Twiceborn: Adventures of the Red-Haired Menaces

Chapter Two: Threats

Her hands curled into fists as she pulled herself away from the river, all too aware of the dangers which could be lurking beneath its surface. She didn't particularly want to meet any hungry alligators with her snack-sized body. Sakura shuddered at the thought, before she remembered exactly whose fault it was she was in an alligator's snack-sized body with terrible hair. "NARUUUTOOOO!" she snarled, charging back through the underbrush. "This is all your fault, you hear me!"

"Sakura... chan?" Naruto whispered, stumbling backwards as he spotted her enraged expression, before he broke into a run to get away from her.

"Don't you dare run away from me!" she roared, uncaring of their requirement for stealth. They were in the Forest of Death. The possibility of them being discovered by humans was relatively low, and Sakura didn't care how many giant tigers she had to wrestle with if it meant she could wrap her hands around Naruto's throat and squeeze. "Get back here and fight me!"

A chuckle from Kakashi had her freezing on the spot, and her head whipped around so she could glare at him. "Already taking after your father, are we?" he inquired, quirking a brow in amusement at her dumbfounded expression.

"What?" she asked, temporarily delaying her chase of an ex-blonde-haired idiot in favour of glaring at her new cousin's half-brother. Family relations were going to get so confusing... all because Orochimaru couldn't be bothered to give them all different mothers. He'd certainly managed with their new fathers, and her own mother.

"Naruto is now Hashirama's son... and you're Madara's daughter," Kakashi said, that trolling smile still in place on his covered face. "Madara loved shouting the name of his rival, Hashirama, rather a lot like how you just yelled Naruto-kun's name... Hence the taking after your father..."

Her cheeks bloomed red, ears burning at the thought. "I do not take after that megalomaniac in any way, shape, or form, you hear me!"

That was an insult. One Kakashi deserved to get punched for, her mind decided, and she changed targets from Naruto to Kakashi, charging at him with a cry.

But Kakashi was far more mobile than she was, and he evaded her with a pathetic ease, and Sakura felt her traitorous lower lip start to wobble before the waterworks turned on and then she was bashing her chakra-reinforced fists against every available surface instead of the warm breakable body she wanted to hit. "Stay still and let me hit you, dammit," she grumbled between the sobs and hiccups of what she realised to be a tantrum. A child's tantrum. Sakura felt tears prick her eyes, frustration with her childish body and reactions overwhelming her, but a hand on her head made her pause in her squalling.

Sasuke ruffled her messy hair, and Sakura found she didn't care about her hairstyle for once. There was no saving her mop of Madara hair. But Sasuke's hand felt nice atop her head, she decided as her cries dried up along with her tear ducts.

"Thanks," she sniffled.

"Well, it can't be helped," Kakashi said, her file in his hands. "According to this, you're even younger than I thought."

"What?"

"You're biologically two-years-old, and a few months if you want to get specific, so I think we can make allowances for tantrums, given how our mentalities seemed to have gravitated towards each of our bodies ages," he continued, pressing her file shut. "I'm seven, according to my own, and these two are six-years-old."

"What other information is there in our files?" Sakura asked, quashing the annoyance she felt towards him. She did not want to start crying again. Though Sasuke's hand mussing her hair in a brotherly manner was oddly soothing to that childish part of her. It was rare enough for Sasuke to actually do something like that, so Sakura was content in letting it happen.