The Shape of Change

Konohagakure no Sato was a ninja village.

Not the grandest of sweeping statements, granted, but it serves its intended purpose well, as within this deceptively simple fact lay several implications. Konoha was a ninja village; thus, its population was liberally sprinkled with shinobi and kunoichi. Its gates were guarded by Chunin, and a contingent of ANBU kept vigil at strategic locations throughout the urban sprawl. In a more visible occupation of law enforcement, the Uchiha-run Konoha Keimu Butai patrolled the streets, fully capable and prepared to beat crime down to near nonexistence.

So it was no surprise, with so many peacekeepers and guards mixed into the civilian population, that mothers felt at ease allowing their young children the run of the place. Especially when one's five-year-old daughter was already displaying advanced thought-processes and a clever, bookish personality. There was no fear in Haruno Kiyoko's mind when she let her only child walk, alone, to the park that lay only a few blocks away from the family's residence.

Of course, the Haruno matriarch hadn't taken into account the thoughtlessly cruel nature of children.

Haruno Sakura, age five, was running for her life. Or so it seemed to her. The tears in her eyes and the still-much-too-audible shouts of her pursuers added the speed of desperation to her steps.

"We'll get you, Forehead!" came a particularly loud cry from behind. Sakura ran breathlessly on, oblivious to the fact that she had left the familiar streets of her neighborhood far behind, and was quickly becoming immured in the maze-like network of streets and alleys of unknown sections of Konoha.

Who could have foreseen the development of this situation? Certainly not Sakura. Though intelligent for her age, she was only five-- not yet old enough to attend the Academy, just barely old enough to venture out to the park alone. She had never imagined that the other kids playing there would take exception to the fact that a little pink-haired girl could beat them at their game of Ninja-and-Hokage.

In the time-honoured tradition of children everywhere, the sore-losers had immediately sought refuge in the ostracism and verbal harassment of the unexpected victor. Their most obvious recourse was to insult the girl's appearance, which they did with a vengeance.

"Forehead-girl!"

"What kind of color is pink for hair!"

"Stupid ugly girl!"

"Fathead!"

Their insults were, sadly, lacking creativity. But that was to be expected of children that age. And despite that, they did their job of making Sakura feel horrible. Tears had sprung to her eyes and she had taken off at a run, wanting only to escape the jeers and unfriendly faces. It was unfortunate that the only avenue of escape open to her was opposite the direction of her home. And, of course, once she'd taken off, her tormentors followed like predators after injured prey. Strange, the similarities between children and jackals…

It was really only a matter of time before one of Konoha's ninjas put an end to the chase; even if their job descriptions didn't generally mention bullies and child-mobs, it was more-or-less understood that the ninja duty of protection extended even to those. But in the meantime, Sakura had to rely on her speed to keep her from possible bodily harm.

The young pink-haired girl risked a glance back; she was starting to lose them. It wasn't terribly surprising, all things considered. After all, she had been faster than them in their games. Rather ironic, that they thought they should try to beat her now, when she had even more reason to run faster than them.

Sakura pelted around a corner and looked around wildly. Ah! There! There was a man seated on some wooden boxes beside a shop. Sakura made a beeline for him, or rather, for the boxes. She ducked behind them, hoping this older, uninvolved person would serve as a shield. The others probably wouldn't risk being caught out by an adult by asking him about her… She hoped.

There was a whisper of cloth on wood and the man stood, crossing his arms and casually leaning ever so slightly on a nearby wall. His body half-screened Sakura's as she cowered among the boxes. She tried to gulp air quietly and listened as the footsteps of her pursuers grew louder.

The three older children who had been chasing her hesitated when they saw the man, but evidently they thought the better of approaching him, after only an infinitesimal pause, continued on. For the most part. One of the three was either braver or more stupid than the others, and hesitated half a breath longer, but his two compatriots noticed and called him on.

"Come on, Hige!" The boy took off after them like a startled bird. Sakura let out a hiccupping breath of relief.

Once the three children were out of sight, the man standing in front of the boxes (and Sakura) turned to allow her to crawl out, which she did. She stood rather unsteadily, relief and fatigue making her knees tremble. She looked up at her passive protector, and blinked.

She'd grossly overestimated his age. In her defense, she'd been tear-blinded and running too fast to really get a good look at him. All she'd seen was a dark figure who was much taller than she. Besides, to a five-year-old, anything older than six was practically adult.

