Welcome back for the third and final part of this "alternate One Shot" XD

Disclaimer – I do not own Naruto. Characters may be OOC. Rated for some bad words and adult situations.

This was probably the hardest part of the story to write as I was really struggling to come up with a half decent ending for it, but it I still had a helluva lot of fun writing it! XD

Once again, thanks to TDotShia, who read the whole thing over and pointed out a few things that needed to be fixed up. Domo Arigato!

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Chapter 3 – The Aftermath.

Next morning, Tsunade wondered why so many of her Ninjas, including at least a couple that she would never have expected, were wandering round like zombies, clutching their heads at every little noise, looking greener than Gai's and Lee's costumes, and drinking coffee like it was going out of fashion. She caught the attention of Iruka, who seemed to be uninvolved with the madness.

"Hey, Iruka," she called, "have you got any idea what is going on?"

"Not really, Tsunade-Sama," Iruka was just as confused as the Hokage, "I did ask one or two of them, but all they told me was to go and ask Sakura, then they refused to tell me anything else. I think we might be a little short handed today. It's obvious that they have really bad hangovers and none of them are in any fit state for going on missions."

Tsunade sighed and thanked goodness that it had been fairly quiet recently.

Just then Ebisu shuffled past, muttering "It's immoral I tell you..." Tsunade and Iruka looked at each other, wondering who had broken the prudish ninja this time.

"Well, I can't be bothered to deal with this drunken rabble this morning." Tsunade said to Iruka, "and seeing as she isn't here, I think the only way to get to the bottom of this anytime soon will be to go and visit Sakura at her apartment. Could you go find out if she has any idea what's going on and ask her to report in please?"

Iruka looked at his class notes, looked back at the Hokage, and his curiosity won out. He really wanted to know what was going on. Besides, it would be rude to refuse the Hokage's request. "Sure, I'm game," he said, so he put down his notes and trotted out in the direction of the pink haired kunoichi's apartment.

As Iruka left, Tsunade raised her voice to catch the attention of the sleep-deprived and hung-over ninjas making them all wince and clutch at their heads, except for Lee, who was not hung over, just exhausted from having to continually avoid the stones thrown by Kiba, Naruto and Sasuke. "Alright you lot, go home and get some sleep. I'll see you all later." There was a promise of trouble in that voice, which sent a shiver down the spine of even the most zombified shinobi. They filtered out without another word. "And Lee," she called after them, "for heaven's sake, lose that disgusting box!" (1)

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At the apartment in question, Sakura had just woken up. She turned over to find a shock of silver hair on the pillow next to her and she blushed as she remembered what had happened the previous night. Well, her plan had worked even better than she had expected, now all she had to worry about was if Kakashi was going to regret it…

She decided to go and take a shower whilst she waited for him to wake up. It would also give him the chance to leave if he decided that was the way to go, but she really hoped that he would stay.

Kakashi watched her leave through barely open eyes. So she was giving him the space to leave if he wanted to? Well, it was a nice thought, but hardly necessary if the lingering look she had just given him was any indication. Maybe things had moved a bit faster than he'd intended, but even during the 'date' he'd decided that if Sakura was willing then he would like to see whether it could work out. He got up to follow her when he heard the water begin to run in the bathroom.

Sakura had turned on the shower and stepped under the streaming jet of water when she had it to the right temperature. A few moments later, she was surprised by a pair of strong arms encircling her.

"Kakashi?"

"Mind if I join you?" he asked in amusement.

"I think you already have," she laughed, turning towards him. No more conversation was forthcoming as he caught her lips in a searing kiss. Well, it certainly seemed that he didn't regret anything so far.

Things would probably have gone a lot further, but suddenly there was a knock at the door. They tried to ignore it, but the knocking came again, only more insistent this time.

"It's probably one of the idiots that were following us last night," Kakashi said with a sigh, "let me answer it and I'll deal with them."

