Chapter Nineteen

The Decision

Anger was something Sai had never been quite familiar with. He had heard of the emotion many times before, and there had been a few instances when he came this close to experiencing it, especially when it came to Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke and the relationship they had as a team. But now, right this very moment, he was practically seething with rage.

And he was dealing with the emotion the only way he knew how; he was smiling. On the outside, one couldn't know how shaken up he was deep down that he wanted to grab something and throw it across the room.

And the only one aware of this was Noa.

Which was probably a good thing because he would not know how to react if Sakura knew that he was angry at her.

The pink-haired kunoichi was sitting on the floor of her clinic, busy with stuffing jars and vials of medicine inside a collapsible wooden box she used to hold medicine orders from the people of the colony, once in a while muttering to herself. Tenten had taken the far corner of the healer's house, lost in her own world as she started oiling her countless weapons before sealing them into scrolls. Lee was out to finish the remaining chores needed in the colony, and Neji had gone off the scour the parameter of the village for final touch-ups on the colony's defense.

Because Sakura had decided that it was time for them to move.

And it was all because of baby Valu, and the secret behind the mysterious mark on his hand. The secret that Noa had in avertedly kept from them, and for good reason.

"You could probably tell that it's a seal. A cursed seal. People born in Gifu inherit them from their parents, who inherited them from their parents, and would pass them along to their children. The people in the colony don't just use gloves for fashion. They hide their seals from the world to see because it's… something they don't like remembering they have," Noa had explained to them before suddenly running away. "It…prevents them from doing… things…"

She had not elaborated much, but what she said was enough to fuel Sakura's determination to do something for the people of the colony that had taken her in. Sai was not happy with this. If it were up to him, he'd have bundled Sakura over his shoulder and flown out of there in a heartbeat.

But no. Haruno Sakura would not listen. Haruno Sakura would rather charge with reckless abandon to find out more about this cursed seal. Sai knew a lot about cursed seals. They were woven into the very core of the human anatomy, and though he had always thought Sakura's healing prowess amazing having studied under Tsunade-sama herself, he doubted she would be able to do anything about this.

Now if it were an Uzumaki…

Or Orochimaru?

Or Danzo-sama… ?

Sai felt the back of his tongue prickle uncomfortably. He frowned. This was not the time to think about this. The love of his life was about to charge head-on into affairs she wasn't even fully knowledgeable of. And he had a feeling he would not be able to strong-arm her out of it.

He blamed her chakra reserves. Perhaps it was because she was finally getting used to her constant chore of separating her chakra to sustain the Creation-Rebirth. Or perhaps it was mere desire to find out more about the colony and the mystery behind their hands that was driving her.

He watched Sakura scratch the back of her neck as she read the label behind one of the jars in her collection of medicine. After a second, she catapulted to a standing position and hurried up the stairs, lost in herself.

"You might as well ride along. Sakura could be stubborn as a mule once she sets her mind into it," Tenten said from her corner. She raised a kunai at arms' length, eyeing it in satisfaction.

Sai gritted his teeth. "I wasn't aware you knew her that well."

Tenten grinned at him. "We took the Chuunin exams together. She hacked off her hair to win a fight. That says a lot about her resolve."

"We're not talking about hair here."

"Nope. We're talking about human lives here. And it goes without saying that Sakura's a born nurturer. You really think you can step in her way and not get mauled over?"

Sai came close to feeling what normal people would have called frustration. "It's a cursed seal that passes down from generation to generation. You know as well as I do that this is a very complicated seal. We don't even know the history behind it. There could be reasons this whole colony's cursed. Reasons outsiders shouldn't try to stick their noses into."

That had Tenten laughing. "And you think that would stop her? She's as hard-headed as Naruto!" She gestured at him with her kunai. "If I were you, I'd go and find the munchkin and ask her more about this. Don't you think?"

She did not have to tell him. The moment Noa had run off after dropping the bomb on them, he had already sent an ink mice on her trail. He knew where she was, but he had been so sure he would be able to do something about Sakura that he had abandoned the thought of even going to Noa and weasel answers from her.

