explosive Chapter 1: 001: Pretty, a naruto fanfic

explosive

Author's note1: I've always loved when people throw a dark twist on Alice in Wonderland, so this is my take on it, just with Naruto characters. I hope it doesn't turn out lame. I tried my hardest.

If you care: How the hell does the spelling of Sasuke's name make ANY sense?

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Alice in Wonderland.

o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o

A pen slashing on paper is just as effective as a sword slashing through enemies. Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will always hurt me.

Words have had power since they were created. Words can take down your adversaries, win a war, declare your love, and create a world. All one has to do is pick up a pen and some paper and get writing.

Words are most powerful when they create worlds, worlds no one can see unless they look hard enough. These worlds lurk in dark corners, shabby neighborhoods, down rabbit holes, and coexist with the boogieman in your closet. These worlds are known as-

-a forest is painted out with the merest thought, then a desert, and then a whole new country. Then a palace is following after, a gigantic, magnificent palace sprouting up from the desert. A queen walks out onto a balcony, staring out at the desert around her, not noticing a figure slinking up slowly behind her-

-spinning through the forest, an ancient forest, a wild forest.

Suddenly there are two figures visible,

one a small girl, the other a floating cat. "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" the girl asks.

The cat answers, "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to."-

-zooming in on a trio of people sitting around a long table in the forest. "So," announces the man in the hat. "I'm bored."-

-storybook worlds. The storybook world we will look at today is famous to a few and its name is-

-Wonderland.

o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o

The queen sighed from her balcony, sighed as she watched her people bustle around in her city. The tight, frumpy dress, the crown that pinched her head, hearts everywhere, no matter where you look; it all seemed so overdone to her. But it was her duty as queen to bear all of this; even if it got to be so stifling she wanted to die. She sighed once more, sweeping her gaze beyond the desert, where the barest hint of green could be seen. She looked out longing at the green which she knew to be a cool, lovely forest free of hearts . . .

But she had a job to do, an obligation not just to her people, but her court, the people who chose her. When she retired, she could visit the forest, but not right now.

If she retired . . .

She was totally unsurprised when she felt a long, shiny knife press against her throat. The queen didn't even jump. Her eyes slid over to the left where she could see glances of a man, right behind her. "I knew you'd come," she said, her voice devoid of any emotion.

"Did you now?" he laughed. "Well, the knowledge didn't do you much good, did it?"

The queen looked out over her people again, uncaring of her predicament. "What do you want from me?" she asked, her voice holding the tiniest bit of irritation.

The man paused before saying, "There's something I desire that can only happen if you die."

"And what do you desire?" she inquired almost lazily.

The man grinned savagely, a grin that the queen never saw. He slashed his knife across her throat, and the queen crumpled to the ground in a rain of blood, still waiting for her question to be answered. The man stood above her, his lips in a feral smirk. "Oh, my queen," he muttered. "You should know. . ."

"I desire chaos."

o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o

001:

((don't be jealous because I'm prettier than you, Sakura darling))

o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o

My life was sort of lame before I met Sasuke Uchiha.

o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o

eighteen years ago

All she could really register right now was the bright lights and the people standing over her and the sound of her own screaming. Then she felt tired, really tired, and someone was rocking her back and forth, whispering, "My baby girl!"

She didn't remember that anymore, but she was-

-six pounds, six ounces, a little small, but a healthy baby girl. Congratulations!

fourteen years ago

Momma wanted to take her out to the park so maybe she could meet people her own age and make some friends. But when a group of kids her age started playing near her, she ran over to Momma and hid behind her legs. "She's just shy," Daddy said, as Momma frowned. "She'll grow out of it eventually."

eleven years ago

She was entering first grade, so that had to mean she was a big girl now. She didn't need Momma to walk her up to the school's entrance, but Momma did it anyways even when she told her that she was old enough to do it herself. After winter time, Momma finally relented, but only because there wasn't anymore ice for her to trip over.

eight years ago

For the first time ever, she was invited to someone's birthday party. There were a lot of girls she knew from her class there, but she sat in a corner by herself, talking to the birthday girl's mom, because she was too shy to join in with any of the games the other girls were playing. When Momma came to pick her up and asked if she had fun, she responded with a loud "Yes!" so that Momma wouldn't know that she just sat there and did nothing.

five years ago

She was holed up in her room, studying for a big test that she had tomorrow, like she had been for the past two hours or so. At dinner, where she reluctantly left her books, Mom asked her with a sigh if she wanted to take a break and hang out with friends or something. She immediately said no. "It would be awkward," she said. "I don't know what to say to people most of the time." Mom didn't press her further.

four years ago

It was only after someone asked her if was okay with being a total loser did she decide that she couldn't wear overalls and plaid skirts for the rest of her life.

three years ago

She was in her usual corner of the library, where she could do her work undisturbed, when a very, very gorgeous man plopped his book bag on the table she was sitting at. She stared. He was just so unbelievably beautiful and he was sitting with her? Was this a prank or something?

