The next morning found an incredibly sore Sakura and a bouncy Naruto trudging through the streets to the Uchiha complex.
"Ya know," she drawled, "when I said we should try to be his friend, I didn't mean that you should wake me up at an ungodly hour so that we could go as him if he wants to 'come out and play'."
Naruto continued bouncing around, "Then you should have gone to bed earlier, and we aren't asking him to play we're asking him to train with us. If we asked him to play he'd probably shut the door in our faces."
"He's probably going to shut the door in our faces anyway," she whined, "And I didn't even get to put my hair up before you dragged me out of the house." Sakura had luckily been dressed and already had her face washed this morning when Naruto had dragged her out of the house before her second cup of tea. "I haven't even had my second cup of tea yet. I'm not even awake yet."
He stopped walking abruptly and she walked into him. "Sakura, if you can whine, then you're awake. Isn't that what you always told me?"
She glared at him for using her own words against her. Suddenly she heard a slight noise in the trees. She flicked her eyes toward the noise to see an anbu member hidden in the trees on the other side of the Uchiha compound wall. "Good morning, Anbu-san." The anbu made a surprised noise that was muffled by his crow mask and disappeared.
"Yea, you're totally not awake yet you can still detect an anbu stalking us," her best friend pouted.
She linked arms with him and continued to the front gate whispering to him, "Probably not stalking, simply returning home."
His eyes widened in understanding, "You think it was Itachi?"
"Know anyone else with a crow mask?" she questioned.
He shook his head and kept quiet as they walked past the guards. Apparently they didn't deem to children as any type of threat since they didn't even question their presence.
"Some guards. Didn't even look at us."
She hip bumped him, "Oh hush, it worked to our advantage. Come on. I bet it's similar to the Hyuga compound." She nudged him down the middle road to the house the furthest back.
"When were you in the Hyuga compound?"
Sakura blushed, "Well, while you were with Jiraiya, I dated Neji for a while."
"So you have a thing for prodigies, huh?" he wagged his eyebrows, "Should I watch out for you and Itachi?" She increased her grip on his arm, but her blush stayed in place. Naruto let out a giggle, "I'll take that as a yes."
"Oh look at that we're here," she deadpanned and shoved him in front of her, "It was your idea that means that you get to knock." He looked hesitant, and she groaned, "Please don't tell me that you're scared to knock."
That got him to puff his chest, "Of course not," he knocked on the door.
A woman poked her head out, "Can I help you?"
Naruto had frozen, apparently not expecting anyone but Sasuke to answer the door, so Sakura intervened, "We were looking for Sasuke. We're his teammates and we wanted to see if he would like to come train with us."
The woman smiled brightly. "Ah well he isn't up yet. Come inside," she gestured them in, "We were just about to have a late breakfast. Have you two eaten?"
Sakura was about to lie and say they had to avoid an awkward breakfast when her stomach growled. She blushed, "I'm sorry. But he pulled me out of the house before I had time to eat."
"Well, the more the merrier. I'm Sasuke's mother by the way."
"I'm Sakura Haruno, and this is Naruto Uzumaki."
To her credit the woman didn't stiffen at the realization that she had a Jinchuriki in her house, "Mikoto Uchiha. I'll go get Sasuke up."
Mikoto disappeared around the corner and Sakura slapped Naruto upside the head, "I'm blaming you for the awkward breakfast that is most likely about to ensue."
She could see Naruto was about to start whining when Itachi Uchiha walked in with normal clothes and no visible trace that he was the anbu that they'd seen earlier. Surprise flashed across his face, before it was replaced with mild curiousity.
Sakura screamed internally. This was going to be a stressful day. She was sore and tired and she definitely didn't need and anbu ninja poking around today. The only conciliation was the free breakfast.
Naruto had seemed to overcome whatever bought of shyness that he'd had earlier and bounded up to Itachi. "Hi, I'm Naruo. I'm a teammate of Sasuke-teme."
Sakura hit him on the head for what seemed the millionth time that day, "Don't call him that."
Naruto whined about giving him brain damage and she ignored him to address Itachi, "Sorry about him. He brought us here so early that Mikoto invited us to breakfast." She didn't want to say 'your mother invited us' since she wasn't supposed to know who Itachi was and didn't know if it would be reasonable to assume that he was Mikoto's son.
He looked to be thinking, "I'm Itachi, Sasuke's older brother," he said slowly as Mikoto reappeared with Sasuke in tow.
"What are you doing here?" Sasuke pointed at Naruto clearly disgruntled.
"Be nice," Mikoto reprimanded whilst she sat the table and gestured for everyone to sit down. The head of the table left empty since Fugaku was gone. Itachi sat to the head's right, Sasuke to the left, Naruto next to Sasuke, and Mikoto at the end leaving Sakura to sit by Itachi.
"It's okay, oba-san, he's probably grumpy because we made him wake up early," Naruto grinned.
Sasuke scanned his eyes across the table and jerked his head back a bit at the sight of Sakura as if he was most surprised to see her there, "What's wrong with you?" he gestured to her body with his chopstick and Sakura guessed he meant her outfit.
As Itachi reprimanded his brother for being rude and for pointing with his chopsticks Sakura assessed herself. She was less put together than normal. Her normal pristine appearance was a big difference from today's outfit. Her hair was down, something he hadn't seen in a while, and her clothes were different. To be honest she was wearing her comfy clothes which consisted of one of Naruto's black t-shirts that had gotten too small for them and some of Naruto's baggy pants that she'd modified to cinch in at the ankles, far different from her usual black and red getup.
