A/N: Finally! It's here! That last chapter!

The Detectives waited anxiously for Sakura to make her appearance.

According to Tenten and Shikamaru, she was going to end this tonight.

They were all jittery and nervous.

They never thought it'd end like this.

They thought they'd have to chase her until the end of this year or until the end of their college career or maybe even beyond it.

So when the rest of the heard from Tenten and Shikamaru that Sakura was going to come clean, they had a mixed reaction.

Part of them were fist pumping, thinking that they won, while another part of them were disappointed that Sakura relented so earlier on, and yet another part of them were sad that they're game of cat and mouse (which they were totally winning) was coming to an end.

This was their special game that they played and that no know else would understand the importance or the significance of. It was like their dirty little secret. As that thought flittered through Neji and Sasuke's minds, they couldn't help but think of other dirty things they could do to Sakura.

Cue the nose bleed.

And cue Tenten's and Ino's unresolved confusion.

Did they need to worry about their boyfriends' health? Was this a concern? They thought their boyfriends were already cured of their mysterious nose bleeds since they haven't had one in a while, but nope, apparently it was still happening.

Sasuke and Neji coolly played it off as they wiped away the blood and leaned back in their seats as if nothing happened.

"Hey, isn't that Sakura?" Naruto called out, pointing across the bar. They swiveled their heads to see if it really was her, and it indeed was. Or they long thought it was, as it was the mysterious girl who walked through the bar at closing time.

"Hey! Sakura!" Tenten called out though still a little hesitant. What if it really wasn't her and they've been sorting semi-stalking a stranger all this time?

The girl stopped in her tracks, turned, and looked at them with her brown eyes, a blank stare. They almost started sweating bullets at the lack of familiar acknowledgment.

Tenten slowly put down the arm she waved, growing more and more unsure if that was really Sakura. Because if it was really Sakura, then why would she still be in that get up if she said she was going to come clean? And why was she looking at them like that? Like she didn't know them at all?

"Ah, s-sorry. We thought you were a friend of ours. Sorry about that." Tenten apologized, intimidated by the girl's blank stare. They started looking away, hoping to diffuse the awkward situation when they heard boisterous laughter.

"HAHAHAHAHAHA!" They all turned to see the girl bent over, holding her stomach, laughing with her eyes closed and mouth wide open. Now that was a familiar sight.

"SAKURA!" They all shouted, miffed that they were tricked once again. Ino, Hinata, and Tenten all got up and went over to the pink-head who was trying to breath.

"Sakura! How could you do that to us?!" Ino shouted.

"Yeah! Especially when you said that you were going to come clean!" Tenten added.

"We sincerely thought we actually had the wrong person," Hinata pouted as she finished.

"I'm–haha–sorry," Sakura saw their faces that totally said they didn't believe her one bit. "Haha, nevermind, haha, not sorry at all!"

Sakura finally stopped laughing enough to stand up straight and wiped away a mirthful tear, "Oh god that was good. You should've seen your faces," she giggled. "Now, I'll have no regrets at all."

The Detectives sighed. Of course she'd want to get one last word in. That was just like her.

"Come on," she said to the girls, as she made her way to Table. They followed her and took their seats, and waited for her to say something.

"So," Sakura popped her lips. "You guys probably want an explanation." She paused as some of them nodded.

"Like why I started this and how I started this and what was I thinking when I continued this." Some of them nodded again as Sakura clasped her hands in front of her on the table. "Well, all I have to say is that I have no idea. AT ALL."

The Detectives all proceeded to face-plant on the table. When they raised their heads to glare at her, she rubbed the back of her neck and laughed sheepishly.

"Yeah, I really don't know why. I guess it's because it was fun." She shrugged before adding. "And because I kept winning."

Then she smirked when there was an outroar from the Detectives.

"Only in the beginning!"

"We totally got huge clues!"

"We were putting it together just fine!"

"We were totally winning before you surrendered!"

"You were losing!"

"Yeah, you sore loser!" Sakura's eye twitched at that last comment before she glared Naruto who smartly sunk back into his seat and tried to disappear, not wanting to be on the receiving end of her glare anymore.

She was scary.

"Stop scaring the boy, he looks like he's going to piss himself," came a deep voice from next to Sakura, who looked up to see her boyfriend standing there.

"Gaara!" She called out happily before giving him a hug. She noticed that Temari was standing next to Gaara and was smirking at Shikamaru. The other Detectives, besides Tenten, were looking on curiously, how did they know each other?

