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Hastily shoved out of Sasuke's residence, Hinata walked around town confused. Had she upset him? A sudden pang of guilt attacked her, and she chided herself for being thoughtless. Of course she'd upset him! She'd basically called him a pig! She would have to make it up to him. With one arm cradling Sasuke's blue clipboard, she brought her other free hand to her chin, she stroked thoughtfully. Maybe she could cook him some food, she was good at making food... Maybe she could make medicine for him... or- AH!

Jolted out of her deeply apologetic thinking, she realized she'd accidently knocked into someone, whoever she'd bumped into they sure had a solid chest. Looking up, she saw a familiar face, with a white toothed smile, rosy cheeks, large spherical eyes, thick black eyebrows and a black bowl-cut.

"Lee-san! I-I'm so sorry!"

"It is okay, fair lily maiden Hinata.. ehh Sasuke?! It is I! Rock Lee, splendid green beast of Konoha who should apologize! Perhaps I should treat you to ramen! I promise!"

He struck a pose and Hinata giggled softly, the bottom half of her face hiding behind the Sasuke's clipboard.

"N-no It's okay Lee-san. Maybe instead you c-could help me with my m-mission?"

"Oh? What mission fair maiden cousin of my youth enraged teammate? Perhaps you need to reach the top of that mountain? If so, I will piggy-back you there!"

He pointed in the direction of Suna, towards a few squiggly lines on the horizon. Hinata shook her head.

"Maybe some other t-time, I n-need to know about Sakura-san."

His eyes immediately lit up, Hinata swore she could see the flickering illusion of fire in those round eyes of his.

"Sakura-chan is the like the lotus blossom! So beautiful! So fragrant! Her pink cherry blossom locks sways in the wind like the graceful willow! Her eyes like the shining emeralds that are found most rare!"

Rock Lee went on for another solid 45 minutes, all the while tears streaming from his eyes that glistened in the backdrop of a setting sun. Hinata had to cut him off after he began to compose haiku's. She sighed, walking away disappointed. Eyeing her list wistfully, the only useful thing there was that she used the phrase 'cha'. She'd have to report back to Sasuke tomorrow, and half the day had already past, with only one thing on her list, she would have to make hast.

Sprinting through the crowded streets of Konoha, she made mental note of everyone she passed by, whether they had any past experiences or any type of previous connection to Sakura, curiously they all spared glances at her or glared or frowned, Hinata wondered if maybe she had something on her face because she certainly didn't know any of these people... Passing by a pink stand in front of a shady looking shop, a large banner draped over the pink stand, Hinata briefly saw the words: Haruno Sakura Fan Club. Taking note of this she quickly wrote it down. By the time it was 2 o'clock, Hinata had grown very tired. The little spurt of enthusiasm when she'd accomplished a list of two things was quickly wearing away. Leaving but a smouldering ember where her flame of determination once blazed proud. Sighing, she mentally told her self never to spend so much time with Lee ever again. Dragging her feet across the ground, she heard the sound of Ino's cheerful bubbling and Shikamaru's lazy drawl somewhere far away.

It struck her then, that Ino and Sakura were childhood friends. Clutching the clipboard to her chest, she headed towards the sound of Ino exuberant talking. She reached an empty training ground, Shikamaru and Chouji lying in the grass, while Ino was pacing. Ino seemed to be lost in a one-sided conversation with her self, mentioning something about loving Sasuke and the feeling being mutual. Hinata felt the tiniest flicker of jealousy, but brushed it off, telling herself it was just her usual nerves that always got the best of her. After all, she'd never really talked or been around team 10 before. Gulping, she cautiously waddled up to them, holding the clipboard tighter, as if it were her life guard. Shikamaru gaze wandered over to her, and he sat up, stretching and yawning. Ino looked in the direction he was facing, ready to yell and scream if it were to be Sakura, turning around, she saw Hinata and her viciously competitive glare melted away into a warm friendly smile.

"Oh hello Hinata, why are you here?"

"W-well, you see Ino-san..."

At that moment Hinata wanted desperately to poke her index fingers together, it always made her feel better.

"Spit it out Hinata, don't be troublesome." came Shikamaru's flat voice. Ino yelled at him for being rude and hit him over the head, earning a soft pained hissing noise from him.

"Y-you see, I need to know about Sakura-san." Ino put her hands on her hips, snorting.

"You want to know about her?"

"Y-yes Ino-san, it is my p-personal mission." Hinata bowed, to show her sincerity and respect. Shikamaru smirked at her traditional clan behaviour, Chouji made munching noises and Ino gave in. Sighing, she agreed to help.

"W-what do you know about Sakura-san?" Ino crossed her arms over her chest, bringing one finger to her chin, she tapped.

