Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and write only for my own amusement.

This is a trial fic of a series I've been dabbling with for quite some time. I was up late with insomnia one night and felt like I literally had to write or the words would drive me insane. The rest of the story is still in peaces and focuses manly on other characters but for some reason in this two-shot (at least I think it will only be a two-shot) Lee would not be silenced! Depending on how this story is received (i.e. reviews) I may invest the time and write out the story of Camp Konoha from the beginning for which I have drawn liberally from my own experiences and adventures as a camp counselor. I'm sorry if the story is a little confusing but in the whole scheme of things it takes place a few weeks, or chapters if you will, into the main story. Enjoy!

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Unexpected Metamorphosis

Chapter 1: Better Left Forgotten

It was early afternoon and Rock Lee was standing outside the cafeteria doors while the lunch crew finished off gearing down the kitchen for the afternoon. He was waiting to intercept one of his fellow counselors as she exited the building, intent on asking a favor he was willing to trade his next two pay checks for. A flash of pink caught his eye and he turned to waylay a sweaty and tired Sakura.

Sakura saw Lee making tracks toward her and groaned. Over the last few weeks he'd seemed to cut his losses on trying to convince her to date him and settled for friendly conversation adoring her from afar. Sad really. Lee was kind of a cool guy with an amazing way with kids, when he wasn't trying to emulate Maito Gai, and she wished he would settle for friendship. She slowed her pace and turned toward him. No sense in being rude to the guy and pretending to not notice him, though the thought of making a run for it was tempting.

"Sakura! I have a favor to ask of you!" Oh dear lord, here it comes. "Please, will you switch evenings off with me? Please I am begging you! I'll do anything you ask of me; I will be your slave for the rest of the summer!" Sakura blinked owlishly at the figure that had collapsed to its knees before her in abject supplication.

"Lee what is wrong with you? And get off the ground; you'll rip you knees up." Sakura hauled the young man off the ground and over to one of the shaded benches. "Now what's all this about? Why can't you wait till tomorrow for your evening off?"

"That I cannot tell you. It is too shameful to speak of." Lee hung his head in shame, refusing to look her in the eye. The whole situation was so incongruent with Lee's usual behavior that Sakura just had to know what had gotten under his skin.

"Really Lee, if you want me to do you a favor you should really tell me what this is all about. You can trust me you know. I know we're not close but I still consider you one of my friends and that entitles you to an unbiased ear to talk to. Besides, how bad can it be?" A sudden, horrifying thought hit her. "You didn't knocked up a girl did you? 'cuz that I'm not sure I can help you with."

"Wha-?! NO! It's nothing like THAT! I would just rather not be around this evening when our guests arrive for the banquet." Lee had jumped from his seat on the bench and was now pacing back and forth.

"Well it won't make much difference if you take this afternoon or tomorrow afternoon off Lee. Tsunade just told those of us with the day off that she wants us back in time for the banquet tonight to meet the guests coming in this afternoon."

"Then I am doomed."

Lee's anguished tone caught Sakura by surprise. What was up with him? Lee was usually so chipper that she never thought that there was anything that could bring him down, but for some odd reason the thought of meeting their guests tonight was obviously something he'd rather avoid.

"Lee, I think you better tell me what's going on. You know that Tsunade is counting on these people donation enough money to the camp to rebuild the equestrian center and a few of the older cabins. We can't afford to lose even one donation. If you don't tell me what's going on I'm going to have to go to Tsunade about this."

The look on Lee's face nearly made Sakura feel bad about pulling the 'Tsunade card,' but she was too curious about what was going and it really was important that tonight went well for all of them. "Look Lee, if you tell me I'll see what I can do about tonight without telling Tsunade if it's possible. Really though, how bad can it be? You didn't piss off one of the guests in the past, did you?"

"No-"

Sakura sighed in relief.

"- but evidently I pissed off Kado Karin during spring break."

"YOU DID WHAT!"

"Sshh! Not so loud, Sakura!"

