Chapter 1: The beginning of everything

The sandstorm was raging ferociously in the country of Wind, waiting to exterminate its next unfortunate victims. It's that time of the year again, Isis explained, where sandstorms rage and with extremely high chances, may bury any shinobi who lays a foot into the sandstorm. Isis explained it would be best to avoid any sort of disaster regardless short of time or no.

Stupid blood-sucking sandstorms, sighed Sasuke.

"Isis?" Sakura prodded her with her index finger. To think that out of all the 365 days they could choose from, Tsunade just HAD to pick this day for this escort. That's just really, really…..GENIUS.

"Yes?" Isis responded, still keeping her eyes on the situation outside the cave they took shelter in.

"How long more until we reach Sand?" Sakura asked. There was a short silence before Isis answered, "A quarter mile."

"No, I meant how long more in time." Sakura asked again. Isis was in silence. She tried to think of a better answer than "if this keeps going on, which it may keep going on, then we will never be able reach Sand forever, because they will somehow ambush us and kill us unless Sasuke's wounds recover properly". But they will, eventually, get out and reach Sand alive.

…if lucky.

"Maybe another half a day."

That was a lame answer.

Sasuke leaned himself against the wall of the cave and heaved a deep sigh. Sakura looked back at him. His body bandaged all over. He is still injured from his battle with Naruto weeks ago and yet had to be assigned to this mission. Just to protect her. Just to get her to sand unharmed.

"We are short-handed, Sakura. I don't have a choice." Tsunade told her earlier.

"Sorry Sakura but…we will need to wait. We don't have a choice."

Nobody HAD a choice.

Sakura lightly knocked on the door. No response. She knocked again. Still no movements heard. She knocked once again, this time, harder.

"Could he be asleep? At such times?" she thought. At last, the blonde still chose to ignore the knocking sounds by sleeping right through.

With her anger fuel rising to a burning point, Sakura, frustrated and out of patience, knocked down the whole door and stomp towards the blonde's room and punched the living hell out of his dreams. Naruto yelped in pain as he fell to the floor beside his bed. Sakura grabbed the half-awake jinchuuriki by his collar.

"How can you still be asleep at two in the afternoon NARUTO?" Sakura yelled onto his face. Naruto muttered something under his breathe, still groaning in pain. Sakura shoved him onto his bed, hoping the impact will get him to wake up, but the stubborn jinchuuriki took the opportunity to roll up into a ball and continue his sweet dreams.

Rolling up into a ball…all knows darn well it is a weak defense against a punch like Sakura's.

"Sakura-chan…" Naruto pleaded. I just want to sleep, he thought. I don't want to faint in the middle of a mission again.

Sakura decided to punch him awake for the last time as Naruto covered his head with his hands as protection. The bandages and wounds under his sleeves were exposed. Sakura noticed it a split second before the punch. She glanced at it. Instead of beating him awake, Sakura held up his arm and took a closer look at it.

"Ouch ouch ouch Sakura-chan…"Naruto pleaded. To his surprise, Sakura asked him, "Is your wounds okay?" Naruto just gave her a blank look. She unwrapped the bandage gently and noticed the wound the wound healing by itself.

No doubt. That's the nine-tails doings, Sakura thought. No wonder Naruto always heals quicker than Sasuke.

"Sa-a..ku…ra?" Naruto watched her, nervously. "Is anything wrong with my wounds?"

Sakura looked at him and smiled. "No, it's healing fine." She said as she replaced the bandage with a new one. "Now, GET UP!" Naruto grumbled. He fell back and ducked under the covers. Sakura sighed. She felt like giving up on waking him up. She tried to pull him out of bed but his body just stubbornly lied there. Funny, when Naruto saved people from falling off a cliff, he would always mention they were heavy. Now look who's talking.

"His insomnia is catching up to him." Isis said, sitting by the window sill. "He will need to get his s-"

"ISIS! How many times must I tell you to not simply slip into people's house?!" Sakura knocked Isis's head repeatedly as Isis resist the impact, softly giggling, Naruto laughed as he watched them. That is so "Isis" of Isis.

"Ok Isis, why are you here? Aren't you supposed to be somewhere else?"

"Somewhere where?"

"Somewhere! How would I know? Somewhere with the feudal lords? Isn't there where you are supposed to be?" Sakura asked. Isis seemed like she was slacking off somewhere else instead of keeping track of where the feudal lords are and providing protection to their relatives. Isis deemed it was boring because there's nothing to do half of the time.

"I wish I could trade places with Kihira. She does more exciting things. How the darn heck would you like to put up with the long, endless pressing demands of the feudal lords' young relatives along the pleasant journey towards their destination while we are all fighting to our death outside where she's comfortably sitting inside without needing to be stained by blood! Seriously, there was never an escort mission that ended safely without demands of getting her freaking 'royal highness' cup of water just because she was thirsty or she was bored and demanded a game of 'I spy with my twinkly little eyes'! God damn crappy little kids… I swear I-"

Sakura hit Isis hard on the head, "ISIS! You shouldn't talk about the lords' relatives' like that. Don't be so disrespectful!" "But it's true! I'm not a kid anymore…"A stray tear escaped her eyes.

Sakura sighed, but she was right. That was never once Team 7 never had been put up with complaints of little kids on escort missions. They were like brats. And Naruto was always the one who taught those kids a lesson they could never forget.

"By the way, I came here to tell you that Tsunade-sama wanted to see you." Isis said to Sakura. Sakura looked at her and smiled to herself. Isis recovered from her small mental breakdown quick.

"What fo-"

"I'm gonna go and eat ramen now! Goodbye!" Sakura's words were cut halfway through her sentence as Isis happily skipped towards the exit but was blocked by Sakura. "Did she say what for?"

"Eh? She didn't mention about it. But I have a feeling it's about the mission few days ago." Isis replied.

She knew it. She knew it has something to do with the incident that occurred during their recent mission. Naruto, who was listening all along bit his lower lip. No no no nothing's gonna happen right?

"Why, is there something wrong?" Isis asked. She doesn't know what's going on. Nobody does. It's a thing between Team 7.

"No, nothing. I'll see her then." Sakura nervously excused herself. Isis watched her as she slowly exit Naruto's room.

Isis turned to Naruto, "What's up with her?" Naruto forced a smile. "Nah, nothing at all."

Isis looked at him sideways with suspicion. She knows they are hiding something.

"By the way, you might wanna do something with the door." Isis decided to shrug the matter off and changed the subject.

"Yea I will." Naruto replied with a smile. He was about to fall back to sleep when he remembered something. "Wait, you said something about having ramen, didn't you?"