'The Bitter Truth'.

Sakura's point of view.

While we went very carefully to the place where Sasuke was sealed, and I continued trying to make Anko-sensei understand my message with the help of my snail.

"Anko-sensei I need you to listen to me very carefully, we have some inconveniences in the course of the mission and some anbu have appeared who may be shinobi disguised as our village. I ask that you can give him this message at the Hokage's tower as soon as possible to prevent the anbu from attacking us or confirm if they are tactical support for the mission."

"*Distortion sound* Hello, Sakura *Distortion sound*."

"The signal is failing too much, something is interfering with the signal." I tried to repeat the message in the hope that the message would be transmitted correctly.

As I am repeating the message three consecutive times, my ears hear the launching of arrows from two different directions flying through the sky and then descending on the position we were in.

Shikamaru makes a hand signal for Neji to deal with the incoming arrows.

"Eight trigrams: return palm to the sky." Neji jumps three meters above the ground, placing himself above everyone present, and releases his chakra from every chakra point in his body as he gains kinetic energy through rotation, forming a blue chakra sphere that repels all the arrows.

The sound of metal is heard as the arrows collide with the chakra sphere and fall to the ground. Neji stops the rotation and falls to the ground gently, but the metal arrows begin to produce light with Fuinjutsu letters, leaving a screen of white smoke obstructing the view.

"FALL BACK!!!!". Shikamaru ordered us as he detected the smell of gas from the smokescreen, as his master often uses that technique.

Using Haki on my feet, I jumped as fast as I could to avoid the smoke. When I jumped a few meters and escaped from the smoke I was greeted by senbon (needles), when I tried to escape from the smoke.

*Metallic sound* *metallic sound* *metallic sound* *metallic sound* *metallic sound* *metallic sound* *metallic sound* *metallic sound* *metallic sound* *metallic sound* *metallic sound* *metallic sound*

I employed my hands to try to deflect the needles by using Haki on my hands, however, some needles managed to pierce through some parts of my body.

*BOOOOOM*. The smoke curtain exploded due to the high pressure of the gas and sent me flying a few meters, but my Haki helped me mitigate the explosion a bit.

I rolled on the ground for a few meters and was stunned for a few seconds, I moved my right hand to try to get up and while I was trying to get up from the ground I heard the throwing of kunai and senbon that were aimed at me.

I propelled myself with my feet to somersault over the ground and took cover behind a tree to avoid the shuriken and metallic senbon hitting my back.

*Sound of kunai and senbon hitting the tree.

I take a breath to calm myself and think about my next move.

- I am alone against an anbu who possibly has the rank of Jounin and can kill me at any moment if I let my guard down. Ponder Sakura, what is the first thing the enemy would do? I got it! -.

Before testing my plan, I used my right hand to remove five senbon that reached to hit me. The weapons didn't cause much damage, but I didn't expect to feel any pain when I pulled the needles out of my body.

- I'm getting stronger, hehehehee.

I got motivated for a moment in my mind, however, I didn't let my guard down when I heard some movements.

I peeked out from behind the tree a bit to try to look at something.

- Nothing, where are they? -.

I kept looking around, however, I still didn't see anything.

*Sound of kunai.

Three kunai with explosive seals attached to the base of the kunai stuck a few steps away from me.

- Damn it. *Explosion*.

The dust was kicked up a bit by the explosion of the seals, however, I managed to retreat from the place. As I retreated, I reached into my ninja bag to grab some ninja tools.

Noticing that my enemy was hiding near me, I threw shuriken in different directions so that my threads would obstruct the path of my attacker.

The shuriken flew in different directions as they collided.

I started running around the site without stopping, throwing shuriken and an anbu hiding in the bend of a tree branch easily dodged my shuriken as it sensed that its hiding place had been discovered.

The forest was filled with so many ninja wires that it looked like a spider was weaving a death trap.

When my shuriken was finished, I hid in one of the tree branches to try to wait for an opportunity to attack him off guard.

