"I don't like dancing," Sakura muttered, shifting from foot to foot.
They were at a large training ground, one of the many that populated the Village known as Ahonok. Nobody was quite sure where the name came from. Only that it had been based on one that had existed long ago, and their first Egakoh hadn't been very creative.
Her ballet teacher, a tall and extremely strong looking woman named Mighty Guise, raised her pink bushy eyebrows. Her bubble-gum pink hair was the same color as the leotard she wore, topped by an extremely fluffy tutu. And a bow.
"Oh, darling. I'm sure you'll do fine. Nobody here will make fun of you. Right honey bunches?"
Hinata batted her long, glittering eyelashes, and flipped her the bird.
"Ahem. That's not very polite you know. Anyway, why don't you give it a try, sweetie?"
Sakura awkwardly put one foot forward, and promptly face planted into the dirt. Amid the taste of greenery, she could hear Hinata gasping for breath in-between bouts of laughter.
"Believe it or not, I've seen much worse cases, smooches. Come on. Let's get you cleaned up, alright?"
Alright. We should be able to do this. We walk all the time. We climb stairs for crying out loud. Just put one foot forward-
Dirt was starting to taste familiar.
"Why don't you try watching Hinata a few times, honeysuckle?" Mighty Guise suggested, helping Sakura to her feet.
Hinata, of course, did not face plant. In fact, she looked incredibly light and delicate, contrasting nicely with her despisable personality. Nevertheless, Sakura was entranced. How could someone so undeniably evil look so serene while twirling?
She ended with one hand held to the sky, daintily. Then, the moment passed, and she pulled out a cigarette to smoke.
"Ahem," Mighty Guise said, not so subtly.
Hinata raised her hands and eyebrows, as if their ballet teacher had asked her to touch the moon.
"Your turn Sakura!"
"Alright. Like thi-"
That time had hurt. Was her nose bleeding?
What is this? Is it my destiny to never be competent at even basic dancing? Am I attempting to defy fate?
Sakura hadn't even known anyone could be as bad at dancing as she was. Calling it dancing was too generous. More like, slipping on her own shoes.
On firm dirt.
By this point, she looked more like she'd survived a house fire than a "delicate, youthful flower" as Guise had suggested. Blood smears were dried and crusted around her nose, and repeated meetings with the ground had left her hair a wild, grass-covered mess.
Not to mention the scratches and dirt covering her bare arms.
"That's enough progress for today I think, sweethearts," Mighty Guise said, probably sensing Sakura was coming close to total collapse. "We'll meet here again on Saturday, same time, okay? Hinata darling?"
"Mmm," Hinata grunted non-commitally, in between a drag of smoke.
"I guess," Sakura said. She couldn't meet her fellow classmate's eyes. Or her teacher's. Why had she ended up with such a boring hair color? Nobody important had brown hair. It could at least have been black, like Naruto's, or almost blue-tinted like Hinata's.
Even their current Egakoh had bright red hair.
Sakura muttered a vague goodbye, and made her way back through foliage and trees to a more civilized area of Konoha. People gave her odd looks as she walked by. Sakura didn't even want to think about how she looked.
"LOVE OF MY LIFE!"
Oh no. Not right now.
Sasuke slid to a stop right before her, a rose clenched tightly between his teeth. His fiery red hair fell perfectly across his forehead, and two blue eyes stared up at her with fanatical devotion. Or insanity.
Probably some combination.
"Who has hurt you so, oh sweet blossom?" he practically sang, one hand coming up to cover his head theatrically and grab the rose. "Tell me, and I shall remove them from this world in an instant! I swear it upon my honor as an Uzumaki!"
"That's, um, not necessary…" Sakura said, desperately trying not to make eye contact. "I just was doing some dance lessons. For fun, you know?"
There was no need for Sasuke to know they were remedial dance lessons. Mighty Guise worked only with exceptional cases, and not the good kind. Sakura wasn't sure, but there were rumors Hinata had kicked her first ballet teacher in the balls, and called him a pervert for looking at her. He'd gone to the urgent care ward, and hadn't returned yet.
So, it was just the three of them. Two psychos, and the worst dancer in the world. At least, that was what it felt like.
"What dance lessons could possibly do this to you, Sakura?" Sasuke asked, eyes wide.
Any dance lessons.
"It's really not important. Anyway, aren't you supposed to be training with, er…"
"Mistress Anko?"
"Yes. That person."
Sasuke glanced back and forth, and then bent in to whisper in her ear, despite the fact that they were in the middle of the street, and people were definitely looking at them oddly.
