Hello, everyone! Hope you didn't wait too long for this update. Read on, and review!

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Aaah, this is life, thought Sakura happily, munching on a dango in a quaint little dango shop. And there were minimal chances of Naruto finding her here and annoying the hell out of her. She closed her eyes in satisfaction and sighed, enjoying the rare moment of peace.

Her eyes snapped open at the same time as her hand shot out to grab a wandering wrist.

"Anko-san."

"Hey, Sakura-chan!" replied the older woman cheerfully, as though she hadn't just been caught trying to steal a dango. "Wassup?"

Sakura let her wrist go, allowing the purple-haired to sit down in front of her and leaned her head on her left hand, eyes half-lidded, daring Anko to try to take her dango once again. Fortunately for herself, Anko had enough sense to recognize the stare of a predator and kept her hands firmly to herself, choosing instead to order some herself.

"Well, as you can see, I was trying to get some small measure of peace."

"Hmmhm."

"Alone."

"Hmmhm."

"Anko-san…" she growled warningly.

"Hmmhm?"

"Why are you here?"

Anko leaned back in her chair, observed her for a long moment with scrutinizing eyes, and told her without blinking, "How do you feel about a threesome?"

Sakura promptly choked on her dango. Eyes wide and face red, she observed the other woman who looked calm as a cucumber, wondering whether she had just had an auditory hallucination.

"Excuse me, what?"

"A threesome. You, me, that sexy beast of a taichou I have at the T&I HQ. What do you say?"

Sakura shook her head, taking a dango between two fingers and rolling it, lost in thought. The world was getting crazier and crazier each year. Finally, having stalled long enough, she turned to the anticipating purple-haired woman.

"I'll go with a no."

"Aww, come on! Give it a chance! I guarantee good results!" whined Anko like a four-year-old brat.

"Not a chance, Anko-san. He's mine," replied the pinkette firmly.

"Won't you share him with me just once?" wheedled Anko. "I'll teach you a cool jutsu to gut a prisoner without killing him!"

"Tempting, but no," answered Sakura, closing her eyes as she took a sip of her tea.

"But we would be such a good combo! Pink and purple go hand in hand! And even our personalities are similar! It'd be perfect! Come on, I wanna know how he's in bed!"

"Forget that idea, Anko-san. I'm simply not sharing him. And don't try to henge in me, he'll know right away that it's you."

"Damn," muttered Anko, sulking. She bit down harshly on a dango and observed the younger kunoichi in front of her, trying to find a way to make her agree to her plan.

"What if I–"

"Iie."

"Hey! You don't even know what I was about to say!"

"It's enough to know that it's you who is talking. Thus my refusal."

"That's not fair."

Sakura did not grace the mutter with an answer, choosing instead to finish her plate of dango before Anko decided to try to steal them once again.

The silence stretched on until Anko cried out, unable to take any more, "Please! At least tell me how he is! Does he deliver?"

A gleam appeared in Sakura's viridian eyes; a smirk appeared on her face, making her look like a satisfied cat that got the cream AND the canary.

"Oh, he delivers. He delivers real well…Let me tell you about it…"

The other patrons of the quaint little restaurant promptly left, horrified, as the two feared kunoichi began to laugh and giggle in a crazy manner that could not bode well for anyone. The manager could only envy them as he stayed as far away as possible. He did not want nor needed to know the most imposing man in the village's sex habits.

-:-

Ibiki raised an eyebrow as Anko strolled in his office with a smirk, eyes roving up and down his body appraisingly.

"What?" he asked, already on his guard, fearing the worse.

"I heard some very interesting things about you today," replied Anko in a detached voice, casually sitting on the corner of his desk.

"Such as?" he pried, cursing himself for doing so in the first place.

"Hmmm…Seems you know some "awesome tricks," in the words of a person a know," said Anko, using quotation marks mockingly.

"You spoke to Sakura-san."

It wasn't a question.

"Maybe."

It wasn't an answer.

Yet they both knew what the other meant.

"How much do you know?"

"Enough to make me salivate, not enough to satisfy me. That was barely an appetizer."

Ibiki consciously omitted to look at her, knowing that she was licking her lips in a suggestive manner.

"Looks like you'll have to go hungry."

"Damn it, you know what I want!" complained the irritated kunoichi.

"I take it that it didn't go any better with Sakura-san than it did with me, huh?"

"She was just as stubborn! "We're loyal," "I won't share," yadda yadda yadda! And she told me those stories about you two that made turn me green with envy! It's so not fair! Did you really do it in front of those big-ass windows in the Hokage's office while she was dead drunk? Damn, I wish I'd been there!"

Ibiki ignored her, concentrating on his paperwork as she continued to rant. She would get tired eventually and leave. She had to. Right?

-:-

Finally free of Anko, Sakura headed for the hospital, hurrying once she saw a few shinobi rush above her on the rooftops, carrying one of theirs.

It was a few hours later, hands deep in said shinobi's abdomen, that Ino came to distract her from her task.

"Guess who's here," she said in a sing-song voice, skipping into the operation room.

"Right now, I'd say this poor guy's big intestines," replied Sakura without looking up from her patient as she tried to stop the hemorrhage in and repair said ruptured part of the pallid man on the operation table.

"Oooh, that looks like a bad one," remarked Ino, looking at the blood staining her best friend's clothes. "Wait. Don't digress. Didn't you hear the hush, then the squeals that followed?"

Sakura glanced briefly up at the blonde, looking thoroughly unimpressed and said in a tone that indicated how much she didn't care, "If you didn't notice, I'm busy here, Ino-Pig. Do your recon survey elsewhere."

Ino threw her hands up, rolling her eyes at her down-to-earth friend.

"Well, you've been here for too long already, so I will stay here to finish this, and you will get that blood off of you and brush your hair and touch on your makeup–"

"I don't wear makeup, Pig–"

"Whatever. And you'll go see that scrumptious man of yours and go home for some well-deserved rest and maybe fuck or something. Go. Now!"

Sakura gave a brief smile to her friend and headed for the door, knowing better than to argue.

"Hey! Just a question before you leave me to do your job!"

"Yeah?" she asked, halfway to the door.

"Why him?"

Sakura's smile became blinding, reaching her eyes. Even with all the blood covering her, she looked more happy than Ino had ever seen her.

"Because I love him."

And then she was gone, and the sunshine seemed to be a bit brighter and warmer, and Ino knew that her friend was, at last, pieced back together.

"Morino-san…Who'd have guessed, huh?... … … … …Wonder if he's got a hot brother or something…"

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Well, here it is, the end of this series. I had fun writing it, and I hope you had fun reading it. Look forward to my other works!