I'm still alive!!! Finally I'm back from my 2-year break. Yeah, I suppose you guys are going to hunt me now. But I promise that I'm going to finish this story no matter how long it will take. Thanks for all who read my story especially who reviews and extra special thanks for those who used to read and still reading now.

It has been quite a time since I've read Naruto and I've lost the original chapters that I wrote. I still have the rough draft on my head, but I do expect mistakes in this chapters and I need you guys to help me point them out. I really appreciate it if you guys can help me with that. I guess I'll have to re-read Naruto when I have time.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto

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Chapter 13

Sakura came back into class with a horrified and disgusted expression, with a hint of shock. It definitely caught her friends' attention and they immediately surrounded her and asked what had happened with worried looks.

"Sakura-chan, did something happen?" asked Ino. Hinata and Tenten helped Sakura to get to her seat.

"Uh, thanks..." Sakura thanked Tenten and Hinata before answering Ino's question, "Well, yeah... sort of..." Then she paused. How can she explain the mental image she had just saw in the teacher office that will scar her for the rest of her life? Not to mention that she didn't want her friends to suffer the same thing as her, though they might have to see Naruto dressing as a girl with their own eyes to believe her story.

"It's... kind of hard to explain..." Sakura was still torn between telling her friends or not, ".... It's not that important, really... just the boys and their pranks..." Yeah, she'd better not tell them. What would Hinata say if she hear about this?

"Again?" her friends blinked and sighed. And that little bit of information was more than enough to keep them from asking.

Suddenly, the door opened and the boys came in with a defeated expression on their faces. They ignored all the curious looks from their classmates and sat at their own respective seat with a depressed sigh. They were quiet for the rest of the day, for they were thinking about other various ways to make their beloved(?) teacher suffer. Sakura only glanced at her seatmate before returning her attention to her book. She couldn't find a word to say or even a face to put, since although she felt disgusted and annoyed at their pranks, she also felt sorry for them.

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The teacher's office was silent. No one actually dared to actually talk about the strange incident that had just occurred. A strange girl came in and flirted with a teacher. Another teacher had an outburst and tried to separate them, only to find himself fallen as a prey to some kind of strong laxative. It has been an hour since Gai went to the bathroom and there was no sign of him going out at all. All the male teachers had decided not to use the teacher's bathroom for the rest of the day.

Genma was still trying to squeeze some explanation from his colleagues, but seeing how shocked they were, he decided that some things were better to be left in the dark. Although the thought of being the only one clueless didn't please him at all.

"Well then, I guess I'm off," Kakashi finally left his seat before anyone started questioning him. He did have a feeling that this incident had something to do with his students, but he didn't feel like investigating the matter further.

'I guess they're more dangerous than I thought... Not as dangerous as my last class, but I'd better be more careful...' he told himself before sitting on the bench in the school yard and continued to read his prized novel in peace.

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Any non-member who came to watch the soccer practice at Konoha High School would agree on one thing: The training that the coach gave to the team was weird! Little they did know that the so-called training was actually not training but the members of the soccer team trying to show their frustration of their coach by making him a living target for accuracy practice. Too bad that Kakashi was able to dodge all their shoot, and while reading his perverted book to boot! That surely didn't help to reduce their frustration.

Sakura only watched the soccer-turned-dodgeball from the side of the field with a bored expression. She was supposed to record the progress of their training but with that kind of training, she really didn't have anything to do since the only thing she needed to write was a big "ALL MISS" on the list.

The boys were quite persistent that they started to kick the balls without paying attention to their surroundings. One of the balls that missed was now threatening a passerby who happened to be Hinata. Luckily, Tenten was with her and she managed to kick the ball back to the boys, even effectively hitting Kiba square on the head.

"Pay attention! What if that ball actually hit her?" scolded Tenten. Since there were too many people kicking the ball at the same time, it's hard to figure out who kicked which ball and thus saving the culprit from Neji's wrath. Everyone knew better than to invoke the wrath of the Hyuuga.

"Okay, that's it boys. Before you actually hit someone, let's have a practice match. The starting member will play against the sub, but we'll switch the goalkeeper," said Kakashi. The boys, finally giving up, decided to follow their coach's order. Not after they mumbled, "That's because you keep dodging our shoot." though.

Tenten, Hinata and Ino sat beside Sakura, watching the boys' practice match. They were all finished with their club activities. Well, the soccer team was having an extended training hour since their members had a break due to the injury from the game against Suna and Kakashi suddenly decided that they needed to make up for time wasted for their recovery. Not something that the team really appreciated.

