To anyone else, we might look like normal people, but truth be told, we weren't. At all. For some of us, you could see our differences from normal people visually, like my pink hair, Sai's jacket, with its uneven sleeves and bottom that cut off right above his stomach, Naruto's 'whiskers', as we called them, or Gaara's 'love' tattoo. Some of us look perfectly normal on the outside, just our insides were different. Ino had nothing strange about how she looked. her blonde hair was always in a ponytail with her bangs brushed to the left side of her face. Shikamaru, Ino's boy toy, was visually normal, except that he was the laziest person I knew, had a large ponytail near the top of his head, and was a certified genius.

*flashback*

Whenever he is acting really lazy, then makes some smarty pants comment, my friend Tenten would roll her eyes and say "genius by birth, lazy by choice" We would all start laughing and then Shikamaru would make some snarky comment about how being lazy hides his being a genius from people he doesn't want to know. By then, we would all be laughing really hard, and Tenten would reply, "well, you're 'real self' must really be something is you need this much laziness to cover it up". We were all rolling on the floor by then, except Tenten, Shikamaru and Gaara, who had shiny red hair, jade eyes and always seems to be wearing tons of eyeliner, even though he claimed to have never worn eyeliner ever. when Ino attacked him with a bottle of makeup remover and only succeeded in making his eyes really bloodshot, we started to believe him. He was the kazekage of the hidden sand village, and spent most of his time with us, in high school.

*end of flashback*

our parents thought we were typical high school best friends. little did they know, we were actually high level ninjas. So when The Hokage, Tsunade, called and informed them that all 13 of us, including Gaara, had better get down to the hidden leaf village real quick or they would be punished, and their punishment would be Tsunade coming to the door and personally requesting to speak to the teen but asking for them using either the name chuunin or jounin depending on their rank. That sent all of them packing right away before meeting up outside the school.

"Wait, we don't have a car big enough for all of us and a giant parade of 13 cars going to a place that is supposed to be secret doesn't seem like a very good plan" Kiba said a minute after they were all together.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious" Temari smirked at him. Kiba didn't get the sarcasm in her voice right away and began to respond.

"Thanks, Temar- Oh" He looked down and shuffled his feet, blushing. we all tried to come up with good ideas of how to get to the village, but no one came up with anything good. We had all come up with something except Neji. Even the 'certified geniuses' idea wouldn't work. So, when Neji cleared his throat and began telling his idea, we all expected another over the top thing that involved vans, buses, limos, whatever. But as he continued, we all looked at him in amazement.

"Well, what if we took Sasuke's Volvo, put the back seats up, paired up and sat on one another's laps?" We all looked around to see if anyone would protest. And with that, we all began pairing up. Couples paired up first, Neji and Tenten, Shikamaru and Ino and Naruto and Hinata. Next were the best friends. My best friend, Naruto, was already taken by his girlfriend, Hinata, and my other best friend, Sasuke, was driving. I almost screamed for joy when I saw Gaara and Temari standing next to each other, partners.

"Sakura!" I heard my name being called and turned to find Sai behind me. I already knew what he wanted to ask, but said it myself.

"Let's be partners!" I bubbled, linking my arm with his and dragging him over to the other partners, which left Kiba and Lee to be partners. They were giving each other the death glare, and finally accepted that no one was going to switch with them.

"Fine, but you have to sit on my lap" Kiba grumbled and they walked to Sasuke's car. I noticed Sasuke glaring at Sai more than a few times. I wondered why Sasuke seemed to have such a problem with me hanging out with Sai. My brain struck a root of an idea, and I followed it to the tree, the maybe Sasuke likes you and thats why he is having this problem tree. I decided that I would try my hardest to figure out what Sasuke's problem was. By then, we were all quite cozy in the car, on each others laps. I could see Sasuke looking at Sai and I in the rearview mirror. I leaned back against Sai's chest and felt his arms encircle my waist in a friendly way that Sasuke didn't like at all. And so, dear Sasuke, let the games begin.