"What type of information do you want to know Hinata? I've got plenty of dirt on that... thieving little... big foreheaded..."

"Just-Just habits and personality thank you Ino-san."

"Oh, ok. Well then... Her favourite food is red-bean dumplings with syrup and pickled plums, she doesn't really like anything really spicy. Her likes quizzes and memorizing things, che, what a nerd and she's crazy about Sasuke, like every other girl in the village..." She sighed blissfully before continuing, "Except you Hinata-chan, but it's ok, whatever your preferences, you'll still be my friend! Sakura's the 1# fan girl in the club, knocked me off top spot that pink haired brainiac!..."

Hinata wanted to remind Ino that this was, if not their first meeting, only their second so technically she didn't know if Ino was her friend yet, but she let it slide. After all everyone likes a new friend, and Ino seemed like a nice person anyway. Ino continued to ramble.

"...Oh! And when we were little, we used to be best friends but then she said she never wanted to see me again because I also liked Sasuke-kun! So that's a glimpse of her personality... Well yeah! I think that's about it! Is that enough info, is that alright Hinata-chan?"

"Y-yes Ino-chan. Thank you very much." Hinata struggled to say, she was a little peeved when Ino added the 'kun' to Sasuke's name, but was too busy being preoccupied with trying to remember everything Ino had mentioned.

"Oh and Hinata, don't know where you got that rockin' outfit, with the whole Uchiha clan look! I would ask you where you got it, bit I bet if Sasuke-kun found out he'd kill me. The colours really bring out your eyes though…." Hinata let the sound of Ino's voice filter out as she finally finished her last sentence, then she'd realized Ino had already gone off somewhere else to talk another person's ear off. Getting up, she smiled to herself, her spiral notepad now one whole page full she began to walk away from team 10's inactive training ground, when suddenly she was pulled behind a tree. Stifling a gasp, a hand was pressed over her mouth, urging her to keep quiet.

Shikamaru took his hand away from Hinata as soon as she seemed calmed down enough. He wiped his hand over his jacket, which was now damp from her breathe.

"Shikamaru-san?"

"I want to help you with your plan."

"B-but why?"

"There are no clouds in the sky today, and believe or not Hinata sometimes thinking about nothing can get boring, sometimes even boring things get bothersome. So what is this mission of yours?"

"W-well um... I wanted to be more-"

"Like Sakura so Naruto will take notice of you?"

She nodded, bewildered at his ability to finish her sentences before she could finish thinking them out.

"There is a simple way of going about this. Gather up enough information that you can about Sakura, which you are already doing, and then mimic her habits and personality as best you can. You can follow Sakura for a day, see how she acts, where she goes, how she dresses. Then place yourself in the same situation, and from the information you gathered simulate her personality. The last step, you have to be careful with this one, make your appearance to Naruto, make it as realistic as possible, even some one as dim as Naruto should notice the significant changes."

He felt another hit to his IQ packed head, a soft sort of tapping instead of Ino's usual brain jarring blows.

"Don't s-say that about Naruto-kun."

He looked back at her, rubbing the spot where her very gentle hit landed, not that it hurt, he just rubbed out of habit. He smirked to see her scribbling down notes upon her clipboard. Standing up from his squatting position, he stretched and yawned. Hinata followed, but without the stretching and yawning. She bowed once again and turned to leave. He muttered some parting words before she disappeared out of sight to put his plan into motion.

"You know, you're not as troublesome as most girls and do the mission well, I don't like seeing my strategies fail, just a tip, next time you decide to dress like Sakura, pick the right member of team 7's wardrobe."

She blushed and smiled, waving to him she ushered a quiet thank you and left.

Walking at a leisurely pace through town this time, Hinata read over the information she'd gathered.

: 'Cha'...

: 'Wear Sakura's clothing, not Sasuke's.

: 'Sakura fan club'...

Hmmm... Maybe she should go there? Surely the Sakura fan club knew everything they needed to know about Sakura?

: 'Active participant of Sasuke-san's fan club'...

Would she have to join that to in order to mimic Sakura's behaviour? Plus she'd have to act like the 1# fan girl too...

Hinata's brow creased, it seemed things were getting more complicated and Hinata's personal mission was becoming complex, contrary to Shikamaru san calling it the 'simple way of dealing with things...'

Hinata continued to roam through town, testing out certain words and phrases Sakura was sure to use.

"H-hello Sasuke-k-k-kun...? C-cha.!..?"

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Sasuke was lying down on his couch, carefully following the dainty cracks that had begun to form on his starched white roof. Vaguely, he began to think about the Hyuga girl, wondering what he could make her do... So she wanted to be like Sakura huh? Become another stupid bimbo fan girl that always dogged him and hounded him for to accept and return their 'love.'

