Author's note : Nothing like getting your tonsils removed to totally kill any creative thought you had. But I've finally slowly got back into the swing of things. Sorry it took a while to update. Thanks for all the great reviews!! I hope you find this next part as entertaining!

Chapter 2

"These are my man slaves."

There was a brief silence as the words hung in the air. Sasuke's eyes slowly lost their color and reverted to white circles as he understood what was going on. Kakashi merely stood still, the briefest of smiles beneath his mask as he watched his two young student's reactions. Naruto's face was puzzled as he digested the words but slowly, the gears in his brain began to click into place and his eyes opened wide.

"AH!!" he cried out. "We're your WHAT?!?!?!"

"They don't seem well trained," the woman in the tree said.

Sakura eyed the other woman, trying to decide what the say. Sure, reading about a culture gave you some perspective on it. But it didn't mean that you knew how to act as one of them. It wasn't like visiting a foreign nation where if you made a mistake it was expect of a foreigner. She wasn't allowed to make mistakes because that risked blowing her cover. And if she knew anything about the Onnaribisu, there were probably at least 4 more patrol groups hiding somewhere in the foliage.

"You don't seem so well trained yourself," she said angrily, completely ignoring Naruto's outburst. "Let alone questioning my ability to train them, you haven't even introduced yourself."

Please, please, Kakashi-sensei, keep Naruto quiet, Inner Sakura pleaded. And as if he heard her, Kakashi put a hand on Naruto's arm to steady him.

The other woman stepped forward and Sakura finally had a good look at her. The woman was almost twice her size and glared down at Sakura with contempt in her night black eyes. Her tanned skin was crisscrossed with scars and her purple hair had at least twenty braids handing down.

Twenty was at least a captain, Sakura calculated mentally. Battle scars definitely meant she was well respected in the tribe. And possibly well known in the culture. But Sakura's information was from her academy days, at least 2 years old. She didn't know who it could be.

"Do I need to introduce myself?" the woman demanded.

Inner Sakura cursed and started to think rapidly. The woman was obviously well known then, but she needed to figure out a way around her lack of information. Outer Sakura struggled to maintain calm, knowing that any break in her appearance would break the illusion. She needed to react fast, her answer needed to come faster.

"I think politeness would require it," Sakura replied, stalling for more time.

The woman glared at her, obviously suspicious. "My name would have reached the Maple tribe."

There it was, Sakura realized. The woman had gone from suspicious to accusing her right out of lying. She needed to think of something soon.

"Your legend has," Sakura said, her face never dropping from its original position. "But the legend said you were at least 10 feet tall and carried a battle axe that reached the sun."

There was a pause and then laughter broke through tension. One of the other women stepped forward and got a grip on her shoulder.

"She's right, Moriko. You know how rumors are."

Inner Sakura let out a breath of relief. Moriko. She had a name. She'd have to gather information but at least the two with Moriko appeared to have accepted the ruse.

"Still seems strange," Moriko said, pushing a stray purple braid behind her ear. "You can't be more then 14 and you have three servants. I know you're not from one of the noble families."

Inner Sakura clapped her hands and rubbed them together. This she was ready for. "They were my older sister's," she said quickly. "At her death, they were transferred to me."

"And why bring them all here?" Moriko demanded.

Inner Sakura cringed a bit and prayed that Kakashi had things under control. "Trading them in for at least one good one."

"She's right, you know," the third woman said.

"I don't know, Saki, the black haired one is kind is kind of cute."

"Meh, too scrawny Noriko. And the older one is busted up," Saki said pointing at Kakashi. "Only one good eye."

"Yeah, but at least he doesn't look five like the blonde."

Moriko sighed, realizing she wasn't going to get to question the newcomer anymore. "I don't think they're worth much but you're welcome to ask Amaya-sama if you want. Let's go."

Sakura nodded and quickly motioned for the others to follow her, trying to ignore the feeling of several eyes burning through her back.

They were ushered into guest quarters at a local inn as soon as they made it to the city. Sakura took some of it in, making sure that the maps she had from two years ago were still accurate in her mind. From the little she had seen, it seemed like not much had changed.