In all honesty, he didn't want to know about Gifu. He did not care what happened to the people here. He did not want to have anything to do with them, because he knew that his mission did not concern them at all. And it took all his patience to understand why Sakura was so intent on changing the colony that's been like this long before they even came.

Tenten was watching him from across the room. After a while, she said, "Not everything is about the mission, Sai."

Sai frowned at her. "You're wrong," he said before turning away from her. How can it not be about the mission, when the mission was about Sakura?

He left the conversation at that before stepping out of the healer's house. At the back of his mind he could feel his ink mice to the east of the colony. Noa was at her house. Convenient. Sai didn't know what good it would be to go and see the girl as he knew that he didn't want to have anything to do with Gifu and their problem. But if it meant even just a small bit to Sakura, he guessed it was worth looking into.

Noa was in her garden when Sai arrived, and she was busy digging a hole in the ground for a reason Sai couldn't even comprehend. Why was it Noa would always do things that would make him wonder? She had her back to him, and by just looking at the amount of soil piling up beside her, he could tell she had been digging for a while.

"You can't run off like that without explaining the bomb you just dropped on everyone," Sai said, stopping behind the fence that separated her garden from the small path that led back to the center of the colony. He hoped that this distance would be enough for her to think that he was not here to intimidate her.

Noa's small shoulders rose a bit, her hands stopping a moment from digging before she sighed, shook her head. "You guys are smart. You can add two and two together. The Wind Country has a violent past, and you could say that this part of the country isn't any better. But they tried, you know. They tried to avoid the violence."

Sai could only watch her work, hoping for her to continue her story, because things just weren't adding up. "So they can't fight? They can't pick up weapons, not even to defend themselves? Did they do something bad? Whose seal is it?"

Noa looked over her shoulder and narrowed her eyes at him. "For someone who thinks he doesn't care about Gifu, you sure ask a lot of questions."

Sai stared back at her, slightly bored. "If it were up to me, I wouldn't even be here. But Sakura's set on finding out about everything behind this seal, and I don't think I can stop her."

And Noa fell silent again. She looked like she was thinking deeply. After a moment, she finally decided to speak, her back still to him, her hands still busy with their digging. "I just heard all this from my grand-mama. It happened way before I was born. Before you were born. It was a few years along the period of Warring States, not long before the First Shinobi War. I'm sure you've been into the history of the world?"

Sai could only nod grimly. Everyone knew of that era. It was a dog-eat-dog period when there was really nothing else for the common Shinobi but to kill or be killed. Tension between clans had been unbearable, and though records about this time were scarce, it was known that isolated shinobi clans were hired by stronger, bigger ones to join their ranks in exchange for land or titles and money. Sai couldn't believe that Gifu's history would date back to that period…

"At that time, not everyone was a bloodthirsty beast who'd offer their services just for a bit of land. The Wind Country's big and diverse. I'm sure there were a few heretics in your country too, at that time. But in the Wind, it had been different. There was this whole clan that didn't want anything to do with it. It was a never-ending blood-bath. Who'd want that, right? But the problem just wasn't all that. The people in the clan weren't just mere pacifists. They were really strong pacifists." Noa paused, then after a while, stood up, brushing her knees idly.

"Do you remember the night of the Solstice? Do you remember elemental jutsu exploding everywhere? That was them, with the seal. Imagine them without it."

Sai could not help but feel his face contorting into a frown. "That seal… what does it do?"

Noa turned to face him, an unreadable expression on her face. She looked like she was hesitating. Her face was all scrunched up, like how one would look when they had been sucking on something sour. "It's just that; a seal."

"It's not just a seal, right?" Sai asked warningly.

Noa grinned mirthlessly. "Of course not. I don't even know if you can handle knowing what it does."

Sai felt his tongue prickle uncomfortably, and he swallowed to relieve himself. "I doubt that."

Noa watched him with those green eyes of hers, and he tried his best to meet that gaze. He didn't know why he felt as if she was trying to read him again. What did she want from him?

