Disclaimer: I don't really own Naruto, which is the property of Kishimoto Masashi. I mean, seriously, that's obvious enough. Which makes me think that it would be really interesting if Kishimoto decided to write a fanfic for his own manga.


Chapter 1

Pink Hair Hell


Sakurai Midori was just another typical Japanese middleschooler from an average Japanese middle class family with an average life, average friends and an average anime obsession. It had started at an early age with Sailor Moon, Dragonball, Pokemon and whatever the other kids were watching, but her passion didn't fade out with time, because while most kids grew out of it after the whole Naruto, Bleach and One Piece rage, this girl didn't stop there and held on to her otaku ways, waiting day by day for new episodes of other ongoing anime and chapters of published manga.

If there was one thing Sakurai Midori could not stand, other than not having enough pocket money for manga or hating people who made fun of her for being an otaku, then that would be any repulsively girly, useless and annoying female character she came upon which shamed the title of heroine. So it really was nothing less of a horrifying revelation when one morning she woke up looking like one, as the mirror in the completely unfamiliar bedroom of the completely foreign home had just informed her. And it wasn't just any anime girl, but the one she had disliked for the most part of grade school, the one on top of her list. Well, at least it was no wonder why the woman downstairs, whose yell she had mistaken for her mother's sporting a cold, had knocked on the door earlier and told her to wake up, calling her own daughter by her surname, misspelling it to boot.

But she had never really misspelled the family name. Because that woman wasn't really her mother and she herself wasn't Sakurai Midori anymore.

Apparently, she was Haruno Sakura now.

And the woman downstairs was Sakura's mother.

"Wh..." Midori, or rather, Sakura whimpered, staring at the same full sized mirror for what seemed like an eternity with a completely mortified other person's expression while all color completely drained out of the foreign face that she was touching gingerly with trembling fingers. "This can't be happening! No... No, no, no!" She started shaking her now alarmingly pink haired head slowly as tears prickled from her unnaturally clear green eyes when she heard the borderline appalling voice coming out of her mouth. "This is wrong! This is so sickeningly wrong!" the girl breathed heavily, the foreign heart pounding in her foreign chest while she hugged herself with one arm, bringing up the other hand to run trembling fingers over the wide forehead and through the unnatural pink cherry blossom hair on her scalp.

If there was ever a time she imagined she would be getting a heart or panic attack, this was as close as it could get.

"Sakura!"

Midori flinched.

"I thought I told you to get going already! You're gonna be late!"

Turning wearily towards the closed door, Midori figured she had to try and force herself to calm down, in case Sakura's mother decided to storm in and find her daughter in the uncharacteristically disheveled and pathetic state she had taken upon herself. She decided to at least clothe herself as she couldn't bear much longer to wear the baby pink silk shorts and tank top patterned with tiny red strawberries which Sakura apparently slept in. Wiping away at her tears and runny nose and repeating a silent mantra that she was going to wake up back in her bed and everything was going to be back to normal, Midori slowly made her way to Sakura's closet next to some awful looking festival tunic dress on a ridiculous form stand which made her think who in their right mind would own a dress form stand in the middle of their bedroom if they weren't either rich or some wannabe tailor. Opening the closet, she found that it was neither, as Sakura's taste in clothing was neither rich nor tailored, even if it was feminine enough to pass as ordinary. But that was the exact problem.

What was up with all the bright colored dresses, tunics and tight constricting clothing? Wasn't Sakura supposed to be a ninja? Surely she couldn't have spent her entire time in the academy training in those kinds of outfits, could she? Midori cursed under her breath and absentmindedly wiped her sniffing nose, parting hangers as she shuffled trough the items, thinking that the least she could do to start feeling at least a little less out of place in that foreign child body would be to put on something more comfortable. She suspected Ino might have had some influence on everything from the pink haired girl's taste in men and early life choices to what she had in her dresser, because Midori couldn't find the one normal dark shirt she remembered seeing that one episode with the flashback where both of the bright haired Naruto girls were children. And maybe that was why she couldn't find it, because Sakura at this age had probably grown out of it and stored it somewhere, which meant...

"H-hey!" Midori mentally cringed again at the uncharacteristic sound of her voice and called out again to the direction of the door, "Hey, uh, mom? D-do you, do you know where my old clothes are?" It felt really weird calling some other woman her mother.