"Che... What a waste."

Sitting up, he walked to the door, alerted by the soft, almost inaudible knocks on his front door. It could've been only one person. Yanking the door open, he looked down at the Hyuga girl, very secretly surprised she'd come back so soon and very very secretly hoping she'd come back because she'd gotten stuck and desperately needed his help. Scrutinizing the shorter petite form, he noticed the tiny blush that hinted on her pretty cheekbones, he also noticed the little invisible circles she drew with her toe. Had it begun? Was she already regressing to the primitive form of a vicious fan girl?!?! What he had failed to notice, was the obvious spiral notepad, firmly secured to a blue clipboard that she was holding out for him to see, one whole page of small neatly printed facts about the pink and green banshee, who people called Sakura.

He stepped back, almost cautiously, ready to slam the door as soon as he was out of its swinging radius. Before he could though, she had thrust the clipboard at his face, head bowing down in respect and politeness. Struggling to see what was in front of his face, his eyes began to focus quite awkwardly on what was there. Cross-eyed, with his nose pressed against the notepad, he began to feel quite dizzy. Within moments though, the white page with print had disappeared and instead a downcast blob of dark violet was what he saw.

Hinata had returned much earlier than she'd expected, walking around town, she'd met Neji and Tenten together and asked them, Tenten turned out to be an expert analyser, peeling away all the layers of Sakura to bare the basic facts. Neji, though being a genius, told her he knew nothing of the Sakura girl and that she annoyed him. Then she'd visited the same pink stall she'd passed by earlier, curious on joining the shady looking place. She'd been accepted and she pondered the thought of whether or not she should seek of the Sasuke fan club and become a member of that too. Instead, she decided she would ask Sasuke what to do, and a small part of her also wanted to be encouraged, for him to say a few kind words at her good work. So she'd walked all the way back to his house, excited with the sense of self achievement, she'd knocked his door, playing all the unrealistic scenarios of him smiling, praising her, patting her on the head...

The illusion had almost been completely shattered when he'd opened the door. Staring at her like some alien thing, her hopes began to fall almost as fast they had risen. He started inching back, bit by bit, like she was some sort of predator. Thoughts and feelings began to fly, and most of them Hinata had no time to comprehend at all. No! No! He can't just back away! I've work so hard for this! Praise me! Encourage me! Accept me! Recognize me! He was still inching back into his empty shell of a house, disappearing from her happy illusion, fading, she began to grow desperate. Don't go! Look! Look what I have achieved! Acting out on her pleading thoughts, she thrust the clipboard forward. See? I achieved something! See? Can't you see?

Hinata calmed, suddenly very aware of her frenzied actions, she withdrew the clipboard, and she withdrew from her shallow wishing well, she withdrew back into her shell, positive that she would never be accepted, no matter how hard she'd worked, no matter that she'd gathered so much in such little time, no matter how well she did things, she would never be accepted. Sighing a little, she let the clipboard drop to her side, her arms limp and weak, just like she let her hopes plummet, and her courage shrivel and blow away with the wind, she should've learnt not to expect so much by now... What with her father, and Neji, and Hanabi... Her wallowing was discontinued when she felt the clipboard that she'd held to her chest in a defensive manner by ripped away.

Rubbing the tip of his nose gently, he blinked a few times, to get his eyes back into focus. So she wasn't a fangirl, not yet anyway. I mean who could resist, the. Uchiha. Sasuke. He pushed the little arrogant voice in his head to the side, and focused more on the girl.

So she thought she'd gathered enough information to come back here? Well we'll see. He swiped his favourite clipboard back from the girl and she looked up startled. One page? Only one page? But then again, her writing was very neat and small.

Reading through all the facts listed, he raised an eyebrow. Wow. She'd found out so much in a mere few hours when he himself had spent years with the girl pestering him and he only knew around three of the dozens of different dot points she'd taken down.

He Hn'ed, his official ban on snorting a secret between him and only him. He Hn'ed again, but she was still looking down at her own feet. Cautiously, Sasuke reached out a hand to softly tap her on the head a few times.

"Well down, Hyuga."

He praised me! He- He patted me on the head! YATAAAA! She could've done a victory dance, or maybe an interpretative dance and she even felt the urge to glomp Sasuke, but instead, she felt the world spin and dim to black and then she fell back and fainted while being cradled by arms that came out of nowhere.

