Prologue: Through The Ashes

It's been a long day living with this,

It's been a long time since I've felt so sick.

I took a long walk straight back home,

I could have walked back to San Fransisco.

I used to long for time alone,

I used to long for a place of my own.

And I'm losing faith in everything,

I'm lost so lost, I'm lost at sea you see...

-Alkaline Trio - Mercy Me

Rain pelted against the glass with such intensity she feared it may break through the tiny motel window. She leaned her head against the dirty glass and sighed, her mind drifting to a place where she would go to get comfort from the stresses of everyday life as a rogue ninja. Her mind and her body may have always been where she was, but her heart would lie in the smoldering ruins of Konohagakure forever she knew. She missed the place she once called home, even if she knew she could never go back. There was really nothing to go back to, and she didn't think she could bring herself to look upon the destroyed village streets and be able to pretend as if nothing bothered her. After all, it was unlikely she would be welcomed back anyhow, as she had left the village without telling anyone, and if the rumors that were buzzing around were true-that one of the elder's sons had become the Hokage after Tsunade's death-then she knew that she was safer running around the world, away from execution.

She had made quite a notorious reputation over the last year or so that she had been on the run and had even made it into the bingo books. She sighed and flipped open the page of the book she had just lifted off of an old man recently and purused through the tattered pages until she had found her name.

Haruno Sakura

Age: 21 - DOB: March 28th

Blood Type: AB

Origin: Konohagakure

Status: Jonin Ranked S-Class Missing Nin

Defected from home village during the Fourth Great Shinobi War, considered to be dangerous. Skilled in the medical arts and uses them to her advantage. Exercise caution.

Sakura snorted in indignation, 'Exercise caution'? Yeah she was strong but she most definitely wasn't dangerous, well not unless she had to be. She was barely anything to anyone so she couldn't figure why anyone would hunt her down. She was barely a jonin anyway, having made the ranks nearly two weeks before the battle between Ame and Konoha broke out. Sakura winced, remembering that day, the same day Naruto died.

"Sakura! Get out of here! Go!"

"But Naruto I can-" She stammered out dodging blow for blow by a Ame nin. Naruto was wrapped up in fighting the Akatsuki leader and Kage, Pein. Sakura knew he couldn't win, and maybe that's why she wanted to fight by his side. But maybe he knew that he couldn't win and that was why he had told her to run, because once Pein was done he would get to her next.

"No!!! Run Sa-" He never finished his sentence as a kitana was forced through his heart, killing him instantly. Sakura stood there in shock as her best friend dropped to his knees, and finally breaking through to her senses. She ran.

The war had raged between all of the great Shinobi nations, save for Grass who had been destroyed by Amegakure many months before, for nearly a year. Just when everyone thought it was over, Kakashi had been killed. That night she ran for good, never looking back.

And now she was here, in a dingy motel room one year later, eating nasty food and running towards something she didn't even know was there. Somehow she knew that if she kept running she would find something worth it, something waiting for her.

Something worth all the pain.

****

And when I think of all the places I just don't belong,

I've come to grips with life and realize this is going too far.

I don't belong here,

We've gotta move on here.

Escape from this afterlife,

'Cause this time I'm right.

Too move on and on, far away from here...

-Avenged Sevenfold - Afterlife

He wasn't sure how he managed to pull himself from the wreckage that was once the base, but he did. He wasn't sure how he manged to pull himself away from the cold, still bleeding corpse of his partner, but he did. He wasn't sure how was alive, but he was.

This was what bothered him the most.

Why should he be allowed to live out the rest of his miserable existence while his partner was left laying under a rock, crushed with his eyes slit out. He didn't understand why the rest of the group were dead, and he was left alive. It confused and irritated him to no end, and most of all it angered him.

Damn it he was so fucking pissed off! That fucking liar, who the hell did he think he was? Leader lied about everything, and the worse part was that he believed it! He believed every forsaken word that came out of his lying mouth, and he wanted the false truths to come true so badly that he had lost sight of what was important. They had been blinded, he, Itachi, Deidara, hell even Konan had been shocked when she discovered Pein's secrets. That goddamned moron Tobi had been revealed as Uchiha Madara, the true leader of Akatsuki. Not Pein, who had merely been a puppet to Madara, but Madara.

Needless to say Hoshigaki Kisame was pissed off about it.

Not to mention, what Pein had wanted for the world had not at all been in Madara's plans, who simply wanted to conquer all of the world on his own. And Pein had stood up to him-being smite down in the process by the eldest Uchiha-protesting that this was not at all been what he had wanted and that Madara was out of his mind.

Once Pein was dead, the rest didn't stand a chance. The battle against the Uchiha lasted nearly two days non-stop, with Itachi, Deidara, and Konan dead. Come to find out, Uchiha Sasuke had managed to defeat Madara and where he was now was a mystery to everyone who had survived the war. This really didn't matter much to Kisame as long as that nutjob Uchiha was gone, and all he could do now was concentrate on making something for himself.

Something worth all the pain.

****