Happy Birthday!
Age: 5 2/3
"Happy Birthday!"
Sakura disappeared, less than four months before her sixth birthday.
Everyone was immediately on edge. Gai panicked after hearing the news frantically searching while hounding the Hokage to be part of the retrieval team. Asuma looked like his father had died once again, he felt like a failure, he was unable to keep his promise to protect the new life his father sacrificed himself for. Kurenai didn't know what to do with herself, she and the pinkette had formed a special bond, she was not her mother but Kurenai was the closest Sakura had to one.
The little ones were uncomprehending. Naruto ran around the village, barefoot as soon as he heard the news in the morning from his father; he came home with festering cuts and blisters on his feet. He screamed his voice raw at his father, not caring about what was proper anymore, demanding he bring back Sakura-chan right now! He was the Hokage damn it, the Hokage was supposed to be capable of everything, of anything.
Kiba didn't know how to react, she couldn't just be gone. His mother always told him of how proud the Inuzuka were to be a part of the strong and mighty village of Konoha, how Konoha was strong enough to protect all its inhabitants, so why? Why had every single ninja in the village allow Sakura to be spirited away?
Although Konoha was prospering in the last couple of years, there was still many to be done to help get the village back on its feet after the war and the Kyuubi attack, not to mention the prolonged Cold War that Konoha has been going through with Kumogakure for the past 5 years, the Yondaime could not afford to allocate too many resources for the retrieval of the pinkette. The council frowned upon open favoritism; they would question him, would he do the same for any other random shinobi? If not, then only do what is standard. He loathed the council, but they made a valid point. He had to be rational and look out for the well being of the many, not the few.
He resigns himself to the hard decision he had to make, as he filed a routine mission to scour Konoha in search of one Sakura Hatake, a team composed of shinobi who are not connected to the young child in any way.
The elders looked on in approval. Danzo's face remained placid, the only indication of his satisfaction was the fact that as he stood there, he did so without his customary cane. Minato should've noticed. He didn't.
At the end of the seven day grace period of searching, as was customary procedure, Sakura Hatake is pronounced deceased under strange circumstances.
Kakashi Hatake would return from his mission nearly three months later, bruised and battered. He would not bother to check in, immediately going straight to his home; he wouldn't sense her chakra signature.
He would pray to a God he's never believed in, to make a liar out of the Fourth, to make the scroll sent for him a mistake; that everything was alright and Sakura was safe.
He would enter her room and look around and think that nothing made sense. There wasn't any sign of struggle, her room was in pristine condition aside from the thin layer of dust that settled after being uninhabited for so long, her pajamas laid out for her to change into, her favorite stuffed dog clean and fluffed, all set for her to jump in bed and slumber.
All Kakashi would think, as he stood in the middle of Sakura's peach colored room, was that Sakura was going to miss her own birthday party. He would chuckle humorlessly to himself, a lone tear dropping from his exposed sharingan, staining the pristine room's wooden floor.