Chapter 4:
The New Sakura
Sasuke and the others woke up and immediately started running quitely and quickly, like real ninja, to the west wing, where the girls were and from where the scream was heard.
While running, Neji activated his Byakugan and saw Sakura being held as captive with a hand around her neck from a person with a black costume and mask. There were two other men with him, who were pointing at the other girls with their weapons, two long katanas . Ino was the one who had screamed. Neji reported this to the other boys and didn't miss their clenched fists. By the time they reached the door, Sasuke had already activated his Sharingan and was ready to burst through it. Eventually, they managed to calm themselves down, realizing that they wouldn't help the girls like that.
Speaking of who.
Ino, Hinata and Tenten were staring, scared, at Sakura and the invaders. They started thinking and calmed themselves down, but didn't show it - they didn't want to look suspicious.
Sakura, however, had already devised a plan.
She, like the other girls, was fully aware that the boys had already arrived. There was a paper panel that was see-through on the outside, so they were watching and waiting for an opportunity to attack.
After a moment of silence, the one who was holding Sakura started talking.
"Which one of you lives here? Hand me everything precious you have or this girl," he locked his arm around Sakura tighter, "will die."
No one answered.
"Fine then, I guess you don't ca-"
"No, wait! I live here!" Sakura shouted, suprising everyone. However, the girls didn't show it and the guys were waiting to see what she was going to do.
She started blinking rapidly, as if trying to hold back tears.
"Please, I'll show you were the jewelry and money is, just leave my friends alone! We are only civilians, my parents just have a good business, please, let us go!"
"Business, you say? So, they may want to pay a small ransom for their daughter?" the one holding the pinkette smirked and walked closer to his subordinates, "Maybe we should take her with us instead, eh? Then, they would pay much more than what they have here."
The three men laughed and the two swordsmen turned around.
That was a mistake.
Sakura quickly proceeded with her plan, pumping chakra in her foot and kicking the man who held her hard from behind.
Tsunade had told her how to do that just a few days ago, but Sakura was a fast learner and had good chakra control, so she quickly got the hang of it. Her punches and kicks weren't as hard as her teacher's but she, like her, had great strenght to begin with.
That's why the man held his leg and for that was quickly knocked out with a punch.
The boys were just about to come out from their hiding place, but Shikamaru stopped them. Before, when Sakura was pretending to hold back tears, she was actually doing a morse code* by blinking. The message was: I have a plan. If the plan involved them, she would have told them.
So, he decided to leave her to it. The other boys followed his lead and watched.
Not that there was much left to watch.
When Sakura had punched the one who had held her captive, the other two men had turned around and then to the others girls to threaten, but they had disappeared. They were actually hiding behind another paper panel on the other side of the room since the men had first started talking about taking Sakura with them, leaving some Bunshin behind. They were waiting for an opening.
But it never came.
The two intruders were left stupified for a moment, which gave Sakura enough time to press two pressure points on both of their necks, resulting in them falling unconscious like their partner. Although she had just started training with people, Sakura had done a lot of reading for the past days and knew how to knock out her enemies effectively and for a long enough period of time.
After the men fell, everyone came out of their hiding places and looked at Sakura with new eyes. She really was no longer a Sasuke fangirl and all brains but no skill, no - now, she was a kunoichi, able to take care of herself and others, too.
She blushed under their gazes.
They all congratulated her, called the police (after the Uchiha massacre the Hokage had employed some shun in and jounin to work there) and tied the three men to a pillar. It turned out that they didn't have to - the police came before the intruders woke up. The authorities suggested that the young shinobi all slept in the east wing and locked all the doors that surrounded the room, in which the window had been broken. They were all tired and didn't protest, they just answered the officers' questions, wished them a 'Good Night' and the girls moved their stuff to the east wing. Then they all waited for Sasuke to lock the doors before collapsing back to sleep.
The next morning Sasuke was the first to wake up.
It was quite suprising, considering that he spent the first half of the night dreaming and thinking about the new Sakura, and the other half...
...doing the same thing.
