The pleasantly warm rays of sunshine were like a gaggle of mischievous children, cavorting on the streets of Konoha. With her right hand, Haruno Sakura lightly fanned herself, using the note her mother had instructed her to give to Yamanaka-san. In her left arm, she cradled the package of sweets that went along with the note; a birthday present to Ino’s mother from her own.
The kunoichi’s gait was slight and easy, and she hummed, almost cheerily, thinking of the afternoon ahead. The team was due to meet at the bridge at five o’clock this afternoon, after being given a generous five days off by Kakashi-sensei. The mission prior had been one of the dirty, gruelling sort; the kind that required you to soak yourself in normalcy, and all the barest vestiges of tranquillity you could scrimmage before each of the bloody, embossed memories were dispelled from your mind. Though the geranium-haired girl suspected that this was mostly to catch up on his porn, their sleepy-eyed sensei had insisted that they take the extra time off.
Anyway, that wasn’t what made her grin gleefully to herself as she walked towards Ino’s. Unless they were in some sort of alternate universe, Kakashi-sensei would be a little (read: two, three hours, minimum) late. And that meant……
Sakura drifted into a quixotic trance, smiling dreamily, yet determinedly. Alone time with Sasuke-kun……(!) She hadn’t gotten so much as a glimpse of him during their mini-vacation, and she was eager to see him. She grinned. Maybe, just maybe, this would be the day. She could see it now. Sasuke-kun would be leaning on the balustrade, in typical, sexy, brooding Uchiha fashion. She would approach coyly, and with a daring flutter of her eyelashes, launch into a discussion of a topic that which he’d find utterly fascinating. With each word, he’d become more enthralled, until eventually, inevitably, the ice of his heart melted into a glistening pool at his feet. Seeing at last how perfectly suited they were for each other, he’d take her into his strong embrace, commencing the start of their relationship.
‘Love prevails, damn it!’ Inner Sakura crowed, goaded by the mental images provoked.
With these happy thoughts in mind, the kunoichi rounded the corner, switching the packet from one arm to the next as she quickened her pace by a fraction, resuming her humming.
So engrossed was she in discerning what clever, yet endearingly cute remark she would first use to charm Sasuke-kun into her arms that she almost didn’t see Naruto leaning against the front steps of his apartment building. When she spotted him, she smiled, and raised a hand to give a perfunctory wave, pleased to see him.
That was before her hopes for the afternoon ahead came bleakly into jarring focus. She’d never be able to seduce Sasuke-kun with Naruto there, she realised woefully. He’d never let them have a moment’s peace. She pouted immediately, put out. So much for Romantic Time and Seduction Mode. She sighed harrassedly. Well, she supposed it’d just have to wait for another time.
She walked towards the blond, primed to say a quick hello and goodbye. Her plans altered, however, when she saw the animated, exaggerated way in which the boy’s hands were moving. It was then that she noticed the girl standing primly and demurely behind her team-mate. Three transitory emotions whipped across Sakura’s face.
The first, logically, was surprise. A girl, – a non-shinobi girl, by the looks of it – speaking to Naruto? Voluntarily? The lack of the faint crackle of chakra in the atmosphere assured her that it was not a bunshin, or any other jutsu-based illusion. However, Sakura had never been presented with a more plausible excuse to start doubting her senses.
The second was a heavy, heady dosage of relief. This, surely, meant that Naruto had finally given up his silly little crush on her. He was moving on, and would no longer interfere in her love. Even though, during their time together as a team, the kunoichi had developed a begrudging affection for the clumsy ninja, she couldn’t help but be grateful for this.
(This second emotion, however, was not without the thinnest sliver of rancour. She’d never thought Naruto would be one to change his loyalties so quickly. Hadn’t it been just last week – or was it the week before? – that Naruto had asked her out on a date?)
The third feeling – this one was not fleeting; it remained, long after, pushing beneath her skin with the persistence of the steady dripping of water against a stalwart rock – was an unconventional hybrid of awe and acrimony. The girl was gorgeous.
She was elegantly statured, from the perfect line of her ramrod-straight back to her prettily assembled facial features that were a combination of sharp and curved, oblique and even. The girl’s make-up was artfully done so that it hardly looked like she was wearing any at all. She looked delicate and demure, and something about her, the way Naruto put one arm around her protectively, her willowy carriage, reminded Sakura of a china doll; fragile, priceless, utterly aloof in the way her stately features were arranged.