The room was relatively small but Sakura had only requisitioned a small amount of money from the town for this mission. There was one large bed and she had to fight the urge to just collapse on it right away. The floors were rough on her feet and on closer inspection she realized it was mostly dirt, just like the walls.

"We'll go deliver your message to Amaya-sama," Moriko said, shutting the door.

The group waited until the last few footsteps echoed out of hearing before they began to speak. Or in Naruto's case, yell. Loudly.

"I'M NOT FIVE!"

Sakura quickly hushed him. "Be quiet!! You're not supposed to yell!"

"Why not?" he demanded.

"Because…" she paused and tried to think of a way to put it as not to remind him that he was supposed to be a slave.

"Because otherwise, Sakura will not be able to explain," Kakashi broke in taking a seat on the floor.

"Ah, yeah, explain," Sakura said nervously. "I know that you might not understand why I didn't want to give you the whole story before we set out…"

"You knew we'd say no?" Naruto asked. Sakura nodded slightly.

Sasuke turned to Kakashi. "If we're after a nobleman's son and he's here, why not just go in and take him back without doing all this. We'd have no problems using our skills to get past them."

Kakashi looked at him with an uninterested eye before looking to Sakura. "Sakura can tell you why and explain exactly who these people are."

Sakura nodded to Kakashi in thanks. "The Onnaribisu is a society that exists within the Fire country but is essential free from their control. The society is matriarchal, meaning," she continued see the puzzled look on Naruto's face, "that it's run by women.

When the confusion didn't subside, she continued. "The original tribe that they are descended from wanted to set up a free society for everyone but… well, the men were more interested in getting drunk and sleeping all day. So the women got sick of it and sort of tossed them out, setting up rule for themselves. They still needed men but rather then let them become like their predecessors, they instituted a servant class for them. And it worked out pretty well for a while. The society flourished but something prevented them from really growing. The land."

"The land?" Naruto asked.

Sakura nodded and knelt down on the floor. Using her finger, she drew a rough sketch of the Onnaribisu territory. "You see, to the west is a range of mountains that prevents rain from making it here on a regular basis."

"But the area is dense with plant life," Sasuke pointed out.

"Right," she said. "The only source of water is the river that was on the other side of the mountain."

"But there is a river," Naruto said. "We crossed it on the way here."

Sakura nodded. "I said that the river WAS on the other side of the mountain."

Naruto's forehead screwed up in concentration. "They moved it? How do you move a river?"

"You could dig a trench," Sakura started, "but that would take many years, be very dangerous to the workers and there is still no guarantee that you won't run into problems. You could try damning up the river to alter the flow but then that would dry it up on the other side of the mountain and anger who ever was there, causing a war. But if there was a way to somehow alter the way the river works, then everyone could be satisfied.

"Now, you know that there are a lot of jutsu that manipulate the world around us," Sakura continued. "If you could get someone who knew how to manipulate rock, another who could work with water…"

"You could change the course of the river," Naruto exclaimed, feeling very proud for having put it together.

"Yes but do you remember how chakra works in your body?" Sakura asked him, receiving a small nod in return. "We use our chakra for a variety of jutsu but there's a limit to how much we can use before it's gone. So using it to do something like that is going to take a lot of it."

"So how did they do it?"

"By combining their chakra," Sakura said. "Not by letting one person absorb it to use it, not by having several people cast the same jutsu, but by working together as a team to execute these powerful jutsu that could alter the landscape."

"How can they do that?" Naruto asked.

"We don't know," Sakura replied. "All we do know is that they can and the Hokages have been trying to learn from them for decades."

"So," Kakashi said, suddenly speaking up, "when this mission came up, Hokaga-sama couldn't risk do anything that would offend the Onnaribisu. Sakura was the only one in the village who had enough knowledge of the tribe to possibly pass as one of them."

"Really? How did you do that Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked.

"Do you remember when we had to do that report in the academy two years ago?" she asked. Naruto looked at her dumbly. "Do you remember anything we did at the academy?" she grumbled.

"The one thing about the Onnaribisu," Kakashi interrupted, "that stems from their ability to combine chakra is their ability to sense chakra. So any jutsu that we could use would be detected by them and we'd be captured. When our affiliation to the Leaf came to light, it would ruin any chance the Hokage had with them."