"Sakura over here."

I turned to see that Shikamaru was hiding in the middle of several branches, using the tree leaves as natural camouflage.

"Damn... How are you feeling, Shikamaru, do you think you can run?". I asked him as I contemplated that he had one of his legs injured.

Shikamaru quickly put a green herbal ointment on the burn on his leg and then bandaged his injured leg.

"I can take the pain." He said as he took a medicinal pill so that it would reduce the pain a bit. "But I don't think I can take much in a fight because of the wound, however, I think getting a little time, so you can land a killing blow and finish off the enemy, that is if I can do it in my current state!!!!".

I was about to mention something, however, I quickly performed a back somersault while dodging a metal chain and while descending to the same branch I used the Haki in my hands to grab the chain and pull it.

The anbu and I were standing on the same branch and the anbu that attacked me didn't expect my strength to be nearly equal to his, and we ended up fighting to see who would get the chain.

I held the chain without moving from the spot while the anbu tried to pull the chain from one end, but I wasn't going to let him control the situation.

So I made a semi-circular motion with my arm so that the chain wrapped around my forearm and prevented the anbu from using his Kusarigama easily.

The two of us did not look without recoiling, almost as if we understood the situation we were in.

The anbu was the first to move as he attacked me with his Kama.

(Kama: It is a weapon with a short handle and a sharp blade shaped like a sharp beak. There are different variants of the Kama, such as; Kusarigama or the triple-edged scythe used by Hidan of Akatsuki.)

The anbu attacked me with a diagonal slash, however, I avoided it by employing the same chains against him to parry the attack. However, I did not stand idly by as I attacked him with a spinning kick followed by a throw of two kunai that I grabbed from my ninja pouch.

The anbu ducked to counterattack with his weapon, and I wielded the chain of his weapon to try to move from the spot and put myself in a bad position in the fight. I took advantage of the anbu's strength and made a motion with my hand to make the chain jerk, creating a quick whip-like motion that struck his mask.

The anbu took two steps back from the unsuspecting blow he received.

With a quick flick of the chain, I lunged at the enemy for a brief confrontation.

Without taking my eyes off the anbu, I ran in his direction while using the same chains on his weapon to pull him closer to me. The anbu was unable to stop my strength and ended up a few steps away from me.

The anbu's eyes widened in surprise, but it was too late for him.

I squeezed my hand hard enough that small veins were marked on my fist, and with the use of the Haki they became much more marked. My fist was getting close to the anbu's face, but he desperately tried to cover himself with his arms by releasing his chains and crossing his two arms, forming an X.

"¡¡¡¡SHANNAROOOO."

*Shock sound* *Shattering sound*. My fist with haki shattered both of the anbu's arms and my fist followed its trajectory to the head where its entire skull exploded from the force.

The body lost its strength like a puppet having its strings cut and quickly fell backward in a few seconds while releasing a brown liquid.

I expected to see the blood of the anbu that attacked me, however, instead it was mud that I beheld as the anbu's body turned into a lump of mud.

"Sakura up." I heard Shikamaru's voice a few feet away from me as he leaned his body against a tree to rest.

I looked up to see how three anbu that looked like the one I had just defeated were there.

- Clone jutsu, I see -. I thought as I prepared to take a fighting stance.

"What?!!!!". I said, as I felt my body heavier, I was very sleepy and in a lot of pain at the same time.

My eyes were blurring and blurring some things as if my eyes were failing to focus on one thing.

Both of my legs were wobbling a bit as I tried to walk.

I tried to grab something out of my ninja bag, but carelessly touched some senbon that got stuck in my leg, thigh, and lower back.

At that moment I remembered why it didn't hurt when I pulled the senbon out of my body at the beginning of the fight where the anbu used the gas explosion to drug and separate us.

I turned around to warn Shikamaru, however, he was actually an anbu because he undid his transformation and returned to his true appearance.

