AN:I LIIIIIIIIIIIVE! Hello everyone, sorry for the wait! But here is the next chapter of VINTA (Yaaaaay!). I've just finished my first semester of university and I'm free of finals so I've had plenty of time to complete this chapter as well as the next chapter of AtSoF - I'm on holiday in a mountain casino resort where I'm too young to actually gamble so lol loads of time to spare.

If anyone's interested, chapter eight of AtSoF is finished too but I'm going to upload it later in order to prolong the happy feeling I obtain from reviews that tend to flood in from an update, so expect it about a week later. Huh. That sounded so much less pathetic in my head. Oh well.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

"talking in Japanese"

'thinking'

'Inner Sakura'

Violence Is Not The Answer

Chapter Sixteen

Teacher Torture Teenagers Tenaciously

"SAKURA-CHAAAAAAANNNNNN!" A gleeful voice sounded, before Sakura found herself glomped by her ecstatic blonde teammate.

'Muscles!' Inner squealed.

"Gyah!" Sakura exclaimed.

"Dobe!" Sasuke shouted as he tried to pry a stubborn Naruto off of Sakura.

"YOUTH!" A teen who had a disturbing resemblance to Gai (Sakura vaguely remembered him as a second year named Rock Lee) bellowed excitedly, not wanting to be left out. He then stared at Sakura, reddened and dashed off.

After a moment of chaos, Naruto, who seemed to have calmed down significantly, managed to convey what he had wanted to tell Sakura.

"I annoyed Baa-chan into telling me what the next event is! It's… a RAMEN EATING CONTEST! WOOHOO!" Naruto whooped at the top of his lungs, while Sasuke groaned. Sai stood to the side, watching everything with a fake smile.

As Team Seven soon found out, in this segment of the competition, the whole team had to take part to devour copious amounts of ramen in the shortest time possible; as with all subsequent events, points would be allocated according to how many teams you managed to beat in the competition (one point per team beaten), with the teams that do not meet the designated number of points at the end of the day being disqualified. The number of bowls of ramen to be eaten would depend on the number of team members in the group and would be calculated by multiplying the number of members by four.

Sakura stared at the huge bowl of ramen in front of her, a pair of wooden chopsticks clenched in her hands.

"I'm supposed to eat four of these?!" She gasped, appalled. Just one bowl would be enough to fill her to the point of bursting.

"Don't worry, Sakura-chan! I can eat the rest of your share!" Naruto flashed her a thumbs up, grinning. "And Sai and Teme's share, actually. Sixteen bowls of ramen is what I usually eat for breakfast, dattebayo!"

"Oh, that reminds me," Tsunade said, the whistle to signal the start of the contest pausing inches from her lips. "Don't forget that each member has to eat at least a bit of ramen. And, since we all know what an unfair advantage this is for Naruto," She paused as the hall echoed with shouts of agreement, most notably a 'Hell fucking yeah, bitch!' from Hidan which she ignored with great difficulty so as to continue, "The total number of bowls of ramen his team has to eat is increased from sixteen to forty."

"FORTY?" Sasuke said in what he meant to be an indignant fashion, but really sounded more like a squawk, further emphasizing the whole chicken image he had going with his hairstyle. Inner snorted before bursting into uncontrollable laughter. Sakura, on the other hand, was too horrified by the fact that their allocated bowls of ramen had more than doubled and now formed a veritable mountain, and so was too preoccupied to show much reaction.

"That's… that's still no problem, dattebayo!" Naruto declared, though it was obvious that his bravado was false.

Tsunade's eyes glinted in challenge as she said, "Alright then, let's change it to sixty."

Sasuke whipped his head in Naruto's direction, murderous intent evident in his eyes (Sakura thought she saw his eyes flash red, but that must have been a trick of the light). He slapped his hand over Naruto's mouth as the blonde opened his mouth again, no doubt to do something similarly stupid and completely ruin their chances of winning. The Uchiha's fingers twitched with the urge to inflict bodily harm on him, but restrained himself – Naruto was their ace for this event, after all. (And damn, he never thought he would ever think that.)

Sakura gulped as she stared at the growing mountain of ramen bowls before Team Seven. She was mentally preparing herself to eat until she puked her guts out (or burst, whichever came first) when Sai's voice interrupted her, "What's wrong, Ugly? Worried about your diet? I can't blame you though. With a face like that, you'd have to have a really fantastic body to avoid being single for the rest of your life. Though," He peered at her intently, "I don't think you'd achieve any sort of flattering figure even if you starved for weeks."

Sakura's mouth opened and closed soundlessly, angered to the point of speechlessness.

