A fight with consequences

Silence laid over the clearing after both Naruto and Sasuke had been taken out and their attacker had vanished. The three girls were somewhat stunned by the rapid series of events, but Haku was the first who moved again. And she did not move to attack Ino or Sakura, but she headed right towards the trees, as if there was nothing of interest here anymore. "Hey, wait! You're leaving?", Ino asked Haku.

The girl just shrugged her shoulders. "Well, there'd be no fun in killing Naruto-kun now.", she explained. "Besides, I should better get back to my team and see to it that we get another scroll, or else we won't get to the next stage.". Haku started to leave again, but once more, Ino held her back.

"Why did you make Naruto your mark? Answer me that!", the blonde yelled, aggravated that this girl was taking this whole mess so lightly.

Haku merely turned to look at Ino over her shoulder. "Because you denied you loved him. And because I figured he had no one, like me, it wouldn't affect anybody if I killed him. I suppose I was wrong though.", she responded.

Ino gasped. So it was her fault for being dishonest?

"Still, now I want Naruto to be my mark even more.", Haku added and smiled to herself. And with that said, she disappeared into the thick forest again.

While Ino gritted her teeth at that, Sakura let her head hang in shame. It was her own stupidity that had caused her team to lose their scroll, she blamed herself for getting them all into this situation. The weight of her actions now only began to hit her and the pinkette began to sob. "Ino... I'm sorry. It's all my fault.", she apologized under sobs.

Instinctively, Ino pulled her friend into a comforting hug as Sakura went into a fullblown crying fit. "Don't worry about it, Sakura. At least we're safe now.", Ino tried to calm her friend down.

Getting comforted by her friend did calm down Sakura quickly, but she was still sobbing in Inos arms after a few minutes. Ino couldn't bear to see her friend so down, so she did her best to cheer her up. "Come on, don't be so down. Now it's our turn to look after Naruto-kun. And Sasuke-kun too, I guess.", she said with a glance towards the knocked out Uchiha.

As each of the girls picked up one of the boys, they searched for a fitting hiding place. They found it in the shape of a huge tree that was partly rooted out and thus offered some shelter. Here, the girls put the boys down and tried to . Both Sasuke and Naruto were sweating, but whereas Narutos sweat was warm, Sasuke was stonecold. However, they were still breathing normally, even though Sasukes breath tended to hitch a bit. The girls decided that the best course of action was to just watch over them until they got better, even if it meant waiting out for the whole duration of the exam.

The sky was not easy to see from underneath the trees, but soon, it got colder and the girls figured that it was already night. Still, they didn't chose to sleep just yet. They sat in front of their hideout, holding guard while using the chance to chat a little bit. But as they spoke in whispers as to not give away their location even more, Sakura noticed she became more and more distracted as she kept looking at Inos lips as the girl talked.

Her encounter with Kurenai had initiated a spark in Sakura, and now she realized what it was. She did not just like boys. No, she also liked Ino. She had liked her for the longest time, but ever since their rivalry had started, she had forgotten all about it. Only now, that they did not need to quarrel about Sasuke had she begun to remember her feelings. And with Kurenai-sensei pushing her in the right direction, she had arrived at this realization.

Before she knew it, Sakura had already lunged forward and captured Inos lips in a kiss, a kiss full of longing and need. Sakura was confused by her own actions just as soon as she felt Inos soft mouth on hers and she was about to pull back and apologize profusely for the kiss, when Ino started responding to her kiss, not letting her pull away.

Ino was just as confused as Sakura, but both girls, after todays events, needed someone to comfort them. After the stress of the day, they relished in their surprising kiss, both feeling relieved and happier than they thought they could be. As they finally seperated, they whispered each others names, both surprised at this turn of events, but not in a bad way.

"Wow, I guess we should leave you guys alone for a bit. Then again, why not, go right ahead and don't mind us."

Sakura eeped in surprise as she found that they were not at all alone and in fact had an audience. Three sets of eyes stared at them. It was a team from Otogakure, and across the meadow from Ino and Sakura stood two guys, one with wild hair and the other with bandages covering most of his face and a girl with long black hair.

"What do you want?", Ino asked icily. She wondered if those were the same Sound-nin that had trashed Naruto yesterday, and judging from their looks and Narutos description, they were.

"We just want to see Sasuke dead. If you're smart, you stay out of our way, you little hussies!", the mummy ninja warned them.

The girls looked at each other for a moment, as if to contemplate. However, their decision was made quickly. "In your dreams!", Sakura shouted right back at him.

"Yeah, like we'd hand over a comrade to the likes of you!", Ino agreed with her friend. Their hearts were one. Even if Sasuke had attacked them like this, they were still comrades and they were all ninja of Konoha. They wouldn't betray them like this.

"Right, then don't say we didn't warn you!", the Sound-nin answered as they too got ready for battle.

Ino was quick to act and began forming handseals. Sakura recognized the handseal Ino ended up in. It was the handseal of the Yamanaka clan. So Ino was about to use her Shintenshin no Jutsu to enter one of the bodies of their enemies. But that was too dangerous. What if she missed? "Ino, don't!", she called out to her friend. Regardless of whether or not it suceeded, this would be just too much of a risk here.

But Ino just looked at her friend, confidence in her eyes. Her eyes had that glare that told Sakura 'Leave it to me, I got this'. "Don't worry, Sakura. I have an idea.", she told her friend and completed her jutsu. "Shintenshin no Jutsu!"

