"That's a mob character, that's also a mob character… and that guy's definitely a mob character, he's probably going to die," said Sakura cheerfully, pointing out foreign shinobi in the crowd one after the other. "Ooh, that girl's pretty cute… and that girl looks weird, she might be strong…"
"What sort of logic is that!?" spluttered Ino. "Anyway, stop pointing at people, it's rude! What if they come pick a fight with us?"
The day of the first Chūnin exams in two years had finally arrived, and Sakura, Ino and Chōji had gathered in front of the venue for the first part of the exams. To stave off the boredom, Sakura had begun picking out various colourful characters from the group, ranking them by their looks. The more elaborate their designs, the more likely they were to be important…
There were all sorts of scarred men, masked men, tattooed men, cute girls, energetic girls… and a bunch of unremarkable, Plain Jane mob characters who likely wouldn't even pass the first part of the exams. There was also a really fat man— he was the only one of his kind present, so he had to have some role to play.
"Sakuraaaa-chwaaaan!"
Sakura turned around just as Karin slammed into her, nuzzling her face in between her breasts— the usual greeting.
"Long time no see, Sakura-chan!" said Lee, as he walked up to her. "I am looking forward to our youthful rematch!"
"Why couldn't you have joined my team?" pouted Karin, gazing up with puppy-dog eyes, still nose-deep in Sakura's cleavage. "We're still missing our last member…"
Karin had replaced Neji in Team Guy, but since Tenten had been promoted on her first try, they were still missing one person to complete their three-man group. Unfortunately for Tenten, that just meant her already limited screen time was shortened even further!
"Whom did you get to replace Tenten?" asked Sakura curiously.
It couldn't be that creep Sai, could it? Seriously, who went around caked in make-up like that?
"Sasuke-kun is to be our teammate," explained Rock Lee. "We were told he would return to the village in time for the Chūnin exams, but we have not seen a trace of him yet."
Sakura could see Hidden Rain forehead protectors in the crowd, so it was clear that Kakashi and Sasuke had successfully passed on the Chūnin exam invitations to Amegakure. But if the Rain Genin were here, then where were Sasuke and Kakashi?
People were already lining up to enter the exam venue, but none of them were Sasuke… oh, and there were Hinata, Shino, Kiba and Akamaru, standing in line!
Hinata had changed a lot over the past two years. Even under her usual baggy clothes, her figure was unmistakeably curvier than it was supposed to be. It was clear she'd been making liberal use of breast refinement cream— Sakura had sold the recipe to the Nara clan's pharmacies in exchange for a one-time lump sum of ryō and assistance in connecting with merchants known to deal in chakra metal. Maybe not the best deal of all time, but Sakura had better things to do!
"What are you looking at, onee-sama?" said Karin with a cold smile on her face.
A shiver ran down Sakura's spine. This girl was seriously scary, and her powers included lie detection… so she decided to purposefully give a truthful but vague answer.
"I was just assessing the competition," she said innocently. "Shall we get in line too?"
Sakura wasn't particularly romantically interested in Karin, as DFCs (delicious flat chest) were a total turn off for her. Still, she couldn't help but notice that Karin's breasts had started to fill out recently, growing into modest B-cups.
No doubt she was pouring all her mission rewards into miracle cream purchases, but there was only so much cream could do. Growing plentiful breasts out of the barren landscape of a chest mother nature had given her was perhaps asking for too much.
Even so, breasts possessed infinite possibilities, filled as they were with men's hopes and dreams. It was too early for her to give up on a nice rack just yet!
"Is this where the Chūnin exams are being held?" came a familiar voice. "Yo! I'm back, y'know!"
"Naruto-kun!" exclaimed Rock Lee.
Startled, Sakura could only gape as Naruto landed right in front of her. He'd shot up in height, making him taller than her, which was totally unfair, as she used to be the tallest member of Team 7. But what really caught her eye was his outfit— strangely, he was wearing the same clothes he'd worn before the time skip…
"Is that really you, Naruto?" asked Chōji in wonder.
The first Jutsu that had ever fooled Sakura was the Transformation Jutsu, but she was no longer the same naive girl from the day of her transmigration. This person might look like Naruto, but he was most likely…!
"That's an impostor," came a boy's cool voice, as he flickered out of nowhere in front of 'Naruto' in a swirl of leaves. "Why don't you show us your true form?"
That raven black hair, that striking silhouette, that cool entrance… and that Uchiha clan symbol emblazoned on his back!
"Kyaa!" squealed Sakura and Ino in unison, clasping hands with each other and jumping for joy. "Sasuke-kun's back!"
"Ouch!" yelped the fake Naruto as Sasuke flicked his forehead.
A puff of white smoke burst from the impostor's body, pain disrupting his concentration and dispelling the Transformation Jutsu. The smoke quickly cleared, revealing the fake's true identity to be that of young master Konohamaru, Naruto's protégé.
"It's not fair, kore!" Konohamaru whined. "How could you leave Naruto behind like this? At this rate, he'll be the only Genin!"
Konohamaru's little friends Moegi and Ise quickly rushed in to come to his defence, but Sasuke didn't even spare them a glance. He produced a bouquet of pink roses from his sleeve and presented it to Sakura.
"For you," he said softly. "I would have come sooner… but I passed the Yamanaka's flower shop on the way here. When I saw these roses in the display, it reminded me of you. No flower could ever compare to your beauty, but even so, I wanted you to have these."
Sasuke took Sakura's hand and placed the bouquet in her palm, gently closing her fingers around the base for her.
"…eh?"
Like mercury climbing a thermometer, Sakura's face flushed bright red from her chin up to her wide forehead. If you looked closely, you might even see smoke escaping from her ears as her brain overheated trying to process what had just transpired.
Eventually, Sakura stopped thinking.
"SHA!" she screamed, punching Sasuke with the hand holding the bouquet and sending him flying. "There's no way you're the real Sasuke, either!"
"Is that not the real Sasuke?" asked Rock Lee, as he watched him sail through the air and crash land a few metres away. "It looks like him…"
Sakura just stood there, breathing hard, her face as red as a ripe tomato. It appeared that over the past two years, she had completely lost the resilience she had painstakingly built up to resist Sasuke's handsomeness. After all, if the body stopped being exposed to a certain pathogen for a long enough period of time, its immune system would gradually begin to forget about it!
And in this case, the foreign pathogen was Sasuke…
"KAKASHI-SENSEI!" Sakura shouted to the heavens. "WHAT ON EARTH HAVE YOU AND SASUKE BEEN DOING FOR THE PAST TWO YEARS!?"
"Reading Make-Out Tactics," came Kakashi's regretful voice, as he appeared next to Sakura. "To create such divine scripture, Jiraiya-sensei is truly a terrifying man…"
Ino and Sakura stared at him speechlessly.
"You've got to be kidding meeeeeeee!" wailed Ino. "Why is it always her!?"
"Whatever happened to 'In the ninja world, those who break the rules are scum,' huh!?" Sakura shouted. "It says 18+ right there on the cover!"
Never you mind how Sakura knew that.
"But those who abandon their friends are worse than scum," said Kakashi wisely. "Sasuke was injured during training, so I lent him my Make-Out Tactics books to read while he healed."
Indeed, Sasuke would have been very bored alone in his hotel room without some form of entertainment.
"Oi," said Sakura frostily, slapping Kakashi's chest with the back of her hand.
She wasn't trapped in an Infinite Tsukuyomi World, but in an Infinite Tsukkomi World, forced to play the straight man when she was supposed to be funny man in the comedy act that her life had turned into!