Author's Notes

Hello, everyone, it's been a while. Some bad personal stuff happened, and I couldn't write fics for a while, but now I'm back and, hopefully, able to give people a good time again. Proper notes at the end of the chapter.

Let's hop right in.

Chapter 4

"Mom, a little help?"

She wobbled a little trying to pick up the metal tube and push it through the door, but the damn thing was as tall as she was, and it felt as if it was heavier than her. She might have overdone her diet a little. She paused for a second. Was there any proof that Sasuke liked thin girls? Well, nobody likes fat girls, she thought and nodded to herself.

"Mom?"

She could hear her cooking inside, so she knew her mother was there, but if she didn't get some help in thirty seconds, she would unleash the Beast and the Door would be defeated.

"Sakura?" Mebuki's blond head poked out the door. "Daughter, what is that? Did your teacher give you building blueprints to study?"

"No, mom, of course not. It's a full-size Sasuke-kun poster."

"What?" She thought her mother's eyes would pop out.

"They sell them just down the street. It's a limited edition run, but they are very popular. I won this one from Ino fair and square."

If by 'fair and square' she meant using one of Naruto's tricks and kicking her former best friend in the face while back-flipping, grabbing the poster, leaving the money, and running away. Still, they were ninja, and being a ninja meant fighting for what was truly important like the village, her family, and Sasuke-kun.

"Sakura, honey, you should drop this obsession. This isn't the way to a boy's heart." Her mom used the tone normally used on extremely violent small animals. Like rabid carnivorous beavers. There were no rabid carnivorous beavers, but they would be pretty bad if they existed.

"Come on, mom, it's not like I bought the combo of Sasuke-kun body-pillow, the kind of boxers he wears, and Sasuke-kun body odor perfume." She shook her head. "Hacks. As if they could see what he wears or how wonderfully he smells. Any of those weirdos gets close enough for that, and Sasuke-kun will eviscerate them, and there will applause, and he will flick the blood off his sword as the sun sets behind him . . . sorry, what was I saying? Ah, yes, hold the door open, will you."

For some reason her mother didn't say anything in response and simply opened the door wide. Sakura lugged the tube through, nodded thanks to her mother, took off her shoes as was polite, and then hurried upstairs to her room to unfurl her treasure.

It was glorious. Sasuke-kun in all his open-shirted glory, his hair wet and eyes spinning with the fully-awakened Sharingan. Slight wind was blowing back his clothes, and it made the cloth hug his muscular form and the bulge in his pants.

"Huh." Sakura cocked her head to the side and blinked. She was pretty sure from her anatomy lessons that what the author had put into the pants was anatomically impossible.

She felt herself go red in the face, walked up to the wall and banged her head against the hard wood.

"Sakura, you okay up there?"

"Yes, mom, simply lamenting the death of non-erotic art."

"Right. Lunch will be ready in ten."

Why, why did that horrible painter violate the perfection of Sasuke-kun's form with her idiotic fantasies. Sasuke was thirteen, for Kami's sake, and the woman looked forty. She looked at the poster again contemplating living only the top half, then shook her head, took out her scissors and professionally cut the paper into ribbons and stuffed them in the rubbish bin.

Sasuke-kun was beautiful and dreamy and tragic, and she didn't get why half the freaking village wanted to jump him. It was ridiculous. In the Academy, as soon as a girl hit puberty, she would start to talk about kissing and holding and doing other stuff to Sasuke-kun, and more than once Sakura needed to team up with her arch-nemesis Ino and beat the shit out of the hormonal pre-teens. It was a disgrace to think that way of someone they didn't even know.

All she wanted from him was to be noticed. To talk to him, and make him see that she could help him.

She went down to lunch.

"So how is your team? Any problems with only one of you being from a Ninja Clan?"

She said, "Sasuke-kun might as well be an orphan. He is so brave, living on his own."

Mebuki shook her head. "Your teacher is Hatake Kakashi, Sakura, you can do better than that. Why do you think he lives alone?"

Sakura was half through her plate of soba—she had a mission in the evening—but she stopped at the question.

"I don't know. I mean, Sasuke-kun is the best ninja of his age, and the Uchiha family still is one of the most respected, even if it's only him." She played with her food a little. "Maybe they don't have any money?"