After a while, she sniffed loudly, turned on her heel and busied herself with the hole again. "Their clan didn't have a name. At least none that the records held. They mastered the elements. Fire, water, wind, earth, lightning. You name it, there would be someone in their clan who could whip up a jutsu, and the chakra reserves to back it up. The dominant clans of the Wind country wanted them so badly. They offered money, power. Anything they had to offer. But the clan said they didn't want anything to do with the fighting. A clan that strong couldn't hide from the ears of other countries, and so some of them tried to recruit them, and when they refused, it usually ended up bloody."

Sai listened patiently, all the while knowing where the story was going. He had always made it a point to read the history of the villages because extra knowledge never hurt anyone. This certain piece of information was… new. But at the same time, he felt like he understood everything completely.

"It wasn't an easy decision for them, I'd think. Money was something the clan had, since they were great builders, and it wasn't hard to find someone talented enough to perform the sealing of every single one of them. The name of the person who did the sealing was lost in the records, along with the clan's name, but the curse lives on. After the sealing, they gathered all their belongings and left for the farther regions of the Wind Country, away from the fighting."

"And Gifu was born, right?" Sai concluded.

Noa shrugged, wiped her brow with the back of her hand and resumed her digging. "It could have been a happy ending, you know. They sealed off their abilities to prevent Hidden Villages from exploiting their powers, and they lived a peaceful life through trade and all that."

Sai could tell she was having a hard time relaying a story that had happened way before she even existed. And though he understood that this was probably all from her grandmother, he wondered where she fit in all of this. Why did she care so much? She had tried to drive them all away – Sakura, most especially – telling them that they 'would bring Gifu trouble'. But this problem had existed for decades already, and he doubted things could get any worse with them around…

"Then what happened?" Sai asked.

Noa paused, this time longer than Sai would have thought comfortable. He thought that she wasn't going to answer, until she finally said bitterly, "Then the First Shinobi war happened. And everything just fell into pieces."

Sai narrowed his eyes at her. There wasn't much about the First Shinobi War for Sai to read back then, and aside from the fact that it was a war that happened right after the Hidden Villages were established, and the fact that the Tailed Beasts were divided and distributed to the Villages during the peace talks, there was nothing else Sai had known about the era. And all of this information… all of this information from a girl who wasn't even a shinobi of any Hidden Village…

It was starting to get on his nerves. It felt like he had been tricked into thinking that she was just some ignorant girl with bad upbringing who flung around camel droppings as if they were berries. It was hard to look at her through the same prejudiced eyes, but even harder not to see her differently

"With scattered clans gathered around an organized system of the Hidden Villages, the people who started to live in Gifu were sitting ducks when the Hidden Sand wanted to recruit their young as shinobi. And it was only at that time did the people of Gifu discover how twisted a cursed seal could be on a human being. The period of Warring States was one thing. A full-blown, all out war was another."

Sai felt the tiny hairs at the back of his neck stand on end, and his feet took a step towards Noa unconsciously. "What does the seal do?"

"It kills the bearer. Slowly. From the inside," Noa said without pausing, her hands shaking a bit as she uttered the words. "It was a bad awakening for them when they found out that although they've sealed their chakra to avoid being used to attack, but they've lost their ability to defend themselves as well. So when the Hidden Villages tried to take away their young, all they could do was watch."

Sai frowned. "That doesn't make any sense. Children born in Gifu would still have the cursed seal. Taking them away would be meaningless."

Noa shook her head. "Not if you knew how to break it. Some were optimistic enough to think that they could. And so Gifu's children were raised like cattle to be harvested when the Villages needed more manpower. And that was when some of the people of Gifu thought that things had to change. Two factions were formed; those who followed the Way of the Wind – what a stupid name – and those that thought that the decision their ancestors made didn't apply with their current standing now."

"Are they the ones who attacked the colony?" Sai asked, unable to keep the edge in his voice.

Noa nodded. "You know where they are. They live just as how the people of Gifu live; in peace and away from the fighting. But when they see a chance – even just a sliver – at getting rid of their cursed seal, they take it. So every time a healer comes, they try to take her, even when they know that not all healers have anything to do with shinobi. They take them by force, and Gifu doesn't try to resist."

"Which makes me wonder why they have to use force when the people of Gifu wouldn't even dare raise a weapon at them," Sai said.

