My entry for the Zombie Fic Contest (which, for the record, involves no actual zombies). It is based upon this in the Mission Desk thread.
The short version: Team Seven gets a mission to get a princess pregnant.
Braided electable cords supported the platform. It thrust out from the Nawaki Memorial Watch Tower, like the proud lip of an eclectic god. A white picket fence served as a guard rail along one side. The other opened only to empty air. Konoha stretched out below, that wonderful chaotic city built piece by scavenged piece, with no care given to theme or unity.
Sakura had seen other settlements, of course. She'd seen mountain temples carved from living heartstone — huge and monolithic. She'd seen the thousand bridges of the Land of Fire's capital, each one grander than the last. She'd seen farming market towns, where giant oxen pulled ploughs bigger than most buildings. None of them truly compared.
Sasuke and Naruto stood at the end of the platform, bickering as they competed. Their challenge for the day was air skipping shuriken. The quadruple chimneys of a nearby gasworks billowed heat and smoke into the air. The game was to throw your shuriken just right so it caught the updraft and jumped mid-air. So far neither boy was doing very well, though of course Sasuke was doing better.
A fierce frown on his face, Sasuke raised a shuriken and hurled it forward. It sliced through the sky like a silver fish and pierced the gasworks' thermal without slowing at all.
"Ha!" said Naruto, a very annoying smirk on his face. "Not so great after all. I'll show you how a master does it."
He withdrew his own shuriken, a worn and well used disc of spiked steel. He weighed it in his hand, tossed it a few times in the air and sent it arcing forward. It bounced off a protruding girder in a shower of sparks and fell a way.
Sasuke smirked, a dark mirror of Naruto's own.
Naruto laughed at his own bad luck. "Your turn, Sakura."
Sakura wasn't sure she wanted to play — truth be told she wasn't sure it was even possible to skip a shuriken off a thermal updraft — but then Sasuke turned an expectant expression on her and she melted.
She strode forward and pushed Naruto to one side, the platform beating like a hollow drum under her feat. "Let me show you how it's done!" she said, and inside a small part of her let loose a manic cackle.
She weighed her own shuriken in her hand, eyes flicking as she calculated distances, forces and angles. Gravity would be standard, the distance looked to be twenty point two five meters and...
She threw, the shuriken leaving her hand in a flicker of metal. At the exact same time Kakashi flashed into view, exiting the Body Flicker Technique in a twist of leaves. He stood right in the path of her attack. He'd surely be killed! Sakura's heart stopped. She shut her eyes. She—
"You need to throw less with your wrist, Sakura," said Kakashi.
Sakura opened her eyes; Kakashi stood smiling on a taught electricity line. He held her shuriken between two fingers, an inch from his head. Sakura breathed again.
"The arm's where the power is. I know it's tempting to use the wrist and make up the power difference with chakra, but its poor form."
Inside, Sakura wanted to scream at her teacher for almost giving her a heart attack. That was impossible, of course. It wouldn't be respectful. Instead she bowed her head and said, "Of course Kakashi-sensei."
"Good, good," he said and flipped the shuriken back. "Now, I'm sure glad to find all my cute students waiting for me, because we won't just be training today. We have a very important mission. We're going to the Land of Reeds."
"The Land of Reeds," said Kakashi as he led his team along a forest road later that day, "is a small but important country. It controls Bent River Ford, the only river crossing for a hundred miles in either direction. Much of the Land of Fire's northern trade flows through Bent River Ford. If they closed the ford, the Hokage would need to reopen it by force and that could well be one spark to many in an already hostile situation. Many of the Great Lands have interests in the area."
Sakura nodded as she listened, taking mental notes. Naruto bounded forward, attention never on one thing. Sasuke was the opposite, his total mind seemed occupied on putting one foot in front of the other.
Kakashi paused in his lecture, and Sakura took the opportunity to scan the area for threats. Shinobi Rule 32. A shinobi must have perfect situational awareness. Giant trees rose like eternal sentinels on all sides. They were thick and solitary, not the mangrove like thickets which dominated nearer Konoha.
Squirrels chittered high in the trees, red furred creatures with burning black eyes. They waved sharpened wood spears from high in their arboreal safe holds, and braver males made darting challenge-runs along outer branches. Ritual tattoos marked their fur and they wore neckless made from predator fangs.
