Haruno Sakura; 2 Years Later

Age 14

-A Beautiful Ninja-

Today, I wasn't a ninja. Today, I was the object of Sasuke's affection.

So I spent more time than usual making myself look beautiful. I put on my most expensive make-up and dressed up in my best outfit.

I looked at the clock. There was only an hour before the tournament started. I wanted to make sure to get there early so I could get a good seat where I could clearly see Sasuke fight.

I heard a knock at the door.

"Sakura!" I heard my mother call.

"What is it mom?" said with an exasperated sigh.

"Your friend is here!" she said.

I went down the stairs to see Tenten standing there.

"Oh, hi Tenten!" I said. "What's up?"

I looked at my mom.

"Um… you can leave." I said.

"Oh right." Said my mom, as she hurried away.

"So anyway?" I said, turning back to Tenten.

"I was just on my way to the tournament." She said. "Do you want to walk together?"

"Absolutely!" I said. "Let's go visit Sasuke before the tournament begins!"

"Oh, I was going to go and visit Lee anyway!" Tenten said.

"Oh right!" I said. "I want to visit Lee too!"

The two of us left my house and started our way to the stadium area where the fights were going to be held. Both Sasuke and Naruto were in the tournament this year. I didn't mind that I wasn't involved because I wasn't ready to be a chuunin anyway.

I knew Sasuke was going to win.

"Did you know that Sasuke and Lee are the two that are predicted to be in the finals of the tournament?" Tenten said.

"Yes!" I said. "Did you read the program?"

"Yeah!" Tenten answered. "I bet that gave Lee a big head."

"Probably." I laughed, knowing Lee.

Speaking of Lee, there he was.

He and his teacher were currently engaged in one of their crazy rituals of love that I had no idea how to break up.

I looked at Tenten who nodded.

"Um—" she said.

That immediately caught their attention. Well, I guess it wasn't very hard to break up after all.

"Hi Tenten!" Lee said happily. "Hi Sakura!"

"Hi!" said Tenten. "We just came by to wish you luck!"

"We'll be watching from the stands the whole time!" I said. I looked around for any sign of Sasuke. "Do you know where Sasuke is?"

"No." Lee replied.

"Oh that's okay!" I said. If Sasuke wasn't there, then there was no reason for us to hang around any longer than we had to. And we didn't have to hang out anymore. "Come on, Tenten! Let's get good seats!"

"Wait, wait!" Lee called. "Tenten, is Neji coming to watch?"

"Oh no, Neji's away on a mission." Tenten answered. "I thought you knew!"

"That's right!" said Lee.

"Come on!" I said to Tenten. If I didn't get a good seat for the tournament, I didn't know what I'd do.

We sat down; Front row!!

"Neji's away on an B-rank mission with another chuunin." Said Tenten.

I didn't care at all about Neji or his B-rank mission with another chuunin. But I guess she thought that I wanted to know since Lee had brought it up while I had been there. But I had no interest.

"I think the other chuunin might be Shino…" Tenten continued.

I honestly didn't want to hear anything about it. So I only nodded and tried to give subtle hints that I didn't care.

"I wonder what sort of mission it is…" she said.

"Tenten, stop talking obsessively about Neji." I said finally, unable to listen to her constant babbling anymore.

"I'm not talking obsessively about Neji!" she argued, looking embarrassed. She obviously liked him, but if I said anything then she'd only want to talk about him MORE so I just dropped the subject.

"SAKURA!" I heard. I looked up to see Naruto running towards me. I rolled my eyes and was tempted to hide from him, but that would have been pointless since he had already seen me.

I then remembered that I had told him I would walk to the tournament with him. I hadn't meant it when I said it, though. I was just trying to get him to go away since he was annoying me so much. I guess he was going to yell at me for standing him up.

Instead, he sounded excited. "You got a great seat!! You'll really be able to see me fight from here!"

He just doesn't get it. I had come to the tournament for one purpose and one purpose only. To watch Sasuke and hope he saw me being impressed by his skills. Also to see my friends, but mostly for Sasuke. "Naruto, I came to watch SASUKE fight." I told him flatly. "And Lee, Ino and Hinata because they're my friends. Pretty much everyone except you."

"Aren't I your friend?" Naruto asked.

"Naruto…you'll never understand." I said with a shake of my head. It was true. He never would understand.

So, Tenten and I both mutually decided to say no more to Naruto and he eventually felt so awkward that he left.