'Son of a bitch, DID HE JUST CALL US UGLY? BOTH DIRECTLY AND INDIRECTLY?!'

'HE CALLED US FAT TOO! OH MY LORD, SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR PAINTBRUSHES, YOU PASTY FACED MORON, 'CAUSE IT'S GONNA BE SHOVED SO FAR UP YOUR-'

"Anyway," Tsunade interrupted hurriedly, having overheard Sakura and Sai's interaction and recognizing the signs of an Epic Sakura Tantrum, "If everything's fine now, let's begin!" She blew the whistle.

The dining hall echoed with the sounds of many pairs of wooden chopsticks snapping apart simultaneously.

Sasuke gingerly stuck his chopsticks into the bowl before him, before bringing some noodles to his mouth.

"Tch!" He dropped his chopsticks, clapping a hand to his mouth in pain. The ramen was piping hot – intentional, he was sure, glimpsing the sadistic smirks on some teacher's faces. Around him, fellow participants reacted similarly – all except for Naruto, who practically inhaled the ramen with the ease of much practice, a blissful look on his face, and Kisame, who simply tipped his head back and swallowed ramen by the bowl, seemingly without chewing, and looking for all the world like some kind of demented reptile consuming its prey whole.

The other participants began to resume eating, though they were notably more cautious, while Anko cackled maniacally in the background at the obvious difficulty with which they ate. Sakura was beginning to think that they should rename the sports festival the 'Teachers Torture Teenagers Tenaciously for Three Days' Festival, even as she carefully began eating.

Meanwhile, Naruto, seemingly mortally offended by the fact that Kisame was eating ramen faster than he was, decided to abandon all form of table manners in favour of upping his game; Sakura determinedly looked anywhere but at him after witnessing some participants glance at him, turn green and subsequently make a mad dash for the washroom to empty the contents of their stomach.

In the meantime, other teams were experiencing their own problems.

"Eww. Look at the oil in this thing! No way in hell am I eating that," Ino crossed her arms before turning away with a huff.

"No problem! Leave it to me!" Chouji said, already on his third bowl while others were struggling to finish their first. While he wasn't as speedy an eater as Naruto or Kisame, he was formidable in his own right. Slow and steady, as he always said, wins the race.

Shikamaru finished about half of his second bowl before groaning, "Ugh. Troublesome." He pushed his half-eaten bowl away, face planting on the table.

"What? No! Shikamaru, you lazy bastard, don't give up!"

"Shut up, woman! You didn't even touch your share!"

"Fine! I'll eat one bowl! So you better eat up! And I'll let you know, I'm gonna have to work out for a week to make up for this!"

"Tch. Troublesome."

"DON'T FALL ASLEEP!"

"Well, Shino, I gotta admit, this is useful. Gross, but useful," Kiba said as he eyed the bug infested bowls. Shino had utilised his creepy bug-whisperer technique to procure some… aid in finishing the bowls of ramen. They'd still eaten as much as they could, since bugs didn't usually eat ramen and so weren't able to eat too much too quickly, but it certainly helped. Kiba kicked back his chair, stretching lazily and rubbing his full stomach in satisfaction, oblivious to the ominous shadow looming behind him, though Hinata was not.

"U-um, Ki-Kiba…"

"Eh?"

"TEAM EIGHT! NO OUTSIDE HELP IS ALLOWED IN THIS COMPETITION, HUMAN OR NOT!" Tsunade bellowed. "DISQUALIFIED!" She then stalked away, mumbling about how the new students kept getting weirder and weirder.

Itachi primly ate from his bowl of ramen, unaffected by the whirlwind of activity next to him that was Kisame and Deidara. On his other side, Sasori was eating at a similarly relaxed pace.

"Oi, Uchiha, Danna," Deidara said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and momentarily pausing his frenzied actions. "Hurry up or we'll lose, un."

"…" Itachi ignored him. Sasori gave the blonde a dead-eyed stare that seemed to convey his utter disdain for the contest.

"Fucking hell," Deidara cursed. "EAT YOUR FUCKING RAMEN!" He flung some of his ramen in the Uchiha's direction. Said Uchiha dodged gracefully mid-bite, further infuriating him.

"FOOD SHOULD NOT BE USED AS PROJECTILES!" Tsunade thundered, popping out of nowhere. "DISQUALIFIED!"

"WHAT? NO!"

Itachi set his chopsticks down with a firm clack. He wiped his mouth with a napkin before turning to Tsunade.

"Tsunade-sama," He said, "That was not part of the rules you listed at the beginning of the competition. Therefore, it would be unfair for you to disqualify us on those grounds."