"Healers who come here are often hired from Hidden Villages, so majority of them are shinobi. They follow their missions accordingly, and all of them need money to be hired." Noa tossed more soil on top of the continuously growing pile before stretching her arms over her head. A bit of dirt fell on top of her hair and she shook it off like some dog. "Those who refuse to follow the Teachings of the Wind tried to ask for help, but since Shinobi are loyal to their missions, they refuse. And this would lead to that… you saw it happen before.

"During these healer retrieval raids, the children of Gifu get involved, and… well… Gifu value their children. And so people like Riho get sacrificed when they take a whiff of a new healer in the colony." Noa reached into the hole she had dug, and Sai had to squint to see what she had been trying to unearth all this time. It was wrapped in a dirty cloth, brown and muddy and weathered. "Riho didn't die because she was attacked by the people who wanted to get Sakura. She died because she used her chakra to defend Valu. And when they attempt to use their chakra in any form, the cursed seal activates and… well… it's not very pretty."

Sai felt his stomach churn at the memory of Riho's lifeless body. The blood gushing out from her mouth, and the blood staining the snow around her. Whatever visible wounds she had then had not been the cause of her death… It was a whole different thing altogether.

Noa turned to face him, still kneeling on the ground, the thing wrapped in the dirty cloth still in her arms. "I know you probably don't care about this, but the men you killed during the night of the Solstice, they would have died anyway. Once the curse activates, it'll kill you. Slowly. Painfully. You slicing their throats the way you did, you showed a great mercy, even though you probably didn't mean to."

And everything started to fall in to place. Had he known they would be engulfed in a complicated history of a country that wasn't even his own, he would have chosen a different place to hide Sakura.

Sai continued to stare at the girl, who was now looking down at the thing in her lap almost fondly. "And where does that leave you and your grandmother?"

"My grand-mama studied the art of poisons and antidotes under a woman named Chiyo in the Hidden Sand. She was like your Sakura; spirited, a natural nurturer. And just like her, reckless courage was her worst trait. She learned of Gifu from others who had been hired by the colony before."

"So… the past healers who came to offer their services to Gifu all knew about the cursed seal?" Sai asked.

"Technically, yes."

"And they just left it at that?"

"It wasn't their mission to do anything about it. And so all of them turned a blind eye." Noa sighed, then after a long pause, she added, "That was until my grand-mama came along. And things just suddenly changed for the worse."

"How?"

"She just wouldn't leave it alone. Not when she knew that some of them were begging for her help. She should have minded her own business. It would have been for the best."

"I don't understand. What could she have done for these people? She studied poisons? Antidotes? This is a cursed seal – "

And even before he could continue with what he was going to say, she had already dug into the dirty cloth for a small object which he had instantly thrown at his feet without even saying anything.

And Sai's eyes could only widen at what he saw.

Because right there, slightly touching his right toe, was a hitai ate of a hidden village he had never really seen before because it had been destroyed into nothing even before he was born.

Sai slowly returned his eyes back at Noa, who was looking back at him with so much determination that it almost felt too overwhelming to even meet her gaze. And maybe it was because of the knowledge that she was what she was that her hair, those messy red locks, seemed even more pronounced than before.

"You're an Uzumaki?"

"I'm the only one who can help these people. Healers like Sakura, though I know she means well, won't be able to do anything about the problem that's plagued these people for ages."

"And that's why you try your best to drive them away…" Sai said in barely a whisper. It was starting to make sense. So much so he was starting to feel even guiltier for having barged in on them just because they needed a place to hide. He kneeled down, picked up the hitai ate with the strange mark of Whirlpool, unfamiliar yet at the same time familiar because he had seen them on Konoha flak jackets on a daily basis back home…

He frowned down at the object in his hand. "You should have said so. You should have at least told us why."

The determination on Noa's face slackened a bit. She seemed to have realized it too, because she turned away from him, setting her eyes on her lap. "Tell you? What would you have done? You don't care about Gifu. You don't care about what happens to us."

And at that moment, for the first time in his life, Sai felt rotten inside. He had been going on and on about how everything was about the mission. That everything was about Sakura. Something inside him stirred, making him uncomfortably conscious of the thing in his hand. It felt heavy clasped between his fingers, the metal cold against his skin.