Sasuke stared warily at this weird girl. She was so weird... He'd seen girls swoon over him, seen them beg at his feet, even be willing to lick the dirt of his shoes, but hop around on their feet, ecstatically happy while practically hugging themselves and then fainting..? Well, the fan girls always fainted, but everything else was practically too embarrassing to be done in public even for Naruto, unless of course there was a dare or promise of ramen behind it. Still... Girls usually tried to flaunt and impress him, not embarrass themselves... Well from his perspective, flaunting was a whole another level of embarrassing yourself, but Hinata sure was weird...

Meanwhile... Somewhere deep in the Sub conscious of our favourite little Hyuga girl, the senate were discussing important issues that The Hinata herself had drilled into her deeper mind.

"She wants to what?!!?"

One of the lesser authorities coughed. "Become like Sakura Haruno, sir."

A soft drunken chuckling came from one of the far corners of the court.

"Thaaaat sluut? Hahaha... Haaaa.." the rest of the court either muttered with agreement or nodded silently, only to be silenced by the highest of orders, Hinata's innocence and respect. They glared down on them with eyes like cold fire and the rather small loose mouthed part of Hinata called profanity went to sulk.

"Well, should we proceed? I quite agree with profanity, however vulgar she is." Again the court murmured with agreement.

"We have little choice, it was chosen by the highest of all, Hinata herself. The court sighed and the verdict was put forward.

"Hinata would indeed become Sakura Haruno."

Tiredly opening her eyes, Hinata found herself tracing cracks that had suddenly appeared on her bedroom roof. Strange... It didn't feel like her bed at all. It wasn't until Sasuke's handsome face loomed over did she click with recognition and for some reason, felt the desire to scream out his name and declare love.

"H-hello Sasuke-kun... C-cha."

He smirked slightly, looking a little annoyed but approving. He handed her a glass of water as she sat up. Scrunching her nose, she shook away the strange echoing voices that rang inside her head, blaming it on dehydration. He sighed, glad that she was finally awake. For the past 3 hours he'd been watching her breathe, sigh and sometimes mutter a random word. He'd sworn he'd heard his name, cheese, pianos and lumpy custard. It was strange seeing someone sleep so peacefully. Whenever he went on missions, he wouldn't sleep, in fear that if he woke up screaming from a nightmare it'd give Sakura a reason to touch him. He wouldn't call Naruto and Sakura peaceful sleepers either. Naruto had a habit of moving from one place to another and one time he'd sworn once Naruto had even tried to grab his ass. Sakura on the other hand, was much worse. She would start of snoring, get louder and louder and until it was almost loud enough to feel like your head was going to explode with the vibrations she sent out, she'd make a meeping noise and then there was 5 minutes of peace, then she'd moan his name and writhe around like a squirrel with rabies, which really worried him. Infact, watching Hinata sleep was probably the most enjoyable thing he'd done in months. Sadly.

Hinata shivered. How long had she been asleep? Looking out the window, the sun was still up, but quickly falling from the sky. Geez this house was cold... and so empty, and suddenly Hinata felt unbearably lonely and began to cry. Sasuke just stared in confusion, and concern that the peaceful sleeper had just suddenly burst into tears. He sat down next to her, not really knowing what to do at all.

"Oh! S-Sasuke-san!! D-don't you g-get lonely?" Her brief sentence was finished with a squeak, the pain in her voice audible. He raised an eyebrow, this girl really was weird. Letting loose a particularly long despairing moan after which she fell onto him, bursting out in another string of hiccoughs and sniffles. He frowned, feeling the flush take victory of his face. Carefully bringing his arms around her he patted her head softly, realising for the first time how silky Hinata's hair really was. She quietened down, digging herself deeper into him and he stroked her back, calming the fretful little girl.

Rolling off him, she lolled her head this way and that, giggling softly.

"Sasuke-san! C-can I have m-more water please?"

He eased himself away from the delirious girl, flicking the lights on in kitchen to find another one of the bottled water drinks lying around his house. Finding the one he'd taken water from before he picked it up. Then froze, inching back to read the label.

Energy Water. For the Shinobi.

He growled in frustration, running a hand roughly through his hair. He only drank this stuff when he had missions or found it hard to sleep, ridden with nightmares and unwanted memories. Basically, it was speed, the safe, shinobi, water equivalent of speed. A strangled noise came from the back of his throat, Hinata just having woken up from a nap, would have this... Extra energy for at least 6 hours. He scowled, hearing the sound of smashing glass from another room and then a scream, dropping the water aka speed, he went to baby sit Hinata for the next few hours, fully knowing she'd be pure mischief and much more difficult to contain, being a kunoichi on a high... He sighed. This had to be a longest day he'd ever lived, maybe the most interesting as well.

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A/N for a lazy author like me, this was an insanely long chapter. More than 3,500! I think I deserve some word! (reviews) so is everything turning out okay for everyone? Still dandy and laughing? or not... yata in jap means like yay. in english i think.