Author's note: Firstly, I'd like to thank the faithful reviewers for…well… reviewing! Haha, it was very motivating and constructive for future chapters, so thank you all very much. Second, I'd like to note that in the last chapter, I do in fact realize that it was bluntly obvious the assassin was Sakura. So, if I bored you, I do apologize and hope to make it up later on. I purposefully made it completely obvious that Sakura had followed them from the very beginning. After all, this IS a SAKURA-CENTERED fic, no duh. The chapter focused on what she was capable of, and it was not meant to surprise you. But if it did, that's cool all the same. I just hope I did a good enough job in explaining the fight scenes. Unfortunately for me, I am an artist, so I see things clearly in my head, but cannot express clearly sometimes in words. Anyway, let's hope these next few chapters are ok. Enjoy!

Zarrah-chan

Counterparts

The look on their faces was absolutely priceless. Sakura could almost taste their pleading apologies now. This was just too good. If she had a camera, the shot of them would be blackmail for the rest of her life, and they would all be wrapped around her little finger. Six, sorry, seven (including Akamaru) high-ranked Konoha ninjas defeated by, what was that? ONE kunoichi!

She inwardly laughed with delight, but managed to keep her cold demeanor.

The Konoha ninjas' jaws were still plunged to way beneath the bottom of the hole. What the hell? Was a question that ran through each of their minds.

After a moment of stunned silence (with the exception of Akamaru's whimpering), Naruto decided to be on the one to break it.

"Sakura-chan! Why are you-Where did you-What are you wearing?" he managed to spit out. The other five would have smacked their heads at the stupidity and irrelevance of his question…

…if they could only move.

Despite the oddity of Naruto's query, Sakura tossed off her cloak to reveal her stealthy outfit. The usual red dress was replaced by a black shinobi uniform, with accents of femininity. The hems of her clothing were lined with a silky pink, and tied around her waist was a brilliant scarlet belt. Attached to her right thigh was a pouch in which tools and weapons were stored. The kunoichi's blush hair was pulled into two buns, a strange feminine contrast to her masculine fierceness.

In spite of being elite ninjas, the team couldn't help but inwardly melt back in fear at Sakura's appearance. This Haruno Sakura was different. Her emerald eyes revealed no emotion and her posture indicated that she could kill them all in seconds, had she wanted to.

Suddenly, Rock Lee made a noise.

"Sakura-san! You are so beautiful!" he exclaimed as rivers of tears ran down his cheeks. "Truly, you are a kunoichi!"

The team rolled their eyes. How could he be so polite when they all got their asses whooped by a girl?

Neji grunted.

"So? Are you going to let us out or not?" he bitterly growled, tangled between Naruto's paralyzed legs, Chouji's paralyzed arms, and Lee's paralyzed body. It really was very comical and Sakura had to fight every urge in her body not to break out in laughter. She composed herself and re-plastered the fierceness onto her gentle face. She wondered how far she could push and how much she could piss them off.

"Get yourselves out." She barked coolly, and strode away from the opening. Naruto instinctively jolted.

"Oi! Come back!"

They all yelped as Naruto's struggled flailing triggered his electrical pulse, which in turn, triggered everyone else's. The groans echoed for miles.

"Dammit, Naruto! Keep still!" Shikamaru yelled.

That was the cherry on top of Sakura's delectable sundae of amusement.

A serene laughter filled the tense air as the kunoichi returned to the opening of the hole. She squatted and peered down at the team, all while chuckling in enjoyment.

"I can't tell you how pathetic you all look right now." She provoked, one finger on her chin, as if an innocent child blamed of nuisance. Neji was far from amused.

"What did you do to us?" he demanded. The grin on Sakura's face grew.

"A little med-ninjutsu mixed with secret genjutsu, compliments of Tsunade-sama herself." She teased. The pressure of their aggravated glares fell upon her. Unfortunately, their annoyance only led to more laughter.

After a moment, the petite ninja sighed and decided to come down. She erected magnetic chakra in her hands and feet to help her climb down with ease. With each step she took, the kunoichi jammed a kunai into the walls of the hole to create steps for the paraplegics who would find it difficult to climb up themselves.

When she reached the bottom, she put her hands on her hips in exaggeration, and shook her head.

