Disclaimer: Look it up in the dictionary. It's self-explanatory, really.

A/N: Sorry for taking so long on this chapter. I just haven't had the time to write in it at all. Stupid holidays anyway. But the moment no one's really been waiting for is here: Sasuke's new hairstyle!! Thanks to all of you who suggested hairstyles, and I just had to go with the most popular response...it was too good. So, prepare yourself...and enjoy the chapter!!

Chapter 5

Sasuke quivered from the memory of the afternoon. Never had he experienced such anger! How on earth could Neji think he was the master of emo?! The only real emo in Konoha?! Damn! He'd fallen farther than he'd thought—so that meant he needed to change even more drastically! And what he'd done at the hairstylist was certainly that. Sasuke hurried through his training regimen so that he could spend more time admiring the anything-but-emo teen in the mirror.

Fifteen smiles, twenty-five evil laughs, and thirty Itachi-taunts later, Sasuke was done. His training was exhausting! But, his hard work was paying off: his smiles were getting easier and smoother, and his evil laughs were positively blood-curdling. Itachi would be quivering in his pretty painted toenails for sure! Wiping a hand across his forehead, Sasuke smirked at a job well done. Now, he could admire himself properly!

At first, before the Neji—incident—he'd only intended to do a small part, but he changed his mind. All or nothing was the way to go! And there was nothing he wouldn't do to make himself stronger.

"Actually, it matches my sky-blue shirt quite well," he complimented himself, tilting his head in various directions to get a better look. Black was emo, so black was bad. Black, his hair was no longer. No, from root to tip, his silky, perfect Uchiha hair was…..blond. Not Naruto-blond (kami-forbid!), but a softer, almost Ino-blond.

Tentatively he ran his hand through it, creating quite a model shot. It was no wonder he had his own fanclub! And what was even funnier—through his clever intelligence gathering—they called themselves the SasukeSeven! Such modesty! …Or lack of counting ability….

He knew the truth. There were way more than seven members in his fanclub. There had to be! (After all, Itachi's fanclub had at least fifteen members….Sasuke remembered a particularly scary night when they'd been ambushed on the way home from Itachi's training…)

The SasukeSeven was superior to Itachi's ItAddicts, as they'd called themselves, for many, many reasons.

A brand-new taunt came to Sasuke! He assumed his traditional I-am-infinitely-better-than-you pose, and spat:

"Foolish little big brother! You don't have enough fangirls!! Or strength-ness!!" He polished it off with a cackling laugh.

Again, he was amazed at his progress. Discovering he was emo was the best thing that'd ever happened to him.

"Neji! We're here to help you!!" boomed Guy, doing a thumbs-up for no reason in particular.

"You can't help me. No one can help me," Neji grumbled, trying to squeeze himself into the bushes, where he'd be out of everyone's sight.

"Never say never, Neji!" Lee exclaimed.

"I didn't."

"Stop being so negative!!" Guy cried. "It's a terrible thing for you to do to yourself! You shun all possibilities when you say 'no'!"

"Yeah!" Lee beamed, "I have no talent at all, but that never stopped me!! I said 'yes', and look where I am now!!!"

"Yelling at me?" Neji observed dryly. "Why can't you two just leave me alone and go prance through meadows or something?"

"We'd love to…but we can't! Because you wouldn't be with us!! We're a team, Neji, and even though we're bitter rivals who hate each other completely and utterly—" Lee began. Neji cringed. He'd known they were rivals, but he didn't think he was that bad…oh, how his life sucked.

"—we're still teammates! And that means I have to put up with you, even when you're being an utter idiot and emo-wannabe," he finished. Guy wiped a tear from his eye.

"Oh, Lee!! That was so beautiful!!"

"Oh Guy-Sensei!!"

"LEEE!!!!"

"GUY-SENSEI!!!"

The two embraced and fell to their knees with emotion. Neji watched, wondering distantly if he should be the one being hugged. Wasn't he the one having a hard time? He needed a hug….no! He'd abandoned the world! He didn't need anybody!!

"……Lee?" Guy managed through a sob.

"Yes, Guy-Sensei?"

"What about Neji?"

"Oh, right…."

Neji sighed, and crawled further into the bushes. No one cared about him.

