Izzy: I'M BACK!!!

Cousin Jackie: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Izzy: SAY MY DISCLAIMER DAMN IT!!!

Jackie: Fine, fine! Izzy does not own Naruto. She does however own Kukai, Rei, and Ryo! YAY!!!

xXxXx

"Ahahahahahahaha! Stop! Stop it! I can't breath!!!"

"No! Not until you admit I cook way better than you!"

"Pfft, yeah, right. In your freakin dreams!"

"Fine!"

The hot red-headed boy started to attack the rosettes stomach mercilessly.

"AH! KUKAI!!! STOP! PLEASE!!!"

Tears streamed down Sakura's cheeks as she tried desperately to shove him off.

Ryo watched from the side laughing his ass off while Rei slept soundly in her room.

"OKAY! OKAY! Kukai, you… hahaha, you… are… whybetterthanmeatcooking!"

He smirked.

"Good girl," Kukai let his grip loosened on the cherry blossom, letting her escape.

Sakura wiped away stray tears while holding onto Ryo's shirt, pulling herself up.

She looked at the clock. 8:32.

"God, we've been at this for half an hour? You know, you're so freakin immature."

"Me!?! You're the one who refused to admit such a small, coughtruecough, comment."

"Whatever, goodnight." With that, Sakura turned out the lights and slipped quietly into her room, leaving Kukai and Ryo in the dark kitchen.

After a few 'ow's' and 'god damn it's' they found sanctuary in their rooms.

--Sakura's Room--

Sakura sighed in contentment, snuggling closer to her warm covers.

She couldn't remember the last time she felt this safe.

Then again, she couldn't remember much about her past in the first place. Sure, she remembered her academy days. When she first moved to Konoha. Ino. But she couldn't remember, in detail, her past missions. I mean, she could recall slivers of them, but it was like holes were missing.

She couldn't have gone solo. After all, she was just a genin. But, sometimes, when she really tried, a shadowy figure would appear. Rarely, she would hear a mumble, and order maybe, but by that time her head hurt too much and she was forced to stop.

She could never get a glimpse of their face, or hear their voice clearly enough to search them in her memory, but she had tried.

Nothing ever came up.

The thinking back to Ino, she always mentioned an argument between them that tore them apart. Sakura knew that, but she had forgotten what the cause was. And whenever she brought up the topic, Ino would quickly change it. It was confusing; no one told her anything about her past. The parts she was missing anyway.

I mean, come on! They were her old team! She didn't care if they hated them or whatever, she should have a right to know!

Even her new team tried to help her. Using their ninja tricks to get information. Unfortunately, the others were ninjas to. They didn't fall for their stealth so easily. They had almost gotten Choji to spill once, but Ino and Shikamaru ran in and dragged him away before they got anything. The next day, Choji was surrounded by Kiba, Hinata, Shikamaru, Lee, Ino, Tenten, Shino, and even Neji!

It was pretty clear no one thought it was a good idea to tell just yet, even though they tried to act casual.

'Just hanging out' my butt.

But Sakura was smart and quick to figure, 'These were her friends, and if they're trying this hard to prevent me from knowing, I sure they must have a reason.'

So she shrugged it off, even though the pit of her stomach was protesting, she ignored it, and has.

Sakura shook her head, pushing all her thoughts out of mind.

Right now, all she wanted to do was sleep.

(Insert Dream sequence music here)

Sakura walked blissfully down the stone pathway. It was odd that the Hokage wanted to see her this early. Speaking of which, she really needed to send that ANBU messenger a sorry card or something while he's in the hospital. What could she say? She wasn't a morning person.

Once in front of the tower, Sakura suddenly got a nervous twisting feeling in her gut. Something was off.

She pushed the double doors open and walked straight up to her sensei's office.

Sakura knocked on the door and waited until she heard a muffled "Come in."

Sakura was completely unaware that her hand was trembling, and not of anxiousness.

She push the doors out of her way and asked, "Why the urgent wake up call?"

Tsunade looked down at her desk, hands folded. Just the thought of the look on her apprentices' face when she reveled the news broke her heart.

Tsunade practically thought of Sakura as her own daughter, considering her parents died a long while ago.

But, she had to do it. It would be even harder for her to find out on her own.

She gave off a sigh and cleared her throat.

Sakura was worried. No, scratch that, petrified! Her sensei was on to never hesitate, much less divert her while speaking with someone. Tsunade was a strong confident in everything she did. A perfect role model Sakura was aiming to be, excluding the whole sake addiction thing. So… why was she acting so different?

"Sakura," she began, "I'm sure you know, that your team is very determined and would do almost anything to get Sasuke back, right?"

O God, she was not liking where this was going.

"I'm not going to mince words Sakura, they left hours before daybreak. The guard let them pass, thinking they had a mission of some sort. All they left was a piece of paper on my door. I would give it to you, but as soon as I finished reading it, the ink vanished."

Sakura just stood there, not moving, or breathing.

Her brain was trying desperately to put together all the information.

Then it clicked. As of this moment, she was alone. Her team, her friends… her family, were gone.

"This… This is a joke right? We decided to find Sasuke together, as a team. You remember, you were there," her voice was unsteady, barely above a whisper, though Sakura cared little of it. Her hope was decreasing, fast.

Tsunade's fists clenched. How could they leave Sakura like this, broken and hurt? Didn't they know they were the closest people to her? And to just detach themselves from her so suddenly, only a cruel, insensitive bastard could do that. Sakura didn't deserve it.

Tsunade stood up and hugged the girl as she began to break down. Chocking back a few sobs, Sakura asked one last question.

