AN:

Hmm… well this is a bit late. Sorry about that I lost the disk I had this saved on and didn't have time to really look for it until this afternoon. I promise the wait won't be this long for the next chapter.

Now on to all my lovely reviewers:

Before I respond to each of you personally I'm going to repost the note I gave you all on pairings maybe then I won't get all these hopeful reviews asking for Sakura/Sasuke and such. Not that I mind the reviews but I feel bad that people are still holding out for some of these pairings.

Possible Pairings: So far the only pairing in this fic is Genma/Kakashi. This chapter I'll introduce one more Sakura/Lee. I plan on using TenTen/Neji and Kiba/Hinata. I might hint at Asuma/ Kurenai but I haven't decided yet. I have not yet decided if I am going to use pairings in Asuma's team or with Naruto and Sasuke; we'll see as the story goes on.

Impossible Pairings: I'm just going to go ahead and say that I will not use Sakura/Sasuke or Naruto/Hinata in this fic. I'm not a big fan of either of them in general and they just really won't work with what I have planned. No Sasuke/Hinata or Naruto/Sakura either.

Just keep in mind that I am aiming to make this a humor fic which means pairings will mainly be used in humorous ways. Don't expect anything too deep here, though it will be well thought out.

:), Azamiko, Night-Owl123, hurrahhurrah, Liliath, Vermillion Wolf, Queen Dopplepoppleous I'm glad you found it so funny. This chapter is a bit more subdued but has its high points.

Tombadgerlock it is… sort of. And yes Naruto is a complete pervert he just doesn't go peeping.

Harukakanata,moonlightpath, starry096, Stormraven, Jubei Himura, Ulitheal I'm glad you liked it so far.

Wolvesmon I'm gonna be honest here normally I'm really good at recognizing sarcasm but I'm kinda tired so I couldn't actually tell if you were being sarcastic or not. If you weren't then thank you; if you were ummm… my mind works in mysterious ways.

krn-kimbap yes you see I found this nifty tool called a thesaurus and I've found that if I just use a lot of synonyms that are long and sound sophisticated it suddenly sounds like something they would say. I love the thesaurus.

FireDragonBL I thought it would be funny if Naruto had a higher rank then him so I kept Neji out of the captain position. What's wrong with Kiba? He's one of my favorite characters.

Kawaiineziumi see the note above.

Only Secret well she was sort of joking. But I did state like two chapters ago that I wasn't going to pair her with her teammates. She's Lee's girl in this one.

Ly I love you too. Thanks for the review and hope you love this one too.

Garnet-Crystals I wouldn't mind either so we'll see.

Yuki-chan I like the way you think. Hope you like this chapter.

Shirubi-chan well I told you it would be. This isn't exactly ASAP in its usual meaning but it is here… finally.

Crazy-antman well Sasuke is as we learn in this chapter; I honestly haven't decided if Naruto is yet. Hopefully you'll like it anyway like I said above pairings aren't actually that important in this story.

This story is AU (Sasuke's still there) starting after about chapter 177 of the manga that means there will be spoilers if you haven't gotten that far. Information about the past five years will be told throughout the story.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

B regular stuff

B internal thoughts and such.

Picture Day

For the first and only time that week it was Sakura trying to hide from her teammates and not the other way around. Unfortunately for her, they also happened to be just a bit faster and better at tracking due to their service with ANBU; her medical career left her a bit lacking in that area. After only twenty minutes they had the girl breathless and cornered at the edge of the forest right outside the village.

Sakura slowly backed up until her back hit a tree; she gulped audibly and Sasuke smirked in front of her. "It was a joke?" she offered, laughing weakly.

"Joke or not, do you have any idea what you just did? You just told an entire room I was gay," he said glaring at her.

"Maybe they won't believe me," she said nervously as Sasuke stood barely a foot away glaring menacingly. It didn't help that Naruto was in the background torn between glaring at her, cheering Sasuke on, and laughing at their current predicament.

"Of course they're going to believe you; you know me better than almost everyone else," Sasuke shouted, trying not to lose his temper any more than he already had.

"Well maybe they'll assume I was just hypothesizing I mean my reasoning-" Sakura started before Sasuke cut her off.

"If those people haven't forgotten about what you said in two days I swear-"

"Dude chill out," Naruto responded cautiously, trying to calm the other man down. Sasuke turned to glare at him and Naruto held up his hands in surrender. "It's not like it's the end of the world; I mean shinobi are accepting of pretty much everything," he said patiently.

"Kakashi and Genma is one thing," Sasuke said glaring, "the last Uchiha is another matter completely."

"Sasuke I'm sorry," Sakura said before a geen blur appeared in front of her.