Her mother shook her head. Mebuki didn't look exactly disappointed, but she could see that her mother had expected more from her, and it made indignation boil in Sakura's chest. Mebuki said, "No, that's not it. Sasuke Uchiha is perhaps the richest ninja in Konoha." Sakura snorted. She wasn't after Sasuke's money. Her mother continued, "No, this is why that poor boy has to live alone. Whoever would take care of him would be in a position to take a grab of Uchiha money or political clout."

Sakura frowned. "I'm sure there are honorable ninja, and they wouldn't take advantage."

Her mother chuckled, "Maybe. But they could. And the noble families wouldn't allow anyone that kind of influence and they wouldn't be able to take care of him themselves. Hiashi Hyuuga wanted to do it back after Sasuke's family got killed."

Sakura thought about the most powerful ninja Clan in Konoha raising Sasuke-kun and shivered. "Hinata-chan isn't too bad, but the Hyuuga are creepy with those emotionless blank eyes and white clothes . . ."

Mebuki reached over the table and ruffled her daughter's hair, coaxing a surprised squeak out of her. "Sakura, the Hyuuga are far from the worst that Konoha hides. But yes, Hiashi-sama was summarily blocked by the rest of the council and Sasuke went back to that place as soon as Anbu washed the blood off the walls." Her mother sighed. "That boy needs a lot of help, and the way you obsess over him . . . invite him to dinner sometime."

Sakura blinked and felt her cheeks redden. "Invite him to dinner?" She pouted. "Sasuke-kun would never come."

Mebuki smiled. "Just tell him he won't see any marriage contracts here."

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Sometime later they met in front of Yakiniku. Naruto and Sasuke were arguing about his abilities again.

"I can't believe you beat me," said Naruto.

"Dweeb, your Katon is a disgrace, and I will kick your ass until you learn variety." Sasuke grinned. "Not that I will stop kicking your ass when you do it, but it might be less humiliating."

"Admirable enthusiasm, my little minions," said Kakashi walking toward them down the street, mission scroll in hand. "Here you go." He tossed the scroll to Sakura.

"Oh, man," said Naruto. "Our first mission together. I hope it's something awesome."

Sasuke said, "I believe the first Hokage had to clean out the Inuzuka kennels on his first mission as a Genin. Waist-deep in dog shit."

Naruto looked so mortified that Sakura laughed. "He's just teasing you Naruto. I think it was exactly this mission." She started reading from the scroll. "Capture the Daimyo's cat Tora."

"Catching a cat?" asked Naruto. "Can't be too hard." He jumped in place a couple times. "I'm pumped, let's go."

He moved to run, but Kakashi took hold of his collar and held him back. "Maa, Naruto, Sakura isn't done talking."

She gave the scroll back to him and shivered. "The Daimyo's cats are legendary. They are a special breedwith poisonous claws, chakra-sensing abilities, and their spit can spoil a barrel of ramen." She laughed at the look of terror at Naruto's face. "Sorry, sorry. But seriously, this mission has been around since forever, and the cats really know how to hide and run. Don't you remember Iruka talking about them to us?"

###

Three hours passed.

"Sensei, does the mission scroll specify that we need to turn the cat in alive?"

"Sasuke!"

"Don't tell me you aren't thinking about it, Naruto. I saw that thing dodge Sakura and bounce off your crotch with all its claws out."

Naruto's hands moved to cover his sensitive parts, and Sakura politely looked away. He was an idiot who asked her out daily, but she wouldn't wish Tora on her worst enemy. It was demonic abyss in feline form, and if it was Sasuke-kun's idea . . .no, no, bad Sakura! Strangling the cat and using Henge just long enough to make the Daimyo's wife accept the corpse wasn't right, even if Sasuke-kun was okay with it.

And her mother called her obsessed when she wouldn't even stoop to animal cruelty because of something her idol said. Parents were weird.

"How the hell can it tell our traps are traps?" asked Naruto. He was carrying a bag of tuna. "We have tried everything, and the damn thing munches on the bait only for five seconds before running away."

"There it is," said Sakura pointing to her right where a streak of brown dashed by them at the velocity of a thrown kunai.

Sasuke dashed forward, Naruto summoned ten clones, and she rushed to head the cat off. One of the clones barreled into Sakura, she tripped Sasuke up, and the three of them went down in a tangle of limbs. The stress almost unleashed Inner Sakura upon her unsuspecting teammates, but she only elbowed something squishy and stopped herself before biting Naruto's left calf.

