Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

Three days had passed since Kakashi, Sai and Sakura left Konohagakure for Sunakagure. As soon as they reached the gates of the Hidden Sand Village, a group of ninjas came to welcome them. The late Chiyo's brother, Ebizo greeted Kakashi, "Welcome back again. I hope that –"

While Kakashi and the Sand elder are greeting each other, Sakura looked around at the ninjas behind Ebizo. At the first glance, Sakura noticed a pair of familiar piercing blue eyes. "Naruto!" she gave a small yelp. Luckily only Sai seems to hear her. "What Naruto?" She pointed at the eyes, but the second glance made her heart sank. "Oh, nothing." She said embarrassedly. The owner of the lively eyes is not Naruto. The ninja has flowing waist length red hair instead of spiky blonde hair, and furthermore, she's female.

"Put him off your mind, we're on a mission, not on a Naruto hunt." Sai whispered back. But Sakura can't tear her eyes off the girl. The more Sakura looked at her, the more she noticed how beautiful she is. The red-headed girl was a black-robed kunoichi who seems a little younger than she was, and even under her chunin flak jacket, it was conspicuous that her body was in a perfect shape. She reminded her strongly of Naruto's Sexy no Jutsu. Hey, why am I thinking about Naruto?

Finally, they finished talking and the ninjas leaded them inside a very packed hospital. The patients seem numbed and immobile. "According to the medical reports, each of them have a faint trace of poison in their body." explained Ebizo, handing over the report for Sakura. She nodded and had a look at the paper. After a while, she realized that something was wrong.

"The description of the poison is exactly the properties of the poison used on Sasori's puppets!" she exclaimed. She checked the properties again. Colourless, deadly and oil-like. Her sharp memory reminded her of the poison Kankurou suffered from the last time she visited Sunakagure. The only difference was the patients only got mild poison, and did not die after three days.

"Exactly. That's why we summoned only Konoha medical ninjas. You still remember how to make the antidote, don't you?" whispered Ebizo worriedly.

"Yes, but why didn't you mention it to Tsunade? She didn't tell me anything about Sasori." questioned Sakura.

"There might be someone behind this and we didn't want the culprit to know what we found out."

"Yeah, I see. Please lead me to the medicine storehouse. I will make the antidote immediately. " She half-expected Ebizo to leave with her straight away. But he didn't.

"The ninja in charge will lead you there." Ebizo then turned to the gang of ninjas following him. " Naoko, lead Haruno Sakura to the medicine storehouse!"

"Yes, Ebizo-jiisama. Come on, Haruno!" Sakura turned around in surprise. The red-haired kunoichi beckoned her from the other side of the hospital. She had not expected the girl to be in charge. How old was she? 19, maybe. Nevertheless, she followed her out into the scorching heat.

******

Kakashi looked at the silhouettes of the kunoichis heading towards a patch of greenery in the dessert country. The hair, the eyes and the behavior, exactly like a miniature Uzumaki Kushina, thought the white-haired ninja.

******

Both the kunoichis were in the green house, with Naoko handing over the ingredients for Sakura to make the antidote. She watched in awe as the medical ninja skillfully pounded the selected herbs into powder (not with hands, of course) and mixed them with fixed ratio. After a few moments, Naoko broke the silence.

"You yelped 'Naruto' when you saw me back at the gate." She said. "Why?"

So you did hear me, good pretending skills. She thought. "Well, Naruto was my teammate, and you resembled him somehow." Sakura tried to change the subject, not wanting to discuss Naruto with someone whom she had mistaken as him. "So you're Naoko?"

"Yes."

"What's your surname?"

"I don't have one, I'm just Naoko."

"Oh," Sakura felt embarrassed again. She had forgotten that not everyone has surnames.

"How do I resemble him?" asked Naoko curiously, bringing up the topic again, oblivious to Sakura's attempt not to talk about it.

Sakura sighed. She not only looked like him, but she also spoke like him, not understanding other's hidden meaning in their words. She recalled the time when Naruto had just came back from training, and she had asked him about her new clothes.

"How do I look? Do I look more like a woman now?"

"You look fine! You haven't changed at all!"

He was lucky that he didn't get a punch at that time, but he later, he did.

"I don't know, it just popped up in my mind." lied Sakura, turning away from her to get the ingredients Naoko laid out on the side table.

"So you've been here before?"

Sakura looked at her with a surprised expression, "Sasori got Kankurou six years ago and I came here to heal him! I thought it was quite a big news in Sunakagure?"

"Well, I kind of lost my memory some time ago, so I can't remember anything that had happened here." She said sadly.

"Oh, sorry." Sakura pitied her, but she didn't know how to make up for her mistake, so she decided to keep silent. Luckily Naoko didn't seem to mind.

"It's fine,"

"Thanks, there, the antidote's done." She held up a small bottle of liquid.

"That's all?" Naoko eyed the so-called-antidote suspiciously.

"You'll need tender herbs to make it, so I guess we have to wait for the new ones to grow." Sakura looked at the plants. "Anyway, you have to dilute it in water, so this is enough for half of the patients already."

"Great! Let's tell Ebizo-jiisama about the good news! Dattebayo!" Naoko punched into the air, and headed towards the door.

Sakura nearly dropped the antidote.

Author Note: How do you think about the name Naoko? I'm not familiar with Japanese names so I looked up on Wikipedia and found this name - 尚子. Although I didn't like names that ends with "ko" or "mi", this seems to be an exception. I've tried Arashi, Nozomi and Keiko, but Naoko's the best, I think. It sounds like Naruto too. haha