Read Or Die Fan Fiction / Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ So Near, Yet So Far ❯ Reactionary ( Chapter 3 )

Summary: ROD the TV's Paper Sisters (and Nenene) have entered a strange alley, after hearing voices coming from it. Naruto's Team Seven have paused at the entrance to an alley after getting a strange feeling from it. Will they soon encounter Michelle, Maggie, Anita, and Nenene? Of course!

OLD READERS, PLEASE NOTE: In the last chapter, I said this would take place before the chuunin exam. I have since changed my mind (mainly because of Sakura-I want her hair short :-p ). It now takes place AFTER the exam in that mysterious parallel dimension that the second Jump Special seemed to take place in.

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A/N: Wow, this took a really long time to get here, and it doesn't have much to offer, action-wise. However, the next chapter is mapped out, and it will have plenty of Anita vs. Sakura. And hopefully, it won't take nearly as long to get itself written. -_-` If you want to know more about why this took so long, there are more of my notes down at the bottom, along with review responses (yay!). But for now, on with the story.

Chapter 3:

Reactionary

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The four shinobi watched tensely as a girl, soon followed by three women, stepped out of the deep darkness in the back of the alley, and into the area where the shadows were mixed with sunlight. When the muted sunlight did not reflect from the metal of any weapons, but only from the glasses of the last woman, Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke relaxed slightly. Their sensei, on the other hand, rested his hand on his hip, very near one of his weapons pouches. He saw what his students did not yet have the experience to see; these strangers were not normal citizens of Konoha who had perhaps wandered into this alleyway by mistake; these four women were just as prepared for an attack as his students...and he didn't yet know whether they were preparing to defend themselves or become the attackers. Kakashi knew that they were not unarmed simply because they did not openly carry any metal weapons.

As they moved slowly out of the semi-shadows, Kakashi's students saw that the women were not, as they had thought, unarmed. Sasuke instantly went back to his former defensive posture. Naruto squinted at the weapon, clearly puzzled. If they had been looking at him, his teammates would have almost seen the question marks dancing around Naruto's head. Nevertheless, he was not about to be outdone by Sasuke, so he tensed again, ready to attack at a moment's notice. Sakura also gripped her kunai tighter as she stared at the girl's hand, recognizing the object it gripped as a weapon, but she was unable to fully believe what her eyes were telling her brain. Sakura saw that, first a blonde woman, then a tall, dark haired woman who followed the pink-haired out of the shadows were both armed the same way.

When the last woman stepped out of the shadows, both groups stood and stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity. Naruto shifted from foot to foot, anxious to do something. When he could take the silence no longer, he leaned over to whisper loudly in Sakura's ear. "Hey, is that your sister?" Sakura turned her head slowly to look at Naruto out of the corner of her eye. When the boy caught her glare, he hurriedly moved several steps away from his furious teammate.

The last person to leave the alley, Nenene saw both Anita and Maggie warily observing the strangers blocking the mouth of the alley. Anita had her paper splayed in her right hand like a hand of cards. Maggie carried a stack of paper, ready to turn it into one of her paper creatures at the first sign of serious danger. Both, she saw, had their attention mainly on the dark-haired boy. He, like the other two children, appeared to be about twelve-Anita's age. All three seemed as ready to fight as Nenene's own companions were, but the boy seemed to be the most focused on her group, although his female teammate was a close second.

The girl, in addition to seemingly being Anita's age, shared the youngest Paper Sister's pink hair and green eyes as well. As she looked carefully at the girl and her young male friends, Nenene saw that they were definitely not related to each other, but very accustomed to each other all the same. They didn't appear to be merely friends, but comrades as well. The shortest member of the group was a blond boy with spiky hair and a loud orange outfit who was trying to look serious, but instead was managing to only look confused, perpetually hyper, and from the way he kept glancing at the dark haired boy on the other side of his female teammate, determined not to be upstaged. The other boy, however, seemed to be concentrating solely on the sisters in front of her. He had looked at her briefly, and to her irritation, dismissed her immediately as unimportant. Nenene decided quickly that he was one of those people who had a natural talent for making others feel useless. She allowed herself to be annoyed at the boy for a moment more, then turned her attention to the man standing behind the children.