"Blame him," she jerked her thumb at Naruto he couldn't wait another hour before we came to get you. You are going to train with us right?" She tilted her head to the side innocently.
He looked like he was about to decline but a sharp look from his brother and mother kept him quiet and for once Sakura was glad that Itachi was present.
"Of course he wants to go. He doesn't go out with friends very often," Mikoto cooed. Sasuke began to eat faster in an attempt to escape his mother who kept telling embarrassing stories of him.
By the end of the meal Mikoto had Sakura almost in tears as she told funny stories of Sasuke from his childhood. She'd dotingly decline Sakura's offer to help clean up and pushed all the children to the door telling them to go have fun.
Team 7 sat down together to pull their sandals on. They were almost out the door when Itachi pulled his sandals on as well and offered to help with their training. Sasuke immediately refused to make eye contact with his brother and did his brood-pout thing leaving Sakura to accept his offer and continue to training ground 3, where Kakashi had taken them for the bell test.
"What did you plan to work on," Itachi asked, when he finally spoke.
Sakura stopped her bickering with Naruto, "We figured that we'd let Sasuke pick since yesterday we got my specialty."
He smiled, "And what might that be?"
She smirked and looked up at him, "Taijutsu." Sasuke flinched and Naruto snickered at him.
Itachi laughed and Sakura's heart beat a little faster, "You don't look like a taijutsu expert."
"That's because I'm not an expert. I'm just a child."
"You still kicked Sasuke-teme's ass though." Sakura sighed; she should just give up on trying to fix his language around impressionable children.
Sasuke's face went red, "You got your ass kicked too, dobe."
"My fight didn't end in one move."
The looked like they were about to come to blows, so Sakura distracted them, "Anyway, what do you want to work on, Sasuke?"
The dark headed gennin seemed shocked that she had included him and pondered for a moment to find something that he knew he was the best at based on their performances at the academy. "Weapons training, I guess."
Itachi studied his brother, "But you hate weapons training."
Sasuke just shrugged a his brother there was no way he was going to tell him that he'd picked it because he knew that he was the best at it courtesy of his clans intense throwing exercises.
An hour later Sasuke was regretting his choice. Naruto had a good throwing accuracy. Not 100% accurate, but enough that it would never be a problem in the field. Currently Itachi was helping him by giving him some tips.
Sakura is who was annoying him right now. Much like yesterday he had underestimated her. When they had arrived she'd asked Itachi if she could borrow one of his senbons and then expertly twisted her hair into a bun atop her head. She'd then begun throwing exercised on the trees that Itachi had so kindly painted targets on. He'd made it so that as they progressed their exercises that the target area would get smaller and smaller, and so far she had yet to miss any target.
Sasuke was about to explode with pent up anger. Not only had his brother invited himself along to train, but he was watching a civilian girl best him at the training that he'd picked. When a quarter of an hour later Itachi explained that he had to go do some work and left Sasuke had never been more relieved. The last thing he needed was to slip up and miss a target and have his brother report it to his father.
As soon as Itachi left Naruto began whining, "I'm bored."
Sakura looked at him and stopped throwing, "What do you want me to do about it?"
"Let's change training."
"You okay with that?" she questioned Sasuke.
"Depends on what you want to do instead," he answered.
She thought for a while, "I don't know. I'm not Kakashi." She pondered for a little while. "What would Kakashi do? Besides look at porn."
Naruto clapped his hands together bringing the other two's attention to himself, "We should do try being as sneaky as possible and go into one of those magazine stores and buy porn."
"You realize that that's just and urban legend that you can do that right?"
"Shut up teme, it's a good idea!"
"I bet you can't" Sasuke sneered at his bouncing teammate.
Sakura perked up, "Did I hear the word bet?"
Naruto groaned, "Lesson one, Sasuke-teme, Sakura is a compulsive gambler and you should never say anything about bets." Naruto grinned at their female companion.
"I am not a compulsive gambler," she stamped her foot.
Sasuke looked between his two teammates that he now suspected were crazy, "I bet you 20 bucks that you can't do it."
"Deal."
Sakura grabbed each boy by the arm and made her way to one of the civilian districts totally disregarding the fact that she had essentially proved Naruto right.
She pulled out two dollars, "I won't even use chakra," she promised and walked inside. She actually had no idea how she was going to do this. If there was one thing he shishou had instilled in her it was the love of gambling.
Luckily it seemed that the owner had left their kid who was younger that her at the till, which was hidden by the front wall. She went back picked up the magazine that had the biggest breasts and went to the till. She casually dropped it on the counter with her two dollars.
"You can't um buy," he began to blush and stutter.
"Oh, you're blushing," she cooed. The kid went even redder and thrust the magazine at her. She smiled at him as she took the porn mag out of the shop.
She presented the contraband to Sasuke who was standing and gaping at it before he hid it under his shirt. "Don't leave it out in the open," he hissed as he handed her the money.
She smiled and pocketed the cash, "Do you wanna try?"
"Not on your life," he responded as he stalked away from them.
Naruto watched her stare after him, "Please tell me you're not interested in him."
"Ew, no," she wrinkled her nose, "It's just that he took that magazine with him."
Naruto burst out laughing. She wished she could see the look on Itachi's face when he found his little brother with a pron mage.