That was all perfectly normal. Still, one thing bothered her.
"Sensei," she said, slowly. "You haven't told us what our mission is yet."
Naruto stopped and whirled on Kakashi. "Yeah!" he said, far too loudly. "What is our mission? You've been talking about trade this and vested interests that, but what are we meant to do?"
Even Sasuke looked up, interested.
"Hum," said Kakashi, looking thoughtful. "I haven't, have I? Well, our mission is simple enough. We need to get Princess Kimiko pregnant."
Silence fell in the forest. Even the squirrels sensed in and ran back into their holes while skull capped shamans waved acorn fetishes and jabbered wards against evil.
"What!" shrieked Sakura. "How? Of all the perverted! This isn't what ninja are meant to do!"
Kakashi made calming motions with his hands. "Calm, calm. No need to shout. It's simple really.
"The current feudal lord — Lord Tokiwagi — is a friend to the Land of Fire. The other noble clans are not. Now, he has one daughter, Princess Kimiko. Unmarried, the succession is unsure and she has resisted all marriage contracts. She is a deeply spiritual person and prefers to spend her time in psychic contemplation at the Monastery of the Twelve Jade Beads.
"Now, as luck would have it, the Land of Reeds hosts the Chrysanthemum Fertility Festival starting next week. Her father had her named Spring Queen. She'll be the only woman in the festival pavilion city for a full week, not counting her priestess handmaidens, while men from across the land compete for her favour.
"If she falls pregnant come the end of the festival the succession will be secure, marriage or no. The child will be sacred and any attempt to claim his or her birth right will bring poor crops and the displeasure of nature spirits. Our job is to make sure someone's suit prevails."
Sakura continued to mutter under her breath. It still sounded incredibly perverted to her.
"Well," said Sasuke and grunted, "this shouldn't be too complicated. Naruto just has to do his thing."
Kakashi nodded. "My thoughts exactly."
"My thing?" asked Naruto, cocking his head. His wild blonde hair flopped to the other side.
"You know," said Sasuke. "You're thing. The blonde, heart on your sleeve, idiot thing that all the powerful women seem to love."
"I have a thing?" asked Naruto again, utterly confused.
"Of course you do!" said Sakura. If she couldn't scream at Kakashi (well, not again) she could at least be angry at Naruto. "Half the time we go on a mission, you have some noble daughter or merchant princess or ninja scion hanging off your arm."
"I do?" said Naruto. He looked thoughtful, then shook his head. "No, no, you're misunderstanding. They're just friends, you see."
"Wait a minute," said Sasuke, eyes narrowed in suspicion. "You mean you've never..."
"Never what?" His eyes opened wide and flashed blue. "Of course not! I'm not some sort of pervert!"
Now that Sakura had a hard time believing. "What about when the Princess of the Land of Sunflowers invited you to her room to 'play games'."
"We played games of course!" said Naruto. "What else would we do? I mean, yes, it was pretty strange that she didn't have any games to play, but I tracked down some cards from the steward. Maybe she had to sell them all. I think she might have been pretty poor because she kept trying to bet clothes rather than money, even after I offered to share mine."
"Naruto," said Sakura, slowly. "She was a princess. She wasn't low on money. Can't you take a hint?"
"Princesses can be poor too," he said and scuffed the ground with his boot.
"Naruto," said Kakashi. "You have a thing. Just accept it."
Naruto looked set to argue more but Kakashi stared him down. "Right," said Naruto finally, half under his breath. "A thing. I've got a thing. Just accept it."
They continued walking.
Two days walk brought them to the edge of the Land of Fire and another day let them reach Bent River Ford. At full speed they could have made the entire journey in less than six hours but such measures were reserved for emergencies. It damaged the muscles and wreaked havoc with long term physical fitness.
The ford had long since stopped being just a ford. Now a wide stone bridge crossed the river, made of strange half-opaque white stone, which seemed too thin to support the weight of the great carts and their heavy loads.
Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura waited at the nearside end of the bridge while Kakashi scouted ahead. Sasuke made a game of staring down the grizzled caravan guards who road alongside the carts. One particularly fierce mercenary almost fell off his ostrich under Sasuke's flinty gaze.