She had jagged, dark blue hair that framed her face and brushed at her shoulders with their spiky tips. Her lips were glossed to a glittering shine. Her large, wide-set eyes, rimmed in black, were of the deepest obsidian. They struck a chord in Sakura, and something told her that she knew those eyes; but her attention was soon whisked away by the brunette’s ensemble.
She wore a frilly, florid blouse with crimson, puffed sleeves. It dipped low in the rear to showcase a pale, corded back. Her slim torso was corseted in black satin, sinking into her waist and flaring out ever so slightly for her hips. The red, ruffled skirt was almost indecently short, but the garter-stockings were high enough so that that was nullified, for the most part. Said stockings were striped scarlet and black, started at mid-thigh and travelled down the long legs before they eventually disappeared into……
‘Whoa, bitchin’ boots!’ Inner Sakura exclaimed, nodding appreciatively. Her outer counterpart had to agree. The black, high-heeled knee-highs were the kind you’d want to slip on after a long, hard day; to stomp around and unleash gratuitous female fury.
Sakura did not realise that she was staring until the girl cast her eyes to the floor, the faintest blotches of pink creeping onto her cheeks. The pink-haired girl coughed, wrest her light green eyes away from the strangely alluring creature and made a show of clearing her throat before saying casually,
“Hello Naruto.”
The blond grinned widely in a show of teeth.
“Hi Sakura-chan!” He was just a tad more exuberant than usual, voice light and cherry. He did not venture to say any more though, and only curled a finger playfully around a lock of midnight-blue hair that fell from the girl’s crown. She glanced chidingly, yet warmly, at Naruto while Sakura growled inwardly. He was going to make her ask. She was already pretty sure of the girl’s status, but only when she heard it from Naruto’s mouth would it solidify, and cease to be a viscous supposition.
The girl did not seem to be about to introduce herself either. She was merely looking interestedly at Sakura. She had an air about her; not quite shy, but rather taciturn. The kunoichi could not shake the feeling that she was very familiar with the navy-haired beauty.
“Who’s this?” Sakura asked finally in an amiable tone, smiling politely at the girl. “Where’re your manners, Naruto? Aren’t you going to introduce us?”
“Oh. Sorry,” said the blond blithely, not bothering to shift his cyan orbs away from the slender brunette. “Saki-chan, babe, I’d like you to meet Sakura, my team-mate. Sakura-chan, this is Saki, my girlfriend.” He was grinning, and kept on doing so as the two girls shook hands lightly. Sakura was a bit surprised to find that the other girl’s hand was as roughly lined as hers. Her touch, however, was exceedingly gentle. Saki beamed shyly at her boyfriend’s team-mate.
“It’s very nice to meet you,” she said, voice soft, gravelly, and – Sakura had to give it to her – quite sexy. “Naruto-kun has told me much about you.”
“He has?” She shot the tanned blond an amused glance. Inexplicably, she found herself wanting to know exactly what Naruto had told Saki about her. She didn’t know where the incongruous urge had come from, but it was one that demanded to be satisfied. She looked into the dark depths of the other girl, and the niggling feeling returned, like a sort of misplaced déjà vu.
Sakura smiled uncertainly. She knew that she should get going – her mother had called ahead and told Yamanaka-san what time to expect her – but somehow, she wanted to stay a little while longer, and chat with Naruto’s intriguing girlfriend.
“So, how long have you two been together?” she asked conversationally. What she really wanted to ask was how Naruto had been able to con such a well-mannered, and extraordinarily pretty – *twitch* – girl into dating him, but she put a harness on her impulses, and forced herself to wait until she and the idiot were alone.
“About three weeks,” Naruto supplied jauntily. His hand was placed on the back of her neck, and he was absently tracing circles with his thumb on the pallid skin there. The girl’s face remained artlessly, pleasantly blank; she neither shifted, nor fidgeted, nor protested.
Three weeks ago, Sakura mused. She’d been sick around that time, she recalled. A horrible bug. She’d missed an important mission, but she didn’t really know the details. Something about a perverted old man, a bordello, and they’d needed to borrow her make-up, for some reason.