"Do not fear my beautiful healer of the brave," Lee said, looking back and forth between Sakura's very confused teammates. "I shall save you from the unwanted advances of my eternal rival," he said, causing Naruto to groan and rub his forehead in irritation

"Thick brows now is really not the time for all this eternal rival thing. It's one thing to play along with it in front of your students and stuff but now-" Naruto was cut off almost immediately by Lee's boisterous shouting.

"No, I will not let your honey coated words dissuade me. I will not let you take advantage of Sakura-san now that one of my rivals has stepped down. I may not have been able to defeat the great Uchiha in my bid for Sakura's heart but I can triumph over you," Lee said ending in his Nice-guy pose. He didn't notice Sakura and Sasuke flinch at the declaration 'great Uchiha'.

Naruto blinked twice before shaking his head. "Whatever I'm gonna go," Naruto said walking away. Lee grinned in victory but Naruto's teammates watched worriedly as he walked away.

"Lee that was the stupidest thing you could have said," Sasuke bit out looking at Gai's prodigy angrily.

"Eh?" was Lee's intelligent reply.

"Lee I appreciate what you were trying to do, but you really need to think before you say stuff like that," Sakura said, looking at him sadly.

"Eh?" Lee repeated, looking back in forth between his lovely, delicate, shining- uh, Sakura and her teammate Sasuke.

"Naruto got over his crush years ago. The only reason he goes along with the whole eternal rival thing about fighting for my heart is because he thinks it's fun. Also you just insulted him when you said he wasn't anywhere near the threat the 'great Uchiha' was," Sakura responded sadly.

Lee's face fell when he realized what Sakura had said. "I apologize my lovely apple of youth I shall go after my eternal rival and-"

"Don't bother. You can repay him by keeping Sakura off his back for the rest of the day," Sasuke said as a plan began forming in his head.

Lee thought for a moment before looking at Sasuke. "How would I serve this atonement for my most lamentable, contemptuous affront?" Lee asked, gazing at the black haired ANBU.

"Just take her out on a date or something," Sasuke said, walking away.

"Yosh!" Lee shouted giving his Nice-guy look to Sasuke's back. Sakura rolled her eyes at the other boy's antics before she was swept off her feet. "If Naruto requires a recess from the most wonderful-"

"Lee," Sakura said interrupting, "Let's just go get some ramen."

"Yosh!" he said before taking off.

Later that day found Sakura, Lee, and the others (with the exception of Naruto and Sasuke) gathered at the barbeque restaurant enjoying dinner together. "So big forehead girl," Ino started smirking at Sakura, "Are you and Lee on a date?"

Lee blushed and sputtered trying to correct the blond but Sakura just smiled. "Yes, what about you?" she responded politely, picking up a piece of meat. Ino's jaw dropped but several others smiled and laughed; Lee stared openly Sakura before blushing even more and giving a sign of victory.

"So exactly where are your teammates?" TenTen asked smiling.

Sakura's eyes widened a bit and she made silencing motions at the bunned girl across from her.

"Yeah where are Naruto and Sasuke. I know Sasuke doesn't usually hang out with us but we do have the week off and Naruto never misses a chance to eat," Chouji added looking at her curiously.

"They're hiding," Sakura mumbled.

"Hiding?" Kiba shouted incredulously.

"They don't want to go through the trouble of all the preparations for the pictures," Sakura said sighing.

"What preparations?" Kiba asked, "We already went shopping and got everything done this morning," he said.

"Yes well Naruto and Sasuke haven't taken care of themselves as much as they should. Plus Tsunade seems to be up to something because apparently she threatened Kakashi-sensei about how good our pictures have to look," Sakura responded.

Neji smirked before finally asking, "So was what you said today true?"

Sakura looked at him in horror for bringing up the topic she had been trying to avoid. "They're going to kill me," she said, dropping her head to the table.

"Why?" TenTen asked in confusion. "I mean I understand it was a bit of an odd time for that to come out, but it isn't that big of deal," she added.

"It is for Sasuke," Sakura said.

"Why for him and not Naruto?" Shikamaru asked.

"Because I know it's actually true for Sasuke. I was actually hoping that I could get Naruto to say something but he didn't," Sakura said exasperatedly.

"Um? Guys what are you talking about?" Ino asked.

"Sasuke's gay," Neji said still smirking.

Sakura banged her head on the table several more times before sitting up and rubbing her forehead. "You just had to say something didn't you," she said, glaring at the Hyuuga genius.

"Figures," Ino said sighing. "What were you saying about Naruto?" she asked.

"Nothing," Sakura said, waving her hand in dismissal

"You're handling this rather well," TenTen said looking at Ino.

"Oh come on I tried to seduce him for almost three years and I never even got a second glance," she quipped looking at the other girl. Sakura and Hinata just smiled as TenTen started laughing out loud.

"Oi Sakura," Kakashi said, walking into the restaurant and interrupting the ongoing conversation, "Where are Naruto and Sasuke?"

