Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto…

A/N: AWA! This story is back from the dead..!! I'm going to have it follow along the Land of the Waves arc, I think-and I am twisting details here and there, but hey, it's fanfiction, right?

Thanks loads to anyone reading this. ^_^

One last thing: Ichiraku probably wouldn't sell omusubi (rice balls), but please just bear with me..it's all in the name of plot progression!! -.-; Nori is the edible seaweed that wraps the rice balls. Okay, I'll quit talking now…

Chapter Three: Of Sarcasm and Failed Revenge

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Naruto, Sakura, Ika and Kasu backed off to the sidelines. Sasuke and I stood a few feet from each other, glaring fiercely.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" inquired a nervous Sakura.

Not remotely.

"She has a point..we'll all be in enormous trouble if we're caught," Ika put in tonelessly. "But as long as you're going to do it, at least avoid using Genjutsu or Ninjutsu-either one takes too long, is too loud, and the Jonin will sense the chakra fluctuations more easily. So I'd recommend sticking with Taijutsu."

"Whatever," I said, impatient to vent my recent frustration on a certain bird-headed individual. "Let's get moving, huh?"

There was a teeny-tiny sensible section of my brain that squeaked "This is most definitely not a good idea! Touko is going to kill you!!" But I squished the thought. I am going to pound the pride right out of mister I'm-So-Superior!

Unfortunately, an important rule of battle had escaped me. The rule was "Know your opponent." I didn't have a clue what the Uchiha excelled at, what kind of jutsus he used, or what special abilities he had. Which, as you can imagine, gave me a pretty obvious disadvantage.

I mean, sure, he knew nothing about my fighting style either, but that wasn't too big a deal-because honestly, I had no particularly impressive moves. I didn't excel at anything.

But I shoved the doubts from my mind and took a stance.

"..Go," Ika said, her voice void entirely of any emotion.

.,.,.,.,.,.,

"You. Are. Dead."

Yeah, I know. You've said it five times in the last ten minutes. So kill me and get it over with; maybe then my face'll quit burning. How's that for a good deal? But no. You leave me alive, just to draw out the torture..you witch of a teacher…

It was about twelve minutes after our ill-fated fight attempt. The meeting had let out early for some reason, and when Touko and Team Weird's sensei went to retrieve their students, well, there was no one to retrieve. So some rotten little rat snitched on us. I swear, if I ever find out who it was who told her…

Touko had come storming out just as we were about to really start beating the crap out of each other. Guess which lucky kunoichi ran into an irate older woman's fist as she was launching an attack? Yeah.

The witch had proceeded to seethe in silence; apparently words to convey the rage failed her. The other sensei-a masked Jonin with silver hair-didn't seem too stressed about it, which was good because Touko was too livid to even remember to apologize. Now that's a bad sign. I was really in for it.

She was currently pacing-stomping, really-back and forth on the would-be battleground, alternating uttering threats and yelling threats at the top of her lungs. That, paired with the fact that my teacher had once more snatched me away from a fight I really wanted to be in-in front of that jerk, no less-left me in a state of quiet humiliation. I was never going to hear the end of this. I could actually feel the "I told you so" waves radiating from my teammates.

At least Team W-fine; Team 7, as the sensei had introduced them-wasn't around to see the spectacle. One of them had obviously sensed the brewing storm, and the four of them had stealthily escaped.

The now-familiar footstep pattern paused. Uh-oh. Here it comes.

"..I have something." There was a hint of glee in her words. Touko's really pretty sadistic, once you get to know her.

"All right, Saki. I'm sick of you causing trouble. You're jeopardizing a lot by continuing to participate in these childish fights. Evidently a night in the woods wasn't sufficient to make you snap out of it, so I've devised a new punishment."

Gulp. I kept the bored expression on my face, willing myself not to freak out.

A grin slid across her face like a snake. "I wonder if Ichiraku ramen needs any help with the night shift?"

..She wouldn't.

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But who was I kidding? It's Touko. Of course she would.

Which was how I found myself standing behind the counter at Ichiraku Ramen that night. I didn't even think the place had a night shift-in fact, I'm pretty sure they didn't. But once Touko offered, why refuse? They'd make more money on the off-chance that someone stopped by, and as a bonus, they wouldn't be the ones standing out there all night.

So she'd found a way to exploit my dislike of ramen and the dark (and it did get dark pretty fast there) at once. I hate my teacher.

The owner's daughter, Ayame, had already made a few dozen bowls beforehand (my guess is they didn't want to tarnish their reputation by having an amateur make the food). So there I stood, holding my breath in order to avoid throwing up, and muttering to myself. I probably looked deranged.

At least I had dinner. Touko had thrown some food at me before leaving-rice and some natto. I had scarfed down the rice almost immediately, saving the sweet stuff for a midnight snack.

One or two older men had stopped in for a bowl early in the shift. But that was almost forty minutes ago, and it had been crickets-in-the-background silent around the place since. If this kept up, maybe I could sneak a few hours of sleep behind the counter…

The thought sounded more appealing every second.

It was about 7:30 when the next customers came. I just turned around and there they were. I almost jumped out of my skin.

"What the-you couldn't possibly warn me before popping out of nowhere, huh?!" I snapped.

"Well maybe if you trained a little more, you'd be able to sense us coming."