"Whaat? Why would you need those for? They're the same place you left them, in the boxes! Why are you asking me about where you put your stuff, jeez," and as missus Haruno went on with some tirade about how her daughter was always slow to get ready and took too much time, Midori noticed the cardboard boxes stacked at the bottom of the closet under all those unpractical garments hanging over.

Picking out a pair of washed out olive green shorts turned pale that may have probably once been loose and reaching the knees, she finally dug out the fabled long loose black shirt with torn up sleeves, cut out a wider collar for her head to go through with a pair of scissors from the mug of pens and pencils on the desk and, while squinting as much as she could, not wanting to see any more of Sakura's body as she already had, she managed to squeeze into it since the garment wasn't as nicely wide as it once might have been and the sleeves now barely reached her elbows. Still, the girl was silently thanking that at least one good thing came out of Sakura's underdeveloped tiny figure, even though the thought of having a near flat chest was kind of disturbing and felt eerily freeing. That made her conscious once again of the fact that she was in the body of one of the most irritating weak female leads in shounen history and her spirit dropped.

Setting the boxes back inside, she briefly thought of what her situation could actually be. If it was just a bad dream, she would have woken up by now but she was too scared of the thought of hurting herself to actually contemplate hurting herself or suicide as a rational means of making herself snap out of the dream, since pinching and freaking out about it had obviously not worked. But if it wasn't a bad dream, then what was it? Maybe she was in a coma or she was having hallucinations, or worse, she had died in her sleep and this was the hell she was sent to for doubting the existence of god and living a sheltered unsociable life.

No, all of those sounded ridiculous, not that it wasn't ridiculous enough already, waking up in the Narutoverse in Sakura's body, it was scary even, she could even feel Sakura's mouth as she brushed her teeth in the bathroom, which in retrospect may not have been the best thing to think about if she didn't want to hurl over the one pair of decent clothing of Sakura's that she could bear to wear at the moment. And she had to do something about that obnoxious hair as soon as possible, aside from parting the hair sideways and tucking the front strands behind her ear in order to soften the large forehead look, Midori decided as she frowned hatefully at her image in the bathroom mirror before spitting out the residual toothpaste. She considered she would be doing Sakura a favor anyway, since in her opinion, no self-respecting ninja could ever be a functional shinobi while having such an eye-catching hair color without possessing the necessary skill to get away with it, like the older Sakura did in the Shippuuden timeline.

- xxx -

One thing was certain, Midori would never come to terms with how it felt to move around in Sakura's body, but walking through the sunny streets of Konoha sure had enough of an impact to briefly deter her attention from her unfortunate predicament. If she was in a sick dream, this was a rather pleasant side of it and the realism was top notch in everything from the style of the buildings, shops and the Hokage Monument in the distance to the sun kissing her face and even the dust from the dirty road which got between her toes because of the ridiculous open-toed ninja sandals every ninja supposedly wore as part of their uniform. Providing freedom of movement or not, the sandals were too airy and her feet were sure to get dirty real fast.

Since Real-Sakura would be considered weird if she didn't listen to her mother's whining and locked herself up in her room moping around and crying over being herself, it was obvious that she had to do her moping around out of the house. Midori had gone through the drawers on Sakura's desk before she went out and luckily found something between a diary and an organizer laced with small doodles of Sasuke, accompanied by hearts and stalkerish facts like his favorite food, favorite color, favorite things in general and when he had accidentally looked her way or stood in five meters of her. There were also enraged scribbles fueled by her jealousy of Ino and different dates with annotations such as when she had tests, or when she had aced said tests.

The last entry was for October 15th about some explanatory meeting in the Academy, which was most definitely the same Sakura was supposed to attend when she had become a ninja in the original timeline, not that the numerous red exclamation marks weren't giving away the importance of the event. The same date was encircled on the calendar in the kitchen as well and judging by the immense enthusiasm Sakura's apparently low-ranking village-bound ninja mother was radiating, that very day was most likely the awaited October 15th for the newly graduated genin. Not that it mattered anymore, now that Sakura's body was occupied by Midori, who (after taking a lot of time to locate the very real original ninja headband and leg-strap holsters with real ninja gear, dream come true for any self-respecting fan) she could only jump at the notion that, before this hellish nightmare was over with, she could at least sneak herself a glance at the village, the Academy and the rest of the rookie nine, to console her troubled mind.