A vein popped in Tsunade's forehead. She took a deep breath and counted to ten. "…Fine," She gritted out, ignoring Deidara's whoop of triumph as an evil smile grew on her face. "However, Deidara will serve an additional week of detention for wasting food."

Itachi paused, then opened his mouth. "That seems fair," He agreed. Tsunade walked off, intent on getting some sake before she strangled one of her students.

"That is not fair, you red-eyed bastard!"

"Oi, Deidara, don't fight! Moron, do you want us to be disqualified for real?"

"But Danna…"

"Stop whining. It's disgusting."

"And the winner is… miraculously… Team Seven, where Naruto has proven that some of us have, in fact, not evolved since the Stone Age." Tsunade eyed Naruto in disgust. She was definitely going to add in a rule about table manners in next year's eating contest. Perhaps she would also choose a food that didn't splatter soup everywhere when eaten at a fast pace, and didn't look quite so disgusting when chewed with their mouths open.

"WOOHOO! See Sakura, told you not to worry, dattebayo!" Naruto cheered with a grin.

"Hmm…" Was all Sakura could manage to say. She was so full, it was all she could do not to hurl.

'I don't think I can look at ramen the same way ever again…'

'You think that's a tragedy? The real tragedy is that I can never look at that hottie the same way again after seeing him eat,'Inner mourned.

'That's why I said not to look, didn't I?'

'Hey, I can't help what you see in your peripheral vision…'

Tsunade continued, "And unfortunately, Team Ten is disqualified even though they finished eating in fifth place, because not all of the food was consumed – there was some bamboo shoots left in one bowl."

"WHAT?!" Chouji yelped uncharacteristically loudly.

"Well…" Ino said as she looked away sheepishly. "They taste yucky. Not to mention the horror they inflict on my complexion."

The next segment was not a physical one, since the teachers, sadistic though they were, had no desire to see the ramen their students had eaten make a reappearance. Instead, it was a test of their mathematical skills. Sakura was chosen to represent her team, having been able to solve many of the mathematical problems Kakashi had given during their lessons.

Kakashi swept the sheet off of the board with a flourish, revealing a complex jumble of symbols in an equation that filled the entire whiteboard with miniscule handwriting. Sakura went cross-eyed for a moment before regaining her bearings and beginning her attempt to solve it.

The event ended after an hour, with only thirty representatives out of the remaining hundred and twenty managing to solve the equation and hence gain points for their teams. The other teams who had not solved the question were not disqualified, but simply did not obtain any points. Team Seven had finished in seventeenth place. Pein, to Konan's open surprise, had come in first place. ("Huh. Never knew you had it in you. Maybe you aren't completely useless after all." "...Konan, sometimes I really hate you.")

"Well, my students, here is yet another youthful event! Gymnastics!" Gai gestured grandly. "Each team is to send out a representative to compete. He or she will have to complete this fixed routine and our three judges – Anko-sensei, Kurenai-sensei, and myself – will each give you a score out of ten! And of course, the higher you rank on the scoreboard, the more points your team will be awarded."

"That's too easy," Sakura mumbled. "There must be a catch." Sasuke 'Hn'ed in agreement.

"But the most youthful part of this," Gai continued enthusiastically, "Is not the extremely challenging routine, but the fact that you are required to do it while wearing this!" He brandished a flimsy green monstrosity, which the students realised with growing horror was an identical green jumpsuit to the one he was wearing – except for Lee, whose eyes shone with admiration and exhilaration.

The boys of Team Seven looked to Sakura.

"Er, actually," She scratched her cheek in slight embarrassment, avoiding eye contact. "I'm hopeless at gymnastics. I can't even do a cartwheel."

Sasuke folded his arms and directed a look at them that clearly conveyed, 'Well, I'm not doing it.'

Sai clapped a hand on Naruto's shoulder with a smile.

Sakura's eyes were glued to the scene before her, unable to look away despite Inner's desperate wails for mercy. "Guys… I think we made a horrible mistake…" She managed to utter.

"…I believe so." Sai's eyes were unusually wide – was that a hint of horror in his expression?

Sasuke closed his eyes in agony, wishing for someone to hit him hard enough on the head that he would experience memory loss.

Kurenai and Gai watched Naruto's performance with the morbid fascination one usually associates with those witnessing a car crash, while Anko laughed gleefully, clapping her hands.

"Um, well, thre- two points for the… commendable… effort," Kurenai said, face frozen in a grimace.

"Yes… how very… youthful." Gai, for once, seemed speechless.

"Ten! Ten points for the absolutely wonderful performance!" Anko shouted.