"Sure, go ahead," Sakura said. She watched in appreciation as he wrapped a towel around his waist. "Don't forget your mask!" she reminded him as he left the room.

Kakashi located and pulled his mask on quickly as he walked toward the front door. The knocking came again, and he grumbled, "Yeah, yeah, I'm coming." He opened the door ready to deal with the nuisance that he was sure was imminent, and stopped dead when he saw Iruka on the other side.

The scarred Chuunin was stood there, mouth agape at the sight of Kakashi, dripping wet, dressed only in a small towel and hastily pulled on mask, in Sakura's doorway.

"Ah, Iruka, what can I do for you?" The masked man asked coolly. This visitor was unexpected, having not been a part of the previous night's insanity.

"K… Kakashi?" Iruka spluttered, turning pink in the face. "What are you doing here?"

"Well…" he started, only to be interrupted.

"No, never mind, I don't think I want to know," Iruka said hastily, "but Tsunade sent me to find out if Sakura knew the reason why so many ninjas are too tired and hung-over to work this morning."

"Shit, you mean they were at it all night?" Kakashi was incredulous, mismatched eyes open wide in astonishment.

"What do you mean?" Iruka was confused.

"I'm sorry, but do you mind if we don't discuss it now?" Kakashi asked, "I was in the shower you know."

"Ah, yes, of course," Iruka was flustered, "but seeing as you obviously know something could you come by the office before too long please? Tsunade really wants to get to the bottom of it. Oh, and bring Sakura with you, considering that's who she really wanted to see."

"Sure, we'll come in later."

"Kakashi," Sakura's voice came through the apartment, the sound of running water making it obvious that she was in the shower, "Is there some kind of problem?"

"Ah, no Sakura," he called back. "Bye Iruka," he said with a smirk to the now tomato faced Chuunin, and he firmly shut the door.

Iruka stood there stunned for a moment, then left to make his way back to the Hokage's office, not really any the wiser about why so many Ninjas were incapacitated that morning. He sighed and paled slightly as he wondered what Tsunade would make of what he'd just witnessed.

He stepped into the office, only to come face to face with one Morino Ibiki. "What's the matter, Iruka?" he asked, "You look like you've just seen a ghost or something."

Iruka sighed, "With what's been going on this morning, I think seeing a ghost would have been preferable."

"Ah, yes, I heard about those idiots being hung-over this morning and I still can't believe that Ebisu was involved in that. Did you know that they were tailing Kakashi and Sakura as they were on a date last night?"

"No I didn't know that, but why were they following them in the first place?"

"I have no idea," Ibiki said, "I didn't hang around long enough to find out. I wonder how their date went in the end."

"Oh, I'd say it went just fine," Iruka said with a blush. When Ibiki prodded him to elaborate, he added, "He answered the door to Sakura's apartment this morning, and I'm pretty certain he's been there all night, especially as he was dripping wet and only wearing a towel… oh, and his mask, but it was all crooked."

"Wow, gotta admit, I'd never have seen that one coming." Ibiki smirked, "So I guess that they tailed them back to her apartment, then went and got drunk?"

Iruka sighed again, "From the amount of beer cans and stuff left around Sakura's apartment I would guess that they stayed there and got drunk. I really don't want to be the one to tell Tsunade about it though, especially as I didn't bring Sakura back with me…"

"So don't tell her, let Kakashi and Sakura explain it. They are coming in later aren't they?"

Iruka nodded, "Well, I suppose she didn't specifically ask me to come and report to her afterwards, and I do have a class to get to…"

"That's the spirit, Iruka!" Ibiki slapped the younger man on the back, "see you later." And he left Iruka to get to his students. Of course, now he had some juicy gossip to spread. Who would have thought that Ibiki was such a gossip-monger?

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Back with Sakura and Kakashi, they had just got dressed, having completed a… vigorous workout... in the shower despite the earlier interruption. They were sharing a late breakfast, and Sakura had a question.

