"Hmpf… mhehe… hehehe…" Kakashi chortled. "Hehehaaa… AHAHAHAHA!"
"Oi!" Sakura screamed. "What's so funny about this, Kakashi-sensei!"
There was nothing funny about this… this humiliating situation!
Sakura's face had turned a particularly vivid shade of crimson due to her embarrassment, and as for Naruto and Sasuke, well… Even their own mothers wouldn't be able to recognise them underneath all the yellow and purple bruises covering their faces!
That is, if their mothers had still been alive at this point.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh," said Kakashi mirthfully, wiping a single tear from his eye with a finger. "It's just that when I left you, I never thought— mhpf. Anyway, would you mind explaining how this… hehehaa… ha-happened…?"
Kakashi forced himself to look away from his three disciples to avoid exploding into laughter again.
"It's this loser's fault," Sasuke mumbled through swollen lips. "He was supposed to tie up the thieves, but he just had to—"
"It's that bastard's fault, not mine!" Naruto howled. "He was the one who was supposed to tie them up, not me, ya know!"
Kakashi looked to Sakura for answers, and very reluctantly, she began to describe the events that had led up to this fiasco, exactly as they had happened…
-----------Flashback-----------
"Let's see," said Naruto, counting on his fingers. "I took down three, Sasuke got three… and Sakura-chan got two."
"So much for your free ramen," said Sasuke mockingly— he hadn't forgotten about his duel with Sakura, which had unfortunately got interrupted before it had reached its conclusion. "It looks like you're paying, Sakura…"
When Sakura had proposed this wager, she had completely forgotten about the fact that most of her skill set would end up restricted due to the nature of the mission!
The primary goal was to recapture the stolen golden statue, and the secondary objective was to capture the thieves in order to hand them over to the authorities. Naturally, she could have blown away the thieves with a single Ninjutsu, but then they would have all died!
Indeed, the best way to swiftly and cost-effectively beat regular humans within an inch of their lives was Taijutsu, but since Sakura specialised in Genjutsu (while nonlethal, forming any Genjutsu seals is slower than punching three ordinary people) and Ninjutsu, she naturally hadn't been able to compete with Sasuke's speed and Naruto's Shadow Clones! And even though Sakura was strong, she wasn't especially fast— at least when compared to Sasuke, who had undergone Rock Lee's special training…
"No fair," Sakura whined, viciously kicking an unconscious thief in the ribs. "I'm still not back at my 100%!"
Sakura's stamina reserves had fallen considerably due to the loss of most of her breast tissue! With the System's chakra volume buffs temporarily disabled until she regained her true size, she was left with a paltry Sasuke's worth of stamina— around 0.6 KK, which was a bit less than a tenth of her regular stamina pool.
"Er, it's okay," said Naruto soothingly. "I can pay for my own ramen; I have a lot of money saved up, ya know…"
At that moment, Sakura spotted something golden twinkling out of the corner of her eye. Could it be…? She stalked over to a crate, which had fallen over during their one-sided fight against the thieves, and gave it a kick— and out rolled a solid gold statue:
An effigy of a bear cub holding a whole salmon between its teeth.
"I haven't lost yet," Sakura crowed, holding up the statue over her head victoriously. "I found the golden statue, and I say that also counts as a point— which means it's three to three to three!"
"This is what we were wasting our time looking for?" Sasuke scoffed, as he moved in for a closer look. "What a stupid-looking statue— reminds me of a certain someone…"
"It kinda looks like Chōji," said Naruto, as he peeked over Sakura's shoulder. "Ya know?"
Time seemed to slow down for Naruto and Sasuke, as they simultaneously spotted a flicker of movement reflected on the statue's polished surface. One of the thieves, which they had previously believed to have been knocked out, had silently got to his feet. The light chop that Sasuke had administered to the back of his neck had only temporarily stunned him, since he was the only member of the thieves to have unlocked his chakra!
"Sakura-chan!" Naruto screamed, causing Sakura to whirl around in a panic. "Look out!"
A few metres behind them, the brown-haired thief sporting a goatee performed Spider-Man's iconic hand gesture. A tube popped out of his wrist, which he then aimed at Sakura's back— and without even needing to think about their next course of action, Naruto and Sasuke immediately reacted the same way:
And at the exact moment they tried to shove Sakura out of harm's way, the thief fired a glob of liquidised chakra, which landed squarely on Sakura's chest— and within a fraction of a second, the man's chakra had hardened, effectively glueing both Naruto's and Sasuke's hands to Sakura's breasts!
"They say I'm rotten to the core," said Jaku, the thieves' ringleader. "That's why my chakra's turned into this stick substance…"
And then Sakura threw the statue at the poor thief's head, knocking him out before he could even finish his bad guy speech… and irreparably denting the statue.
---------------End of Flashback---------------
"Pfft… mhmhm!" Kakashi wheezed, holding his sides as he doubled over in laughter. "Hehehe… Aah, you three never fail to amuse me… How long until this stuff wears off?"
"Three days," moaned Jaku, conveniently waking up for a moment before falling unconscious once again.
Three days stuck to Sakura ? It was social death to be seen in such a compromising position— for all three of them! And worse still, it was impossible to keep up an edge streak under these circumstances!
"On three," said Sasuke, looking at Naruto meaningfully. "One— two— three— pull!"
"YEEOWCH!" Sakura yelped. "Oh— ow— ow— stop it, you're tearing them off— I SAID STOP IT!"
Two more lumps added themselves to Naruto's and Sasuke's heads, but they had long since reached nirvana and stopped feeling pain.
"So… soft…" said Naruto delusionally, his fingers twitching.
His fingers' muscles wanted to tense in order to squeeze, but his brain kept telling them not to do it!
"So, to recap," said Kakashi, holding up three fingers. "Sasuke, you underestimated your opponent. Naruto, you failed to follow your temporary team leader's orders, and Sakura, you shouldn't have proposed this silly bet to begin with— there's a time and a place for everything. You should all count yourselves lucky that nobody got hurt as a result of your arrogance!"
Sakura didn't know whether to laugh or to cry, but she definitely would never forget this lesson… A lion uses its full strength even when hunting a rabbit!