There was a small problem with that plan actually. She knew that the Academy was somewhere left of the Hokage Tower, which was obviously the grandeur circular building under the visage of the equivalent of Ninja Mount Rushmore with the Hokage faces, but it wasn't really clear exactly where. It would have been strange for Haruno Sakura, as her neighbors greeted her, to go out of her way to ask directions for the very academy she had supposedly been attending for years now. So how in the world was this less than informed off-worlder going to find her way to said academy if Sakura didn't have a map anywhere in her house? Which may not have been that weird at all, since every normal person living in that village since birth probably never had the need of a map of the Hidden Leaf, even more so considering it was a ninja village and maps could easily get stolen and used by an enemy to navigate the village.

Midori vaguely remembered Konoha having a circular outer wall and a main street stretching from the entrance gate to the Hokage Tower and most of the other streets were supposed to lead her either to the main one, the outer wall or the Tower at some point, if she didn't go in odd directions or made a random turn to a river bank or a dead end. So when Midori noticed a familiar streak of purple and platinum blond come out of a nearby flower shop, it caused the first smile that had shown itself on the face Midori so much detested.

"Ino! I'm so glad to see you!"

To say that Yamanaka Ino was in shock would have been an understatement. When she turned around to the call of her name by such a familiar voice, she was faced with the disturbing image of her former friend practically skipping towards her with an uncharacteristically wide grin plastered across her face. Not only that but she had a severe case of bed head, was for some reason wearing her ancient childhood clothes, Leaf headband hiding her wide forehead and awkwardly tipping sideways, showing a bit of her hairline. It was either that Sakura had finally snapped, crushed by the revelation that she had no chance with Ino's precious Sasuke-kun, and reverted back to a cheerful version of her five-year-old self, or if not, then Ino was having daytime hallucinations and it was time to quit that new diet she had picked up recently and finally eat a decent meal.

"Hey! So, um, uh, explanatory meeting, right?" Midori began and tried to smile sweetly, hopeful that the Yamanaka would now lead the way.

Ino however, arched eyebrows and went into a repetition of opening and closing her mouth, seemingly in the process of absorbing this Sakura's odd appearance and newly formed familiarity towards her ex-friend. "Is... is this a trick or something, Sakura, because there is no other way you can excuse that look," she simply stated after she regained control of her facial expressions.

"What? Is it the clothes? I just thought I'd start wearing something more comfortable and non-restricting." Midori shrugged but then made a double take when faced with Ino's perplexed expression and remembered that she and the real Sakura were supposed to be superficial girly girls and bitter love rivals because of their stupid obsession with the last Uchiha. "Uh, I mean, it's much better than what you're wearing, blondie. There's no way a respectable kunoichi would be able to run freely in a getup such as yours." She hoped the dramatic way of speaking she forcefully adopted would cut it.

"Blondie? You're one to talk, forehead!" The other girl apparently bought the act and regained her characteristic mocking smile, proceeding on her way with fake-Sakura stepping in tow. "Did you get your hair done at a cotton candy shop this morning?"

"Haha, I know, right! It's ridiculous, I can't stand it!" Midori exclaimed without thinking, causing Ino to sputter and sharply turn back at her.

"Didn't you hear what I said about your hair, billboard brow?! Did you even put a comb through that today?!"

"What? Yeah, I did, why?" She really did. The sideways parting seemed alright to her, a grand idea for the pre-pubescent disproportionate forehead, besides wearing the forehead protector as it was meant to – on your forehead. Too bad there was no way she could brush the pink out of her hair.

"Because you look like someone who crept out of a back-alley dumpster after getting wasted and passing out." Ino was visibly enjoying this, she was throwing all the offenses she wanted and Sakura just stood there, taking it.

Midori looked at a nearby shop window as they passed and saw her disheveled pink hair, probably from all the running around trying to find her way, and how it made her look in combination with the torn up shirt and washed out shorts, understanding what Ino meant. At least the hair wasn't her fault, she thought as she absentmindedly fixed her sideways forehead protector. Sakura's hair was apparently thinner and admittedly softer than hers and she was probably supposed to use one of the many products in the bathroom to keep it in place and make it easier to subdue.