Sakura pinched the bridge of her nose in exasperation and counted to ten. Kado Saburo and Tanaka Yoshi were very two wealthy business men were coming to visit the camp, and hopefully donate a large chunk of desperately needed cash. While the staff had known since the beginning of the season that they would be coming, they had not been informed until just this morning during staff meeting that they were also bringing their children along. Tanaka Jiro and Takara were the twelve year old twines of Tanaka Yoshi and his late wife, Sumi, had been weekend campers for the last two years and would be staying for the next session, their first full week of camping, so it only made sense for them the come with their father. Kado Karin however was seventeen and not the sort of young debutant that you would expect to waste summer sun on the beach to go traipsing around a nature camp like Camp Konoha, especially with the 'rents. How un-cool.

"Ok," said Sakura, having got herself under control. "Come with me, we're going to talk somewhere a little more private and you are going to tell me what happened." Looking around, Sakura considered the best place for their little 'talk' and settled on dragging Lee toward docks on the lake with their covered awnings. They were deserted this time of day, as it was rest time, conveniently disguised as 'Cloud Watching with Shikamaru.' Grabbing two chares and setting them up under the shade, Sakura took a seat and looked at Lee expectantly. "Sit. Talk."

"I really don't know where to start."

"Why don't you start with how you met Kado Karin."

"Oh. Well, remember how I went to that tournament over spring break?"

"Yeah." Sakura thought she vaguely remembered someone saying something about Lee spending break on the beach. It must have been the tournament. "You went to Wave Country, right?"

"Yeah, it was for the special Taijutsu club I was in during the school year. Anyway, when we got there we stayed at this really nice place right on the beach next to the martial art center and there were tones of people there on spring break just for the fun of it. Rich kids mostly. I really don't know how it happened but some time during the time we were there Karin arrived along with her friends and groupies. At first they thought that we were on vacation as well and that we must be loaded like they are."

"Lee, you are loaded," said Sakura. After all his family ran the leading Taijutsu dojo in the country.

"Yes, my family has money but that is irrelevant. I only receive the money I have personally worked for and most of the others are just regular students with blue collar parents. When Karin found out that we weren't filthy rich she snubbed us and went so far as to humiliate us in public."

One thing that Sakura really liked about Lee was that there was on division of the classes to him. While here parents owned their own business, Sakura grew up working after school and weekends in the family store. They were well off, but only because they worked hard, and Sakura new that Lee had been raised in a similar fashion. Being confronted with someone with the mindset of value equals income was decidedly unattractive.

"What did you do?"

"Nothing. Just gathered up the guys and walked away."

"That must have been pretty upsetting but I really don't see why you don't want to come tonight. There will be a tone of other people there and I can personally make sure that she's kept fare away from you."

"You are very kind, Sakura-chan, and that would be fine… if that had been all that had happened."

"What do you mean?" Sakura felt her stomach sink.

"Well some of the guys are first years, you know, young guys, and she attacked them the fiercest. I couldn't stand it. I told her that she was shallow and selfish and that if it wasn't for her money no one would be able to stand to be in her presence."

"Wow. That must have humiliated her. Did she stop harassing the younger guys?"

"Yeah but she put all her energy into going after me. I can only thank my lucky stars that she never found out my full name or where I lived. That week was the most terrible of my entire life," said Lee, his voice muffled as he dropped his face into his hands, elbows to knees.

"What did she do to you, Lee." It wasn't a question. Sakura had to know.

"First it was little things like telling the concierge that I'd checked out of my room early so they gave it to another guest. I'm just glad that all my laundry was being washed at the time and I only lost my toiletries."

"Lee, that's terrible! What did you do?"

"Well I didn't know it was her at first. I thought it was a mistake, and the hotel did apologize, going so far as to upgrade my room, but then other things started to happen. I came back from practice one evening to find flyers in lobby that advertising a party on room 305. My room. When I arrived at my door there were police hauling kids away for underage drinking, position of controlled substances, and disorderly conduct. The only reason I didn't get into bucket loads of trouble was because I could prove that I'd been training with my friends and that I had my keycard on me. The door, they found, had been forced."

"Oh, Lee, that's horrible. Why didn't you tell us?"

"Because it wasn't your guises problem, and it was so embarrassing!"

"It awful, yes, but not your fault. Why would you be embarrassed?"

"It gets worse!" Lee moaned into his hands. "The very late the last night I was there people started knocking on my door one at in time asking to redeem their 'coupon'. After sending the third guy packing I demanded to see one of the coupons. Sakura, it was horrible! It was a fifty percent off coupon for a male 'escort'. I went down to the lobby and I found a whole stack of them."

