a/n: These are not meant to be AU and can fit into the canon storyline, if we believe that Team Seven took far more missions than those shown and that the time gaps between events like Tsunade's recruitment and Sasuke's defection are larger than they appear.

disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

summary: Naruto referred to it as the 'Onsen Incident' and said nothing more on the matter. Sasuke blatantly avoided the topic. Kakashi simply disappeared whenever anyone brought it up.

Underneath

c-rank: escort to Otafuku Gai

There was nothing wrong with the mission itself. It went smoothly, no missing-nin or criminal overlord or incomplete bridge causing any difficulties and Kakashi felt so relieved that the C-rank was actually a C-rank that he let Team Seven stay in the night in Otafuku Gai before heading back to Konoha in the morning.

He sent a missive to Tsunade explaining the same and gave strict instructions to his genin to stay inside the inn before heading off to his room. The inn had an attached onsen and Kakashi was prepared to make full use of it. He was aware that the escort mission had been intended as a vacation after the weeks filled with strenuous rebuilding and he had been more than happy to take Tsunade up on the offer.

A merchant with a worried wife had filed for a simple escort to Otafuku Gai. He wasn't particularly wealthy or famous but his wife had wanted the security nonetheless. Personally, Kakashi thought she should be more worried that her husband was going alone to what was popularly known as the 'Pleasure City' of Fire Country, but he kept his mouth shut.

It was a twelve kilometer journey that had taken them the better part of the afternoon, but the skies were clear, the roads were empty and the merchant had made pleasant small talk throughout the trip. His genin had also conducted themselves with sufficient decorum. Naruto alternated between scanning the trees and asking the man questions, Sakura had stayed at the merchant's side with a polite smile on her face and her hand on her kunai, and Sasuke. Well, Sasuke hadn't killed anyone.

It was all positives in Kakashi's book.

They had dropped the man off at the gates before the sun had set, encountering no trouble on the way. Kakashi had relaxed at the sight of the man's retreating back and – remembering the hours of back-breaking D-rank missions rebuilding Konoha back after the invasion – decided to give his team a vacation as well.

All three had been pleased when they checked into the inn and while they'd shown it in different ways – Naruto thanked him with stars in his eyes, Sakura did so more quietly but bolted for the onsen, and Sasuke looked at him with something other than suspicion and distrust – he got the message loud and clear. He was the best sensei ever.

So all three genin were happy, their mission was over, and he had a date with a well-worn Icha Icha book. Life was going great.

Which was why Kakashi was bemused by sudden sound of Sakura's shrill shriek and the loud crack of wood breaking.

People thought Naruto was an idiot. He knew this, just as he accepted that fact that he was an idiot on occasion. He'd only passed the written exam part of the Chuunin Exams because it wasn't really a written exam at all. And he hadn't gotten that part either. So, Naruto could be pretty stupid at times, but he had his moments. And he had a great self-preservation instinct, no matter what anyone said about his orange jumpsuit.

That great self-preservation instinct, combined with a sudden spark of brilliance, had him quickly doing the seals for his favorite jutsu before ducking under the water to hide the smoke. Uzumaki Naruto resurfaced as Uzumaki Naruko, with a polite hand covering the feigned look of shock on her face.

None of the other woman, including Sakura-chan, noticed her. Sasuke, however, had been watching and turned his shock into murderous rage. He was advancing on Naruko, who was trying to discretely edge over to what could be called the women's side of the baths.

"You!" Sakura-chan shrieked as she turned her green eyes of doom onto the two of them. Naruko had finally slipped over to what had been the women's side, before Sakura-chan had thrown the divider at a peeping tom. Sasuke froze where he was at the sound, which was a mistake, because it put him on the edge of where the divider used to be and the exact location of the small hole in the wood that Sakura-chan had discovered.

Everyone in the male side of the baths had either fled or was sitting in shocked stupor at the sight of the enraged kunoichi. Sakura-chan, whose towel was barely covering her body – Naruko hastily averted her eyes – whose knuckles were bleeding red and who had just torn off a sixteen-foot divider like it was tissue paper. Several of them had placed their hands over strategic parts of their anatomy.

Naruko couldn't really blame them. She would too, but she currently didn't possess that anatomy. Sakura-chan looked like Tsunade's second coming and the tales of what the Godaime Hokage did to perverts was known in every onsen from here till Kumo.

"Sasuke," Sakura-chan spit out, "What do you think you're doing." Naruko noted the lack of honorific about the same time as she realized it wasn't a question. Mentally apologizing to her teammate, Naruko pedaled back until she was on the fringe of a scandalized group of women, praying to every god she knew that Sakura-chan wouldn't recognize her Sexy Jutsu form.

"I," Sasuke stuttered for the first time in Naruko's earshot, his eyes red with the Sharingan, "Um. Sakura." He looked like he didn't quite know what to do with this Sakura-chan, who wasn't smiling and flirting and was instead advancing on him with murder in her eyes.