Sakura was split between pride at Sasuke's obvious greatness and embarrassment at what was, in honesty, quite a juvenile activity. There was no conflict when it came to Naruto's behaviour.
"Welcome," he shouted as he clowned along the roadside. "Hi. What's your name? What'ch selling? Is it interesting? Is it ramen? Can I have some?" He did it all while bounding around the carts, the road and nearby trees. He startled one caravan master half to death when he fell head first from an overhanging branch. He didn't seem much taken with Naruto but his nubile daughter was soon blushing and giggling behind a wide fan. At least his thing was still working.
Kakashi returned after a few hours, just as Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura were finishing their lunch. It was hot for a change, Naruto having charmed it out of a matronly quartermistress, seemingly without realising he'd done it.
"Good news," said Kakashi as he sat down and stole a half egg off Sasuke's plate. Sasuke just grunted in irritation and rearranged his remaining food to be better defended. "Our plan is a go. The Chrysanthemum Fertility Festival starts tonight. They'll be a ceremony. The priestesses will crown Princess Kimiko with a wreath of cherry blossoms and anoint her with oils, ritually incarnating her as the Spring Goddess Konohanasakuya. Then her suitors will present themselves. That will be our time to make a good first impression."
"Sensei," said Sakura. "You said there would be no other women at the festival. What about me?"
Kakashi nodded. "You my perhaps-too-cute-student will use the transformation technique to appear male. It's important the whole team is there to support each other. Naruto will be our ace in the hole but we must be ready for anything. Go ahead and transform now. You'll need the practice."
Biting her lip, Sakura flashed through three quick hand seals and disappeared in a puff of smoke. When it cleared she stood tall and set a hand on her hip. "How do I look?"
Sasuke muttered something under his breath which sounded like, "Not very different." Naruto punched his shoulder hard enough to knock Sasuke over before turning back to Sakura.
"You look really good Sakura!" he said. "Like, um, handsome and stuff."
Sakura fished her makeup mirror from her backpack and looked at her face. Her hair was still pink but shorter, a more masculine cut. Likewise, the lines of her face retained a refined quality but where less feminine over all. Her makeup was gone, hidden by layers of chakra, but her male face didn't seem to lack for it. All things considered, it wasn't too bad a disguise, certainly not as obscene as Naruto's perverted gender switching offering.
She flicked the mirror closed and slipped it away. "I might have to look like this," she said in a voice only a little deeper than normal, "but if you two try anything funny..."
They crossed the river at an easy jog and stopped at a small coaching inn. They took a room to prepare. Calligraphy prints hung on the walls and the window showed spring fields, just coming to life. Kakashi ordered steaming green teas all around and they sat at a small hard wood table as they planned.
Kakashi had a lot of ideas to try but there would be a fair amount of improvisation too. "Keep an open mind and go with the flow," he said. Some things he was more definite on, however.
As he explained, while they weren't pretending not to be ninja, they weren't advertising that fact either. He produced three sets of semi-formal yukata, sized to fit his students. "Weapons hidden please," he said as he slipped off his jounin jacket. "No need to scare the lordlings."
Sakura liked playing dress up, normally, but this was far from normal. The clothes clung to her in odd ways, the male-style yukata unlike anything she'd worn before. This being a Spring Festival, at least the colours were a bit brighter than the standard blacks and greys of a formal kimono. Hers was blue, run through with delicate embroidery showing flowers, beasts and ships. Naruto dressed in yellow and Sasuke wore more traditional blacks and greys. Kakashi stepped out from behind a screen in an only slightly garish patterned affair of geometric shapes.
They set off just as the sun started to lower in the sky. Kakashi wandered ahead, head in the clouds. To untrained eyes, he appeared ignorant of the world but Sakura could see the tells. He was alert and ready for danger. Sasuke continued to stalk. Meanwhile, worry started to creep over Naruto. "My thing," he said under his breath. "Just do my thing."
Sakura had her own problems. It wasn't just a matter of her clothes fitting different, she moved differently too. Her hips didn't roll. The muscles along her arms and legs shifted in strange patterns. She really hoped she didn't have to fight anyone.
The closer they got to the festival grounds, the more people they met. Men and boys of all ages and stations headed to the festival. They converged on a tent city of many bright colours and vivid hues, lit by flickering bonfires.