- How could I have so easily fallen into the trap? I groaned in my mind as my body wobbled as I took a step on the branch, and the anbu clones threw several kunai at my body.

*Kunai piercing sound*. Blood and pain appeared in my body as fresh blood began to pour out of my body, and from one second to the next I slipped off the branch with drops of blood accompanying me to my end.

My body was plummeting towards the ground, but I didn't want to give up, not when I was just a few steps away from feeling my last moments of life.

Time seemed to move extremely slowly, there was no sense of regret as I watched the ground get closer and closer with every moment.

My vision changed as I remembered my short life.

The girl who always fantasized about being the best kunoichi along with my best friend Ino and the time when we fought over the same boy who was always cold to everyone.

Hahaha maybe it was Sasuke who drove us crazy because we didn't understand things at that time and I only had in my mind to be the girlfriend of the boy who survived the massacre of his clan.

At first, I wondered if his attitude was due to what happened to his clan, but what a fool I was at that moment that everything was looking rosy.

The fragments of my life kept flowing as if it were a movie, and I was just another person watching the same movie over and over again.

As the images kept passing by, I wondered if I was really like that, or if my acquaintances saw me as a crazy person obsessed with Sasuke.

Possibly, yes, observing the comparison with my past self with the one I am now really is like comparing the color white from black, possibly entering team 7 where Sasuke wasn't was what helped me to completely change and put my feet on the ground to see things clearer.

"Come on, Genji wake up. I need your help to create a new diet."

I was seeing my past self claiming Genji to stop sleeping, and I couldn't help but sigh as I went to bother him at 6 am for such nonsense.

"LET ME SLEEP IN PEACE, SAKURA!!!!". Genji claims to me as he covers himself once again with his blankets, and my past self intervenes by holding his blankets with his hands and preventing him from covering himself once again.

"You promised to help me!".

Genji stood up slightly with his eyes barely open to looking at my past self, "But it was at the time we trained and not at fucking 6 in the morning!"

Genji laid down and covered his face with the only pillow he had, as the others had fallen to the floor, but then he remembered something and asked my past self.

How the fuck did you get into my house!".

"That doesn't matter, what I want is for you to help me create a diet with your knowledge in food, so I can have a perfect body that Sasuke will be more interested in me." Said my past self while doing some sexy poses, I almost died remembering what an idiot I was.

"Nah, fuck off, go see a nutritionist and by the way a psychologist because I heard they're on promotion and if you make your appointment today they'll give you a 2 for 1 promotion. Why don't you take Ino to go with you, since you're both just as crazy!".

*Sound of falling out of bed*. My past self kicked Genji's body off the bed.

"This is serious!!!! Ino started dieting and if I don't look better than Ino, Sasuke-Kun won't be interested in me, and he'll never give me his love."

Genji peeked his head over the bed with an annoyed expression and said to my past self, "It's worth it for you to go on such a drastic diet when you just turned 12... You state that you want her love and appreciation, but how is she going to give you something she can't give."

My past self didn't take long to process her words, and before she could gather her thoughts to respond, Genji interrupted her.

"Some women are indeed helped by dieting, however, if you look in the mirror you will notice that you are missing meat in the right places, that's because of your silly delusion of not eating right. Another thing to add is that not all guys like thin girls and if you ask me, I prefer them with a little meat!".

The memories keep flowing, and I'm finally understanding Genji's words. At the time I didn't know what Genji was talking about, but looking back at my memories I understood Genji's words, and he was right about Sasuke.

How could a person show love to someone, if I can't show the slightest respect or consideration when a girl handed him a letter or a flower, only to receive cold comments like; You're annoying, I'm not interested, stop wasting time and concentrate on more important things.

He may have been right, however, that did not give him the right to reject us so rudely when we were just girls in love with him.

I was very foolish.

I let go of my memories and let out a few tears.

"I don't want to die."

I closed my eyes as I felt so silly and pathetic that only in my last moments did I manage to realize what Sasuke is.

End of Sakura's point of view.

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