"So……did you hear that the Uchiha boy dyed his hair?" commented a man in the corner of the bar. In the opposite corner, another man nearly choked on his tea. Lucky for him, no one could recognize him, because he was sitting in the dark corner, where the shadows were thick and the light-bulb was out in the lamp above the booth. He was sitting in there for several reasons, the least not being that he was drinking tea in a bar at ten at night.

Recovering from the near-death experience, he strained his ears to hear the rest of the conversation. Regrettably, the story-teller had become distracted by a microphone, and was currently belting out a horrible rendition of "Shinobi coming around the mountain."

Disgust finally forced him to leave his tea prematurely when the man began his eighth original verse an octave too high for any man.

But…if his story had even a smidgen of truth to it….

Alighting into the night, the overly mysterious man changed his plans….and headed straight for Konoha.

Orochimaru was very pleased with himself. In just a few hours he'd turned a small fracture into a complete split. The unified SasukeSeven was no more. Now, there was the Ino Faction, and the Tenten Tribe. Happily, Orochimaru joined Ino's side, along with Hinata. She did posses the hammer, after all.

Sakura sided with Tenten, though why anyone would want to belong to a group called the Tenten Tribe was beyond Orochimaru. Must be a young girl thing. He needed to make note of it—apparently he still didn't understand the feminine gender as thoroughly as he though he did. There was still much to learn.

Now the two parts of the SasukeSeven were in a race to see who could 'correct' Sasuke's beauty-destructing ways. But, now that there was a gap….he had more influence than before. And, with a little manipulative luck, he could convince Ino and Hinata that Sasuke's baby-blue shorts were quite acceptable.

Sakura and Tenten were hopeless. They were too pig-headed for their own good. But Ino and Hinata were just waiting to be corrupted!!

"So, girls, what should we do as the first official act as the Ino Faction?" he asked casually.

"Something to tick off the Tribe," Ino huffed. Orochimaru nodded in strict agreement.

"I couldn't agree more…but what?" It was important she felt she had some control.

Ino banged her hammer listlessly. "I don't know!! Sakura's the geek who always got the good scores on her tests!"

"U-u-uh….well…..w-what if we…" Hinata asked the wall, oblivious to the fact she was facing exactly opposite of Ino. But at least she had her headband in its proper place!

"Turn around, Hinata."

"O-oh….s-sorry…." She hesitantly turned around. "B-but what if we g-got Sasuke to change his ways b-before they did?"

Ino slammed her hammer down in excitement. 'That's a wonderful idea Hinata!! It would just break their cold, unfeeling hearts if we saved Sasuke first!!"

Orochimaru tried not to show his disappointment. Couldn't they see Sasuke needed no help? If anything, he needed encouragement! If this continued, he'd finally have his Sharingan boy! Oh, if only Itachi weren't so scary….then he'd have a nice, two-piece brotherly set. Oh well. He could only ask for so much, and Sasuke would be just fine…

Maybe they just needed to see him. Perhaps they'd take a liking to the new Sasuke if they got a better chance to observe him. Orochimaru knew he would.

"Oh, girls? We can't….help…" the word tasted foul on his lengthy tongue, "…Sasuke if we can't talk to him. Why don't we go see him?"

"Of course! Sakura and Tenten wouldn't dream of actually going to see him! That's way too drastic for them!!" Ino squealed. "It's perfect! We'll just go up to him and tell him what we really think! And then he'll see the error of his perfect ways, and then he'll go back to normal!!"

"You mean….w-we actually have to t-t-talk to him…?" Hinata sounded absolutely mortified.

"Of course! How else can we tell him what we really think?" chided Ino.

Orochimaru blinked. This was another thing to note. A girl actually going up to another person and saying what she really thought? He could hardly imagine. Suddenly he was much more excited to see Sasuke.

"Well, come on girls! Time's wasting! Every second is another second that the Tenten Tribe could outdo us!"

"O-okay…."

"Yes!" Ino banged the hammer one final time. "On to Sasuke!!"

A/N: DUN DUN DUN. What will the Ino Faction think when they see Sasuke's new hair color? Who is the mysterious man who drinks tea in a bar at ten at night? Why does Neji's life suck so much? Will Orochimaru's devious plan suceed? There just might be answers in the next chapter!!! (But I make no promises--except that characters from the anime Naruto will be in the next chapter XDD!)