"This is it," whispered Kakashi as they passed the perimeter, guarded by tough looking soldiers armed with iron headed staffs. "There will be a ceremony and then we will each present our suit in turn. Remember, this is our chance to make a good first impression."
"First impression," muttered Naruto. "Good. Right. Do my thing."
A giant bonfire stood at the centre of the pavilions, a roaring inferno of red and yellow flames. It lit up the night, sending dancing shadows skittering along silk walls and across brightly patterned clothes.
Princess Kimiko sat on a greenwood throne on a raised platform. Five priestesses stood behind her, in ceremonial garb and wearing masks.
The men trickled in, first tens, then dozens, then hundreds. By Sakura's count, near two hundred and fifty souls stood in concentric half circles in front of the fire.
The head priestess stood directly behind the princess. She raised a barren winter branch in one hand and a green shoot in the other. "Winter passes," she shouted. "Spring comes. The goddess is reborn to bring life and growth."
The other four priestesses moved in. They crowned Princess Kimiko with a ring of wild flowers and cherry blossoms and baptised her flesh with potent unguents and red ochre marks.
The lead priestess spoke again. "The goddess is reborn. She sits before you in mortal form. For a full week her spirit shall inhabit the middle world. Court her, win her favour and our land shall win a time of plenty. Score her or earn her disfavour and blight will visit our crops, our livestock will run barren and the power of winter will gain influence in the world."
She snapped the winter branch in two, the crack loud even over the emotion-charged air. She threw it into the bonfire, where the flames ate it hungrily.
"I say no to winter. Let spring come."
"Let spring come!" Every voice thundered the words. Even Sakura felt herself join in, the cry leaving her throat hoarse with its intensity.
With that the Chrysanthemum Fertility Festival opened, and the presentations began. One by one, men came before the princess-come-goddess and said a few words.
Sakura also took her chance to take stoke of the princess. She appeared a refined beauty of the noble sort — skin milk-white with lack of sun or arsenic, hair black as midnight, eyes deep brown chips. She barely noticed the men who came before her, facing each in turn with cold serenity.
Her father had forced this on her, Sakura realised. Princess Kimiko's spiritual calling made her accept but she wouldn't have chosen this for herself.
Team Seven stood near the front of the suitors and their turn came quickly. Kakashi went first, head stooped to be level with the princess. He told a joke but her expression wavered not at all. Sasuke went next, full of dark and powerful mystery. If anything Kimiko frowned as Sasuke stalked away.
Then it was Naruto's turn. "My thing," he said under his breath. "Just do the thing."
In Sakura's mind there was no contest between Sasuke and Naruto, but she was willing to admit that some women seemed taken with the obnoxious blonde's charm.
"Hi!" he said, with a wild smile. "I'm Naruto. Um, I mean. I... Um..." He staggered to a halt under Kimiko's eyes, the brown seeming very dark right them. "I'll just go now." All the effortless charm and optimism left him and Sakura could have screamed. He seduced women twice his age without even noticing it but failed when he tried!
Maybe she could save something from the debacle.
It was her turn, and she walked up to before Princess Kimiko. "I'm really sorry about him," she said under her breath. "He's a bit of an idiot but normally smoother than this. I'm Sakura, by the way. I know you really don't want to be here, so if you just want to talk... I mean, I don't really want to be here either. And he's not so bad as blonde idiots go."
Kimiko's gaze really was unsettling. She was elegant and beautiful and maybe there really was a goddess behind her eyes because Sakura's heart raced like thunder. The pungent oils rose off her skin in heady waves.
The princess reached out and drew her long milk-white fingers along Sakura's cheek. Sakura's skin sparked at the touched and her heart missed a beat. Kimiko ended with a finger against Sakura's lips and her eyes sparkled with interest and mirth.
"You are the first to attempt to sell another's suit to me," she said in a low voice, music on the wind. "One who would do such... Interests me. Go now. I have others to see."
Sakura staggered down the far steps, face blast furnace red. Something very strange and uncomfortable shifted between her legs — something which should not be there and definitely shouldn't be doing what it was doing now. Naruto and Sasuke stared at her with shocked expressions.
Kakashi seemed to find it funny. "Well," he said with a chuckle at the back of his voice. "I think our plans have shifted slightly. Sakura, how do you feel about being a father?"