Not that he was the only one, of course. The others had too thought about Sakura's change and were glad about it. One-less Sasuke fangirl was always a good reason to celebrate and even Ino didn't seem interested in the Uchiha anymore (something for which Kiba was very glad. He just hoped that he hadn't made too much of a fool himself last night.).
Sasuke got up and decided to be a good host and prepare breakfast. As he was walking to the door, he saw Sakura stirr. She sat up in her sleeping bag and rubbed her eyes. She stood up.
"Oh, good morning, Sasuke," she said sleepily and yawned.
"Hn."
"I see you're awake. Let's get dressed and make breakfast, eh?" they picked up their clothes; they had slept in pajamas.
Without another word Sasuke went to a bathroom down the hall and gestured for Sakura to go to another one. They came out about ten minutes later, showered and fully dressed, and headed towards the kitchen.
"What shall we prepare?" the girl asked.
"Hn. I don't know," the boy replied.
They eventually started making omelettes. Sasuke put some tomatoes with his. After they were done they started cleaning the counter, which was covered with eggshells. Sasuke then looked at Sakura and saw that she had some in her hair. He raised an eyebrow at her. The pinkette noticed that and touched her hair, only to find small pieces of eggshell. She caught Sasuke smirking and got pissed off (and a little bit embarrassed), so she picked up some left-over tomato slices and dumped them in his hair. Sakura smiled sweetly upon seeing the scowl on his face.
"Oh, Sasuke-kun, I know how much you love tomatoes and decided that you might want some as an accessorie," she mocked him in her fangirl voice, once reserved specially for him. That was the moment when the others decided to come in and, seeing the Uchiha with tomatoes in his hair and the ex-fangirl laughing at him was enough to wake them up fully and they started laughing along.
Sasuke's scowl only deepened and he threw some eggs at her. Sakura side-stepped and the eggs ended up on the front of Naruto's T-shirt (his jacket was open). He frowned and threw some at him in return, but the prodigy dodged and Ino got some in her hair.
And so the biggest food fight that Konoha had ever hosted began.
They hid, turned a couple of bowls (luckily, they were plastic), Sasuke even considered activating his Sharingan for a moment, but he was actually having fun and didn't want it to end. They ended up back to back, separated by the counter. They divided in two teams, all except Shino (who said that his bugs didn't like it; the others weren't sure what to make of his open answer yet) and Shikamaru (who said it was too troublesome, but who knew for a fact that the most enjoyabale position in those kinds of events was as a spectator). The teams were Sasuke, Ino, Neji, Lee and Hinata and Sakura, Naruto, Kiba, Choji and Tenten. They were all breathing heavily, they had been going on like that for about ten minutes. The whole kitchen was a mess, their clothes were dirty, but luckily the omelettes were in the dinning room, already served with napkins, forks and everything.
All of the 'fighters' had a handful of eggs and tomatoes. They decided on one final attack and jumped at the same time. They both threw the last of their 'amo' at each other and fell, again separated by the counter. Sakura started laughing and even Sasuke's lips turned up. However, when he stood, his face was in his usual stone facade.
"Annoying," he huffed at her. That only made her laugh even harder and everyone joined (except Shino and Sasuke, but they both smiled). The Aburame and Shikamaru even agreed to do some of the cleaning. The first ones that came out of the shower and the ones that had to wait (they may have been in a mansion, but there weren't one thousand bathrooms) helped and by the end they had all cleaned themselves and the mess was taken care of. Then they sat in the dining room and had a nice breakfast, although the omelettes were cool. They talked for a bit and decided to report that they all thought the mission to be a success. On the way to the Hokage Mansion the citizens of Konoha stared at them. Some of them were the Hokage's assistances' children - with admiration, the grown-ups - assessingly, the other girls and boys - some with envy, some nonchalantly and some were already on the way to becoming fangirls/fanboys. Kiba and Naruto just waved and smiled. The later nudged the other and told him that his fangirls were more in comparison. Shino caught that and remarked that Sasuke's fangirls remained the biggest number. Naruto huffed and started a glaring contest with the Uchiha. It went on for a while, but the blond boy grinned and the black-haired turned his head around, so that no one could see the slightly upturned corners of his mouth. He had an image, after all.