This boy looked to be around five years older than her. A leaf hite-ate gleamed at his forehead. A shinobi! She hadn't noticed before. Perhaps that had helped dissuade her tormentors from asking him anything. He had dark hair and dark eyes, which were currently gazing at her with a kind of vague interest. He was also beautiful. Sakura wasn't old enough to have developed any sort of defenses against such beauty, and stared unabashedly, being rather dazzled.

She sniffled a little, and messily wiped the remnants of her tears from her cheeks, still staring. The older boy blinked laconically, breaking the spell, and Sakura suddenly realized she was blocks from her home with no idea how to get back. A fresh flood of tears washed over her cheeks and she gave a little 'hup!' of a breath- a sad, futile attempt at staving off the tears. She began to rub frantically at her face, as if it could possibly hide the fact she was crying.

The older boy turned and took a couple steps away, and Sakura felt a flash of anguished abandonment- Don't leave me alone!- before he paused and turned back to her. One hand lifted, and he made a small beckoning gesture: Come on.

Sakura didn't pause to question. She hurried to him and he turned and walked on. He wanted her to follow? She trotted at his side, tears slowing considerably.

Neither said anything in the time it took for the dark-haired boy to lead her home. As soon as she'd caught sight of the familiar sign- wooden, with the kanji spelling out Haruno burned into it- hanging by her home, Sakura had broken out in a run. She reached her front door and had both hands on the handle poised to pull it open when she stopped (suddenly remembering her manners) and looked back at her silent benefactor. He stood where she'd left him, watching calmly. Sakura hurriedly took a step away from the door and gave him a deep bow.

"Arigato!" she called in her high child's voice. Her response was a slight nod, and then he was turning and walking away and she was exploding through her front door into the safe haven of her home.

The next time she saw him was several months later. She hadn't really tried to return to the park after that ill-fated day, and had been feeling rather lonely. So in a fit of irrational desire, she took to the streets in an attempt to retrace the path to the shop and boxes where she'd met the dark-haired shinobi. She failed in that venture, but succeeded in another.

She couldn't find the pile of crates, but she did manage to get herself nicely lost again. She wandered for perhaps half a day before she looked up from her weary feet and saw him. He was standing against the wall, looking for all the world as if he were waiting for her. She froze, and he, without even glancing at her, turned and began walking down a nearby side street. After a brief pause, Sakura followed.

He led her back to her home again, once more in complete silence. But Sakura did not feel as if it were an awkward silence, or an annoyed silence. She felt comfortable with him, safe.

This time, she walked with him all the way to the front gate of her home, where the wooden 'Haruno' sign was hung. He stopped there, and she turned her face up to him and smiled. It was a bright, childish smile, the sort where no ounce of emotion was held back. It was a glowing smile.

Then she spun and skipped up to her front door and disappeared inside.

The third time, Sakura didn't wander for nearly as long. It was just five weeks shy of her sixth birthday, and she knew that within the year she would start at the Ninja Academy. The thought made her anxious and unhappy, thus explaining why she went out looking for the shinobi.

In much the same way as the last two times, she spotted him quietly standing off to the side of the road, his mien suggesting deep thought and a certain disregard for his surroundings. This time, she ran up to him, a smile spreading across her face unbidden. She stopped before him and looked up at him with a shy sort of adoration. He looked back at her, unruffled. His head tilted minutely, as if to say: Again? Sakura smiled at him.

Half a heartbeat, and then he was walking, the same as before. Except this time, Sakura trotted up to his side and shyly slipped her little hand into his, holding tightly. After a moment, she felt the slight pressure of his fingers gently curling around hers.

As before, they did not talk, he led her to the front gate of her home, and she offered him that bright smile before dashing inside.

Their relationship was simple and, even if it was a bit strange, sweet.

Sakura's first day at the Academy started in a jittery whirl of fear and shyness. For the first two years of their training, girls and boys were separated into two different classes- this was due to slightly different requirements for each gender. The mannerisms and skills taught to kunoichi and civilian women were, more often than not, vastly different. In order to train the young girls of the Ninja Academy the skills they would need to know to blend in with a civilian population, they were given intensive classes that combined the preliminary ninja training with traditional women's lessons. Similarly, boys in the Academy spent their first years learning how to disguise the confident, poised bearing their training would give them and act like normal civilian men, in addition to the first level of shinobi arts. It was true that a chakra henge could potentially serve as a easier disguise, but it was never a good thing to depend too heavily on chakra techniques, so the students learned things the hard way as well.