Sasuke said, "Ow, dweeb, what the hell was that?"

"Teamwork, jackass. I almost had it, and then you hurled right through my formation."

Sakura said, "Naruto, you idiot. You can't catch the cat alone. It scratches the face of one of your clones, and the others stop to nod in sympathy, and it just runs away. Don't you have control over these things?"

He scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "They are sort of me? So they do what I would do."

Sasuke grumbled something, extricated himself from their human ball of twine and said, "We need to do something about that."

There was an idea. Something Sakura could do to get closer to Sasuke-kun. She felt red crawl up her neck. "Um, Sasuke-kun? I have an idea." She gulped when she saw his unimpressed expression. "No, really. All Naruto needs to do is summon clones and have us wail on The original with a stick or something. Then they can share memories and get used to the sight of themselves getting beat up."

Sasuke smiled, and it was all teeth and sexiness. "You do have a passable idea sometimes. Keep it up and you might even survive our first C-Rank."

She blinked. That sounded sort of like a thread, but Sasuke-kun would never threaten her, so she ignored it completely and focused on the praise.

Naruto was looking nervously between them while slowly stepping back. "Don't I get a say in this?"

"No," the two of them said in unison.

"What about Sakura getting in the way of my clones or you running through them, bastard?" He cupped his chin and did what passed for Naruto's thinking expression. She thought he looked like he was sitting on a toilet while squinting at the sun. "You know, I'll agree to you beating me up if you learn to avoid my clones. We'll find a dummy or something, I'll attack it and you need to help without dispelling my guys."

Sasuke laughed. "Dweeb, if only I had known that a demon cat to the balls would jolt your brain. How does your body even work?"

"Hey!"

They caught Tora five hours later by tiring the her out and nearly strangling her with her ribbon. Sakura could barely move, and Sasuke was only marginally better, but Naruto was as energetic as ever. He was also covered with scratches from head to toe. Kakashi, who had been up in a tree somewhere reading porn this whole time, went to get their reward. They were left in that post-mission awkward silence where nobody knew what to say, because they couldn't go home yet, because they needed to get paid. She still needed two action figures to complete her Ultimate Uchiha Set.

"Right!" said Sakura before she could change her mind. "My mother invited you to dinner." Sakura saw Sasuke narrow his eyes at her with suspicion, and then she suddenly had the image of that poster in her head, and it wouldn't go away, and oh kami . . .

"Both of you, of course," she added. "Oh, and she said there would be no marriage proposals, whatever that meant. Not like you get marriage proposals at dinners, Sasuke-kun, so I don't know why she would think that."

Sasuke relaxed visibly, and Naruto—the idiot savant—picked up on it. "Wait, what?"

The black-haired boy looked like wasn't going to answer for a time. "Every freaking time. Sometimes from multiple members of the inviting family at once. 'You may pick whoever you choose, Uchiha-sama. You wouldn't be averse if some of you were Uchiha-sama's concubines, would you?' And then a bunch of eleven-year-olds all start nodding and saying that, of course, they don't mind because I'm rich and oh-so-dreamy. It's disgusting."

Naruto blinked at him. "You aren't gay, are you?"

Much to Sakura's relief, Sasuke bristled. "No. I just hate all these hypocrites who pretend to care but only see me as a sack of ryu or an Uchiha breeding horse. And I'm not into eleven-year-olds. Or ten-year-olds. Or, one time, a six-year-old: 'she'll grow on you', my ass."

"May I interest you in the wonderful world of erotic literature then, Sasuke-kun?" said Kakashi. He was standing five inches behind them.

Sakura jumped a foot in the air. The man moved without sound or smell when he wanted, and surprise appearances were old. "Icha-Icha isn't erotic literature, sensei. It's shameless non-stop smut."

The words exited her mouth before she could think them over. Silence was like a thousand window panes breaking as Naruto and Sasuke slowly turned to her with unbelieving eyes. Kakashi's irritating eye-smile was wider than ever.

"So I heard?" she tried.

Sasuke turned away. "Pervert," he said.

"Anyway," Naruto said loudly. "We should all go to Sakura's place to celebrate our first successful mission."

Sasuke's eyes were inscrutable. "Is it far?"

