[ Right...so this is what happens when I try to fill a prompt for a kink meme that doesn't have my particular kink pairing in it. It's definitely a challenge, but it is fun. It was supposed to be a short PWP, but I am incapable of doing that on demand because I'm neurotic and I'm always overthinking stuff. I tried to keep everyone as in character as possible, but considering the prompt was "Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura all swap genders and have sex"...well...I still TRIED. XD

No sex in this chapter, just lots of awkward and a little...self-exploration. ]

Being a Dude Sucks

Sasuke's return to Konoha after the Fourth Shinobi War had not been a very smooth or swift transition. However, Tsunade had done her best to assuage the fears of 98% of the village (the citizen masses and most of the rank and file shinobi) that wanted him executed or jailed in restraints, while still attempting to placate the 2% (nearly ALL of the strongest ninja in Konoha) who insisted he be given a chance to redeem himself and prove he could be trustworthy. When Sasuke agreed – although very reluctantly – to the chakra-suppressing bands around his wrists, the concession gave Tsunade enough of a foothold to officially reinstate the Uchiha as a probationary Genin under the condition that he would be assigned as a permanent member of Team 7 until he was re-assessed in a year.

She had fought hard to add the stipulation that only Naruto was required to be on missions with Sasuke for the raw power needed to subdue the ex-traitor if he should run wild, and that a constant ANBU guard was just a waste of resources. She made sure that Sakura and Kakashi were able to swap out for the third member of the team as a stabilizing force to keep the two young men from obliterating half the countryside in a petty brawl. Sakura was always needed at the hospital, and her medical expertise was requested often from clients inside and outside of the Land of Fire. Kakashi's skill set was far too valuable to be squandered by constantly baby-sitting his two former students, a sentiment to which he had waspishly protested.

He had even gone so far as to file ALL the correct paperwork to request three months sabbatical without pay so he could freely accompany any mission Naruto and Sasuke were sent on during those first rocky and tense months where Naruto had to carry an unconscious Sasuke back home more often than not. Tsunade almost approved it. Almost. The problem was, the Daimyo of the Land of Fire had a daughter that was being targeted by unknown forces, and he had requested Kakashi by name. It was too soon after the war, and the fragile political peace between all the Countries had to be maintained at all costs.

All in all, it worked out that Sasuke was in the village under discreet ANBU watch half the time, and out in the field with Naruto pestering the shit out of him the rest of the time. Sakura sighed heavily and rolled her eyes as the three of them made their way swiftly through the trees of the unfamiliar forest. The seals on her palms tingled in reaction to Sasuke's growing irritation, his chakra spiking just high enough at an erratic rate to trigger the connection with the cuffs at his wrists. And, to be honest, she really couldn't blame him...

"What do you mean 'what are you trying to say?'?!" Naruto snapped in exasperation. "I'm not trying to say anything! I am saying you look like a walking advertisement for a bondage convention! If you want to keep the man-skirt, that's fine, it's not...you know...really that bad. At least it isn't frilly and crap, but COME ON! You don't need ten feet of rope as thick as your wrist tied in a bow around you like some kind of weird kinky 'unwrap-me-and-tie-me-back-up-cause-I'm-your-birthday-present-this-year' thing!"

There was a silent pause, crackling with barely-suppressed killing intent, and Sakura hazarded a glance over her shoulder at the two following behind her. Sasuke was looking straight ahead, his left eye twitching and the muscles in his jaw clenched tight. She had just been about to say something to halt the 'conversation', but Naruto was glancing away with an almost guilty expression. When he looked back at Sasuke, there was something akin to an apologetic smile lighting his face.

"I can loan you a belt. It's no problem," Naruto said with delicate generosity.

Sasuke kicked him through a tree. Sakura groaned and scrubbed her face as she came to a halt on a branch. The annoying familiarity of the kerfuffle did nothing for her rising blood pressure. Unfortunately, neither did the conjured images of flushed alabaster skin straining against intricately knotted ropes, lean muscle taut and rippling with the effort of making it look like he was trying to resist when she knew better. When she knew what he really wanted was to be punished in the most delicious ways. Taking a few very deep breaths to shove the thoughts aside where she could ponder them another day, she dropped to the ground and stalked her way toward the yowling defiant complaints of Naruto.

It wasn't difficult to pinpoint his location as he continued to rant about how he wasn't trying to offend Sasuke because he had a perverted rope fetish, he was just concerned about how all of it was so obvious and Sasuke's re-assessment was coming up in two months which meant they were going to be looking at every little tiny detail, and, seriously, flaunting an S&M kink was only going to get him stuck on probation for another year with those stupid chakra-bracelet-things, didn't he KNOW THAT?! Sakura fully expected to have to physically drag the two apart...again...but she was startled to see the situation had shifted as she paused next to a craggy old tree.

Sasuke's restraints were sensitive to spikes of killing intent and a specific high level of chakra manipulation; they would induce an immediate state of unconsciousness if he violated those limits, and before that time the seals on Sakura's hands that were connected to the cuffs would alert her to his state so she could try to prevent the worst case scenario. They also wouldn't allow Sasuke to stray too far from her. It was a leash, but at least it was one that gave him more freedom than the jail cell so many had desperately wanted to see him in. So, it was with terribly amused surprise that she watched as Sasuke whipped off his rope belt and hog-tied Naruto with it.

Then, he proceeded to steal the blond's belt, strap it around his own waist, and walk silently away in the direction of Konoha as if nothing had even happened. Sakura bit her lip to keep from laughing, canting her head and arching an eyebrow at Naruto's indignant red face as he cussed and rolled on the ground until he gave in and entered Biju Mode to destroy the bindings. He flashed his teeth in delighted irritation, dashing after the taller dark-haired young man with a thousand insults shining behind his blue eyes, so overwhelmingly eager to kick at the walls, fighting and shouting until Sasuke finally just gave the fuck up.

Until he finally just accepted the fact that he was home.

Sakura shook her head and followed behind them, easily catching up since Sasuke was simply strolling his way back toward the overgrown path that lead through the shadowed forest. Naruto's trousers slipped down his hips without the belt to hold them up, and Sakura snerked at the glimpse of bright green boxers with swirls of yellow and orange. Her eyes flicked over to the disappointingly shapeless mass of cloth that was Sasuke's lower half, and idly wondered if she could prod Naruto into getting Sasuke to lose the 'man-skirt'.

