Her Destiny

An Unexpected Visitor

Sakura slumped against the door of her apartment after a very long day at work. A whole team of ANBU had come in severely injured from their mission and she had been in back to back surgeries since this morning.

She slowly propelled herself off the door toward her bedroom. This called for a nice hot shower. Just as she was about to turn into her bedroom, there was a knock on her door. She frowned. No one came to her apartment. Ever.

She warily opened the door, only to almost immediately attempt to slam it in the intruder's face. Unfortunately, she had a very long day and the person on the other side was faster than her. And that person was Kabuto Yakushi.

"Look, just here me out Haruno," Kabuto muttered.

Sakura sighed before letting the man in.

She hadn't seen him in several years now and took in his appearance as he came through the door and proceeded to stand in the middle of her living room, looking around curiously.

His hair had been cut short, but looked like it hadn't been trimmed anytime recently, making it look shaggy. He was slightly taller than he had been, and his body had developed a bit more, giving him a tall, lean physique. He still wore the round glasses and sported an Oto hitai-ate.

"What do you want?"

"I need you to come to Oto with me."

Sakura actually laughed. "Are you out of your mind? Why the hell would I want to go there?"

"Orochimaru is dying and Sasuke is almost done with his training. He knows that Sasuke plans to kill him when they are done. He has no intention of keeping it from happening, but he wants someone to take over Oto when he passes. Contrary to what you may think, he really does want the village to prosper. The only snag is that the clan heads that currently reside in Oto don't particularly like him, and want someone in leadership that doesn't have such a . . . questionable history. Orochimaru thinks that you can be this person. He has done his research, as have I. We need an intelligent, head strong, leader to take his place when he passes and we think that you would be the best for the job.

Sakura was standing there gaping at the man.

"You're out of your mind."

"Look, all I'm asking is for you to meet with him once to talk things over."

Sakura sighed before saying, "Fine. Tsunade wants me to take a few vacation days anyway."

Kabuto nodded in acknowledgement.

Sakura summoned Katsuyu and had her pass along that she was going to take a couple days off.

Once that was done she grabbed a few things and stuffed them in her pack before turning to Kabuto and nodding. "Okay, let's do this so you will get out of my hair."

And with that, they were off to see one of the men she hated the most.