"Did they say good-bye?"

Tsunade hugged her tighter. That was her answer, and Sakura understood perfectly. But Sakura wasn't going to cry. Oh no. She was a ninja for god's sake. She was supposed to master hiding her emotions. It took all her will power, but she concealed it, just barley.

When Tsunade heard the lack of sobs, she immediately knew that Sakura was saving it for her room, she though it smart to hurry things along.

She grabbed Sakura's shoulders and held her at arms length, looking her straight in the eye as she began to wrap up.

"Sakura," she said in a dead serious tone, "You will still be in need of a team."

Sakura sniffled, but nodded. "And an alliance of ours that brooder us are willing to send three of their most skilled ninjas here. Coincidentally, all three of their families were slaughtered by passing rouge ninjas when they were young. They've agreed to stay here and become permanent Konoha Shinobi."

Tsunade let Sakura go and turned to the door.

"Come in," she commanded.

Three ninjas that Sakura hadn't seen before walked through the doorway.

The girl walked up to her and stuck out her hand. She had long brown hair held up by a large dark brown clip, matching her eyes. She wore a light blue tang top with a pair of navy blue ninja pants (like Kakashi) and plain blue ninja sandals. Finally, she choose three golden bracelets that hung beautifully off her wrists.

"Hi, I'm Reirei, call me Rei."

Sakura shook her hand and one of the boys came up.

"Sup! My name's Ryo! Nice to meet'cha!"

Sakura gave off a small giggle which surprised Tsunade.

But Sakura was even more surprised. Why did she feel so at ease?

She looked over Ryo. He had short flat red hair that made his black eyes pop. He had a blood red and black jacket (That looks like Naruto's but it doesn't have that thing that hangs from his shoulder) with a black t-shirt underneath. He wore black pants and black ninja sandals. His goofy grin was so adorable, Sakura took note.

She smiled and so did Ryo, exchanging a knuckle touch.

"Yo," the last guys said, "I'm Kukai, nice to meet you."

Sakura saw fire burning in his blue eyes. His black was up in a spiked, not up, but downwards, giving him an edgy, yet sexy look while his navy green t-shirt hung loosely off his shoulders. His black ninja pants complemented it and lastly he wore a pair of black ninja sandals. He looked sloppy, but decent.

Sakura inwardly smirked. 'This guys has willpower, I can sense it, being so hyped up. Hmm, got an idea!'

"Hey, you seem full of energy, but I bet you fizzle out faster than me on the battle field."

His eyes went wide and beamed her a sly grin.

"Oh yeah!?!"

"Yeah!"

"Well, I may fizzle out, but at least I can hide."

"What is that suppose to mean!?"

"I mean look at your hair! Pink!? I'm pretty sure that woods don't include such girly colors. You probably get captured ALOT!"

"Excuse me!?! I can take care of myself! And I'll have you know, this is natural!"

"What!?! Well, it suits you. Weird color for a weird girl."

"Look who's talking, FREAK!!!"

"WEIRDO!"

"FREAK!"

"WEIRDO!!!"

"FREAK!!!

"Well, looks like your well acquainted. Since Sakura has three spare rooms, you four will be living together from now on, okay?"

Everyone nodded.

"Okay, you are a team now, and will be known as team 17!"

They smiled at the new name… the new group.

No one would admit it out loud, but at the exact instant they saw each other, they felt a pull. It's as if, the were to be joined. Together.

"You may leave now," Tsunade said, walking back toward her paperwork covered desk.

"Okay," They all said in unison.

They exited with a bow and preceded towards Sakura's house.

Rei looked at the ground, Sakura looked straight ahead like Ryo and Kukai looked up at the cloud as they walked toward Sakura's house.

"Sakura… you don't need to cry."

Sakura looked up, surprised at Kukai.

"Yeah, we'd like to know what made you so upset, but we won't pry."

Sakura looked at Ryo in even bigger shock. How did they know?

"We may have just met, but it's weird, we can sense your uneasiness. Tell us when you're ready and we'll be there for you. 'K!?!"

She looked over to Rei and felt her tears prick at the sides of her eyes. 'Weird, they're not tears of pain, I know, but of… Happiness?'

She smiled a rare smile. Her real smile.

"Thank you."

(End of dream)

--Next Day (Exactly 5 Years After That)--

Kukai slept soundly in his bed, dreaming about a certain pink haired beauty. He had no idea what had been going on with him, but lately, his dreams have been plagued with images of nothing else but Sakura.

He felt a series of pokes aimed for his left cheek.

If I ignore it, I'm pretty sure it'll go away.

Poke. Poke. Poke.

It will get bored soon enough.

It increased into a light shake.

Please press the snooze button.

It reseated soon after.

Thank Kami.

And an out of the blue hard slap to the back of the head came quickly after.

Kukai's eyes shot open and sat strait up in bed, clutching the sore part of his head with care. Who ever did that was either a champion weight lifter, or Sakura.

He cracked one eye open. Yep, Sakura.

"Come on lazy ass, Hokage-sama told us to meet her in her office in half an hour."

"Okay, Okay. Where are Rei and Ryo?" He asked, rubbing his right eye.

"In the kitchen."

Kukai got ready in 5 minutes flat. Seriously, he only has like one kind of outfit.

Breakfast went smoothly while talking about random things.

Then, they set off to the Hokage tower.

xXxXx

Izzy: Did you like it!?! Did You Like It!?! DID YOU LIKE IT!?!

Jackie: No! They didn't!!!

(Izzy sits in a corner with her knees to her chest making the corner dark.)