It was a tempting idea. Especially as she was reminded of what she could be seeing when Naruto raised his arms in frustration, inadvertently giving her a peek of sun-kissed skin and lean muscle that pointed down like arrows to the beginning of a toned curve that would fit just right against the palms of her hands and the spread of her fingers so she could squeeze those soft-hard muscles with far too much indulgence.

Shrugging and pushing the thoughts aside when Naruto flopped his arms down, clenching his fists and taking a deep breath to start in on whatever bait he'd latched onto, Sakura trotted forward and jabbed her knuckles into Naruto's shoulder to stop the fight before it started. They were half way through the forest, and the sun had already set. She wanted to get a few more miles behind them before making camp for the night, and after threatening them both with 'a healthy medicinal soup' for dinner she got the pair moving at a brisk pace through the trees again.

None of them saw it coming. And, really, there was no reason that they should have seen it or expected it the way that it happened. The village they'd passed through that morning hadn't warned them about anything serious, only a few withered elders mumbling strange ghost stories about the forest being dangerous at night. No one said why it was dangerous. No one said how it was dangerous. No one said anything about the flowers that bloomed once every 100 years, because that information had been lost through the generations.

Sakura felt Naruto's hand grabbing harshly at her wrist as her vision abruptly started fading to blocky greys. She frantically surged chakra into her limbs to keep them from folding, to grasp weakly at Naruto's sleeve, to keep herself there in the world of reality. She tried to open her clumsy mouth to say anything, but her tongue was too thick and lazy to speak, heedless of the desperation shrieking and howling in her chest. She was dimly aware of being pinned against Naruto's side, Sasuke's lifeless hand bumping against her thigh, her feet getting tangled in someone else's, the grey-black fog being washed out with a haze of gold-orange-red, and the shuddering feel of muscles at her back as Naruto roared in defiance.

Then it all vanished into nothing.

When Sakura opened her eyes to blink hazily at the sun-dappled ground, every square inch of her was prickling and tingling with uncomfortable pins and needles. Her shirt felt absurdly tight and constrictive, almost suffocating her as the material dug into her shoulders and armpits, and her bra was cutting into her sides like it was three sizes too small. Something was draped over the knapsack on her back, and as she struggled to get up she found her left leg trapped as well. She allowed herself a moment to breathe a sigh of relief as Naruto groaned next to her and she heard Sasuke grunt in pain as the weight on her leg flinched. At least they were all alive and together.

Shifting clumsily with the weight of lethargy still clouding their minds, all three of them worked quietly on untangling themselves from each other. It wasn't until she was sitting there facing the others that panic started to set in. Naruto was yawning hugely with his head thrown back, stretching his arms over his head till the joints popped and crackled. Sakura could see the soft curve of his waist as his shirt lifted up with the movement.

She could see the soft curve of his waist. The tapered lines and planes were gone, and his abs were a gentle shadow of the hard definition they had once held. Very slowly she let her gaze move to Sasuke, and in an instant she felt her worst nightmares crashing into her.

He was staring at her chest. GAWKING. At any other time she would have been crowing inside, but there was a horrified shock to Sasuke's expression. Her shirt was way too tight. Her arms and legs felt kind of bulky now that the pins and needles had subsided. She fisted her hands into the material of her skirt as her mind shattered, resisting the overwhelming urge to look down, to pull at her shirt and tug at the hem of her shorts because she could feel that something that WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE THERE tucked and squished between her tightly closed thighs.

Then Naruto screamed, breaking the tension and stirring everything up into a maelstrom of panic because his voice had pitched high with the feminine sound. Sakura and Sasuke snapped their heads over to look at him as he jerked the collar of his jacket and stared down into his shirt. Well, there was no avoiding it anymore, and Sakura looked down at herself. There was a short moment of heavy silence, then all three of them looked up simultaneously to cry out in a mixture of fury, terror, confusion and disbelief.

"I'M A MAN!" "I'M A WOMAN!" "I'M AN A-CUP!"

Sakura blinked at Sasuke, her tumultuous thoughts briefly screeching to a halt as she turned to look at Naruto's enraged and disappointed face. "...what?" She asked quietly, still not sure she'd heard him right, and only barely managing to note the oddity of the orange shadowing around his gold eyes. Why was he in Sennin Mode?

"They're like two little bee stings!" Naruto railed, flailing his arms in angry protest. "I bet I don't even need a bra! Just look at how tiny they are!" He said, lifting his jacket and shirt up to display his woeful circumstance.

"PUT THAT SHIT AWAY!" Sakura shouted, cracking her fist over the top of Naruto's head and yanking his shirt back down.

She winced at the pull of her clothing and the cut of her bra into her sides, shucking her backpack and reaching under her shirt to unsnap the now useless undergarment. Sighing and scratching at her hair, she was at least glad that Naruto's ridiculousness jolted her back into focus. She was the team commander and this was no time to panic. Although...

"You seem to be taking this obscene situation rather well, all things considered," she groused, turning her back to the boys (girls?) so she could unzip her top and take the stupid bra all the way off and shove it into her backpack. A few strategic tears at the shoulders of her shirt made the thing wearable if she could get used to having it open.

"I invented Sexy Jutsu," he drawled. "I don't have an issue walking around as a girl. Besides, I finally kicked Kurama's ass hard enough to get him to stop rolling on the floor laughing, and he says that since we got out of there so fast his chakra might have interfered enough to keep the changes from being permanent."

"'MIGHT HAVE'?!" Sasuke screeched, his (her?) face flushing crimson as he clamped his mouth shut and looked away in furiously indignant embarrassment.

"Come on, it's not that bad," Naruto shrugged.

Sasuke gave him a venomous glare, and Sakura felt the seals at her palms itch dangerously with the killing intent rolling off the Uchiha.

"We'd have been dead if we'd stayed there a minute longer," Naruto retorted stubbornly. "There's some kind of creepy flower that pollinates itself every 100 years using stupid amounts of some weird kind of nature chakra. Why the hell do you think I'm still stuck in Sennin Mode?! That shit was twisting your life energy and turning it inside out, so don't even try to bitch about the fact that you're still alive!"