Naruto then started teasing Kiba and Ino, calling them 'love birds' and asking when they will make their relationship official. Ino hit him and told him that maybe, just maybe if he wasn't such an idiot he would've been able to get a girlfriend. Almost everyone laughed at that statement (Neji, Shino and Sasuke just smirked, while Hinata blushed), even Naruto stopped fake-frowning and grinned again, putting his hands behind his neck like usual.
They arrived at the Hokage office and Shizune greeted them. Tsunade lifted her head from the paperwork on her desk
"Hello, everyone. So, how did it go?"
"We are here to report that the mission was a success," Shikamaru stated. They had all agreed earlier that Shikamaru should be the leader of the team (even Naruto didn't complain), being a chunin andthe most intelligent. He was the most qualified one.
"That's good," Tsunade replied, setting the papers down, "We heard of the accident. What happened?"
"Well, the police already questioned us..." the lazy shinobi replied.
"Yes, but I want to hear it from you, I haven't had enough time to read the report," the Hokage demanded.
"Basically, Sakura beat up their asses!"
"Naruto, I'm having a headache and your screaming doesn't help. Now, tell me the whole story - who is them and what did they do?"
The genin and chunin explained how they woke up from the sound of glass shattering, how Sakura was taken hostage, how she lied that she owned the house, the following short battle and ended with the police arriving.
"Well done, Sakura," Tsunade smiled proudly at her appreantice, who smiled back, "Well, in this case, do you think you can handle missions together from now on?"
"Yes, we can," Shikamaru replied.
"In this case, I have something for-" the Hokage was interrupted by a chunin bursting through the door.
"Tsunade-sama, the bandits who attacked the Uchiha mansion last night have escaped!"
* Morse code is a method of transmitting text information as a series of on-off tones, lights or clicks that can be directly understood by a skilled listener or observer without special equipment (Wikipedia). In this chapter Sakura is doing it by blinking, meaning that we have longer and shorter blinks for different characters. If she is doing it fast there may be some mistakes in deciphering it, but Shikamaru is a good observer as mentioned in the previous chapter.
Omake: Kiba and Ino's talk
Kiba and Ino sat in one of the corners of the room in the Uchiha Mansion. The boy originally wanted to play poker with the others - he could easily recognize when the lie, since people become nervous and it affects their smell. However, the Yamanaka had interested him and he wanted to learn more about her.
Even if it was through her pet.
He never knew that goldfishes could prove to be so interesting - for example, they only hear what they want to. If you talk to them and you say food they'll listen, but if it's about something else, they won't.
Ino talked about her pet with a glint in the eye - she was an animal lover, alright. And Akamaru seemed to like her - he had been sitting in her lap peacefully ever since the Truth or Dare game. If it where someone else, besides Hinata and Shino, the dog would've tried to escape.
They talked and Kiba found other interesting things about her. He didn't know what possessed him to say that he thought that goldfishes were awesome. He hoped that it was a good thing, if the fact that Ino had a glint in the eye when she spoke to him for the rest of the night could be counted as one.
A/N: Okay, this chapter had to be posted two days ago, but I couldn't, so the next update will be on Sunday. Also, this is my first attempt at an Omake - what do you think?
I suppose there isn't anyone that hasn't got a clue what the pairings are, but I'll state them: SasuSaku, NaruHina, NejiTen, KibaIno and the rest will be revealed later. I didn't write them in the summary because:
1. Some people read stories because of pairings, not because of the plot. This isn't right and by not giving them away in the summary I could lose a few of those "readers". Pairings are important in a story, but it isn't fair for you to read it only because of them or not read it because of them if you are interested in the plot.
2. I have been giving hints since the first chapter. The only reason I am writting them here is because I want to be clear about them.
I hope that the whole SasuSaku emphasize that comes with the Team Seven one doesn't bother you much - it will be over in a few chapters. I'm making it so now, because it's part of their character development.
Anyway, another cliffhanger. What do you think? Who were the masked men? Until next time ;).