"A five-minute walk," she said.

He sighed. "I don't think I can make it to the compound after this. And it would be nice to eat something hot without people throwing pre-teens at me. All right. But no fangirling."

She mentally made a note to not let Sasuke-kun anywhere near her room as she doubted that her collection of photos and posters and Uchiha-themed blankets would go well.

Kakashi shooed them away. "You go ahead, kids. You did well today."

"Well?" asked Naruto. "Are you kidding me? It took us seven hours."

"Cats sleep for sixteen hours a day," added Sakura. "Tora probably just got too tired to run from us."

Their teacher stared off into the distance. "You kids. The daimyo's wife always has a cat, and her name is always Tora. She looked exactly like today on the day I graduated from the Academy. We chased her with the future Fourth Hokage, I tagged her with a special bait, and we herded her into the Forest of Death. The damn thing gathered anything with teeth. Scratched at giant snakes, ran in front of slobbering house-sized wolves. Then, right when we were passing through a tangle of poison ivy, she ran past, and this stampede of chakra mutations barreled into us. It was the only time I saw Minato-sensei really scared." He focused on them. "Tora never tires. Tora never stops. You catch Tora because she grows bored and allows you. Never give Tora an interesting fight."

He vanished in a whirlwind of leaves.

"Oka-a-ay," said Naruto. "Glad we talked, you know. How about pretending none of this ever happened?"

Sasuke looked contemplative. "Hn. I see now. Yes, she was tiring out almost too perfectly—exactly like we would expect, and none of us even have a cat—"

"La-la-la, not listening to you." Naruto started walking in the direction of Sakura's house without asking. "And we will ignore that my ability outlines that damn cat with the same light as the Hokage. It's probably just messing with me."

Sakura should have been surprised he knew where she lived, but she wasn't. Even if Naruto was an idiot with a ridiculous crush on her, he still was a ninja, and stalking targets was kind of what they did. She would hit him with something heavy when she had enough strength to lift her arms.

The fifth time she stumbled, Sasuke muttered something nasty under his breath. The sixth time, he called out, "Oi, dweeb! We don't all have your freakish stamina. Slow down."

Naruto had gotten forty feet ahead of them, and he seemed to enjoy himself even as half the village was glaring at him. Sakura always wondered about that: sure he was annoying, but he couldn't have pissed off everybody, could he? Besides, Naruto was a ninja now, and civilians respected the ninja, no matter how weird the shinobi were. Not so with Naruto, apparently. The blond boy stopped in hesitation.

Sasuke sighed. "Get over here, dweeb. Sakura is about to fall on her face, and I don't have the energy to drag her ass home."

Sakura sputtered and felt all the blood in her body rush to her face. Sasuke-kun asking Naruto to help her get home was like a mix of her every fantasy and nightmare. She stood still, her entire life flashing before her eyes, and before she knew it, she was walking again.

"Sorry about this, Sakura-chan. But you really look like you might fall—"

"Naruto, you idiot!" she hit him on the back of his head. "Let go of me."

"Ow. No, can't do, Sakura-chan. Half your weight is on me."

"What did you say about my weight?"

She knew she was floundering in embarrassment, but she needed to somehow distract herself from the situation. She could see the passers-by looking at her with compassion, but the hate they stared with at Naruto tripled. She heard someone whisper "demon-boy" and a response of "sh-h-h, shut up". Sakura blinked and quieted down. It was like the entire civilian population was looking for any excuse to be mad at Naruto. She glanced to the side and saw that he was blushing. He might have been asking her for a date since forever, but he was as embarrassed about this as she was.

"For Kami's sake, you two," said Sasuke. "You are teammates. Any of us may need to carry another to the hospital after a mission."

Dinner was a quiet affair. Her mother had looked strangely at Naruto but let him into their home without complaint. Sasuke had gotten barely a glance, and Sakura was confident it had been on purpose. They were eating udon noodles with fried chicken and vegetables, and Naruto was exulting on the virtues of ramen. Her father Kizashi listened to him with a polite smile.

"My, Uzumaki-kun, you are a connoisseur. You'd think you were an apprentice at Ichiraku's and not a ninja."

The boy puffed his chest out proudly. "They are the best, and Ayame-neesan once lets me cook sometimes." He scrounged his nose. "It was pretty terrible in the beginning, but I can do decent beef ramen now. She is teaching me variations."