"I don't know," Sakura replied honestly.

"Well they chased you out of the staffroom this afternoon; how exactly did you lose track of them?" he asked.

"Naruto got pissed off and took off. Sasuke left a few minutes later after telling Lee to take me to lunch," she said.

"Fine. I'll wake up Naruto tomorrow since he got away from you this morning. You get Sasuke," he said turning to go quickly.

"Sensei," Sakura asked, looking at Kakashi suspiciously, "didn't Sasuke get away from you as well?"

Kakashi shrugged before teleporting out of the restaurant leaving only a puff of smoke behind. "Damn him," she said, sighing and leaning back.

"Can I just say that he is one of the weirdest people I have ever met," TenTen said, looking at the area Kakashi had just vacated, "and I have Lee and Gai on my team," she added.

Sakura shrugged. "You get used to it after a while I guess," she said.

XXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXX

"Do you know what Tsunade's up to?" Sasuke asked, walking up behind his teammate. He had left the other boy alone for the entire afternoon, but honestly moping for four hours was a bit much for the boisterous blond and it had to be stopped.

"No," Naruto said curtly, turning to Sasuke with a small pout on his face. Sasuke fought the urge not to laugh.

"You cannot honestly still be angry about what Lee said earlier," Sasuke stated looking at the blond. Naruto rolled his eyes and turned back around to stare out over the city from his spot on the academy's roof.

If Sasuke's memory served him right, which it normally did, then this was where they had first spoken with Kakashi-sensei when they had become Genin. This was where Team 7 had been formed. Where they had established themselves as a group that wouldn't be torn. Where they had revealed their dreams to each other and silently vowed to help each other accomplish them. We also insulted and declared that we hated each other, Sasuke thought wryly, causing a smirk to grow on his face.

Naruto turned around again when he heard Sasuke chuckle lightly; when he saw the distant look in his teammate's eyes he rolled his own and ignored the raven haired boy who was obviously reliving some triumphant moment of his past. Bastard better not be laughing about the time he beat me in the Chuunin Exam final round, he thought with a small scowl.

Sasuke's memories continued to drift through his early years on Team 7. The bell test, the disastrous mission to Wave Country, and then their first Chuunin Exam had all brought the team closer together…and closer to killing each, he thought. After the first Exam when Naruto had brought Tsunade back, her first action had been to remove Orochimaru's curse seal; well right after she had healed Kakashi and himself from the wounds Itachi had inflicted on them.

After that she had sent him away with Kakashi to train; Naruto had spent the next several months training with Jiraiya; and Sakura had trained with Tsunade and her assistant Shizune. When he had come back the three had taken the Chuunin Exam together as had Kurenai's team and Gai's team. Asuma hadn't nominated his team because they lacked a third member and he didn't believe Ino and Chouji were quite ready for that advancement.

All three teams had made it through the first two tests with a great deal of success. Hinata, Sakura, TenTen, Lee and Kiba had been knocked out during the elimination round. Naruto had been forced to face Sakura, but Sasuke had had the pleasure of putting Kiba in his place. One month later after the two had trained with Jiraiya, Kakashi, and even Tsunade (for a few trump cards) they ended up meeting in the final of the third exam. Nearly an hour after the fight began – they beat the previous record for longest fight by almost half an hour – Naruto lost when he refused to tap into the Kyuubi's chakra for what he termed a 'friendly fight'. Friendly my ass, Sasuke thought; we nearly killed each other in the two clashes between the Rasengan and the Chidori. I still have no idea how I managed to be less injured than him after that fight.

Sasuke finally came out of his thoughts only to realize that it was already dark out. Naruto was standing against the railing about ten feet away smirking at his absent minded teammate. "So how did you get Sakura off our backs?" he asked.

Sasuke smirked. "I told Lee you would consider it an appropriate apology if he took her on a date and kept her busy for the day," he responded.

Naruto grinned and collapsed laughing. Sasuke rolled his eyes at the blond before walking over and helping him stand. "Come on if neither of us gets any sleep tonight we won't be able to run from Kakashi and Sakura tomorrow," he said, turning to walk away.

Naruto was still grinning like an idiot as he walked home.

In the Hokage's office Tsunade, Jiraiya, and the elders were crowded around a crystal ball watching as the two ex-teammates separated for the night. "Damn," Tsunade whispered.

"Pay up," Jiraiya said back, "I told you it would take longer than a day."

Tsunade grumbled and dug into her wallet. Damn brat, I'm losing bets because of you it better be worth it in the end, she thought putting away her little secret. If it weren't for that crystal ball all the crap she put him through wouldn't be anywhere near as fun. Of course it's still amusing to see him in person when I tell him to find Tora, she thought smirking as she walked back to her residence.

AN: Hope you enjoy the next chapter should be up in like two days to make up for the long wait for this one. Once again I'm sorry about that. Review!