"Naruto is SO annoying." I said finally once he was gone. I didn't want her to think that I liked him or anything.

"I guess." Tenten said.

"Oh look!" I exclaimed. "Sasuke's fight is starting!"

Sasuke and a kid I didn't know came out to fight. Sasuke looked so beautiful and wonderful while the kid from the other village seemed to be the ugliest thing known to creation, especially when standing up next to someone like Sasuke.

"Ew…that kid is really ugly…" I said to Tenten.

"Yeah." Tenten said. "But he might still be a good ninja."

He didn't turn out to be a good ninja. In only a few minutes, he was defeated by Sasuke.

"I stand corrected." Tenten said.

"Sasuke is just so AWESOME!" I said, bouncing in my seat. "YAY SASUKE!! LOOK UP HERE!!"

I don't think he heard me though. That was all right, though. I'd go and congratulate him the next time I saw him.

"Who's fighting next?" Tenten asked.

"I think Ino and Hinata…" I answered. "Who are you cheering for?"

"Um…" Tenten thought. "I don't see Ino around very much anymore… so I'll have to say Hinata!"

"Yeah, me too." I said. "Ino thinks she's too good for us."

"I don't know about THAT." Said Tenten.

"Ew, oh no!" I shouted when I saw Ino and Hinata come out. Ino had cut her hair so short that she looked like a boy. "WHY would she do that? She looks so ugly now! She looks like a boy!"

"I don't think she cares what she looks like anymore." Tenten said with a shrug.

"Ew." I said. "No. Ew."

"It really doesn't matter." Tenten said.

"Well, I should be HAPPY." I said. "After all, Sasuke likes long hair. If Ino has short hair then he won't like her. Which means he'll notice ME! Ino obviously wasn't thinking at all when she cut it all off. Oh, ew. She looks so stupid. Why did she do that? Ew."

Tenten was giving me a questioning look, but I decided just to ignore her.

We didn't openly and loudly cheer for Hinata. However, we both wanted her to win. But… Ino had a lot of lucky strikes and hit Hinata a bunch. She made herself look a lot better than she actually was.

I decided to say that just as the battle ended and Ino was proclaimed the winner.

"Ino's not really all that good." I said. "Hinata must have been having an off-day. When she fights Sasuke, he'll put her in her place."

"I don't know." Tenten said. "She's been training awfully hard lately."

I laughed. "Ino and I are EVEN in our skill. She's not that good. It's just that Hinata was an easy opponent."

"Whatever you say, Sakura." Said Tenten.

And what exactly was that supposed to mean? I frowned at her.

The next fight was between Kiba and some girl I didn't know. I couldn't care less about this fight so I decided to get up and go and say hi to Sasuke and wish him luck. Maybe I'd also explain to Ino that she looked like a boy while I was there. I had to be back in time for the next fight though; because it was Naruto and Lee… and I wanted to see Lee beat Naruto so bad.

When I got to where the fighters were, I was stopped at the door.

"Excuse me." I said. "I'm just going to go in and wish the fighters luck."

"Sorry, no one can come in here except the fighters." The man said.

"But I'm on the same team as Uchiha Sasuke." I said. "I have to wish him luck."

"I'm sorry but you can't come in." he said.

"It'll only be for a minute!" I argued. Suddenly, I heard the crowd cheering. I looked back at the man who stood in my path. "You're lucky that I want to watch this match or else I'd show you a thing or two! I'm a ninja you know!"

"Right." Said the man, crossing his arms.

Just because I'm beautiful, doesn't mean that I couldn't be a ninja. So I stuck my tongue out at the man and hurried back to my seat.

"It was a double knock-out." Said Tenten.

"So?" I said.

Tenten shrugged. Lee and Naruto came out onto the battle area. For some reason, the entire crowd became completely silent.

"Why is everyone so quiet?" I whispered to Tenten.

"This is the most anticipated fight in the tournament." Tenten answered quietly. "The crowd is just excited."

"Why is this fight so anticipated?" I questioned.

"Because Lee and Naruto are both really good."

"Ew, Naruto's not good."

Tenten didn't reply or acknowledge that she heard me. She was watching just as it started. Maybe she didn't like Neji… maybe it was Lee she liked. I wasn't going to bring it up though because I didn't feel like listening to Tenten talking about it.

