Darkness Falls

Chapter 9

The Next Morning

The smell of delicious food and laughter greeted the rest of Team 7 as they filed down the stairs and into the kitchen area, to find Naruto and Tsunami chuckling amongst each other as the blonde had shared a story of one of his past pranks he had pulled on some of the ANBU, minus his Yugao-chan. Dying their uniforms a vibrant pink and layering it with a seal that should they try and use a henge to hide the color, it would henge them into a random female appearance.

The first thing the pinkette noticed, was that the two sat rather close to each other, despite there being plenty of room at the table. This caused a small hint of jealousy to flare up from within her, even if she didn't want to admit it. Her Inner self on the other hand, was laughing up a storm, having sensed her outer self's reaction to the scene before them.

"Morning Sakura-san." Naruto greeted, purposely ignoring the other two as he took a sip of his coffee.

"You're up, breakfast is ready." Tsunami beamed. "Help yourself."

"Thank you, Tsunami-san." Sakura said before helping herself to a modest portion of eggs, bacon, and toast.

Kakashi also gave his thanks, while Sasuke only grunted. Prompting Naruto to whisper something into the woman's ear, causing her to giggle. Earning a glare from the emo, and for the masked jonin to narrow his eyes at the blonde.

Sakura, surprisingly, found that she didn't care. Despite knowing that what ever her blonde team mate had said was about Sasuke, she just didn't have the urge to defend the raven haired boy. After her short talk with Naruto the previous day, she really began to analyze her feelings towards the last Uchiha and how he himself acted towards every one around him.

Looking back through her memories, thankful that she had a photographic memory, she had come to the conclusion that her blonde team mate was correct. It had hurt her to admit it to herself, but the last Uchiha only cared about himself, power, and what those around him could give him. She had also began to recall anomalies that occurred during their years in the academy.

She could recall one particular moment that stood out. A civilian boy by the name of Jubei had actually out performed the last Uchiha in a ninjutsu demonstration by performing an impressive technique that even left the teachers mouths on the floor. However, the next day, Jubei was absent and Sasuke used the technique he had.

Sometime later, she had ran into her former classmate, and being her fan girl self at the time, had bragged about her 'Sasuke-kun' being able to perform the same jutsu even better then he had. However, the words he spoke still hung over her head. Now with even greater weight as she was beginning to learn just what type of person her precious 'Sasuke-kun' was.

'Of course he performed it.' Jubei spat with venom. 'That bastard dragged me before the civilian council and forced me to hand over all of my jutsu's before they sealed my chakra and banished me from being a shinobi.'

Sakura frowned at the memory. She never saw the boy after that day. This of course didn't go unnoticed by her blonde team mate.

"You okay, Sakura-san?"

"Yeah." She sighed, shaking away her memories. "Just thinking."

Naruto merely nodded, not wanting to push for anything. He figured that if she really needed to, she would talk to him later about it. Though he did notice a stark difference in her attitude towards their raven haired team mate. So far, she had refrained from attempting to sit close to Sasuke, like she normally would. In fact, the blonde noticed that she hadn't said a single word to him the entire morning.