The girl with Pink Hair

Chapter Eight

The sun was high in the sky over the hidden leaf village. Fall was beginning to snip at the air, signaling summer was almost to its end. The sky was clear and bright with the suns rays. Leaves on the trees started to glow with colors of yellow and reds.

The villagers of the leaf were dressed in sweaters and scarfs to gather warmth, due to the weather change. Everyone in the village was getting ready to celebrate the chunin exams.

This was the second test of the year.

The village leaf's Hokage or leader, Tsunade had decided to not reach out to other villages to allow them to join in. With the new rogue group known as the Reapers on the rise she didn't feel it was safe enough to allow heavy traffic that the exams brought. This decision brought a lot of negative attitude from since the leaf village was going to lose a lot of business from the tourists.

Tsunade was sitting in her office, leaning back in in her chair. She had her hand on her head and she was bored. It was only a few hours away until the last part of the chunin exams took place. She had nothing to do but wait until then. The exams were being held in the large arena.

Tsunade sighed and opened the bottom drawer of her desk. She picked up a picture frame and smiled weakly at the snapshot of Sakura Haruno. Her once student, it had five month since it was discovered Sakura was alive, and commander of the waterfall village.

Tsunade did regret banishing Sakura out of the village, Tsunade leaned back in her chair. She prayed team seven could find her five years ago but instead the only thing they discovered was her bloody headband. Tsunade truly believed Sakura was killed that day, and ever since then she had been drowning in guilt. But, as the waterfall village rose to power and rumors about their commander with pink hair drifted around, Tsunade had hope that it somehow coukd be her student. Tsunade had been correct, but by the time she found Sakura five years later, Sakura had written off the leaf village and no longer called it home.

After the mission to the river village, Sakura never returned with Naruto, Sasuke and Kakashi. Team Seven was in a depressed state when they returned home. After following weeks Tsunade noticed the same trait in all the members inside team seven. Naruto was not himself, he did not laugh, nor smile. Kakashi became more distance, more secluded from everyone else. Sasuke reverted to his colluded state. At the time, Tsunade just thought that they were saddened by the loss of Sakura again and in time they would bounce back because unlike last time, they knew Sakura wasn't dead.

Tsunade did not know how wrong she was.

Tsunade stood up and looked out the large window behind her desk. It was true, when Sakura returned to the leaf village, she was not the same pink haired, green eyed girl that the leaf village knew and loved. She was composed of so many different traits. At first, Tsunade did not recognize Sakura.

Her once short controlled hair had grown out long in a wild beautiful display of untrainable loose curls. The once soft green eyes had grown hard and sharp. Her light facial features twisted serious. Sakura grew up, and because of what she did Tsunade missed large chunks of Sakura's life, and for that she will never forgive herself.

Tsunade's phone started to ring, she turned and looked at her cell phone, the chunin exams were about to begin. She looked at the clock, the hours she had to play with melted in between her fingers. She sighed, wondering where the hours went. But she knew, how could she not? Tsunade spent countless hours reliving all the joyful moments she had with her beloved student. But every memory ended in the same stale picture. The Sakura Tsunade did not know would always flash into her mind making the old memories useless and she could no longer find comfort because the daughter she had come to love no longer existed. This fact was a hard reality check that Tsunade could yet not come to terms with. Tsunade answered the phone with an annoyed sigh, she didn't have time to chat on the phone!