That arrogant voice..Wait a..I blinked. I'd been too startled to really notice who I was snapping at. Now that it registered, I felt even more ill. Oh great. Just great.

"What are you doing here?" I groaned at Team 7.

"Oh-hello, Saki-kun! I didn't know you worked at Ichiraku," Sakura remarked.

"Yeah!" Naruto added. "I thought you hated ramen!" He winced, as if though pained by having to use the words "ramen" and "hate" in the same sentence.

I scowled. "Don't ask. What can I get you?" Now I had to play waitress to three people I really would rather not deal with ever again. Shredding my throwing arm with a cheese grater would be less painful.

They ordered. A regular bowl for Sakura, miso ramen for Naruto, and omusubi for the emo kid. I got some of Ayame's pre-made bowls out from under the counter, along with some of the omusubi she had made "just in case". Guess these three are regular customers…

But as I was bending over, something occurred to me. Hmm…it'd be a very not-nice thing to do…therefore, I must do it. Insert evil laugh here.

I had an evil and excellent idea, and about ten more seconds to execute it. Think, Saki…what food would an emo kid dislike? What do you have on hand? Hmm..Well, he's here, so he can't exactly loathe ramen. What have we got?? Umm…noodles, pork for putting on the noodles, tomatoes for putting on the noodles..a load of other things to put on the noodles…agh, think!!

Wait..what about natto? I still had some left over, after all. I mean, he's the kind of guy with 'sour' written all over him, so wouldn't it stand to reason that he'd dislike sweet things? Admittedly it wasn't much of a basis, but what did I have to lose? Only a few bites of natto, which I did like, but would gladly sacrifice to get back at the creep I was being forced to serve here.

Quickly I snatched my dinner bag from the floor, ignoring a whisper from above of "What's taking so long?", and started squishing the natto into paste as fast as I could. I lifted the nori wrapping, jammed the natto..paste…goo under it, and covering it back up with the seaweed. I only managed to get it under the nori of one riceball; if I took any longer they'd suspect something was up.

The smile on my face as I rose up again wasn't even forced. Hopefully, my sacrifice of the glorious sweet stuff wouldn't be in vain.

Naruto, in the meantime, had already finished his bowl of ramen. The bowl was practically licked clean. "Did you eat it," I inquired in disbelief, "or did you just inhale it?"

He shrugged and grinned, then turned his attention to Sasuke. "Hey, teme, can I eat one of those?"

…I don't believe it! He's still hungry!

"Pleasepleaseplease?"

Obviously impatient to stop his teammate's whining, the Uchiha rolled his eyes. "Whatever, dobe."

The insult didn't faze the blond as he eagerly grabbed a rice ball off the plate and jammed it into his face. Dear lord, I thought, making a face. Ever hear of chewing?

A confused look darted across his face. "Since when did you like natto, Sasuke?"

I felt my eyes widen. You have got to be kidding me…

"I don't," was the reply. "I hate it."

"Then why," Naruto inquired, "is there a great glob of natto in your riceball?"

"…." Naruto, I thought in horror, you idiot! You would pick that one, wouldn't you? Gahh!

"I didn't order it," the dark-haired kid said with deliberation. "So.."

He turned, slowly, to shoot eye-daggers at me.

Perfect…I better think up an excuse fast..

"What, you think I did it?" I asked, putting on a show of irritation. "Yeah, right. Ayame made all the food beforehand; I didn't touch it. They don't serve natto here anyway. Besides, how the heck would I know Birdhead hated it?" I folded my arms.

"She has a point," Sakura said hesitantly. "And…after all, Sasuke-kun didn't eat it, so there's no harm done, right?"

Apparently the others agreed with this assessment, because they let it go. They didn't need to jump all over me anyway-I already knew I would be kicking myself for the failed revenge attempt all night.

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Touko didn't bother to come for me the next morning, so I finally got some sleep, as Team 7 was the last group of customers that night. Ayame was the one who woke me up and thanked me for running the night shift (yeah..like I had a choice).

Freedom. Thank God. I had almost forgotten what ramen-free air tasted like.

I hunted my team down and resisted the urge to hit one of them over the head with a nice heavy object. The urge got a lot harder to ignore when Touko looked up with this smug look on her face and asked, "Have you learned your lesson, Saki?" Like I was some unruly academy student she'd had to punish.

The only thing I learned over there was that ramen looks even more disgusting after you've been looking at it for however many hours straight. I didn't say it.

"Well, I have something to put you in an even better mood," she continued. I shot her a suspicious glare. Hadn't she pushed me enough?

"Ika, would you like to do the honors?"

Ika stood up and looked at me with her usual distinct lack of expression. "One of Konohagakure's newer Genin cells is going on their first C-rank mission today," she recited. I raised an eyebrow. New Genin on a C-rank mission? We hadn't been allowed to go on anything higher than D-rank until almost five months after graduation.

More importantly, what did that have to do with us?

Unfortunately, I was about to find out.

"In order to further improve relations with Konoha's Hokage, and 'teach us the meaning of teamwork and cooperation'," Ika continued, "Touko-sensei has volunteered us to go along and help out with the mission."

"Isn't it awesome?!" Kasu exclaimed happily. "We're going to help out Team Seven on a C-rank mission!!"

Wait-did he just say Team Seven?!

To Be Continued

A/N: Hallelujah…writer's block is finally gone. Although I am falling back into the abyss that is 'writing two serials at once'…oh well.