"Please go out with me, Okazumi-kun!"
Sakura was having a pleasant dream; she was dreaming that she had returned to her old life back on Earth as Tsutomu, before his death from gooning beyond his limits. In her dream, Sakura's old crush Otome-chan had called her out behind the school building, near the incinerator, and she had handed her a love letter. Moved beyond words, Sakura could only open and close her mouth like a koi fish, before finally nodding, overcome with joy, and a little bit of lust.
Then, the scene from her dream fast-forwarded, and Sakura and her crush were now freshly married. They both stood in front of their bed on their wedding night, still dressed in their white, western-styled wedding gowns, ready to consummate their marriage.
"How many children would you like, dear?" Sakura's new wife said bashfully. "Two? Three? Perhaps, more…?"
And that's when Sakura finally remembered that she was no longer Tsutomu, but Sakura. She wanted to tell her wife that it would be impossible for them to have children together, but for some reason, Sakura found that she couldn't speak.
Ignoring Sakura's silent pleas, Otome gently raised the white wedding veil that covered Sakura's head, before freezing in shock upon seeing her face. Despite them both wearing wedding dresses, Otome was only now realizing for the first time that her husband was not only NOT a man, but also more woman than she could ever hope to be!
"You were a woman all this time, Tsutomu!?" she cried out in anguish.
"You never noticed?" Inner Sakura said incredulously. "I thought the twins were a dead giveaway."
Sakura goggled at her inner self, who had apparently been there in the room with them the entire time. What in the world was Inner Sakura doing here? Was she hoping for a threesome with herself, or something?
"You're the worst!" Otome wailed, warm tears staining her white wedding dress. "How could you hide this from me? I thought we had something special!"
"I…" Sakura tried to say, but Inner Sakura cut her off.
"There's a squirrel over there," she observed, pointing at the bed. "I wonder if it will blow up?"
"What?"
An ear-splitting explosion shook the air, and Sakura woke up with a start from her nightmare, banging her head on a large tree root as she abruptly sat up. Sakura groaned in pain; her memories were a total jumble, but as far as she could tell, her Shadow Clone had been defeated by an unseen enemy, and the feedback from its memories had got mixed in with her dream.
"Why don't you wake up your little friend over there?" came a boy's voice. "We've got business with him."
Team 7 had taken refuge under a particularly large tree root, but somehow, Orochimaru's Hidden Sound subordinates had still managed to find them in their hiding place. Realizing that it wasn't a trick to flush her out of hiding, and that they really knew where she was hidden, Sakura grabbed her Manyuu blade and stepped out from under the root.
"Sasuke needs his beauty sleep," yawned Sakura, as she surreptitiously glanced at the Sound-nin trio. "But if you're looking for a fight, you've got one right here."
The first of the Sound-nin, who was wearing clothes embroidered with the character for 'death,' had done up his black hair like Kakashi-sensei's; the second one had most of his head covered in bandages; the third one was a girl with long, straight black hair.
And for some reason, they had all thought that wearing purple camo would be a good idea for an exam taking place in the forest. Not that Sakura and Naruto were in any position to judge their choice of wardrobe, mind you; they had chosen to wear their usual colours: red and orange, respectively.
"You'll regret looking down on us, little girl," the female Sound-nin hissed.
"From my point of view, you're the little girl, Tayuya-san," said Sakura smugly, in order to rile her up. In her very short experience as a woman in this world, A-Cup angst was a sore topic for many kunoichi!
There was an awkward silence, as the three Sound-nin shot her strange looks. This wasn't the reaction that Sakura had been expecting, so little by little, her smug smile faded.
"How do you know that name?" the female Sound-nin finally asked her, with a guarded expression on her face.
"It's your name, isn't it?" said Sakura, pointing at the straight-haired Sound-nin. "I saw it on your consent form," she then added, realizing that in her concussion-induced brain fog, she had accidentally revealed that she knew information that she wasn't supposed to know.
But contrary to her expectations, the trio of Sound-nin were now looking more unsettled than ever.
"You're lying," the female Sound-nin said, narrowing her eyes. "My name is Kin Tsuchi. Tayuya is one of my senpai from the Hidden Sound."
'Whoops,' said Inner Sakura mockingly. 'Guess we got them mixed up, huh?'
Senbon needles slid out from between her fingers, and Kin Tsuchi looked at Sakura menacingly, seemingly intent on extracting answers from her by force. The Sound Five were Lord Orochimaru's ultimate weapons, so how could this Hidden Leaf girl possibly know about them!?
"Kin Tsuchi, Tayuya, it's all the same," Sakura said, shrugging nonchalantly. "Your only value is to feed the meatgrinder, anyway. That's all Orochimaru sent you here for."
Once again, Sakura's words gave them pause, which was rather encouraging. After all, from their point of view, the fact that they were participating in the Chūnin exams under Lord Orochimaru's orders was supposed to be top secret; they weren't expendable, like Sakura was hinting!
In truth, these three really were crucial to Orochimaru's plan; just not in the way they thought they would be.
"Just hand over your earth scroll like good little delivery boys," Sakura continued confidently. "I'd try and disappear before it's too late, if I were you."
Veins simultaneously popped on each one of the Sound-nin's foreheads; Sakura had pushed them a little bit too far with her taunts.
"All right, enough of this," the bandaged boy growled. "Let's finish our task and be done with this annoying girl!"
He charged straight towards Sakura, while the Kakashi-haired boy flanked to her left. At the same time, Kin Tsuchi jumped into the air, flinging her senbon needles at her.
It was a 3 v 1, but Sakura didn't dare to summon a Shadow Clone to even the numbers, considering how easily they had dispatched the one she had sent out scouting.
If Sakura was remembering things correctly, one of these three used indiscriminate area-of-effect sound-based attacks, so even if her fragile Shadow Clones could dodge their attacks, a near miss might be damaging enough to make them burst into non-being. Some of her chakra would get refunded, of course, but not all of it, so it would be a waste to summon one if it got immediately popped…
Sakura immediately dodged out of the way of Kin Tsuchi's attack; the girl had attached tiny bells to her senbon needles, which tinkled melodiously when they flew. The bells were very helpful, since they alerted Sakura to their exact flight path!
Nope, there definitely wasn't a trick behind the bells, no sir!