"And what about you, Sasuke-kun," asked Mebuki. "Do you cook?"

He fidgeted in his seat, and Sakura was surprised to see that Sasuke didn't look like he was looking for the first opportunity to bolt. "I have a healthy diet."

"Well, sometimes healthy isn't enough, and you want something that also tastes great. I could teach you whip up something if you want."

"I'm not interesting in cooking," Sasuke said. He blinked and added. "But thank you for the offer, Haruno-san."

Naruto was pouting. "Why doesn't anyone call me by name? Uzumaki-kun—it just sounds weird."

Kizashi laughed at that, but it was a warm sound. "Uzumaki-kun, people don't use first names at their first meeting. It's not polite."

His face lit up like a lightbulb, but then he folded on himself. "Oh. Nobody told me."

Sakura knew that Naruto had grown up at the orphanage, so she steered the conversation to their insufferable teacher and the cat from hell they had been chasing.

Her mother shook his head. "Back before I decided to quit being a ninja, we would get that mission. She made us chase her around Konoha, we would get closer, she would get away, and we would get angrier. Eventually we vaulted over the wall and got her only to land in a hot spring Tsunade-sama was bathing in. Two of my teammates were boys."

Sakura blanched.

"Who is Tsunade-sama?" Naruto whispered to Sasuke loud enough for everyone to hear.

She stared at him incredulously. "Are you serious? Tsunade is the greatest medic of all time and probably the strongest female ninja of all time. She is legendary for many things including her intolerance for perverts."

Mebuki smiled. "Well, she healed them later, but Tora escaped in the commotion. Some ninja say that it's actually one cat that has been running around since before the Shodai Hokage. Ridiculous, of course."

The silence was filled only by Naruto's slurping for a couple minutes, and Sakura's eyes were naturally drawn to him. He handled the chopsticks expertly, but he ate with the poise of a slobbering dog. She began to clench and unclench her left fist under the table .

Surprisingly, it was Sasuke who broke the silence. "Dweeb, slow down, nobody is going to take away your food."

"Muz if I eep eep faffe—"

Sakura leaned forward. "Naruto swallow first. Talk later."

He looked at her, saw something sufficiently terrifying in her expression and gulped all the food down.

"Better," she said and got back to her own food.

"But if I eat faster, then I have more time for the other stuff. And I chew well."

Naruto grinded his food like an ore crusher. It was as unsettling as it was impressive. Sakura palmed her face and groaned.

Mebuki chuckled. "Uzumaki-kun, Sakura tells me that you want to become Hokage—"

Sakura distinctly remembered using words like 'delusions' and 'no way in hell', even if her mother had somehow missed her sarcastic tone.

"—and politicians use food when negotiating all the time. It makes people easier to deal with."

He propped his chin up on his right fist and nodded vigorously. "I see. So that's what all these old men do at Ichiraku's all evening. I go through eight bowls while they can't finish one. I guess they had a reason to be upset when I asked if they needed their ramen . . . anyway, Sasuke, you up for some training later this evening. You looked kind of green and sweaty today."

"Shut up, dweeb. Let's see how you sing after a hundred reps of Katon practice, hyperventilating and out of chakra."

"Whatever, bastard."

Naruto was grinning, Sasuke was grumbling, and Sakura thought for a moment how nice it would be to have a couple brothers like that. Then she remembered how Sasuke made her feel, and that train of thought shattered into a thousand pieces that she applied plenty of brain bleach to. Never again.

"Sakura-chan, you want to train too?" asked Naruto, and Sakura was reminded of a golden retriever puppy begging for food.

She lifted an arm experimentally. It felt like she was trying to make a sausage move with the power of her thoughts. But Sasuke would be there.

"What kind of training?" she asked.

"Hn," said Sasuke. "Mainly Katon until we drop. Some taijutsu too. You won't be able to handle it with how much you su—" He glanced to her parents. "What I mean to say is that you need more conditioning. It's like Kakashi said: you are all control, and you need power."

Sakura smiled. This was the first time that Sasuke decided to hold back something hurtful he was about to say to her. The glimmer of declarations of love became more visible on the horizon.

"It's alright. I'll just do some crunches or something." She pushed her plate away and moved to stand, but Sasuke's stare froze her.