"You said that right," Midori snorted when they passed the window, draining all the amusement out of the Yamanaka's face. It was now obvious to the latter that this Sakura was taking all the fun out of trying to rile her up.

"Hmph! I can't believe they let you graduate," the blonde tried again, taking a different approach. This was most definitely going to get to her.

"Neither do I, considering what a weak-ass ninja I am!"

Ino was taken aback. What had she said? Was she trying to use reverse-psychology or something?

"Um, but apparently I'm some super big smart-ass and aced every test, unlike you, Ino-pig." Midori did a last minute save.

It was so hard to respond the way the real Sakura would when she felt the need to say what was really on her mind. It was especially tricky when all the insults Ino was sending Sakura's way were things she herself could agree with, excluding the comments about her current choice of wear. Which reminded her to make a mental note to look around for at least one other change of clothes on her way back home, since Midori had no idea when exactly would this incredibly vivid dream end and she wanted to have something else comfortable enough to wear.

"Oh, little miss smarty pants has a little something to brag about, does she? You and your petty tests and exams," Ino scoffed, "But the real thing is going to be a little different from sitting in the familiar classroom, answering theoretical questions."

"Heh, that's for sure."

The blonde took that as Sakura admitting defeat and smirked to herself, mentally adding one win to her imaginary scoreboard.

Midori had to admit, Ino was not that bad in person. Not that she wasn't equally as annoying with the way she insisted on turning everything into an insult directed at Sakura, but if you weren't Sakura herself, she did say some oddly accurate things, such as how it really was a miracle that anyone in their right mind would let a weakling like Sakura graduate from the academy, as well as the fact that solely concentrating on written tests when her actual strength was lacking, would make her a liability in real combat conditions, no matter how much intelligence she might have possessed.

Speaking of strength, now that she was in this piece of girly crap body, it most probably meant that she was as weak as Sakura herself. Not that Sakurai Midori's original strength exceeded anything beyond the capability of lifting her schoolbag single-handedly when it was full with all her cram school textbooks, but she wasn't the one trained by skilled ninja from a young age, only to graduate with a bunch of aced tests and earn herself the infamy of being useless in comparison to her two ridiculously overpowered teammates.

- xxx –

Ino might have thought Sakura was acting strangely before, with the way she ooh'ed and aah'ed at every street sign and shop window, but it was even weirder when they arrived at the academy and Sakura's head spun in every direction to stare at every classroom and every person they passed. It may have been that Ino was a certified ninja, trained to pick up on normally useless details and she was just excessively suspicious of something trivial, but to her it almost seemed like Sakura was acting the same as someone who had never set foot into the Academy building before. Either that or she was back on the thing about going crazy from lack of proper nutrition because of her diet.

The blond girl however was beginning to have her suspicions that Sakura might actually be a different person altogether, perhaps someone using a transformation technique. But it didn't add up, because this person apparently knew what Sakura's outdated clothes looked like and no one would find it useful to impersonate a freshly graduated twelve-year-old kunoichi to infiltrate the academy, so Ino was probably thinking too much into it. The most probable case was that maybe, just maybe Sakura had changed somehow. Maybe she hit her head, maybe not, but she was definitely different. And Ino thought it was weirding her out big time.

"Naruto!"

Upon entering the classroom Ino had led her to, Midori's eyes sparkled as she completely abandoned all memory of her waking up as Sakura and left a stupefied Ino in a blur to dash towards the main character of the world she had found herself in, all much to the astonishment of some of the other occupants of the room who had heard her nerdy outburst. Rarely did anyone ever react that way to the class loser and resident social pariah, never actually.

"Sa-sakura-chan?!" Naruto had spotted her even before she laid her eyes on him. He had briefly wondered if she really was looking his way but all those doubts flew out the window the moment the girl of his dreams embraced him in an uncharacteristically lovable glomp and caused him to turn into a red-faced sputtering orange fuzz ball. He felt his head was spinning.

"Oh my Kira, Naruto, it's really you–" Midori stopped herself and froze, realizing what she had just done when she heard herself sporting someone else's voice again and remembered who she was currently supposed to be. She promptly released the barely functioning Naruto and took a step back. "I mean, I'm just so glad you graduated! I heard you went through some trouble and I guess I was a little worried." She played with her fingers, trying to control her fan urges, but it was like the Death Note was right in front of you, begging you to try and use it to see if it actually worked.

