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Prologue

She was running as quickly and quietly as she knew how. The trees were flying by in a blur, not that she was paying much attention to that. She was focused on one thing, and one thing only: escape.

Under normal circumstances 15-year-old Sakura Haruno, apprentice to the Hokage herself, would never run from an enemy. But the circumstances of this chase were not normal. Normally she was full to the brim with Chakra, normally she had others with her to back her up, normally she wasn't weaponless, normally she had her Leaf forehead protector on her, and perhaps most of all, normally she wasn't being chased down by an S-class criminal, let alone many S-class criminals. No, there was nothing normal about it.

She had been on a simple C-ranked mission: heal the villagers of a number of small villages that had been hit by an extremely infectious and painful disease, nothing to it. It really had been a simple mission, with the only unexpected thing being that there were many more sick then she had anticipated.

She had healed all the villagers, successfully completing her mission. Then she just had to decide to head straight back to Konoha, even though she was almost out of Chakra. That was a mistake, a very bad mistake, because of what she found. She had felt Chakra nearby and thought that maybe it was some measly rogue ninja that were up to no good. She was only partially right, they were rogue ninja up to no good, but there was nothing 'measly' about them.

She had somehow stumbled upon the Akatsuki hideout. Sakura stayed hidden in the trees as she overheard members of the Akatsuki talking. She recognized a couple of the voices, but she didn't dare get close enough to see the people who were talking. Sakura listened intently to what was being said, hoping to find out information that could be useful to Konoha.

She was hoping to get information, but she never expected to find out what she did. After she heard that, she knew she had to get out of there now. She had just begun to sneak away, when she felt extremely powerful Chakra heading in her direction, from somewhere other than the hideout. She had a pretty good idea as to who that Chakra belonged to, and she didn't want to stick around to see if she was correct.

So she ran, and the strong Chakra followed her. The chase was soon joined by a number of other, vaguely strong (at least in comparison) Chakras, that belonged to the people she had overheard.

That's how she came to be running for her life. She went from tree to tree, not even knowing where she was going; she was lost. Suddenly she was forced to come to a halt, not only were the trees about to end, but she could now see that the path she had randomly chosen wasn't a very good path; it had lead straight to a dead end.

Sakura jumped from the last tree and silently landed a short way from a long drop. She frantically looked around her for an escape route, but none was to be found. She was on a cliff that went for as far as she could see in both directions, and the Chakras were closing in on her. She was trapped, and everyone, including herself, knew it.

Sakura frantically searched her pockets, hoping to find something she could use to defend herself. Even though she knew otherwise, she hoped that she had somehow forgotten to take a weapon off her person before she went on her mission. A kunai, a shuriken, anything! And it was during what she knew was a fruitless search that she found what she was looking for, in an off-hand kind of way. It wasn't a weapon, but a scroll.

She pulled the scroll out of the pocket that was hidden on the inside of her vest and stared at it. This was the scroll that the Hokage had given her on her fourteenth birthday with the warning that she was only to open it, using her own blood, as a last resort. She didn't have a clue as to what the scroll was meant to do, but she felt that the situation called for a last resort, since it never really had a first resort to begin with, and running away was now out of the question.

She was about to bite her thumb for the blood needed to activate the scroll when three men with weapons were suddenly upon her, attacking her from three sides. She did her best to dodge, but in the shape she was in, the best that she could do was stop any of the blows from being lethal.

Now that her blood was on the scroll, thanks to a cut on her arm courtesy of the blue dude, she couldn't remember his name, she was about to open the scroll when she felt a searing pain course through her body, making her almost drop the scroll. She looked down at her ankle and found a plant…biting her.

She knew the plant had to be poisonous because she was beginning to feel the effects of the poison, either that or she had lost way too much blood. Either way things weren't looking very good for her, and she could feel that the strongest Chakra would soon reach the cliff. It was now or never.

She forced her shaking hands to securely hold the scroll, then she took a deep breath, and opened the scroll. The last thing she saw was Itachi Uchiha, the strongest chakra, appear through the trees before light engulfed her.

The men stared at the space where the girl had been but moments before; now all that was there was an odd burn-like mark on the ground. Itachi made the hand signal for them to spread out and search the surrounding areas, and everyone complied. He, however, only went forward, closer to the strange mark on the ground.

He bent down and touched a part of the mark. It was then that he remembered what he thought he'd never forget.

Reviews and constructive criticism welcome, flames, not so much. I hope people like my story, and I also hope that people will send me ideas, because I just may use them. I'll do my best to stick with what has really happened, but I've only seen as far as what is shown on Toonami. The rest of what I need I've (hopefully) learned from reading stories.

I've gone through and re-edited this chapter!