"So, who was at the door?" She asked, having been too distracted to ask previously.

"It was Iruka," Kakashi smirked, remembering how red the scarred man had gone.

Sakura's eyes widened, "Iruka-Sensei? I bet he was shocked. What did he want?"

"Oh, he was shocked alright. He'd been sent over by Tsunade as it appears that our audience were too tired and hung over to do any work this morning and they couldn't get any answers out of them."

Sakura looked out of the window. To her dismay, the ground where the idiot squad had been was covered in empty beer cans, popcorn boxes and other assorted rubbish. "Shit! You mean they were out there all night? I hope they didn't disturb the neighbors too much."

"There's no help for that now," Kakashi said, "But Iruka said that Tsunade wants us to pass by the office. I think she's trying to get to the bottom of the behavior of those idiots."

"I suppose we'd better go then."

"Nah, no rush," Kakashi leaned back. "She knows my reputation, and she won't be expecting me for a while yet."

"Hey, are you trying to taint my reputation as well?" Sakura said incredulously.

"Ah, no, not at all," Kakashi said a little apologetically, "but I think it might be a little late for that."

"Don't worry, it was worth it," Sakura blushed, "Come on, let's go." And with that, they left to head for Tsunade's office.

Of course, as they entered the building arm in arm, thanks to the gossip that Ibiki had so helpfully spread, they were subject to a few nudges and stares, and by the time they headed past the control room, they found themselves subject to a standing ovation. Sakura blushed and Kakashi smirked. Then they waved as they left to knock on the Hokage's office door.

"Come in," Tsunade called. She was happy to see Sakura enter, but she was surprised to see an out of uniform Kakashi with her. "Sakura, why is Kakashi with you?"

"Didn't Iruka-sensei tell you?" she asked.

"Iruka?" Tsunade cursed, having forgotten about him. "No, he never came back to me. So what are you doing here, Kakashi-San?"

Kakashi shrugged and leaned against the wall, so Sakura decided to answer. "I believe you are trying to find out why so many ninjas have caused themselves to be… incapacitated this morning?" when Tsunade nodded she continued, "Well, Kakashi here is part of the reason it happened."

Tsunade sighed and looked at the masked man, "Why am I not surprised that you are involved in this somewhere?" she said in exasperation, "So how did this all come about."

Sakura took a deep breath, "Well, it all started a couple of days ago when Kakashi and Gai-Sensei were drinking…"

Tsunade listened with increasing incredulousness as the story unfolded. When Sakura had finished, she was almost speechless.

"So you… and him…" she said as Sakura flushed pink and nodded. Kakashi just smirked. She shrugged, "Well, whatever floats your boat, I suppose. I do have to admit that's one of the most entertaining stories I've heard for a while, but it doesn't excuse that mob turning up in that state this morning, and I need to think of an appropriate punishment."

"I have an idea about that," Sakura said, and Tsunade listened intently as the pink haired girl outlined her plan. She smiled. This was going to be good.

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A couple of weeks later, crowds were gathered at the outskirts of the village, awaiting the event of the year. A group of the village's finest shinobi were going to race around the village 100 times, only dressed in loincloths. Most of the spectators, of course, were women, who had hearts in their eyes at all the male flesh on display.

The starting lineup included Nara Shikamaru, Akimichi Chouji, Rock Lee, Inuzuka Kiba (minus Akamaru), Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke, Maito Gai, Ebisu and Hatake Kakashi.

Kakashi had been included by order of the Hokage, as even though he hadn't been involved with the hung-over idiots, he had been involved in the bet that had caused all the trouble in the first place. Tsunade had been ready to insist on the "only a loincloth" part of Gai's forfeit, but thanks to a plea from Sakura, Kakashi had been allowed to keep his mask and an eye-patch to cover the Sharingan.

Sakura had also argued that the "beating with a brush" part should be dropped in favor of making it a straight race, of only 100 laps to make it more feasible. The winner would be declared "the better ninja" also taken from Gai's original forfeit.

