Riiiiiinnnnnnng. Riiiiiinnnnnnng.

'Come on, pick up…'

Riiiiiinnnnnnng. Riiiiiinnnnnnng.

'COME ON!!'

Riiiiiinnnnnn—

"Hola. This is Pedro, what is your order?"

"SAKURA?!" Naruto screamed into the receiver, bringing the decibel limit to new levels.

"GAH!" Sakura yelled in surprise, falling over in her over-cushioned seat.

"WE HAVE A PROBLEM!"

Gathering all of her dignity, the pink-haired kunoichi collected up her puffy purple skirts and plopped herself back onto her chair, huffing. "Yes, yes, this is God. What do you wish, Oh-thou-who-worships-Ramen?"

"The Ice-Princess is… is…"

"Yes?" She tapped her sequenced, plastic wand against her thigh in annoyance.

"Is…"

"Out with it, pumpkin lord!"

"THE ICE-PRINCESS IS BABY-SITTING!" Naruto sobbed in anguish.

Sakura yelled out in agony, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Oh wait, nevermind. Darth Vader just said he was Luke's father. What were you saying?"

Naruto sighed in annoyance. "Forget it, I'm coming over."

"Okay," Sakura replied brightly. "Don't forget the Poptarts!"

"Right."

Several minutes later, Naruto appeared at the door, a grocery bag in hand. He looked at her attire dubiously and raised his corn-colored eyebrows. Sakura ignored the look, happily grabbing the plastic bag out of her best friend's hand.

And promptly whapped him upside the head with her sparkly plastic wand.

"Ow! What was that for?" the Kyuubi asked, cowering in fear while clutching the rapidly swelling the bump on his noggin.

"Did I not specifically ask for Poptarts?"

"…Yes?"

She leveled him with an evil glare. "Then why is there CRANBERRY APPLESAUSE IN HERE??"

"Because I can't read?"

She hit him again. "You retard!!"

"HEY!"

Sakura twitched, but decided that retribution would come in the form of making him eat the applesauce rather than beating him up. Ah, yes. She couldn't wait to see him eating the putrid stuff. After several minutes of fantasizing about his torture, she realized something and turned back to him.

"Oh, you were here about Sasuke?"

Naruto bobbed his head up in down so hard that she couldn't help but wonder if there was any duct tape around to put it back on once it fell off from the severe mistreatment.

Several moments of silence passed. "… Well?" Sakura ground out.

"Oh. Yeah. Right. So, I was going to Ichiraku to get some Ramen, right? 'Cuz I love ramen. Lots and lots. I think even more than Hinata. But I can't really kiss ramen, you know? So maybe I…"

Sakura coughed pointedly.

"Oh, right. Yeah, so then I happened to pass by the Academy…"

The fairy—COUGH—Sakura—COUGH—nodded her head in encouragement.

"… and I saw Sasuke there. Training with the children!"

Duh-duh-DUUUUUUN!!

Sakura let out a girlish shriek of terror at his proclamation. "You mean Sasuke—our Sasuke, the Ice Princess Extraordinaire—was actually babysitting children?!"

Naruto nodded his head gravely.

The pink-haired kunoichi fluttered around in a panic, waving her Dollar Store bought wand in her anxiousness. "This is terrible!" she exclaimed. "Like, uber terrible! THIS IS APOCOLYPSE-BRAND TERRIBLE!! Sasuke never puts up with kids! I mean, he eats little children for breakfast with a side of gravy!!"

Naruto bounced on the balls of his feet apprehensively. "I know! Sasuke gets bitten by kids daily!"

Sakura paced around in a panic, muttering 'what do we do, what do we do…' repeatedly. And then she stopped, a look of determination glinting in her viridian eyes. "Then I know what we must do."

Naruto hung onto her every word like she was spouting off the Bible.

"We must save the world!!"

Cue heroic music.

Sasuke could feel a twitch forming somewhere behind his left brow. Stupid wanna-be ninjas. It was bad enough that he had to oversee their practice (by order of the Hokage), but the little boogers kept thinking they could talk to him. Talk.

Hah. As if they were worthy of his time.

A superior smirk curled about his pale lip. Pfft. Sasuke. Talk. Yeah, like that would ever happen.

Um, wait. Rewind and retract previous statement.

The Uchiha was yanked out of his thoughts as a grubby little hand pulled at the hem of his pants insistently.

"What does thiiiis thingy do, sensei?" the little bald child-loser-thing asked him, holding up a paper bomb.

With a detonator in his other hand.

Sasuke's eyes widened to epic proportions. "OH SHI—"

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!

Sakura stopped in her tracks, a cape fluttering about her heroically as it was caught in the inertia. "Did you hear that, Monkey Sidekick?"

It seemed as though years of accumulative earwax had built up in Naruto's ears though, and thus he could only hear the voices inside of his own head. "Eh?"

"THAT." Sakura gesticulated wildly at a mushroom-shaped plume that rose from the ground.

"Eh??"