"How are you planning to deal with their problem? You're just one Uzumaki."

"It took one Uzumaki to seal a whole clan. One Uzumaki would be enough to free them," Noa said, sounding braver than how she really looked. If anything, she looked very unsure of herself, covered in dirt and sitting beside a pile of the soil she had dug up from that hole.

Sai had heard many great things about the Uzumaki clan, and was blessed enough to team up with one. But still, the only thing he knew about Noa was that she was feisty and that she was stubborn. He had no idea about her skill on fuuinjutsu. It was obvious she did not have proper training as a shinobi, and so he was wondering where the confidence she had was coming from.

And out of pure curiosity and nothing else, he asked the question that would have usually made Noa mad at him, because the girl hated it when she was being underestimated. "Do you know what you're doing?" And he instantly stepped back, just in case she decided to fly at him and scratch his eyes out.

But what surprised him the most – and Sai was seldom caught off-guard by these things – because one moment Noa was trying to look convincing, sitting on her ankles, the next tears were threatening to fall from those wide eyes of hers. And he should have listened to the small voice inside his head when it told him that crying women were hassles to the average male. But no, he had to hesitate for about two seconds. And in those two seconds, those tears started to fall.

It was an amazing thing to see, really. Watery eyes, dark stained cheeks, and quivering lips. It made him remember that Noa was still, after all, a girl his age, and seeing her like this did not leave a good feeling inside him. He moved towards her, kneeling slowly, just in case she wanted to move away from him. It made him feel even more uneasy when she did not look like she was about to run away from him.

And so he did what he thought to be the best thing he could do for her; dropping the hitai ate on her lap, he reached out and pulled her into a tight hug.

And that was the last straw for the tiny girl. The moment Sai crushed her against his chest, she broke down crying almost instantly. It was the strangest thing ever. He had been so used to seeing her put up a strong front, no matter what it was that she was doing. And now here she was, a shivering, sniveling heap in his arms,

He rested his chin on top of her head and, in a rare display of empathy, did not say anything. What was there to say? She had just told him in a nutshell the story of her life and the burden that was left to her by her late grandmother. And all this time he had turned a blind eye on it because he was too busy with what he thought was important.

In that moment, with Noa in his arms, he thought of Sakura's desperate face back during the night of the solstice. She had practically kicked and screamed when he told her to stay away from the fighting because he had arbitrarily decided that it had nothing to do with them.

And it was probably right that very moment did he realize that healers and medic nin, they all had the same mind-set... And it was something that he of all people could never understand.

He didn't know how long he held her like that under the shadows of the clouds passing overhead. But the next thing he realized, the sun was directly behind him, and Noa had calmed down in his arms, the occasional sob the only sign that she hadn't fallen asleep on him. His feet, however, had indeed fallen asleep, and he had to shift his weight on his knees.

The movement made Noa pull away from him, cheeks red and eyes swollen from her earlier bout. She sat on her ankles, her mouth hidden behind the back of her hand, and she refused to meet his gaze.

Sai couldn't help but watch her, because that was the only thing he could think of doing. He had just hugged the girl that had been set to tormenting his and Sakura's lives for months. And for some reason, something inside him was stirring. Something that he never thought he would ever have to deal with in his entire life.

Because for the first time in the months he had spent in that colony, something came along that he felt – knew – meant a hundred times more than the mission.

No, it was not Noa's resolve. Not Noa's tears. If anything, perhaps Noa had just a tiny part of it.

At that moment, he sort of understood that aside from Sakura, there were other things he needed to protect. Because aside from Sakura herself, Sakura's beliefs, Sakura's desires, Sakura's wants and Sakura's needs were something he knew mattered to him just as much.

And so he knew exactly what needed to be done.

The proof that he had finally made that decision showed through Noa's eyes, because the girl was looking at him with eyes that he had never seen on her face before.

She looked absolutely full of hope.