"Really?!" The orange clad boy beamed with the most ridiculously big smile on his face as he scratched the back of his head sheepishly, a pink hue still adorning his cheeks. "Oh, well, I had no idea you felt the same way about me, Sakura-chan~" he immediately ventured into one of his almost drunken delusional presumptions but then suddenly stopped, breaking into a defensive stance and gave her an odd look. "Hey, Sakura-chan, is something wrong? Because I'm pretty sure you would've hit me for talking like that by now, ya know. Not that I want you to, just saying." Naruto peered at the pink haired girl in the washed out green shorts and black shirt with torn sleeves. "You look weird, ya know," he didn't seem to realize he had phrased that wrong.

Midori sighed, rubbing the back of her neck. Why was being Sakura so difficult?

"Please don't hit me?" Naruto ducked behind his hands again and smiled awkwardly, taking her actions as annoyance towards him.

"I won't, Naruto, calm down," she assured. "There's nothing wrong with me, I just... I guess I figured it's high time I grew out of the annoying part of my childhood." Midori quickly put together some things she pulled off the top of her head. "We've graduated after all. A self-absorbed ninja wearing a red one-piece, hitting her peers for no reason... it seems childish, don't you think?" Midori tried on a smile, though that wasn't hard to manage, since she was still ecstatic about actually having a real conversation with the number one knuckleheaded ninja protagonist.

The same knucklehead leaned in towards her with the stupidest and ugliest squinting expressions he could muster, inspecting her face, puffy from crying when she woke up as Sakura, and disheveled by the soft wind pink mop of hair that she had failed to brush with her fingers, since she didn't have any idea how she was supposed to apply all of Sakura's fruity hair products.

"Ha! Like I would believe any of that. I just know you're upset about something!" He hummed and when an idea popped in his head, he yelled, "If you get so majorly depressed that it starts to show, Sakura-chan, it must mean you're going through an emo phase, ya know," he cupped a hand and added closely in a whisper, "I hear that's what's happening to Sasuke and if you ask me, it's not pretty."

Seriously, Naruto, making fun of the poor dude for having a hard time handling his family being murdered by his own brother? Not that I'm not amused but where in this universe did you even pick up on what being emo is anyway?! I just hope he doesn't mention that in front of gloom boy unless he wants his ass maimed...

By that time most of the other graduates were glancing at the two, not fully convinced if this was another of Naruto's ridiculous stunts or not, while Ino observed from the sidelines, wondering herself if Sakura really was in depression as the orange clad boy had posed.

"Calm down, Naruto. That's ridiculous! I told you already that I'm just fed up with all that being an annoying girly girl crap. How do you expect me to prove it?!" Midori was getting a little fed up with this predicament. What was his deal anyway? Her having an emo phase?! Was Naruto always this annoying?

"The Sakura I know likes Uchiha Sasuke," Ino raised her voice and some people moved out of the way so she could step up to the two of them. "Am I wrong?" She was testing out her theory that Sakura might have given up on love and hope in the face of a tough love rival like her blond self.

"Seriously, Ino, what does that have to do with anything?" Midori deadpanned but her face lit up when she realized the implication. "Oh~! Now I get it~! You're gonna use that card, are you? Figures." Midori palmed her slightly larger forehead, dreading the thought that they were probably going to force her to humiliate herself in some way or another, just so she could show the blondes that there was nothing wrong with their Sakura. However, she was shaken out of her musings by Naruto's reaction to the mention of his crush's crush. He looked down at his feet and Midori sent him a questioning gaze.

"Everyone is always Sasuke this, Sasuke that, why is everyone so interested in that guy?!" Naruto jumped onto his desk and entered the personal space of its other occupant, giving him the stink eye. The raven haired boy sitting there quietly was none other the very same Uchiha Sasuke they had been talking about all along.

Oh! That's right! Sasuke was supposed to be sitting behind him! Sakurai Midori hid her mouth with both hands, gaping not just at the fact that the second most important character of the Narutoverse was before her and was as emotionlessly cool as he had been portrayed, but also at the fact that there was a chance that the NaruSasu kiss was going to happen, despite the fact that Naruto wasn't suffering by rejection from Sakura, and there was a possibility that the guy behind Naruto might still bump him. And that possibility rested in her hands now.