While Sasuke gave absolutely no outward indication that he was at all mollified by the speech, Sakura could feel the tingling in her palms recede.

"What are you being so grumpy about, anyway?" Naruto asked, leaning back on her (his?) hands as she stretched her legs out. "You can still 'restore the Uchiha Clan' to your heart's content as a chick."

Aaaaand that tingly feeling was back.

Sakura sighed and quashed the sting of regret that came with Naruto's statement, letting the pair scrap and wrestle for a minute before standing up and prying them loose like a couple of misbehaving puppies. Well...maybe not puppies. She did grab them by the scruffs of their collars, but she focused chakra into her arms while she was doing it so she could hurl them both several meters away in opposite directions with splintered wood and clouds of dirt marking their paths. When they trudged back, picking grass and leaves out of their hair, she was literally toppled to her knees with the full impact of what Naruto had flippantly said. Sasuke could 'restore the Uchiha Clan' as a woman.

"Oi, Sakura-chan! Are you okay?" Naruto asked, sliding to her knees and placing her hands on Sakura's trembling shoulders.

Clutching her flat chest, she tried to close the unzipped shirt out of reflex even though THERE WAS NOTHING THERE TO HIDE BECAUSE SHE WASN'T A 'SHE' ANYMORE! Sakura's breath came in ragged gasps, her (HIS?!) heart thundering in her chest as the real significance of the changes ripped and clawed at her mind. But maybe it wasn't as real as it appeared! Maybe it wasn't...

Her fingers were on Naruto's abdomen in a blink of glowing green, and her brain was shrieking with what her senses were telling her. Dear god, Naruto and Sasuke really were women! They were fertile and ovulating women! In a daze, she fumbled at her supply pouch for the little bottle of pills all kunoichi carried with them.

They weren't on Konoha lands yet. They were still out in the open, outside the protective walls. Vulnerable in their lack of knowledge. Grabbing the front of Naruto's jacket, Sakura snarled an order for the blonde to swallow as she popped a pill into Naruto's mouth. Naruto blinked her wide gold eyes and obeyed. Whether it was conscious or reflexive, she didn't care, because she was already jumping to her feet and attacking a stunned Sasuke with the same frantic wild force of will until the brunette gulped the pill down.

It took a moment for Sakura to calm himself (...herself?) down, sucking in deep breaths of air between clenched teeth and still scratching at the edges of a red shirt that simply couldn't be closed. Something soft brushed the side of his arm, and he whipped his head around to look into Naruto's quiet concerned eyes. She was squatting and balanced on the balls of her feet, knees drawn up with her arm wrapped around her shins and her head tilted at a worried angle as she held out her jacket.

"You'll catch a cold wearing your shirt open like that," Naruto offered, then broke into a wide mischievous grin that was so fake it made Sakura want to curl up into a ball and cry. "Not that I'm complaining, mind you. It's not every day that I get the pleasure of having my Sakura-chan flash me."

Sakura snorted a cough of helpless laughter, snatching the jacket and shoving Naruto back so the blonde could flail dramatically before sprawling onto her back. It was all a show, a sweet little lie. But the brown and orange jacket zipped up all the way, and it was warm and loose against his skin, smelling like summer winds and hope. He still had his chin tucked under the high collar of the jacket, easing himself into a relaxed and focused state when Sasuke shuffled forward. Arching a pink eyebrow, he looked up curiously as Sasuke reluctantly crouched down in front of him and held out her hand without meeting Sakura's gaze.

"What?" Sakura asked, more than a little bewildered.

Sasuke took a while to muster up whatever it was she wanted to say, pinching her lips in consternation as her cheeks lit up with color. "Give me the...the thing."

Sakura felt his own face starting to warm up as a flush of heat snaked its way through his belly in familiar but unfamiliar ways. "Ah...what 'thing'...?"

"I'm not an A-cup," Sasuke mumbled angrily, her face blooming scarlet as she jutted her hand demandingly forward.

Sakura's eyes strayed to the lumps beneath Sasuke's shirt, which she was trying to cover with an arm crossed over her chest. "Oh, right," Sakura nodded, pulling the bra out of his backpack and handing it over as discreetly as possible. Sasuke took it and immediately fled to the privacy of the trees.

"You know how to put that thing on?" Naruto called, lacing her hands behind her head as she lay on the ground.

Silence answered her, and Sakura felt the ghosting itch at his palms as Sasuke's chakra spiked in frustration.

"Technically you're not really supposed to know how, since you used to be a dude, and all," Naruto continued, a devious smile twitching at her lips.

"Then neither would you, so shut the hell up!" Sasuke's voice snapped from beyond the foliage.

Sakura bit his lip, though he didn't try to quell his amusement at how Sasuke had also just inadvertently admitted to not having much – or any – experience in dealing with bras at all. The humor was a radiating warmth that felt far too good after all that dark chaos, and he drew his knees up to rest his chin on them as the heat filtered into his limbs.

"I spent two and a half years with Ero-Sennin," Naruto sang wickedly, flashing her teeth as she silently cackled. "It's amazing how much you can pick up when you're stuck with a guy who considers peeping into women's baths 'research'."

There was a long pause, followed by a barely audible grunted "Fine...", and Naruto darted into the trees with a bright laugh.

Sakura could hear them grousing at each other in the distance, though he didn't pay attention to what they were saying after Naruto's initial whining complaint at how Sasuke's boobs were bigger than hers. To be honest, he felt rather content where he was, knowing the girls wouldn't get into too much trouble on their own. He snickered at the image of the pair struggling to get the bra on Sasuke, and as absurd as it was he allowed himself that brief time to let the heat settle into his belly as he hugged his knees to his chest. The two of them still looked a little boyish with their short hair, so it was easier than he thought it would be to fantasize about them.

It never once occurred to him that indulging in the wayward fantasy would turn out to be a very serious problem. He had done it countless times before without any consequences. So, it was a huge surprise to him that unwinding himself and standing up as he heard Naruto and Sasuke approach was uncomfortably difficult. He had to hunch over a bit, whirling on his feet so his back was to them as an aching hardness pressed and zinged and pulled between his legs with every move he made.

