When Sakura finally struggled past the hovering heaviness in her limbs, lifted her head and looked around, she discovered she was firmly chained back-to-back with Naruto, her feet pulled behind at an awkward angle and probably tied to his as well. Not that she could tell, because everything below her hips had gone alarmingly numb. Naruto slumped against her shoulder and snored loudly, muttering things like, "Heh heh. Take that. Serves ye right. Meh, Sasuke! DIE!"

"He's been like that for the past hour," Inner Sakura muttered resentfully. "Give him a sharp jab in the side."

It's getting on our nerves, the nine-tailed fox added resentfully from further down in the recesses of her mind.

Sakura furtively glanced around. They were in a little cell with wooden sides, the floor merely hard-packed dirt. Across from them was a small door with an even smaller window, barbed steel bars lining it with only enough space to slide two fingers. Chained together with Naruto, it didn't look like they'd be escaping.

And because Sakura was such a sweet, generous young lady, she viciously jabbed the sharp point of her elbow into Naruto's side and woke him up. Some days, it paid to have testosterone floating through one's veins.

There is, my dear vixen, the demon said sarcastically, very little different between you on testosterone, and you on estrogen.

"Huh? Whazza?" Naruto blinked. "Where'd my feet go?" He stared at the ground with bleary eyes, rubbed his cheek against a shoulder, and then stood up, pulling Sakura to her feet before she could ask Inner Sakura to reach out and thump the demon.

Sakura squeaked. "What are you doing?"

"Gotta take a whiz."

"In my body?"

"Ah geez, am I supposed to hold it for three fricken' days! So, just how've you been going?"

Sakura felt her face turn red. "Er…"

Peeing standing up, like any other proper male of any other species.

"Ah-hah!"

"Will both of you shut up! And just how are you going to pull down your shorts?" Sakura demanded hotly. "Your hands are literally tied!"

"Well, can you reach them, then?"

"What? Absolutely not!"

"But, Sakura," Naruto whined, "it's your body, so why should it matter?"

Sakura pursed her lips together, trying to fight down the rising wave of anger and frustration. Couldn't Naruto see that they were in a dangerous situation? She was sure that — that — was that snickering she heard, just beyond the door? "Hush, Naruto!" she said sharply, learning toward the sound.

"Would you rather I got your shorts wet?"

Sakura drew up short at that, and grimaced. "Oh, fine. Let's get it over here in a corner where we won't sit or step in it." With much complaining, many contortions, and a fair bit of stumbling, the two managed to figure out how to crab-walk sideways in a reasonable pace. "Honestly!" Sakura muttered when they reached the far corner. She wriggled her fingers and twisted her arms, grunting and straining until she finally tugged up her red dress and had yanked down her shorts. "Now, hurry up and do your business, and don't get me wet."

"Hey, I can't aim as well in this body as I could mine!" Naruto wriggled about, and Sakura felt her face turn red with embarrassment on her body's behalf.

"You mean you've been practicing?"

"How was I supposed to know girls peed sitting down? Hey, is that the sound of someone laughing at us?" Naruto added with dawning realization. He looked around. "Where are we?"

Sakura rolled her eyes and fought down the urge to rip off her bonds and choke Naruto. "Gosh, gee, I don't know. After all, we were only knocked out by a fellow Konoha shinobi that I thought was nice because he helped us in the Chunin exam."

"That's 'cause he's with that freaky snake-guy!"

Sakura frowned, trying to recall anyone they had met before that could qualify to be called a freaky snake. The nine-tailed fox yawned and rolled its tongue. Orochimaru hasn't had as much interest with Naruto as Akatsuki, but I'll grant that that assistant of his didn't rescue us out of the graciousness of his black heart, nor to save us from the trunk.

"But," asked Inner Sakura, "who is Orochimaru?"

He's the one who bit Sasuke, is responsible for the Sound nins, killed that worthless shlump of a Third Hokage, and — ow!

"What?" Inner Sakura stared down the darkness in confusion. "What just happened?"

There was only indignant silence in return. Naruto did some impressive wriggling, and Sakura had to admit she wasn't aware of being that flexible, in order to pull up the shorts. They twisted and bit and Naruto swore about how Sakura wore uncomfortable panties. Sakura wondered if it were wrong to pinch him.

"At least you could try a thong," Naruto muttered when he realized that Sakura wasn't really listening.

"A — a thong?"

"Yeah. Ino showed me 'em when we went shopping."

"You went shopping? A thong?"

"Yeah. I suppose they'd give you a wedgie if you had to fight in it. But I bet they wouldn't twist!"

"Naruto!"

"What? Hey, is that laughter?" They both stood silent; there was a snickering coming from past the walls. Naruto marched toward where the sound was filtering itself through the door. "Who's there?" Sakura refrained from asking the laughing if it wouldn't mind getting them out. The snickering stopped. There were sounds of bolts sliding back and hinges creaking just before the door to their prison swung open.