"I still can't believe that the boys actually listen to Kakashi-sensei," Tenten commented, while watching the boys.

"Well, they don't have a choice. It's almost a month and they have never succeeded in pulling a prank on Kakashi-sensei," answered Ino. Then she suddenly let out a fangirl squeal when Sasuke scored a goal.

"But really, they are such kids. Why don't they just stop and show some respect to the teachers?" Sakura pouted.

"Well, duh, that's just the way they are. I don't really mind though. Sometimes it is interesting to see them pulling a prank on the teachers. It's fun!" answered Ino. Sakura gave a disapproving look as an answer while Hinata looked at her feet, not sure if she agreed with Ino or Sakura. Tenten however kept quiet as she kept her focus on the field, no, actually a certain player.

Her friends immediately noticed that she was being absent minded. But Tenten was known for her love for sport so they weren't suspecting anything when she stopped paying attention to their chatting. Ino however, saw this as an opportunity to drag Tenten into doing something she hated.

"Well, since Sakura-chan is having a lot of stress being a manager and all, let's go shopping this weekend! Tenten-chan, you're coming too right?"

"Hnn..." was her reply and Ino took it as a "yes".

"Uhm, I-Ino-chan," suddenly Hinata spoke, "S-sorry, but I can't go this weekend... There are guests coming this weekend, s-so..."

"Oh, I see..." Ino looked a bit disappointed but nevertheless, she gave Hinata an assuring smile, "It's too bad, but don't worry, we can still go together another time."

Hinata smiled in relief after hearing Ino's answer and then she decided to shift her focus to Naruto, who managed to score another goal. He suddenly took notice of Hinata at the side of the field and gave her a "V" sign. This, of course, caused her to blush madly. Naruto didn't realise this though, as he then had an argument with Sasuke who told him that his response was too slow. In the end, the soccer game became a debating and insulting game, which the girls watched with bored expressions.

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On Saturday morning, Asuma was standing in front of a house. He had been thinking about knocking the door for a few minutes, but he was still not able to make up his mind. He sighed, 'Man, this is going to be though.' He looked at one of the room on the second floor, his mind drifting back to the day before...

Flashback...

Tsunade was resting her chin on her fist. Her expression was serious and a little upset. "So, in short you haven't decided on who will participate in the yearly junior science Olympiad?" the tone that the principal used was indicating danger.

Asuma gulped before nodding. He swore he saw Tsunade twitched. "I've just received a report from Kakashi-sensei and Kurenai-sensei that you will take full responsibility of managing the participants. But I do wonder how you will be able to do that, seeing that we don't have any participants."

Actually, finding someone capable enough to represents their school was an easy task. They had two geniuses, Sasuke and Neji. Sakura would also make a good choice. And he had to choose three people. The thing was, having Sasuke to represent their school in some kind of competition was out of question. He had refused when Asuma asked him, and even if they signed him up, he wouldn't show up on the day of the competition and they will be disqualified. Not to mention that Asuma'd see a living hell for the rest of his life as a punishment. It's not that Tsunade wanted him to win. It's just Tsunade'd not accept if they lose because they were disqualified since it would affect their school's name.

"W-well... Actually... I already have two names, Hyuuga Neji and Haruno Sakura. The problem is the third one. I mean, we can't have Uchiha since he refused and it'll do us no good to force him into joining," Asuma tried to explain.

"So? Just find another one."

"Well..." Asuma fidgeted, "I actually know a good candidate. He lacks even more motivation than Uchiha, but it will be easier to convince him. The thing is... he hasn't accomplished anything worth mentioning yet, due to the lack of motivation... so I-"

"Whatever, just make sure to do it right. I have a high expectation this year. We have to at least get into the finals or-" The death glare Tsunade sent him was more than enough to tell him the consequences.

End of flashback...

The window of the room he was staring at suddenly opened, bringing Asuma back to reality. Shikamaru yawned while looking out of the window. Then he shifted his gaze to the street in front of his house and caught Asuma in front of his front door.

"Yo, Asuma. What are you doing here?" greeted Shikamaru. Asuma was his father's friend, and Shikamaru himself was pretty close to Asuma, but it had been a while since Asuma came to his house. Usually Asuma came during holidays, when he had nothing to do to play shogi with Shikamaru.

"It's Asuma-sensei, you know!" Asuma shouted, "I'm your teacher now."

Shikamaru grinned. He and Asuma had that talk before but Shikamaru found it hard to get used to call Asuma "sensei". Probably because he was pretty close to the older man.