"So we had to sneak in," Sakura finished. "And have to work like this rather then just taking the nobleman back. In fact, we're not even sure where he is."

There was noise from out the window and Sakura quickly ran up to the door, pressing her ear to the door.

"They're coming back," Sakura whispered. "Listen, they'll take you back to the slave quarters and then you have to ask around about the guy we're looking for, Matsui Ichiro. Kakashi will tell you what he looks like. And remember no jutsu!"

There was a loud banging on the door and Sakura flung it open. Moriko looked at her with suspicion before motioning towards the three boys. "All right, Amaya-san's willing to talk to you. We'll store those three in temporary quarters."

Sakura nodded and walked out of the room not even looking at her teammates before disappearing down the hall. Moriko looked at them with contempt before leaving them to the care of her subordinates.

The slave quarters turned out to be rooms carved in the rock mountain that ran along the village's border. Kakashi put a hand along the walls and shook his head. Not carved by tools but by the same technique they used to reshape the mountain and bring water to their town.

"What do we do now?" Naruto said sulking.

Kakashi sighed and sat on the ground. "We start looking. The boy we're looking for is about seventeen, he has brown eyes and brown hair. He was last seen… wearing a pink frilly tutu." When he got no reaction, Kakashi paused and eyed his two pupils. They were both concentrating on a spot on the ground. "Is there something wrong?"

Naruto looked up and shook his head. "Just thinking. I mean Sakura could've told us what she wanted us to do this. I don't like the idea but it's a job that has to be done."

"Very noble," Kakashi said, not really believing he would have. "And what about you?" he asked Sasuke.

"He's still bitter that he was called scrawny," Naruto smiled.

"I'm NOT scrawny," Sasuke yelled back before regaining his composure. "I mean that's not what I was thinking about."

"Sure," Naruto grinned. "Scrawny."

"Five year old," Sasuke retorted.

"SCARWNY!"

Kakashi sighed and stood up, pulling them apart before a real fight erupted. "Just calm down. We have a job to do."

"Yeah, yeah," Naruto sighed. "We get to do all the work while Sakura-chan gets to loaf around."

"Do you really think that's what she's doing?" Kakashi asked. He looked at his two pupils. They didn't agree with him in words but their face said it. Inwardly he shook his head.

"Hey! Newcomers!" The trio turned and watched as an elderly man walked in. "I am Goro, foreman of this camp. That said, what are you just sitting around for? There's work to do. Let's go."

Sakura waited in front of the door, trying to quell the butterflies in her stomach. She was alone now, no teammates to back her up. If anything went wrong she'd be toast. The way Moriko looked at her made sure she understood that. The doors swung open and Sakura walked in, taking in the surroundings.

There were at least a dozen armed guards here, lined up and eyeing the newcomer as she walked towards a large throne covered in darkness. Sakura came about five feet from the chair before stopping and dropping to her knee.

"Sakura of the Maple tribe," a voice boomed through the room. Inner Sakura packed a few bags and prepared to leave. "I am Amaya of the Elm. What is that you want?"

Sakura found her voice somewhere in the bottom of her stomach and managed to croak out a response. "I'm here to trade some of my men."

"From what Moriko tells me, they're not worth much."

"It's true," Sakura started, "they might be whiny, obnoxious, and dense beyond all belief…" She trailed off when she realized she was speaking what she really felt and straying from her script. "I mean, they work hard so they do have some merit."

"Is that so?"

There was a long pause and Sakura kept her head down, looking at the ground. There was movement and Sakura wanted to look up but she knew it would be disrespectful. Suddenly two feet came into her view, two very small feet.

"You can stand."

Sakura very slowly stood on her feet and watched as the leader of legend unfolded in front of her eyes. She had long blond hair that reached the ground and her big brown eyes examined Sakura with curiosity.

Sakura blinked and tried to hide in her surprise. It wasn't the fact that the leader of the Elm was staring at her. It was the fact she had to crane her neck almost vertical to do so.

Apparently the leader of the Elm was a seven year old.

Inner Sakura balked and began to rummage through all information available to see where it said that a child could run an Onnaribisu tribe.

"Ah... arigato," Sakura quickly recovered.

