Reader's Responses!
Dear ICEMINT: Yes, this fic will be going somewhere soon, it probably should have started going somewhere sooner, but as this is my first attempt at writing a drawn-out story I tend to get sidetracked and hindered by my own inexperience. Just rest assured that the story WILL be going somewhere (eventually), and hold your breath and cross your fingers and hope that it'll be soon...

Dear LASAIRE: Thank you for your reviews, you always manage to keep this scatterbrained half-assed writer to redirect her attention on the more important aspects of the story, and to keep it real. Yes, I have thought of the Inner Sakura issue and it will be explained in this chapter. The language barrier was a big problem back when the protagonist of this story first met Team 7, because they had shocked her into forgetting all but the very basics of the language; the girl actually knows quite a bit of the language and is actually pretty proficient at it, and now that the shock has worn off, she is recovering and remembering most of her skills in that language, and just needs the dictionary as a reference for the occasional specialized term to carry on a decent conversation.
Unfortunately, I failed to convey that clearly and I still have no idea how...I will try harder though! And thank you for pointing out the fact that having a metaphysical discussion is harder than just having a normal conversation in a foreign language, I will keep that in mind.

A/N: OMG I updated! ;; Ahh, I forgot to mention that in the previous chapter, "Satou Kazami" is not a character in Naruto, I made him up completely. Aoba, however, is a Jounin that does appear in the manga briefly (forgot if he did in the anime; need to go check.) Ah, and the Japanese terms chapter has finally been revised.
And yes, I have changed my pen name because I used to be "Darkblade", which is all very nice and all until saw fit to let someone ELSE take the name "Darkblade" and added a "1" after my penname, making it "Darkblade1". I intensely dislike having a number added any of my pen, screen, or alias names. So I changed it to "Chuwei". Just to let you reader(s?) know...

CHAPTER 11: Of Squabbles and Fruit Tarts

Naruto snatched up the book as soon as Sakura had let go of it and began looking through it eagerly.

Where Sakura had been affronted, the loud, vibrant boy was positively elated. "Look at this! Look at this!" He exclaimed, pointing exaggeratedly to the front cover where a colored picture of him was biting a scroll in his mouth and carrying two huge paintbrushes on his back. "Riiiight here! Look at that! That's ME!" he said with a grin so big, it didn't seem like his face would be able to accomodate it. "Meheheheheheheeh..." Hey, if the people here made a book with ME on the front cover, then they can't be all that bad... the blond boy thought, notions of fame triggering his "inflated-head" syndrome.

Kakashi looked blandly at his student's impossibly wide smile, silently wondering if the boy's face was capable of sustaining such a strain.

Making a derogatory noise to signal his affected distinterest, Sasuke crossed his arms in front of him, but it was obvious that he was itching to look at the book himself. In the end, curiousity won and he moved over to look at the book over Naruto's shoulder.

Meanwhile, the girl was busy letting out a sigh of relief. So far, none of them freaked out too badly (yet). She had been half afraid that Sakura would discover that the manga had portrayed her "Inner Voice" quite clearly and that the kunoichi would go bonkers at seeing her true face being revealed.

But the pink-haired girl didn't seem to have noticed it (yet), most likely because 1. That particular volume was in English, a language the young kunoichi didn't understand; 2. Sakura was still obsessing over the fact that Kishimoto Masashi had made her look fat; and 3. She didn't look any further once she had seen the first unflattering image of herself.

It was no accident that the one the girl had handed them was in English, and that it just so happened to be the very first volume so the four ninjas wouldn't find out anything they didn't already know.

Though generally viewed as a nutcase except for those who knew her well, she was by no means an idiot, and was a careful thinker despite her spontaneous and somewhat reckless nature. She would take the book back before any of them could get a detailed inspection of it, anyway, or before they discovered anything they shouldn't have or saw parts that would remind them of certain sticky situations that they would much rather forget, such as--

Naruto suddenly made a gagging noise and threw the book down. Sasuke, who had been peering over the Naruto's shoulder, blanched, and a strangled sound came from his throat.

--Too late, She thought with a sense of dread.

Ignoring the protests from the boys, Kakashi picked up the book idly and looked at what had disturbed his two students.

"Ahh..." the Jounin beamed, his visible eye arching up into a merry little curve. He turned the book around so everyone could see the perfectly captured picture of Naruto kissing Sasuke by accident. "You guys should be like this more often...it would definitely improve teamwork," he said, with a perfectly innocent look on his face, earning him two death glares from his spiky-haired pupils.

Though Kakashi's deep and slightly mask-muffled voice was a bit hard to listen to at first, she could well understand the gist of it. She failed to keep a straight face and coughed quickly in an attempt to smother her laughter. However, her frail attempt at hiding her mirth only redirected Sasuke's and Naruto's glares to herself. Eeh...

"Um..." she coughed again and awkwardly tried to change the topic. "Welluhm, I'm...glad...that you were able to take the news so easily, but ah...I for one am very curious as to how you all came to be here. I mean...how would you be able to get back?"

Naruto eyed her crossly and stuffed another fruit tart into his mouth, causing Kakashi to immediately back up a few steps away from the boy.

Pointedly ignoring his mentor, Naruto chewed, swallowed, and smacked his lips before answering. "We fell through a hole and just ended up here in this weird place. Actually, I came first, but since Sakura-chan was so horrified when I disappeared she came chasing after me, isn't that right? Right? Sakura-chaaan?"

Sakura's face instantly turned beet-red. "WHAT! NARUTO YOU IDIOT! YOU were the one who was STUPID enough to fall into the hole in the first place! If it weren't for Kakashi-sensei I would have just left you there! You always--"

"No matter how stupid he is, we can't leave a teammate behind." Sasuke cut her off abruptly. "We're a three-man team, even though he got us into this mess because of his stupidity."

Sakura immediately subsided. "Ah..ha...o-of course, Sasuke-kun..." she said, immediately changing sides. She tried not to show it, but his brusque remark had hurt. Sasuke...If I was the one who fell into the warphole instead of Naruto, would you have come after me? Would you have said that about me too?

But of course, Sasuke's comment got Naruto all worked up again and another squabble between the boys broke out, leaving the issue of how they could get back forgotten.

"Nevermind," Kakashi said, eyeing the door with great interest. Out of the corner of his eye, he had seen Naruto stuff another two three tarts into his mouth, and the Jounin was not feeling very secure in the small room that left him in perfect spitting range of his most unpredictable student. "We'll show you."

He gestured towards the door, obviously wanting to escape outside.

The girl nodded. "Wait a moment please." She went to her room to grab a jacket when she abruptly realized something. Oh, shit. I forgot to do my laundry.

A/N: A short chapter is better than no update, I say. But the next chapter will be longer. Now, to tend to my other Naruto fanfic...