The short version: Team Seven gets a mission to get a princess pregnant.
~~~
Braided electable cords supported the platform. It thrust out from the Nawaki Memorial Watch Tower, like the proud lip of an eclectic god. A white picket fence served as a guard rail along one side. The other opened only to empty air. Konoha stretched out below, that wonderful chaotic city built piece by scavenged piece, with no care given to theme or unity.
Sakura had seen other settlements, of course. She'd seen mountain temples carved from living heartstone — huge and monolithic. She'd seen the thousand bridges of the Land of Fire's capital, each one grander than the last. She'd seen farming market towns, where giant oxen pulled ploughs bigger than most buildings. None of them truly compared.
Sasuke and Naruto stood at the end of the platform, bickering as they competed. Their challenge for the day was air skipping shuriken. The quadruple chimneys of a nearby gasworks billowed heat and smoke into the air. The game was to throw your shuriken just right so it caught the updraft and jumped mid-air. So far neither boy was doing very well, though of course Sasuke was doing better.
A fierce frown on his face, Sasuke raised a shuriken and hurled it forward. It sliced through the sky like a silver fish and pierced the gasworks' thermal without slowing at all.
"Ha!" said Naruto, a very annoying smirk on his face. "Not so great after all. I'll show you how a master does it."
He withdrew his own shuriken, a worn and well used disc of spiked steel. He weighed it in his hand, tossed it a few times in the air and sent it arcing forward. It bounced off a protruding girder in a shower of sparks and fell a way.
Sasuke smirked, a dark mirror of Naruto's own.
Naruto laughed at his own bad luck. "Your turn, Sakura."
Sakura wasn't sure she wanted to play — truth be told she wasn't sure it was even possible to skip a shuriken off a thermal updraft — but then Sasuke turned an expectant expression on her and she melted.
She strode forward and pushed Naruto to one side, the platform beating like a hollow drum under her feat. "Let me show you how it's done!" she said, and inside a small part of her let loose a manic cackle.
She weighed her own shuriken in her hand, eyes flicking as she calculated distances, forces and angles. Gravity would be standard, the distance looked to be twenty point two five meters and...
She threw, the shuriken leaving her hand in a flicker of metal. At the exact same time Kakashi flashed into view, exiting the Body Flicker Technique in a twist of leaves. He stood right in the path of her attack. He'd surely be killed! Sakura's heart stopped. She shut her eyes. She—
"You need to throw less with your wrist, Sakura," said Kakashi.
Sakura opened her eyes; Kakashi stood smiling on a taught electricity line. He held her shuriken between two fingers, an inch from his head. Sakura breathed again.
"The arm's where the power is. I know it's tempting to use the wrist and make up the power difference with chakra, but its poor form."
Inside, Sakura wanted to scream at her teacher for almost giving her a heart attack. That was impossible, of course. It wouldn't be respectful. Instead she bowed her head and said, "Of course Kakashi-sensei."
"Good, good," he said and flipped the shuriken back. "Now, I'm sure glad to find all my cute students waiting for me, because we won't just be training today. We have a very important mission. We're going to the Land of Reeds."
~~~
"The Land of Reeds," said Kakashi as he led his team along a forest road later that day, "is a small but important country. It controls Bent River Ford, the only river crossing for a hundred miles in either direction. Much of the Land of Fire's northern trade flows through Bent River Ford. If they closed the ford, the Hokage would need to reopen it by force and that could well be one spark to many in an already hostile situation. Many of the Great Lands have interests in the area."
Sakura nodded as she listened, taking mental notes. Naruto bounded forward, attention never on one thing. Sasuke was the opposite, his total mind seemed occupied on putting one foot in front of the other.
Kakashi paused in his lecture, and Sakura took the opportunity to scan the area for threats. Shinobi Rule 32. A shinobi must have perfect situational awareness. Giant trees rose like eternal sentinels on all sides. They were thick and solitary, not the mangrove like thickets which dominated nearer Konoha.
Squirrels chittered high in the trees, red furred creatures with burning black eyes. They waved sharpened wood spears from high in their arboreal safe holds, and braver males made darting challenge-runs along outer branches. Ritual tattoos marked their fur and they wore neckless made from predator fangs.