"This is what I was telling you about." She began. "I'm not the only medical ninja out there. Other ninjas have the capability of doing this to you and you won't have a clue how to fight it because you lack a medical ninja. What if I were on Orochimaru's team? You'd all be dead in less than five minutes." She explained in a gentle tone, rather than a scolding one.

The boys glowered at her, but knew deep down that she was right. Man, they felt like little toddlers being toughly educated by Mama. Dammit, how the heck did Sakura get so strong and wise? This was the same girl who failed the chuunin exams with Ino two years prior. The same girl who followed Sasuke like a shadow. The same Sakura who none paid attention to (with the exception of Naruto and Rock Lee) due to her low skill as a ninja. This was the same Haruno…

…And they all got their butts whooped by her in less than twenty minutes.

Crap. That thought sucked.

As each of them contemplated on where they had gone wrong, Sakura sauntered towards them. With a flick of two fingers on each of their tattoos, the kunoichi began releasing the paralysis on their sore muscles. She felt their unified sighs of relief as well as their movements to get up. Instantly, she put up a warning hand.

"Hang on a sec." She cautioned. "Don't move."

Rapid hand seals were formed, following a distinct pattern that would allow her to dispel the jutsu.

When Sakura had completed the technique, she clapped her hands together.

"KAI!" She incanted. Within seconds, the black tattoos vanished. She had called back her seals.

Sakura watched as Kiba snapped back into reality, his pupils returning from the temporary dilation. As soon as they all realized they were free, the ninjas scrambled away from each other's intertwined bodies, in hopes to regain what little manly dignity they had left.

"Now," Sakura began, turning back to the mud walls and the kunai wedged into them, "We have to take a shorter route in order to-"

The kunoichi's statement was cut off by the blockage of air pipes.

Before she could react, Neji had pummeled her fragile body onto the walls of the hole, and his hand gripped tighter around her slender neck. With his other hand, he seized the collar of her shirt and pulled her up until her feet dangled inches off the ground.

"You think you proved yourself, Haruno? The only thing you did was delay our mission and waste our energy!" he reprimanded bitterly, slamming her back into the dirt wall once more. Naruto and Lee dashed towards the raging Hyuuga, attempting to pry him off the stunned kunoichi.

"Neji-san!" Lee pleaded, grasping one arm while Naruto wrestled with the other. Neji didn't fight back. He didn't need to. The Hyuuga had made it clear that he was angry with the girl for wasting his time, and that was all he cared about.

After a moment of scowling into her jade eyes, he released his constraint around her collar and neck, and took a step back.

Sakura fell to her knees choking for un-breathed air. Instinctively, her hands moved around her neck, hoping to free the air passage. Naruto and Lee cradled her in concern as she began to cough violently. Neji, however, was unmoved. With one effortless jump, he was out of the hole.

"You're a disgrace to Tsunade for disobeying her orders. Go back home!" he dictated in fury, turning his back on her with disrespect. Shikamaru cleared his throat.

"Calm down, Neji." He intervened like a parent between two squabbling siblings. "Don't rush off and do something you might regret."

Shikamaru was just as enraged as Neji at the fact that Sakura had been rebellious, but he preferred to be in total control of his actions.

The Konoha commander shifted his eyes back to the girl struggling to catch her breath. It still astonished him that this one kunoichi had been able to render them all useless with simple techniques and tactics in a short amount of time. Although he was extremely upset at this fact, he was very intrigued at how it would actually be like to have her on the team. She, indeed, had made a great impression on him, and somewhere deep inside his stubborn male mind, he truly regretted not giving her a chance in the beginning.

His male stubbornness, however, would not so easily submit to bluntly admitting that.

"Sakura," he spoke with mixed firmness and tenderness, "Why did you disregard Tsunade's distinct orders for you not to follow?"

He was genuinely interested.

Sakura swallowed hard, as if being interrogated by the authorities. She stalled a moment, pondering on how to answer his question with the greatest amount of accuracy. Then, it occurred to her, that the answer that first came into her mind, reflected the most precision.

"I'm tired of being underestimated!" she spoke. "Nobody has ever taken me seriously until now, nor have they given me a chance to prove myself. I wanted to show you all that I'm not the same Haruno Sakura you once looked down upon."

Nothing could be closer to the truth than what she had said. In all their eyes, they were more than convinced that she was not the same as she had been in the past.