Ino looked especially curious.

"Where's Kankurou?" Sakura asked with her arms still around Gaara's waist, his arm around her shoulders.

"Was whining about a girl and went to go meet up with her." Temari answered before winking at Shikamaru who smirked back at her.

Ino narrowed her eyes at the interaction, not aware that she was doing it. Sakura snickered but stopped when Ino whipped her head around to look at her, her attention immediately grabbed by the more important matter on hand.

"Sakura, you need to explain this right now!" Ino demanded before fluttering her lashes at Gaara, "And introduce us while you're at it."

Sakura rolled her eyes and learned by now that Ino will forever be flirty towards any form of eye candy, attached or not, and that included her own situation as Sasuke rolled his eyes at his girlfriend.

Gaara decided to introduce himself and stuck his hand out, "Gaara. And I'm sorry for any trouble my girlfriend's caused you. And I do not bare any responsibility, that's all on her. So if she has cause you any distress, blame it all on her," Gaara said with a straight face.

Sakura pouted and narrowed her eyes. He ignored her as he shook hands with all her classmates/friends/preys. Temari was next but only nodded at them from across the table. The two Sabaku siblings remained standing as there was no more room in the booth for them to sit down.

Sasuke and Neji quietly sulked on the inside as they accepted the fact that Sakura was indeed taken and spoken for and that it wouldn't be easy to snatch her away. But hey, a guy can dream right?

"So did you tell them everything?" Gaara asked as he looked down at his girlfriend.

Sakura looked up at him and said, "Yeah, mostly. Well, as much as I know, too. Since I don't really know why I did it. It was fun, but I didn't plan this out. And besides, it was more of coincidences on my part and being super suspicious on their part."

She looked at them and raised an eyebrow. "Seriously, a normal person would've just thought that they were all just different people, not all one person."

"But you were the one with the changing appearances! And you didn't say that it was you when we asked!" Naruto shouted for all of them as the nodded in agreement with him for once.

Sakura casually flipped her hair over her shoulder and rolled her eyes. "But still, none of you guys called me out on it. If you guys were more determined that it was me, then I would've come clean and we wouldn't have gone through all thy we did. Besides, you were the gullible ones."

They all sputtered angrily, but they didn't have anything to say about that.

"And like I said, they were coincidences on my part. Like Kikyo was created because I was lazy to put my contacts back on after taking them out after the performance and the fourth one was created after I put took much of a spotlight on Kikyo that one time I danced with Idate." She shrugged. "The only one I created on purpose was Hikari and that was Jiraiya's idea, like an alias for me, a stage name. It was to keep the club me separate from the student me."

"Eh? The pervy sage's."

Sakura sweatdropped at Naruto's nickname for the owner. Of course they had to be somehow acquainted.

"Yeah, his. And he was the one to provide all the wigs." Sakura held her hands up in an 'I surrender' fashion. "I don't know why and I don't wanna know why he has all those wigs."

"Don't hate on my wigs, Sakura-chan." They all turned to see the man in question walking up to them. "I'm closing up, so you youngsters gotta leave."

It was then that they looked around and saw that the bar was empty besides them.

"I'll close up, you can head out first. I think we'll need to talk a bit longer." Sakura suggested.

Jiraiya shrugged and handed over the keys without a question and left, but not before adding, "Don't forget to turn off the thermostat before you leave."

There was silence after the owner left.

"Wow, that was way too easy. I could steal everything right now and that'd be all his fault for being irresponsible with the keys." They all nodded in agreement.

Sometimes they wonder.

Sakura then decided to bring the attention back to the matter on hand. "What about you guys? Though I have a good idea what was going on on your side, but I wanna hear more about it."

The Detectives looked between each other before Tenten started. "It was probably the thrill of the chase that drove us to think the way we thought."

"There were times where we thought it was just ridiculous that we thought four people were the same person," Ino continued. "And we were actually thinking of stopping, too."

"But then you'd goad us and we'd want to win." Hinata finished. "Like last week. There was practically no activity for three weeks."

"Then BAM! Things get started again!" Naruto added with a flourish, emphasizing the 'bam' with hand gestures.

Sakura shrugged. "It's because I was busy with school work and then midterm season started, so I'd really much rather focus on school than on our little game, no matter how much fun it was."