"See something you like?" he said cockily, sitting down with more grace than she could ever hope to have.

She blushed furiously. "Um, maybe, um, er, yeah." she stammered out, totally unaware of what was spilling out of her mouth. He grinned. "I'm Sasuke," he said. "You don't mind if I sit here, do you?"

two years ago

"It's not fair," she mumbled. They were in her bedroom, sprawled over her bed. The TV was on but neither of them was watching. "What's not fair?" Sasuke asked, lifting an eyebrow at her. He really wasn't supposed to be here, this late at night, but Sakura's parents were out and they wouldn't ever have to know.

She tossed a pillow at her boyfriend, because he looked really cute right now and if he didn't move or something she was going to start drooling and that was really unattractive. "You're going away to college with all these college girls who are way prettier than your stupid sophomore-in-high-school girlfriend," she whined as Sasuke rolled off the bed to avoid the pillow, landing on the ground with an "ow!"

"Don't be such an idiot, Sakura," he said, standing up and chucking the pillow at her. It hit her square in the face. "Uh, sorry."

He climbed back on top of the bed, giving her one of his rare hugs (because Sasuke Uchiha was a man and men did not cuddle). "I'm mean, sure, all the girls will be flocking over to me, but you can't let your insecurity issues over the fact that no guy wants you consume you," he teased. She pushed him away and gave him the stink eye. "No guy wants me?" she growled.

He grinned cheekily. "Don't be jealous because I'm prettier than you, Sakura darling."

one and a half years ago

Sasuke had gone off to college, and her friends, growling at her that she needed to stop moping because it had been six freaking months already, decided that they needed to have a sleepover.

"Man, Sakura, you are so lucky," one of her friends sighed, looking at a picture she had on her dresser of her and Sasuke. "That's a fine piece of man meat you have."

"Man . . . meat?"

"I don't think so," her other friend called irritably from behind the family laptop. "Look over here."

She turned the laptop around do they could see. The Facebook picture she had pulled up at first didn't make any sense to Sasuke's girlfriend. It was of a group of friends smiling at the camera, evidently at a party or something because of the beers in their hands. "What-" she started to say.

"Look in the background."

Then she saw. A man was making out with some blonde girl in the background, a man she recognized very well.

She'd know that chicken butt hair anywhere.

half a year ago

"Is something wrong . . .?"

They were walking along the beach, their hands intertwined. She felt detached from her body. All she could think about was the pile of homework waiting for her at home and she still needed to clean her room, dammit.

"There's nothing wrong," she said as calmly as she could, though she really wanted this to be freaking over with.

". . . Oh." Sasuke stared past her, probably wishing he was back at college, where he was far, far away from here and he could mess around with anybody he wanted . . .

now

They were sitting on her hammock outside, slowly swinging back and forth. It was summertime, the summer before Sakura left for college. Today was probably the last time Sakura would hang out with her boyfriend before she took off, even though it was only the first week of August. She sighed, a miniscule sigh that Sasuke probably missed, too preoccupied with his own thoughts. Hanging out with him had become such a chore ever since Sakura discovered her attraction to him had been slowly slipping away.

She looked up at him and his pretty, perfect face. He was beautiful, she'd give him that, but it was becoming more and more apparent that neither of them really cared for the other anymore. She didn't know why they hadn't broken up yet. Maybe it was because they had spent so much time together, and poured a little bit of their souls into the other. She laid her head on his shoulder, a position she found was not really comfortable at all.

"Sakura."

Sakura looked up at the sound of her name. Sasuke stared straight ahead, giving no indication that he had spoken. "What is it, Sasuke?" she said, almost cautiously.

His eyes slid to hers. She saw a resolve in there and she wasn't really sure what to make of it.

"I don't think this is working anymore."

