Disclaimer: This is not canon Naruto. In fact, this almost classifies as crack.

Sakura carefully avoided alerting her mother to her presence upon her return home that evening(something her ninja training helped her with immensely), and she immediately got to work grooming herself. The squirrel's cage was placed neatly on her bed, and for whatever reason, she gave it a few sunflower seeds she had been saving for a rainy day in one of her less desirable dresser drawers.

It ate happily, but as Sakura started to back away from the cage, her hair caught on the latch. It had done so several times that evening, but the kunoichi had been in far too much of a rush before to be distracted by it. Now, however, was a different story entirely.

While untangling the pink cascades from the slats, she couldn't help but think of the trouble her mane had caused her thus far. In the last month alone, her hairstyle had caused her to be apprehended by bandits, caught no less than twelve times in forest boughs, chewed on by livestock, and waste a great deal of time in the mornings teasing it into position.

In that instant, Sakura Haruno made a life-changing decision(for a twelve-year-old girl, anyway). After mussing through her vanity for a pair of scissors, Sakura bent her head over her waste-bin and proceeded to give herself a haircut.

The locks fell in pieces, and Sakura steeled herself against any emotional attachment to the inorganic material spawned of he scalp. They had once contained her hopes; hopes of romance and marriage, those things that she had thought she wanted. Now they were just dead cells being removed from her life in clumps. That's all hair was, really.

While girls had always argued the matter was one of beauty, when Sakura thought of the issue from a practical perspective, the mass on her head wasn't very useful in large quantities. She wasn't a flower; she didn't need to attract insects(which her pink hair did from time to time), and she wasn't even old enough to be married if she wished to. On a similar note, the rumor that Sasuke liked long hair was probably just speculation. In all of two and a half months, she had yet to see him give a second glance at anyone, let alone those females that melted at the sight of him. Her mother had mentioned this fact.

"Men like a challenge," her mother had always told her, though Sakura hadn't been very attentive at the time. It was strange how adults often had such great advice, but the possible benefactor of their words wouldn't often learn the true value of their wisdom until after learning the truth of a matter the hard way. The truth in this matter was very hard to accept, but it wasn't something that she wasn't prepared for after Sasuke slammed the door in her face for the hundredth time a few days earlier.

Sasuke didn't care for anyone, let alone Sakura. Or Ino, Sakura noted with a smirk before getting ready for her late-night stroll to the sound of a happy pet.

While Kakashi may have had the tendency to be tardy, the unpunctuality that caused Sakura to wait an extra hour in front of the Hokage's office wasn't his fault-well, not entirely. The last remaining student of the Yondaime was inclined to make a few stops before reaching their designated meeting place.

His meeting with Sasuke had been brief, as all the jonin had been forced to do was knock heavily on the door and tell the Uchiha to get up, get dressed, and come with him, no questions asked. For a guy, the black-haired genin took a long time to get ready. He still had nothing on a girl's required time slot, though, and was ready within twenty minutes. Now flanked by Sasuke, Kakashi fought with his sense of morality as to whether or not he should make the next stop.

Iruka had been a bit unstable as of late, and in the past week, the only two times he had come face-to-face with the man had ended with unconventional threats of death whispered behind a slightly crazed smile. Kakashi hadn't thought the schoolteacher capable of such sadism, but the surfacing aggression didn't make the shinobi too entirely comfortable about confronting the chuunin with anything, even if it was information that would alleviate Iruka's emotional maladies. Even good news could become null and void if the messenger is mangled or forced to kill the recipient in self-defense.

Tact and communicational skills would be vital if he made the kind decision to rouse Iruka out of his misery, which he did after wrestling with the risks. Iruka wouldn't pose any danger to Kakashi; the man was only an elementary teacher, after all. Having decided this, Kakashi pulled out a slip of paper and immediately scrawled out a note.

"Sensei, I don't see why you can't just go and give Iruka this message yourself." Sasuke grumbled to the bush where his teacher was squatting, pulling the damned orange book out again. How he read it was a detail the Uchiha didn't know. It was pitch black out.

