Here's the new chapter, I'm sorry it's a bit short. The rest are longer though :) It's because I divided into chapters after writing everything, and I cut every chapter according to how, in my opinion, it would fit the story. I hope you'll like it anyway!

Thanks for every review, favorite and follower, they all make me very happy :D

Thanks to Reppad98 for being such a great beta!

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Or Ibsen (Vildanden/The Wild Duck, in case you were wondering where the title came from).

Chapter 3 – Deprive the average human being of his life-lie…

Kakashi

Of all his cute students, only one could keep his attention so far. She claimed it all. Neither dead last nor prodigy stood a chance against her in a spar. Neither jinchūriki nor lone survivor held a candle to the flame that was Haruno Sakura.

She was restless today, checking the time every minute or so. Her movements would sometimes be jerky, and nervous ticks started to show. Like how she clenched and unclenched her fists around the hem of her skirt, or how she started to play and pull at Sasuke's hair. The poor boy suffered in silence, wise from previous experience. Sakura had started to latch onto the prodigy whatever chance she got, but she did not express any of the signs of infatuation common to silly young girls. Rather, her possessive traits had a distinct frantic nature, and she obviously considered him as something like an object, not a person. Kakashi's number one mysterious pupil was still that – a puzzle in which the pieces gleamed with their absence.

Sakura looked at the watch again, and he simply couldn't stand the suspense anymore. "Do you have somewhere better to be?"

"There's been three days since the assignment into teams, right?"

"Yes..."

"71 hours, 53 minutes since the 'introduction'." She looked at him intently. As if these overly specific numbers had some implicit meaning he should instantly know about. He didn't even know from when the counting started. She huffed impatiently from the lack of response. Naruto looked like he was ready to bolt. Sasuke edged slightly away from her, and her hand clenched around his jacket, seemingly out of reflex. She was completely lost in these numbers and her conversation. "Really, if you were Kakashi-sensei as you claim, you would know what that means. Actually, we both know what that means. This is over, and I'm going back. I haven't really experienced anything overly traumatic in here, so I should wake up pretty quickly. Or die, possibly. Probably." Both boys flinched. Kakashi rather doubted they had ever heard anyone talk so detached about their own imminent demise before, and certainly not a twelve year old girl. "Either way, the first few seconds will most likely be disorienting and messy. I hope nothing bad happened while I was gone. How much could you destroy in the one second you held me trapped, hm?" Sakura had moved on from talking to him, to ramble on to her imaginary enemy in the sky.

She looked for the time again. Tora the cat escapee was completely forgotten by all his students at this point. Sakura looked at a clock expecting... something, and the boys looked at her, dreading something else. The minutes ticked by, counted down silently and diligently.

The 72 hour mark came and went.

Nothing happened.

Of course every sane person in Konoha could have told her that.

Sakura blinked slowly, in a sort of self-induced daze. "Maybe I'm a bit off the count." Her eyes never left the clock dial. They remained as such another five minutes. Ten. Twenty, and she still refused to move, or even respond. The half hour mark after the dreaded 72 approached.

When she snapped out of it, a string of curses worthy of any rogue ninja left her lips. They were enough for Sasuke to blanch, and Naruto to become teary eyed as his idol picture of a dream girl shattered. "Shannarō!" Much like the earth they had just been standing on, as Sakura's fist connected.

Only the memory of one violent Sannin saved Kakashi. The boys were not that lucky. Sasuke, as he stood behind Sakura, was mostly unhurt. Naruto got scrambled around pretty good. Kakashi felt his body tense into battle mode, book exchanged for kunai, crouched with fingers ready around the forehead protector. With such strength, it was more than likely that no one would survive a direct hit. Luckily her rage was not directed at them. Every inanimate object around felt her fury, though, in the full span of thirty seconds. Rocks shattered, dirt flew everywhere, and the clearing went through a violent expansion as the surrounding trees shattered beneath her fist. The very deadly kunoichi proceeded to collapse in the dirt of her hand-made crater, crying hysterically.

"Sakura-chan..." Naruto approached her tentatively, casting helpless glances to the other members of Team 7. His courage at least was worthy of commemoration, though his stupidity was not. Sasuke was very busy looking the other way, and Kakashi didn't think of himself as the right person to comfort her. "Please, tell us what's wrong." Naruto bent down towards her, and she yanked him the rest of the way. He became her shoulder to cry upon, and he patted her with awkward movements while she held onto him, shaking. Somehow, even though she had hung off of Sasuke for the last days rather religiously, it was Naruto she held onto like a lifeline. In some strange way she seemed completely at home, crumbling all over him. She didn't say a word. Perhaps she was unable to.

She would not tell them what happened. It was pretty obvious anyway, that she was suffering from a bad case of deprived delusions. Her crying stilled eventually, and so did her quiet mumbling of one word: Failed. When she finally pulled it together, Sasuke had already captured and returned Tora. His new battle scars, fierce red lines running parallel and crisscrossing along his arms, were evidence enough. Kakashi had finished three delicious chapters of Icha Icha, all the while masterly stifling his giggles, so as not to disturb the sobs. Such quality time with the books was rare and precious. Meanwhile Naruto had transformed to a very wet comfy pillow – and not the Henge kind.

With tears still drying on her cheeks, hardened steel took over Sakura's features. Even her eyes became dull and emotionless, like that of any good Root shinobi. Kakashi felt like the temperature just dropped beyond freezing point.

A/N:

Shannarō - It's what Sakura usually yells when emotions run high and she's about to punch something

Henge - transformation jutsu