The heat wasn't fading off and leaving him in peace like it normally would, it was heavy and insistent and needy, resting and throbbing in the crook of his thigh like a second heart that was screaming to be touched. Brushing the dust off his skirt to try to appear normal while also giving him an excuse to carefully make sure he wasn't showing, he tried to focus on getting rid of the embarrassing erection. Except he wasn't used to how sensitive his new body could be down there, and he swallowed a gasp as his fingers skated over the alien stiffness that felt so fucking good and painful and horribly HORRIBLY WRONG in all the right ways it made him shiver and jump into a quick uneven marching pace.

"Sakura-chan? Where are you...hey, wait!" Naruto called, scurrying to catch up to him.

"We can't stay here," Sakura said briskly, hunching his shoulders and trying to think of things that would erase his lust. "We need to make it to a secure location so we can figure out what we're going to do."

"What, you mean that safe house on the border?" Naruto asked. "I can get us there in a snap, just hold on-"

"No!" Sakura gasped, jerking away from the feel of Naruto's arm circling his waist, his dick twitching and WANTING as his fingers fisted into the material of the orange and brown jacket that smelled like what he could have had his arms wrapped around and maybe tilted his hips just a bit to sneak in a little grind against soft flesh. "Please, don't touch me," he whispered, hobbling down the path and swallowing the urge to vomit. He had turned into the disgusting creepy pervert he had always ALWAYS LOATHED!

"Sakura-chan...?"

Suddenly Sasuke was in front of him, staring him down with those fathomless black eyes and reaching out to trace her fingers over his forehead. Sakura wanted to kiss her, devour her, take those delicate fingers into her mouth and nibble on them.

"Get away from me!" He snarled, tossing his head back out of reach and side-stepping to try to get around the sharp searching gaze of the brunette.

It suddenly occurred to him that both Sasuke and Naruto were now slightly shorter than he was, and if either of them straddled his lap they'd be eye-to-eye. The thought sent jolts of electricity down his spine and into his groin.

"Naruto," Sasuke said in soft command, never taking her eyes off Sakura.

"Gotcha!" Naruto said triumphantly as a body hit Sakura's back to wind arms around his chest, and before the world tipped on it's side in a flash of golden light, Sasuke was looping her arms around his neck and pressing herself against him.

The safe house materialized in Sakura's peripheral vision, but he wasn't paying attention to it because he was too busy scrabbling and scratching at the back of Sasuke's shirt while a pressure that had been building and building in his gut finally released in a blaze of electric heat and clenching muscle. He trembled and coughed, feeling unbelievably drained and repulsively mortified. He wanted to break down into tears and crawl into a hole to die. He wanted to bash his own head in with a rock. He wanted to stomp Naruto and Sasuke's asses into the fucking dirt for trapping him like that!

"The first time is weird and sudden and confusing, Sakura-chan," Naruto said quietly, her breath warm against the back of his neck and her lithe body snuggled into the curve of his spine. Sakura couldn't even come up with words to describe his self-disgust and humiliation, and every shred of his pride was screaming at him to push them both away even as he gripped Sasuke tighter. "But it happens when boys are young and silly, and we don't know why it happened, only that it happened. Then we get used to it, and we learn how everything works, and we figure out all the goofy little secrets to living with this crazy person in our pants that makes our brains stop working right. It's okay if you don't know all the secrets, Sakura-chan. I'll teach them to you, so don't worry about anything, okay?"

"Those pills you gave us were to keep us from getting pregnant, weren't they," Sasuke said, her body neither leaning in to accept Sakura's embrace, nor leaning back to escape it.

"You don't know the jutsu to make your womb reject all foreign proteins," Sakura replied, shaking his head as his voice cracked and his eyes stung with tears he refused to shed. "You don't know the trick to manipulating your chakra internally so you can protect yourself if you've been bound with chakra-suppressing shackles. You haven't been given the temporary hormone seal that leaves you infertile for six months. You aren't protected by the walls of Konoha out here!"

"How long does the pill last?" Naruto asked.

"Four weeks."

"Will it make my dick shrivel up if I turn back into a guy tomorrow?"

"No," Sakura laughed, releasing Sasuke and elbowing Naruto in the ribs. "Your fertility will go down significantly, but it won't affect your libido."

"So it's all good, then," Naruto shrugged, lacing her fingers behind her head and shifting her weight onto one leg in a clear invitation for him to follow Sasuke into the small cabin.

Sakura refused to let his eyes linger on the absolute perfection of Naruto's hips as he was again given a peek of that smooth tanned skin. Fucking hell, he would kill to have those fine-boned sensuously athletic curves that let Naruto walk around in boxer shorts and boys trousers hugging her figure with lazy defiance below her navel.

"You're not coming?" Sakura asked after a few steps, when Naruto made no move to join him.

"Nah, I'll stay out here and do a perimeter check."

"...you're in Sennin Mode..." he drawled pointedly, crossing his arms over his chest and trying to shake off the still-weird feeling of not having breasts.

"Yeah, well, I thought you might want some...you know...privacy and stuff after the thing with..." she mumbled, darting her eyes to the cabin as her cheeks bloomed pink.

"Dummy," Sakura sighed, a slight smile twitching at his lips as he stepped back and gripped Naruto's ear to drag her inside.

"I lit the fire for the water heater," Sasuke said neutrally, not glancing over her shoulder at their entrance as she worked on opening the windows in the squat one-room house. "It should be ready by now."

Sakura felt his face heat up in embarrassment, the damp sticky feeling in his shorts suddenly becoming the most unwelcome sensation he'd ever experienced. He scratched at his forearm after slipping his backpack off his shoulder, wanting to say something about how the water technically should have taken an hour to heat up, but Sasuke didn't appear to want to hear any thanks for obviously speeding that process up. Gripping the strap to his backpack, he walked to the linen closet to search through the sparse contents for a towel and tried not to think about the fact that he was wearing his spare clothes because the others had been ruined on the mission.

"I'll air out the futons and blankets," Naruto said, reaching past Sakura to yank the whole pile down from the top shelf so it tumbled to the floor.

"Idiot, stop making a mess," Sasuke scolded with condescending irritation.

"Suck it, jerk, I'm taking it all outside anyway," Naruto retorted, scooping up the bundle and stomping her way to the door.