Sakura was sitting on a flat rock formation by the desert basin, a few hours after having completed the check list she had, which was now tucked inside the back pocket of her shorts she wore under her robes. The sun had set behind the mountains to the west not an hour ago, and the chill of the desert was approaching, but she barely felt it. After that talk with Noa, the months she had lived in Gifu had suddenly started to feel real. All this time, the eccentric culture of the colony had kept her mind off bigger things that concerned Konoha, which had always been at the back of her mind, along with the scrolls she had hidden in the loose floor board underneath her bed.

She looked down at her hands, at the gloves she had on, and she instantly frowned at them, somehow feeling betrayed. All this time, she had thought that covering your hands was mere custom. All this time, she had thought it to be some form of respect they had with their belief. She had played along. All of them did. She didn't even think it weird. There were moments when, yes, she had thought it to be quite peculiar. But not even once did she ask the history behind it. She should have asked. She should have known. And now she had stumbled into the complicated webbings of a cursed people she didn't even know needed her help.

Mere instinct told her that she needed to find out more about it. Sai had run off somewhere to find Noa, and so she doubted he would be coming back without any information regarding the matter. She wished she had gone with him, but she had been more set on completing the rest of the orders of medicine placed in by the people of the colony. She didn't even know why she had the feeling she had to do everything today. For some weird reason, she had a feeling deep down in her gut that her days in this peaceful colony were numbered.

She was sure that Neji and the others felt the same thing. Today, Tenten had spent a meticulous amount of time polishing her weaponry, unsealing scrolls from scrolls and sealing water bottles into them instead. Lee had been running around the colony to finish jobs that Tomona hadn't even asked for, as if he too felt obliged to do before they had to move on. Neji, on the other hand, had opted to roam the hundred-meter radius of the colony, his eyes on constant look-out for something only a Hyuuga could see.

Apparently, those Hyuuga eyes knew where she was, because Neji appeared behind her, taking the space beside her on that rock formation and looking out into the distance without saying anything. She had always known Neji to be of little words, but she knew that he shared the same feelings Sai had regarding the colony. That they should leave it alone.

She pulled her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on her arm. "They gave me a place to stay when I needed one. Does it make me stupid to think that they need my help even when they're not asking for it directly?"

"I'm not sure. I guess it's a matter of priority. What's your priority, Sakura?"

Sakura frowned. Count on Neji to answer her question with a more relevant question. "The scrolls… ?"

Neji didn't say anything, kept looking out into the distance, the slight breeze coming from the mountains making his long hair sweep over his shoulders. Sakura knew the reason behind the silence. She had said that her priority was the scrolls, but she was definitely doing something otherwise.

"I can't help but think about it," Sakura said defensively, and a bit grumpily.

"We've been waiting for too long for instructions that aren't coming. I think it's about time to move out, Sakura. Sai thinks so too, and the only thing keeping him from moving on is your decision to help these people. And while I admire you for selflessly thinking about them, I'm starting to wonder what you're planning to do after you put Gifu behind you, because I doubt you'd want to stay here forever. Right?"

"Of course not. Right now, the only thing I want to do is to get back to Konoha and kick that bastard Danzo out of my village and make sure he never comes back. I owe it to Tsunade-sama" She immediately bit her lip the moment those words were out of her mouth, instantly feeling horrible. How long has it been since she had actually thought about Konoha? Or Tsunade-sama? Neji was right. Her priorities were a bit mixed up…

Neji smiled that reserved smile of his. "No. Right now, the only thing you want to do is find Valu a family that would take care of him, then find out more about the cursed seal that's been imprisoning the colony since the Shinobi Wars," he corrected.

Sakura opened her mouth to argue, then immediately closed it. Because Neji was right. That was exactly what she wanted to do. At the moment, before getting Konoha back, before taking revenge on Danzo, before any of those, she just wanted Gifu to be all right.

But then again, who was she to decide that Gifu was not 'all right'? She wished she knew more. She wished Sai would hurry back and tell her what he found out about Gifu.

"Sakura," Neji said, giving her a side-long glance from where he was sitting. "Shinobi like us, we have to make the hardest decisions sometimes. We weigh the pros and cons, and then we weigh them all over again only to end up discovering that either way, we would be sacrificing something to benefit but one choice. You know that as well as I do."