Sakura blinked, shock flooding through her body. She sat up, making the hammock wobble dangerously. "Are you breaking up with me?" she asked, a frown marring her delicate features.

He stared straight back at her, never blinking. "Yes." he said firmly.

They stared at each other for quite some time. Sasuke Uchiha was no longer hers, she realized, not even shreds of him.

"You should leave," she said flatly.

He nodded, face expressionless, and slid off the hammock. She watched him walk away from her, staring at the extremely fine butt that belonged to a man who just wasn't hers anymore. He didn't even look back as he crossed her yard, the bastard. She couldn't believe she spent three years with this man, three long years that turned out to be the biggest waste of her life. She sat motionlessly in the hammock as she saw Sasuke's car roll away, out of her neighborhood, and most likely out of her life.

"Bastard," she mumbled, and was surprised to find a few tears leaking out of her eyes.

The few tears turned into a whole waterfall, and she ran into her house, ignoring her parents, who called out to her with worry in their tones. "I just want to be left alone," she sobbed out to her mother as she followed Sakura upstairs. She nodded sympathetically and headed back downstairs.

(Well, well, well. Looks like someone needs a little divine intervention, wouldn't you say?)

Sakura tossed herself onto her bed, sobbing into her pillow. Why did it hurt so much? She hadn't even loved him, not really.

Maybe . . .

Maybe, she still-

-What?

She sat up straight, her heart pounding, the hair on the back of her neck standing up. She had the creepiest feeling that she was being watched, and that Sasuke was- he was in-

-danger.

Swiping away tears, she grabbed her cell phone off her dresser and punched in a familiar number. The phone rang over and over. She held it close to her ear, waiting anxiously for him to pick up the damn phone because if he didn't-

She breathed out a sigh of relief she hadn't even been aware she was holding when a voice said grumpily, "What the hell do you want, Sakura?"

"Are you alright?" she burst out unthinkingly.

There was a pause, and then Sasuke said, "Did you think I'd jump off a bridge or something just because we broke up?"

"No," she snapped, instantly feeling silly. Obviously, Sasuke was fine. "Listen, I must have been half asleep or something, because I thought you were in danger."

"Thinking of me still?" Sasuke said, voice riddled with sarcasm. "How touching. So are we done here?"

Sakura flushed angrily, glad Sasuke couldn't see her. "Goodbye," she said curtly, hanging up her phone and throwing it carelessly on the ground. How she had fallen in love with such an asshole, she didn't know. He was such a freaking jerk.

She flopped down onto her pillows huffily, grabbing the remote to her TV. She was done crying for the stupid bastard; she'd watch the evening news instead. Debt talks were more interesting than freaking Sasuke.

She was just about to turn on the TV when her phone starting blasting out loudly her ring tone, a song from a boy band long extinct. Hanging over the edge of her bed to grab it, Sakura saw that it was from Sasuke. Wondering why the hell he was calling her, Sakura pressed the little green telephone on the bottom of her cell and growled out, "Make it quick, Sasuke."

"Is this Sakura Haruno?"

The voice was unmistakably Sasuke's and she blinked at the odd question. "What are you playing at, Sasuke?" she asked suspiciously.

"Is this Sakura Haruno?" he repeated.

"Of course it's me, Sasuke, who else would it be?" she said irritably. "What the hell do you want?"

Sasuke abruptly hung up.

Her anger and irritation renewed, Sakura made sure to turn off her phone this time before chucking it on the ground. Cocooning herself in blankets, she turned on the TV, muttering something about 'stupid, asshole Sasuke' before devoting her attention to the evening news.

The reporters were going on and on about a dog parade, which was so boring and Sakura found her eyes drifting shut and her mind floating away . . .

(. . . Is this Sakura Haruno . . . ?

. . Is this Sakura Haruno . . . . ?

((Hold on, darling; we're coming for you))

Is this Sakura Haruno . . . . ?

. . . Is this Sakura Haruno . . . ?)

Someone poked her cheek.

Muttering something unintelligible, Sakura pushed the hand away, snuggling deeper into her pillows. The person persisted, poking her cheek two times more. "Go away," she mumbled.

Her eyes shot open.

Wait-

"Good grief, you're hopeless," a sexy male voice uttered.

-was there a man in her bedroom?

Suddenly, Sakura felt someone's arms go around her waist, and lift her up, hoisting her over his shoulder. She let out a scream, catching a glimpse of a pale face and dark eyes. "Sakura, please don't scream in my ear," he said. "Someone will hear."