The rest of them nodded in understanding.

"There were too many coincidences." Shikarmaru lazily stated. "Like how Neji and Sasuke followed you home thinking it was you and then it turns out to be Kikyo who likes to play dress up."

Neji and Sasuke couldn't and didn't even try to hide their blush at that memory.

"Then there was how you knew Idate, we we saw you two talking at school." Shikamaru rubbed the back of his head as he remembered the pain. "And that volleyball that was way too controlled to be out of control."

The rest of them remembered too and glared at Sakura who gave them the most innocent look. Gaara rolled his eyes.

"And are you really not a lefty?" Neji asked, completely curious as she to how she played this one out.

"Nope. I'm a righty." Sakura put up her right hand and wiggled her fingers. She waited for their reactions, wide eyes and raised eyebrows, before putting up her left hand too, also wiggling the fingers. "Just kidding. I'm ambidextrous, but I mainly use my right hand."

"That is so cool!" Naruto exclaimed. "What's it like?!"

Sakura winced at the volume of his voice in the empty nigh club. "No need to shout, Naruto. And I don't know. I've always been ambidextrous. So I guess my question to you guys is 'How do you do it?' Using only one hand?"

They all nodded, it was a completely valid question.

But moving on! "And then there was the time that you, Sakura, Kikyo, and the fourth person was sick. And then Miko Hikari and her band disappeared on a random vacation, so that could mean that she really was just on a vacation, or it was because you, Sakura, were sick, and therefore couldn't perform as Hikari. So you made up an excuse to keep the suspicions away from you." Shikamaru yawned.

Sakura nodded, confirming that it was indeed true.

"And there was also Gaara being at your house when we cam to see if you were okay." Hinata looked over at the redhead, remembering his attitude towards them.

Gaara shrugged, just like his girlfriend, when he saw all their gazes on him. "My girlfriend was having fun. I wasn't about to go and ruin it for her by destroying her whole plan, bedridden or not."

The Detectives glared at him as Sakura threw her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek noisily. "That's my man!"

"Why did you stop?" Sasuke asked, he was silent all this time.

Sakura quieted down and sat back in her seat. Now all eyes were on her.

"I don't know. I don't know why I started and I don't know why I stopped." Looking at her hands laid out on the table, she continued. "Actually, it's probably because I knew somewhere in my mind that I was losing. And that I couldn't fix it this time. There was no way I'd be able to get back into the lead."

She looked up at all of them, looking them each in the eye. "After introducing Temari to Shikamaru yesterday, I just felt tired. Tired from all of this. Sure, it was fun when it lasted. But I just didn't feel it anymore. Even if it was me who started it up again. Truthfully, I just grew bored of it."

There was silence as they each thought about what Sakura said.

Then she added. "But like I said before, I have no regrets. After getting at back at you guys one more time, I think I'm completely done with this." She took her contacts case out of her bag and took out her brown contacts, revealing the signature pink and green combination.

They couldn't help but agree, though they were about to be tricked once more if Sakura didn't own up to it.

Sakura checked her phone for the time and saw that it really was getting late. "Well, guys, we still have an 8:00 tomorrow, so I'm going to turn off the thermostat and lock up."

She got up from her seat and started to the door to backstage, Gaara wordlessly tagging along.

Silence reigned among them as they waited for Sakura and Gaara to come back.

It was over. It really was. No more of this mystery. No more of this chase. No more. Just no more.

As all of them retreated to their thoughts, the temperature of the club rapidly decreased, Sakura must've turned off the thermostat already. They looked to the backstage door, waiting for the couple's arrival.

A shiver ran down Ino spine at the low temperature of the room. It must be really cold outside for the temperature to drop so fast inside. Then she saw something in the corner of her eyes. A shiver ran down her spine when her mind registered that she saw pink. Turning her head to look at what it possible could be, since Sakura wasn't back yet, another shiver ran down her back violently as her eyes saw what it was that caught her attention.

Her eyes widened. "Sakura?" It barely came out as a whisper but it caught everyone's attention. They all felt a shiver go down their backs as they turned to see what Ino was talking about. Because clearly, the backstage door hadn't opened yet, or moved at all since they started watching it.

Shivers ran down all their backs as the hairs on their bodies stood up.

There she was. Sakura as the fourth person walking across the club to the door.

They couldn't speak. They didn't know why. It was really strange, since they usually didn't hesitate in calling out to her, no matter who it could really be.