“Okay. Well, I’m happy for y’all,” she offered. And she was, genuinely. Saki seemed to be a very nice girl, very suited to Naruto, in that their disparities seemed to bleed into each other flawlessly; a harmonious hybrid. Her reserve and courtesy – somewhat reminiscent of Hinata’s, but not quite – would do well, pitted against Naruto’s firecracker personality.
“Why, thank you, Sakura-chan,” Saki said, smiling slightly, a pleased expression on her features. “Naruto-kun….he makes me very happy.”
Sakura’s team-mate passed his hand over the back of his blond spikes, grinning in an ‘aww, shucks,’ kind of way.
“I’m the lucky one,” he said, looking fondly at his girlfriend. “She’s a peach,” he added, causing an almost indiscernible shade of pallid pink to wash over the white skin.
The roseate-haired kunoichi was beginning to feel markedly like an outsider. She smiled at the couple, in preparation of her imminent departure. Once again, she was struck by how familiar the brunette looked. She smothered the feeling, however, telling herself that she surely would have remembered seeing the girl before; that wasn’t the type of face that was easily lost to remissness
Sakura looked at the other girl; really looked at her. She was beginning to rethink her earlier evaluation of Saki as a civilian; those slim, toned, muscle-tight arms and thighs spoke of a life as a shinobi. Her lips were on the thin side, for a girl, and her bust was even smaller than Sakura’s. None of this took away from her beauty, but still, there was something……
The realisation came, abruptly, when she noticed the lock of hair that was sticking out adamantly, almost horizontally, at the back of the brunette’s head.
The sweets dropped unheeded to the floor. Something viscous and slimy rose in Sakura’s throat. She tamped it down with a vicious swallow, only for it to be replaced by something hard, solid, choking and equally uncomfortable. The diameter of her willow eyes had almost doubled. Shaking, she raised a hand to cover her thumping heart.
Eventually, she opened her mouth to speak, but that was before she realised that she had no idea what in the world to say. All coherent thought had deserted her upon her revelation, taking with it all the blood from her face, leaving her wraith-pale. In the interim, her mouth remained open, likening her unto a flabbergasted fish. She was at a complete loss for words.
“FUCKING HELL!?!?!?” Inner Sakura supplied helpfully.
With a few quick, gasping breaths, Sakura was able to get some oxygen to her brain. When the precious gas was back in circulation, she managed to choke out,
“Is that…but how…why…I mean…she’s so…he’s so…I…but is that really……”
Naruto scratched his chin, seeing to consider.
“Well, yes. Except that it’s not, not really. I mean, well, of course it is, but as you can see, it’s not. But I suppose that, yeah, it is.”
The blond did not seem at all embarrassed by the current situation. He didn’t even seem apologetic, for not telling her sooner, or at least preparing her for the shock. In fact, he just looked incredibly insouciant, borderline amused. Sakura felt alarmingly weak, so she didn’t have the energy to be annoyed at him.
Her mind was in a chaotic maelstrom. She felt numb as she directed her gaze to Sasuke-- Saki-- him-- her…Oh, dear God.
“Sasuke-kun?” she stammered feebly.
She had a sinking feeling that she – Yes, she, she decided upon; this wasn’t Sasuke-kun – wouldn’t answer. Her intuition proved to be right on target. Saki only blinked at her politely. The look on her delicate features suggested that she was faced with a raving lunatic, and was trying her best not to be offending, or provoke said lunatic into further madness.
Sakura continued to stare dumbly, unabashed and more than a little dazed. She slipped back into reticence. Even Inner Sakura was speechless, only able to mutter ‘Fucking hell,’ at sporadic intervals.
(Later, she would fully imbibe the fact that Naruto and Sasuke were going out. But right now, she was too gobsmacked to think about anything but the fact that Sasuke-kun was dressed up as a girl, and was prettier than than ever before.)
Naruto’s cerulean eyes skipped between his girlfriend and his team-mate, both of whom were silent. He supposed he should try to lighten the mood a bit, since Saki didn’t seem like she was about to say anything soon – bless her heart; she probably didn’t want to jar Sakura too much. As for Sakura, she continued to gawp at Saki-chan unwaveringly.