A tall, lean man with pale, greenish skin and bandages wrapped up the length of his arms stood in the door, a twisted smile on his lips. He stepped past the threshold of the room and observed the two stunned Genin with cruel amusement clear in his face and eyes. "My, my," he said, eyes shifting from Naruto to Sakura and back. "What a predicament you find yourself in."

The two Genin glared silently. Sakura felt trapped, remembering the man's evil aura. Naruto felt exposed; had to be the twisted underwear. If only he could just straighten the elastic band…

"What do you want?" Naruto asked, trying to subtly slip his hands under the dress he wore. Sakura elbowed him when she noticed.

"Not in public!" she hissed, her face burning bright red as she cast a glance at Orochimaru. The man merely stood and observed. If he meant to kill them, Sakura knew he would have done so now. He wanted something then, and the only thing that came immediately to her mind was the nine-tailed fox. If that was the case, though, then Naruto, in her body, shouldn't have come along unless Kabuto wanted to get rid of all living witnesses.

"But it's twisted!"

"And not in front of guys!"

"I am a guy!"

"Well, technically, so am I, so don't do it in front of me."

"This is your body. Why should you care?"

"I do care because it is my body!"

Naruto sulked at that. Between the bunched panties, Orochimaru, and Sakura, this just wasn't looking up to be a good day. "Well, I've been trying to work with your body," he said, a desperate tone making its way into his voice. So far, they were doing a good job at distracting Orochimaru, but could he use that advantage for Sakura and him to escape? If they could barely move in a coordinated fashion from Point A to Point B so he could attend to simple biological functions, then how were they going to scuttle past Orochimaru?

Sakura sighed. "Yes, I know. I saw that.

"Hasn't been easy, you know."

"I suppose not. I'm not a very strong person."

"And your beasts hurt."

"They generally do before my period."

Naruto muttered something again about how he still couldn't believe he could bleed for five days and not die. At that, Orochimaru hid his hand behind his mouth and snickered. Naruto rounded upon him resentfully. "Ah, what would you know?" he demanded, dragging Sakura a few steps forward. "I've had to put up with leaks, ya hear?"

Sakura's face flooded with heat. Did he just say… "Naruto!"

"We," said Inner Sakura, "do not try to piss off dangerous criminals who could squash us like a bug. Tell that to Naruto."

Have I mentioned before that the self-preservation is a concept you wretched humans find abysmal at best? the fox asked.

"So says the—"

"Oh, all four of you, shut up!" Sakura yelled.

"Ah, Sakura?" Naruto twisted his head around to look at her. "There's only three of us."

"You! You who have been abusing my body and getting it banged up—" Orochimaru went into a fit of coughing, although it sounded suspiciously like laughter "—have absolutely no idea what it's like to have to stand peeing up with your, your, thing!"

Naruto blinked. "Thing?"

"Humph," said Inner Sakura resentfully. "You did it with your eyes closed."

"Damn right I did! I didn't have to listen to the voices in my head about stuff like that! The commentaries! It's like a walking, talking, peanut gallery that no one else can see or hear. It's bad enough that I've got one, but there's two! And they fight and call each other names, and it's just pathetic to hear a nine-tailed fox demon who nearly destroyed us thirteen years ago say it would be very glad to have interspecies sex if it meant getting out of this body!"

Just shows you how deplorable this is.

"I'm not through, fuzz-butt! And I am stuck in this body and I couldn't find anything in the attic even though I looked, and then I realize that Naruto is getting further along in my body than I did and it just makes me feel so worthless!"

Fuzz… Fuzz-butt? The kyuubi sounded as if it didn't know whether to be insulted or amused.

"You're not worthless," Naruto said after an uncomfortable moment that would have been silent if it weren't for the fact that Orochimaru's choked coughing was destroying any serious bonding they might be doing. "I like you. I mean, even if I am you, I like you, Sakura-chan. But I wasn't getting any chakra, so I went to the pervert-sensei for some help with training. I got your chakra when he grabbed my boob."

Naruto could hear Sakura sputter wordlessly for a few moments, and then, "Who's boob?"

"Mine. Yours." Naruto looked down with a frown. "Well, they were attached to the chest of the body I'm currently in," he amended quickly.

"Are you telling me you got my body banged up and groped?"

"Er, yeah?"

There was some more wordless sputtering. "Argh! We're going to be stuck like this forever and no one knows where we're at except those two weirdos who fell out of the tree!"

"Name's Itachi," Naruto said as he recalled that moment. "He's Sasuke's brother. And the other fellow looks like a shark and has got a big sword. What were they doing when they fell out of that tree?"

Looked to me like Itachi was being sexually molested by Kisame, said the nine-tailed fox, who decided to settle upon amused.