When the punishment had been explained to the group of shame-faced ninjas, being that because they had involved themselves with Gai's bet, then they should share in his forfeit, Kiba and Naruto had shouted out, wondering why Hinata and Ino were being spared. This was backed up vocally by some of their peers. Of course, it had been decided that since the two girls had got the sense to go home and not become involved past a certain point, there was no need to punish them, a fact that the young men had taken with bad grace.

Kakashi hadn't been too happy about having to take part either, and had been tempted to be late so he could lose by default. Sakura, not wanting him to get into more trouble than he was already in, had mentioned that he would be letting Gai win if he did that, then seeing that he wasn't totally convinced, she had whispered something in his ear about rewarding him afterwards so he decided that taking part probably wouldn't be such a bad thing after all.

Of course, after Tsunade had given the "idiot squad" a thorough dressing down, she had sent them out with brooms and bins to clear up outside Sakura's apartment. The neighbors had all come out to watch the "elite" ninjas doing such a menial task and they gave the errant shinobis a hard time of it, sometimes even going as far as to 'accidentally' knock over the bins filled with collected garbage, just to make them clear it up all over again. The group had taken the abuse without retaliating (although with Naruto it was a close run thing) as they didn't want Tsunade to increase the punishment they were already getting.

There were many books running on the outcome of the race, but nobody was betting on poor old Chouji to win. No, instead they were running a sweepstake on how many laps the chunky lad would actually manage to complete before he collapsed or gave up. The favorites for winning the race were Kakashi, followed by Sasuke and then Gai, who of course bemoaned the fact that his eternal rival could even beat him in the length of the odds.

Eventually the race was ready to start. Sakura, Hinata and Ino were sat together at a good vantage point. Hinata was blushing madly at the sight of Naruto, and Ino was waving at Shikamaru who looked extremely bored about being there. Iruka had brought his class to see the spectacle, stating that it would be a good learning experience for them.

Neji, Tenten and Shino just thanked their lucky stars that they hadn't been around to get involved on the evening in question, although Shino was still managing to feel a little miffed about being left out again.

After a few more moments delay, Ibiki raised the starter's flag, and they were off. As was expected Naruto took off at top speed, not thinking about conserving his energy for later in the race. Eventually he was overtaken by everybody except Chouji and Shikamaru, much to his dismay. Oh well, at least he wasn't dead last this time.

Shikamaru, who didn't really care about the race at all, stuck with Chouji as he made his lumbering way around. It would take them several days to complete the course, as they took their sweet time over it, but Ino would win the sweepstake as she was the only one who bet that Chouji would actually finish, there not having been a time limit imposed. Thankfully, the race was taking place at a warm time of year, and Ino would bring them food so neither ninja would get cold or hungry. They split the proceeds of the sweepstake three ways.

Poor old Ebisu, he didn't know where to put himself. He knew that it was wrong to be showing off so much flesh, but since he was being forced to take part in this as a punishment, he would do his best. After the race was over, thanks to his well toned and muscled body and the fact that he was obviously single, he would suddenly find that he had his own fan-club and he could often be seen running away from one obsessed female or another. One day, he was cornered in his apartment by one particularly persistent fangirl and after that his inner pervert finally came out, turning him into a male slut. Still, hardly anyone was complaining, the guy had had a stick up his ass for far too long. There were one or two who missed the old prude though. He finished the race in a respectable fifth place.

Kiba didn't really do anything of note, just kept going steadily. Akamaru sat at the start/finish line and yipped in encouragement whenever he completed another lap. He finished in sixth, not too far behind Ebisu.

So the race finally came down to Sasuke, Lee, Gai and Kakashi. They had stuck together during the race, conserving their energy for the ending part. Kakashi and Sasuke had kept silent, but occasionally Gai would mutter something about his eternal rival that was completely ignored by the masked man.

