[SasuXSaku] Tightrope

Chapter 00

A/N

This prologue was requested by my beta, Jen. It's just a part where both characters finally meet. This story has been posted in FFnet too, but this prologue is only availabe here in WP. Slightly updated from my original one. Enjoy and give some love.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, or Naruto Shippuden. If I do, I won't be killing awesome characters in the story. I do own a copy of the complete episodes though and a pedo bear wallet.

..::~SxS~::..

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Prologue~

She hurriedly took her steps from sprint to running. She could feel the heavy atmosphere around her. While she literally runs faster now, she stares at the sky, now covered in dark grey. The surrounding, which mainly was a heavy foliage looks so dim and gloomy now. Any minute, it'll start raining. She has to hurry in her cabin or the stuff she was protecting will be damaged. After all, it was a precious ingredient from the concoctions she was preparing for the villagers.

She was assigned on a mission here, a week ago, in a village just near the boundary, North-West of Fire Country. The poor village needs a medic and a doctor to cope up with their declining health and since it was a secluded and poor village, no shinobi country took their request. Tsunade, even with her famous temper, had a great heart, consider their situation and deploy Sakura to assist them. Sakura immediately accepted the mission, which could took longer than a month to accomplish. This was under A-rank solo mission, to save a village.

She was puffing when she finally see her cabin. But unfortunately, rain already poured heavily before she ever did make it. So she frantically put the ingredient under her shirt, and sprinted rapidly. She was already soaking wet when she finally make it on the foyer of her cabin.

She sighed. She pulled the ingredient under her which consists of three heads of dried chamomile. Well, she really needs it dry and glad that it stays that way after the rain poured down. She pulled down her keys from her pockets and enter unceremoniously inside. She puts the chamomiles in a dry wick basket and went to her room without turning the main lights. Instead, she proceeds to the bathroom, flips the light and reaches out for a small towel. She wiped her face and strip-off all her soaked clothes, closed the bathroom door then went under the shower.

She didn't notice the pair of black eyes, silently watching her every move in the darkest corner of the room.

After about 15 minutes, Sakura went out from the bathroom wrapped in her towel, one hand with a smaller towel, drying her hair. She went on the edge of her bed and sit while still drying her hair. Just then, she finally feels it, and she stiffened. Someone was in her room. She inhaled, trying to relax her breathing. Why didn't she notice it before? Why did she become so relax? She was a ninja dammit!

Slowly, as if assessing the exact location of her intruder, she slowly eases up her right hand towards her pillow while her left hand faking to rub her wet hair with the small towel. As soon as her hands gripped the handle of her kunai she strategically hid under the pillows, the not so familiar chakra she feels suddenly flares up. Within a fluid motion, she twisted her right leg, pushes her body up, kunai on her right hand, and swings it in one smooth move towards her back. Metal hits against metal, the small towel flies off slowly in her vision.

Who is the intruder? What does he want? A thief? She can't tell with the darkness of the room, but she knows that it's a man.

The intruder doesn't know who he's messing with, she thought. So with chakra infused left hand, she aims for him. But he was fast, and he doesn't seem like an ordinary petty burglar. Her chakra infused punch landed on her bed, splitting it into two. She could feel feathers and debris of the poor bed flying off everywhere. She felt the intruder landed behind her so with one swift move, she tried to swing her arm with the kunai, intending to land a direct hit on him by turning and shifting her weight clockwise, but she was gripped with a powerful arm instead, holding her wrist, while the other on her shoulder, stopping her attack. She winced, but she grabbed the wrist that holds her shoulder, putting all her might and flipped him up and down to the floor. She smirked as she heard a loud thud and a few broken bones of the intruder. It was short lived though, when she felt someone grabbed her both hands behind her with such a force, she dropped her kunai.

There are two of them? No, then she looked on the mass that lies on the floor. It vanished with a poof. A kawarimi? But how?

Before she could do a comeback attack, she was shoved off towards the door. The intruder still holding both of her hands behind her.

"Let go of me!" she hissed as she tried to break from his iron grip. The intruder was so close behind her, she could actually feel his body heat. She started to infuse both hands with chakra.

"Don't," the intruder said in a painfully familiar baritone voice she oh-so-damned knows so well.

And she stopped.

And her world suddenly stops.

Her breath hitched from her lungs, her eyes wide. Her mouth went dry, it opens and closes. She wanted to speak but found out she can't. This isn't a dream.

The man behind her inched closer, she felt his mouth over her left ear. He was breathing warm on her and she could actually tell he was smirking.

"Breath," he told her, whispering, almost too close to her ear. It brings so much shiver in her body that she literally froze.

And she did, it was a painful broken exhales, she thought her lungs were actually screaming at her. She was in shock! Then, he flipped her so that her back was against the door and she was finally facing him. She still can't find the words.

It was finally clearing outside, dark clouds floating away. The rain had stopped and the moon peeped through the sky, lights passing through her windows and towards the intruder that night. Her jaw dropped, glassed jade orbs looking straight at the obsidian ones now, her heart beats fast, and that sensation she felt with the nearness of him.

And she finally sees him.

"S-Sasuke...kun," she whispers under her breath.

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