Sakura bit his lip and stared at the corner of brightly colored fabric poking out from beneath the towel he'd been reaching for. He didn't know why Naruto had chosen to be so discreet and secretive about slipping him her spare boxers, because it was going to be glaringly obvious when he stepped out of the washroom wearing them, but the gesture made his chest ache and burn and twist like a fist under his sternum. Quickly folding the towel around the boxers to hide them, he closed the closet door and walked into the washroom. He felt Sasuke's presence trudging up behind him before he shut the door, and turned to give her a bewildered questioning look.

"Here," she said stiffly, practically shoving her 'man-skirt' into Sakura's arms. "I'm going to go collect food for dinner, and I don't want my appetite ruined by being forced to watch Naruto run around in his boxers because he insisted on giving you his trousers while your clothes dry."

The door was briskly shut in Sakura's face before he could reply, and all he could think about was the delicate flush of color on Sasuke's cheeks as she scowled fiercely without meeting his eyes. The aching burn in his chest curled down into his belly, and he swiftly dropped everything he was carrying so he could tear his clothes off and jump into a rain of freezing cold water. Apparently books didn't lie about that little trick, and after a long few moments of hopping about and fighting back the urge to screech, he tossed his soiled clothes on the tile floor to soak before turning the warm water on for a proper shower.

Sakura opted to unpin the front of the...seriously, there had to be a better name than 'man-skirt'. At any rate, he wrapped it around his waist and let it drape down in front to cover his legs and bright orange boxers peppered with small brown toads and swirly yellow suns. Sakura paused as he zipped the borrowed jacket up to his collarbone, looking down at himself and giving into a bout of absurd mirth. It seemed so impossible that the outfit really wasn't that bad.

Since he had adjusted the length of cloth tight around his waist instead of flared out like Sasuke wore it, keeping it in place with his belt and letting the bottom of Naruto's jacket cover it, it nearly looked like he was wearing a yukata beneath the jacket. Slinging the towel over the back of his neck and giving his washed clothes one final wring in the sink, he hesitated as he gripped the door handle. The cold knife of humiliation was still buried in his stomach, but the sting was easing.

Sasuke and Naruto had gone to great lengths in order to help make that happen, and there was far too much he needed to be concerned about without wallowing and dwelling on that mortifying moment of wretched weakness. The situation was unprecedented, he had to keep his head together and ensure the safety of HIS team. He couldn't keep letting them take care of him like they were doing, even if their clumsy barbed teamwork was as close to a display of real camaraderie as he had ever seen between them.

His chakra reserves weren't up to par, but at least they weren't dreadfully low. He definitely needed to give both girls a thorough examination to make certain there wasn't any kind of serious internal damage from the effects of the 'transformation'. They were a day from Konoha, and weren't technically due back for another two days since their mission had been explosively messy in the swamps, but quicker than anticipated. It wasn't out of the realm of options to take their time getting back home, so they had two days to figure things out before Tsunade started getting twitchy about their absence. Squaring his shoulders, he opened the door and stepped out into the main room.

"Ha! I win!" Naruto sang with a cocky grin, sitting cross-legged on the floor with a cutting board on her lap as she diced up wild mushrooms and herbs before dumping them into a wide stone bowl.

"You're deluded," Sasuke grunted, tossing the blonde a withering look from where she was searing a pair of cleaned and dressed rabbits over the flames in the fireplace.

"Whatever, you jealous bastard," Naruto scoffed pleasantly. "I told you Sakura-chan would rock the hell out of your creepy 'man-skirt', and I was right. Therefore I win, and you lose-ow!"

"This is not a fashion show, play nice," Sakura said firmly, rapping his knuckles on the top of Naruto's head as he walked by to hang his clothes out the window. The sun was still high, and having the garments out of sight was much more comfortable for him than putting them on display over the mantle.

The rest of the afternoon went relatively smoothly, with Sakura playing referee to Naruto's endless well of banter as he helped cut up the rest of the vegetables for their rabbit stew. He kept the medical exams as brief as possible, focusing on the health of their internal organs rather than going all out with a complete physical. The fact that both of them were in perfect health for two young women was an unsettling relief. Naruto said Kurama wouldn't be able to tell if they'd be stuck like that forever until the nature chakra still rattling around in their systems tapered off.

It wasn't until later that evening that it finally got to that point, and it was a sickeningly frightful moment.

Naruto was teasing Sasuke, threatening to drag her futon over next to the brunette's because she looked like 'a nervous schoolgirl' sitting in the corner all by herself. Sasuke, of course, counter-threatened to decapitate Naruto if she tried it. Sakura was just getting to his feet to grab the back of Naruto's shirt as she practically skipped toward her futon so she could move it when she simply collapsed. It was so completely sudden and unexpected and scary the way she had been snickering energetically one second, and the next she was folding in on herself and crumpling to the floor in a jumble of lifeless limbs as if she was a puppet that had just gotten her strings cut.

Sakura was next to her in a heartbeat, years of training kicking in as he searched for a pulse under ashen skin that was already covered in a sheen of sweat. Barking out orders to Sasuke as he found that thundering and dangerously racing pulse, he quickly carried her to the futon and hovered his hands over her chest to try to find the source behind why she was wheezing in air with desperate heaving gulps while her chakra bottomed out. Her eyes were unfocused, staring blankly ahead with her lids resting heavily over the glassy blue irises.

They were blue.

"Naruto, listen to me," Sakura ordered crisply, shifting his chakra from searching for an injury to rushing it into Naruto's system. "You have to stay awake for me, you got that? You have to tell me why you're crashing so hard after releasing your Sennin Mode. Come on, you have to tell me, now stay awake!" It was a stupid request, and he had a very good idea why this was happening, but he also needed Naruto to stay the hell awake until he could get her stable.

"...long..." Naruto slurred between gasping breaths that were starting to quicken and shallow in hyperventilation, her gaze drifting vaguely in the direction of Sakura's voice as she blinked lethargically.

"I can't hear you, say it again," Sakura said firmly, straining and concentrating on repairing the damage Naruto's way-too-fast heart was doing to her own body. He was fully aware that the kyuubi wouldn't let Naruto die, but that didn't mean he had to sit there and watch her suffer.

