A/N : Warning for later: characters might seem ooc, but hey, that's crack for you.
Disclaimer: I asked Naruto if I can have him yesterday, and he said no. So no, Naruto and all of Naruto worldis still not mine. Sad face

"I didn't know it was this late already," Sakura frowned, looking up at the darkening sky. The ominous, gray clouds were gathering at a distance as Sakura followed her eyes to the horizon. "Or perhaps it's just dark due to bad weather. But either way, I don't think I'm going to be early today."

She was supposed to meet the other members of Team 7 as they usually did twice a week to practice. Each person had their own busy schedule and each person had their own affairs to attend to, but they managed to meet at least twice a week for a few hours still. Naruto juggled with meetings between Jiraiya and Ebisu whenever Jiraiya was not around, Sasuke had taken up lessons with Anko, and Sakura obviously still had lessons from Tsunade. To top it all off, they all had missions of all sorts, and unfortunately they could not participate together on most of them. In a sense, they had come a far way from their gennin years and are more or less independent of each other.

But being independent did not separate them at all, and Sakura couldn't help but being more than grateful for the fact that they still continued meeting. And that was the reason she needed to hurry to get to the park, because of all people, she couldn't be later than Kakashi. That idea was preposterous.

What was that? Sakura suddenly froze in mid-step as she heard an unpleasant noise emitting from her bag. She hadn't brought the flask with her, so it couldn't have been broken glass. And besides, what kind of self-respecting ninja would have such harsh movements as to crack glass when they were not in combat? In her halted position on a random rooftop, she opened her pouch and glanced inside.

"CRAP!" Her alarmed voice rang loudly against the wind as she realized that the armadillo bile she had placed in a small bag had leaked messily into where she kept the salamander skin. She must have not tied the string tight enough since she was concealing her movements from Tsunade, and now this was the result.

If left alone without water to dilute the bile, the salamander skin would just dissolve. Sakura thought to herself, remembering what Tsunade had told her before. This meant that if she didn't go home right away to mix water in, all her salamander skin and hopes of getting more practice in would be dashed away.

With a new burst of energy that was well supplied with a heavy layer of panic, she ran all the way back to her apartment. Her parents' home was closer and she had contemplated about stopping there first, but she decided against giving her parents any reason to doubt her capability of being on her own. The last thing she needed was for her parents to think that she was crawling back to them like they seem to think she would.

Finally, with a dry mouth and sweaty palms, she made her way home and into her kitchen. Pulling out the first container that she could find, she dumped the ingredients that was in her bag into the bowl and added water. To her dismay, the container that she resorted to using wasn't a mixing bowl but a cup. It gave her barely enough room to stir properly, and she has yet to add the other ingredients.

Damn. She thought to herself and pulled out the rest of what was needed. With excellent dexterity, she measured out the proper amounts of what needed to be mixed in and dumped them in the cup.

I wonder if I can transfer it all into a bowl later, but then I would risk losing some ingredients in the process. Her mind argued over it for a while and decided to just stick to the cup and stay safe. To take her mind off, she ran her mind over the amount of ingredients she needed and the procedure.

Wait! I just mixed six things into here, I needed seven. Crap, what was the seventh! She scoured her mind for a few moments and then remembered what it was. Sakura had been in such a rush before that she didn't manage to get the pinch of salt that she needed. Figuring that it would be an annoyance to grab a pinch of salt anyway, she decided that she would just use the one she had at home. With a relief expression that she remembered, she went over to her cupboard and brought out the plastic container and fingered a pinchful into the cup.

Now to stir… She didn't have a proper stirring rod, so she grabbed a slender chopstick from her plastic draining dish rack and began the process, arm tensing with suspense. She didn't have enough salamander skin to try again later, so this is all or nothing.

After making sure she had the correct amount of strokes in, she tried waiting calmly for her elixir to settle. It was puke green now, but hopefully it will settle into a nice pink like her teacher's. Closing her eyes and rubbing the bridge of her nose, she cursed soundlessly under her breath. Fifteen seconds can sometimes feel like fifteen years. To give herself a good distraction, she went and poured herself some water for her case of dry mouth.

Instead of drinking it however, she looked up at the clock, fifteen seconds definitely just passed by. She settled down her cup heavily on the table and she went to investigate her elixir.

It shouldn't be like this…but maybe it means that I'm getting closer? The green was gone, but then so was everything else. What remained was nothing but clear liquid, not the pink that she was striving for. She sighed, wondering why she was so slow in this particular task since she was usually a fast learner.

Wait. Hold on. Did the clock…? She looked back up at her clock and rightfully twitched. Focusing on the second hand, she completely ignored the hour and minute hands till now. "No!" Those hands were now telling her that she was about twenty minutes late in meeting her team.

Sakura slapped her forehead, not believing that she had forgot all about meeting them and ran into her room to get a new bag. Transferring her ninja materials into a clean pouch, she strapped it around her waist and headed back into her kitchen to set her elixir into the cabinet for safe keeping. With the quick rate that Sakura was going at, she almost threw the cup into the cabinet and paused only to look at the cup of water she had poured for herself. Her parched throat reminded her of the reason why she poured it in the first place and reluctantly gulped it down as she hated to waste even a drop of good water.

Jacket, kunai, bandages, burning sensation in throat…burning sensation in throat! Sakura was just making herself a mental checklist of the things she needed to bring when she felt a warm, fuzzly feeling at her throat. The tickling feeling became fiercer as the seconds ticked on. She felt her mind in a haze, her surroundings all melting together in a converging point ahead of her as her vision blurred in her tears.

"Baby…oil?" Her taste buds tingled and shivered as she realized the flavor in her mouth. Unable to gasp, she slowly slid herself down with her back against a wall, trying to unfold her hands so that she can perform a standard poison-extracting seal.

Horse, tiger, boar….damn.

In the pile of red dress that used to wrap around the body of a seventeen year old girl, a toddler with short pink hair coughed. Her green eyes, still stained with tears, looked around the suddenly overlarge rooms.

Why did the kitchen counter get taller? Why is my dress…? Sakura looked down at her hands and then trace them down her short, chubby legs. OH GOD, NO!

Somewhere in the distance, a roll of thunder sounded.

"Shizune, can you clean up the materials please?" Tsunade didn't bother to look up from her work as she ordered Shizune to take care of the scattered items that Sakura was working with.

"EEEEEH?"

Tsunade clicked her tongue in annoyance as she looked up to see the trademark facial expression that Shizune gave in disbelief. "It's not that big of a deal!"

"It's not that Tsunade-sama, I was already cleaning…but some of the materials are missing!" Shizune exclaimed.

"I know, it is fine."

"But that means that Sakura-san …" Shizune frowned.

"She needs more practice and this is the best way," Tsunade interrupted Shizune's thoughts.

"The salamander skin powder is expensive and hard to come by, Tsunade-sama! Don't you think she shouldn't be wasting it on her own? I could have looked over her if you wanted me to," Shizune replied.

"It's nothing, and besides, she needs to master her own ability of manual mixing," Tsunade waved her hand, signaling that it was nothing.

Shizune let out a sigh. "Hai, if you say so." She started gathering the materials and allowed a smirk on her face. "The only material that she didn't take is the cheap one, figures."

"Cheap one?" Tsunade became alarmed and clenched her fingers tightly around her writing instrument.

"The salt," Shizune picked up the package and smiled. The smile faded however, when she saw Tsunade giving her one of her own trademark expressions for disbelief.

"Nani, Tsunade-sama?"

"Don't tell me she is going to use…cooking salt!" Tsunade jumped up from her chair and grabbed her green jacket.

"Shizune, we're leaving now."