"Just do it; as a ninja, you'll be performing these sorts of tasks a lot. Consider it training." came the voice from the bush.

Sasuke's sour expression took extreme measures and curdled. He knew better than to argue with the older man, but he wasn't happy about the task with which he was charged. It was a menial errand, and Sasuke wasn't even permitted to read the damned note.

"Fine." Sasuke conceded, something that took a toll on your dignity when you appeared to be admitting defeat to a bush.

Iruka slept like he did on any other evening, his face peaceful until his eyes were snapped open by the sound of three knocks. Iruka took a minute to gather what remained of his wits about him. The twenty-three-year old was in his nightclothes, but if the time of night was indicative of an emergency, the man didn't bother to get dressed. He did put on his sandals though, something that was only logical when the sounds of crushed glass(the pieces had once been a lamp) accompanied his footsteps to the door.

Iruka cracked his door open to assess the situation and identify his visitor, who turned out to be a former student who looked less-than-thrilled about something.

"Sasuke, why are you here?" the teacher stammered, having expected a messenger from the hokage or something of the like.

The addressed student spared Iruka a glance and held up the parchment he was supposed to deliver, prompting Iruka to open his door fully.

"Come in, then." the chuunin sighed, motioning into his dark abode. Sasuke took a furtive first step inside before Iruka's voice sounded out again,"-and watch your step. I've been… redecorating."

The moment the lights came on, Sasuke was left with a vision of destruction that went far beyond even the furthest reached of the concept of redecoration. With the exception of a few fixtures built into the walls and the bed Iruka slept on, the entire apartment was a wreck. From what must have once been a curtain rod to the ripped remains of scrolls and books, the carnage was something that until very recently seemed beyond Iruka's scope of ability. Sasuke could barely constrain himself, and he suddenly became painfully aware of why Kakashi had sent him in his stead.

That bastard.

Iruka cleared a place on the floor beside a table that had been ripped cleanly in half and motioned for Sasuke to sat down, which he did. The teacher didn't offer him a glass of water for obvious reasons and sat down.

"What's this about, then?" Iruka asked, extending his arm to retrieve the piece of paper from Sasuke, who was looking very longingly at the door.

Iruka looked at the paper trough his adjusting eyes. He looked at the paper long and hard. After the first bout of reading, he rubbed his eyes and looked at the paper again. Following this, Iruka pinched himself and scrutinized Sasuke, who felt himself prepare to flee if the need arose.

A very eerie smile crossed Iruka's face while he crumpled the note in his right hand. "Is your sensei outside hiding, by any chance, Sasuke?"

Sasuke needed no buttering up to betray the man that sent him into Iruka's stronghold of terror and nodded.

"Yeah. He's in the bushes to the left when you exit."

"I think I need to have a word with him. Did you read this, by any chance?" Iruka inquired, tossing the rumpled heap and catching it. Sasuke quickly shook his head, hoping that was the rely Iruka had wanted. Fortunately, it was, and Sasuke was spared.

"Ah, well, let's just say he has some explaining to do."

It was the explaining to Iruka that took over two hours, because Iruka first had to demand answers. He demanded them violently; sometimes with the help of a stick or two. While none of the blows were strong enough to seriously injure the oldest of the three ninja present(though not for lack of trying), he did arrive at the gate of the Hokage's manor with a significant amount of bruises and scrapes.

Sakura was irate by his tardiness, but decided he had suffered enough when she saw the swelling and the now-dressed Iruka smirking behind him. To his credit, Sasuke showed very little signs of trauma from what he had witnessed. The Uchiha still didn't know what was going on, either, but at least he took it like a man.

After a quick exchange, the four entered the premises of their leader's fortress.

Author's note: For those of you who threaten to tie me to my chair, I need to inform you of something. My chair is a curved stool that is too high for my computer. In order to type, I have to perch on it like a bird/gorilla. Were I to be tied to it, my bones would only last as long as my abs could hold my spine in place. There would be no updates were that to happen, so try harder.