Disclaimer: Kishimoto-san owns Naruto. The last time I checked, Kishimoto wasn't female. Nor was he in high school. Unless he's regressed in age and undergone surgery and hormone therapy to get more in touch with his inner female ...

[this is stuff that happened in the past]

A/N: no clue where the idea for this came from, or where I want this to go. It might be a one-shot (or a two-shot, really). It might be a collection of one-shots. It might turn into a multi-chaptered fic. [Is it blindingly obvious that I'm horribly indecisive? I blame the road of life for being so unpredictable; why, just the other day there was a black cat in a tree full of squirrels ... ]

Also. Sasuke is a girl. So is Naruto. Sakura is a boy. The names aren't changing. I think those are the only gender-reversals planned. Maybe.

"Team 7 – Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki Naruto, and Haruno Sakura. Your jounin sensei will be Hatake Kakashi. Team 8 – Inuzuka Kiba …"

That was three hours ago. In those three hours, Sakura discovered that (1) his teammates disliked their team assignment just as much as he did; and (2) contrary to popular belief, Uchiha and Uzumaki got along quite well. It wasn't not something readily noticed, but Sakura didn't claw his way to Rookie of the Year using book smarts alone; Uchiha Sasuke made it perfectly clear that he was an unwanted addition to whatever partnership she has built with Uzumaki Naruto and the latter simply didn't care enough to argue the point with her.

[He called her "Sasuke-chan" when all the other teams had long since disappeared with their sensei, his reasoning being that they were teammates now and they had to start working on their team dynamic sooner or later, so why not start now while they were waiting for their sensei? There was cold metal pressed against his neck before he finished speaking and Sasuke's eyes spat fire as she coolly informed him that he had no right to address her in such a familiar manner. Uzumaki was no longer behind Sasuke; his eyes slid to the side and he promptly stopped the hand inching toward his weapons pouch at the sight of the blond girl sitting on an empty desk with a set of kunai in hand (and those were exploding tags attached to them, weren't they?). Uchiha Sasuke may have been the best kunoichi in their year but Uzumaki Naruto was just as dangerous whenever weapons and explosives were within her reach.]

Sakura sighed – again – and shifted in his seat to stare at the clock. Uchiha and Uzumaki were off in a corner, doing something that involved a set of dice, plastic coloured blocks, and senbon. Even from here, he could feel the chakra imbued in those blocks and it was painfully obvious that while he had been awarded the title "Rookie of the Year," the two kunoichi were more skilled than him. They both knew some higher-level chakra manipulation; coupled with Uchiha's "perfect" taijutsu, Uzumaki's knack for handling pointy objects and explosives, and their unnaturally large chakra reserves, it painted a frighteningly clear message to Sakura – he was the weakest of the team. The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth and he looked to his teammates again.

Uzumaki was looking at him. Something about the girl's unblinking stare reminded him of a predator assessing potential prey. The blocks lay forgotten on the desk – they were all on her side, anyways, the red facing up – and the Uchiha scowled darkly when she noticed what Naruto was looking at. The blond looked away as soon as a scroll landed on Sakura's desk.

There was something decidedly unnerving about the silent interaction between his teammates; the way the two kunoichi interacted in the silence gnawed at his brain and, not for the first time in the last three hours, Haruno Sakura felt like he was being mocked. It was, he decided, a decidedly unpleasant feeling. The title of the scroll – Chakra Control Exercises – didn't help at all.

When the door opened (finally!) and their sensei walked in, Sakura was the only one who refrained from attacking, deliberately or not. Uchiha sent a volley of shuriken, Uzumaki a volley of kunai with exploding tags attached before she fell back, more than ready to activate the tags remotely. Whatever smugness he felt at seeing the two kunoichi dodge their own weapons promptly disappeared when the jounin briefly looked them over before telling them – while looking at him – very bluntly that "my first impression of you guys is … I hate you."

How come he was the one left feeling like he had just failed a test when his teammates were the vaguely homicidal genin who attacked their new sensei without any provocation?

Sakura decided then and there that he must have committed some horrible unspeakable crime in a past life to deserve this – first being placed on a team with two kunoichi, both stronger than him and unwilling to expand their comfortable group of two, and now being stuck with a jounin sensei who saw nothing wrong with arriving three hours late and preferred genin who attacked without reason to the respectful genin waiting (semi) attentively for instructions.

०౦ംഠ०҆'˚'҅०ം◦∙ × ∙◦ം०҆'˚'҅०౦ംഠ०

If someone were to try and discern exactly when Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke became friends, they would need to go back to the pre-Uchiha massacre years. Why they became friends, on the other hand … well, Hatake Kakashi might only have known the two by reputation, but it didn't take a genius of a Nara's caliber to realize that the last (loyal) Uchiha hated Uchiha Itachi with a passion (and, after passing out for the third time in a month from chakra exhaustion after trying – and failing – to learn more advanced Katon jutsu from family scrolls, knew that on her own, she was nowhere close to Itachi's level). Throw in Naruto's persistence when curious and her larger-than-average (for a Chuunin, at the very least) chakra reserves to the mess that was Sasuke's revenge-oriented mentality and it was a recipe for instant hatred or friendship, as the two were bound to meet (the Academy, after all, was only so large).

As it was, within three months of the massacre, it was public knowledge that wherever Sasuke went, Naruto was sure to follow and vice-versa. Strangely enough, just a week before the first trio of graduates showed up at the hospital looking like they had walked into a forest fire, Sasuke had been sulking when she went to class every day, sporting a black eye, and Naruto was shooting glares at the Uchiha …

At least two-thirds of his team was already a cohesive unit. Kakashi was more than willing to teach Sasuke and Naruto, for Obito's sake and for his sensei's sake, but putting them on a team with the Haruno kid – who only excelled in bookwork, of all things – created one of the most unbalanced teams he had ever seen (and after personally failing over 10 teams, he had seen quite a few). Even the traditional arrangement of the Rookie of the Year, the dead-last, and the top kunoichi of the year was easier to work with!

"So … why don't you introduce yourselves. Likes, dislikes, that type of stuff."

Sasuke scowled. Naruto's hand twitched, as though she was holding back from throwing more sharp pointy objects at him. Sakura glared at him – and surprisingly enough, that was actually some killing intent mixed with the general disbelief – before speaking up. "Why don't you go first, sensei?" All three genin nodded in unison.

Then again, maybe he was just being too pessimistic. His team could turn out to be one of the most successful in recent history … and Jiraiya would swear off writing porn and peeping on the women's side of the onsen and become a celibate monk.

On second thought, failing this team was sounding more and more attractive. He wasn't cut out to deal with the inevitable inferiority complex Sakura would develop and the slew of psychological issues Sasuke had (and he wasn't even going to think of Naruto, whose psych evaluation the Hokage openly called "worthless.").