Art of Deceiving
Italics-thoughts
Bold-Kyuubi
------------- time/place/setting change
It was a time of celebration.
The streets filled with many glittering, rainbow coloured lights in celebration of the New Year.
Lanterns were hung from ceilings and streamers decorated the floors and walls.
All in all, it was a beautiful night.
But Sakura thought otherwise.
Yes, it was the best New Year celebration so far and, Yes, the activities were fun and, Yes, the decorations were beautiful! But! Sakura wasn't happy at all.
This was due to the fact that, her beloved Sasuke-kun wasn't there with her or anyone else so that they could share a romantic night together.
He didn't even come tonight! Which forced a lot of Sasuke fan girls-including Sakura to become very depressed.
As Sakura walked by a couple of stands, she heard a loud cheering coming from the stall opposite the one she was looking at. Curiosity getting the better of her, she walked over to check what the fuss was all about.
She pushed and shoved her way through the crowd until she could get a better look.
There, in front of the activity stall was a blonde-haired girl wearing an orange kimono, continuously throwing 2 tennis balls at a time at the targets. The surprisingly thought both the crowd and Sakura she would hit all targets dead centre, breaking 2 bottles at a time.
The stall owner watched the blonde girl throwing tennis balls he was getting a lot of customers after this.
After she broke her 28th bottle the crowd kept yelling out the number of broken bottles she finally stopped and asked for her prizes.
Smiling, the stall owner gave her 14 huge animal plushies and 14 teddy bears.
After receiving her prizes the crowd congratulated her with wolf-whistles and yells and pats on the back as she smiled and laughed while jumping up and down in happiness. Suddenly, a murderous intent filled the air and it chilled everyone to the bone. All except the blonde girl, who was still happily hugging her new-found toys and jumping on the spot.
The crowd parted and there, in the centre, stood Umino Iruka, Sakura's academy sensei, with an obvious angry not to mention, scary face.
"RYOKO!" Iruka stormed up to the blonde-haired girl-now known as Ryoko.
"Do you know how worried I was!" he enveloped her in a huge, suffocating bear-hug.
When Iruka looked down into her face and saw that it was starting to turn blue.
"AHHHHHHHH! I'm sooooooooo sorry Ryo-chan! But you don't know how worried I was! I thought you were kidnapped, tortured or even murdered!" at this point, Iruka started crying with happiness, glad that she was safe.
"Ne! ne! Look ni-chan!" Ryoko shoved a bear right into Iruka's face, "I won lots of prizes! Aren't they cute!" on cue, she started squeezing her panda bear tightly.
Iruka smiled and started congratulating her and the crowd started congratulating her again as well.
After the crowd stopped the yelling and started moving away to inspect other stalls, Iruka noticed Sakura and pulled Ryoko and her prizes over to her to introduce them.
"Ah. Sakura-san. How are you?"
"Oh, I'm fine Iruka-san. By the way, who's that?" Sakura pointed to the smiling Ryoko next to Iruka.
Iruka smiled and pushed Ryoko forward.
"This is Ryoko." Ryoko smiled at her. "Ryoko, this is Sakura," Iruka gestured to Sakura.
Ryoko smiled wider and waved to her.
"Konnichiwa Sakura-chan! My name's Ryoko. And this is my ni-chan." Ryoko pointed to Iruka who was busy trying to carry all the plushies Ryoko had won.
Ryoko laughed and smiled at her ni-chan. Sakura studied her face and thought she recognised that face.
I think I've seen her before………..but where?
Ryoko turned to look at her and Sakura turned away, embarrassed to be caught in the act of starring.
"Ne? Sakura-chan? Can you help us carry our stuff to Iruka's?"
Ryoko looked at her with pleading, puppy-dog eyes.
KAWAII! Can't resist, too cute!
"Hai!" Sakura smiled and proceeded to help Iruka carry the plushies.
"Hey, Sakura-chan! Let's go buy some more stuff!" Ryoko smiled and started pulling Sakura to the nearest stall.
"NO! Ryoko come back here! You have enough stuff!" Iruka yelled.
"Bai bai! Ruka-ni!" Ryoko proceeded to pull a madly giggling Sakura to the stalls, while she waved to Iruka.
-----------
After 3 more hours of shopping and introducing Ryoko to Sakura's friends, they came back to Iruka's house dead-tired and dragging loads of plushies Ryoko's prizes, lanterns and other things through the front door.
Sakura said goodbye and Iruka and Ryoko thanked her for her help. Just before she opened the door to leave, Ryoko ran up to her and shoved a panda teddy bear into her hands.
"Arigato, Sakura-chan! For helping us!"
Sakura smiled and walked home, all the while hugging her new panda bear.
---------
Once Sakura had left, Iruka came up to her and handed her a mug of hot chocolate.
"When will you tell them?"
"When I wanna. They don't need to know anyways."
Iruka looked at her.
"You know they'll find out soon enough. You've nearly reached puberty and you can't hide forever."
"Kakashi-sensei knows," Ryoko mumbled.
"What!" Iruka starred at her with wide eyes.
"He said something about him having a gender radar, or something like that." Ryoko tried to stifle her laughter, "oh, and guess what? Kakashi-sensei is…………." Ryoko leaned forward to whisper into Iruka's ear.
"WWWWWWWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTT!"
"How did you find that out!" Iruka starred at her with wide eyes.
"Let's just say I have a radar of my own. Hehehe……." Ryoko sipped at her cup then lifted her eyes to Iruka's.
Iruka shifted and fidgeted under her gaze.
"I know you do too." She whispered before laughing out loud at Iruka's blushing face and wide eyes as he spat and spilt all of his hot chocolate over the floor.
"I DO NOT!"
And Iruka proceeded to deny what Ryoko accused him of and Ryoko laughed and smiled having the time of her life.
Author's notes
Guess what the secret is.
Thanx for reading my first Naruto fanfic.
Please proceed to scroll down the page and comment on this first chapter.
I'll read them all and won't be offended by flames.
Plz don't be too cruel.
Again, thanx for reading!
Bai bai!
Nanashi Bakemono