"...s'too...long..." Naruto coughed, drawing her brows together and blinking again as she tried to focus. "...balance..."

"He said it's because he's an idiot," Sasuke said, and Sakura could hear the smirk in her voice without needing to turn and look at the young woman standing behind him. "He said it's because he's a coward." Sasuke paused again, and Sakura saw the shadow on the wall tilt its head slightly. "He said it's because he's a girl now, and he didn't have the balls to admit he was this weak."

Sakura felt his eye twitch at the last statement, but he kept his attention on dumping chakra into her system, stimulating pressure points, soothing wildly firing nerves, and trying to prompt Naruto's body into helping him counteract the frenzied mess it was in.

"...Sakura...chan'll...kick...yer'ass..." Naruto rasped with a weak grin.

There was another significant pause.

"Did you say something?" Sasuke asked in a haughty feminine mockery of Kakashi's lazy drawl.

"...fucker...shuddup..." Naruto said, rolling her eyes wearily. "...stupid flower...forced Sennin on me...couldn't stop nature chakra from...coming in, and was in it too long...burned up Kurama's chakra to keep the balance..." Swallowing dryly as her breathing finally started to even out, she tilted another grin. "...he's pissed...says he's gonna sleep for the next 50 years, and we can all kiss his ass...but he says the nature chakra is filtering out without doing some crazy long-worded shit...and we'll change back in a day or two when our chakra systems turn the tables." She narrowed her eyes up at Sasuke. "Did you hear it that time, dickhead?"

Sasuke grunted in what Sakura had learned to interpret as smug amusement, and set down the items he'd told her to get before walking back to her futon. Sakura just sighed and exchanged a sad knowing smile with Naruto, fisting water from the cloth in the bowl and draping it over her damp forehead with one hand so he could continue to work on calming Naruto's heart rate and replenishing his chakra with the other hand. It took another hour before he was satisfied, and Naruto was already asleep.

Digging into his medical supplies, he mixed a hearty restorative concoction together and slid his arm under Naruto's shoulders to gently wake her and lift her up so she could drink the glass of medicine. She felt so tiny and fragile, half leaning against his chest as she cupped her trembling hands over his own to guide him on how much she could swallow at a time. Sakura had been there at the worst of times, when Naruto had been at her weakest, unconscious, collapsing in exhaustion and pain, dying, but never in all those moments had he ever once thought of her as fragile or tiny.

She was bigger than life, even in death. It made him want to just hold her and cradle her, protect her and hide her until she turned back into the loud, annoying, boisterous, huge-as-the-universe, smiling and laughing force he had grown so accustomed to. It hit him all at once as he gave Naruto a glass of water to wash down the grimacing complaints at how much he was torturing her with his foul 'medicine'; the crushing flood of relief at knowing all of this upside-down backwardness would come to an end in just a few days. It sat him back on his heels after he'd settled Naruto back to bed, and he gave himself a brief moment to hug himself tight and simply shiver with the crash of emotions.

Shaking himself out of his reverie, he brushed his fingers over Naruto's forehead to check her temperature. She had a mild fever, and knowing the blonde it would be long gone by morning along with most of the draining effects from chakra depletion. Still, the circumstances were out of his realm of knowledge, and he didn't want to take chances after hearing that even Kurama was exhausted. So, he dragged his futon next to Naruto's as quietly as he could before giving Sasuke's shadowed sleeping form a wry smile and turning out the lantern.

Habit and nerves woke him up every hour to reach out and hover his dimly glowing hand over Naruto's chest to check on her, change the damp cloth on her forehead, and smooth her short hair back as he monitored her fever. When her fever finally broke sometime in the middle of the night, and her chakra reserves were making a steady comeback on their own, he set the wet cloth aside and allowed himself to sink into a deep sleep.

He was pulled reluctantly from that slumber by the whispered argument across the room behind him. Resisting the urge to groan and chuck a pillow at his teammates, he blinked lazily at the wall and listened to them for a minute.

"It's inhumane leaving her like that," Naruto hissed angrily. "We're going to have to help her with this!"

"No, we aren't," Sasuke growled softly.

"Yes we are, damn it! Why are you trying to act like a prudish snob after what you did yesterday?!"

"That was a completely different situation," Sasuke snapped quietly. "And even if it does happen – which I highly doubt – all she has to do is leave it alone and it'll go away in a minute. Now shut the hell up and stop creating problems where there aren't any."

"...you've never had an honest-to-god REAL hard-on in the morning, have you?" Naruto breathed, her voice sounding almost tragically awed. "Tell me you 'recreate' on a regular basis-"

"This conversation ends now..." Sasuke interrupted menacingly.

Sakura felt the seals on his palms tingle, and the mental association that sensation had with the particular topic under discussion made him horrifyingly aware of his unwanted and insistent erection. He was instantly thankful that whatever sick twisted god that had brought the calamity on him had left him sleeping on his side instead of his back.

"Sasuke, you're eighteen, this is not normal!" Naruto said with concerned persistence, her voice raising in a pitch that was on the verge of desperate.

"You are the only abnormal one here!"

"Enough," Sakura grated loudly, hunching his shoulders and wishing he could just burrow under the covers and pretend nothing had ever gone wrong in that damn forest. "Just..." He bit back his embarrassment and took a deep breath as he propped himself on his elbow and glared over his shoulder. The movement shifted the tented material of his boxers over that throbbing mass of insanity, bringing even more heat to his cheeks, but he clenched his teeth and glowered at the pair of warily attentive girls. "Tell me how to make it go away." Naruto opened her mouth with a perplexed expression. "Without doing that," Sakura said darkly.

"Think of something disgusting. Like him," Sasuke shrugged, jerking her thumb in Naruto's direction.

"Wait...you think about me when you get hard...?" Naruto blinked, looking at Sasuke with a strange mixture of dazed shock and somewhat suspicious assessment.

"To get RID OF IT!" Sasuke snarled, her face catching fire as her eyes whirled an enraged red.

"BOTH OF YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GO OUTSIDE!" Sakura bellowed, digging his nails into his wildly buzzing palms. "Opposite sides of the house! Naruto, you're grounded for an hour."

"But-"

"There will be one hour of silence from you, and you will leave Sasuke alone during that time or so help me I will end you," Sakura said lowly, giving the blonde a black look.