Naruto twitched from where he had face planted on the mat in his 'grand finale', butt sticking in the air. He gave a shaky thumbs to his team, giving a muffled, "Nailed it, dattebayo." His arm then fell back down with a thud.

Said teammates, who were actually on the opposite end of the room, winced.

Gymnastics had been the last event of the day. Team Seven, with the points from the mathematics competition and the ramen eating competition, managed to qualify for the second day of the sports festival despite their abysmal performance during the gymnastics event, along with fifty teams from the hundred and twenty that had passed the obstacle course.

The teachers had actually expected about seventy teams to qualify, but it seemed that this year was fraught with powerhouse teams that consistently took the top twenty spots, hoarding the most number of points so that the teams that did qualify did so with a large margin.

The students gave a collective groan of relief as they were dismissed, shuffling towards the school gates and the direction of home.

So ended the first day of the sports festival.

OMAKE: Naruto's thoughts while eating ramen

Mmmm. Ramen ramen ramen.

Oh wait a minute, look, that blue-skinned fishy man is eating ramen faster than me! Oh no he didn't! That's it, kiddy gloves are off, mister! So there! Nom nom nom nom nom.

Mmmmm. Ramen ramen ramen ramen- hey, did that dude just puke after looking at me? Oh well, who cares. Ramen ramen ramen ramen ramen ramen ramen ramen ramen ramen ramen ramen ramen ramen ramen ramen ramen ramen ramenramenramen...

Oh no I ran out of bowls of ramen! NOOOOOO! Oh wait, doesn't this mean something important? Oh right, WE WIN! YAAAAAAAY! WOOHOO.

Now, I wonder if that team over there will let me eat their ramen... hmmmm...

OMAKE inspired by JinxKatKazama, sasusaku number, as well as everyone who asked for more Madara/Sakura action! Thanks for the ideas my lovelies, and feel free to give me more suggestions!

Team Seven was walking towards the gate after the gruelling day.

"I can't believe we have two more days of this hell…" Naruto groaned as he stumbled from fatigue.

"Hn." Sasuke grunted, his posture slumped.

"Well, at least we all did our best! I was worried we wouldn't have any motivation to compete," Sakura said optimistically. "I mean…" Here, she giggled, amused by her own silliness. "I even made a cheerleader uniform and routine and everything to cheer you guys on! It was lucky I showed it to Kakashi-sensei first though, it must have been really bad if his reaction was anything to go by…"

"Did you say cheerleader uniform?" The boys suddenly lost all traces of fatigue and stopped, whirling to face her. Even Sai's eyes glinted in interest.

"Yeah," Sakura laughed again. "But it was really bad…"

"I doubt that." Sasuke said, still peering at her intently. "Why don't you let us judge for ourselves?"

"I don't know…" Sakura said uncomfortably. "I don't have it on me anyway."

'LIES!'Inner screamed.'You brought it along just in case!'

'Well… I don't want them to know! Did you not see Kakashi-sensei's reaction?'

'You moron, he wasn't horrified, he had a nosebleed!'

'Well how do you know the horror of seeing us in that outfit doing our routine didn't cause him to rupture a blood vessel, which would, in fact, mean that we could have killed him because of our hideous appearance? For that matter, how do you explain him forbidding me from wearing it again, if I was, in fact, that wonderful in the outfit?'

'If you'd paid attention, Outer-chan, you would realise he said 'in front of anyone else', ergo, he wouldn't mind if you did it in front of him again! He just wanted to hoard you for himself, the perverted hottie that he is. Not that I'm adverse to that… he does live just next door.'Inner leered.

'Oh my Lord, INNER! We're fifteen! Mind outta the gutter, NOW! …And huh, now that you said that, sensei did say that… but that doesn't prove anything!'

'You're a complete idiot, Outer-chan. But fine, whatever! Ignore me!' Inner huffed.

"It doesn't matter!" Naruto continued from where Sasuke left off, unknowingly bringing Sakura's attention back to them. "Just a picture or something is fine, please please please Sakura-chan?"

"Oh well…" Sakura nibbled on her lip. "Fine…"

She rummaged through her bag before retrieving her mobile. She then showed them a rather badly taken selfie (So she didn't subscribe to taking pictures of herself, sue her!). The boys, however, had not a care for the angles and lighting of the picture being all wrong, for they were distracted by a more important detail, which was Sakura. In a cheerleading uniform.

Sakura. In an adorable cheerleading uniform.

Sakura. In an adorable cheerleading uniform. Clutching silver pom poms.

Sakura-

Naruto was blasted backwards by the force of his nosebleed, slamming into an unfortunately placed wall behind him, slumping to the ground with swirls where his eyes should have been. Sakura was a little worried that he was concussed since he seemed to have lost control of his salivary glands and a veritable waterfall of drool was gushing from his open mouth.