And it was the strangest feeling ever, Sakura thought, because at that moment, for some reason, a certain blonde and blue-eyed boy's face appeared at the back of her mind, and she could not help but laugh. Her voice was clear as her laughter rang through the empty desert basin, only to be swept away by the sudden gush of wind that blew from behind them.

"Not for Naruto. If it were Naruto, he'd want it all. Everything! He'd want to save Gifu, then save Konoha, whichever comes first. And he'll do it having the time of his life," Sakura said, leaning her hands behind her and raising her face to the darkening sky. "He'll have everyone rallying behind him, Neji. And you won't be able to say no. Not with that annoying smile of his."

When she looked over at Neji, she was not surprised to see him nodding his head slowly. "Naruto could not be any less than Naruto."

"I know…" Sakura agreed wistfully, a part of her heart aching a bit for her teammate. She wondered where he was right now, and no one could even comprehend how she wished for him to be there with them.

She could not believe how little she's changed. The reason why she even took an apprenticeship with Tsunade-sama was because she didn't want to get left behind. She had watched Naruto's back grow broader and bigger as the years passed, and now without him to spearhead for her, she was starting to feel sorry for herself, and at the same time, a bit mad. Naruto was not always going to be there to save her out of a situation. Kakashi-sensei was not going to miraculously appear out of nowhere and tell her what she had to do.

The only teammate she could rely on was Sai, and she had been going against him the moment they had left the village.

It was even stranger for her to admit that she had been using his feelings for her as a weapon against him. She knew he was spoiling her. And she was making the most out of it. About the scrolls… About Gifu… About everything…

Sakura sighed as she stretched her legs out in front of her, then said, "Before Noa said anything about the mark, you, Lee and Sai were planning to infiltrate the raiders, weren't you?"

Neji nodded without hesitating. "The plan was to destroy whatever threats that existed in order to protect Gifu. I personally thought that we should just leave Gifu business with Gifu people, but Sai was more than convinced to make sure you won't be looking back once we leave the colony. He knows you're worried about the people here, especially the baby."

"And what are you guys planning now?"

Neji could only shrug. "We'll know when he comes back." After a moment's pause, the Hyuuga jerked his head up, and his Byakugan was instantly activated. "Speaking of which, here he comes now."

And the sentence was no sooner out of Neji's lips did Sakura hear the sound of flapping wings, and Sai riding his ink falcon swooped down in front of the rock formation they were sitting on. Much to her surprise, Noa was with him. She was sitting behind Sai, her face buried onto his back, hands clutching the robes around his waist. Her shoulders, normally thrown back in constant defiance, were stooped and shaking.

Sakura stood up and waited for Sai to disembark. She frowned when Said did not look like he was about to move from his place. His dark eyes were locked on Sakura's green ones..

Neji got on his feet as well, crossing his arms over his chest. "What is it?" he called to Sai.

Sai's eyes never left Sakura, and Sakura could only frown more when Sai nodded at them before saying, "Get everything ready. We leave at dusk."

And Sakura, confused as she might be, could not help but feel like her heart was about to jump out of her chest. She didn't know what it was, but somehow, without Sai saying anything else, she knew that something was about to change.

And that she was about to be a part of that change.

A/N: What? Two years? That can't be right! I mean, sure I haven't updated for a while, but two years?! No – (checks last updated date. It reads October 3, 2013) – oh, wait… Yeah so it has been two years… Dammit…

Well, so what, right? I mean, the fandom's still alive, right? SaiSaku is, like, FOREVER, right? Hn? What's that? WHAT? SaiIno is CANON?! No, that can't be right! (Checks Google. Finds out that enough evidence about SaiIno exists)

*dies*

I'm sorry… I had really been hoping SaiSaku would be canon… There were too many hints dropped here and there. The chemistry… The undeniable compatibility… Life's so unfair… I wrote a SaiIno one-shot once. I tried to accept it. But it was just still so… ohhhh…

I'll try to finish this story. It might take another two years. I dunno. I'll try, though. I know where it's supposed to go. The next chapter, wait for it. Hopefully it will be faster than two years. Don't kill me. I'm already dead from the SaiIno ship…