As Naruto was busy with his internal monologue while exchanging glares with the young Uchiha, a small group of girls began to gather around Ino, shoving aside Midori from where she stood. When the girls became loud in their arguments towards the blond boy facing off their crush, Midori took that opportunity to call out, "Hey you, the guy with the ponytail!"

"Who, me?" turned to ask a dark-haired boy from the first row, reaching to rest his elbow on the desk behind him, but in that process, he accidentally bumped into someone in an orange tracksuit, making him lose his footing.

Suddenly the classroom grew quiet as each pair of eyes fell in one sole direction.

"Ah, sorry!" the boy looked back to apologize but was met with a disturbing image.

Uzumaki Naruto had fallen into Uchiha Sasuke's lips and apparently, no matter how roughly teeth crushing and tongue lacking it was, it counted as the two boys' first kiss.

Midori just couldn't hold the fit of giggles and sputtered behind the back of her hand, her eyes watering. Even when the two separated to spit profusely and pretend to gag, even when the guy behind Naruto blamed himself and even when Sasuke's admirers leapt to beat the crap out of the fox boy, the kiss they shared still counted. And best of all, it was now all her fault. And since she was in Sakura's body, it was technically Sakura's fault, which made it even more rewarding.

As the battered Naruto somehow managed to peal himself off from the floor after his severe beating and collapsed in his desk, Midori turned to the back where she planned to seat herself, only to find another blonde there.

"Ino? I thought you would want to, uh..." she motioned towards the empty spot between Sasuke and Naruto.

"Oh, it's okay, Sakura, you can sit next to Sasuke-kun this one time." An odd glint had settled into the blonde's eyes as she eyed Sakura with doubt, making the pinkette shift away from her. "I'm fine just where I am."

"Er, okay, whatever," Midori voiced, awkwardly seating herself between the two boys.

The entire time she was under Ino's watchful eye and Naruto's sympathetic looks of "don't be so down, don't be emo". As Iruka came and read out the team assignments, Sasuke made an inaudible click with his tongue when he was told he had to be put on a team with two others to hinder him, Ino hummed when fake-Sakura made no reaction at receiving the pleasure of being teamed up with the supposedly dreamy boy and the blond knucklehead made a point to voice his displeasure for ending up on the same team as the stuck up Uchiha. All of that was more than a headache for the pinkhead, especially when Sasuke insisted on further agitating the loud kid, making fun of him for being a dead last.

"Would the two of you just shut your traps already! For fuck's sake..." Midori had exploded, silencing them both, although the gloomy self-absorbed prodigy on her left complied rather reluctantly.

"Sorry, Sakura-chan," Naruto sank in his seat but then quickly recovered to widen his eyes at her, worry evident in watery blue orbs. "Sakura-chan, you're getting even grumpier, ya know! Don't go emo like the bastard!"

Sensing that he was somehow involved in that sentence, Sasuke glanced briefly over his folded fingers, wondering what the two loudmouths on his newly-formed team of deadweights were on about.

"Oh, for the love of Lord Kira and all that is his godly justice," Midori groaned to herself and ran palms over her face in exasperation. She felt that it was going to be a while before either one of the stubborn blondes resigned to get off her case. Who would've known that acting like a normal human being, instead of keeping Sakura's mannerisms, would have that effect on her ex-friend bitter love rival and the dimwitted orange clad masochist.

- xxx -

Iruka-sensei had sent them away on a break before they could meet their jounin instructors, so Midori was now enjoying the small homely lunch box Sakura's mother had shoved in her back pouch before she had left home that morning. The girl sat in a swing on a desolate playground several blocks away from the academy, intent on avoiding any gimmicks Naruto would try to pull, if he transformed into Sasuke like in canon, by avoiding any place which seemed familiar from the anime or manga. She wanted to get some time alone to cope with the sudden headache that had appeared in the classroom, brought by her new teammates' arguing.

But she also had a few thoughts she wanted to sort out on her own without distractions, things about her real life and about when was she going to snap out of this wicked dream. So she had hurried to this place before the blond ninja could attempt to ask her to eat together, since she had the appearance of the pinkette he had a crush on. But as Midori rocked herself slowly on the swing with the heels of her feet while reaching to place the last piece of eggroll in her rice filled mouth, she choked upon noticing something black, blue and white from the corner of her eye which was leaning on the side of the children's slide several feet away from her.