"He was what?" Sakura demanded.

"What?" Naruto wanted to know. Sakura told him.

"BUHAHAHAHAHAHA—" Naruto and Sakura eyed Orochimaru suspiciously as the man slumped against the wall, pointing and laughing at them. "—HAHAHAHAHAHAHA—"

"Well," said Inner Sakura indignantly, "I'm glad someone is getting something out of this fiasco."

"All this," Sakura said in resentment, "because of a stupid statue in a stupid attic with stupid stuff."

"I hate those stuffed monkeys," Naruto added.

For some reason, that only increased the force of Orochimaru's laughter.


Kabuto sat in his little hospital room, ignoring the person in the bed not too far away. He silently flipped through pages of the book, not really seeing what most of the jutsus were. His mind traced over the similarities between Naruto and Sakura's switch, and how Orochimaru would change bodies when necessary. There had been one jutsu he noticed earlier that — ah hah! There it was.

Kabuto tilted the book toward him and scanned the method. Not quite what he wanted, but if he made adjustments there, and borrowed some theory and technique from Orochimaru's, then it was possible to change Naruto and Sakura back. The one problem was that he hadn't the massive amount of chakra needed to perform the jutsu. He would have to utilize Naruto — or, as the case may be, Sakura. The nine-tailed fox's chakra would be more than enough, if he could just channel that to where he wanted it—

There was a bloodcurdling scream outside the building, and then the entire structure shuddered as something large came into impact. The Sound Village wasn't really known for its large population, so there weren't too many people outside. Undoubtedly, there were now fewer than before. With a sigh, Kabuto snapped his book shut and stood up. Casting a look upon the person lying in bed, chest rising and falling with an even, shallow rhythm of sleep, Kabuto crossed the room to the door. He slid the panel open slightly; just large enough for a dog to slip through, and then he went to the other side of the room to the window. With one last glance at the person in the bed, Kabuto slipped through the window and jumped from that building to the one beside it. He scrambled up the side to the rooftop and made himself comfortable in a corner.

Not long afterwards, there were crashing sounds from the room he had been in. The noises increased after he heard a "Ping! Ping! Ping! Ping!" With a shudder, he hunched over and made notes in the margin of the book, plotting out his theory. When the noises faded, and he could go no further along his plotting, he twisted and peered over the roof's edge. It didn't surprise him to see that the building, although tilted partly to the side, was still standing. He hadn't heard it go crashing to the ground, after all. He furtively searched nearby shadows, but saw no movement.

With a sigh of relief, Kabuto sunk down and opened up his book. Something purple fell on its pages, just as he felt a soft weight drop upon his head and his vision was suddenly filled with inquiring button-eyes.

"Uncle?"

The purple lump on his book perked up. "Uncle!"

Kabuto would have buried his face in his hands if he could. "Oh, rats."


"—HAHAHAHAHAHA—"

"Eventually, he has to take a breath," Sakura said in wonder.

Naruto eyed the distance between them and the door.

"—HAHAHAHAHAHA—"


Tsunade looked up from her piles of paperwork to see Asuma walk through a door, a stunned look on his face. He settled himself before Tsunade, chewing on an unlit cigarette. "Yes?" she asked him when he remained silent.

"Do you remember the Uchiha massacre?"

"How the best of Konoha's bloodlines were wiped out because of that boy-genius? I remember seeing him, once, when he was on an ANBU team that was passing through the same town I was in."

Asuma blinked very carefully, as if he was holding onto a fragile existence and was doing his best not to shatter it in his clumsy grasp. "And you know about how Itachi was recently here with his companion named Kisame."

"I had to heal Sasuke and Kakashi." Tsunade raked a hand through one of her pigtails. "Okay, enough of the exposition. Spit it out; I don't have time for you to linger over this."

"Ah, I think he was in the forest."

She glared at him. "You think?"

"But I'm trying to come to terms of Itachi being felt up and unable to fend of what seemed to a man in heat."

"Heat?"

"Heat. You know, like cats do to make kittens?"

"Do you realize the medical improbability of men going into heat?"

"Yes. But do you realize the improbably of Itachi letting anyone near him long enough to get his ass grabbed, and then that person still living?" Asuma sat down heavily in a nearby chair and buried his head in his hands. Tsunade, who remembered a sullen boy giving her a passing glance on the streets, tried to imagine what Asuma seemed to have stuck in his head. She stood up, slapping her hand lightly against the wood.

"If Itachi is here, then our security must be upped. Where is Naruto? Are you absolutely sure that you saw Itachi?"

"I've already tried looking for Naruto; couldn't find the brat anywhere." Asuma shuddered. "Truthfully though, if the direction and speed that Itachi fled was any indication, he'll be in the next country by nightfall."

That was unexpected. "He fled?" That couldn't be the right word. Itachi wasn't the sort to flee. To escape, yes, but to flee?