That was all perfectly normal. Still, one thing bothered her.
"Sensei," she said, slowly. "You haven't told us what our mission is yet."
Naruto stopped and whirled on Kakashi. "Yeah!" he said, far too loudly. "What is our mission? You've been talking about trade this and vested interests that, but what are we meant to do?"
Even Sasuke looked up, interested.
"Hum," said Kakashi, looking thoughtful. "I haven't, have I? Well, our mission is simple enough. We need to get Princess Kimiko pregnant."
Silence fell in the forest. Even the squirrels sensed in and ran back into their holes while skull capped shamans waved acorn fetishes and jabbered wards against evil.
"What!" shrieked Sakura. "How? Of all the perverted! This isn't what ninja are meant to do!"
Kakashi made calming motions with his hands. "Calm, calm. No need to shout. It's simple really.
"The current feudal lord — Lord Tokiwagi — is a friend to the Land of Fire. The other noble clans are not. Now, he has one daughter, Princess Kimiko. Unmarried, the succession is unsure and she has resisted all marriage contracts. She is a deeply spiritual person and prefers to spend her time in psychic contemplation at the Monastery of the Twelve Jade Beads.
"Now, as luck would have it, the Land of Reeds hosts the Chrysanthemum Fertility Festival starting next week. Her father had her named Spring Queen. She'll be the only woman in the festival pavilion city for a full week, not counting her priestess handmaidens, while men from across the land compete for her favour.
"If she falls pregnant come the end of the festival the succession will be secure, marriage or no. The child will be sacred and any attempt to claim his or her birth right will bring poor crops and the displeasure of nature spirits. Our job is to make sure someone's suit prevails."
Sakura continued to mutter under her breath. It still sounded incredibly perverted to her.
"Well," said Sasuke and grunted, "this shouldn't be too complicated. Naruto just has to do his thing."
Kakashi nodded. "My thoughts exactly."
"My thing?" asked Naruto, cocking his head. His wild blonde hair flopped to the other side.
"You know," said Sasuke. "You're thing. The blonde, heart on your sleeve, idiot thing that all the powerful women seem to love."
"I have a thing?" asked Naruto again, utterly confused.
"Of course you do!" said Sakura. If she couldn't scream at Kakashi (well, not again) she could at least be angry at Naruto. "Half the time we go on a mission, you have some noble daughter or merchant princess or ninja scion hanging off your arm."
"I do?" said Naruto. He looked thoughtful, then shook his head. "No, no, you're misunderstanding. They're just friends, you see."
"Wait a minute," said Sasuke, eyes narrowed in suspicion. "You mean you've never..."
"Never what?" His eyes opened wide and flashed blue. "Of course not! I'm not some sort of pervert!"
Now that Sakura had a hard time believing. "What about when the Princess of the Land of Sunflowers invited you to her room to 'play games'."
"We played games of course!" said Naruto. "What else would we do? I mean, yes, it was pretty strange that she didn't have any games to play, but I tracked down some cards from the steward. Maybe she had to sell them all. I think she might have been pretty poor because she kept trying to bet clothes rather than money, even after I offered to share mine."
"Naruto," said Sakura, slowly. "She was a princess. She wasn't low on money. Can't you take a hint?"
"Princesses can be poor too," he said and scuffed the ground with his boot.
"Naruto," said Kakashi. "You have a thing. Just accept it."
Naruto looked set to argue more but Kakashi stared him down. "Right," said Naruto finally, half under his breath. "A thing. I've got a thing. Just accept it."
They continued walking.
~~~
Two days walk brought them to the edge of the Land of Fire and another day let them reach Bent River Ford. At full speed they could have made the entire journey in less than six hours but such measures were reserved for emergencies. It damaged the muscles and wreaked havoc with long term physical fitness.
The ford had long since stopped being just a ford. Now a wide stone bridge crossed the river, made of strange half-opaque white stone, which seemed too thin to support the weight of the great carts and their heavy loads.
Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura waited at the nearside end of the bridge while Kakashi scouted ahead. Sasuke made a game of staring down the grizzled caravan guards who road alongside the carts. One particularly fierce mercenary almost fell off his ostrich under Sasuke's flinty gaze.