Naruto demurred with a sigh, walking out the front door while Sasuke slid gracefully through the window. As soon as they were both out of sight he covered his head with his pillow and howled in frustration, because the gruesome images of twisted bodies on the operating table, or the thought of witnessing a parade of wrinkly naked tottering old men was not wilting the rock-hard muscle between his legs. That little flare of heat he'd coasted awake on had been replaced with a chilly gross feeling due to his thoughts...but DAMN IT, WHY THE HELL WAS HE STILL HARD?!

He didn't want to be hard! He felt no arousal coiling in his belly at all anymore! As a matter of fact, the heavy aching stiffness was starting to feel more insistent and less pleasant... Lifting up the blanket, he looked down at the unfazed 'crazy person' in his pants and started to get worried. If his erection was so engorged that it couldn't be 'talked down', then he needed to switch gears and give himself a release before he ended up in severe pain. He was a medic. He understood the physical workings and ramifications of male genitals, he just didn't know how to deal with the unholy randomness of that shit while it was attached to him!

Flicking his senses out, he found Sasuke's roiling chakra perched in the trees out of sight of the cabin, but she was within shouting distance. As he pushed himself awkwardly to his feet he rolled his eyes at Naruto's agitated presence huddled right outside the front door. What was that idiot doing?! Waiting for him to call her in and ask her to help jack him off?! The angry idea of Naruto's nimble fingers wrapped around his shaft sent a shiver down his spine, and he doubled over to fumble clumsily at his thighs in an attempt to avoid the instinct to grab himself before he reached the washroom. Well, at least the heat was back, pooling in his belly and threading outwards to skip his heart into a faster pace.

Sakura slammed the door shut behind him, grimacing with a touch of guilt at the responding spike of chakra skittering across his palms. He slumped down to the floor, sprawling his legs out and gaping wide-eyed at the black patterns on his hands. Oh god...he was about to masturbate with hands that were actively connected to the chakra bands on Sasuke's wrists. His dick twitched in anticipation, and he shuddered at the startling sensation. No, this was so not happening! Not when there was a chance that his chakra would get erratic enough for Sasuke to feel the resonation! His sack tightened and that magnificently torturous ache was back.

"Naruto!" Sakura barked loudly.

"Yeah?" Naruto's voice responded almost instantly above his head on the other side of the door.

"What the hell are you DOING?!" Sakura railed, curling forward in surprise and shooting a withering suspicious glare over his shoulder. "Don't just 'Yeah?' like you've been creeping outside the door the whole time!"

"I wasn't!" Naruto insisted, her voice backing up a few paces.

"Argh, never mind! You're un-grounded, go spar with Sasuke until I call you both back into the house."

"Sakura-chan, I don't think he's really in the mood for-"

"Then get him in the mood!" He snapped. "Tell him it was an order from me, yell at him until he cracks, flirt with him, throw rocks at him, I don't care! Just make it happen now!"

Naruto gave a yelp of understanding before Sakura heard her scamper out the window. Taking a breath, he tentatively reached down and peeled the front flap of his boxers open so the material collapsed around the swollen and reddened muscle jutting out from his lap like an alien creature...or some kind of malignant growth. He eyed it with wary amazement, rubbing his arms as his palms tingled with Sasuke's rising temper. It was so much bigger than before, and there was something almost hilarious about the way it was just standing up all pert and proud. He suddenly felt like the dumbest pervert on the face of the planet.

Groaning out a sigh and hoping the chaotic jangling from the seals on his palms would be enough to mask what he was about to do, he bit his lip and slowly stretched his hands down to encircle his erection as if he was trying to trap an animal. Then he squeezed his eyes shut and carefully grasped it with both hands. Lightning fizzled down his spine and flashed behind his eyes as his hips bucked up, choking out a gurgling cry AS HE FELT THE FUCKING SEALS THRUMMING AGAINST HIS GOD DAMN COCK!

He couldn't breathe, he couldn't think, he couldn't figure out why he hadn't even considered this particular issue, and he couldn't process the nagging notion that he should probably let the hell go because he literally felt the earth tremble as Sasuke's chakra went haywire, buzzing and whispering so damn deliciously against that hot over-sensitive skin. Moisture leaked out of the tip, sliding down to pool in the curve of his thumb, and all he could do was watch it in rapt fascination as his breath came quick while the ground quaked again. Cripes, those two morons were raising a shitstorm out there.

The blazing snaking need twisting in his gut spread out across his groin and down his legs, curling his toes as he blinked and steadied himself. He had to get it together and finish this thing before Naruto and Sasuke turned the surrounding land into a crater. There was another blast and a rain of dirt plinked over the roof, followed swiftly by Naruto's furious shouting and Sasuke's immediate retaliation of snapping trees farther away from the cabin. Damn it, they weren't sparring! Sasuke was just chasing Naruto around trying to beat the shit out of her, he could feel it in the uneven spikes of the seals.

Gritting his teeth, he narrowed his eyes and started pumping his hands up and down, marching after a release that felt like it was two seconds away as the pre-cum slipped and smeared under his fingers. That helped get the heat boiling closer to the surface, but using two hands was too clumsy so he slid one between his thighs to sneak up under his boxers and fondle the folds of his sack in the familiar rhythm and position he had used as a woman. Whether it was a placebo effect or he had inadvertently discovered another piece of heaven, he didn't know or care.

He was close, his ears ringing with the chaos of his nerves even as some small part of his mind noted Sasuke's chakra had sharpened and evened out to the steady calm focus she had when she was sparring or fighting. Coughing and arching back to dig his shoulders into the door as his hips thrusted up into his hands, Sakura felt his release rip and squeeze and blast out of him in a strange but fabulous way. He reflexively tried to ride it out and hold onto it, digging in and seeking more, continuing to work his hands so he could coast on the diminishing tingles where he could catch the next wave into an even higher plane.

But he was going limp and soft under his fingers, the quivering aftershocks already subsiding into a slumping pit of boneless lethargy. He sagged against the door and blinked at the wall as his hands flopped to the floor, one of them sticky and wet and...messy. He felt unaccountably cheated and disappointed. Was that really all there was to it? A flash in the pan before you're dumped down the sink? It couldn't have been more than a few minutes since he'd started, and his body was spent! THIS SUCKED!