But now, their voices were stuck in their throats, their hearts beating erratically. Frozen in a chilling fear.

Sakura, the woman, they didn't even know what to call them now, was about to make it to the door when they heard the backstage door open and they hear Sakura and Gaara's voices. The eight of them turned to see Sakura and and Gaara emerge from the back, talking about what seemed like a late night snack.

Completely speechless, they quickly looked back to the entrance to look for the woman but saw no one there. And they didn't hear the door open either.

They vaguely noticed that the temperature in the bar had returned to a comfortable level.

They looked at each other, fear in their eyes.

What just happened?

"Hey, what's wrong, you guys? Why're you so quiet?" Sakura asked carefreely as Gaara and she walked up to them.

They couldn't say anything. They could only look at each other.

Sakura was starting to get worried. What was the reason for their catatonic state? Just what happened when Gaara and she left? Looking up at Gaara, she saw the worry in his eyes, too.

"Guys, what's wrong?" Sakura repeated as she reached out to touch Temari's arm, who jerked at the touch, pulling into Shikamaru. That only caused Sakura to worry even more since she knew as a fact that Temari was never the type to seek protection. So when she shrunk into Shikarmaru's side, she knew that something was definitely wrong.

"Guys, what's wrong? What the hell happened?" She asked, this time more panicked.

"There was–," Naruto started.

"Nothing. Nothing happened," Sasuke cut him off. If they acknowledged it, then that'd mean it really did happen, right?

"Yeah, nothing," Hinata repeated.

Sakura wasn't convinced at all but she played along. "Then come on. Let's go, it's getting late."

"Yeah, let's go, guys," Tenten weakly added as they gathered their stuff and got ready to leave.

They were hesitant at first to walk to the area that they lost saw the thing but they couldn't show it. The faster they got out of here, the better.

As soon as they were all outside, they breathed in the cold crisp air. It was not at all like the atmosphere in the club. Something was in there. And they didn't know why.

The Detectives looked between each other as they wordlessly shared the same thought.

Maybe the reason why they couldn't get the fourth person to match to Sakura was because there was not fourth person in the first place. But no. They saw it with their own eyes, time and time again. Like earlier tonight, Sakura was the fourth person.

And yet, she wasn't.

Maybe it really was all just a coincidence.

A really freaky one.

A silent agreement was made between the seven Detectives and Temari. They were never to speak of this ever again.

Now it was finally over.

EPILOGUE

"Hey, Neji, Sasuke, what do you guys want me to do with the barrette?"

They froze.

"Barrette?"

"What barrette?"

Their girlfriends inquired, their eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Oops," Sakura said, her hand over her mouth.

"Neji!"

"Sasuke!"

"What have you not been telling me?!"

"What have you not been telling me?!"

And that was when Neji and Sasuke booked it. Screw the apparition that they saw in the club. Their angry girlfriends were an infinity times scarier.

"You did that on purpose." Gaara looked down at his girlfriend who he had his arm wrapped around her shoulder, pulling her into his side to keep her warm.

She looked up at him "innocently" before winking.

Naruto, Hinata, Shikamaru, and Temari just laughed at their friends predicament.

Definitely. Trust Sakura to get the very last word in and to her to much deserved revenge.

She let out a breath that she could see in the chilly night air. Now that felt good. That should teach them to never stalk or spy on her ever again.

Perverts.

Owari

A/N: And finally, it's DONE! I swear! It took me too long to finish this story! It's almost been 7 ½ years since I posted up the first chapter. I'm not kidding. This story was published on 9/30/2006, and today is 2/26/2014. That's just plain ridiculous. Between the writer's blocks and the revamp, I just really wanted this story to be done and over with. And now, it finally is!

But seriously, this was my first story and to think it'd take me almost 7½ years to finish, I never would've guessed when I wrote that first chapter. But I'm glad that I finished it. If I left it unfinished, I probably would've kicked myself later for it.

And confession time, I wrote this chapter around Halloween, obviously. So...this story has technically been finished for four months, I just needed to post it up, hehe.

All-in-all, I'm very glad and proud of myself for finishing this story and I'm thankful for all the support along the way (more at the beginning than at the end (T^T) though, but either way, I'm thankful for the support).

Here's to the last chapter *raises reusable water bottle in a toast* Good riddance!

Thanks for reading and please review one last time!

Updated – 2/26/2014