU. Sakura-centric. Haruno Sakura is a lost cause. Being a self-proclaimed fangirl and a physically unimpressive kuniochi, Team 7 would be better off without her. What if she actually acknowledges this pre time-skip? How would the fate of Konoha deviate with a single realization? Begins pre-chuunin exams.

Rated: T for language, gore, and all that other fun stuff that comes with being a ninja.

Principles

Chapter One

I wonder if the first shinobi to write these standards stained the canvas with his own blood.

Did his fingers shake at all with hesitation when the sharpened steel cleanly sliced open the tools for his writing? Was duty or honor racing through his trusted head as he carved the fate of his future generations? His face, was it one of importance or a hidden mastermind who has gone unrecognized for his cursed blessings? Did regret, remorse, anything at all mar the features of his weathered face? Would that be the biggest hypocritical gesture of them all: The legacy of fulfillment unsatisfied by the prophet himself?

I can't help but picture the scene with an utterly morbid twist.

Over one hundred principles, laws set not in stone, but blood and sweat, war and famine, justice and supreme council.

They are the pillars of a hidden village, of my Konohagakure.

I took pride in memorizing them all, every single principle governing our code of conduct as shinobi. It filled me with a complacent pride, to throw out an answer with the most assured confidence in my voice. The envious stares were worth it, worth the early morning cricks embedded into my neck as I awoke over an open textbook or detailed scroll.

Principle - a fundamental, primary, or general law or truth from which others are derived; an accepted or professed rule of action or conduct; a rule or law exemplified in natural phenomena, the construction or operation of a machine, the working of a system, or a guiding sense of the requirements and obligations of right conduct.

I was smart, perhaps the smartest with exception to a certain lazy genius or Uchiha prodigy. And I knew it.

That's what left me so stupid.

My bandaged hands shake, stuttering on the air they glide through. I cannot control it.

No one was ever there to knock me down a peg. My academy instructors praised and encouraged my boastful expressions of knowledge. My sensei looked to me when asking his questions, when either of my teammates proved to be stumped or uncaring.

Teammates.

The shaking intensifies, but their is nothing I can do to stop it. My inner self mocks the situation cruelly. One of the best chakra control experts of her year can't even still her shaking hands, conductors of her pitiful emotions. The expressionless killer can't stop seizing long enough to get control of herself.

Pathetic.

I am one of the Rookie 9, one of the Konoha 12. I don't deserve to be classified with the other ninjas surrounding me. Team 7, one of the most misfit teams ever to come out of a Hidden Village, is the one I reside on. It originally consisted of a brooding avenger, a squealing fan girl, and an over-energized, hyperactive dobe. Jonin sensei, Hatake Kakashi, the famous copy-cat ninja commanded the squad. He is said to have memorized over a thousand jutsus with his Sharingan, a superior dojutsu, given to him by his dying teammate, an Uchiha, and has his own rightful place in enemy villages' bingo books.

This was decades before the Uchiha massacre, committed by one Uchiha Itachi, an elite ANBU by the just thirteen years of age. The lone survivor, besides Itachi himself, was the mentioned brooding avenger of Team 7, Uchiha Sasuke. He vows revenge on the man who destroyed his life and childhood.

Adding myself in to the equation, I can't help but smile at our odd team. With Naruto and Sasuke's constant bickering and insult throwing, Kakashi's lack of teaching and my own habits, it is a surprise we work so well together.

Memories of our first real mission linger in my mind. I can recall Kakashi-sensei, grinning with his upturned eye at my tree climbing progress. I excelled past both of them, you know.

This thought causes my jaw to clench, eyes burning with stilled tears which I refuse to let drop.

It was in that same ego-filled week that I came to my first major realizations as a kunoichi.

We had been assigned to protect a bridge builder of the Wave Country, after much groaning and shouting from Naruto. Uzumaki Naruto, container of the Kyuubi no Kitsune, the most feared bijuu to ever walk this planet. The nine-tailed fox demon was trapped in my comrade's stomach, not that I actually found this out during my first C-ranked mission. I guess the nostalga disrupts even the keenest mind's time flow, mixing and matching the insightful memories to easily piece together the past. We embarked on our mission, expecting bandits, thugs or even a few wandering samurais.

Two hidden chuunin, the Demon Brothers as the bingo book had called them, attacked our four-man squad on the way to Tazuna's project. I thought I had handled myself with proper shinobi reflexes and actions, and my pride sweltered with a job well done. I saw myself as a proper kunoichi, armed and dangerous and ready to take on the world, one nuke-nin at a time. I was a damn fool.

After a foolishly brave proclamation from Naruto, who I was still looking down upon at the time, we continued on. The poisonous wound on his hand was healing up rather quickly, and we had decided to protect the old alcoholic regardless of his lies. With Kakashi-sensei, a jounin, and former ANBU black-ops captain (not that we knew this at the time), and three formally trained genin, we had considered the risks as reasonable and continued to perform our hired services. We could take any other weak ninjas thrown at us.

What we did not expect, however, was Momochi Zabuza, S-ranked missing nin, ex-member of Kirigakure's famous (or infamous, depending on the person of course) Seven Swordsman of the Mist, self proclaimed master of the silent assassination.

Hidden in the canopies of the forested area, with his chakra hidden well enough to escape notice, was the fake hunter-nin, Haku, personal assistant of Zabuza. Sensei, Naruto and Sasuke managed to outsmart and almost defeat the famous giant sword user, had it not been for Haku's interference and rescue. With Kakashi-sensei's overuse of his implanted kekkai genkai, we retreated to Tazuna's, said bridge builder's, house in the poverty stricken land of the Wave. It was in Tazuna's humble house that I got my first glimpse of the real Uzumaki Naruto.