Sakura was split between pride at Sasuke's obvious greatness and embarrassment at what was, in honesty, quite a juvenile activity. There was no conflict when it came to Naruto's behaviour.
"Welcome," he shouted as he clowned along the roadside. "Hi. What's your name? What'ch selling? Is it interesting? Is it ramen? Can I have some?" He did it all while bounding around the carts, the road and nearby trees. He startled one caravan master half to death when he fell head first from an overhanging branch. He didn't seem much taken with Naruto but his nubile daughter was soon blushing and giggling behind a wide fan. At least his thing was still working.
Kakashi returned after a few hours, just as Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura were finishing their lunch. It was hot for a change, Naruto having charmed it out of a matronly quartermistress, seemingly without realising he'd done it.
"Good news," said Kakashi as he sat down and stole a half egg off Sasuke's plate. Sasuke just grunted in irritation and rearranged his remaining food to be better defended. "Our plan is a go. The Chrysanthemum Fertility Festival starts tonight. They'll be a ceremony. The priestesses will crown Princess Kimiko with a wreath of cherry blossoms and anoint her with oils, ritually incarnating her as the Spring Goddess Konohanasakuya. Then her suitors will present themselves. That will be our time to make a good first impression."
"Sensei," said Sakura. "You said there would be no other women at the festival. What about me?"
Kakashi nodded. "You my perhaps-too-cute-student will use the transformation technique to appear male. It's important the whole team is there to support each other. Naruto will be our ace in the hole but we must be ready for anything. Go ahead and transform now. You'll need the practice."
Biting her lip, Sakura flashed through three quick hand seals and disappeared in a puff of smoke. When it cleared she stood tall and set a hand on her hip. "How do I look?"
Sasuke muttered something under his breath which sounded like, "Not very different." Naruto punched his shoulder hard enough to knock Sasuke over before turning back to Sakura.
"You look really good Sakura!" he said. "Like, um, handsome and stuff."
Sakura fished her makeup mirror from her backpack and looked at her face. Her hair was still pink but shorter, a more masculine cut. Likewise, the lines of her face retained a refined quality but where less feminine over all. Her makeup was gone, hidden by layers of chakra, but her male face didn't seem to lack for it. All things considered, it wasn't too bad a disguise, certainly not as obscene as Naruto's perverted gender switching offering.
She flicked the mirror closed and slipped it away. "I might have to look like this," she said in a voice only a little deeper than normal, "but if you two try anything funny..."
~~~
They crossed the river at an easy jog and stopped at a small coaching inn. They took a room to prepare. Calligraphy prints hung on the walls and the window showed spring fields, just coming to life. Kakashi ordered steaming green teas all around and they sat at a small hard wood table as they planned.
Kakashi had a lot of ideas to try but there would be a fair amount of improvisation too. "Keep an open mind and go with the flow," he said. Some things he was more definite on, however.
As he explained, while they weren't pretending not to be ninja, they weren't advertising that fact either. He produced three sets of semi-formal yukata, sized to fit his students. "Weapons hidden please," he said as he slipped off his jounin jacket. "No need to scare the lordlings."
Sakura liked playing dress up, normally, but this was far from normal. The clothes clung to her in odd ways, the male-style yukata unlike anything she'd worn before. This being a Spring Festival, at least the colours were a bit brighter than the standard blacks and greys of a formal kimono. Hers was blue, run through with delicate embroidery showing flowers, beasts and ships. Naruto dressed in yellow and Sasuke wore more traditional blacks and greys. Kakashi stepped out from behind a screen in an only slightly garish patterned affair of geometric shapes.
They set off just as the sun started to lower in the sky. Kakashi wandered ahead, head in the clouds. To untrained eyes, he appeared ignorant of the world but Sakura could see the tells. He was alert and ready for danger. Sasuke continued to stalk. Meanwhile, worry started to creep over Naruto. "My thing," he said under his breath. "Just do my thing."
Sakura had her own problems. It wasn't just a matter of her clothes fitting different, she moved differently too. Her hips didn't roll. The muscles along her arms and legs shifted in strange patterns. She really hoped she didn't have to fight anyone.
The closer they got to the festival grounds, the more people they met. Men and boys of all ages and stations headed to the festival. They converged on a tent city of many bright colours and vivid hues, lit by flickering bonfires.