Every fantasy he'd ever had about making love to...someone...all night long was completely ruined! Romance novels were a big fat lie! Which would explain why Kakashi was always reading them, because he could relate to all those silly, obvious, exaggerating lies! He kicked his legs petulantly for a moment, huffing his bangs out of his eyes and pouting. Pinching his lips together, he scowled down at his flaccid UNIMPRESSIVE member.

"Cock-tease!" Sakura accused wrathfully. For pity's sake, there had to be more to it than this! He just needed to figure it out...

Grumbling and pushing himself to his feet so he could clean up the evidence off the floor and stumble into the shower for a brisk scrub-down, he berated himself with several choice curses because there was not going to be any 'figuring it out'. He would change back into a woman tomorrow, and this whole episode would be left far FAR behind him. As he toweled off his hair before stomping out into the main room, he continued to try to ignore the enormous temptation of having all the secrets of how to truly please a man literally within reach and readily available.

And it wasn't in book-form or through second-hand gossip. He would never have this opportunity again.

Using a transformation jutsu to change into a man didn't have the same results since that was merely chakra manipulation to superficially modify his form. Not that Sakura would ever admit it to anyone, he had tried it once out of curiosity. Unfortunately, just like clones didn't bleed, a henge couldn't magically fabricate muscle groups to provide actual strength enhancements, nerve endings for realistic stimulation, or blood vessels to make all of it work clinically. He had been able to physically sense everything tactilely, but trying to masturbate in a henge was like trying to get off by rubbing his elbows with a pair of gloves on while balancing a glass on his head as he concentrated on his chakra to keep the transformation from dropping.

He folded his arms over the windowsill, leaning heavily against the wall and tried not to think about how Naruto and Sasuke could spar like that for hours, because that would surely give him enough time to recover and have a real go at exploring the possibilities and limitations of his body. Sighing wistfully, he shook his head and focused on watching the girls spar out across the now very open field beside the cabin. It was a strict taijutsu contest, and Sakura narrowed his eyes when he noticed Naruto was in Sennin Mode. She really shouldn't be pushing herself like that after what happened last night, but she wasn't showing any signs of being anything less than in perfect condition.

Sasuke's eyes were a sharp bloody red without her mangyeko sharingan, able to predict Naruto's moves easily. However, countering them was not so easy. Naruto was significantly faster in Sennin Mode, so she was able to keep Sasuke on her toes. She was also much tougher and stronger in terms of brute strength, which forced the brunette to maneuver nimbly out of the way or concentrate on deflecting blows while she made strategies and tried to trap Naruto with moves that would use her own strength against her.

"Come inside when you get hungry!" Sakura called after a few more minutes, walking away from the window and wrapping Sasuke's...'half-yukata'...around his waist. In his current state, Naruto's boxers and the wealth of dark draping cloth really were more comfortable than his shorts and skirt on several levels, and as long as they didn't ask for the items back he wasn't going to give up the sense of secure privacy they provided.

Crouching over the ceramic pot of rice hanging above the warm coals of last night's fire, he set the pot aside and stoked the flames back to life as Sasuke returned and walked into the washroom with a clean towel over her shoulder. Sakura wasn't paying much attention to it until it suddenly hit him that Sasuke was kind of taking a long time to turn the water on in the shower. A cold feeling of mortified horror slammed into him. Shit, he'd cleaned up everything, right?! Most of it had been on his hand, there had only been a few small splashes on the floor! HE HAD TRIPLE-CHECKED TO MAKE SURE!

He heard the muted sound of water hitting tile and slumped back onto his heels, scratching at his hair in silent frustration. Why couldn't the day just end, already?! By the time Naruto came back with six plump fish, Sasuke was just stepping out of the washroom. Sakura again busied himself with a task in front of the fireplace, focusing on skewering two of the fish and carefully roasting them so he could NOT think about the stray drops of water glistening and sliding down the curve of Sasuke's throat where that pale skin was so damn lickable.

Glowering malevolently at the dead fish he was cooking, he shifted off his knees and crossed his legs because he hadn't thought about adjusting his superfluous appendage in anticipation of the possibility of it stirring to life and getting somewhat painful in the way that it was wedged and pinched between his thighs. Seriously...SERIOUSLY, how the hell did guys function normally with this crap?! At least keeping his attention on the glassy eye of the fish was helping him maintain a sense of decorum and control. Sasuke had been right about simply needing to think of something disgusting, but the trick was not letting his idle thoughts flicker and stray back to more pleasant things.

When he placed the cooked fish on a large plate and started on the next pair, he noted that Naruto seemed to be taking a while in the shower. He shrugged and refused to let himself think about it, because that would just lead to images of water trailing down tanned skin and cascading over perfect hips he just wanted to grab and- STOP RIGHT THERE!

Fish. He needed to focus on fish. Dead fish with dead eyes staring up at nothing, and were going to become inedibly burnt if he didn't pay attention. Several controlled and calming breaths later he was back in his mental safety zone, and Naruto trundled out of the washroom with an oddly pensive look in her eyes.

The breakfast/lunch meal was quiet and unsettlingly tense. Sakura was torn. He wanted to apologize profusely for being a hormonal young man while also gripe his jealousy at them for being female, but was unable to come up with a tactful way of saying it that wouldn't make it sound like he actively disliked male bodies in general. Because he didn't! He loved male bodies! And would really love to be able to lavish a lot of attention on one in particular some day! He just didn't like being a male body!

The tangled thoughts and emotions dragged him through the meal in silence, and when Naruto shook herself out of her funk to make idle conversation while they were cleaning up he was still so distracted by his own inner turmoil that he completely missed it when Naruto dropped the bomb initially.

"So..." Naruto said, taking a deep breath as she put the last plate away and turned toward Sakura with her shoulders straight and looking for all the world like she was about to go on a dangerous mission through enemy territory. "Where is it?"

"Where is what?" Sakura asked, blinking in confusion as he closed the cupboard and stole a glance at Sasuke's rigid frame as she stalked to the door and left the house. The seals on his palms only tingled slightly in reaction, so whatever was agitating the brunette was being kept severely reined in.

"My clit."