The crowd had begun to cheer and be less afraid of making noise. So I started to cheer for Lee, but not too enthusiastically because I didn't want him to think that I loved him or anything.

While Lee's my friend, I was mostly cheering for him because I didn't want to cheer for Naruto.

"COME ON LEE!" Tenten yelled suddenly. "You can do it!"

Okay…she was being sort of annoying…

"Lee's going to take off his weights." Tenten said. "Just watch. He's getting that look."

"Oh?" I said. I didn't need Tenten giving me a play-by-play. She thought she knew everything about Lee just because they were on the same team.

Sure enough, Lee did take off his weights and the ground shook when he tossed them aside and created craters in the ground. The crowd cheered louder than ever when he did this.

"See?" said Tenten. "I told you he would."

"I didn't say you were wrong." I said under my breath, but loud enough so she could hear me. She knew I was right because she didn't say anything else.

"Well, Lee beat Naruto!" said Tenten. "We knew he would!"

"Yeah." I said.

I felt as though maybe Tenten was trying to say that she had a better team than I did because her teammate had beaten my teammate. Should it have mattered to me? After all, I had been openly cheering for HER teammate so I should have just agreed. It was only NARUTO.

"And, since there was that double knockout, Lee automatically goes to the finals to fight Sasuke or Ino." Tenten said.

"Well obviously Sasuke." I said. "I mean. Come on. Ino's just Ino. Sasuke is… Sasuke."

"Yeah, that makes total sense." Said Tenten, but she was obviously just making fun of me so I turned away from her. It really DID make perfect sense.

"GO SASUKE!!" I cheered as Sasuke and Ino came out onto the field to fight. He must have heard me that time because I was practically leaning over the wall to make sure my voice carried my love to him.

Ino saw me. She must have thought she was so great just because she was fighting Sasuke. Well I didn't care because I could fight Sasuke any time I wanted since he was on my team. She had to go through a lucky chain of events that led her up to where she was because there was no way she'd be able to get there on her own merits.

They began fighting.

Ino was fast.

"Sasuke's letting up on her." I told Tenten.

But Ino hit Sasuke a few times.

"Guys always let up on girls." I said to Tenten.

Sasuke did hit Ino in return. He also used his fire attacks, something he never used on me.

"He's just doing it for the crowd so everyone can see what a good ninja he is." I said.

"Sakura, could you stop?" Tenten said.

"Stop what?" I asked.

"Trying to justify why Ino is doing a good job." She answered. "Ino has been working really hard and if you put in about half as much effort as she did, maybe you'd notice."

My jaw hit the floor as Tenten went back to watching the fight. How DARE she say something like that to me! What had I done to her? She was acting as though I was being mean to her all day, which I wasn't.

I expressed my disapproval of her comment by crossing my arms and not talking to her anymore.

"When is this fight going to be over?" I said to myself. "Why doesn't Sasuke just beat her?"

"Maybe he can't beat her." Said Tenten.

"I wasn't talking to you." I said.

When Sasuke finally DID beat Ino, I was happy. But as the medical ninjas came on to cart her away, she stayed behind and talked to Sasuke. She started blushing. She better not had said anything to him about me, unless it was something good.

"What is she saying?!" I demanded finally when they didn't stop talking right out there in front of everyone.

Tenten didn't answer.

"Well?" I said.

"I thought you weren't talking to me." Tenten said.

"I'm NOT!" I said with an exasperated sigh as I stood up. "Tenten, you are being really mean for no reason. I'm going to go and sit someplace else to watch Lee and Sasuke fight!"

"Whatever." Said Tenten.

I stomped away. I decided that Tenten wasn't my friend anymore. And Ino wasn't my friend anymore either because of how she had flirted so shamelessly with Sasuke out in front of everyone.

I couldn't find a place to sit that was as good as the one I had found with Tenten. So I only ended up standing in the way back, waiting for the next fight to start. I wanted to go down and wish Sasuke good luck, but I didn't want to have to deal with Lee being in love with me, so I waited instead.

I was going to go down and see Sasuke after he had won. Then I would take him out to eat and tell him that I had been rooting for him the whole time and that I knew he would win.

"That blond kid who fought the Uchiha—man, he was good!" I heard someone say as they passed me.

"I know!" said another. "He's definitely going to become a chuunin!"

"It's a SHE!" I interrupted, and the two men jumped in surprise. "And she's my equal! If I'm not a chuunin then neither is she!"