Asuma finally lit the cigarette dangling from his lips, and drew a deep drag from it. "And I would too, if I had someone like Kisame yanking down his trousers to do something unsightly."


"—HAHAHAHA-coughcoughgaspcough-HAHAHA—" Propped up against the wall, face bright red and hair dangling across his face, Orochimaru didn't notice as Sakura and Naruto very cautiously crabwalked past him.

"—HAHAHAHA-wheeze!gaspgasp-HAHAHAHAHA—"


Kabuto ignored the stuffed monkeys perched upon his shoulders when he entered the building, very carefully masking his presence and always monitoring his surroundings. No one else was around, and whether that was because there were no survivors was a different matter altogether. He found Sakura and Naruto hidden in a room, halfway through their bonds. Sakura was complaining of how Naruto should have paid attention during his rope untying jutsu lesson or, at the very least, not get in her way while she was trying to make a valiant attempt at getting out of this mess.

He stood in the doorway, hands tucked in his pockets and the book under an arm, and waited for them to finally notice. When they finally did notice, Naruto leapt to his feet ready to fight, dragged Sakura to hers, knocked each other over, and both became hopelessly tangled in the lengths of chain they had managed to free from their feet.

"I'm sorry," he said. He hadn't really rehearsed what he was going to say to them, since there really wasn't a way he could present this without them calling him a liar and being distrusting. "This is causing you all undue stress." He raised the book. "But I think I know how to put you two back into your bodies."

"Why should we trust you?" Sakura demanded. Kabuto had a flash of mental vision of Sakura overlaying Naruto in such a way that everything she was blended into everything that he was, creating a mishmash of characteristics that no one could pinpoint. "You brought us to that man!"

"Yeah! Yeah!" Naruto nodded his head vigorously, hands working even more to free them from their bonds.

"Speaking of which," Kabuto said as he pushed his glasses up his nose, "where is he?"

It was amazing how much disgust and contempt could be conveyed by two young persons, no matter how experienced they may be with the crueler part of the world. "He's laughing himself sick over our misery," Sakura grumbled.

"When we left, he didn't even notice," Naruto groused. Kabuto looked over his shoulder, down the length of the hall to where the prison he had locked them was. He didn't hear any laughter. He started down it.

"I shall be back," he said over his shoulder, "so don't go anywhere." He saw the open door of the prison. Looking through, he discovered Orochimaru had collapsed on the floor. He knelt down beside his master and felt for a carotid pulse with one hand, while his other hand pressed against Orochimaru's chest to detect breathing.

Nothing.

Kabuto poked at Orochimaru's skin, finding it still warm. He grabbed a hand and shook the arm, noting how the limb flip-flopped. A bit of poking at the body produced few answers, but then he didn't have too many questions to ask. Silently, Kabuto stood back up and made his way to the room where Naruto and Sakura were last.

"Tut tut," he said in warning as he entered the room. Sakura was trying to give Naruto a boost up to the small window overheard. "I wouldn't recommend that if I were you. That trunk is out there, and I imagine it's not the happiest creature in the world."

The two Genin managed to look affronted at being caught, but Naruto jumped down on the ground and both regarded Kabuto warily. Kabuto pushed his glasses up his nose. "Orochimaru-sama," he said lightly, "is dead."

There was a moment of stunned silence as the two children gaped at him in astonishment. "What do you mean he's dead?" Sakura finally asked as Naruto cried, "But he was laughing when we left!"

"Orochimaru-sama," Kabuto continued as if they hadn't interrupted, "appears to have asphyxiated himself."

Naruto blinked, and then screwed his face up in a thoughtful frown. A jolt ran through Kabuto to see Naruto's signature expression plastered on Sakura's face. "What's asfissiwhatsit?"

"Apparently, the laughter deprived Orochimaru of needed oxygen. He essentially smothered himself." Kabuto's eyes glinted as he smiled coldly. "Congratulations; you killed Orochimaru with your comedy of errs. A sadistic monster, brought down because of mishaps that befell two children. Great, strong, famous people like the Third Hokage – the very man who trained him – have gone against Orochimaru and few walked away unscathed, but you somehow managed to defeat the man by something other than violence. What do you have to say for yourself?"

One of the monkeys jumped from Kabuto's shoulders, scuttled across the floor, and grabbed Naruto's ankle with a shriek of, "Mama!"

The only other word that was said was a lone, "…oops…" from Sakura, because she really couldn't think of anything else to say.


author's notes: I would like to thank everyone for their lovely reviews. I especially enjoyed the overall response to the last chapter, particularly the rather one-sided Kisame/Itachi. The next chapter is nearly finished, and it will be the last chapter of this story. I'm wrapping it up, folks; lots of loose ends will be tied up, and I promise to knock some socks off!