"What?" she gasped. "How do you know my name? Mom! Dad!" she yelled as loud as she could.

"Why, you told me it some time," he said, striding across the room. "Do you want to know mine?"

"No!" she yelled, pounding on his back. "Let me go, let me go!"

"Ow, Sakura, please stop." He groaned when she didn't. "Oh, I think I heard something pop."

He threw open the window as Sakura quit thumping his back, realizing attacking him wasn't being very much effective. "What are you doing?" she yelled, squirming around.

He held onto her tight. "Please don't, Sakura. You're making me feel like I'm breaking a law."

"Breaking and entering is illegal!"

He jumped onto the window, holding onto the sides for support. "Wait- what are you doing?" she gasped, trying to roll off of him.

"Why, I'm going to jump, of course."

"Are you mad?"

"I do hope that question is rhetorical."

With a little leap, he jumped out the window, Sakura screaming the whole way down.

She squeezed her eyes closed, hoping she would get lucky and only break a few bones. She expected to hit the ground any minute now, but there was a strange whooshing sound, and Sakura found she was still falling. She peeled her eyes open, clutching the stranger, and found that she was in a deep, black hole.

"OH MY FREAKING GOSH!"

She looked up to see her house looming over the hole she had just fallen into, growing smaller and smaller as she fell farther and farther. "What have you done, what have you done?" she wailed at the stranger as a wind howled around their ears.

"You were crying so I brought you here," he said, voice calm despite the situation. "I bet you never knew a storybook world was so near."

They were completely cloaked in darkness, falling through it, spinning, tumbling, and spiraling. "Are we just going to fall forever?" she shouted.

"No; should we?" he asked, bemused.

As soon as the words left his mouth a pinprick of light formed beneath them, growing larger and larger as they sped towards it. A room was revealed, a room with a checkerboard floor. Sakura gasped. If they hit the ground with the speed they were going at, they would surely die! She closed her eyes again, said a few 'Hail Mary's, and braced herself to die once more.

The wind stopped rushing by, and Sakura found herself hovering. She opened her eyes to find that she was floating over the checkerboard floor, barely a foot between her and it. Abruptly, she was released and smacked into the floor.

"Ow," she muttered, sitting up. "Hey-"

The man was nowhere to be found.

"What the hell?"

She stood, inspecting her surroundings. The room she was in was circular, with several different doors standing side by side. In the center of the room stood a table with three different keys placed neatly in the middle of it; a big gold one, a medium sized bronze one and a small silver one. She walked warily over to the table. What was she supposed to do? Go around with the key and try to unlock each of the twenty or so doors in the room? Sighing, she picked up the small, silver key and attempted to unlock all of the doors. It didn't fit in any of them. She turned and walked back to the table to retrieve another key and they were both gone.

Her eyes bulged.

How had the keys just magically disappeared?

Wait. She had fallen into the room through a hole in the ceiling, hadn't she? Maybe the man who brought her here came down and-

She glanced up. The ceiling was domed, with a chandelier hanging from the center.

No hole.

Maybe there was a hatch or something, she thought. After all, my eyes were closed when I dropped in here.

(Oh, dear, dear, dear. How hopeless. A little bit more intervention is needed, wouldn't you say?)

She peered at the ceiling, trying, to detect any telltale signs of a hatch, but she couldn't see any. Great. Just great. She was trapped down here in some random room in the middle of the earth just because of some strange guy who kindasortamaybe reminded her of her ex-boyfriend. She tried to open the doors again with her remaining key, and of course, it didn't work. She sat down next to the table, clutching the key and feeling like crying. Sakura sighed deeply, intending to bury her face in her knees when her eyes snagged on a tiny little brown box sitting innocuously underneath the table.

Her heart thumping, Sakura reached over and grabbed the box, placing the silver key into her jeans' pocket, where she could feel it resting against her skin. She opened the nondescript box that was barely bigger than the palm of her hand to find a-

Gun?

It was a miniature version of the type of handgun one found in James Bond movies. Wondering how it was supposed to help her, Sakura plucked it out between her forefinger and thumb, holding out the tiny, tiny gun. "Well, this is useless," she grumbled, putting it back in the box and shoving it into her pocket to join the equally useless key.

She stood up. Now what? Was she stuck in this little room forever?

She leaned on the table, sighing, when her elbow bumped against something. Turning around, she looked down to find a small blue bottle labeled 'DRINK ME' lying on its side.