At first, she had taken him for an old man with an odd taste in hairstyles. Now, she saw that, despite his silver hair, which he wore spiked to the left, he was quite young, perhaps even her age. She couldn't tell much more about him, because his face was covered from the nose down by a mask that looked almost like a stretched out turtleneck. His left eye was covered by a crookedly worn navy-blue headband with a piece of metal attached. Nenene looked back at each of the children. Both boys wore the same headband, with the odd swirl symbol on the metal, straight across their foreheads and the girl wore it as an actual headband, holding most of her short, pink hair out of her face. Obviously, this headband held some significance, and as she glanced again at the group, she guessed that it was perhaps a military symbol. Most likely, the children were in training and the silver haired man was perhaps their sensei. His clothes, at least, had the look of a uniform.

But with this last observation, Nenene frowned. They might be military, but the weapons they were holding looked like some variation of a dagger. She didn't see any guns or ammunition. Nenene looked up at the buildings and seriously considered that one of three things had occurred. Perhaps they had traveled through time, or perhaps to another dimension. The third possibility was that she had simply been around the Paper Sisters for too long and had gone insane. Whichever the case was, they were most certainly not in the Tokyo she recognized anymore, and now that she realized this, she was able to realize what the group in front of her looked like. They looked like a team of ninjas, albeit a very odd one.

Just as Nenene opened her mouth to ask these "ninjas" if she and the sisters had perhaps stumbled onto the set of some movie when she was interrupted by a loud shriek.

While the others had been observing the group in front of them and assessing the situation, Michelle had been doing the same thing, with at least part of her mind. The larger part of it, however, had been involved in slow but steady the production of the sparkles that appeared in her eyes as she finally shrieked and glomped the adorable dark-haired boy.

"WAI!!! Will you be my little brother?"

Nenene smacked her head in exasperation while the other observers simply stared, too startled to react. Sasuke was struggling valiantly to free himself from Michelle's hug without hurting her. After a few seconds his teammates had recovered enough to react, although not as he had hoped. Sakura was fuming that another woman had touched her Sasuke-kun, Naruto was snickering in his face, and he had the strong suspicion that if he turned around, his sensei would be laughing at him as well. It seemed like Sakura would be his best hope...

Or not. Suddenly, the tall and rather busty blonde was yanked off of him from behind by the pink-haired girl who had come through the alley. As he caught his breath, Sasuke was dimly aware that the girl was yelling at the blonde woman, who was apparently her sister, although they didn't look alike at all. Naruto had begun full-blown laughter, Kakashi looked like he might have an annoying smirk on his face, and Sakura had apparently turned her anger toward his rescuer.

When he had regained his composure, Sasuke saw that the blonde woman had managed to alleviate the tension between the two groups. The women no longer were armed, and his own companions, with the exception of Sakura, had relaxed. As he looked up, the pink-haired stranger spoke.

"Don't pay any attention to my stupid sister, she does that sometimes," the girl shot a glare at the blonde, who looked off to the side and pulled at her cheek. "I'm Anita, the tall, dark, quiet girl is my sister Maggie, and the one who attached herself to your friend is Michelle." Looking back at the group to see the unintroduced woman cracking her knuckles and glaring at her, Anita hurried on. "The one with the glasses is Sumiregawa Nenene. She's not my sister; she's just an author."

There was a pause, then Kakashi cleared his throat and looked at his team. Naruto would just manage to stop laughing, then would look at Sasuke and start snickering again. Sakura was glaring at the girl with the pink hair, and had a firm grip on her kunai. As Kakashi remembered her previous mood, he decided that he didn't want to know what she would say about them if he asked her do perform introductions. He looked at Sasuke and saw that the boy appeared to be recovered, but Kakashi could see that he would not have any further interactions with the strange women if he could help it. With a sigh, Kakashi realized that left him as group spokesman.

"This is Naruto, Sakura, and the boy you've already acquainted yourselves with is Sasuke." Kakashi tapped each student on the head not-so-gently as he introduced them, pulling each of them out of their thoughts and bringing their attention to the situation at hand. The pink-haired girl, Anita, giggled slightly as all three students glared up at the man. Kakashi seemed blissfully unaware of the laughter or the glares, but at the sound, Sakura quickly turned her attention back to the alley, and hit Naruto lightly in the shoulder, causing him to do the same.

"And who are you?" asked Nenene after another pause, when it became clear that Kakashi had finished speaking.

"Hm? Oh, I'm their sensei." Kakashi nodded with finality, and what looked like a pleasant smile under his mask. After a much shorter pause, he spoke again, just as Anita was opening her mouth to ask his name. "Hatake Kakashi."