Sai on the other hand, had a hand clenched over his heart, his eyes opened wide in a faintly alarmed expression. "What is this…?" He muttered to himself. "This irregular beating of my heart. Was it the ramen? Or am I getting a heart attack? I better go to the clinic for a checkup." He nodded to himself and departed without a backward glance.

Sasuke, on the other hand, stoically handed Sakura's handphone back to her, saying, "Kakashi was exaggerating. I find it… acceptable."

"Um, Sasuke, your nose is bleeding," Sakura said, concerned. Why was everyone around her getting nosebleeds? Inner sighed at Sakura's obliviousness.

"Hn." Sasuke nonchalantly wiped the blood away with his hand, leaving a rather comical streak on his upper lip. He couldn't resist chancing another glance at the screen of the phone. More blood surged from his nose.

"… I'm going to the infirmary." Sasuke said, still trying to maintain his composure. However, as he took a step forward, his eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed from blood loss, dropping face-first onto the ground like a rock.

'I never knew you could faint from blood loss due to a nosebleed,' Inner said in interest. 'It's not like he lost that much blood anyway. What a wimp. I do hope that his lovely face didn't sustain any permanent injuries from that fall though.'

Sakura stared at the prone forms of her two comatose teammates, both of whom were surrounded by small puddles of blood.

"I guess I'm going home by myself, then," She sighed.

"Oh dear," A voice sounded behind her. "What on earth happened here?"

Sakura whirled around to face Madara, who was currently gingerly nudging his nephew's body with his foot, nose wrinkled in slight disgust.

"Madara-sensei," Sakura said in surprise.

"Sakura-chan!" Madara's head snapped up, a blinding smile lighting his face as he pranced over aforementioned nephew's passed out form and wrapped his arms around the pinkette, swinging her around. Setting her back down, he asked her what had happened.

Swaying dizzily and deciding to simply ignore Madara's actions, Sakura replied, "I showed them a photo of myself, and then this happened." She gestured helplessly to the scene of carnage before them.

"Oh?" Madara asked in interest, the possibilities of what this picture would be whirring through the evilly genius mind hiding behind his childish façade. "Show me!" He demanded.

"Sensei, when I showed it to other people, this happened." She pointed to the scene before them yet again. "I don't think-"

"Sakura-channnnn…. Please?" Madara utilised a tactic most commonly known as the Puppy Dog Eyes. (No, it was not because he liked doing it, it was all part of his dastardly evil plan, of course! …No, he was not lying!)

Sakura fidgeted uncomfortably before consenting with a sigh, showing the picture to Madara and dreading his reaction.

Madara froze, staring at the picture.

"Um… sensei?" Sakura as nervously, waving a hand in front of his face.

He did not respond.

'Oh no, I broke him!' Sakura freaked out.

While she was distracted with asking Inner for ideas on how to snap Madara out of his trance, said teacher regained his senses and crushed Sakura to him in an embrace.

"EEK! LET GO!"

"NEVERRRRRR!" Madara declared as he twirled around, the uncomfortable pink-haired girl still trapped in his arms. His eyes sparkled in slightly insane happiness and imaginary roses and sparkles gleamed in the background.

"Sakura-chan, I am never ever ever ever letting go of you again, you adorable, adorable girl. No one will ever look upon your loveliness again, except for myself, for their eyes are not worthy of such perfection. You have touched my heart with your splendour," Madara cooed at her, thoroughly freaking her out as he spouted as many phrases as he could remember from the chick flicks he was definitely not addicted to. "My darling angel… the light of my life… my reason for living…" Keeping her firmly in his embrace with one arm, he raised the other to start stroking her hair.

"Sensei… you're making me uncomfortable. Please let go." Sakura shoved his face away from where it had been in way too close proximity to hers. Inner had long passed out from happiness. "In fact, I insist you let go RIGHT THIS INSTANT IF YOU WANT TO HAVE CHILDREN IN THE FUTURE!"

Ignoring her actions, the smitten sucker continued, "You are… the Lion to my Lamb." He paused. "That doesn't sound right. Was it supposed to be the other way around? Anyway, I would gladly sparkle for you… or catch a grenade for you… I love you, my eenie meenie miney mo-"

"UCHIHA, GET YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF OF MY NIECE!"

"Eep!"

AN2: Hope you liked it!

Review because it's gonna be my birthday in about eight, nine or ten days depending on which time zone you're in!

Sorry for the mistakes if any; beta-less and proud.

XOXO

Ice