Once upon a time there was young kunoichi who lived in the hidden village of Konoha. She was just about to turn sixteen, had lived through one war already and was well respected among her comrades as a reliable and well trained medic. However, this story will not tell of her adventures during war, will not follow her on dangerous missions.
This story will tell of her first – her one, true love.

As said before, she was fifteen, and thus at ane age where human beings are quick to find their one, true love – and if said one, true love should dumb them, they will feel heartbroken for a while, but soon enough find another love to call true and one and only.
The kunoichi however was different, at least that is what she believed, for she had cherished her love, her one, true love, for three years now, and would do so forever and untill death.
Her one true love, on the other hand, knew little of the affactions bestowed upon him.
He was a little less than a year younger than her, but as he had spent most of his childhood not being a child, he felt assured that puberty would pass him by unnoticed, as he had long since passed the painfull process of growing up. Of course, he was wrong. Many things that had seemed perfectly normal, if not completely uninteresting or nonexistant alltogether, would suddenly confuse him, but as he was used to surpressing any emotion that got in his way, he simply added those new, hormone-induced ones to the long list of feelings to be ignored.
For three years the young kunoichi had meant to confess her feelings to her one, true love, but never had had the chance. They had been on the same team for a while, had survived the past war together, but it seemed impossible to find the right moment to talk to him – somehow, in his presence any moment was the wrong moment for the discussion of personal matters – and eventually their team was disbanded.
From now on she saw very little of her one true love. He seemed to be out on missions all the time, and on the few occasions they accidantly bumped into each other neither he nore she knew what to say, so after a brief moment of awkward silence they shared their good-byes and each went her and his way respectively.

For the story it is of no importance how she finally managed to get her long awaited first date with him. She might have plucked up all her courage and asked him out, though they might as well have met by chance near the memorial, where they both came to visit their mutual, and mutually lost, friend, where they then sat next to each other and looked at the stars.
She would point at this or that alignment and give them imaginary names, while he listened silently and watched the distance between them (which he initially had set at a very comfortable measure of fourtysix point seven centemeters) shrink with growing unease.
It was not that he did not like her. He did – and that was probably the reason for him to feel as profoundly confused in every imaginable way as he did at this very moment.
In fact, he felt so utterly confused that he found himself unable to move, which was something he had so far (or as far as his conscious memory served), not experienced, and in turn added a little bit of panic to his confusion, which confused him even more, for he was not normally prone to panic. He actually considered the possibilty that she might have put him under some kind of genjutsu, although he knew that she would not do so, and even if she had – he would be able to tell, and would know how to deal with it. Whereas, right now, he felt absolutly lost.
Meanwhile the kunoichi was not at all aware of the troubles her one, true love had. The only thing she was aware of was that he did not edge away, but instead allowed her to, very slowly, close the distance between them, untill their shoulders touched, and he – for a brief second – thought he might die of a heartattack there and then, which was not at all the death he had imagined for himself.

While she had spent at least one of the past three years plotting and planning this encounter, he had tried his best to block out such thoughts, fought them off with cold showers and long training-sessions. So, while he was now confronted with pretty much everything he had tried to avoid on an imaginary level, she was now exactly where she had dreamt herself to be for quite some time.
When there was no way she could get any closer to him, but he still neither moved away nore showed any reaction towards her, the kunoichi decided to go for a somewhat bold move. She swung one leg over his outstretched two, and kneeled across his lap, facing him with a look in her eyes that reminded him very much of a cat, staring at a cornered mouse. He had never liked cats as such, but (for reasons he was unable to comprehent), he did like the look on the kunoichi's face, and the way that her looking at him made him feel.
He only managed to regain control over his movements when she gingerly reached up and wanted to remove the mask from his face, which up until now had done an admirable job in hiding any expression of confusion or even panic. He caught her hand right before her fingers managed to slip under the fabric. Now she'll probably give up, he thought and was not sure how he felt about this.
But the kunoichi did not give up, she had spent the last three years dreaming of this exact moment, there was no way she would give up now. She could not stop a hint of amusement from showing on her face as she watched him lower his hand slowly, ready to stop her any time she would repeat the attempt to unmask him. She did not attempt any such thing, though. She simply ingored the mask as she leant her head forward, brushed her bare nose against his cloth-covered and placed her lips on his without actually touching them.
They sat like this forever, breathing in each others breath untill they both started to feel slightly dizzy. Then he himself reached up and hesitantly pushed down his mask.
The kunoichi leant back a little. She had seen his face one some occasions, when he was injured and she had treated him. Seeing it now however, having him reveale it to her willingly and by his own choice, felt as intimate as seeing him naked. He shifted uncomfortably under her gaze and she could not but smile at the sight.

They kissed. It was not a very good kiss, but as neither he nore she had a lot of experience in these matters, they were unable to tell. After they had spent some time kissing, he gently pushed her away and got up. He would go home now, he told her, and something about it being late and training-sessions early next morning. The kunoichi asked him, if he would at least walk her home but he shook his head and pulled his mask back up. The kunoichi thought for a moment, then decided that this situation called for unconventional means, and suggest to walk him home instead. Her one, true love shrugged, but did not resist when she took hold of his hand. Their steps synchronized perfectly. Which was perfectly logical, he reminded himself, as they had fought side by side often enough.
When they reached his appartment he said good-night. The kunoichi did not move.
"You should go home", he told her, as she apparently did not understand this.
"I know", she smiled "I should, but do you want me to?"
He looked away, glad that once more his face was as good as fully hidden.
"Hypotheticaly speaking", the kunoichi explained, while she placed her arm around him "if there were no training-sessions tomorrow and you were no elite-shinobi frequently putting your life on the line during some super-secret missions – would you still want me to leave?"
"Hng", was all he managed in reply, as she pressed against him and they both stumbled inside.

Their affair, relationship, liaison lasted one week. One precious week during which neither he nor she was assigned to any mission, one precious week during which he grew a little less shy and she grew a little less aggressive and eventually they met somewhere in the middle, in a blissfull and passionate climax of intimacy.
Then he recieved message, he had to leave for the Land of Water the next day, and while anyone might expect the prospect of not seeing his lover for some time would spur a longing to spent the remaining time with her as close as anatomically possible, when the kunoichi arrived at his place that evening she found him surprisingly distant and reserved.
"This has to stop", he told her, his face bare any emotion.
The kunoichi's first reaction was to laugh at him, then she tried to shake, hug or kiss him back to his senses, but he pushed her away. At last she would talk at him, her voice rising slowly from hurt disbelieve to sheer rage, while he just sat in silence and looked at her, as if she was the one behaving irrational and not him. At last her voice subsided in cold hate, she stormed to the door, picked up her sandals – she did not even bother putting them on – and looked at him one last time.
"I hope you'll die alone and isolated in that shell of yours", she said, and sounded very much like a witch speaking her final curse, before the stake's flames consumed her.

Had the kunoichi's life been a book, her one, true love would have met her again after his mission, heart filled with regret and deep longing. In a book, she would have waited at the village's gate for him to return, would have forgiven him, they would have shared the most beautiful kiss while the sunset drowned the world around them in red and gold.
However, when her one, true love returned, save and for the most part unharmed, she was not waiting for him at the village's gate, nor was she at the hospital or her own place, she did not stop by at his, did not hang around their Sensei's home to have tea with his pregnant girlfriend.
For the kunoichi was never meant to be a story's heroine, nor was her one, true love, ever designed to deserve a happy ending, and so, in his absence, she too was sent out on a mission, but unlike him, she never returned.