"Cough! Cough! Give me a heads up next time you decide to pop out of nowhere like that why don'cha!" The girl frowned slightly in Sasuke's direction and cleared her throat, lightly bumping her chest with a fist to make sure there wasn't anything more obstructing her airways. "What are you, trying to make me choke to death?!"

The dark-haired boy leaning on the slide with his arms folded seemed to be directing his signature smug smirk her way, as if he was either laughing inwardly at her expense or he had some wicked plan involving her, a scheme of the sort. Maybe the latter, considering that this had to be Naruto, because there was no way the real Sasuke would openly seek out his annoying newly appointed female teammate without cringing at her startled shouts. Or for that matter walk up to her and tell her, "Hey. Your wide forehead is so charming. Makes me want to kiss it."

"Eh?" Midori stared up stupidly in disbelief at the disguised dumb blond in front of her and exploded in laughter. She had forgotten about that line. "That was horrible, just horrible!"

Visibly discouraged by the pink haired girl's laughing fits which made her swing tremble with feint chain rattles, Fake-Sasuke tried his hardest to stay in character. "Kidding. It sounds like something Naruto would say." He brushed it off smoothly and took a seat on the swing next to hers.

Yeah, this is Naruto alright. Might as well play along. Her fits subsided and she turned sideways on the swing to face his way.

"Hello to you too, Sasuke."

"Sakura, I have something to ask you." The Sasuke transformation grasped the chains on his swing and listened to the metallic screeches beside him as she slowly and lightly started to rock herself with one foot. "What do you think of Naruto?" He moved his eyes to her gaze which was roaming the playground and patiently waited for her response.

"Oh, him?" Midori feigned seriousness and halted her foot. "He's perfect for you! You should definitely go for it!" She gave him a thumbs up.

"Uh, what?!" The straight face Naruto struggled to keep on his Sasuke transformation began to falter. "Perfect for what? Go for what?"

"A relationship of course!" she stated like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I had a feeling that after a kiss that passionate you two would start gravitating towards each other. I'm just surprised you're the first to come out of the closet, Sasuke!"

Fake-Sasuke's face blanched, which would have seemed impossible, considering how the real one's complexion was borderline ghostly pale to begin with. He then adopted a sickened expression and his grip on the swing's chains tightened.

"It makes me so happy that you came to talk to me about this, Sasuke! I'm definitely rooting for you! Can't wait till you two are official! You're just made for each other!"

"Wha– that– no– I– WHAT?! No! No! No! No! No!" Naruto's child mind could take no more, causing him to completely break character as he sprung up from the swing and erupted into relentless protests, "Absolutely no way in hell! EWW! With that bastard?! We're both guys, ya know! That's seriously messed up! Argh!" His whole body shuddered with his face wrinkled in sheer disgust and he started grumbling about how his mouth still tasted rotten after repetitive rinsing.

"Wow, Sasuke, that's a bit harsh, don't you think?" Midori crossed her arms and tried on a frown. "And after all that trouble Naruto went through to make the first big step and kiss you. What if you break his heart?! You could at least try to turn the poor guy down gently, you know."

"I didn't– I mean, he and I– There's nothing– I don't– I mean, not me, Naruto doesn't–" As the now fully out of character Fake-Sasuke reddened in something between anger and humiliation and struggled to formulate a coherent sentence, a loud gurgle sounded from his abdomen and he doubled over, clutching his stomach in pain. "ARGH! I'LL BE RIGHT BACK!" He sent her a pained pointed look which clearly meant "don't move from this spot and don't spread your nonsense to the general public" and scurried off and away from the playground.

Midori took that as her cue to drop her act and burst out laughing. Surely, after all of this Naruto must have come to a conclusion that the real Sakura was a fujoshi, immersed in delusional fantasies about latent homosexual men, and that amused her to no end, making her forget all about her strange headache.

- xxx –

Somewhere along the way back to the academy, the real Sasuke popped up from around a corner. She could tell he was the real one because it was hard to mistake the expression of immense irritation at something not within his reach to successfully strangle. He was beyond irked even for his standards, looking around as if searching to find, and maim, that someone with the way he was pronouncing each step, stomping the ground. When the agitated boy spotted something pink with black and green, he turned to the girl and stalked towards her, cutting off her path and effortlessly halting her advance.