"Why would the hotel staff leave something like that out in plane sight?"

"Because her father owns the damn hotel! Any way, I confronted her at breakfast the next day about the flyers. She said she was doing me a favor. After all, 'ugly people can't expect to go for full price.' The whole table laughed."

By this point Sakura was sitting stiffly in her chair, her expression livid. NO ONE diss'ed one of her friends. Sure Lee wouldn't be winning any beauty pageants but he wasn't ugly and his heart was one of the most beautiful and true in the world. Kado Karin had hurt one of her friends. Kado Karin was going down and Haruno Sakura knew just how to take her for a grand slam.

"Lee, you're going to the banquet tonight," she announced standing up.

"But Sakura, it will just cause problems. She will know where I live and she'll be sure to call her little sycophant friends. It will all just start over again."

"Lee, have you forgotten that you have friends too?" asked Sakura, hands on hips.

"You promised you wouldn't tell!" wailed Lee.

"I won't tell them if you don't want me too, but know this: there isn't a person here that would think less of you for what she did, not to mention half the counsel staff have connections that could sink her family fortune with chump change. However, my plan doesn't consist of telling the whole camp. What we are going to do is allow Karin to humiliate herself." Sakura look positively evil as she contemplated revenge on behalf of her friend.

Lee looked at her warily. Sakura was scary when she had that look on her face. "What did you have in mind?" So he wanted a little revenge. He was only human after all.

"Ok. First, I'll need Ino's help with this so we better hurry. You have to be at the zip-line in fifteen minutes unless Ino can badger Choji into taking your shift. It's alright if I tell her what we're doing and why, right? She can be trusted with a secret."

"Well, if you think so. I still don't know what we're doing though."

"Oh, you will. Just leave everything to me!" Sakura hauled Lee up out of his chare by his shirt front and down the boardwalk toward shore where the staff cabins lined the shorefront were Ino and Choji were getting ready to leave for town. "Now, if we can get Choji to sub for you then we'll head into town and hit your place, see what we have to work with there, then swing by the shopping center before coming back here," chattered Sakura as she tugged Lee along in her wake.

"I still do not understand what it is we are doing," complained Lee as he tried to keep his feet under him. "Would it not be easier for me to just not attend this evening to prevent a scene?"

"Lee," Sakura huffed. "Since when do you do what's easy? Isn't it your personal motto to take the hard rout round? Just think of this as personal training!"

"Sakura, you are a genius! That is just what I shall do!"

'Great,' thought Sakura. 'And here he'd actually been speaking like a normal teenager for a few moments. Oh well, Lee is Lee after all. Got'a love 'em!'

"Hey Sakura, hi Lee!" Ino waved to them from her vantage point on the deck of one of the tiny cabins. "Are you coming with us to town? We're going to try to catch an early movie before the banquet tonight."

"Change of plans Ino. Lee's coming with us and Choji's filling in for him this afternoon at the zip-line."

"Like hell he is! Do you have any idea how hard it was for Choji and me to get on the same schedule? There's no way Choji's switching with Lee, and that's final." Through out this whole time Choji had been standing behind his girlfriend ready to defend his afternoon off but somehow he never managed to get a word in edgewise. Not that he needed to evidently. His Ino was a real brick. If you weren't carful she'd crack you teeth. His leisure time was safe.

"Ino, there's no time to argue! It's an emergency! We've got to-" Sakura looked a Choji standing behind Ino, then jerked her friend forward to whisper in ear.

"Wha-! No! Really?" Ino drew back to look wide eyed at her friend before whirling on her boyfriend. "Choji, hurry up and change, you only have eight minutes before you're supposed to be at the zip-line!"

"But Ino, what happened to our-"

"Don't argue, there isn't time, Choji!" Suddenly her tone softened. "I'll make it up to you later."

"I'll see you guys later," said Choji as he returned to his cabin to change.

"Really? He truly dose not mined taking my place?" asked Lee in wonder. After all, afternoons off were coveted indeed.

"Oh, Choji knows I'll make it up to him with interest."

"Will you two get a move on? We have limited time and many many thing's to do before dinner tonight, so let's move!" Sakura shoved and herded the others toward her car.

If anyone had been watching as the vehicle sped off down the dirt drive they would have seen Lee looking out the dusty back window wondering if he'd just sold his soul to the devil and her right hand imp.