Inari, Tazuna's grandson, had angrily battered us with utter discouragement and hate. It was sad to see such hopelessness in such a young boy. Naruto exploded on him, making the poor young boy cry and run away, before he himself exited the house. So, the number one hyperactive ninja of the leaf wasn't all rainbows and sunshine, was he?

After my ego-expanding tree climbing incident to follow and other battle preperations, the week between our first showdown was up. Zabuza had efficient time to heal, and Kakashi-sensei was at ninety to full percent. Naruto had overslept, going on one of his insane training binges since his fight with Inari. It was then my appreciation for Naruto grew in the slightest too, seeing his determination and strength.

The tears cut past my cheekbones, stinging the shallow cuts on my chin. I deserve the pain, and so much more.

In my horribly naive mind, Sasuke was a king, and Naruto a jester. I dismissed his true value and was a disgusting excuse of a teammate to him. He never deserved what I constantly gave him, yet he never complained. He had no living relatives, an orphaned boy from birth, and the villagers made constant attempts on his life. He never once fought back.

The tears flood my reason. I cannot continue this train of thought, or it will devour me whole. The despair of my previous actions will help no one in the slightest. I must move on in my memories or be trapped here.

So the final battle commenced. Sensei fought the notorious Zabuza, while Sasuke, and eventually Naruto, engaged Haku. I was to stand guard, uselessly, over Tazuna.

The mist thickened, no doubt a jutsu from Momochi's extensive water-typed collection. I could see nothing, so instinctively closed my eyes, trying to feel about with my other senses. It was probably the most sensible thing I did that day.

After large bursts of red, tainted chakra, which I now can identify to be Kyuubi's, the mist rolled away and I was caught in confusion. Kakashi-sensei had the upper hand on Zabuza, and Naruto was walking towards me relatively unscathed. I called out to him, inquiring about Sasuke. The lack of response was answer enough, accompanied by a guilty look I did nothing to erase. Tazuna looked at me with a softness in his eyes, offering to run over to Sasuke so I would not have to choose between my heart and my duty as a hired shinobi. I cannot help but cringe at the memory. I was disgusting.

I saw him... Sasuke. He was laying down, immobile with senbon sticking out of his body like a protective porcupine layer. I remember the sobs that tore at my throat, begging to be unfurled. My eyes narrowed and my posture stiffened. Shinobi Principle number twenty-five.

Sasuke was fine in the end. Haku was not a cold-blooded killer, as we all had thought, except for Naruto apparently. Naruto was always full of surprises and complexity - truly Konoha's number one hyperactive ninja. But his hyperactivity was overshadowed by his more honest title: Konohagakure's number one unpredictable shinobi. He was always full of more then anyone knew, even us, the members of his own team.

Haku sacrificed himself for his master, taking a Chidori from Sensei through the chest. He died with a smile on his face, useful to his precious person even in death. Zabuza made some reference to his "tool", and Naruto's anger sparked his philosophies once again. Looking back, even then, Naruto was much more wise then anyone every gave him credit. He may not have had a proper education, due to his lack of reliable teachers, but he had experienced more then some people, seasoned shinobi or civilians, would ever in their lifetime. The Hidden Mist Assasin admitted, with leaking eyes, of Naruto's truth, and eventually cut down the man who had been responsible for the horrific battle with a single kunai in his barred teeth. Kakashi may had destroyed the use of his arms, but Zabuza died an honorable death that day, being buried next to his younger life companion in a final act of peace and humanity.

It was during this fateful C- turned A-ranked mission that my life value became less one-dimensional.

It had just taken me months after to truly realize this. Naruto and Sasuke took bounds and leaps of progress, new muscles and techniques to show for it.

What did I have to show? Long, cascading pink locks of useless hair?

Book smarts and fancy explanations for definitions meant nothing in the ninja world. All I had prided myself on was uselessness, causing an inflated ego that could have gotten me killed in my insolence. Naruto and Sasuke were both out of my league in tai- and nin-jutsu, two of the most important areas which would keep me alive. I could only survive so long on what I knew and what I had become. I was an Uchiha Sasuke fangirl know-it-all, plain and simple. My chakra control might have been decent, but my total chakra pool was undeniably pathetic. My taijutsu was weak and flawed; my ninjutsu was neglected and my physical condition was laughable at best. There was no way I could keep up with the greatness that shinned in Naruto's cerulean pools of determination or Sasuke's cold, calculating prodigial state of mind.

I was Haruno Sakura, highest scorer on the genin entrance shinobi knowledge tests. I was Haruno Sakura, self-proclaimed number one Uchiha fan girl and admirer. I was Haruno Sakura, the girl with no established clan background who was destined to average mediocrity. I was Haruno Sakura, young genin who lacked any definitive nindo because of the stupidity and naivety shadowing her mind.

The tears have finally stopped. I am grateful no one was here to check up on me, nurse or concerned genin alike. I mutter through numbed lips, palms wiping the slate of my face clean and pushing long, pink tresses behind my ears.

The Shinobi Principles of Conduct. I have memorized, forever, all of them. There are over a hundred, you know.

Principle number twenty-five:

A shinobi never shows his feelings, no matter what the circumstance. Feelings are a weakness, and only cloud his judgement and weaken his sense of duty.

...

Bullshit.