"Naruto. Where is he?" he demanded. It was right to the point with this self-absorbed avenger.

"Just saw him several minutes ago. Tried to hit on me, transformed as you, rather pathetically at that," she tried to tease, anticipating his reaction.

Sasuke's eyes furrowed and he grunted, displeased by the thought of the idiot blond running about in his form, embarrassing him in front of other people. He looked back sharply at what he thought was Sakura and retorted harshly, "I asked where he went." She was wasting his time.

"Restroom probably. Drank bad milk this morning," Midori spilled right away, not really wanting to get in the way of Naruto and his doom. Just by the ticked off look on the dark-haired ninja's ebony eyes, she could already feel her skin shiver. Was Sasuke really that much of a killjoy? Rather, did he really look that unnecessarily hateful up close?

"Hn." Finally having received his answers, the Uchiha broke eye contact and stomped away, no longer directing his soiled mood at the unnaturally pink-haired girl.

Exhaling a breath she didn't realize she was holding, Midori sighed in relief and made a mental note to try and never tick off the perpetually grumpy member of Team Seven.

- xxx –

Just when the pinkette had almost reached the academy, she heard someone call out to her, "Saakura-chaan! Wait up!" It was truly a good thing the name sounded so similar to her family name Sakurai, which is what she was referred to at school by her teachers and classmates, otherwise she wouldn't have noticed the waving orange clad boy behind her, still clutching his aching stomach and looking a bit ill in the face.

Naruto? But I thought I sicked mr grumpy pajama pants on him.

He had probably searched for her back at the playground and found it very strange that she had ditched him when he, looking like Sasuke, had told her to wait for him to come back. It seemed logical to him that Sakura would suck up to every word Sasuke, or someone transformed as him, would say.

"Hey, Naruto, you okay?" Midori stopped, waiting for him to catch up, and addressed his sickly expression. "Where have you been anyway? I met Sasuke along the way, twice, asking about you. The first time he seemed really interested in you but the second time he looked ready to shove a fist up your ass." Emerald eyes twinkled in mischief. "And not in the pleasant way."

Panic crossed behind blue eyes and the boy gulped loudly. "Ahaha, what could that be about, right? Haven't seen him!" he replied quickly, breaking in a bit of cold sweat. "Those are probably mood swings, ya know, since he's in his emo phase, makes him really emotionally unstable and all." The blond shrugged, snickering at his witty remark.

"He barely strikes me as one to show any other emotion other than disinterest, irritation and killer intent," the girl muttered darkly under her breath, sweatdropping. Seriously though, how does Naruto here know what emo is?!

"Which reminds me, Sakura-chan," Naruto beamed at her when he noticed her deadpan face. "I know of a perfect way to cheer you up and get you out of that slump!"

"Oh, no, not this again," she sighed to herself, restraining a facepalm.

The only thing she was depressed about was having to put up with this nightmare of living Sakura's life, the worst of which was not knowing how long it was going to last. She was even starting to miss her boring nerd life back in real world, along with her strict conservative parents and the few friends that made it all bearable. She was supposed to be at school by this time, having that mock exam she studied for the previous night before she woke up as a pink fluff ball in a presumably fictional ninja village. It was frustrating that she wasn't waking up and getting on with her life yet. If even Naruto noticed her inner struggles, it must have been showing on her face this whole time.

"How about, uh," he trailed off, looked aside and grinned stupidly to himself, "we, I mean, the two of us together can, you know, go on a..." A pink hue reached his cheeks and he chuckled giddily.

Dear Lord Kira, please spare me... This time Midori couldn't hold herself from palming her larger than normal forehead as she anticipated another of Naruto's weak attempts of coaxing Sakura to give into his barely-existent infantile charms.

But Naruto's face suddenly turned sour and he hugged himself, muttering, "Ow ow ow ow! What the hell is this?!" Another loud unappealing sound from the direction of his stomach later and it seemed like Midori's prayers had been answered because the blonde made a run for it, past her and probably towards the main direction of the closest restroom, abandoning all previous thoughts of arranging himself a date with his Madonna.

Thank goodness for that sour milk.


- A/N -

I swear this is not Sakura bashing! Just please give it time. :D

Hope you enjoyed! Any reviews and critiques are gladly appreciated so I can get better! ;3