Now how did that get there?

She shrugged, and downed it anyways.

She instantly regretted it.

Her bones felt like someone was crushing them together, grinding them into each other. She had a newfound sympathy for old people with arthritis. She felt like someone was squeezing her lungs, making her gasp for air as the table grew so much it was above her.

Or maybe, she was shrinking.

Abruptly, the pain stopped and Sakura fell over. Her clothes, miraculously (although she admitted it didn't make much sense), had shrunk with her. The same couldn't be said for the key or the box, both of which had popped out of her pockets. The key was now half her height, and the box about a third. She looked up. The top of the table seemed impossibly tall now, and the ceiling as tall as the sky.

"Great. Just great." Sakura mumbled darkly. Her voice came out a little higher than she remembered. She was sure that the Sasuke look-alike who rhymed when he talked was probably laughing his ass off at her, wherever he was, the bastard.

Sighing, Sakura wondered if the gun was now the right size for her. If it was, and it was loaded, she could use it to shoot herself in the head. That was one surefire way to getting out of this damned room.

With more effort than she thought she would have to use, Sakura lifted the top of the box off and shoved it on the ground. As she hoped, the gun was now the right size for her. She leaned into the box, almost falling into it as she did, and picked up the gun. It was a nice, sleek gun, not too heavy. And even better, it was loaded.

She decided to eat the box for breakfast then kill herself when she got bored. Wait, no. First she'd eat the box for breakfast, find Mr. Rhyming-Sasuke-Look-Alike, shoot him, and then kill herself. Then when she was a ghost she'd haunt Sasuke because, she decided, everything that had happened to her today was Sasuke's fault.

Dragging her now-massive and useless key behind, the gun stuck in her pants like a cowboy, Sakura walked aimlessly around the room. The key made an awful, metal scraping sound as she dragged it around the floor, but Sakura wasn't paying any attention. "Oh, mister rhyming guy, where are you?" she sang out, like a deranged serial killer.

Then she stopped dead.

Right in front of her face stood a door, just big enough to let someone her size through.

She hurried up to it, lifting the key with both hands. It slid into the lock easily. With a mighty effort, she turned it, using all of her (somewhat non-existent) strength. She heard a click, and suddenly, the door popped open. Leaving the key in the door, she ran out of the smallest door she had ever encountered in her life.

She gasped. She was on top of a somewhat steep hill that provided her a view of the beginnings of a forest. The calls of animals surrounded her as she stepped gently down the rocky hill onto a lush, green grass filled with flowers and colorful, unreal insects. She saw a fly as big as her hand zoom out of a purple flower, a fly that had iridescent wings and a fat, green body. She didn't even feel scared or disgusted. Striding towards the forest with amazement etched on her face, she didn't notice as the door swung shut noiselessly behind her.

o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o

Welcome to freaking Wonderland, bitches.

o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o

She was walking along an overgrown, dirt path in the forest, taking in the woods like she did oxygen. Eventually, the path stopped and she made her own way through the forest.

It appeared like one back on Earth would look like, but was different in ways both subtle and obvious. For one thing, the glimpses she caught of animals revealed that they all appeared to be some crazy hues, like a bird she saw whose feathers were all colors of the rainbow, a bird she was fairly sure in her world was a sparrow.

Her world . . . Where the hell was she?

The trees seemed to be older than the ones Earth had, more wild . . . darker, almost. But still, she couldn't bring herself to be scared.

She was walking along peacefully, dragging her hand along the trunk of a particularly massive tree when someone spoke from behind her. She jumped.

"About damn time."

"Sasuke?" she gasped, whipping around.

It wasn't Sasuke. It was stupid Mr. Rhyming-Sasuke-Look-Alike. He had dark hair and dark eyes and pale skin like Sasuke, but he appeared older, less cocky, more worn. His arms were folded over the simple black shirt and jeans he was wearing, as he gazed at Sakura with a mixture of amusement and annoyance in his eyes. "No, I'm not Sasuke," he said. "Come along, you're going the wrong way."

"Stop rhyming when you talk; it's really irritating." she snapped.

He blinked. "And what do you mean 'about damn time'?" she demanded of him.

"Well, I'm afraid you took a long time in there," he said easily. "I was beginning to wonder how you'd fare."

"There you go rhyming again!" she burst out. "Who are you? You took me randomly to another world and you look mysteriously like my ex-boyfriend!"