"Whatever. Wait there, I'll open the door for you. Mom and Dad are out now, but we can play shogi while waiting for them," Shikamaru shouted back before retreating back to his room. A few minutes later, he appeared again when he opened the front door for Asuma. They played a few games of shogi, then they took a break while eating some rice crackers and having some tea.

"So, why do you come? I suppose it's not just to play shogi," asked Shikamaru.

Asuma scratched the back of his head, "well, the truth is..." He explained about his plan having Shikamaru to participate in the junior science Olympiad. Shikamaru didn't take more than one second to think of an answer.

"No way," Shikamaru answered, "Why don't you ask Sasuke instead?"

"Well, you know how Uchiha is. And the principal will have my head if we got disqualified. So please Shikamaru, do me a favour.."

"No way. It's too troublesome. I've just finally have a break from the student committee president candidate thing and I want to have some rest. Why don't you just put some random people in the third slot instead?"

"Please Shikamaru, I'm begging you. My job is on the line. If we couldn't make it to the finals then I'll... I'll..."

Shikamaru sighed. "Okay, okay, I get your point. I'll participate in your stupid Olympiad."

Asuma's eyes lighted up. "Really?"

"But in one condition. We'll have one more game now. If you win, then I'll participate."

Asuma gulped. Ever since he taught Shikamaru how to play shogi, he'd never won against him even once. But his career, no, his whole life was on the line and he didn't have much choice.

"Okay, I accept your condition."

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Tenten was mentally cursing her lack of concentration, and her crush on Neji which caused her to lose concentration on the first place. Thanks to that, Ino managed to drag her to the mall to do some shopping.

"So, where's Hinata-chan?" asked Tenten with a bored tone.

"Tenten-chan, you really didn't pay attention, did you? Hinata already told us that she couldn't go with us today," Sakura answered

"Oh really?" Tenten blinked several times, "I guess I've been zoning off too much..."

"So you finally realised that. Honestly, what's so interesting about sport? I can still understand if you like to do it, but just watching is kind of..." Ino paused for a while before continuing in a sly tone, "... unless you were watching a certain someone..."

That caught Tenten off guard. "What? How could you-" Then she realised her mistake and quickly covered her mouth with her hands. Too late, Ino and Sakura already cornered her with sparkling eyes.

"Now you're going to tell us who..."

"Yeah, we let you off last time. But now, we aren't letting you go until you tell us."

"So, Tenten-chan..."

"Tell us who..."

Tenten backed. While she loved her friends dearly, there were also times when they could be so evil that she felt so threatened.

"Come on..."

"Yeah, we'll promise we won't tell anyone... well, except Hinata-chan, but she's one of us. And we'll help too!"

"No," answered Tenten, "This is something that Hinata-chan mustn't know."

Ino and Sakura looked at each other.

"You said that he wasn't Naruto."

"So, unless you were lying or you've hit your head somewhere, cause I know Naruto isn't your type..."

"... It has to be Neji. Right?'

Tenten face became red and redder at the mention of the name of her crush. She did realise that sooner or later she'd have to tell her friends about her current crush on Neji, well actually she'd liked him for a long time, but this feeling grew stronger after they became seatmate. However, she also realised that Neji saw her only as a friend and nothing more. If Neji found out about her feelings, not only she'd be rejected instantly, but it would also affect the friendship they'd built for years. And Tenten wasn't ready to lose it. It wasn't like she didn't trust her friends, it was just she knew that they would try to have her make a move on him. And although Hinata wouldn't tell Neji, she'd certainly give him more than enough hints to make him realise her feelings. She knew that they'd do that because they cared about her and yet, she was just not ready to accept their help.

"I-It's not him! I swear it's not him!"

"Tenten-chan, you're blushing..."

"T-that's... that's because y-you're... you're having the w-wrong i-idea! Yeah, that's it!"

"Tenten-chan, even Naruto or Gai-sensei would be able to see through that lie."

"I wasn't lying! I-" Suddenly Tenten froze. Ino and Sakura were surprised, especially when her expression turned into horror. They looked behind them.

Neji was walking with a girl. The girl had a long black hair and pale skin. She was quite tall and had a nice curve to boot. She really looked like a model, as although she wore a simple jacket, shirt and jeans, she still looked fashionable. They couldn't see her face clearly since she was wearing a sunglasses, but they could see Neji's expression as clear as day. And he was actually smiling to her!

Tenten felt like she was going to faint. But she had to stay strong. She had to. She knew that being Neji's girlfriend was a distant dream. There was no way Neji would like a tomboy like her. She knew that too well, being his childhood friend.

But it still hurts... And perhaps for the first time Ino and Sakura actually saw Tenten crying...

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Tbc

R&R!