Lisa: I own nothing but this pair of pink shorts!

Chapter 03; "Tora" & a new day.


Change of POV; Haruno Sakura

The pink-haired kunoichi jumped from branch to branch with inhuman speed, her face hidden behind a mask featuring the head of a growling tiger. Right behind her followed several other masked people, their uniforms were all alike, dark and designed to blend in with masks covering both their faces and their hair. The ones behind the leading person had masks featuring a monkey, a badger and a wolf. One of them was missing, he had not been able to attend to this mission because of personal reasons, the snake was not present. They were all comrades, but none knew the true identity to any of the others, only the Hokage knew that, and certain trusted ninja that was known to be trusted. The intended five were ANBU squad six, lead by the one under the nickname "Tora", the tiger. Now they were on a mission to hunt down a missing ninja, one that had returned to Konoha, been forgiven, but turned back to be a missing ninja. For the tiger, this also was personal, even though the rules were straight at that point and said that there were not to be any personal interference with the missions, which could affect the success rate of it. The ninja they were chasing were the tigers ex-boyfriend, and one of her best friends brother, the chased had failed her and betrayed Konoha. She hated him with all of her heart, hate so strong she'd like to kill him. But killing him wasn't her task, someone else already had that one. 'Damn that Uchiha' thought Haruno Sakura as she came to a halt in the middle of a treeless area in the middle of the forest, they were slowly entering Sand territory, and she would have to talk to the Kazekage as fast as possible. They had stopped because they could no longer sense the chased ninja's chakra trail, and no matter what they tried, they could not unmask it. Right when the tiger was about to say something, a rock came flying towards her. Of course, she dodged easily, it had not been thrown with precision nor enough speed to strife her.. and not at all hit her, if that had been the throwers goal.

"Identify yourself, friend or foe?" the badger called out to the still invisible foe. A whimper could be heard before someone hissed at another person, a child stumbled out from the bushes. " I-I'm sorry, w-we didn't mean to nearly hit you mam', we were aiming for that tree over there" a little boy said and pointed at a tree which they had missed with about three feet. "That's all right child but, please act with more care the next time you play out here" Sakura said to the child, " I also have a request, take us to the Kazekage, I see you're from the sand."

The woman with the tiger mask seemed to think a bit, since she was completely silent. " Konoha ANBU squad six, there is no point in continuing this chase, return to Konoha immediately, I have something urgent to discuss with the Kazekage on the Hokages orders, dismissed!" she shouted out to her fellow three ANBU comrades. "Hai, Tora!" they replied in unison and disappeared.

Now the tiger took a step forwards and removed her mask, she shook her long natural-pink hair and hung the mask onto her belt. " I think I must correct myself young mister. Take me to Gaara" she said with a strong voice and watched as the child took a step backwards when she spoke the Kazekage's name aloud. ' So, people still are afraid of you then, Gaara. That pains me, I know that you're so much more than the monster they think you to be' she thought and watched the child. "H-hai! M-madam, miss!" the boy said and started walking towards the east, to the hidden village of sand, Suna.

Change of POV; Kelly

"Mmmh" mumbled Kelly as she woke up to stare at a white and brown ceiling. At first she could not remember where she was, or why she was there. But after clearing her mind and trying to concentrate, she remembered Tsunade, and pineapple-boy, and everything they had said to her, that they needed her help. She was stranded in this strange world which seemed to be so far away from her reality as possible, and the only thing she could do about it was to do as she was told to. After a while, she got out of bed, and went to take a shower. She wore a purple pyjama which she had gotten from Tsunade the day before, it was made of silk, and it felt wonderful against her skin. Padding over to the closet, she cursed silently to herself, what did she expect? She hadn't taken any clothes with her, had she? But to her surprise the closet was filled up with all of her clothes, and some others, in perfect order and organized by type. Grabbing a few clothes, she went to take a shower. The bathroom was over medium-sized and had a shower, toilet, sink and an extra closet for towels and the alike. Kelly undressed and turned on the shower, after a while the water was hot enough and clouds of steam floated around the room. She allowed herself to completely relax, feeling the water clean her free of everything. After the shower she felt very refreshed and happy, she put on some new underwear, a pair of baggy training pants, a t-shirt labelled "I r emo" then did her hair and makeup. Her usual look would to some seem very strange, but really, because she liked black? 'Give me a break, black is just perfect' she thought to herself, ignoring the voices in her head telling her to put on something else.

She went into the little living room only to find Pineapple-boy sleeping on the couch with the television on. Some programme about a princess named Fuun or something aired, probably another one of those TV soaps. She looked at the guy on the couch, and nudged his shoulder lightly. When she got no response, she sighed and went into the kitchen to make a quick breakfast for them both, 5-minute noodles.

After making the breakfast, she went to wake up Shikamaru, she nudged him hard this time. He jumped up, throwing away the blanket he had slept under, looking around for any enemies from some dream he had had. Kelly looked at him and noticed he only wore a tight t-shirt and boxers, she looked away quickly and yelled "GET DRESSED ALREADY, BAKA!" and added quickly, "I'm so sorry, but I had to wake you up, breakfast is ready". At first Shikamaru didn't seem to know what she meant, but then he also noticed and quickly put on some pants and took his usual ninja outfit with him to the bathroom. "Be quick, or the food will be cold!" Kelly shouted after him.

He came out a bit after, fully dressed. "Hn. Sorry about that 'Emo-kid', hehe" he laughed and walked towards her with a slight blush on his cheeks. "Breakfast you said?" "H-hai, noodles" Kelly pointed towards the table where two bowls of noodles waited for them.

When they finally got outside, Shikamaru suggested they could race to the training grounds. "It's just about 11 kilometres from Konohakagure" he said, "Want to race?". Kelly looked at him with a somewhat shocked expression on her face, "You expect me to run 11 kilometres straight? Give it up pineapple-boy, I'm no superhuman." She said and started to walk. Shikamaru remembered that she probably couldn't move at the speed of a shinobi, since she was not yet accustomed with her powers, or that she actually came from this world originally.

After walking and running for nearly forty-five minutes, they both arrived at the training grounds, only to find that their sensei hadn't arrived yet and that the others in the group looked very annoyed. "Ehey! You came at last Shika!" Ino shouted, and Kiba said "Guess who we're waiting for, he's always late" and then Kiba sighed. Then the boy with the red fang markings on his cheeks looked at Kelly and said, "I'm Kiba, this is Shino" and he pointed towards a boy with sunglasses, " And Ino, Hinata and Naruto, the guy over there is Neji" when speaking of Neji he pointed towards a gorgeous guy with eyes that were nearly white, like the colour of a pearl. The group looked at Kelly, "Ehh, Ayukawa Kelly .. is my name" she said, and looked at the ground. To break the silence that followed she asked, " What are we here to do anyway?". "Train" said Shikamaru.

Suddenly, Kelly felt a hand grab her shoulder and a warm breath against her neck, she turned around to see who it could be sneaking up on her like that. –dramatic music-


A/N: WRAHAHHAHAHH, I'm getting better at this, IMO.

Who's the mysterious person? What's going on between Konoha and Suna? Since when did Sakura star calling Gaara by his name and not his title, as everyone else does? What's going on between them, if anything at all?

Rewiews are loved, it's possible to contact me at AIM as well. Just if you want to chat or something n.n; Lisa The Sheep

Loads of love,

Lisa