"Sakura." His voice was would remind arctic glacier of warm sandy beaches. "What are you doing?"

"Going to train?" she tried.

Sasuke groaned, and his head twitched as if to hit the table. "Women." He looked at Mebuki and corrected himself. "No offense, mam. Sakura you spent about four hours running and jogging today. With all the jumping and dashing and morning training, you must have burned through about two thousand calories today. A bowl of soup, a plate of salad, and a bowl of rice with chicken topping is less than a thousand calories." She could see the color rising in his cheeks, and he spoke louder now. "I bet you wake up hungry at night. I bet you can't put on any muscle."

She opened her mouth to speak.

"And if you tell me you are doing it for me, Kami help me, I'll go straight to Kakashi and we will hand you over to Akamichi for training." He was standing now and his speaking had turned into polite yelling at some point. "Do you know what I hate most about my little ninja fanclub, Sakura? It's that these pathetic birdbrains are going to get themselves killed, because they think that a kunoichi needs to be pretty and dainty and full of sunshine and rainbows. My mother was in ANBU, for kami's sake! She used to come read me bed stories, and I would tell her she missed a spot when washing off the blood." He stepped away from the table. "The dinner was lovely, Missis Haruno, Mister Haruno, but I need to be going. Naruto, I'll wait for you outside."

He strode out, and she could see the tension in his shoulders as Sasuke held himself back from slamming the door.

"Wow," said Naruto. "Hey, Sasuke, wait up." Before the village blond menace was out the door, he stopped and turned. "Thank a bunch, the dinner was delicious. Almost as good as ramen. You have great folks, Sakura." He gave her a thumbs-up and an ear-splitting grin. "But you should probably eat more. Bye."

After they left, Sakura managed to eat a bit more rice with teriyaki chicken and went up to her room to let the food settle. Her parents told her that she didn't need to do the dishes after her first encounter with Tora the Demon Cat. She lay in her bed and wondered what it said about her and Sasuke the only time he was passionate about her, he got angry. Her parents got angry at each other sometimes, and they were happy, so she knew it wasn't such a bad sign. Still, now that he had pointed it out to her, the nerd in her couldn't help but calculate her daily calorie intake and spending and compare the two. So far it looked that like her body was some sort of a perpetual engine that ran of her love for Sasuke-kun.

Or, more realistically, her midnight raids of the family ridge followed by dragging cans of ice-cream to her up to her room to be followed by wrecking guilt. She decided she would it a bit more. She didn't think Sasuke made idle threats or had a sense of humor for that matter, and Akamichi women scared her. Ino would crucify her if Sakura spent a day training under Chouji's family. She had been happy when she discovered she needed a bra—even if it was basically two flat petals of cloth—but the Akamichi looked like they needed a steel wireframe with triple redundancies to keep all that body from falling to the ground when they didn't tense their muscles.

The sun was setting when she finally felt up to having some more training, and the gold bathed the white walls and red roofs in Konoha, making it look like a town out of the sort of fairytale that had princesses and samurai than the home base of hired thieves and killers. There was more to do for a ninja than assassinations though, and Tsunade-hime was living, gambling, drinking proof of that.

She jogged to the outdoor gym behind the Academy grinding her teeth all the way there. Her body hurt and demanded to be left alone, but she knew that she wouldn't be able to move tomorrow if she didn't get the blood flowing now. The last couple days have been training, teamwork, mock missions, and now a real mission. Kakashi practiced a hands-off approach, but it remained so only while nobody slacked off. If she stopped before the set time, he would turn up right behind her left shoulder and chase her around, asking her to recite Icha-Icha to her teammates. He was horrible, but it had made her rather intimate with exhaustion and physical pain.

When she got to the gym, she did fifteen push-ups to warm up in the cooling evening air and began her stretches. Sakura started with her toes, then her calves, hips, and waist. At this point, blood had made the lactic acid in her muscles going, and training was getting easier.

"Do you mind if I join you?"

She found herself in a low stance with a kunai in her hand before she knew it. The boy—or and effeminate girl—raised hands clad in fingerless clothes. "It didn't meat to startle you," he said. "I'm Sai."