"This is it," whispered Kakashi as they passed the perimeter, guarded by tough looking soldiers armed with iron headed staffs. "There will be a ceremony and then we will each present our suit in turn. Remember, this is our chance to make a good first impression."
"First impression," muttered Naruto. "Good. Right. Do my thing."
A giant bonfire stood at the centre of the pavilions, a roaring inferno of red and yellow flames. It lit up the night, sending dancing shadows skittering along silk walls and across brightly patterned clothes.
Princess Kimiko sat on a greenwood throne on a raised platform. Five priestesses stood behind her, in ceremonial garb and wearing masks.
The men trickled in, first tens, then dozens, then hundreds. By Sakura's count, near two hundred and fifty souls stood in concentric half circles in front of the fire.
The head priestess stood directly behind the princess. She raised a barren winter branch in one hand and a green shoot in the other. "Winter passes," she shouted. "Spring comes. The goddess is reborn to bring life and growth."
The other four priestesses moved in. They crowned Princess Kimiko with a ring of wild flowers and cherry blossoms and baptised her flesh with potent unguents and red ochre marks.
The lead priestess spoke again. "The goddess is reborn. She sits before you in mortal form. For a full week her spirit shall inhabit the middle world. Court her, win her favour and our land shall win a time of plenty. Score her or earn her disfavour and blight will visit our crops, our livestock will run barren and the power of winter will gain influence in the world."
She snapped the winter branch in two, the crack loud even over the emotion-charged air. She threw it into the bonfire, where the flames ate it hungrily.
"I say no to winter. Let spring come."
"Let spring come!" Every voice thundered the words. Even Sakura felt herself join in, the cry leaving her throat hoarse with its intensity.
With that the Chrysanthemum Fertility Festival opened, and the presentations began. One by one, men came before the princess-come-goddess and said a few words.
Sakura also took her chance to take stoke of the princess. She appeared a refined beauty of the noble sort — skin milk-white with lack of sun or arsenic, hair black as midnight, eyes deep brown chips. She barely noticed the men who came before her, facing each in turn with cold serenity.
Her father had forced this on her, Sakura realised. Princess Kimiko's spiritual calling made her accept but she wouldn't have chosen this for herself.
Team Seven stood near the front of the suitors and their turn came quickly. Kakashi went first, head stooped to be level with the princess. He told a joke but her expression wavered not at all. Sasuke went next, full of dark and powerful mystery. If anything Kimiko frowned as Sasuke stalked away.
Then it was Naruto's turn. "My thing," he said under his breath. "Just do the thing."
In Sakura's mind there was no contest between Sasuke and Naruto, but she was willing to admit that some women seemed taken with the obnoxious blonde's charm.
"Hi!" he said, with a wild smile. "I'm Naruto. Um, I mean. I... Um..." He staggered to a halt under Kimiko's eyes, the brown seeming very dark right them. "I'll just go now." All the effortless charm and optimism left him and Sakura could have screamed. He seduced women twice his age without even noticing it but failed when he tried!
Maybe she could save something from the debacle.
It was her turn, and she walked up to before Princess Kimiko. "I'm really sorry about him," she said under her breath. "He's a bit of an idiot but normally smoother than this. I'm Sakura, by the way. I know you really don't want to be here, so if you just want to talk... I mean, I don't really want to be here either. And he's not so bad as blonde idiots go."
Kimiko's gaze really was unsettling. She was elegant and beautiful and maybe there really was a goddess behind her eyes because Sakura's heart raced like thunder. The pungent oils rose off her skin in heady waves.
The princess reached out and drew her long milk-white fingers along Sakura's cheek. Sakura's skin sparked at the touched and her heart missed a beat. Kimiko ended with a finger against Sakura's lips and her eyes sparkled with interest and mirth.
"You are the first to attempt to sell another's suit to me," she said in a low voice, music on the wind. "One who would do such... Interests me. Go now. I have others to see."
Sakura staggered down the far steps, face blast furnace red. Something very strange and uncomfortable shifted between her legs — something which should not be there and definitely shouldn't be doing what it was doing now. Naruto and Sasuke stared at her with shocked expressions.
Kakashi seemed to find it funny. "Well," he said with a chuckle at the back of his voice. "I think our plans have shifted slightly. Sakura, how do you feel about being a father?"