Disclaimer - I don't down Naruto, obviously.
Author's Note - Finished chapter four in less time than I expected. I'm hoping to come up with a good plot line soon, if not its just going to end up being random adventures, or misadventures. Chapter four might contain a bit of stupid fangirlism, so you've been warned.
Chapter Four - Obviously Unprepared
Meanwhile back in the real world the mysterious man sat on the park bench with the book on his lap. He sighed and looked up.
"Ladies and gentlemen. You might be wondering why the hell I am here. Well, the answer is simple. Our two young heroines needed a way to get to the Naruto timeline, and I was the one created for the job. I have no particular part in this story, not yet anyway. I'll show up in random chapters to give you tidbits of information, which will be mostly useless."
The man paused and held up the book.
"And now back to our scheduled chapter."
The man opened up the book. The birds eye view of Konoha was seen again as the view zoomed quickly to where Rica, Luca and Sakura were standing.
"Well, here we are." Sakura said, pointing to the shop. It was a small boutique with the words "sale" and "good prices" written on the windows.
"Good, good. Now let's shop." Rica said in a cheerful tone as she followed Sakura into the shop. She looked behind her to find Luca still standing outside.
"C'mon, lets go in." Motioned Rica from the door. Luca still remained petrified, oblivious to Rica's comment.
"Damn woman." Rica said as she stepped outside the shop only to grab her arm and pull her inside. Once inside Luca regained her senses and blinked as if she was placed in a ultra bright room.
"Hoo boy, I spaced out back there." Luca said rubbing the back of her head sheepishly.
"That you did." Said Sakura chiming in at the right moment. Luca looked at her and smiled before extending her hand. "Nice to meet you." She said in a partially ashamed voice.
"The name's Sakura." Sakura said proudly. "Now lets get to getting you two some nice clothes." She said as she sifted through a rack of tops.
Luca nodded and joined her as she was sifting through the tops and pulled out a few she thought looked interesting.
"These are nice." Luca said holding up a couple tops.
Sakura nodded and gave Luca a few others. She went back to the rack and picked out three tops for Rica and put them into her hands, which were already full as it was.
"Wow, looks like we're going to be here for a while." Rica said, with a tinge of disappointment in her voice.
"Nah, not that long." Sakura gave a sidelong glance at Luca who was struggling to hold onto all the clothes that have been given to her. Sakura gave her a slight push towards the dressing room. "Go, go. Try 'em on." She said cheerfully.
Luca was pushed into the fitting room. The sound of items falling was heard as she shut the door. Since there was only one available fitting room, Rica sat outside with Sakura as she was humming happily while looking at some clothes.
Minutes passed in silence before Sakura said something.
"So how was your stay here so far?" Sakura said, trying to find something to talk about.
"Interesting, to say the least." Rica said looking down at her collection of clothes. "The people here seem relatively nice. But I can't really say that for sure since I've only met you, Naruto and Sasuke."
"Well, you'll meet more people. I'll make sure of it. Do you know how long you'll be here?"
"No, our stay might be a long one, it could also be a very short one too." Rica said. Shit, how long are we here for anyway? The thought had never occurred to her before. A slight feeling of fear went down her spine.
"Well, I hope its for a while. You and your friend seem like good people."
"Thank you." Rica said with a half-smile.
Moments later Luca came out wearing a red tank top with a black zipper, along with red semi-baggy pants with red trim.
"Nice." Said both girls in unison as Luca twirled stupidly and fell back into the fitting room, door shutting behind her.
Sakura and Rica exchanged glances and went back to chatting.
"So what are we going to do after this?" Rica said with a hopeful expression.
"Well, I was thinking about meeting up with the boys and Kakashi-sensei." Sakura said happily.
A second later the door opened and a half naked Luca fell out and ran up to Sakura.
"Really! Really, really?" She shouted excitedly.
"Uh..uh…yeah, that's what I had in mind." Sakura said looking up at Luca with a flabbergasted expression.
"Great! I'll be dressed in five or so minutes!" She said and ran back into the dressing room. The rustling of hangers could be heard.
"Luca is eccentric. Very eccentric." Rica explained to Sakura as she placed a hand on her shoulder. Sakura just sat there blinking for a few seconds.
"She reminds me of Naruto."
As soon as Sakura finished talking Luca had opened the door of the fitting room a little too loudly, which made both Sakura and Rica jump. She came out wearing her normal clothes as well as holding a few items she was planning to buy.
"Okay. All set. Rica get your ass in there and pick something soon so we can get out of here." Luca said sitting down to Sakura, who inched away slightly.
"Fine, fine. I won't be long." She said as she picked up her items and walked into the fitting room, shutting the door behind her, softly.
About ten minutes passed in complete silence, except for the anxious tapping of Luca's foot as she was impatiently waiting for Rica to finish trying on clothes.
Sakura looked down at Luca's foot, then at her face. What if up with this girl? She thought to herself as she noticed Luca looking right at her.
"Whatcha looking at?" She said, snapping Sakura out of her daze.
"N-nothing. I was just thinking."
"'bout what?"
"Well, why are you so excited to meet up with the boys again? Like 'em or something?" She gave Luca a nudge. Better not be on Sasuke-kun, dammit. The inner Sakura chimed in.
"I'm just excited to meet new people. You said that your sensei was going to be there." Luca said, smiling. This was the first time she said anything relatively normal.
