Hello there! It's S.A. Hikari again.

You won't believe this, but Shikaino vs. Shikatema is…….. a tie! Can you believe it? Six to six. Which one will it be? You'll have to read to find out!

I don't own Naruto

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"How about rock paper scissors" Ino asked.

"To determine what?" I asked, curious.

"To see who gets Shikamaru!" She said, quite bluntly.

"Hey!" Choji yelled, "That still doesn't solve the problem of who I should be with!"

"You know what?" Sasuke said to him, "Shut up, I'm thinking."

"Hey! Be polite. Wait a minute," I hatched an idea, "What did you say before?" I said to Choji.

"Um, I said I'd go to the sand village to deliver a message to Temari."

"Yeah!" Naruto agreed, "He could go and get Temari, and then stay there until we fix this; how's that sound, Choji?"

He nodded in his usual way. "That way I don't have to be part of this fiasco, but what I don't understand is why you guys don't stay there too."

"Well," I thought about this, he might be right, until I knew it wouldn't work, "If we all go there at the same time, the village would find out and send us back with an escort."

"Yeah, you're right," he said, "I should go alone and get her."

Ino was screaming. "Hey! What did I say before?"

I turned to my friend. "Calm down, this isn't real. Besides, if you were partnered with Shikamaru, you'd have no reason to, and he'd be too lazy to do anything, right? It'd make you frustrated."

Shikamaru popped a vain. "You know, I'm still here. I can hear everything you're saying."

"Shut up," Ino snapped at him.

Shikamaru just kept on muttering. "Yeah, yeah, girls are so troublesome, I don't even know why I'm part of this stupid plan, and I should just go back to the village…"

Whatever, we were ignoring him.

"If you can't get exactly what you want, what do you want, then?" I asked Ino.

"I'll guess I'll travel with Choji to the sand village and stay there too, two isn't enough people to alert the sirens, they'll just think were on vacation or something," Ino said in a sad manner.

"Sounds like a plan," Shikamaru said, rather blandly.

I looked to the sky. Twilight was just about done. "Well, its time to get some sleep. We'll need proof tomorrow, with all of you as my witnesses; I will fake getting hitched tomorrow." Those words tingled on my tongue long after I said them.

"Ditto," said Naruto, clutching a still unconscious Hinata.

"Ditto," said Tenten.

"Yahoo!" screamed Kiba.

"Whee!" yelled Miho.

It was finally dark, and as I savored my last few minutes of my last day of being single, or at least not fake married, I got that feeling that some might call wedding jitters. But how could that be if this was just a scam?

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That feeling was still there when I woke up the next morning. I looked around and realized I was the only one up, except Akamaru, who was sniffing around for some tid-bits. I dug deep in my pocket and pulled out a cracker.

"Here, here, puppy," But he wasn't a puppy anymore. He came up all the way to my chest. His ears perked up and his tongue fell out of his mouth.

RUFF!

His bark almost toppled me over, but didn't wake anybody. It certainly wasn't a small arf! anymore.

He walked over as I held out my hand and he ate the cracker really loudly.

"Shh! could you be a little more quiet?" I told him. I was talking to a dog. This meant I probably was going crazy from the stress of my fake wedding, but it felt good, so I kept talking. "Akamaru? I bet it's much easier being a dog than a human. You don't have to worry about petty things like marriage and love, huh?"

He kept on munching that cracker.

"You don't know how stressful it is. Especially my life. My life sucks. Sure, I'm lady Hokage's apprentice, but what good does that do when she's lost her marbles? Also, my love life isn't the greatest you've heard of either, I bet. First I'm in love, but then it turns out my love is a power hungry avenger who's never loved a single day in his life since the Uchiha tragedy."

He finished the cracker and looked at me for another one. I petted his head.

"Then I confess on the day he leaves town, and he knocks me unconscious, I'm supposed to not love him anymore…right?" I looked at him as if he knew all the answers; he just started at me with a confused look in his eyes. I threw my arms around him in a puppy hug and started to cry. "I don't know what to feel anymore! Why am I so nervous if this is fake and I don't even love him anymore?"

Suddenly I felt a presence. I wiped around, fighting back my tears, to face Sasuke. I was speechless.

He was speechless.

Maybe even Akamaru was speechless.

"I…I have to fetch more water at the stream, I'll be back in fifteen minutes."

"Sakura," His alluring voice made me think back to the days when we were twelve. I didn't do anything, I just walked away. But, apparently, he takes that as a yes.

He followed me to the stream.

"You know, you don't have to do this."

"Don't give me that, you were eavesdropping on me, besides, I want to. I need to figure out what's going on with Tsunade."

He shrugged. "Whatever," I looked away, "But you know, you're not so annoying anymore, in fact, you've got some leadership in you."

I had to double-take, but didn't have time. As I was scooping the water, I heard our companions wake up.

"Hey!" Shikamaru yelled, "Guys, if we want to execute the plan today, we need to start right away."

My heart gave a jolt as Sasuke held out his hand, "Well, you comin' or not?"

I smirked. This was more like the Sasuke I used to know. "Sure."

And wouldn't you know it, I took his hand.

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Sorry for that little bit of OCCness at the end there, but other than that, I think this is a pretty good chapter, I know I said it would be a while, but I got good ideas! So sue me. I wish I could list all your names, but there are a lot of you! I'm sorry for those of you who prefer Shikaino, but It's hard to come up with ideas for that one, especially since there are so many chapters already. I still think it's completely weird that it's a tie. I hope this won't render you from continuing to read. Don't worry! It'll start to get actiony very soon.

Not-so-sincerely,

S.A.Hikari.