There was something seriously wrong about Sai. His skin had a kind of greenish pallor to it that spoke of a strained relationship with the sun and outdoors in general. Sakura stayed in shadow whenever she could to keep her skin alabaster and smooth, but his complexion was beyond that. It was like he had made a personal enemy of outdoors. The face was an unblinking pale mask dominated by enormous black eyes and wrapped in black hair. He sported a Konoha headband on his forehead.

"Are you a guy?" She decided to confirm.

"Do you mean whether I have male genitalia?" He cocked his head to the side in a machine-like motion.

Sakura kept her jaw from dropping to the floor through the virtue of good upbringing. Then she understood the implications. "Erm . . . do you identify differently?" Sakura was very proud of her open-mindedness. She wondered if this was her moment of showing how accepting she could be.

Sai smiled, and it looked as if he had learned the expression from a textbook. "I have male genitalia," he said. "But I haven't hit puberty yet. What about you?" The disturbing smile grew wider.

Sakura realized now why identifying his gender had been such a problem. The boy wore a black top with his midriff left bare, and his voice hadn't broken yet. Seeing something like this on someone her age made her feel like she wanted to hit something, but he looked perfectly comfortable about his clothes, and she didn't see more bruises than most ninjas had.

"Female, after puberty." She sped through that part of the conversation before her head exploded. "Can you hold my feet down as I do crunches."

"Of course."

After they started training, Sai dropped the smile, and she discovered that he was perfectly reasonable when discussing ninja techniques and missions. She should have known better than to move onto more personal territory again.

"Do you come here often?" she asked. "I don't remember seeing you at the Academy."

"I was invisible," he said, his delivery completely deadpan. "And I train in a variety of environments. It is important for a ninja to be versatile."

"What kind of food do you eat?"

He did look rather thin but had nice corded muscles under that sickly skin. She wondered if maybe his diet contributed to his looks in addition to the lack of sunlight.

"Worms mostly. They are an excellent source of protein and are very cheap."

Sakura gulped. "Right. Could you spot while I do chin-ups?"

End of Chapter Notes

Thank you for reading. If you like the story, there are buttons you can press to give a boost to my creativity. Reviews are the best things ever, so leave those too if you have a minute.

More notes and a couple review responses below.

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The idea of Sasuke being the most eligible bachelor in Konoha has been churning in my head for a while. Think about it: the Uchiha was arguably the most powerful clan in the village. They all died, and Itachi couldn't take much with him. This means that Sasuke owns a ton of money, real estate, jutsu scrolls, and everything you can imagine. Konoha is largely a civilian village, so naturally there should be Sasuke-branded products. Does he get a cut, I wonder?

I think that Sakura is underappreciated in the fandom. The girl has arguably the best character development in the entire manga. Think about the love-struck teenager at the start and the strong kunoichi at the end–there is barely anything similar between them. Naruto and Sasuke don't need to change their behavior much during the story. Yes, they learn new stuff in canon and they grow, but they both grow within their basic character bounds (Naruto's endless optimism, Sasuke's cold rationality and obsessive nature). Sakura has to suck it up and become a real ninja or else die.

Anyway, she well be getting more love as we go on. I hope I didn't go overboard in this chapter, but Sakura is the smartest ninja of her generation who tricks herself into ignoring her obsession with Sasuke—that has to involve some hilarious mental acrobatics.

The updates should come more frequently now that I've recovered from the personal stuff and finished the first draft of my original novel (second draft technically, but who cares). I'll keep you updated as to how my conquering the universe through the power of literature goes.

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I've read all the reviews to the last chapter and I love that people seem to like reading it as much as I love writing it. Here are some responses that may be interesting not only to the reviewers.

hsm1999:

We'll see how it goes, but for now I don't see romance becoming a cornerstone of this fic. Sure, it's a part of life, and there is bound to be angst and relationships and stuff, especially when dealing with teenagers (as evidenced by this chapter). But if you worry about me creating some unholy duo or harem or whatever and having them kick Akatsuki's ass through the sheer power of Love Conquers All, then you have nothing to fear. I have romance in my stories, but I love it for the character development and humor it creates, not for the cliché stuff. I'm not a fan of moping either.

thor94:

Naruto does not know the full story of his family. He knows his parents were ninjas who died during the Kyuubi attack and that the Fourth sealed Kurama into him before dying himself. He thinks he got his surname in memory of the lost village of Uzushiogakure by his parents. Jiraya never revealed the full truth to him either.

Stay shiny and until next time.