"It is good to have a sister here," Amaya said. "Especially during this time of year."

"Yes… it is." Inner Sakura had plunged through half her memory and come up with nothing.

"So you will join us for the festival right?"

"Sure," Sakura nodded. Inner Sakura meanwhile cringed while watching the guards. It was a trick right? This little girl couldn't be the real leader could she?

But after a few minutes of listening to her talk about the three slaves, Sakura realized no one was attacking her. Something was very odd here but obviously she couldn't ask outright. It would just take time and investigation.

"So you'll be my special guest tonight," Amaya said taking her hand. "Moriko, I'm going down there early. "

"Of course," Moriko said with a quick nod of her head. Sakura's eye brows furrowed. Did she just see a gleam of contempt in the older woman's eye? But before she could think about it further, she was being dragged across the throne room and outside to the waiting festival.

"This… sucks…"

Sasuke shot a look over a Naruto, wordlessly agreeing before picking up another fish and slipping his knife into it. He looked over at his sensei and couldn't help but feel a bit scared at the happy look on his face.

"Knife goes in, guts come out," Kakashi sang as he worked through his pile.

"That's it!" Naruto said, slamming the fish onto the table. "It's not fair, sensei! Sakura-chan gets to go to the party and eat good food and have fun and all we get is left over fish guts."

Kakashi paused in his song to throw his student a questioning look. "You think that Sakura is having fun?"

"Who wouldn't be?" Naruto replied. "I can hear the noise from the festival down here."

Kakashi looked around, making sure that Goro was no where in sight before pointing to the window near them. The three of them surrounded it and looked out into the crowd.

The festival was in full swing by now. The last traces of sunlight were disappearing in the horizon and the light from bonfires was providing an alternate source. There were tables of food and several of the women had taken to dancing as the musicians played on.

"Looks like fun to me," Naruto murmured.

But a few moments later, he finally found Sakura. She was sitting in between the fearsome Moriko and a small child. She didn't look very comfortable and she was doing the classic Sakura nervous thing, twiddling her hands as she answered the child.

A man came up to them and handed Sakura a glass of clear liquid. She looked a bit relieved and quickly swallowed the contents. She choked a bit and looked at the glass with surprise.

"Woah, heard the Maple were good drinkers but I never saw anyone take down a whole mug of the shine without blinking."

The three turned quickly and saw Goro looking out of the window with them. Naruto jumped in surprise and even Kakashi and Sasuke seemed a bit at ease that the other man had snuck up on them.

"Mug of the shine?" Naruto asked. "You mean the water she just had?"

"That was moonshine boy," Goro said. "Best stuff in the valley too. The Elms like to make it strong, not that you'll get to see any of it unless you get your asses back to gutting."

"What's he talking about sensei?" Naruto asked as soon as Goro was gone and they were back to gutting.

Kakashi was frowning as he gutted several fish. After a few minutes he looked over at his students. "Sasuke, go to the kitchen and take a platter of food out to the festival. Make sure Sakura's okay and see…"

"…MY HEART WILL GO ON!!!"

Naruto, Sasuke and Kakashi looked at each other. "Was that Sakura singing?" Naruto asked. By then, the other two were already out the window checking it out.

And sure enough, there was the pink haired ninja, standing on top of her chair, belting out lyrics to a song that was not the one that was playing. Moriko looked a bit amused while the young girl next to her was cheering her on.

"Near… far… wherever you are!!!" she yelled, completely out of tune.

"Yo! You three!" The trio turned, preparing to get yelled at by Goro again but instead the man was pointing out the window. "Your master is drunk off her ass. Go take her home before she pukes on our leader."

Or she breaks her cover, Sasuke frowned to himself as they moved quickly outside. As soon as Sakura saw them, she didn't stop singing, just started up again loudly and more dramatically, as if she was really trying to put on a show.

Moriko looked at them as they approached her. "Why are you here?" she demanded.

Kakashi quickly answered. "We were told our master was not feeling well."

"She looks fine to me," Moriko smiled. "Now, Sakura-san you were just telling us about your home." Kakashi's demeanor didn't change but he realized the danger. With Sakura like this, would she be able to keep her story straight?