What all this meant for Sakura, at the time, was that she was much too busy to go out on her wandering searches, even when, in later days, some of her classmates teased her about her forehead. Her unhappiness at the slights was heavy, and she did wish many times to go find her dark, quiet friend, but she couldn't quite find the time.

All was not lost, however, as one of the more forward girls in Sakura's class decided to befriend the pink-haired girl. Her name was Ino, and the two became such good friends that despite the loss of 'her' shinobi, Sakura began to thrive at the Academy.

It was just after her eighth birthday, during the short summer holiday the Academy gave them, that Sakura once again found herself running for her life through the streets of Konoha. Her book-smarts had not earned her many friends in her classes, and a feud had erupted between her and two other girls who had decided to take out their frustration at their less-than-satisfactory performances on her. Things were generally worse during the holidays and outside of class, because then their sensei could not police them as much. Sakura knew that two against one wouldn't make for a terribly fun fight for her, so she ran.

On the upside, training had improved her endurance and stamina. On the downside, both her pursuers were undergoing the same training. The only other thing Sakura had going for her was that her knowledge of the streets of Konoha had increased dramatically since the last time she'd been fleeing through them. She headed toward one of the busier streets, hoping to either lose them in the crowd, or call the attention of someone of authority.

She barreled around a corner and-

"Ompf!" she reeled backward dazedly, blinking at whatever she'd run into. It had felt like a brick wall.

It wasn't.

Dark ninja attire. Grey armour. Porcelain wolf mask…. Ut oh…

"G-gomen nasai, ANBU-san!" Sakura stammered, giving a quick bow. The elite ninja were held in combined awe and fear by the young Academy students, and there were few things so disquieting as running smack into one.

Except, maybe, running smack into one while trying to elude two rather pissed people who were intent on injuring you in some way. Sakura glanced back behind her, flinching when Kaede and Li came around the corner, panting. They spotted Sakura at once, but fortunately also noticed her companion. Her ANBU companion. They glared at Sakura, but dared not do more in front of the masked shinobi. They turned tail and fled.

Sakura let out a shaky breath, and turned to find that the ANBU had not moved. She blinked at him. There was something about him…

He walked forward a few paces, forcing Sakura to turn to let him pass. She watched him move away, but he suddenly stopped and glanced back at her. One hand lifted from his side and made a familiar beckoning gesture.

Sakura jerked, surprised, and then a wide grin leapt to her lips. It was her dark-haired friend from two years ago! She remembered him well, for all that she hadn't seen him in all that time. He hadn't been ANBU then… And actually, if he'd been ten years old then, that would make him around twelve or thirteen now. Sakura was properly awed that he was already such a high rank.

Like the old times, she walked beside him as he led her back to her home. It seemed likely that he knew she was perfectly capable of finding her own way, but it was the routine they had established, and it warmed Sakura considerably. She didn't, however, dare to hold his hand this time.

They were drawing near to her home when she spoke, breaking the silence for the first time: "I'm in the Academy now. I'm training to be a kunoichi."

They were at her front gate now. She turned her face up to look at him. With sudden decisiveness, she declared: "One day, I'll be ANBU, like you!"

The masked head inclined very slightly, but he didn't speak. It didn't bother Sakura. She bowed.

"Arigato," she said sincerely. "For the two times you saved me, and for all the times you've walked me home. Arigato."

The masked head nodded once more, and they parted ways.

To Sakura's mind, it was as if he just vanished, after that. She went wandering through Konoha quite a few times, but never saw him. The summer holiday ended and the students went back to classes at the Academy. It was the first year the boy and girls were in the same class, and they met the ninja who would be their sensei for the next four years.

Sakura was surprised to see a boy her age who looked startlingly like her now-ANBU friend. His name was Uchiha Sasuke, and she felt immediately drawn to him, if only at first for his similarity to her ANBU-san. As her friend's absence became more and more prolonged, Sakura found her eye being drawn more and more often to Sasuke.

Was he related to her ANBU-san? Did he know where he was?

Sakura wanted to ask him, but was afraid. Uchiha Sasuke was unfriendly, broody, and not inclined to speak to anyone beyond what was necessary. Beside that, he was almost as beautiful as Sakura's ANBU-san, and was the class's top student. In short, he was intimidating.

Eventually, the news that the whole Uchiha clan, excepting Sasuke, was gone reached Sakura's ears. Gone. As in dead? Was her ANBU-san dead? The questions burned her, and she wished she could ask Sasuke. But she had the feeling that it was a bad idea.

Finally, when they were ten, she drummed up enough courage.