"I think she may be skipping our training to meet someone." He raised his eyebrows seriously. "A special person."
"Like a boyfriend?"
"Shh."
He glanced around, glaring intensely at anyone who met his gaze. Then, he turned back and whispered again.
"Apparently he's this super-important ambassador from one of the other villages. They only get to see each other when he comes to visit! Ah, forbidden love," Sasuke finished with an airy sigh.
"That's very interesting! I'm just, um, going to leave now. Ok?"
"Wait! My love!"
Sakura sprinted the opposite direction, and ducked into the first alleyway she saw, clutching her chest at the exertion. It was thankful she had taken off her ballet shoes.
So now I can run, huh? Stupid impractical shoes. Stupid dancing. Stupid, stupid dream.
"Are you alright, miss?"
Oh my god.
Sakura looked up at the towering, heroic figure of Bugman. His dark goggles glinted dramatically, and his black shiny suit showed every gleaming curve of his broad shouldered, tight, perfectly toned body.
"I… Ah…."
Why did I have to meet Bugman now of all times? Why couldn't I have just stepped out of a spa or something? Or rescued a kitten?
Crap! Say something!
Bugman's hand came down on her shoulder, and he smiled winningly at her.
"I understand. You are in shock. Come, let me fly you to your apartment." With a snap of his fingers, Bugman summoned a cloud of bright, luminous blue butterflies, which surrounded him like a glistening wave.
"Eep! What?"
He easily swept her off her feet, and they glided up into the sky on a cloud of the insects. It was… surprisingly comfortable. She could feel how close they were together, and it made her feel faint.
"Can you point me to where you live?"
She glanced around, not used to seeking Ahonok at such a high elevation. Eventually, she spotted her apartment building, an ugly orange color. Who in their right mind painted a building orange of all things?
Bugman nodded, and they glided easily towards their destination. Sakura got lost looking down at the crowds below her. Many people stopped to wave up at Bugman, who smiled and made a few waves back.
Eventually, they touched down on the roof of her building. Compared to the feeling of sitting on butterflies, the gravelly texture of the building was like sandpaper.
"Thank you. I'm fine, I think…"
"If you insist. Well then, off I go! Crime never stops!" He turned to the edge of the building, and stepped off, his feet continuing on a road of colorful butterflies that appeared before him and dissolved behind him with every step.
"I do hope we meet again!"
Sakura stood there, staring dumbfounded back while he flew away into the distance. Then, she got around to smacking herself in the forehead.
"Stupid stupid stupid! I probably sounded like a complete idiot! Stupid, unreasonable, completely ridiculous crush. Stupid dance lessons. Stupid Sasuke..."
She stalked down to her humble apartment in a heavy cloud of despair, self-loathing, and embarrassment, hitting her head all the way. People shot her odd glances up until she reached her front door.
This day couldn't get any worse, could it?
"That sucks," Naruto said eloquently. His ringed eyes stared at her unnervingly. No matter how many times she saw them, Sakura never got used to their odd light-purple tint.
"Yeah," Sakura muttered, bringing her knees closer to her chest. "I don't suppose your day is going any better?"
He shrugged, and reclined on the grass beside her. Big, puffy white clouds drifted lazily across a crisp blue sky.
"Kakashi's no different from usual. We have a pretty good working relationship at this point. He doesn't ask me to do anything, and I don't. Win win, really."
"I'm jealous."
"Don't be. None of this is putting me any closer to killing Madara Uchiha."
Sakura winced. As always, their conversations drifted back to her friend's single-minded obsession with revenge.
"But at least you're having a little fun, right?"
"You know what would be even more fun?" Naruto asked, cocking an eyebrow.
Sakura glared at him.
"Killing Madar-"
"Killing Madara Uchiha," Naruto said, with a firm nod of the head. "Which I probably should have done several years ago. I'm moving too slow."
Sakura frowned. "I thought you were thirteen," she said, eventually.
"I am. That's no excuse though."
But you don't even reach the shoulders of anyone besides me! And that's before we deal with the fact Madara Uchiha is one of the most powerful Shinobi ever to live, as far as we know.
"I wonder what he's up to as we speak," Naruto said, unintentionally mirroring Sakura's thoughts.
"I miss when you were competent, Nagato."
Pein paused in the middle of beating an egg, turning his orange swirl-masked face back to look at his great, great, great, great, great- Very old ancestor.
"But Pein is a good boy!"