"I am Sakura of the Elm!" The pink haired girl yelled proudly. "I am here to trade in these three whiny, obnoxious, and dense beyond all belief slaves for at least one good one! I only go them 'cause my sister died… my sister died," Sakura suddenly said, her face falling and tears springing to her eyes. "It's so… so sad!" She began to bawl.

Kakashi hide his smile well but was proud. Ninja were trained to keep to their story under any conditions and Sakura was doing just that… in her own unique way. With her a sobbing mess, Moriko couldn't keep up her prodding. In the middle of her bawling she started to tip off the chair and lurched towards the older woman.

"Just take her home," Moriko snapped, obviously annoyed that her suspicions were not proven again.

Sakura pitched forward suddenly and fell towards the ground. But before she hit, Sasuke managed to move and catch her in his arms. She opened her eyes slowly and found herself not plastered to the ground. She looked up with surprise.

"Sasu… *hic* sasu… *hic*," she tried.

Without an annoyed look, Sasuke quickly walked towards the inn with Kakashi and Naruto in tow. Kakashi was laughing silently beneath his mask at the scene, an annoyed Sasuke, a drunken Sakura and Naruto constantly asking Sakura if she was okay and demanding that Sasuke let her go. Somehow, they reached the inn and managed to get up the stairs despite Naruto's threats that he was going to beat Sasuke up if he didn't put Sakura down right away.

"Naruto," Kakashi said finally, "come with me to the kitchen. We need to get a towel, hot water and tea. Sasuke, put her on the bed and make sure she stays on her side."

Naruto grumbled and disappeared with Kakashi, throwing Sasuke a nasty look as he struggled to open the door with Sakura half passed out in his arms. He walked across the room and dropped her on the bed where she quickly sprawled on her back and fell asleep.

Sasuke sighed and picked up her left side, rolling her to the right. As soon as he thought she was steady, he let go and watched as she murmured something and rolled onto her back again. With a frown, he tried again putting his hands on her back to keep her propped up that way.

He heard commotion in the hall as Naruto dropped the hot water on his feet. He was so caught up in listening to the run of curses coming from the fox boy, he forgot to watch Sakura and she quickly rolled onto her back, pinning his hands underneath her.

He blinked in surprise and tried to pull himself free before she noticed. As luck would have it, her eyes fluttered open and she looked up at him with surprise, only seeing his arms disappearing towards her back and him leaning forward as he tried to free them.

"Sasuke-kun?" she asked softly. Somewhere, beneath the haze of alcohol, a coherent thought was produced. She was on a bed alone with Sasuke and he was reaching behind her back where her bra buckle was.

Her eyes suddenly shot open. "AAAH! NO, NOT LIKE THIS!" Sakura suddenly began screaming.

Sasuke jumped back, or at least tried to, but his pinned hands kept him in place.

"I don't want my first time to be here and like this!" Sakura began to cry, tears falling in her eyes.

Sasuke took in what she said and suddenly turned very red. "Sakura, calm down, I'm not…"

"NOT LIKE THIS!"

"Sakura roll over! You're too damn heavy, I can't get my hands free…"

"WAH!! I want my first time to be romantic!!" she cried, ignoring him.

Sasuke pulled with most of his strength, flipping Sakura onto her stomach and falling backwards. He cursed as he tried to stand up.

"SASUKE!"

He turned and found a very angry looking Naruto staring at him with a faint red glow forming around his body.

"You bastard! You were trying to take advantage of Sakura-chan!"

"Wait a minute!" Sasuke replied angrily. "She's the one who thought that. I was just trying to get her to stay on her side!"

"LIAR!"

"Just ask her!"

But Sakura was happily snoring as she lay on her stomach. Naruto looked at Sasuke. "I know how it is! Kakashi-sensei said Sakura-chan is drunk. Now you think you can just…"

"I thought nothing of the sort!" Sasuke yelled. But Naruto just let out a battle cry and launched himself at his rival.

Kakashi walked in with a sigh and moved towards the bed, ignoring the two fighting boys. He poked Sakura until she woke up and handed her the warm wet towel.

"Would you like some tea?" he asked.

Sakura shook her head. "Kakashi-sensei…"

"Ah?" he replied.

"I think I'm going to be sick."