Lee still wasn't speaking to Gai, much to the older man's chagrin. Lee had blamed Gai for Kakashi and Sakura getting together and he was nowhere near ready to forgive his mentor for the perceived loss of his chances with the cherry blossom yet. He spent the race sending filthy looks Kakashi's way, much to the masked man's amusement.

Half way round the final lap, at some unseen signal, Sasuke and Kakashi had taken off, leaving Gai and Lee in the dust. Lee had chased after the duo, but couldn't quite catch them and had to settle for finishing in third. Gai had cursed when he realized that he couldn't keep up with any of them, and finished in a sorry fourth place with tears running down his face at losing to his eternal rival for the second time in a row.

As Kakashi and Sasuke approached the finish line, they managed to put on another burst of speed, but were suddenly shocked to find a crowd of people, mainly Sakura's neighbors, bearing down on them with stiff brushes. This hadn't been mentioned in the terms of the 'punishment!' They had to duck and avoid the beating for all they were worth, but, mainly through tiredness at having just run 100 laps of the village, they couldn't avoid everyone so they still ended up with a few scrapes.

Tsunade stood at the finish line with a smirk on her face. Sakura might have asked her to make it so that they didn't have to beat themselves with a brush as they ran, but she couldn't let the idiots get off that easily. She hadn't told Sakura about this part, as she knew that the pink haired Kunoichi would warn Kakashi about it at the very least, and she didn't want the participants having the knowledge in advance. Of course, Chouji and Shikamaru would get off lightly, as nobody wanted to wait around to beat on them.

In the end, Sasuke won by a hairs breadth. Later, as Sakura tended to his scrapes and bruises, and gave him a massage to ease his tired muscles, she would ask Kakashi if he had let Sasuke win, which of course he had. Beating Gai (and Lee) had been good enough for the copy nin, so he had decided to let Sasuke take the victory, making it look convincing otherwise the Uchiha would have been pissed at being handed the win.

So, Sasuke was declared "The Better Ninja," and because the event had been such a success, it was decided that the race would be held every year, with those who deserved punishment for minor infractions taking part. In the couple of weeks leading up to the race, everyone would be on their very best behavior as even the most minor infringement could see them involved, especially if they were short of competitors. In future years, the brushes would also be used to keep the stragglers moving, no one wanting another 'Chouji and Shikamaru' incident to happen. The race came to be known as "The Konoha 1000," (in reference to the original forfeit,) and it drew large crowds whenever it was scheduled to take place. Certain people would end up taking part almost every year.

And to think, this had all started with a stupid bet!

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Author's Notes.

(1) 'Box' - See notes in Chapter 1.

Well, I hope you all enjoyed reading the alternate version of "It Started with a Bet?" as much as I enjoyed writing it. I was smiling almost all the way through. It's probably the most fun I've ever had writing a fic! If only they were all this easy!

And I suppose I could have added more characters to the idiot squad, but I don't like to have a huge character count and the story was threatening to get out of control with the ones I did include. Plus I'm not totally familiar with many of them anyway XD

Thanks to -

Freakenout - Thank you for the glowing review (blushes at the praise) .

December Jewel - I'm glad you think it's funny - the world needs more humorous KakaSaku fics :-P

Blackie - I know what you mean - I know this was SO much easier to write XD

Sakurachild - I kinda got the idea of everyone following them around from an episode of Prince of Tennis I watched ages ago. The idea amused me, and it seemed to fit, so I used it. LOL

Lady Nagome of the West - Thank you. In that case I hope I never get old.:-P I know that there are people older than me that write for the Ranma fandom in any case.

Also thanks to -

Eralda, LovelyCloud, Hinata-San and anyone else who reviews after this. :-)

So I think that's it until inspiration strikes me again. I do have a couple of embryonic ideas floating about, but I'll have to see how they pan out. Of course, if they do work out I will want to finish any fic I write before I post it, so it could be a while. Just hope it's not another 3 years before I'm back! XD

Mata ne,

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