It's For The Best ~SasuSaku~ (Naruto FanFic)

Chapter 6

"The chunin exams will be starting soon." Kakashi sat on the railing of the roof of the building where Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke first met him. In front of him, seated on the steps, were his trio genin who were seated in the same positions as before.

Naruto tilted his head in confusion as Sasuke zoned in on the five words. Sakura, however, looked out past Kakashi at the horizon in thought. It had been a good while since her incident with the tree that led her to have a swollen foot.

Since she'd come in contact with her older self, she'd followed her instructions and gotten as strong as her body allowed her to. Outside of the countless small missions her team had been a part of, she'd been storing chakra, practicing taijutsu, genjutsu, and medical ninjutsu, studying, and keeping Sasuke in check while trying her best to watch Naruto and make sure he wasn't drinking any more spoiled milk and getting the runs. To be quite honest, she was exhausted. She wanted to stop plenty of times but always pushed these thoughts away when she thought of how this was all for the best.

As she stared off at the carved faces in the mountain, her mind couldn't help but drift towards everything that went on. She was still able to get on the same team as Naruto and Sasuke, but she did cut her hair early and Naruto and Sasuke never had their famous first kiss in the classroom. Since they passed their teamwork test, they never went cat hunting for the rich old lady. Did that mean Sasuke lost a valuable memory because of her? And because they didn't go on that little escapade, they never took her team photo in the blissful happiness. Also, before when they did the teamwork test, Sasuke had agreed with her that if Naruto failed, they all failed, This time, he didn't do that. He didn't even mention it or give a hint towards it. He only agreed that she should fail and to keep Naruto. The only thing that actually went according to her memories was their mission which ended in a fight between them, Zabuza, and Haku.

"All three of you must agree to come to the chunin exams or none of you will be allowed to enter." Kakashi said, which snapped Sakura out of her thoughts. This wasn't how this happened!

Naruto grinned. "I definitely want to do this! Sounds like fun!"

Kakashi looked to Sasuke, who nodded in approval with Naruto. The trip looked at Sakura, who was still in shock from the sudden change.

"Well, Sakura. Ready to do this?" Naruto asked with a bright smile. Ready to do this? At the thought of what this was, Sakura paled noticeably. As they awaited her answer, Sakura couldn't help but think back on everything that had happened at the chunin exams. Naruto pretty much got the shit knocked out of him, a giant sand monster appeared and almost killed everyone, and Sasuke got the cursed seal, almost died,a and changed completely.

"N-No." Sakura stuttered out quietly. Her eyes started to fill with tears as the memories flooded back. This was how she started to lose Sasuke and she definitely wasn't prepared to lose him again. If that meant keeping him out of the Chunin Exams, then that's what she was going to do. "I'm not going to do it. I refuse to go to the Chunin Exams!"

"Sakura!" Naruto called as Sakura rushed off of the rooftop. She practically flew down the stairs and ran out of the building, heading home. She could hear footsteps behind her, which only caused her to run faster.

Once she made it home to her empty home once again, she slammed her room door behind herself and tried her hardest to catch her breath. She slowly gathered herself up and sat down on the floor in front of her mirror. In front of her sat her sixteen year old self.

That's not how I would've handled the situation. You know what's going to happen.

Sakura shook her head. "Well I'm not you. You're me, but I'm not you. I know what's going to happen. We aren't going to the Chunin Exams. I'm stopping this all at the root."