"That was not a response, Sasuke," Sakura-chan replied, her voice chillingly cold as she walked on water towards him. One of the men scrounged up the guts to make a break for it, and when she didn't retaliate, all of them fled.

Sasuke started to make the seals for the Headhunter Jutsu, but Sakura-chan had already reached him at that point. "Why?" she asked quietly, tilting her head to one side as she picked up Sasuke by his jaw, "Am I surrounded by perverts?"

With that, she threw Sasuke like he was a ragdoll, sending him far away from the onsen. Naruko could faintly make out the sound of him crashing into a tree in the distance. Sakura-chan gave one last furious look to the destroyed onsen – Naruko ducked her head under the water – before stalking off to the changing room.

Naruko sighed in relief and dispelled the jutsu. Unfortunately, he'd forgotten that Sakura-chan wasn't the only woman in the onsen and that girls, even if they weren't kunoichi, could hit really hard.

Sasuke gingerly picked another splinter out of his arm under the low streetlight. He was delaying going back to the inn for as long as he could in order to calm his roiling emotions.

It wasn't that he didn't know Sakura was strong. She was Top Kunoichi of their year and they didn't hand out that title for nothing. He knew that Tsunade had demonstrated her chakra-enhanced strength to Sakura and that she'd picked it up abnormally fast, but Sakura had always had perfect chakra control.

He just didn't realize that she had perfect…everything else. Her towel had slipped a bit when she was stalking towards him, and it really wasn't a good cover anyway. Sasuke tried to forget the image of her in that little scrap of cloth, but his Sharingan had unfortunately been on and it was now seared into his brain.

Not that it was a bad image, necessarily, but –

Sasuke cursed and tried to suppress that train of thought as blood splattered onto his hand. Holding his nose shut and wincing against the splinters still embedded in his arm, Sasuke vowed revenge.

He was going to strangle Naruto. It was all his fault. Or perhaps Kakashi's, for making them stay here instead of immediately going back to Konoha.

But that meant he had to actually acknowledge that it happened, that he saw his pink-haired teammate in a towel and she'd thrown him into a tree. And Sasuke didn't think his brain could handle that. So he shoved the image of Sakura into the same place he kept his memories of the massacre and took a deep breath.

Nothing happened. They had a quiet mission and a quiet night.

Nothing happened. And Sasuke was going to ignore anyone who told him otherwise.

Kakashi came out of his room in time to catch a furious Sakura as she stomped her way to her room.

"I don't want to talk about it, sensei," she hissed as she passed him, rage vibrating off of her.

Concerned, like any other jounin sensei would be when they were abruptly pulled out of a delicious fantasy by their female student's shriek when said student was supposed be in the onsen, Kakashi made his way to the baths.

Not after Sakura, because Kakashi's sensei's sensei was Jiraiya and he knew far too much about Tsunade's rages to consider getting entangled with Sakura's.

When he made his way inside – to the male side, because Kakashi was not that kind of pervert – it was to a scene of utter destruction. The divider between the two sides lay in a haphazard pile of kindling near Kakashi's foot, and a group of women stood, fully clothed, on the other side, yelling at the innkeeper. There wasn't a male in sight.

Kakashi was nothing if not a master of looking underneath the underneath, so he silently headed back the way he'd come, intent on searching for his two male students. He'd told all three not to leave the inn, so he checked their shared room first. A second before he slid the door open, he heard moaning.

Naruto moaning.

Kakashi beat a hasty retreat.

He changed his plan. Kakashi was going to find the last member of Team Seven and Sasuke was going to explain everything. He was just about to call on Pakkun to determine where his wayward student was, when Sasuke came stumbling down the corridor. There were leaves and branches in his black hair, and scratches all down his arms. His hands were bloody, as was his nose, and Kakashi watched as Sasuke walked unsteadily to his and Naruto's shared room, muttering something to himself.

"Sasuke," Kakashi asked softly, now highly concerned, "Sasuke, what happened?"

Sasuke looked up, black eyes focusing behind him as if Kakashi didn't even register. "Nothing happened," Sasuke said blankly, "Nothing at all."

Now seriously freaked out, Kakashi headed back, leaving Sasuke in the corridor muttering the same words over and over again. He almost knocked on Sakura's door before remembering the anger on her face. He stood there for a moment in silent dilemma – risk his twelve-year-old genin's temper and find out what happened to his team? Or go back to his room, read some Icha Icha, and ignore whatever it was that happened in that onsen to mentally disturb all three of his little genin?

When he put it like that, there was really only one option.

Kakashi pulled out the orange book and made for his room. It could probably wait till tomorrow.

They did have to report to the Hokage, who barely hung on to her dignity by not falling off her chair as she laughed uproariously, though it was a close thing. She did, however, refuse to tell anyone else which was, in Team Seven's opinion, the only good thing to come out of the whole affair.

No one quite had the courage to ask Sakura what really happened.

tbc

a/n: In this, Tsunade's not taken Sakura on as an apprentice yet, but still taught her a few moves. Also, prompts are welcome!