"Highly debatable," Madara grumbled. He still looked the same as he had when he'd first come back from the dead. His skin was dry and cracked, hinting at its true material. He still looked young, (Impure Resurrection relieved the problem of aging), but this hadn't improve his mood much.
There was one other, minor detail. That being he was utterly blind.
He'd assumed an eye transplant would be as easy as usual, but apparently being made out of corpse blood and dirt didn't exactly provide a flexible interface for real eyeballs to connect to. He wasn't even sure he actually pumped blood. He'd certainly never seen any of his own.
Then again, he hadn't seen much of anything since Itachi had destroyed his eyes all those years ago.
Hmmph. One way to stop the Moon Eye Plan. He did take a little grim satisfaction in the fact that his reincarnated enemy was utterly insane. Actually, that hadn't changed much. At least it was a stuttering, cower at birds sort of insanity.
Madara nodded silently. Much more manageable.
"Breakfast is ready, uncle!"
The positively ancient Uchiha made sure to look as revolted and irritated as possible while eating the unreasonably good eggs. At least, he hoped he looked irritated, and not simply like he was having digestive problems.
It turned out, if you didn't apply fuel, the chakra needed to maintain his Impure Resurrection would eventually burn out. Luckily, eating every couple days, with minimal movement, solved the problem nicely.
Now, if only he weren't stuck up on this god-awful mountain unable to see anything he was doing, the world would probably be perfect by now.
Alas.
"Turn on the cable," Madara muttered, making sure to be especially cruel with his tone of voice. Pein obeyed enthusiastically, if the shuffling sounds he could hear were any indication.
Thankfully, this new world had managed to create some things of value.
"We interrupt your regularly scheduled episode of "Breaking Icha: Sacrilege", to bring you-"
"WHAT?"
"-an exclusive interview with the infamous missing-nin, Madara Uchiha! Take it away Tsunade."
"Thanks Jiraiya. Now, I've recently had the experience of being abducted and shown first-person what a massive, unbelievable prick Madara Uchiha is. As a Madara of fact, heh, I have him here with me, pointing a scythe at me. Would you mind answering a few questions for our watchers?
"Absolutely," a snide, mocking voice replied.
"First off, I think the question everyone is wondering is why you chose to kill your clan of all things, with a few special exceptions."
"Ah. That one's easy. You see, Itachi Uchiha needed some help doing the job himself."
"Itachi Uchiha? For those of our listeners who don't know, Itachi is one of the few select survivors of the Uchiha Clan Massacre, and well known for his struggles with mental instability and hallucinations."
"Yeah. That guy. Apparently someone thought giving him a butter knife and sending him at his parents was a good idea. What can I say? I like to see being a massive, unreasonable prick done well."
There was a pause.
"I suppose I'm a little confused about how that helps you with the plan you described to be earlier."
"Oh, it probably didn't. Like I said, I'm a massive prick. And a horrible boss."
Madara Uchiha's fork clattered to the floor. Underneath his flimsy blindfold, little more than a scrap of white cloth, his few functional eye muscles twitched violently, causing him unbelievable pain.
"Speaking of which, why don't you fill in our listeners on what you hope to accomplish?"
"Ah yes. You see, being a prick of positively immense proportions, and kicked as a child, I decided several decades ago that it would be a good idea to leave my best employee at the bottom of a fucking dirt hole in a backyard. This was of course, to help me move forward with my plan to put the world on a massive acid trip, by assembling the nine mega-super-demons and casting a genjutsu on the sky. Or something."
"Fascinating. And how did you hope to accomplish this?"
"Well, at this point, I feel it's necessary to point out that I am undeniably born of wedlock. My mother was not selective in the least, and probably got plowed by half of Konoha while I was there."
"Konoha?"
"Ahonok. Anyway, as I said. I would use these mega-super-demons to help power the genjutsu and make it like, 1080 pixels or something."
"Or something?"
"The details of the plan are a little convoluted. Did I mention that I am an enormous prick?"
"I do think that's all we have time for. With a little luck, I'll escape this situation alive for an extended report later in the week."
'Thanks again Tsunade. Now, moving onto other news-"
There was the buzzing of static as Pein turned off the television. Madara sat stock still as a sculpture, hand still in the position it had been in when the fork had fallen.
Pein hesitantly approached the prone form of his ancestor.
"...Uncle?"
"Endless," Madara hissed eventually, through teeth so tight it was surprising none of them had cracked.
"Literally neverending. Until time itself grinds to a halt. Even that seems insufficient."
"What?" Pein asked uncertainly.
"Pack our bags. We're going on a little trip."
A/N: I really, really don't know.