As her sensei spoke, Sakura studied the women in the alley. She became more and more sure of what the objects they were carrying were, but her brain was still refusing to see how they could be used as weapons. After all, it was just-

"Is that paper?" she asked suddenly. She was dimly aware that she had interrupted one of the sisters, Maggie, she thought, but Sakura was far more interested in the upcoming answer.

There was a short pause as her companions looked at their normally polite-at least outwardly-teammate, obviously confused by her behavior.

Anita frowned a little at the girl who had just interrupted her sister. They were trying to figure out what had happened to them, where they were, and why, and this girl just wanted to know about the paper?

"Yeah, it is," Anita replied, rather crossly. She swiftly pulled out a piece of paper from the pack strapped to her leg and smoothly threw it at one of the walls of the alley, where it embedded itself several inches deep.

Naruto visibly reacted the strongest of the shinobi. His eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open. "Amazing! Hey, hey, can you teach me to do that?" Sasuke said nothing, but his eyebrows lifted, and he looked impressed as well. Kakashi looked to be completely unphased and simply nodded once at the display.

Satisfied, Anita said smugly, "Better than steel." Michelle smiled and shook her head slightly at her younger sister. Maggie took a few steps forward, about to answer Naruto. Suddenly, a kunai flew across the alley and was embedded in the wall next to the piece of paper.

Startled, everyone from both groups turned to look at Sakura. Her attention, however, was fixed on Anita. With a smirk of her own, she said, just as smugly as the other girl had, "I think I'll stick to steel." Almost as an afterthought, she added, "And leave the paper for books."

The other girl groaned. "Not you, too. There are plenty of books out there. Just go to a library."

With that comment, Sakura's teammates winced. But Sakura's attention was still focused on Anita, with more intensity than any of them had seen from her before, except during spats with her rival, Ino.

Sakura took a few steps closer to the women inside the alley, then deliberately took out another kunai and threw it at the wall.

Everyone watched the kunai split the paper in two as it thudded into the wall. The paper halves seemed to wilt after they were split apart. Kakashi raised his eyebrow at his student's actions, then sighed and moved to keep Sasuke, and more importantly, Naruto from interfering.

Anita glared at the other girl and pulled out several sheets of paper, spreading them in her hand like she had been carrying them earlier. Before she stepped forward, she shot a quelling look back at her sisters, to keep them from stopping her. Maggie looked at her gravely and nodded to her, Michelle cheerfully smiled and waved, and Nenene looked both exasperated and worried.

Both girls took a step forward and readied their throwing weapons. Suddenly, Kakashi coughed, and paper and steel flew toward each other in the alley.

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Dun dun dun! Yes, long, perhaps boring, and in the end, overly dramatic. And it stops right where things start to get interesting. I know. ~_^ That just means good things for the next chapter!

And by the way, in case you were wondering, which you probably aren't, I really do think that Michelle would do that to Sasuke if she ever met him. I can just imagine it... ^_^

Anyway, about why this took so long. Unfortunately, I was singularly unmotivated and uninspired, and therefore unable to finish before I went on vacation for a week and a half, like I was hoping to. To anyone waiting-sorry! However, I did manage to finish (obviously) and do some rather heavy editing while on vacation (ok, on the seven hour plane ride back, in the middle of the night :-P ). Margaret Weis is soothing to my writing senses and always a joy to read. Even exercised my brain with some Latin. Anyway, enough of the commercial. Despite the editing-which did improve things considerably, believe me :::shudders:::-the chapter was probably still a bit boring, but the previous chapters were seriously lacking in this sort of observation and description. There was also some shifting of POV, but hopefully it seemed natural enough, and wasn't too confusing. As always, feel free to follow Silver Ash's example and comment on anything that I've included (or failed to include) or the way I've included something in this story. I do read and consider the things my reviewers bring up. Thanks!

And, to my wonderful reviewers...

Silver Ash, thank you so much for the wonderful and heartening review. I'm glad to know that people are indeed reading not just the story, but my notes as well! Also, thank you for bringing my lack of physical descriptions to my attention-I hadn't even thought of that. -_-` I'm glad that you enjoyed, and thank you so much for the review!

Thanks also to Eadha Ohn, although I'm sorry it took so long to get this chapter posted. I was absolutely thrilled to receive your review and know that people are actually finding and reading this story. Which of course, made me feel really, really guilty about not getting this chapter up...but don't stop, please!!

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Next chapter: Sakura vs. Anita!

(finally)