The look on Sakura's face pierced into Shikamaru's eyes with an unstoppable pleading that shook the heavens.

"Please. I beg you. Grant me permission to do this mission with you."

Ahhh crap. This was why he thought girls were so troublesome. Inwardly, Shikamaru wished he had looked away before guilt would sucker him into going against his word. Yet, he knew she had a firm grasp on his eyes and a tight grip on his heart.

Shikamaru's tense shoulders dropped as he shuffled through his pouch. When he finally found what he was searching for, the jounin pulled out the scroll with his drawing of the original formation plan. Taking out a paintbrush, he marked a point beside the last one, and sighed.

"We'll keep the formation as it is. I want each of you to partner up with the ninja beside you and guard them with your life. He, or she, will be considered your counterpart and you must fight together as one." Shikamaru directed. He then circled the dot at the end of the structure. "Sakura, I'm putting you at the end with Neji so you can guard his 'blind spot'. You seem to be the only one who knows exactly where it is."

Neji spun around at the sound of his name and hers in one statement. He said nothing, but the simple ignited rage in his eyes spoke his opposition for him. His facial expression screamed the question WHY THE HELL!. The only thing that prevented his urge to outburst was his dignity as noble Hyuuga. He was NOT the same as Naruto.

Shikamaru had sensed his resistance, but chose to ignore it, and continued with the explanation of his ingenious plot.

"I know that this is against what Tsunade had ordered, but we'd be wasting more time to go back with Sakura to explain her absence. So I want each of you to get familiar with each other, as she will be joining the team. As the leader, I am not only asking you to get along, I'm demanding it. Learn each other's weaknesses, and do your best to make up for what your teammates lack. This might be very convenient." Shikamaru said, helping Sakura up. "We now have a nurse on our team."

The jounin re-packed the scroll into his pouch and made a move to climb out of the hole.

"Move out." He spoke. "We've wasted enough time."

Naruto was ecstatic with the news. He patted Sakura on the back.

"I always knew you were good." He said. "Glad to be working with you again."

Sakura couldn't help but feel the tingling sensation of triumph. She had waited a long time for respect. And she had finally gotten it. Her hard work had finally paid off!

Yet, somewhere beneath the excitement, she felt at fault for how she was acknowledged. She had never intended on disobeying the Hokage to prove herself. She wanted to do it the honest way... The way she knew best.

Sakura quickly shook off that doubting thought. She had gone too far to throw it all away and go back. Her determination exploded. She would finish this mission. No matter what it cost.

The pink-haired kunoichi was the last one in the hole when she decided to climb out. But before she could get out, the angry Hyuuga jumped down from his altitude and stared her directly in the eyes.

"Haruno," he breathed, his face only inches from hers, "Mess up once, and I'll make sure that you never get a mission again."

The seriousness in his deep tone forced an eerie shiver to run up and down Sakura's spine. He narrowed his eyes.

"Don't get in my way."

With that, he leapt out of the crater and resumed the moving formation, leaving the kunoichi drowned in the darkness of his echoing threat.

A ghostly, pale figure observed the kunoichi as she clambered up the hole. A sickening grin lit up his bony face. He turned to the young man who stood sourly beside him.

"Recognize her?"

The raven-haired young man shook his head.

"No."

The pale man shifted his snake-like eyes towards his younger subordinate.

"Are you sure?" he questioned.

The young man blinked hey ebony eyes and nodded.

"Affirmative."

"Good." He said, chuckling. "Follow her."

In an instant, the young man vanished into thin air, leaving the ghostly figure alone to plan future affairs.

"Things are going to get a little more interesting…"

Author's note: Ahh, this was a crappy chapter, I know. But I was in the deepest writer's block for the longest time and I knew that you guys were interested on finding out what happens. The problem I had was that I knew EXACTLY how the story would begin and END but everything in the middle was a little hazy. I hope I didn't disappoint you, and if I did, I'm TERRIBLY sorry. I just wanted to get the relationship between Neji and Sakura to roll along (even though I know that in this chapter, it wasn't exactly a charming beginning for them). I wanted to make it known that there would be something between the two. And, if you didn't noticed, I introduced our favourite little black-haired, sharingan-eyed Uchiha in this chapter. wink I wonder what will happen now?… grins evilly please stay tuned!

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