He grinned, and it seemed to Sakura a sinister grin, that behind all the rhyming and the dense persona, he was a bad, bad person. He opened his mouth to speak, and when he did, he didn't rhyme. "I'm not Sasuke," he said. "I look like him, I sound like him, but I'm not him. I am Itachi, and I am an Explosive."

"An 'Explosive'?" she repeated. He nodded, still smiling, and walked away. "Wait!" Sakura called, running after to him. "There are still some things I want to ask you!"

He stopped, turning to look at her. "Don't ask me. I'm not the question-answerer, you see."

The stupid bastard is rhyming again, Sakura grumbled in her head. "Well, then, who is?" she asked, extremely patiently, in her opinion.

"Well," Itachi stared off thoughtfully. "If it's not me, the cat . . ." he muttered. ". . . Maybe the man in the hat?" he said hopefully.

Deciding not to comment how that was a really freaking bad rhyme right there (He's so not a cat, she thought), Sakura sighed and said, "Would you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here?"

Itachi suddenly grinned again, a grin that didn't quite reach his eyes, a grin that felt very cold indeed. He said, "Well, Sakura darling, that depends a good deal on where you want to get to."

"I don't much care where-"

"Then it doesn't matter which way you go." Itachi interrupted with another smile. Sakura narrowed her eyes at him for interrupting her, and without any warning, Itachi was gone, disappeared without a trace. Sakura stared at where he had just been, completely and utterly confused at another display of a phenomenon that didn't happen in her world.

" . . . So as long as I get somewhere." she muttered.

o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o

Since Itachi, Mr. Creepy-Smiling-Rhyming-Sasuke-Look-Alike, had disappeared without even telling her where the 'man in the hat' was, Sakura started off through the woods in a random direction, hopefully not the way she just came.

"Bastard," she muttered, directing her thoughts towards two similar looking men. "This is all your fault. I freaking hate this place."

Suddenly, she thought she heard voices.

Stopping right where she was and holding still, Sakura strained her ears over the forest sounds and caught another stream of talking, coming from her left. Keeping in mind the fact that not everyone of this world might be friendly to her, she hurried towards the voices as silently as she could.

She peeked out from behind a tree and saw-

-nothing?

Actually, what she saw wasn't really a good definition of 'nothing'. Right in front of her, in a small clearing, was table set with cutlery and tea sets and desserts and plates, all sitting on the table haphazardly like someone threw them on it. Her eyes scanned the whole length of the table and landed on a man sitting at the head of table farthest from Sakura, feet propped up on the table on a stack of messy plates, a brown, dirty hat pulled low over his eyes. Is he the man in the hat? Sakura wondered.

He looked dead.

Sakura was confused. She was certain she had heard voices, and there was only one guy here. Stepping out of her hiding spot warily, conscious of her gun, she called out, "Hello?"

He didn't move.

She sidled up to him cautiously, noticing a steady rise and fall of his chest. So he was alive. Sleeping, maybe? she thought.

She poked him gently in his cheek. "Stop," he muttered sleepily, grabbing her hand and squeezing it.

Tightly.

"Ow!" she cried. "Let go!" She just barely managed to pull her hand out his grasp, using his shoulder as a leverage to pull her hand out. She hopped back a few steps to be safely away from his arm's range.

He sat up, fully awake, clutching the hat on top of his head. His blue eyes, obscured by messy locks of blonde hair, stared at her. "Well, how would you like it if someone started poking your cheek?" he asked her peevishly.

"I don't like it much at all," she spat back, holding her injured finger. "But you looked like you were dead or something."

He lifted and eyebrow. "I'm not dead."

" . . . I can see that."

He stood up out of his chair, brushing crumbs off his clothes. "Are you the question-answerer?" Sakura asked him cautiously.

He stiffened, looking at her with a frown. "How do you know that?" he asked.

"Well, some stupid rhyming guy named Itachi pulled me into this place and he said a 'man in a hat' can answer my questions." she said, using air quotations around the 'man in the hat' part.

He smiled, shaking his head. "That Itachi," he muttered. He looked directly at her, a silly little smile adorning his face. "I am the question-answerer, Alice darling. People say I'm the Mad Hatter, but you can call me Naruto!"

Hang on tight, kiddos, for the Wonderland ride

'Cause even though there was a hello

There sure as hell won't be a goodbye

o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o

Can you guess which Wonderland character Itachi is? :D