Normally, this technique was too risky, but her advantage was that they didn't know what her jutsu was. Instead, they stood there befuddled as Ino suddenly collapsed without any obvious reason as to why.

"Wow, she already fainted. Well, can't blame her. Now it's just you, pinky.", the boy with the wild hair said, staring at Sakura like prey.

"Zaku, you ready?", the mummied Ninja asked, taking charge of their attack.

"You betcha!", was the prompt reply from his comrade.

"Kin?", he asked his other teammate. But strangely, he received no reply from the girl next to him. "Kin?", he asked again, this time his voice low as he was getting pissed.

Only then did the black-haired girl look up and strangely, she had a very smug look on her face. She reached into the kunai pouch on her leg and drew a blade, but instead of facing it at Sakura, she twisted it around and held it against her own throat.

It was then that Sakura realized that Inos jutsu had worked. 'Nice, Ino!', she thought as she was certain that this would work now. "Sorry pals, you better get lost or this girl gets it!", Ino bluffed. Every damage the body sustained while she was in it was directly linked to her own, so she couldn't kill herself. But she hoped it would be enough to scare those two off.

To her dread however, the boys only laughed. "Go right ahead. We don't really need that stupid bitch anyway.", Dosu said. "Well, might as well help you!", Zaku yelled as he turned on his comrade.

"What?!"
"What!?"

Both girls screamed in unison as the boy named Zaku opened his palm in their direction. Next thing Ino knew was that the body she was inhabiting was flung against a tree. It was a painful impact and she instantly released her jutsu to return to her own body.

Unfortunately, both Ino and Sakura knew that this would take a few minutes before Ino would be back in her body again. This left Sakura all to herself. She was the only one who could defend her friends now.

"So it's only you now.", Zaku laughed as he approached her.

Sakura put up a valiant fight, but ultimately, she was outnumbered and outclassed and got beaten horribly by the two merciless ninja. It ended with the boy named Zaku grabbing her hair and mocking her, to which she responded by glaring angrily and swiftly cutting off the hair he was holding her with. This didn't accomplish much though, as he kicked her aside again, incapacitating her.

Now, Sakura could only watch as they advanced towards Sasuke and Naruto, but at that moment, a terrifying presence awoke and Sasuke woke up. His body was covered in strange black marks and he exuded an evil chakra, but he made short work of the two sound nin, crippling one of them in the process and scaring the other one off. He left his scroll, a Heaven Scroll, on the ground, begging Sasuke to let him leave as he grabbed his teammate and vanished.

Just as Sakura had thought the danger was over, she saw how Sasuke turned around and glared at her. He advanced slowly towards her and Sakura froze. He still wore that same violent expression he had, that sadistic grin when he had literally dominated the two Otogakure ninja.

He stood over her and again, Sakura feared for her life, but the attack never came. Sasuke froze in place. "What?", he gritted his teeth and turned around. Following his glare, Sakura saw that Shikamaru, holding Sasuke with his Kagemane no Jutsu.

The Nara-boy struggled and sweated as Sasuke began to break out of his jutsu. "Go knock him out, Kiba. I can't hold him much longer!"

"Got it!", the feral boy answered and as he was told, he delivered a swift punch to the paralyzed Uchihas gut, knocking him out. At once, the evil chakra retreated and Ino slowly came to herself again.

And then, a few moments later, Naruto woke up.

After retelling him the events of the night (while carefully omitting Hakus last statement and their kiss), Ino and Sakura sat with Naruto under the outrooted tree.

Naruto was angered at how beaten up Sakura was, but the girls calmed him that they were just smaller bruises and a few shallow cuts, nothing serious or scarring. Still, he swore **** on those two guys for messing 'his' Ino-chan and Sakura-chan up.

Still, he settled as he realized that it could've been far worse than that. "So we're back to square one, huh?", Naruto asked as he looked at the scroll Sakura held in her hand. They got lucky, now they still had a chance. "Well, what are we gonna do now, Ino?", he asked the blonde.

Ino looked with wide eyes at him before remembering that Kurenai had made her the team leader and she was supposed to act like one. "I'd say we better rest up here first before starting to search for a new scroll tomorrow. We need the rest so we can start from the scratch tomorrow.", she decided, and it was a sound plan that both Naruto and Sakura agreed on.

But there was still one thing left. "Uhh, what are we going to do about her?", Sakura asked, motioning at the **** form of a girl near the bushline.

Naruto followed her motion and he really did only notice now that there was really a girl laying on the forest floor there. "Her comrades left her just here, probably to die or something...", Ino commented.

Carefully, Naruto approached the **** female before turning her around gently so he could see her face. He gasped. "That's... that's the girl I saw the day before this exam started. The sound kunoichi.", Naruto told his team.

"Ah, I see... the one who was trying to run away.", Ino remarked, recalling the story Naruto had told them. She looked down at the girl. It seemed she got hit a lot worse than the damage Ino had sustained suggested. Maybe she even had some broken bones or worse, internal injuries. Either that or she was a long sleeper.

"Yeah, that's the one.", he confirmed it. It was definitely her. He still could remember the defeated look in her face as she walked past him in that alley.

"But Naruto, she really did attack us.", Sakura objected. "It didn't seem like she disliked being here with her team.", she told him, and it was true. Kin had seemed rather hostile.

Ino on her part, although she was disgusted at the Sound-nin for not only attacking her teammate but also leaving her, was opposed to giving her any second chances. "Yeah! They must've put up a show back then! For all I care, we should leave her here!", Ino huffed.