"A-ano… Sasuke-kun…" she hesitated. He gave no outward sign that he was listening. Perhaps that helped her spit it out. "Do… Do you have a brother?"

She was watching him carefully through her eyelashes, nervous, watching for his reaction. His dark eyes flashed briefly with fury and utter hatred, which Sakura feared was directed toward her, and after a pause, he responded in a grim voice completely unbefitting someone of his age: "No. I do not have a brother."

His tone told her the answer was exactly the reverse. She was wise enough not to pursue the matter any further. It was clear that Sasuke hated his brother, who, Sakura was almost entirely certain, was her ANBU-san. But he had been so kind to her… Why did Sasuke hate him?

The answer to that question was only revealed to Sakura after her ANBU-san, Uchiha Itachi, returned to Konoha three years later.

Sakura and her teammates- Sasuke, for whom she nursed fond feelings that were only partly based on the fact that he had reminded her so much of her ANBU-san back when she'd first met him, and Naruto, who annoyed and amused her in equal turns- were thirteen when the Sandaime Hokage was killed by Orochimaru. The village was already bitter and hurting when two strangely clad men appeared and wreaked holy hell by handily beating several of Konoha's best ninja.

Sakura only saw the results of the encounter, and heard the stories secondhand, but that was enough. One of the men had been Uchiha Itachi, the other, an unknown nukenin. They had left a dozen ninja hospitalized, and Kakashi-sensei and Sasuke in comas. Sakura felt her breath catch when she learned the truth behind her ANBU-san's disappearance those five years ago.

He had killed the Uchiha clan, his clan. He had slaughtered his family, down to the last child, all except for his little brother. He had left Konoha to become a missing nin.

And now he was back and threatening Konoha.

As Sakura sat beside her teammate and sensei's hospital beds, she could only feel hurt and betrayed.

Her ANBU-san had been kind. How could he have changed so drastically, into this… monster?

She felt a little bit of empathy for Sasuke, who she imagined felt this same betrayal, only a hundred times worse. Now she understood the hatred in her teammate's eyes at the mention of his brother. Now she understood his pronounced goal "to kill a certain person."

But she didn't understand what had happened to her saviour, the shinobi who had walked her home those four times, who had kept her from the receiving end of two beatings.

The betrayal of Sasuke was like salt on her wounds. After he left Konoha, Sakura felt as if she were half a person, broken and nonfunctional. She was lucky that she had the friendship of Naruto, whose exuberant character nearly demanded that those around him live and enjoy life. It seemed as if he was the only thing keeping her breathing, and his driven personality inspired her to work harder and improve.

Sakura became the student of the Sannin Tsunade, who was appointed Konoha's Godaime Hokage. Under the skilled kunoichi's tutelage, Sakura found her strength. Literally. Sakura learned the Sannin's technique of super strength, and studied her advanced medical jutsu. The young pink-haired girl became kunoichi of respectable reputation, Tsunade's prized pupil.

So when Naruto returned from his own studies under the Sannin Jiraiya, she was ready for their next mission. To retrieve Sasuke.

Sakura was too smart to admit it out loud to anybody, but for all the years after learning the truth about Uchiha Itachi, she never once gave up the hope that, just maybe, they were all wrong about him. She didn't want to completely discount the kindness he had shown her. Even with the evidence against him, it still hurt to think that he had betrayed Konoha and, indirectly, her.

So it was something of a relief when they crossed paths with the Akatsuki and she had the opportunity to face him herself, while Naruto, Sai, and Yamato-sensei occupied themselves with Itachi's partner.

They probably hadn't meant to leave Sakura facing the Uchiha alone, but the other Akatsuki had had other ideas, and had drawn as many of them into battle as possible. Likely he would have snagged Sakura as well, had she not been completely intent on facing Itachi. But it so developed that Sakura stood opposite the Leaf missing nin, running a quick glance over him.

He was obviously older, his face thinner and more lined. His eyes weren't the same near-black shade as eleven years ago, but instead shone a constant crimson with the Uchiha kekkei genkai. His face was coldly impassive. While the expressionless look wasn't really new, the chill edge to it was. He had lost that indescribable sense about him that had drawn Sakura in. He had lost his kindness.

So this was how it was. Final. Inevitable.

She couldn't meet his eyes directly, to do so would be tantamount to suicide, so she focused on his hite-ate, with its struck-through Leaf symbol. Sakura slid easily into a fighting stance, and smiled sadly.

"Hello, ANBU-san."