"Well, he should." Sakura said plainly.
"Alright." Rica said as she opened the door of the fitting room. She had made her choice on clothing. "Lets pay."
"Finally!" Luca said jumping up and running to the register.
They had made their purchases, with some money to spare. Luca ran outside the shop and spun around happily. Sakura and Rica followed her.
"Luca, stop that." Rica said grabbing her friend's arm.
"Okay guys, follow me." Sakura said leading the way. Rica and Luca followed close behind and were soon at the designated meeting place for team 7.
Sasuke, Naruto and Kakashi were nowhere to be found.
"Well, I guess all we have to do is wait for them to come back. If they come back today that is." Sakura said sitting down.
"Okay." Luca said as she plopped herself down on the ground.
Rica took a seat under a tree and gazed up at the sky. Clouds were forming, large black ones.
"Looks like rain." She said casually to herself.
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An hour had passed, and the sun was getting lower in the sky before the two boys had returned from training. Sakura was nodding off as Luca was sprawled out on the ground dozing happily. Rica was the only one awake and waved to the two as they walked up.
"Hello." She said as if shaken from a daze.
"Didn't expect you guys to be back so soon." Naurto said in his usual tone.
Sasuke didn't say anything, but narrowed his eyes at Rica, who did the same to Sasuke.
Wonder what his problem is… Rica thought as she hardened her gaze. She had nothing against him, but he obviously had something against her.
Naruto looked around and noticed Sakura and Luca dozing and took at seat next to Luca and gave her a few pokes.
"Ieee, mommy stop poking me. I don't want to wake up right nooowwww." Whined Luca as she twisted away from Naruto's poke. Naruto poked her harder, which woke Luca up.
"Nnn…I said I didn't want to wake…" She paused as she stared right into Naruto's face, who was obviously amused. "'allo." Was all she managed to blurt out as she just stared at him.
The two stared at each other for some time. After a few seconds, it turned into a starting contest. Both trying to outstare the other. Luca blinked after a few minutes of starting and Naruto jumped up.
"I won! Wooha!." He said triumphantly.
"Yeah, yeah. I'll beat you at something else." Luca said standing up to him. They were both the exact height, so they met eye to eye. The competitive tension rose between them.
"Fine! You're on!" Naruto yelled as he gave Luca a slight shove.
"Fine!" Luca added as she gave him a shove in return.
The two ran off into the bushes planning to do god-knows-what. Sakura, Sasuke and Rica remained. Rica looking a little dumbfounded.
"Fools." Said Rica and Sasuke in unison.
Rica gave a quick look to Sasuke, who gave her a cold glare in return. She quickly averted her attention to the still dozing Sakura.
Rica and Sasuke remained in silence for some time. The shouts of Luca and Naruto could be heard some ways off. It was Rica who broke the silence.
"You keep on giving me weird looks. What have I done to deserve such treatment when I have done absolutely nothing wrong." Rica said sternly.
Sasuke looked down at her, his expression hadn't changed one bit.
"I don't trust you." Was all he said.
"And why is that?"
"You're not from around here, you could easily be a spy." Sasuke said as he pulled out a kunai appeared right in front of Rica, holding the blade to her throat, cutting her skin slightly.
All Rica could do was look at him with eyes full of fear. She never expected him to do anything like this. And had no idea on how to react. Luckily Sakura had started to wake up and noticed the situation, quickly coming to Rica's side, shoving Sasuke out of the way.
"What are you doing?" She shouted, "Rica isn't an enemy."
"Y-yes…" Rica sputtered as she put a hand to the small cut on her throat. "I couldn't fight against you even if I tried." She said collecting her wits.
Sasuke got up and dusted off his clothes, putting the kunai away.
"I still don't trust you yet." He said, looking a bit defeated, but quickly turned back to his normal expression.
"There is no reason to hurt her, or the other one. They're both harmless, call it women's intuition." Sakura said in a matter-of-fact tone. This didn't seem to sway Sasuke's opinion one bit. It would take time for him to trust these two oddly dressed girls.
Rica stood up, trying to keep balance due to her legs being shaky and walked up to Sasuke, completely unafraid.
"I'm sorry if my presence here annoys you. But my friend and I have no other place to go, and we're perfectly happy here. So its either get used to us, or ignore us entirely."
"Fine with me." Said Sasuke. Taking the ignore option. He walked off and jumped up a tree to sit on a high branch.
"He's not always this cold." Sakura said giving a sad look up to where Sasuke was sitting.
"I know…" Rica started "I can tell in his personality. He reminds me of myself somewhat."
"Ah." Sakura said in a thoughtful tone.
Naruto and Luca came running back. Luca was covered in dust as Naruto was not.
"I can do anything better than you!" He proclaimed, his ego inflating.
All Luca could do was give an angry sneer/pout as she did her best to dust off her track uniform.
Rica heard a faint rustle as she noticed how quickly Luca's expression had changed to that of starry-eyed wonder, and jumped as she felt a foreign hand touch her shoulder.
"Some party. And who might you two be?" Said a masked ninja lazily.
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End of Chapter Four
Chapter five should be up shortly.
Reviewer responses -
Neko Yumi - Came out with chapter four sooner than I thought, hope you enjoy!
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C'mon, more reviews, you know you want to say something. Muwhahahahaha.