“Yes, she’s very pretty, isn’t she?” Naruto remarked amicably, grinning madly.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Well, this is weird, Kakashi thought at once, putting his book away. He vaulted off of the pole to stand in front of his subordinates on the bridge, hands easing into his pockets.
Sakura was standing noticeably further away from Sasuke than usual. Her mouth was slightly agape, and she vacillated between staring at the ground and at the blue-haired prodigy. Sasuke was ignoring her assiduously, his ubiquitous look of boredom exchanged for one of annoyance. Naruto was neither flirting with Sakura nor trying to goad Sasuke into a fight. Instead, he looked distinctly woeful as he perched on the bars, as if bemoaning the loss of something infinitely dear.
Kakashi wondered what was going on. Neither Sakura nor Naruto had bothered to inform him that he was late, (as if he didn’t know. He wondered if the brats actually thought he didn’t do this on purpose) which was rather disappointing, since he had made up a really good excuse this time. At this point in time, Sasuke would normally choose to look at him irritatedly, as a signal to him to get the hell on with it already, but this evening, the onyx eyes were trained fixatedly on a brown, atrophied leaf a little to the left.
It didn’t take long for the Copy Ninja to catch on. In all likelihood, Sakura had met Saki-chan.
The silver-haired man barely suppressed a singer. It had amused him greatly to find that Sasuke had taken a liking to the costume that he’d had to be forced into on a mission a while ago, and that he – she *snicker* – and Naruto were going out. (It had also sent his brain reeling dizzily, but he’d yanked it back before it got too far.) He wasn’t bothered by it. It didn’t concern him what the brats did in their free time. Besides, a few eccentricities in a ninja certainly never did any harm. (Hell, normal shinobi were few, far between, and hardly ever made it out of the Academy.)
The mask creased as Kakashi smirked. Between kicking ass, being late, reading porn and training his team, he really didn’t have the time to bait his students (or that much interest in their personal lives anyway). But this…this was a decidedly special occasion.
“Yo,” he said in greeting, lifting a hand briefly. No one answered, barring three sullen gazes of varying intensity. Undeterred, he carried on cheerily.
“Tonight’s mission takes us on familiar territory, so it shouldn’t be too hard. Rensin Nawaki, a thug who is feared as a vicious crime boss, but who’s really nothing more than a common ruffian, is the prime suspect in the robbery of the Tanaka household a few days ago. We have been commissioned by Tanaka-san to retrieve the stolen items – several swords of high calibre and some assorted jewellery – and if possible, to bring Rensin in.”
The three Genin straightened, and faced their sensei, resigned to the mission. They began filing away facts as Kakashi dished them out.
“Rensin frequents a brothel on the outskirts of Shikuba. He usually has a room reserved, and there’s a good chance he’ll be there tonight. I’ve already spoken with the owner. Three of us will sneak round the back, get rid of his cronies and goons, and locate his room. Hopefully, Rensin’s not smart enough to have any sort of security for the stolen objects, like a safe or a seal. If he is, however, that is where the fourth person comes in. Disguised as an…erm…employee of the brothel, that person shall distract Rensin, and in the event that there is some sort of safe or security system, delay him long enough for the other three to get the items.”
Kakashi’s grin got wider by the minute. He was enjoying himself immensely.
“That person shall have a crucial part to play, as they will have to be very convincing. Rensin cannot be allowed to return to his room until the mission is completed, so he shall have to be…ah…entertained, elsewhere.”
Sakura grimaced, as if already dreading the job that she assumed would be assigned tp her. However, Kakashi’s lone eyes was fixed on the blue-haired boy as he drawled,
“So, what do you say, Sasuke? Up to it?”
………
Kakashi loved his job.
Sakura looked remarkably faint, Naruto brightened considerably, and the glower Sasuke directed at the Jounin threatened to induce a selective case of spontaneous combustion.
END
A/N:- Not detailed enough, insipid at times, the convo with Saki should have been longer, mission info was completely nonsensical, I believe I repeated myself a few times, on the whole, the thing moved too fast, and I do not like the ending.
Bah.
The description of Saki-chan’s outfit came from a pic by majochan . If you haven’t taken a look at it yet, you should. It’s really good.
According to Microsoft Word, harrassedly, statured, gravelly, and irritatedly all aren’t words. I don’t care.