"THAAAAT." Sakura flailed with the grace of an overturned cow.

"Oh."

The shinobi watched in silence for several moments as the smoke cloud only grew bigger.

"Well, shit."

Sasuke woke several minutes later to the sight of several (hopefully) dead Academy students, a ground charred by the impact of the paper bomb, and Sakura running towards him donning a poufy tooth fairy costume with Naruto running frantically behind her.

And that was supposed to be his team. Sasuke groaned in self-pity.

"SASUKE! SAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSUKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!" Sakura shrieked, throwing herself to the ground beside him, and proceeding to poke him (quite viciously) in the side with her wand. "Saaaaasssssuuukeeeeeee!!" she whined insistently.

He wondered that if he tried to play dead she would cease bothering him.

"Sasuke." Poke.

"…"

"Sasuke." Poke poke.

"…"

"Saaaasuke." Poke jab jab.

"…"

"SAAAASUKEEEE!" She jabbed him meanly several times until he just couldn't take it anymore.

"WHAT?!" he exploded, obsidian eyes snapping open.

She blinked at him sheepishly. "… Hi."

The ninja groaned and decided that it was Not His Day. "Where's Naruto?"

Sakura gestured vaguely. "Over there… somewhere. I think he ran into a tree and passed out."

Sasuke looked over to aforementioned tree and saw that, indeed, Naruto was unconscious. Which was great. It meant he'd have to suffer through Sakura all alone. He resisted the urge to groan again.

"So yeah, why are there a bunch of road-kill students and a crater the size of your big butt?"

He glared at her. "It is not big."

"Is too."

"Is not."

"Too."

"Not."

"Too."

"Not."

"Too."

"Not."

"Too."

Sasuke almost went into a seizure. "You're annoying."

"Nuh-uh. My name is Sakura, not annoying."

He glared.

She grinned.

He adopted a look of long-suffering silence.

"So… road kill. Crater. Care to tell me what happened?"

The dark-haired male looked as though he was about to expend his entire years-worth of spoken words. This better be worth it, she thought, or she'd make him grow a beard and join the circus as the bearded lady. Sakura snickered in her mind, since no one would be able to tell that he was not, in fact, a lady.

Sasuke (unaware of his teammate's inner thoughts) launched into an epic tale of woe and heartbreak. "A little brat blew up the field with a paper bomb."

Or… not so epic.

Sakura dead-panned. "That was so descriptive Sasuke. Thanks so much. So when Shishou asks how the training field just HAPPENED to spontaneously combust, I can blame it all on the flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz. Wonderful."

Sasuke shrugged. It wasn't his problem.

She narrowed her eyes at him menacingly. "And I know that you're thinking that this isn't your problem."

Sasuke's returning look said it all.

The kunoichi fluffed up her skirts in a very threatening manner, and poked his sternum with her wand in his sternum one more time for good measure. She stood up and grabbed his ear, intent on dragging his to the Hokage.

"Well, let's just see about that, Mr. Snowman."

Tsunade rubbed her brows tiredly. "So, let me get this straight," she intoned. "The ONLY FREAKIN' TIME I gave you a responsibility, Sasuke, you managed to blow up an entire training field, injure seven Academy students, and completely destroy several hundred dollars worth of weaponry?"

Sasuke looked unrepentant. He stuffed his hands into his pockets.

Sakura looked gleeful. She rubbed her hands together maniacally.

"And why the hell do you look so happy, Sakura?!" the Godaime growled. "What the hell are you wearing, anyway?"

Sakura flapped around her arms ungracefully, managing to knock down several scrolls and picture frames from the wall. "Bah! My attire is unimportant, Shishou! What is important is the fact that stupid, stuck-up, prissy-boy Sasuke is getting punished!" She did a happy jig in her spot, knocking down the remaining picture frames.

The Hokage banged her head on her desk several times.

Sasuke took that as their cue to leave.

The little pink-haired kunoichi happily skipped around Sasuke in annoying little circles as soon as they had exited Hokage Tower, and Sasuke scowled angrily.

Yes, he had noticed how her stupid frumpy-dress had pushed up her cleavage.

No, he didn't notice how she still managed to look attractive, even though she was wearing something meant for three-year-olds.

Sakura, oblivious to his internal mumblings, sung, "Sasuke got in trouuuble, Sasuke got in trouuuble! Hah hah hahah hah!" She wiggled her tongue out at him mockingly.

He was really tempted to tie her up to the post the kids aimed their kunai at. Although, knowing their aim, they'd probably miss. Every single time. He sighed.

"OH! THE TIDE IS HIGH, BUT I'M HOLDIN' ON!! I'M GONNA BE YOUR NUMBER ONE!!" Sakura sang loudly and tonelessly.

He needed Naruto for this.

"Sakura, why are you singing?"

"Because you got in trouble. It makes me happy."

"… I hate you."

"That's okay. You got community service hours for three weeks."

"Hn." Somehow, he just knew that the community service was going to involve something with children.

He was totally going to make sure they died next time. The right way.